Chapter 1: The Succubus's Plea in the Ruined Cathedral
The air in the cathedral tasted of old rain and cracked stone. Dust motes danced in the slivers of weak light cutting through the shattered rose window overhead. Damien’s boots crunched on a mosaic of broken glass and rubble, the sound absurdly loud in the cavernous silence. He was just cutting through, a shortcut from one ruin to another, trying to outpace his own memories. He never expected to find a worse one being made.
Then he saw them.
A woman hung in the air, suspended like a forgotten puppet. Her form was twisted, pale limbs straining against nothing. Strange, membranous wings twitched spasmodically from her back, trapped in an invisible vise. Her eyes, wide and burning with a violet light, locked onto his.
“You.” The word was a breathless, trembling thing, ripped from her. “Please.”
From the shadows near the crumbled altar, a second figure emerged. A girl, really. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Her face was a blank page, devoid of anything he could read—no anger, no triumph, no hate. One of her hands was raised, fingers curled slightly, as if she were holding the very air. And she was. The trapped woman gasped as the pressure visibly increased.
Damien’s grip tightened on the broken length of steel pipe he’d picked up outside. A useless weapon against… whatever this was.
“Don’t just stand there!” the floating woman cried, her voice strangled. “Help me! She’s going to feed me to Dhylek!”
The girl—Anita—didn’t even glance his way. Her focus was absolute.
Morrigan writhed, a sob cracking her voice. “You don’t understand. Dhylek doesn’t just kill. It feasts. On your essence, your soul, whatever you want to call the thing that makes you you.” Her words tumbled out, frantic and sharp. “It leaves you hollow. A shell, aware and screaming, forever. A forever of nothing. Please, don’t let her do this!”
Damien’s military mind, the part he couldn’t shut off, assessed the scene. Two hostiles. One an apparent victim, the other an imminent threat. But the victim had wings and glowy eyes. The threat looked like she should be worrying about college finals. Nothing added up.
“Hey,” he said, his voice rough. He took a step forward, the pipe held ready at his side. “Kid. Let her down.”
Anita’s head turned a fraction. Her eyes, a flat and lifeless brown, passed over him and then returned to Morrigan, as if he were a minor static buzz on a radio channel. The dismissal was total.
“I’m not kidding,” Damien said, his tone hardening. He moved closer, into a pool of murky light. “Whatever this is, it’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Morrigan gasped, her body contorting in mid-air. “It hasn’t even started. Not for me. She’s going to feed me to that gruesome weapon like a mouse to a python! And I'm helpless! Please, I'm begging you, stop her!”
Choice time.
He could walk away. This was so far above his paygrade it was in another stratosphere. Two monsters fighting. Let them.
But the raw, animal terror in the winged woman’s eyes was real. The description of being eaten from the inside out, of an eternal, conscious void… that was a horror his soldier’s mind could comprehend. It was a fate worse than any battlefield death.
Anita completed her symbol. The air in front of her shimmered, like heat haze over asphalt, and began to tear.
Morrigan let out a sharp, choked cry—a sound of pure, undiluted despair.
Damien didn’t think. He moved. He closed the distance in three long strides, the pipe feeling pathetically light in his hands. He wasn’t aiming to kill the girl. Just to break her concentration. He swung the steel pipe in a tight, controlled arc aimed at the side of her knee.
It never connected.
Anita’s blank gaze flicked to him. The pipe stopped an inch from her leg, wrenched to a halt by the same invisible force holding Morrigan. Damien grunted, his muscles straining against it, but it was like trying to move a mountain. The force twisted, the steel groaning in his grip.
With a final, sharp crack, the pipe tore from his hands and clattered across the stone floor.
He was defenseless.
Anita looked at him properly for the first time. There was no malice in her expression. Just… purpose. An implacable, terrifying purpose. Her fingers twitched.
An invisible sledgehammer hit Damien in the chest. He flew backward, the air driven from his lungs, and slammed into a stone pillar. The world went white for a second, then faded back into a haze of pain. He slumped to the ground, ribs screaming in protest.
Through blurred vision, he saw the tear in the air widen. It was a void, a pocket of absolute blackness that sucked the light and sound from the room. And from within it, something shifted.
Morrigan was sobbing now, quiet, hopeless sounds. “No, no, no…”
Damien pushed himself up onto his elbows, fighting the dizziness and the pain. He was outmatched. He was probably going to die. But he wasn’t going to lie there and watch it happen.
