by A. H. Lee
Jessica smiled. “I seem to be caught between two very charismatic men.”
Mal turned to look at her, his green eyes gem-like beneath the dark tangle of his wind-blown hair. “Do you want to fuck him?” Before she could formulate a response, he answered his own question. “Of course you want to fuck him. Power is attractive. But he prefers men. Or did. It’s been years since I’ve sensed even a trace of sexual desire from him. Either he’s got himself so heavily shielded that I can’t see through his personal wards…or magic burned away all his ordinary desires a long time ago. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. He’s a fine one to talk about not being human.”
Jessica looked at Mal curiously. “Do you…like men, too?”
Mal shrugged. “I can feed on men as easily as on women. However, there are a lot more women who want to fuck me. I’m sure you’ll find something similar.”
Jessica smiled, a little self-conscious. “That…um…makes sense.” If what you’re going for is volume. “Although I think you could make almost anyone want to fuck you.” I wonder if I could.
Mal grunted. “Not him.”
Oh. “Did he hurt your feelings?”
“I’m not human; how could he?” But Mal didn’t look at her, and Jessica was beginning to get a mental picture: terrified fifteen-year-old Azrael, running from unspeakable horror, desperately trying to maintain control of the monster he’d summoned. And Mal, newly arrived in a bewildering world with adult language skills and a wealth of knowledge, but with no true understanding of how to interact with humans, bombarded with all sorts of frightening new sensations. How would a newly-summoned incubus understand love or comfort except through sex?
“You tried to seduce him,” said Jessica slowly. “And I bet he shut that down hard. Because he didn’t want you to keep trying.”
Mal shook his head. “You are making a romantic story out of something that is not at all romantic. Azrael always made it very clear what I was to him: a tool to be exploited; a monster in a cage; a dangerous, inhuman thing.”
He said the last word with such bitterness that Jessica winced. No wonder you told me that humans would mistreat me. “Mal,” she said gently. “I don’t think you understand how intimidating you are to a human.”
“To an ordinary human, yes! To him? I’m bound, Jessica! He knows my name; I don’t know his. Do you not understand what that means? If he tells me to strangle you tomorrow, I have to do it…or try. If he dies the wrong way, he could pull me down with him, and I’ll never get to go home. If he bequeaths me to an apprentice or heir, I can be handed down like furniture for generations. Or he could lock me in an object and give me away as a gift to whoever he likes. He has no reason whatsoever to be afraid of me!”
Mal had become so upset that Jessica let go of his hand and started rubbing his shoulders. “Shhh…”
“His own books say that you shouldn’t keep an astral demon for longer than three years. His own books, Jessica! He thinks he’s smarter than the best sorcerers who ever wrote on the subject!”
“Mal, please calm down.”
“I am going to devour him someday, and that’ll be his own fault. When he summoned me, he was destitute, and maybe three years would have been too soon, but he has other sources of power now. I’m just the easiest and the most comfortable for him. I’m convenient, that’s all.”
Jessica crawled into his lap and put her arms around him. Mal hugged her so hard it felt like he would crush her. “If he saw me as a person, he would have said ‘thank you’ by letting me go. But I’m not a person to him. He’s telling you what he thinks you want to hear because he wants to use you to better control me.”
Jessica laid her cheek against Mal’s stubble. She almost wished he were a panther so that she could rub his ears. “He asked me not to break your heart.”
That brought Mal’s monologue to a halt.
After a moment, Jessica added. “To him, sending you back to the astral plane is the same as killing you.”
“That’s stupid,” snapped Mal, but he didn’t say anything else.
Jessica combed her fingers through his hair. “Mal, when you fuck me…can you tell a difference? Between me and a normal human?”
“Of course. I’ve been… Nothing is the same since you.”
Jessica tried to hide her pleasure at this statement. “So now you know how that feels. Mal, when you take during sex, when you feed, it feels so good that I could almost say, ‘Go ahead and kill me.’ You don’t want to kill me, and maybe you couldn’t. You don’t want to kill regular humans, either. But you do want to kill Azrael. You’ve been threatening to kill him since you two met. I don’t think you understand how intimidating you are, even bound…and I don’t think he understands that you have feelings that can be hurt.”
