History of Beauty

by Meraki P. Lyhne

  “Go easy on me, I’m really not that skilled.”

  “I will.”

  Elakdon drew his sword, fearing he’d drop it the first time their blades met.

  Foldon drew a sigh. “I see. Let’s start somewhere else.” Foldon sheathed his sword and came to stand behind Elakdon so close their thighs touched from knee to hip, and Elakdon grew horny. “Move with me.” Foldon grabbed the wrist of Elakdon’s sword hand and put an arm around his stomach.

  “No, no.” He jumped away and turned to face the confused Foldon.

  “What?”

  “You’re Untouchable, you’re unempowered, and I shouldn’t react like that, I’m sorry.” Elakdon sheathed his own sword with some difficulty.

  Foldon continued to look confused. “You feed women.”

  “Yeah, but…” At a loss for words, Elakdon finally just looked away. “I should get home before the hunger rises further.”

  Foldon grinned at him. “I aroused you?”

  “Yes, you did.” Elakdon didn’t look back, he merely set a direction for home and stalked that way.

  “Have you been with a man?” Foldon skip-hopped after Elakdon.

  “Of course I have. I had a fling with a thrall back home before coming here. We tried stuff out. Don’t you?”

  “Some, yeah. What’s it like to receive pleasure? Is it as intense as they say?”

  “Haven’t you tried it?”

  “No. I’ve bedded a female, that’s it. And only twice. All thralls in our House have been subjected to the dose, so they’re off limits.”

  Elakdon nodded, still thinking about why he’d be aroused outside his feeding pattern because it wasn’t just a regular lust, it was feeding lust. “No one in town, either?”

  “No. Mother doesn’t allow it because I don’t know who’s been subjected to the dose and not.”

  “In Ladby, you’d know. The women have a multi-colored string between their smock shields, and men have it in their belt.”

  Foldon didn’t say anything for a while as he followed Elakdon. “Do you want to continue this later?”

  “Feeding?”

  Foldon laughed. “Oh, you are hungry. No, I meant me teaching you to yield your sword. We lost the opportunity today, it seems.”

  “Oh.” Elakdon grinned. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “What did you want to do with me?”

  “What do you mean?” They made it out of the forest, and Elakdon could see the house in the distance.

  “Humping!”

  “Not telling you!”

  “Come on, I won’t tell anyone, I swear with the goddess Vår as my witness.”

  Elakdon stopped. “I believe you then. I wanted to feel you inside me.”

  Foldon looked like he liked that idea, and his gaze traveled Elakdon’s body. A full body prickle rushed over Elakdon’s skin, and he turned to run the rest of the way, shouting for Foldon to not follow him.

  “Oh, you can believe I will not listen to that request. You are newly empowered, and I know Mother only allowed you with me because I can easily fend you off or protect others from your hunger.”

  On second thought, having Foldon follow was a fantastic idea because there were humans on the beaten path between the fields of Reifr the Loud and Mother’s grounds. Elakdon ran in an arch around the humans, his burning legs and lungs offering the necessary pain to drown out the little voice telling him which of the humans was the most attractive.

  They made it onto Mother’s grounds.

  “Mother!” Foldon shouted as he passed Elakdon in a full sprint.

  Mother hurried out of the house.

  “Elakdon is in dire need!”

  “Around back!” Mother pointed and disappeared into the house again.

  Elakdon’s brain stopped cooperating fully around that time, and he just followed Mother because he was sure he could feed on her, and his mind stopped paying attention to anything else. But Foldon tackled him, and Elakdon groaned and wrapped himself around the big guy, whimpering when a hand brushed his raging dick, but the whimper turned to a whine when he learned it was only for Foldon to release the belt and sword.

  “He’s not letting go of me, he wants to be with me, too,” Foldon said.

