Chapter 3: The Crimson Lotus Initiation
The morning came like a blade.
Candice woke before dawn with her body tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and her hand between her thighs. She pulled it away like she'd been burned, disgust curling in her stomach, but the damage was done—her fingers were slick, and the mark on her belly was already stirring, hungry and impatient.
She dressed in silence. Leather armor over linen wrappings. Boots laced tight. Her sword belt cinched at her waist. The familiar weight of steel against her hip was supposed to be comforting. It wasn't.
The mirror by her door caught her reflection, and she paused. Her face looked the same—gentle features, short black hair still damp from the wash basin, blue eyes that had always been described as kind. But there was something different underneath. A flush that hadn't been there before. A looseness in her posture that she couldn't quite hide.
You look like a woman who got finger-fucked last night, she thought.
She grabbed her cloak and left before the thought could finish.
The goblin camp was a festering wound in the forest, a sprawling mess of crude tents and cookfires and bone totems that stank of rot and blood. Candice had cleared it twice before, but the goblins kept coming back, breeding faster than she could kill them, their numbers swelling with each passing week.
Today, she didn't care about strategy. She didn't care about clearing the camp or protecting the village or being the hero everyone expected her to be.
Today, she just wanted to kill something.
The first goblin died before it even saw her. Her blade took it across the throat, and black blood sprayed across the underbrush as it crumpled. The second one screamed—a high, piercing sound that alerted the others—but she was already moving, already cutting, her sword singing through the morning air.
She fought without grace. Without the careful precision that had earned her the title of Succi's strongest adventurer. She fought like an animal, like something feral and desperate, and the goblins died in droves.
Level 30, her mind whispered as she cut down a hobgoblin that stood taller than her. The notification flashed in her peripheral vision, a familiar golden glow that usually brought satisfaction.
She felt nothing.
Level 31, the voice said after she'd killed a shaman and three of its guards.
Still nothing.
By midday, the camp was a slaughterhouse. Candice stood in the middle of it, chest heaving, her armor splattered with black ichor, and watched the last goblin twitch and die at her feet. Her arms ached. Her lungs burned. And the mark on her stomach was pulsing, not with hunger, but with something worse.
Pleasure.
The killing had fed it. Not as much as Morgana's fingers had, but enough to take the edge off. Enough to make her realize that the mark didn't care where the stimulation came from—violence, sex, it was all the same to the thing living inside her.
You're a monster now, she thought. You're becoming exactly what you swore to destroy.
She wiped her blade clean on a dead goblin's tunic and walked back to the village.
The afternoon was a blur of reports and patrols and the endless, suffocating normality of village life. Candice spoke to the elders, nodded at the farmers, checked the barrier's perimeter even though she knew it was failing. Everyone smiled at her. Everyone thanked her. Everyone told her what a hero she was.
She wanted to scream.
By sunset, the hunger was back.
It started as a warmth in her belly, spreading outward like honey through her veins. By the time the stars appeared, it was a fire, a need, a desperate, clawing thing that made her hands shake and her breath come in short, sharp gasps. She tried to eat dinner. The food turned to ash in her mouth. She tried to sleep. Her body refused to cooperate, every nerve ending screaming for touch, for release, for something she couldn't name.
The mark was glowing through her tunic. She could see it, a faint pulse of light that matched her heartbeat.
She had to go back.
The Crimson Lotus was busier tonight. She could hear the muffled sounds of pleasure through the walls—moans and gasps and the rhythmic creak of bedframes. Candice pulled her hood lower and slipped through the back entrance, her heart hammering so loud she was sure the whole brothel could hear it.
Morgana was waiting for her.
She was draped across the chaise lounge in a silk robe that barely covered anything, her purple hair loose around her shoulders, a glass of wine balanced on her stomach. When Candice entered, she didn't look surprised. She looked smug.
"Three days," Morgana said. "I said you'd come back in three days. It's been one."
"I couldn't wait."
"No shit." Morgana sat up, setting the wine aside. "You look terrible, by the way. When's the last time you slept?"
"I don't remember."
"Thought so." Morgana rose and crossed the room, her bare feet silent on the velvet carpet. "The hunger's getting worse, isn't it? You can feel it eating at you from the inside."
Candice nodded. Her throat was too tight for words.
"It's not going to stop. Not until you feed it properly." Morgana reached out and touched Candice's cheek, her fingers cool against the fever-heat of her skin. "You need more than what I gave you last night. You need to let go completely. Let the Lust Mana flow without holding back."
"I don't know how."
"I can show you." Morgana's hand dropped to Candice's stomach, pressing against the mark through the fabric of her tunic. Candice gasped, her knees buckling. "But there's something I want first."
"Anything."
Morgana smiled. It was a dangerous smile, sharp and hungry. "I want you to use your mana on me. On my mark."
Candice blinked. "What?"
"You heard me. My mark is artificial—imperfect. It has limits. But your new mana can make it stronger." Morgana's eyes glittered. "You're not a full succubus yet, but your mark is divine. The power inside you could change everything for me."
"I don't know how to use it."
"You don't have to know. Just focus on the mark and let it flow. Think about what you want. Think about power. Think about pleasure. Whatever works."
Candice hesitated. This was monster magic. Taboo magic. The kind of thing that had gotten Morgana condemned by the entire village.
But the hunger was clawing at her insides, and Morgana was the only person who could help.
