The Quickening Ritual

Lois Lane awoke like a cat, eyes closed and with no impression to those around her that anything had changed at all—but she could hear and feel, instantly aware of her surroundings.

The reporter lay spread-eagled on a flat surface of cold stone, her arms and legs bound down with bands of cloth. She was not naked—but she wasn't wearing what she had been earlier either. Lois could feel a light cloth covering her breasts, and another about her loins, but nothing else.

A breeze blew across Lois' stomach, and she could feel that it was the same shape as it had always been. Relief washed through her.

I'm not pregnant! Her heart skipped a beat. Or, maybe not yet.

There were people moving around her. she could feel their passage, hear the sound of their feet on the floor, and they were murmuring something, almost below the level of her hearing. A kind of whispered chant...and the heat was rising...

Someone leaned over her. Their breath smelled of meat and sex, sweet with corruption, male and feminine musk combined. Lois recognized it as Blaze's smell. A hand carefully brushed the hair back from Lois' face.

"Lois..." she whispered. "In moments, the moon will rise to its zenith...the stars will be right...and then..." Fingers trailed against the reporter's belly, resting gently just above her crotch. "The ritual of quickening. When the part of myself I have implanted in you will ripen. Months condensed into minutes, and then...you will give birth to my child." A pause. "Our child."

The reporter was unable to resist a shiver.

"Already, even in your sleep, you respond to my touch. You will be a great mother. And this will only be our first. With you, I will breed an army...enough to rule the world!"

The succubus began to laugh...a full-throated chuckle which gave way to a terrible cackle, a laugh that spoke of a mind unhinged by long lonely work finally coming to completion. It raised goosebumps on Lois' skin.

Oh shit, Lois thought. I have to get out of here before that happens!