Ringmaster

by Aurelia T. Evans

  Though he maintained his painful grip on her wrist, he lifted his other hand from her waist and tucked her long hair behind her ear in a gesture that bewildered her with its tenderness, especially in conjunction with the emotionlessness on his face. He stroked down the full length of the lock of hair, curving his palm familiarly over her ass at the end.

  It was times like this that a woman struggled to know how to address a man without a name who refused to communicate with her in any way but his touch—and she was receiving such mixed signals.

  “Sir?” It was all she could call him. Just calling him ‘Ringmaster’ seemed strange when they were alone…and too close to calling him ‘Master’. He could rule the ring with his leather fist all he wanted, but he was no master to her. The closest to that was Bell, and in that case, it was more that he was the boss.

  She’d never subjected herself to the Ringmaster’s unique form of mastery, and what they had once a month was not mastery of a less unique variety. They both had a hand in those encounters. Both had a guillotine blade above their reputations if those encounters were made known. On those nights, they met on even ground, if not as equals.

  He combed his fingers through her hair again. When they caught in the middle on someplace that had knotted, he pulled her head back. His eyelids were almost closed as he brought her against him. His gaze trailed down from her eyes to her mouth to the visual of cleavage pressed against his chest.

  As he loosened his hold on her wrist, sliding his hand down her arm, he lowered himself to bring his mouth near hers.

  Kitty gave a soft whimper—not quite from fear—when he tangled his other hand in the hair at her temple, cradling her head in his palm as he parted his lips. He breathed her in and gave a low groan like wind through rafters. Then he closed what distance was left between them, claiming her lips, again with uncharacteristic tenderness. She shuddered, places inside her melting that she hadn’t known had been frozen. She made another sound almost like a moan, but he cut her off, bending her back and taking possession of her mouth. Kitty clutched his jacket to stay upright, but she had to depend on him not to drop her or throw her to the ground. She didn’t trust him a whit outside their usual arrangement, but she had no choice.

  The Ringmaster was slow, methodical, immovable, unstoppable. He hit her like the warm, slow roll of hot buttered rum low in her belly. She capitulated, a delicate flower under his boot, and all he was doing was kissing her, although Kitty still didn’t know why. The why gradually meant less the more his kiss filled her head, crowding out the harmless infestation of other thoughts that seemed more and more unimportant the longer he kissed her like this.

  Tender, yes, but not kind—like the careful braiding not of hair but of a whip.

  He lifted his head. She strained to keep the kiss going, catching his lower lip between hers before he was too far above her.

  “What was that about?” Kitty asked, staring up into that blackness, no stars in them this time. No, this time he blotted out the stars motionless in the sky, a massive shadow over her.

  He traced her cheekbone with his thumb. She remembered the caress of his claw, but he didn’t transform, just loomed over her—a terrifyingly beautiful man who wouldn’t or couldn’t speak to her.

  It wasn’t just her corset that made her breathing shallower. He trailed the rough edge of his nail down her jaw, the cord of her neck, the swell of her breast, the brocade of the corset, to her thigh under her thin skirt. This one was a full skirt because she didn’t have to show her legs or her shape when there were no customers to show them to, but he grasped her thigh jealously, stroking the inner flesh with his thumb before relinquishing her once again.

  He wrapped each finger of his hand around her wrist again and guided her to the front of his leather trousers. Lady Sasha was a sorceress with leather. It was always the best quality and wore and weathered better than anything that Kitty could purchase anywhere else. The leather under her palm was so smooth it was nearly textureless, like little more than a thicker layer of skin. It was difficult to see in this darkness, but she remembered what his legs looked like in them—leather clinging to the muscles of his thighs and calves in a fearful embrace, with just enough give that it called even more attention to their contours.

  It wasn’t his legs that he had her touch.

