She was at my side in a flash, hand on my chest, eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “No?”

  “This is… what I was hoping you’d help me with. Getting us out of here before they found me. Too late, though, so we’ll have to make do.”

  Her eyes met mine for a moment, she furrowed her brow, and then muttered what sounded like a curse that I couldn’t understand. Then, leaning forward and sliding a hand down my pants, warm fingers caressing my cock as she pressed her lips to mine.

  Holy shit had I been wanting this! Moaning, my hands took her, moving up her sides, feeling her hot, smooth skin, at the curve of her breast, when a strange sensation came over me. It was like I’d been an empty cup one minute, filled with water the next. Not pleasant or unpleasant, but… powerful?

  The sensation was only ruined by the realization that her lips were moving away from mine, her hand gone from my cock, and she was stepping back, hands folded in front of her.

  2

  “Wh…?” I tried, unable to get the words out.

  “It had to be done.”

  I shook my head clear. “Giving me the worst case of blue balls in the history of man had to be done?” To be fair, I was still in the ‘keep going, please’ phase, not quite at blue balls, but I had no doubt the moment was coming.

  She cringed. “If that happens, I’m sorry. I’ll… I’ll make it up to you. If it’s any consolation, you’re packing much more than I expected, I mean—”

  “Can you just tell me what happened?” I interrupted, glad for compliments and all, but incredibly confused.

  “Yeah.” As she led the way back down the stairs, she pointed up to where I could hear a scurrying sound, like large raccoons running overhead. “We’re about to have to fight for our lives, and I thought you’d prefer to go into that fight with a bit of something extra to fight with.”

  “Meaning?”

  We had reached the bottom of the stairs and were in the hallway. Her mouth opened to respond, when the wall to my right exploded inward and a tall man with blue skin and black robes floated through the opening, going straight for Ria with his fist raised. Strange words flowed from his mouth as blue flames erupted from his hand and shot toward her.

  As confusing as the moment was, I knew one thing for damn sure—my mother had taught me you don’t sit back and watch a man hit a woman. Did that apply to an alien with blue flames about to hit an ex-succubus? As far as I was concerned, she was more of a woman than most, so fuck yes.

  I lunged, every instinct in me saying this was suicide. And yet, I found myself moving faster than made sense, and to my surprise I made contact! Kind of. As my hands went to shove him back, they stuck to him instead, so that as he turned to me and I thrust again to break free, it was like part of him melted off, pulling into me. Then we were separated and the strange melding was done, me standing there with a dumb expression as I stared down what I could only think of as an alien warlock.

  His eyes—blue orbs with a tiny dot of white in the middle—took me in, more alien words coming from his mouth, before he turned his fist on me. The blue flame connected as he hit and for a moment fire consumed me. Only, it fluttered out. Pain rocked my body, my skin seeming to tear away from my flesh… but appearing unharmed while my vision went blurry with flashing light.

  He looked at his fist, staring at it in a bewildered way, giving me an opportunity to take my shot. A good haymaker to the jaw! Only, when I made contact, blue flame shot out, adding a burst of strength to my punch that sent him stumbling backward, his face on fire.

  As his growls filled the room, part of me knew we were fucked, but also I was overwhelmed with what had just happened, and what that might mean. Suddenly blue flame burst from his hands again and the ones burning his face were gone, though his blue skin was now scarred and mostly black. He took a step toward me, but just at that moment Ria came at him. She leaped onto his back, with claws digging into his eyes, shouting for me to find a weapon, to stop staring and standing there like an idiot, and go.

  One of his hands caught her and she shrieked as the blue flame caught her wing. The sound kicked me into action, and I spun, desperately looking around for a weapon. Then I remembered my knife holder in the kitchen, and sprinted for it. Halfway there, he threw Ria so that she slammed into the wall nearby, slumping over as I jumped over her and got the largest of the knives in one hand, a frying pan in the other.

  I turned quickly only to see him nearly on me, so I threw the frying pan then lunged with the knife. He swatted the frying pan aside, grunting at the impact on his wrist, but still easily dodging my strike with the knife.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, now speaking my language. Either he was a quick learner, or his kind had previous experience of dealing with humans. “No matter, you’ll be dead soon enough.”

  Reaching out for me, he was distracted long enough for Ria to come back into the fight. Her tail, whipped him in the groin while her claws sunk into his legs, climbing her way up to bite into his neck with sharp fangs.

  I took my chance and stabbed again. This time, the blade sunk into flesh like cutting through a thick steak. It didn’t go easy, but as I thrust and twisted, pushing harder, he groaned and the blade went in deeper.

  I noted that Ria had managed to extinguish the flames on her own body, as she shoved me back, grabbing the handle of the knife. Twisting it, she shoved Blue-guy back against the wall, then pulled it out, to repeatedly stab him. Sucking sounds, black blood, and then he was sliding down the wall, collapsing into a sitting position before she finished it by plunging the blade into the soft tissue under the jaw, up into his head.

  She stepped back, shoving him over so that he was lying down and bleeding out all over my hardwood floor.

