Be My Valentine

The Fires of Love - Elsa Green & Livrelou

The Fires of Love

“Miss-,” the man checks his file, “-Thorn.” He lifts his skeptical baby-blue eyes to meet mine, “I assume that is not your real name, is it?” He has a pretty accent. I love accents. They always give me the tingles.

“What do you think, officer?” I smile at the man. Bright red lips curved into a seductive grin. I know how to use that smile against men like him. I know that he won’t be able to resist casting a glance when I slowly, purposefully cross my legs.

“I think that we found three bodies in your basement. And I think that you are the Mummy Killer.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. Humans and their stupid need to name things. Mummies? That’s not what I do. It’s not who I am. I mean, I don’t enjoy killing anyone. I really don’t, but I can’t help it. It’s in my nature. If there was any other way I would leave them alive, but there is not. Unless I want to starve that is and if it’s my life over theirs –well, I choose me.

“So, you think this is funny?” he leans back in his chair and that’s when I cross my legs. For his enjoyment solely. Do you know the movie Basic Instinct? I have learned a lot from Michele Pfifer. Especially the leg cross. And no, I am not wearing anything underneath my dress. He coughs, hiding his surprise. He leans forward again, his hands on the metal table between us. “I don’t think you understand, Miss Thorn. But you are in a huge deal of trouble.”

“Meh,” I shrug it off and check my nails. You probably wonder how I ended up here. It happens from time to time. They catch me doing something illegal, they suspect me of murder, I am prosecuted and thrown behind bars and after a week or so I disappear. I enjoy this game. It’s fun, but today was not the day I wanted to be caught by an overambitious detective.

It’s Valentine's Day and my lover and I had other plans for tonight. See, he’s a demon. You might think that doesn’t make him a very good boyfriend, but he is the love of my life. He has a name too, but names are a powerful weapon in the demon world, so let’s just call him Bob.

Why am I with Bob? Easy. He has no soul and I need a man with a specific quality like that. Why? Because I am a succubus. I suck things out of people. Souls if you want specifics. And yes, sucking the soul out of a human does kill them. Souls are my dinner. I can do a week without, but that’s when I get cranky and things usually get messy.

Once I wiped out an entire cell block. It wasn’t my fault. I told them not to lock me up with so many tainted souls, but they never listen. And once I got really, really hungry –well, you can imagine the mess. Let’s just say I wasn’t just feasting on souls.

Back in the day, my ancestors devoured humans like that. It was sort of a religious thing, but the modern succubus sticks to souls. We are no monsters, you know.

Bob was joking about the little prison incident for weeks. He said they should hire me for death row, so everybody gets a little something out of it. But criminals aren’t really my type. They weep a lot. Especially in their final moments. Nah. I need a real man!

Bob has a great sense of humor for a demon. They are usually very serious about their business, but not Bob. He’s the fun kind of demon. Upper-Class demon of course. He’s a prince, but who wants to brag? Not me. His most important feature is that he loves me. Yes. Yes, a demon can love. Even without a soul.

Against common belief, the soul isn’t some mushy, twinkly thing inside your body that makes you a good or a bad person. It’s not responsible for love or any other feeling as a matter of fact. That's what your brain and all the pretty chemicals in your body are for.

The soul is like a filter. Imagine it like a fishnet. Some things go through, other things stick to it. Bad things. The sins you committed throughout your life. It is what in the end will determine whether you’re going upstairs to the pearly gates or burning in the pits of hell.

So technically I am doing them a favor. Cleaning up all that junk inside their souls. Truth be told, I don’t know whether you get to go to heaven without a soul, but I like to think so. I am, after all, not an evil creature. I’m more like a cleaner wrasse. I clean your soul, so you get a fresh start. In heaven. Preferably.

“Is this going to take much longer?” I ask checking my nails again, “I have plans, you know. By the way am I not allowed a phone call or something like that?”

“Are you asking for a lawyer?” the detective asks.

“A lawyer?” I smile and sit up a little straighter. I know someone who makes his own law. But he will not like it if I called him here. He hates possessing bodies with a soul. Good thing is: I have ways to make up for the inconvenience.

