"Are we sure it's safe to do this here?" I asked as I sat on the big leather sofa in Lily's apartment.

At almost the same time Susan asked nearly the same thing, "Lily are you sure this is safe? It's not that far to go out to the park."

"I've been refining the spell every time I've used it over the past four months," my demon mom replied as she carefully drew out the demonic markings in salt. "I can guarantee there will be no damage, nothing will go wrong."

We were sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the living-room, the black velvet box with Verothilas's brooch was sitting on the coffee table in front of us. It was Tuesday night, just past ten o'clock. The new moon was going to peak in about a half hour, and my demon mom was preparing another of her rituals.

Lily was using a box of salt to carefully mark the runes and the small circle on the table around the brooch, while Susan, Melissa, Amber, and Grace all sat on the sectional and watched.

When she put the box of salt aside I asked, "What's this going to do exactly? Like, there's only that one rune left on the tattoo right? The one that keeps you and me together. That's not going to go away, is it?"

"No Mara," my demon mom replied. "Now that I'm almost free, the energy I drain from Verothilas will be used to help me grow stronger. The two of us will remain connected though, don't worry about that."

Lily looked over at the others and added, "Before I begin, would any of you like to receive some of this energy? Melissa, would you like some more?"

"No thanks Lily," the tall busty blonde shook her head. "I'm happy where I am."

Susan spoke up before my demon mom could ask, "Same here Lily. I'm good for now."

"Amber?" she asked the small succubus sitting at the end of the sofa.

The cute brunette nodded "Yes please. I'm always up for more."

Lily smiled, "Very good. And Grace, I know this is all new to you. We talked about it last week, and I believe you've also spoken with the others since then. What do you think?"

The fashionable blonde was sitting on the other end of the sofa, next to Melissa. She hadn't even been part-succubus a week yet, it was just six days since she signed her contract. In that time she'd gone out once, she'd had her first experience drawing energy from a human partner. And she'd been busy rebuilding her life and stuff.

The only real change I'd noticed in her since she signed her contract was she seemed a lot more confident. Like she was always kind of confident and self-assured in certain areas, but now it was like she had that confidence everywhere.

Grace nodded, "Yes please Lily. I know it's early days for me, and I know you've all said this isn't a requirement. But I think I'd like to go ahead with it."

"You understand that this is a permanent decision?" our demon asked. "If we do this, you will never again be fully human."

"I understand," Grace acknowledged.

Lily accepted that, "Very well then, let's get started."

"Are you going to pull Verothilas out again?" I asked before she could begin her chanting. "Or is this like the other months, just getting energy?"

"Just energy Mara," she replied. "I don't need to do any more digging through her memories."

She added, "I may not need as much rest after this, but I'm not sure. Either way, don't worry Mara. It's perfectly safe."

There were no more last-minute interruptions, and soon she was doing her demonic chanting stuff.

The actual magic part went the same as usual, the salt started to glow a dull red while the purple gem in the brooch glowed faintly as well. Over the next few minutes the glowing got brighter, and when it reached its peak I saw a sort of beam of purple energy flow from the brooch into Amber's chest.

I counted off six or seven seconds while the energy flowed into the small succubus. After it stopped there was a brief pause, then the purple energy beam lit up again and hit Grace this time. I estimated she got nine or ten seconds of that energy before it ended. And a few moments later it lit up once more as it targeted us. I felt a warmth in our heart, but unlike the other times there was no warmth at the tattoo on our ankle.

When it finally stopped I was back in the body again, and it felt like Lily was asleep. The glow faded from the salt and the brooch, and when it was all done I picked up the velvet box and closed it, then got to my feet.

"Everybody ok?" Melissa asked. "Mara, Amber, Grace?"

I nodded, "I'm fine. I don't feel any different. And..."

A quick look at my ankle confirmed, "No change to the tattoo either."

"I'm good too," Amber reported. She had a smile on her face and her eyes seemed to sparkle a little with excitement or energy. It's like she just had a big hit of caffein and sugar or something, except without the twitchiness.

Everyone turned to look at Grace next.

She had a sort of wide-eyed uncertain look on her face and she was biting her lower lip. She was quiet for a few seconds, then she blushed and admitted "I feel tingly. And um, I'm really fucking horny..."

Melissa smirked, "We probably should have warned you about that? Me and Mara and Susan all felt like that when we got our first accidental dose of that energy."

I was grinning too as I asked, "So who wants to help Grace out with..."

My voice trailed off as Grace grabbed Melissa's hand and half pulled her up off the sofa.

As the two blondes disappeared upstairs into the guest room together I said, "Ok that problem seems to have taken care of itself."

Susan and Amber were still smiling, but Sue's faded as she commented "Grace and Melissa aside, that was pretty anticlimactic for the rest of us. I guess that's the idea though? The whole thing's become routine enough that Lily can do it in the living-room in less than ten minutes."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Considering it's only like eight months or whatever since we blew up your house with demonic magic, it's come a long way."

"We've all come a long way," Amber stated.

Before we got too deep into that topic I excused myself for a moment to put the brooch away. We just kept it in our bedroom in one of the bed-side tables nowadays, since that was more convenient than going back and forth to the bank to get it out of the safety-deposit box every month.

Then on my way back to the living-room I got a broom and dustpan, and swept up all the salt Lily used for her runes and stuff. I dumped that in the trash, and finally grabbed another round of drinks for the three of us.

