No Demons But Us

by A. S. Etaski

  “Really,” D’Shea said, rather deadpan. “And how will you do that?”

  “Requisition the making of a magical item, request him as the maker. He said the contact’s name is Phaelous, that he’s worked with Red Sisters before. I would have an official reason to visit Callitro in his quarters then.”

  D’Shea’s expression didn’t tell me whether my information was trustworthy, but given Callitro’s behavior and obvious lust, I was willing to bet on it.

  My Elder was quiet for long moments and finally said, “Good work. That may prove useful to me.” One corner of her mouth rose a little. “Now comes the question of whether it was only flirting which drew you to him, and to ask how to get into the Wizard’s Tower. Answer it.”

  I smiled blatantly back at her, though my teeth were a little tight as I wondered if she may try to block me. I still couldn’t lie either way. “I wanted to smell him, to see if he or either of his companions was the invisible wizard from my second trial.”

  D’Shea let me read her expression clearly. It said, I thought so.

  “Has it occurred to you that we know who he is, Sirana?”

  “Yes, Elder.” Of course, it had.

  “Why haven’t you asked for his identity?”

  “Lead Jaunda has made it clear you won’t answer.” I risked the next reason. “And you haven’t forbidden me from looking.”

  Elder D’Shea did not take the bait. She peered at me for several moments, then shrugged and nodded. “As you wish. Consider it a standing directive to continue the search, secondary to any current assignment. Inform me when you find him.”

  She just approved the hunt? I smiled tentatively. “Then what, Elder?”

  She didn’t answer at first.

  I repeated, “I shall inform you when I find him, my Elder. But then what?”

  I wanted to hear it from her lips.

  D’Shea sniffed a laugh. “Pay him back on your terms, Sirana, as you told me in your trial. You are only forbidden to maim or kill him.”

  A grin formed on my face. “Thank you, Elder.”

  “And I want reports on anything of note inside the Wizard’s Tower.”

  “Of course, Elder.”

  Maybe the fallout from my trials would even out if I kept playing the Game. It wasn’t as if I had a lot of choices.

  CHAPTER 11

  It had been a long span preparing and executing that Worship Ball. Gaelan and I retreated to her room for a small break while we could. Despite the repeated couplings upon the Altar, neither of us were rut-ready; my Sister and I were more eager for a rest. Still, I asked if she could put “it” on. After a pause, she agreed.

  “Not too light.” Gaelan shivered as I caressed her tool. “Ticklish this eve.”

  “You’d admit to that?”

  A chuckle. “Only to you, because no one believes the new cait.”

  “You should. Only the new ones are still naïve enough to babble about the sexual flaws of her elders.”

  “As if you would know. I haven’t heard a thing about Rausery or Qivni. I’m not even sure if Elder D’Shea has taken you yet.”

  I smiled and gripped her Feldeu firmer, stroking slow. I was in the mood to observe nuances, manipulating her tool to help my Sister relax instead of thrash around, and she wasn’t rage-aching to get me on top of her. A lot of the contact I’d had with the Sisterhood’s magic tool had been hectic, feral, and demanding. I lathered the plump tip with my tongue, sampling more than sucking, but not too light, as she asked. Muscles in her ass bunched and then softened, and no hands came to take my hair and guide my mouth full on her pole.

  “So, when do I get to wear this?” I asked.

  “Not mine to say,” Gaelan replied. “I am not against sharing with you, however.”

  “And D’Shea knows?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about other Sisters? How do they earn it?”

  “I haven’t figured out the pattern.” She turned her head propped on the low, firm headrest. “Seems different for each Red Sister. Some don’t have one.”

  “Yes, I noticed.” I jerked her, coaxing a soft moan from her throat. “Punishment for failure?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “But not based on age if you receive one. You were the youngest, and, well.” I slurped her phallus between my lips again to finish my point.

  Gaelan hummed but didn’t respond.

  “How did you get yours?” I asked directly.

