1) Firstly, Pritkin’s predicament is very confusing for me. Francoise’s incubus lover (is his name Randy?) doesn’t seem to kill the women he sleeps with, and neither does Casanova. So I can think of two possibilities: 1) Only the lord of the incubi (and by extension his son) are strong enough to kill people through feeding or 2) Incubi can control the feeding and turn it off before they hurt their partner. In fact, didn’t Pritkin say in HtM that it’s considered bad form to hurt one’s partner? So, what’s Pritkin missing that he suddenly starts to suck the life out of Cassie? It is that his incubus side is too hungry to stop? (If the answer is too spoiler-y I completely understand.)
The answer isn’t spoilery. It’s explained in the books and I also think I answered it somewhere in the Q&A sessions, although maybe not well enough. Let me try again.
There’s two things going on here: feeding and sex. And there’s two kinds of sex: human and demon. The human variety is usually happening when an incubus feeds, because that’s how they access the life force (through human lust) and sex is a great way to sustain lust over a longish period. They are in total control of how much they take during this process, however, and do not normally drain their partners. Why would they? It would mean constantly looking for new ones, and once you have a circle of donors that are to your taste, why change?
Pritkin, as half incubus, inherited his father’s ability to feed this way, and has the same control over it that any incubus does. He therefore doesn’t have to drain a partner when he feeds. Yet he drained his wife anyway. So what gives?
What happened with Pritkin’s wife was not just a feeding. And he was not in control of it because he didn’t initiate it. Remember, she was a demon, too, if a very minor one. So she was able to initiate the feedback loop that serves as demon sex. Ideally, this means an exchange of power–not just power going from one person to another as in a feeding, but a loop in which both partners take and give, and occasionally, get a bonus in the form of a transfer of talents or the birth of a new demon.
Anyway, Pritkin’s wife initiated demon sex hoping for a bonus in the form of more power for her, allowing her to join the demon world the way she’d always wanted–as someone to be respected. But she forgot (or wasn’t informed, or decided to risk) the fact that a loop is exactly that. It wouldn’t be just her feeding from Pritkin; he would be feeding from her, too. And as it turned out, she didn’t have all that much to give.
So, before Pritkin realized what had happened, his wife had started a very different kind of sex than the one he’d had in mind. And that was a problem. Because remember, he’s Rosier’s son. He is a powerful incubus, or would be if he chose to exercise his abilities. He was so much more powerful than this little almost-human minor demon, in fact, that when the loop began, he drained her before she had a chance to get anything back.
Pritkin blamed himself because a) he killed her. Any way you want to slice it, she ended up a dried out husk in his arms, and you don’t just forget something like that. And b) if he’d been willing to do what his father wanted and have sex with demons before his marriage (in order to help the family), then he would have realized what was happening when she initiated the loop and maybe known how to shut it down. But he hadn’t and he didn’t and she was dead and it was his fault.
So after all that, let’s look at your question about Pritkin’s attitude toward Cassie (or any other woman, for that matter). His attitude is influenced by two major things:
If he had sex he went to hell: Because of the whole thing with his father, and being under interdict by the demon council, if he had sex of any kind, he knew he’d be pulled back to hell with no more chances of parole. Now, think about that for a second. Here he is, a creature designed to live partly off of sex and the power it brings him, and yet he’s now barred from having it. Ever. Again.
He can’t feed, except under very rare circumstances, because if he does, his life is basically over. That’s going to mess with someone’s head. Lusting after something, yet knowing he can’t have it, yet lusting after it even more because he can’t have it…not a good treadmill to be on. So his attitude toward sex is rather the same as a recovering alcoholic’s toward alcohol. Meaning, it’s seriously conflicted.
Put simply, he’s scared to death: He may logically, cerebrally, intellectually know that feeding and demon sex are entirely different things. He may know that he can control a feeding. He may know that there is absolutely no reason he should ever drain a partner again (through either method, really, since he must have figured out how to shut the feedback loop down. Otherwise, his father could hardly use him as intended now that his parole has been reversed, right? He’d drain all his partners!) So clearly, Pritkin isn’t a threat to anyone–except in his own mind. Or when Rosier decided to help him out of it, as in the scene with Cassie in the car in HTM.
Pritkin probably was a real danger to her there, because he was dying and desperate and out of his head, and his power was reaching for any possible connection that might help. But under normal circumstances, no, he wouldn’t be. But here’s the thing–he doesn’t know that. Or, rather, he does intellectually, but not in his gut.
Someone wrote to me once asking why Pritkin doesn’t just “get over it already.” She said it had been a hundred years, give or take, and it was time to put the past behind him. She said, basically, he ought to man up. All of which may very well be true. But the human (or half human in this case) mind doesn’t really work like that, does it? Humans aren’t robots and we don’t always just get over things, even small things, all that easily. And what Pritkin is dealing with isn’t small. Besides, he really does mistrust his father and he doesn’t want to help him get even more power when there’s no telling what he might plan to do with it.
Are we cool now?
2) Secondly, we were wondering where Mircea’s female vampires are. The only two we really meet, Sal and Eugenie, were made by Tony. Wouldn’t Mircea want one or two female guards around, for things that Cassie might not want a man for? (Like when she was visiting Augustine and needed to change). Is it simply that Mircea was originally very “close” with the female vampires and doesn’t want to rub his past in Cassie’s face?
Mircea doesn’t have any female vampires watching Cassie because he doesn’t have any female vampires. Some of his master-level servants do, but the whole Sal thing didn’t turn out great, so he prefers only people he directly controls around Cassie now. And that means guys, because that’s all he has. And no, I’m not going to tell you why (although you’ll figure it out eventually).
3) How did Louis-Cesare know that Dory had all his memories?
Because he was there when the transfer happened, and because they’ve been sharing mental space pretty regularly ever since (because Dory was drinking Fey wine like it was going out of style).
4) Did Mircea intend for Dory and Louis Cesare to be together?
No, but he’s not mad about it.
5) Will Caedmon be back in the next book?
There’s a very good chance.
6) Will we see the Irin that appeared in Fury’s Kiss again?
Lol, maybe.
7) Will we learn more about Dory’s mother?
Yes, eventually.