Page 119 of The Succubi's Choice

Without even nodding, he types, a few clean keystrokes. “For what it’s worth, it’s Lundy who stopped them.”

“Good.” Her heart twinges, ever so slightly, at the thought of Lundy. At how complicit he is in all of it, and how much he wanted to help her. “He’s gonna be so disappointed in me.”

“By all records, I doubt it.” He starts scribbling on post-it notes, runes with long lines, his fingers deft. “Can I write one on your skin?”

She flushes at the change of subject, even though she knows it’s not where he’s going with it. “Uh, sure?”

He looks up at her tone, and his cheeks blotch red as she shrugs out of her shirt. “I should have asked before you got dressed.” But still, he looks at her, for a long moment, before he clears his head with a shake and beckons her over.

He sketches a rune against her rib cage, and the felt tip tickles, a quiet whisper of contact.

“It’s been a while since someone drew on me,” she jokes, almost visibly derailing his thoughts.

“You’re gonna have to tell me about that some time,” he says, before shooting her a smile. “I’d like that. Some time.”

“Yeah, sure.” There’s a whisper of magic against her skin, and goosebumps raise, despite the warmth of the computer. “College was a fun time.”

He spreads his fingers across the small rune he just drew on her, and she can feel his hand thrum with energy, an energy that immediately fills her with warmth, soothing her stray thoughts, settling her nerves. Like a hug, somehow.

She cranes her neck, and sees he wrote the standard protection rune against her skin, and the sharpie seems to flex with something unreadable.

“It’s not much,” he mumbles, tracing it again with his fingers, like he’s playing with the touch of her skin. “Anything else would just set off alarms, derail you too easily.” And he frowns, still looking at her side, before up at her. “I don’t...I don’t want you to be hurt.”

It’s a bald, whispered statement, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows down the words.

“If I could write a hundred runes to stop you from being in danger, I would,” he says, like it’s a personal failing that he can’t. “If I could be in two places at once, or if I could actually teleport there, I would, but...” He takes a deep breath, then another, visibly getting himself under control. Like the thought of her going in there causes him to spiral into some sort of despair, before she can easily see him just...make another decision. Try on a new mood.

He rotates her, playful, before quickly starting to sketch on her other side. “This is so I can find you,” he murmurs, and she just wants to kiss him again. “When the servers are down, a bunch of other systems will be too. I can—hopefully—just come and get you, but the cameras won’t be up so Thomas can’t track you that way.”

“Is that how you always knew where I was?” She asks, squirming a little bit from the ticklish felt tip.

“Well, the Organization always knew, so I always knew,” he says, light. “The depth of tracking they have on nearly everyone is astounding.”

Somehow, he makes this flirty. Somehow, he makes talking about the inherent subjugation she’s had for her entire life to sound flirty.

“Well you can take that off, right?” She asks, afraid of sounding a bit too needy, but he nods, not taking his attention off of the rune. “Cause...”

“Most of it was gone when Lundy took off your phone, don’t worry,” he says, examining his writing for a few seconds, before brushing the pad of his thumb against it.

Another surge of magic courses through her, and she shivers at the touch, goosebumps raising. He smooths his hand over the mark, as if to warm her up, a warm press that does nothing for the magic and everything for her comfort.

“Seriously never knew succubi could sense that,” he says, as if she is the marvel. “All this time.”

She cranes her neck to look at it, her eyebrows raised.

“I still think we should get someone else in there with us, set it up, and keep you safe.”

“I don’t want to hide.”

There’s a pause, where she can see him honestly consider things, before he nods. “Then we won’t.”

* * *

After a brief visit from Thomas,who gives her a brotherly hug before doing a bunch of programming, the Archdemon reappears, giving her a brutal kiss, one that sends her toes tingling and sparks behind her eyelids.

“All you need to do is go in and unplug the machines,” he mumbles against her lips, as if Thomas hadn’t given her a much more in-depth description of what to do right before. “Or cause enough destruction and distraction.”

“But it’s easier if —"

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