The Book of Broken Creatures: (A Broken Creatures Novel, Book 1) Page 16

  “Oh, forgive me,” she chirped, and I do mean chirped, her voice a small, crystalline note cast out into the atmosphere. And then she removed her hat.

  I stared.

  And then I stared some more.

  And then my mind finally decided to process what it was I was seeing.

  Copper-tinted horns.

  Just like the twins’.

  This woman was a succubus.

  “I’m here because—well, you see, sir,” she stumbled. “the matter is my husband.”

  Ch. 11

  I commended myself for getting over the staring game much faster than I had when encountering Kyda’s tail and ears. But then again, maybe that was because seeing horns had become something of a norm with the twins around.

  Jera, ever more tactful than myself in the supernatural department, leaned forward. “Before we get to that, tell me, what is your name and how did you find us?”

  The other succubus fumbled a bit, fingers rotating the obnoxiously large hat around and around, her cheeks going rosy under the level of scrutiny Jera threw off. “Well, my name is Elise of the Addington Household, and I discovered you through a friend of my husband, who happens to be an archivist with all sorts of contacts.”

  Jera scrunched her nose. “Addington? That’s impressive. One of the most renown vampire households in Western Europe. I wasn’t aware they had blood in the states.”

  The rotating hat spun faster in her hands. “Why, yes, you are correct. But as I said, my husband, he is an archivist. He buries himself in his work, and as time would have it, his duties brought him here nearly a century ago. I thought you might be quite aware of such news by now, sister.”

  She fanned off the statement, leaning back against my shoulder. “You can say I myself am new to this world in general, however, tidbits of my fellow immortals have come into my grasp here and there. Just as well, allow me to be clear, I am not your sister. Whatever you seek today will come at a price and we give no guarantees of success. So state your business quickly now. Peter here is a very busy man.”

  Elise nodded to this. “Yes, yes. Pardon my familiarity.” Her eyes returned to mine. Did she see how clueless and ignorant I was? How I was basically a placeholder until I learned something that earned me the respect these people came to me with? “It’s my husband, sir. I fear it is only a matter of time before . . . before I lose him.”

  Inside, I sank into a black hole of despair. Another one of these. Another life that was on the line, another creature believing I knew how to wield a miraculous gift. I couldn’t go on doing this. Not when honest lives were on the line. Dampness met my shoulder as Jera gave it a firm—reassuring?— squeeze with her wet gloves. Just hear the woman out, the gesture said.

  I took a deep breath and did just that. “Please, go on.”

  Elise took a moment to wet her lips and restack her gloves with eerie precision, then she sat back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other with her back straightened in an impeccable pose. “It is because of who I am. What I am. He—”

  A knock came at the door.

  Without being prompted, the woman placed the hat on her head just as I called out, “Come in.”

  Minnie poked his head in. “Hey, boss, the dishes are kinda . . . piling.” On that last word, he shot Jera an accusative glare.

  Jera growled.

  Minnie raised his hands innocently. “Just saying. You leave your station, that’s sorta what happens.”

  “Yes, well, we’re clearly busy with more pressing business, human.Right, Peter?” Jera looked at me. “Peter?”

  “Well . . .”

  Her body temperature spiked against me.

  “It’s your job,” I whispered at her ear. “Not to mention it was your idea to have us help strangers.” I’d intended for it to be a private gesture, but when I felt her shiver at my breath against her ear, I retracted instantly.

  She sprung haughtily to her feet—I grabbed her wrist before she could jet off.

  “I’ll fill you in on everything, alright?”I promised.

  The reluctance to part remained nailed in her eyes, but she gave a forced nod anyway before disappearing, her shoulder clipping Minnie’s hard.

  My brows rose, a breath expelling from my lips as I looked back to the woman before me.

  The corners of her mouth were risen just the barest, almost undetectable with the natural curl of them. “I envy you.”

  I blinked. “Me?” I mean, who else was in the room. But still, I hardly had anything to envy except maybe a stable roof over my head and unlimited access to lattes.

