Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (6 page)

Shame faded, replaced by a quiet, overpowering
loneliness. He stepped out of his trousers, gaze lowered, afraid of
what he might read in Astarte’s face. Despite everything, his cock
was already partly erect. And suddenly he could think of nothing
but the fact that he had not come in weeks. Had not even touched
himself in weeks.

“Come here.”

Her voice sent prickles down his neck, his back. He
took a shaky step forward, out from the nest of clothing piled
around his feet, fighting the urge to cover the evidence of his
arousal, unwilling to look up but equally reluctant to keep staring
at his own treacherous manhood.

Even with the fire blazing merrily in the hearth, his
clothes had provided an extra buffer of warmth that he sorely
missed now.

A different heat suffused him, now.

“Where are you looking, boy? I said
here
.”

Ruen swallowed. Raised his head.

Saw that she was now perched on the edge of a desk,
legs dangling, head tilted at him as she continued to watch him
with those unblinking silver eyes.

Her face was still blank, but that was, in some
sense, a comfort. Better this than scorn. Disgust. Outright
dismissal.

He took another step forward, this time lengthening
his stride. Another step took him to her side.

Still holding her gaze, he sank down and knelt at her
feet. It seemed only right, fitting, somehow.

And it seemed his judgment had not erred.

Astarte reached out. Curled two fingers beneath his
chin.

And smiled.

“Remove my boots.”

His hands dipped under her skirts at once. Tugged at
the laces he had already located earlier. When he judged the lacing
sufficiently loose, he took her leg into both his hands and pulled
her free of their confinement. Then he repeated the process with
her other leg.

“My stockings as well.”

His arms trembled as he reached up. Began to peel
down the woven fabric.

Her skin was as soft and smooth as he had imagined.
His hands, rough and worn, seemed unworthy of even touching
her.

When he had finished tucking her stockings away and
set her boots aside, he bent again, as he had before, to kiss her
feet. Her toes curled invitingly at him, and he nibbled them,
sucking at them, running his tongue between each digit, savoring
her taste even as he cupped her heels in his hands and stroked the
arch of her surprisingly tender soles.

Then, daringly, he began to kiss his way higher,
lifting her skirts inch by inch as he unveiled more and more of her
skin.

Her warmth beckoned. He kissed higher still.

Shivered, as her toes found his balls, nudging them,
tickling him with the very tips of her nails.

He was so hard he thought he might come even without
further stimulation, but somehow, he did not.

And still he ventured higher, until he had reached
the very juncture of her thighs.

She wasn’t wearing any undergarments again. He
wondered if she ever did, before dismissing the thought, distracted
by her wonderfully intoxicating scent.

He inhaled deeply, and she hissed.

“Naughty, naughty boy.”

But she did not push him away.

He paused for a moment, awed. He had never seen
a woman’s parts so close before, at least not in reality. And all
the sketches he had ever seen in his texts did not even come close
to the real thing: those plump dusky folds parting into a quivering
core,
alive
with heat and
musk. And near the top, a fleshy pearl nestled in a glistening
throne.

He couldn’t help it. He stuck his tongue out and
licked.

Astarte simply shifted her thighs.

“
Mm. You’re
a thousand years too early to try that one on me, pup.”

Ruen was not at all discouraged.
“
But if I don’t practice now, when shall I
ever have the chance? I’m not likely to live beyond two hundred,
after all.”

Astarte laughed her girlish little laugh.

And still she did not push him away, or shift
again.

He took that as his cue to keep going.

He traced the outline of her slit first, noting the
texture of her flesh, the slick dampness that began to coat her
skin as his mouth lingered at her entrance. He let out a breath he
hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and she twitched.

She could feel his breath against her, he realized.
Somehow the idea had never occurred to him. He had never given any
particular thought as to how sensitive or insensitive a woman might
be. And Astarte wasn’t just any woman, but a demon, sharing in the
physical structure of a human female and yet nonetheless Other.

She tasted like a woman, though. In a way he could
not explain, could not comprehend – but simply recognized. And that
light tang was sweeter to him than the finest honey. Deeper and
deeper he lapped, exploring every nook and cranny, slurping up all
she had to offer.

Suddenly, he felt a firm pressure at the back of his
head and against his shoulders. Realized that she had draped her
legs over him and tangled her hand in his hair, drawing him closer,
guiding his movements. Her wetness painted his nose and chin. And
no matter what he did he could not seem to get enough of it: her
heat, her taste, her scent.

Her bunched skirts rustled against his forehead, and
his breath grew heavier and heavier. She was no longer silent
either, and he was beginning to understand, if only slightly, the
parts of her that were most sensitive, and the great many things he
could do with his tongue and his lips, the ways in which he could
vary the pressure of his touch and the rhythms that most delighted
her.

He latched onto her swollen bud again, twirling his
tongue around its base.

Her voice rang out, low and clear.

She was moaning, really moaning, he realized, and
forgot to breathe.

Her fingers clenched in his hair.

“
Don’t
stop.”

Ruen obediently began to move his tongue again.

Only to freeze again when he heard a knock at the
door.

“
Come in,”
said Astarte, flinging her voluminous skirts over Ruen’s head in a
single smooth motion before he could react further.

The door creaked open, and Ruen scooted closer,
deeper into her embrace, hoping dearly that he was not making an
unseemly hump beneath her dress.

The sound of his own resumed breathing seemed to echo
in his ears, but he did not dare clamp his hand over his mouth, for
fear that his movement would give them away.

“Excuse me, milady. Er –”

The butler, thought Ruen, enveloped in sweet,
dizzying heat, heart still hammering beneath his ribs.

“What is it?”

