by Ruby Duvall
Once she had found an area of about twenty feet in diameter that was free of tree roots growing close to the surface, she stood in the middle and closed her eyes.
A tree once grew here long ago but it was now part of the house, and its roots had rotted away, becoming a part of the earth again. There was room, then, for another tree to grow, and she began to draw.
Vallen watched with complete and utter amazement as she began to whip the small branch through the air and even he could not recognize the shape she was forming. She drew it with rapid speed, though, her eyes closed as she moved around the open area. All he could tell was that it was a circle of magic similar to the patterns used in his family’s house within the dark court. It was a pattern for plants and trees. He couldn’t follow it very well, though, because it was drawn so smoothly and quickly.
It took about four minutes, but when she finished, she closed the circle, stepping out of it so that she stood between them and the pattern she had drawn over the ground.
“Ki,” she said, simple and short. Her magic vibrated happily inside her, its branches shooting into the ground behind her as well as shining upon the circle of power she had created behind her.
There was a great rumbling, and the trees around them seemed to groan as a large vine shot out of the ground, twisting and sprouting branches and leaves as it grew taller. The ground around it churned and broke as the vine thickened. It rose higher and higher, its branches widening and spreading into the trees around it, filling in the space where sunlight had once hit the ground, growing bigger and fuller until the new tree finally hardened and came to a stop with one last shudder.
“That was amazing!” Oka shrieked, clapping and scrambling off the porch to come running to her. She smiled as he ran, setting the stick back down on the ground and yawning as the usual bout of tiredness hit her.
“Do it again! Again!” he laughed out, grabbing her skirt and dancing around. She smiled at him, trying to calm him down.
“It takes some energy to do that, Oka. Maybe later, when I feel stronger,” she said, patting his head. He was positively beaming at her and she felt a tremendous urge to hug him, which she readily gave into.
Rosuke and Vallen sat stunned on the porch, their mouths hanging open, and it took a few seconds for either to even blink.
“I’ve only seen your grandmother do that,” Rosuke said, speaking softly as he watched Shumei hug her greatly excited little brother.
“I wonder if this means she was meant to be in the Summer House of Trees,” Vallen commented, his chest bursting with approval.
“It might,” Rosuke agreed.
“We’re going to be cured, Rosuke. How does that make you feel?” he asked his friend, his voice still tinted with wonderment.
“Completely ecstatic,” the other demon answered, his voice soft.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Shumei was ordered to take a nap and refresh herself before doing the ritual, and the boys spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and preparing one of the three rooms within the estate meant for magic ceremonies. It was a room free of furniture and clutter, save for two items—in the center was an altar, large enough to hold a rakuda, and to the side against the wall was a long table meant for holding magic components.
Vallen and Oka scrubbed the floor free of old chalk markings that hadn’t completely faded over the years. Rosuke cleaned the altar and table, draping both with heavy, red ceremonial cloths that hadn’t been used for nearly two hundred years but that were still as serviceable as the day they were made since they too had magic upon them.
The last two chores to finish included the replacement of the paper in the inner doors and walls and to place two of the remaining thirty-nine candles from the estate’s stock in the standing candlestick in the corner of the room. New chalk was placed on the table and all that was left was to wake the witch to perform the ritual.
“Sister?” Oka whispered, leaning over the edge of her bed to shake her shoulder. The two other men in the house had gone to bathe themselves, a chore she had already done before taking her nap, so it was up to Oka to wake her.
“Is it already time?” she asked sleepily, turning over languidly toward the young voice behind her. “Are they in the bath now?”
“Yeah. Rosuke said that they wanted to ‘look pretty’ for you,” Oka laughed, his voice still soft for her benefit. “Are you really going to look at them naked?”
She almost groaned in embarrassment and felt her cheeks heat up. She opened her eyes slowly, looking at her brother’s interested face. This was one of those moments when she wished her brother were entirely the mature adult he sometimes seemed to be. It was obvious now, though, that he was really still a child.
“I used to bathe you when you were a toddler. You, mother and I would all share the same spot along the riverbank.”
“Aw-w-w, don’t bring that up,” Oka groaned, obviously embarrassed and starting to lean away.
“I’ve found that magic depends a lot on symbols and special words. You know already that I am Vallen’s lover. I have seen him naked many times, but you do not need to know any specifics until you’re at least fifteen,” she explained, her voice even and serious. “He and Rosuke were cursed nearly three hundred years ago to walk the earth as sex demons, chained to the lusts that ensure humans will procreate, to the lusts that make us human and yet they were not human for so long. Nudity is one part of a series of symbols in the ritual tonight to represent that lust, and it’s not out of vanity that they shed their clothes.
“You cannot watch because lust is not something a boy of your age understands or should experience yet. It is an adult notion and someday, I hope you realize that what they’re doing in the ritual tonight is not wrong. It is very human. Okay?” she said lightly, reaching up to ruffle the mop of feathery blond hair on his head. Oka nodded, finally understanding, it seemed.
“Okay. I’ll be back when the sun comes down, but I’ll go straight to my room until someone comes to get me,” he said, standing up and tottering down the bed’s two steps to run to the door.
