Caught Read online

  SUCCUBUS DREAMS: CAUGHT

  SUCCUBUS HAREM PART 26

  Copyright © 2019 by L.L. Frost

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the writer, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by L.L. Frost

  Book design by L.L. Frost

  Printed in the United States of America.

  First Printing, 2019

  Contents

  Into the Hurricane

  Dessert Half-Served

  Humanegan

  Going Home

  Give Me What You Got

  From the Author

  Also by L L Frost

  About the Author

  “Hey, don’t be so down on yourself.” Aren nudges me in the shoulder with his trunk. “It was a good effort on your part. And, you know, Landrogath was going to...” He makes a slicing noise as his trunk sweeps across his throat. “You know. So, it would have been the same result anyway, right?”

  “It meant nothing.” From where I sit on the soft curb, gray fog rolling up around me, I gesture back to the apartment building. “Look at all those people in there. They need help.”

  “But you wouldn’t even know about them unless you came here, right?” He stomps in place. “They’ve been like that for almost two weeks, and no one’s cared so far.”

  My head snaps up. “What?”

  “We found the first one right before your epic showdown with the Hunters.” His head turns, and one large eye locks on me. “Now, that, was amazeballs.”

  That means these humans were already cocooned like this the last time I was in Dreamland. Why didn’t he say something back then?

  I spring to my feet. “Why didn’t someone mention it before now?”

  “How amazing your fight was with the Hunters?” He snorts loudly, his floppy ears slapping against his sides. “I mean, it was cool, but you’re not the first demon to smite those assholes. Why, my little sister—”

  “The human cocoons!” I screech in frustration. “Why didn’t anyone stop this before it got this far?”

  “Well, we sent someone to report it, but you know how bureaucracy is.” He shrugs massive shoulders. “It will be tied up in paperwork for a decade before they appoint someone to investigate. Meanwhile, my people are eating like kings. It’s actually not a bad setup until the humans go all gray.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nightmares are on the rise, baby.” He dances and snuffles. “I can’t swing my trunk without hitting a human who needs a little baku dream munching help. And I’m not talking showing up at school naked kind of nightmares. I’m talking the good stuff. Murder, gore, dismemberment.”

  My mind spins. “And the ones having these vivid nightmares are the ones who end up in cocoons?”

  “Yeah, about seven days after it starts.”

  My hand lifts to my head. “I’ve been having really bad nightmares.”

  He nods slowly. “Yeah, you’ve been in a dark place since you helped take out the Hunters and He Who Devours. I would have helped you out with that, but until Tally gave me the go-ahead, I was trying to be respectful of your privacy.”

  I narrow my eyes on him. “You watched me with Tobias. How’s that respectful?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m not a saint, and that was hot.” His tail snaps against his hind leg. “And it’s not like you didn’t leave the door open. It was an obvious invitation!”

  I ignore that for now. “How come you didn’t eat my last nightmare?”

  “I couldn’t find you.” He walks closer, the soft ground shaking, and rubs a scaly shoulder against my arm to rub off more of the baked-on clay from the demon plane. “I was with you right up until you crawled into your nest, and then you just blipped out. I figured one of your demons set a ward or something.”

  My brows furrow. “I thought wards couldn’t keep baku out?”

  Hadn’t Tally said something like that?

  “Wards by you, no.” His trunk pats me in sympathy. “Not Tally’s, either, though she’s getting there. But your demons of destruction? Yeah, they can keep out anything they want. They could keep in anything they want, too, just in case you weren’t already aware of the type of demons you’re banging.”

  I already know they can keep me out if they want. Logically, they could do the reverse, though it hadn’t actually crossed my mind they’d try to imprison me. Why would they? I’m bound to them by our contract. Though, does that still hold true?

  I feel for the strings that link me to them. They were bound to the energy core that formed my corporeal form, but they should still be with me even now. If demons could break a contract just by fleeing the human plane, then contracts would be useless.

  But when I search inside this new, wingless body, I find only my own energy. I dug my men out of every part of myself before cutting my body loose on the human plane. An aching emptiness opens in my chest. There should be more than just myself inside my body. There should be fire, ice, and lightning, and I crave their return.

  My bones vibrate, the hair around my shoulders lifting, as hunger floods through me. This is my feeding ground, the place to glut on energy, and my eyes sweep over the gray landscape, picking out the pops of color, sleeping humans, who call with the lure of a siren. Come feast, it whispers. Fill the emptiness with the emotions of others. Come, gorge on lust and thwarted desires.

  Aren takes a hesitant step back. “Hey, Adie, buddy, you still cool?”

  My focus shifts to him, to the energy that shimmers from his skin and rolls through his body. Nightmares eaten, terror turned to sustenance, ready for the taking. Blue light reflects from the wide, black eye fixed on me, and when I blink slowly, it flutters in and out.

  Languid heat fills my limbs. “Take me to one of the humans still having nightmares.”

  “Okay, yeah, I can do that.” He shuffles another step away, turning slightly, his focus still on me as he steps forward.

