She nodded.
“Go to him, then, for fuck’s sake!”
A bitter laugh slipped through her lips. “Ah, Prince. If only the offer had come sooner.”
“But he’s still alive, and—”
“And if Viansa finds out, she’ll kill him on sight. For good. Probably in the most brutal way possible. And then his soul willreallybe trapped in hell and there won’t be a damned thing I can do about it, necromancy or not.”
She pulled out of his grasp and stood up to clear the table, needing something else to focus on besides the abject shittiness of her situation. Besides the new hint of compassion in Gabriel’s eyes, where earlier there’d been only revulsion.
It was too much to bear, that simple kindness. Jaci wasn’t sure she deserved it. Not yet.
“Anyway,” she said, heading into the kitchen with the spent plates and silverware, “tracking down my sister is the priority. I’m not entirely sure what she’s even capable of as a fully embodied succubus, but you can bet your ass it’s nothing good.”
“Right, about that…” Gabriel passed her their empty glasses. “You might want to pour us another round. I’ve got some news for you, and you can bet your ass it’s nothing good.”
Chapter Nine
“Spontaneous public orgies. So that’s a thing now. Who knew?” Jacinda slammed another shot, then removed Gabriel’s drink from his hand and downed that one too.
Gabriel sighed. Clearly, the woman was having a hard time processing the videos he’d shown her. After the first clip, she decided to skip the drink mixers and go straight for the hard stuff. Which was fine by him. After everything she’d already told him, the numbing effect of the alcohol was the only thing keeping him evenremotelycalm in the wake of the utter madness.
He no longer wanted to kill her, though. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen.
As if you’d lay a hand on her, Redthorne. Who the bloody hell are you trying to fool?
“Any idea what her end game might be?” he asked, pouring them both another round. “Aside from ruining marriages, mortifying journalists, confounding authorities, and filling the city with naked bodies, that is.”
Since the initial dozen or so reports, there hadn’t been any more, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again. Gabriel knew Viansa wanted to smash the hell gates and turn the city into a demon free-for-all. But stirring up passions throughout the city… Was it just a game? A sideshow to distract them from her true schemes?
Where the fuckwasshe?
“It’s not the naked bodies we have to worry about, Prince. It’s the dead ones.” Jacinda rubbed her eyes and dropped onto the couch, as if the weight of it all had finally caught up to her.
Seeing her like that, soft and vulnerable in her too-big sweatshirt, hair a mess of wild curls piled on top of her head, Gabriel wanted nothing more than to go to her. To take her into his arms, into his bed, and chase away every last one of her nightmares, real or otherwise.
But he still didn’t trust her. Didn’tknowher, even—today’s confessions were a stark reminder of that.
Where that left him, he had no fucking idea. All Gabriel knew was he didn’t want to be far from her. Call it a protective instinct, call it leftover feelings he’d yet to sort out, call it crazy, but it was true.
“Dead ones?” he asked. “As far as I know, none of the… participants… were harmed today. Not physically, anyway.”
“Succubi feed on sexual energy,” Jacinda said, “the same way vampires feed on blood. Normally, Viansa gets that nourishment by manifesting in dreams—the people she targets are still experiencing a real sexual release, and it sustains her. Now that she’s here, she still needs that power source. She got a big boost today, definitely. And it should sustain her for a little while. But—”
“Wait. The people she feeds on are still in danger? Delayed reaction, so to speak?”
“No, nothing like that. If she were targeting just one person repetitively, sure—that would eventually drain them physically. Or just mess with their minds until they broke. This is… something else.” She pulled her knees up and tugged the sweatshirt over them. “All that sexual energy will sustain her physical form, but it won’t anchor her here in our realm. She’s hellbound, and the fact that she’s here means she broke the natural order. I don’t know exactly how she manifested, but I do know this: in order to stay, she’ll need something even stronger than sexual energy to sustain the connection.”
“Like what?”
“Death energy. And none of this ‘everybody dies, circle of life, isn’t it beautiful’ bullshit. I’m talking about the dark kind. The horrifying kind.”
Gabriel sat beside her on the couch, worry spiking in his chest. “As in…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the words—to drag her back into her memories of the mages last night, the beach—but from the look in her eyes, Gabriel knew she’d understood.
Her words from this morning echoed.