“Calling a lawyer makes you look more guilty?” the man asks, trying to break me. I smile as sweetly as I can and whisper the secret words that’ll bring my love straight to me.

***

The man across the table from the woman might not have known that he was talking to something that was not Of This World, but he did know the moment that something of her ilk replaced his consciousness with its own.

He did not like it. But then, arguably, possession was not something that someone was supposed to like.

Or maybe it was. Bob didn’t know.

What he did know was that possessing something with a soul was perturbing, because it meant he could not entirely occupy the body. So, instead of seeing and feeling and touching the world using eyes and hands that belonged to him, Bob had to suffice with sitting just off to the side.

The difference between first person and third person, if you will. Like a video game.

So Bob did not really experience the sudden convulsion of the man’s body, or the seizure of his muscles, or hear the embarrassingly high-pitched squeal that the man emitted before his soul finally budged up to make enough room for Bob to occupy. He did see it, though. Just like he saw his very lovely lady sitting across the table from him.

“Poppet,” the smile was not his smile but rather an echo of his smile, and he brandished it with a flourish. “You’re late. And you seem to be with a bag of s**t instead of summoning me.”

He leaned an elbow on the table, eyed the woman and said, “If this is your idea of role-play, I don’t think I’m down for it. You know I hate possession. It’s all messy, and the soul in here is particularly obnoxious.”

As if to prove his point, he waved his free hand at the back of his head, as if trying to catch a fly from behind him. “Yes, fine. Just be quiet, I’m trying to talk.”

A huff. His full attention was back on her. “Sorry. He’s being offended at me. Much like I’m offended at you. Have you stood me up?”

***

“I missed you, Muffin,” I say, reaching for the hand that’s still swatting at nothing particular in the air. Blue eyes move hectically until they finally focus on me, flashing with a deep shade of burgundy.

“Why am I here?” he asks, looking around the room. He groans when he realized where we are, “again? Am I riding the detective?”

I nod enthusiastically.

His head twitches and his eyes roll back into his head, “this one-,” he mutters, “-is resistant. Down boy, I am talking to my girl!” His hand jerks out of mine and lands on the table with a loud thud. The body is fighting him. But my Bob is strong. The human is no match for him. Soul or no soul.

Burgundy eyes focus back on me, “this one is making me sick. Let’s get you out of here, Poppet, and get on with the night. I would like to get out of this body, find mine, and then I want to take you to-,” he coughs, voice changing, “-prison!”

“Kinky,” I chuckle, knowing the last part didn’t come from Bob. I stretch my hands over the table and cross my wrists, “arrest me then, Mr. Detective-man.”

He leans forward, “but I am no man, little pet,” he whispers dangerously. Don’t I know it? I love that about him. I love everything about him. Especially since he has no soul. Having no soul means I can touch him, kiss him, and love him, without having to worry about hurting him. This meat suit of his though has a soul and kissing him would kill my ticket out of this place.

“No, you are not.” I agree with him, feeling all squishy inside at the thought of the power he wields. “Should we burn this place down, my love? Cause a little trouble?”

“Hm, wouldn’t you like that?” he laughs, his body jerking at his words as if the man the body belongs to does not approve of the words spoken. It’s not like we are going to hurt anyone. I think. We are not the bad guys here. Just a pair of innocent demons.

***

Bob brought his hands together, the sound echoing slightly in the room. “Okay. Let’s see how much horsepower Detective Kill-Joy has under the bonnet.”

The chair scraped loudly against the floor as Bob got to his feet and surveyed the room. There was a door, probably reinforced for fires, and the big reflective window that he knew led to an observation room. Of course breaking down the door would probably be a nice and easy bit of destruction and chaos, but why go through a door when you could go through a window?

And obviously, they would need to get into the observation room, if only to kill the observers, so this way would be a lot faster.

DO WHAT? The part of Bob that was bobby and not Bob now buzzed indignantly in the back of his brain.

“Oh, calm down; killing someone’s not the worst I could do.” He scrubbed the back of his hand against his nose, squared off with the window and took a deep breath.

Then he threw himself at the shining glass panel. The impact produced a massively hollow thud, and the body that wasn’t Bob’s body ricocheted off of unbroken glass.

