by R Phoenix
He had ten bucks and a blow job that said it was a contest to see who could get Leandro off the quickest.
As though on cue, a whisper of magic flared, then dissipated from around the new arrival as the shimmer that was designed to keep mortals from stumbling into the otherkin slid away. The flash of magic was brief, but it allowed a man to step through into the inner sanctum of The Lucky Blight.
Leandro released Kolt, abruptly, forcing him to steady himself. His hand lingered on the fae’s sleeve. The space between them wasn’t a relief, but at least it gave him room to move. He followed the indication as Leandro tilted his head in the direction of the door — at the man who was being dragged into the fae’s fucked up little games.
He didn’t know it yet, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. To make matters worse, he looked positively human, too.
“I wonder which of you can get him deeper in debt. Let’s say… in sixty minutes?” Leandro posed, sliding his hand along the small of Kolt’s back. “Oh, and that begins now.”
“Sure. If I win, I get your incubus,” Barsum, the disgusting lech, said, seemingly under the impression he had a choice in his participation at all. He was as much committed to it now as Kolt was.
Or as Kolt had to be if he wanted to appease Leandro and not be stuck playing whore to fucking Barsum.
Leandro gave Barsum an oblique look. “Yes. If you win, you get my incubus for an hour.”
Barsum had every advantage here. He was a high roller, Kolt was a slave, and with his luck, the pawn in their fucked-up game really was an oblivious human.
Barsum smirked at him and headed straight for the newcomer to make his introduction and likely invite him to a high stakes game.
Kolt pressed back into the touch of his master’s hand at the small of his back. “This is bullshit. It’s totally unfair,” he hissed quietly, not looking at the fae. He knew better than to make a scene with Leandro in public, but he wanted his displeasure noted. Not that anyone would care, but it made him feel less like he was just a slave. “But you know that,” he added, casting the fae a sidelong look. It might have hurt him once upon a time, but now he just warily accepted these facts.
“It’s completely and utterly unfair,” Leandro agreed, patting Kolt’s cheek.
He could’ve done without the pat to the cheek, and like a disgruntled teenager being coddled by his mommy, he tilted his head slightly away from the gesture. Not enough for anyone but Leandro to notice, but he was pissed.
Leandro dipped his hand into a trouser pocket and retrieved several golden-hued house tokens, pressing them into Kolt’s hand. “Send Barsum to me when he loses.” He turned, starting to walk away, but he paused after a few feet and turned back to him with a frown. “And don’t gloat. It’s unbecoming.” He strolled off, already greeting another of the regulars.
Kolt never had liked being a pawn. Even now, with the tokens in hand and every chance to play and gamble, he wanted nothing more than to snub Leandro.
Just once — just to have the asshole sweat a little over one of his precious fucking games not going his way.
But he didn’t particularly want Barsum to win either. It wasn’t worth that much to him. He exhaled with a sigh and headed over to the bar, plopping down at it and ordering a drink. As soon as Keith, the bartender, handed it to him, he sculled it. He watched Barsum put his arm around the normie, guiding him along to a poker table. There was an exchange of tokens there, with Barsum giving the normie access to the high stakes game by spotting him his first bet.
“Fuck…” Kolt muttered. He turned his back on the game room, ordering a second drink and another shortly after. Unless he was drinking and fucking, he didn’t get drunk quickly. Something about his metabolism made it difficult for him to actually achieve the desired effect with just booze.
His head shot up, and he looked over his shoulder at the high stakes game. Their human friend was quickly getting embroiled in Barsum’s surprising charisma.
“Hey, Keith. The normie guy,” he said to the bartender, speaking covertly while holding his glass for a refill. “Give him a bottle of whiskey, on the house,” he said, placing one of the tokens on the bar. “Actually, just keep him drinking,” he decided. The token would more than cover the cost of it.
Keith followed his gaze, a brow arching, but he nodded as Kolt knocked his drink back in one go.