As the thing in the void began to coalesce, pulling itself into their world, Damien’s hand closed around a hefty chunk of fallen masonry. It wasn’t much. But it was something.
He met the demon woman’s terrified eyes across the ruined nave. He gave her a single, sharp nod.
Then he threw the rock, not at Anita, but straight into the center of the shimmering, black tear.
The rock vanished into the absolute blackness without a sound. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The tear continued to shimmer, the thing within it continued to pull its form into their world.
Then the void shrieked.
It wasn’t a sound of pain, but of violation—a high, grating frequency that felt like needles being driven into Damien’s eardrums. The shimmering edges of the tear flared violently, flashing between blinding white and deepest black. The form coalescing inside writhed, its outline distorting like a corrupted video file.
Anita flinched. It was the first crack in her impenetrable calm. A faint line of concentration appeared between her brows. Her outstretched hand trembled slightly.
The telekinetic grip on Morrigan faltered.
It was only for a second, a fraction of a second, but it was enough. The succubus dropped two feet before catching herself, her powerful wings beating the dusty air with a sound like cracking leather. She wasn’t free, but the hold was weakened.
“You idiot!” Morrigan screamed, but there was a wild, frantic glee in her eyes. She strained against the invisible bonds, her muscles cording. “You actually bothered it!”
The thing in the void—Dhylek—turned its attention. Damien felt it. It was a shift in pressure, a sudden, freezing focus that landed squarely on Anita. The entity wasn’t fully formed, but its anger was a physical wave that washed over the cathedral. The stone beneath Damien’s hands went cold.
Anita’s blank expression finally broke. Annoyance. Pure, simple annoyance, as if someone had interrupted her while she was reading. She redirected her power, shoving a fist toward the tearing rift. The air compacted, trying to force the void closed.
But Dhylek was already partway through. It resisted, a battle of wills playing out in silent, reality-warping waves. Stone pillars groaned. The few remaining stained glass fragments in the high windows exploded inward.
Morrigan saw her chance. With a grunt of effort, she tore one arm completely free from Anita’s grip. She didn’t attack the girl. Instead, she clawed at the air around her own body, ripping and shredding the telekinetic bonds like they were physical ropes.
“This is my exit!” she yelled, her voice a mix of strain and triumph. One wing snapped open, then the other. “I’d say it’s been fun, but frankly, you’re a terrible host.”
Anita, now divided between containing the enraged Dhylek and holding her captive, could only glare.
Morrigan took a lurching step forward, then another, fighting for every inch of freedom. Her eyes found Damien’s again. “You! Don’t just lie there gawking!”
Damien pushed himself to his feet, his ribs protesting. “What do you want me to do?”
“The door would be a fantastic start! Get me out of here!” she snapped, gesturing with her head toward the cathedral’s shattered main entrance. “Unless you’d like to see me become an all-you-can-eat buffet for that thing?”
The tear in the air was widening again, Anita’s control slipping. A tendril of pure shadow, cold and mind-numbing, lashed out from the void and wrapped around Anita’s ankle. She gasped, a real, human sound of shock and pain, and stumbled.
Her focus shattered completely.
Morrigan burst forward, finally free, landing in a crouch that was both graceful and desperate. She didn’t pause. In two swift strides, she was next to Damien, her fingers clutching at his forearm. Her grip was like iron.
“Time to go,” she said, and yanked.
He didn’t have a choice. He stumbled after her, half-dragged, as she sprinted for the broken doorway. He risked one look back.
Anita was on one knee, blasting the shadowy tendril away from her leg with a pulse of invisible force. But the main mass of Dhylek was still coming through, a swirling vortex of hunger and cold that was beginning to bleed the color from the very stones around it. Her eyes met his across the nave. The annoyance was gone, replaced by something else. Something that looked an awful lot like promise. A you-and-I-are-not-finished promise.
Then they were through the door, bursting out into the cold, open air of night. The transition was jarring—from the oppressive, supernatural silence of the cathedral to the mundane sounds of a city: a distant siren, the hum of traffic.
Morrigan didn’t stop. She pulled him across the weed-choked parking lot, her wings folding and vanishing from sight as if they’d never been there.
“Whoa, hold on,” Damien gasped, trying to dig his heels in. “Stop!”
She whirled on him, her emerald eyes blazing in the dark. “We do not ‘hold on.’ She will regroup. That thing will be sent back, eventually. And then she will be very cross. With both of us. So we keep moving.”
