She slept away most of two days, only waking for soup and drink. On the third day she said, “I want something real to eat. I hope that didn’t sound ungrateful or demanding, but I’m really hungry and tired of porridge or whatever they’ve been giving me. Maybe it was gruel. I don’t really know what gruel is, but I’ll bet it’s similar.” Her stomach rumbled. “See?”
Brave laughed.
She looked him over. “You look better than the last time I saw you. What was wrong with you? You passed out on me and wouldn’t wake up.”
It felt to Brave like it had been months since then. “Had a concussion. A bit of potion, a bit of glue, and all’s well.”
“Are you the son of Roanald?” Lana asked.
“What did the Reinlitegen say to you?”
“They asked me where the son of Roanald was. Is that you?”
He sighed. “Seems so. I’ll tell you everything. I’m sorry you’ve been caught up in this, Lana. I never would have brought you here if I’d known.”
“Caught up in what, Brave?”
The door slid open and a large demon walked in shrouded in an unmistakable air of authority and wearing an expression so compelling it was impossible to look away.
“Dad,” said Brave. “Uh, I mean, Regent.” The demon nodded to Brave and then to Lana. “This is Atalanta Ravin. She goes by Lana.” Brave turned to Lana. “Lana, this is Abide, Regent of the Callii.”
“Your foster father,” Lana added for clarity.
“Well.” Brave looked away and didn’t say more.
Abide stared at Lana for a few seconds while she decided that demon kings might not have any manners, but Texas girls certainly do. “I don’t know your customs well enough to know how to greet you. So. Hello.”
Brave chuckled. “Isn’t she perfect?” When Abide looked at Brave like he was crazy, he became defensive. “Don’t look at her like that. You can’t imagine what she’s been through.
“While being pursued and exposed to the elements, she took care of me and protected me while I was blacked out. She killed a forswarog with a tree branch while I was out cold. A big one. Male. Tusks this long.”
Brave held his hands up to indicate the length of the tusks then looked at Lana with pride and love in his eyes. “In her world they would make her a legend for that. Maybe even a goddess! Goddess of the hunt!”
Lana had to chuckle at Brave’s proud enthusiasm.
Abide took another look at Lana with a slightly softer expression. “Indeed. A remarkable feat for a human.”
“Then the Callii took me and left her behind at the mercy of the Reinlitegen, who either don’t know that humans need regular food and water, or don’t care.”
Abide raked his gaze over Lana like he was appraising livestock, nodded, then turned and left without another word.
Dart almost ran into the regent on his way in. He was followed by two female demons balancing trays of food and drink.
“Wow.” Lana stared at the door where Abide had been. “As fathers go, I’ll bet that guy was worth a giant inferiority complex.”
Brave got up to set food out for her. “Yeah. That could have been the story, but he was actually okay as dads go.”
“You mean like tossing a ball around or frank talks about birds and bees.”
Brave looked confused. “Anglish.”
Lana laughed. “That was Anglish! I mean did he spend quality time with you when you were little and did he personally take responsibility for the sex talk?”
Lana noticed that everyone in the room had frozen. Brave turned to Dart and the two women. “That doesn’t leave this room. Understand?” They nodded, looking like their lives depended on their answer, then left together.
“Now. What sex talk?”
Lana stared. “You know sometimes I feel like we come from different worlds.”
“Is that a joke?”
“YES! Duh!” Brave opened his mouth, but Lana quickly talked over what he was going to say. “It doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you’re happy with your upbringing and don’t have parent issues. By the way, is there also a foster mom around?”
“There is, but she’s not here. She teaches magical weaving and spends a lot of time off-world. She was around more when I was younger, but now…”
“Okay. My turn. What’s magical weaving?”
“It’s the art of working charms into fabric.”
Lana’s eyes ran over Brave in a playfully flirtatious way. “Are you, um, wearing anything magical? Now?”
Brave looked down at himself then raised eyes that had taken on an amused twinkle. “We don’t need special clothes to make magic between us. All we need is close proximity.”
He leaned in for a kiss, but she ducked away.
“No. I’m wretched, Brave. I need food and a bath and maybe more sleep. I’m down at the bottom of the Hierarchy of Needs chart here. Food. Bath. Sleep. Then I’m yours.”
Brave’s expression heated instantly. “Mine.”
“Well, not literally. I just mean I’ll be more receptive to,” she pointed to his mouth, “kissing.”
He pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. “And what else?”
“That’s not an appropriate discussion for concussion victims.”
“I don’t have a concussion anymore.”
“Let me see your discharge papers.”
“If that’s what it takes, I shall produce the necessary paperwork.”
He guided her to a seat in front of the buffet that had been provided.
“Eat something.” Lana’s eyes were fixed on the food. “And don’t worry about being dainty. I’ve seen you at your worst.”
To prove the point, Brave broke off a chunk of bread with his fingers and stuffed it into her mouth.
