Page 3 of Incubus with Benefits
Here, our conquests came to us hungry and left breathless and begging for more. Humans and monsters flocked in, week after week, drawn by the thumping beats and flashing lights. Some just came to dance and stayed in the regular nightclub section of the establishment. Others moved Upstairs, chasing the promise of sweet release.
Few people knew it, but technically Upstairs was a separate business and operated as a swingers’ club since that was the closest legal designation I could get at the time we opened. Sexual energy recharging wasn’t listed as a business type on the application form.
They used to call our conquests victims, but that label never fit. Not for me. Victims suggested we drained them dry, left them hollow, like sexual energy vampires. But that wasn’t the truth. At least not here at Delerium.
What we offered was a symbiosis, a give and take: their sexual energy for our pleasure. Yes, we fed. But we also filled. We left them glowing, trembling, satisfied in ways no mortal touch could replicate.
My eyes landed on a trio of women weaving through the bodies. A minotaur and an incubus followed behind. Prax, the incubus and my longtime friend, spotted me immediately. He tilted hishead, flashing me a grin that promised mischief. I lifted my hand in a lazy wave from my dais, which was elevated above the VIP area, where the music was still loud but not deafeningly so. My gaze locked on the only single woman in the group: Lily.
The last time I saw her, she had a single pink streak in her blonde hair. Tonight, it was all pink. It was bright and unapologetic, glowing under the club lights like cotton candy.
The minx had teased me all night, and when I’d asked her to join me Upstairs in one of the club’s private rooms, her usually lusciously pink aura had flashed an angry red. Then she’d rolled her eyes at me and danced away. I wasn’t used to being rejected, but her aloofness only made me want her more.
I’d treated her like just another incubus fangirl, which had been totally my fault. She was several steps above. I loved a good challenge, and I couldn’t wait for another chance to turn her “No” into a resounding “Yes!” She’d be worth the effort, I just knew it.
Today, Lily’s aura was duller than normal. Was something bothering her? You couldn’t tell from the brilliant smile she wore or the way she laughed with her friends, as her body began swaying to the rhythm.
Lily was everything the incubus inside me craved. Her energy was pure and bright, and while I hadn’t actually gotten the chance to have a taste, I just knew she’d be delicious. When we’d danced, our bodies gyrating to the beat, she’d rubbed that perfect ass all over me until I was craving her like nothing else.
When she’d left with her friends at the end of the night, I’d stayed behind to sample the men and women eager to feed me and my friends. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get into it. None of them interested me the way Lily had, and I’d left without my usual top-up.
Not a big deal. Despite popular belief, incubi and succubididn’t need constant sexual energy to survive. In fact, we could go a surprisingly long time without it, especially if we didn’t turn solid or interact with the world.
The group’s usual VIP table was taken tonight. Thursday wasn’t their usual haunt; they came on Saturdays. I guided them to another one, tucked into a velvet alcove with a view of the dance floor and a little more privacy. The table shimmered with a privacy spell so those sitting could talk despite the loud music. I ordered them a round of complimentary drinks.
Lily didn’t seem to be holding my faux pas from last time over me, so I took that to be a sign to pour on the charm again.
“Celebrating something?” I asked the group in general, leaning in just enough to be heard over the pulse of the music. “You don’t usually show up midweek.”
They all glanced at Lily. She gave her hair a toss. “Got fired today. Figured dancing was a slightly more legal alternative to caving the asshole’s skull in.”
I raised a brow at the violent imagery. “Asshole? Your boss?”
“No. The owner’s nephew. Claimed I stole his work. Fucker’s a lying liar.”
“Want me to send a friend his way?” I winked. “I’ve got a few that specialize in poetic justice.”
She laughed, and the sound tinkled over the music. Her hand landed on my arm, and my skin sparked under hers, rippling with awareness.
“Thanks,” she said, her fingers lingering just a second too long. “Penny already offered to put a curse on him. But it’s okay. I’m trying to see this as a good omen. I mean, I keep saying I need to start my own thing, but I never do. Got too comfy. This just forces me to grow.”
The server arrived, and I handed Lily her Guilty Pleasure, before raising my whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass. “To new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings,” they echoed, glasses meeting with a series of soft clinks.
I stayed for a while and we danced, her body pressing close and her magic brushing mine in teasing waves. She lost herself in the beat, and I could see her aura glow, like it was recovering just by being here and dancing next to me.
It probably wasn’t me doing the healing, but I liked to pretend that it was. Her glow surrounded me as it had the last time we’d danced together. It felt so good. So perfect. And that had me wondering how our bodies would fit together off the dance floor.
The idea titillated, heating me up with thoughts of her naked and begging under me.
Incubi needed sexual energy to live. Sure, we could eat food, and many did because it was yet another bodily pleasure. But if our well of stored sexual energy ran out, we ceased to be able to turn solid. Being stuck in an immaterial soul form meant it was infinitely harder to rebuild that energy reserve. We wouldn’t quite die, though, since we were never really alive. The closest thing to describe it was like being a ghost stuck in purgatory, unable to do anything or interact with the world, also unable to end it all.
But having it in excess didn’t make us any stronger.
Take Prax, for example. He danced with his witch mate across from me. He glowed with power and energy as strong as my own, even though he only fed from Penny. I was surprised when my old friend showed up at my club with his little witch and her friends. I hadn’t realized he’d been freed from the clutches of an evil wizard. I was also surprised that despite having been bound for so long, he chose to stick with one, and only one, witch.
I pitied him at first. The poor fool was freed from bondage of one kind only to be stuck mate-bonded to a witch, but Prax had assured me time and again that he was the happiest he’d ever been.
