Except, I wasn’t a demon, I was a demoness, and that last little bit of X chromosome was going to save my ass.

You stupid son of a bitch, I thought, and then grabbed his thin soul by the short hairs, yanking it completely into mine with callous disregard.

No! Ku’Sox’s aggressive sexual heat flashed into fear. His power suddenly meant nothing as my soul swallowed his, cutting him off from everything but the memory of existence.

Si peccabas, poenam meres! I thought, holding him within me as the pinpricks of the curse lifted from me, arrowing into him like flakes of iron to a magnet. And as he howled in fury, I screamed over him, I curse you, Ku’Sox, to be fixed to the ever-after, cursed be it day or night, forever bound as a demon! Facilis descensus Tartaros!

I’ll kill you, you damned succubus! Ku’Sox shouted as he felt the curse lift from me and settle into him. I was a demoness, and I could hold another soul, even if it was as disgusting as Ku’Sox’s. And once there, I could give him a curse, collective or not. Fix it into his very DNA so that even should he transform, it would go with him. Forever.

A heavy mallet smashed into me, and I fell off him, the connection between us breaking. The cement slammed into my back, and the sun blinded me. I blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. I was on my back, looking up at the sun. And my mouth hurt.

“Take it back! Take it back!” Ku’Sox demanded, and I propped myself up on an elbow to see him standing before me, stiff with fear.

I looked at the blood on my hand, then back to him, the sun in his face and the ocean behind him, the sky full of birds. “You lose, Ku’Sox,” I said, panting as I started to smile. “I banish you. Get out of my reality.”

“No!” he screamed, lunging at me.

My hands came up to fend him off, and just as his weight fell on me, I felt the line take us. He was taking me with him!

Shit, I thought, floundering as I reoriented myself, then clenched in pain as my bubble snapped into place around us. His hot anger made clouds of agony and hate rise from his mind, like the choking stink of decay. He gripped my consciousness, dragging me with him, and I felt my soul shiver in pain at the fire he poured into me.

Take it back! he demanded. Or I’ll kill you here!

Try, I thought, then screamed as he began to shred my memories. I caught glimpses of my life as he burned them, taking them as his own. A blue-eyed tiger at the zoo, pacing to me as if he could walk right through the glass—and it was gone. A birthday at the hospital, him standing in the background as I blew out the candles and wished for a day without weakness—gone. One by one, Ku’Sox found my most happy thoughts and ate them, ate my soul.