  “Let go!” Mother’s stern voice made it through to Elakdon’s willpower, and he managed to let go of Foldon, but oh man that big guy was hot! Mother turned Elakdon around to see Yri, the young thrall woman from that morning, in the process of taking off her clothes. Elakdon had had fantasies of being taken and relinquish all control of his pleasure for someone to manipulate to unimaginable heights. For a moment, he felt utterly disappointed at the prospect of being the one to give pleasure, and the prickles even dimmed enough for him to be able to focus on everything around him, including Mother.

  “That was strange,” Elakdon said. “I thought I would be in pain soon, but now it’s dimming.” His cock was still hard, but no longer throbbing painfully.

  “That is strange.” Mother put a hand on Elakdon’s forehead, and the prickles returned. She looked mildly surprised at his reaction and let go. “Feed on her.”

  Elakdon looked at the human again, and his hunger lessened, but not as much as before. He’d have to feed, but it was strange that he didn’t want to anymore. He’d been told that feeding cycles would be all over the place and unpredictable for the next many winters. Maybe that was it?

  Mother and Foldon left, and Elakdon went to the expectant human.

  The hearth was still warm and tended to by Yri. It had been almost two weeks since he’d almost jumped an Untouchable, and his hunger was still strange. He still wanted Foldon to bend him over and shove inside him, and he’d even dreamt about it and woken up bathed in cold sweat and had an insatiable hunger that burned him worse than any fever.

  The thrall had been the one Mother sent to feed him, yet Yri had since excused herself from feeding him without a dose, and he didn’t blame her. She’d asked him whether she’d done something wrong or if she’d angered him or done anything to put him off her. She hadn’t. It had nothing to do with her, and he felt terrible that she’d even think it. He felt even more terrible because Mother had pulled him aside and explained to him that he had to focus on the one he fed from. He had to bring more than physical pleasure to maintain pure energy.

  He felt like a failure and struggled to not fall into despair. He fed five times a day, and whenever he and Foldon went to practice sword fighting, they made it to Foldon trying to help Elakdon physically, and Elakdon wanted to pull his pants down and offer up his ass.

  Mother was clearly losing her patience, yet Foldon kept taking it as the absolute compliment that Elakdon kept losing it around him. It didn’t help Elakdon any since Foldon was off limits and luckily still strong enough to keep Elakdon at arm’s length when he tried to dry hump his leg.

  Foldon had even kissed him. One day during training Elakdon had lost it, begging for a cock up his ass. Foldon had grabbed Elakdon’s face and laid one on him while pinning him to the forest floor. Elakdon’s brain hadn’t worked again before they were back at Mother’s House, and Elakdon had rutted himself to three creamers in his pants on the way.

  Once again, when presented with a human, Elakdon ended up sitting on the edge of a bed with a naked woman, and he didn’t feel hunger. Instead, he looked for the resolve to go through with it while hunger didn’t really slake—it just burned him. It had grown to an insatiable itch, and not just a hunger itch. It kept him up at night, and hunger became nauseating. He kept quiet about it, though, not willing to wear anymore on Mother’s patience.

  That’s how he ended up at the hearth in the middle of the night, shaking, twitching, and in complete despair as he stared into the flames.

  “What’s the matter, young Master?” Yri asked. “Are you hungry? You twitch like you are.”

  “I am, but I can’t slake it. Even a beautiful woman like yourself, I…” He looked at her, and the sight of her blurred as his eyes filled with tears. He
looked away. “I’m broken.” The words themselves echoed truth deep inside him because he did feel broken. He felt insufficient. The despair he’d seen on her face three days ago when she’d asked Mother whether she wasn’t good enough still haunted him. And she looked like that now, and it cut into him. “It’s not you. Nothing slakes it. I’m broken.”

  Two weeks of awkward silence, two weeks of strange feeding patterns that neither of the other two newly empowered seemed to suffer, and Elakdon was climbing the walls. He felt trapped and wrong, and it had all bubbled to the surface after yet another dream about Foldon giving him a thorough hump, and he couldn’t hide it anymore.

  As the hunger moved in again, accompanied by the repulsion toward the human body, Elakdon bolted from the house, not caring who heard him. He fell onto his knees in the cold and dew-drenched grass, his knees and hands growing cold as he dry-retched in a feeble attempt to get his body under control. Hunger moved over his skin, but instead of the insistent prickly sensation, it had become a burning sensation. He laid down in the cold, wet grass and felt somewhat soothed, yet everything still burned.

