Cantrips: Volume #2: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  There’d been that Council meeting where some pretty fierce games had been played, but he hadn’t actually shoved his dick into another guy’s ass, and definitely not one that mattered as much as this one’s. So Anwyn patiently answered all his questions and explained the different choices. There were warming oils and lubes with different spices added to give things a tingle. There was also a heavy duty, functional lubricant for that really tight orifice or the first timers, to make sure it was as pleasurable as possible. Embarrassingly direct, that brand was called Tight Virgin.

  Anwyn’s serious assistance had reminded him that, long before she’d been a vampire, she’d been a Mistress, and she approved of him demonstrating the responsibility that all good Doms were supposed to show about their role.

  Ella had joined them in the shop during the selection process. Her bright, inquisitive expression said she didn’t know why Gideon was shopping for anal lube and she’d be more than willing to be enlightened. However, true to the professionalism and discretion Anwyn had trained or beaten into her—Gideon wasn’t sure which—Ella didn’t ask, though she did offer some oh-so-helpful input of her own.

  “That one is the absolute best.” She tapped the Tight Virgin bottle. “The Dom who fucked my ass the first time used it and, though it was still a bit scary and uncomfortable, it didn’t stay that way long.” She gave Gideon a wicked grin. “And the adhesion factor is off the charts. It clings to all the important stuff way longer than the others, so you don’t have to stop to apply more, which can be such a mood-killer. If you greased a pig at a fair with it in the morning, you’d still be trying to catch him at sundown. That bottle is worth its price. Though I assume Mistress Anwyn is giving you a discount.”

  She stole a look at her boss and, getting an inscrutable look in return, she smirked at Gideon. “I tried.” Then she escaped with a wink, grabbing the feather dust she’d come to get for the client in Private Room 12.

  Gideon met Anwyn’s amused gaze. “She’s like a Disney educational porn flick, complete with the twittering birds and scampering rabbits. You’re going to have to forgive the Daisy Duke Dukes of Hazzard fantasy that flooded my mind. I plead the pig greasing thing.”

  “I forgive nothing. You know that.” Anwyn gave him a considering look. “Though Ella’s Alabama roots do add to her charm. You should see her in her cut-off shorts and nothing else.”

  “You said that just to keep me in trouble,” he chided her. She smirked at him, unrepentant, but nodded to the shelf.

  “So what do you think?”

  Gideon picked up the Tight Virgin. “This is the one you suggested, so if two out of three sex club professionals recommend it, I can’t go wrong. Right?”

  His Mistress had offered a half smile and leaned into him to brush her lips against his shoulder. As she did, she slid her fingers over the curve of his ass, tugging a crease where the denim cupped his buttock. He took it as acquiescence, but he also stood still. Whenever either she or Daegan were touching him a certain way, he knew to wait for them to draw away first. They’d taught him that, reinforcing the lesson during his forty days of intense training. As a result, the second they touched him, his brain immediately shifted to the required response.

  He didn’t always obey that directive, particularly when it was Daegan, but that was part of his and Daegan’s thing. With Anwyn, he was different. She’d observed more than once Gideon was a dangerous animal that only his Mistress could call to heel. Mostly. He’d added that qualification to her comment, even as she gave him that feline look that told him she was 99% right, the 1% usually related to a disagreement about her safety.

  That weird brain click not only locked him in place when they touched him, but sent a surge to his cock, aroused by the idea he was theirs to be touched, whenever, however they wanted. It was like brainwashing, the whole Dom/sub thing, but in a good way, because of the things that got washed away, leaving just pleasure and need. Service.

  He’d only ever wanted to serve a purpose, to reach that deep well of meaning in himself, find a target for it that wouldn’t destroy his soul when the silences in between got to be too much. They’d helped him find the well, and when the silence was overwhelming, they’d touch him, turn silence into stillness, and change the track of his brain.

  Am I crazy to be thinking it’s his first time, too?

  Her gaze had lifted to his. “No,” Anwyn said out loud. “Because I think it is.”

  * * *

  Gideon returned to the present, standing there with the lube in his hand, and his Master waiting behind him, bound as Gideon had left him. What would the vampire world think of their biggest and baddest being ass-fucked for the first time, by a human? By his servant?

