Page 75 of The Wickedness of Man

Father looked back to me something between disgust and intrigue twinkling in his eyes. “So it was,” he said finally. His ages-old English accent slipping through, though he tried to hide it. “Let’s hear it then, Investigator Benedict.”

My spine stiffened of its own accord, and I fought to keep my face neutral. “For years, as you know, many investigators have attempted to draw her out using our agents as bait… butI’mthe one whose bait she took.”

Father’s gaze flickered between mine and Jax’s faces for a moment, before he settled back on me, his eyes scrutinizing me closely.

“Is that so? Do tell.” He walked over and sat in the chair at his desk, nudity be damned. “Which agent did she choose, Harrold?”

“Caleb Knight,” I replied.

I registered the dark look on my father’s face before he frowned. “This is an agent under your command, I take it, Jax?” he asked the bishop nonchalantly.

As if he wouldn’t know. My anger reared its ugly head; I fought to keep my expression calm, even as I imagined throttling the stupid asshole.As if he doesn’t recognize him by first name alone!

Father had often watched Caleb as we’d grown up, compared me to him; studied him like a particularly intriguing specimen. As the only other cambion on our grounds, mother unknown, Father had assigned the old bishop to monitor and report on his activities—specifically of the sexual variety—to see if it would spark his awakening as a demon. While Caleb had been watched by the Church to see what would happen if left to his own devices, it was me who had been subjected to myriad tests and horrible, torturous experimentations.

Neither Caleb nor I had naturally become full incubi after we hit puberty, which prompted Father to believe that it might not occur at all. I’d had a few wonderful years of being left to my own ends—until Jax reported he’d caught Calebdeeplyinvolved with a girl behind the chapel when he was sixteen, that was. It had earned Caleb a stay in the cells, mostly so they could observe how sexual congress might affect him, but he hadn’t turned. Showed no signs, in fact, of even being remotely aware of his true nature.

Once more, I got tied to the doctor’s table and practically eviscerated, all so the organization could study the differences between a cambion and a regular demon. It should have been Caleb on that table, filled with needles and covered in electrodes—not me. Not the archbishop’s rightful son and heir. I should have been out getting my fill of women and feeding as often and frequently as I liked whilehewas cut open to find out what might trigger his change.

Father had additionally ordered me tobefriendthe bastard, and so I spent a ridiculous amount of time just having to stand guard while Caleb developed his reputation as a blatant slutaround campus—andstillnever managed to awaken. Even after I eventually awoke, and many of the other investigators from our class did, too. From everything I’d witnessed, Caleb’s appetite for women was just as strong as mine, and yet, even at the graduation party for the organization’s male members, an event specifically designed to ensure those of us capable of turningwould, he just… didn’t.

It was a well-known and yet remarkably secretive coming of age celebration, wherein every male agent would have the chance to have one full night of sexual freedom and debauchery before we graduated. The organization, while pretending to turn a blind eye to the event, simultaneously ensured that each succubi dancing that night at the strip club my father owned—through a series of shell corporations, of course—had been positively brimming with sexual energy by feeding solely on incubi for three days prior to the party.

I’d lost my virginity that night, a full four years after Caleb had. I’d turned right away, along with half the other men in our graduating class. Those of us who’d become incubi were moved on to the special investigators’ teams, working directly under my father and the rest of the archdiocese. Those who remained pathetically human were submitted to the grunt ranks as hunters and low-level agents within the organization. Like Caleb. Yet still, my father had never seemed to tire in his fascination with him, always expectingsomething. Always… waiting.

The evening of the party, some of the brothers attending as our chaperones had drawn lots to determine the order in which we would go. Of every possible number, I’d been given the noble position ofdead lastin line to fuck a woman who would be fucking at least four or five men before me. Caleb had been first; the indignity was appalling. I’d watched him go back, knowingfull well what my father had planned for us, certain that at any moment I’d hear the demonic roar of his transformation.

