“Vi!” Kate called again.

  Violet slowed to a stop but didn’t turn to face her, staring down at a crack in the sidewalk partly occluded by her shoe.

  “Hey, are you ok? Did something happen?” Kate asked as she caught up to Violet and leaned down beside her with a concerned expression.

  Kate gave her the reaction she’d expected as she tilted her head up to meet Kate’s green eyes. Shock.

  “Oh my god–” Kate gestured to the top of her own head, “–horns!”

  What?!

  Violet’s own sudden shock merged with what she was already borrowing from Kate, then doubled again as she grabbed at her head with her hands to find that, indeed, she did have horns.

  Oh fuck fuck fuck why…

  “Oh god, you didn’t know! I’m sorry, Vi,” Kate said softly, emitting equal parts worry and wonder.

  Violet crumpled into a crouch as she held her horns, panic building. They were small, maybe two inches long, protruding upwards through her hair from just above her temples. She felt numb as she started fumbling in her purse for her phone, fighting her shaking hands. Her phone camera wasn’t handling the dim street lighting well, but they seemed to be black. Her nails kept interfering with her attempts to tap and zoom, adding frustration to her panic.

  When did they get so long?

  “Also, um– your eyes…” Kate trailed off, emitting something between wonder and worry.

  Violet nodded, her voice croaking slightly as she spoke, “The eyes, I did know about.”

  As she continued to crouch in silence, Kate’s calmness surprised her. She’d expected her bubbly, extremely drunk friend to be freaking out, either in a good way or a bad way, but definitely in some way.

  Is she also in shock?

  “Can we keep walking?” Violet eventually asked.

  There were too many people nearby, a few were already giving her suspiciously long looks.

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Wait, let me tell Ayesha we left.”

  “Right, sorry. Kate, you should just go back. I need to get out of here, and… It’s not safe.”

  “That’s exactly why someone should be with you!” Kate objected.

  “No, that’s n–”

  “Ethan was going to pick her up soon anyway. Let me just text her and we’ll go wherever you want.”

  Violet sighed, “I don’t know… Somewhere without people. My place is that way. It’s not that far.”

  This is a bad idea.

  Kate tapped at her phone for a minute, then gave Violet a thumbs up.

  “Oh well,” Violet said, mostly to herself, which confused Kate slightly.

  They walked in silence for a few blocks, trying to avoid people as much as possible without choosing any particularly dark and terrifying side streets. Kate was still very drunk, relying on Violet for extra balance a little more often than should have been necessary. Her cheeks were also quite flushed.

  Why the fuck am I sober?

  Kate let Vi lead her onto another residential block. They’d walked in silence for at least twenty minutes after leaving Eva, abandoning the busy strip as quickly as possible. She was winded after the last two blocks turned steeply uphill and wondered if Vi was more in shape than she appeared to be. She didn’t seem the least bit phased by the hills or the alcohol.

  Kate’s thoughts buzzed with questions, but she had a feeling Vi didn’t really know the answers to them. She also wanted to avoid stressing her out even more. There were the obvious ones, of course, like how the hell did you grow those horns and ears, and why are your eyes fucking glowing purple, but between those questions echoed one loud, recurring thought. Beautiful.

  She almost ran into Vi as she froze.

  “Wha–”

  “Quick, come,” Vi tugged at her arm, pulling her around the next building.

  After a few steps, Vi pulled her off the sidewalk and behind a parked SUV. She crouched with her finger on her lips, and Kate joined her in perplexed silence for the next minute before the explanation became clear. A man shuffled up to the corner they’d just turned, muttering to himself as he looked up and down the street. He turned up the street they’d just left, then passed the car they were crouching behind and continued out of sight.

  “He was following us,” Vi whispered once he seemed out of range.

  “How do you know?”

  Vi just shrugged, then crept around the car to peer up the street.

  “That way. Only two more blocks.”

  They continued much like before, though Kate started to imagine every shadowy movement might be some other kind of threat. She became uncomfortably aware of the sounds of her own heartbeat and breathing, now that it seemed likely to obscure the sounds of other potential dangers.

  How did she even notice him? I didn’t see her turn around. Oh my god, do those big ears give her some kind of super hearing??

  “Thank you for walking me home.” Violet said as she unlocked her apartment door and stepped back to welcome Kate inside.

