“Damn, that’s a lot of…” I couldn’t finish that sentence since I had no idea what they were from that distance. “We should get ready for battle again. I don’t know if we’ll be needing those swords but we should grab them any… Goddammit! They did it again!” Ares’s corpse and both God-killing blades were gone. When I turned to check I wasn’t surprised to see that Nemesis’s body had been shwooped away as well. I wasn’t very happy about those swords vanishing but it looked like I had other things to worry about at the moment.

Whatever they were, the new arrivals were descending to join the remaining Harpies and... kill them? One Harpy screamed as one of the winged figures set upon her but she had stopped screaming before her corpse even hit the ground nearby with an armored figure using the body to cushion her landing. The others seemed just as uncertain about what was going on as I was, waiting for some cue from me whether to attack the new arrival or not.

The figure appeared to be wearing some sort of form-fitting scale mail that covered her from the neck down and both it and her hair were the color of blood. Seeing her from the side it was pretty easy to see that she was female as she crouched for a moment over her victim, one with a figure and beauty to rival those that I had recently been ‘blessed’ with upon receiving Inanna’s essence. Her wings were bat-like and seemed small for her frame, too small to hold aloft an armored figure of her size without some sort of magical assistance.

I couldn’t sense any active spells on her but I did sense something. It took a moment for me to realize what that was though. She was like me, a Demigoddess, and I could sense the sex aura coming from her. She removed her spear from the Harpy’s corpse with a disturbing *shluuuurk*, the spaded tip gleaming with blood in the light of the street lamps. Wait, that was no spear, she hadn’t used her hands to pull it free. As it whipped back behind her I realized that it was a long flexible tail with a spaded tip and like her wings, it was as black as night.

She turned to face us and she was probably one of the most beautiful women that I had ever seen. She had a heart-shaped face with full pouty lips, a cute little upturned nose, and big crimson eyes that shone when she smiled at me, revealing small fangs as well. Surprisingly, those fangs didn’t detract from her beauty and neither did the curved black horns that emerged from her forehead and swept back along the sides of her head just above her pointed ears like a crown.

Harpies fell from the sky and crashed to the ground around us and time seemed to freeze for a moment as I realized what she was an instant before she walked toward me and got to one knee, bowing her head. She was a Succubus and I didn’t know much about them. Sure, people say they’re Demons and they certainly look the part, but Fae have a natural sense of what are monsters and what belongs in the natural world. This creature… person was different but it was hard to tell with the whole Demigoddess thing she had going on. There was this bond that I felt between us as well, something that I couldn’t define.

She kept her head bowed as she spoke, almost in supplication. “My apologies for arriving late to the battle, Your Majesty, it took some time to find you in this vast city, even with our bond. Is there any other way that we can be of service once my children have finished dealing with the Harpy filth? Shall we see to healing the injured?”

“Umm… yes please, Rei will have his work cut out for him if he tries to do all of it alone. I would really like to know who you are and what’s going on though,” I finally managed to say. Lissany watched the new arrival carefully from my side while Daenyss seemed as surprised as I was but pleased that this Succubus was being respectful.

“It shall be done, Your Majesty,” she said with a slight nod. “I shall have our best healers get to work as the others keep watch for enemies. As for who I am, I am Lilith; High Priestess of the Temple of the Heavens, mother of all Succubae, and a Demigoddess of sex, fertility, childbirth, feminine power, serpents, war, and the wind. My daughters and I stand ready to serve as your Priestesses, and your army.”

As she spoke, several dozen more Succubae alighted on the ground, their scaly armor seeming to melt away from everywhere but their chests and nether regions, making them less intimidating and more alluring as they fanned out to see to the injured. Even their tails, horns, and wings seemed to melt into their bodies to give them a more human appearance. The remainder of the massive swarm above us stayed on watch, either patrolling the air or landing on rooftops.

I was still trying to process the whole army thing when my other protectors joined us and Harley asked, “Lilith? As in the Lilith? The First Temptress?”

Lilith’s beautiful face scrunched up in disgust. “Oh, Goddess, please do not call me that. The Bible is the biggest confidence scam in mortal history, a work of fiction that needed villains to sell the ideas. Ever since the rise of patriarchy the stories Humans told about me made me out to be more and more of a villain. ‘Oh no, we can’t have a female be confident, competent, and enjoy sex.’ Then someone wrote that ridiculous book and me and my children have been demonized ever since. Okay, yeah, so maybe we are Demons but it’s not like that’s our fault, I was cursed!”