“Be careful,” she called, sitting up.
After rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she gingerly moved off the bed. She was still wearing her goldfish dress, but carefully removed it and put it back in the cabinet. Wondering what she should choose to wear for the ceremony, she looked through all the dozen or so choices hanging in the cabinet. The spell did not specify any particular outfit and since she had to sexually excite her two subjects tonight, she took one look at the nearly see-through robe she had been wearing that morning and smiled.
Rosuke and Vallen sat on the altar in the newly cleaned magic chamber, twiddling their thumbs impatiently.
“I’m nervous,” Rosuke admitted, flashing a smile over to Vallen. “Sitting completely naked on an altar like this…reminds me of that night.”
“It should. We’re going to reverse what happened then.”
“Do you think we’ll get our magic back?”
“I honestly don’t know. The reversal spell did not mention anything about that,” Vallen answered, feeling his gut twist with anxiety as the worst of his worries was brought up again.
As a fully charged sex demon, he would have a great deal more power to protect Shumei from enemies than a magic-less human. If his magic were restored, it would be a completely different situation, but no one could predict if they would be granted their magic again.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” a soft voice called. Both demons looked up in surprise, their conversation interrupted. Their eyes fell upon the young, black-haired witch staring at them from the door. She was wearing a robe so thin and sheer that it was like looking at her naked through a mist. It was the robe in which they had dressed her yesterday and which had had Vallen’s cock straining against his pants as they laid her down to sleep.
She looked across the space of the room with a coy smile, watching as both demons quickly gained an erection. Rosuke even lightly stroked
his cock, staring at her with a parted mouth.
“I’ll do that in a minute, Rosuke. There’s no need to get ahead of ourselves,” she warned him, closing the door behind her. She saw him swallow, but he took his hand away, his face flushed with arousal. Glancing at Vallen, she admired his erection with a small lick of her lips, anticipating the ritual step to come in only a few minutes.
“You remember all the steps?” Vallen asked, his eyes never leaving her body as she walked toward them. Her breasts bounced lightly as she smoothly walked toward them, her raspberry-colored nipples teasing him behind their veil of cream-tinted cloth. She looked like some forbidden dessert.
“Of course. The first step is already completed,” she smiled, looking at the two lit candles in the corner. “The next step, which must be completed within an hour once started and with the same writing instrument, is the circle of magic. It must be used within three hours, or it loses its power,” she answered, walking around the altar to the long table on the side.
She had heard from Vallen that they hadn’t seen the circle on the floor the night they were cursed because the noblewoman had completed it earlier and covered it with carpeting. The altar was simply a drinking table where they had finished off several bottles of rice wine, already too drunk to walk straight before they had even sat down.
It had been easy for the woman to start to undress them. She had spread a bit of her body’s sexual liquid over their lips and then began with Vallen, who had been too drunk to care who was pleasuring him.
It wasn’t until she had cut her hand and wiped the blood on their stomachs that he began to suspect, but before he could do anything, she had already completed the short invocation incantation and that’s when the pain had started.
Shumei gingerly picked up the chalk on the side table and then turned around, taking one step away from the table. She knew that the two demons on the altar were watching her over their shoulders, but it didn’t affect her concentration. She was determined to make this work, to make it work for them.
Slowly squatting down and closing her eyes, she touched the chalk to the wooden floor and began to draw, her arm moving in wide sweeps and zipping around the corners of the arrow frills. She stepped carefully, her feet not touching the chalk just yet, and was halfway around the room in only five minutes. She heard whispers from the altar but ignored them, continuing around the room until she reached the spot where she had started, finishing the circle with one final sweep of her arm.
Opening her eyes, she saw that only a small piece of her chalk was left and was grateful that she hadn’t run out. Other circles required even more detail than this one.
“Wow,” Rosuke complimented, still boasting an amazing hard-on as he stared unabashedly at her breasts under the pale veil of her robe.
“It looks perfect to me,” Vallen gruffly complimented, also staring unabashedly.
“Are you talking about the circle?” she laughed, standing up.
“Of course not,” Rosuke responded impatiently, his hips wiggling in eagerness. She walked the short distance to the altar, standing on the side where her two subjects sat.
“The third step is to acquire the main spell component—man’s essence,” she answered, slowly unknotting the belt to her misty robe. Both demons watched intently, lips just slightly ajar. “Who’s first?” she asked.
“Me,” Vallen growled, his voice already started to drop in pitch. She felt her heart beat faster with a burst of adrenaline and looked at her lover, whose chest rose and fell with his hastened breaths. With gentle nudges from her fingers, her robe slunk open and slipped past her shoulders until it fell down her arms to cling to the bends of her elbows. A long, hot slide of arousal filled her, undoubtedly Vallen’s reaction, and she watched with parted lips as his erection began to subtly twitch as it kept time with his heartbeat.
“Are you ready?” she breathily asked, attempting to keep her cool by planting her hands on her hips, but she didn’t think she quite pulled it off.