  He doesn’t offer for me to ride him this time, and I allow the distance between us. If it makes him feel safer from my hunger, I’ll let him pretend.

  Aren isn’t who I want to hunt. Even with the space that separates us, his energy lick across my skin, and when I breathe him in, he smells of tears and night sweats, his energy dark and heavy. A harbinger of misery rather than the destruction I crave.

  I push the hunger to the back of my mind. Nothing here will tempt me to lose my head in a feeding frenzy.

  We arrive at another apartment complex, this one taller than the first, with a hazy secondary building attached to the left side. Either a building in expansion or halfway torn down. But with people sleeping inside, I assume the first.

  On the third floor, we walk through the door and into a living room with furniture that holds its shape better than most. Whoever lives here has been in this place for a long time and doesn’t rearrange their furniture often. Someone older, then. I half remember a retirement center in town under remodel. Is that where we are?

  I glance at Aren to ask, but he flinches back, his gaze wary.

  In the bedroom, we pause next to the human’s sleeping form. I can’t see the nightmare that rides him, but from his feeble thrashing, it must be horrifying. Aren reaches out, his trunk sweeping through the air above the old man, and tears away a piece of
the dream. As soon as it separates from the human, it becomes visible, a writhing mass of darkness that reaches for the old man, stretching to reconnect before Aren stuffs it into his mouth.

  At the crunch, my stomach rolls, and I turn to scan the rest of the room. Does the gray in here look different than the gray outside? I bend to run a hand along the blanket. It feels the same as the wall we walked through. Straightening, I go to the window, studying the almost transparent sheet of fog that makes up the glass. My bones don’t hum with warning like they did with the cocooned human we first looked at. Maybe the nightmare creature just isn’t here.

  I turn back to Aren. “Take me to another one.”

  “In a minute,” he mumbles, a piece of dark mist curling around his tusk. His trunk sweeps up to tuck it firmly back into his mouth. “Almost done here.”

  I pace around the room. “Have the baku been eating all the new nightmares?”

  “Mm, yeah. They’re super tasty.” He stuffs another piece into his mouth and crunches away. “I grab all the ones I can.”

  Studying his mottled hide, I circle around him. “No adverse effects?”

  He pauses, a wiggling mass of darkness pinches in his trunk. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Melting? De-materialization?” I shrug. “The urge to sleep?”

  He snorts. “Baku don’t sleep.”

  “Have any of you seen more of the creatures like what was outside my house?”

  “That nasty red eyeball?” He shudders, the ruff around his neck rising. “Now, that’s a nightmare. But, no, haven’t noticed any of them. Haven’t been looking for them, either, though.”

  “You said I blipped out of visibility.” I hug my elbows, suddenly feeling chilled in my nudity even though Dreamland always felt comfortable before. The hunger continues to gnaw at my stomach, and focusing through it makes my head hurt. But I’m used to hunger and push it aside. “At what point did I reappear?”

  “Umm...” His trunk sweeps through the air like a wand in a cotton candy machine, gathering up the last of the nightmare, and the old man settles into a restful sleep. “When Tac started pawing at the shutters? You were awake, definitely.”

  So not when I first woke up. I’d have to confirm with the guys, but I’m pretty sure they only ward their bedrooms and not the whole house. I’m guessing I vanished from Aren’s view when the nightmare creature first infiltrated my dreams, but the actual creature didn’t show up until later. If Aren’s timeline from first contact to cocoon stage is right, this would have been the night I didn’t wake back up.

  Would my dream body be here somewhere, bundled up and waiting to be digested by the Dreamer? Would anyone have found me since the cocoons don’t register the same as other living beings in Dreamland?

  I glance at him. “Have any succubi or incubi been found?”

  “Can’t say that I’ve looked.” He crunches down on the last of the nightmare, then turns toward the door. “You lot are usually sexing it up when you’re sleeping. Not exactly what I taste for, you know? And then there’s the whole hunting down baku thing to consider. We pretty much steer clear of your kind.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” But now the worry burrows into my bones.

  Was I an exception because I wasn’t feeding while asleep and, therefore, turned myself into prey for the Dreamer’s drones? Or is anyone who sleeps at risk?

  Aren gestures with his trunk for me to follow. “Come on, the next one is a couple buildings over.”

  “How’s Tally doing?” I ask as we walk back down to street level.

  “What do you mean?” He peers over his shoulder. “Like with those witches? Good, I guess? I haven’t talked to her since she asked me to look in on you yesterday.”

  “Right.” My shoulders slump.

  It feels like so much time has passed, but really, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours where she is. Time on the demon plane really messed me up.

  “Hey, you need to swing by one of the rent-by-the-hour motels for a little fix? Your power level is all over the place right now. I don’t think you’re fully stable.”

  With my back itching from the lack of wings, I can’t say he’s wrong. But the idea of feeding from a bunch of horny humans just makes me queasy. “No, I’m fine for now.”

