Feature Writer: RedMonkeyButt
Feature Title: SUCCUBUS RISING 9
Published: 30.10.2020
Story Codes: Erotic Horror
Synopsis: Pain and pleasure go hand in hand
Author’s Notes: Some of this gets pretty bloody, but not anything like what happened in the earlier chapters. This was proofread for obvious errors, but not edited or fine-tuned.
SUCCUBUS RISING 9
Turq’s power raked through me as he ran the shower scrubby over my back, making me moan. Over the last couple of days it had gotten easier to hold my power in check and then push it into him, answering his caresses. It had actually become fun to reach out while he was in his home office working, teasing us both into a frenzy he would rush out to the pool house to satisfy during his breaks. In an hour his unnamed person was going to be here and I was going to have to learn to loop two people in on the power circuit, and he wanted me almost out of it when they arrived. He said it would make it easier.
The lather washed down my legs and into the drain as his hands roamed over me, making sure all the soap was gone. Every touch called the power out of me, and his body against my back made promises he had already made good on. When I was sufficiently scrubbed, he reached around me to turn the water off, pressing himself against my ass and shoving his power through me again.
We didn’t dry off, just stumbled our way to the bed. I pulled him down with me, wrapping my legs around his hips and pulling his power into me as he pushed his body into mine. The circuit flared when he pulled out of me, taking my power with him. It was slow and lazy, made all the more exciting with the power. He didn’t have to touch anything else with the almost electric current flowing between us.
I tensed when I heard footsteps on the concrete, and Turq rolled us on the bed so I was on top. “Close your eyes, love. When you feel his power, take it and then feed it back to him. Maintain our own circuit or I’ll stop moving.”
The asshole would do it, too, so I did as I was told. I closed my eyes and listened to the rustle of clothing as the other man undressed, but when his power reached me I stopped moving on my own. Having Turq inside me and now this new power was almost too much. His hands tightened on my hips, and another set of hands pushed my still-wet hair across my shoulders.
“You have to give it back,” Turq groaned out beneath me. “Jesus, loop it back before I break off inside you!”
It took another minute of sitting there, one man under me and the other pressing along my back, before I figured out how to loop the power back to him. My hold on Turq trembled, but we both relaxed as the inequalities balanced. I started to move again, pulling one power into me and letting it flow out to the other. Repeating the process until Turq held my hips as tight against him as he could, his climax making him groan long and low as I continued to manipulate the circuits.
The man behind me didn’t last much longer, spilling himself across my lower back and a string of curses in a familiar voice made me tense. His hands on my waist, right above Turq’s, stilled and I heard him sigh.
“You said you would tell her,” Chaz grumbled.
“She knew,” Turq moved me enough to slip out of me, but didn’t let me move away. “She was fine until you started talking. That’s why I got the good spot this time.”
The power trickled away, and I moved slowly out from between them. If this had been some sick form of a lesson to teach me not to blindly sign contracts out of spite, I might have tried to kill the both of them. But the contract was real, and I really would need to know how to heal myself before the council forced me into chambers. I slid alongside Turq, but frowned when he took my hand and kissed the palm then rolled off the bed.
“I feel an awkward personal moment coming on, so I’ll go out to the pool until you need me,” he winked at me and then walked naked out to the pool.
I rolled onto my back and looked at Chaz, still on his knees near the foot of the bed with our thighs nearly touching. He sighed and moved like he was going to step off the bed, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Don’t,” my voice wobbled a little. “I knew it was you the whole time, I just couldn’t look at you through it.”
“Jezza, I…” he started, but I interrupted.
“Stop, please.” His face went blank, but at least he looked at me and stopped trying to leave. “I know what the council is going to do, as much as Turq was able to tell me. I need to know how to heal it, and I need to know how to channel a ton of power while they do their worst to me. I may have signed this contract out of spite, but it seems to have worked out in my favor.”
“Did he tell you what we will have to do?”
“What he described isn’t as bad as what Asher did over and over.”
“You’re going to hate us both after this, not just me.”
