Yes indeed

All of you race to the wall and peek out of the firing slits. Half a dozen men are carefully readying their crossbows, all watching you intently. Or rather they're watching Xallia intently, but the rest of you are clustered around her like a flock. You all look out at the four women coming up the path, waiting for them to get close enough that the lanterns can reveal their features.

Xallia sucks in a breath sharply. "Who's your best shot?" she asks.

"I am" says one of the taller men. No one argues.

"The one on the far left, kill her." There's emotion in Xallia's voice, but not the resignation or uncertainty you expected. There's deep, cold hate in her tone, the kind of tone that tells you Xallia would rip this succubus' throat out with her own bare hands given the chance.

In a split second the man fires his bow, his quarrel flies straight and true. By all rights the shot should go right through her heart, but instead it smashes into her gown and bounces off. As if it hit a cast iron cauldron. Her three companions look around, startled, then dive into the dry moat. Not really a very safe choice, but better than staying next to the succubus.

"My my! Does someone here have the sight?" she says, acting unconcerned. "No more of that," she adds, waving an intricately folded paper fan in front of her. It's really quite beautiful, quite detailed...

<Tack!> goes the crossbow.

You shake your head and see the succubus, her disguise gone, her paper fan shredded. Next to you Xallia, now holding a fired crossbow, shouts "Kill her!"

A few of the other men aim and fire their crossbows, but it's a moot point. The archer in charge of one of the ballistae atop the wall must have heard Xallia. His shot punches through whatever magic or shield the succubus was using, spearing the surprised daemon with a five foot wooden shaft.

"Come on" you shout, "we've got to check the others." It was agreed back at the meeting with the aldermen and the town guards that you and yours would inspect the other women. After all, there's a good chance that they'll all be captured sisters of the burning rose.

You pass the body of the dead succubus, only stopping long enough to be sure she's truly dead. From the edge of the moat you hear crying and wailing. There you find three young and beautiful girls cowering together. Sure enough you immediately recognize one as sister Sarah. It takes longer to place the second as sister Nenaryn. You look into the wide eyes of the third girl, trying to place her, when Xallia steps forward and says "I don't know you, nor you me. But you had better start talking or the town is going to do that" she gestures back toward the corpse "to you."

"Please, please," she whispers, "I don't know what's going on. My name is Celamyra... I was supposed to go with Lady Varhession..." Her face seems to ripple and then it falls away, leaving a very similar visage. This face isn't pale white skin and auburn hair though - instead her skin is tinged with a purple with so much red that it borders on maroon. Her eyed are still blue, but now they are the piercing blue of a cold winter sky near dusk. And atop her head, between the raven black locks of untidy hair are a pair of bone white horns. She looks at all of you momentarily, but her attention is focused on Xallia.

"Come with us," says your Succubus, offering a hand to the girl. And as she stands you understand why you still think of this new daemon as a girl. She's pretty tall and she certainly has looks and curves, but she definitely has a child-like look in her eyes as she stares at everything around her, like the world is going to rear up suddenly and bite her. You see Glenda and Anya helping up the two sisters, Yulia watching them both and ready to take an arm if they look like they need more help.

You stand between the sisters and the succubus corpse, thinking that if these two were... bound to this Lady Varhession that seeing her **** up close might break them. By the time you get back to the gatehouse Celamyra has recreated her illusion, but Xallia tells her to cut it out. A heck of a surprise for the two guards, though both you and Xallia assure them things are well in hand.

Once they're inside the walls and safe the two sisters start crying and soon exhaustion overtakes them. Even though you need to find out what they know you don't have the heart to interrogate them right now. Besides, the young succubus has more energy and she's started to warm up to Xallia. It's clear she doesn't know how you, Glenda, Anya or Yulia fit in to all this.

You thought you'd seen Xallia's angry side before, but when Celamyra tells her that Lady Varhession was bringing her to meet a 'new teacher' here in Lewruck Xallia's hands clench. With **** calm she tells Celamyra that she needs to see to a few things and that Celamyra should go and lie down after her long journey on the road. Once the younger succubus is out of sight Xallia turns to look at you. The rage you see leaves you certain that a ballistae bolt through the chest was a kindness for this Lady Varhession. Xallia would have made sure she suffered.