  “If you’re sure.” On the ground floor, he shoulders his way through the wall.

  I follow, the foggy bricks clinging to my skin. “I’m going to wait for one of the guys to fall asleep, then pop in on them.” Then I glance around. “Do you know where our house is?”

  He eyes me. “You’re really bad with directions, aren’t you?”

  “Dreamland isn’t an exact replica of the human world,” I growl, annoyed to have the fault pointed out.

  “But it’s not that different, either.” He pauses at a cross-section of street. “This is Fifth and Poplar. The streets have been here for over a hundred years, even if the builds are different.”

  I struggle to remember where Fifth and Poplar is. Somewhere downtown. I think. I honestly only know the areas around my old apartment, the bakery, my house, and the imps’ house. I never considered how much memorizing a street map could come in handy.

  At my silence, Aren snorts and points, his trunk forming an arrow. “Your house is four miles that way.”

  “Thanks.” I stare in its direction, wanting to go there now. “What time is it over there?”

  “Four-thirty in the morning.” He stamps a foot. “So, if you want to check out this other human, we should get a move on before their alarm clock goes off.”

  “Lead on.” I gesture ahead of us, away from my home and my demons.

  At four, Kellen would usually be settling into bed, while Tobias and Emil would be getting up soon for work. What will their day look like today? Will they drive off to K & B Financial and go to their meetings? Will Kellen still sleep naked with his shutters open, even without me there to peep in? Will my being gone even impact them beyond the irritation of finding someone else to siphon off their energy? At least I drained Tobias before I left. The city doesn’t need an earthquake or a sudden flood or to have all the old pipes rupture.

  Wait, hadn’t Emil and Kellen been talking about an ice storm nearby? I bite my lip. Who will they turn to when the lure of power calls to them, when the ice is too much for Emil to contain and the storm sings for Kellen to join it in the sky, turning it into a city wrecker?

  The ground shivers beneath my feet, and I glance ahead to where Aren glides down the street. Without me riding him, he seems to have learned to walk without a jarring pace.

  The gray fog around me rolls and bubbles.

  Is this an attack? I peer around for a flash of tentacles or glowing red eye. Did the nightmare creatures follow me to Dreamland?

  The ground shivers again as the fog swirls around me, slowly spiraling, then picking up speed.

  “Um, Aren?” I call.

  He stops to glance back, then spins all the way around. “Whoa, that doesn’t look good. You should get out of whatever that is.”

  Nodding, I step forward to walk through it and static crackles and snaps against my skin. Startled by the pain, I jump back into the center of the growing hurricane.

  Aren charges back, extending his trunk to help me through. Lightning zaps, and he stumps back. “That hurt. Why did that hurt?”

  I understand his confusion. Dreamland lacks texture and sensation. Even if I jumped from one of the taller buildings, the ground would cushion my landing. Beings in Dreamland hurt each other, but the environment itself doesn’t hurt.

  Which means this is a being. But baku and succubi don’t control elements. We’re all about the dreams.

  I reach out to the rising wall of the hurricane, static and tiny lightning bolts snapping at my fingers. My teeth clench against the pain as joy flashes through me.

  “Um, Adie?” Aren calls, his large body blinking in and out of view as the hurricane gains in mass. “You’re looking a little...feral right now. I think you
might have cracked.”

  “No, not cracked yet.” Hunger sinks sharp teeth into me as I grasp a fistful of lightning. “Just believing in the impossible.”

  It crackles against my palm, heavier and more solid the longer I hold it, until a golden hand forms.

  Lightning zips up the forearm as it takes shape, skates along broad shoulders and chest and down muscular thighs as Kellen steps out of the hurricane. Too bright, too golden in a world of gray. His hand tightens around mine in a vise-like grip. Trapping me when I have no desire to flee.

  Blue, lightning kissed eyes fix on me, their playfulness gone, replaced by the anger of tsunamis. “You didn’t think breaking a contract with us would be that easy, did you, little succubus?”

  Happiness at seeing Kellen again outweighs the confusion of how he got into Dreamland, and I eagerly reach for him only to come up short when his hold on my hand becomes painful.

  I reassess the thunderclouds in his expression, the way lightning sparks in his fiery red hair, and lick my lips nervously. “Kellen?”

  His eyes sweep over me, and I realize with a start that we’re closer to the same height now. When I took on a new body, I aimed for the strength and leverage needed to survive the wasteland of the demon plane. I didn’t aim for sexiness, though my nature still provided a perfect set of boobs and ass.

  Rough hands spin me around, and I stumble before catching my balance. Static skates along my spine, and hard fingers probe between my shoulder blades.

  “Where are your wings?” Rage seethes from him, and he fists the hair at the back of my neck. “Why is there barely any blue in your hair? Where’s your color? Where are your feathers?”

  Mood crashing, I swipe gore covered talons at him with a hiss.

  He releases me long enough for me to spin back around, then his hands are on my face. “At least your eyes are blue.”

  He pulls one eyelid down before I swat him away. “What are you doing?”