Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (8 page)

“Are you deaf, boy?” she breathed into his ear. “Or
perhaps mute? Unlike some of my sisters, I do not enjoy playing
with inanimate objects.”

The dam broke. The words spilled out in a rush.

“Please let me fuck you!” he gasped, refusing to open
his eyes.

“Wrong answer.”

He could sense her heat withdrawing from him.
Squirmed in despair.

“No – wait! Please use me! Please use my cock to your
satisfaction!”

“Hmm. This thing here? But
can
it satisfy me, I wonder?”

“You won’t know – unless you try –”

She laughed, her voice light and sweet to his ears.
And he did open his eyes at last, then. Gazed up at her in wonder
and sudden, breathless adoration.

Then he blinked. Reached out, brushing his fingertips
against the two curved horns that sprouted in her hair, seemingly
out of nowhere.

The horns were not the only thing that had changed
about her. Her face, though still human enough, had taken on a
sharper, almost feral cast. And around his bare waist he could feel
the squiggling pressure of some unknown appendage – her tail, he
realized when he glanced down.

“This – is this your true form?”

“Yes, sweet Ru,” she replied, with a delightfully
wicked curve to her lips. “Or close enough.”

“Why…?”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed? Human or not, she was beautiful –
utterly beautiful. He knew the things that were commonly said about
demonkind. He knew the fear with which those without magic viewed
those strange and unnatural creatures.

But Ruen did not fear. Had never once feared her from
the moment she first arrived. He did not know why this was so, but
saw no shame in his feelings, no shame in being a fool.

“Now, be a good boy for me,” she said, and traced a
quick sign in the air.

Ruen found his arms raising against his will. His
wrists burned with some invisible pressure, then began to glow as
they drew closer and closer to the bedposts.

“What are you –”

“To ensure that those naughty hands of yours stay out
of the way,” whispered Astarte, even as Ruen realized something
similar was happening to his feet.

He tried to pull away, but the bonds, whatever they
were, held, and her weight on top of him prevented him from
struggling further.

Surrender
, whispered a
voice in his head. And even that acrid-sweet scent in the air only
seemed to lull him into compliance.

Her eyes were still fixed on his face as she rose,
her body slim and white in the darkness. He could not look away
either, any more than he could free himself from his restraints.
Her tail curled around to tease his nipples, and he gasped.

Though her weight had lifted, her heat did not
disperse. She straddled him and her fingers closed around his cock
again, and he could feel her drawing close. He was panting heavily,
uncontrollably. She was so close. Tears glazed his vision, but he
could not lift his hands and wipe them away. They trailed down his
cheeks even as sweat dampened the back of his neck.

Why was he crying anyway? Was he even crying?

What he felt was not sorrow. But could this be
joy?

At least it was not disgust that he read on her face.
Anything but.

He was at her entrance now, barely dipping past her
slit. His hips rose with a low helpless moan.

And then he was in.

Her cunt gripped tight around him, hot and wet,
parting for him, molding itself to him, squeezing and sucking
greedily at his invading rod. He felt as if his cock would melt
right into her. As if his very self would be subsumed.

Deeper, deeper he sank, until he thought he might
come right then and there.

But Astarte purred, “Let’s see just how long that
willpower of yours holds out.”

And he felt that filmy net of power sinking into him
again.

He had no strength left to protest.

She rose, then lowered herself down his shaft again.
Then she repeated the motion several times, varying her speed, her
rhythm, watching him for his reaction. And though he squirmed and
bucked beneath her, he succeeded only in driving himself madder
than ever.

A breathy moan left her lips as she sank back down to
his base. There she rocked against him for a while, her voice
growing louder and louder.

He couldn’t stop watching her. The dangerous sway of
her breasts. Her undulating curves. Soft, soft flesh. And that look
in her eyes, so unlike any expression he had ever seen on her
before.

Her tail, snaking all around and prodding and rubbing
him in all sorts of strange places, was determined to distract
him.

It coiled briefly around his balls before venturing
lower. When it brushed at last against his asshole, a strangled
noise escaped him, and his cheeks burned.

Don’t
, he wanted to
say. How could she touch him there, debase herself thus, dirty
herself with his filth?

But he seemed to have misplaced his voice.

The tip of her tail squiggled against him, tickling
him, worming its way in. He clutched at the sheets, unable to stop
her, not even sure he wanted to stop her. In the meantime, she had
begun to ride his cock again, sucking it in and out of her own
slick hole. She leaned in, pressing her palms against his chest,
rolling his nipples between her fingers. Her hips increased in
speed. And her tail was violating him in ways he had never thought
possible, reaching someplace deep inside him that he hadn’t even
known existed.

All that bubbled up from his throat was garbled
nonsense. He would’ve come long ago if she hadn’t reenacted the
spell. Even now he wanted to come.

And yet he could not. He simply could not.

He was going to die, and he wasn’t sure he cared.

He was not afraid. Wherever she took him, he would
go.

She drove him into her, again and again. And then she
was throwing her head back, her throat shining white in the
darkness, and she was moaning and moaning, and he was moaning too,
and he could no longer tell apart his voice and hers. Her walls
stroked him with every glorious contraction, a boundless pulsing
cocoon of heat.

“Please!” he gasped, writhing desperately beneath
her. “Please, please –”

She whispered something in his ear. He did not
understand the meaning of her words, but he knew nonetheless in
that moment that she had freed him.

He was free.

Everything exploded.

He could not stop, couldn’t hold back,
couldn’t
stop
–

He came and came, utterly shaken by the force of his
climax, every last drop of his seed draining deep into her.

“That was incredible,” he said, when speech returned
to him at last. “Oh, Ash, I…”

She silenced him with a kiss.