He got up from where he was sitting, and without explanation, he left the game room. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Gideon imitating a parakeet on crack as he tried to crane his neck and see where he was going, but no one stopped him.
It took him all of ten minutes to scrounge up an outfit from the lost and found box that didn’t make him look like a twink on crystal, or a bum, or a child playing dress-up. The shirt was a little big on him, but he rolled the sleeves up as tidily as he could. The rest of the length, well… It was cool for chicks to wear men’s shirts as dresses, right?
At least it covered enough skin that he wasn’t indecent without the pleather pants. The jacket was a size too large as well, but that looked deliberate enough. With his hair undone, he looked a little more sophisticated and a lot less like the slut Leandro frequently enjoyed branding him as.
He checked the time as he slipped back into the game room. Gideon and the bouncers under his care had started to escort a bunch of the people out already, but they still had more than half an hour left on Leandro’s game. He returned to the bar in his new attire, ordering a cocktail this time and savoring it — much to Gideon’s chagrin. Leandro’s top goon was clearly keeping an eye on him for the jackass himself.
Another few minutes passed before he saw Gideon looking at him again, then at the human at the poker game with Barsum. Any fucking second now, the big old tattletale would go tell Leandro he was losing the game on purpose...
It took another look at him and the clock before Gideon headed off. He’d find Leandro and inform him of the development, that his pet incubus was blowing tokens at the bar, that he’d changed into something a little more… comfortable.
And that he wasn’t playing.
If he didn’t play, it didn’t matter that the games were rigged. Nothing would put him in the lead to win a damn thing.
He put the rest of the tokens down on the bar and called Keith over again, getting the most expensive bottle of champagne he could in exchange. The bottle of Krystal in hand, Kolt finally left his spot at the bar, looking the right socialite even in his lost and found outfit. Of course, that was possibly also the incubus blood that would make him look good even if he was wearing a paper fucking bag.
“Hey, handsome,” Kolt said, placing the bottle on the cards the human had been playing with and sliding into his lap. “Did anyone tell you, I’m everyone’s good luck charm…?” He solidified his spot on the man’s lap with a purposeful wiggle of his ass and an arm around the human’s neck.
Barsum cast him a dark look of lechery. He probably thought he had enough of a head start to win this shit, but half an hour wasn’t a lot of time to rack up much debt.
At least, not without fucking tokens.
But the human was pretty drunk already from his free booze, and he slid his arm around Kolt’s waist, eagerly drawing him closer. “I could use a little luck, little l-dude,” he said, correcting himself before saying lady.
Kolt smiled at him and ran his fingers along the side of the man’s face. “I thought you might,” he murmured, letting his touch linger before slowly drawing his fingers from the normie’s cheek to his lips. He was more handsome than Barsum and had to be a better lay. Fuck, it had been so long since he had fucked a human…
And this one was drunk enough to be responsive to the wiles of an incubus on the warpath. Those lips brushed along the tips of his fingers without any further encouragement.
Kolt smiled again and leaned in a little closer. “Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered.
“Anything,” the human whispered back.
“The games are rigged. You’ll never make your money back,” he explained sweetly, still as quiet as he could be.
Gideon would have found Leandro by now, and he didn’t want to be interrupted. Barsum was already glaring daggers at them. He didn’t need the asshole to find a reason to make more trouble.
“Wh-what?” the normie asked, blinking and staring at him. One unsteady drunken hand came up to touch Kolt’s hair.
Kolt let him, smiling once more. “Maybe…” he continued to whisper. He nipped the man’s earlobe. “Maybe I should be your guardian angel, hmm? I could bless you in ways…” he murmured, running his tongue along the shell of the human’s ear, “ways you’ve never even dreamt of. What d’you say…?” He nudged just a little with his innate skills as an incubus, leaving the human both affectionate and more susceptible to his suggestions.
