It should have been… monstrous. Damaris’s body shifted underneath him, the demon shedding and changing his skin with a mere thought, his shadows milling around Archie’s ankles and calves. And instead, as the skin rippled right in his line of sight, Damaris’s chest became more human, forming nipples, and Archie choked on his laughter. “Oh gods!”
I do not understand why human men have these, said Damaris, bemused.
“Me either,” confessed Archie, his face red.
Yours are very sensitive.
Archie could feel his ears going red. He tried to pull away, but Damaris’s arm kept him in place. The demon didn’t say anything, but when Archie looked up, Damaris was watching him intently. They both knew that Damaris could sense the desire on him, no matter how much he tried to hide it. Archie closed his eyes.
Slowly leaning forward, Archie let himself go. He sank against the demon, his bare cheek pressing against Damaris’s chest, his fingers dipping into the soft fur, until Damaris held all of his weight. The tiny hairs along his arm prickled, as Damaris inhaled and breathed him in.
Damaris’s legs formed fully, he felt the broadness of the thigh solidify, and when he looked down, they were elongated like the hind legs of a beast. He thought he saw feet, and then cloven hooves, and then long furred claws with a raised ankle, tilting his knee forward so his legs were interspaced between Archie’s own. He was naked. Of course he was, but Archie had been successfully ignoring that until he was confronted with thefullnessof it rising against his belly.
Archie cleared his throat. His mouth was suddenly, inexplicably dry. He’d had his chance to run screaming, the moment that Damaris manifested as a mass of tendrils all those weeks ago. He hadn’t. Not because he was weak in the face of temptation, but because this was what he wanted. That demon who had come to him then and pressed him to the bed and touched him in his most intimate places, forcing him to confront his own pleasure, he hadn’t found that monstrous then. And he still didn’t now.
And yet, the words stuck in his throat. Knowing, acknowledging something in his heart was not quite the same as having the courage to say it aloud. At least not yet.How long can you maintain this form?
For the feast I can see it will give me? As long as you can stand it.Damaris leaned down, curling his fingers into Archie’s hair and gripping it so tight that Archie moaned, rising onto his tiptoes. When he kissed Archie, it was with a mouth full of too-sharp teeth that pressed like sharp pinpricks against his lips, each one a burst of pleasure.
Damaris threw him backwards onto the bed. Archie gasped as he sprawled against the mattress with the perfect view of Damaris in the whole, his cock erect. “You want it like this?” asked the demon, his tone goading heat into Archie’s gut.
“Yes.”
“Or like this?” sneered Damaris and suddenly his shadows rearranged. His cock was thicker, fatter. “Or this?” It changed again, this time curving upwards. “Or this?” Oh gods, were those ridges against the underside?
Archie could hear his own breath, wet and panicked and heavy. He wanted it. He wanted it all, so badly that his entire chest ached. “Yes.”
Laughing, the demon descended and devoured him. As he fed on Archie, Damaris became more solid, heavier, warmer as he emanated real body heat, crushing Archie into the bed, and it was all Archie could do to hold on, clinging to Damaris’s shoulder, his neck, theantlers. In return, Damaris spread him wide, held him open with fingers so tight they pressed bruisesinto his skin, raked his teeth across the sensitive skin of his neck, licking his sweat and desire u at the same time.
Archie wasn’t sure at what time he finally slept, but he awoke with pinpricks in his right arm and someone in his bed for the first time in his life. It was still dark so Archie drifted, relishing the warm weight pressed against his back.
You’re still here.He thought muzzily, half at Damaris but half a wondering thought to himself. He turned, to relieve the pressure on the numb arm he’d fallen asleep on, and saw the hulking outline of Damaris half draped on top of him. The antlers were reshaped, not gone but the smaller, tufted kind and rotated more towards the front of his head so that they fit in the bed.Cute, thought Archie in his half-asleep state, and then giggled silently at himself.
Exhaustion overtook him again now that his arm was no longer buzzing, and Archie pulled Damaris’s arm more securely over his waist. As he drifted off, he could have sworn that he felt the gentlest of touches, a whisper of a kiss against his shoulder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SOMETIMES IT FELT as though Archie and his parents were ships in the night, passing only occasionally with a faint signal through the fog to acknowledge the other's existence that month. It was only through asking the servants that Archie was able to keep up with their movements at all, which was how he knew that his father was meeting with the solicitors this week, and his mother had decided to visit one of her friends out of the city down south where it would be warmer.
"For two weeks?" asked Archie, eyebrows raised. She hadn't even left a note. But at least it meant he didn't have to tell her about his trip to the theater, and how the only connection with a woman he'd managed to make was one running off to the Continent at the end of the year. Perhaps this would be a good time for Damaris to try his corporeal form again, if everyone was away. He had told Archie with some relish this morning that he thought he’d pulled in enough magic for another outing.
"And your father mentioned that Master Oliver would be joining him shortly," said Nell.
"Ollie's coming down? Wait – will he be wanting his room back, do you think?" asked Archie. With the townhouse out of commission, they didn't have enough room for all three sibs in the palace suite.
"No, I believe milord has organized Master Oliver to be taking rooms at the Hotel Cedarwood," said Nell, refilling his cup of tea.
"The Cedarwood? What will people think?" That was Charlie, bursting in barefoot and wearing nothing but his robe. Archie nearly choked on his hot tea, and hastily set the cup down before he got scalded. He hadn't realized that Charlie was still here.
Charlie was still talking: "No, arrange for him to stay the Felgravia. We have appearances to uphold, people will think we're in trouble if my brother is traveling all the way down to meet with lawyers and taking rooms in the blastedCedarwood. And get me some more of these, will you?"
He snatched a pastry off Archie's plate, wagged it at Nell, and disappeared back into his rooms. So much for that, no experimenting with Damaris would be happening today knowing that Charlie was just next door.
"Ask Perry to ring the hotels, and I'll write father a note," Archie volunteered, knowing full well no one sensible would be expecting poor Nell to be managing any of that. He detailed the brief exchange in a letter and paid a boy a copper to run it down to the solicitor's office. His father would probably get annoyed that Charlie felt it was appropriate to overrule him, but that wasn't Archie's problem to deal with.
The next morning, Ollie was due to arrive but he went straight to the solicitor so Archie didn't see him until dinnertime, when Father asked if Archie could join them for dinner.
Do you want to try manifesting while I’m out?asked Archie. It would be useful to see how far Damaris could be from Archie and still maintain a form, and for how long. And though Archie didn’t express this to Damaris, it was also good to have the demon to discover more of the human world than just what he saw at Prince Ixthan’s parties.
