SUCCUBUS RISING 2

I woke to the screaming of three separate alarms in the room and moaned when I tried to move to get out of the bed. My body was sore in places I never knew could be sore, and then the memories from the night before came rolling back and I groaned. When I tried to turn over and go back to sleep, a small voice stopped me, “You’re going to need a shower before you go to muster.”

The girl was young and I wondered if maybe her parents had sold her into this life. Her hair was cut in a sort of bob that left the front longer around the face while the back was extremely short. “I showered before I fell asleep.” My voice croaked and I tried to clear it.

“You moved enough to bleed onto the sheets,” she said, pointing to the bed. I looked and could see the pink and red stains where I had been about to roll over. “The master won’t like it, but I can bleach them before he finds out if you could just get up so I can take the sheets off.”

I managed to stand up and she made short work of pulling the sheets off the mattress and dumping them through a hole in a cabinet I hadn’t noticed the day before. “What’s your name?”

She startled, but then looked at me, “I’m Kelsey. The others are already in the shower and I need to hurry if I’m going to make it in time.” When she turned toward me in the dim light I could see faint scars on her neck.

We walked into the bathroom and I saw Ferrel standing before a mirror shaving with just a towel on and another woman under the spray of one of the showers.

“You’re going to have to clean the tile before you go downstairs,” the other woman said, and I looked around a bit more. There were faint pink stains where I had showered the night before. “I’m not going to get a beating because you leave a mess behind.”

“Kenzie,” Ferrel said, looking at her in the mirror. “Take it easy.”

“No,” she wrung her short hair out before tousling it with a towel and going to another mirror. “The last time he did this to a girl and she left a mess behind I got beaten for not cleaning it up. It’s not happening again.” She shot me a look in the mirror and I wondered what she would do if I flipped her off. Probably bitch about that, too.

I went to the shower I had used a handful of hours ago and turned it on, watching the blood run down the drain and off the tile. Kelsey cleared her throat and pointed to a plastic clip that had been left on another shower head and then to my sink. I found a similar clip in the basket beneath the sink and mouthed a thank you to her. The water stung as it ran over the marks that Chaz had left, and I eyed the soap dubiously before biting the bullet and lathering up again.

Once I was dry and the towel had been sent down the same chute as the sheets, I pulled a dress on and went downstairs with the others. Kenzie was already standing at the foot of the stairs with a nasty look on her face as I followed Kelsey and Ferrel down. We hadn’t been standing there five minutes before Chaz came out of the living area and frowned at us.

“Kelsey, take care of the usual chores but make sure the green room is ready for a guest. Kenzie, fix the Expedition or you will be on the hook later. Ferrel, get a list of everything needed from Kelsey and then go into the city.” They all muttered their acknowledgements and then scurried away. I watched him as he walked toward me and hadn’t even braced for the slap that rocked me to my knees. “I hate getting blood on the uniforms. It’s so hard to get out and the dry cleaners charge extra for it.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spat blood onto the tile and was rewarded with his foot in my stomach that left me curled on my side.

“I thought maybe you had learned from yesterday,” he said. “Get off my floor and walk to my office.”

I hugged my arms around me and pressed my face into the cool tile that suddenly felt really good against my skin, “Fuck you.”

That got me pulled to my feet by my hair and thrown through the air in the general direction of his office. I screamed as I tumbled to the floor, but kept my comment to myself this time. How I hadn’t passed out or been knocked out was beyond me.

“Now do as you were told and get into the office, or I’ll do you here in the entrance and our guest can watch.”

I crawled toward the office and then through the door when he opened it. As soon as the door shut, he pulled my dress off from behind making me face plant into the floor to get it over my legs. The cuffs were on my wrists before I could think to move away from him anymore, and he used them to raise me to my knees and attach the hook to the chain. He raised the hook so fast that I cried out as I swung through the air and fought to find some kind of footing beneath me.

He walked back to the door and locked it as though he thought I was going to miraculously get away from him. When he walked back around me to the desk he had already gotten his shirt unbuttoned and was pulling it off while I watched. His pants were next and it was only then that I realized he had never been wearing shoes. If there had been underwear I hadn’t seen it, and then I was concentrating on a very interesting spot on the floor.

