Chapter 19

When misfortune is enow wear the star upon your brow

– The Wiccan Rede

"You intend to steal their souls," I accused Mal as he drove out of the Pinegrove Academy gates.

"Souls are not something that can be stolen," he corrected with mild amusement. "Sold, given, bought - but taken? No. However, technically you are correct. I intend to offer our dear, dear, ever so charming friends, something so tempting that they cannot resist but to offer their souls in order to have it."

"Do I still have my soul?" I wondered. Was that what had happened? Had I somehow given my soul to him in exchange for life?

"Of course you do," he sent me a frown. "What do you think I am?"

"A demon. You made me into… something not human," I pointed out. "I just wondered if… I had sold my soul in return for life."

"You invoked me," he was annoyed by the question, his brows pulling together over his nose, and his eyes darkening with anger. "As an invoked demon there are certain gifts I might bestow to my beloved witch, gifts that in their giving, heal. I picked one and gave it to you. I saved your life and gave you something precious at the same time."

"A hunger for blood and sex?" If that was a gift, then I wanted to return it.

"Power," he corrected with emphasis. "I gave you power. You haven't learned how to use it yet, Nyx, but you will, and when you do, you will appreciate the true value of what I have given to you."

"I had power. I was… am?" I glanced at him uncertainly. He nodded. "I am a witch," I finished with relief. "So, I already had power."

"Not power like this," his grin was toothy. "This is power straight from the Hells."

"What power?" I did not feel powerful. I felt like a leaf might feel, tossed about on the winds of a ferocious storm, as if I had no control where I went, and wasn't entirely sure I would survive the journey there. This was not how I had imagined having a demon familiar would be. My imagination had been less tumultuous.

"The greatest power in all the realms," he announced. We were heading out of Mortensby towards the city. "The power to make people fall in love with you, to want to do anything, and I mean anything," he sent me a sideways smirk. "In order to be with you. This is the sort of power that brings Kings to their knees, which inspires poets and artists, and raises armies to fight losing battles. The power of Helen of Troy, of Gweneviere, Isolde, and Cleopatra. The power of a succubus, when wielded well, can change the world and the course of history. It is limited only to the imagination of the succubus… and her moral compass."

"If I remember rightly," I said slowly. "None of their stories ended well."

"Tsk," he dismissed it. "The tales of men like to focus on the demise of women as punishment for their power. But are they the true endings? Or just the wishes of those who would prefer women to be weak? Write your own story, Elenyx Vossen, one where the succubus gets her Happy Ever After."

What Happy Ever After did I seek? I did not know, but I knew that I wanted someone else to have an Unhappily Ever After. There was an ember within me that was slowly building in heat. Rage. "I need to find out who was driving that car, Mal," I told him.

"What does it matter?" He wondered. "No harm, no foul."

"There was harm," I looked at him in exasperation. "I was harmed. I almost died."

"But you didn't, and there isn't a scratch on you, is there? Think of it as… The unfortunate incident that had a fortunate outcome. Now I am your demon, and your future is so much brighter for that addition."

"I think I know who it was, Mal. A man whose wife and child came to my aunts for help. He's been harassing us ever since. He came to my workplace, and a bunch of his friends tried to burn down our house. The police won't help. They say they don't have enough evidence to help."

"You think this man ran you down," Mal tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Yes. I think that would make sense. I need to stop him, somehow, as what will he do next, Mal, and to whom? I'm pretty sure he's going to kill his wife. He might kill my family too."

"Ugh," Mal sighed heavily. "Very well then. I will help you to find out if this man tried to kill you."

"Thank you, Mal," I was relieved. "I will be much happier when I know whoever ran me over isn't going to be a danger to anyone else."

"It's a good opportunity for you to practice your new powers, anyway," he decided. "We'll go tonight and pay this man a call."

He turned on the music, ending the conversation, and I had little choice but to sit back and look at him. I knew that this was just one of his faces. There would be another that he wore in the pits of Hell, just as Ender appeared in grim form cloaked and hooded, but where shadows parted there were horns and bone. Which face was the true face? Or were they both just different aspects of the man?