“I didn’t hate you, not after a while,” his eyes widened in surprise at that. “I hated that you sent me to Asher. I hated that you never seemed to see what he did to me even though I felt it all. After the first few weeks, though, I realized that you healing me after I broke some rule or other was healing everything he did. I started to break the rules just for the relief that would buy for a few hours until you sent me back.”
“If I had known…”
“If you had known, nothing, Chaz,” I interrupted again. “If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. He would have killed any other girl.”
“He actually wouldn’t have,” he sighed and stretched his legs out beside me, but stayed sitting. “He’d have hurt her, sure, but he always sent the girls back. Whole, functioning, but utterly broken. It got to where no one would give him more than an entry level contract for two hours.”
“It took nearly that entire two hours for him to make me pass out the first time,” I whispered. “Seeing how long I could last without blacking out seemed to be a game for him.”
“It was a game for him,” Turq said from the door. He walked in and sat on my other side. “Figured you two hadn’t tried to kill each other, but wasn’t expecting to walk in on that. And not to be a party pooper, but we need to sleep. Yes, you two need to sleep together. It probably won’t help what we’ll be doing, but it won’t hurt.”
“This bed is soaking wet, man,” Chaz complained.
“Then throw on your tighty whities and we can bunk at my place. I have a bigger bed anyway, but it’s still going to be a puppy pile. I’ll turn the A/C down so we don’t die of heat stroke in our sleep.”
They both slid from the bed and walked through the door, but I started pulling the sheets off the bed.
“What are you doing?” Turq yelled from the other room.
“It’s easier to clean the sheets than replace a mattress, and I don’t want to sleep in a musty bed the rest of the time I’m here.” I finished pulling the sheets and pillows off the bed and piled everything in a corner. I didn’t bother with the pillowcases.
===
The pool house was cool from the breeze of the coming storms, but I could still have the windows open. I sat on the bed with my mom’s journal opened to the part with the runes. As far as I knew, Turq and Chaz were still asleep. The mattress had been completely dry, and it only took me a few moments of searching to find the linen closet and replace the sheets. This time when I let my hands roam the pages, I reached with my power as well.
My fingers tingled when they passed over the runes my mom had gotten results from. The modified fire rune made me itch, but the modified protection rune made my power sing strong enough that I shut the book and waited to hear if either of them came out of the house. I walked into the small kitchen and tossed the book onto the counter. No one came running through the door, so I took that as a good sign and went out to one of the loungers by the pool.
The early morning was completely black. We were far enough out that there were no lights to reflect off the clouds, so I got flashes of them in the lightning in the distance. It took several seconds for the thunder to boom, and the wind was picking up steadily. I’d eventually have to close the doors on the pool house or everything would be blown around, but for now I could just enjoy the charged air and the silence.
I must have dozed on the chair because I was woken by raindrops and a slightly braying laughter. The storm had broken right over me and I hadn’t even closed up the house. But when I turned from the lounger, I saw the doors closed and both Chaz and Turq staring at me. Lightning and thunder chased themselves across the sky, and the branches of light brought to mind the modified rune and how it had felt to just run my power across it. I let my power surface and then grabbed them both, knowing it felt as good to them as it did to me, and I would need all the pleasure I could get out of this.
I stripped my clothes off as I walked toward the small house and watched as they did the same on the other side of the door. Turq was the one who opened the door and pulled me inside, and the contact sent a rush of power into me that I shoved out to Chaz only to pull it right back and push it into Turq. Both men groaned, but Chaz didn’t try to touch me as Turq pulled me into the bedroom and walked me onto the bed on our knees.
His mouth was heavy on mine as I continued the waves of power between us all, pulling Chaz up on the bed with us. Chaz’s hands found my hips and they were deliciously hot against my skin, but they didn’t burn like I remembered. We needed him to make us burn to make that rune work. Turq kept my mouth as Chaz slid one hand down and around to cup over me, teasing my lips with his fingers just this side of too hot. I could feel him oddly soft against my ass, but then his fingers were inside me and I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to be bothered about something.