“What did I tell you to do last night, girl?”

“You told me to take a shower and get some sleep.” I hesitated until he moved toward me, “Sir.”

“I told you to be naked at the foot of the stairs, now I have to have your uniform dry cleaned to get the blood out of the material. That won’t be cheap.” He kept moving toward me until he was standing in front of me. I braced for a blow, but screamed when his hand went to the breast he had bitten last night and white hot pain shot through my chest. “You will learn to follow orders.”

His hand left my body and I swayed, gasping and sobbing at the throbbing pain as I felt that odd shifting deep within me again. This time, there was no pleasure. I had moments to stop screaming as each touch brought a welt or blood to my already bruised body. Finally, he let me swing above the floor before standing in front of me.

“Put your legs around me,” I did as I was told and he was once again hard between my legs. But this time, he held most of my weight with his hands on my ass. “Don’t disobey me like this again, girl. It’s much more fun when it’s like it was yesterday. I’m going to let you down now,” he moved one hand to my cheek until I looked into his eyes. He had small spots of blood on his face and I wondered when that had happened. “You need to go take a shower and then have Kelsey bring you to the north wing of the house. Do not get dressed, just sit at the top of the stairs and wait for me to get there. Do you understand?”

I nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl,” the tension on my arms lessened, and I slid down his body to stand in front of him. He undid the cuffs and I left the office after struggling to get my fingers to work on the lock.

I showered, making sure not to leave any bloodstains behind. My bed had been made while I was gone, and I made a mental note to thank Kelsey for that. I put my hair into the clip and then walked down to the hallway naked just as Kelsey was leading a man toward a room. He took an interest in me, but something he saw made him turn back to the room and I waited for Kelsey.

She smiled softly when she came out of the room, but it didn’t last long. “I think he’s here for you, but you shouldn’t be up here.”

“I was supposed to follow you to the north wing,” she paled, but nodded.

“This way,” we went down the stairs, and she had to walk slower than I thought she normally did because the stairs were a special kind of pain. She led me through the hall past the office and into the kitchen. At the back of the kitchen she pointed to a door, “That leads to the laundry room, back door, and garage. This door is the way up to the north wing. I wasn’t told I could go up there today, so you’ll have to follow his instructions from here.”

“Thank you,” I said, and then remembered. “Thanks for making my bed, too.”

“That was nothing,” she paused and then thought of something. “Don’t let Kenzie get to you. She’s had it pretty rough.”

I nodded and then turned toward the second door. The stairs weren’t as wide as the set at the front of the house, and they weren’t as steep as the ones leading to the attic. I took them as slowly as I dared, but I was still in a lot of pain when I reached the top and slid to the floor to wait for Chaz.

“Jezza,” his voice sounded from my left and I looked over to find him standing at a door with a towel around his waist. It was a little surprising that he knew my name, but I didn’t put much effort into thinking about it. “Come here.”

I got up and walked toward him, more than a little wary. When I was a few steps from him I stumbled and he reached out to catch me. The towel fell to the floor, but I didn’t care anymore. What bothered me most was that his hands were on me, and they were warm and heating fast. “I didn’t do anything this time.”

“Hush,” he said. I hushed. His hands stayed warm on my skin as they moved over me from my breasts to my thighs and then over my back. I looked down at myself and realized he was healing all the marks he had left in the last two days in his office, except for the bite mark on my breast. That stayed, but it wasn’t as angry looking. When he was done, he just sat there with me on his lap.

“Thank you, sir,” I felt him startle when I spoke. I could finally take a deep breath without wanting to cry out in pain, and that deserved thanks. Even if I was thanking the man that had made me hurt so much in the first place. My life had become fucked up in a very short amount of time.

He slid me from his lap and stood, reaching for his towel, “Go get a uniform on and then go to the green room. One of the others can tell you which one it is. You are to do everything the man in that room tells you to, except have sex with him. He knows the rules, but if he touches you in any way sexually you will come straight to my office. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and I stood to go.