"Fine," she said. "But you first. I can't think straight until I—"
"Until you come?"
Candice's face burned. "Yes."
Morgana laughed, low and warm. "Fair enough. But I'm not doing all the work this time. You're going to participate."
She led Candice to the bed—not the chaise this time, but the massive four-poster in the corner of the room, draped in crimson silk and black velvet. The sheets were cool against Candice's skin as she was pushed down onto them, and she shivered, the sensation sending sparks through her body.
"Take off your clothes," Morgana commanded.
Candice obeyed. Her armor came off piece by piece, then her tunic, then her undergarments. She lay naked on the bed, the mark on her belly glowing in the candlelight, and watched as Morgana shed her robe and climbed between her legs.
"You're going to use your mana on me," Morgana said, positioning herself above Candice's hips. "Right now. While I eat you out."
"I don't—"
"Just focus. Feel my mark with your magic. Push your power into it."
Morgana's mark was on her lower back, a dark, intricate pattern that pulsed with a sickly purple light. Candice reached out with her senses—not her hands, but her magic, the part of her that had always been able to feel the flow of energy in the world around her.
The mark felt wrong. Twisted. Like a broken bone that had healed crooked.
But beneath the wrongness, there was something else. Something hungry. Something that recognized Candice's power and wanted it.
"Now," Morgana whispered.
Candice pushed.
The effect was immediate. Morgana screamed—not in pain, but in pleasure, her body arching so hard her spine cracked. The purple light of her mark flared, turned gold, then white, and Candice felt the energy flowing out of her, hot and thick, pouring into Morgana's body like water into a cracked vessel.
"Oh fuck," Morgana gasped. "Oh fuck, Candice, keep going, don't stop, please don't stop—"
The mark absorbed everything Candice gave it. It drank her mana like a starving thing, and each gulp made Morgana shudder and moan. Her level was rising—Candice could feel it, the shift in her aura, the power growing—
"Level 24," Morgana panted. "You did it, you upgraded my mark, I can feel it, it's stronger, it's—"
She collapsed onto Candice's body, trembling, her breath hot against Candice's neck.
"That was..." Morgana swallowed hard. "That was incredible."
"I feel like I'm going to die."
"You won't. But I owe you." Morgana pushed herself up, her eyes wild and bright. "Now it's your turn."
She slid down Candice's body, her lips trailing kisses over her collarbone, her breasts, the poor straining nipples. Candice gasped when Morgana's mouth closed around one, sucking hard, her tongue flicking against the sensitive peak.
"Please," Candice heard herself say. "Please, I need—"
"I know what you need."
Morgana continued her descent, kissing down Candice's stomach, pausing to press her lips against the glowing mark. The contact made Candice's hips jerk, a strangled cry escaping her throat.
"Your taste," Morgana murmured. "It's different now. Sweeter. Richer. The Lust Mana is making you into something special."
"I don't want to be special. I want to be normal."
"Too late for that, love."
Morgana reached Candice's cunt and didn't waste any time. Her tongue slid between the folds, hot and wet and impossibly skilled, and Candice screamed. Her hands tangled in Morgana's hair, holding her in place, grinding her pussy against that wicked mouth.
"Yes," Candice gasped. "Right there, don't stop, please don't stop—"
Morgana didn't stop. She licked and sucked and probed, her tongue circling Candice's clit, then dipping lower to fuck into her cunt. The sounds were obscene—wet, sloppy, loud—and Candice loved every single one. She was moaning continuously now, a stream of filth pouring from her lips that she would never have said in the daylight.
"Fuck me with your tongue," she panted. "Fuck me, fuck me, I need it so bad—"
Morgana grunted in response, doubling her efforts. Two fingers slid inside Candice alongside her tongue, stretching her, filling her, while her thumb pressed hard against her clit.
"You're close," Morgana said against her sex. "I can feel it in the mana. You're right on the edge, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes, don't stop—"
"Come for me, Candice. Come on my face. Feed me your Lust Mana."
The orgasm hit like a tidal wave.
Candice's vision went white. Her body convulsed, her back arching off the bed, a scream tearing from her throat that was half pleasure and half something else—something primal, something hungry. The mark exploded with light, pouring Lust Mana into the air, into Morgana, into the very walls of the Crimson Lotus.
Morgana drank it all. She kept her mouth pressed to Candice's cunt, swallowing everything, her fingers still pumping, prolonging the orgasm until Candice couldn't take anymore and had to push her away.
"That's it," Morgana purred, licking her lips. "That's the good shit. You taste like a fucking goddess."
Candice couldn't respond. She was drowning, floating, burning. The hunger was gone, temporarily sated, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that made her eyelids heavy and her limbs useless.
Morgana crawled up the bed and curled against her side.
"We're going to have to do this again," she said matter-of-factly.
"I know."
"Tomorrow."
"I know."
"Good." Morgana pressed a kiss to Candice's shoulder. "Because you gained a level just now. I could feel it."
Candice's eyes snapped open. "What?"
"Check your status."
She did. And there it was, glowing in her mind like a brand.
Level 32.
Her breath caught.
"One night," she whispered. "One night with you, and I gained two levels."
"Imagine what you could do in a week." Morgana's voice was soft, tempting. "Imagine what you could become. Imagine what I could become."
Candice closed her eyes.
She was horrified. She was disgusted. But a part of her liked it.