House of Dark Delights (14 page)

“The
high
priests—there were lesser ones. Each tribe had a different name for me, but they all regarded me as a demon of the worst order, a lust-crazed monster out to despoil their women. Several times, I was almost captured and burned, but I fought like the devil and always managed to escape. It didn't help that the Romans were invading Gaul at the time, which meant I had to avoid cohorts of soldiers, too. I began to wonder if there was any place on Earth where I could live in peace, or if I would spend my entire existence wandering from one location to the next, trying desperately to appease my hungers while pretending I was something I wasn't.”

“That is how most of us live,” Lili said.

“Is it how
you
live?” he asked quietly.

She sighed. “As I said, I am drearily typical. How did you end up in this particular area of Gaul?”

“I'd decided to go to Spain, and if Spain wasn't hospitable, into Africa. Ideally, I wanted to find a place where they knew nothing about my kind.”

“There are follets all over the world,” she told him, “even in Africa.”

“I didn't know that then. In any event, while traveling south, I encountered the volcanic highlands occupied by the Arverni tribe, the region we call Auvergne now.”

“This region.”

He nodded. “I was tempted to circumvent it because of the difficulty of negotiating such rugged terrain. But then again, it was easier to keep myself hidden, with all the dense woods and gorges and narrow little valleys. By that point, I'd resolved to allow myself no contact with people at all until I reached Spain.”

“None at all?” she asked. “But what of your mating drive?”

“Oh, I was half-mad with lust, but by that point, I knew enough about the Gauls to know that I couldn't risk any more exposure, however minimal. I'd no desire to relive the experience of being captured and set on fire. I traveled through the thickest forests, which slowed down my progress but kept me out of sight. I thought I was safe because I didn't seek out any humans. I didn't expect them to seek
me
out—how could they even know I was there?—but they did. There was a small clan called the Vernae, an offshoot of the Arverni, who lived in this valley. They trapped me and brought me back to their village, but not so they could burn me. They wanted to use me to sire offspring with special powers to perpetuate their druidic line.”

“You can sire children by human women?” she asked. Most follets, including Lili, couldn't reproduce with humans; it was why she could disport herself as she wished with no risk of pregnancy. But given that Elic could only have relations with humans, perhaps he was one of the few who could father half-human offspring.

He said, “I actually have a very strong urge to reproduce, and I
can
—in a manner of speaking.”

“Either you can or you can't,” she said. “'Tisn't very complicated.”

“In my case, it is. You see, I make no seed of my own, so if I couple with a woman in the ordinary manner, which is generally the case, there is no possibility of conception.”

“‘The ordinary manner'? And what, pray, would be the
extra
ordinary manner?” she asked.

A little hesitantly, he said, “I…have the ability to take a female form in order to mate with a male of superior quality. As I change back into a male myself, the seed I've secured from him is enriched by certain of my own—”

“You're a dusios,” she said in a tone of wonderment. The term had been bandied about quite liberally in past times, becoming more or less synonymous with “demon,” but a true dusios, with the ability to shift genders, was a great rarity. “I didn't know there were elfin dusii.”

“Any race of follet can produce dusii,” he said. “'Tis a random aberration among nonhumans.”

“Elle…,” she breathed, staring at his face—the sea-blue eyes and sensual mouth, the godlike beauty. “My God, you're
Elle.
No wonder she looks so much like you. She
is
you.”

“I'm glad you know,” he said. “I didn't like keeping that from you. My intent this evening was to capture Francis Dashwood's seed, but now that I've got it, I'm at somewhat of a loss as to what to do with it. By rights, it should only be bestowed upon the worthiest sort of female. That was why I got myself appointed Abbot of the Day and took part in that absurd mock mass, so that I could have first choice of the women afterward.”

“I was hoping you'd choose me,” said Lili as she touched his cheek, “even if it didn't quite work out as you'd planned.”