  My Sister wet her purplish-red lips with a bright pink tongue. She swallowed carefully as if she expected it to hurt; she looked at the ceiling. “Mine was linked to my Sisterhood trials. I’ve had it since then.”

  My eyebrows went up. I waited.

  “Like you, I faced a Sathoet first. I wasn’t a warrior, and it happened so fast. How I landed there in the chamber, I hadn’t even collected my bearings. It was barely a struggle. He helped himself to all three of my holes before creaming in my netherhole, and I didn’t know how to stop him.” She glanced at me, her eyes accepting. “Nothing like the confident show you made with Kerse.”

  “Mm-hm, and that’ll come back to stalk me, everyone is saying.”

  Gaelan shrugged. “Something always does, then or after. Mine was right then. I made noise when he took me. I cried.”

  “You cried?”

  My eyes were wide; my hand had stopped moving on her phallus. Even confessing so weak a moment when all the Red Sisters would have been watching her then, Gaelan’s stern glance now down at my lazy hand encouraged me to take my stroking back up. Maybe this thought was believable given what I knew of her, but this Red Sister wasn’t that same Dark Elf she must have been.

  “What happened next?” I asked, curious how this led to her gaining a Feldeu from the start, which had to be rare.

  Gaelan smirked. “Simple. They said if I was going to weep and complain like a male having his netherhole plundered, I might as well be endowed like one. You may have been made to submit to anyone with a phallus in your trials, Sirana, but you remained female to us throughout. They treated me like I was male, with only the two holes, and a sensitive pole to torment me and use for control. My test was pure endurance, which didn’t end until I finally forced another Sister to submit to me. I took her in all three holes like the Sathoet did me.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Not allowed to tell you.”

  I pursed my lips, rubbing gently along her length. “What about the wilderness? Did they drop you there, too?”

  Gaelan shook her head. “No. They knew I didn’t have those skills. At least you had Palace Guard training. Mine was being stalked through a controlled area outside the Cloister. I didn’t know it at the time, but they herded me toward one of the entrances, I fought back when I had to, and I found escape into the Cloister with my magic. I passed the trials that way and began my real training.”

  A recruit has to show some resourcefulness. Determination. Not give up.

  “And the Elders decided you would keep the Feldeu.”

  She nodded, smiling but saying nothing else except, “Something you should suck on right now. I’m… closer than you think, and…you can ride on top afterward, if you want.”

  I smiled and licked my lips. “Done.”

  I had almost lost track of how long Jaunda had been gone, but I noticed that I missed her style of fucking. I did not have time to touch myself and reminisce or to become too frustrated by the lack because of the gauntlet of subjects on which I would be tutored by my other Sisters available.

  I learned more about Wards, how they were put together, and that there were methods to engage and break them without suffering the full effects of whatever the mage had planted. I practiced hand-to-hand in my borrowed reds, blade throwing, became familiar with a small crossbow that fit in one hand. After vast repetition, I could unpack all my pouches and
tools, item by item, say what they were and the most effective uses, and pack them all back up the way they were. And I could do it blindfolded. I could set simple traps, disarm them and a few more complicated ones.

  And I still had much more to learn.

  The Sisterhood refined the best ways I could move, spy, and remain undetected, but I wasn’t going anywhere near the Priestesses again without my Lead or another who could cover any mistakes born of inexperience that I might make. I studied more House histories sitting at a table, browsed more lineages, and listened to more politics than ever, even having once been surrounded by it. One of the oddest things to me was that Red Sisters didn’t seem to be a factor in how those stories were told. Not unless there was an outstanding execution.

  I didn’t see how that could be. D’Shea alone has been mucking around in politics for centuries. Even I can tell that.

  Jaunda had said, “Learn the rules first, novice, before even thinking about how to bend them.”

  I smirked to myself, hands spread over a scroll. Qivni would probably blow an eye vessel hearing my Lead tell me that.

