Archie swallowed as he deciphered the hidden meaning. “He doesn’t — so, what?”
His desire is ordinary. Yours, however…There was an odd sensation on Archie’s shoulders, a weight and then a lift. A shrug, he realized, and almost laughed. He was of more interest to Damaris because his desire was for men. Secret, heavy on his heart, never sated. His chest hurt as the weight of that set in.
Archie tried to blink away the shadows creeping at the edges of his eyes, to think clearly as the fog crept along the edges of his mind. There were implications, there had to be. At a fundamental level, Damaris was just like any other demon. He knew that the demon homeland was dark and desolate and cold, and they craved the warmth and life that existed in the human world. He’d thought at first that Damaris had targeted him specifically, but now he understood that he might be one of many weak links and the demon was testing them all to see which would be his way in. Somehow, that felt worse.
“How close?” asked Archie before he could stop himself. “How close is anyone to saying yes?” He wanted to ask how many others there were, but he wasn’t ready to hear the answer to that one. Buried among the shame, there was still a kernel of hope, excitement, that someone might desire him more than any other.
Damaris was silent. Perhaps he was lurking in the shadows somewhere else, already negotiating terms withsomeone else. A treacherous thought bloomed in Archie’s mind. If the demon was going to cross over into the human world anyway, if he was going to find someone else even after Archie denied him, then what good had that rejection done? Archie had resisted even though it had taken everything in him, and the succubus would just move on and find someone else within days.
It had been the right thing to do, he told himself weakly. Whether or not someone else succumbed, he would still know he was not responsible for bringing another demon into the human world. And yet. And yet…
“What’s it like?” Archie whispered, the words barely more than an exhale. “To be possessed?”
Damaris showed him in images and feelings rather than words. A vision of Archie looking at himself in the mirror in his bedroom. The shadows solidifying, surrounding him like a cloak before sinking into his skin, until the shadows became part of him. Like yesterday, the way Damaris had simultaneously touched him all over and filled him up. He could bring all that desire that Archie had diligently suppressed for years to the surface and drink it down, making him stronger. And as his magic grew stronger, his effect on Archie would be greater. A constant loop of pleasure, causing more desire and then feeding off it, until Damaris had enough strength to rebuild his own body and no longer needed to possess anyone at all.
Archie’s knees buckled, and he caught himself by the corner of the sink before lowering himself to his knees. He was shaking, he realized belatedly, and his body twitched with the stirring of arousal. He ground the heel of his hand against hisbreeches to stay himself, the humiliation hot in his cheeks. And still, he wanted it.
If he couldn’t have a male human lover, if that was so unacceptable, why could he not at least get some pleasure elsewhere? Was that truly so wrong? Damaris would get what he needed and Archie would too. He pried his mouth open — he hadn’t even noticed his jaw locking into place — and had to try three times to force the words out raspily. “Wait. I’ll do it. Don’t… don’t go to anyone else. Take me.”
Damaris did not respond. Panic surged in Archie’s chest; what if he was too late, if he had been sniped by someone who hadn’t spent their time wallowing in their own thoughts. He pressed his cheek to the cool ceramic of the sink, but it barely helped. “Damaris. Please. Please, please. Damaris.Please.Satisfy my desire with your magic and in exchange you may possess my body until the time you have one of your own.”
You are so pretty when you beg.
Awful relief washed over Archie. The sound that came out of his mouth was a cross between a moan and a sob. Something clenched around his heart like a fist, and Archie understood instinctively the deal had been struck. The room flooded with the smell of moss, so thick he nearly choked. The shadows at the edges of his eyes filled his vision, smothering him in darkness. He could feel the magic, the power, thedemon, slither under his skin, settle into his flesh, slide between his bones.
Done.
Archie could feel Damaris’s satisfaction now, and it became his as well, a warmth in his gut that swelled. And now, Archie could sense what Damaris was going to do next. “Not here!”
