Taylor saw Lorelei through the first throes of flirtation, but Lorelei knew enough to politely and affectionately-very affectionately-usher Taylor out in anticipation of the blissful insanity yet to come. This wasn’t something Lorelei could share with Taylor. She suspected, rightly, that she would barely be able to interact with her environment when her prey and the angel made love for the first time, let alone acknowledge and involve another person. By the time Alex and Rachel headed to the hotel, Lorelei had the house to herself.
She lay in her lover’s bed, clad only in the short, slinky black nightgown she’d thrown on to see Taylor out, and rode the waves of ecstasy the bond provided. With only the first coupling between Alex and Rachel, Lorelei was left writhing on her side while bone, sinew and red skin sprouted from her back at the shoulder blades.
Lorelei had hoped to share that particular moment with Alex. It might have disturbed him, but at the same time, he knew her for what she was. The growth of her demon’s wings might not have been such a pleasant sight, but he would have been thrilled at the sign of her final recovery. Lorelei wanted to fly, but more than that, she wanted to enjoy Alex’s touch in his bed, even with him miles away.
It was every bit as good as having Alex herself. Not better, but not worse. Lorelei felt not a shred of jealousy, especially in light of this shared pleasure. With the ritual binding of Rachel to Alex complete, Lorelei expected the angel would share the same attitude.
She glanced at the clock, only to laugh when she saw that the night was still young. They would be at this for hours. Lorelei was in for a long, wonderful night of-
Monstrous white hands crashed through the bedroom window. They seized Lorelei by her arm and leg, pulling her like a rag doll out of the broken window. The hands flung her to the sidewalk two floors below.
A cacophony of attacks fell upon her all at once: a longsword, an axe, a flail. She felt a baton and pepper spray and a searing pain that could only come from sorcery. The blades broke skin and the rougher blows cracked bone, but none went so deep as to cripple her. A flesh-bound demon of Lorelei’s stature enjoyed inhuman resilience, though not invulnerability. But for the steady torrent of power drawn even now from Alex, the assault surely would leave her incapacitated-if not worse.
Lorelei was disoriented and wounded. The blows continued. Most of them fell with inhuman strength. She tried to use her wings to block them, but she couldn’t escape them all.
Instinct and determination took over. Her tail lashed out, grabbing an attacker behind her and flinging him onto his back. Lorelei caught the baton before it fell again. She slashed with her other hand, nails growing to form talons. Fire erupted from the scars she left in the vampire; he fell back and burned.
It was all eerily, unnaturally quiet. The street was engulfed in fog. More sorcery at work.
The longsword came down across her back again. She buckled, but withstood it. Something small and immensely forceful struck her in the cheek, sending her reeling. A bullet, she realized, fired from only a few feet away by someone in a cowboy hat. The shot didn’t penetrate her skin, but the pain was immense.
Another figure stepped between Lorelei and the shooter, hulking and brutish, wielding the flail. Lorelei spewed flames all over him. He shrieked in pain and fell back, but someone behind the circling corpses stood ready with a fire extinguisher. Two people, actually. One of them blasted the burning man. The other blasted Lorelei.
She twisted and moved, trying to get her bearings. The blows continued. Lorelei did her best to dodge what she could and shrug off what she could not. The pain mounted. She needed an escape. Her wings spread out.
Lorelei looked up to see Harrow clinging to the side of Alex’s building. His fist came down on her head, knocking her to her knees. He slashed across the bare skin of her shoulders with his claws, drawing from her a shriek of agony that didn’t carry out into the street.
His fist stopped coming. All the other blows resumed.
Like every succubus, Lorelei was born to lead mortals to their destruction. Her victims were never men or women of benevolence or even indifference; few would argue that those Lorelei destroyed deserved to be treated with kindness. But Lorelei had been born to act without mercy, to feel neither affection nor pity, and to serve those who worked tirelessly to thwart the will of the divine in the mortal world and beyond.
Her last thoughts were a silent plea to that divine presence to ensure the safety of the young man she so sincerely loved. Hell’s most accomplished succubus knew she had no right to pray. She knew, but did it anyway.
The last thing she saw, just as the cacophony of blows to her body ended, was a pale man in a pin-striped suit with the sort of machinegun Lorelei hadn’t seen in decades. He leveled it at her. Fire and smoke and lead erupted from the gun.
Her world went black.
* * *
“Wow…hhh…I love you,” Alex gasped.
“Tell me again,” Rachel said, looking down at him. She glistened with sweat and beamed in the afterglow of another lustful frenzy.
“I love you,” he repeated breathlessly. “But I need…I need…”
“I know what you need,” the angel straddling his hips said enticingly.
“…water.”
“Water? Bah. You don’t need water. You need more of me.”
“I need that, too. But no. Need water.” He reached up to gesture randomly with one hand. “It’s this whole cellular respiration thing that we mere mortals have to do.”
“Pff. That sounds like more of your silly science.”
“Can’t have sex without it.”
“Oh. That’s a problem,” Rachel conceded. She pushed him back down as he tried to rise. “Stay. I’ll get it for you.”
“Oh my God,” Alex said as she stepped toward the refrigerator.
“What?” Rachel asked, looking back over her shoulder. It required her to turn one of her wings down.
“That ass,” he answered, looking amazed.
She made sure her wings didn’t block his view. “You like?”
Alex smiled back at her. “It’s amazing.”
She sauntered over to the refrigerator, making sure to sway for him as she walked. She posed and tossed him a sultry glance as she opened the refrigerator, posed again to pull out a water bottle, and then came strutting back. To her delight, he was plainly more fascinated by the view of her from the front.
Rachel twisted the cap off of the bottle. “No one’s ever made me feel this beautif-”
She vanished in a puff of scented smoke. The water bottle fell to the floor.
Alex was bolt upright in an instant. “Rachel!?” He quickly slipped out of bed, looking around frantically. The scent of the smoke reminded him of the cemetery chapel.
He rushed over to his leather jacket on the chair near the door. Alex tore out his cell phone, dialed Lorelei’s number and waited in near panic. He heard no answer.
* * *
Rachel stood in a small room lit up by candles. It looked like someone’s apartment. To one side of her was a lovely young woman in a black dress and tall Doc Marten boots. Her hair was black and curled, her skin pale and smooth. On the other side of her was a pretty woman of similar age, but in torn black jeans, a dark t-shirt promoting a band with a logo Rachel didn’t recognize, and jewelry with a consistent theme of leather and metal studs. Her short red hair clearly wasn’t natural.
Neither of them looked terribly friendly.
“Hello, nurse,” the redhead breathed.
“Oh fucking hell,” Rachel sighed, “not this shit again.”
The other woman frowned. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m buying the whole ‘angel’ look with the swearing and the lapdancing in class. Lemme guess, you were just getting nasty with a nice guy, about six feet tall, boy scout personality, should probably just now be getting out of his Monday night Intro to Lit class rather than shagging otherworldly trollops?”