  Okay, the biggest and baddest might be overstating it, but Gideon would split his money evenly in a throw down between Daegan and Lyssa, with Mason as a serious contender for second. He pushed the other thought away. He didn’t give a good goddamn what the vampire world thought. Whatever happened here was going to stay between them. He might risk appendages to exploit Daegan’s vulnerabilities for his own personal jollies, but he’d die in agony before he’d expose any weakness the vampire had to others. And that was that.

  He turned and laid his palm between Daegan’s shoulder blades, his eyes coursing over all the bindings on his upper body before his attention dropped lower. The rope he’d removed from Daegan’s waist and groin had left faint marks there, and he tracked where it had been cinched over his thighs, just below his ass. Then his gaze followed the crease dividing the buttocks, and he thought about the things he would be doing to the orifice those muscular flanks concealed. He knew firsthand what it felt like to have those rim nerve endings stimulated. The more they were aroused, the more welcome penetration became.

  He put the bottle down on a small rolling table next to him. Whether or not Daegan was a virgin, Gideon had no doubt the vampire would be a narrow fit. Tight-assed described Daegan with a capital T. He might appear all cool and calm, but laid-back the guy was not. Gideon hadn’t compared him to the Garden of Eden angel with his amped-up multi-tasking sword for nothing.

  He shifted the table so the lube was in Daegan’s peripheral, where he could see the bottle, the long applicator tip. Gideon wanted to play with his head in the right ways, keep him focused on what was going to go down, but Gideon kept the title turned away from him. Now wasn’t the time to rag him about being tight as a virgin. He’d save that for another time. He had other priorities—like loosening up Daegan’s ass in a pretty incendiary way.

  Gideon returned to the peg board wall, knowing exactly what he wanted from the myriad tools there. He plucked the rubber paddle off the wall. The flexibility of it, the material and thickness, could deliver a sting and wallop both. Just what he wanted.

  As he pivoted back toward his captive, he noticed Daegan adjusting his shoulders. Gideon put a hand on the connecting point of shoulder and neck and felt the tension there. Retrieving the stool, he stepped onto it to adjust the knots and give Daegan a couple extra inches to put him more solidly on his feet.

  “I’m fine, Gideon.”

  Gideon wrapped an arm around the vampire’s chest. The elevated position had the added benefit of letting him push the heavy erection he was sporting right up against Daegan’s back. Brushing his mouth over the vampire’s temple, he indulged a heated, wet nip at his ear, enjoying the silk of Daegan’s hair feathering over his knuckles as he wrapped his fingers around the side of Daegan’s throat, eliciting that warning rumble in the vampire’s chest.

  “At the risk of repeating your own mantra, word for word: it’s my job to tell you you’re fine. And while you are fucking fine on a whole lot of levels, I’m not going to let you hurt in a way I don’t want you hurting. Tonight, you’re mine to protect.”

  A weighted silence, and then Daegan flexed his arm, giving Gideon a push. “You are letting all this go to your head.”

  But his voice wasn’t entirely…Daegan. Maybe slightly less in con
trol? Was he ceding some of it to Gideon? A miracle beyond price, if so. A terrifying one, which made Gideon glad he’d spent so much time researching all this, even down to the freaking lubricant.

  The vampire had given him an opening way too obvious to waste. Gideon dropped off the stool, pushed it aside and gripped Daegan’s hips, grinding his cock against that firm bare ass. “You bet it’s all going to my head. Going to feel like I’m splitting you in two, vampire.”

  There was a snort in reply, but he also felt an awesome quiver beneath his palms. Anwyn saw it, but suddenly Gideon wanted her to do more than that. He wanted her to feel everything, because this was too precious for her not to be experiencing it as directly as possible.

  She’d stopped stroking herself between her legs while Gideon was adjusting the ropes. Instead she was cupping a breast, thumb brushing her erect nipple like a girl absently twirling her hair while considering a math question. It was clear she wouldn’t keep her hands from herself while watching them.

  “You can come back in, Mistress,” Gideon said, meeting her gaze. “I want you to feel everything I’m feeling.”