  Lady Sasha’s work was so good, Kitty could practically feel the ridges and veins of his cock. Its heat, however, was irrefutable. He was broad against her palm. She wouldn’t be able to wrap her fingers all the way around. No one was as big as Ciàran, of course, but just because she had a basis for comparison didn’t mean his size failed to intimidate her every time. It was a consequence of being human and not instinctively accepting ‘magic’ as the solution to the simple geometry problem.

  She’d had that cock buried deep inside her where an erection had no business being. That fantasy was only as good as the Ringmaster wanted it to be. It could easily turn into a nightmare. But here in Arcanium, it wasn’t a nightmare that Bell permitted. The Ringmaster knew this better than anyone, having dealt the punishments for such attempts. So all the erection behind that thick leather could give her was the pleasure it had always given her.

  The Ringmaster covered her hand with his and moved it over the bulge that his cock made, stroking himself with her from the base of the shaft to the tip. Slowly, the way he’d kissed her, as though he wanted to brand it into her mind the way he was branding her palm.

  When he pulled his hand away from hers, she didn’t stop. Kitty was getting lightheaded, as though the heavens above were spinning—or as though it was Arcanium itself.

  He closed his fingers around her throat, forcing her chin up and her head back again. He didn’t tighten his grip, but the threat of harm was there. Ever the threat. The only thing keeping him from doing the things he threatened were the rules.

  And every demon flouted Bell’s rules at least once.

  He pressed his mouth against her cheek, almost nuzzling her with the trimmed bristle of his goatee, his breath prickling wet heat against her skin.

  “Katharine,” he whispered.

  She grasped his chin and forced his mouth against hers to give herself over to his kiss. They stumbled to the canvas of the big top tent, where he pushed her against the rough material that caught at her swinging hair like fingers.

  No one called her that. None of the men she regularly slept with. Not Bell or Maya or Caroline or Joanne and Jane or Valorie or Ciàran and Moss. Not even her family had called her Katharine. It had been Katie until they’d realized that she hadn’t been able to say Katie at the time.

  The way he said her name, it was like a spell—the deepest, darkest spell he could think of, and she was helpless to resist. The only consolation was that it seemed to affect him just as much.

  He delved into her, plundered her like a cave of priceless treasures, holding her neck as though on the brink of choking her to death. His spiciness filled her head in a haze, of leather and demon under the guise of man. She tasted nothing but him, the insistent invasion of his tongue over and over her until it was as though he were fucking her face, taking it in the worst and best way.

  In her tent, his groans would fill the room like pervasive smoke. But out here, all she could hear was the breeze flapping loose canvas.

  And all the while, Kitty clutched at his thick hair and continued to stroke his cock through the leather. She quickened her pace as he kissed her harder, holding his width more firmly when he conjured the first moan from her—the first of many, a litany of blasphemous hymns to him for what he was doing to her, what he had made of her.

  He tightened his grip on her neck, closing off more of her air until pleasure crackled through her like the light and shadow blooming on the darkness of her eyelids. He drank her climax, his soft groan a rumble of vibration through her sensitized flesh.

  The Ringmaster retreated his mouth from hers, slightly shaking her by the neck as though restraining himself from really throttl
ing her as a few more breathless sighs of pleasure escaped her lips.

  He let go of her and slammed his hands against the tent. He scrabbled fruitlessly on the canvas for something to hold as she stroked him toward his own orgasm. She was as unforgiving as he, relishing each uncontrollable thrust of his hips.

  She cupped him and squeezed the head in a discordant rhythm until she could finally hear his pleasure as more than a hum over her skin or inside her body. If he had to make her cry out for anyone to hear, she wanted to do the same to him. Mutually assured destruction. It was more habit and desire than anything. She was finding it hard to really care about anyone catching them right now.

  At least until the Ringmaster grabbed her wrist again and spun her around, shoving her against the big top tent once again. This time, when she looked over her shoulder and noticed his jaw clench, it was from anger, not restraint.

  “You’re the one who wanted me where anyone could find us,” Kitty said.