Okay, that seemed to be a touchy topic for her and Harley looked like she might just vanish again any moment for having been the person to bring up the irksome inquiry. Whisper apparently knew good PR when she saw it though so the drone left us to follow some of the Succubae who were off to heal the injured. I still wasn’t quite sure what was going on here though so I asked, “Lilith, if you’re a Demigoddess yourself, why are you offering you and your… daughters to serve as my priestesses?”

“That’s a good question,” Lissany agreed with a nod. “Wouldn’t you be better off getting worshippers of your own?”

“Perhaps, if I cared about such things. I do not though,” Lilith said dismissively. Then she turned to Lissany and asked, “Do you wish to cultivate worshippers? Did you wish to become Demigoddess for power or some other reason? What drives you, child?”

“What? I’m not a…” The feline Beastkin didn’t finish her denial, and the brief flash of realization as she glanced toward where Ares’s body had been moments before and the following uncertain expression on her face showed her mental state.

“Liss, you just killed a God and your eyes are glowing. I can sense the divine essence in you,” I pointed out as gently as I could, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“She has aspects as well; war, courage, and protection if I am not mistaken. She seems well suited to them,” the Succubus pointed out.

I was a bit surprised at that and asked, “Are you sure about that? Ares only had the war and courage aspects.”

“I am certain, Your Majesty,” Lilith said with a nod of her head. “Sometimes, when Gods or Demigods are particularly well suited to aspects, their experiences or strong values can cause them to gain new aspects that are closely related to them and suit them as well. For example, I did not have the fertility or childbirth aspects when I first ascended. I was well suited to the sex aspect though, and so I gained the fertility aspect upon carrying my first daughter and the childbirth aspect after giving birth. The original aspect is usually stronger though, which is why I still have the sex aura.”

Lissany’s expression hardened into the look of determination that she often wore when charging into a fight she might not win but was determined to anyway, usually for my sake. “This doesn’t change anything. I’m here because I swore an oath to protect Empress Taelya for the rest of my life. She’s more than just my Empress, she’s like my big sister and friend too. If this makes me better able to fulfill my oath then that’s great but I couldn’t care less about having people worship me. I already have a family and friends that I know care about me for me, not because of some power that I happen to have. That family includes Her Majesty and I will protect her and everyone else I care about, no matter what.”

A nearly blinding smile lit up Lilith’s face. “Well spoken, child. You remind me of myself millennia ago, when Inanna first gave me the gift of some of Her essence. I never cared about godhood though. She was more than a sister, friend, mother, or teacher to me, and I swore an oath much like yours, or the one imprinted upon the Nymph’s flesh, to serve the Queen of the Heavens faithfully for the rest of my days.”

So she had served Inanna. I probably should have realized that earlier. I tried to put it out of my mind as I told her, “I’m not Inanna. She should have given Her power to you if you were that faithful to Her.”

“No, you are not Her. She knew that I had no desire for more power and if she chose you to receive Hers, then She must have thought that you were a worthy successor. I trust in Her judgment and what I see with my own eyes. I see your protectors, your handmaiden, and the Fae and Kitsune over there who keep glancing your way while seeing to the injured. You generate such fierce loyalty from those close to you and, in my experience, such loyalty is usually earned and reciprocated.”

I felt my cheeks turning bright red. “These people aren’t just people working for me or protecting me, they’re my friends and family. Other than that, I just try to treat others as I would want to be treated and to help people where I can.”

“That makes you far more worthy of divinity than most Gods that I have met, Your Majesty. My brood and I will be proud to serve you as your priestesses, soldiers, and in any other way that you might desire.” The last was added with a flick of her spaded tail and a lusty wink.

Oh. Oh my. My brain almost blew a fuse there. Not just because a Succubus had just propositioned me but also because I was thinking of how many I had seen in the sky, the Jhashaira ceremony on the next full moon was going to be very interesting if they planned on interacting with my people. “How many daughters are we talking about here?”