===

The man that had seen me standing in the hallway covered in bruises was staying in Chaz’s house while he was in town on business. He didn’t tell me his name, and I never asked. I did his laundry, including putting a different set of fresh linens on the bed when he asked. Later in the evening I delivered his dinner and sat and watched him chew with his mouth open. It took everything I had in me not to tell him to act more like an adult and chew with his mouth closed. After a few hours, I was pretty sure using words with too many syllables would give the man a headache.

It was nearly nine o’clock when the man undressed and climbed into bed. He glanced at me a couple times and I could see his erection growing beneath the covers each time his eyes flashed my way. After a few awkward moments of standing near the door staring at a spot in the carpet, he spoke, “Well, are you going to take care of this? I didn’t pay this much for a room for the slave to just stand there.”

“I don’t understand what you want, sir,” I was also fairly certain that Chaz would beat me if this man didn’t outright tell me what he was talking about even if I had a good idea.

“Come suck my dick, you stupid whore,” he even slid the blanket down to his thighs.

“Fuck you,” I turned and opened the door to go to Chaz’s office when the man was suddenly behind me, pulling me back into the room. “What the hell? Get the fuck off me you douche!”

The door slammed shut and he tossed me onto the bed as though I weighed nothing, and to him I probably did. He was on top of me with his hand over my mouth before I could scream anything else at him. His knee bruised my thighs as he tried to force my legs apart when the door slammed into the wall and he was pulled off me.

“You know the rules, Gero,” Chaz shoved the man through the door and I heard a grunt when he landed. He turned to look at me and said, “Go to my office and wait for me there.” I scrambled away from the room as fast as I could.

Both men were speaking loudly as I walked to the office on legs that shook and threatened to give out. I left the door open and sank into a chair before I fell and hugged my arms around myself. The front door opened and shut not too long after, and then the office door shut. “Get out of the chair, girl.”

I stood and stared at the floor as he walked around me to his desk. When he started unbuttoning his shirt, I couldn’t stay silent anymore, “I was trying to get to your office when he pulled me back in…”

“I know,” he turned and I saw the blood on the front of his shirt. “Gero’s never been known to take advantage of slaves when the rules are clear, so I didn’t think anything would happen when I sent you to him.”

Maybe he just never got caught, I thought to myself and watched as Chaz dropped the shirt into the hamper by the desk. His pants followed, but this time he had on a pair of boxer briefs that went nearly to his knees. What the hell?

“You can go now,” was all he said and I fled the office. I wondered why he had even told me anything when he didn’t have to, but in the end I just wanted a shower.

Kelsey was in the attic when I walked up the stairs, and she gave me a small smile as I passed her to go to the bathroom. For the first time in two days, the water wasn’t stained pink as it went down the drain. I took my time and enjoyed the fact that I was alone for these few minutes then it ended when the door opened and Kenzie walked in. She looked at me briefly before going to her usual shower head with the comment, “Well, at least you’re not bloody this time.”

I ignored her and pulled a uniform over my head and my hair in a clip before I left and dropped my towel down the chute. Kelsey wasn’t in the room anymore, and I figured she had probably left when Kenzie came in. Since I hadn’t been told I couldn’t go exploring in the house, I went down to the kitchen. I could hear the washing machine running in the laundry room, so I headed that way and found Kelsey folding sheets out of one dryer.

“Want some help?” I asked, grabbing one end of the big sheet.

“Sure, but you don’t have to.”

“I needed to get out of the room, and no one has told me I can’t yet.”

“No,” her voice was soft even now. “As long as you’re doing something useful no one will tell you not to come out of the attic.”

So many questions flowed through my head, but I didn’t know how to ask them of this girl I had only met yesterday. Then she surprised me and volunteered the information, “My parents were poor and sold me to a man who liked his slaves very young. I was ten when they sold me, and stayed with that master for a year before Chaz found out. Apparently, this man was not allowed to have slaves below a certain age that hadn’t already been trained by someone else. His keeper had finally been paid to look the other way. Chaz paid the man three times what he paid for me just to get me out of his house, and I’ve been here ever since. So he’s not as bad as you’re probably thinking right now.”

“Has he ever…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Punished me, or had sex with me?”

“Either,” I shrugged, and I could feel the heat rising in my face as I blushed. “Both.”

“He’s punished me, but it’s only because I didn’t follow one of the rules. I’ve never seen him do what he’s done to you, though. And he’s never tried to have sex with any of his slaves.”