  Elise nodded, removing her hat once more. She seemed to be more relaxed without Jera’s penetrative gaze stripping her of her very skin. “It’s been years since Vincent’s looked at me the way you look at her, years since I’ve looked at him the way she looks at you.”

  I was still lost.

  Did she mean our suckerpunch glares? Or the way I sometimes wasn’t sure whether Jera was plotting to strangle me or cook me? If so, was this woman a masochist?

  She caught my confusion and shook her head, then giggled, covering her mouth with her wrist, maintaining such etiquette I became painfully aware of how drastically I was slouched into the desk chair. “It’s how mates should be, though, is it not? When we’re near them, we should never wish to part, and we’re away, we should ever long to be near.”

  “Uh, I assure you it’s not like that.”

  “Her scent says otherwise. As does your own. Vinnie isn’t half as possessive of me as he once was. Not that I crave such a trait,” she was quick to add. “Nevertheless, his reservation burns.”

  I was quickly becoming more lost than before, starting to debate whether or not I should call Jera back in to translate. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong with Vincent?”

  She shook her head, the golden locks jouncing. “Oh, no, forgive me for misleading. My husband, he is indeed sick, but I am the cause of it. Because of what I am, I have become toxic to his health.”

  “Toxic how?”

  She looked at me curiously. “The way all succubi are. The way yours no doubt must be.”

  I thought of the twins. Ophelia wasn’t toxic. She was a sweet, patient godsend. Jera . . . while not toxic, she definitely did a number on my patience, but I was working on managing that. “I wouldn’t call them toxic, per se,” was all I said.

  Elise frowned at this. “When they feed, it does not drain you?”

  I imagined Jera shoving the end of the night’s pastries down her mouth and occasionally clearing out the shop’s packaged edibles. “Maybe they drain my pockets, but not . . . me.”

  Admiration sparked in her eyes. “You are strong, then. Sex with Vincent has begun to take its toll on him as my hunger grows.” Her cheeks were crimson now. “I’ve tried to contain it. I’ve tried to spare him, but as you know, such actions are a promised death for those like me.”

  I was still stuck on the word ‘sex’ and the realization that this woman was basically telling me she was killing her husband with sex. Which only made me realize that she hadn’t been talking about actual food at all.

  She’d been implying I had sex with the twins.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” I sat forward. “What you’re saying is, your kind actually feed on other men?”

  Her head tilted. “Why, of course. It is the base meaning of our name. Succubus.”

  I’d imagined the race to be liken to the goddess of sex, but after hearing all of the peculiar origins of immortals, I’d assumed the title was simply a brand to describe female demons with unnatural abilities and ethereal beauty to seduce men. In all the fray of the past four days, I’d never likened it to sex as sustenance, which I understood now was maybe my most idiot mistake thus far.

  I shifted, pieces fitting together in my head. “Succubi feed on other men—”

  “One male,” she corrected lightly. “He whom we give our virtue are the sole vessel in which we may lay with, as the slightest act of intimacy
forms a bond unbreakable.”

  “And if you aren’t . . . fed, then you die?”

  She nodded.

  “What happens if you decide to never lose your virtue?”

  “After a succubus reaches their prime age, a clock begins to tick over our heads. A countdown before we must find an appropriate candidate—or meet our ends.”

  The lightbulbs were clicking on in my head. Jera had spoken of the prices vampires, werewolves, elves and so on had paid to cross over to our world. This was the succubi’s. Bound to one male. Burdened with eternal hunger. And on the surface, what man wouldn’t want that?

  But from what Elise was telling me, the answer was Vincent.

  These were demons, after all. They may not suck the soul from a man, but they sucked the life from them instead. Their semen, to be exact. And if these demons rejected this cursed price, then death would greet them instead.

  Disregarding the bizarre nature of it, I thought back to how sickly Ophelia had appeared when stumbling into my shop. But it seemed, right after having been collared by the nuller, the sickness had gone away, her dark energy—the very thing that made her immortal and cursed—had been subdued.