“Well, technically they’re not all daughters. There are a lot of granddaughters, great-granddaughters, and so on. I don’t really keep count anymore but I would say there are roughly between five and six thousand of us. Not all of us are here, of course, this is just the advance guard. Many are in the Temple of the Heavens preparing a memorial for Inanna but I wanted to get a measure of who She chose to be Her successor, to see if you were as worthy of our service as She was.” Lilith paused a moment at that, her eyes darkening and her cheerful disposition dimming to be replaced by an expression of profound grief. “Four of my brood fell alongside Utu, trying to keep Inanna safe when they were ambushed.”

Holy crap, that’s a lot of Succubae and from what she had said so far, it would seem that they were all combat-trained with many Healers in their ranks. Magi too, if I was right about how some of those Harpies had been brought down. I had definitively felt magick being used up there. The four Courts had plenty of warriors, most of our people could fight in some way except for the gentler Fae like the Nymphs, Liyun’shael, or Sül’shael but this could increase our fighting force significantly.

“I didn’t know Inanna for more than a few minutes but she seemed like one of the good Goddesses, I am sorry for your losses. I had a memorial for her and Ereshkigal and there is a monument to them in Varüus’kiel,” I told her sadly.

A sad smile touched her lips. “We could all feel it when She died. She was at peace. Thank you for that, it is how I knew that She was able to choose a successor rather than allow Her power to fall into the hands of those who tried to kill Her. Perhaps my children and I could see this monument after we have sworn our service to you as our Goddess.”

As appealing as the thought of that many able fighters joining me was in the case that we may need to defend ourselves, or even just to help with monster hunting, I didn’t want them serving me because their matriarch ordered it. “I would be glad to accept the service of those who are willing, but I am not your Goddess and each of your daughters should be able to choose for themselves,” I said with a shake of my head.

“I have been sharing my thoughts and perceptions with my brood since we started speaking and there are no dissenting votes in our consensus. My children and I choose who we worship and who we serve, and we choose You, Your Majesty,” the Succubus/Demigoddess insisted.

“Uhh… you’ve been standing here talking to us this whole time,” Pete said, his brow wrinkling in confusion.

“My brood can share our thoughts with one another. Telepathy, I believe it is called in this modern world. When needed, I can even link the minds of the entire brood as one. It is useful in situations like this where a consensus is required, or in battle. We will be able to share thoughts with Her Majesty as well since the bond that we shared with Inanna has transferred to Her. It is much weaker though, we shall have to strengthen it by oath-binding ourselves to Her Majesty as we did Inanna.” Lilith explained patiently. At the uncertain expression on my face she quickly promised, “Worry not, Your Majesty, we would never intrude upon Your thoughts unless it is a matter of great urgency.”

That was when Rei and Kinara approached, along with the dozens of Succubae on the ground following behind. “We’ve done everything that we can for the wounded, my Empress,” Rei said, careful to use my title. “Whoever these people are, they’re damn good Healers, everyone here should be feeling one hundred percent again by tomorrow. Fortunately, there were no casualties.”

I thought it was cute how he added ‘my’ in front of the title. It was like he was not just showing where his loyalties were but also subtly addressing that we were in a relationship. Some people may have thought it was jealousy but considering our earlier talk about the possibility of bringing Daenyss into our relationship, I was more of a private joke and term of endearment that he felt acceptable in front of strangers.

Kinara bowed her head in reverence seeming uncertain about the Succubae as well. “I contacted Venika, Your Majesty. She and your sister were ambushed by a group of chimeras and Thanatos. They’re fine but the police and the men in black just showed up there. She suggested that we all meet at the restaurant that Rob suggested.”

“We should get out of here, those reporters, cops, and suits that were holding back and waiting to see what happened are coming this way,” Lissany quickly added.

I looked to where the crowd was coming from but the suits had the cops holding the reporters back and they were coming toward us with their weapons drawn. Jonesy might be missing but they were still going to be a problem if we stuck around. Either they would shoot first and ask questions later (or more likely not at all), or they would try to detain us. Not that either option was going to work out in their favor.

Looking from where the reporters were being held back to where Lissany and I had killed the pair of Gods, I frowned. Not only had Nemesis had the Harpies herd me away from my protectors but also into a position that the reporters couldn’t have seen her or Ares from where they had been positioned. This was a mixed blessing. While neither of the Gods, nor Nemesis’s monologue on me interfering in the plans of the Gods would probably show up on camera, it also meant that there would be nothing showing that this had been a trap for me all along.

