Page 110 of The Succubi's Choice

She doesn’t have anything to do, so she looks down. “I...thanks.”

“People underestimate succubi. Underestimate you, I think.” His hands are clasped together, and his fingers are long, distracting her and drawing her eyes. “If someone thinks you are helpless, they’re very wrong.”

“Well the gun helps,” she says, and gets a smile in return. “But...”

He leans over and places a kiss against her lips, not demanding, not harsh, but...there. So close she can feel his heart beating.

There’s a crystalline moment, the sort of moment she will remember forever, then he presses another kiss to her lips, then another.

They stay that way, softly kissing under the street light, and he’s kissing her without expectations, without any strange pressure, and without any need for anything else, and it’s unlike anything else she’s ever experienced in her entire life.

At least until he stiffens, sudden, pulling away from her and leaving her lips tingling.

“Miri,” he whispers, soft, like there’s other people who can overhear him, “Miri, someone else just went into your apartment.”

She blinks at him, owlish, her mind still on the contact and the slow luxury of the touch. “What?”

“Someone, not your roommates,” he says, blinking rapidly, his eyes not focused on her. “Gabriel is there, but...”

A hand on her arm, one she doesn’t know when he placed there, tightens against her. “Should we go...?”

He stands, pulling her up, his actions still gentle and kind, despite his mind obviously being anywhere else but that little space of concrete sidewalk. “Stand behind me,” he whispers, fervent. “I can deflect a lot, but...”

He waits for her to nod, and as soon as she does, there’s the familiar pull behind her belly button, the pulling of air against her skin, and they’re inside her apartment, with him squaring off in front of her, shoulders broad and tense, and —

“Oh, hello,” Katya says, her voice crisp and alert, despite the fact that it must be close to 3 AM.

Miri pokes her head from behind him, and locks eyes just in time to see Katya’s shoulders unwind in relief. Gabriel is nowhere to be seen, probably asleep, probably resting for his next day.

In front of her, Not-Thomas’s shoulders remain tense.

“I’m okay, really,” Miri says, hoping for a joking tone.

Katya gives her a long look, then looks at the Archdemon, firmly business and firmly guarded. “I was worried,” she says, directly to him.

He doesn’t quite relax. “I see.”

“Something showed up, in our system,” Katya says, smooth, her eyes flickering to Miri for a split second, and Miri can see the worry carved into the fine lines of her face. “Some sort of bug, some sort of back door exploitation.”

Her Archdemon lifts his chin, ever so slightly.

“And I didn’t know if you got home safe.” This time she looks directly at Miri, and Miri has known her long enough to read between the lines. “And there...might be a reason to not come in to work tomorrow.”

Miri’s pulse quickens, at that from Katya, at the pseudo warning and the pseudo plea. “What is it?”

She gets the feeling that the Archdemon wants to shield her from Katya even more, but he’s stopping himself, and she appreciates that.

Katya looks down, at the oft familiar little table that’s in their apartment, where she has sat many times before and shared many coffees and light conversations. “Miri, I don’t know what’s going on,” she says, voice forced, “and I can’t say that they have your best wishes in mind, but they just put out an alert that you need to be brought in.”

All of a sudden, she sees her Archdemon unwind, his shoulders relax, and he steps aside, as if he’s fully allowing Katya to see Miri. “Who put it out?” He asks, and she can hear the careful neutrality in his voice. The careful metering of his voice, keeping everything professional and non-emotional, as if that would belay the emotions held beneath his surface.

Katya doesn’t answer him, instead looking to Miri for a long time, as if beseeching her to see what she means, and Miri’s at a loss for it. “You look nice tonight,” Katya says tentatively, like she desperately doesn’t want to discuss this with Not-Thomas around. “The dress is good.”

“He took me to Romania for it,” she says, matching her tone in the lightness. “Someone had it on reserve.”

“Who’s threatening her?” Not-Thomas interrupts, and it’s only with the time she’s spent and the moments they’ve had that she can read the desperation, read the close to terror he has in his voice, and she places a hand against his arm in what she hopes is a calming manner.

Katya’s brow raises, just a fraction, before she sweeps over and sits on the couch in a calculated motion. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what you’re up to.”

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