His nose ached, and his beady human eyes were filled with stars.

“Okay OW.” Both hands went to the bridge of his nose and he squinted and blinked hard at the fuzzy little lights dancing in front of him. “Note to self: Humans are weak as shit.”

The buzzing in his head didn’t go away when the fuzzy lights faded. The cop-thing had a mosquito’s persistence.

Bob dropped down into his chair and offered his girl a sadly fangless smile. “Turns out, the boy in blue is more pony-power than horse-power, my dear. We might have to re-group.”

***

“Why don’t you just walk me out of here?” I ask a little baffled by his strange behavior. I must admit I don’t like it when he’s riding another man's body. A human body. I don’t even know why it surprised him that bursting through a double-glassed window didn’t work.

“You are after all a cop,” I smile at him, “we could take the handcuffs,” I suggest pointing at the metal cuffs the detective placed on the table. Probably to intimidate me. Little did he know that they would have the opposite effect on me.

“On what grounds?” Bob asks, his eyes flicking from left to right, listening to the voice inside his head.

“I’m innocent,” I shrug and his eyes still and land on me with a devilish smirk. He lifts his hand to cup my jaw, his thumb carefully tracing the outline of my lower lip.

“You are anything but, my beautiful little poppet. But I am getting bored with this body, so, do me a favor, love, and take this rambling soul out of the equation, so we can get on with the night?”

“Will you let me play with him?” I ask, biting his thumb playfully. I know he can’t feel it. Not as long as the soul in this body keeps him from taking full control over the body. It’s a little bit like flying an airplane on autopilot.

“My valentines present to you,” he chuckles, “it freaks him out. I can almost taste his fear. I like it. Tastes like strawberries.”

“I love strawberries,” I purr, rising from my rather uncomfortable seat. Burgundy, devilish eyes watch me. Burgundy switching to baby blue. Hunger replaced by fear. “Don’t worry, pet, you won’t feel a thing. None other than happy things,” I whisper seductively, lowering my head to his level.

There is the familiar eclectic tingle on my lips. It’s a built-in mechanism, producing pheromones to make my chosen prey attracted to me. Fill his mind with s*x and thoughts of me. Life was very lonely before I met Bob. If your kiss kills a person.

“Buckle up, Muffin,” I coo before my lips touch the detectives.

***

The nice thing about dating a succubus was that the woman always knew what she was doing. Being a demon did not exempt Bob from his darling trinket’s allure, nor did it dull the effects of her particular brand of magic on his body. It was his lack of soul that made him invulnerable to the inevitable path of destruction that she left behind.

Detective I-Don’t-Wanna-Be-A-Demon, on the other hand, was not.

Imagine being sipped through a straw. But then imagine that it’s not all of you. Just one random sliver of you about the size of a spaghetti noodle, if a spaghetti noodle was in proportion to the rest of your body. That’s what it felt like to occupy a body while the soul was being sucked out.

And when it was removed, Bob could stretch into the space that was left behind, settle behind the eyes of the body, and fully inhabit that space.

Fingers gripped the succubus’ hair hard, pulled her deeper into the kiss, until her body and breath stuttered and her heartbeat kicked up a different and very familiar rhythm.

I pulled away from the woman when her hands start wandering. “Not here.” It was hard to say how effective the cop’s smile was in comparison to my own, but I smiled anyway, feeling the rest of my magic seeping out toward my extremities and bringing new life to the weak little body that was not my own.

The cop’s cuffs are cool in my hands, and I pop them into the small snap-studded pouch where they live before taking my girl by the hand and swinging her around to the door.

It’s open, which makes sense in retrospect, because why would a cop lock himself into a room with a prospective criminal?

The hallway is empty, too, and since no one is up in arms about me beating this frail-ass body into the observation window or making out with the hot suspect, I’m betting there’s no one in the observation room either.

Which is a shame, because I do love a good c*****e.

“Coast’s clear. After you, popett.”

***

Sucking out a soul is like popping a very potent pill of E. And it makes me very horney. I mean it’s in my nature. I am seducing my cookies -I don’t like to call them victims. I am not evil. I’m just a pretty little succubus following the course of nature. I mean, there must be a reason the big boss in the heavens created my kind, right?