  He pulled her hair into a tail to expose her bare shoulder. With his eyes blacker than the sky, the opposite of a glow and yet somehow just as intense, he lowered his lips to her neck.

  It was beyond her comprehension that a demon who caused so much pain and liked it could make her body feel so good with just a touch—by the sheer force of his will and power, as far as Kitty knew. He kissed her neck until she sobbed out another sweet, lingering orgasm into the canvas and hoped no one was on the other side of it.

  Before she could ask him again what the hell this whole dangerous interlude had been about, the Ringmaster melted into the shadow, his jacket like a clot of blood in the night. Her own blood rushed and roared in her ears. The coolness of the night hit her hard enough to raise gooseflesh in his sudden absence.

  Kitty panted against the canvas of the big top, confused, boneless, her whole body singing with arousal that had not been satisfied with just orgasm. As an undertone, the memory of Victor’s grief and a cold worm of guilt that she’d taken such pleasure with another man—a demon—while he suffered in pain, alone. In that whole time, had she thought of Victor once? Should she have?

  He told me to stay away, and I was never his. I made that clear to him. He accepted that, always has.

  I’m not his.

  Chapter Seven

  The next week was practically normal for Kitty.

  Normal meant that the Ringmaster hadn’t accosted her outside their usual time and place—if indeed he had done it at all, since Kitty was unsure whether the whole incident hadn’t been some kind of elaborate dream.

  Normal meant that Victor hadn’t stayed overnight in her tent or requested that she join him in his trailer, in spite of the sexual charge of the performance nights. She slept with her afghan folded at the bottom of her bed to let the early autumn air cool her flushed skin as she let her imagination run wild.

  At first, the silence was a little stifling, but after a night or two, she resumed her usual routine, settling into it like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes.

  She didn’t have any other man to call when Arcanium moved on after just one weekend and arrived in a new location, so the incubus magic settled into her like restlessness. It made her feel alive the way releasing it through sex made some of the others feel alive, during these times when the magic was thick and sweet as honeysuckle in summer. It did the same for her, of course, but not having the sex was just as good in its own way.

  This time Arcanium attached to a Halloween festival on the woodsy outskirts of a metropolitan area. During the day, it had a number of family-friendly events and games, but after eight, it became a haunted theme park. Arcanium’s hours were extended to accommodate the later hours of the park.

  The evening performances had been abbreviated to an hour and fifteen minutes instead of more than two, focusing on the big numbers instead of including the myriad small acts in between. This allowed Arcanium to put on two performances each night so that people could enjoy more of the rest of Arcanium and the park attractions at their discretion.

  Halloween was Arcanium’s best time of year. It was the time when they were most in demand, which was why they had never put down pegs in the same place twice for Halloween over a ten-year period. It was also the time when the demons of Arcanium could reveal even more of themselves in the name of the fearful season. Only Bale was completely himself twenty-four-seven.

  All three clowns went delightfully creepy with their face paint to create the illusion that they were just as murderous as they actually were—instead of just Murphy, who always wore his monster face.

  Ciàran, Moss and Lennon wore their real faces. For Ciàran and Moss, all that changed were their teeth, predator-sharp, and their eyes, black all the way through like most demons. Lennon transformed his dark good looks into sickly chartreuse skin, webbing between his fingers and shark-like teeth. The part that really excited customers was his hair—smooth, black tentacles that wriggled and writhed of their own accord. Yet another mystery to tantalize the common public.

  Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha couldn’t change all the way because only those of jinn blood could ever see an incubus or succubus in its true form, but they let their eyes go black. Lady Sasha also went more gothic and elaborate with her outfits—slightly more coverage than usual—and she stopped by Kitty’s tent for her collection of makeup to add some darker colors to her face, which she usually kept plain or classic. Lady Sasha didn’t need help being gorgeous.

