Archives

The Cup, Part II

Feb1

This is as far as I’m getting tonight. IT’s more of a transition than a story.

After this.)
The Thorn Vessel. The Wooden Death. The Hawthorne Cup.

His son.

The boy wearing his former Keeper’s collar stood like he was the thing blocking the doorway, like it was him and not the Sanctity of the home keeping Pellinore out. “Are you here for me?”

That was an uncomfortable question. Pellinore decided, against his better nature, to go for the honest answer. “I wasn’t. I can be if you want, though.”

“You can’t rescue me.”

“I can’t. Not without an army. Do you want me to go get an army?”

He rolled his shoulders. “It’s not… bad.” The boy shook his head. “So you’re not here for me. You’re here for her?”

“I need to ask her a favor.”

“Hunh. I’ll go get her then. Stay here.”

Pellinore waited. It was strange, as it was every time. This hadn’t been where she Kept him. This place had never been his home. And yet…

“Pellinore. It’s been a long time. If you mean me and mine no harm, come on in.”

He paused in the doorway. “It’s not that I mean you harm, quite. It’s that I need to ask you something…”

“And that something might lead to harm. Accepted and come in. What do you need me to find, Pellinore?”

“That transparent?”

“That’s why people come to visit me.” Her living room had gotten bigger since the last time she visited. Her furniture was still spotless. “So?”

Her Kept was hovering in the doorway. That had always made it uncomfortable. He started talking anyway. He hadn’t come all this way to sit squirming like a kid again.

“So. I heard a rumor.”

“Oh, Pellinore…”

“Not just one. Not just a rumor. But lots of them. Over years. I waited. I wanted to be sure. I got all the information I could before I came to you.”

He pulled his notes out of his coat pocket. Piles and piles of notes. “The Hawthorne Cup.”

“That sounds vicious.”

“More than that. It’s deadly. But it’s supposed to have more that the poison. It’s the Grail, Cya. It’s the fae Grail.”

“And, of course, you have to find it. Remind me to punch your father.”

“Remember to punch my father.” He and JohnWayne said it at the same time.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/467670.html. You can comment here or there.

Bananas

Jan28

Ce’rilla and Viddie, approx. 105 words

“You know the neatest thing about magic?”

Ce’Rilla was laying on her back in the grotto, peering at Viddie through her hair. She liked the grotto best of anywhere in the school, for Reasons. Reasons, in this case, involving the generally predatory nature of the rest of the school, and the way Viddie lit up when he was here with all the plants. Among others.

“Mmm?” He was lost in thought. She wondered about what and decided to show off anyway. “Meentik huamu banana delta.” She passed him one of the two ripe bananas that appeared in her hands. “Remember these?”

It had been a while. Since before the Collapse. But bananas had always been her favorite.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/463829.html. You can comment here or there.

The Best Sin

Jan21

For @Dahob’s prompt.

This comes after Sister’s Keeper

Content warning: This is a story about a succubus and her half-brother incubus in a magical dom/sub relationship..

Joff came home to find his kitchen full of men.

This was, all things considered, not all that bad. He’d certainly come home to find his kitchen full of less-appealing things, or that many men in other places (once in a closet. In his closet, not even in ‘Vette’s).

They were chatting, laughing, poking each other. It was the happiest group of men he’d ever come home to – and he’d come home to people engaged in group sex more than once.

“Oh, hi, Joffy, here, taste this.” He realized, as someone was sticking a strawberry in his mouth, that he knew this someone, that he’d slept with him, and that being fed a strawberry was every bit as intimate as taking the boy’s cock in his mouth.

“Mmmmff.” He knew food could be good. He liked making delicious food. In this kitchen. “What are we doing?” With my kitchen?

Jervis, bless his heart, caught the tone. “Ivette is throwing a catered party next month, and we’re helping her come up with ideas.”

“In here, Joffy.”

“Ivette…” That’s not my name. He stepped into the dining room, and understood, viscerally, pants-tighteningly, why everyone was bustling quite so eagerly.

