Chapter 48
“Release me,” Nala barked, struggling beneath Varen’s weight. “What right do you have to do this to me?”
In truth, she was petrified. Her existence as a succubus could cease.
Or, even worse, if the hunter didn’t eradicate her correctly, she could end up trapped between this world and hell, forever sliced in half.
While that sounded like a just punishment to those afflicted by her blight, half a demon on a rampage on Earth was worse than a whole one minding its own business.
I’m hoping for a good demise? Curse me!
“I have every right. It’s you who doesn’t have the right to inflict your horrors.”
She said it so banally, even after she released Nala from the wall and presented her to the room, collared and leashed.
I’m trapped. Every siren like her knew that a hunter wrapping metal around her throat was certain death.
She was powerless to fight against this enchantment.
Nala only had two options to ensure her survival.
She either had to get Varen to let her go…
Or Nala would really have to seduce her.
Easier said than done. Hunters were trained to no longer sense the magic behind a succubus. They were immune. No matter their sexual desires, seducing a hunter was like killing one outright. Only a few creatures had ever done such a thing, and every time it happened, the hunters got smarter.
By this day and age, they were probably invincible once their target was trapped.
“Please don’t,” she begged, forced to follow Varen out of the room while strangers looked on.
This is the part where we have to be super careful.
They didn’t exactly want someone calling the cops on Varen.
So when she tugged on Nala’s leash, she did so gently, urging her forward as Nala whimpered in her unsympathetic ear.
“I’m not hurting anyone these days! I haven’t killed anyone! It’s not my fault if people who shouldn’t be out looking for trouble succumb to me!”
It was tough being a creature like her. People didn’t get that she couldn’t help who or what she was. Nala was born like anyone – just because she was born deviant didn’t mean she had to give up her life. People were always hurting and killing themselves in the dumbest ways.
“You know I can’t do that.” Varen yanked harder, forcing Nala to stay by her side as they traversed the next room of the club.
“Where are you taking me?” She whimpered. “If you kill me, they will come for you.”
Varen stopped between rooms, pulling Nala as close as she dared. When she spoke, her breath hit Nala’s face with the force of a blasting furnace.
“Nobody will come for me. Because they’re all gone. You’re the last one.”
Nala couldn’t believe it. Me? The last of my kind?
Was that why she was so unbothered for so long?
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she was led out of the club and down the dark streets of Seattle.
They weren’t too far away from Capitol Hill.
They couldn’t be, considering the seedy club they emerged from.
And, lo’ and behold, nobody looked at or said a damn thing about what Varen was doing with this unassuming young woman.
Nala stumbled through dirty alleys, wondering if this was where she would cease to exist, or maybe in that dumpster… or next to that homeless person…
“I’m not the last,” she insisted, as the cold started to get to her. “I would know if I was. I would know if my sisters were all gone from this world.”
“They are.”
“How do you know?”
Varen stopped, staring at her in the shadows. “Because I exorcised them, like I will you.”
It seemed so helpless. A seasoned hunter. A woman who could kiss her and not succumb to her energy. This woman was experienced. Perhaps a demi-god in her own right…
Nala had a sudden thought, as Varen yanked on her leash and brought her close to the street again. Didn’t I sense my own energy around her? There was something else at play.
Hunters could certainly deafen their ears to the song of a siren. But Nala knew, as she knew that she was a helpless creature in the thick of it all, that the only entity capable of spurning a siren’s kiss was a member of their kind, male or female.
The best hunter would be one of her sisters.
Nala tuned out her fear so she could concentrate.
It was in time, too, for they entered the lobby of a grand, gorgeous hotel with crystal chandeliers and valets.
Varen hid the end of Nala’s leash beneath her sleeve and led her to the nearest elevator.
Nala scanned the room, searching for any other possible source of the energy she picked up on since the moment she first saw Varen.
Just as she thought, there was no possible source. It was Varen. It had to be her.
Did she even know? Was this why she was chosen to be a hunter? Because whoever brought her up knew that she was the only one who could spurn a fellow demon’s advances?
They were alone in the elevator. Well, not completely alone. A camera taped them in the corner. They would still have to be careful.
“You’re quiet, for a woman who is about to be exorcised. I’m sure you know it won’t be pleasant, and you’ll never be allowed to come back here – forced to suffer where you’re sent.”
“Is that what you think it is? Repentance?”
“Why else would you have been born as you are?”
