Page 45 of The Succubi's Choice

“That’s so illegal,” she says, because answering that question is pretty unethical by itself. “Heck, I’m not even allowed to really charm someone outside of my standard hunting time, unless it’s for work.”

His face twists, as if he’s uncomfortable with that statement. “So you just...don’t?”

“Not really. I like consent, really, it’s something I’m fond of.”

As if on cue, her phone beeps, and they both share the weird grin of a moment interrupted.

KATYA BOSS (8:21 PM): Checking in to see if you’re safe.

MIRI (8:21 PM): Totally safe. Walking around now.

She gives Thomas a smile, flashing her phone. “Friend safety, you know.”

He shrugs again. “I mean, sure?”

That triggers enough of her work brain that she looks at him sideways. “Sure?” again, the uncomfortable shrug, that says way more than anything else. “Thomas, do you have friends?” She asks, facing him flat out, because if they’ve talked about cancer and possession, then she can ask this. “Do you have people you can call?”

Again, the shrug.

“That’s not an answer,” she pokes him in the side, and he shies away.

“I mean...” He trails off, with another uncomfortable shrug. “My parents are dead, my grandma is in a home and doesn’t recognize me, and I dropped out of my first college because of chemo. Not sure what to say.”

“That’s depressing,” she says, because it is.

Again, the shrug, and the carefree expression. “I’m alive,” he points out, like that makes up for the previous statement. “I’m alive, I’m working on my degree again, I get dropped into random orgies and have piles of money, it’s all cool.”

She can see a deflection when she’s given one. “Random orgies, huh?”

“Turns out the dead demigod organized a lot of them, for some reason, and they’re really weird.” Again, he smiles at her, relieved that she picked up on the deflection.

Miri takes that in, because taking over a dead demigod’s orgies is certainly an odd way of consolidating power.

“I mean, it can sometimes be confusing, but I just end up going with it. He tries to figure out nice things to do for me, I think he thinks the orgy is one of them, I dunno.” He shrugs, and she’s almost getting annoyed by the shrugs. “Like I said, with the roommate metaphor, he's not a bad one at all.”

She has to remember to tell Lundy that, cause it seems just on the strange edge of realistic that it pings all of her alarms. “Well he’s scared the shit out of me, and he’s gotten my bosses scared. And the demigod was...not a great person either.”

“Yeah no I got that.” He falls silent for a brief period of time. “I think him coming back was tied to that, I just don’t know how.”

And that’s yet another bit of information she’s gonna have to report, the growing list leaving a worse and worse taste in her mouth.

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