“I’ll always be ready for you,” he answered, leaning back and bracing his hands on the altar as he widened his knees to make room for her.
The picture he made practically had her drooling—his smooth, pale, well-toned chest, his powerful thighs and the look in his eyes. She felt her cheeks flush with desire. Her breasts ached to be touched. She reached up to test their sensitivity and began to roll her own nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. Licking her bottom lip, she watched as his back stiffened. He bit down on his lip, closing his eyes and breathing through his nose.
A quick look at Rosuke confirmed that he was watching her as if watching the end of the world. He was completely mesmerized.
Sliding one hand down her body and between her thighs, she looked at Vallen again, who had opened his eyes once more. She had never touched herself in front of him before…She knew from the first slide of her finger between her lower lips that she was wet just from being watched.
“Shumei,” he pleaded, watching with small pants as she found and massaged her clit, rolling it gently beneath the pad of her longest finger while her other hand was occupied with her breast.
She pressed a second finger between her lips, using both to press and massage the pearl of nerves under its silky cap.
“By the gods,” Rosuke whispered, his voice also starting to lower in pitch.
“Come to me,” Vallen pleaded, one hand reaching toward his lap, but he fisted his fingers, resisting the urge to stroke himself. He abruptly groaned, his eyes closing again. She had slid one finger inside of herself.
“Suck me, please!” he begged, his voice booming and making the paper wall near her shake.
She pulled her hand away, stepping forward to begin the third step of the ritual, and he smoothly grasped her hand, bringing her fingers to his mouth and sucking the moisture from them, his tongue warm and smooth as it thrust between and around her fingers.
“Vallen,” she sighed, her breathing getting out of control as he stared at her with lustful eyes. He then brought his other hand around and pushed her to her knees, releasing her fingers from his mouth. She obediently knelt on one of the many pillows lining the edge of the altar on the floor and he pulled her head forward with a fist in her hair. She simply opened her mouth, watching as his other hand guided his glistening member between her lips. She heard his sigh of relief once her lips had closed around him.
“Take it,” he growled, pulling her closer until her lips had slid halfway down. She pulled back then, bobbing her head. He hissed, both hands cupping the back of her head and following her rhythm. She reached up and curled her arms around his waist, bracing her arms across his thighs.
“Gorgeous…you’re so gorgeous,” he gaspingly complimented her, watching her soft pink lips. His eyes were squinted as she sucked him, his vision a little watery, but he watched closely, loving the way her mouth looked.
His gasps were harsh, sounding more like groans of agony than pleasure. Several times his back stiffened and then relaxed, as if pain were shooting through his spine, but it wasn’t pain at all. It was jolts of pleasure.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
She continued bobbing her head, sucking him into her mouth and hoping that her heart didn’t burst inside her chest. Her thighs had been shaking for quite a while now, and she began to feel a small trickle of liquid seeping down her thigh as the pleasure rose up inside. A wet heat was burning inside her sex, making it feel as if were budding open like a morning flower under the heat of the sun.
It was coming. The warm hands of his lover were curled tightly around his sides, and he forced himself to take his hands off her head, placing them on the altar behind him. His buttocks flexed as he mildly thrust up into her hot mouth, his face pointed at the ceiling.
“Gods, yeah…swallow all of it, all of it,” he groaned. Rosuke still sat there watching them, his fists shaking as he restrained himself from touching the erection screaming for his attention, his lungs feeling smaller than usual
. He knew Vallen wasn’t reminding her of anything…he was simply talking dirty.
She felt his body suddenly jerk, and the roar began to explode from his throat as he shot into her mouth. She felt her eyes begin to water as she swallowed, the taste strange. Her own pleasure was rippling through her innermost muscles, and the first tears began to roll down her cheeks as she swallowed a third time, a fourth time.
“Keep swallowing,” he gasped out. “Suck me dry.” Rosuke noticed that his friend’s arms were trembling, and the knuckles of his fists were white as they gripped handfuls of the red cloth.
He couldn’t wait for his turn.
She coughed, but one of her hands quickly came around and cupped the bit that had dribbled down her chin. His softening member fell from her lips, and she licked her palm clean before looking around to see if she had missed any.
That’s when he collapsed back on the altar.
“Vallen! Are you okay?” she cried out. She pulled herself to a stand, barely able to keep her feet under her, and leaned over the altar from the side to look at his face. Rosuke leaned down from where he was sitting to check on his friend.
“Hey, Vallen. Did she kill you?” he joked, lightly slapping his cheeks.
“I’ll be fine…in a few days,” his friend smiled with closed eyes.
“By the gods, Vallen, you scared me!” She scolded him, punching his shoulder none too lightly. She half-laughed though, looking at the smile on his face. Apparently, she had greatly satisfied him, which boosted her confidence no small bit.
She had been greatly afraid that she would be unable to completely consume the spell component since she had never tried to actually swallow his seed. If any had spilled from her mouth and touched the floor, the spell would have been useless. This had been the mistake that the noblewoman had made so many years ago, resulting in Rosuke’s red hair.
She wanted to make sure that both of them were fully restored as humans.