Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (3 page)

“Distraction does not become you, boy.”

Ruen started. Realized he’d fallen silent, left his
guest hanging for far too long.

“My apologies. I…”

He trailed off, the rest of his sentence catching in
his throat as he realized Astarte had cornered him against a shelf
and was leaning in far too close for comfort, still staring at him
with those wide, silver eyes.

“I was thinking,” he said, angling his own gaze
politely, “that we might hold our lessons here. If it pleases
you.”

“It makes no difference to me,” she replied, blinking
at him. For the first time, Ruen noticed her lashes: long and full
and dark, like a dusting of soot against her smooth white skin.
“However, I expect full attention and focus from any student of
mine.”

Growing up, he’d often been told that he was tall for
his age. Even now, he was taller than most of the men around,
though his build was slighter, leaner, much to his dismay. But the
demon easily matched him in height, and her breath was hot and
ticklish against his ear.

“I think you will find, Miss Ash, that I am a very
eager student.”

“Oh?”

Her hand skimmed down his front. His heart thudded.
He swallowed.

“Yes. I am curious, for instance, about the method
you used to arrive here. The closest warp circle is nearly a week’s
ride away. To arrive here from the capital in a matter of hours is
quite an impressive feat, one I did not realize was possible.”

“Child’s play.”

“Is it something that can be learned by a mere
mortal?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips curving into a
lazy smile. “Perhaps.”

Her hand had found his cock, already hard and
straining beneath his robes. The damn thing had a mind of its own,
and it had not yet forgotten the previous night’s interrupted
dalliance, nor had he had the time or energy yet to grant himself
release.

“If it is possible, then I wish to learn,” he said
hoarsely. “Everything. Whatever you can teach me. I want to
learn.”

“Everything?” Her fingers danced along the length of
his shaft, tracing the outline of it through the folds of his
clothes. The thick fabric itched, constricting despite its
looseness.

“Yes,” he said, biting back a groan.
“Everything.”

“
Hmm,” she
replied, as if to say,
We’ll see about
that
.

Then she sank to her knees, and somehow she’d
loosened his sash when he wasn’t paying attention – not that this
was particularly difficult to accomplish – and she’d freed his cock
from his trousers, running her delicate white fingers along its
full length.

She made a little noise at the back of her throat he
had no idea how to interpret, then ducked her head. Her lips closed
around the head of his cock, her mouth wet and impossibly hot, and
he bucked upwards with a low moan, unable to resist any longer, his
hand reaching out for her head.

She pulled away, scraping her nails down his
thighs.

“First lesson,” she purred. “Do not act without my
explicit permission. Magic is a dangerous art, and you are but an
infant, lacking in control.”

“No more displays like with the golems earlier,
then?”

Her only response was to lean in again, circling his
balls with her tongue before lapping a trail under his rod up to
the tip once more. This time, Ruen squeezed his eyes shut and
forced himself to hold still against the shelf.

“Are you paying attention, boy?”

He opened his eyes. Fisted his hands in his
robes.

“Yes, Miss Ash.”

“Such an obedient child you are.” She licked him
again with slow, tantalizing languor, and he came close to
exploding until he bit down hard on his lip and the pain brought
him back to his senses.

He wanted to prove her wrong about his lack of
control. He’d always thought himself well acquainted with the
limits and reactions of his own body, in fact. Had made a game of
it whenever he stroked himself to climax during the long cold
nights.

But her touch was different. Entirely different from
his own. He did not know if it were the heat of her body, or
perhaps her skin, so soft and tender compared to his callused
palms, or perhaps even some strange demonic magic at work.

But no. It surely could not be that last. He’d know,
from that telltale acrid scent.

He couldn’t smell anything but his own arousal, paper
and ink and dust floating in the air, burning wood in the distance,
and close by, the heady hint of perfume, something floral and musky
all at once.

He thought suddenly of the servants’ bawdy songs and
their ribald jokes about maneaters, of all those ignorant old tales
of fairies who lured men into their embrace so that they might
drain their life energies.

The thought should have brought fear or doubt into
his heart. But oddly, he only found himself growing even more
excited than before.

Let her take what she wanted, he thought. No matter
what she took, she would never be able to conquer him.

No one would.

She guided him into her hot mouth again, wrapping her
tongue around his girth, tasting the sticky dew leaking from his
tip as if it were heavenly ambrosia. He swallowed his groan, but
could not hide the growing harshness of his breathing. His robes
clung to him, stifling and damp with sweat. He’d never been so hard
in his life.

Deeper and deeper she guided him, curling her tongue
against him, peering up at him with a sleepy, half-lidded gaze.

He wanted to grip that sleek perfect hair of hers and
thrust into her until he came all over her face. And watch her
afterward, as she licked his seed from those lush red lips.

But like it or not, he knew he wouldn’t last much
longer. It had been too long since he last bothered bringing
himself over. Too long since he allowed himself to take pleasure in
this simple base act.

Too long since he had allowed
himself to hope for
more
.

“Excuse me, milord,” a meek voice called out from the
doorway.

Ruen swore under his breath. Cold air hit him in a
rush.

Always that damn cold.

One of the kitchen maids peered down the aisle of
books. “Milord? Your luncheon is ready.”

Astarte had already straightened, the black swathes
of her dress floating into place with her movement. She licked her
lips, gaze still fixed on him, paying no heed to the servant’s
wide-eyed stare.

“Thank you,” said Ruen, glad that his voice held. He
shook out his crumpled robes and fixed his sash, gritting his teeth
briefly as he hid his lingering arousal beneath the voluminous
cloth. “You may return to your duties.”

The servant bowed and scampered off.

