The wind was loud this night, as it whistled around the on campus living. It was late, and most of the students had gone to bed. Which was odd; mostly there was constantly something going on, a late night drinkathon, or a party across one hallway or the other. This university was even more lax than most, but everyone could feel the difference this night. It was cold, but that was normal for this time of year. It was in the air, though; a sense of something else. Lecturers gave their seminars to empty rooms; students who would normally be out socialising were alone, inside. It was unconscious. And that was only during the day.
The night was chaos incarnate, wind and leaves and individual sheets of rain and sleet falling together. Benches were overturned, and the streets of the township were empty. The police bunkered down in their station, knowing that, at least for this night, the crime outside was beyond their ability to control. There was no moon, and no stars. Nothing.
Tonight was not a Friday, nor was it the thirteenth of the month. It was the 1st of November, the Nameless day. Samhaihn.
Cassie shuddered. She had felt the wind whistling around her since she had left the library, pushing her towards away from shelter. It was odd; the wind was freezing, but she wasn't cold at all. It seemed to be curving around her, lifting the folds of her skirt, whistling through her sleaves, and down her shirt. It stroked her skin, and she felt almost as though fingers were on the wind, caressing her, running across the skin beneath her breasts, stroking her inner thigh. She smiled.
Casssie, the wind whispered, Casssssie. She felt the wind surge around her, lifting her forwards, almost off her feet. She stumbled, and felt a pair of arms come out, and catch her softly. She started, and rose.
Mark smiled down at her.
It was not her room that he led her to, even though he led her through her door, in her corridor. It was a master suite worthy of an Arabic princess; a full teak set of furniture, all in an oriental style, complementing the floor of marble. The double door outside was open, and the curtains in a dark purple were flowing backwards; Cassie noted that they were far too long for normal use, flowing from the bar at the top like water from a waterfall.
The four-poster bed was opulent, bigger than even a king size. The drapes from the top started out as the same purple as the curtains, but softened into a lighter colour before turning white. These too flowed out from the bed, drenching it in sheets of pale mauve.
Cassie turned in his arms, and looked at him questioningly. She had always felt more than comfortable around him, had felt that she could keep up with him, be beside him like no other- that gothic chick he hung out with was pretty, but nothing when compared to her.
"What's the occasion?"
Mark smile again, this time fairly self consciously. "I have a proposition to put to you, but..." He trailed away.
"But what?"
"Full of questions much tonight?" he said, as she sat down on the bed. He kept his distance, standing against the wall, as far away from her as he could. Best make sure her choice was strictly hers- she might not survive it he made it for her.
"What have you... thought, about the night we had; you, Cristina, Amanda and me?"
She coloured, her pale face beyond red. "I have considered all sorts of things."
"Like what?"
"Like... mutant spiders and kryptonite."
He laughed out loud. "See, no fangs!"
She smiled. "No, really. Then I looked on the internet, mainly Wikipedia, and read up, about mythological creatures. What I- we- experienced that night... it's more than what most women get their whole lives. Therefore, I thought you might be... well..."
"Well what?"
"An incubus; a demon who feeds of female sexual energy. Maybe you can turn into a woman, and fuck men for their semen, so you can create little demon children!" She said that last with a half smile on her face, but she couldn't hide the quaver in her voice.
He walked over to her, and sat down, next to her. He made sure to keep away, so that they didn't touch.
"I am all of this. I can read your mind, and even to some measure control it. I can flood your body with pleasure, and make you want only me until your dying day. I could fuck you and fuck you until you are dead from the sheer momentum, but why would I do that when I could suck out your soul and love every taste, every smell? More than that; your death would be an aphrodisiac for me."
She drew away slightly, her face no longer smiling. "Why are you telling me this?"
He gestured around. "This room. It shows you both sides of my nature. I am as beautiful and as desirable as the richest of silks; I am as treacherous as icy water, and I will drown you in my embrace.
He stopped for a moment. "I am here to offer you a choice; I will walk away tonight, and you will have an utterly normal life. You will have a home, and a husband. You will have children. You will grow old, and you will definitely die. Or...
"Or you could have me, have this, forever. I found in you something both precious and powerful; not an emotion, or even a strong feeling. It was an intuition, a realisation, that you could be as I am. I am offering you the chance to be a succubus, my opposite, my equal. You would prey on men as I did on you, but more. You would enjoy it far, far more than I ever can. I can only finish when I drain a woman completely, and only when I turn a human into one of us."
"So I ask you, will you have a normal life, and live it out being content, and die as a mortal, or will you take this, and run with it until the end of days? Will you join me, and become the Bride of...Whatever?"
She was silent, her face as chalk. "Holy shit, Mark!"