  Mother came to kneel next to him in her thin white gown. “Ela, come back inside before you get sick.”

  “It burns. Why don’t I work? Why does it hurt me and not them? What’s wrong with me?” The burning sensation had kept at him to a point where his self-control and idea of self-worth had been ground down, and he cried out in despair at the insatiable hunger. “Make it stop, please!”

  “What does it ask of you? What is the hunger asking for to be soothed?”

  “Foldon knows. Him…”

  “Are you in love with my son? You can’t classify him. You’ve only just been classified yourself.”

  “Not love…respect. He’s strong, he’s…strong, I respect his strength, I want…I want him to take me. I want to feel him…not just him. Man…I want an Incubus…” Elakdon was shaking so hard, he could barely feel his body, and speaking seemed chopped off. A headache was moving forward.

  “Oh, no…Ela, look at me. We’ll try something new. You and I.” Mother drew him into her arms, rocking him and clutching him close. Their lips met, and he tasted the sweetness of her dose. Lust clouded his mind completely, and he didn’t register anything until an orgasm barreled through his body and left him half cold and half warm in the wet grass.

  Finally, sleep consumed him until the sun stood high in the sky.

  Chapter Five

  It was a night of celebration. The sun was setting, and Elakdon sat out back, trying to prolong how long it could take to collect eggs before the cock took the hens to bed. He’d felt so awkward when the Incubi and Succubi came from the different villages to pick up the ones in trade. They’d fed on all of them—even Elakdon, but there was only one woman who fed on his classification and three to feed her. She would empower the others with her dose, too.

  Elakdon hated that he had to say goodbye to Foldon. They’d had too short a time together.

  Mother had found another human woman for Elakdon to feed on that day, but it hadn’t made a difference. He still felt sick and not himself, and hunger didn’t slake with a human. It was like he couldn’t feed from them, only doses.

  Mother looked concerned which was not a good look on the strong and beautiful Succubus. He’d tried to keep his head down and not attract attention. He’d done his chores and skipped out as soon as they’d eaten, but her eyes had been on him the whole time.

  Another two had been delivered to be classified, and expectation alone caused Elakdon’s skin to burn. Looking at them set it off, but he wasn’t allowed to touch. He didn’t know what to do other than stay away from the party.

  “Ela?”

  He looked up, finding Mother and Foldon looking at him. Hunger stirred at her proximity, and he began to shake.

  “You’re scratching yourself.” Foldon took a seat and ran his finger down Elakdon’s arm, igniting a fire where he touched.

  Elakdon shied away and scratched at the place.

  “Stop!” Mother grabbed his hands, and hunger made him grab at her and crawl to her. She pushed him against the wall, and he whimpered.

  “Please, Mother, make it stop, make it stop again.”

  “Foldon, entertain our guests and make sure no one wants. We will attend shortly.”

  Hope filled Elakdon, but she looked unhappy with him.

  Half an hour later, Mother and Elakdon joined the party, and Elakdon plopped down on his bed in the corner of the house as far away from the party as possible. He hated that he was causing her to worry on the day she should be celebrating Foldon becoming an Incubus. Well, the day he’d leave home to become an Incubus.

  The others who’d arrived to be empowered were already getting the attention and doses from every Cubus present, but at least Elakdon had just been fed by one so he could control himself. He shuffled under his covers, expecting everyone to be busy with the Empowerment and not notice him.

  Tomorrow, he’d say goodbye to his new and only friend. Until then, he had to get through the party without embarrassing Mother. It wasn’t easy to pretend he didn’t exist in a house with Cubi humping everywhere, talking, laughing, drinking, eating, singing, and playing music. He managed for a while, though, and he even managed to suppress the headache and nausea.

  Someone squeezed his arm through the covers, and he turned to pull the cover down enough to see who it was.

  Foldon looked worried. “Come on.”

