How to Kill an Incubus: A Rae Erickson Story (31 page)

For the next few hours, sleep was definitely the last thing on my mind.

I woke up deliciously late the next morning. And with eyes squinting in the sunlight, I stretched a hand out to the other side of the bed. Cold and empty.

“He’s gone,” a cheerful voice proclaimed. An accented, husky voice.

“Selene?” I croaked, sitting up. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

She was obviously the sadistic person who’d let the sunshine in. Now she was standing in my room, already dressed in a cornflower blue summer dress, which looked suspiciously like the one I bought in Italy.

“Is that mine?” I grumbled.

She smoothed the front down. “Yes, but I presumed you haven’t worn it in… a few years. It is a bit small for you.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You calling me fat?”

She appraised me, eyes zoning in on my chest.

Belatedly, I realized I was completely naked and my breasts were on show. I glared at her and pulled the bedsheet up, making myself decent.

“Curvy,
mon amie
.”

“We’re so not friends, Selene. I think you slightly misunderstood what happened last night.”

She winked at me. “There is no misunderstanding the sound of a satisfied woman.”

“I’m not talking about that,” I mumbled, feeling my face heat up. There was no denying that the noises I made were pretty embarrassing. “I’m talking about us watching TV. We’re not suddenly best friends.”

“Well, fine then,” she huffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I am going out for breakfast. I do hope you will listen to me and stay here.”

“Please don’t kill him or her,” I said through clenched teeth.

It was Selene’s turn to glare at me. “I think, after many millennia, I know how to leave my victims alive, Rainelle.”

“Good.”

“I suppose you don’t want any breakfast?” She nodded at my nightstand.

Only then did I notice the tray of food beside me. My mouth watered. Bacon, eggs, and coffee. Selene was a fucking psychic.

“Thank you,” I offered sincerely, receiving a genuine smile from her before she teleported away.

The coffee went down quickly but I could barely stomach one rind of greasy bacon. God, it killed me to leave it there. Selene might be a total nuisance, but I had to give it to her, she knew how to fry pig’s meat.

I threw my nightgown on and carried the plate downstairs, sticking it into the refrigerator for later. Then, once I got my second cup of coffee, I padded into the living room and flicked the TV on. One horrendous reality show later and I was ready to claw my eyes out from boredom.

The doorbell rang just when I was contemplating which eyeball to tear out first.

And like a bad penny that keeps coming back, Daniel Lawless was standing on my doorstep, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans.

Chapter 21

I closed my eyes and opened them again, positive that a fitful sleep last night was making me see things.

Nope. Daniel was still on my doorstep, dark brown hair shaggier than ever. With his hands still in his pockets, he asked me to let him in. Standing my ground, I folded my arms across my chest.

“Just how many frequent flyer miles do you have?” I asked incredulously.

“Enough,” he said dryly, brushing hair away from his face. “Hello, Rainelle. May I come in?”

“Absolutely not. I have company.” 

“Of the male variety?” His eyes did a slow sweep of my nightgown-swathed body as if he could see right through it. See the hot pink of my bruised pussy, the smattering of deep purple hickeys against shocking parts of my body… 

I automatically tightened the band around my waist. “That’s none of your business.”

“It isn’t?”

“Just tell me what the hell you want,” I mumbled. I glanced over my shoulder, back into the empty house. I was freaking
blessed
that Selene had disappeared. The fact that she could return at any moment was the only thing making me antsy.

“I thought we were friends,” he said, holding his hands up in defeat. “Can’t a friend visit another friend? Spur of the moment?”

“Not when the
friend
is on another continent. That’s not the definition of
spur of the moment
.”

He had the nerve to look chagrined. “Well, you won’t pick up the bloody phone, so what
else
am I supposed to do?”

“Because you were harassing me!” 

He looked taken aback. “Harassing you? What the fuck?”

“No means no, Daniel. Sending Teddy fucking Bunting over to my place in Paris to—I don’t know what—bully me was the last straw,” I fumed, grateful for the first time that my neighbors weren’t close enough to the house to watch this show out on my doorstep. Pulling Daniel inside was out of the question. For
his
safety. “I want nothing to do with the man – and if push comes to shove, nothing to do with
you
.”