Turq moaned into my mouth when I reached down to grab him, but he kept my head and shoulders up as Chaz began to work me toward a swift climax. Between the heat and his wide fingers, I was suddenly a lot closer than I wanted to be. Their power flowed through me like rivers trying to fill a too-small space, and concentrating on directing it through all of us brought me down enough to pull away from Turq to ride Chaz’s hand. Turq just moved his mouth across my jaw and along my neck, shoving my legs farther apart so he could slide his body beneath mine as he went.
Chaz didn’t move his hand until Turq did something to make him jerk away from me. I think he got the back of his hand licked, but other than the fast withdrawal he didn’t seem bothered. Then Turq’s mouth was on me in that infuriating slow motion caress, and Chaz was pulling me back slightly against his chest. He was still soft against my ass, though, and this time it bothered me for about three seconds longer than the first time I noticed.
Every time Turq’s tongue hit my clit or plunged into me, Chaz’s hands would flash white hot. He kept them moving, never burning the same spot twice. Between the two of them I had to reach back to grab Chaz’s head to keep myself steady. I desperately wanted one of them to fuck me. I jerked the power into myself before forcing it back to them, and got Chaz’s burning hot hand on my ass as a reward. Next was my thigh, and my hip as I tried to ride Turq’s tongue.
Now Chaz was hard, and he reached a hand between us to get himself in a better position. Turq didn’t even slow down, just moved a little to allow my hips to move forward and get his tongue out of the way. Blinding pleasure rolled over me as Chaz pushed into me and Turq sucked hard on my clit, and then Chaz traced a finger along my hip and I screamed. My power rushed out and into them, leaving me trying to hold myself up against the sudden mix of both immense pleasure and blinding pain I found myself in.
But it wasn’t done, and they didn’t let me ride it out. Chaz reached up to grab my hair and pull me back against him. At some point I had fallen forward against the headboard. “Grab my power, Jezza. Grab it and hold on and follow it.”
His voice was harsh, and I tried to do what he said. But I kept grabbing his power and then shoving it into Turq, until Turq cut me off completely. I was still kneeling above his shoulders, but he had moved up enough that he wasn’t eating me anymore and now he took his power away, too. It was just me grabbing onto Chaz’s power with nowhere to put it. Then he pulled it back to him and put his hand over my hip.
I froze, but not exactly in pleasure. I could still feel Chaz deep inside me, his one hand in my hair and his mouth against my shoulder. I went with my power and rode along his to the other hand over my hip. With will alone, he mended the small cut and bruising he had caused. Muscle knit, the blood in the contusion broke down and was washed into my lymphatic system, and finally the skin closed. His power slid over and through me, almost comforting as he started to move again. His hands were no longer burning hot when he released my hair and let me lean on the headboard.
Somehow, Turq managed to push himself back up my body. His power entered me in a smooth wash and I looped it back through Chaz. After a kiss that left me gasping, though, Turq pulled himself out from under me completely and knelt in front of me. He wasn’t as well-endowed as Larian, so when I took him in my mouth I was able to take most of him. Chaz shifted behind me, and they got into a rhythm that pushed me from one to the other. After a couple seconds, I moved the power in the opposite way. As Chaz pulled out of me, I shoved the power into him and took as much of Turq as I could into my mouth, then pushed the power into Turq as Chaz pushed back into me.
Chaz came first, breaking the rhythm and groaning as he pushed as deep as he could into me. Rather than pulling out, though, he started moving again and kept the pace going. Turq was starting to falter as I ran my tongue on the underside of his dick, swirling it around the head when he pulled away from my mouth. His balls were tight when I reached for them, squeezing gently and getting an answering jerk against my lips.
I slowed the power to a trickle, concentrating on just my mouth and my hand on his balls as the points of contact, and he cursed above me. Widening and narrowing the flow of power with his thrusts did it, and he came hot and thick down my throat. My throat worked to swallow as much as I could, taking the energy that it was for myself.
They both pulled away from me at the same time, but it was minutes before the power shut off. We all piled together on the too-small-for-three-adults bed, making sure we were as comfy as we could be, and then fell asleep to the sound of the rain on the roof.
===
Chaz woke me with his hand over my mouth, pointing to Turq sleeping on my other side. He slid from the bed and beckoned for me to follow and stay quiet. The storm had let up, but it was still cloudy and the lightning could be seen way off in the distance. It was once again hot, but now it was almost uncomfortably humid. My skin was slick with sweat before he stepped off the patio and onto a path I had never noticed. We walked through the brush to a small clearing with the same stones making a more solid surface.
