She noticed they weren’t alone in the room. A counter—a bar—made of bamboo and topped with cork sat at the side of the room, and behind it, on a tall stool, stood a gnome with white hair, mixing drinks. The gnome wore green goggles strapped tightly to his wild locks, and a long mustache and pointed beard tufted every which way. She couldn’t see his eyes through the lenses as he fussed over a line of bottles, pouring mixed drinks.
“It is a paradise,” the incubus lord agreed. “For those who are welcome here. Please let me do the courtesy of honesty. We are demons. My realm is kind to you because I wish it so.” He cocked his head as if a thought had just occurred to him. “You know,” he said, “the flow of Time here does not pass as it does on Ahmbren. As long as you are here, you will never age. You could stay here with me, in paradise, forever if you wish it.”
His kindly eyes crawled over her, and she blushed and took pleasure in his gaze.
“Have you made him the same offer?” she asked, indicating the gnome.
“Oh no,” Koki replied smoothly. “Daltrandi is an incubus like me. He takes the image of a gnome, just as I wear the image of a man. I’ve chosen the form that is most pleasing to you. This body is perfection of what your evolutionary line craves. Just as I crafted Bryona for Anuit. Daltrandi has been polite enough to choose a form that will not distract you from our conversation.”
“Bryona?” Arda murmured. She had hardly heard what he said, so captivated was she at the very sound of his voice. It was all she could do to not reach out and trace her fingers over his face. Then the thought of Anuit brought her back closer to herself for a moment, if not all the way.
“Bryona!” the paladin exclaimed. “She’s wearing my form! She’s seducing Anuit!”
“Of course she is,” Koki said. “It’s in her nature. When I crafted her, I didn’t know Anuit would eventually find someone as lovely as you. I would not see you pained.”
“Can you stop Bryona?” Arda asked. “Are you really the incubus lord?”
Nodding, he lowered his eyelids and then brought them back up. “Yes. I am the incubus! If you were a sorceress, I would fashion an incubus from your soul to be as I am now before you. And because of your purity, such would be my greatest achievement, don’t you think?”
Arda sighed and smiled. “Yes,” she agreed dreamily.
Koki walked over to the bar and took the two tall-stemmed glasses Daltrandi had prepared. They were wide at the top, each filled with a bright green liquid. Koki handed her one.
Arda took the offered drink and placed the rim to her lips, sipping at the ice-cold liquid. Apples! She took another, longer sip, and warmth spread down her throat and through her breast.
“Can you help my friend?” she asked.
“Maybe we can help each other,” Koki replied. “Come, walk with me down to the beach. Let us talk.”
The air was both warm and cool at the same time. A soft breeze kept her from feeling uncomfortable, but the sun coaxed moisture from her brow. She walked beside him down the gentle slope of the sandy path leading from his villa to the shore.
Arda knew he had charmed her, but knowing it was not enough to make her care. She observed the thought that she was in terrible danger pass through her mind, slipping, gaining no traction, as if the presence of the incubus lubricated her awareness against unpleasant ideas.
“Would you want to stay with me here?” he asked when they reached the beach. He pulled off his sandals and stretched his toes so his brown feet sank into the soft sand.
Without thinking, Arda sat on a nearby rock and pulled her boots off so she could do the same. The fine granules tickled coolly between her toes. “Yes,” she answered him. For Anuit, she reminded herself. “Let my friend go. Don’t let Bryona take her.”
“Be my concubine,” he promised, “and I will return your friend to Ahmbren to live out her life. Bryona will trouble her no more. But first, tell me why Qazim is so interested in you.”
Arda shrugged. “I don’t know,” she lied. Even now, something made her not want to tell him.
He stepped up behind her and slid his hands around her waist. The warmth of his cheek hovered near hers, and she inhaled the cinnamon musk of his breath. Her knees gave way, and she leaned back onto his chest. Heat spread through her body, and the space between her legs melted. She leaned her head back and sighed as she touched her cheek to his. Her every cell wanted to be touched by him, as if the line of her ancestors had brought her to this moment, to be with this man.
