Chapter 4: The Morning After
The motel door clicked shut, sealing out the city’s hum. Inside, the air was a stagnant soup of old smoke and chemical citrus from a plug-in air freshener that had long since lost its war. Peeling wallpaper curled toward the stained carpet. In the sickly, intermittent glow of a flickering neon sign outside the grimy window, Morrigan Aensland was a study in indulgent repose.
She lay stretched across the sagging bed, a vision of pale skin and deep green hair against the nubby brown bedspread. One knee was raised, her crimson eyes half-lidded as she watched Felicia enter.
“You’re back.” Morrigan’s voice was a low, melodic purr of its own, devoid of warmth. “I can smell him on you. Sweat, city grime… and spend. The sticky-sweet scent of a completed ritual. Tell me.”
Felicia’s tail twitched, an involuntary flick of agitation. Her own skin still felt electric, hypersensitive. The memory of Peter’s shuddering release, the way his body had gone limp beneath her, played on a loop in her nerves. She walked to the stained sink, splashed tepid water on her face. It didn’t help.
“It was straightforward,” Felicia said, her back to Morrigan. “He took the bait. The pheromones worked. He was… receptive.”
“Receptive.” Morrigan chuckled, a sound like crumbling velvet. “Such a clinical word for what I’m sensing. Your blood is still singing, little kitten. Your pussy is probably still dripping with him. Don’t be modest. We are what we are. Describe it.Did he fight? Did he beg?”
Felicia turned, leaning against the sink. The neon strobed, painting Morrigan’s curves in flashes of crimson and shadow. “He didn’t beg.He broke. The purr… it unraveled him. I rode him until he came inside me, harder than I think he’s ever come in his life. It was efficient.”
“Efficient.” Morrigan rolled the word on her tongue, savoring it like a fine wine before spitting it out. “Bullshit. I feel the conflict radiating off you.You liked it. More than you should.”
“I did my job,” Felicia snapped, her claws extending slightly, scraping the porcelain.
“Your job was to corrupt his loyalty, to sever the tether to his beloved wife. Not to enjoy the friction.” Morrigan sat up, sinuous as a serpent. “Did you feel it? The bond snapping? The precious wedding vows turning to ash in his soul?”
Felicia looked away, out the window at the blurred neon. She saw Peter’s masked face, the way his hands had held her hips not with conquest, but with a kind of desperate gratitude. She hadn’t felt any bond snap. She’d felt him let go, a man dropping a weight he’d carried for years. It felt less like corruption and more like… relief. A relief she’d provided.
“It’s started,” Felicia said, evading the question. “The binding is initiated. The energy transfer was… significant.”
Morrigan swung her legs off the bed, standing in one fluid motion. She crossed the small room, the scent of brimstone and midnight orchids displacing the motel stench. She stopped inches from Felicia, her crimson eyes boring into the cat-woman’s blue ones.
“Significant,” Morrigan mocked softly. She lifted a hand, running a sharp, black-nailed finger down Felicia’s cheek. “You’re getting attached to the prey. It’s a weakness. My kind has feasted on heroes for millennia. Their valor is a spice, their loyalty a rare vintage to be soured. You cannot afford to appreciate it.”
“I’m not!” Felicia’s protest was too quick, too sharp.
Morrigan’s smile was a razor cut. “Then prove it. Tell me the filthy details. The ones you’re hiding. How did his cock feel?Thick? Desperate? Did he make pretty noises when you swallowed him?”
Felicia’s breath hitched. The memory cascaded over her, unbidden. The heat of him inside her, the frantic slap of skin on fur, the guttural, broken sounds he’d made…
“He was thick,” she whispered, the words dragged from her.“And hard. Like steel wrapped in velvet. When I sank onto him, he swore. He called out to his god. And when I started the purr…” She swallowed, her own body throbbing in remembrance. “He lost his mind. His hips just… pistoned. He fucked up into me like a man trying to climb inside, to disappear. He kept saying ‘oh god, oh fuck’ over and over. When he came, he screamed. It was a raw, shattered sound. And I felt it, Morrigan. I felt every pulse, every hot jet filling me up. And I… I clenched around him, milking it, taking every drop. It was powerful.”
The room was silent save for the buzz of the neon. Morrigan’s eyes had darkened, a storm of desire and something darker swirling in their depths. Her own hunger, momentarily sated by the tale, was now a raw, open thing again. She thought of Scott Summers, of his controlled exterior, his unwavering discipline. She imagined breaking that control, hearing that same shattered sound from his lips.
“Good,” Morrigan breathed, her own voice husky. “That is the true feeding. Not just the physical, but the spiritual plunder. You stole his peace, if only for a moment. You made a hero forget his virtue.” She stepped back, her gaze drifting to the window, towards the distant, unseen X-Mansion. “But it’s only an appetizer. The binding requires the main course. His conscious, willing betrayal. He must choose you over her. He must want to forsake her.”
“I know the rules,” Felicia said, her defiance returning.
“Do you?” Morrigan turned, her expression unreadable. “Because your heart is a fragile thing, Felicia. You were an outcast among monsters for a reason. You crave connection, not corruption. That will get us both trapped here, forever. A succubus and a cat, fading ghosts in a world not our own.”
The truth of it landed between them, heavy and cold. Felicia looked at the floor. “I won’t fail.”
“See that you don’t. We have less than two days now.” Morrigan’s tone shifted, the vulnerability vanishing beneath a veneor of predatory intent. “My own prize awaits.The virtuous Cyclops. His loyalty is a fortress. I shall enjoy making rubble of it.”
Morrigan walked to the center of the room. She didn’t need a mirror. She closed her eyes, and her form began to shimmer. Her extravagant dress melted away, replaced by the sleek, black and crimson of an X-Men uniform, perfectly tailored, unsettlingly authentic. Her hair tightened into a severe, elegant bun. When she opened her eyes, they were hidden behind a perfect replica of Scott Summers’ ruby quartz visor.
“How do I look?” she asked, her voice now a pitch-perfect imitation of Jean Grey’s—softer, empathetic, laced with a subtle, psychic warmth.
Felicia felt a chill. “You look like her. You sound like her.”
“I am her,” Morrigan said, a wicked smile playing on lips now painted a subdued pink. “For tonight, in his dreams, I will be the loving, neglected wife. A fantasy yearning for his touch. And tomorrow… tomorrow, the fantasy will walk into his waking world.” She adjusted the visor. “The mind is the most potent erogenous zone, kitten.Remember that. Your Spider’s body is yours. But his mind, his conscience… that is where the true battle lies. And where you must be ruthless.”
With a final, unsettling smirk, Morrigan dissolved into a wisp of shadow and slipped under the motel room door, leaving Felicia alone with the buzz of the sign and the ghost of a hero’s release still cooling on her skin.
Felicia looked at her own hands. The claws were still out. She retracted them slowly.
“Ruthless,” she whispered to the empty, smelly room. The word echoed back to her, a hollow command. She thought of Peter’s exhausted sigh when he’d first caught her, the way he’d joked even as he saved her. She thought of the wife, Mary Jane, a face from a stray, glimpsed newspaper photo—vibrant, human.
Her tail lashed once, a whip-crack of frustration in the quiet. She had thirty-six hours left to destroy something beautiful, and the first taste of it had already left a bitterness on her tongue that not even his come could wash away.