Chapter 2: Highway Temptations
The Jeep’s tires hummed a steady, hypnotic rhythm against the cracked asphalt. The cathedral was a dark bruise on the horizon behind them, swallowed by distance and the night. In the passenger seat, Morrigan was a study in relaxed predation. She hadn’t refastened her corset. The pale, full curves of her breasts were illuminated by the dashboard’s green glow, rising and falling with her breath.
Damien’s hands were locked at ten and two, his eyes scanning the empty highway, but his awareness was a narrow tunnel focused entirely on her. The ache in his ribs had faded to a dull throb, overshadowed by a deeper, more unsettling hollowness. It felt like part of him was missing, siphoned out through his spine. Yet, paradoxically, his body thrummed with a leftover, electric buzz.
He could still smell her on his skin.
“You’re very quiet, my knight,” she murmured, her voice a low vibration in the dark cab. “Regrets?”
“Calculations,” he replied, his voice rough. “She had you dead to rights. Why didn’t she just crush you? Why go through the whole… ritual?”
“Dhylek is a weapon, not a power. It requires a conduit, a specific energy signature to latch onto. My fear, my essence, being actively fed to it… that was the key. A simple telekinetic snap would have been messy, but insufficient for whatever they’re trying to accomplish.” She shifted, leather creaking. “They’re not just killing us. They’re harvesting.”
“For what?”
“That,” she said, “is the terrifying question.”
Her hand moved then, not towards him, but towards herself. Her fingers, long and elegant, trailed down the flat plane of her stomach, over the faint, shimmering pattern that seemed etched into her skin just below her navel. Her touch was idle, contemplative.
Damien’s gaze flicked from the road to her for a heartbeat. Two. Too long.
“Still thinking about my mouth?” she purred, catching his glance. A wicked smile touched her lips. “About the taste of you?”
He didn’t answer. His jaw tightened.
She took it as an invitation. With a slow, deliberate grace, she let her knees fall apart, planting her boots wide against the footwell. The movement was unabashed, obscene. The shadowed space between her thighs was a deliberate focal point.
“You saved me,” she said softly, her eyes locked on his profile. “I’m still… buzzing with it. Your energy. It’s different. Sharper. It has the taste of violence and regret. It’s delicious.”
Her right hand slipped lower, fingers sliding through the thatch of mint-green hair, disappearing between her folds. She let out a soft, shuddering sigh. Her head lolled back against the headrest, eyes closing. Her other hand came up to her breast, gently pinching the dark nipple, stroking it until it stood taut and pebbled.
“Fuck, Morrigan,” Damien breathed, the words ripped from him. His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel.
“Watch the road,” she instructed gently, but her own breathing was hitching. Her fingers were moving in a slow, slick circle, the wet sound barely audible over the engine. “Or don’t. Maybe we crash. What a way to go, hm? Wrapped around a telephone pole with my fingers buried in my pussy.” She pronounced it 'poo-sey' in a way he found irresistibly cute.
He swallowed hard, a fresh wave of heat flooding his groin. The animal part of him, the part that had responded to her in the Jeep, was wide awake and snarling. The rational part screamed that this was a trap, another kind of feeding.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” he gritted out.
“Of course I am.” She opened her eyes, and they were glowing faintly. “I’m a succubus. This is what I am. You rescued me like a fairytale princess when I was helpless and scared, and now I am uncontrollably horny.” She crooked her fingers inside herself, and a sharp gasp escaped her. “Gods, you felt so good in me. Even now. I can still feel you.”
Her hips began a slow, rhythmic rocking against her own hand. The scent of her arousal, musky and sweet, began to fill the Jeep, overpowering the smells of dust and old metal.
“Pull over,” she commanded, her voice losing its playful edge, becoming thick with need.
“No.”
“Pull the car over, Damien.” It wasn’t a request. It was the voice of a creature used to being obeyed.