Turning, he gathered her in his arms. He smoothed the damp hair off her forehead, stroked her face, her mouth. Ducking his head, he kissed her, very gently, his lips warm and soft and sweet against hers. It felt so pure to her, and yet so thrilling, as if she were fifteen again, and feeling a man's mouth on hers for the very first time.

“You taste like chocolate,” he murmured.

“'Tis my only vice.”

He laughed at that, his chest shaking against hers; she laughed, too. They kissed again, with more passion this time, more purpose, as he caressed her throat, her breasts, the curve of her waist. He slid a hand between her thighs, grazing a finger very lightly along the seam of her sex. The flesh there felt so hot and sensitive; every brush of his fingertip provoked a little whimper of desire from her.

“I wish…” She sighed. “I just wish we could…”

“Shh…” Gripping her hips, he pulled her astride his lap and pressed her to him, his erection like a column of heat against her most intimate flesh.

She said, “But you can't…”

“You can.”

Elic rubbed against her, rocking her hips slowly but firmly. Lowering his head, he drew a nipple into his mouth, sucking and tonguing it with a deeply rhythmic pressure that heightened her arousal to an almost excruciating degree. Only a dusios, she thought, who knew firsthand the sensitivities of female breasts, could do this so well.

“Yes,” she breathed, her thrusts growing faster, more erratic as water sloshed in waves over the edge of the pool. From his low groans and the straining of his muscles, Lili could tell that he, too, was in a high fever of arousal—and doubtless a fair measure of frustration, given his inability to spend this way.

Elic held her tight as she came, whispering things she couldn't hear over the roar of blood in her head, and her own helpless cries of release. He tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder and stroked her back with a quivering hand. “Lili…you're so beautiful,” he whispered into her hair.

Reaching between them, she closed her hand around his erection.

He bucked at her touch. “Oh, God,” he groaned. “Lili…”

Gliding her fist up and down his length, she said, “Is it possible, if I were to use my hand, or perhaps my mouth…?”

He shook his head. “I can't spend save between a woman's legs—a human woman. Never in my life have I so ardently wished it otherwise.” Gently removing her hand, he said, “Were you to continue that, 'twould evoke only pain, not pleasure. After I've tapped a man's seed, I'm left in a state of fierce arousal until I can transfer it. Too much provocation when I've no outlet for my passions can leave me in agony.”

“You'll be in this state until you find a suitable woman to give the seed to?” Lili asked.

“The problem is, there
are
no suitable women here, not right now.”

“Surely you've found yourself in this fix before,” she said, “having—how do you put it?—tapped a man's seed, but with no one appropriate to transfer it to. What do you do when this happens? Just pick the least objectionable female and hope she doesn't become pregnant?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “I use a condom, much as I hate to.”

“Because they diminish your pleasure?”

“That, and it's a terrible waste of seed that I've gone to some trouble to obtain, but better to waste it than for the wrong woman to conceive a gifted child.”

“Is that what you'll do tonight?” she asked. “Use a condom?”

Elic slumped down, his forehead resting against hers. “I wish…I…”

“I know,” she said, fighting a pinch of unaccustomed jealousy at the prospect of this man—whom she'd only just met—lying with another woman tonight. An absurd reaction, of course, especially in light of her own sexual appetites, which were all-consuming and utterly ungovernable. Elic was as much a slave of his carnal humors as was she; regardless of their feelings, that would never, could never, change. “So…which of Francis Dashwood's ‘nuns' do you think you will choose?” she asked as coolly as she could.

Elic lifted his big shoulders. “Does it matter? It isn't as if there's one who stands out above the rest.”

“They fancy themselves so forward-thinking,” Lili said, “so worldly-wise, but really they're just children playing dress-up.”

“As are the Hellfires themselves,” Elic said. “You've been keeping company with them for what—two months now? I can't imagine how you've tolerated them for that long.”

