Page 30 of The Prospect's Succubus
Her breath was the scent of absolute judgment. My hands balled in my lap, nails cutting into my own flesh to remind me I still owned it. For now.
Lilith straightened and set her glass on my mother-of-pearl table, the sound ringing louder than any alarm. She gestured, and a slim file folder appeared in her hand, its edges blackened as if it had been toasted in a crematorium.
“Would you care to explain this?” she asked, flicking it open. Inside was a series of blurry, desperate images. The first showedTorch and me, mid-brawl, bodies locked. The second was his gun at my temple, my smile not nearly as fake as it should have been. The third showed blood. My blood, his blood, mingled on the floor of the fortune-teller’s tent.
Lilith let me sweat for exactly six heartbeats. “You made a pact,” she said, soft as a lullaby. “You let him mark you. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
My mouth went dry. “It’s a means to an end. He trusts me now.”
Lilith laughed. It was the worst sound in the world. “He doesn’t trust you. He wants to own you.” She plucked a photo from the folder, held it up. “And you want to be owned.”
I looked away. I could feel my face shifting, the glamour fighting to hold, but Lilith saw right through it.
She set the folder down and circled behind the couch, each step carving a crescent of black into the white marble floor. “You’re my best. You’re the only one who’s ever come close to impressing me. And now you’re embarrassing me. In front of the entire fucking Pit.”
I wanted to snap back, to tell her about the observer she’d sent, the one Torch and I had put down in the church. But her anger was the kind that demands you be smaller, quieter, less.
“You’re letting yourself feel,” she said, and for the first time, I heard the disgust in her tone. “How human of you.”
I licked my lips, tasted ash. “I’ll fix it.”
She appeared in front of me, not bothering with the normal rules of physics. One second, she was behind, the next, she had both hands on my jaw, forcing my gaze up to hers. Her nails dug in, twin pairs of red crescents slicing my skin.
“You better. Because if you don’t—” she smiled, all shark, no sugar “—I’ll show you what a real consequence looks like.”
The room darkened. The air went oven-hot. Every instinct told me to run, but her grip was iron, and her eyes bored straight through to whatever soul I had left.
Lilith’s lips grazed my ear. “You have one day. Bring me his heart, or I’ll drag you through every circle myself. Inch by inch, nerve by nerve, until you forget what mercy ever tasted like.”
And then she let go, just like that.
I hit the floor, hard. I heard the snap of a heel as she crossed to the window, looked out over the city with all the boredom of a queen inspecting her slaves. She didn’t look back.
“You’re dismissed,” she said.
I staggered to my feet, throat raw.
“Jasmine,” Lilith called, just as I reached the door.
I turned. She held up the obsidian talisman I’d given Torch, the one I’d imbued with a shard of my own essence. She rolled it in her fingers, the light catching on the runes. “Cute,” she said. “But next time, pick a side.”
She flicked it at me. I caught it on reflex, burning my palm. I bit back a scream.
Lilith smiled, satisfied, and vanished in a blossom of fire that left the windows rattling and my furniture singed.
I stood alone in the ruin of my own home, clutching the stone, wondering when the last time was that I’d genuinely been afraid. I let the feeling linger, memorized every detail, then stuffed it deep where it would never see daylight again.
One day. That’s all she gave me.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out but a thin, hoarse gasp that made my ribs shudder and my vision blur. The edges of my world shrank until the only thing that existed was the pain and the burning stink of my own skin, twisting around itself in loops of white and blue.
I wanted to shift forms, to let the demon out, but the sigil held me, clamped down like a trap. I was stuck in this shape—woman,victim, plaything—until the Queen decided otherwise. For the first time in centuries, I wondered if I might actually die.
I staggered to the bathroom, barely managing to keep my feet. The path was lined with broken glass, bits of ornamentation from Lilith’s earlier tantrum. I didn’t bother dodging them; the pain in my shoulder dwarfed everything else.
I flipped the faucet, ran cold water over my hand, then cupped it to the burn. It hissed, a dragon’s breath, steam curling up and curling my hair into tighter tangles. The pain doubled for a second, then subsided, leaving behind a numbness that felt like mercy. I splashed again, and again, until the mark dulled from white to angry red.
That’s when I felt it, a second pulse, not from the wound, but from the obsidian stone at my throat. The talisman. Torch’s. It burned against my skin, the same fire as the sigil, but deeper, more familiar. I realized it was resonating with his pain, my pain, circling each other through whatever bond we’d made in the church.