He scanned the barren landscape. Sand dunes rose like sleeping beasts to the east, the highway a silver cut through nothing. There was nothing for miles. No lights, no help. Just them, the moon, and the thing unfurling in his passenger seat.
With a sharp curse, he wrenched the steering wheel, guiding the Jeep onto the rough gravel shoulder. The vehicle shuddered to a halt, dust clouds billowing around them. He threw it into park, the silence that followed sudden and immense.
Before he could turn, she was on him.
Her mouth was on his, fierce and hungry. She tasted like lightning and black honey. Her hand, slick from her own wetness, fumbled with his belt buckle, then his jeans button. She yanked them down just enough to free his cock, which was already hard, thick, and eager.
“No games this time,” she growled against his lips. “No debt. Just need. I need you to fuck the calm back into me. I need to feel something that isn’t the echo of that void.”
She rose up on her knees on the passenger seat, twisted her body, and straddled him again. This time there was no slow, teasing descent. She guided him to her entrance with one hand and sank down onto him in one brutal, unforgiving motion.
“Christ!” he shouted, his back arching. She was impossibly tight, impossibly hot, and so wet she felt like liquid fire. She sheathed him completely, taking every inch in a single, claiming stroke.
She didn’t wait for him to adjust. She set a punishing pace immediately, riding him with a frantic, desperate energy. Her breasts swayed with the force of her movements, her nails digging into the fabric of the seat behind his head. The Jeep rocked on its suspension, a rhythmic creak joining the chorus of their ragged breaths and the wet, slapping sound of their union.
“Is this what you wanted?” she panted, her face a mask of fierce concentration. “To see the monster fuck? To see how I really feed?”
He gripped her hips, his fingers bruising, trying to take back some control. He thrust up to meet her, driving deeper. “You’re not a monster.”
She let out a sharp, broken laugh. “Liar.” She leaned forward, her lips against his ear. “But thank you for saying so." She bit his earlobe, gently, but more than a lover's nibble. “Now fuck me like you mean it. Fuck me like I belong to you! Make me your woman, not just a damsel in distress you rescued.”
Her words unleashed something in him. He grabbed her, spun them with a grunt of effort, and slammed her back against the passenger door. The window shuddered. He drove into her, his thrusts becoming brutal, piston-like. This was not pleasure. This was exorcism.
She screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, her legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him deeper. “Yes! Like that! Give me your anger! Give me your fear!”
He could feel it again. The subtle, draining pull. This time he didn’t fight it. He leaned into it, pouring every ounce of his confusion, his fury at being dragged into this nightmare, his sheer animal shock, into his movements. Each slam of his hips was a wordless curse.
Her glow returned, a phosphorescent sheen on her sweat-slicked skin. Her eyes rolled back, her cries becoming incoherent. The drawing sensation intensified, a vortex centered where their bodies joined. The pleasure mounted, a terrifying crescendo that felt like falling from a great height.
“I’m… I’m going to…” he choked out.
“Do it!” she shrieked, her body clamping around him in violent, rhythmic spasms. “Fill me! Let me have it all!”
His release was a cataclysm. It tore through him with the force of a detonation, blinding him, emptying him. He spilled into her with a roar, his whole body shuddering. At the peak, the suction from her core was absolute, a final, devastating pull that left him feeling scoured clean, weightless, and utterly spent.
He collapsed forward, his forehead against the cool glass of the window, gasping. She beneath him was limp, her breaths coming in soft, satiated flutters. The glow on her skin faded slowly, like embers dying.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing settling. The vast desert silence pressed in from outside.
Morrigan’s hand came up, her fingers trailing softly through his damp hair. “See?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “No evil. Just biology.”
He pushed himself back, disentangling from her. He felt raw, used, and yet undeniably anchored. The phantom chill of Dhylek was gone from his bones. He pulled his jeans up, his movements mechanical.
“Biology,” he repeated, a hollow note in his voice.
“Biology,” he repeated, a hollow note in his voice.