  “Fuck,” I managed, stumbling back to the counter to catch myself.

  Ria checked her wing, the same one that had been broken, now partially burnt at the base, though it didn’t look horrible. She eyed me, then the body, and finally walked over to the sink and stuck her head under running water. It appeared to be a mix of washing away the feeling of yuck over having killed someone, though maybe I was projecting there, and needing something to drink.

  When she was done she stood, letting the water drip down her chest, and turned to face me. For a long moment, we stared at each other, me wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “FUCK!” This time I leaned onto the counter, eyes shut for a moment, before taking three big breaths and finding my cool. Turning from her to the body, I asked, “So… Ria, where exactly are you from?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  I frowned, then motioned to the body. “No offense, but… I really do.”

  “Well, I’m not an actual demon, if that’s what you wondered. I’m from a planet where there are all sorts of people. Some like me, the Succubus type, you could say. That’s what they call us, anyway, or Succubi, because of the nature of our powers and appearance.”

  “But you’re not actually, I don’t know, life-force sucking creatures of hell?”

  She laughed, then thought about it. “I don’t know. That almost fits, except for the last part. I’m from a planet in another dimension, you could say. Or maybe really far away, but so far that the only way to travel here might as well be inter-dimensional travel.” She sighed, cocking her head and staring at the wall as she tried to figure it out. “But no, I don’t think it’s your idea of Hell, exactly.”

  “And… why are you here?”

  “To take over your galaxy. Yours, and many others.”

  I blinked, trying to understand if she was joking.

  After a minute, she laughed. “Well, not me, exactly, but the invading army I was part of before I realized I didn’t want to be part of it.”

  “So you’re not trying to take us over?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. But my team wasn’t happy with my decision to jump ship—literally, and so… yeah, they’re coming for me. At first I wasn’t sure they would think it worth the hassle, as that means not being there for the full invasion, or at least risking not being there. But…” She turned back to the body. “There you go, proof. Right there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not, you don’t.” She assessed me for a moment, then sighed. “Here it is—okay? My people are part of a large force, a force that has allied itself with superpowered individuals who came to us and convinced us an invasion of your world would be prudent. A preemptive strike, to take you all out, or captive, before you attempted to do the same to us. Only, I’d been interacting with these individuals, using my powers to see it all, to learn the truth. And… there was more to it.”

  I waited, in a way glad she was covered so that I could actually focus on what she was saying. If not for the fact that I’d seen with my own eyes what she was capable of, and fought off this now-dead supervillain in my house myself, it would have all sounded like bullshit. But here we were.

  Finally, she continued. “When I tried to tell the others, they didn’t care. They weren’t in it for protection, but… to conquer. To kill. Not everyone from my side, mind you… but the majority have, how do you people put it…drunk the beer?”

  “Koolaid,” I corrected her, thinking how a beer sounded damn good at the moment.

  “Ah, yes.”

  “But… you’re saying you questioned them—who is them?”

  “No.” She looked impatient. “Not questioned, used my powers.”

  “And what are your powers?”

  “We don’t have time to get into th—”

  “Ria, we have more incoming, possibly. A whole invasion, according to you. If we’re going to survive this—together, don’t you think I’d benefit by knowing what we have in our arsenal?”

  She eyed me, then sighed. “It’s complicated.”

  “Try me.”

  “It was a sort of mind reading, but not quite,” she explained. “More like mind seeing—images, situations, like watching a movie. Something my people don’t have back home, but the idea intrigued me. And I got that from… well…” At my look of curiosity, she grunted and said, “I got that from fucking a guy, and in a sense stealing his life-force. More like his power-force, because I took his powers.”

  “You can take a guy’s powers by… fucking him?”

  “Anyone’s, really. Not just guys, and not just fucking. Has to do with intimacy, opening up. And… not anymore.”

  “Because…?”

  “I always hated it. I felt too powerful, too manipulative. A woman I met promised a gift, she said, a gift that would end it. And that’s what happened. On that day, I stopped being a succubus, as it is often defined where I’m from. I was left with whatever powers I had, no longer able to take them… but able to give them away—the powers—and, she said, someday the gift, if I so chose.”

  “And that’s it? She just gave you the gift and left?”

  Ria smiled wistfully, looked away. “That was it, for her. Her last breath, giving me the gift. Then she withered up on the spot, crumbled to dust, and blew away.”

  “Fuck.”

  She nodded. “Fuck… indeed.”

  “And what you did back there… The blue balls thing?”

  Her eyes darted to my crotch, pouting as she saw the bulge was, finally, gone. “Powers… passed on.”

  “By grabbing my dick?”

  “Wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’t something there between us,” she explained. “It’s based on passion and intimacy, so…”

  She let me mentally fill in the rest. “Gotcha.”

  I held up a hand, looking it over, wondering what I was capable of. “And me? Did you turn me into Rogue?”

  “Rogue?”

  Right, I kept forgetting she wasn’t as familiar with Earth lore. “Sorry, a piece of history. This super hero from a long ass time ago—in stories, only. It’s complicated, but basically she touched people and took their powers.”