“What do you mean?”

“The punishments,” she shook another sheet out of the dryer, but this one was a fitted sheet and those bastards take a special kind of know-how to get them folded. Kelsey had whatever it was that allowed people to make fitted sheets look neat. “Most of the time they’re a slap or a burn, but none of his slaves has ever come back looking like you from a session in his office. Is that why they say you’re different?”

“Who says I’m different?” it crossed my mind that my mother had been called a succubus.

“Some of the other slaves in town,” she pulled another flat sheet from the dryer and I took one side. “Sometimes I get to go with Ferrel when he runs errands. They say you’re a succubus and that Chaz is supposed to be training you to control something.”

“I don’t know if he’s training me to do anything other than hold in my screams,” I shook the sheet so it would fold flat without wrinkles. “He just seems to really like causing pain. I’ve seen him naked more often than clothed since I got here.”

“Oh,” the word wasn’t as surprised as it usually sounded when people said it. “That’s normal. Blood is difficult to get out of cloth.”

“Yeah, but he seems to really enjoy it,” I told her about how it usually ended in the office, and she blushed.

“I’ve never heard of him doing that with anyone else. But his power is different from others, or so I’ve been told. Almost all of the masters punish their slaves for whatever reason catches their imagination at the time, but some of them heal them, too. Everything I’ve heard over the years points to the idea that they all seem to get a lot of pleasure out of using their power, whatever it may be. From what I’ve been told by others who know of Chaz is that his power has a lot to do with inflicting pain.”

The dryer was empty and there was a whole basket full of sheets. She took a stack of pillowcases and put two sheets inside each one, making neat packages to be put away. The washer finished its spin cycle then and she put a bunch of towels into the dryer and pushed a few buttons to make it start. Then she handed me the basket of sheets.

“I need to finish getting things prepped for the dinner party tomorrow,” she said when I looked at her. “Three of those go into the linen closet at the top of the stairs in the north wing. The rest go into the closets in the guest rooms. He won’t punish you for doing work,” she said when I hesitated and then gave me a gentle shove toward the door to the north wing of the house.

I groaned softly after she walked back into the kitchen, then took a deep breath and headed up to the master suite. There were two doors at the top of the stairs, and I swore under my breath. Which one is the fucking linen closet? I took a chance and went to the left one.

A breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding whooshed out when the door opened to a linen closet. I could hear a shower now and guessed the second door led to the bathroom. Good thing I didn’t open that one. There was one empty shelf and the three sheet sets filled that up.

I was halfway down the stairs when I heard a door open and shut behind me. Taking the stairs as fast as I dared, I hurried through the door and on to the guest rooms. When I finished restocking the linen closets and returned the basket to the laundry room, I was dismayed to hear Chaz call from his office, “Come here, girl.”

I looked around to find myself alone and headed toward the office with a sigh. What did I do now?
“You will be going with Asher,” he said, gesturing over the desk until Asher turned back to him and signed something. “His driver is outside, go to his car.”

I turned and walked through the front door into the night, wishing wholeheartedly that I had stayed in the attic instead of wandering through the house. Maybe that would have prevented this little turn of events. The truck in the drive didn’t help my building anxiety when the driver opened the back door to reveal a large cargo space with only a small bench seat far to the back and a divider between the driver’s cabin and the passenger space. He gestured for me to get in the vehicle, but said nothing as I passed him. I stayed on my knees near the divider as the door was shut behind me, not knowing what to do.

It wasn’t long before the door opened and Asher slid into the back compartment and sat on the bench along the back. I jumped when he spoke as the truck began to move, “Come over here, girl.” I hesitated and anger spread across his face making his lips twist, and I moved toward the seat.

When I was close, he reached out and pulled me onto his lap. His hands bruised my upper arms in their grip and I gasped. “I am not as kind as Chaz, girl,” his voice was growling with a rage that was so sudden his head probably should have exploded. “Do not hesitate when I give you an order. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said through clenched teeth. His hands relaxed and moved to my shoulders before sliding to the front of the uniform I was wearing. The fabric slid over my breasts and I moved to cover myself. I never saw the blow that knocked me out.

