“Does anyone here want to abide by the will and do what Papa wished?”

Willow scoffed. “And be practically sold to some man we don’t know? No thanks.”

Chloe grimaced, she never could express her thoughts the way Willow did—with a punch and a bite, but Willow always said what she was thinking. Lily simply shrugged, looking contemplative.

Chloe shook her head. “I know this is apparently what Papa wanted, but I am not just going to give myself to some strange man because he said so in his will.”

None of this made sense. Throughout history, succubi have been a patriarchal race. But their father strove to change that. In other succubus families, it was expected that if the head of the household—always the man—died then all females in his family were to be given to a man.

Sometimes a brother became head of household, but in some cases where there were no living male relative, the females were given away to a man through a will. As Papa just did.

The succubi called it the Protector. A man whom they would use to feed off of and were supposed to obey in all respects.

Though why he did something like this after all the efforts he went through to make each of his daughters strong independent women free of men made zero sense. And he expected them to breed with the men they didn’t know. This was not the Papa Chloe knew and loved.

“Why did Papa have to die now? Why did all of this have to happen now when our 29th birthday is only two days away? It’s too much. First Papa, then this. I don’t think I can stand it.”

The pain in Lily’s voice brought a heavy weight to Chloe’s chest. She was right. On the 29th year of a succubus’ life, everything changed forever. The females peaked into full sexual maturity and from then on required sex to survive, no longer food.

Chloe had been dreading her 29th birthday her entire life.

“Listen, if we don’t want to go with some men that we don’t know then I say we don’t.

Besides, these men know nothing about us or even about this situation, probably. So I doubt they’ll be here knocking at our door on our birthday.”

Lily started pacing while wearing a determined look on her face. When this woman

started planning, great things happened. Suddenly she whirled towards them and clapped her hands. “I’ve got it. We’ll do a spell.”

“We aren’t strong enough to do the kind of spell it would take to ward off three powerful men,” Willow said. Succubi had some magical abilities in the form of spell casting; however, it was rarely good enough to knock a broom over by staring at it.

Lily’s eyes gleamed. “That’s where you’re wrong, sista. Tomorrow is

All Hallow’s Eve—the day on which magic is greater—more powerful—than any other

day on earth. If all three of us perform a spell to keep the men away then we may actually have a chance.”

The more Chloe thought about it, the greater the idea seemed. Really, what did any of them stand to lose? Besides her independence to some horrible, woman-killer man. No, not a man. A vampire! What on earth had her Papa been thinking when he made that will?

“Lily, is it true that magic is more powerful along the Prime Meridian?” said Chloe.

“Absolutely! We should go there to perform the spell.” Lily’s eyes lit up with excitement.

She went across the study and grabbed a globe from next to Papa’s desk. Chloe remembered so many nights seeing her father at his desk working and writing for hours on end. God, she missed him so much already.

“Here it is,” Lily said excitedly. “The Prime Meridian goes from the Arctic all way down to Antarctica. Along the way it goes through England, France, Spain, and several countries in Africa.”

Chloe looked at each of her sisters. They each wore evil, excited smiles that mirrored hers. Rubbing her hands together she said, “Well ladies, it looks like we’re headed to Europe.

Lily, you gather everything that we’ll need to do the spell. Willow, you order the plane tickets for…immediately.”

“And what are you going to do?” Willow asked.

“Try to come up with Plan B in case this spell doesn’t work.”

“Don’t worry about it. I already got it figured out.” Willow shrugged, a cocky grin on her mouth. That grin had taunted and bested many people in Willow’s life. “We’ll run.”

The thought of running away from Commander Tyrian en Kulev sounded great. Though,

Chloe had a deep feeling that this man would find her easily. And she definitely didn’t want to be found by a man like him–the leader of the most vicious and renowned warriors in the world.

October 30

Chloe found a spot to spread out their blanket behind a copse of barren trees that had lost their leaves with the onslaught of autumn. As she whipped out the blanket, her gaze fixated on the small statue of the Mother Mary that sat upon a short pillar overlooking a gravestone. She eyed the gravestone to make sure no undead thing was coming out to get her, then plopped down on the plaid blanket.

Being in a cemetery at night was not her ideal of a good time. She’d much rather be out dancing or flirting with the cute bartender she worked with.

“Hurry up, you guys,” she hissed in a loud whisper. Willow and Lily both groaned then started setting down their supplies. Lily carried a wicker basket that held candles, herbs, a lighter, and the spell while Willow carried a backpack filled with, as she called it, “emergency supplies.” Willow always carried that pack with her as if at any moment she was ready to take off.

“I’ve got the creeps being out here. Are we even allowed to be out here at night?”

Both sisters looked around, then shrugged.

Lily said, “It’s possible that England has some laws on this, so let’s just do this quickly and quietly.”

“Sounds good to me,” Willow muttered. Lily lit a thick rope of sage and waved it in the air while she and Willow started lighting white and red candles in a circle around them.

“Let’s do this before the wind picks up.” What she said was half a lie. She didn’t want the wind to pick up but actually her gut was telling her something bad was going to happen. It was that same I-might-possibly-hurl feeling she’d had when she read the will two days before, only worse. Much worse.

Lily handed them each a small square of paper with some gibberish written on it. “What is this?”

Her younger sister, Lily, always had more of a gift for magic and spell craft than either she or Willow, but since when did she start writing stuff in non-English?

“Don’t worry about it. I wrote it out phonetically from Sumerian so you’ll be able to pronounce it.”

“Sumerian?” Chloe couldn’t hide her disbelief. The spells they did always required one language—English. She knew she didn’t know squat about Sumeria or Sumerians and neither did Lily. “Lily, where did you get this?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Listen, we aren’t very powerful but performing this spell on the Prime Meridian, at midnight which is the Witching Hour, and speaking in an ancient language will only help our chances of making a successful cast.” Chloe and Willow exchanged doubtful glances.

“If you say so, Lily. Are we reading these all at the same time?” That stupid, hollow yet heavy feeling was still there in her gut. She put a hand over it to try to settle it. Nerves and worry, that’s all it was.

“No, each part is different. Since Chloe’s the eldest she’ll go first, then you Willow, and I’ll go last. While the person is speaking the others should hum, and then when we’re all done we’ll leave the candles and the sage to burn completely down.”

“What if the wind blows it out?” said Chloe.

Lily sighed loudly and threw up her hands in the air. “I don’t know then, Chloe. I suppose if you want to stay here all night and keep relighting them then go ahead, but I plan on getting some sleep tonight.”