  “Of course!” Kate smiled, then laughed, “Though, it seemed like you were the one walking me home. Can I, um, use your bathroom?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s on the right there.”

  Violet took Kate’s coat and hung it up with hers by the front door, double-checking that it was locked with a glance.

  “You’re welcome to spend the night,” Violet called toward the bathroom, “Or I can split the cost of a ride with you.”

  Kate didn’t reply right away, and Violet decided to get glasses of water for them both.

  It was a small but tidy apartment. The front door opened into a living room, which was separated from the kitchen by a small counter. The only other rooms were the bedroom, also small, and the bathroom along the hall to that bedroom. Violet placed the two glasses she’d just filled on her coffee table and waited for Kate on her small couch.

  The echo of Kate’s sensations wasn’t as strong from this distance, but she could still clearly feel the cold water on her hands as Kate washed hers. It just felt more faint, somehow, as though her hands were slightly numb or distant.

  “Hey,” Kate said with a smile, face still quite flushed, as she returned a moment later and flopped on the couch beside Violet.

  “Oh, thanks,” Kate added as she saw the water.

  To Violet’s surprise, she drank the whole glass in a few gulps. Kate’s emotions were all over the place, a torrent of attraction, wonder, concern, and curiosity. Violet felt the need to explain, somehow, to help Kate – and herself – calm that chaos.

  Besides, if I don’t explain, I’ll just sound really mean when I have to turn her down. Because she’s definitely hoping this turns into more. She’s already seen all these crazy changes anyway.

  “So, um. This is going to sound weird,” Violet began, “but I think I’m like, a succubus, probably. I know, it sounds idiotic, but I can’t think of a better explanation. And there’s other stuff I haven’t told you yet.”

  Kate blinked at her a few times, “That makes sense.”

  “What? No, it doesn’t,” Violet almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

  “Vi, have you seen yourself? You have horns! And adorable pointy ears. Your eyes are… Kind of terrifying! And somehow you’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

  Violet blushed.

  “Wait, how terrifying? Are my eyes still black?” she asked, moving to stand up.

  “Yeah. Glowing, too”, Kate replied as Violet squeezed past her to get to the bathroom.

  Sure enough, the would-be-whites of her eyes were still black voids, but her eyes otherwise weren’t quite as she’d last seen them. Her irises still glowed that eerie shade of lavender, but they were also unusually large, and the pupils within were thin, vertical slits. Her two small horns now joined her ears in poking through her white hair, completing her now clearly demonic aesthetic. In the bright light of the bathroom, she noticed her horns weren’t quite black either, but rather a very dark, slate grey.

  “Vi.”

  Kate was leaning against the bathroom door’s frame next to her, staring at her reflection as well.

  “Yeah.”

  “This is freaky.”

  “Yeah…”

  Kate lightly touched the back of Violet’s exposed shoulder.

  “Kate… Fuck, I can’t. You have no idea how badly I want to. No idea. But I can’t. I need to know what this is–” she gestured to her reflection, “–and know that I can control myself. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Kate pulled her hand back, feeling intensely disappointed, though her face hid it well.

  “Control yourself? I mean, this is quite the look, but you’re still you, right?” Kate asked, concern flickering inside her.

  “Well, yeah, but–” Violet glanced at Kate, then down with a sigh to where she was learning on her hands over the counter.

  Her nails looked sharp, and they were significantly longer than when she’d painted them yesterday. She raised one of her hands, turning it to get a better look at the chipped nail polish. To her surprise, her nails were the same dark, matte grey of her horns, with only a few cracked specks remaining of the black polish she’d painted them with last night.

  “–when I said I thought I was a succubus, I didn’t just mean how I look,” she continued, picking at the remaining nail polish. “Otherwise, ‘demon’ would have sufficed.”

  She accented the word ‘demon’ with a claw-like gesture that looked surprisingly intimidating now that she actually appeared to have claws. Kate’s eyes widened again, the initial flare of shock morphing into intense curiosity.

  “So, what, you have… urges?”

  “Something like that… At first, I was just getting turned on a lot, and it wouldn’t go away if I– you know– if it wasn’t with another person. And now, when I am with another person, there’s this– feeling. It isn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. It somehow satisfies that… That ‘hunger,’ I guess. It just keeps building if I don’t.”

  Kate looked fascinated.

  “I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first, and I seem to change a little bit more each time.”