===

I was swaying slightly and wondered if I had drunk too much the night before. That’s not right, the thought hit me and my eyes flew open. My feet were inches above a white stone floor and I looked up to see a hook similar to the one Chaz used in his office. I was facing a door and couldn’t tell much about the room I was in other than that it held a fortune in marble tile below me.

Asher stepped into my view, nude and very happy to be there. I couldn’t remember anything after leaving the laundry room. When was that? It couldn’t be a good sign that I didn’t even know how long I had been here, but at least I knew the name of the man standing before me.

The hook lowered suddenly enough that I wound up on my knees in front of him, crying out at the pain in my shoulders that told me I had been hanging there for a while. His hand tangled in my hair and lifted me so I was kneeling before him. When I stopped swaying, his hand tightened and he lifted me to my feet. I groaned at the pain, but it was only a slight discomfort beside the pain in my shoulders and arms. Not letting go of my hair, Asher pushed me backward until I came against something and was forced to sit.

“Lay down,” I did as I was told without a fight. His hands pushed my knees apart before he climbed onto the bed over me. Something stirred inside me as he looked down at me, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Moving too fast for me to try to resist, he lifted my hips and pushed himself inside me.

I tried to move away from him, but whatever had woken inside me took over then, and I let it. We looked down where our body met his and moaned. Our back arched to deepen the angle that he entered us, and then we felt his power. He tasted like honey in the back of our throat. I snapped back into myself and felt something open deep inside me and soak his power into us. The feeling made me buck my hips against him and take as much of his length into me as deep as I could. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should be afraid of this man – that he would hurt me – but the front of my mind was too preoccupied to worry about it.

Asher let go of my hips and put his hands on the mattress above my shoulders, pushing himself into me as fast as he seemed able. His power filled me, and we pulled it into us until his eyes fluttered shut and he was buried inside us. The muscles in his chest strained above us, and we pulled a little tighter on his power. He crushed himself into my hips and I felt the first jerk of his climax deep inside just as my own power receded and my own orgasm broke around me. He moved inside me a few more times before sliding out and falling onto his side.

His eyes were glowing white when I looked over at him, and part of me wondered what he could do with that power. Another part of me worried about enjoying this so much while the rest of me wondered what the hell had just happened. Deep inside me I could feel my power now, completely sated even as it looked up at me and promised great things in my future. I looked back down my body and saw the hook hanging from the ceiling and hoped I never had to return to this room again.

===

Since that first day with him so many weeks ago, I hadn’t felt the slightest stirring inside me from the power I knew was there. I had tried to will it out, but it just sat there curled in a tight ball and refused to wake again. Finally, I had started to feel crazy thinking I had actually felt something inside myself that day, but it didn’t stop me from hoping it would change things now.

Asher walked up to me as I hung from a hook in his bedroom. Like Chaz during his punishments, Asher was completely nude and erect. Unlike Chaz, he didn’t use his power to cause harm, and after the first few hours I was beginning to wonder if his power worked that way. He used a knife to pull screams from me that never should have been inside a person, and when I thought he was done he just kept going. This time he had nothing in his hands as he walked toward me, and I didn’t know what to expect when the hook started lowering and I could finally touch the cold tile.

He didn’t even untie my hands before he shoved me backward onto the bed just a few inches away. Using the cuffs he jerked my hands above my head again and secured them to a metal circle I hadn’t seen embedded into the head of the bead. In three hours he had taught me not to say a word or to struggle, and I did not want that knife to come back out again. He climbed onto the bed to straddle my legs and used my hips to turn me onto my stomach and then raised them so I was on my knees. Chaz had made certain I was ready for him, but Asher just shoved himself inside me until I screamed into the pillow. His hands bruised my ass cheeks as he pumped into me, and something in my body must have still been working because eventually I could feel myself grow wet and his thrusts became smoother. Even without the slightest twinge from my power that I knew was still there somewhere, I could feel him pulsing and twitching inside me, but I knew he wasn’t close to the end. Under different circumstances, this might have been enjoyable, but I was too hoarse and hurting from Asher’s earlier attentions to pay much attention to the way he completely filled me.

