Gentlemen Prefer Succubi

All darkness had been swallowed up by the queen herself; she was a black hole in a room full of supernovas.

“What does a sex slave want to know about our doings?” the queen repeated, and I realized she expected me to answer.

I couldn’t tell her about my deal with Uriel. My mind wouldn’t work, though, and I couldn’t come up with a feasible lie. So I stood there quietly and choked on my own saliva, my eyes squeezed shut as I hoped this would all go away.

I didn’t see who flung me to the floor, nor the heel of the queen’s shoe that dug into my back. “She is not speaking, Zane. Make her talk, or I will.”

“You’d better tell her,” Zane told me quietly. “It’s not wise to anger the queen.”

I nodded, unable to look them in the eye. “Someone … asked me to find out what you are doing. Why the vampires are out on the streets lately.” I heard Remy’s sharp intake of breath behind me, but I didn’t have much choice.

“Oh? I can guess.” The queen knelt beside me and forced my face back toward her with those icy fingers. I felt them brush against my forehead, burning when they touched my angel kiss. “My, my. Didn’t your friend teach you not to pick sides, girl?”

My forehead felt like it was on fire, except where the tips of her fingers were touching my skin. It was like being caressed by evil itself. “I … I don’t have a side. He talked me into it, and I didn’t know what he was doing.” It sounded lame even to my own ears.

“Mmm.” The queen’s fingers left my skin, and I rubbed the burning spot with my fingers. The skin felt whole, even if it hurt like a bitch. “It could be that you’re too stupid and young yet to decide what you wish to do-this is true.” Her heels clacked away, and I squeezed my eyes open a crack, watching her go.

Then she turned to face me again, those black eyes fixed on my face. “Of course, if you can do a favor for the Archangel Gabriel, you can do a favor for me, can you not?”

Oh shit. That was the last thing I wanted. “I’m not working for Gabriel,” I protested, my words sounding weak.

“No? Then who?”

Ashamed at the compulsion I felt to respond to her words, I dropped my gaze to the floor. “Uriel.”

Her low chuckle made my skin crawl. “Just as well. He’s been fascinated with our doings for centuries. I just never thought he’d find someone foolish enough to do his dirty work.”

Yay me, for being the biggest fool in millennia.

She took my silence as a good sign. “You may go back to your little friend Uriel and tell him what I am up to. I don’t care. After all, we’ve been dealt the perfect hand. He’s trapped in his church like a holy rat, because he refuses to possess someone to seek what he desires. So it will do him no good to know what we seek.” I felt her burning gaze turn back onto me, even though I wasn’t looking at her. “You do know what it is we want, do you not, child?”

“A halo,” I whispered.

“Not just any halo,” she corrected, her shoes moving back toward me in the low angle of my vision. I cringed. “The halo of Joachim himself. Do you know who that is, little idiot?”

“No.”

“Joachim was the first angel to fall. He was the most beautiful of their kind, and he led the others down the path of sin when they chose to touch human women and know their bodies. Gabriel asked the angels to give up their lovers, but Joachim could not give up his mortal woman-me.”

My eyes shot up to her face. She didn’t look mortal, not one teeny bit.

Her mouth widened into a sharky grin at my surprise, and I flinched away. “It surprises you, little one. Back then I was the greatest queen my country had ever known, and I was a goddess to my people. I destroyed my husband and set Joachim on the throne in his place.

“But Joachim changed. Without his wings, without Heaven, his mind became unhinged, and he descended into darkness. Long years passed, and I looked for ways to please him and make him whole again. I practiced my witchcraft and learned pleasurable things, learned to keep myself young and pretty, but it was all for nothing. Joachim was lost.

“So I struck a deal with Lucifer himself, who knew something of the despair that my beloved was going through. Give him his wings back, and I will give Lucifer whatever he desires.”

Her smile became thin, brittle. “I should have guessed that Lucifer wanted something more, when he asked for nothing from me. He gave Joachim his wings, but in return, he warped and perverted the curse that Gabriel had laid upon the Serim. Gabriel’s curse was not a harsh one: to make love every full moon, to remind them why they were there on earth instead of in Heaven.

“Lucifer made Joachim crave blood. He got his wings, but he must drink human blood every day.” Her laughter was harsh and mocking. “Lucifer turned him into a monster. And my Joachim felt despair, even as he exulted in that which had been forbidden to him. What do you think of that, little one?”

I tried to swallow to wet my throat and failed miserably. “It must have been hard on him,” I rasped.

“Wrong,” she snarled, stalking over to me and slapping me across the face so hard that I felt my neck snap backward, making a cracking noise. Blackness bloomed in front of my eyes again, and receded just as fast.

“I gave him everything, and still he was not satisfied. Everything! I seduced the others to the same foul deal, so he would not feel alone. I destroyed my kingdom for him, feigned my own death and went into exile, all for him. I gave up everything I loved for Joachim. I even sold my own soul to Lucifer in exchange for a child of our own, thinking that would please him.

“I let Lucifer twist and manipulate me. I fornicated with his demons, let one possess my flesh, all to bring the shine back to Joachim’s eyes. And do you know what happened?”

I worked my jaw slowly, hearing the bones crack with each motion, shooting pain through my entire face. It sounded like a few things had broken. Did she really expect me to answer? I stared up into her mad black eyes.

“He turned on me. He said that I had turned him into the monster he was today. He did not see the power I had given him.” The wildness in her eyes was replaced by the frightening calm once more. “He took our son and left me, in search of redemption. He went to appeal to Heaven itself, to beg and plead his way back in. My strong, beautiful Joachim, reduced to sniveling, begging for another chance.”

Her lip curled in disgust, making the beautiful face a macabre mockery of itself. “He returned to the first temple consecrated to God, a temple he had built as pharaoh, and entered the doors, leaving my son on the doorstep. And do you know what happened to him?”

I shook my head, ignoring the cracking sounds in my neck. I didn’t trust my throat to answer.

“They destroyed him,” Queen Nitocris said in that horribly toneless, bland voice. “He appealed to them, begging for mercy, and they destroyed him where he stood. My son watched him burn alive, until all that was left was a halo on the altar-the essence of who he once was.”

Nitocris moved over to Zane and began to stroke her fingers through his hair in a maternal gesture, tucking the locks behind his ears. “And when my son returned to me with the news that he had failed both me and his father, I broke him as punishment.”

She focused another hideous smile on me and I cringed backward. “As I do to any who fail me,” she said, her words hissing between her teeth. “I stole his essence, pried it from his living form, and made it part of my own. It dwells inside me, as does the demon I gave myself to when I took what Lucifer offered.”

Yikes. I totally did not want to mess with this woman ever again. Frightened for my life, I wondered if sucking down the soul of a succubus could augment her powers. I hoped not. I hoped we didn’t give anyone anything but venereal disease.

“So what is it that you will tell Uriel, child?”

Oh, crap. On the spot again. She was gazing over at me from where she was draped all over a stiff-looking Zane, her eyes boring into me.

“Uh, I’ll tell him that you’re looking for your old boyfriend because you miss him and you’re lonely?”