“What are we doing?” I looked around the clearing. The stone was swept clean but still gritty under my feet, and the brush was only about waist high. I wanted to cover myself, but my skin was sticky and gross from the humidity so I kept my arms down. At least the light breeze could be felt.
“You need to be able to heal yourself without using the sex to distract yourself from the pain. The council isn’t going to let you feel good when they try to tear you apart,” his voice was quiet, but louder than a whisper. “Turq won’t be able to help with this part. You’re going to need to lay down.”
“It’s muddy,” sure, the stone was only damp but the mud was coming up between them.
“I’ll help you clean up afterward if you don’t kill me, but short of bringing you back to my place it’s not like I can suspend you above the ground. Lay down.” It was an order and it brought a wave of memories I had to squash down fast before I lost it. He was also walking around the edge of the clearing as if looking for something. Bending, he came back up with a knife.
“Whoa, what’s with the knife?” I stood up from having started bending to lay down on the damp ground.
“If I use my power to cause you pain, your power will take over and twist it into pleasure. It’s wonderful any other time, but right now I just need you to bleed and then fix it. I was made to cause pain, Jezza. The knife is far kinder than I can ever be.” When I laid down on the ground on my back, he knelt beside me. “I’ll only be making shallow cuts, nothing deep enough to maim you and nothing I can’t heal myself if you hit a limit.”
“Why couldn’t we do this inside?”
“Turq can’t do this. When it’s mixed with pleasure, he’s all about a little pain. But not when it’s just straight pain. And I didn’t want to pay for the cleanup,” he looked a little embarrassed at that. “And nobody will hear if you need to scream.”
A small part of me wondered about how my life had reached a point where willingly letting myself be sliced open without pain killers was sounding like a good idea, but I just nodded and tried to find a more comfortable spot on the stone. He sighed and moved to sit cross-legged beside me.
He reached out and took my arm, setting it across his legs. The first cut was across the top of my arm and only stung a little. Under his direction I held onto his power as he healed the scratch. The next few cuts were the same – short and shallow and quick to heal. When I had been healing these cuts on my own for a few minutes, he put my arm back on the stone at my side.
The deeper cuts were made along my sides and the outsides of my thighs. Each one made me grind my teeth and groan, but I never screamed. He made me follow along while he healed everything, and stopped the deeper cuts as soon as I was able to heal them on my own without multiple practice lacerations.
By the time he said we were done I was panting and the sky was beginning to grow light. He offered me a hand up but I shook my head. It wasn’t that I didn’t need the help to stand, but that I didn’t think I could stand without puking. I was covered in dirt, gasping for breath, and trying not to remember how much Asher had loved his knives, and I did not want anybody to touch me.
“I’ll be okay, just give me a few minutes,” I gasped. God, I was crying. In my defense, it had hurt like hell. I managed to push myself up to sit with my arms over my knees and my forehead against my arms. I jumped when his hand landed on my shoulder, but didn’t shy away from the small stream of power he pushed at me. It wasn’t sexual or even really comforting, but my power took the energy and my nausea went away so I could stand.
We walked back with his arm around my waist to find Turq standing by the pool with coffee. “Jeez, now I’m glad I got left out of whatever you two were doing. You could have just used the pool and avoided the mud.”
“I didn’t want her to bleed in the pool,” Chaz pushed me inside and toward the bathroom, but when he didn’t follow I reached back for his arm and pulled him along.
The shower was cool after being out in the sticky humidity the last few hours. It stung a bit over the minor scrapes and bruises from lying on the muddy stone, but it felt good to get the dirt and grit off.
“How the hell do you take freezing cold showers?” Chaz asked from a far corner of the stall, trying to avoid the spray.
“It feels nice after being sticky with sweat from outside,” I arched my back to get my hair wet. “Like jumping in the pool on a hot day. Well, not this pool, but a big one that doesn’t get lukewarm in the sun.”