Morrigan’s playful smirk faltered, her fingers stilling on her damp skin. She looked away, out into the moonlit dunes, her shoulders slumping slightly. "It's not just that," she whispered, the confidence bleeding from her tone. "I was so scared in there, Damien. Truly terrified."
She turned back, her violet eyes glistening with unshed tears. "That thing... Dhylek... I’ve seen what it leaves behind. Empty shells that still scream." A shudder ran through her. "And Anita... the way she held me, like I was nothing. It was humiliating. I’ve never felt so powerless."
He reached out, his calloused thumb wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "I'm glad I was there," he said, his voice low and steady. "Seeing you like that, so vulnerable... it did something to me. I wanted to protect you. I still do."
"Really?" Her voice was small, a stark contrast to the seductive creature from moments before. "You're not repulsed? By what I am? By what we just did?"
"The fact that you needed help... that you needed me... fuck, Morrigan, that was the most attractive part." The admission hung in the air, raw and honest.
A fresh tear traced a path through the dust on her face. "She made me feel like a bug under a glass. I hated it."
"I know," he said, pulling her closer. Her body melted against his, seeking comfort and confirmation. "You think I care about your power games? I saw someone in trouble."
Her breath hitched, and she pressed her face into the crook of his neck. "Don't let me go back to that. Please."
"Never," he vowed, his arms tightening around her.
Then her mouth found his again, but this kiss was different—softer, searching. She guided his hand back between her legs, her folds still slick and swollen. "Then show me," she breathed against his lips. "Make me forget her hands on me. I want to feel yours."
He didn't hesitate. He pushed two fingers deep inside her, curling them to find that spot that made her gasp and arch. "Right there," she moaned, her hips beginning to grind against his hand. "Fuck, just like that."
Her back bowed as he added a third finger, stretching her, the wet, squelching sound filling the cab. "I need you inside me again. Now."
He shifted, aligning his body with hers. The head of his cock nudged her entrance, and she let out a ragged cry as he pushed in, filling her completely in one relentless thrust. "Is this what you want?" he growled, his rhythm already fierce and demanding.
"Yes! Harder!" she screamed, her nails raking down his back. "Make me yours! Mark me with it!"
He drove into her, each pump a brutal affirmation. Her inner muscles clenched around him, milking him, drawing out that familiar, dizzying pull of energy. Pleasure and depletion twined together into one inseparable cord.
"Come for me," he commanded, his voice rough with strain.
The climax seized her, a violent, shaking release that tore through her body. Her pussy gripped him like a vise, triggering his own orgasm. He spilled into her with a guttural roar, the release so intense it bordered on pain. She collapsed beneath him, spent and trembling, the desert silence returning to cloak them once more.
She collapsed beneath him, spent and trembling, the desert silence returning to cloak them once more. The only sound was the soft tick of the Jeep’s engine cooling. Damien shifted his weight, the harsh reality of the cramped space and their mingled sweat suddenly oppressive. He needed air that didn’t taste of sex and fear.
“Come on,” he said, his voice gravelly. He opened his door, the dome light harsh on their disheveled forms.
Morrigan slid out after him, her movements slower now, more deliberate. The moon painted her skin in shades of bone and silver as she walked around the front of the vehicle. It wasn’t her usual hypnotic sway, but something more deliberate, a slow, hip-rolling presentation under the watchful sky. She stopped before him, her expression unreadable.
Without a word, he bent, sliding his hands under her ass and lifting her effortlessly. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he turned and sat her on the hood, the metal groaning softly under her weight. Her thighs fell open in a reflex as ancient as her kind, a silent, wet invitation. Her fingers went to the button of his trousers.
He caught her wrist, stopping her. “No.”
Her eyes flickered with confusion, then a flash of defensive irritation. “No? What’s wrong? Was I not—”
“You were,” he interrupted, his voice low but firm. He held her gaze, the emptiness he’d felt after their first joining now a dull ache in his bones. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?” she asked, her voice laced with a apprehension he’d never heard from her before. “This is what I am, Damien. The transaction. The energy. It’s how I say thank you.”