  He sensed Daegan’s approval of the decision. They both knew how much Anwyn got off on the interplay between the two males and, even when they didn’t agree about anything else, he and Daegan were always united in their desire to give her all the pleasure she could take.

  The vampire twitched in his bonds and leveled a sidelong glance at Gideon. “You are not issuing me the same invitation?”

  “Not exactly, no.” Gideon pursed his lips and squared off with him. “Can you let me in your mind without rummaging around in mine? Can you reverse the one-way mirror?”

  “That’s a rather extraordinary request for a servant to make of his Master.”

  “Meaning you won’t do it, or you can’t?”

  Gideon twirled the paddle in his hand, held low at his side, and Daegan tracked the movement before his attention flicked back up to his face. “Just because you succeed in unbalancing me, however temporarily, you think you can manipulate me into doing your will, Gideon?”

  There was that tone of cool hauteur that Gideon knew and loved. It never failed to send a ripple of reaction across his skin and straight through his balls. It also usually gave him an overwhelming desire to pop the shit out of the vampire. But Daegan knew that, didn’t he? Reverse psychology. He wasn’t the only one doing some manipulating here.

  Gideon sidled closer, letting the paddle bump Daegan’s hip, his upper thigh. He even gave his buttock a tap, a warning of what was coming, and took ferocious delight in the spark that ignited in Daegan’s expression.

  “I think you need to answer the question, vampire. Or you’re going to get spanked.”

  God, it was worth it, Anwyn’s choked, startled laugh, the full crimson flare in Daegan’s dark eyes. As well as the breathtaking ripple of muscle. Gideon would remember to cherish the memory when Daegan was making him pay for it, as he surely would. But that was in the future.

  “Just as I thought,” Gideon said carelessly. “You can’t do it. We’ll come back to the question.” Lifting the paddle, he gave it another dexterous spin and moved behind Daegan once more. In his mind, he could almost hear Anwyn’s entire respiratory system take in an anticipatory breath. The tight feeling in his lower belly, cranking his cock up further, was just as strong a reaction. He couldn’t fucking believe he was about to do this and, even more, how much he wanted to do it.

  He’d researched this as well. He knew vampires had incredible self-healing powers. Those faint marks on Daegan’s skin from the rope had already vanished. However, though Gideon bore third marks, which meant he could heal from most anything with his vampires’ blood, pain still hurt like a son of a bitch. He expected it was the same with vampires. There was good pain and bad pain.

  As a result, he didn’t start with a slam out of the ball park. He went with a healthy slap with his hand, just for the hell of it, and to piss Daegan off. It also gave him the opportunity, after that sharp smack, to grab a cheek and give him a nice bruising squeeze. Man, the guy had an ass. As he eased off, he stretched out his fingers and let them dip in between to tease. As he did, he watched the reaction to his playing with the vampire’s rim course through Daegan’s breathtaking back muscles. It was like watching wind ripple through wheat grass.

  “‘I have absolutely no problem spanking men,’” Gideon pronounced, making sure the wicked note was clear in his voice.

  It was a quote from an Angel episode they’d recently caught together, and he couldn’t resist using it. He thought he heard Daegan grind his teeth and suspected he’d speared himself with a fang.

  Jesus, it was a hell of a lot more fun to do this to an adult. The meaning was way different, wasn’t it? Though it definitely connected to those weird good things from childhood about spankings; structure, order, boundaries. It was a sign that someone gave enough of a damn about you to make you behave. That someone was watching over you, keeping you in line. Even all-powerful vampires needed the lines. Loved ones to answer to.

  Gideon swung. With a healthy crack, the rubber connected with both buttocks at the meatiest part. As the sound echoed through the room, his gaze clung to the impact point, watching the skin pink up nicely. Shame it healed up so fast, else he could tease Daegan about rubbing some baby butt lotion on there later. If he spoke that thought aloud, he might get to see that beam crack after all.

  He swung again, and then he got into a rhythm, his own reaction getting more intense, until he couldn’t resist checking out Daegan’s. After about a dozen hits, he pressed up against Daegan and that reddening ass, reaching around him to find his cock. He didn’t need his eyes to do it; he knew every inch of the vampire’s body.