Asher pulled back from me and turned me onto my back before climbing up my body. He slid his knees beside my shoulders and braced himself on the headboard before sliding his penis over my lips and cheek, “Open, girl, or I’ll bring out the knife again.”

I opened my mouth for him, not wanting to know what he would have done to me if I hadn’t obeyed. My body bled and I cried as the head of his dick slid past my mouth. “Make it good, and I might bring you back early. You don’t scream the way I want you to.” I had never given head before, so I didn’t know what I was doing. He shoved himself into my mouth, and I had to open my jaws as far as possible just to avoid biting him. The prospect of possibly getting away from this man before morning made me move my tongue along the bottom of his dick until he pushed too far and I couldn’t breathe. He reached down and held the back of my head with one hand as he continued to push his dick into my throat, and I writhed underneath him until I realized that was what he wanted.

Finally, after weeks of urging and trying, that deep well of power inside me looked up and I felt it fill me. We took him in our mouth, using tongue and teeth to make his eyes start to glow white. Then we started to pull his power into us, taking as much pleasure as we were giving. The salty taste of him grew stronger on our tongue, and we moaned around him. He shoved himself to the back of our throat again, but there was no struggle to breathe this time. We took him, and with a final press of our teeth we felt him release. This time, though, I felt the power feed on his release and it was disconcerting enough that I began to struggle against his hands in my hair.

Once again, the power receded as he collapsed beside me on the bed. But this time he didn’t let me stay there, “You don’t get to enjoy the afterglow, girl. The bed is only for me.” He stood and pulled me to my feet by the chain between my wrists and attached it to the hook and raised me up until my toes barely grazed the floor. His hands were rough against the flesh of my breasts, and he squeezed tighter and tighter until I could see the skin bulging between his fingers and I screamed in pain. The bruise was immediate, and I hung my head in relief when he stopped. He walked away and I didn’t even try to see where he went until he came back. The knife was in his hand again, and I passed out before he got more than a couple cuts in.

===

I woke in the car with Asher beside me and one of his own slaves driving. My body was sore and I could still feel the cuts, but when I looked down I didn’t see a single mark. “Oh good,” he said when I moved. “You’re awake. I was hoping you’d want a little more before I sent you back to him.”

I didn’t try to resist as he pulled me up into his lap, but this time when my power looked up at him I swatted it down. He held my hips above him and ground himself as far into me as he could, and his thrusts came faster and faster as we drove through the night. The driver pulled up to Chaz’s house just as Asher reached his climax within me. He opened the door and shoved me out onto the gravel, and my legs were too weak at first to hold me. He stepped over me and shut his door, and I knew nothing good would happen if I didn’t walk through that house on my own. I got to the door just in time to see him disappear into the office and Chaz looked at me from the door.

The stairs were horrible, and Asher must have done something to my back because it screamed as I went up to the attic. Even Kenzie didn’t have a snide remark as I stumbled through the attic to the bathroom, but I heard Kelsey whisper, “Asher.” just before the door to the bathroom shut behind me. As much as I hurt, I was surprised that only dirt and semen followed the water down the drain. I made sure to leave the bathroom as clean as it had been when I entered it before falling into bed and blacking out.

My alarm was screeching and someone was shaking my shoulder to wake me up. I let out a small yip and jumped to the other side of the bed before realizing I was in my bunk in the attic.

“Wow, Asher must have done a number on you,” the voice was soft and that kind of feminine that romance novels called a bedroom voice. I opened my eyes to see Sophia standing over me. “You need to get up for muster. I let you sleep a little later because you took a shower last night. So get up and fix your hair or you’ll be late.”

I sat up and blinked around at the room as Sophia went back to make her bed. Her hair was up in a tight bun, but mine was sticking out in all directions and sometime in the night I had lost the elastic band that I had started with. My feet hit the cold floor and I went through the motions of making my bed, even sorer today than I had been when Asher brought me back. I made my way to the bathroom to brush my hair and had just gotten it up when the door at the bottom of the stairs shut. Looking at the clock I cursed and went down the steps as I pulled a uniform over my head.

The large man from the auction was at the bottom of the stairs and watched as I pulled my dress down over my ass and all but ran to the stairs. I stood in line next to the others just as the clock struck six. Kenzie was sent to the garage, Ferrel was sent into town, and Kelsey was sent to the kitchen. Me and Sophia he told to wait in his office.

