Page 48 of The Succubi's Choice

Katya swivels in her chair, and she’s not angry, but her thinking face is definitely on. “What can you tell me?”

Miri freezes, and Katya rolls her eyes.

“I’m not going to blow you in. Just. Let’s plan.”

“I don’t think I can,” Miri says, “I don’t think...”

Katya narrows her eyes at her. “Alright,” she says, neutral. “But this is coming from the Organization? Not just Lundy?”

“Right,” Miri says, relieved to be able to actually answer the question.

“And you’re carrying your work knife?” Katya hesitates, again with the narrowing of eyes. “If I give you my work gun, we can make up a thing about you cleaning it for me.”

“I got a gun,” Miri blurts, and is rewarded by a toothy smile. “I got one with the demigods, Gabe taught me how to shoot, it’s small.”

Again, the satisfied cat got the cream look. “Good.”

* * *

She leaves work early,and Katya doesn’t say anything more except for handing her a magazine of copper bullets, which she wraps thrice over in paper towels.

Still, the metal hangs heavy in Miri’s pocket for the drive home, where she waves to Jacqueline and Gabriel before going straight to her closet.

It’s old, but it’s a dark velvet green dress, high necked but with a draping low back. It comes down to her knees, and she has to wiggle her way into it. The shining fabric only serves to highlight how fucking pale she is at the moment.

Leaving her room and pulling out her curling iron in the bathroom, there’s a sudden silence from the couch.

“Uh, Miri?” Gabriel asks, his voice quiet and a little bit awed. “Where are you going?”

She pokes her head back out of the bathroom door. “Formal event downtown?”

Jacqueline recovers first, pushing up off the couch. “I didn’t even know you owned a nice dress,” she says, leaning against the wall of the hallway. “Is this a date?”

Miri attempts to run a brush through her hair. “I don’t think so?” Her mouth feels too dry, too stiff, so she leaves the brush to get a bottle of the appetite suppressant out of the fridge. “It’s work related.”

And that feels just close enough to the truth that it doesn’t hurt to say.

The curling iron beeps, so Miri attacks her hair with it, getting her frizzy wild hair into something resembling ringlets, and both Jacqueline and Gabriel watch her with something resembling fascination. Or horror.

“Uh, do you need someone to go with? Like your hunting?” Gabriel says, but from his tone of voice she can see that he really doesn’t want to. “Lundy didn’t say anything to me.”

“You are not coming,” Miri says, a bit harsher than she intended, and they both blink at her again. She returns to curling her hair, her hands shaking.

Pouring all her attention into her appearance isn’t something most succubi have to worry about. But a formal event, whatever the hell that means, means she doesn’t want to stick out in a bad way.

In the mirror behind her, she sees Gabriel and Jacqueline exchange glances.

“I’m fine, it’s just something confidential,” she says, releasing another curl, and her heart is pounding again in a way that’s probably legitimately unhealthy.

Again, another look, and she doesn’t know if Jacqueline is still angry at Gabriel or not, and so many things have happened since that conversation that her head swims just trying to keep track of it.

“Jacqui, can you give me and Miri a moment?” Gabriel asks, oddly formal.

Jacqueline gives him a quizzical look, before her eyes widen and she nods, twice, and backs up and out of Miri’s view.

After a second, muffled, she hears the door close.

Feeling like a child in detention, she turns back to resume curling her hair, and Gabriel gives her a disappointed look in the mirror.

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