“Nonsense,” muttered Mal, but with less force than before.
Jessica leaned into him, and Mal let her push him back onto the sand. A moment later, they were kissing. Mal rolled over on top of her. He smelled pleasantly of grass and an odor that reminded her of the cottonwoods beside the ornamental pond—sweet and earthy. He pressed his thigh between her legs—just enough pressure to make her want more. “So where did you grow up?”
Jessica gave a breathless laugh. “You’re asking now?”
“You said you wanted to talk about normal things.” Mal smirked as he unbuttoned her blouse with one hand. “Azrael does not count.”
Chapter 23. Normal Things
Jessica was wearing a tight undershirt beneath the blouse, but Mal had them both off in seconds. Jessica lay there looking up at him, feeling the wind against her bare breasts, his eyes drinking in her body, the whoosh of waves and the distant laughter of mermaids. I am a lucky girl.
“Well?” His voice came out low and husky.
“I grew up,” began Jessica as he kissed his way down her throat. “In the Provinces, which are allied city-states to the north— Oh!”
His lips moved down her breasts to a nipple. “Mmm-hmm?”
“Good gods, Mal. Alright. My parents are m-millers. Grandma has a fabric shop in town. I have two sisters and a brother, all of them younger. Oh!”
His fingers rubbed between her legs. The breeches were tight, the fabric thin, and she hadn’t worn underwear. Mal leaned up and murmured in her ear. “You’re soaking through these.”
Jessica flushed with an electric combination of embarrassment and arousal. “Well, you could take them off!”
“I could,” agreed Mal and kept rubbing. “What else?”
“We’re fairly well off,” babbled Jessica. “We live just outside of town. You can walk into the city in an hour. The roads are beautiful and safe and there are big trees and sheep and cows and horses…” She came against his fingers—little fluttery orgasms that stuttered through her body and made her want more.
“Mal…” she whimpered.
He laughed. “It sounds beautiful.”
“It is. It’s very quiet. I didn’t think I’d miss it, but now I…I kind of do. I suppose you’ve been to all kinds of places besides the Shrouded Isle.”
Mal leaned back on his knees, maintaining skin contact with one foot against her ankle. He peeled his shirt off over his head—a delicious spectacle of sliding muscles and taut stomach. She laughed. “I know why Azrael keeps you in panther form.”
Mal leaned over her. “Why?”
“You are exceedingly distracting like this.”
“To you.”
“To anyone who likes men!”
Mal scooted back, bent his head, and gave her crotch a long lick, still through the fabric of her breeches. It was maddening and Jessica said so, but he ignored her. After a moment, he stopped to say, “I have not been many places outside the Shrouded Isle. After we drove off the malevolent lake spirit that had been living here and started building this estate, Azrael mostly stayed. He prefers that people come to him, not the other way around. He likes to have perfect control over their encounters with each other and with me. Astonishin
g, right?”
“Mmm.” Jessica was panting and squirming. She reached down and unfastened her breeches. Mal caught at her wrists. “What were you saying about people who like to be in control?” Jessica remembered that invisible thread between them and gave it a tug.
Mal let go of her wrists, gave her breeches a hard jerk, and pulled them straight off her body. He buried his face between her legs, and now his tongue was inside her. Jessica groaned and arched her back. She wrapped her legs around his head. Just when she thought she was going to come again, Mal leaned back. He shimmied out of his own breeches with as much grace as he could while keeping one hand on her, and then buried his cock inside her.
Jessica moaned at the delicious sensation of fullness. She wrapped her legs around his well-muscled waist, her heels brushing his lovely ass, as he began to thrust.
So deep. It hurt for just a second and Jessica flinched. Mal’s eyes snapped open. Jessica gave a shaky smile. “S’alright. It’s…”
Mal moved down to his forearms on either side of her head, his mouth right over hers. They started kissing again, moving more slowly. In between kisses, she murmured, “You are a genuinely considerate lover.”
