Page 42 of The Succubi's Choice

“Drained?” The other succubi shrugs. “He claims he’s not. Eats about twice as much as a normal human, sleeps a lot, but he says he enjoys it. He’s happy.”

Miri looks anywhere but him. “That’s not healthy for him.”

“He chose it.”

“The neighbors called in domestic abuse,” she says, even though she’s totally supposed to be more subtle than that.

“What neighbors?” He gestures out the window, where no other houses are within easy earshot. “I think that the Organization makes up reasons to investigate.”

She stands, and she immediately misses the feeling of the chairs. “I mean, that’s entirely possible, but I need to get back to Katya, and you should not have charmed her and —"

“She’ll be fine,” he says, and for the first time his voice echoes some sort of annoyance, instead of this smooth suaveness. “You’re weak, you were half-starved, you need to take care of yourself—there’s not many succubi left.”

She hesitates, because she doesn’t let herself look up statistics on that sort of thing. “I know the demigods —"

“And the Organization didn’t help.” He stands, mimicking her motions. “Stay here a few days, we’ll invite some humans, you can get back your strength.”

Before she can be tempted by the comfort and the sincerity, she shakes her head and strides out the way she came.

* * *

Katya’s sitting peacefullyin the passenger’s seat, and she only startles when Miri slams the driver’s door. “Jesus,” she blurts out, blinking wildly at Miri. “Where’d you...”

She trails off, her eyes widening, staring down at her lap and at her briefcase, then over at Miri as Miri pulls down the dirt driveway.

“Congrats, a succubi charmed you into going back to the car,” Miri says, her voice bitter, but she doesn’t want to look at Katya. “I tried to break it, but...”

“Did anything happen to me?” Katya asks, her words clipped and precise. “If he charmed me, did anything happen?”

“He didn’t even touch you, you just turned around and walked—”

“But did they do anything to me?” Katya’s voice tilts upwards, the closest she’s ever been to hysterical in front of Miri.

“No, you just went to the car.”

“I don’t remember walking, did they —" Katya takes a big, gulping breath, and then another. “Pull over, pull over now.”

With a jerk, Miri turns the wheel and pulls onto the gravel shoulder, and before she’s even put the car into park Katya flings open the door and stumbles out.

Miri watches, frozen, as Katya sits down on the curb, bending down and putting her head between her knees, panting. Her shoulders shake, and while Miri doesn’t hear crying, there’s a harsh noise.

Slowly, Miri unclips her seatbelt and opens her own door. “Katya?” She says, soft, like she would speak in a library rather than on a semi-rural road with cars zipping past. “Katya, you okay?”

There’s no answer, so Miri slowly steps out of her car and joins Katya sitting on the curb. Not touching her, just sitting close.

The sunshine feels good against her skin, as bright as it is, so she just sits, inspecting her fingernails and the cars passing by, for what feels like a too long of a time.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Miri says, after a long moment. “I’m sorry...”

“Oh, don’t apologize, it wasn’t you who did it,” Katya spits out, and she has two ugly blotches of red on the top of her cheeks. “I’m not that stupid.”

Miri weighs that. “Well I mean I tried to charm you to break his charm, it just didn’t work.”

Katya blinks, owlish. “I didn’t know that was a possibility.”

“It’s probably not, I’ve just not met enough succubi to try it before.”

Katya lays her head on her knees, and the gravel of the curb is getting her suit all sorts of dusty. She blinks several times, as if trying to categorize her breathing patterns into something she’s familiar with, to file away and fit into her normal experiences and expressions of panic. Like it’s Tupperware she could easily pack away and store to digest later, but by the looks of it, she’s not terribly successful.

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