“The man was a mate of your father’s. He’s a good guy! It’s not like I gave a sociopath your address!”

I glared at him. “No, because you’re the sociopath.”

He glared back. “This is stupid. I actually came here to tell you something important.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Paisley’s in the car. I never got ‘round to demon-proofing this house, did I?” He gestured at the silver Mercedes in my driveway, a car I didn’t notice until he did that. “You remember Paisley, right? The witch?”

From the passenger window of the car, a blonde woman waved at me. My eyes swung back to Daniel.

“Oh, hell, no! No.”

He quirked a curious brow. “Why not? Rae, the least you can…”

“How’d you know I was here, anyway? Were you following me?”

“No,” he replied, bracing himself against the doorjamb. “You should hide your location every time you update your Facebook status if you really want to be incognito.”

“Goddamn stalker,” I said under my breath.

This time, he laughed, easily brushing off the half-hearted insult. “So you don’t want any protection?”

“I’m supposed to believe you came all this way to do that? Put up a ward?”

Daniel leaned in, way too close for comfort; so close our noses almost brushed.

“Let me in, Rae,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. Then he straightened up abruptly, eyes wide as he stared past me, into the narrow hallway.

Mildly unnerved, I whirled around and came face to face with Selene, who looked more refreshed and revitalized than she had hours ago—before she fed.

“We have company?” she asked in a husky voice as she squeezed herself beside me.

Momentarily mute, I could only stare.

“Introduce us, Rainelle,” Selene demanded, sizing Daniel up with hungry baby blues. She made no attempt of masking her attraction to him. I was once like her, judging Lawless by his cover. What a fool I was.

For his part, Daniel did an equally poor job of hiding his instant reaction to the succubus. I was instantly forgotten—practically shoved aside, actually—as he drank in the sight of Selene, dolled up in her ironically indecent thigh-length plaid schoolgirl skirt and transparent button-up white shirt. Obviously she decided to dress up for whoever she was just fucking. I could only hope that he, or she, was still alive after their encounter.

“Daniel, this is Selene. Selene… Daniel,” I muttered. As far as I was concerned, he could have her. It would serve him right if he found out—the hard way—that she was a succubus.

What has Daniel ever done to you?
my annoyingly remorseful conscience wanted to know.

Nothing. He didn’t do anything. And Selene didn’t do anything, either. I was just grateful that she had the foresight to shield her aura from Daniel, which made things easier for me, too. Nausea was no joke.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Selene cooed, holding her hand out for him to (
I swear to all that is holy!
) kiss.

Rolling my eyes, I watched him do just that.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he smoothly replied.

“Ooh, an Englishman.
Délicieux!”

“I thought the French couldn’t stand the English. Or is it the other way around?” I mumbled, receiving a glare from the succubus. “I was just telling Daniel to leave, so if you don’t mind, Selene…”

“Leave? But why?” she wanted to know.

I shot daggers at her. “I said, it would be awesome if you could get back inside.”

Selene’s glare definitely turned deadly. Without taking her eyes off me, she said through clenched teeth, “There is something I must do. If you would excuse me,
cher
Daniel.”

“Who’s that?” Daniel asked, watching Selene storm back inside.

Her skirt rode high on her thighs, exposing the tannest skin I’d ever seen.

“I can do the breaststroke in the drool you’ve just deposited on my doorstep,” I told him, dodging the question.

Daniel flashed me a grin that made him look a decade younger.

“Jealous, love? Don’t be. You know what I think about your body.”

“I can’t believe I ever thought you were a gentleman,” I snorted. Then, I took a deep breath and added, “Look, I think we could be friends that…”

“We are friends.”

“Sure. Whatever. Anyway, about your witch friend coming here… My answer’s no.” I continued before he could interrupt again. “My dad didn’t want any magic here. I want to respect his wishes.”

“Rainelle…”

“No, Daniel. Thank you for flying out here but it was a big waste of time. Magic creeps me out and the less I’m exposed to it, the better.”

His lower lip curled in disgust. “Demons are everywhere, Rae. It’s mental to think a bunch of kickboxing classes and an old Indian knife are enough protection!”

“I’ve survived all these years, haven’t I?”

Daniel bit out a curse. “You’re a stubborn little thing and I pity the man who gets to call you his woman.”

