“Right,” I said.

  Fifi nodded and swiped her face again. “Well, I was going to reopen the agency later this year. I was going to rename it Hallowed Homes.”

  “That sounds nice, and I think it’s a great idea. Good for you.”

  She shook her head and then started crying all over again. “I wasn’t going to run things the way Ophelia did though…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to protect Haven Hollow as much as anybody. I just… don’t think we have to endanger humans to do it. And you know how Ophelia felt about humans.”

  I did—Ophelia hated humans and her ultimate goal was to drive all of them out so Haven Hollow would be a town of supernaturals only.

  “Why are you and your brother fighting?” I prodded.

  “Because, I don’t agree with Ophelia. As far as I’m concerned, there’s room in town for everyone, but Angelo doesn’t see it that way! He’s furious because I won’t let him go back to his old ways.”

  I didn’t know Angelo really at all. I’d never even laid eyes on him before. But Wanda had told me he had a reputation as a womanizer, which wasn’t a surprise considering he was an incubus—a male sexual demon. Not only that, but Wanda had also said he wasn’t exactly an upstanding or model citizen of Haven Hollow. I had a feeling I was about to find out why. “What old ways are those?”

  Fifi glanced toward the locked door and her expression changed to one of anger. “He’s the best realtor on Ophelia’s team—at least, he used to be… when Ophelia was still… alive.” She took a deep breath and started worrying her bottom lip, looking like she was going to give in to another fit any second.

  “You’ve got this, Fifi, keep going.”

  She nodded. “Angelo has been at loose ends ever since Ophelia… died, er, became a statue in Wanda’s yard…”

  “Right.”

  “But Angelo got all excited when I said I was going to reopen the agency.”

  “Okay, so why are you both upset with each other?”

  She looked up at me then with huge eyes full of tears. “Because Angelo uses his position as an agent to feed.”

  My eyes bugged. “Feed? You mean….?”

  She nodded, looking more miserable than ever. “He’s an incubus, so he has to feed off the sexual energy of women the same way I have to feed off the sexual energy of men.”

  Chapter Three

  I cringed and barely stopped myself from looking away. “Oh.”

  “And he’s never had an issue before because Angelo is really attractive and charming and women just… they can’t resist him.” Kind of like men couldn’t resist her. Well, except for Marty and Roy, anyway.

  “So, what does that have to do with Hallowed Homes?”

  “Well, when Ophelia was in charge, Angelo would sweet-talk the wives of couples who wanted to buy or sell their homes. She turned a blind eye to whatever he was doing—and what he was doing was just terrible, Poppy! He is single-handedly responsible for more divorces and breakups than any person in Haven Hollow!”

  “Why would Ophelia turn a blind eye to it?”

  “Because she knew if those couples got divorced, their houses would go on the market, and she could make sure only supernaturals moved in.”

  “Then Angelo targeted human women?”

  She nodded. “Ophelia and he had some sort of deal set up, I think. She allowed him to feed and do his dirty work, and in return he targeted married mundane women with the intention of breaking up their marriages so the house listings would go to Hallowed Realty.”

  I swallowed hard. This was getting creepier by the minute. “Okay. I’m with you so far… So what caused the conflict between you two?”

  “Well, like I said, Angelo worked for Ophelia.”

  “But…. you said you’d stop whatever deal they had going?”

  She nodded again, and her voice spiked into a shrill screech. “Right. I told him I wouldn’t allow him to continue targeting women with the hopes of breaking up their marriages. I just… it’s wrong, Poppy! And I can’t have that stain on my new business. I want Hallowed Homes to be different!”

  “Well, I agree with you, but I’m guessing Angelo didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t!” she wailed, throwing her face into her hands again. “Angelo is on the warpath and he found out my secret and now he’s going to ruin everything! He’ll ruin me if I don’t come up with some way out of this quick!”

  “Your secret?”

  She inhaled deeply and then was quiet for a few seconds. Clearly, whatever this secret was, it was a doozy. When she looked up at me, her eyes were glassy, but it appeared she’d cried herself out of tears.

  “I’ve been trying to fulfill the requirements for a… a witch’s spell.”

  “A witch’s spell?” I repeated, immediately thinking this didn’t sound good.

  She nodded. “If I can stay abstinent for five years and complete a series of rituals, I’ll be able to remove the succubus from my spirit.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked, shaking my head. “How can you remove something from yourself when that something is yourself?”

  “My body isn’t a demon, Poppy, it’s my soul that is.”

  “Okay, then how can you remove something that’s part of your soul, that makes you who you are?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly but the witch assured me it’s possible, and if it’s possible, I have to try.”

  “What witch?”

  Fifi dropped her eyes and started fidgeting with her shirt. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  I only knew one witch and while I didn’t believe this was something Wanda would do, I still thought I should ask. “Was it Wanda?”

  Fifi immediately looked up at me then and shook her head. “No.”

  I didn’t think so, but better to be sure.