  There was no talk yet of a custom-made red uniform for me, although they did allow me to keep the borrowed one. I still wore the black belt with the reds, which set me apart from the others, or I changed my appearance to wear all black. It depended if black or red was better for whatever the Elders would have me do next.

  Lately, I wore all black, as I had begun a stake-out of House Itlaun, no less than three cycles at a time; it was a walk to get there, and my lizard riding wasn’t stealthy enough yet. I was forbidden from going inside or stalking any Davrin, no matter who they were. The mission was to observe the routines of the House first and take notes.

  And test my self-control, no doubt.

  I never glimpsed my Consort; he remained safe and sequestered behind the defense wall, inside the manor. Occasionally I thought I spotted Curgia, but the distance was such that even if it was her, nothing she did was remarkable. I wanted to get closer and catch something more interesting than tradesvrin going to and fro, than House Guards doing their drills at certain times of the cycle, but D’Shea had a “tell” stitched into my belt.

  “Very sensitive to the spores of the sweet liquor mushroom in Davrin gardens,” my Elder had said with a smile. “Which are finicky, you know. The only way you could sneak in would be that way, through the garden. And my patch will turn as blue as your eyes in candlelight.”

  I hadn’t taken her word on it that the garden was the only entry point, but thus far I hadn’t seen anything better. Obeying my orders was better. What was the rush, anyway? I could be watching this same plantation for decades. Maybe centuries. At least I enjoyed just being outside, exploring the Great Cavern, finding my own food and drink sometimes, keeping my tools and resources clean and useable.

  Ready for anything.

  Returning to the Cloister after one such stake-out, I performed my routine with my Elder, setting out all my items for her inspection, to see what I’d used and, if anything, to ask why I’d used it. A proper report then followed, and I waited to be dismissed; to go clean up, eat, and fuck, in whatever order I wanted.

  As I waited, betraying some eagerness for I wanted those three rewards very much, D’Shea quietly watched me for a few moments longer, a small smile touching her lips.

  What? What are you thinking?

  Someone outside touched the Ward, and my Elder lifted her chin and her powerful, mage’s voice.

  “Enter, Lead.”

  Jaunda came through the door and grinned widely at me, even as she acknowledged Elder D’Shea. Clearly, she had been in a far more exciting place than me, doing more interesting things. Her armor was soiled with dried blood and flaking, Deepearth sludge; it smelled several cycles old and very unpleasant. She had no marked injuries that I could tell, only minimal damage to her uniform, and plenty of energy reserves, it seemed.

  I was a little jealous. She’d seen action, maybe a lot of it. I stood at attention, wondering if I would get to listen in on her report from the wilderness.

  “Thank you for your report earlier, Lead,” Elder D’Shea said with a smirk, “and for waiting. Sirana is now available to help you settle back in.”

  Argh!

  After we were outside in the hallway, Jaunda gave me a gesture that held no uncertainty for me. I would go with her and assist her with anything she needed or wanted. From wherever she had just returned, my Lead needed to work off stress and, like a good cait, my slit and netherhole tingled as I anticipated one particular duty. Maybe she could tell me something about her mission if I satisfied her well enough.

  My Lead had walked away without even looking behind to see if I followed, and I knew better than to lag. If Jaunda had to turn back to get me, she’d throw me over her shoulder like she had the first time she caught me, but this time I had a lot of tools and pouches and weapons which could get damaged. Working off “negligent magic-loss debt” was a common way for a Sister to get the worse jobs for a span or two.

  We moved through the curved hallways and minimal lighting of the Cloister. Jaunda’s quarters wasn’t too far from Gaelan, as most Sisters shared two or three to a room and Jaunda’s teams bedded down closer to D’Shea than to Rausery or the Prime. As a Lead, Jaunda had a place to herself, and when we stood outside of it, her patience faltered at last.

  She whirled at the last moment to seize me and haul me inside, murmuring the command to cause the stone door to slide closed with a final-sounding thump. She clasped me to her before I’d taken a step into her lightless quarters and slammed me up against the outside wall beside the door. Pressing her body to me, filling my nose with too many scents, Jaunda stared at my face an instant before she closed her mouth on mine, spearing her tongue between my lips.