“Arda,” he whispered into her ear, sending shivers down her neck. “Dis is at war with itself. Two kings vie for power, and if Qazim wanted you alive, it’s because he thought you were important to his king. I’d like to know why.”
Kokhabaal shifted his head to her other shoulder, touching the other cheek. She leaned her head away, exposing her neck. He brushed his lips over the side of her ear and down the line of her skin to her armor’s collar. He continued. “I’m not truly partial to either king, but I do know that my king doesn’t want to destroy your world. Please, tell me what it is about you so I can hide it from my king, if need be?”
“Why would you hide me from him?” she asked.
“Because I want you for my own,” Koki replied. His fingers traced around her armor-covered belly and found the buckled clasps that held her belt and holsters. He deftly loosened the leather strap, and her weapons fell away to the ground. He then removed her sword and discarded it too.
“Who is your king?” she asked, staring at the waves with quickening breath.
“Yamosh,” he told her.
She tensed and stepped away from him. “The same god who created the Covenant.”
“Yes,” Koki nodded. “Think about it. He may be evil, but he is not destructive. The alternative—the Black Dragon—will destroy all that you love about the world. All that I love about the world.”
Arda turned to face him. “Can you not see it in me?” She looked up into his eyes, swimming in those chocolate orbs.
He placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her gaze. Arda relaxed her lips, opening them in invitation.
Kokhabaal pulled her close and kissed her. Their tongues played at each other’s lips and then slid together. She could feel his tasting of her reach deep into her soul.
He stepped back suddenly, eyes wide. “You have his seal!” he exclaimed. “You are the Light! A beautiful prize indeed. I will raise you to become a princess of Dis!”
Arda couldn’t suppress a grin at pleasing him.
Koki held her close, pressing her waist against his. His fingers dropped to the small of her back and then touched the bare skin of her tail that emerged from beneath the duster’s slit. Her tail quivered and her sex moistened. It was all she could do to not push her pelvis into him.
He pushed the duster back off her shoulders and unfastened her armor. She stood compliant, unresisting, as he stripped the clothes from her body. He lifted her naked off her feet, and she placed her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck.
“Give me your Light,” he crooned.
“How?” she breathed and then pressed her lips around his earlobe, nibbling with the point of her fangs.
“Let me inside you,” he answered. “Let me fuck you.” He traced his fingertips over the five scars running the length of her face. “So beautiful,” he whispered.
“My body is yours,” she returned in shallow breaths.
He laid her down beneath the palm trees in the shaded sand and removed his own clothing. She giggled at the site of him. She ran her hands over his brown, chiseled hips, and delighted in the firm rise and fall of his abdominals as she kissed the little trail of hair beneath his belly button.
He slid his fingers through her hair and grabbed one of her horns, firmly pushing her back until she reclined on the sand. Her tail reached straight down, and she spread her legs wide to receive him, holding her knees up to her breasts with her hands. She pleaded softly, “Take my Light, my seal, so long as you fuck me!�
��
He lowered himself before her, and she reached up with her tail, snaking around his waist to pull him in, closing her eyes and breathing a sigh of anticipation.
* * *
Anuit and Bryona tumbled through the fissure they had jumped for, falling on soft, springy grass. The sorceress quickly rose to her feet and was surprised to be standing under a peach sky in front of a brick villa. A wide veranda wrapped around it, with open doors on all sides.
“This is Kokhabaal’s lair,” she quietly told Bryona.
“I know,” the succubus said. “I’ve never been here, but I can feel his presence. He made me from the piece of your soul you offered to him.”
Anuit nodded, then suddenly smiled. “I’d thank him if he hadn’t planned for you to take my life,” she said. “Of all my demons, you were the best. And he misfired. I’m glad I got to know you.”
“It took a while,” Bryona beamed back at her. “I’m sorry it took so long to earn your trust.”
“Later,” Anuit replied. “Let’s go find him.”
“What will we do then?” Bryona asked curiously. “I’m not sure we’re a match for a demon lord.”
