As I went through what was apparently the magic internet, I was starting to grow more accustomed to this new part of my life; only slightly though.

I found sites where you could order things like potions, charms, and even food from places you had no idea that did exotic fantasy takeaways.

Zack had put me on to where the more illegal stuff could be found. Drugs, creatures, and other contraband that was monitored by a policing body he hadn’t properly explained to me.

Sitting on a bench near a food van, I hadn’t only come to just get lunch but also to speak to Sophie and learn more. I knew Zack cared but he didn’t know that much so I needed a second opinion from someone else, sure as hell wasn’t going to be Jess.

Now, I was looking at the dark web site of the internet for potential jobs but I was a bit stuck on how to bring up the site that Zack had shown me.

Somehow I had found myself on a website for nudes on fairies. God, I hoped no one came to see me going through this.

Hold on, since this had to do with magic did that mean normal people weren’t able to see my screen. Or did it mean that they would still be able to see it but not remember?

“Why are you looking at porn in broad daylight?”

I jerked to find Sophie behind me and then did a further double take to see her in succubus form.

Rather than give me a sufficient explanation for why she was exposing herself like this, I was instead gifted the sight of her licking her top lip extremely slowly while her thick eyebrows shrugged as her tail swished.

Soph then sat down next to me and leaned in as she tried to see what was on my phone.

“What were you up to mister?”

“Never mind me,” I replied as I pulled my phone out of view. “Why are you looking like that? Do you want to get caught?”

Soph just shrugged.

“It’s really not a big deal, I’ve got magical perception blocking. You see, any living thing that has a magical aura is somewhat invisible to the regular world. I can still be seen but once that person is gone for like five minutes, they either remember me how I look when human or completely forget about seeing me at all.”

“What if someone takes a picture of you?” I challenged.

“It wouldn’t change anything, cameras can’t pick up or record us.”

As if to illustrate her point, a student on the chubbier side who was holding a milkshake couldn’t help from staring at Soph, and I couldn’t blame him. A part of me didn’t like it though.

She just smiled at him and flickered her fingers playfully to simulate a hello wave.

“Hey, do you think my cosplay’s any good?”

The guy just gave a half-hearted grin and turned to walk away, obviously too dumbstruck to come up with a reasonable response.

“You wanted to talk?” she proposed with an arched eyebrow.

Her demoness form was gone now and so was her goofy attitude. I filled her in on what Zack had shared with me regarding the transformation and the incident surrounding our unfortunate encounter. The other stuff about crime was not spoken about.

“Well, shit…” Soph trailed off as she fixed me with an unreadable gaze. If I didn’t know her temperament so well, her tone made her sound half annoyed, half confused but she wasn’t.

“Let me guess,” she started, “you’re still hanging out with him?”

I gave a stoic nod and she responded with a slight tilt back of her head.

Soph then turned to face ahead and clearly there was something that she wanted to say. She wanted to argue some more but before she could I interjected.

“He did apologise.”

“Wow, so he is a saint.”

That remark rubbed me the wrong way so instead of giving a lecture, Sophie posed another question.

“Do you think he knew that you would get turned into a dragon?”

“Nah,” I shook my head, “it was an accident.”

“That does seem awfully coincidental,” she accused in a curious tone. “That something so rare happened during a moment that he knew you would be present for.”

“Is there something about dragon-newts that you would like to share?” I shot back.

“Noooo…” she trailed off as she looked away.

“Then I’m trusting someone who hasn’t given me any reason to doubt him on the matter.”

Soph kept staring at me and as much as I loved to think it was because of how good-looking I had become, she clearly had more to say.

“Are you leaving anything out Niko?”

“Nope,” I lied. “Hell at this point you know more than him.”

I still felt a bit wary about sharing as much as I did with her but I couldn’t tell her about the offer of my illicit activities.

If I told her that I had been in some gang-related shit, I would have seen a completely different side of Sophie and I wasn’t talking about her Succubus persona. Now, bring in the fact that I was searching up criminal jobs on the magic darkweb…well she might just take me back to her hometown down below for a visit.

