Succubus Dreams Page 0,98

all this time...

I've never known anyone who was an angel and then became a demon. All the demons I know...well, they've always been demons. I never saw them when they were angels."

"First time for everything."

I met his eyes. "But I liked her."

I expected some comment like, "Bad things happen to good people." Instead, he just shook his head. "I'm sorry."

I swallowed back tears - I'd already cried enough tonight - and leaned forward, resting my head against his chest, just as I had the other night. He ran a hand down my hair and rocked me.

"What hope is there?" I asked. "If even angels fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?"

"There isn't," he said. "We're on our own. And we have to make the choices we think are best for our own survival. If your angel friend had been thinking like that, she wouldn't have fallen."

"But that's the thing...angels don't think about themselves, right? They're selfless."

"Maybe," he said doubtfully. "She let things get that far with the nephilim...that wasn't really selfless. Now they're both fucked, and we've got another member in the club."

"What club?"

"The club. Our club. The one for people who make one mistake and are punished forever because of it." He paused. "It's a pretty big club."

I gently pulled out of the embrace. "What did you do?"

"Hmm?"

"Your one mistake. Vincent found the charm...he said it was horrible. Black magic. He said you had to have done something really bad to make it."

Dante's eyes were sad as he regarded me. "You really want to know?"

I nodded.

"No. You don't. Right now, for the first time, you're talking to me like maybe I'm not the biggest asshole on earth. I tell you the truth...and you'll lose all respect for me."

"I won't. I'll respect you more."

He rolled his eyes. "People always say noble things in hypothetical situations. 'I'd never cheat on my spouse.' 'I'd return the million dollars that I found on the street.' It's bullshit."

"It's not," I argued. "I respect the truth."

"But you won't like it. Why do you think I didn't kiss you that day outside Erik's? I joke about wanting to sleep with you - hell, I do want to sleep with you - but if we'd done it, you'd have felt how little energy I really have."

"I buy the low energy thing, but I still want to know the story behind it."

His eyes narrowed in frustration. "Look, succubus. I don't even think I could tell the story if I wanted to. It's too hard."

His comment about kissing suddenly inspired me. "Can you show me?"

"What?"

I moved toward him. "Kiss me. I can hardly get any energy from you, but if you open yourself to the memory, I should be able to feel pieces of it."

I hoped that was true, at least. While my lovers' thoughts and feelings came through to me during sex, it wasn't exactly a system we could control. I couldn't summon up specific things. Usually what I felt was whatever the guy was thinking about just then. More often than not, it was amazement or perhaps a guilty conscience over the lover he was cheating on.

But maybe...maybe if Dante was specifically thinking of whatever he had done, it would come through. It was worth a shot. I leaned closer to him. He didn't move, so I went in all the way and kissed him.

Initially, it was just a kiss - all physical. Gradually, I started to get a bit of his life force - but it was just like he'd said. His soul was too dark. The life energy that flowed into me was barely a trickle. It was only a few drops, like a leaking faucet. Then...once I'd assessed the energy, I felt something else. I felt his soul - felt why it was so black, so devoid of the shining life most humans had. That blackness began pouring into me, that sickening and oozing evil...and there, behind it, was despair and anger and hopelessness and frustration. It was nauseating. Blackness and blood. I wanted to pull away, but I had to see what he was hiding.

The memory came through to me in disjointed images, but I was able to piece them together and form a narrative. I saw a sister. Older than him by ten years. She'd taken care of him throughout his childhood - both in a motherly way and as an instructor. She was a psychic too. She'd taught him how to harness his power, to tap the magic