Anuit shrugged. “We’ll start by asking for his help. We’ll improvise from there.”
Bryona raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Just be careful,” she said.
Anuit walked into the villa. She stopped in the entryway of the back room upon seeing the gnome mixing drinks at the bamboo bar. Anuit immediately saw through the illusion.
“An incubus,” she stated.
“Indeed,” Bryona agreed.
The demon gnome gestured to the two drinks. “Ladies,” he invited.
“Where is Kokhabaal?” Anuit asked, ignoring the offer.
The gnome shifted, growing to the height of a human, and emerged from behind the bar. His gnomish features vanished, and he took the image of a blond, muscular man with suntanned skin, wings, horns, and a thick tail similar to Bryona’s. Cloven hooves poked out from beneath his tailored pants.
“Are you sure?” he asked, holding out the glasses. “I’m quite proud of this mix. I call it ‘botanical lust.’”
Bryona whipped out the bladed handle from her parasol, slashing a clean arc that cut the tops off the glass chalices. She sheathed her blade and hit him in the stomach with the weapon’s handle.
The incubus roared, but then Anuit was at his side with a grin, allowing the release of joy as the demonic essence ripped through and transformed her. She and Bryona stood side by side and pinned the incubus to the ground. Anuit’s clawed hands grasped his shoulder, while Bryona’s claws seemed small in comparison, more like long, painted fingernails. They grinned at each other.
“He’s down at the beach,” the incubus blurted. “Fucking that darkling cunt.”
“Arda!” Anuit exclaimed. She felt a stab of jealous anger. Thrusting her head down, she ripped his throat out with her hellhound teeth even as her fingers clawed through his sternum. For a moment she lost focus on her purpose, burying her head in the man’s chest and drinking the sweet Dark-infused demon blood.
Bryona pulled her back. “No, Anuit,” she said. “This demon is not from your soul. His essence would corrupt you further. Down to the beach! Let’s find your friend.”
Anuit stood up and moved away from the fallen demon, then nodded. She grabbed a cloth napkin from the bar and wiped the demon blood off her chin, but she did not release her demonic form.
“There,” Bryona said, pointing.
On the shores of the lagoon below, Anuit saw what appeared to be a handsome Surafian man peeling Arda’s clothes away. He lifted her naked body in his arms and walked to a nearby shaded copse of palm trees.
They hurried out of the villa down the sandy path to the beach. Bryona ran faster than Anuit, and the sorceress trailed close behind, nearly stumbling on tufts of thorny beach weed.
Suddenly the succubus stopped. She turned and grabbed Anuit tightly, halting her forward rush. “No, Anuit,” Bryona whispered. There were tears in her eyes. She leaned into Anuit’s ear, whispering in the embrace and holding the sorceress’s head in her hands. “Turn away. You don’t want to see this.”
Anuit roughly pushed Bryona aside, and the succubus fell on her rump with a muffled squeak of surprise.
There, across the sand, Anuit saw Arda on her back, opening her legs wide to the incubus lord. The sorceress’s blood ran cold, and her demonic features melted away. She stared in shock and then nausea, hearing Arda beg, “Take my Light, my seal, so long as you fuck me!”
Dis had won. The corruption of Arda’s blood that began in the darkling library fully manifested here in Dis. Arda herself had told her so in their descent through the steel tower, and the darkling had given herself completely over to it. Anuit knew an incubus’s powers of seduction, and on Ahmbren she might have hoped it was just that. But here, in Dis… she had watched Arda’s transformation as they descended its layers, and knew the darkling had lost herself to shadow.
She could bear to see no more. Anuit choked and covered her eyes with her hand, turning away. She took a few steps over a sandy ridge until the lagoon was out of sight and dropped to her knees, vomiting.
Bryona was beside her. “I’m so sorry,” the succubus said. “I know you loved her.”
“She’s not Arda anymore,” Anuit muttered. “This place… Dis… it’s her blood heritage. I should have thought about that. I should never have let her come here with me.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Bryona said. “She rushed in on her own.”
