Page 62 of The Succubi's Choice

The goon steps up, his face as generically handsome as they come, with a defined jaw and deep-set hazel eyes, and even in whatever state she is in, she can see the apprehension in his eyes.

Slowly, deliberately, he takes off his glove, one finger at a time, before settling his hand on the base of her neck, at the point where her skull meets her neck. His hand is heavy, warm, and her skin prickles, even without her wanting him to touch her.

“Now, Miri, charm him,” Vincente says, somehow far away. “Have him do anything you want.”

Her stomach drops, and the hand on her skin twitches slightly. Like he doesn’t want her to.

“I don’t think I should,” she says, her voice small, dry. “That’ll be bad.”

He stares at her, and whatever they gave her seems to warp around the room, distorting his face to something monstrous. “I can make you,” he says, still friendly. He pushes a few buttons, flips a lever, and…

Pain radiates out from her wrist, from the needle in her skin. Her arm goes cold, numb, like it’s been cut off from her, the ice crawling up her shoulder.

She gasps, choked off, and he flips the lever back down and, abruptly, it stops.

“Charm him,” he repeats, voice still light, like he’s not torturing her. “The sooner you do, the easier this will be, and we can get you to your friend.”

She blinks, then twists around, looking directly into the goon’s hazel eyes. “Get me out of here,” she says, and her voice is almost a whimper. “Please.”

His eyes flash gold, and he immediately goes to the cuffs, yanking on them, but…

“I have any keys, he can’t affect that,” Vincente says, voice laconic, but he reads the machine, his eyes intent. What he’s getting from them, she doesn’t know, but…

“Get me the key,” she says, pouring every ounce of charm into the connection with his hand on the back of her neck, ignoring her swimming head and the aching cold in her arm. “Do whatever you need to, just get me the key.”

The goon lurches forward, and is immediately pinned down by another one of the faceless men in suits, and she gets it. That’s why they needed so many people, to stop whatever she asks them to do.

Still, the machine beeps, and Vincente marks down the result in his little moleskin notebook. Like she’s some sort of science experiment.

“That won’t work,” he says, with a nod to the men behind her, and the same one steps forward and places his hand on her neck again. “Charm him with something else.”

She shakes her head, and the lever flips, and no matter how she tries to jerk back, icy pain crawls up her arm, seeping through her stomach and her middle section until she’s shaking. Shaking from it, shaking from the pain, from the cold, and...

“Why?” She spits out, and her voice breaks and tears prickle at the back of her eyes and she can’t control them.

“We’re just getting readings from you, you were going to hunt, go ahead.” He gestures at the goon, like he expects her to seduce him right there, while handcuffed to a table and in a room full of strangers. “We’re just trying to understand things, the more you charm him, the easier this will be.” After a second, after reading something on her face, he nods at her. “Tell him to jump up and down. Something easy.”

The tears prickling behind her eye start to fall, and she tries to jerk back, but the cuffs hold steady. Blackness filters behind her eyes, like they’re controlling her very consciousness, and...

* * *

Somehow,somewhere, she wakes up. There’s light, in the room, light peeking behind her eyelids and into the crevices of her mind and —

She’s warm, somehow, cocooned in blankets softer than the clouds, and the air moving over her face is like a gentle breeze, not cooling or drying, but instead…

Distant, someone’s screaming, and it’s pulling at her mind like she needs to pay attention to it, but the warmth and the comfort drags her down again.

* * *

This time,she’s catapulted into wakefulness like someone has doused her with water, and she jolts to an upright position, and everything hurts.

Across the tiny little room, clearly a little medical room, Gabriel stands, leaning against the wall with a scowl.

Next to her, Katya sits on the cot, like she did just earlier in the day, and there’s a pinched off look on her face.

“Here,” she snaps, and she slides another fluffy blanket over Miri’s shoulders.

The weight feels good, like she’s supposed to be sleeping still, but she clutches it to herself and drags her eyes open again.

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