NOTES:
* Still only proofread.
* There's sex in this one! Woohoo
* Eventually these notes will start having gore warnings, but not yet. Thought it was going to be this chapter, but nooo.
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Bane had insisted I take more than enough clothing with me, and all of the journals. The suitcase he had given me for the trip and the two backpacks took up almost the entire tiny trunk on Turq's little sporty two-seater car. His own briefcase packed full of all the paperwork he'd brought took up the rest. This was why I had wanted a truck when my mom asked what I'd wanted to drive. I wondered now if it had been my sire that had bought it for me, but I would probably never know. At least it had more space than this.
"Size isn't everything, love," Turq quipped from the front door as I eyed the car. If we were in an accident, we were both going to die.
"That isn't even a car," I complained. "It's a roller skate. Make sure you have your phone ready to jump it if it dies."
Bane cleared his throat to cover a snort of laughter, but Turq smiled. "We'll get along great, Jezza. If you've got everything, we can get going. It takes a while to get out to my place and I'm going to have to do work when we get there before you and I can start to play."
He strode out to the car and slid into the driver seat while I leaned toward Bane. "Will this be okay?"
"It should be," he seemed distracted, though. "It's been about a month and the bond has leveled out a lot since then. If it starts getting strained, you can call me out there. He'll be fine with it."
Reaching out to touch him, I still found the same comfort. His power washed over me and I sighed before letting go and walking toward the car. I could feel the jealousy from his side of the bond, and his frustration at it. My side of the bond was normal, though, and my power was anticipating this new taste we were going to get.
I slid into the lush leather interior of the tiny car and made a small sound of appreciation. "See? Size isn't everything," Turq said as he put it in gear and pulled smoothly out onto the road. I could feel the bond stretching, but it wasn't uncomfortable like it had been early on.
He glanced across the car at me, "You'll be fine. Let the bond stretch. It won't break with a little distance."
"Why would the higher powers make the council if they were only going to tear it down?" I asked into the hush of the car. "And why go about it like this instead of just disbanding them or something?"
He sighed, "Starting with the hard questions, I guess. They formed the council to control the lesser powers. There have always been more lower demons born than dukes or marquis. The kings and princes don't breed often, but those of us down here in the pit? We breed like rodents. They needed a way to keep us in line without having to do it themselves - world to run, ya know - so they formed the council. For the first few centuries it worked very well. Lately, however, the council is in it for the money and control they gain more than the well-being of, well, the beings."
"Corrupt demons, do tell," I was heavy on the sarcasm and he chuckled.
"I think the higher ups just can't be bothered to deal with the mess they made in a normal manner. They feed on chaos, always have. Sending a small group of succubi they bred specifically to be too powerful for the council to hope to control is just about the definition of how they do things. Having you ladies do their dirty work for them also keeps their noses clean, so to speak."
"Do you think I'll meet them? The other succubi, that is," he was being forthcoming with the information, so I might as well ask what I wanted.
"I'm not sure," he seemed to slump into the seat. "If we can manage to find out when any of the others are answering the summons, you might meet them there. You might have to meet them, though it's not always a good idea to get a bunch of you sexy females in a room together. The nymphs like to share, sure, but that is not a trait they passed on."
I thought back to the meeting with my mom the day before. It hadn't been entirely comfortable sitting in her house, even though it was the only house I had known growing up. "I noticed that."
"So it happens even with a parent?" His surprise seemed genuine.
"It's not that I didn't want to be in the house with my mom, and it was great just hearing her voice again and being able to hug her. But it was like I was having to fight myself not to overpower her."
"That sounds about right, then," he looked in his mirror before cutting across three lanes of traffic and into an exit lane. "The more powerful will want to force the weaker out of the space. I've never known succubi to be particularly friendly towards one another, which is why there never were many to begin with."
"How are we supposed to work together to overpower the council, then? If we can't stand being in the same space," my head fell back against the seat and I stared at the closed sunroof.
"I listened to the transcript of the meeting with your mom," he held a hand up off the wheel when I looked at him. "I asked Chaz to record it on his phone so we had some sort of record. Your mom didn't say the plan was to overpower the council. The plan is for y'all to kill them. Jezza, have you read any of the journals at all yet?"
"I haven't had time," that wasn't entirely true. I just really hadn't felt up to it. There was very little desire to read through my mom's journals, or my aunts if that was who her sisters had been.
"You should read them when we get to my place. I'll have to be in the office for a while anyway, it will give you some time and you won't be bothered. She said you had to go to the council in a group, that this wouldn't work if any of you went alone. I think if you went alone, you would turn siren and they would simply kill you. But having more than one siren in custody would break the council. There may be something in the journals about sirens."
"I'll look through them," I turned to look out the window. We had been driving for nearly an hour and a half, and were deep into the hill country.
The roads were narrow, with sharp hills and blind turns that forced a slow speed even for the sporty little car. Every now and then we would pass a gate, and sometimes I could see the massive houses behind the trees. Mostly, I just saw the small trees stunted by the winds and lack of very fertile soil. Bane's house was modest, on a decent sized lot, but nothing really special. Chaz had a large house, almost a miniature mansion, but the lot was fairly small for the size of the house. This, though, was ridiculous. The houses I could catch glimpses of looked like they belonged on magazine covers. The mile or more of fenceline we passed between gates hinted at large acreage.
After another hour or so of driving, mostly in silence, we turned into a gate that dwarfed the tiny car. It had a gatehouse and Turq waved at the guard that walked out as we waited for the gate to swing open. The drive was paved and lined with crepe myrtles that had to be a bitch to maintain out here, and I couldn't see even a hint of the house. I didn't see any livestock on the drive, and there hadn't been a cattle guard.
The house finally appeared about five minutes past the gate, and it was not what I was expecting to see at the end of the drive. It was a modest ranch style home. I could see a pool and a small pool house in the back before we rounded a bend and he pulled us into a circle in front of the door to park. A servant stepped out of the garage, but when he waved the man stayed by the door.
"It's not much, but I do like the privacy," he said, not moving to get out of the car. "Ah, toward the back of the property is a much more impressive house where Sitri lives. He needed a lawyer at one point and I needed damn good wards put on my property. I didn't actually expect him to move here, but couldn't exactly stop him. He knows you will be here and shouldn't bother us, but if you put out a call like you've done with Bane I can't promise he won't turn up. I don't think he's your sire, but he wouldn't answer me if I asked so I haven't bothered."