“Gluttony is such a fun sin.” Her whisper was for his ears alone. The way she was eating that hors d’oeuvre, on the other hand… licking around the outside, kissing the salt off of it, and then licking the salt off of her lips. The way her fingers pinched the sides of the strawberry, the way her tongue darted out to lick it again, the way her lips pursed when she popped the whole thing between her teeth…

Joff groaned quietly. Behind him, he heard Jervis groaning as well. “The best sin.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/456615.html. You can comment here or there.

Laziness as an art form

Jan18

For @cluudle’s prompt

The halls were dark. Something was howling in the distance. Something else was screaming.

Roanna was doing a decent job of holding it together. She’d grabbed the hand of the nearest classmate she could find, and they were moving calmly and meticulously through the darkness. Roanna had a flashlight in her free hand; Tamberlain had a long wooden stick in his off hand.

“Look, the stairs should be right around…” Suddenly, she couldn’t move. Panic, totally inexplicable terror, gripped her and wouldn’t let go.

“Ro? Ro? Shit, Ro, run!” Tamberlain, still gripping her hand, starting following his own advice, and, in the process, dragging her along.

Her frozen legs finally responded, and Roanna started running, too, as fast as she could. Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong.

They saw the other two kids – Zuleyma and Merton, people they knew from class – running their way, but not in time to stop. They skidded, instead, heels dragging into the carpet.

Something hit their faces, first, and their outstretched free hands, something sticky and grabby. By the time they came to a full stop, their whole bodies were ensnared.

The panic released them as, behind them, someone started chuckling. “Panic trap. I love it.” A hand settled on Roanna’s shoulder. She couldn’t move her face to look, but she could see, in front of her, Zuleyma’s freaked-out expression. Her heart was still pounding, too, like it was trying to claw its way out of her chest.

“What?” The sticky stuff grabbed even at her lips, making speaking tricky.

“Panic trap. It makes you, well, panic.” There was another hand on her ass, very gently resting there. “And then, of course, my web. I hardly have to do any work at all.”

“…Why?”

“You’ll see. Now, all of you, just say the magic words, and I’ll let you go. The web is acidic; it’s already trying to digest you, so I’d talk fast.

“Please?” Zuleyma tried.

“Not those words. ‘I belong to you, Segenam.’ Those words.” The voice was still chuckling. And Roanna’s face was starting to sting.

Next:
Laziness X4.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/455808.html. You can comment here or there.

Strange Favors

Jan16

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s commissioned continuation of A Couple Helping Hands and Littermate

That yelp. That sound. It wasn’t human, wasn’t barely alive-sounding, but she knew it. She’d know her brother anywhere. Cúmhaí peeled off the last hand holding her, and, when it wouldn’t move, started breaking fingers, fast and nasty, until the hand vanished.

“Nobody touches my brother. Nobody. Touches. My. Brother.” She could feel everyone in the room and, what was more, she could feel how much of the creature fighting her was illusion and misdirection. She dove straight for his center of mass, right there, and below there was where the Beagle had already tenderized the bastard…

She was rewarded with a long screaming yowl. “No-one hurts my brother, damn you.” She snarled it at the whole room, at the bastard growling at her and pretending she hadn’t just added injury to injury, and at the three others she could feel, even if she couldn’t see. “And I’ll kill every goddamned one of you if I have to, to prove it.”

“Never let it be said there is not some honor among the wolves, miss Pup.” The voice was nearly part of the wall, and when she tried to look in that direction, it hurt her head. “Take your brother. Nobody will stop you, as long as you go directly to Dr. Caitrin’s.”

Begley. She felt for him with her power, and found him hidden in a pool of shadow, barely breathing, not moving at all. “Beagle.” People with back injuries shouldn’t be moved. Leaving him here was not an option.

“Gods who’ve come and gone blast it all, Beagle, why are you not moving?” She was going to have to pick him up. She was going to have to carry him. “Fuck it all, Begley John, wake up.”