“Yeah, let’s go pick up the others and get something to eat, I’m starving. We can talk more there, Lilith, if you would care to join us? I’m afraid that we probably won’t be able to get a table large enough for all of us though,” I said as I looked pointedly up into the sky.

“I shall have my children disperse and return to the Temple of the Heavens, Your Majesty,” the Succubus matriarch replied with a nod. The moment that she spoke those words the Succubae on the ground took to the air to join the others above us and then they simply vanished.

“What? Where did they go?” Harley asked, staring up at the sky as I began to cast the portal to the safe house.

“They went to the Temple of the Heavens. It was Inanna’s center of power and She ensured that my children and I each has a mark to allow us to travel between this world and Her domain. Now that domain is bound to Her successor,” Lilith explained as the portal formed and I gestured for everyone to enter.

That was about when the men in black wannabes noticed that we were making our escape and quickened their pace while drawing their guns. “Stop, or we’ll shoo…” Which was when the full force of my sex aura hit them.

I wasn’t overly concerned about them shooting me since I still had my protective spells active and the others were already passing through the portal. Besides, now that they were standing there dazed and staring, they weren’t all that dangerous to anyone. “You guys really don’t learn very well, do you? We came here to help and now that our job is done, we’re leaving. You’re not going to be able to do anything to hurt me, and if you hurt any innocent bystanders after all the work that went into healing them then I will not be a happy Demigoddess. You wouldn’t want to make me unhappy, would you?”

These guys were putty in my hands now. At least the sex aura would help make our escapes easier and less shooty, unless they had agents who weren’t attracted to women. Lilith watched with a smirk for a moment before entering the portal ahead of me and I followed quickly after to find Robyn, Rob, Grell, and Whisper waiting for us as the latter put her laptop into standby mode. Apparently, they had all been watching the show so we wouldn’t need to explain who our guest was.

Once back in the safe house I quickly took stock of myself. I had been the only one not wearing a glamour as an outfit and had no armor to change into for the moment and unfortunately, both my dress and shoes were ruined. I sighed as I looked down at my dress that was coated in Harpy blood. It had been expensive and I looked so hot in it. My sandals were toast too; the heels had broken off early in the fight with all of the acrobatics that I was doing.

“I’ll need to clean up a bit and change clothes or put on a glamour before we go,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll try to be quick.”

Daenyss came to assist me, of course, and she was able to get me cleaned up pretty quickly. Harley had to do a quick clean-up under her glamour too since she didn’t have armor made yet but it wasn’t long before we were ready to go. I put on a pair of black pumps and created a glamoured copy of the dress that I had been wearing before over my underwear. It wasn’t like I would be uncomfortable going around without clothes and technically I was wearing more than Daenyss.

Nishalle and Venika were waiting for us outside of the Golden Sun restaurant and Nishalle didn’t look happy. “What’s wrong, Sis? You and Venika are still alive so the fight couldn’t have been that tough.”

“Those damn chimeras totaled my bike,” my sister responded with a grimace. “Except for a couple of dozen of those beasts, we had it handled pretty well. That tool, Thanatos, tried to gank me from behind while hiding in the shadows. Darkness is one of my fucking aspects, did he really think I wasn’t going to notice him there? I just turned the tables by using my shadow shift ability to get behind him in those same shadows while he lunged for me and then I drained him like a juice box.”

“He and the sword that he was trying to kill her with disappeared while we were busy finishing off the Chimeras, and then we had to evade the cops and suits,” Venika explained. “We heard from Kinara that you guys found some trouble too. So, who is the redhead? And, more importantly, why are my daughter’s eyes glowing?” the Sprite asked as Lissany squirmed under her gaze.

I sighed and attempted to explain. “Well, we had a crap-load of Harpies to deal with and they kinda separated me from the others and away from the view of the reporters and cops where Nemesis tried to behead me with a God-killer sword. I turned things around but she had Ares with her and he was going to attack me from behind. Lissany managed to get to my side and went toe to toe with Ares. I may have tossed her the sword after using it to kill Nemesis and she kinda killed him.”

“I was doing my job,” Lissany interjected, crossing her arms and pouting under her mother’s gaze.