They thanked me as I handed out the bottles of vodka coolers, then I joined them on the sectional sofa.

"How much do you think Grace was changed?" Amber asked as I took my seat. "You can still see the energy right Mara? Or do you know if Lily said anything about it?"

I shook my head, "Lily never mentioned it to me, she might have talked to Grace in private? And yeah, I saw it but I don't know how it translates, like how many seconds of that equals what percentage of change."

After a gulp of my cooler I added, "My guess though is about one third? Just basing that on what Melissa and Susan got back at the solstice last year. I figure Lily would want to use the same steps or whatever, because we already know what the effects are?"

They both agreed with that reasoning.

Sue spoke up next, after taking a swig of her drink. "What's that energy do for you now Amber? I know what it did before, but now that you're already a full succubus, what does it do when you get a hit of that?"

Our cute brunette girlfriend looked thoughtful as she sipped her cooler. After a half minute or so she finally responded, "You know how you and Melissa draw energy from humans when you have sex with them? Even though most of that is destined for Lily, you keep some of that for yourselves? And that extra energy means you're not hungry for a few days. I assume it also feels good? Like when you get that flow of energy into you in the first place?"

"Sure," Sue nodded. "You know what it's like, you've experienced it a couple times yourself right?"

Amber nodded, "Right, that's why I'm using it as a comparison. So that energy fuels our succubus magic right? The energy that I got from the brooch tonight and last month, that's like ten times more than you get from sleeping with a human. And none of it goes back to Lily, I get to keep it all. So each time Lily gives me another hit, it makes me even stronger."

"Hmm," the gorgeous redhead frowned as she thought about that. "So while Melissa and I are limited because neither of us have gone all the way and become a full succubus, you can keep soaking up that power from Verothilas and get stronger and stronger every month."

After a moment she added, "But what do you need all that power for? Why keep getting stronger, what does it do for you?"

"So far I haven't done much with it," Amber replied with a shrug. "I guess for now it just means I don't have to worry about ever running out of power to fuel my shapeshifting and stuff like that? I'm actually still learning what else I can do."

After another sip of her cooler she added, "I'm also still getting power the other way, like through the toys and other products I enchant and sell. That keeps growing every month, the more enchanted stuff that's out there, the more of that energy I have coming in. Individually it's very small, but it adds up. A thousand one-dollar transactions is more than a single five-hundred-dollar sale."

"How's it compare to what you got from Matt?" I asked. "I mean, I guess what I'm asking is are you getting as much from the sex-toy sales as you did from sleeping with a human?"

She looked thoughtful again, then finally shook her head. "Not yet. It's hard to put a number on it, like Lily said back in June it's hard to quantify this stuff? But if I had to, I'd say it takes me about eight or nine days to soak up the same amount of power from my enchantments that I got from one night with Matt."

"Cool," I smiled. "So I mean, you're not far behind what Melissa and Susan are doing."

Amber just nodded, while Susan looked thoughtful again. After a few seconds the redhead's eyes widened slightly in realization.

"It's only been six months since you started, and most of that was working part-time. And you just said it keeps growing every month, right? At some point you'll surpass us in terms of how much energy you have coming in."

The brunette cutie looked like she was fighting a smile as she nodded, "Yeah. Obviously it depends on a lot of factors, like how much I sell which depends on how many hours I work. And even at that it really comes down to the customers. Like I don't control how many of them come into the store and what they're into or what their budgets are. I can enchant a fifteen-dollar bottle of lube just as easily as a hundred-dollar vibe, but the lube will run out fairly quickly while the vibe should keep working for a long time."

"Ultimately it's all out of my hands," she added. "I mean, my manager gives me a lot of leeway with my hours and things but our store is part of a chain. Head office calls all the shots and makes the big decisions. They could fire me or close our store or make some other bad decision that tanks the business, then I'd have to start over finding work somewhere else."

I frowned, "That doesn't sound likely though does it? I mean, not if you're doing so well."

Amber agreed, "It probably won't happen, I'm just making the point that there's a lot about this that's out of my control."

"Even so," Susan said as she got back to her earlier point, "On average it's been growing, and you're going to keep working more hours right?"

Amber drained the last of her cooler then confirmed, "Yeah. I'll cut back to three days a week in September, but it'll be more hours than I was working originally. In terms of growth, I expect by December I'll match what you and Melissa receive in energy on a weekly basis."

"And it'll only keep growing," Sue stated. "In another year you might be bringing in double what we do."

I pointed out, "If everything goes according to Lily's plans you'll all be free of your contracts long before then. So it won't really matter right? I don't think it even matters now, to be honest. It's not a competition."

She agreed, "True. And good point Mara. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of that, but more based on what Amber was saying earlier? After we're all released from our contracts Lily said we'd keep all the energy we get. From the sound of it, Amber's going to be a very powerful succubus regardless."

"As long as she doesn't forget about us in her rise to world-domination," I teased. "I hope you'll reserve some places for us in your new world order Amber, after you're crowned Succubus Empress of the World?"

That earned me one of her blushy grins, as she cringed slightly and mumbled "I'm not really into the whole domination thing, that's more Susan's forte. I'm just going to stick to quietly selling sex toys, the rest of you can deal with fame and fortune if you like."

We all giggled a bit, then the tiny succubus empress got to her feet. "Anyways I have to work tomorrow, so I should probably get some sleep. You two have a good night."

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