But he wasn’t waking up, so she picked him up, as carefully as she could. “Invisible voice?”

“I am watching your passage, Miss Pup.”

When the voice spoke, she could feel where he was. She carefully didn’t look that way.

“Where’s Dr. Caitrin’s, from here?”

The voice chuckled. Another time, that might have irritated Cúmhaí. Right now, she would take it. She could feel the others, and she had a hunch the invisible voice was holding them off. “Walk straight forward until you reach a fork. Turn left there, and the continue until the stairs. Upstairs should be clearer and more obvious.”

She’d already started walking. Manners, a voice in her head whispered. Her brother? Maybe. Once upon a time, he’d been her big brother. “Thank you, invisible voice.”

“When your brother has been tended to, Miss Pup, then you and I may have a talk. But not before.”

“You little shit. All of you little shits. I’m going to…”

“She won, Sir Thing. Let her go.”

“She didn’t win, Begley-shit cheated.”

“Defending your crew is never cheating, or your Marthin would never win anything. Let. Her Go.”

In the echoes of that conversation, Cúmhaí followed Invisible’s directions. Forward, and keep going until she got to a fork. She showed teeth every time she felt someone get near, and growled if they came within touching distance. Nobody tried to stop her. Nobody got in her way.

She wasn’t sure if that was her, truly, or the shadow she could feel following them. There were times when she felt someone get yanked away, times when she heard a hiss of “do not touch them.”

She might have to pay the piper when they were done, but she’d worry about that then. Right now, she had a Beagle to take care of.

“Damnit, Midget.”

~

“Damnit, Midget.” It was like being home again. Begley opened his eyes to his sister’s frowning face. They were moving, he realized, no, she was moving and he was being carried in her arms.

“Nice to see you, too.” His voice was thinner than he meant it to be. “Where are we?”

“About twenty feet from the doctor’s office. You took your sweet time waking up.”

“Sorry, I had a case of /being thrown into a wall. How did you get away?”

“She broke every finger of Mr. Thing’s hand, and then broke some more important parts.”

He knew that voice, even if he couldn’t see it. He reached for his knife, hoping it wasn’t too late.”

“Easy.” Cúmhaí squeezed him against her chest. Begley tried not to think about that too closely. She was his sister. This might be Addergoole, but…

Bigger problems right now. “Coo, this isn’t the counter, this is the fire.”

“It looks like the doctor’s office to me. Look.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He might take it out of me later but he’s the only reason we got past the creeps in the halls, so I’m not going to look his gift horse in its invisible mouth right now, okay?”

Later. “Shit. Coo, you didn’t agree to anything, did you?”

“I extracted no promises for my service, because I offered it unasked-for. I do have some honor, young Beagle.”

“I’m not that much younger than you, you…”

“Keep the mystery, if you would. Your sister will come looking for me soon enough. I’d appreciate there being a bit of a challenge in the looking.”

“She’s my sister. I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

His sister, looking very amused, damn her, was opening the door to the doctor’s office with her foot. “Beagle..”

“Coo, don’t call me that. Look, this is important.”

“It is.” Their invisible stalker had followed them into the doctor’s office. “Begley cy’Akinobu, I promise you these two things. First, if you respect my wish, and allow your sister to discover who I am on her own, then I will consider any debt between us for my part in her escape today to be settled.”

“You bastard, you said it was free.”

“Well, it is. But I’d appreciate if it you let me play out this little game.”

Begley sighed. “All right. I won’t tell her. But…”

“And the second half of my promise. I will not extract, nor seek to extract, through torture nor through any Working or use of magic at all, any promises or other binding words, from your sister Cúmhaí during the rest of this calendar year.”

“…” That was, Begley thought, the best he was going to get. “Why?”

“Gift horses and invisible mouths,” the voice scolded. “Suffice it to say she impressed me.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1159682.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/453665.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Story-Didn’t-Work Bit

Jan16

This was supposed to be to [personal profile] ellenmillion‘s Prompt, but it didn’t want to work. So here it is anywhere, while I think of what I actually want to write.