But Damaris was already moving Archie’s hands as if they were his own, and perhaps they were now. Archie watched in horror as his hands reached down without his controlling them, pulling at the laces in the front of his breeches. His cock sprang out the moment it could, stiff and aching. He had used his hands to pleasure himself before but they felt different to him now. There was still the familiarity of his hand, his stroke, his fingers, but the added shadows gave a velvet touch that made his cock twitch as he slid one fingertip around the head, catching on the first leak of come.
He nearly shouted. Would have, if not for the shadowed pressure against his throat, choking him. “No,” he rasped. “Not here.”
Would you rather go back out, walk through your gentleman’s club with your cock a-jut and leaking?Damaris sent him an image of what that would look like, even as he carelessly stroked a fingertip over that too-sensitive slit. It was too much, the pleasure and the fear and the humiliation all at once. Archie bit his lip as he spent, suddenly and explosively, his come splattering the wall under the sink.
And all through it, Damaris, still stroking him, squeezing him until Archie was wrung dry, his hips bucking against his will as the demon fed on him. He could feel it, the curious sensation of Damaris inhaling his desire almost like atickle across his chest that added to it all, cooling the burning shame from his skin.
A delicious appetizer,said Damaris when he was done, and Archie was left gasping on the tiled floor, his cock limp. He got the distinct impression Damaris was licking juice from his fingers. He shuddered at the thought.
It took Archie several swallows before he could produce real words. “Appetizer?”
A quick spend in a public lavatory is hardly worthy of a main course.Damaris’s judgment was palpable, his teasing heavy and loaded, and Archie shivered with the implication.
Eventually, he managed to pull himself together. Tucked himself back in and scrubbed away the evidence as best as he could. It felt as though anyone could walk in here and instantly see the demonic energy and sex that hung implicit in the air to Archie, or that they would take one look at him and realized he’d been debauched. They couldn’t, he looked as put together as usual, but he couldn’t shake the feeling regardless.
Archie skittered out, thankfully unnoticed. In the Milton room, a servant was clearing away the remains of the tea Archie had poured himself and then immediately forgotten what seemed like a lifetime ago but was really less than a half hour ago. There was no sign of Will. Archie asked the servant, “Do you know where the man I was with has gone? Williem?”
“The young man appeared to be in some hurry and left, milord,” said the servant with a bow. “He left a message to beg forgiveness for his abrupt departure and looks forward to seeing you again at the opera.”
“Wonderful, perfect,” said Archie, relieved not to have to deal with Will right now. Certainly not when he’d just stolen the demon tempting him. He wondered, vaguely if Damaris had appeared to Will as a woman, given what he’d said about Will not having the same inclinations as Archie. There lay a strange path that he didn’t have the fortitude to deal with right now.
Thankfully, the successful meeting with Jeremy meant Archie didn’t have to wait around, and he was free the rest of the day. When he flagged down a carriage, he gave them the family townhouse address and sat with his leg bouncing nervously the entire way there. The house would be mostly empty, he hoped. The servants would have vacated to join the family in the palace, so the only people in would be the hydromancers, presumably working on the bathrooms and plumbing. Which meant that Archie would be undisturbed in his little attic room.
The ride back was torturous. Every time Archie caught his reflection in the window glass, Damaris looked back at him, sometimes with Archie’s face and sometimes a mask obscured in shadows, but always with eyes an unnatural red gleam. Something sat in Archie stomach, growing bigger by the second, an entanglement of desire and shame and anticipation all knotted up together. And worst of all, his cock was stirring again. Gods, he hadn’t felt this itchy, this desperate since he’d undergone adolescence.
“Keep the change,” burbled Archie when they arrived, overpaying the driver horrendously, but he didn’t care about that right now. He slipped in the back door and snuck up the servants’ stairs, dashing across the final landing to the set of stairs that led only to his room.
His heart was pounding by the time he turned the lock in his door, just in case, and Archie could feel the thin sheen of sweat across his neck and back as he approached his floor length mirror. His reflection was wide-eyed and shaking and his breath came out panting. “Alright. Alright, you had your appetizer. What now?”