  It occurred to me that I knew just what to do to get her to stop right then; a pressure point, a new vulnerability I had learned the hard way under Rausery and the Prime.

  But I didn’t. I yielded my mouth to the exploration even as I wondered what had her surged up like this.

  When she stopped, we were breathing hard for air, and our eyes had adapted to the dark. She said, “You look great in red. I heard Rausery loaned that for the Ball, but you still got it. Have to tell me how that went. After.”

  I smiled, about to reply when she took hold of my hair at the nape and pulled my head to the side, leaning to bite my neck and nibble on my jaw and earlobe before champing her teeth in again. I winced but in a good way. Her appetite was dominant as ever, and I gasped at her attention, aroused, glad she was back, even with the Deepearth stink clinging to her.

  “We’ll get a uniform made just for you,” Jaunda murmured, gently kissing flesh that I was sure was bruised and teeth-marked by now. “We’ll have to replace this black belt.”

  As she spoke, she undid that belt and let it drop gently, avoiding breaking anything. She began stripping me from the waist up with an intense clash of efficiency and impatience; though I was jerked around, I stood cooperatively, anticipating being naked. Her heavy breathing and especially the low growl from her throat as she next kneeled, peeling down my pants to be at eye level with my white thatch, had me squeezing my thighs together.

  My Lead smiled, glancing up at me with eyes intense as magma, even in colorless Radiants, and she leaned forward to push her nose into my white-fur.

  Goddess…

  She scented me, humming in pleasure, purely focused on her desire as she extended her tongue, lashing it across my folds. I swallowed a moan, but my thighs relaxed, yielding as my sex swelled to aching against her mouth. She pinched the soft parts of my inner thighs, waking up my nerves further with pain, and hissed how much she would enjoy fucking me so hard that I’d waddle to my next duty.

  I missed this, I realized.

  Then I wondered whether I had missed her?

  Would she enjoy hearing that, or would that be the same as crying like a sodomized male?


  I said nothing as Jaunda stood up and put her rough, dirty hands at my waist, my ribs, and then my tits. She leaned down, restrained herself a little as she took more time there, biting my breasts and sucking on my nipples to make them hard. A mewl slipped out of me.

  After I closed my eyes, after I foolishly let down my guard, she swept my feet out from under me. Only recent training helping me to break my fall and land without injury, though I blurted a cry as I went down. Jaunda grinned at me.

  “Good. Been paying attention. Silence is better, though.”

  She bent and seized my ankles, pulling my legs up. I lay still on my back upon the cold stone as Jaunda took off each of my boots before yanking off my leather. That was it. No more clothes. I was a naked novice again, as the first time I’d been beneath her getting fucked.

  My Lead was still fully dressed; she hadn’t even removed her cloak, and she stared hard down at me. One gloved hand briefly rubbed her sex through her leathers, and she still held my left foot. Then, using both hands, Jaunda massaged my foot for more than a few flicks, bending down to nibble on my toes—which felt good but tickled—then bite the inner arch.

  I winced again but managed not to jerk my foot out of her hands like I had the first time. She made an approving sound and went back to sucking on my smaller toes, her fingers digging into my ankle as I gripped the grit of the bare, stone floor. Then she wanted to switch sides, and I knew better than to be too slow lifting my leg when she was ready to sample that other foot. Gaelan’s comment about being ticklish came back to tag me as I whimpered one more time.

  “Open wide,” she growled, releasing both feet at last. “How I like it.”

  My gruff, superior Sister enjoyed some posing and performance from her subordinates. I stretched my legs up straight and together toward the ceiling, opening them slowly until my hands were bracing my thighs. I held the position with my toes pointed toward the sides of her room. She gazed hotly down at me, drew the obsidian dagger at her belt and kneeled between my legs.