Liz sat up in bed, two fingers pressed gently to her lips. Her heart was still slamming—the dousing of adrenaline that had come with Morgana’s approach had been insane, and for a reason she couldn’t explain. Like Liz had been her prey.

But more importantly … the kiss had felt so real.

Her hand fell into her lap, and she sighed.

For an impossible second, she’d thought it had been real. But obviously life didn’t change on a dime like that. Succubi didn’t enter people’s dreams and offer contracts. Liz was still Liz—antisocial college student, and not much more.

She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and clicked it on, squinting at the burst of light. 4:52. She’d only been asleep for a few hours. Liz went to bed late most nights, like most people who wasted away on their computer, browsing the internet, reading smutty fanfiction, and mindlessly playing video games.

She slid her phone back and collapsed into her pillow. She stared up at the ceiling. It was hard to explain how disappointed she was. A chance for change. Liz would have liked that. Change. Or to change. Her inability to function in society as a ‘normal person’, to name the biggest. A girlfriend, the second—but at least the former was in the realm of possibility. Who would want to date Liz?

Why did it have to be a dream?

Morgana’s kiss still tingled.

And wasn’t that pathetic?

She sighed, then closed her eyes. Maybe if she fell back asleep fast enough, she could catch the dream’s coattails.

***

Her alarm blared. She shut it off.

***

And again. She had seven set—she knew herself, and lack of self-control.

***

Finally, the noise forced her up. She groaned and sat, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

No dreams. None bad, either, so a net neutral.

She flicked her phone screen with her thumb, shutting off the noise. She sat cross-legged on her bed, blinking as she tried to rouse her will to live. In the meantime, she scrolled through her phone, seeing if any of her friends had messaged her. Internet friends. Liz didn’t have any real-life ones. And nope—no notifications. They all tended to fall asleep at the same time, anyway: way past when was acceptable.

Something clanged, and Liz froze.

She was suddenly wide awake.

She lived alone in her crappy apartment—specifically because she wouldn’t do well with a roommate, or in a dorm environment. Her parents, at least, had known that, and paid for the room despite its much higher rent and location off campus.

So who the hell had made that noise?

Did she call the police? Or was she overreacting? Imagining things?

Another clang, and Liz knew someone had broken in. Or was it something else? A maintenance man who thought the apartment was empty? Had she slept through his knocking?

She slid out of bed, quietly. Her eyes scanned for a makeshift weapon. There wasn’t much. A lamp? Too clumsy. A book? It was something. She picked the heaviest tome and quietly walked to the doorway, doing her best to be silent. She pressed an ear into the wood and listened.

Someone was definitely in her kitchen, rummaging in her cabinets. Why? They weren’t trying to be especially quiet, which she guessed boded well. Worst case, a thief. An especially dumb one, if so.

She twisted the doorknob agonizingly slowly, then peeked through. The hallway was empty. The kitchen wouldn’t be visible until she walked through and peeked around the corner.

She did so. She was impressed how little noise she made.

Her eye slid around the edge of the wall, and the kitchen opened up.

A red-skinned woman stood there, opening cabinets and inspecting Liz’s belongings. White hair cascaded to her mid-back. Horns poked from the top of her head.

Liz’s brain rebooted.

What?

No.

What?

The book slid from her fingers and thunked into the ground. At the noise, Liz gasped—and she ducked back, pressing herself into the wall as if she could will the mistake into non-existence.

“Liz?” Morgana asked. “Finally awake? It’s past noon, you know.”

What the fuck?

“Elizabeth?” Morgana repeated.

Steeling her nerves, Liz walked around the corner.

Sure enough, Liz hadn’t gone insane. Bright pink eyes appraised Liz, exactly as she remembered them—or better put, exactly as had been branded into her memory.

Bizarrely, the first thing that hit Liz was:

The kiss was real?

Liz’s first kiss had been with a succubus. Huh. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing?

“Mor,” Liz said. She’d said the nickname was fine. “It’s, uh. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“It took some time to coalesce,” she agreed with a nod. “And I didn’t want to wake you when I did. You’ve got some serious bags under your eyes, you know. Though … didn’t look like it helped, much.”

Well, Liz already knew that. Thanks for pointing it out. Not like she was insecure by nature.

It didn’t sting that bad, though. Not when she was still spinning on the whole, ‘the succubus I contracted was real’ thing.

“I need to sit down,” Liz said, head starting to sway. “I can’t … I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Tell me about. You have any idea how long I’ve waited for a contract?”

She collapsed heavily into the single dining-room kitchen chair, in front of the bar. She’d been through too many intense emotions, too fast—first, a the idea she had a home invader, then next, something even weirder.

Something even worse?

Did this mean Liz had sold her soul? She knew Morgana had said it didn’t work like that, but this was a demon she was talking about. Lying would be like … so far within their purview it was comical. Sure, Morgana seemed nice, but when dealing with demons, Liz thought ‘seemed’ was a poor metric to go by.

“Oh my god,” Liz said, putting her face in her hands. “What the hell is going on?”