A slight nudge from Astarte’s thighs reminded him of
his current task, and he feverishly resumed licking.

“I was hoping to discuss the month’s accounts with my
lord Il-Ruen.”

Her voice sounded from above, so close and yet
muffled by the layers of cloth between them. “
He is
currently occupied with other matters.”

“Ah – I see. I shall speak with him later then.”

Ruen swiped his tongue over her clit, swift and
steady, rolling her flesh between his lips. The door creaked back
shut.

With a sharp but swiftly cut off cry, she jerked
against his face. Sticky fluid flooded from her depths in
fluttering spasms. He continued to lick, eager to draw out her
pleasure as long as he could. Her thighs, strong and firm, locked
his head in place.

Pillowed in her warmth and drenched in her juices, he
could hold back no longer. He reached down for his cock. Began to
stroke himself, frantic with need.

But as if reading his mind, she raised her skirts
back over his head and pinched his cheek with a cruel twist of her
fingers.

He snatched his hand away from himself, panting, eyes
watering from both pain and desperation.

He forced a smile onto his face and tilted his head
at her.

“So? Am I not the most promising student you have
ever had?”

“
Sweet Ru,”
she said. “Such arrogance is not becoming.”

But she was smiling too, and the look in her eyes was
that of an extremely complacent cat.

* * *

Ruen wrote back to his cousin, accepting the offer of
patronage after careful consideration. Even within the family,
within the various bloodlines, connections were always necessary.
This Ruen had always known, though he had until now considered such
truths irrelevant to his existence.

He did not hold out hope for a better offer. He had
an inkling of how swiftly the family would have acted if they were
truly interested in him. Had been surprised, truly, to receive the
offer at all.

They had never been interested in him before. And he
did not think his new powers would change that. Though he was
technically now part of the line of succession, he was so low on
the list as to be negligible, and the lateness of his awakening
ensured that he would never be considered a serious prospect for
advancement. Even the curse he had received – he had received no
others since, and even the precautions he had begun to take before
every meal, before his baths, before he went to sleep for the night
all seemed silly now, mere whims of paranoia.

It was as Astarte had said. He would no doubt spend
the rest of his life playing catch-up with the others of his
generation.

That was fine. He had never expected more. Had no
particular ambitions even now.

But it was as if an entire universe had opened up to
him overnight. As if all the doors that had been locked to him all
his life had suddenly flung open, inviting him to explore what lay
beyond.

And that was enough. More than enough.

Still, he was not so naive as to think that he would
get very far without support. If this cousin of his were willing to
give him that support, then he would take it.

Within days he had received a reply, a letter filled
with empty praise and enthusiastic but vague plans for his future.
Despite his relatively advanced age, he was to be enrolled in one
of the smaller academies at the capital, said Cousin Dearest. As
soon as Astarte judged him ready.

Ready. Ruen did not consider himself even close to
ready. Could not even begin to imagine what that might mean.

And though part of him was undeniably happy
that he had already been granted access to opportunities once
forbidden him, another, secret part of him hoped that he would
never be
ready
.

She had taken to the habit of forcing him to attend
lessons in the nude. The better to see if he were truly alert,
she’d claimed.

But Ruen knew better. Knew that she enjoyed seeing
his discomfort, his terrible resistance against the cold. Enjoyed
the fact that he could no longer hide his arousal from her. Not
that he’d ever been able to, he suspected now.

“I’m tired,” Astarte announced abruptly one day,
after a particularly grueling practice session.

The remark was unusually forthright for her, and Ruen
suppressed the urge to apologize – it was he who had made the
lesson so difficult, with his headaches and inability to focus, but
he had learned from experience that she disliked such empty
expressions of sentiment.

Still, the comment, odd as it was, made him close his
book and look up.

She was gazing not at him, as she often did when she
was simply testing his reaction, but outside the library window,
where snow was drifting down heavily from a bleak gray sky.

“Let’s take a break, then,” he suggested, and stood,
stretching his limbs. Although part of him was growing used to
regular nudity, there remained something furtive and thrilling
about sitting with his bare ass against the smooth hard wood of a
stool or the plusher textures of an armchair. Worrying about
staining the furniture with his own filth, of leaving behind traces
of his depravity. Hoping and dreading the slightest brush of her
sleeves against his skin. The weight of her gaze on his exposed
manhood.

Right on cue, he felt his cock began to stir, and
forcefully reminded himself that she was not looking.

Struck then with one of his mad ideas, he crouched
down onto all fours.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Miss Ash?”

She turned to him slowly, her expression unchanging.
He felt the blood rushing to his face as it finally began register
in his mind just what a ridiculous idea he had just suggested. But
now that he’d done it, made the offer out loud, he couldn’t take it
back.

Then she smiled. All other thoughts flew out the
window.

“What a generous offer,” she said. “I accept.”

She took a step forward, and he could not bear to
watch anymore. And yet he could not look away.

Another step. And another. And another.

Finally, she was so close to him that he could see
only her boots, and the hem of her dress.

He felt her patting his head. The firm pressure
against his skull was oddly calming.

But then it trailed lower, to the back of his neck.
Her skin was warm, so warm…

The pressure lifted, but did not depart.

After a moment, he realized he was tracing his spine
with the tip of her finger.

He did not dare move. Scarcely even dared to breathe,
as her finger drew closer and closer to his tailbone, to the crack
of his ass.

If she really went that far – if she really touched
him there –

Her nail dug into his flesh, and he flinched.

She giggled.

With a breezy flounce of her skirts, she settled down
on his back.

Her soft weight was more real than anything else he
could feel in that moment. Except now she was patting him again –
not on his head anymore, but his exposed rump.