“I try.”
Jessica ran her hands over the muscles of his back, felt them shift and strain. He was speeding up again, and this time it did not hurt. She wrapped her legs around him, tilted her hips to pull him even more deeply inside her. She could feel him drawing energy through her in a dizzy loop of pleasure. She was quivering helplessly by the time her second orgasm hit. Mal, who’d obviously been holding himself back with some effort, buried his cock deep inside her and shuddered. He kept holding onto her as the spasms rippled through him.
When it was over, he tried to sit up, trembled, went back to hands and knees, laughed, and rolled over beside her, one arm sliding under her head. “Well, that was… Wow.”
Jessica scooted over to rest her head on his chest. “You’re amazing.”
“Oh, not just me.”
“You never knew what it was like,” she teased, “to have sex with a demon.”
“No, I did not.”
Jessica sat up. She felt wobbly, but at the same time thrumming with energy. “Let’s swim!”
“Wait, what?”
But she was already pulling Mal to his feet. “Where else are we going to swim with mermaids?”
“Demons don’t swim,” he objected as she pulled him towards the water.
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Also, I think it’s sad that you’ve hardly been outside the Shrouded Isle.”
“There are pocket worlds here,” said Mal as they splashed into the crystalline waves.
“And did you visit them after you realized you couldn’t feed on the inhabitants?”
“No.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “What a terrible waste.” She dipped her head under the water. “Come on, it’s not even deep. You don’t actually have to swim.”
Mal was standing as far towards shore as the reach of his arm would allow. He really doesn’t know how to swim, thought Jessica. Then she burst out laughing. “Because you’re a cat!”
“What?”
“How is your animal form decided, Mal? Do you choose it?”
He shook his head. “I can control a few things like the roughness of my tongue.” He was watching her breasts floating in the water.
“What about your human form?”
Mal came a little closer, bouncing up and down, experimenting with the buoyancy of the sea. “From what I understand, my human form is whatever my summoner finds most attractive. It has some fluidity at the beginning, but becomes fixed over time.”
Jessica waggled her eyebrows. “Well, then, I shall have to thank Azrael for his excellent taste.”
Mal snorted.
“Who does he sleep with anyway? If not you, who?”
Mal looked surprised. “No one. I’m pretty sure he’s a virgin.”
Jessica was horrified.
Mal tried to explain. “If he showed any sexual desire, any weakness, I could exploit it. He won’t risk losing control of me.”
“But that’s awful!” exclaimed Jessica. “He can’t… Because of you?” She remembered the expression on Azrael’s face when he’d said, “At first, I was not pleased with what I’d summoned.”
A fifteen-year-old boy who’d just learned that the cost of achieving his goals would be no sex ever? I’m sure he wasn’t pleased! “He paid a high price to keep you around.”
“Celibacy would be torture for you,” scoffed Mal, “but not for him. I told you, he’s not normal.” Mal rocked his head loftily. “And besides, I am extraordinarily useful.”
“Well, you’re certainly extraordinarily conceited.” Jessica gave a jerk of her hand and pulled him against her in the water.
Mal’s whole body went rigid, but Jessica kissed him on the nose, and that made him laugh. They were just deep enough to bounce lightly on the balls of their feet. Jessica was a good bit shorter, and so she couldn’t touch the bottom on the roll of the waves. “My father taught me to swim when I was six,” she said happily. “We were visiting the northern salt lakes, so I was mostly just floating and dogpaddling. Anybody can swim in salt water. My friend Yuli has been teaching me to swim in fresh water recently.”
“Your father?” said Mal with a trace of doubt.
“Yes, my— Oh, right.”
“I’m sure he’s very nice,” said Mal quickly, “and I’m sure he thinks he’s your father.”
Jessica watched as one of the mermaids circled them. Her breasts were small, but perfect, and her hair spread like oil over the waves. What an impractical design. No real sea creature could afford hair like that; it would get caught on something. Aloud Jessica said, “Actually, I think I know what happened with my parents.”