I peaked at him as I rinsed my hair of shampoo and then sighed, turning to adjust the temperature a little warmer. As the steam began to rise he relaxed and moved under the spray with me. The conditioner made rude noises as I tried to get the last bits out of the bottle for my hair. Working it through as much of my hair as I was able, I twisted my hair up and grabbed the clip from around the neck of the shower head.
He ducked under the spray and turned the handle further to the hot side, but not enough to make it too hot for me. I was betting it was still cold for him, though. For a few minutes, I got to watch him without fear of being reprimanded or punished. His skin was ruddy and he had more chest hair than the others I’d been with, leaving a trail to very well-trimmed pubes. He was still soft, but with a nice shape. His legs were strong, and seriously, why do guys always seem to have good looking legs? I might think he was posing a little except then he turned and I saw the scars that spanned his back and gasped, reaching out.
I stopped myself before I could touch him and just stared. From the tops of his shoulders to the top of his ass, his back was covered in scars in the shapes of runes. Most of which I knew from Bane drilling them into my head, but a few were things I had never seen before.
“They’re more permanent than tattoos,” he said. “Scars don’t really fade like ink does. Touch them before you drive yourself nuts.”
I started to reach for his shoulder because it seemed safer, but one group along his left side caught my eye. The scar tissue was slick and tight under my fingertips, not supple like the rest of his skin. Every rune along his side was a variation on the pain rune Bane had taught me. The rune was supposed to harness pain, be worn as an amulet or talisman of sorts. Nothing had ever said what carving the runes into skin would do.
“They harness the intent of the rune and allow me to control it without ever having to draw it again,” he turned around and I let my fingers trail along his skin. “I don’t even have to think about them. I let my power run through them and they become my power.”
“All the pain…” my voice trailed off and I tried again. “It doesn’t hurt you, does it?”
“Not physically, no,” he answered. He slid around me and grabbed a bottle of soap, motioning for me to turn and lean against the wall while he lathered up a scrubby. His hands were firm as he washed my back, and I let my forehead rest against the cool tile while he worked. Once he had scrubbed my back, he reached up and undid the clip from my hair to rinse the conditioner out as he talked. “I wasn’t trained in the softer arts. My power is all about causing pain, and it feels very good to use it that way. Ah, to the point where things don’t always work if there isn’t any pain involved.”
“That’s why you were always hard in your office,” he grunted and I took it as a yes.
He had finished messing with my hair, but I still double-checked to make sure all the conditioner had rinsed out. I hesitated a second when his hands wrapped around my hips and over my stomach, then leaned back into him. When a memory of him igniting the fire rune on the practice paper rose, I pulled his right hand away from me and turned it over. The scar there was a lot more supple than the ones on his back, having been worked enough to give his hand full motion I guess, but it was no less distinct.
“That’s why my power burns,” his lips moved against the top of my shoulder. When I ran my fingers over the palm of his hand again, he closed his fist over them and reached with his other hand to turn the shower off. “And all of this is why I was the one to teach you how to heal. I had to learn how before I got the scars.”
He reached out of the shower to the towel rack and handed me one. When I flipped my head over and twisted the towel around my hair then stood, he handed me the second towel and stood there dripping until I handed it back and stepped out of the shower. I pulled on a pair of panties and a long tank top, fully planning on taking a nap after I got my hair combed out. I watched him in the mirror as he dried himself, ran the towel over his hair a little bit, then hung it back up on the rack.
When he came up behind me and took the comb from my hair, my mouth fell open to say something, then I shut it again. I watched him in the mirror, gently working the tangles out of my hair until the comb moved through it freely. The realization that he was enjoying playing with my hair hit me and I had to stifle a giggle when he glared at me in the mirror.
“Careful, you’re enjoying yourself back there,” I quipped and actually got a small smile. He handed the comb back over my shoulder and then walked into the bedroom.
Turq was gone, likely in his office at the main house, and Chaz was pulling on a pair of boxer briefs from a small suitcase I hadn’t noticed before. I crawled into the bed and sighed as the need to sleep assaulted me. We had been up most of the night and I was exhausted. Chaz grabbed a small tablet and sat in the bed next to me as I dozed off.
