Demon Lust

by Raisa Greywood

  "Witch," he said in a raspy whisper before taking in a deep breath. She could tell he was trying to yell, although his volume didn't increase any thanks to her spell. "Witch."

  "Murderer," she hissed back. His face fell, tightened, his eyes closed. Guilt suffused his expression, even over the panic and fear. "Speak true," she said, her voice coming out in a harsh whisper. "My village that you helped to destroy but a few days ago—the village of Werth... why?"

  She had not felt the urge to question any of the previous soldiers that she'd visited vengeance upon, it had not mattered to her. The circumstances in which she'd found them had shown them clearly to be brutal men who would not stop raping, harming and killing without some kind of intervention. But this man... this man surrounded by family and children, with no clear intent of harming anyone... faced with this man, she needed to know.

  To her shock, the blood seemed to drain from his face, and he looked both miserable and ashamed.

  "It was my last job," he said, and she could hear the regret in his voice. "It was the last I had to do before I could retire and be with my family..."

  "Did you rape? Did you kill?"

  "No, I did not rape." He looked away as though he couldn't face her, his muscles straining to escape from the frozen hold she'd put his body in. His voice remained low, as she wished it to be, so that others would not be able to hear that he was speaking to someone. "I killed... but only those who fought back, who put themselves in my way. I did not... I did not approve of our mission."

  "Why, why were you there?"

  "We were searching for someone," he muttered, staring at the ground. It was obvious that something about the destruction of her village had bothered him, was troubling his conscience. To Lyana's mind, that wasn't nearly enough of a punishment. "A spy. He had settled in Werth... we had to bring him to justice."

  "And the rest of it?" Lyana's voice rose in anger, in disbelief. "The rape, the torture, killing everyone?"

  He shook his head and a tear ran down his face. Clenching her fists, she tried to control her rage. Just seeing his regret was only making her angrier. "Things got out of control. The Commander... he likes to... he's not..." Suddenly his head swung up and he looked at her full in the face. His expression was tormented. "I did not want to be part of his troop anymore. I retired to get away from his command."

  Staring at him, Lyana felt her lips press together into a thin line. "Why did you not say something?" she whispered hoarsely, her every word an accusation. "Do something."

  "I don't know... I wish I had," he looked at her with his eyes full of remorse. "I just wanted to get out and away."

  "It would have been too much trouble to report him to his superiors? He would have made life hard for you? You were worried the others in your troop would back him and not you?" From the way he flinched back from the venom in her voice she knew that she was correct. "Coward."

  "I do not deny it," he murmured, lowering his head.

  Her rage pulsed, but at the same time she couldn't stop the thoughts in her mind. As much as she wanted to make a scapegoat of him, she knew that he was not where the evil came from. Yes, he was a man who allowed evil to exist, who tried to run from it or push it from his mind, who tried to ignore it unless it directly involved him, but he was not the source of the destruction rained down upon her village and given the choice he would instigate no evil.

  But his cowardliness, his decision to stand by while others committed atrocities was not something that should go unpunished.

  "I should kill you where you stand," she muttered bitterly, not even realizing that she was speaking until he began to plead.

  "No, please don't," he begged. "I have a family... children... grandchildren... they're just getting to see me now..."

  "I had a family too," she raged at him, clenching her fists in her skirt. "You do yourself no favors to remind me that you and your comrades have robbed me of what you yourself treasure. I watched my sister be raped, she died in my arms. My friends, my neighbors..." Lyana's voice broke as tears surged and she choked them back down. She would not cry in front of this worthless worm of a man. "I want vengeance and I will have it."

  The man in front of her shook. "I am sorry... I truly, truly am. I wish I could have done things differently."

  "And so you will... in the future," she said, her mind twisting around to what seemed like a truly just solution. Reaching out her hand, she touched his shoulder, the same way she had seen his daughter do so. Beneath her hand he flinched, but he was unable to move away. Her voice had a hollow sound to it as she willed her magic to lay down the exact specific spell she wanted, which was quite detailed. "Whenever someone you love or care about needs your help, your muscles will wither, and you will be unable to lend your aid. Every night you will dream about my village, you will re-live every moment and see every opportunity you had to change things or to help someone that you did not take. Every time you take a stranger's part, every time you seek to do good for someone you do not know, that night you will be free of the dream."

  When she released him, he shook and fell to his knees, looking rather terrified. Obviously, he knew that she had some power over him, considering the way she'd frozen him and forced him to speak the truth—not that he seemed like a usually dishonest person.

  While she didn't know whether or not anyone he cared about would ever be in need of his assistance, she felt that it was just that he be as helpless as she had been when she'd watched her people destroyed. Would that mean that those he cared about might suffer? Yes, but he had no one to blame but himself. Since she did not plan on ensuring that those he loved and cared about would ever be in danger, she felt that it was fair. He would always know that he would be useless to help them, which would prey on his mind. The dreams seemed like a fair twist on it.

