Page 62 of The Wickedness of Man

“I, well, I’ve always worn condoms?—”

“Always?” Carmilla said, pressing her palms to her head, looking stricken. “You’ve never even gotten so much as ablowjobwithout one?”

I found myself looking over at Magda with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment. “Ah, no. I’ve always been careful, so?—”

“Oh hell,” Carmilla said, resuming the biting of her nails again. “That was the plan, wasn’t it? Dammit! Dammit!”

Magda stood, curling her hands into fists at her side. “Tell us what’s going on, now!” she said, in that same commanding tone of voice that nearly drove me to my knees before.

Carmilla stopped pacing and turned, as if Magda’s order was forcing her to comply. “I thought Caleb had already awoken—he’s flush with sexual energy, and is byno meansa virgin?—”

“Jesus,” I interrupted, wiping a hand over my face.

“—so I had hoped the two of you would be able to complete the awakening at my office, where I would have safely been able to prepare you for all ofthis. Instead, the organization got there so quickly, once I realized we were allin danger, I opted for plan B. I charmed him into bringing you here and keeping you safe, but it took me a long time to shake those bastards—too long.”

She trembled as she looked between the two of us.

“If Calebwasn’talready an awakened incubus, it means they tricked me intothinkinghe was so I would be tempted to usehim to create or awaken a new succubus. In this case…” She paused, taking a deep breath. “…a young cambion positively on the brink of energetic starvation due to her parents’ overbearing control and abuse.

“This must have been in the works for a long time, which means—if you’ll forgive the archaic sentiment—I believe you two are in somewhat of… well, an arranged marriage.”

Carmilla

“Magda, you are too good with your power already,” I said with a shaky smile. “Tirer les vers du nez à quelqu’un… Your use was so effortless.”

The silence in the room following my announcement of their coupling was deafening, and although I knew they would overwhelm me with questions any second now, I took the moment to recover from the force of Magda’s demand. Her order—there was no question as to what it had been—had pulled the words out of me before I’d even finished truly piecing the situation together myself. I chewed at my thumbnail—a horrible habit I’d had since I was a girl, who even knew how many centuries ago now—nerves jangling in fear. Fear… a sensation like this one, truly staring into the unknown, was something I hadn’t felt for many, many years.

That slimy bastard. He’s had a hand in this.

Only Benedict would have been able to piece together what I was doing and tell the archdiocese. I wasn’t certain how many of those cultists within the organization knew about cambions in the modern age. When I had flung myself from the cliff beside the Monastery of Gethsemane more than one hundred yearsago, there had been only two: the Archbishop Osbert Benedict… and me.

Caleb’s arms were crossed tight against his chest as he stood, staring down at the floor, and Magda had paced toward the opposite corner, her hands against her face, stifling tears.

“I know this must be overwhelming to you both,” I began, “and I don’t have nearly all of the answers you’d like to have right now… But you’re going to have to believe me when I say that we need to go. This place isn’t safe anymore. They are probably searching for us even now.”

“So, let me get this straight,” said Magda, swiping at the tears in her eyes as she spun to face me, “you convinced my friend to send me to you for ‘therapy,’ where you intended for the two of us to have some kind of fucked-up demonicmeet cute?”

She took a step toward me, her demonic visage rippling over her as fury crested through the room like a wave. Horns sprouted from her temples; eyes glowing purple, feet and hands extending into claws as her wings practically exploded from her back. Her tail whipped angrily through the air and she stabbed the tip of it into the mattress like it was a blade. It pierced through the bed frame and into the floor with a profound amount of force.

“Do you really think needing to suck someone’s dick tosurviveis how I pictured the rest of my life?” she screamed. “All I wanted was to have sex without throwing up, and now I have to be likethis?!”

Her rage was like a thick presenceinthe room with us; I turned to Caleb, but he only stared at me, his eyes glowing that fierce blue as his claws extended from his fingertips. While his was still only a partial transformation, I swallowed hard. Neither one of them was under control. One I could have handled, but in this circumstance, it was going to depend on how fast I could talk them both off the edge. Otherwise…

Shit—shit—shit?—

“Magda, listen,” I said, lifting my arms in placation, “when you and Caleb met, you were feeling… a little out of it from our interaction, but you knew what you wanted, right? You wanted him, didn’t you?”

Magda narrowed her gaze, then looked over to the incubus. “Yes,” she said, quietly.

“Caleb—you wanted Magda from the moment you saw her.”

His gaze softened; he looked away from me, slowly returning to his own senses. “I… yes.”

“Did either one of you ever wonderwhy?” I asked.

The two of them shrank back into themselves; I took in a nervous breath. One awakening cambion was hard enough to deal with on my own, but this…

“It was because of what you did,” Magda said, touching her mouth with her fingers. “You kissed me and?—”

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