Chapter 1

Stuart Newlin hadn't come home for over a month.

I clenched my phone, hesitating, fingers trembling as I debated calling him. I wanted to beg him to come back. I wanted to beg him to look at me.

A familiar, searing ache tore through me. The heat had come again.

I am a pureblood succubus. Every seven days, I need love to sustain me, to get through these merciless ruts.

Stuart is my boyfriend, but he is not a good master.

He locked me in a room when I was in heat, leaving me to pound the door with cries while my nails clawed my skin raw. Still, he refused to open it.

"If you're so desperate, why don't you just look in the streets? Plenty of men there."

His voice from the other side of the door was icily contemptuous. I froze.

When we first met, he'd been awkward and shy, presenting a huge bouquet of red roses as he confessed. He called me his most precious treasure. I believed him.

Now he despised me. For more than a month, he hadn't set foot in our home. These past heat cycles I'd endured alone, gritting my teeth until my body threatened to snap. If I didn't receive love soon, I would truly die.

"Stuart, please come back, save me…" My voice was weak.

When the call finally connected, his reply was brusque and impatient. "Don't make trouble. I'm at the hospital with Naomi for her checkup."

I was too weak to form more than a pleading whisper, repeating the same desperate request for him to come home. He cut me off with a cold laugh.

"Stop pretending. Succubi don't die that easily."

Something else stirred on the line — a coquettish female voice. "Stuart, the baby just kicked. Come feel!"

Stuart's tone softened in an instant; he leaned his head against Naomi's belly and teased the baby inside as tenderly.

Naomi laughed gently. She asked who he had been speaking with. He waved it off. 'Just some nuisance caller,' he said.

He cupped the phone and stepped away.

"I'm busy. I don't have time for you. You wanna get laid so badly? The street's full of men. Go get yourself one!" he snapped before hanging up.

The line went dead as I was wiping my tear-streaked face. I had heard in the background the hospital's PA calling Naomi in for an ultrasound.

'Of course… a prenatal appointment. Stuart is going to be a father,' I thought miserably.

I slid to the floor, powerless. My chest felt as if it were torn wide open, and someone rubbed salt into the wound. Pain sprouted in a thousand places. Was it grief, or the torture of this heat? It was impossible to tell.

All I had needed was a hand to hold. Not a kiss, not an embrace — even a single loving word would have sufficed.

Once, Stuart used to hover at my side, eyes shining, begging me to say I loved him.

Once, because I had casually mentioned wanting to see fireworks, he had scoured the country to hire the finest pyrotechnicians and stage a dazzling display just for me — even burning his hands until they blistered to make it happen.

He had promised to love me forever, and I had believed him.

Now, he was telling me to go find another man. Since he didn't want me anymore, I would do exactly as he suggested.