Succubus Rising Ch. 05

Then my power receded and my muscles began to relax, releasing us both. I gasped at every small jerk he made, feeling the movement into the very depths of my being as though he were touching more than just my vagina. I opened my eyes to find myself curled on top of him, my feet on his chest and my hands on his thighs the only other contact apart from our hips. He was staring at the ceiling with his hands fisted in the sheets, trying to catch his breath. I stretched out and slid up and off him, sitting on the bed beside his hips.

"I don't remember what we were talking about," he whispered, his hands slowly relaxing as his eyes stopped glowing.

"It wasn't like that a few days ago," I couldn't muster anything louder than a hoarse whisper, either.

His hand came up to pull me back to him, turning us and settling himself behind me again. "It was the lack of contact. Your hunger was almost too much. I didn't want to bring it up or force the issue, but this will happen again if we don't touch each other and satisfy the smaller hungers."

It took three tries before I croaked out a weak, "Why is my voice so hoarse?"

"You're a screamer, and we've been at it for a few hours," his lips moved against the back of my head and his hand was a constant soothing trace along my skin. "Go to sleep."

===

I woke with a start to the sound of distant banging, Bane's arms wrapped around me tightening their hold until I calmed.

"It's just someone at the door," he mumbled. "Stay here and I'll get it." He kissed the top of my shoulder before rolling off the other side of the bed. I watched, still groggy, as he pulled a pair of pajama pants out of a drawer and slipped them on commando. He slipped from the room and I heard the front door open and then bang shut.

I heard him and Larian talking in the kitchen as I got up and grabbed a long button down shirt from the closet. It went nearly to my knees and I had to roll the sleeves up to find my hands, but I wasn't going to go in my room to grab clothes while Larian was using it as his own. I walked down the hall to the kitchen to find them both at the table glaring at a piece of paper with an official looking letterhead and Larian setting his phone down.

"Can they do this in the first month after a bond?" Bane sounded worried, and his power seemed sick with it.

"Chaz is checking the old laws," Larian's voice was little more than a low rumble. "There hasn't been a bond taken that fast since Harley. They're scared."

"How did they find out about her? Darius said the pick up went unnoticed, and they haven't made any moves in the last eighteen months."

"Your wards aren't strong enough to have blocked the call she put out," I walked over to the table and pulled a seat out next to Bane and sat with our thighs touching. "From what I understand two of the council members nearly walked out of their houses to respond. Meaning they've got more than a little of something her power was seeking that night."

"What's going on?" I asked, glad to hear my voice was near normal.

Bane sighed and sat back in his chair, letting his hand slide over my bare thigh and only the surprise coming across the bond letting me know he hadn't noticed me walking into the room. Then a slow heat came across to draw out my own need. "The council has sent a summons. They want you before them within the week to test your power. We're trying to see if there is a way to postpone it on the grounds of our bond being so new."

"What is the council? I've heard you mention it before, but nobody has ever said what it is."

My question was met with Larian's deep bass rumble, "The council is not a what, but a whom. They are our elected officials, answering only to the secretary of state or offices above."

"Basically, they are our law enforcement," Bane added. "And they are usually the ones who control the training and contracting of succubi, including their sterilization when they come of age. Your mother was a member of a group who managed to avoid being sterilized, but it was thought they had all been caught. Someone found your mother by chance, feeling her power from the street. When you showed up that day, it was happenstance the council member collecting your mother didn't notice you."

"They felt your call when you came into your power, felt it when you took Bane as a mate," Larian said. "In the past they have not interfered with a mate-bond in the first month. If we can't sway them on those grounds, we can cite your mother's weak abilities and your ignorance to buy time before you go before them."

"Hey!" Bane's hand tightened on my thigh to keep me in my chair. "I am not ignorant."

"You are," Larian admonished. "I did not say you were stupid, but your mother did not raise you as a succubus. You are ignorant of our laws, ignorant of the usage of your powers, ignorant of even the most basic of spells. In the last six months with Bane you have learned what others like you were taught before they could even speak. Stupidity cannot be fixed, and the council would not forgive it's tolerance. Ignorance, however, can be both excused and fixed."

"We can prove to the council that you are learning control and that you are being trained in the rest," Bane's voice was quiet. "But their ability tests last more than a week and right now we can't be apart that long. Your control was shifty after not touching me for only three days."

"How was her control shifty?" Larian seemed very concerned when he turned and actually looked at Bane instead of his phone.

"It's almost like she and her power aren't the same entity," Bane said, seeming lost in thought. "I've only ever heard of stories like that from my own mentors, and it was only ever in a succubus who needed a mate-bond but didn't gain that bond until nearly the full year had passed. Once they had the bond that separation disappeared."

"But we're bonded," I whispered.

"This is why I think you'll take more than one mate. It's happened before, just not in living memory."

Larian stood and walked toward the office, "I need to make some calls and have some books brought here, if that's okay with you, Bane?" At Bane's slow nod, the large man walked into the office and shut the door.

"I think we're about to have a library delivered." His hand kept me pinned to the chair and I could feel his power in me, seeking something. "How's the hunger?"

"Mostly gone."

"I don't...," he groaned and tried starting again. "Damn it, this has never been a difficult thing to talk about before."

"We can't stop touching like that again, no matter how upset I get," I turned and rested my forehead on his shoulder. "I felt the separation, too, when I was on top of you. It's almost like I have a whole other thinking being inside my head, and for the most part we want the same things. I don't know what will happen if we ever want different things."

"You'll go siren," his words were quiet.

"It was more than just hunger, though," I sighed, but I didn't move. Touching him felt better than not. It was what had made me follow him out of the bedroom more than some small curiosity about what was going on. I hadn't had any control over the things around me for so long that being able to simply follow him through the house was a nice bit of something I could control. "Even just seeing you after I moved the sheet made my power rise and reach. The muscle control of keeping you out of me was..."

"Amazing," he offered.

"So painful," I finished. "But I wanted it even though it hurt to deny that contact. Feeling you strain for me, even though the bruises on my hips kind of just hurt right now, knowing that you wanted to be in me that badly was fucking hot. I don't think it was shifty control, I just wanted to draw it out. I haven't had control of anything in so long, it was nice being able to tell you when you could finish, and not before me."

Bane let out a sharp, short laugh that brought Larian out of the office. "I think you have better control than we could have hoped for all your inexperience. We should just give the council a warning and turn you loose on them."