“I don’t want a thank you.” He moved his hands from her ass to her outer thighs, his thumbs stroking the sensitive skin. “I want more from you than to be just a living sex doll.”
The words hung in the cold air. Morrigan stared, her succubus instincts warring with something else, something the telekinetic grip of Anita and the cold promise of Dhylek had stirred in her. “Then what do you want?” she whispered.
His answer was to slowly sink to his knees in the gravel before her. He hooked his hands behind her knees, spreading her wider to the moonlight. Her breath hitched.
“Let me,” he said, and his voice was barely a whisper.
Before she could form a protest, he leaned forward and buried his face between her legs. His tongue, flat and rough, licked a broad, slow strip from her entrance to her clit.
“Oh, gods,” she gasped, her hands flying to his hair, not to push him away, but to clutch him closer. Her head fell back against the windshield with a soft thud.
He feasted on her with a single-minded intensity that had nothing to do with feeding. He licked and probed, his stubble a rough counterpoint to the softness of her inner thighs. He fucked her with his tongue, delving deep to taste the salty-sweet evidence of their joining. He sucked her swollen clit into his mouth, flicking it relentlessly with the tip of his tongue.
“Damien… fuck… right there…” Her hips began to buck against his face, losing their rhythm. This was different from the consuming draw of her own nature; this was a giving, a focus solely on her pleasure that felt utterly alien. The building pressure was different, deeper, rooted in reception rather than taking.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, her back arching off the cold metal hood. “What… what do you want from me?” she pleaded, her voice strangled.
He pulled back just enough to speak, his lips glistening with her. “I want a lover,” he growled, his breath hot against her slick flesh, before diving back in.
That was the key that shattered her. The orgasm ripped through her, a raw, screaming thing that left her shuddering and weak. The energy she normally pulled from him was now a static charge passing between them, a circuit of pure feeling with no drain.
As the last waves subsided, a quiet, broken sound escaped her. Then another. The tears came then, not the performative ones from before, but deep, wracking sobs that seemed to tear from a place she’d kept hidden for centuries.
He rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and gathered her into his arms. She didn’t resist, collapsing against his chest, her sobs muffled by his shirt. The great and powerful Morrigan Aensland, reduced to a trembling, weeping mess on the hood of a Jeep.
He just held her, his hands making slow, calming circles on her bare back. The desert wind, cold and clean, whipped around them.
After a long time, her crying softened to hiccupping breaths. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, her voice small and raw. “Your hands,” she whispered. “They are always welcome on my body.”
He nodded, his chin resting on the top of her head. In the distance, the moon reflected off the eyes of a coyote watching from a dune before it vanished into the shadows. "Then your body is always welcome in my hands," he replied with a sly smile.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke, then Morrigan slowly pulled away, taking Damien's hands gently in hers, and leaned forward, resting her breasts in his palms. "Be careful what you wish for," she murmured, her breath hitching slightly as he teased her nipples with the pads of his thumbs. She looked down at her chest and they both watched the sensitive buds stiffen under his caress.
"You are softer than I'd have expected a demon to be," he remarked absently.
His thumb brushed the pale curve of her breast, feeling the frantic beat of her heart beneath. "You’re trembling."
"A side effect of nearly having my soul vacuumed out," she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. She drew a shaky breath, the scent of his skin, of sweat and desert dust, anchoring her. It was strange, this need for an anchor.
"Tell me about Dhylek," he said, his voice low. "Not the fear. The facts."
Her gaze drifted past him to the vast, dark dunes. "It’s a construct. A void given purpose." Her fingers traced the old scars on his knuckles. "Anita and others like her… they don’t generate that kind of power themselves. They channel it. They’re conduits for something far older and hungrier."
He processed this, his soldier's mind cataloging threats. "So she's not the source. She's a weapon too."
"Exactly." She lifted her head, her violet eyes stark in the moonlight. "And we just broke the first rule of dealing with fanatics."
"Which is?"
