Threxia knew when something new entered her city. It wasn't the police reports that tipped her off, though those came soon enough—bodies in alleyways, not dead, not exactly, but emptied in ways no autopsy could explain. It was the raw ripple across her skin, the pull in her lungs, the unmistakable static of one of her kind. Untutored. Untamed. Hungry.

Tonight, she finally saw her. Vinny brought the fledgling succubus to her—Vinny, the one they always sent when the job was dirty. Tall, broad-shouldered, leather jacket zipped up to her throat, eyes like knives. Vinny hated her with a burning passion, and Threxia never got tired of it.

"She's yours," Vinny said flatly, shoving the door open without ceremony. She looked like she'd bitten into something sour. No courtesy. No softness. She didn't even glance back as she left, boots heavy against the polished floor. The door slammed, leaving only silence in her wake.

Threxia exhaled, slow, indulgent. Good riddance. The air always tasted cleaner once Vinny was gone.

Now it was just the two of them. The girl lingered just inside the doorway, hood shadowing her face, rainwater dripping from her sleeves onto the rug. She looked small against the vast glass backdrop of the city, small and lost—but the aura she carried was anything but small. It pressed against the room like static before a lightning strike, sweet and sharp, demanding attention.

Threxia set her wine glass down, the sound deliberate against marble. Her heels clicked as she crossed the space between them, unhurried. She wanted the fledgling to feel the inevitability of each step. She always enjoyed the way anticipation broke people down before she even touched them.

When she reached her, she didn't speak at first. She simply reached up and let the back of her fingers brush the girl's cheek, feather-light. The girl shivered under the touch, breath stuttering, though she hadn't moved an inch.

"So this is the little mistake they send me," she murmured, voice low, intimate, like velvet against skin. "Dropped into my world without a clue. Feeding blindly. Leaving wreckage behind you."

Her thumb skimmed across the girl's lower lip, smearing away a raindrop clinging there. Threxia could see her eyes widening, caught between flinch and fascination.

"But mistakes don't burn this bright," Threxia continued, studying her like she was reading scripture. "Accidents don't make the air taste like you do."

Her hand slid down, pressing gently against the girl's throat where her pulse thundered fast, wild. She leaned in, her lips brushing close enough to her ear that the words carried heat.

"You don't know yet what you are. You've only tasted crumbs. Scraps. When you were meant to devour feasts."

The city thundered outside, lightning painting both their shadows across the glass. Threxia tilted the girl's chin up until she was forced to meet her eyes.

"That's why they send you to me. Because I shape the lost into something sharp. Because I will teach you what it means to feed—not clumsily. Not blindly. But with precision. With purpose. With power."

Threxia let go of her chin, patient and still, letting the neon light paint their skin in bruised pinks and blues. Beyond the glass, the city churned, unaware of the little ritual happening thirty stories above it.

"Lesson one," Threxia said softly, circling her. "You do not claw at what you want. You invite it. You make it need to come to you."

She stopped behind the fledgling, hands hovering just above her shoulders. Without touching, she pushed her own aura forward—a slow, deliberate exhale of warmth, spice, and hunger. It slid over the girl's skin like heat rising from pavement after rain.

"That's what you're feeling," Threxia murmured, lips near her ear. "Not blood. Not pain. Energy. Want. This is what we eat."

She guided the girl's hands, pressing them flat against her own stomach just above her navel. "Here," she said, voice low. "This is where your draw begins. Not in your mouth. Not in your claws. Here. In your core."

Threxia could feel the girl's breath coming out fast. She caught her chin and turned her head just enough to see her eyes—wide, trembling, pupils blown with desire.

"Breathe with me," Threxia instructed. She drew in a long, slow breath and let it out, her aura pulsing with each exhale. The girl mimicked it, shakily at first, then steadier. With every inhale, she pulled at Threxia's offered energy; with every exhale, she released her own chaos.

"That's it," Threxia said, a dark smile curving her lips. "Now taste. Not devour. Taste."

Then suddenly, Threxia snapped her fingers. The flow cut off instantly.

"Now, again," she whispered. "Show me if you can take without destroying."