Your lover is so furious that it takes her over a minute to calm down. She even paces. Finally she lets you pull her to a bench and you and Yulia put your arms around her until the knots in her muscles loosen. "Do you know what this means?" she asks, jaw still clenched hard enough that her teeth might crack.

"No. Please tell us. I can tell it's painful, but don't hold it in."

She nods and makes a few false starts. Finally she says "You know how I keep telling you how I want our children to turn out? Well, what happens in the womb is important, of course. Being treated well as a child is important too. But for incubi and succubi there's one point in our lives that matters even more. I know you humans go through a second growth, when your bodies develop quickly."

"Yes, puberty" says Yulia.

"Yes. That's the word. Well, for daemons we go through one or more stages of growth. Succubi develop much like humans, though a little slower. We go through the first growth in the first few years of our lives, then there's a second growth at about 15 or 16 years - much like your puberty. Then at about 20 we go through a third growth, when the stored energy that has sustained us since birth finally wanes. We develop a hunger and feelings and... all the things that make you an adult. Our bodies are ready enough at 15, but for five more years we are like grown children. We don't understand sex, love, lust. It's all just words in a book and most little incubi and succubi think it's all very icky. There's one thing a daemon mother will fight for with every ounce of strength. And most daemon fathers - that is, the types of daemons that must breed with succubi - feel the same way, so almost all incubi and succubi children are kept in schools, safe from the world."

"That's hardly how I pictured the daemon realms" you say.

"I suppose that there are a few constants in the universe. She pulls both your heads to her shoulders and continues. "But the third growth is quick and for daemons it marks the beginning of our adult life. One moment you're innocent, the next you feel a burning lust. When we get close to that age we are watched closely. If that growth is handled poorly then we are lost."

"What's the right way to handle a budding succubus?" asks Yulia.

"There are different opinions. Some parents or schools will leave a nascent lust daemon locked in a room. Most will beat their meat until they are in pain. That usually works, but a few go very strange after that. Another idea is to chain them down and pour ice on them until they calm down. **** them to control the lust rather than letting it burn itself out. That's more successful, but ice is expensive. I'm thankful my mother was able to do that for me. Probably the most dangerous option is for the mother or father to go into the locked room with the budding daemon. If they are strong enough to resist their lust then that technique can lead to some amazingly strong willed succubi. But there's a chance that it will lead to **** - and if it begins then there's almost no chance of stopping it later."

She pauses for a few moments before continuing. "Because, you see, if the lust daemon gets all the sex they want during the third growth it does something to their mind - it's almost as if their brain decides that it doesn't need to remember anything or do anything to get enough sex, so it shrivels. The girl who could balance friendships, talk about politics or history, do math, sing and dance? She's gone and a drooling sex slut is all that's left. Sometimes, very rarely, a lust daemon survives that and gets her mind back. But it's still considered the worst thing that could happen to you, or to your child."

"So Lord Thoros promised this Hollarth a fresh young succubus to turn into his **** if he took control of this town."

"Yes, an innocent and virginal succubus" says Xallia. "It's something so wrong that even daemon lords hide these kinds of deals. Pretend they never happen on their watch. Of course a lot of daemons would do it if they could get away with it - nature gave us succubi only one little protection against it, though it's a powerful one. If a succubus loses her mind, if she's completely broken, then her body stops producing eggs. It takes almost lethal doses of various venoms to coax one down into the womb. Once or twice, in the distant past, daemonkind almost wiped themselves out doing something like this. That fear of collapse keeps most daemon lords firmly on the side of right - at least on this one issue."

"But not Thoros or this Lady Varhession, it seems."

"No. I always knew she was a snake. Even as a child in school she was absolutely vicious. Our whole class knew she would turn out to be a monster when she grew up. I never believed Thoros would get involved with something like this - it's so vile that he would probably lose some support if it came to light - not that anyone would believe us. Luckily for Celamyra, she'll never need to find out if she would have been one of the few that could survive with their minds largely intact. It does leave us with a problem though: We've got two love sick sisters, probably carrying Lady Varhession's spawn in their bellies, plus one innocent succubus whom I would bet is days away from her third growth. The sisters need watching - they might even get suicidal. As for Celamyra... who here is prepared to handle a 20 year old succubus who's going to beg for a fuck like her life depends on it?"