  I swallowed hard. “This doesn’t sound safe.” She didn’t respond, so I continued. “What will that mean if you remove the succubus from your soul?”

  She shrugged again. “Just that I’d become human… or as close to human as I can be.”

  I blinked at her in stunned shock. All this time, I thought I knew who and what she was and yet… I didn’t know the half of it.

  “So… in order to do this, you have to remain abstinent?” I managed to try to curb my surprise, at least a little. My brain was still reeling over how this was even possible and I had to admit, I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around it. “Isn’t that… you know… kind of impossible?”

  She nodded. “I still need to feed, yes, but I can feed without having sex. I can feed off someone’s lust for me, their vitality and life energy.”

  The blood rushed to my cheeks. I wasn’t really good with these sorts of conversations and I definitely wasn’t good with them with women I barely knew. “Oh. I see.”

  “If Angelo stops this spell I’m working so hard for, I’m sunk.”

  I held up my hand and shook my head. “I just don’t understand all of this, Fifi,” I started as I clenched my eyes shut and tried to make my brain work.

  “What part don’t you understand?”

  I opened my eyes again and focused on her. “You plan to have a witch perform a spell on you in order to destroy your succubus nature?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that a good idea? I mean, you are a succubus. If you stop being one, don’t you cease to exist?”

  “I won’t die, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I’m not really sure what I’m asking.”

  She nodded. “Well, as I understand it, I would be human with leftover magic. Apparently, you can’t completely take the magic out of someone. So while I’d be losing my succubus nature, I’d still have… like the echo of magic.”

  “So would that make you more than human?”

  “I think so. I might become something like a siren or a fairy or something like that. The woman wasn’t ultra-clear on that point.”

  “Um, isn’t that kind of important?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’d rather be anything than what I am right now.”

  “Fifi,” I started.

  “The effect of the spell is different,” she interrupted. “Depending on the succubus involved—it’s not a one size fits all type thing. From what I’ve been told, I’ll probably wind up having an unnaturally long life and I’ll have the same aura of seduction I do now—I just won’t need to feed off the energy of men in order to survive. And men won’t be as gaga over me as they are now.”

  “Okay, I understand that.”

  “I hate what I am, Poppy. I always have. It just… it seems so wrong to feed off someone else in order to live.”

  Lorcan didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but I kept that thought to myself. “While I do understand your point, Fifi, I just worry about you trying this spell when you don’t know the exact effects it will have on you. I mean, I can’t imagine you’ll walk away unscathed when you’re basically amputating your very nature.” I took a breath as her shoulders drooped. “I can understand why being a succubus might not be the greatest thing in the world, but it can’t be THAT bad. Can it?”

  “You don’t understand!” She started shaking her head again and looked up at me with imploring eyes. “It is that bad! It’s horrible. It’s the reason why I’ve never known real love from a man and probably never will.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. Every man is attracted to me because of what I am. But, no man has ever known the real me—no man has ever cared to know the real me. All they see is the outside of me—this shell,” she continued as she glanced down at herself, shaking her head. Then she sighed and looked up at me again. “Every man I meet is driven by this blind sexual need they have towards me and that’s it.” She took a breath. “Do you know no one has ever asked me about my dreams and my hopes and what matters most to me in life?” Then she shook her head. “I mean, Roy has but that’s just because he’s my boss and my friend, so he tries to make me feel better. And Marty always asks how I am, but they’re the only ones.”

  That brought up an interesting subject. “Why are they both… immune to your abilities?”

  She shrugged. “I have no clue.”

  I nodded, not really sure what else to say on the subject of Marty or Roy—Marty I knew was what’s called a ‘null’ which basically meant he was immune to magic of all sorts. Roy, though, remained a mystery. Obviously, I was pleased to know Roy wasn’t subject to Fifi’s beyond overt sexuality, but for some reason, I was equally pleased to know Marty wasn’t either. I mean, of course there was nothing between Marty and me—we were just very close friends, but… there was no but.

  “Sorry I interrupted,” I started with a smile. “Please continue.”

  Fifi nodded as she looked up at me. “Once Angelo found out about my plans for Hallowed Homes and how I won’t support his awful ways, all he could think about was vengeance.”

  “Vengeance? Against you?” She nodded. “But, he’s your brother!”

  “Don’t forget, he’s also a demon. Anyway, he must have been spying on me and he found out about what I’m trying to do. Of course, trying to tear the succubus side out of me opened its own can of worms and now Angelo is hell-bent, no pun intended, to stop me from completing the spell.”

  “Well, I understand that.”

  Fifi shook her head. “It’s not because he’s worried about me. It’s because my family would suffer huge mortification and embarrassment in the demon community if I did this to myself. Anyway, Angelo told the whole family and they all hit the roof, too. They think completing the spell and becoming human—or close to it—is shameful and abstaining from sex is a disgrace and an abomination to our line.” She took a deep breath and then started shaking her head again, the tears returning in earnest. “Angelo got them all on his side—I never even had a chance to explain mine.”

  “Well, couldn’t you just call them and tell them your side?”

