Page 4 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)

Even in the demon world she was an anomaly.

There weren’t many of her kind left. They had been feared for centuries and were hunted by the very demon clans she helped now.

But she wasn’t going to hold a grudge. It wasn’t helpful, and if she held grudges over her very long life, she would be very much alone.

And being alone was the last thing her kind could tolerate.

Vampires needed blood to survive, and Succubi needed sexual energy. And that was all she allowed her encounters—she couldn’t even call them relationships—to be. An exchange of energy for pleasure. A simple bartering arrangement.

And wasn’t that the crux of her problem with Jason? She knew down to the depths of whatever soul she might have that with him it would be different.

She wanted him. Him and not his energy.

But she couldn’t risk it. She wouldn’t allow him to be used that way.

Especially since he was a shifter. Succubi and shifters were a bad combination.

There was something about shifters’ energy that could make her lose control of her demon.

She could become addicted to his energy and take too much.

She could never risk it. What if she hurt him?

That she would never recover from.

“Sabrina?”

She looked up to find the BSR team—Misha, Kyle, Jean Luc, and Talia—walking toward her. Kyle’s and Misha’s energies were anxiously poking toward the walls she had up. As vampires, Talia and Jean Luc exuded an anti-energy. It took up space or more accurately a void around them.

“How is he?” Misha asked.

“He’s awake.”

“Thank God,” Kyle said as the rest of the team took a collective sigh of relief. Warmth blasted from Kyle and Misha.

Misha glanced at the closed door. “Can we see him?”

“Not right now. I told him to rest some more. He’s exhausted and needs to recuperate.”

“How long do you think he’ll be down?” Misha asked.

She hesitated. “I don’t know yet.”

Jean Luc stared at her with his all-knowing vampire eyes. “What are you not telling us, Sabrina?”

“It’s nothing bad. His wound is healing faster than it should for a human.”

Talia folded her arms. “Do you think his shifter powers are kicking in?”

“Possibly. I won’t know until I can do some further tests, but he needs his rest.”

“I don’t know if Jason will be happy about that,” Kyle said.

Even with him saying he was okay with being a shifter, Sabrina wasn’t sure either. “I don’t know that he’ll get a choice one way or the other.”

“Griffin told me to call him once Jason was awake. Both he and Bea wanted to know how he’s doing,” Kyle said.

Sabrina nodded. “You can tell him he’s awake, but I wouldn’t mention anything else. That will be Jason’s decision to tell Griffin.”

She had already said too much out of turn as it was, but Jason’s teammates were his family and would have found out eventually.

She excused herself and went down the hall into her office, shut the door, and sucked in a deep lungful of air.

It was time to get herself under control.

She did not let her emotions rule her. She’d learned centuries ago that emotions couldn’t be trusted.

And she had done a fine job of locking them away, until she met Jason.

Fates, she needed to get away from all this for a while. She needed a vacation. When was the last time she’d been on a vacation? She’d gone with that guitarist and his bandmates to Woodstock. Was that really the last vacation she took?

A knock sounded at her door, and then Kyle poked her head into the room.

“If you aren’t going to wait for me to tell you to come in, why bother knocking to begin with,” Sabrina grumbled.

“I was going to ask you how you’re doing, but your response tells me, not so good.”

Sabrina crossed her arms. “Are you here to psychoanalyze me? You’re out of your league if that’s the case. I knew Freud and Jung. So brilliant and so twisted at the same time.”

Kyle shook her head. “Uh-uh. As much as I am dying to hear about Doctors Freaky and Deaky, you’re not changing the subject. What can I do to help you?”

“There’s nothing to do. I’m fine,” Sabrina answered quickly. Too quickly if Kyle’s eye roll was any indication.

Kyle plopped down in the chair across from her desk. “You aren’t fine. You haven’t been for a while now.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Kyle, I don’t have time for this.”

Kyle’s eyes sparked. “You don’t have time for anything anymore. And I think that’s just an excuse.”

Anger percolated under her skin. “You think my work schedule is an excuse? You know what it’s been like the past couple years.”

Kyle held up her hands. “I do. And we have you to thank for helping the realm demons transition to earth as well as setting up medical supplies and healers in the realm. I’m not going to argue that. But I also think you bury yourself in work so you don’t have to face your personal life.”

Before Sabrina could respond, Kyle plowed on.

“And before you tell me to take a flying leap and what makes me an expert on your life, I’m going to tell you.

I know what I’m talking about because I did the same damn thing.

I pushed everyone away except for my work, and if it hadn’t been for Misha, Jean Luc, and you calling me out on it, I wouldn’t have ever pulled myself out of the hole I was in. ”

Sabrina swallowed around the growing boulder in her throat.

“I appreciate your concern, Kyle. But I’m not avoiding my personal life.

” She crossed her fingers that the next question out of Kyle’s mouth wouldn’t be about her last vacation.

Wait… forget Woodstock…she had gone with that oil tycoon to New York City in 1979 and met some really interesting people at Studio 54.

Now it was Kyle’s turn to cross her arms. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

Okay, not the question she was expecting, but she still stared back at Kyle and didn’t say anything. Not because she was being obstinate, but because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a date.

A satisfied look settled on Kyle’s face. “That’s what I thought. You need to do something besides work, Sabrina. If it’s not Jason, then you need to find a hobby—naked basket weaving, naked scuba diving, naked salsa dancing. Do you see the recurring theme here?”

“How could I not. You’ve never been subtle.”

“Nope.” Kyle stood. “Somehow missed the subtle gene in my DNA strand. But then you’re not very subtle either.”

“Got it. I’ll see about figuring out something to do—naked.”

“Great. I didn’t want to pull out the big guns and stage an intervention on you.” Kyle smiled before turning to leave Sabrina’s office.

Sabrina didn’t want that either. The team along with Misha’s overzealous Russian-demon family tended to butt into everyone’s business. Interventions were staged almost weekly for one thing or the other. Sabrina didn’t need anyone in her business.

She sat down in her chair and stared at her computer screen.

When was the last time she had been on a date?

She didn’t like dating anymore. Humans complained about dating after a few years.

Let them try centuries of playing the game.

And ultimately she wasn’t looking for a happy ever after. She just needed sex to survive.

A pathetic statement, but true nonetheless.

And she had been living long enough that she didn’t need to feed from sexual energy as much anymore.

She could actually go a year or more before needing the energy exchange.

In the past she hadn’t pushed it longer than that, but now she realized it had been over a year since she had been with anyone.

She wondered when her body would tell her it was time. As a young Succubus, she’d had sex frequently. She had to since she didn’t know how to harness the energy for long periods of time.

She hated to admit it, but maybe Kyle was right. She needed to get naked with someone. But if she let herself think about it, a certain someone’s face with dark blue eyes and shaggy brown hair flashed in her mind. But she couldn’t let that fantasy play itself out.

For her own sanity and, more importantly, Jason’s safety.