by Jan Stryvant
"You got shot?" George asked, eyes wide.
"Yup, and I got shot when they attacked us in Placerville."
"How are you even still alive!"
"Magic," Dan said with a grin. "Lofn and the others helped fix it, and there's a healer south of here that Olivia knows."
"Damn!"
"Yeah, but now I've got armor. So that helps. Plus better spells."
"Still, I can't quite get my head around it. I don't think dad's ever really been in magical combat before, either. Royce has, I heard dad mention it, and from the way Takett acted, I bet he has, too."
Dan nodded, filing that knowledge away.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You're not going to be on the front lines, not for your first experience," Aella said as they walked.
"Though maybe when this is done, I can teach you some combat spells," Dan said. "Unless your father has?"
George shook his head. "Dad's big thing is augury, and that's mostly focused on business and the markets. I think he's been trying to keep from looking like a threat so Weson leaves him alone. I'm sure you've noticed he's not a wizard, just a really good mage."
"Have you learned Skarvat yet?" Aella asked.
"Skarvat? What's that?"
"Demonic," Dan said.
"No. Why would he teach me that?"
"Cause a lot of magic is done in it," Aella said.
George shook his head. "I'd be surprised if dad knew it. That doesn't sound like the kind of thing he'd do."
"Well, if you want to learn," Dan said, "I have a book here that'll teach it to you—but! Not until after this mess is over. Demonic primers are pretty hard on humans, so we'd need to make sure you're ready for it."
"You read it and survived," George said with a grin. "So excuse me if I'm not all that worried."
"I had Wrath watching over me the whole time," Dan told him. "Trust me, you're going to be getting the same treatment. Once you start, you can't stop until you're done, and it took me like three days."
They chatted a little while longer, then George's phone pinged, and he looked at it.
"Oh, I gotta head home for dinner. Message me if you want to go out tonight or do something."
Dan nodded. "Probably not tonight, but maybe next week."
George waved, and headed to the back gate, letting himself out.
"Good! Now that he's gone, I got some stuff set up in the garage," Aella said, smiling at him.
"Huh?"
"You wanted me to teach you how to displace, right?"
"Oh!" Dan said, getting up to his feet. "Right! Let's go!" he said and followed her to the garage, keeping an eye on her ass.
"So how does this work?" he asked as they stepped inside.
"I'll hold onto you like I did when we tricked Weson back in the park. Then I'll displace a short distance. Then you get to try."
"That's it? Why all the secrecy?"
"Because no one who can't do it is allowed to see it. Once you can do it, there's a lot of coaching on the technique. Also, it's not easy to learn if you're distracted."
Closing the door, Aella turned the lights off, and it got very dark.
"It also helps to do this in the dark."
"Why's that?"
"Because you can't do it at first if you can see yourself. It's best to do it with your eyes closed the first few times."
"Then how do I know if I'm doing it?"
"Oh, you'll know, trust me. Plus, I'll be coaching you. Now take my hand."
"Oh, that's not all I'm gonna take," Dan teased.
Aella sighed, a smile on her face. "Close your eyes."
Dan closed his eyes and did his best to relax. The last time they'd done this, he'd been too keyed up to notice anything, and he didn't feel anything now.
"I'm not feeling it," he told her.
He felt her tentacles wrap around him, pulling her up against him. He put his own arms around her, making sure to grab a nice handful of her butt with each hand.
"Daniel…" Aella sighed.
"Oh, come on, you know I can't help myself," he whispered back, holding her just as tight as she held him. "Think by now you'd all realize I can't keep my hands off you."
He felt something then, but not from him, from her.
"I didn't feel that."
"Then how did you know I did it?" Aella asked.
"What I felt was you."
"Okay, let me stop and start again."
Dan felt something from her, then after a moment he felt something else.
"Did you feel that?"
"Yeah, I think I did."
"Think you can copy what you felt me do?"
Dan shook his head after thinking about it a minute. "No. I can feel that you're doing something, but it's like when you wave your tail or your tentacles. I can feel you doing it, but I don't have them myself, so I can't understand it."
"What are you feeling? Can you describe it?"
"Well, your whole body seems to…twitch, I guess you'd say."
"What about the link?"
"The link?" Dan said, and he would have facepalmed if he hadn't had his hands full of something else.
Aella snickered. "You forgot to use the link, didn't you?"
"Yes, I forgot to use the link," he grumbled. "I was distracted by that tight ass of yours."
"Riiiiight," Aella said with a purr. "Now how about opening the link from our bond, and we'll try it again?"
Feeling embarrassed, he did just that, and this time when Aella did it, he could feel it in ways he didn't have the words to describe.
"Umm…we're about three feet in front of where we are?"
"Very good! Now, you try."
"Wait, what?"
"You learn by doing, Dan."
"But I don't know how!"
"You also learn by failing a lot. Now, give it a try."
Dan flailed around in his head a bit, trying to recreate that feeling.
"More like this," Aella said, and he felt a pressure though their bond, and tried to follow it.
"How'd you do that?"
"The bond isn't one-way. At least not for this it isn't."