“As for the redhead, this is Lilith; Mother of all Succubae, a demigoddess like me, and she was the High priestess of Inanna,” I continued to explain by introducing the Succubus who had shifted her scaled armor into a form-fitting dress with a low hemline and displaying a lot of cleavage.

“And now I am Hers,” Lilith insisted. She just wasn’t going to let that go, was she? “Me and all of my children.”

I sighed and decided to let it go for now, from what she had said earlier it would have to be made official but I was probably stuck with her. Not that having the entire Succubus race as an order of warrior priestesses in my service was a bad thing, I just didn’t really feel like I deserved their loyalty. I tried to shake it off by introducing the others to Lilith as well. Once the introductions were done, I tried to smile and said, “We should go inside and eat.”

Robyn and Rob were both pleased to see that the restaurant and its owners seemed to be safe and sound. Neither of them was quite sure how the elderly Chinese couple would react to their guests though so we were all pleasantly surprised when Mrs. Chan didn’t bat an eye regarding the unusual company that the pop star and her boyfriend were keeping. She just said that Robyn was like family and was a good judge of character, so any friends of hers were always welcome to eat in their humble establishment.

It was a slow night and the only other customers there when we arrived were a family of four with two teenagers who completely freaked out when they saw us. They were quick to ask for autographs, or rather the girl was, and not just from Robyn. To our embarrassment, Lissany and I were asked for ours as well. It seemed that I was getting quite the following online, not that that was any surprise after seeing those disturbing images that Loki had collected. Lissany was getting a following too since there were like a dozen memes online already featuring the image of her punching a dragon’s teeth out.

The poor boy and his father were gobsmacked with both me and Lilith giving off the sex aura so the mother dragged her husband along to pay their bill while their daughter was nice enough to ask for autographs for both herself and her flummoxed and flushed sibling. We even let the girl take some selfies with us and take some photos of us with her brother as well, so long as she waited for an hour before posting anything online. Robyn was sure that if the photos were posted that the paparazzi would be storming the place within the hour and we wanted some time to talk.

It seemed that Lilith and I weren’t the only ones giving off an aura either. Lissany seemed to have one too, it wasn’t as potent as ours but she seemed to inspire courage in those who were uncertain or afraid, like the girl who had asked for the autographs. She wasn’t attracted to women so she wasn’t affected by our auras, but she was affected by Lissany’s. Lilith thought that it would probably become more potent while my Guardian was in the heat of battle and felt that it would be a useful ability for her to have.

After the family had left, it was just us there and Mrs. Chan took our orders. She hovered a bit, doting on us like we were her long-lost grandkids. Rob told us that they had never been able to have children and that was part of the reason that they practically adopted Robyn once they found out that she was sixteen and living on her own. I had tried to get her to call me Taelya instead of ‘Your Majesty’ but she said that wouldn’t be proper, earning a nod from both Daenyss and Lilith.

Her husband was working in the kitchen but he did greet us over the counter and then helped his wife to bring out our meals. He didn’t seem as affected as others by the sex aura. He was physically affected, judging by the way he was standing, but he seemed to only have eyes for his wife. It was nice to see that kind of love and loyalty in a couple and it made me sad that they never had children of their own to love and care for.

They seemed like good people; open-minded and caring about others, and I resolved to speak with Robyn about offering them a place in Varüus’kiel and a go in one of the F.I.Ts, should they wish it. They could relocate their restaurant there if they wanted and have a chance at starting the family that they seemed to want so badly.

Lilith told us about herself and her brood as we ate. She wasn’t backing down about them becoming my priestesses either. They were war-priestesses, trained from childhood to fight and to be able to control their Succubus abilities and nature once they awakened. All of this to serve their Goddess in battle, and anything else that She might require. They had been fanatically loyal to Inanna and now that they had met me and approved of her choice of a successor, they were prepared to show me that same loyalty.

As far as I could tell, Inanna had earned that loyalty. She had taken a broken and violated young woman and helped her to build herself back up. She gave Lilith a home, a purpose, and love and Lilith returned that love and devoted her life to serving her savior.

Lilith didn’t go into specifics as she told her story but we probably wouldn’t have recognized the names of any of the places or people involved regardless. She was born a type of wind elemental, very much like the Sylphs among the Fae. She was a rare beauty and caught the eye of one of the Gods of her time and region. The God wanted Lilith for himself and came to her in a mortal guise, only briefly giving her a glimpse of his divine self before asking her to become his bride.