  Elakdon wanted to tell him no, but he wanted to be there for him. He had to be nervous about leaving home—Elakdon certainly had been the night before he’d been sent off—so he left his bed and followed Foldon to the hearth, but he made sure to avoid Mother’s gaze from the high chair.

  “You hungry?” Foldon asked, pointing at the meat.

  Elakdon shook his head.

  “When did you last eat food?” Foldon asked, and the angry expression said it all. Elakdon didn’t manage to hide the expression of surprise at not remembering. “No wonder you’re sick!” Foldon left their place and returned with a plate full of horse and a bowl of stewed vegetables.

  “Breakfast,” Elakdon said when Foldon sat. “I had breakfast.”

  “Today or yesterday.”

  “Today. We had bitter apples in porridge, and blood pancakes, remember?”

  Foldon seemed placated by that and nodded, but he still pushed the horse meat at him. Elakdon didn’t feel like eating, but he did to make Foldon happy. Horse was usually his favorite. He loved the sweetness of the meat.

  “Anything you want me to bring your mom?” Foldon asked.

  “Good news.”

  Foldon snorted and stroked Elakdon’s back. He then snatched his hand away and stared at Elakdon. “What was that?”

  “Good meat.” Elakdon flashed a smile even though he was angry at himself that he hadn’t been able to suppress his body’s reaction. He was weird. No one else got hungry outside their feeding pattern. The boy who’d been classified as a pleaser of men had tried his luck with Foldon, too, though, and been reprimanded by Mother, but the big soon-to-be-empowered Incubus was no match for anyone.

  “I’ve never seen my mom this worried.”

  “It’ll pass,” Elakdon said, hoping he spoke the truth.

  “When, in a few winters?”

  “Hopefully before that.”

  “Tell her when it gets bad. Please?”

  How could he? She was irritated with him as it was.

  “She worries.” Foldon put his hand on Elakdon’s shoulder before he remembered that physical contact was a bad idea. At least he remembered immediately. Either that, or Elakdon’s responses to it was no longer under his control.

  Elakdon ignored it and focused on putting another bite of meat in his mouth, chew it, and swallow. A green and yellow dress with an autumn pattern stopped by them. They both looked up, finding a blue-eyed Succubus. “Your High Mother asks for you, Elakdon.” The Succubus pointed to Mother, and her hawk-like eyes apparen
tly missed less than he’d hoped. What if the others had seen him, too?

  Elakdon gave his friend the plate with meat and left his seat, noticing that the Succubus took it. He wiped his mouth on his way to Mother. Having to step over two men feeding on each other teased the itch. He’d hoped it would stay away longer after Mother had dosed and fed him, but the scent of doses mingling with the smoke from the hearth and the delicious food caused a constant prickling pain.

  He made it to Mother, and she patted her thighs. That was definitely going to provoke the hunger, but he sat.

  “Does it make you hungry?” she asked, stroking the hair away from his face.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Once in a very rare while, someone is born who can please both a man and a woman. You are an active pleaser with a woman which should make you an active pleaser with men if you are one of the rare ones.”

  Even Elakdon was aware that he looked shocked at the discovery.

  Mother smiled. “But when you want Foldon, you seek to be pleased.”

  “With Foldon, yes. With Tuldon…” A shiver tore through his body, and he got hard. He looked away.

  “Ela,” she whispered, directing his gaze to meet hers by a finger on his chin. “Look around the hearth and find an Incubus of green or above. One that makes your whole body quiver with desire.”

  Elakdon did, and he wanted them all. The first was a big and strong looking man who Elakdon wanted to cause so much pleasure he’d lose himself in it. The next was a slender and graceful looking man, and he wanted to seduce him and play with his body’s sensations until he lost himself in pleasure. The next was an intense looking man, and Elakdon gasped at feeling filled physically and have his mind overloaded with every bit of the intensity of the Incubus’ gaze. The next was a big man, and he looked like the kind of man who could commandeer an army. The next again looked sensual and determined.

  “All of them in different ways.”