I fought against the smile that threatened to appear on my lips. At least that was one point Andrei and Daniel were able to agree on: I was stubborn.

“Meow to you, too.”

“Oh, shut up.” He softened his words by lowering his head to place a chaste kiss on my forehead. “I’ll go. See you soon, then.”

“Yeah. Great,” I said brightly, watching him leave.

Little did he know that I was planning to do no such thing.

When I was younger, my father would take me down to the beach as often as he could. The waves would be so blue, sometimes green, and the russet sand would be hot beneath my bare feet. Houses lined the beach and many of them were huge, which made our modest two-story look like a matchbox. And I envied the people who got to wake up to the view of the beautiful beach every single morning.

I made up stories about the residents of each house. Stupid stories. Almost all of them were gooey, about queens for mothers and princesses for daughters. The high balconies became turrets of a castle, and the intricately designed rooftops became steeples. Between that and pretending the sea was overrun with mermaids, I clearly had an active imagination. And every weekend Ray Erickson took his daughter to play in the sand at the beach, I became even more jealous of the families in the big houses. They had their own private beaches, each with their own paradise.

Meanwhile, I had a crazy father and an absent mother.

Little did I know that the only reason Ray even took me to the beach was so that he could meet Teddy Bunting’s wife, the witch, in secret. Nothing sordid. That wasn’t Dad’s style. No, he just wanted a special spell from her, one that she failed to successfully cast since the trips to the beach suddenly dwindled… until I barely even saw my father.

But I was over all that now, at least that was what I constantly tell myself.

At the moment, though, what I was doing was trying to ignore the fact that Selene was unobtrusively sunbathing at a distance from me, giving me the opportunity to hang with Renée and Lorenzo. She was an undercover babysitter and I hated it.

“I know that look,” Ren said from her towel beside me, slathering a huge dollop of sunscreen onto Lorenzo’s back. He sat between her raised knees, leaning forward so that his wife could reach every inch of his olive skin. “What’s up, honey?” Ren went on.

I rubbed sunscreen onto my arms, squinting at the fading mark on my left bicep. “Just thinking.” Andrei’s ring glinted in the sunlight. I flipped it around my finger, hiding the ruby.

“It’s obviously something bad. Tell me.”

“Leave it, Ren,” Lorenzo said in warning, getting to his feet when he was sure that his wife was finished.

I smiled up at him, grateful. He always seemed to sense when I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Renée’s pushy behavior.

“I’m just being a friend,” my best friend whined, pouting adorably.

“Come on, baby. Let’s take a swim.” Lorenzo pulled her up, looping his arms around her waist. His green eyes glittered with mischief. “Aren’t I lucky? I’m going to get the two most gorgeous girls on the beach wet.”

Ren and I snorted with laughter. Lorenzo and Renée were my favorite couple because they didn’t make me feel like a third wheel. But I shook my head when he reached for my hand. I wasn’t going to swim today.

After giving me matching looks of concern, Lorenzo and Renée reluctantly ran down to the waves, laughing like little kids as they chased each other. Today was one of Lorenzo’s rare days off and the fact that he wanted to spend it entertaining me was endearing. I made a mental note to call my friends at least once a week from then on. They deserved at least that from me. After all, they were all I really had now.

“Fuck,” I murmured, appalled to feel a slow trail of tears down my cheeks. I wiped them away, glancing at Lorenzo and Renée frolicking in the waves before I turned to lie flat on my belly.

Modesty had never really been a factor in my life, so I wasn’t the least bit shy about being in the micro ivory bikini Ren had insisted I wear today. The top was a little too tight around my tits but the minuscule bottom ensured minimal tan lines. 

Then, a shadow fell over me, and I peeked over my shoulder.

“I am going to feed,” Selene announced, and my tears were instantly forgotten.

I could practically see up her ass crack. She could probably see up mine. I instantly wished I followed my instinct and worn a one-piece; I was having a “fat” day.

“Do you think you could be a good girl for a few hours?” she continued.

“But you fed yesterday,” I pointed out, absolutely horrified. The beach was jam-packed with families: fathers, mothers, and little kids. And the idea of a succubus in a polka-dot bikini on the prowl for fresh meat was not a very good element to put into the mix.