“Okay,” she said dropping it.

She then reached into her purse and pulled out a stick of peach coloured lipstick. I was drawn to lips as she retouched every succulent inch, damn I needed to suck on those.

Her mischievous side-eye gave no mystery to whether or not she knew what she was doing. I mentally gave my head a little shake and blinked.

“So…” I started, “you going to tell me about you?”

Soph went ridged when I asked her question and paused in her ‘lip-sticking’.

Returning her makeup daintily to her purse, she just turned to me and smiled blankly.

“Feel free to share whatever you feel like,” I added to keep her at ease as I softly rubbed her lower back.

She deflated a bit under my touch.

“So I am a Succubus as you know obviously,” she started as she leaned against the table after crossing her arms. “Within the social hierarchy of the demonic realm, I’m extremely fucking low in the pecking order. When we’re born, we are automatically assigned to a demon lord but I personally have no idea how bad that gets. As I grew up I was simply just nothing more than a pretty face, it got worse as I got older, coming to the mortal world didn’t really change that. The mythical races here were no different either.”

“Whoa..there’s a demon world…?” I muttered softly.

Soph inhaled deeply as she closed her eyes. I quickly caught my dumbass for interrupting what was clearly a sensitive moment.

“Ignore me.”

“I just felt like I was made for just so much more, you know?” she explained herself. “So a couple of years ago I basically escaped from home and have been hiding out in the mortal world ever since.”

Soph then turned to stare in the direction of my arm on the table and covered it with her own, her gaze not meeting mine.

“I know my looks can be an advantage and that I can’t change how others are going to view me but I just want to know that I am able to do more you know? My only real friends are Jess and you, most other women I interact with despise me and can be shallow. The good ones I’ve managed to meet haven’t stuck around long, sometimes I’m the one who leaves to prevent any further awkwardness. My mood wasn’t helped by running into some assholes recently.”

She squeezed my forearm subconsciously.

“We’ll be fine,” Soph added.

“Getting you mixed up in a werewolf kidnapping certainly didn’t help anything…”

“Niko,” she reassured as she rubbed my arm, “it wasn’t your fault and you have nothing to be sorry for. You’re still here, with me and I’m super grateful for that.”

I leaned in and kissed Sophie but unlike the one, we had in her apartment this one wasn’t some knee-jerk lust response. It also felt more genuine for some reason.

After what was probably half a minute we broke the kiss off and for some reason, Soph was the one who blushed and chuckled in embarrassment. I wasn’t too far behind with my own blush.

“So…” I began with a smack of my lips, “what kind of my magic can you do?”

Soph’s smile brightened up at that, clearly glad to change the subject.

“How do I start?” she said, her finger absently tapping at her lip. “Well my study of magic is quite limited but I can tell you stuff from the demon’s aspect. Demons have a unique aura to us that allows us to imprint on certain spells, so for instance a simple fire spell with demonic power behind it will make the spell even more destructive. Usually, you cast spells with your hands.”

She illustrated this by making her fingertips glow the same purple as her eyes. It was like the tips of her fingers were filled with pure light before it diffused further down her appendages.

“As a Succubus, obviously my magic is gonna revolve more around sexual manipulation, so illusion magic is one of my primaries. I specialise in mainly hypnosis magic, but because of current circumstances, I can only do so much. I’m able to wake someone up and even make them go to sleep, I’ve heard people can even use this to kill people in their dreams.”

My eyebrows flickered up at that and Soph nodded in knowing.

“Empathy is also one where I can read people’s emotions, tell how they feel, like when they’re sad, afraid…downright horny.”

She said that last bit with another eye wiggle and I groaned for her to continue.

“There’s also my ability to induce sexual desire irrespective of gender or age. This can also extend to other things but that can be difficult. A real useful one that I have is I’m able to persuade others by directly influencing their minds to fulfill my very commands.”

I narrowed my eyes as what she said was triggering a memory for me. Once Sophie noticed my pondering she rested her chin on her other hand with a wide smile as I go to whatever mental conclusion I was heading.

