For a moment, complete silence. My brain processes the syllables, rolls them around, tries to make sense of them in the context of my perfectly normal, boring life. Business major. Bookstore employee. Guy who still uses a UPhone SR because the newer models are too expensive.
Incubus. Sex demon.
Me.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!"
The laughter keeps coming, wave after wave, until my ribs ache and my throat burns.
Amelia's expression shifts from satisfied smugness to something approaching irritation. The purple lotus in her eyes narrows, petals rotating faster.
"Are you quite finished?"
My chest rises and falls as I try to catch my breath, wiping tears from my cheeks with my shoulder since my hands are still bound.
"You're insane," I wheeze, my voice hoarse. "Sex demons? Really? What's next, are you going to tell me vampires run the student council?"
Actually, that would explain a lot about student government.
Amelia waves a dismissive hand. "You want proof? Look at your arm."
I glance down at where she cut me, expecting to see the shallow wound still bleeding. Instead, I find flawless skin. Not even a scar. The dried blood on my forearm is the only evidence the cut ever existed.
"What..." My voice comes out as barely a whisper. "What did you do to me?"
Amelia reaches toward my neck, her fingers brushing against the chain of my necklace.
"I didn't do a thing," she purrs, her fingers finding the clasp. "I'm just letting you happen."
The necklace comes free with a soft click.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
The moment the pendant leaves my skin, warmth explodes from somewhere deep in my core.
Amelia transforms before my eyes. Where before I saw a beautiful woman with strange eyes, now I see a living constellation of violet energy. Her demonic power swirls around her like a miniature galaxy The heat signature points I noticed earlier blaze like small suns at her throat, between her breasts, at her navel.
The metal restraints around my wrists and ankles grow warm, then hot. The chair beneath me groans as the bonds begin to soften and deform. I rise without conscious thought, the melted metal sliding away from my skin like water.
This is impossible. This is insane. This is...
This is me.
Amelia watches my transformation with the detached interest of a scientist observing a particularly fascinating specimen. She doesn't move as I stand, doesn't retreat as I take a step toward her. If anything, she looks curious about what I'll do next.
The answer surprises both of us.
Pure instinct drives me forward, some programming buried in my DNA that's finally been unleashed. Her energy calls to me like a beacon, promising knowledge and power and connection on a level I've never experienced. My newly awakened senses lock onto the brightest pulse point, the one at her throat where her heartbeat creates ripples in the violet light surrounding her.
I move faster than I've ever moved before, closing the distance between us in a second. My hands find her shoulders, steadying her as I lower my head to the curve of her neck. Her skin is warm beneath my lips as I press them to her pulse point.
The instant contact sends a shockwave through both of us.
"Nn—!"
Power flows between us, her demonic energy responding to my touch. Her energy has layers—strength and confidence on the surface, but underneath there's something warmer, more complex. Loneliness. Responsibility. The weight of expectations that no one should have to carry alone.
"Haah... nnngh..."
For just a moment, I feel her knees tremble.
Then an invisible wall slams into me, pushing me back exactly one foot and severing our connection. I stumble, barely managing to stay upright as the world spins around me.
Amelia's hand flies to her throat, her breathing slightly uneven. A faint flush colors her cheeks before vanishing so quickly I almost miss it. When she looks at me again, her expression has shifted to something I can't quite read.
"Untrained," she murmurs. "Unfocused. More appetite than technique."
She circles me again, but this time her movements are different.
Great. I just sexually assaulted the most dangerous person I've ever met. This is going well.
"The raw potential, though..." She stops in front of me, those lotus eyes rotating slowly as they study my face. "A taste of divinity."
The way she says it makes my skin crawl and my blood sing at the same time. There's hunger in her voice, but not the simple kind. This is the hunger of someone who's been waiting a very long time for something specific.
"I don't understand any of this," I say, my voice shakier than I'd like. "A day ago I was a normal college student. Now you're telling me I'm some kind of demon and I just... what was that? What did I do to you?"
"You fed," she says simply. "Crudely and without any real control, but you accessed my demonic energy through physical contact. It's what incubi do."
"But I'm not..." I start to protest, then stop. The evidence is literally flowing through my veins. "This is insane."
"The world is insane," Amelia agrees. "Most people just don't have the ability to see it."
She picks up my necklace from where it fell, examining the pendant with new interest. "This little trinket has been suppressing your true nature for eighteen years. Quite sophisticated work, actually. I'm curious who made it."
"My mother, I think. It's the only thing I have from her."
"Smart woman." Amelia pockets the necklace. "Keeping an infant incubus suppressed probably saved your life. And the lives of everyone around you."
Comforting.
"So what happens now?" I ask. "Do you kill me? Lock me up? Send me to demon prison?"
Amelia's laugh is rich and genuine, completely at odds with the clinical way she's been studying me. "Kill you? Isaiah, you might be the most valuable person on this continent. Do you have any idea how rare incubi are? The last confirmed sighting was over eight hundred years ago."
"Lucky me."
"Indeed." She moves toward the door, then pauses with her hand on the handle. "You have two choices. You can try to go back to your normal life, pretend this never happened, and hope your awakening powers don't accidentally drain someone dry in your sleep."
"What's the second option?"
"You come with me. Learn what you are, how to control what you can do. Discover just how deep this rabbit hole goes."
She opens the door, revealing a hallway lined with more of those yellow binding papers. "The choice is yours, but I should mention that your little feeding session earlier has probably attracted every demon within fifty miles. They can sense power like yours from quite a distance."
Of course they can.
"And they're all going to want a taste," she continues conversationally. "Most of them won't be as gentle as I've been."
I look around the small room that's been my prison for the last hour. The concrete walls, the binding wards, the chair with its melted restraints. Then I look at Amelia, standing in the doorway like a pink-haired angel of destruction offering me salvation or damnation.
"If I go with you," I say slowly, "do I get my necklace back?"
Amelia smiles and tosses the necklace back to me. "Come to the ORES room tomorrow after your classes. I might give you another taste… if you learn how to offer a proper meal instead of fumbling around like a starving animal."
She steps into the hallway, her voice echoing back to me. "Until tomorrow, Isaiah Angelo."
The door swings shut behind her, leaving me alone with the taste of her still lingering on my tongue and the growing certainty that my life as a normal college student just ended forever.
Well. Fuck.