We stood side by side as he walked in, “Since you’re both here while we have guests, I have allowed a few of them to take short contracts with each of you. Sophia, you will spend today with Thom in the blue room. Jezza, you will spend the day with Larian in the yellow room.” I felt Sophia tense beside me and wondered if she recognized the names. “You will both come back here to the office at six.”

He dismissed us and we left the office. At the foot of the stairs, Sophia grabbed my arm, “Larian has a bad reputation among the other slaves, Jezza. Just…” her voice trailed for a moment. “Don’t try to fight him off. Kelsey told me you came here with a lot of anger. It’s not going to get you anything but pain if you haven’t figured that out yet.” With that, she glanced back at the office and then set off up the stairs. I looked, but no one was there and I followed her. She stopped at the first room, which was decorated all in blue, and I went to the room farthest from the stairs and walked into a drop of sunlight caught in hell.

The room was all white and yellow, and did not fit the large man sitting at the desk to one side. His computer was open, but he was reading a book and didn’t move when I shut the door quietly behind me. Not knowing what I was supposed to do, I stood by the door and waited for him to acknowledge me.

Finally, he shut the book and stood from the chair. He was taller than I had realized at the auction, easily more than a foot taller than me. His shoulders were broad, but he had the narrow waist and hips of someone who had worked for those shoulders. I wondered what he did to his own slaves to make them hate him enough to buy him such ill-fitting pants, but then shoved the thought from my mind because I probably didn’t really want to know.

“I do not keep slaves, girl,” his voice sounded like it came from somewhere near his feet, and then it clicked what he had said and I stared at him. “Yes, your thoughts scream across your mind and they are very loud. Chaz must get some sort of amusement out of it, or you’d be much worse off than you are now. As it is, I’m surprised he lets you wear his uniform over those magnificent bruises.” I looked down but my skin looked whole. “Then they are not his work. Who has he sent you to, girl?”

“He sent me to Asher yesterday, sir,” I said.

The man cursed colorfully enough that I wished I could have taken notes, and then pulled me by the hand to the bed where he sat so he was closer to eye level. Suddenly the room was full of a choking power and I felt that twist somewhere deep inside that told me my own power had taken notice, and wouldn’t turn a taste of this one away. Larian felt it, too, and he dropped my hand. “Please tell me he wasn’t stupid enough to send you to Asher a virgin.”

I shook my head, remembering a boyfriend during my first year of college who had taken care of that. His power probed mine and it rose up inside me like I had wanted it to in the last few weeks with Asher. It always made the times with Asher just a little more tolerable, but this was different. We knew this man wouldn’t hurt us like Asher did, or like Chaz did. He would be fun and we could feed on him. I came back to myself in Larian’s lap, with his mouth on my throat and my hands in his hair. What is happening to me?

“You are a succubus, and your power will seek what you need,” he answered the thought and pushed me a little down his thighs so I wasn’t pressed against his chest. When his hand slid across my side, I winced and groaned in pain and the power sank back into the depths of my mind. “Let me heal you, and then you can sleep.”

Sleep sounded good, but as soon as the pain faded a bit my power rose again and tried to pull his into us like we had done with Asher. But his power changed and we couldn’t follow it yet, but the pain left my body and I slumped against his chest. When the pain was gone my power was back, and this time we weren’t too hurt to pull him into us. He tasted clean, and his mouth was much softer than it had looked as he kissed up my neck and along my jaw to lick my lower lip until I opened for him.

We could feel him beneath his pants, but he wouldn’t let us touch him. We reached, but somehow he blocked us and just stuck to making out. He fed some of his power into us, and we stopped trying to get into his pants. I heard myself moaning against his mouth before he broke the kiss and lifted me to stand before him again.

“You need to go now,” but his voice didn’t match the feeling of his power feeding into mine, and I tried to step closer to him only to have him stop me. “Go. You’re healed, but Chaz doesn’t have what I need to take you like this.”

“What do you need?” the power made my voice sound husky, something I had never heard issue from my own throat.

He shook his head and pushed me toward the door, “Nothing you would enjoy.”

THE END OF CHAPTER TWO