“I… I don’t know if I can go on,” Anuit said. “Artalon just doesn’t seem important without her.”
Bryona lifted Anuit in her arms and carried her away. “Shh, shh,” the succubus whispered. “Let’s get away from here, and then we’ll think about what needs to be done next. You’re not ready to give up yet.”
Anuit cried in Bryona’s arms as the demon carried her over the rising and falling of beach sand until they found their own lagoon and sat on the shore to watch the sun set over the sea in Kokhabaal’s layer of Dis.
28 - The Tablets of Tal Harun
“Take my Light, my seal, so long as you fuck me!” Arda pleaded as she squelched any inner protest, choosing to surrender her fate to this lovely man. She closed her eyes in anticipation, ready for his sex—
A sizzle of lightning flew overhead only inches from her nose—she could see its blue flash through her closed eyelids—and Koki grunted and fell back.
Arda opened her eyes and looked up to see a black-skinned human man in dirty green robes—if he too wasn’t a demon—standing over her head with a knotted wooden staff in hand. The man stared down at her briefly, and in that moment of eye contact she felt a chilling recognition of Kaldor. It wasn’t Kaldor, but the resemblance was there. A family member perhaps?
The man uttered three quick words and clawed at the empty air above her with his left hand as if clutching at an invisible veil. He jerked his hand back, and suddenly the thick miasma of intoxication in her head was ripped away. Clarity returned, and the incubus lord’s illusion vanished. Koki disappeared, and in his place stood Kokhabaal, with his goat legs and throbbing phallus. His demon tail twitched behind him, and his face—still human, but paler now—snarled beneath great sweeping curved horns from his forehead.
Arda snapped her knees together, pushed with her hands, and kicked him in the chest. He grunted again, taking a step back.
“Come with me if you want to preserve your self,” the wizard said, holding out his hand.
Arda grabbed it, and in a single blink the landscape shifted as his translocation spell jumped them away from the enraged incubus lord.
They stood on a dry patch of grassy soil in the middle of an endless waste of marshy swampland. Arda released his hand and looked around. She stood naked, without weapons or armor.
“It seems I owe you my life,” she told the green-robed wizard. His brown and green robes hung tattered and soiled, but underneath the sta
ins it looked as if it might have had blue in it at one time. “He would have had me. What did you do?”
The wizard nodded, his eyes both gentle and piercing.
Damn, but he reminds me of Kaldor, she thought.
“He is the incubus lord,” the man replied. “There are few who can resist his charms, fewer still among mortalkind. I broke the spell he had placed on you, but what I’m curious about is how is it that you, a mortal woman and clearly not a wizard, have come here? And how is it that a darkling bears the elemental seal and connection to the Light?”
She turned towards him. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” she stated. “You have saved me, but I am naked with neither weapon nor armor. Who are you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You are not without weapons here; you have the Light. However, on second thought, you may not want to touch the Light if you can help it. You’ll flash as a beacon for all of demonkind. As for who I am, my name is Tal Harun.”
She stared at him incredulously. “The Tal Harun? The one who turned down the pact with the King of Dis?”
He regarded her for a moment. “You know my name, then.”
“From historical records,” she affirmed. “And from one of your descendants, High Wizard Kaldor.”
Tal Harun considered for a moment before responding. “Descendants? Time passes differently here, and mortals do not age in Dis. How long have I been here? It all runs together.”
She stared at him, wondering what to say. In the pause, she remembered that she stood as bare as a newborn, and noted that not once had his eyes dropped to take in her body. “I don’t suppose you’d lend me your outer robe,” she stated dryly, “or are you enjoying the view?”
Tal Harun regarded her coolly. “I’d offer you my robe, but I need what’s in its pockets for my spells. Otherwise, we’d be defenseless. Besides,” he added, his eyes darting once up and down her body without a hint of desire, “this is Dis. No one here cares about your sex. You’re no succubus.”
Arda raised an eyebrow. “Kokhabaal seemed to care.”
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 117
