Chapter 1: The Succubus Claims Her Prey
The alley was a gash of shadow between two brick buildings, damp concrete sucking the warmth from the air. Chris adjusted the strap of his laptop bag, the weight of another meaningless day still bowing his shoulders. He’d taken the shortcut out of habit, the distant growl of city traffic fading behind him. His footsteps echoed, too loud.
Then the scent hit him.
It was jasmine and dark amber and something else, something metallic and alive. It wrapped around his throat, sweet and suffocating. He stopped walking.
“Long day?”
The voice was a low hum, vibrating in the space between his ribs. He turned.
She leaned against the brickwork, a silhouette cut from the gloom. The dim light from a security bulb three stories up caught the curve of a hip, the line of a bare thigh where her dress—black, impossibly short—slithered up her skin. Her hair was a spill of ink, her eyes two points of reflected urban glow.
“I, uh.” Chris’s tongue felt thick. “Yeah. Just heading home.”
“Home.” She rolled the word around her mouth like it was a foreign taste. She pushed off the wall, and the movement was liquid, a slow uncoiling that made his breath hitch. The click of her heels on the pavement was a deliberate clock tick. “That sounds so final. The day’s not dead yet.”
She was closer now. He could see the sharp cut of her cheekbones, the full, unsmiling curve of her lips. Her eyes held his, and the world outside the alley—the traffic, his cramped apartment, his unread emails—simply dissolved into static.
“I’m Dee.” She didn’t offer a hand. Her gaze traveled down his chest, over his cheap tie, and back up. It felt like a physical touch, a brand.
“Chris.”
“I know.” A ghost of a smile. “I saw you. Walking like you were carrying every problem in that bag.” She reached out, a single fingertip tracing the line of his jaw. His skin erupted in goosebumps, a bolt of raw want straight down his spine. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. Couldn’t.
“You don’t have to carry them,” she whispered. Her breath was warm against his ear, carrying that scent deeper into him, clouding his thoughts. “I could make you forget. I could make you feel nothing but good. For a little while.”
Logic screamed a distant, fading alarm. This was insane. Strangers in alleys. Danger. But his body was screaming louder, a primal drumbeat she seemed to conduct with every slow blink of her impossible eyes. His heart was a frantic animal against his ribs.
“Why?” The word scraped out of him.
“Because you look like you need it.” Her hand flattened against his chest, over his hammering heart. “And because I’m hungry.”
He didn’t process the last part. Her lips were near his throat, not kissing, just hovering. The heat from her skin was immense. A low, helpless sound escaped him.
“Tell me to stop,” she murmured, her lips brushing his earlobe. Her other hand slid around his waist, pulling him against her. Every curve was an electric shock. “Say no, Chris.”
He tried to form the word. It died in his throat, ash on his tongue. His own hands, trembling, found her hips. The silk of her dress was cool, but the flesh beneath was furnace-hot.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, and there was no triumph in it, just a simple statement of fact.
Then her mouth was on his, and the world exploded into sensation. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a claiming. Her taste was like the scent—intoxicating, drugging. A wave of dizzying pleasure, sharp and sweet, rolled through him, starting from the point of contact and radiating outward until his fingers and toes tingled with it. It was like mainlining pure adrenaline and euphoria. His knees buckled; she held him up, her strength startling.
He was drowning in her, in the feel of her hands sliding under his shirt, scraping nails lightly down his back, in the devastating rhythm of her hips grinding against his. Every rational thought was burned away, replaced by a single, all-consuming need for more, for the next touch, the next wave of that breathtaking feeling she poured into him.
It felt like hours. It might have been seconds.
She broke the kiss with a slow, deliberate pull. He swayed forward, chasing the loss, a whimper in his throat. The cold alley air rushed in, a brutal shock.
Dee took a step back, smoothing her dress. Her lips were slick and swollen, her eyes darker than ever. She looked… satisfied. Rested. He, by contrast, felt hollowed out, ravaged, gasping like he’d just sprinted a mile.
“Wait,” he choked out. His voice was ragged. “Please. Don’t go.”
She watched him, head tilted. He was shuddering, his whole body aching with a need so profound it was agony. The memory of the pleasure she’d given him was already a cruel taunt. He’d never felt anything that good. He knew, with terrifying certainty, he’d never feel it again without her.
“Please,” he begged, the word tearing from him. He reached for her, but she was just out of range. “More. I need… God, I need more. Just… stay.”
A smile, finally. It was small, sharp, and held no warmth at all.
“I know,” she said softly. Then she turned and walked away, her heels clicking a slow, fading rhythm on the wet concrete.
“Dee!” The cry ripped from him, raw and desperate.
She didn’t look back. She melted into the shadows at the mouth of the alley and was gone.
Chris slumped against the cold brick, his legs giving out. He slid to the damp ground, his bag a forgotten lump beside him. He was trembling violently, the phantom sensation of her touch still scorching his skin, the addictive echo of that pleasure throbbing in his veins. The emptiness inside him was a yawning chasm. He dropped his head into his hands, the taste of her still on his lips, a single, devastating word echoing in the new, vast silence of his mind.
More.