Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (5 page)

“Yes. I’ve never seen one so unafraid. I wonder if
it’ll come closer.”

The creature blended so well into its surroundings
that Ruen might have missed it had he not caught the twitch of its
silver-tipped ears. And now that he’d noticed it, he could not tear
his gaze away.

A beautiful thing. It reminded him, strangely, of the
white stag he had seen on the night of his awakening, that he had
not seen since, had not spoken of, not even to Astarte. A vision
too private, too wondrous, too heartbreaking to be shared with
anyone else.

This was different, then, after all. Just a normal
hare who had wandered upon a most strange sight: a demon and a
human holding a picnic, out in the wilds, on a cold winter day. A
small, quiet moment for two.

Beside him, Astarte straightened. She intoned a
string of syllables, words he did not recognize, perhaps not even
words at all. The air seemed to burn with some strange, unearthly
scent.

A rune flared up, shimmering and glowing in the empty
space between demon and hare.

The hare crouched, frozen half-spring.

Its neck snapped. Its belly split open.

Blood spilled from the gash, a bright splash of
crimson against the pristine white snow, followed by the animal’s
guts, each of its parts untangling and rearranging into neat little
piles as the rune in the air rippled back into nothing.

It was hardly the first time Ruen had witnessed
death. But the cold brutality of the act stunned him
nonetheless.

He swallowed the question forming at the tip of his
tongue. The protest.

“Afraid of a little blood, boy?”

“Not at all,” he said, and was grateful that his
voice held.

He turned to her then, and was startled to find her
closer than he’d expected, her silver eyes glimmering wide and
impossible to read.

“Only a fool,” she whispered, “does not know
fear.”

“I’ve been a fool all my life,” he replied, and
leaned in to kiss her.

Her lips were warm and tasted faintly, still, of
gingerbread.

She allowed him this infraction all too briefly
before pulling away, teeth bared.

The taste of gingerbread mingled now with the taste
of his own blood, and his slick erect cock ached still with the
need for release.

But she said not a word further. Simply rose and
stalked off, leaving Ruen to gather up the remnants of their picnic
and scurry along after her, confused and yet oddly triumphant.

* * *

They did not speak of that incident again, nor did
Astarte suggest another outing. They spent their days burrowed away
in the crackling warmth of the library instead, while Ruen worked
his way through the history of formalized magical study, and the
more recent development and refinement of various techniques. Only
occasionally now did Astarte allow him to venture out to the
courtyard to practice spellwork, while the hirelings on duty
watched with idle curiosity.

As she had bidden him, he stopped touching himself.
Even if he disobeyed, he was certain she had not lifted her hold on
his cock, that release would be denied him regardless, in the end.
Perhaps this was only a game to her, but if so, it was one he was
determined not to lose.

His dreams, in turn, seemed to worsen. Soft female
bodies, moaning and writhing beneath him as he sank deep into their
eager hot flesh and their tight wet cunts sucked and clamped down
on him until he woke, drowning in a muddled mix of shame and
bestial instinct, his cock leaking and jutting obscenely beneath
his covers.

Despite the agony of unfulfilled need, his simmering
desire seemed to sharpen over time into a crystalline edge. Even
the simplest of glances from Astarte carved into him the dire
truth: he had become a man driven by pure and utterly unadulterated
lust. Yet even that constant awareness of the power she held over
him, that he had allowed her to hold over him, did nothing to
dissuade his baser instincts. Only seemed to amplify them.

It was maddening.

And yet it was also bliss.

Perhaps a month had passed in this manner when Ruen
received a batch of letters. The first was addressed to him from
one of his many cousins – a name Ruen recognized as that of the one
who owned the manor, at least on paper.

“It appears I’ve been made an offer of sponsorship,
Miss Ash,” he said over his books later that afternoon.

“Oh?”

“Yes, from one of my more estimable cousins.”

Some of the bitterness must have seeped into his
tone, for the demon gave him a peculiar look.

“Ah,” she said. “One of those.”

He did not speak of the second letter:
anonymous, consisting of only a single line.
Know your place, brat, or you will regret it.

The space underneath it had been blank, but when he
brushed his fingers across the smooth surface of the paper, his
hand was seized with a paralyzing pain, as if he had pulled a
muscle in his palm and every single one of his digits.

Even in his panic he had known not to cry out. It
wasn’t like anyone would have heard. Astarte had replaced his golem
jailors with her own inscrutable wards, and the human guards, who
had never taken their job particularly seriously before, avoided
his quarters these days as if obeying some secret or tacitly
understood order.

But to make any noise or call for help seemed a
display of weakness. Weakness, he thought, that would be used
against him one way or another.

So he had gritted his teeth instead. Whispered a
basic spell of revealing, one he had found oddly difficult to
master despite its ostensible simplicity, and was relieved when the
throbbing in his skull began to distract him from the pain in his
hand.

A curse seal. He could see it then through his tears,
the faint spidery lines spiraling into patterns he would not have
recognized just weeks ago.

He was lucky. The curse had yet to fully take hold.
Thinking quickly, he grabbed his washbasin and thrust his hand into
the salted water to slow its progress.

Then, with his other hand, he’d carefully sketched
out a counterspell to the curse, patched together from his meager
knowledge and from what power he could access through his pain.

Slowly, slowly the paper had frosted over, eating
steadily away at the invisible ink.

Relief had overwhelmed him, and the rest of the
morning had passed in a blur…

“Was that all?”

Astarte’s voice, edged with dry amusement, sliced
neatly through his murky memories.

Despite himself, he found his gaze drawn, as usual,
to the delightful dip of her cleavage. And as always, he thought of
ripping off her clothes. Pinning her to the wall. Watching her howl
with helpless pleasure as he savaged those perfect breasts of hers
and rammed into her hot wet passage over and over again.