This face of Mal's, however, was beautiful. The beauty was a ploy, a lure to those who sold him their souls, for too often humans equated beauty with trustworthiness. His beauty was different to that of Ender's. Where Ender was pared back, understated, and almost ascetic in the shifting shadows, Mal was lush, vivid, and decadently spotlighted wherever he went. Ender's skin was pale, his bones sharp, his cheeks hollow, his voice quiet and his mannerisms subtle. Mal was loud, and flamboyant, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes bright with dangerous humor.

I was not sure I trusted Mal. But I was also not sure that I trusted my own judgment, as I had trusted Ender, and he had betrayed that trust and me by not revealing what he knew of my approaching death, and then by standing by and letting it happen.

I looked away from Mal at the shifting scenery, my eyes stinging with tears and my heart twisting within me.

I did not want to go shopping. I wanted to go home and lay on my bed and cry. I needed time to process and absorb what had happened to me, to grieve the loss of Ender, the loss of innocence, and the loss of the girl I had been. I needed time to understand what Mal had done, and how that had changed my life. I needed time to learn how to live with those changes.

Mal turned down the music as we entered the city. "Almost there. This is going to be fun."

He had taken us to one of the expensive shopping streets in the city. Here the windows were glossy, the stonework ornate, the signage discreet, the street parking overflowing with prestige vehicles, and the pedestrians all wore designer labels.

I felt grubby in my maxi dress, windblown hair, and underwear still damp with Mal's cum. "Mal…" I looked at him in a silent plea. "This is…"

"Perfect," he pulled neatly into a park, and got out, rounding the Porsche to open my door. "Let's go shop, my naughty little witch," he purred tucking my hand into the crook of his arm and leading me across to the nearest glass door.

There was a doorman who opened the door at our approach, standing crisply to attention in the uniform that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe combined. The door shut behind us with a whoosh, sealing us in. It was deathly still inside. The subtle background of classical music took the edge off the silence, but not the judgemental expectation of the staff who all stood poised and waiting.

In addition to the doorman, half a dozen salespeople stood positioned at certain points of the shop, and there was a man whose sole task it seemed was to hold a tray with two different types of bottled spring water and a crystal glass on the palm of one hand.

The expressions on the salespeople's faces were set to professional neutral, but they had evaluated us both, and their attention was on Mal who led me across the room with him as he peered into the glass displays. They knew who was paying, and that he could afford to do so.

"Hmm," he straightened and swept his eyes around the staff. "We are going to need a change room. She needs everything from the skin upwards. Begin."

"This way, madam," a woman stepped forward immediately, whilst the rest of the staff scattered but for the man bearing the tray of water and the doorman.

Mal took a seat, arranging himself elegantly. "No," he said when the man offered him the water off the tray. "We'll need something stronger than that."

"Mal," I said, for the woman was trying to lead me to an area at the rear of the shop.

"Go on, Nyx. Have fun. I'll be waiting to see each and every item." His attention was diverted as the first salesperson swept up holding a lingerie set on hangers. "Do you have it in red as well?"

The changeroom was massive, mirrored on three sides. I stood looking at the woman and she at me as salespeople poured in and began to hang the clothing off ornate hooks set off the mirrors' frames.

"I… uh," I was hideously embarrassed and did not know whether to start undressing or not. I knew what they thought of me – the gauche mistress of a wealthy man. What was embarrassing was that it was the truth in so many ways – Mal had made clear his expectations of our relationship.

"I am here to assist in fitting the clothing," the saleswoman said with a hint of a smile. And to make sure that nothing was stolen, was unspoken between us. I did not belong in this shop and was tolerated there only because Mal had brought me. "If madam would undress?"

I was not offered a choice on what to try on - that decision was made by Mal in the main room, and each outfit was built from the skin up. I was expected to walk out into the main room in the outfit, shoes, and accessories. Mal would yes or no, or adjust the items, and that outfit would be removed, whisked away, whilst I began to dress in the next.

The clothing began as day wear, suitable for a range of events, but each outfit was far sexier than anything I owned. Watching myself reflected in the mirror, I felt like the succubus that Mal had turned me into. The sexiness was subtle and sophisticated, nothing that I wouldn't be comfortable wearing out in public, but it was there in a way my normal clothing did not possess.

The sexiness increased as we moved into evening wear, some pieces far more revealing than I would have selected for myself, but with the champagne buzzing through me, I was far more confident than I normally would be and swaggered out to parade myself before Mal without hesitation.

"Beautiful," he approved, his eyes catching fire. "That one needs diamonds, I think. Our next stop."