“'Tisn't easy,” she conceded. “They can be a tiresome bunch, with their rituals and their whips. But by throwing in my lot with them, I've been able to satisfy my cravings without drawing too much attention to myself. 'Tis no easy matter for one such as I to pass for human. I tend to stand out, and that can be a dangerous thing. In almost every culture I've encountered for the thousands of years I've been alive, a female who lives for the pleasures of the flesh is reviled. I've been driven from my home countless times. I've been beaten, stoned, flogged, even hanged.”

Elic wrapped his arms around her, whispering her name.

“In most communities,” she said, “I've two options. I can do what desperate females have always done, sell myself to any man with enough coin to pay for me. In that case, although I'm still held in contempt, I'm understood and generally tolerated. But it is a miserable existence. It eases my lust, but depletes my soul. In my homeland, I was worshipped. A temple was built in the city of Akkad to honor me as the goddess of the new moon.”

“That disc of lapis on your anklet…”

She nodded. “A symbol of the new moon. I've worn it for over four thousand years. But those times are long gone. New deities have replaced the old—'tis the same everywhere. From goddess to whore,” she said bitterly.

“And your other choice?” he asked. “Besides selling yourself?”

Laying her head against his smooth, hard chest, she said, “I can choose the man I want, and wait until nightfall, and steal into his bed while he sleeps. There is a
mashmashu
I can say, some words in the old tongue, that will allow me to control him after he awakens. I can prevent him from moving altogether if need be—or rather, he can move, but just slightly—and that's usually what I do. He's aware of what is happening, what I'm doing to him, but powerless to stop me—not that he'd want to even if he could. The
mashmashu
ensures that his pleasure will be extraordinary, far more so than he could experience through normal human coupling.”

She had
mashmashus
for other purposes, too, ancient spells that could make a person feel things, or experience things, that defied the boundaries of reality—or rather, the reality that most humans were capable of comprehending. Rarely did she have cause to use such spells, but they were at her disposal should she require them.

“I can do something like that with my own ancient words,” Elic said, “except that the person I'm taking can move and speak. But if I like, I can make it all seem like a dream.”

“In my case, unfortunately,” she said, “he is left entirely aware of what has transpired—and entirely able to identify me afterward. For that reason, I sometimes take the form of a woman he knows, though I'd rather not, because of the concentration it takes. I can even determine, by searching his mind, what his notion of the ideal lover might be, in terms of appearance and comportment, and become her. In those cases, he might choose to interpret it as a dream, but usually it's such a strong memory that he knows it really happened. Eventually I'll find myself labeled a succubus. Things took an especially ugly turn when the Roman Church decreed that females of my breed were in league with Satan. Being labeled a whore was nothing to being labeled a witch. I can survive any form of torture or execution except burning, which is, of course, how witches are dispatched.”

“Or were,” Elic said. “The witch mania seems to have pretty much run its course, thank God.”

“Not quite. Three years ago, while I was traveling through Germany, I found myself rounded up along with two other women—innocent midwives who'd aroused the suspicions of the local
bürgers
by being just a bit too skilled in the healing arts. We were imprisoned in a village called Mühlbach, and sentenced to burn. They did burn the other two, poor things, but I escaped as they were building my pyre, by seducing my jailer. I fled to England. A woman can still be burned there for murdering her husband, but not for consorting with the Devil—or making it appear that she is by being too light in the heels. Of course, I still tended to attract a fair amount of attention, which was why I took up with the Hellfires once I discovered them. With them, I'm just another wanton among…”

Lili trailed off, staring through the doorway of the bathhouse into the darkness beyond. “Someone is walking this way,” she said.

“Qui va là?”
Elic called out.

“C'est moi,”
replied a brusque male voice as footsteps approached.
“Je vous avais recherché.”

“'Tis my friend Darius,” Elic told Lili. “He says he's been looking for me.”

“The one who lives in the cave, yes?”

Elic nodded, his gaze lowering to her bare, albeit mostly submerged body. “I'll ask him to leave,” he whispered.