“…and that’s how you start a fire with a steel. Honestly, what do children learn these days?”

“These days? I don’t know.” Armona looked around their campsite. They had situated themselves in the back of a half-collapsed building, one with a corner of roof and two strong walls, two stories up from ground level. It was about as safe a vantage point as they could come up with, and a little bit of jury-rigging had gotten them shelter. “I think mostly they learn how to not die.”

Most of the work had been Thomas’ doing. Armona had grown up in the middle of the city. Living in the wilderness didn’t come naturally to her, and her skills at fire-making were about as good as her skills at hunting – that was to say, abysmal. She still wasn’t sure why Thomas was bothering with her.

“But before the Crisis, before the collapse. What did you learn about in school?”

“I dunno.” She’d been an indifferent student in most of her classes. “History. English. Math.”

“Algebra?”

“And trig, and calculus. Science stuff, home ec, tech.”

“Home ec? Tech?”

“Home economics. You know, cooking, that sort of thing.” She squatted by the fire and began rigging up a handle for the cans of Cambell’s she’d liberated. “Here, do you have a church key?”

“I have a knife.” He pried a hole in the can for her. “And heating cans over a fire? You learned that in ‘home ec?'”

“Where you from, anyway?”

“Long ago and far away. That doesn’t smell very good.”

“Neither did the deer thing you took down. This’s human food.” She twisted a coat hanger and used it to hold the can over the fire. “I always said school was useless.”

“And yet, here, you find yourself a student again.”

“Yeah, but this stuff is going to do me some good. Staying alive skills. Things I need.”

Continued: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/486742.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/453621.html. You can comment here or there.

Transfer of Power

Jan16

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s prompt.

This is Shahin & Emrys’ daughter, in her second year of Addergoole, and Jeremiah and Rowan’s son, in his first year.

“All right.”

This had seemed like a clever idea when she’d implemented it. Her parents had done it, after all. One week each, and then mutually together.

She’d needed to one-up her mother, of course. So she’d said “Four months. Be mine for four months and then I’ll be yours for four months.”

Mangrove had agreed. Nobody had been surprised; Morganna wasn’t exactly an un-tempting package, and it was a better deal than anyone else was going to offer him.

But that had been four months ago. Four months ago, today had seemed a very long time off.

Today was here. She unlocked the collar from around his neck and set it on the dresser. “Mangrove cy’Valerian, I release you. You are your own man now, and no longer Mine. Walk your own route.”

That part was harder than she’d thought it would be. She liked having him as hers. He was a good Kept – he fought a bit, yelled a bit, and was just enough trouble to keep things interesting. He reminded her of her father and her brothers, without the uncomfortable difficulty of being a relation.

“A kiss?”

She offered it, rather than demanding it, finding herself worried that he’d say no. When he just smiled at her, her worry only grew.

“Mannie…” She hated the note of pleading that came into her voice. Thank all the gods that didn’t care, it looked like he did, too.

“Oh, come on, Morgue, I was only playing.” He tilted his head up. “A kiss.”

The kiss was long, and a little clingy on both their parts. “You taste different.” Mangrove licked his lips.

“Let’s see how I taste in a minute.” She slipped off her dress and dropped to her knees. “Mangrove cy’Valerian, for the next four months, I am Yours. I come to you bare and naked; what I have will come from your hands, and everything I am belongs to you.”

His hands wrapped loosely around her throat. “Morganna cy’Drake, you belong to me. For the next four months, you are Mine. My Name will shelter you and my hand will protect you. Everything you are is mine, and everything you need, I will give you.”

It felt like falling. She leaned back, closing her eyes, and let his hands cradle her. “I’m yours.”

“Yes.” His voice was warm and thick. “Yes, you are.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/453136.html. You can comment here or there.

Don’t Cry, Baby

Jan15

To moonwolf1988‘s prompt.

Year 13, Reveal (Lunch time on the First Friday).

“Don’t cry, baby. When you cry, the sky cries with you.”

