That’s the wonder ofchaos.
Chaos is the delightful contradiction that rules and renders her. The seed inside her that gestates and grows but doesn’t bloom. Not until the first day of her eighteenth year.
That’s when everything blossoms at once.
Abruptly she’s as strong as ten men. Can see, hear, and smell damn neareverything. After her eighteenth birthday, a Succubus will emit pheromones when she’s strongly aroused.She’ll become irresistible to the object of her infatuation—as I’ve experienced firsthand on many occasions.
But chaos doesn’tbindto a demun until her first feeding. Beforehand it roils in the background. Waiting. Watching. Urging her to do what she’s designed for after eighteen.
She’s designed to feed. And, in the case of men, to kill under the right conditions.
The first feeding is what binds chaos to her soul. Threads it through her very spirit like ink under skin during a Mediation.Anchoring, it’s called.
It transforms her somehow, that first feeding. Completes her metamorphosis. Births a different type of being entirely. One who rapidly self-heals when she’s fed and lives up to two hundred years, if other factors don’t take her out first.
Hence, the urge to feed captivates her. Becomes her sole focus. That’s what I always heard, at least.
We never figured out how Tiss managed to make it to nearly nineteen on willpower alone. A new demun going so long before feeding is unheard of.
Was. Until Tiss. Most don’t make it three weeks. Few—veryfew—make it a month or two. Perhaps three at the absolute most.
After the fact, she told me the full force of her appetite didn’t hit until we met that day in Nehel. It’s whyshedidn’t fully know what she was. (Well, that and a healthy dose of denial.) When it did finally hit, its force was obliterating.
Out of the many lies I’ve fed her since she arrived at the temple, I was being entirely forthright when I told her how powerful she is. She is without a doubt the strongest demun—the strongestwoman—I’ve had the privilege of knowing in my life.
The months leading up to our soul-tie were hell on her, although I didn’t know it at the time. Was far too focused on how it was hell onme.
I asked once how she didn’t figure it out. Wasn’t she ravenous? Wasn’t it torturous to deny herself?
She looked up from where she was lying next to me in bed, her head nestled on my shoulder. Said very seriously and slowly, “I thought that’s what falling in love was supposed to feel like.” She trailed her fingers over my naked breasts. “The tormenting hunger. My skinachingfor you. The longing clamoring through me every hour of every day.” Sighing, she pulled herself on top of me, her curves enticingly soft, arousing me all over again. “And it is,” she purred in my ear. “I’ve had you a hundred times and let you have me, andstillI burn for you, Elodie. El Asher. And I always will.”
I burned for her too. Still do. If I had the luxury of choice, I would anyway. Always.Always.
Ibarely sleep. Tiss’s claiming bite aches where my neck and shoulder meet. I know without looking there’s a swollen, angry bruise there that no poultice or salve will soothe.
When dawn creeps through the cracks in my curtains, I give up the pretext. Get out of bed.
Rubbing my eyes, I snap open the curtains covering my balcony doors. Expect to see the same retinue of finches that have visited me every morning since the day after Tiss arrived.
This routine has become so regular that I go through the motions, blind to what lies beyond the glass at first. Or, rather, what doesn’t.
In fact, I notice nothing is amiss until the door’s cracked.
A bitter breeze whips inside. Knocks the last shreds of fatigue from my brain. I stare, not knowing if I should be overjoyed or concerned or relieved.
As abruptly as they arrived, the finches are gone. Vanished without a trace.
Igo back to Maida’s rooms with her after the day’s class. Fill her in on what happened last night, minus as many of the sordid details as I can spare.
She sits at her small table, looking askance at me. “Really, though.Flashbacks?”
“Multiple and all jumbled up.” I take the opposite chair. “But how did she take mewithher into our past? And why didn’t this happen when she and Sadrie, er—” Her withering look cuts me off.
She tosses her head primly. “I know this might come as a shock, but there’s achanceTiss didn’t mention everything that happened between her and Sadrie. In either case, you do share a soul-tie, as you call it.” She blows on her steaming tea. “What I’d like to know is how she managed to neutralize the amnesia poison.”
“I was hoping you’d have some insight there, too.”
“Me? Whatever possessed you of that idea?”