Over the past few weeks, Ruen had gotten quite a bit
of practice in the matter of concealing his arousal. He employed
his tricks now, and delicately guided the conversation onto a
slightly different path.

“Aunt Sava has been writing me as well.”

Astarte’s eyes watched him knowingly. “Has she?”

“She asked me how our lessons were progressing.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“What should I have told her?” Ruen shot back with a
grin.

“That you,” she said, licking her lips, “have been a
very good boy.”

Her praise, however faint, dazed him. Warred
momentarily with shame and lingering arousal.

“And,” Astarte added, “that you shall soon be
ready.”

This remark jolted him back to attention.

“Ready? Whatever for?”

“I have spoken to you of magic both mortal and
demonic. But you have yet to comprehend the full implications of
our differing natures.”

“They are not incompatible,” he said, grinning again.
“Foolish though I may be, I realize that much.”

Astarte’s only response was the slightest tilt of her
brow before she continued. “Without the discipline of demonic
magic, mortal magic cannot attain its full potential. So too does
mortal magic provide access to the material plane for the magic of
the otherworld.”

“Ah,” said Ruen, understanding now. “The calling
ceremony.”

“Yes. Every mage who has come of age must undergo
those rites, so that they might attain the full completion of their
powers.”

“So in other words…”

“When you are ready, you shall contract a demon of
your own.”

He had known, vaguely. But it had not quite seemed
real until now. And so soon – when he had only just come into his
powers.

Too soon.

But what he said was, “
Will she be
at all like you, I wonder?”

“She may not even be a she.”

Ruen thought of the male demons he had seen from
afar, each of them as tall and eerie and beautiful as their female
counterparts.

But none of them had ever stirred him.

“I hope not,” he admitted.

“Silly boy,” she said after a moment, her voice
half-purr, half-growl. “Who are you to say such a thing? Whoever it
is you call forth from the other world, the bond between you shall
be undeniable. The calling never lies. Until then, how can you say
what it is that you truly need or desire?”

He did know what he wanted. Calling or no calling,
nothing would ever change that. Of this, Ruen was certain.

“You and Aunt Sava must have a very strong bond.”

Astarte hesitated before replying,
“
Stronger than most, but not as strong as
some.”

“But you have been together a decade already.” His
aunt could not have been much older than he was now when he last
saw her, though she had not looked her age. “Surely, by now…”

“Ten years?” said Astarte. “No. Longer.”

“Aunt Sava must have been quite the prodigy
then.”

“No. I was not hers, then.”

At first he thought he had heard wrong.

“Not…?”

“No,” she repeated. “I was a young and foolish thing
indeed, when I first came to the mortal plane.”

Ruen laughed. “I cannot imagine it.”

But her expression shuttered, and Ruen knew he had
erred.

He reached out. Touched her hand tentatively.

“Ash?”

She was silent for what seemed like an eternity.

“How long it has been,” she murmured at last. “So
very long…”

Could a demon grieve? Until that moment, Ruen
would have assumed it impossible. Those cruel, uncompromising
creatures of myth and legend – of historical reality. Feeling and
emotion were the domain of humanity, not of
them
.

But the sorrow in her voice at that moment was
unmistakeable.

And it seemed to him terribly wrong.

Even so, the only thing he could think of saying was,
“Then you have been contracted to many mortals over the years.”

It was, perhaps, an overly obvious statement, and
Astarte did not deign to answer.

“Did you never wish to return to your own world?”

He regretted the question the moment the words left
his lips. Some topics were simply not meant to be broached, and
this, surely, was prime among them. But it was true that demons
usually departed upon the deaths of their masters – their contracts
dissolved, their bonds to the mortal plane severed once more. He
had never yet heard of a demon contracted to successive masters,
though the little reading he had encountered on the matter had
implied that it was at least possible in theory.

In the end, Astarte said only, “I was very
young.”

It hurt, looking at her expression. Seeing, and yet
not quite understanding. Knowing that he would never reach her,
child that he must seem to her.

He wasn’t quite sure what possessed him to do what he
did next. Was conscious only of the fact that it seemed, in that
brief, fleeting instant, the only thing he could do.

He dropped to his knees and pressed his lips against
her hand.

She did not react, nor did she say a single word.
Either emboldened by her inaction or growing desperate – he could
not quite tell – he bent lower still and kissed her booted
feet.

It was unfortunate that they were encased in those
boots. He would have liked to feel his way up her firm bare calves,
kissing a trail along her smooth white skin until he reached the
secret supple softness of her thighs.

“Take off your clothes.”

He looked up, wondering if he had misheard.

“Do I need to say it again? Take them off. Now.”

If she were angry, Ruen could not tell. He had never
seen her truly angry before, he realized.

He was certain only that she was not mocking him.
That she was deadly serious.

He rose to his knees again. Loosened his sash. His
outer robes fell apart; he tore off the sleeves and began to fumble
with the ties of the inner layers. Like a snake casting off its
skin, he shed layer after layer, fabric pooling in a soft jumble of
color at his feet until at last he was dressed in nothing but his
trousers.

Astarte’s eyes were fixed on him, wide and luminous
and unreadable as ever.

With a shiver, he continued the task she had bidden
him, hooking his thumbs in his waistband and pulling down.

The moment his ass was exposed to the air he was
struck with a mix of shame and vulnerability so potent that he was
momentarily paralyzed, just as the curse had seemed to paralyze him
earlier that morning.

No one but his wet nurse, long deceased now – and
perhaps his mother, who had died birthing him, and the midwives,
long forgotten – had ever seen him thus.

He took his baths alone, unattended. Had never horsed
around in the river with the younger servants during the brief days
of summer. And the nights were never so unbearable that he had
resorted to sleeping in the nude.