Amaya’s daddy had said that to her, growing up. He’d point out the window at the encroaching clouds, or the storm, or the shower, and say the same thing, every time.

When she tripped and skinned her knee.

“Don’t cry, baby.”

When she failed her first class

“When you cry…”

When her date to homecoming left her all lone.

“…the sky cries with you.”

When she stepped on the plane to leave everything behind.

“Don’t cry baby.”

“I know, Daddy. The plane won’t fly through turbulence.”

“And when you get upset, things get pretty turbulent.” He patted her shoulder and sent her off.

Off to… this place. This strange place with its strange people and its strange… everything. She looked around again, as if that would make it better.

She’d thought Beckett was pretty cute. He had a tail. A tail.

She wasn’t sure about Irvy, but she was certain he had scales. That was just unfair.

And Edan. He had a voice that calmed her right down, wicked cool tats, and he was in the only band Addergoole seemed to sport. But he was sporting prickly fur down his back and a personal field of ice-cold air. It was too much.

Way too much. She gulped, swallowed, and tried to find something safe for her eyes to settle on. Aleron. Aleron was cute, cute, and nice, and very taken…

…and sporting a pair of wide, green wings.

The air above the Dining Hall opened up with rain.

Amaya’s wiki page (thin as it is) is here – http://agyearnine.wikispaces.com/Amaya

Amaya Year 14 – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/672732.html

Edited and updated – https://www.patreon.com/posts/dont-cry-baby-5213821

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/451135.html. You can comment here or there.

The List, a story of AU!Addergoole Second Generation

Jan7

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of Twin Study. This is non-canon, set sometime after the apoc, well into the second gen of Addergoole.
“I don’t get it.” The halls of their institution were painted a probably-supposed-to-be-calming blue; the floors were carpeted. It was nice, almost cozy, if you ignored the complete lack of exits and the prison atmosphere.

“What’s there to get? I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. List. Guys. Lather, rinse, repeat.” Fili pulled his list out of his pocket and looked at it. “I mean, if you don’t think about it, it’s pretty easy.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to do anything except insert tab A into slot A.” Molly was staring at her list, but Ted didn’t think she’d seen anything on it.

She stared at her own. “Okay. So Albern isn’t too bad. And Gibson is kind of handsome, although he doesn’t talk a lot. But Davis is a flat-out creep, and Stonewall is… well, a stone wall. And I wouldn’t let Caledon touch me if he was the only guy on my list.”

“He’s on my list, too.” Molly stared at her list. “Nobody else in common, though. Unless you have Ether?”

“No. Lucky you, I kind of like him.”

“There’s nothing lucky about ‘choose one of these five to seven guys and have a child with them. Or else, cue ominous music.’”

“No. Maybe we could escape?”

“Shhhh.” Homer, who had been staring silently at his list, suddenly spoke up with a whispered urgency. “Shhh, they can hear you.”

“What, the Doctor?”

“No, worse. The demon. He has cameras everywhere. Sage told me.”

“Everywhere?” Ted crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s nuts. Really everywhere?”

“Everywhere that matters.” Luke was suddenly behind them. “You have nothing you need to hide from the Administration.”

“Uh, why don’t you let us decide that?” Ted stepped forward protectively, putting herself between the PE teacher and Molly.

“That decision has already been made.” His wings flared. “I’m sure you have somewhere to be.”

“Not really.” Fili stepped up next to Ted.

“We’re done with class, and we’ve had our meeting with Dr. Regine.” Fili held up his list, almost in Luke’s face. “See? We got our fuck-or-die list.”

“Nobody’s going to die.” The idea actually seemed to offend Luke. Ted wondered, a bit, why. It wasn’t as if he treated them like people. “And the good doctor has… ways. If you don’t want sex.”

Ted glanced down at her list again, and back at Luke. “You’re on my list.”

“Professor VanderLinden is on mine.” Homer had finally caught up with them. “So’s Professor Valerian.”

“I don’t have any Professors. Um. Although there is someone here I don’t know.”

