The Succling and Her Dues

Chapter Two: Act 2 (Part 2)

Trigger Warning: Please be advised that this chapter contains s****l violence.

“Silence your tongue, Harlot! Enchantress from the underbelly of Jahannam!” Ayaz spat. “For the devil lives within. His Majesty will be rid of you soon enough!”

Anara narrowed her gaze toward the ends of her toes. Why does he speak to me in that way? She replayed what he said to her over and over. Nothing made sense. Why would His Majesty condemn a village cipher to Hell? She refused to look the man in the face, though her eyes wandered to the convulsing being before her. His pain resided deep inside her beating heart. All she wanted, at that moment, was to comfort her savior.

In his last moments of living.

Syifus grunted but paid no mind to the bastard, who clenched at his side, wailing profane, empty threats. He studied Anara, deciphering how he could control the waves of sadness rolling off her.

Black plumes of smoke exhausted Syifus’ nostrils, lingering next to Anara.

“There, there, little thistle” it spoke calmly, a cynical chuckle fading into the wind. “Everything comes with a special tithing. How thoughtful of him to give his life for yours.” The smoke circled Anara, hugging her shoulders. Then it whispered, “What shall I do about him?”

Anara’s throat felt caught with something heavy, perhaps a rock or two. It became difficult to swallow, even more so to speak. But her eyes commanded justice for the subject before her.

“So well-spoken…” The smoke shifted in the wind, thickening into a blackened ooze-like substance. This strange anomaly crept toward the injured, belligerent man, morphing into a skeletal structure. Organs populated within the ribcage as muscles stretched and wrapped over its entire frame. Skin rippled over the stretches of red tissue, revealing smooth cacao skin. The decadence of a dark, beautiful woman.

The remaining ooze jutted toward the sky, falling into perfectly coiled ringlets that fanned like peacock feathers. Indeed, her hair was coarse, and the strands dipped low like the reeds of a willow tree. “And here, I thought, you would never ask me to.” Her voice was smooth and sultry.

Ayaz’s grip loosened on the dagger, his eyes rapidly blinking. He could not run with the gaping hole at his side. Nor could he speak. But his gaze lingered on the naked beauty standing before him, entranced.

The woman snickered and stalked around like a predator, almost like a calculated dance. She articulated her body, swaying her hips as her feet pranced about, landing on bare spots in the grass. Her eyes blazed with emerald but shifted into a natural rose gold—the color that marked a succubus from an ordinary woman.

Anara recognized this from Nanektah’s daily teachings. The scrolls regarding the underbelly of the earth depicted such beings, and she gathered that the succubus among them was highly ranked.

According to legend, those with the skin of coal and cacao were of royal blood, while those of bronze and honey commanded legions for their stronghold in Hell. And those of alabaster or ivory skin toiled in the icy depths, torturing lost souls with their ghoulish appearance.

Deciding it was best to avoid the eminent doom to come, Anara bolted toward the dying man. She yanked at his tunic, rolling him onto her lap. Brushing her fingers through his unruly mane, Anara hummed a lullaby.

Bugra’s eyes fluttered open, coughing up blood as he smiled up at her. “He wished for me to give you this.” His hand shook violently as he retrieved the gold rose from under his garments and handed it to her. “For a flower so rare—my daughter would have been proud.”

“You sacrificed yourself for a stranger.” Anara’s smile slumped, a bitter taste enveloping her tongue. “Why, when you have a child waiting for you?”

He sighed, closing his eyes. “A promise was made, and my debt was fulfilled. She is already… waiting for…” His body froze. No more chest compressions. No more pulses running through his veins. Anara leaned over and kissed his forehead, then removed him from her thighs.

When Anara glanced at the rose protruding from his locked fingers, her heart skipped a beat. It was the same rose that sprouted from the garden. A gift from Death, himself. She plucked it from Bugra’s hand and held it against her chest, sending Death a prayer. Thanking him for watching over her.