Dan hmmed a moment and thought about that. That was interesting. Aella pinched his butt then, making him jump slightly.
"Stop wool-gathering and pay attention to your teacher!" She laughed.
"Oh, I always pay attention to my teacher," he said, giving her ass a squeeze.
"Uh-uh. No rewards until you've managed to do something deserving one! Now, back to work!"
Dan sighed and tried to recreate what he was feeling through their mutual bond as Aella gave him guidance. It was a lot harder to learn than he'd expected, but it was a lot easier to do once he finally caught on.
"Open your eyes," Aella said in a soft voice. They were no longer pressed tightly against each other, but he still had an arm around her, and she was leaning into him.
Opening his eyes and looking into the near darkness of the garage, he saw himself a few feet away. He was in the same position he was in now.
"Stand up straight."
He tried to do so, but she grabbed him.
"Not you, your image."
"How?"
"Just think about it. That's your little marionette out there. Go ahead and pull its strings."
"Unnn…" he said to himself as he tried to make the image move. The first few attempts just didn't feel right, as things didn't move naturally.
"Don't overthink it. Your head knows how your body should move. Just think 'stand up straight', and let your mind take care of it. It already knows how things work."
Nodding, he did, and was surprised when his image straightened up next to Aella's.
"Now let's walk."
He nodded again and walked slowly beside Aella as she did, too.
"Just be careful not to walk in place, or they'll figure it out."
"Got it," he said and looked down at his own feet. Which weren't there.
"Hey! What happened to my�
�" he started, then suddenly he could see himself again! Looking up however, he saw that his image was gone.
"What happened?" he asked, looking over at Aella, whom he couldn't see, though he was still touching her.
"What happened," her image said, walking over to him, "is the whole reason you practice with your eyes closed at first. Your body has to disappear for the whole thing to work."
"Disappear?"
Aella's image nodded. "It's like an illusion. But for the illusion to work, folks have to believe it. If they can see your real body, they won't believe it, so they can't see you, and the same thing applies to you as the one generating and controlling it. You can 'be' in one place or the other, but not both."
"So I become invisible." he said.
"No, you become displaced." Aella's image grinned and poked him, confusing him a moment. "If people believe in the illusion, it's real. It not only looks real, it feels real, and behaves as if it's real."
"Hmm, so I can get two Aellas for the price of one?" he said with a grin.
Aella laughed. "That would take a stunning combination of belief and disbelief. Not that it hasn't been tried before, I'm sure!"
"And what happens if I don't believe in it?"
"Then it's simply an illusion, a displacement. It can't hurt you, and you can't really hurt it. But you still can't see the source—in this case me—for all that you know where I am and can touch me, and I can touch you!" She laughed and gave him a pinch on the side.
"Hey! I thought attacks made invisible things become visible!"
"Yeah, well, there's two things wrong with that," Aella said, dropping her displacement. "The first is that I'm not invisible, my image is just displaced."
"And the second?"
"D&D rules don't apply to real life. If you're invisible and you attack somebody, it doesn't necessarily cause you to become visible."
"That," Dan said pulling her up against him and kissing her, "sounds nice."
"Oh, it does now, does it?" Aella said, slipping her hands under his shirt and running them up and down his chest.
"Of course it is, it means I can do all sorts of nasty things to you in public, and no one would ever know!" he said with a snicker as he removed her top.
"I think that might make concentrating on what your image is supposed to be doing a tad bit difficult," she replied, pushing his shirt up.
"What happens then?" he asked, letting his hands cup her breasts as he walked her backwards towards the small counter in the back of the garage.
"You'll find your image is copying what you're doing."
Dan removed his hands from Aella's lovely tits for a moment, shucked his duster, letting it fall to the floor, then pulled off his shirt. Smiling down at Aella, he gave her a kiss, then spun her around so she was facing away from him. Pressing up against her back, he ran his hands up and down her chest and stomach while he nibbled on her neck.
Aella's response was to use her hands to brace herself against the countertop as her tentacles wrapped around Dan's back and slowly massaged their way down it, slipping under his belt and rubbing his ass as he ground his hips into her ass, letting her feel his erection through the material of their pants.
Reaching between them, Dan undid his pants with one hand, while his left grabbed one of Aella's breasts tightly, sinking his fingers into the pliant flesh and making her moan. As soon as he had his pants undone, her tentacles forced them down, freeing his shaft. His free hand now went to work on her pants, the only sound in the garage being the clink of his belt buckle hitting the floor.
Stepping out of his pants as he continued to nibble on Aella's neck, Dan got her pants undone and pushed them down, exposing her ass as her tail flicked up and over his shoulder to curl loosely around his neck. He had his sexy little displacer exactly where he wanted her, he thought loudly, knowing she would hear him, as the fingers of his right hand dipped down to tease her sex, finding her to be as excited as he was.
Kicking his right leg free of his pants, he spread his legs to lower his own hips as he slipped his shaft between her legs, letting the length of it slide back and forth over the lips of her now slick sex.
"Somebody want something?" Aella purred huskily.