Luke peered at Molly’s list. “That’s the goblin in the basement. He fathers very good children.”

“He… This is absurd.” Ted knew she was sputtering again. “You seriously expect us to just go have sex with someone we don’t know? Or, I don’t know, let them knock us up by artificial insemination?”

“There is a war going on, in case you haven’t noticed.” Luke’s voice never changed cadence, but his wings flared. “There is a war destroying your planet, and your race, and hundreds of millions of humans and Ellehemaei have died. Yes. Yes, I expect you to carry two children to term. And I expect you to show up to drill tomorrow at 8 a.m., regardless of if you have cramps.” His voice turned into a sneer and he glared over Ted’s shoulder at Molly.

Ted muscled her way a little more firmly in front of her friend. “This being on students’ lists things. Does it ever get you laid?”

“That’s not why I’m on there.” Good, she’d managed to offend him. Again.

“Then why? ‘Cause I wouldn’t sleep with you otherwise. And I figure most other students wouldn’t, either.”

“For the same reason everyone else is on your list: the Director and the Doctor believe that you’d make a good genetic match with those people.”

“Why not just clone?” The word tickled at the back of her mind. Clone. Clone. Twin?

“Cloning takes longer and doesn’t work as well as the old-fashioned way. Now, unless you’re going to invite me into your bed, go. Go talk to someone on your list, or something.”

“Why aren’t any of us on each other’s lists?”

Luke shrugged at them. “You got lucky, I guess. If you can be friends and still obey the rules, be friends. Not many people can.”

And that was a very weird thing to say. Ted glanced at her list, and then peered over her shoulder at Molly’s list. “Hey, Moll. I think one of mine and one of yours room together. Let’s go bother them. Come on, Fili, Homer.”

“Why are we coming?”

“Because we’re going to go talk to upperclassmen in their dorm. You’re coming along for protection.”

“Protection?” She thought Homer squeaked. Fili just laughed. “You think we’re going to be able to help?”

“Not really. Sorry. But I think the more people we have, the less likely we are to get jumped.”

“Well then.” Fili glanced at his list, and shook his head. “I still don’t believe this.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/442005.html. You can comment here or there.

Sister’s Keeper

Jan7

This is to @dahob’s commissioned continuation of Sister Trouble

Content warning: This is a story about a succubus and her half-brother incubus in a magical dom/sub relationship. Implied incest, sex, and domination throughout.

Ivette, it turned out, was sitting in their shared apartment, reading.

Joff stifled the entirely unfair I didn’t know she could read; she’d graduated from Addergoole, same as him. She was literate and educated, more than most of their peers in in college. Just because she generally didn’t show it…

“‘Vette, what are you doing?”

She glanced up. She was holding a fat highlighter in her mouth – not, the way some girls might, between her lips, but down her throat, as if she was giving it head. Joff felt a tightening in his pants and ignored it.

“Mmm..” She pulled the highlighter slowly out of her mouth. “I’m studying.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ivette.”

She pouted. “I hate it when you do that, Joffie.”

“I hate it when you call me Joffie. Don’t lie to me today.”

She tugged on the thin gold chain around her throat. “But I am studying. See? Highlighted and everything.”

He sat down next to her and looked at the book. “Abnormal psychology? I didn’t know you were taking this class.”

“I sort of snuck into it when you weren’t looking.” She shrugged eloquently. “I was bored in the other classes. Fashion. Bah. So I dropped out of Fashion and Health and started taking Business and Abnormal Psych.”

“…why?”

“I told you, I was bored. You’re not the only one who can, you know, study and stuff. I like learning things, too.”

Joff pursed his lips. “Ivette, stop the poor-me act. For now, at least. Why are you really doing this?”

She sulked, but she pulled back on her power enough that Joff could breathe. “You told me to go to college.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I told you that I was going to college, and that you should come up with a plan.”

“You Kept me, remember?” She tugged on the tiny gold chain. “Being yours is my plan.”

Oh. Was this… no, this was a distraction. He glared at her. “Ivette, tell me what you’re up to.”

