“You mean your lovers. Which Sarah isn't. So how did she get the signal?"

Althea flipped a dismissive hand. "When she is the lover of three of my lovers? Call it Leakage."

“So now what?"

“Now?" Althea hugged her close. She closed her eyes and sighed ecstatically as their breasts pressed together.

“Now we get ready to share our lives with each other, my dearest love.”

Yasna sniffled, overcome by happiness.

“Till death do us part. Well, I think I'm looking forward to the next thirty or forty years. Do you promise to still Love me when I'm all gray and wrinkly?"

"I do. But it's going to take a lot longer than thirty or forty years before you get gray and wrinkly, my heart.”

Yasna pulled away and looked in Althea's eyes. Lurking in their depths was a massive hilarity, as if she was preparing to share with her an enormous joke.

“What are you saying?”

“I guess your scientific research into my body's secretions didn't discover all of my secrets after all. Which is a bit of a relief. I mean, what's the point if there's never any surprises, am I right?"

“The nectar of the succubus," she said to their astonished faces, “has the ability to confer long life on those of the recipients."

“Wait," Alex said. He stumbled for a moment. "Your other lovers. The ones you said you lost. Like the Comte and Comtesse in France. They died. You said so."

“Yes. They died. Mark-Pierre was one hundred and seventy-seven years old when he died, though he Looked no more than a well-preserved fifty.

He might have Lived Longer, but he was killed in World War I, in the trenches in France. Genevieve lost heart after that, and we separated.

I believe she was almost two hundred when she passed beyond the walls of this world.

“You will age, yes. You will die, also. Nothing I can do will stop that. But your span in this wide green world will be far Longer than that of your mortal kindred. And my grief at your passing will be no less because our time together was increased. The opposite, in fact.

When the love is great, the agony of parting is greater.

“But now Yasna has given me something to live for. That I will have someone to comfort me when you pass into what lies beyond the boundaries of this world. That there is some hope for victory in our unending, eternal war. That we are not merely fighting a long defeat.”

Suddenly she blinked and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“Damn. I nearly forgot." Grinning like a loon, she dialed a number.

“Come on over here," she said quietly, holding the phone so they could all look over her shoulder. The screen split into two halves. In one, a beautiful woman with pale skin and black hair was standing on a city street. From the bright morning sunlight, Yasna thought she might be somewhere in Europe. In the other, an equally lovely woman with red hair was lying in bed. Yasna could just make out a male body with a pair of firmly-muscled buttocks lying beside her. As she watched, the man groaned and pulled his pillow over his head.

“Hello, Allie," said the dark-haired woman.

“Is this an emergency? I felt you kill another demon-spawn last night. Congratulations."

“No, not an emergency, Tera. Though I would like you to meet my new family."