Page 107 of The Succubi's Choice

“All I want is this group to think about it,” the woman says, as if this is a battle she has won hand over fist. “For all I know, we can send him to the downtown LA office, and he could detonate it. Leave nothing but a smoking hole in the ground and some copper remnants.”

Miri instinctively shivers at the mention of the copper room, and she’s not the only one. The vampire clutches their robe to them, a bit tighter, and the ghoul’s chin lifts.

Beatriz sits back, triumph written all over her body, and, deliberate, she pulls out her phone, tapping on it primly. A signal the conversation is over, and she’s the only person acting as if it does not exist.

* * *

As people are standingto say their goodbyes, as the night cruises into the hellish hours of the early morning, Grants grabs Miri by the elbow, forcefully pulling her to the hallway outside.

The Archdemon watches, eyes low, as he does so, but does not interfere, just locks eyes with her for a brief second before the door clicks shut behind them.

“What do you know?” He whispers, and the hallway feels dead, feels hollow, his voice stopping and not echoing. “You know something, what do you know?”

The walls are plain, like any hotel hallway, a pleasing shade of off-eggshell, and lit just enough to be easy on the eyes yet still not impactful on the light sensitive.

“Miri,” he snaps, pulling himself up to his full height. “Miri, what do you know?”

“I don’t know the impact of it,” she says, weighing her words carefully. “So I don’t want to say until I do.”

“Thomas knows, yes?” Grant say, his voice still strict, still foreboding, and she feels small next to him. Short.

“I’ve told him, yes.” She says, trying not to shrink back, trying not to reveal anything she doesn’t know is advantageous, before she can figure out what it would be.

He looks at her, his nostrils flaring, and she can see him belonging more in a boardroom than in this hotel. He pulls himself to his full height, and he’s a good foot taller than Miri. “You know her bringing the demigod would be a disaster,” he says, soft, in contract to his demeanor. “You know that, at least.”

“I thought he’d be hiding still,” she says, suppressing a shiver with ruthless abandon. “I would think he’d hide for a century.”

His eyes narrow, like he spots something in her, like he sees through that vague statement and spots something deeper. “Subterfuge does not become you, Miri.”

The door opens, and the Archdemon steps out, and Grant immediately drops his hand and steps away in something resembling deference. Like she’s something whose control is passed around like candy, that when one person shows up she is passed to the next.

The Archdemon’s face is cold as he regards Grant, and Grant blanches. “I take it he wasn’t attempting to intimidate you?” He asks, a hand going up to Miri’s back, a small caress over the edge of the dress. A small caress that says sorry, that says he’s fond, that hints at something.

“Only friendly conversation, one lowly succubi to another,” she says, as poisonous as she can make it, and Grant’s eyebrows raise.

“Oh you caught that too,” he says. “Sometimes I think she’s the most bigoted of us.”

Miri hesitates, and Not-Thomas’s thumb makes a lazy circle against the too sensitive skin of her back, right where it meets the soft fabric of the dress. “You shouldn’t trust her,” she says it, but it’s like she more observes herself saying it, the words falling from her mouth.

“There is no one in this group I would trust too much,” Grants says, but with a micro-nod she knows he heard her. “It’s too full of powerful people.” He steps away from them, looking again like he’s more harmless than he actually is, and Miri realizes it’s for the Archdemon, not her. That she saw both parts of the performance today. With another nod, he strides away, leaving just the two of them in the hallway.

As soon as he turns the corner, the Archdemon sighs, leaning against her like he can draw strength from her. “That would be a disaster if she brought him in,” he whispers, and Miri’s not sure if it’s for her or not.

“No shit,” Miri says, and he’s warm against the coolness of the hallway. She digs in her purse for her phone, her hand scraping by the gun. “This would be...”

“An utter disaster,” he says again, and he’s tired, truly tired, weary, and she can feel it seeping out of him.

MIRI (3:39 AM): I think it’s done, I’m still safe.

He presses a kiss against her head, leaning his face against her hair, now that they’re alone. “When I invited you, it was for show, not to deal with that,” he murmurs, into the top of her head. He scrunches his nose against her, in such a natural little comfort move.

“You have to do something,” she says, and her words ring hollow, ring untrue. “I don’t know what you have planned, or why, but this can’t happen.”

He hesitates, still leaning against her hair, and the door opens again and Beatriz strides out.

She freezes, when she sees the two of them standing there, only decades of poise stopping her from reacting further, but her eyes skate over them, seeing the kiss, his hand against her back, her leaning against him.

“Oh,” she says, ice returning. “And here I thought this was some sort of ruse, Thomas.”

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