“That’s how you found out Colin had a small dick,” I announced, quiet enough not to be heard.

“Yeah,” she giggled with a nod.

Then I scrunched up my face.

“You didn’t ask him to show it to you?”

“Hell no!” Sophie protested with a similar disgusted expression.

Then my face went neutral.

“It would have been funny as fuck though,” I pointed out.

“Probably,” she chuckled.

“Anyways,” I waved with my free hand, “enough about Colin’s one-inch wonder. What have you got?”

“Well besides hypnosis magic, I have transformation magic in the form of shape-shifting magic. I can switch between my human and demoness form but I can take on different forms of people but only for a limited amount of time. My shifting also allows me to modify parts of my body depending on how I or someone else feels.”

“Hmmm…” I pondered, “sounds like that has a very diverse skill-set.”

I made the statement while stating at a pair of other assets.

“Absolutely,” she agreed wholeheartedly. “Now onto the final category: Aura Magic. In my case, this is for aura absorption. Most of the spells I can cast are done through contact, voice, eye contact, or thought. Sometimes it involves a combination of two or more of those things.”

“Sweet,” I said as I tapped the table, now for the most important question. What powers have you used on me and for what reason?”

Soph’s eyes went wide as a slow smile filled her face.

“Honestly, I’m not too sure myself,” she explained leaning in like she was sharing a secret. “Sometimes I get so mixed up with my hypnosis and I can make even myself forget.”

She then rested her head on my collarbone and we said nothing for a quick sec.

“I might have kissed you and then made you fall asleep to think that you dreamed it.”

“Cool,” I said, well coolly. “Going to have to report you to the Staff Wellbeing. Preying on a younger guy is unacceptable Sophia, who knows what other victims you might have abused with your power.”

Despite my easy words, I was a little self-conscious about that time as I remember telling her how I wanted to go on a date with her.

Sophie didn’t seem to be able to pick up my anxiousness so I mustn’t have been showing any.

“Is that because you actually want justice, or are upset that you couldn’t remember or the fact that I might have kissed other people.”

“All of the above,” I declared.

She chuckled.

“Well then, please Mr. Niko could I-”

Before she could finish her sentence, I locked my lips onto hers. It only lasted two seconds before I pulled away.

“-get a kiss,” she finished.

Her blush had returned and I was half tempted to take a picture.

“You don’t need to worry about me bamboozling you anymore,” she shared.

“Oh?”

“Since you became a dragon you developed a good deal of resistance to magic, it’s even more potent when you’re in your hybrid form. Which is ironic as fuck because you have a good amount of magical energy to you.”

It then occurred to me she might have used her absorption magic every time we kissed.

Soph then ran the tip of her finger on my bottom lip.

“Thanks for the snack,” he joked.

I took her soft and made a show of throwing it away and we both laughed.

The time I spent with Sophie was always something to look forward to. Especially over these last days, I felt that we had definitely grown closer.

After hearing her tell me all the bullshit she went through, my perception of her totally changed.

And those assholes that attacked us had not only threatened my life, but they would also have done God knows what to her.

I clenched my fist on the table involuntarily and Soph gripped my forearm in response.

I looked at Soph once more, staring deep at that beautiful face, and just thought of how much of a wonderful person she was. She didn’t need to be harassed by any assholes, human or other.

I would make sure that doesn’t happen by getting stronger and in order to do that I needed to get some experience as a dragon. The best way to do that would be to know as much about those assholes that jumped Soph and me.

“I just remembered something,” I said, putting my backpack on, “I have to do some inventory work at the museum today.”

“You’re going now?” she said catching my arm as I got up.

Damn, that felt way better than it should have.

“Yeah, thanks for talking, really. I’ll speak to you later?”

She tugged on my arm softly and pulled me down to give her a quick kiss.

“See you later,” she said as she slowly released my arm.

As I walked off towards my dorm, I pulled out my phone and went through the jobs page I had seen before.

After swiping through a couple of options I found one that I thought would be promising.

I sent a message to Zack and hopefully, it meant I was gonna finally get shit done.