Twenty minutes later, he returned with a huge grin on his face. He approached me at my table by the stage, drank the rest of my beer, clapped me on the shoulder, and said he was heading to the girls’ graduation party since he’d promised to pick up a keg and sneak it on campus for them. Part of a foil packet fluttered to the floor as he passed me and I’d picked it up, staring in disbelief.

He’d been using condoms.Condoms.Having never actually experienced the full measure of a sexual release inside of a woman, he’d literally managed to fuck everyone he wanted to for years while. I’d been threatened withcastrationif I so much as masturbated, just on the off chance that it might cause a transformation. A thin piece of rubber literally helped him avoid triggering the demonic blood within him, while I’d been disallowed all women, all sexual release, until that night. I’d only been allowed to getthatif I managed to graduate—something my father worked diligently to make as difficult as possible.

I’d spent so many nights suffering his endless tests and forced rote memorizations of spells and holy writs into the early hours of morning, I’d nearly failed myactualexams twice. I knew that to failthistrial, however, would give him the wherewithal to disavow me. The entire purpose of our exposure to sex in this capacity was to become more powerful; more useful to the Church.

More useful to my father.

If I didn’t leave there as an incubus, I might as well have consigned myself to janitorial duty the rest of my life—and probably polishing Caleb Knight’s boots with my tongue.

“Let’s pass on the pretenses, Father,” I replied, staring down at my nails, just as nonchalantly. “As if you weren’t the one to sign off on my agent requests.”

Father grinned. “The name… perhaps rings a bell.”

I stepped forward, glaring at him. “Fine. Maybe you’ll recall him then as your failed cambion prodigy, then? Yes? The little demon that couldn’t.”

Father’s grin never faded, but the edge in his eyes shone, for just a moment, as if he was contemplating where best to slice me open. I knew he was just trying to get at me—it was like some kind of favorite game of his: find the thing that bothered a person most, then dangle it over their heads for decades. If they got angry, they lost, and he won. If they didn’t react at all, he just kept prodding until they could no longer stand it and got angry anyway. There was no winning when it came to this man. All he had was anger and time.

“You know… the halfwit who went and got himself charmed by a succubus on a simple reconnaissance mission? The one whose mother must have been one of the dumbest whores of?—”

“Enough!” It was Jax who’d snapped first, surprisingly. “Don’t speak of your brother that way—stop badgering your father and get on with whatever news you’ve insisted you have to share.”

“Half-brother,” I spat through gritted teeth.

One who could never succeed in any single manner that I have already proven myself in, time and again.

If I’d disliked Caleb before, once I’d discovered the little trick with his condoms, I’d loathed him ever since. The idiot! How could ademonhave gone in there with the mind to not do what every other single man there had and taken his prize? Once I’d opened the curtains to the private back room and caught sight of the first bare pussy I’d ever seen in real life waiting to receive me, it suddenly didn’t matter how many men had been inside of her before I’d gotten there. I had my pants around my ankles and practically dove in, dick first, and fucked her so hard she screamed.

When I came, the demonic transformation rippled through my whole body with such force that my claws left bloody divots in her shoulders. I shook out my wings, my tail; my dick grew harder inside of her; I felt my teeth shift and elongate; the horns sprouting from my head were painful, but the agony was short lived. The afterglow of nearlytwenty yearsof pent-up frustration finally being released flooded my body with the closest thing to heaven a demon such as myself could ever hope to achieve. Bliss didn’t even come close.

When the succubus tried to get up, I yanked her back and flipped her over, then shoved my dick in her ass. I lost count of how many times orgasmed, moved her into a new position, and went again, but she begged each time for it to be the last. By the time I paused to catch my breath, everyone else from my graduation party had already left; the club was closed, and the stripper, covered in my semen—semen that would feed her, despite the restraints and tattoos the Church had applied on her wrists and abdomen—grabbed her robe and tried to slink away. I’d grabbed her arm with a growl and reminded her that she had been paid to fuck, and I wasn’t done yet. When she told me the tattoos made it painful, I just put my dick in her mouth to drown out her cries.

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