===
There was a hand in my shirt, rubbing untold patterns along my back as I woke. When I moved, the hand slid away and I groaned, “Put your hand back in my shirt.” There was a soft chuckle, but the hand obeyed, starting to tickle along the waistband of my panties. I groaned some more and then pushed out of the bed and went into the bathroom. That taken care of, I climbed back in next to Chaz, “Okay, now put your hand back in my shirt.”
This time he didn’t immediately obey me, and I might have been upset by that except he had his hand tracing those light lines along the backs of my thighs. Over my butt cheeks, through the material of my panties the touch just felt good and not tickling. When he reached for the hem of the shirt again, he slid his hand along my skin and started pushing power into me. The tank bunched up along my ribs, caught between me and the bed, as he moved to put his thighs on either side of my hips and deepened the back rub into a massage.
With the rise of his power his hands started to heat up and I moaned into the pillow. He pulled my arms out from under me and slid my shirt up and off before bringing my arms back and continuing the massage. I groaned anytime he stopped touching me, unable to put my complaints into words because the words weren’t working, and he chuckled. I heard the click of a bottle of some sort, and his hands rubbing together, before they returned to my shoulders to slide more easily along my skin. The smell of my lotion gave him away.
His hands heated up even more, and every push of his hands moved more of his power into me until I finally gave up and looped it back into him. I ignored the soft curses he let out as I ramped up the flow of power to about half the full force. His hands were nearly burning now, but they stopped completely when I stiffened beneath him.
My power roared around my mind and I struggled to contain it. Runes flashed like afterthoughts across my eyelids. Pain, blood, and above them all, fire. We needed his fire. My eyes popped open in time to see purple runes flare along my skin and Chaz slip off to the side of me, but he didn’t leave. I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled onto my side into a ball. This wasn’t like the last time. My power didn’t leave the room, it just swirled around and through us. He was on his hands and knees on the bed, gasping and cursing.
“What is this?” He managed to get out between breaths and curses.
“The mate-bond, silly demon,” my voice wasn’t my own. This was sultry, low and humming with power. “Do you want it to stop?” I looked at his erection straining his undies, the muscles bulging in his arms and legs as he struggled in the wash of raw power. And I realized I really could stop this if he said no here.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” he collapsed into a ball, his forehead almost touching his knees on the mattress.
“We need you to hurt us. We need your fire and your pain, demon. Do you want this to stop?”
“Gods, no.” He gasped out, relaxing almost immediately as the power recognized his acceptance and changed.
“You can’t hurt me, demon,” I reached out, and the runes along his back blazed a purple so dark they were nearly black. So much pain, wrapped in so much pleasure. The power let me see it now, the runes I hadn’t recognized were orgasmic. My back arched off the bed as my power explored him, tracing the runes one by one. Seeing the purple glow intensify as my power moved was a little unnerving, but also pretty neat at the same time. He was equal parts pain and pleasure, made to control both and enjoy it completely. “You won’t hurt me.”
His arm went behind my back as he almost fell on me. My panties made it about halfway down my thighs before he gave up and turned me over. I never saw him pull free of his underwear before he was pushing into me. His whole body was burning hot against me. The heat spread from my core like a wildfire, his hands ignited a sharp pain in my hips as a counter to the fire inside me as he moved. When I screamed, he grabbed my hair and pulled me up against him, muffling my screams with his tongue in my throat.
The fire moved from my hip to my mound, the pain moving slowly with his fingers. I could feel him struggling to rein it in enough to touch me, but I didn’t want him to hold back. My power reached out and grabbed him, twisting the pain and orgasm runes until he dropped his mouth from mine to my shoulder. His fingers found my clit, burning hot against the sensitive nub. When I didn’t try to get away from him, he used my hair as a handle to push me against the headboard until I clung to it, then he started to move.
He slammed into me, making me hold myself up on the headboard or get beaten into the wall beyond at the force of it. Every time he pulled back a little, he slapped my mound, hitting my clit with the end of one burning finger. The climax built, and so did the fire. He was going to burn us both from the inside out, but as he fucked me I felt my power change. It grabbed his and pulled, never looping back, and he shoved himself into me trying to follow it. He came with what sounded almost like a sobbing cry, wrapping his arms around my body and holding on as I fed. My lower abdomen was warm even to my touch when I wrapped my hands around his arms and held him to me.
