Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella (4 page)

“They do,” she said. “However, the confectioners at
the capital pride themselves in their innovation and artistry.”

“Ah. So they do not stoop to producing such rustic
flavors?”

“Perhaps some may be convinced to.”

Ruen paused for a moment to interpret her comment,
then replied, “A pity you did not come during the summer. The local
specialties during that season are especially varied.”

“Oh?” she said, suddenly leaning close, peering up at
him with those startling silver eyes.

His pulse leaped. “Er, yes. There are several chilled
desserts, for instance –”

“Hold still,” said Astarte, expression utterly blank,
and Ruen faltered. Noticed that she’d snaked her arm around him and
that her hand was wandering up his back –

Icy cold exploded at his neck and trickled down his
spine.

“Argh!”

Ruen realized what she had done at the same moment
she drew back, still staring innocently at him. He squirmed,
glaring at her, trying to pat the snow out of his clothes.

“Winter is my favorite season,” she declared.

Ruen, who knew very well that the capital’s climate
did not even sustain much frost during the coldest months, gritted
his teeth – then grabbed a loose handful of snow and tossed it back
at her.

It splattered right in her face, and to his surprise
and delight, she yelped.

“Why, you…”

He grinned. “It’s mine, too.”

With a growl, she pounced him, pinning him to the
ground. His breath left him in a whoosh. The heat of her body
melted the snow around him – he was going to regret this later, no
doubt, when he caught a chill from his soaked clothing, but at the
moment he didn’t give a damn, not when her breasts were rubbing
against him through the layers of fabric and her hair, damp and for
once mussed, tickled his cheeks as she leaned in close.

He reached around and his hands found the soft curve
of her buttocks. She made a noise almost like a purr, and he fought
the urge to rip off her clothes and trace his fingers across the
dips and swells of her flesh.

“How often do you touch yourself, Il-Ruen?” she
murmured, and despite himself, he flushed.

As he scrambled for an appropriately witty reply, she
slipped her hands under his robes, running slender fingers over his
stomach, his chest. Her nails scraped against his nipples. A
numbing prick of cold solidified against his skin, and he jerked
beneath her, holding back his cry. The freezing sensation was
immediately replaced by a burning liquid heat, not quite painful,
but spreading and tingling and rippling through him.

“Every night,” he gasped, “since you arrived.”

Her lips curved. Her hands wandered lower. Ruen
retrieved enough of his own senses to grab onto her as well, and
for the first time regretted complimenting her on that damn gown
and its heavy, impossible folds. He was getting hard already, could
think of nothing but her wet mouth wrapped around his cock, of
plunging his rod into the welcoming heat between her legs – and
those endless layers of cloth were only getting in the way.

Her fingers skittered down his sides, alternating hot
and cold. He longed to cup her breasts, to feel his way across her
body the way she was feeling him. To see what reactions he could
rouse from her.

He reached up, threading his fingers through her
hair, tried to press her close. But her fingers slipped under the
waistband of his trousers then. Found the crease of his thighs.
Stroked gently toward his balls.

He sucked in his breath.

“What about you, Miss Ash?” he asked, with a little
smirk of his own. “I have heard much of demonic appetites, though I
don’t know how much of it is just rumor and hearsay. How much does
it take to satisfy you? Once a day? Thrice?”

Another growl rumbled through her. Her fingers closed
around his shaft and tightened their grip.

“I expected better of you, disrespectful child.”

He squirmed against her once more, wanting more
friction, wanting to untangle himself from her weight even as he
relished the sensation of her softness pressing into him.

As if reading his mind, she began to stroke her hand
up and down his stiffened rod. This time, he did not hold back his
groan.

“Even once a day is clearly too much for you,”
Astarte whispered in his ear.

“Then,” he said, still panting despite his efforts,
“what is the schedule you recommend?”

“For one as naughty as you? There is no remedy but
complete abstinence.”