  She shook her head even harder. “No, my family isn’t prone to logical conversations. I already know they plan to drag me back home and expose me to so much temptation that I’ll HAVE to do it.”

  “Have to do it?”

  “Have sex.”

  “Oh.” Then I thought more about that. “What… exactly does that mean, Fifi?”

  “It means they’ll push partners on me I don’t want. My streak of abstinence will be broken and I’ll be back to where I started. All the patience, suffering, and deprivation I put into this spell will go to waste.”

  I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like—her family would basically pimp her out. It was gross and beyond wrong. And there was no way I was going to let that happen while I still had breath in my body.

  “How much longer do you have to stay abstinent?”

  “Well...” She looked up at the ceiling, doing some mental arithmetic. “I started two months ago, so a little more than four and three-quarters years.”

  My jaw dropped all over again. “Over four years?!”

  She nodded down at her tightly knit fingers. “You have no idea how hard the last two months have been. I never thought it would be this difficult to fight my own nature. Sometimes I wonder if I can even make it another day, let alone four years.”

  My knees wobbled at the sheer enormity of what she was trying to accomplish. It just seemed… impossible. And, yet, here she was, believing she could do it, taking it day by day. I had new respect for her, and that respect made me want to help her even more than I already did.

  Not to mention the fact that I felt sick to my stomach over her predicament—how could her family actually enable random men to use her, just to make sure she remained a succubus? It was sick. “Fifi, are you sure your family would,” I started but her angry expression shut me right up.

  “Yes, I’m sure! Angelo told me what they have in store for me.”

  “Is that why you came into the store so frantic? You looked like you were scared out of your mind.”

  She nodded. “They’ve tried to kidnap me twice already. I’ve basically been in hiding, staying at hotel rooms in and out of Haven Hollow. Right before I came to find you, a black van pulled up on the street beside me and a man I didn’t recognize jumped out and tried to grab me but I fought like hell to get away and the first place I thought to come… was here.”

  I sank down on my knees in front of her and squeezed her hands as I looked at her and really started to understand her plight. “I’m so sorry! I don’t even know what to say, Fifi.” This was so much worse than I’d thought.

  She wrenched her twisted fingers in her lap until her knuckles went white. When she finally forced herself to meet my gaze, her eyes swam with tears. “Say you’ll help me. I don’t know where else to turn or what else to do.”

  “Okay,” I breathed. “I’m definitely going to help you.” I paused. “I just need to figure out how.”

  “I never wanted any of this, you know,” she choked. “I never wanted to be a sex object.”

  “I know.”

  “I just want a normal life. I just want a chance at real happiness like everyone else. I want to love someone and I want him to love me back… for me, for who I am on the inside.” Her voice broke as she patted the area above her heart. “I want someone who cares about me for something more than just my ability to seduce him. I want to find my One.”

  “Let’s say you remained a succubus, and you did find your person, and you knew he loved you for you,” I started. The expression on her face said she didn’t imagine that situation ever happening, but she humored me by listening. “Then would it be so bad to remain a succubus?”

  She nodded. “If he were human, he would eventually die from me feeding off him.”

  “Oh.” I cleared my throat. “And if he weren’t human?”

  She shook her head. “Most supernaturals wouldn’t be drained to death, but they might just feel… tired all the time. Either way, no one is signing up for that.”

  “Right. And vampires?” The only vampire I knew of was Lorcan, and he was completely overwhelmed by his feelings for Wanda, so I didn’t consider him a candidate, but the question still remained.

  “Vampires wouldn’t be able to sustain me because they have no life energy to drain—they’re already dead, you know?”

  “And shifters?”

  “They have strict rules about cross-species mating and some can’t mate outside their own species at all. They hate succubae anyway because we’re demons and everyone sort of considers us the lowest on the totem pole.” She took a breath as I took one, too.

  “Sasquatches?” I asked in a mouse voice.

  Fifi shook her head again, and a feeling of relief sailed through me. “Sasquatches would demand that I join their family in their ancestral home, deep in the woods. That would mean I’d basically be isolating myself in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t stand that. I need the city.”

  My mind flew to Roy. Dating a sasquatch had its share of challenges at the best of times, and things hadn’t even gotten very serious between the two of us… yet. If they did and we got married someday, would he ask me to live in the deep woods, too? I didn’t think I could stand that any better than Fifi could. And I knew Finn would hate it.

  A weighty feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. There was another reason why this romance between Roy and me was probably over before it had ever even begun.

  “Can you help me, Poppy?” Fifi asked, pulling my attention away from my own predicament.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t think of exactly what I could do. Instead, I played the conversation back through my mind, trying to find some angle that might make the proverbial lightbulb go off over my head. “You said you have succubus blood, or there’s succubus in your soul…”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mean you’re not ALL succubus?”

  “I’m also human. If I was all succubus, eliminating the succubus spirit would definitely kill me. As it is, when I remove the succubus spirit, the human side will be left and whatever magical residue.”