He wiggled just a little and slid out of me, making me moan and rock my hips against him, trying to get him back inside even as he pressed into my thigh. Then his power washed back from me and the relief of the healing pushed me over the edge. I bucked against him, and his hand was back in my hair, turning my head to swallow my moans.
When we collapsed back to the bed, I groaned at the added movement as he pulled my panties the rest of the way down my legs. But then he pulled me back against his chest, wrapping his arms under my head and over my hip until we were touching from shoulder to knee before we passed out.
===
Turq called his part of the contract done when he was able to get into the pool house three days later. Apparently, the mate-bond had made the wards on the house lockdown, and he couldn’t get in until we had cooled down. Literally. There were scorch marks on several walls and the bed was beyond ruined. I think Chaz might have had to pay for repairs, but he didn’t complain about it where I could hear.
“Three weeks,” Turq was talking to Chaz while I packed my suitcase and the journals back up and put the bags by the door. “I talked to Sitri about halfway through the warded time, and he said try to avoid the council for about another three weeks. They’ve only found two of the others, and he wants to be sure they’ve found all of them before we can give in to the summons.”
“Is he…” Chaz’s voice trailed off and I could almost see the silent gestures toward me.
“He says no, but which of us is powerful enough to force an honest answer from him?” Turq came into the living area and handed me a tank top and a hair clip I must have missed. “He couldn’t get through her wards, though. Which tells me her sire is stronger than Sitri.”
“You think it’s Orobas? He’s where, up in Amarillo?”
“Are you going to go and ask him because I’m sure as hell not,” Turq chuckled. “I don’t think the sires matter in any significant way, other than the succubi being able to actually call to them. Maybe just don’t aim her at a prince?”
“Aim her at the council, right.” Chaz slid his phone out of his pocket and tapped around the screen for a minute. “Ferrel will be here in about a half hour, Jezza.”
“Are we going to your place?” I looked out over the pool. I was going to miss being able to swim whenever the mood struck, even if I had only had the chance for a few days.
“Ah, no,” he set his bag next to mine. “We’re going to Bane’s. It’s been a little over a week, but I’m tired of him texting me every twenty minutes. He needs to see you.”
I picked up my bags and started walking to the main house. “Don’t make them carry your bag, please.” There was a string of curses and some loud laughter behind me as I carried my bags through the main house to the front door. Tom nodded at me, but said nothing as usual. I set my bags by the door then turned back to the living room and settled into a chair. My legs went over one arm and my head fell back across the opposite arm as I closed my eyes.
I turned my power inward, touching the older bond and trying to sense anything through it. Almost as soon as we’d bonded, Bane had had trouble seeing my thoughts. But there had always been feelings. He was anxious, but not stressed out, and I tried to calm him through the connection. When I felt him recognize me, I opened my eyes and let my power drop back. God, this was weird.
Chaz and Turq walked in and Chaz set his bag beside mine at the door, and Turq laughed again. A phone pinged and Turq pulled his cell from the kitchen counter. “They found her.”
The wave of emotion that hit me from two different bonds made me moan and roll off the chair onto the floor. One of them was excited, one of them was terrified, and right that moment I couldn’t tell which was which. Someone was yelling, and someone had their arms around my shoulders helping me to sit up. Fuck, I couldn’t dampen one of the bonds. Chaz was terrified, and I was shaking because of it. The other bond cut off almost immediately, though, and I was grateful for that. Why the hell was Bane excited? Was this what it felt like to be crazy? To have too many minds inside your head? That’s exactly what I felt like, and who the hell was holding me down?
A few more minutes and I recognized Turq as the one who was yelling. He had his phone to his ear and I think he was yelling at Bane to back off on the bond. Chaz was holding me against him, and I realized he was terrified at what was going on, not about the council. I patted his arm and he loosened his grip so I could get a full breath.
“Back it off, Chaz,” I croaked. “It’s too much.”
