Page 41 of The Succubi's Choice

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Miri says, and of course her voice quakes. “She’s going to put that in her report, and they’ll bring more officials and more people than just me.”

He shrugs. If he’s as fearless as to charm an Organization officer without caring for consequences, anything she says isn’t going to have an impact, and that sends another chill down Miri’s back.

It’s wrong, so much of it is wrong, and she looks away from the other succubi, her eyes casting for anything she can look at besides him. “Who all is here?” She asks, after a long moment of too quiet silence, where there are no sounds of cars or other inhabitants. “How are you this well fed?”

He smiles at her, and it’s heartbreaking. “It’s amazing how well you can be when you don’t obey rules.” He dips his voice down even lower, as if a seduction, and grips her by the elbow. “Do you wish to see?”

And she very much doesn’t wish to see, but she lets herself be drawn deeper into the house, all of her alarms going off inside her head.

But all her instincts are crying out that something is amiss and someone is in danger and...and she is the only one in any sort of position to solve that. Or correct that. Or make sure they’re okay or —

He leads her away from the entrance room and into a very homey den. The sort of room that she’d design, with unlimited money and an accommodating roommate.

The ceilings are high, with exposed beams, all painted light colors to reflect the sunlight streaming in. Instead of couches there are low cushions, as if made for lounging, and they look soft, much softer than her couch or bed or blankets. All in peaceful, neutral colors, and she can feel her eyes relax just by looking at it.

The sunlight warms it, to a temperature that any human would complain about but feels downright decadent against her skin.

She gapes at it, her heart still hammering, and the other succubi still watching, before he pulls her along into the hallway.

The Brownie from the picture, Thaler, pokes his head out of a door at her when they stride down the hallway, and he gives her a quizzical look.

Miri stops dead in her tracks, digging in her heels. “Katya from the Organization is here, she’s here to speak to you and —"

Quick as a flash, he closes the door, as if he had never been there.

“Thaler hasn’t been himself since his wife died in the aftermath of the demigod falling,” the succubi says, his voice smooth and low. “Their child is too scared to be around humans now, and Thaler is close behind.”

“Why would you tell me that,” Miri asks, because that is too pat of an answer. “You have no reason to tell me that.”

He gives her a side-eyed look, before pulling her along. “Can’t one wish to share knowledge with someone they just met?” He asks, and she can’t tell if his voice is mocking. “Especially when that someone is drastically underfed?”

“I was threatened and I had to be in hiding until last night,” Miri retorts. “I didn’t have access to strangers.”

“No humans at all?” He gives her another sidelong glance. “That’s cruelty.”

“It wasn’t great, but I...” she trails off, as they reach a library with comfortable chairs everywhere. “I lived, I don’t want to do it again, I’m not usually this bad.”

“You could have run,” he points out, as if that’s reasonable. “Are they stopping you from feeding tonight?”

It feels like a moral choice, a strange one out here in the desert and without any population density. “I feed twice a week, it’d be a bit much for me right now.”

The other succubi settles into one of the chairs, tenting his fingers. “Your Organization sounds like shit.”

She swallows, before sitting across from him in another chair that’s unreasonably comfortable. Like it’s giving her body a hug, simulating physical contact, and exactly the sort of chair she would love to own one day. “I take it you don’t keep in contact with a Handler?”

She doesn’t know how to even talk to one of her own kind, and the awkwardness crawls up her throat.

He shakes his head then, to someone or something behind her, and gestures.

A man, a human man, approaches. As Miri watches, dry-mouthed, he presses a kiss into the succubi’s hair in an obvious show of affection, before striding back out of the room without a word.

Miri watches him, and he shows no sign of being overwrought as he leaves, and his eyes show no sign of gold, before she turns and faces the male succubi.

“How?” She asks, her voice pitching embarrassingly up. “I mean, wouldn’t he be in bad shape and —"

“We work around things,” he says, smooth. “I make sure to keep an eye on his diet, he doesn’t mind when I drive into the city for anything extra, We cope.”

She sits, feeling small, in the chair. “Still, if you fuck him more than once a month, wouldn’t he be...I dunno...”

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