"Don't interrupt their rituals." A faint, wry smile touched her lips. "She will not forget that."
The wind picked up, whistling through the Jeep’s door frame. It carried a new sound—a faint, high-frequency hum that felt like grit in the teeth.
Damien went still, his head cocked. "You hear that?"
Morrigan’s playful demeanor evaporated. Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing as she scanned the empty horizon. "It’s not her. Not yet."
"Then what is it?" The hum was rising, setting his nerves on edge.
"The car," she said, her voice tight. "She must have tagged it with a tracker. Or something else." She pushed off the hood, her naked skin gleaming. "We need to move. Now."
He didn’t argue. The professional in him had already acknowledged the tactical error of staying put. He helped her down, his hands lingering on her waist for a moment too long.
She dressed with swift, efficient movements, her earlier vulnerability receding behind a mask of focused intensity. "They’re methodical. They’ll triangulate."
"Where do we go?" he asked, already moving to the driver's side.
"Anywhere but here." She slid into the passenger seat, buckling the belt over her corset. "Drive fast. Then we dump it."
The Jeep roared back to life, its headlights cutting twin swathes through the darkness. The hum intensified, vibrating up through the chassis. A warning light flickered on the dashboard—the engine temperature was spiking.
"They’re cooking the engine remotely," Damien stated, his voice flat. He slammed the accelerator, pushing the straining engine harder.
Morrigan braced herself against the dash. "There’s a town about twenty miles east. Nowhere. A few deserted buildings."
"Good enough."
He drove with a controlled violence, pushing the vehicle to its limits. The steering wheel shuddered in his grip. Something was grinding in the transmission.
"We won't make twenty miles," he said, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. Nothing but blacktop and moonlit sand.
"Fuck this," Morrigan muttered. She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration. A faint, shimmering aura enveloped the Jeep’s hood.
"What are you doing?"
"Buying time," she grunted. A wave of cold air blasted from her, frosting the inside of the windshield. The temperature gauge plummeted back to normal. "I can counter the heat. For a while."
He glanced at her. The glow was back, but it was strained. "You're burning energy."
"You gave me plenty to burn," she shot back, but her voice lacked its usual tease. It was pure strain. "But I can't stop the tracker. Or whatever is making that gods-awful noise."
The hum was now a persistent whine, digging into his skull. It was trying to get inside.
"Can you shut it out?" he asked.
"I'm trying!" she snapped, her body rigid. "It’s like psychic static. It’s meant to disorient, to break concentration."
"It's working," Damien said, fighting the wheel as the Jeep began to shimmy. "They're on us."
Ahead, a dilapidated sign emerged from the gloom, riddled with bullet holes. It read "SANDHAVEN POP. 42."
The town was a ghost. A few skeletal buildings lined a single main street, their windows boarded up or smashed. The only signs of life were the swirling dust devils in the road.
"There!" Morrigan pointed to a low, sprawling structure that might have been a roadside motel. A few doors hung askew, revealing dark, empty rooms.
He swerved into the cracked parking lot, the Jeep lurching to a halt beside a rusted-out pickup. The engine died with a final, sickening clunk. Silence, except for that relentless, invasive hum.
They got out, the silence of the desert town oppressive. The humming seemed to emanate from the very air around them.
"It's not on the car," Morrigan realized, her voice a horrified whisper. "It's on you."
Damien froze, a cold knot tightening in his gut. He thought of the invisible force that had thrown him into the pillar. He remembered the feeling of her power washing over him, a violation he hadn't even felt. "She marked me."
"Like a goddamn dog," she breathed, her fists clenching. "A psychic flare. We can’t run from it. We can only hide and hope it fades."
He looked at the desolate motel. "In there?"
"It's shelter. And shadows." Her eyes met his, all pretence gone. "We have to break the connection before she gets here."
"How?"
Her gaze was unnervingly direct. "The same way we broke her concentration in the cathedral." She stepped toward him, her intent clear. "We have to go deeper."
"The fuck does that mean?" he asked, the tension making his voice sharp.