I slumped in relief when his bond dampened. The adrenaline left me shaking as it left my system. I almost laughed when I remembered thinking the new bond with Bane had been weird. This hadn’t doubled the reactions, it had exponentially multiplied them. It was off balance as fuck and I was beginning to see the advantages to being a siren. At least then it would be my own crazy.
“Fuck,” Turq muttered as he set the phone back on the counter. “Ah, is that going to happen often?”
“I sure…” I started, even my voice was shaking now. “Hope not. That was brutal. No… no more bombshells please.”
“When do we answer the council?” Chaz asked.
“Three weeks,” Turq sat in one of the other chairs with his elbows on his knees. “That was Sitri telling me the third girl had been found and the council is going to start stepping up on the summons. Orders are to do your best to dodge them for another three weeks. He said someone would be in contact about moving y’all to a safe house the council doesn’t know about to help ease the pressure. They’re apparently doing that for all of them.”
“Who will the contact go through?” I rested my head on Chaz’s shoulder behind me, happy to let them talk if it kept the bonds fucking quiet. When Chaz was thinking, he wasn’t feeling.
“I told him you would all be with Bane before nightfall. I expect the contact will beat you there and Bane will have everything packed that needs to go or that they will allow. Ah,” he looked at me. “Regardless of what they tell you to bring, don’t let them have those journals. I can store them here, or you can have Chaz do it.”
I nodded my acknowledgement but said nothing for a few more minutes. My head was starting to pound and I whimpered when Chaz adjusted himself behind me. “I’m going to need some aspirin.”
“You can heal it,” Chaz’s voice was actually gentle, but I shook my head. When I tried to touch my power to anything other than the bonds, it sent a shot of pain ricocheting down my spine.
“I think you fried my power. Shit hurts,” Tom appeared next to us with a couple aspirin in a little food prep bowl and a glass of water. If I could have stood up I might have hugged him. I got the pills down and just tried to stay very still against Chaz. Turq shrugged at a noise from Chaz, but otherwise said nothing.
The headache had eased a little when the doorbell rang and Tom announced that Ferrel was here. I didn’t say anything as the two grabbed the bags and set them in the trunk of Chaz’s sedan. I shot a look at Turq about the car and he just smiled as he helped me into the backseat. Chaz climbed in after a few words with Ferrel and pushed a button to raise a divider behind the front seats. When we had a little privacy, he pulled me across the seat and against him. I vaguely remembered him having his phone out while I dozed for the entire trip.
===
The contact for the safe house had made it to Bane’s before us and was insisting we only take clothing and a couple vehicles. Chaz assured me Ferrel would be able to keep the journals safe, and he sent Kelsey home with Ferrel and orders to keep the house on lockdown status until he got word back otherwise. While waiting for us to get there, Kelsey had packed suitcases for each of us except Chaz. He would get his later.
Bane only had the one car and I had my truck, so that’s what we used to follow the contact to the safe house. It was supposed to be near the city, right under the council’s nose, but when we pulled into a parking garage downtown I thought maybe they had a different definition of ‘near.’ There was a coded gate blocking the top three floors of the garage, and we went all the way up. A servant in a fine uniform met us with a rolling luggage rack when we parked and we all trooped into a lavish apartment building.
There were two doors off the garage that I could see, and each seemed to enter into its own private hallway with only one door leading off that. Beyond that door, the apartment spanned half the size of the entire building, and sank down three levels. The entry where we stood faced an open space that looked down on a more complete second floor, but a small cutout showed stairs to a third level below that. I didn’t even know they made apartments like this outside of movies. The servant who had met us in the garage showed us around as the contact showed himself back out.
Three bedrooms broke off from the main living area on the second floor, each with its own bathroom. The kitchen was on the same level, but the office space and main entertaining area was on the lowest level, as well as a more public entry we were allowed to use for take out or other deliveries if we needed. We would only be allowed to leave from the top floor through the garage, but there was a strong implication that we were not to leave until word came to answer the summons.
As soon as the servant left, I went to one of the bedrooms and proclaimed it my own, stripped out of my clothes and crawled into the bed. I didn’t even notice Bane and Chaz both climbing in with me.
THE END OF CHAPTER NINE