“It doesn’t mean your parents aren’t happy with each other,” said Mal cautiously.
Jessica laughed. “I’m sure they are. Like I said, I think I know—”
Mal’s head snapped around so abruptly that the mermaid bolted with a flourish of tail. “He’s calling me,” said Mal. “Fuck.”
Chapter 24. Trouble in the Tower
Mal dissolved in Jessica’s arms, melting into the panther. He turned and struggled towards the shore. Jessica clung to his shoulders. “Mal?”
“Have to go,” he said between clenched teeth. “Compulsion. Have to—” He growled as though in pain and moved faster.
On the beach, Jessica snatched up her clothes as they rushed past, leaving her boots and undershirt behind. She was afraid to stop. What if I can’t figure out how to get back without Mal? Then they were turning, impossibly, through the fabric of the world, and stepping out, wet and sandy, into the dim library among the stacks.
The first thing Jessica noticed was the absence of the illusory stream. Mal turned in the direction from which it had flowed and dashed between the shelves. Jessica ran after him as hard as she could pelt, terrified of losing her way. She noticed after only a few steps that the sensation of salt on her skin had vanished. She looked down to see her legs and feet perfectly dry and clean.
She was still, of course, completely naked, with her shirt and riding trousers clutched to her chest. Oh, well. It’s not like Azrael hasn’t seen me naked before. Mal and I will just have to plead love and the inability to keep our hands off each other.
She was relieved to see the break in the bookcases and Azrael’s tower looming like some enormous, gray tree. When she finally dashed into the clearing, Mal was nowhere in sight. Jessica crouched with her hands on her knees for a moment, gasping. She took the time to pull her blouse over her head and hop into her trousers before she approached the tower.
“Mal?” She was afraid to call too loudly. Should I just leave? Then maybe we won’t be caught at all. But the light was fading towards evening, and without the illusory stream, Jessica had no guide but her memory to take her back to the reading room. And no protection from the creatur
es in the stacks. The idea of traversing the library without the stream made her stomach churn. I’d rather risk Azrael’s anger. “Mal!”
She thought she heard a muffled response from high above. Jessica had reached the arched entrance to the tower. There was no door—just steps zigzagging upwards between landings.
“Jessica!” The cry came faintly from high above.
“Mal!” He sounded distraught. Jessica started up the steps. She was glad of her dancing and swimming lessons before she reached the top. I’m sure I would never have been able to climb so many steps without fainting a couple of months ago.
Nevertheless, she was seeing spots by the time she staggered up the last landing and finally encountered a door. It was sagging open, half ripped from its hinges, with deep claw marks in the wood. Jessica’s stomach did an unpleasant flop. Did Mal do that?
The scene in the room beyond drove any thought of the door from her mind. Mal, still in panther form, was dragging Azrael’s limp body out of a large chalk circle on the floor, leaving behind a long smear of blood. Jessica dimly registered the rest of the room—high windows in the walls, a desk with a massive black sword mounted above it, tables, shelves, a great deal of clutter, vials, candles, jars, bones. None of it seemed very important at the moment.
Mal dropped Azrael at the sound of Jessica’s footsteps and turned, eyes huge and wild. “I can’t drag him all the way down those stairs without killing him.” He turned to Azrael’s unmoving form and bellowed, “This is why I need thumbs, you idiot!”
Jessica knelt on the floor beside them. “Shouldn’t we figure out where all this blood is coming from first?” She rolled Azrael completely onto his back, and the source of the blood became horribly obvious. His dark suit and the white shirt beneath had been shredded. The mangled flesh of his chest was pumping bright crimson with every beat of his heart.
One glance at Azrael’s face told Jessica that he wouldn’t be offering them any advice. His eyes were half-closed and glassy. His normally porcelain skin had gone gray, his lips faintly purple. Jessica caught the flash of bone amidst the blood. The wounds were so deep that she thought she could see lung tissue moving in the cavity between two ribs.