"Yes, you always want something," Dan teased as he slipped a finger inside her, making her gasp. "I love you so much, Aella. I wish you were still in my head so you'd always know just how much I love you and need you," he whispered.
Aella shivered against him; she could hear his thoughts now that they were getting intimate, and she knew he was telling the truth. Bending over and arching her back, she spread her legs just enough to reach between them and guide him into her body, needing to feel him inside her as much as he needed to feel her wrapped around him.
Dan groaned in pleasure as he was once again deep into his hot, sexy little kitty girl. Moving both of his hands around to her back, he seized her tentacles where they joined her body, and pulled his hands roughly down their length. The way Aella suddenly moaned and pressed back hard against him, taking him to the root, made him smile. Even her tail shivered and curled a little tighter around his neck as he grabbed her tentacles tighter and used them to pull her body back against him so he could grind in even deeper.
He pulled out then, until only the head of his shaft was buried inside her, then using his grip, he pulled her back as he thrust in once more, and suddenly he heard her moaning not only in his ears, but inside his head as well.
He was in her mind! Just like she was inside his.
Aella felt his shock as he made this discovery, but rather than question it, she heard the wicked thoughts going through his head as he decided to take complete and unmerciful advantage of her and her body.
Dan actually heard Aella's eep as the thought crossed his mind that if he could feel her responses and needs, then he could go after each and every single one of them.
And he did.
Dan had been completely inexperienced when he'd first laid with Wrath, but she'd taught him what she liked, and he'd been an apt pupil, because nothing made you feel more like a man than to please your lover. Especially when your lover was a strong, kick-ass demon who looked sexy as hell when she was moaning in lust beneath you.
He'd taken the time to learn all he could about each of them, to find out what got them off, what made them pant, what made them moan. He never worried about his pleasure, because they knew his mind and always made sure he got it. Now, now he was in Aella's mind, and he was going to do whatever it took to leave her a limp, panting mess on the floor of the garage.
Aella moaned loudly as Dan's hands attacked all the right places. One moment he was yanking on a tentacle, hard, another moment he was pinching a nipple, then the next he was sinking his teeth into her shoulder. When he suddenly pulled out and dragged her down to the floor, he rolled her onto her back moved between her legs, put her legs over his shoulders, and fell on her like a ton of bricks, roughly bending her back as he entered her again, causing her to cry out loudly from the sheer shock and pleasure of it.
He seized her arms and pinned them above her head with one hand, shocking her again as he physically overpowered her, then attacked her ears with his teeth and tongue as his other hand slid between their bodies and went after her clit.
She flailed under him, at times trying to pull him deeper and tighter, and at others trying to push him back as he overstimulated her and drove her to a number of intense orgasms.
But he was in her head, and he reacted to everything she did before she could do it.
And through it all, she could feel the pleasure, the sense of joy, and the deep satisfaction he was getting as he was showing her, once and for all, just how much he loved her, and how he was going to prove that there was no one on Earth or in all of the twenty-nine who could ever love her as much as he did.
When he finally came inside her—they'd both lost all track of time, and she was a panting, sweating mess on the floor, the two of them tangled in a position that prob
ably could only be found in some sort of demon Kama Sutra—she was barely conscious.
At first she thought she was imagining the applause.
"Damn, what the hell did you do to her, Dan?" he heard Fawn ask.
"Looks like he fucked her into a coma!" Wrath snickered.
"I'm not so sure he's still conscious himself!" Olivia laughed.
"It was impressive, if I do say so myself," Lofn said with a touch of humor to her voice.
Aella sighed but still had to smile. She could feel Dan's thoughts running down; he was falling asleep, and she was more than happy to join him.
"When he wakes up, I hope I'm next!" was the last thing she heard a giggling Fawn say as she nodded off to join Dan in sleep.
"Ugh, what time is it?" Dan asked as someone shook him awake. "And where am I?" he said as the last he remembered, he was lying on concrete with Aella.
"It's nine," Wrath's voice replied as he opened his eyes to see her standing over him with a bemused expression on her face. "You're in our bed. We carried you and Aella up here a few hours ago."
"Oh." Dan stretched and yawned. He felt…good. In fact, he felt better than good. Smiling, he looked up at Wrath and thought about what had happened with Aella. He'd been in her mind. How'd that happen? It wasn't uncommon for them to be able to read his thoughts during sex; it had to do with their nature and his human heritage. But he'd never been able to do the same with them.
"So what happened with the two of you? I mean, you've never failed to please, but damn if you didn't go above and beyond!" Wrath laughed.
"I got into her head," Dan said. "You know, like you all do to me?"
Wrath looked surprised at that. "You're not supposed to be able to do that."
"But I'm part demon."
"Demons can do it to humans, not to each other. You're still part human, so we can do it to you."
He thought about that. Since he'd embraced his heritage and become a sobek, he hadn't been able to do what he'd done with Aella a few hours ago. And on top of that, he wasn't tired, he was actually feeling quite fine…
He noticed it he was still drawing slightly off of Aella, who was all but snoring in the bed next to him. He stopped drawing from her, and he felt the connection break as they did.