Kolt took the bottle of champagne and wrapped his long fingers around its neck. He gave it a meaningful stroke, a second, a third… Only then did he knock the cork out of it, sending white foamy bubbles running over his wrist and hand. He brought it up to his lips and — obscenely — stuck his tongue down the hole as he took the neck into his mouth.
To clean it, of course.
The man grunted and sat up a little straighter. “I fold,” he declared, picking up the cards and tossing them in. He abruptly stood, pushing Kolt unceremoniously from his lap only to immediately wrap an arm around his waist. The bottle of champagne was plucked from his hand, brought to the human’s lips.
The champagne was half gone before they even made it into one of the upstairs rooms. The human had it bad and could barely keep his hands off of him the entire flight of stairs up. As soon as the door closed behind them, Kolt set the bottle aside, where it lay forgotten in favor of a different kind of appetite.
Kolt groaned as he tore the human’s shirt open and ran a hand along the chest bared before him. The man was fit, good-looking, and for a moment, Kolt could pretend he could have this…
He could pretend he was normal, with someone who adored him, someone he could just fuck and feed on without anyone needing to know — someone he could have a relationship with that didn’t involve games and humiliation.
He yanked the man’s pants down his legs and immediately shoved him back onto the bed, straddling him. Kolt couldn’t recall the last time anyone but Leandro had fucked him.
Hand jobs, blow jobs — those were all for sale and bargaining, but not his ass, his body. Yet, here he was, straddling a human and feeding off of the sexual tension. Kolt felt incredible, and if he wasn’t on the fucking clock…!
“Slow… Slow down,” the human protested.
Kolt ignored the words, pressing him back down on the bed and kissing him hotly until the man’s hands came up to roam across his body. Fuck, he wished he could sleep next to this guy and wake up to a new life — a simple life — among humans, who didn’t know what he was other than great in bed.
Sitting atop the other man, Kolt slowly rose up, shrugging the oversized jacket off then unbuttoning the shirt with swift and nimble fingers. As he got further down, it became impossible to hide the fact that he was very fucking naked underneath it all.
“God, you’re hot… What did I do to deserve you?” the man asked.
Kolt grinned at him but chose not to answer. He reached for the lube on the nightstand, taking a glob on his hand, before he reached between his own legs, taking the man’s cock in hand. He gave it a few careful strokes, mostly to slick it up and get him ready before guiding the head inside of him.
It hurt for a second as the tip stretched his ass, but he reminded himself he was an incubus. With a slow rotation of his hips, he lowered himself further down, onto the human’s cock until it was buried deep in his ass.
He wasn’t terribly big, but the sounds the normie made were fucking delicious. He could have feasted on this for days if it wouldn’t kill the man.
Kolt rolled his hips forward tentatively. After he elicited the first moan from the human’s throat, he let the man’s lust and need guide him.
It was slow, pornographically slow, that he wanted. The human’s hands roamed up his stomach, reaching his chest, before they slid back down to his hips once again. He didn’t hold on to him, didn’t grip him or force him, and Kolt was allowed to ride him freely. He rocked his hips slowly but insistently, lifting himself slightly off of that cock before pressing back down. It was slick but tight, and it only took minutes, mere fucking minutes, of the hour-long bet to have the human clinging to him for dear life.
With his arms wrapped tightly around Kolt, the guy’s face pressed against his chest, kissing and licking and moaning into every inch of skin he could reach. “Shit, fuck, I’m coming… Oh, god, I’m drunk, you’re good…” the human babbled, making excuse after excuse for his poor stamina.
What Kolt didn’t tell him was that it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d had the stamina of a racehorse, not when he was facing a predatory incubus.
Kolt savored the moment of the human’s climax. He didn’t have to fucking come to enjoy this. Between his empathy and the sustenance he was getting out of this… “Shit…” he breathed out against the top of the human’s head before breathing in the scent of his shampoo and the whiskey he’d drank.
“God. So fucking good,” the human moaned. His hands began to roam along Kolt’s flesh once again even though their hips had stopped their needy grinding.