  But what about Jera? What kept her sickness at bay? Did she even have the sickness yet? The only time she’d appeared ill was the first night she’d attempted to ward the men off. But it was nothing near as intense as Ophelia’s.

  “Does every succubus have the same amount of time before they have to find their . . . other?”

  Elise shook her head. “No one succubus reaches their prime at the same time, and therefore, no one knows the time before the price takes effect.”

  I nodded. I’d never stopped to think about it but . . . there was always the possibility the twins already had someone else out there. Someone they loved but couldn’t return home to until they were no longer in danger.

  The Maker, to be exact.

  My hands balled into fists. If they did have someone out there for them, if this Maker was as great as Jera spoke, then he should have been the one here protecting them. Postulating over how to get off of this lethal organization’s radar. Not me.

  But it was more than that.

  My back was flexing again as a charge of pain shot down my spine, accompanied by small flecks of rage. Over what? It shouldn’t have mattered if these women belonged to someone else. Our terms had been crystal. In a month, they would be gone and things would be quiet again. I couldn’t vouch for things going back to normal, but at least I knew strange people wouldn’t show up at my shop asking stranger things of me.

  But . . . I had gotten used to the women being around. The thought of there being someone else out there that would eventually shelter them and put up with their peculiarities put a foul taste in my mouth.

  “How long can you all go without feeding?” I forced myself to ask. Jera had asked to remain here for one month. If one month was the duration they could go without feeding, then I had my answer. There was someone else out there she had to return to.

  “Two months for the stronger of us, two weeks for those newly bonded.”

  The surge of relief was both inappropriate and remedying to my rising blood pressure. It may not have been a one hundred percent certainty, but it was something.

  Elise cleared her throat softly, brows furrowing. “Please, sir, tell me, can you fix me? Can you relieve me of my price before I destroy my husband?”

  I opened my mouth, but the words I said sounded a whole lot like the words I shouldn’t have said, “Of course, Elise. I’d be happy to.”

  *****

  The next day I found myself watching one of the twins with borderline stalker level intensity.

  I couldn’t say what it was I was waiting for—a cough, a sneeze, loss of appetite, spike of appetite, one of them to faint, vomit, die.

  None of which occurred.

  If anything, Jera snapped at me suddenly, “Stop staring at me, human! It’s interrupting my flawless work.” By flawless, she was referring to the measly two dishes she’d just finished scrubbing over the course of ten minutes.

  I tore my gaze from the top of her head and rinsed the plate she shoved my way. “I’m not staring.”

  “You are and it’s irritating. If anything, you should be thinking of ways to break the news to that irksomely refined succubus.”

  “What news?”

  “There is no “fixing” her. A succubus’ bond is unbreakable. Period. But maybe you can lure her into buying a “pill” or two before sending her off.”

  I frowned. “But you said I have the power to alter the world around me, their dark energy. Shouldn’t it suffice to say I can undo this bond—this price, if it’s dark energy that binds it?” I was peering at her closely now, but her face remained as it always was: annoyed.

  “Not this.”

  “Sounds to me like I’m not as all-powerful as you made me out to be.”

  “You’re not,” she quipped. “You’re weak and ignorant and naive. But the gift inside of you is everything but.” She shoved another plate my way. She was still upset about being left out of yesterday’s meeting. Even though I’d let her sleep an extra hour while Ophelia and I handled prep.

  I sighed. “You can be the bringer of bad news, since this was your bright idea to begin with.”

  “Fine.”

  “Alright.”

  We worked in tandem for nearly an hour, and I had to admit, we eventually found a rhythm that tripled our speed.

  It didn’t ebb the question I’d been harboring since yesterday. “Can I ask you something?”

  “No.”

  “When did the two of you . . . come here? To my world, I mean.”

  She went back to shoving the scrubbed dishes my way.

  “I was only wondering—”

  My words flatlined.