A blood-curdling scream broke Anara’s whispering. She looked up, Ayaz crawling backward from the woman, his dagger aimed at her.

“Are you always this charming?” she sarcastically remarked, striding forward with her chest puffed. “You might make the others jealous with how you pursue me. All while on your back,” she snickered the last part.

“Stay back, filthy heathen!” he shouted, pain strained in every word. “God will forsake your presence and receive me as His Majesty’s savior!”

“The god you speak of no longer exists.”

“Lies!” Ayaz’s grip faltered on the hilt of his dagger. He eyed Anara, gritting his teeth, then looked back at the woman. “I’ll be welcomed in His graces, with virgins of plenty waiting for me.”

The woman bore her teeth as they sharpened into jagged, pointed razors. Her eyes pulsated an oddly bright sunflower gold... A jestful trance on her part to incapacitate Ayaz.

Encountering such a feat, Anara stared at her in awe. Syifus, however, was concerned that Anara would be sucked into the woman’s mystical mirage of turmoil. He trotted in front of her, blocking the view of the woman.

“Wait,” Anara pleaded, tugging at his soft coat of fur. “What is to become of him?”

“Her magick is not for the faint-hearted,” he replied. His snout brushed against her cheek. “There are worse things than death. I can assure you—”

“I must know what will become of him!”

Moments went by before Syifus shook his head and backed away. He admired her determination—enamored at how her eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Anara watched on as the woman straddled Ayaz’s thighs. How the woman’s breasts crashed over his stomach as her face neared his.

“Curious to taste what my nectar offers you?” The woman shoved Ayaz onto his back, mounting herself over his shoulders. “I assure you, there is nothing better than what your God could bestow upon the likes of your kind.”

Fog formed a wall between them and Anara, concealing the horrific cries of a soon-to-be-dead man.

The woman worked his mouth open, gyrating her hips as she pressed her labia against him. His tongue slipped between her lips, eliciting a shrill of excitement from her. Her thighs crushed his head, forcing his tongue deeper inside, muffling his screams.

While his eyes bulged from his sockets, Ayaz’s nails dug into her skin, with silverish-purple liquid flowing out from her open cuts.

“So eager for more…” She cackled, arching her back until her spine cracked. She tore away at his garments, exposing his erect, twitching member. Pleased with this, she licked the tip, teasing the shaft along the way to his testicles. Doing so, she left a trail of blistering black saliva before she engulfed his genital pouch.

His body seemingly relaxed before she bit down and tore away at his right scrotum. Blood splattered everywhere as she swallowed the sperm sack. She smiled wickedly, dismounting his face before plunging his member into her soaked v****a.

“I’ll kill you!” he screamed, reaching out for his dagger. It was too late for him, however, as another blood-curdling howl escaped him. Ayaz lifted his head to see that she had twisted his legs and used them for balance, riding him.

“You may try, little human,” she huffed seductively. “But you taste so much better when you scream!” The woman’s vaginal cave breached the hilt of his p***s, squeezing tight to his s*x. And his engorged appendage sliced clean off, with the woman climaxing. The same charcoal fluid spewed out of her, searing his flesh.

The fogged veil dissipated. Anara’s eyes widened at the sight. She turned away, vomiting the contents of her morning meal. Anara was thankful for the veil, though she still wondered what had happened to leave the man in such a state. She glanced back at a dangling spine in the woman’s hands.

The vertebrae combusted and instantly turned to a pile of ash on the ground. Anara stilled as the woman consumed the man’s flesh, bile threatening to escape Anara’s throat.

“Take me home,” she muttered to Syifus, glancing up at him with tears. The golden rose was crushed between her trembling fingers, the petals floating to the blades of grass.

“As you wish.” Syifus lay on his belly, waiting for Anara to mount him like a horse or camel.

A spotted kid leaped into Anara’s arms before she climbed Syifus’ back. A jingle of the cowbell alerted the remaining goats. They followed Syifus out of the field and into the lonely woods, leaving behind the woman to feast upon the corpses.