  In fact, she got a rather deep sense of satisfaction out of his punishment. He would be helpless to protect those whom he cared about, just as she had been, but he would be able to redeem himself somewhat by providing that aid to others. Actually, if he wanted to escape his guilt and the dreams then he would be forced to act for others, which he had been too cowardly to do for the village of Werth. And in the meantime, his own guilt and shame would be inescapable, it would not fade for the rest of his life and he would not be able to ignore it since he would have a nightly reminder. There was quite a bit of justice in her vengeance and, as she stared down at his shocked and kneeling form, she found that she quite liked that.

  Setting a light touch on his head, she made him immobile for the next two minutes. Just long enough for her to be on her way, using her traveling spell, far enough that he wouldn't be able to catch her. In his state he might not even know what direction she had gone in.

  Within minutes she was back on the road, feeling strangely conflicted as she headed towards her next goal, the clump of soldiers that were still together. She assumed that when she found them, she would also find the evil commander that the soldier had referenced.

  When Werth had first been destroyed, she'd been overcome with a need for vengeance, yet the deaths of the soldiers since that time had made her feel unclean. It wasn't just that she had caused a few of them pain before bringing a merciful end, although that was part of it. She'd wanted to make them hurt... yet when it had come time to do so, she had ended their torture much sooner than they had done for others. Yet she still thirsted for their blood. In the abstract sense she still pictured tormenting their bodies, making them scream, wracking them with agony.

  It was so much easier to imagine it than it was to follow through.

  Especially because of the punishment that followed. And that was another source of confusion for her. The conflicting faces of Leonard. As she pondered the demon's actions, she distractedly noted that the road beneath her feet was changing. The dirt was well pounded, by many feet, and growing broader. Wherever the troop that she was following was headed, it seemed to be towards a large population. Perhaps even a real city. A month ago, s
he would have been excited at the prospect of seeing a city, now that she was headed for one, she found that her mind was too focused on other, more important things, to have any real anticipation.

  The punishments that Leonard put her through were awful. Enough so that she certainly considered them a deterrent. Why, she only had to rub too hard at her chafed nipples to know that she didn't want to be tortured again. The painful climaxes that came at the end of each punishment session with him only added to her humiliation and degradation. Yet, at the same time, she accepted that she should pay in some way for taking lives. Even if there was some justice in what she was doing, at least in her eyes, the truth was that she was still as much a murderer as the men who had destroyed her village. Unlike them, she was paying for her transgressions immediately... and would continue to pay after her death, as her soul belonged to Leonard.

  But he had another face as well. That handsome human form that he had come to her in. That form was almost tender with her, bringing her pleasure without torment. She suspected that last night he had cared for her wounds, after causing them. The 'why' escaped her, but the fact remained that there seemed to be much more to him than Black Magic and punishment.

  Her musings didn't end until she topped a hill and found herself looking down at a sight she'd never seen before.

  The buildings sprawled outwards from the center, crowded together so closely that from this distance it looked like there was almost no space between them. The tiny figures of people moving along the narrow streets looked like ants, milling about each other in close confines. Colors ran riotous on the buildings, some of them bright, some of them dark. There was a long wall encasing the majority of the buildings, but there were quite a few buildings outside of the wall as well—almost looking as if they were huddled against it for protection that it couldn't actually provide. The arrangement made it look as though the city was a cup that had overflowed, spilling buildings and people outside of its wall.

  At the center of this sprawling conglomeration was a palace made of white stone, its walls and towers rising higher than any of the other buildings in the city. It was obviously the hub around which the rest of the city turned, a focal point that would always be visible from both the inside and outside of the city. As she stared at this glorious monument to power, Lyana realized that she had followed the troop, not just to any city, but to the capital. And they were nearing the palace.

  Strange emotions surged in her. Triumph, that all the rest of the men she was hunting were finally in one place. Reluctance to proceed with her task, reluctance to face the kind of punishment that she knew would come her way for killing so many men. There were at least ten of them left. Anger, at herself for feeling such reluctance. And hidden beneath these, a kind of innocent excitement, at her first sight of a city and a palace, wondering at the strange novelty of it all. Lyana had not realized that she had any innocence left, after all that she had been through, but those emotions of excitement and awe belonged to a younger version of herself, one who had not suffered the things that she had. One who would have never considered doing the things that she had done.

  More confused than ever, Lyana began to walk down the hill, heading for the city.

  She got a room at an inn, not one of the best nor the worst, but near enough to the palace. The innkeeper himself was a garrulous cheerful man, eager to impress the beautiful young woman with his knowledge of all the happenings of the city, all the most important gossip. As he showed her to her room, he chattered on about the return of one of the princes, not the heir but one of his younger brothers, with a troop of his men. They had just completed an important mission, ridding the country of a traitor and they would be making a full report of their triumph to the court tomorrow.

  Anger and the unfettered urge to do something filled Lyana. The soldier that she'd met this morning had not informed her that the commander of the raiders was a prince. No wonder he'd been afraid to speak up. Still, that did not absolve him, and she did not regret the punishment that she'd set him. Hiding her rising emotion behind a calm social smile, she blandly thanked the innkeeper and requested that he send a bath. That done, she inspected the room. It was clean, obviously well kept. Out of the window she had a good view of the palace, as she'd requested a room on one of the top floors. Perhaps tonight she could go there. Either find out more information or even have her revenge before the prince and his men were lavished with affection and adulation.

