Incubus Awakened by Kitty Thomas

12

By the following morning, Anna and Tam had come to an uneasy truce. When they walked into the house on Cranberry Lane, Anna blinked, sure she was hallucinating.

The kitchen island held a large buffet spread. Croissant sandwiches, pancakes, eggs, fruit, English muffins, biscuits, and gravy. Suddenly she was very hungry. All Tam had at her house, besides popcorn, was coffee.

The harem sat around the table chattering and eating. Anna felt left out in her own home. It wasn’t like it was easy to strike up conversation with the women who were sleeping with her man.

Strike that. Not her man. Never her man. Not a man, period. Demon. He was Luc, and he wasn’t quite the level of evil she’d thought he was, but he couldn’t be hers. They could be friends, that was all. Yes, he was hot, and they had banter or whatever. But it ended there. The alternatives of sharing him or losing her soul weren’t options she was prepared to entertain. Ever.

“You ladies look hungry.” Luc untied his apron and laid it across the counter. “The girls slept in, and I thought brunch would be nice.”

It was easy to forget blood rituals, growling, and shapeshifting when he was doing his master chef routine.

“Oh,” Anna said, forgetting her manners. “Tam, this is the harem.”

“Anna! Don’t call them that!” Tam said, looking horrified.

“It’s okay. It’s true, we are the harem,” Karen said with a shrug.

“Yeah, I like the word. It makes me think of sultans and all those gauzy veils and stuff,” Renee said, adding her two cents. The other girls giggled and went back to trying to decipher their crossword puzzle.

“We should have gotten the word circle thing. I hate these. They always use weird words no one knows,” Olivia said. Susan and Maria both grunted noncommittally, engrossed in painting their nails a color that should have been called hooker red. Endorsed by prostitutes everywhere.

Luc handed Anna a glass of orange juice, avoiding eye contact. If that was because of the whole, hey, I’m sleeping with the whole world thing, Anna was over it. Really. He couldn’t change what he was. And if she wasn’t going to sleep with him, it wasn’t her business. He was just her roommate. She had no claim on him.

“What did you do?” Anna asked when the guilt didn’t leave his face. It couldn’t be too bad. He hadn’t killed anyone. There were still five hookers sitting in her kitchen having breakfast.

Luc busied himself fixing plates for Tam and Anna. “Um . . . well, you see . . . I’m trapped in the house, and incubi as I’m sure you’re aware, have little need for money . . . There are five ladies here. And there was no food except for leftover Chinese which I believe is growing a fur coat, and some cookies and ice cream and I . . . stoleyourcreditcard.”

“You what?”

He sighed and finally looked into her eyes, a sheepish expression on his face. “I sent Susan and Maria to the store with your card to buy food. It was a bit extravagant, I admit, but I’m cooking now. See?” He held out the plates like a peace offering. “You’ll eat much better than you ever have before.” He smiled a little too brightly as he waited for them to take the offered food.

Anna snorted. She couldn’t help it. That smile looked severely weird on Luc. He should stick to the smirking bad boy thing he had going on. Not that he could simultaneously maintain bad boy and master chef, but everybody needed something to aspire to. She couldn’t deal with petty breakfast theft Luc. He was too surreal.

“Of course I don’t mind. Thank you for doing it.” She surprised herself by kissing him on the cheek.

His mouth hung open. “Anna?”

“I had another dream. I was wrong about you. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, don’t get too comfortable. I’m sure you’ll have another nightmare and be back to the hysterics in no time.” He set to work scrubbing a pot so hard, she was sure he’d take the Teflon coating right off it.

Anna lowered her voice so the others couldn’t overhear. “I said I was sorry. I know there’s more to you than I thought there was. Okay? Can’t you just accept that at face value?”

He stood stiffly, working to maintain his ire as he continued to take his aggression out on the cookware. Finally, his shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “What did you see?”

Anna recounted the dream.

His eyes rose quickly to meet hers. “Did you see me?”

She knew he was asking if she’d seen his demon form. “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t actually see you. I see through your eyes, feel your thoughts and emotions. Thank God I don’t physically feel everything you do, because gotta say, I don’t swing that way. I’ve seen more naked females than I ever cared to. That’s plenty up close and personal for me.”

He smirked, the relief evident on his face. How bad can his true form be? Obviously bad if a bright and together girl like Sara had ended up in the looney bin, and Luc had decided it was preferable to let Anna cower in a corner rather than allow her to see him. She shivered as her eyes drifted to the corner in question.

Then she noticed how quiet the room had gotten. “Something wrong?”

“You ask them,” Karen said, nudging Olivia.