Ruen led Astarte to her quarters, where they dined
and sipped on lukewarm tea, exchanging more idle pleasantries.

But Ruen did not hear a single word, or taste a
single bite.

* * *

The demon did not touch him again that day. Nor the
next. Nor in the week that followed.

Ruen’s dreams were filled with her hot red mouth and
her lithe wet tongue, but no matter how he tried to pleasure
himself with his own hands in her place, the relief he brought to
himself was only temporary, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Instead of touching him, she began, as promised, to
tutor him in the ways of magic.

And it was true he was but an infant, hardly even
aware of his own power. Simple tasks that should have come as
naturally as breathing – or so it seemed to Ruen, in some deep and
secret place inside him – left him choking and dizzy and doubled
over in pain.

But he did not complain. This magic was his. After
all these years, it was his. He could afford to wait a little
longer to master it. He could wait his whole life to master it,
now.

Astarte disagreed.

“Most of your kind who are born to the power are
already completely versed in the basics by the time they are
toddling about their nurseries. At this rate you shall need another
decade just to catch up with your peers! And by then most of them
will have come into their primes.”

“Perhaps so,” Ruen replied noncommittally. “I hardly
think it matters. Magic or no magic, I shall never amount to anyone
important enough to be a threat to them.”

The demon’s eyes flashed at him, but she said not a
word.

He didn’t see why she should care. She had lived
longer than any of them, seen more than any of them could even hope
to witness in a single lifetime. What difference to her, a decade
or two?

“That aside, you look lovely today, Miss Ash,” he
said. “That dress becomes you.”

She was wearing a delicious fur-lined crimson gown,
its lines tailored perfectly to the curves of her body – and cut
impractically low at the neck, revealing the swell of her creamy
white breasts.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, pup,” she replied,
but her lips curved in a smile, and Ruen’s blood sang in his
veins.

“May I inquire what the occasion is?”

She laughed, that startlingly girlish giggle that
never failed to seize up his heart.

“We,” she said, “are going on a picnic today.”

“A picnic? In this weather, Miss Ash?”

“Are you questioning my orders, boy?”

“No, of course not. But I thought I might remind you
that not all of us are quite so immune to the elements.”

She laughed again at that.

“The elements are yours to command – this one in
particular.”

“I suppose. Will you keep me warm if my strength
fails me, Miss Ash?”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, still
smiling.

He grinned back. “Surely you wouldn’t let your
precious student freeze to death out there alone?”

“That depends on his behavior.”

“Then I shall make sure to be on my very best,” he
said, cheerfully lying through his teeth.

For a moment she held his gaze. Then she leaned
in.

Whispered, her breath hot against his ear, “I never
stated the type of behavior I expected.”

With that, she swept out the room, leaving Ruen to
trail after her, gaping like the village idiot.

Fortunately, by the time they set out, strolling side
by side down the frozen forest path – she still dressed in her
deliciously impractical gown and Ruen buried in several extra
layers – he had managed to regain his composure.

“Do you have a location in mind already?”

She did not respond, and Ruen almost kicked himself
for his gaffe. Demon or not, she was a guest in his domain, and
could hardly be expected to know the area well enough, even after a
week or two.

On the other hand, she was the one who suggested the
picnic in the first place. Surely that meant she had some
idea…?

“If you don’t, why don’t we take this opportunity to
let me show you around?”

She made a noise somewhere between a huff and a
growl.

Ruen decided to take that as a yes.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that he found his
footsteps leading him to the old shrine.

He’d dreamed of it again. Almost every single night
he’d dreamed of it. That majestic white stag. The black vines
coiling around and around until he was lost in a writhing mass of
darkness. Pain, sharp and crystalline, stabbing through a hot haze
of profane arousal.

Part of him still couldn’t believe what had happened.
What he had done.

But when they reached the end of that icy trail, a
sharp wind arose, and Ruen confirmed to himself once more that none
of that night had been a dream.

Where the shrine once stood, nothing but rubble
remained.

Ruen felt a tinge of sadness at the scene. No matter
what confused horrors he now associated subconsciously with the
site, it had been a building with history. With memory. Abandoned
first by humans, and then by the spirits it harbored, and now at
last destroyed, never again to be rebuilt.

At his side, the demon hissed.

It was a chilling sound, different from her usual
expressions of impatience or disapproval. Caused him to start,
almost back away.

But he clenched his teeth, held his
ground against the sense of
wrongness
crawling up and down his
spine, watched to see what she would do.

“This is an old, forgotten place of power,” she said
at last, and there was a tremor in her voice he had never heard
before. “Little wonder yours awakened here.”

Then she shivered, eyes glazing over.

“Miss Ash?”

His voice seemed to recall her back to herself.

“I do not care for this place,” she said bluntly.

“Let’s go elsewhere then,” Ruen suggested. “The
lake’s not terribly far off, if you’re not too hungry yet.”

With an imperious nod, she turned away from the
shrine.

* * *

The lake was a considerable success (though to Ruen’s
disappointment, the outing was cut short when a servant came
running to inform them of an emergency regarding pantry thieves
that was soon enough sorted out as a misunderstanding). It was
enough of a success, in fact, that Astarte hinted not two days
later about possibly enjoying a second visit.

Ruen gladly complied.

The sky was clear, the air a little less cold than
usual; the food pleasant, and the company pleasanter. The forest
stretched dark behind them, meeting the silhouette of mountains
further north.

“And what is this concoction called?” Astarte
murmured, leaning in to pluck another item from the plates he had
laid out.

“This is gingerbread, Miss Ash. Do they not have it
at the capital?”

She nibbled delicately at it, white teeth flashing
briefly between her red lips, but gave no indication of whether or
not she found it to her taste.