  Her lips twisted.

  No, she would not reach them before they received plenty of praise for their actions, although she had noticed that the innkeeper's tale had said nothing of the depredations visited on the village that the spy was found in. Was it possible that the men were hiding the viciousness of their attack? That they did not want others to know? Or were they holding back the juicier tidbits for tomorrow when all eyes would be on them? It was something she needed to know.

  Chapter 6

  A knock on the door distracted her thoughts and she opened it to allow the footmen entrance. They silently filled the tub with the buckets of tepid water that they'd brought up, just barely warm enough to bathe in. Once they were gone, she turned to the bath with a secret smile. While she had not expected anything more than lukewarm water, at least now she could take care of that situation herself. Touching her fingertip to the water she stirred in, feeling the heat and steam rise as her magic flared, until the bath was hot enough to be enjoyable.

  Quickly divesting herself of her clothing, Lyana stepped into the tub, giving a small shudder as she sank into the steaming water. It was almost too hot to be pleasant, but the scalding sensation also helped her to feel less grimy. Giving a small moan of satisfaction she laid her head back, just wanting to rest for a few moments and enjoy soaking herself, drawing the heat and cleanliness into her body.

  Ripples stirred in the water and her eyes flew open, if she hadn't already been pressed against the back of the tub she would have jerked backwards. Leonard's handsomely human male face was in front of her, a small smile on his lips, his finger making little patterns in the water that had caused the ripples she'd felt. Those strange flat, black eyes with gleams of red studied her as she stared back at him, her mouth suddenly dry. She couldn't deny that she felt a sensual attractive to Leonard in this form, especially when she remembered the pleasure that he and the water demon had given her the last time she'd bathed.

  The silence stretched between them, fraught with tension that she felt throughout her body. The water gently lapped against her breasts, almost caressing her as Leonard continued to move his fingers in small circles, much the way she had as she'd heated it. Not once did his eyes leave hers, daring her to look away first. The gentle play of the water against her skin reminded her of her previous aquatic activities with him, a consequence that she was sure he intended. Crimson flared in her cheeks, heat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water she was encased in.

  Just as she was about to speak, anything to cut the gathering tension, Leonard's smile broadened and he spoke in his deep, rolling voice. "You were thinking of me today."

  And she'd thought that her face couldn't get any more red. His fingers drifted closer to her. Although she wanted to cover herself with her hands and arms, she also didn't want to allow him to win. The same reason she hadn't looked away from those fathomless black eyes yet, despite the disturbing red flares in their depths. He was so handsomely human except for those eyes. Doing her best not to move, she gripped the edges of the tub tighter as she stared back at him.

  "Why do you keep appearing when I'm bathing?" It was a distraction from his statement and they both knew it. A minor victory for him but not a major one. Leonard chuckled and moved his hand, Lyana jumped a little as his finger brushed against her nipple and silently cursed as she realized that the little bud was already ruched into a beaded point.

  "It's so... convenient," he drawled, sliding his hand over and cupping her breast. Lyana knew that her body was his to do with as
he wished, promised to him in exchange for the black magic that he'd bestowed upon her, but that didn't mean she had to respond to him the way that she did. The trouble was, she couldn't figure out how to stop. She stifled a moan as he brushed his finger over her breast, her lips parting automatically as he leaned closer, a look in his eyes that she couldn't quite interpret. "You're already unclothed, ready for me to touch you however and wherever I wish, washing away the dirt of the day."

  His lips pressed very gently against hers as he caressed her breast and the air seemed to seize in Lyana's lungs as she realized that she wanted him to kiss her harder, more deeply. But he made no move to do so and she wouldn't allow herself to press back against his lips, to allow her actions to ask for it. Their lips barely touched as he gripped her breast more tightly, rubbing his thumb over the hard bud of her nipple in an extremely provocative manner that made her want to writhe. Beneath the surface of the water her leg muscles tightened, her thighs rubbing together with miniscule movements.

  When Leonard pulled away, relinquishing his grip on her breast, she wasn't sure whether or not she was relieved. The touch of his hand had awakened a throbbing need in her core that left her anxious and wanting, one that she wasn't sure she could satisfy without him.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked, to distract herself as much as because she was curious.

  Leonard just raised on arrogant eyebrow at her. "Because I wish to be." He seemed to consider his words. "I want to help you bathe."

  And he began to do just that. Lyana kept her hands on the edge of the tub, allowing him to wash her body with the bar of soap that he'd found without either protest or help. Each slick stroke of the soap against her skin seemed to heighten her need and she closed her eyes against Leonard's knowing gaze, ignoring his chuckle as she did so. She'd never known that being bathed could be quite so erotic, even his hands massaging her back seemed to awaken nerve endings elsewhere, making her tingle deliciously all over.