  Around me, the kitchen and its newly installed steel cabinets faded away. Black ink spilled into my peripheral and claimed the scene with a vicious spread. Until all I saw was black.

  Panic rose instantly. “I can’t see. I can’t—”

  I didn’t feel it at first, the soul shattering spear of agony. I didn’t feel anything. Not my hands which had to be wet from the dishes. Not the clothes on my skin. Not the beating of my own heart. Sensation simply fled, left me standing in a dark prison, numbly aware that Jera’s hands were flitting about my face, my eyes, checking my pupils, though I couldn’t feel them there. Simply knew.

  And then I felt everything.

  Sensation knocked into me with a thirst for vengeance and misery. I was aware I was screaming, aware of hands on me, guiding me somewhere, someplace cold. And then my screams were muffled as something was jammed into my mouth, sentencing me to the void. Imprisoning the only outlet I had to convey the pain claiming every strip of me.

  I struggled, kicking, twisting, tossing all my impetus into my upper body, but whatever was holding me down must have been made of heavy metal, locking my arms to my chest, pinning my legs to the hard surface beneath me.

  “Peter, you have to breathe.” Someone sent the words down into the void, and I convulsed.

  The temperature plummeted. My thoughts iced, my blood stilled, my heart sludged through the frost.

  Too cold.

  The pain slammed into me again, constricting, a pressure closing in on my head until I could feel it ripping away my mind. The consciousness.

  There was one name on my lips. One I repeated as I shivered violently, coaxing them to the dark with me because I knew this terror well. What happened when you closed your eyes at the peak of despair because the pain was too great, and the next time your pried them open, you witnessed the devastation loitering the scene.

  The needles, they sank deeper. I roared, flailed; iron bars held me down.

  “Peter, you have to control it.”

  The darkness sidled closer.

  Ice fell in chucks, filling the void until I felt a tremor, then a disconnect.

  Cold.

  I
was dying.

  “Do it, Lia! Do it or we lose him. It’s your choice.”

  Life, death. Those weren’t choices. They were inevitable fates.

  The temperature dropped further and I opened my veins to it, because that was where the chill belonged when things died. It helped the shaking, the quakes. Made it easier.

  “Lia . . . please.”

  “I’m trying!”

  “Well try harder!”

  “I-I can’t, Jera. You know why.” Frantic, sadness filled this voice. I wanted to cradle it down into the void with me, introduce the ice to its essence and show it how peaceful the chill could be.

  “Very well. I suppose I’ll just have to make you.”

  “Wait—wait—”

  Fire erupted inside of the void.

  Melting the ice.

  Stealing it from my veins.

  At the same time, every part of me came alive as a high, erratic volt of energy engulfed the fiery world around me. It speared inside of me, eroded every fiber it came in contact with along the way.

  Ophelia.

  Electricity filled my lungs with a sustainable force, liquidated my thoughts. Then reformed them. I was seeing it again, that meadow, that darkness. Hearing it again, the sweet, vaguely noxious cadence.

  “Ophelia~.” A man, spinning around and around, a woman like silken threads wrapped in his arms as they twirled to a silent tune. Over and over again, intoxicating the air with joy, concocting an elixir of potent glee. They moved as one; they moved to the sound of utter adoration. And all the while, magnificent gray wings swept the pasture in perfect tempo.

  And then it became too much.

  The voltage, it fired through me, seared everything in sight.

  It sparked the nerves of my mind until I felt my body and spirit ascend. Higher. Higher. Higher—

  I passed out before I could reach the top.

  Ch. 12

  Death and I have one ongoing confliction: I cheat on it. Repeatedly. But it flirts with me anyway. Sidles close to me, entices me, and just when I thought it was going to lean in for the big kiss and carry me off, I found myself waking up with life’s arms wrapped around me seductively, warm and familiar, its curls draped down my body, and there was something about it that beckoned my hands to reach into its allure, wrap my arms around its meek frame and hug it to me and never let it go.