When she refused his advances he transformed her into a beautiful Demon that craved sex, that would weaken without it. Then he locked her in a dungeon in his domain, vowing only to release her when she willingly gave herself to him. He could have just taken her by force, of course, but he was arrogant and wished for her to suffer for her insolence in refusing the honor of being his bride. For years she remained in that dungeon, eating whatever scraps that the God deigned to feed her but she fought her urges and refused to give in to him. Food could sustain her but without the sexual energy that she needed to feed on to keep her strong and healthy, she slowly deteriorated.

Inanna was a young Goddess at that time, trying to increase her power, the size of her domain, and her area of influence by challenging other Gods to duels. When she found Lilith in the dungeon after slaying her captor and exploring the domain that she had gained from him, Lilith was weak as a kitten, half-starved, malnourished, and praying for death to end her suffering rather than give in to her captor’s demands.

Inanna took Lilith back to the Temple of the Heavens, her center of power, and nursed her back to health, her sex aura providing the much-needed sexual energy without Lilith having to debase herself. In time they became close as Inanna taught her to fight, the art of war, and helped her learn to live with her trauma and what she had become. Eventually, she taught her the pleasures of the flesh as well, and how to embrace her new nature. Lilith vowed to serve the Queen of the Heavens so long as they both should live and she did so faithfully, for over a century before earning a gift of a spark of the Goddess’s divinity for doing so.

It didn’t make much difference to Lilith, whatever it was that she had become was clearly not mortal even before becoming a Demigoddess. As long as she regularly fed upon sexual energy she had remained young and beautiful. When she eventually had children she found that she could only give birth to girls, who appeared human until they reached maturity and then they too became what Inanna had dubbed a Succubus.

Most of the demonic myths about them grew over the years at the patriarchy and then the Church came into power but few of them were even close to accurate. Succubae don’t need to just feed on males, they feed on sexual energy in general. They don’t suck the life out of their partners either, they just leave them very tired and satisfied after a very long night. The only killing they do is in combat. They are stronger and faster than Humans and can shift their non-human features away to appear Human and grow scales to act as armor or clothing when needed. They prefer to wear Human clothing to blend in when out exploring the world or searching for a meal though.

Lilith trained her children as Inanna had trained her and even when they could not feed on the sexual energy of Humans, Fae, or one of the other races, they all remained healthy by basking in the sex auras of their mother and their Goddess. Lilith enjoyed being a mother and was determined to have many children, not just for her own satisfaction but also to give her Goddess worshippers, priestesses, and an army worthy of a War Goddess all in one. Even after Inanna’s power began to wane they were all very happy until Danu erected the Veil and they emerged into a strange new world without sensing the passage of time that it took to get there.

Inanna and her siblings had wanted to explore this new world together in the guise of mortals and she didn’t want to attract too much attention while doing it, so she and Lilith had compromised by having only four of her eldest daughters accompany them since Lilith herself would have garnered too much attention, being unable to turn off her aura. And so we came to where we now were.

I found myself liking Lilith as she told us her story. She was fiercely loyal to those who she deemed worthy, she didn’t care about power for the sake of power, and her brood was a family that she cared deeply about. It was hard for her to speak of losing Inanna and her daughters since the loss was so fresh and the grief was still raw. Inanna was everything to her and her daughters, and I couldn’t imagine losing someone that wasn’t just your child but who you shared a close mental bond with.

Searching me out to see if I was worthy of the service of her and her children wasn’t selfish as I first suspected but one last service to the Goddess that she and her children loved. Inanna had chosen me as her successor, and Lilith and her children saw it as fulfilling Inanna’s last wish by caring for her chosen successor as they did her, should they find me worthy. I still wasn’t sure whether I was but that didn’t seem to matter to them, they were determined to serve me.

And so before we left the restaurant Lilith decided to accompany us to the safe house until I could come to the Temple of the Heavens to receive the oaths of her and her children. By that time, the Golden Sun was getting very crowded with paparazzi, who Mrs. Chan sternly told could leave if they weren’t paying customers. We waited until they had all ordered and gotten a few pictures before Rob and Robyn left in their rented limo and I cast a portal to take the rest of us to our temporary home.