“We thought, I mean, we understand why you brought us here, and it was really nice of you and all . . . ”

“You’re kidding, right?” She didn’t consider bringing women to her house to service Luc to be a nice thing to do. “This is horribly . . . I have no words for it. I’ve tried to justify it a thousand times in my head, but all I can think is that I’m doing something wrong and dirty. At the same time I can’t bring myself to let him starve, either. I’m going to Hell.” She sank into one of the chairs and put her head in her hands.

“No!” They all began protesting at once.

“Are you kidding me?” Maria asked. “This is the first time I’ve felt safe in a long time. And you’re putting us up here, and feeding us. And it’s not like sleeping with Luc is a trial.”

Anna blushed and looked around for the demon’s reaction, but he’d slipped out of the room. Karen cleared her throat and kicked Maria hard under the table.

“What? Ow! Anyway,” she said, glaring at the blonde, “we asked Luc what he thought we could do to pay you back for all your kindness.”

Olivia picked it back up. “Yes, we were wondering if we could help with the candle stuff. We could make a lot more, all of us together. And you’d have plenty to sell by the weekend.”

Tam shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Anna wasn’t sure she was comfortable turning them into her indentured servants, but she wasn’t taking a cut of the profits. Maybe Tam could pay them. They were only trying to help after all.

“This is going to be so fun!” Susan said.

Anna had her doubts about that. She avoided the knowing look in Karen’s eyes. Was it that obvious? Did Anna have a sign on her head that said, Here, sleep with Luc. I wish it was me, but I’m too damn uptight?

Tam steamrolled over the tension by getting straight to business. “Since we’ve got so much help, we’re going to need more supplies. I’ll stay here with Maria and Susan to clean up. You can walk with the others to the craft shop.” She pulled a slim notebook from her purse, jotted down a quick list, and handed it to Anna.

“I don’t know what half of this stuff is,” Anna groused. “Wouldn’t it make more sense if I cleaned my own kitchen and you went to the store?”

Tam smiled sweetly. “If we’re going to work together, we both need to be comfortable. I need to be comfortable with the kitchen, and you need to be comfortable with the supply list. Get the store clerk to help you.”

Anna was about to protest further, but Tam had already started straightening the kitchen. She sighed and followed the girls out the back door.

Once outside, she felt like the odd woman out at a Barbie doll convention, with her long dark hair, flanked by perky bottle blondes. And they were perky.

She wasn’t sure if it was being in Luc’s presence or leaving their old lives behind them, but they’d quickly come alive, and Anna was starting to feel something like jealousy. Why couldn’t she be like them and share him? Wasn’t a small bit of Luc better than no Luc? Judging from the extra bounce in their steps, she was pretty sure it was.

Anna stiffened as Bitsy and Mimi and their yappy dog approached. They were running behind schedule on their daily walk.

“Well, hello dear. And who are these young ladies?” Mimi asked. Her voice was all politeness and drippy syrup, but Anna could see the disapproval in her shrewd eyes.

The girls tensed beside her, as if they thought she’d introduce them as a harem or hookers. It was one thing in the house, but she would never . . . Then again, maybe they were reacting to the predatory looks on the sisters’ faces.

The lie tripped off her tongue easily. “These are my sorority sisters from college. They’re staying with me for a while. This is Karen, Olivia, and Renee.”

She was painfully aware of how out of place they must look, walking down the street together. Anna in her usual jeans and t-shirt, her long, wavy hair hanging loose down her back, surrounded by three girls with too-blonde hair and mini skirts.

Thankfully, they’d left the fishnets at home. Despite their attempts to clean it up, miniskirts just didn’t fly in Golatha Falls. Hell, skirts two inches above the knee didn’t pass inspection. Anna had a flashback to Catholic school and the dollar bill test, the excruciating and demeaning ritual meant to determine they hadn’t rolled their skirts up at the waist.

“Don’t you think you’re wearing just a touch too much makeup for the morning hours, dear?” Bitsy said, deciding to pick on Renee first.

“And those skirts . . . honestly. I know college can be wild, but you’re grown women now. You shouldn’t be walking around looking like streetwalkers,” Mimi said.

Renee drew herself up to her full imposing height and stared Mimi down. “Maybe we are streetwalkers. Do you have a problem with that?”

The sisters were too shocked to speak. The dog barked hysterically at the blonde interlopers, sensing imminent danger.

“Yes,” Karen said, “or maybe we come from a big city where dress codes are more relaxed than stuck up little towns.”

Olivia put the icing on. “Puce is not your very best color. You should get one of those color tests done. They do them free at the mall now. And matching outfits for twins? Even a streetwalker knows that look is over.”

“Well, I never . . . ” Bitsy said, clutching her sister as if the girls posed a germ threat, and they just needed to get to the safety of a pay phone to call in the CDC.