“Wanna pay cash or with a credit card?” Kolt asked in a husky whisper.
“...What?” The human looked up at him, befuddled. “You’re a—?” Even through his drunken haze, he caught on pretty quickly.
It felt fucking wrong to do this, and not just because now this poor guy could well have the wrath of the fae called down upon him. But it was somehow worth it, to fuck with his master and not let Barsum have his way…
“Yeah. Don’t worry, I’m high class, discreet, clean, exclusive…” he assured the human, pressing a kiss to his lips. It was reciprocated despite the rigid tension on entirely different and mundane parts of his physiology.
Leandro was going to be fucking pissed.
“...H-how much?” the human asked, breathless, as they broke apart.
More than he’d gambled away at poker.
Kolt made certain of that.
Chapter Two
No one came to the casino unless they were prepared to lose something. Once they stepped through the doorway, it was all gone soon enough — a prized heirloom, the last of the rent money, fading remnants of shattered pride…
Leandro drank it in like it was all a fine wine, savoring it. The Lucky Blight was his pride and joy. Poised directly at the juncture of the mortal world and the fae realm, reality rippled here in ways that few others could navigate. This was his playground, his home, and those who came to visit were nothing more than supplicants.
Sometimes, he gave them what they wanted. He let them have a lucky spin of the dice or hand of cards, a lucky pull on the slot machine — just enough to keep them coming back for more.
The taste of victory was heady, addictive, enough to where he didn’t need to lift a finger to lure in a steady stream of customers. No, they came all on their own, either hooked from an earlier visit or curious about rumors they’d heard from others in the know.
“He’s not playing, sir.”
Leandro turned to face Gideon, and he gestured to the seat opposite him.
His favorite employee rested his hands on the back of the chair, leaning on that instead of sitting.
“Hmm?” Leandro quirked a brow.
“Kolt,” Gideon said. “He’s not doing anything.”
Now that, he hadn’t expected. As obstinate as his slave could be, he knew better than to push his master too far. Leandro would tolerate a great deal out of amusement — or boredom — but a refusal to so much as engage in the game?
No. That was inexcusable.
Anger flared beneath his skin, crackling like energy around him, but Gideon didn�
��t flinch.
“How long has it been?”
Gideon glanced at his cell phone. “Thirty-three minutes. He left the room for a few minutes, then came back and went back to the bar.”
“Mm.” Leandro gazed out over the room. Kolt still had time, but that didn’t stop Leandro from contemplating ways to punish the incubus that wouldn’t inconvenience himself in the process. “Where did he go, when he left the room?”
“I didn’t follow him.”
Leandro gave him a disapproving look. Still, his Kolt knew better than to go too far without permission. There were worse things than being the favored plaything of an influential fae, after all, and he could arrange for all of them and more. An hour with Barsum would seem positively lovely compared to the punishments he could devise.
“He changed clothes,” Gideon said. “Looks like a secretary wearing her boss’s shirt.”
“Then he’s playing,” Leandro said dismissively.
“He hasn’t even gone up to the guy yet. He’s just sitting around, drinking your booze.”
What was his incubus up to? The game hadn’t had many rules — it didn’t have any at all, really. It was almost disappointing that neither of them had simply disabled the other, challenged the newcomer to a game of cards, and ended it within the first ten minutes.
Now, more than thirty had gone by, and his slave was seemingly drinking away the tidy sum Leandro had given him in house tokens.
Seemingly.
Leandro knew better. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t playing, Gideon.”
This was the problem with hiring men like Gideon. Muscles, good instincts, aptitude for weaponry… but the higher brain functions didn’t come along with them. He’d thought he’d found intelligent gunmen before, but they were always irrevocably flawed.
Then again, that was the problem with non-fae in general. Even the quasi-immortal otherkin were so terribly vulnerable, raw and open, just waiting to be seized upon and ripped apart. Their emotions, so alien to his own kind, were an endless source of fascination, but Leandro didn’t understand them.