He paid whilst I was changed into one of the daytime outfits that he had selected, and when I walked out, he was waiting for me by the door. "Everything will be delivered," he told me as we stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"We were the only people there," I was stunned by the emptiness of the shop and how, now that we had left, the staff had returned to their original positions as if they spent their day as statues, waiting to have life breathed back into them with the next customer's arrival.

"Darling, most people can't afford to shop there. And with the amount we just spent, they only need one customer."

"You spent," I corrected, embarrassed by his largess. "Mal… Thank you, but… You don't need to."

"Of course, I don't need to," he didn't lead the way to the car, but further down the street. "I want to. You are my witch, my succubus, and most of all, mine. And now you will look the part. Besides," his smirk was wicked, and he didn't lower his voice as he continued so that I saw a dignified middle-aged woman send us a scandalized look over her shoulder. "I am only buying what I intend to take off you later."

He paused, looking in the window of a jewellery shop. "Here is what will happen," he told me without taking his eyes off a necklace that glittered with diamonds. "I am going buy you this necklace," he decided. "And you are going to seduce the jeweller into giving you the matching earrings for free. It should be a simple task."

"How?" I stared at him wide-eyed. The necklace did not have a price tag, which meant that it was phenomenally expensive, but the earrings around it did, and each set was several thousands of dollars.

"You will think of how much you want to drink his blood as you smile and meet his eyes, and he will turn to butter fantasizing that he might have a chance to fuck you, and then you will try on the necklace, and say something about your earrings not matching, and he will produce the earrings that do match and insist that you have them."

"Mal…" I was dubious. "The earrings are very expensive. No one in their right mind would give them away for free."

He straightened and looked me in the eye with a wide grin. "My darling succubus. He won't be in his right mind when you've weaved your magic. Come on," he took my hand and headed towards the door.

As with the other store, there was a doorman who opened the door at our approach. The store within was hushed as if it were holding its breath, surprised and hopeful because of our presence. The store was empty other than the doorman and the glossy glass cabinets containing treasures, but there was a mirrored wall, with a door within it, and I could feel eyes watching, evaluating.

Mal browsed slowly leading me around the room, missing no cabinet.

The mirrored door opened, and a man stepped out. He was immaculately dressed at the height of fashion, and was movie-star handsome, with his hair slicked back and his jaw clean-shaven. I had no idea how Mal thought that I could seduce such a man into giving me thousands of dollars worth of jewellery. He was the sort of man who did not spare a glance for gauche eighteen-year-olds from small seaside towns.

"Ah," Mal looked up from a cabinet. "Hello."

"Welcome," the man smiled. "I am Eric. How can I help you today, sir?"

"Mal and Nyx," Mal replied. "I have promised Nyx diamonds. A piece in the window caught my eye, but I like this too," he pointed to a tennis bracelet. "Let's see it on her."

"Excellent choice," Eric had a key attached to a chain in his pocket and withdrew it to unlock the cabinet, withdrawing the bracelet and setting it upon the glass. "This is a beautiful piece. The diamonds are rare Argyle in pink and blue, set in eighteen carats white and rose gold, each diamond has been selected for its superior clarity…" He took the bracelet off its display, and Mal raised my hand so that Eric could drape it over my wrist.

"Beautiful," Mal nodded his approval. "We'll take it."

"Sir?" Eric was surprised. "We have not discussed the price."

Mal shrugged a shoulder. "We'll take it." He walked away to the window displays. "Let's try this one on."

"Certainly," Eric's eyes had sharpened sensing a big sale, and he crossed to unlock and retrieve the tray holding the necklace and earrings, bringing it back over to where I was fidgeting with the unfamiliar weight of the bracelet on my wrist wondering about what the cost was of that many diamonds.

"If I may?" Eric lifted the necklace from the bust and, flustered, I swept my hair to the side as he approached. The necklace was cold against my skin, and I could feel his breath stir my hair as he did up the catch.

My heart pounded heavily against my ribs. Think of blood, Mal had said. I didn't need to force it. I could smell Eric's cologne and my mouth watered wondering what he would taste like on my tongue. I had a very vivid image of us in the back office, my skirt pulled up and him between my thighs, my hands clenched in the fabric of his waistcoat.

I knew without a doubt that this was Eric's fantasy, as I had not even caught a glimpse of the inside of the office in order to picture it so clearly.