“Yes, and you never will,” Karen said, leading Renee and Olivia around the two old women.

Bitsy and Mimi stood there, their poodle weaving in and out of their legs.

“Anna, really. Those girls are just . . . surely you must have better company to spend your time with than that . . . trash.”

“Actually, I enjoy the company just fine,” Anna said. “Have a nice day ladies.” She brushed past them, and glanced back over her shoulder. “And Olivia was right about the suits.”

She knew she was going to pay for that little scene later when the mob came to her house with the torches and pitchforks. Maybe the harem wasn’t so bad. She could be friends with these girls.

“Why aren’t you sleeping with Luc?” Olivia blurted when she’d caught up to them.

Or maybe not. Anna flushed bright red. “Because. I don’t want to,” she said lamely.

“Why not?” Renee pressed, as if it was the weirdest thing Anna could possibly think to say. “I mean, I haven’t yet, but Olivia has, and she said . . . ”

Karen, seeming to be the only one of the girls with any tact at all, stepped in. “Renee! She doesn’t want to talk about it. I’m so sorry about that, Anna.”

Renee was unperturbed. “But why wouldn’t you want to? I mean, look at him. He’s so . . . and he cooks. And he’s sweet. And he likes you. He can’t help what he is.” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You think you’re better than him, don’t you? Because of what he does.”

Anna shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. This was getting into personal territory for them. They felt a kinship toward Luc, and if she wasn’t careful she’d have to fight off his crazed protectors. “It’s not like that. I just don’t see him that way.” Good, Anna. Say the lie out loud enough times, and it’ll start feeling true. Any second now.

“Bullshit,” Olivia said. “You’re just scared to get your heart broken. He wouldn’t just be a good lay to you. He’d be more. And he is . . . a good lay,” she clarified, as if clarification was necessary.

“Stop talking about him like he’s a piece of meat!” Anna said, falling over the sanity ledge. She was going to have a breakdown if they didn’t stop treating him like their paid escort.

“So you do care.” A satisfied smile spread across Olivia’s lips as if it had all been a plan to bait Anna into some honesty.

“Oh look, we’re here!” Anna said. She’d never been so happy to see a craft store.

* * *

Luc leanedagainst the door frame watching Anna’s friend fluttering about the kitchen. She looked like a little pixie with her delicate elfin features and glitter-filled hair. Susan and Maria were standing back as well, no doubt trying to stay out of her way.

He cleared his throat, causing all three of the women to jump. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Tam’s hand froze. She’d been laying craft supplies out on the kitchen table. “Excuse me?” she said, off-balance.

“You heard me. Do you understand that every piece of furniture in this house is a priceless antique? This particular table, for example, is over a hundred years old and hand-carved.”

She stood there gaping at him like a fish. Finally, she came up with something intelligent to say. “This is Anna’s house.”

He allowed the glow to come to his eyes, and she took a step back. “No, this is my house. Anna is just the one with the paperwork. But I’m the only one who can’t be removed, forcibly or otherwise. That makes it mine.”

Tam moved behind the table, putting one of his priceless antiques between them, betting he wouldn’t go after the furniture to get to her. Smart girl. Susan and Maria seemed to be practicing the forgotten art of pretending to be wallpaper.

The level of fear in the room was prodding at his darker urges like a little fork. He let out a low growl for effect and chuckled when all three of them jumped again. Susan and Maria’s wallpaper act needed work.

“I’m feeling very cranky,” he said. “And when I get cranky, I get hungry. Who wants to volunteer?”

The little witch seemed to snap out of her panic. “I called you last night because I felt sympathy for you. Now you’re being a gigantic ass. Do you know how much groveling it took this morning to get my friendship with Anna back on track?”

Mentioning Anna caused him to regain focus. What the hell am I doing? He wasn’t used to so many attractive females in such a closed-in space. It was like a starving person suddenly being transplanted to the middle of a buffet. It was fucking with his head. And he couldn’t get out of the house to escape them and all their girlie smells and hormones and arousal.

Just being an incubus, even without actively using the mind tricks, females seemed to just melt in his presence. It was hard to remember he had to be civilized and couldn’t act on every base urge that flitted through his head anymore.

Anna wouldn’t like it. He’d never gain her trust if he couldn’t maintain self-control. “I apologize. But you can’t put that wax and stuff on the table. You’ll destroy it.”

Before Tam could protest further, he disappeared into the guest bathroom down the hall and returned, his arms full of bath towels.

Tam held up a hand. “Oh, no. You think you’re crazy about your furniture, Anna will freak if we hurt her fluffy towels.”

He arched a brow. “And which one of us is scarier?”