“Who are you? What was that? What is she?” The questions tumbled out, his soldier’s mind demanding intel.
Morrigan leaned in close, her scent a strange mix of ozone and night-blooming flowers. “I am Morrigan. That was a very close call. And she,” she said, jerking a thumb back toward the cathedral, “is a problem you are now unfortunately stuck with. Now, do you have a car, or shall I just wrap my arms and legs around you and let you carry me to safety?”
Damien grinned in spite of himself. "Sounds like you are a damsel in distress right out of a fairy tale," he said.
"I am," the mint haired demoness replied, her voice softening. She stepped closer to him as though challenging him to resist a glance at her impossibly large breasts. "And believe me when I say that a succubus knows how to treat her knight in shining armour."
Damien’s grin felt brittle. The adrenaline was bleeding out of him, leaving a cold, sharp awareness in its place. He’d just intervened in a fight between two forces he didn’t understand, pissed off a girl who could fold steel with her mind, all to protect a self-proclaimed demon who looked like she’d stepped out of a fantasy painting and into his very bad night.
“Right. The treatment can wait. Car’s this way.” He turned, ignoring the throbbing in his ribs, and led her to a beat-up Jeep Wrangler parked under a burned-out streetlamp. It was old, paint faded, but the engine turned over with a reliable growl.
Morrigan slid into the passenger seat, her movements unnervingly fluid. She seemed to fill the small, cluttered space, her presence making the discarded coffee cups and old maps feel suddenly pathetic. She ran a finger over a dusty dashboard. “Charming. It has… character.”
“It has four wheels and it runs,” he said, pulling out of the lot and onto the deserted service road. He kept his eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see the cathedral crumbling into a black hole behind them. “Talk. Now. Who’s Anita? And why does she want to feed you to… that?”
Morrigan stared out the window at the passing industrial blight. “Anita is a question for another time. A very unpleasant one. As for why…” She sighed, a surprisingly human sound. “I'm a demoness, and she and Donovan believe it's their mission to eradicate my kind.”
"Hmmm," Damien mused. "According to legend, succubi suck the souls out of innocent men, so does she have a point?"
Morrigan gave him a slightly sad smile. "Thank you for phrasing that as a question," she replied. "No, we don't do anything to 'souls.' The notion that we damn the living comes from Christian doctrine asserting that sex is a sin. We entice mortal men to intimacy in order to drink from their life force. Unlike you humans, and most living things, we don't consume the flesh of the dead. Unless giving pleasure is evil, there's nothing evil about us."
The Jeep’s engine was the only sound for a long moment. Damien’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Life force. The words echoed in the silence of the cab, mixing with the lingering chill from the cathedral.
“So, what?” he finally said, his voice rough. “You’re telling me you’re some kind of… metaphysical vampire? You feed on people?”
“Such a crude term,” Morrigan murmured, shifting in her seat to face him. The movement was deliberate, a slow, unfolding grace that drew his eyes. The streetlights strobed across her face, highlighting the sharp curve of her cheekbone, the full, pouting shape of her lips. “I don’t take. I receive. It’s a transaction. A mutual exchange of energy. Pleasure for sustenance. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“And the guys? What do they get out of this ‘transaction’?”
“An experience they will remember for the rest of their lives,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. “Every nerve ending set on fire. Every fantasy, no matter how dark or secret, made real. They give me a little energy, and I give them ecstasy. It’s a fair trade.”
He pulled the rented Jeep off the road and nestled into a copse of trees.
He turned, and she was right there. She had moved without a sound. her voluptuous form was close, straddling the centre console. The scent of her filled his nostrils, heavy with desire and almost overwhelmingly feminine.
“You’re injured,” she said, her gaze drifting to the dark stain spreading on his shirt where he’d hit the pillar.
“I’m fine.”
“Let me.” It wasn’t a question. Her hand came up, fingers hovering just over the fabric covering his ribs. He could feel a strange warmth radiating from her skin. “I owe you my life. And we succubi are very particular about our debts.”
Her eyes locked with his. The violet light in them seemed to swirl, pulling him in. The rational part of his brain, the soldier, screamed a warning. This was a predator. But another part, a deeper, more primal part, was tired of fighting things he didn’t understand. Tired of being the one who always had to be in control. The raw terror he’d seen in her eyes in the cathedral warred with the undeniable, magnetic power she exuded now. Which was the real her?