"Stunning," Eric barely murmured the word as he adjusted the necklace, his fingers stroking my skin at the same time in a caress that was quite deliberate.

"She is, isn't she?" Mal purred in agreement.

Eric's fantasy extended, and Mal was with us in the office, with me sandwiched between them.

I pressed my thighs together around the ache that throbbed through me. This was not me, I told myself. This was not me - it was what Mal had done to me. It was the succubus within me reacting to Eric's fantasies.

"Earrings," Eric's finger traced the curve of my ear lobe. "Would set off the necklace perfectly. These ones," he selected from the tray and had removed my earrings and replaced them with the diamond ones before I could react.

In his fantasy, I wore nothing but the jewellery.

"The light in the office is better," Eric suggested quietly. "Would you like to…?"

"Would we like to?" Mal asked me. This had been his plan all along, I realized. Apparently, he was only possessive when it came to Ender. I wondered if he had known that Eric was in the jewellery store, or whether it hadn't mattered who the jeweller was that I seduced.

"I have champagne in the fridge," Eric added, his fantasy expanding into licking champagne from my skin. I could almost feel the cool drops of liquid, the froth of the bubbles, and the lap of his tongue.

"Boss," the doorman was drifting closer, drawn by the magic, the pheromones, the aura that had hollowed my belly out and filled me with need. I wanted to feel the warmth of Eric's hands on my skin, to take him into me whilst I feasted on his blood.

"Not you," Eric snapped irritated by the doorman's interruption. "Return to the door."

But it had broken the spell my desire had wound around me, and I swallowed thickly. "Mal… We should go."

"Oh, no," Eric pleaded. "Come into the office."

"Are you sure, Nyx?" Mal asked me. "The office does sound very inviting."

"I'm sure," I needed to get out of there. My cunt burned with the need to cum, my clit begging to be touched, my breasts to be cupped in a man's hand and squeezed… But I did not want to let the need, the hunger, lead me to go into the office and there to fuck a man I did not know. That would be wrong.

"I need to go," I started to turn, forgetting the jewellery that I wore. And then remembered and reached up to remove the earrings.

"My gift," Eric stopped me. "The earrings are my gift to you. Perhaps you will come back?" The last was almost begging. "Come again."

"That's so very kind of you," Mal produced his card. "If you want to charge me for the necklace and bracelet." The transaction was processed swiftly, but not swiftly enough to me, for both Eric and the doorman cast me longing glances, and I could see that their trousers tented over hard cocks. I feared that if we did not leave quickly, they would take what I did not want to give, their desire overriding their senses.

Whilst it seemed that I could very easily make people want me with this new power, it was not so easy to make them stop.

I did not breathe easily until we left the shop and were in the car.

"That was… wrong, Mal," I told him tearfully as he started the engine. "That was very wrong."

"Oh, settle," Mal scolded mildly as he pulled out into traffic. "It isn't a big deal, Nyx. The earrings are nothing compared to the rest of the purchase. Even now, our friend is congratulating himself on an excellent sale."

"Not just that," I protested. "But the whole office thing… Would you have…?"

Mal shrugged slightly. "If you had wanted to, it might have been entertaining."

"Oh god," I pressed my hand to my mouth feeling sick.

"God has no place here," Mal replied. "You're trying to blame me for this, Nyx, and you know why. Because you wanted to go into that office and fuck me and Eric. You wanted to take us both at the same time. It's a shame really that you didn't. You would have enjoyed it. Now you're hungry and horny, so I suppose we should find somewhere so you can ravish me the way you wanted to ravish Eric. Poor sucker, I bet he's jerking off in his office right now thinking about us."

"I could… I saw what he wanted," I realized. "I saw his desires."

"Of course you did, darling. It's what succubi do. It's why it's such a great pairing to have – a succubi and a demon. You can see the deepest, dirtiest desires of those you feed on, and I can use that information," his smile was wicked. "To my advantage. Ah, this will do," he pulled over into the driveway of a hotel and a valet hurried over to open my door.

I saw the man's eyes brighten and realized my needy hunger lingered.

"Here you go," Mal interrupted as the man's hand reached out towards me, and he dropped his keys into the valet's palm and helped me from the car himself. "Keep it close," he told the valet. "We won't be staying the night. Come on my dear, let's go fill you up."