“Right now, I’m trying to distract you from asking why I’m studying… damnit, Joff. I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Well, I don’t like it when you leave people half-alive bloody piles of whimpering. So you’re going to have to deal with being told what to do once in a while. Ivette, what is your plan?”

“Well, so, I have to do something. You said. And I’m not really even bad at numbers, but I figured, most of the stock market, most of business, is all a giant scam anyway, right? It’s all psychology.”

“…So you want to go into business? Or into businessmen?”

“You told me I needed a real career first. I still don’t understand why.”

“Because I said so.” Sometimes having Kept his sister seemed like the worst decision he’s ever made. “So. Business.”

“Business.” She waved the book at him. “I am going to slay in the boardroom. It’s going to be so much fun.”

“And where does saving yourself for marriage come in?”

He was almost afraid to find out the answer.

“Reputation.”

“Reputation?”

There were odder things she could have said. If she’d said she actually was concerned about her immortal soul, that would have been weirder. If she’d said she wanted to redeem herself for everything she’d done in Addergoole, that would have been the weirdest. but this… this was pretty weird. “Reputation?” he repeated.

“Reputation. in Addergoole, everyone knew what I was. Everyone knew I was Ivette, the succubus. Ivette, the slut. Ivette, the man-eater.”

Joff had heard far worse than that, so he didn’t argue with her assessment. “Addergoole is small. It doesn’t take much to get a reputation there.”

“Joff, the pretty. Joff, the victim. Joff, the amazing chef.”

“Yeah. That.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “We all had them. We all had the names.”

“And the Names. Don’t forget those.”

“Vette, is this about…?” Her Name. What Mike had saddled her with, damn him. As if being his sister’s Keeper wasn’t hard enough on Joff without giving her that.

“No.” She shook her head angrily. “No, because I refuse to make it about that. Absolutely refuse. I am not going to be the door that is always open, Joff, the ride everyone’s been on. and nobody, nobody is going to know me that way. I’m not going to let it happen.”

“So you’re… saving yourself for marriage? You’re still a succubus, ‘Vette, how’s that going to work? How long can you hold out?”

“I don’t have to hold out. I just have to not let anybody know.” She ran her hand up Joff’s thigh. “You won’t tell anyone. You love me.”

Joff caught her wrist and lifted her hand off of his leg. “Ivette.” He hated being mean to her, more than most things. But he knew if he didn’t, she’d never get any better.

She sulked. “Joff, you wouldn’t turn me down, would you?”

“I would, and you know it.” He used his best stern voice and the expression that matched. It felt foreign, but it worked. “Behave.”

She sat up a bit straighter and wiped the smirk off her face. “Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t like it when you succubus me.” He released her wrist.

“But you’re not mad about the business thing?”

“That? No. That’s a good idea, actually.”

She preened despite herself. “You think so?”

“Yeah. But.”

“There’s always a but.”

“That’s why I’m Keeping you, big sister. You never think about the but.”

They shared a giggle – entirely inappropriate for the serious conversation, but they were succubi, after all. Then Ivette tilted her head and put on a good business-woman face. “Okay. So what’s the but, master?”

“You call me that just to get punished.”

“Of course I do. Joff, seriously.”

“You’re never serious, Ivette.”

“I’m not normally collared by someone who can handle me, either.”

He sighed. She was back to flattery. “Wrists behind your back. Stand up.” He stood as he gave the orders, and got a handful of her hair. She didn’t focus without this, once she got it in her head that she deserved it. “Up to your room. The but, sister…” He steered her up the stairs, one hand in her hair, one on her wrists. “It’s a good plan – but you’re going to have to stick to it.”

“Really stick to it? Joooooooff, you know you’ll help me.”

He pushed her to her knees, ignoring the waves of lust coming off of her. “Help you? Sure.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “No sex for you without my permission.”

Keeping his sadist of a sister, he mused, was likely to turn him into a sadist himself. This was almost fun.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/456615.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/441413.html. You can comment here or there.