"I have to bury her signal under a bigger one." She reached for him, her hands sliding up his chest. "My energy, mixed with yours, roiling and uncontrolled. It might scramble the mark."
"This is your solution for everything," he said, but he didn't pull away.
"It works," she said simply, and pulled him toward the closest open door.
The room was a tomb furnished with dust and the husks of dead insects. A skeletal bed frame stood against one wall, its mattress stained and gutted.
"It's not about gratitude," she said, her voice low and urgent as they crossed the threshold. "This is a counter-measure. I need to pull so much power through you, create such a storm, that her little mark gets lost in the static. Can you handle that?"
"I guess we’re about to find out," he muttered, pulling her against him.
This time, the hunger was mutual, a frantic scramble against an approaching deadline. There were no gentle caresses. He backed her against the flaking wall, his mouth crashing down on hers. It was a battle for dominance, for survival, translated into flesh.
He tore at the fastenings of her corset with a savage yank. The leather gave way, and she gasped as the cool air hit her skin. His hands were everywhere, rough and claiming, relearning the terrain of her body as if mapping a defense.
"Get on the bed," he growled, his control fraying at the edges.
"The bed is filth," she snarled back, her fingers clawing at his belt. "I don't care."
He spun her around, bending her over the stained mattress. He pushed her leather shorts down her thighs, exposing the pale globes of her ass. He ran a hand over one cheek, then brought his palm down in a sharp, stinging slap.
A sharp cry tore from her throat, half pain, half triumph. "Yes!"
He entered her from behind in one brutal, seamless thrust. She cried out, her back arching, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the bare springs. "Harder!"
He fucked her with a raw, pounding rhythm that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with erasure. Each drive of his hips was an attempt to physically push the psychic stain out of him.
The humming in his skull seemed to waver, flickering like a bad signal. "Is it working?" he grunted, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise.
"Don't talk!" she screamed, pushing back against him with equal ferocity. "Just fuck me! Ruin me!"
He was. He gripped a handful of her mint-green hair, pulling her head back. "You want a storm?" he breathed into her ear, his voice ragged. "I'll give you a goddamn hurricane."
He felt it then, the vortex opening. Not the gentle pull of before, but a savage, draining whirlpool. Energy poured from him into her, a torrential feedback loop of sensation. The room began to shimmer, the very air distorting with the power they were generating.
Morrigan’s whole body was rigid, glowing like a heated brand. The invasive hum was being drowned out by the roaring in his own ears, the slap of skin, her ragged, sobbing moans.
The mark was being overwhelmed, flooded by a chaos of their own making. The whine became a distorted warble, then cut out completely.
In the sudden, profound silence, broken only by their gasps, his thrusts became erratic, desperate. He was emptying himself into her, a sacrificial offering to power their escape.
"Now!" she shrieked, her body clamping around him in a final, convulsive grip. He came with a sound that was more roar than sigh, his release triggering hers. She screamed, a raw, uninterrupted sound as the last of the foreign signal was utterly obliterated.
They collapsed together onto the unforgiving surface, a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs. The only sound was their labored breathing gradually slowing.
After a moment, Damien shifted. "Is it gone?"
Morrigan, still bent over the bed, nodded weakly. "The signal's gone." She pushed herself up, turning to face him. Her eyes were wide, almost scared. "I’ve never… pulled that hard. I could have drained you dry."
"But you didn't."
"I didn't want to." The admission was quiet, stark. She leaned back against his chest, his arms automatically wrapping around her.
Outside, the wind howled, a natural sound now, clean of psychic static.
He held her, feeling the frantic race of her heart begin to slow against his forearm. The desert night was once again just a desert night.
"We're clear," she whispered. "For now."
He rested his chin on her shoulder, both of them staring at the empty doorway, a square of lesser darkness.
"Then we wait," he said.
And they did, in the silent, dusty dark, two different kinds of creature bound together by a mark that was no longer there, waiting for the maker to arrive.