Glowing eyes.
Again.
A scent that’s somehow overpowering me through the space separating us.
I’m literally fucking melting from the heat, the bodily shutdown that her presence initiates.
Sweat trickles down the side of my face and it’s tinged with blood. How do I know? Her hazel eyes track its descent, brow furrowed with concern.
“You’re going to have to let me feed on you,” she whispers sadly. “The end result will be the same but at least your suffering will end.”
“Let me feed on you.” What in the hell could that possibly mean?
“W-why are you here?” Is the dumb question that leaves my mouth. Of all the things I could say—like demanding she leaves once more—that’s what I focus on.
When I know the answer.
But maybe that’s what I’m hoping to hear. Because most of me thrills at it. Because I want her to want me like I’m dying for her.
Her fingers curl around the small divider plate. “This isn’t working. For either of us. I can’t find sustenance in any of them since I met you. It’ll be the end of you, but it’s the only way we’ll both find some peace.”
The way she’s talking . . . something niggles at the back of my addled, fevered mind. Shaking, I wipe at my soaked brow and groan, “Ask the Lord for forgiveness.”
Am I talking to her or myself?
If I’m honest, I’m speaking to us both.
Yet, her reply sends a rebellious bolt of glorious fire through my veins. “Let’s anger your God some more.”
I can’t be turned on by that. I just can’t. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“You’re dying, Logan.” She almost seems heartbroken at that little bombshell. “You’re dying and there’s no salvation for you. Only a quick death versus a prolonged, painful one. You need to stop fighting. Just give in. I promise it’ll be over quick after that.”
Her words go right over my head, eyes frozen on that mouth and how perfectly her lips move while forming them. “I want to feel those lips on my cock.”
The gasp that leaves her is nothing compared to the mountain of shock and guilt that lands on my head.
I’m ready to give it to her. Right here, in the confessional.
Right here, in front of Heaven, and Hell, my fellow priests, and the parishioners, if need be.
I’ve lost.
The test is over.
I’ve failed.
The inevitability of us is near cosmic. Undeniable. A force more powerful than any that could ever exist.
“Not here.” Her eyes glow brighter, traveling my form with a vicious hunger. “I’ll give you that at least.”
I’m a starving fool. A lost, damaged imbecile that’s ready to give it all up for a single taste.
Weeks of torture from every angle led me to this.
“Where, then?”
She bites her lip; a fleeting move that leaves me coiled in my seat. “My house. Tonight. I’ll be waiting.”
Like dust in the wind, she’s gone faster than I can hope to catch.
But I will.
I’ll catch her.
I’ll have her.
My Lord wanted me damned.
He wins.
Don’t know what I did to deserve it, yet I’m ready to embrace this destruction.
Wherever it may lead me.
It doesn’t even occur to me as I exit the confessional on shaking legs that her eyes were that light hazel shade the entire time.
Unlike the others, when I blinked and it was gone, replaced by dark brown.
Succubus.
Somewhere along the way, between sneaking out of the rectory after midnight, and walking the Bronx streets as I hurried to her home, the word slipped into my thoughts.
And it stayed there.
It won’t go away.
My symptoms resemble Stigmata, yes, but only barely.
None of the scripture I’ve found ever described a Succubus effect like this, except for one detail:
The hallucinations.
The brutal need to fuck the creature responsible for them.
Everything I consist of refutes this. Succubi aren’t real. They can’t be.
Yet I can’t claim to honor my faith and refute proof of the darker side of it.
Proof of a demon walking among men.
Demon.
Demon.
Demon.
Demoness, to be exact.
I should be down on my knees before the cross, offering God any sacrifice he demands, in order to be saved from this.
Instead, here I am, outside her door, poised to knock.
I’ve deteriorated in the hours since our last encounter in the confessional. To the point that I hallucinated my brother in my room earlier.
My brother.
A pale, ghastly apparition, a ghost, begging me to walk away from the foolish journey I took in the name of my grief.
Begging me to give in.
To not suffer anymore.
The reason I took on such a holy vocation pleading with me to give in to this evil.
It’s heinous.
Unthinkable.
What her presence in her life has done to me . . .
Yet here I am.
Like everything else lately, I’m possessed by some external force that commands my body to do the opposite of what I should be doing.
Even with the cold terror of my thoughts—my symptoms—and the image of my brother’s imagined ghost playing in my mind, I can’t stop myself from knocking on her door.
It swings open. On the other side, Thali is within the dark hallway leading into her home. Her features are hidden by the shadows, her eyes velvet and brown.
Brown. Not hazel.
Not that it matters.
“You wanted me here, you’ve got me,” I growl in a low, harsh voice, chest racing. “Go ahead and do what you’ve set out to do. Ruin me.”
Her hand reaches out and she fists my shirt. “I told you: it’ll kill you. But neither of us have a choice.”
I’m pulled inside with surprising strength, dragged into the place where she’s lured so many other men before.
Chapter Seven
Athaliah’s leading me deeper into her place, yet the lights remain off and I can only see bits of it highlighted by moon.
Not that it matters. She’s the center of my focus. The further we walk, the more I’m consumed by her, and the illness that her presence births grows stronger.
“You’re shaking so much,” she murmurs with what sounds like concern, and runs a hand down my chest.
“Your . .