Days without release. Weeks, perhaps months. For some
reason, instead of angering him, the thought of his own certain
desperation only seemed to encourage his cock further. His hands,
scrabbling at her dress, finally burrowed their way underneath, and
to his shock, he realized she was not wearing any
undergarments.

Despite the chill in the air, her skin radiated with
heat. The snow around them had long since turned to slush. He was
soaked everywhere, and the ground pressed hard and unrelenting
against his back. Her hand, slicked now with his precum, continued
its path up and down his length, while his own hand slipped down
the curve of her bottom to the crack between her thighs and found
her dripping with cream.

She froze and made a strange noise as his fingers
ventured forth, dipping between her damp nether lips. But soon
enough she was stroking him again, her grip even tighter than
before, and her speed steadily increasing. Whatever thoughts he’d
had of exploring her silky wet heat drifted away.

He was closing in on the brink. He was going to come.
He wanted so badly to come, to shoot his load all over her soft
insistent hand.

But he didn’t want to come either. Not now, not
so soon. He twisted away, or tried to, at least, but her hand held
firm and he did not dare force the situation. Not when she had
finally settled on a rhythm that was
just
right
, and she had this dark, intent look in her eyes
that made him suspect she would make certain he’d regret it if he
so much as thought of defying her, and her pale cheeks were stained
with a light flush he had never seen on her before.

“Shit,” he breathed. “I’m going to –”

A slight twitch of her lips was the only warning he
had before he felt the surge of seed from his balls throttle right
at the tip of his shaft. A shocked, hopeless moan escaped him. His
hips bucked up, seeking the heat of her hand. There was a momentary
sensation of dangling, of impending burst, before... nothing. Cool
webbing seemed to wind itself round and round his cock, sinking
into his very skin, tormenting him with feathery need, with the
sudden realization that his cum was trapped, that he would find no
release now.

Only then did he scent the magic at work, both sweet
and acrid at once.

Ruen scrambled upright and pushed her off at once –
was startled, briefly, to realize his own strength, at how easily
he could have stopped her at any time – and she pulled away, her
face a blank mask.

“Teach me how to do that,” he demanded, between
gasps, fighting off the incredibly stupid urge to pull out his
manhood on the spot in order to examine it.

For a moment she seemed taken aback. Then her eyes
flashed.

“No. This magic is beyond you.”

“But only for now, is that not so?”

A frown twisted her mouth, so briefly Ruen wasn’t
sure if he had only imagined it before her expression smoothed.

“Tell me what you know of the different lineages,
boy.”

Ruen blinked, surprised.

For all his cajoling over the weeks, it was the first
time she had deigned to speak to him of theory. In this way, among
others, she was different from all his previous tutors, who had
insisted on hours and hours of theory before allowing him to
practice. Even the gnarled crone who’d taught him to fight with a
sword had insisted that he memorize the names of the stances and
the purposes they served before grudgingly handing him his first
wooden blade.

But Astarte cared not for the whys and wherefores of
things. To her, there was only “possible” and “not possible.”

Just as that thought flitted through his mind,
Astarte leaned in, laying a hand on his crotch, and he jumped.

“I’m waiting, boy.”

“I – I know only of my family’s own
bloodlines.”
All other books and materials that even
so much as mentioned magic were guarded jealously at the capital’s
archives, their use limited only to those who had been granted
family approval.

“Tsk.”

His cock was already beginning to stir again.
Half of him was ashamed at how utterly
easy
he was. The other half was undeniably,
brazenly excited.

“As you know, Miss Ash,” he said, just barely
managing to rein his voice back under control, “my education in
this area has been lacking. Will you not amend that for me?”

She stared him in the eyes for another moment before
replying.

“Very well. Where should I begin?”

“Tell me of human magic. Tell me what I am capable
of, or shall be, someday.”

Her breath puffed out in what might have been a sigh,
but she did not remove her hand from him.