  The humans got into the Halloween spirit as well. Kitty would wake up early to do Maya’s face as a sugar skull at her request, which paired beautifully with her gothic outfits that suited her so well. Troy already looked like Halloween all year, but Christina, Caroline and Joanne and Jane followed Lady Sasha’s suit and went adventurous, dark and dramatic with their makeup. Valorie took a nod from the clowns and often went creepily beautiful—or downright grotesque when the mood hit her.

  The Cyclops and the Rotting Man were sufficiently scary-looking on their own, so they wore the costumes that Lady Sasha or Kitty gave them but didn’t need much additional help, nor did they want it. John, the fire-eater, was still too withdrawn to participate beyond what he was required to do, and Seth and Lars weren’t quite ready to get much further into the Halloween spirit than the leatherwear they always wore.

  However, Misha did get into the spirit, in spite of all his harsh years with Arcanium. Misha had his face painted like skinless musculature with Troy’s help. Misha’s friend, Carlo, did his part too. While Christina lacked both arms and legs, Carlo still had his arms. He loved to scare patrons by sitting at the picnic tables with a pair of stuffed legs loosely connected to his waist…only for him to climb away and freak out about how his legs had fallen off. There were quite a few videos of this prank online. It never disappointed.

  Victor was like Bale, Shawn and Marcus. He already looked like he’d been done up with airbrushes and prosthetics for hours without having to work at looking like anything else. This was helpful to him too, because it meant that, for now, he just had to show up on the Row while he dealt with his grief.

  For Kitty, it was pretty much Halloween all the time. The princess, mermaid and fairy skirts and corsets weren’t even costumes to her anymore. Her hairiness made makeup nearly impossible, although she sometimes wore mascara on her long eyelashes—one of the few aspects of her condition that other people actually envied. She occasionally dressed up as a pirate queen in summer for the medieval and Renaissance faires, but it never seemed appropriate for autumn and winter. She’d done a few werewolf costumes in the past, but it hadn’t sat well with her for the same reason she refused to be called the Human Ape or Wolf Girl.

  This year, she just took out the princess and fairy skirts and corsets that made her think most and best of the season—the deep reds, blacks and coppery oranges that brought out the red in her hair, the skull lace, the dead lady cameo brooches and necklaces, the delicate dark fairy wings that she worked on through the whole year for just such occasions. She could
n’t play with all the costumes she’d ever wanted to wear without seeming like she was trying too hard, but she made sure her wardrobe selection was extensive enough that she wouldn’t care.

  Halloween wasn’t only the most fun part of their year—and one that Arcanium usually extended well into the new year, when the circus went solo for indoor conventions—it was also their busiest time. The four days off became essential for the humans of Arcanium to get some much needed sleep after fourteen-hour work days.

  During the Halloween season, the golems were understandably tasked with taking coffee orders.

  Twice a day, Kitty received her shot of espresso—hot drink in the morning to warm her up, cold drink in the late afternoon or early evening. As per usual, she never saw the golem leave it behind. Those little zombies were dead useful creatures, much more discreet than any other circus crew in the world. A person would barely know they were there most of the time.

  Now she walked through the circus and park grounds in her copper corset embroidered with spider webs and the swirling silk skirt slit up both sides. Maya and Valorie could wear cute Halloween-themed stockings and tights, but Kitty could wear a headdress of monarch butterflies like nobody’s business.

  She sipped at her iced pumpkin latte and took pictures with the park cast and customers. She smiled as easily as ever, answered questions as friendly as ever, directed those she interacted with toward Arcanium as always. Under the influence of the seasonal excitement and the comfort of her routine, Kitty was at the best kind of peace with herself, where she was and what she was doing. The turmoil of the rest of the cast didn’t touch her when she was doing her job and doing it well.

  Kitty was about to take a sip from her coffee when a sharp tug at the bottom of her braid jerked her head back.

  “Ow!” Kitty covered the braid on the back of her neck and whirled around, her skirts twisting in a circle around her. But she didn’t retaliate or yell at the person behind her. She’d experienced that particular kind of yank before. The average teenager or adult would pull from the middle of her braid, not the bottom.