* * *

Ruen woke with a start.

Had it been only a dream after all, then? But when he
flung his covers aside, a single glance downwards at his unclothed
body seemed to confirm otherwise.

“Ash?”

There was no response.

He climbed out of bed, feeling for his clothes,
faintly registering the fact that his limbs were freed, no longer
restrained. Outside his window, the glow of the sandtower
blurred.

How long had he slept? How could it be nighttime
again already? Or had so little time passed that dawn simply had
not yet broken?

The door was locked. Just as he remembered leaving
it.

He stumbled out. Halted in his footsteps when he saw
a ragged figure curled up in a bundle in the corner of the
hall.

The figure raised its face.

And Ruen recognized her at once.

“Nairee!” he exclaimed. “You’re safe – where have you
been?”

But she shook her head and burst into tears.

Ruen rushed to her side and knelt, placing a hand on
her shoulder.

It was a long time before she calmed down enough to
speak again.

“Amma’s dead. They killed her!”

His heart thudded. “What?”

“They took her, they took us both. They said we knew
too much. That if you found out the truth, it would be all over
–”

He found himself less surprised than he should have
been.

Some part of him must have already known,
suspected.

“What truth, Nairee? What do you know?”

“I don’t know, milord. That night we snuck out, when
your powers awoke. They seemed to think I’d seen something. But I
don’t know. I just don’t know. And Amma – she’d nothing to do with
it – oh gods, why did they have to –”

She burst into a new bout of tears. Ruen, incapable
of offering her comfort, could only watch on.

“How did you get away?” he said quietly.

“The demon came back. She’s the one who, who – I
thought ‘twas surely the end for me too. But she freed me, brought
me back here. I was – I was so scared!”

His heart pounded painfully against his ribs.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, milord! She only said that she
expected no forgiveness. From me, or from you. But that there was
something she had to do, that only she could do –”

“Bullshit!”

Before he knew it, he was clattering down the stairs,
out into the icy darkness.

* * *

He found her, of all places, at the lake.

He’d known somehow that he would not locate her
anywhere on manor grounds. Had looked anyway. And, when his search
proved unfruitful, had ventured into the woods, the memory of their
outings still fresh on his mind.

And sure enough, there she was. Standing on the bank,
her back turned to him, her tall figure silhouetted against the
lightening sky.

As if she were waiting.

For him?

Or someone, something else?

He stopped paces away, certain that she must have
sensed his arrival, and yet unable to bring himself to draw
closer.

“Ash?” he called out. And when she said nothing in
return, he continued, the words tumbling one after another from his
lips, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I just want to talk to
you. Please. What’s this all about?”

But still she did not respond, did not even turn to
face him.

Determined to drag a reaction from her, he
said,
“Is it true? That you were the one who killed
Cook?”

“Foolish child. Once you began to investigate, it was
only a matter of time before you learned the truth.”

Her voice startled him into silence.

Only then did her words register meaning in his
mind.

“But – why?”

She did turn around, then.

“I’m leaving. Do not follow me.”

“But –” He choked on his words. Clenched his hands
into fists, digging his nails into his palms. “But what about
us?”

She looked at him, her gaze distant, impassive, her
expression betraying nothing.

“Us?”

“My studies,” he whispered. “I am not ready yet. Did
you not come here to teach me?”

“I have nothing left to teach you.”

“But we…”

“I am a demon, and you are a mortal, and my contract
is not with you. What more is there to be said?”

“I –”

“I have seen nations rise and fall. I have seen the
humblest of maids become the greatest of queens, the most powerful
of chiefs felled by the slightest of fevers. I have seen the rivers
change course, and forests grow in their place, and mountains that
once towered into the heavens crumble into dust. So too shall your
feelings pass someday, like a drop of rain in the vast and endless
sea.”

What was she talking about? What did any of this
matter?

“So you will go, and you will forget all about me. Is
that what you’re saying?”

Her eyes flickered briefly. Or was it just his
imagination, just his wishful thinking?

“Is that all I am to you, Ash? Some pet, some toy to
while away your time in servitude with?”

“Ru –”

“Don’t call me that!” he spat. “Don’t. Fucking. Call
me that.”

When she next spoke, her voice was as chilled and
smooth as the lake behind her.

“Il-Ruen Okarzad. You have learned much under my
tutelage. But here your studies end. When we next meet, it shall no
longer be as teacher and student, but as –”

Ruen couldn’t stand it anymore. He turned on his heel
and fled, back into the forest beyond, away from the rising
sun.

* * *

As if in a dream, he found his footsteps leading down
familiar paths, familiar bends. The ruins of the old shrine rose
before his eyes.

How long had it been since he last dreamed of that
night? Of the stag in the shadow-vines – so beautiful, and yet
trapped, suffocating.

A place of power, Astarte had said. But whatever
power the place had harbored had not saved it from destruction.

He tried to calm himself. She was leaving. Ash was
leaving. But he had known this day would come, sooner or later. He
had been prepared for it, or so he’d thought.

There was no reason he should have acted in such
haste. He should have gone to her. Kept his cool. Tried to talk
things through.

She’d killed Nairee’s mother. Might well have killed
Nairee. But for what reason? Because she had been ordered to?

Because they knew too much, Nairee had said.

But what could two mere servants know?

He thought of the hare, its entrails laid out neatly
against the pristine snow.

Who could know why a demon acted the way it did?

He wandered closer to the ruins. Brushed his hand
against the rubble that remained.

Suddenly, pain flared through him. Lacing through his
veins, spiking through his bones.

The curse seal, he thought, confused, before
remembering that he had disarmed it long ago, and received no
others since.