“The magic of mortals is that of the elements. That
which manipulates the forces of the earth to effect both action and
change.”

“Yes,” said Ruen. “But many wondrous deeds have been
accomplished through mortal power alone. Is that not so? Why, then,
all these restrictions, these limitations?”

“Material magic,” she replied, absently stroking him
again through his clothes, “is both chaotic and constructive in
nature. And yet ultimately impermanent. It builds upon what is
already there, and cannot stand long against the true nature of the
world.”

Ruen bit back a groan before responding.
“Impermanent, perhaps, but our very lives are impermanent. Even the
greatest of relics may someday be destroyed – but so too can it be
rebuilt.”

“But never as the same.”

Ruen considered this. Or at least tried to.

“It seems to me that the bloodlines are meaningless,
then. If our magic is the magic of the earth, the magic of the
material, the impermanent, I do not see why anyone could not learn
how to utilize it, no matter their ancestry. And yet clearly that
is not the case. Clearly not everyone can access that power, nor
even in the same quantities. Besides, the records seem quite clear
about the ways different affinities manifest in set patterns across
generations –”

He broke off with a shudder as the heat of her hand
seemed to breach that filmy net of numbed sensation around his
cock.

“The magic of a demon is that which comprehends the
essence of things,” purred Astarte, and that molten look in her
eyes had returned.

“The Sigils of Making,” gasped Ruen.

“The Sigils of Unmaking should be more accurate.”

“The magic of order.”

“Yes.” Astarte sat back again, tapping a single
slender finger against his all-too-visible bulge. “It is,
fundamentally, an immaterial magic.”

“But there are those who would argue that the
immaterial and the material are not so easily separated. After all,
to understand the essence of something one surely must also be
aware of its… physical manifestation?”

Astarte ignored him.

“And then, of course, there is witch’s magic.” She
wrinkled her nose in distaste. “But no one knows how witch’s magic
works, least of all witches themselves.”

Ruen stared at her as she reached up to brush aside a
stray strand of hair, only to pause halfway.

“Goodness,” she drawled. “Look at how dirty you’ve
made my hand.”

“My apologies, Miss Ash.” Then, barely conscious of
the words spilling from his lips, he said, “Will you not allow me
the honor of cleaning it for you?”

She looked at him from behind half-lowered lids.

And then, to his utter delight, raised her hand to
his lips.

At any other time or place, he would have hesitated,
perhaps balked entirely at the thought of tasting his own bodily
fluids. Even at his most curious he had never quite been able to
bring himself to try. But it did not occur to him to hesitate
now.

Slowly, delicately, he sucked her index finger into
his mouth and curled his tongue about her flesh. The taste was
faint: salty and sweet and mild. How much of it was the taste of
her skin, and how much was his own? He lapped at the very tip of
her finger, then ran his tongue over her smooth sharp nail, and
found there a sticky crumb, no doubt a remnant of their long
forgotten picnic.

He peeked at her face, and though her expression was
difficult to read as ever, something in her eyes sparked a fire in
his gut.

He pulled away, letting her finger slip out from
between his lips and into the chilled air. His breath steamed out
in a little puff. Then he renewed his efforts, this time on her
next finger, laving her skin in a spiraling ring all the way down
to her knuckles before taking her into his mouth. He repeated the
process with her next finger, then her next. Then her thumb. Then,
finally, he took her hand in his own and pressed his lips to her
palm.

He licked a circle through the half-dried slickness
coating her skin, greedily savoring the warmth of her hand, and
heard the slightest hitch to her breath.

When he hesitated, blinking up at her, she tugged her
hand out of his grasp. Seemed about to speak.

Suddenly afraid of what she might say, Ruen averted
his gaze.

And in that moment, saw in the distance a flicker of
movement against the snow.

“Ruen?”

“Hush,” he said. “Look.”

The slight rustling of clothes at his side was the
only indication that she’d heard him.

“A hare,” she said flatly after some time had
passed.