*Oona’s POV*

The evening was approaching, and I was quite nervous. For one, Andy had stubbornly insisted that we take Lucifer’s word that Andy was welcome in the Underworld. He’d wanted to continue working until he had finished Juliet’s seed. Ultimately, I had decided to acquiesce, as the process was kind of a private affair. Well I could certainly help him, if needed, for me to have been by his side the entire time would have made me uncomfortable.

However, the main cause of my anxiety was the arrival, at any second, of Andy’s fiancée, Juliet. I was to greet her without Andy, and work on some basic energy manipulation techniques, to see what she could do, before bringing her to my workshop. I had no idea how similar our abilities were. I felt the heavy burden of Andy's faith in my ability to teach her, a totally different species, something that her kind had never done before.

Though I was not at all jealous of their engagement, I knew that Juliet had been raised as an American, human woman. I was nothing but happy when Andy had given me the news so joyfully. His bright, blue eyes had held a new hope. But I feared for how Juliet might view me, that she might think I was attempting to steal Andy away from her.

As much as I loved Andy, I knew full well, from watching them both for years, that I couldn’t do any such thing, not even if that had been my goal. He would never willingly leave her; he loved her. I didn’t think he’d recover easily from her loss, either, should that ever come to pass. So, if anything, I was resolved to safeguard Juliet, in order to protect Andy, for as long as i could. As I thought about it, I realized I had grown fond of Juliet as well, after watching her, by proxy, for so long.

Crow and Femme sat, one on each side of me, in silence. Clearly they understood the situation, and were doing their best to provide me reassurance. I knew Penemue and Sebastian were both doubtlessly scanning regularly, and just a mirror-touch away. And yet, I was still worried.

Just as Femme butted my hand with her head, I heard a zinging sound, and smelled a hint of burning. I looked up to find that Juliet had materialized next to a socket near the hallway. I gulped quickly as I stood and smiled tentatively.

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*Juliet’s POV*

I spotted Oona, and instantly felt peckish. She was totally resplendent! Though a part of me argued that I should feel jealousy, the greater part of me knew that such a pervading, flawless glow could not have come from Andy alone. Had she been with someone else? Andy would be heartbroken!

Angry, I strode towards her as she rose and smiled uneasily at me. Both cats jumped from the sofa and fled. “What have you done?”

Oona blinked innocently, and I lost my patience. I wouldn’t allow Andy to get sucked in by some demonic slut that couldn’t keep her panties on for a few days! I enamored her forcefully, and she instantly took on the characteristic, dopey attitude of beings under my thrall.

Unhappily, I only knew of one way to figure out what I needed to know. With a grimace, I pressed my lips to Oona’s and pulled on her life’s energy, hard.

What came to me was a shock. I tasted Andy, true. His masculine, fiery, impatient energy was a unique cocktail, given his lineage. But I also got a mouthful of something else entirely, completely unlike anything I had ever tasted.

I broke the kiss with Oona and shoved her back onto the sofa. Fetching my jar, I regurgitated what I had just eaten in several boluses. One sphere of energy shown with the purity of light itself.

I stared at it, entranced. There was only a single possible source… Not even the taste of a fallen angel was so sweet, so pure.

Crow cleared his throat, disturbing my thoughts. “You know, if you had just asked, we could have explained that without all the dramatics.” Femme rolled her eyes at me, looking disgusted.

A sharp spear of doubt sliced through me. “You mean-“

Femme interrupted. “-No cheat.” She tucked her little paws under her round body and frowned disapprovingly at me.

Shit! “But-“

Crow, ever the chatty Cathy, butted in. “-That’s from the Archangel Samael. He let it loose when he was here, just from being touched by Oona, not any hanky panky! Of course she ate it, can you blame her?”

I stared guiltily at the twinkling orb. “Your daddy’s going to fucking kill me!”

Femme made a little grumping noise of agreement before turning about and refusing to look at me. Crow was a little more amenable. “You know, Oona was terrified you would be jealous, angry, or hurt. Andy insisted on continuing to work on the seed for you, and sent her back here to help you, alone. He trusted you to be reasonable! And yet, the first thing you did was attack her and turn her into a dowdy, transfixed food source. You didn’t even let her say anything, for Pete’s sake!”

I sat down next to Oona, who had an unfocused, vaguely happy expression on her face. She did, admittedly, look absolutely terrible. I’d fed far too much in my damned Italian rage. I glared balefully at the delicious orb. “Well now what? Shit!”

Crow shook his adorable, little head. “You made your bed…”

I snorted. Kids! Andy was going to be so pissed!

I wanted to figure out a way to fix everything, but Oona was still in her besotted haze, and couldn’t offer any insight. I definitely wasn’t intending to lie to Andy about what had happened, but I really wanted to make everything better before I told him about it. I didn’t think succubae were able to eat energy in the way I did, they had to absorb it from…

And just like that, the solution came to me. It was the weirdest way to fix a problem, sure, but everything about my entire life had gotten extremely weird lately. And Andy was, despite his intellectual side, still a red-blooded male. He’d probably get ideas about the future from this, but I decided it would be a price worth paying to make things right. I’d made enough mistakes.

Notes

yes, i intentionally made a shameless Star Wars reference in my BVB fanfic. hahaha!

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Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. i advise all of you to sign the petition below, asking the electoral college to change their votes to reflect democracy and the will of the people:

Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19, 2016

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and, as my arch-rival has drawn to my attention:

The FBI determined some months ago that hacking, originating from Russia, was having an influence on our electoral process. These hackers interfered with our presidential election through attempted and successful penetration of email and voter registration databases, among other systems. This created fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the safety of our electoral processes.

Computers tabulated the vast majority of the 129 million votes cast in the presidential election, and polls were wildly off. Did hackers manipulate the results by compromising voting equipment? Did other problems, glitches, or errors affect the outcome?

There's a simple, relatively inexpensive way to find out: audit the electronic results against the paper ballots used by about 75% of U.S. voters.

American democracy depends on public trust of our electoral process, and public trust requires a trustworthy process.

Please sign to demand that election officials double-check the electronic results by conducting a "risk-limiting" audit of the presidential election in every state that uses paper ballots.

Demand An Audit Of The 2016 Presidential Election