  “Ah. In a sense, yes, but also… no.”

  “Meaning?”

  Her eyes seemed to be weighing me, debating with herself how much I was able to take in. Finally, she nodded. “Simply put, and because you’re not very powerful yet, I gave you a power that’s on a similar level. When you attack like you did, you can pull a bit from them—but it doesn’t take contact. That helps, but as you master it, you’ll see. And not all powers. In his case, he was capable of so much more, but you took what made sense for your skill level. Not all powers, and mostly on an instinctive level.”

  “Meaning, if I were to touch someone with laser sight I wouldn’t have to worry about my eyes suddenly burning down my surroundings?”

  She blinked, confused. “That’s correct. At most, I imagine you’d be able to somehow make laser beams with your hands or something like that, but it’s hard to determine how the powers will come through. Suffice it to say, often, it won’t be in exactly the same way as the person you took them from.”

  “But he did lose the ability momentarily,” I pointed out as I remembered that surprised look he’d had when his flame thing wouldn’t work for him. “So there’s that, too.”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t say you took away the ability, just drained his ability to call on his powers, slightly. He still could’ve produced the flame, but would’ve had to dig deeper. Since he wasn’t expecting it…”

  “Ah, gotcha.” I looked at my hands in wonder, and laughed. “This is… insane. And to be clear, your powers are…?”

  She sighed, looking disgusted at the question.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “I mean, I know what I said, but—”

  “No, you’re right. Essentially, right now I’m good for little more than healing and serving as an alarm system. I can fight, but only as far … Oh, and I can’t even heal myself! What good is healing if I can’t use it to fix a damn wing?”

  She stood there, glaring at the wall for a moment, then suddenly punched it, hand going right through.

  “What the hell?” I protested.

  “Sorry, just… It’s frustrating.” She held up her hand, shook it out. “Oh, and I’m pretty damn strong, but it’s less of a power, more of a part of what I am. I’m not saying breaking a bone would be impossible, but I’ve never met a succubus who’s broken one. We tend to heal fast on our own, at least, so the wing might not be an issue for too long. That doesn’t matter much though, because it’s tonight and the next few days I’m worried about right now.”

  “So we need a plan.”

  “Sure.” She considered it, then said, “No, what we really need is more.”

  “More?” I asked.

  “More fighters, if we hope to stand a chance.”

  “You mean, more grabbing dicks…”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh, wow. Drake… No, I’ve been with my share of men to know that doesn’t often come welcome. Sometimes, but I’m guessing it would make you uncomfortable, make you less intrigued if I were with multiple men… No?”

  “Not my thing,” I admitted.

  “Good. I mean, okay. Then we find women.”

  “Women to…?”

  “We need to pass on more powers, because the ‘gift’ means that although I have these powers I can’t use them myself. We can pass on powers, a bit at a time. See, you’re what I’d call an Initiate where I’m from. You can maybe handle one or two powers, and lower skill ones at that, for now. But when you’re more used to it, you’ll be able to grow in power and conquer your inner system, you’ll be able to handle more. Eventually, you might even be able to reach Legendary, which means you’d be quite the badass.”

  “So, it’s like leveling up.”

  “Sure…? I’m not sure what that is.”

  “A game thing, don’t worry about it.” I chuckled to myself, wondering how this was going to work exactly. “And you are?”

  “A few degrees higher than Legendary.” She said it as if it didn’t matter. Of course, it didn’t really, I realized, since the ‘gift’ essentially handicapped her. No matter how badass she was, with that in effect she wasn’t able to do much other than basic fighting and the healing I’d seen from her. Well that, plus pass on powers she’d accumulated over the years.

  “So you’re saying we gather a team, one we can power up, and then all of us fight, level up—”

  “If you insist on calling it that, though I don’t think it really is.”

  “Right.” I waved her off. “Level up, and fight some more, and level up some more… to what end?”

  “To get more of my powers, to help save the Earth.”

  “And if we lose Earth regardless?”

  “Then we all get the hell off of this planet.” She stared, dead serious.

  3

  Ria stared at me, and I at her as I processed the fact that she’d just told me we might have to leave Earth.

  “To be clear,” she said, apparently getting where my head was at, “our goal here is to not have to leave. I’d much rather help you, and Earth, fight off my people.”

  “I don’t—I don’t get it. Why?”

  She sighed, exasperated. “We don’t have time. We need to get out there, start forming our team.”

  “Right now?”

  “You want the rest of my former team-mates coming to your house and tearing it apart?”

  I had to admit she had a good point. “No.”

  “Then we need to get out there and find our own team, get them their powers, and be ready.”

  “And to be clear,” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around it, “you can’t give me more powers because… I couldn’t handle it?”

  She nodded. “Not yet, but soon.”

  “Fine. But… we can’t exactly go walking around like that.” I indicated her horns, the wings… the tail. “Not that I have any problem with it all, but some people might be confused. Scared?”

  “I get that.” She glanced around, then sighed. “Here’s the best I can do.”