Her fingers finally made contact, not on his injury, but on the side of his neck. Her touch was electric. A jolt shot straight down his spine.
“Let me thank you,” she whispered, her lips so close he could feel her breath, warm and sweet. “Let me show you what a succubus's gratitude feels like.”
Every instinct told him to push her away. But his body was already betraying him, a low heat gathering in his gut. He was hard, aching. The adrenaline of the fight was transmuting, curdling into pure, raw want.
He didn’t speak. He just gave a single, sharp nod.
A slow, devastating smile spread across her face. It was not a gentle smile. It was a promise of ruinous pleasure.
She closed the final inch between them, her body pressing against his as she crawled into his lap. She was surprisingly solid, real. Her mouth found his, and her mouth was like warm velvet. Her tongue plunged deep, tasting him, claiming him. It was flavoured with something wild and ancient. His hands came up, tangling in her hair, pulling her closer. The rational world dissolved into sensation.
She pulled down her leather corset, revealing her flawless pale skin. Her breasts were full, tipped with nipples the color of dark wine. He reached for her, but she caught his wrists, pinning them to the headliner above his head with a strength that was impossible.
“This is my show, my knight,” she purred, leaning down to drag her tongue over one of his nipples. He bucked beneath her, a groan tearing from his throat. “You just have to feel.”
She released his wrists, but the command in her voice held him more effectively than any physical restraint. Her hands roamed his body, tracing the lines of his abdomen, the old scars from a life he’d left behind. Every touch was like a brand, setting his nerves alight.
Then her hand was on the buckle of his belt, the rasp of leather loud in the quiet cab of the Jeep. She freed him, her cool fingers wrapping around his hard, throbbing length. He hissed through his teeth. Her touch was expert, knowing exactly how much pressure to apply, how to twist her wrist to make his vision blur.
“So eager,” she murmured, her breath hot against his ear. “So much pent-up energy. Let it go.”
She positioned herself over him, the heat of her core hovering just above the tip of his cock. She lowered herself slowly, impossibly slowly, and he felt her envelop him. She was tight, searing hot, and wet. Her inner muscles clenched around him in a slow, rhythmic pulse, milking him even before he began to move.
“Fuck,” he gasped, his hands flying to her hips, digging into the soft flesh.
“Yes,” she breathed, her head falling back. “That’s the idea.”
She began to move, a slow, rolling grind of her hips that was pure torture. Her eyes were closed, a faint, silvery glow emanating from her skin. He could feel it then, a subtle drawing sensation, a pull deep within his core. It wasn't painful. It was the exact opposite. Every draw from her sent a corresponding wave of pleasure crashing through him, so intense it bordered on agony.
“What are you doing to me?” he grunted, his hips thrusting up to meet her, desperate for more, for deeper.
“Feeding,” she moaned, her rhythm becoming more frantic, more demanding. “And you’re feasting. Can’t you feel it?”
He could. It was like a circuit had been completed. The energy flowed out of him and into her, and the feedback was a dizzying, overwhelming ecstasy. He was losing himself, his thoughts scattering into primal need.
“Is this what you want?” he growled, driving into her, again and again, the vehicle rocking on its springs. “You want me to fucking lose it?”
“Yes!” she cried out, her legs locking around his waist, her nails raking down his back. “Give it to me! All of it!”
He was a machine, a animal, every thrust a release of the night’s terror and confusion. He was fucking the cathedral, fucking Anita, fucking the void, fucking his own damn life. And she was taking it, her body arching to meet his, her cries becoming sharp, keening wails. The glow around her intensified, a faint, shimmering aura that pulsed with their movement.
He felt the climax building, a tsunami of feeling that erased everything. He was nothing but sensation, a vessel about to shatter.
“Morrigan…” It was a warning, a plea.
Her eyes snapped to his, the violet light blinding. “Now.”
The orgasm ripped through him. It wasn't a release; it was an annihilation. White light exploded behind his eyes as he poured into her, his body convulsing. At the same time, he felt a final, powerful pull from her core, a deep, draining siphon that left him utterly, completely hollowed out.
He collapsed in the seat, spent, gasping. The world slowly swam back into focus. The cool air on his sweat-slicked skin. The weight of her on his lap.
She turned her head, meeting his gaze. A slow, lazy smile touched her lips.
“See?” she said, her voice thick and sated. “Not so evil.”