  “At first…? Vi, you’ve changed so much, though! H– How much sex have you had since yesterday?” Kate asked, then suddenly felt extremely embarrassed. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

  “It’s ok, I kind of brought it up,” Violet blushed, then hesitantly answered, “Well… There was Ryan a few times yesterday, my friend Meryl most of last night, then again with Meryl earlier today, and then… some guy at Eva.”

  Her cheeks blushed bright pink with that last admission.

  “Tonight?? When?”

  Violet covered her face with her hands, “Right before we left… I gave some random guy a blowjob in the bathroom… Oh god, you probably think I’m disgusting now. Why did I tell you that?”

  “No, no. I mean… that kind of thing is probably pretty risky, you know. But I’m not judging,” she smiled with a mix of reassurance and awe. “Wait, do you have to, like, swallow it?” Kate asked, squishing her face into a grimace.

  Violet rolled her eyes.

  “First, I don’t mind cum. Cum is great. Second, no, that doesn’t seem to matter. It’s got something to do with… orgasms. It worked just as well with Meryl. Better, even, since we, uh, were at it for a while.”

  Kate nodded, excitement building again, and Violet assumed she was guessing at what, exactly, ‘a while’ meant.

  “So, wait, what makes you think it’s dangerous?” Kate asked.

  “I think I pushed Meryl too far. She was so exhausted today, and then we had sex again right before I left to meet up with you and she basically passed out right after. I’ve been really worried about her, and somehow I still fucking lost control at Eva and did it again…So, I have zero self-control and whatever I’m doing is hurting people, I just don’t know how badly and it’s really freaking me out. Which is why it was probably a terrible idea to let you come back with me.”

  Violet moved to rub her eyes with her palms, but her fingers bumped her horns and she grabbed them instead, giving Kate an exasperated look. Kate looked at her sympathetically, still emitting confusion — with a bit of disappointment on the side — as though she were trying to work out what she thought of all this. Violet suspected she liked being let in enough to hear all these details, but was still disappointed at how set Violet was in not messing around a little bit more.

  “Don’t get me wrong, part of me is so glad you did. Any other night and I would have been fucking ecstatic about you being here.”

  “Really?” Kate asked, suddenly very hopeful.

  “Kate. You’re gorgeous. I’ve had a crush on you for months.”

  Nothing like explaining to your friend that you’re a succubus to bring out the radical honesty.

  Kate’s face was red. Internally, she was exploding with excitement. Between the lengthy reveal of her succubus tendencies, Kate’s incredibly revealing top, and Kate’s own arousal, Violet was struggling to suppress her imagination as well. Her body had long since been obnoxiously ready, lubricating and throbbing expectantly every time either her or Kate threatened a suggestive thought, of which there had been many by this point.

  “Really? I thought it might be a little weird, since we work together and all, but I’ve always thought you were pretty. I like skinny girls. And shy girls, you’re cute when you get flustered,” Kate giggled. “I mean, I like curvy girls too. And I really really like this–” she gestured to Violet, “–Jesus, you’re pretty.”

  Kate had somehow gotten even more red, and she pulled nervously at her skirt. Maybe Violet’s honesty had encouraged a bit more bluntness from Kate as well. Violet bit her lip and smiled up at her friend.

  “I guess that’s pretty selfish of me, though,” Kate added. “I can’t imagine how strange and scary this is.”

  “Is it weird that I actually kind of like it? I mean, losing control scares the shit out of me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone, of course, and if I think about it too much I can’t avoid the conclusion that my life is over and I’m probably fucked because how do I explain this?” she paused with a heavy sigh. “But this–” she said with a tilt of her head toward the mirror, “I kind of actually like. It makes no sense but I kind of feel like I’m seeing me for the first time… Like, it feels right, somehow. Is that dumb?”

  Kate shrugged, “Fuck, I don’t know, Vi. You are weirdly hot though…”

  “I like weirdly hot,” Violet smiled. “Think Anne will fire me?”

  “Shit, can you fire someone for being a succubus?” Kate asked.

  “Probably. I don’t know if I can handle that much attention like this anyway. Today was overwhelming enough. Maybe I should quit. What would I even do, though?”

  “…Movies?”

  Violet snorted, “Oh god.”

  Sex. Clearly. What would people even pay to have sex with a succubus? Am I the only one?