Nala cocked her head. Although she couldn’t see it on her face, she saw it in the mirror before them. Guilt. Shame. Perhaps Varen did know who she was after all.
Was it possible? Would one of her kind betray them all out of guilt for who she was? For how she was born?
“So, you’re one of those who was taught that anyone like me must be a demon. Excuse you, nobody gets to call me a demon except me and my close friends.”
Whoever they were… it had been a while since Nala could have real friends.
Not since everyone scattered to their private hunting grounds.
To be killed by this asshole. Oh, excuse her. “Exorcised.”
“How many have you tainted with your poisoned kiss?”
“Don’t forget my poisoned pussy.”
“Whatever.”
“Look, I’m not crazy about the idea of us having some philosophical discussion about my existence while you get ready to kill me. So let’s cut the crap. You want me to go away because you’re under the impression that I was sent to this earth to be punished by my overlord or whatever.
I’ve heard all the theories. The truth, ma’am, is that I didn’t ask for this kind of life. It was foisted upon me at birth. What choice did I have when I became conscious of having a mother who tried to prepare me the best that she could? If I want to keep living – and I do,
thanks – I have to drain the energy from people. I don’t kill the poor shits who have the time of their lives. You want to talk about guilt and shame? How about anyone who can’t keep it in their pants? I didn’t make them stray. They do it to themselves.
They make the conscious decision to sleep with me. It’s consensual. Don’t give me your fucking guilt trip about how…”
“How they have no choice? How their mere human brains melted at the sound of your song? No one on this earth can resist a siren’s temptation.”
“You did. Back in that club. You kissed me, and I felt you want me, yet you had the wherewithal to collar and leash me like you’ve been trained to do.”
“Indeed, I did.”
The elevator opened. Varen led her down the hall to a room. Her den of deceit and lies. That’s all Nala could think as the door opened and she was dragged into a five-star hotel room.
How could she appreciate the expense when her uncertain future lay before her? Varen dragged her to the large bed and unceremoniously pushed her on it.
This was it. Nala had to fight.
Yet how could she when she was enchanted with her collar?
Every thrash of her body was met with more resistance.
Varen could pin her down, easily, which she did as she pulled out bind after silk bind, each of which was probably also enchanted to keep her from moving.
As she feared, she could not move as both wrists were tied to the headboard.
She looked into Varen’s cold blue eyes, appealing to her with the only tool she still had. She will never release me. I must seduce her.
“Hey, no, no listen…” Her legs kicked as she pulled her boots off and tied her ankles together.
“You’re not seeing the whole picture here.”
Although Nala struggled, she couldn’t stop the ceremonial bindings happening above her head.
Varen weaved designs that were as old as her kind.
They looped in and out of the headboard, falling around her head, connecting to her wrists and arms, draping across her breasts. “You’re not any different from me!”
Her shout echoed in the large bedroom. Varen stopped. “What do you mean?”
She had to laugh. Was Varen really that stupid?
“You’re one of my kind. From the moment I saw you, I knew that you were one of my sisters. I see the guilt. You say that we are born to repent for sins we once did. Sins we don’t even remember. Maybe performed in some world far away. Were we really, though? Is that why you hate yourself so much?
Why you have this tremendous power, and you use it to become the perfect hunter? Are you going to eliminate all of our kind until you’re the only one left? Then what? Will you die too? What a martyr.”
“I am no martyr. I am doing the right thing.”
Nala withheld a hiss as Varen continued her weaving. When Nala craned her head back, however, she noticed something very wrong.
This wasn’t the ceremonial design of eradicating a succubus from the realm of mortals.
Nala had never seen it in her life, but she had heard about it, and she had seen the legends played out in books and told from the lips of her old brethren.
“What are you…?”
“You’re right, Nightingale.” Varen finished her knots and loomed over Nala, a sinister grin spreading.
“I am exactly what you think I am. A monster. I know what it’s like to thirst for a person’s energy and harness it for myself. What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I’ve never touched a mortal, though.
Every siren I’ve taken to a bed like this has only known pleasure before she left this world. It was fitting, I thought, but you’re different. You’re the last one. After you, I’m supposed to be banished as well? It doesn’t work like that. I don’t care what they say. That’s why I saved you,
the most beautiful and vivacious siren of them all, for last. You’re too perfect to send to some other realm. Think of all the good you could do here. With me.”
“You’re not…!”
Varen grasped the bust of Nala’s dress and tore it down, exposing one of her most prominent means of seduction.
“Oh, yes, Nightingale. I’m going to make you my bride.”