The Ring

Chapter 2: Jaerinn

For months I've sat shadowed in the corner, nursing an ale, and watching her. Always watching, never engaging. She is divine.

Incubi don't pine. They take and move on. But I've never been quite like the other incubi. Where my brothers all view humans as playthings and sex as air, I've never felt quite in line with what was supposed to be my "nature."

I have wondered if there was something wrong with me. My curiosity about the world around me is unlike the rest of my clan, and my fixation with questions about inanities like why the sun shines and how does grass grow, and other such completely un-incubi-like preoccupations tended to put me on the outskirts of my society. Frankly, I've never met anyone, male or female, that inspired the levels of lust that pondering the molecular structure of chocolate does for me. Mmm... Chocolate.

Focus Jaerinn.

It's almost inconceivable, but I'm quite nearly resigned within myself that I am incomprehensibly an asexualsex demon. Weird, I know. Impossible, probably. But here we are. I've never seemed to have the same urges and compulsions of my brethren and sex was so far on the bottom of my list of priorities as to be practically a non-issue. Not that I haven't had sex. I mean. I'm a goddamned incubus. Even if I don't want it, my aura will draw in prey whether I want it or not. And sometimes the only way to make them leave is to satisfy them. It always leaves me feeling a little loopy and kinda high, but it's not something I feel compelled to chase.

At least, until Her. She's human, which isn't entirely novel in my dimension. Humans are allowed to come and go from their world into mine, though the traffic for my kind into the human world is difficult and, frankly, unappealing.

My brothers brag about their sojourns into the human world, of their seductions and intrigues. It isn't a simple journey. You have to be summoned to get there and it takes a lot of coaxing through the dreamscape to even make that happen. But some of my brothers, of whom there are many, are skilled in that aspect.

I've never been to the human world. I really see no need to go there. Why would I want to invade some human girl's dreams in order to get her to bring me over? That sounds like a fucking nightmare and waste of time.

For my brothers, it's a question of survival. They live on sexual energy, in the same way that vampires live on blood and werewolves live on flesh. I suppose I do too; I've just never had much of an appetite.

That is... I never had much before. Now I'm beginning to discover what that hunger feels like. And it gnaws at my belly.

The first time I saw her was shortly after she took over bartending duties at the Artificer's Jar. A brawl had broken out between a vampire and some low-level demon, and she'd stepped in with a broom, whacking them both across the heads and shoulders. I didn't know whether to laugh or fear for her life, but the two drunken brawlers fell apart to see who their attacker was, and both burst into crying laughter when they saw the tiny blonde brandishing the now busted broom.

"If you two can't behave then you better leave," she said in a fierce voice, that sounded like a kitten growling. Sparks of energy sizzled around her, and a scent like parchment and chocolate filled my senses.

For the first time, desire for something other than knowledge stirred in my breeches. I almost lurched out of my chair as my vision hazed and I narrowed in on her, only her, the rest of the room fading to nothing.

She was human. But she was the sparkliest human I'd ever seen.

The fight broke up, she went back to the bar, but for the rest of the night, I watched her. I came back the next night. And the next. Apart from taking my order, we hardly ever exchanged words. She knew what I was; she always conducted herself with utmost care in her interactions with me, doing all the things a wary human knows to do when dealing with an incubus: avoid direct eye contact; keep verbal exchanges brief and to the point; do not flirt.