  Fuck, he was back to being thick and hard as a tree limb. Message received, loud and clear. As Gideon stroked him, his hips moved of their own accord against Daegan’s ass, a slow push and retreat, moving their bodies together, a prequel of the act to come. He noticed the vampire’s chest was rising and falling a little more erratically than usual. He wasn’t doing the stillness thing now. He was letting more of his reactions show. The room was so silent, but his and Anwyn’s anticipation, and Daegan’s growing explosive intensity, were sounds of their own, clear as an impending earthquake to canine ears.

  Backing off, Gideon set the paddle aside and picked up the lube. He didn’t want the first thing Daegan to feel to be that hard plastic tip, so he squeezed some out on his own fingers. Putting a hand on the vampire’s side, he used the grip to hold him steady as he eased the other hand between the clenched buttocks. Really clenched.

  “Ease up for me,” he murmured, moving the hand at his waist up to Daegan’s shoulder, kneading. “Just ease up and relax. Let me in.”

  He met Anwyn’s gaze under Daegan’s lifted arm, and the mind-to-mind connection clicked.

  You are taking his mind into a place it’s likely not been before, Gideon. Remember how it was for you at first, except he is not service-oriented, not like a vassal. He serves as a king serves his people, at his own discretion.

  He stroked Daegan’s rim with his greased finger, easing off the pressure. Bringing the other hand down, he transferred some extra lube to it and then brought it around Daegan again to clasp his cock, slide up and down.

  “Feel that? It’s like being inside Anwyn’s sweet cunt, isn’t it? Or my ass. Which isn’t near as sweet, I admit, but hot and slick, clenching around you when you shove in there, take over.” He said it against the vampire’s throat, pressing his body against him even as his other hand remained between them, working more intimately against his rim. “I’m here. I’ve got you. Do you think I’d ever do anything to hurt you? That’s why I wanted to get into your head while doing this. I can’t hurt you physically, I get that. It’s the deeper areas that you’re going to have to trust me with for this, those layers you’ve never given up to anyone.”

  Gideon paused, closing his eyes, pressing his face into the vampire’s neck.
As he did, he moved both hands to neutral area, gripping his waist, holding him tight against him. He let the emotions flood him, let them into his voice so Daegan could hear, know what they meant. How important all this was, something so much more than a stupid bet.

  “I told you I loved you, that one time. Show me you believe it. You know what love is, even better than the two of us.”

  Daegan had loved Anwyn, never faltered in it, even when she’d turned on him, dealing with her transition. He’d accepted Gideon into their circle. At first, Gideon had thought he did it for Anwyn’s sake, only tolerating the other male, but over time, he understood it hadn’t been like that. The guy had the patience of Job, the heart of an angel. Literally. He had explored all the dark and light corners of love, knew them. But perhaps he’d never allowed the gift of it as deep inside himself as love could go, which Gideon now knew was bottomless. A full surrender was the only way into that closed circle, for servant or Master. And didn’t that give a whole new interpretation to finding Heaven through the eye of a needle?

  “Let me in, Master,” Gideon urged against his flesh. “Give me that gift.”

  It was a good thing he was holding tight to Daegan, because suddenly it felt like the floor disappeared beneath him.

  Daegan had spoken in his mind plenty of times, allowing Gideon into the surface layers when they hunted together or sometimes in the throes of passion, but never as deep as Gideon accessed Anwyn’s mind. She had serious seizure issues he helped manage, making such a connection necessary, and her fledgling status probably made that more tolerable to her than to an older vampire with such thick shielding as Daegan had.

  Since he’d started spending time around vampires—without his primary focus being how to kill them— Gideon had realized how rare it was for any servant to be given soul-deep access to their Master or Mistress. He only knew of one who’d been given that gift—his brother, Jacob, from the formidable Lady Lyssa. When it came to servants, however, vampires routinely had such license. Daegan and Anwyn were both capable of shredding Gideon’s soul at will, one of the worries they’d had in Anwyn’s first days as a fledgling. Even without seizure issues, most fledglings didn’t take full servants until they had a few decades under their belt as vampires, so they could learn the control that would keep them from frying a servant’s circuits. Daegan’s influence, and Anwyn’s own formidable will and love for Gideon, had made the early connection possible between them.