Instead of following my love's gesture to lead the way, I run my hand up his back. I admit, this body isn’t nearly as fine as Bob’s true form, but it’s nice enough to play with. And I like all the shiny tools on his belt.

Bob catches my wandering hand and shoots me a warning glare. “You can have him. All of him. But not now!”

“I can’t control it,” I whine and let my body do its thing. Not even my strong prince of darkness is immune to my magic. I can tell, by the way, his pupils turn from perfectly round little orbs into long, black slits. If he’s not careful, his true form -strong and powerful- might just rip this pretty little detective apart.

It would be very hard to explain a 6’5 man, with dark, scaly skin standing in the middle of the room. If he’s really excited he even pops out his leathery wings. But he rarely shows his true form. Only when I tease him until he can’t hide it anymore.

I sigh and wrap my arms around his neck, “oh, Mr. Policeman, I have been a naughty, naughty girl,” I purr with a wicked smile in place. He answers with a primal growl I only know too well. I giggle at the sound, running my tongue over his lower lip. His burgundy eyes start burning with a fire, only a man born and raised in hell could handle. But he’s barely hanging on. Oh, how I love it when he’s about to lose control like that.

I gasp as he wraps my long ponytail around his wrist and harshly pulls my head back. “Naughty indeed,” he growls dangerously, sharp fangs grazing the skin on my neck, before he licks off the tiny droplets of blood.

A succubus’s blood to a demon would be the equivalent of whatever drugs turn you into a crazy horn dog. Next thing I know, he pushes me against the wall of the shabby little police station, his kiss wild and unholy.

I hear the popping of bones. The detective is barely able to contain my demon lover. “Don’t break him just yet,” I breathe against his soft lips, “I like this one.”

Another popping sound, but the body is still intact. “Thank you, my love,” I smile and slide my hands down this very well-proportioned body. Well-defined muscles covering his stomach, flexing under my touch.

“McCarthy? What the hell are you doing with the suspect?” A voice somewhere to the right asks. I think it’s the detective's partner. He was there when they arrested me, but I forgot his name.

Neither Bob nor I interrupt our kiss, but I feel him draw the gun from McCarthy’s belt. Boom! And all hell breaks loose as the man's body hits the dirty linoleum floor.

***

There’s a lot to be said for the virtue of self-control. All of it can be said by people who were of the kind to actually possess virtues.

I do not. I possess people, like the cop that my girl is currently lusting after. Maybe like the now-dead cop that we left on the floor of the interrogation room. Or the many other dead cops that we left in the hall. But probably not them, because they’re well on their way to becoming crispy critters.

“In retrospect, setting the building on fire might have been a mistake.” I rub my eye in thought as I look at the blaze where the police station had been before the fire hit the gas main and sent the entire place into the ozone. On the other hand, it’s Valentine’s Day, so it seems fitting that people are dead and the world is on fire.

Of course, explain that to the other demons who get finicky about these sorts of things…

I turn at the deep rev of a motor, and my grin widens as all of my hopes and temptations are met by the cheeky little smile of my succubus darling straddling the cop motorcycle.

“Hello, pet.” I swing my leg up and over the bike behind her, deciding It’s more fun if she’s the one driving.

Of course, the last time I thought it’d be fun to let her do something, it ended with a police station on fire, so…

“Listen, pet, what are your thoughts on going to my place for next year's Valentine's Day instead of rising hell on earth?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she whispers handing me the black helmet. I raise my brows at her. I don’t need a helmet. I am immortal. But she grins at me, “Safety first, Detective!”

By Elsa Green and Livre Lou

Works: Ghost - in the arms of Death (Dreame)

I am the Night - the last She-Wold (Dreame)

I am the Light - His last Redemption (Dreame)

Firefly - Caught in the Flames (In.kitt)

Author group:

A Livre with Lou

Penname Elsa Green,

THE SPELLCRAFT SERIES:

Haunted Love (Dreame)

Blood Lust (Dreame)

Feral Passion (Dreame)

Driving Thirst (In.kitt)

Find more on The SpellCraft Series fac.e.book page Thespellcraftseries

Author group:

The Spellcraft Series