She pulled the bread away laughing, but not without having kept a nice bite to chew. It was good. Dark. Soft. Fresh. And different. Like black pumpernickel.
She briefly examined the utensil, that could only be described as a precious metal version of a spork, before trying a bite of everything in front of her. The tasting was accompanied with a constant hum of moans and yummy sounds that amused Brave to no end. He watched with a grin on his face, basking in the pleasure of nurturing, happy that she was being revived, and proud that he was the one privileged with the task of taking care of her.
When her eating became noticeably slow and deliberate, Brave caught her arm and urged her to a standing position.
“First wish granted. Next up. Bath. At your service.”
He pulled her into the bed chamber, which adjoined a palatial bath complete with an infinity fire and a sunken tub like the one she’d enjoyed on Renagoth Anh. The pale blue water was moving fast enough to create white caps and Lana almost moaned at the thought of tub jets gently manipulating the soreness out of her poor abused muscles.
After saying something to the room in a language that Lana had come to think of as demonish, Brave reached down to test the moving water and smiled.
“It’s perfect, Lana. You could use a relaxing water massage.”
He left without a word.
Lana looked down at the gurgling tub. The hint of steam wafting was like the beckoning of a siren’s call. She stripped out of clothes that she never wanted to see again and put a toe into the water. As Brave had said, it was perfection. As she sank down into the tub ever so slowly, she took in a deep breath and exhaled an orgasmic moan loud enough to echo through the room. A small towel within reach was turned into a neck pillow when she rolled it tightly and rested it on the ledge behind her head.
For the next two days she ate, drank and slept, but when she was not engaged in one of those activities, she was in the tub. She thought it might be becoming an addiction, but didn’t care.
She was lying back, eyes closed, thinking that the hot moving water was a panacea for everything that had gone wrong since she’d left Edinburgh. She was lost in the pleasure and beginning to doze when she was startled by a familiar voice.
> “Can I join you?”
Lana contracted her body, sitting up at the same time she pulled her knees in. She tried to use her hands to cover private parts, but she quickly found she had more parts than hands.
Brave was standing over her wearing nothing but a black bath sheet slung low and wrapped around his hips. Her protest over the interruption and the intrusion died in her throat as her eyes scanned Brave’s body from neck to happy trail to the bare feet that were planted inches away from her face. She actually did a double take, thinking that it wasn’t fair for a man as gorgeous as Brave to have beautiful feet along with every other perfectly formed part she’d seen. It was enough to make a woman jealous in a neurotic kind of way.
When she found her voice, she said, “Jesus, Brave! You scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Sorry.” His smirk said that he wasn’t even a little bit sorry. “I need a relaxing water massage, too.”
She looked around. “And this is the only tub in this, uh, facility?”
Brave unwrapped the bath sheet and draped it over the bench at the end of the tub. “No. But this is the only one that has you in it, and it seems that, if a person wants to spend time with you, a person will need to join you in this tub.”
Certainly the tub was large enough for two. For that matter, it was large enough for three. Lana got a little lost in that calculation and was thinking that it could probably hold three demons or four humans comfortably…
“Lana.”
“What?” Her eyes jerked up to Brave’s perfectly shredded body and locked on his cock, which was worth spending time scrutinizing. And that’s exactly what she was doing when she noticed it growing longer, wider, firmer, and darker. She swallowed. She hadn’t psyched up for the physical compatibility test. A girl needs warning and ritual foreplay that involves dinner. Sometimes candles.
Brave laughed. “The way you’re looking at it is turning me on. You’ve seen a male sex organ before. Right?”
Lana gave Brave a tiny smile of approval. “Not like yours.”
He took that as invitation or acquiescence, and didn’t really care which it was. He descended two shallow steps and sunk into the water. With a secretive smile he mimicked the pose in which he’d found her. At the other end of the tub, he came to rest lying back on a rolled-towel neck pillow, with eyes closed, and his legs spread on either side of her. The water was clear, but the tiny waves and whirlpools disguised most of what could be seen.
Recognizing that, she began to relax the fetal position, concluding that it was unbecoming of a grown woman to be shy about nudity. Especially when she happened to be a sexually experienced woman. Not only that, but she was an aptitude-certified adventurer. Or adventuress. She supposed that the feminist-correct moniker would be adventurer, but something about the word ‘adventuress’ had caught her fancy when she’d deliberated about which descriptive term worked best.
Now and then the movement of the water would cause one of Brave’s feet to brush the side of her body. And each time, it caused an autoerotic thigh clench. Between that and the close proximity of their naked bodies she was becoming more and more heated. She looked at Brave, who seemed to be falling asleep, and she was exceedingly irritated by that. What kind of man grows a state-fair-prize-winning hard on and then dozes off?
How dare he walk into the bath, bold as day, settle himself around her, then go to sleep!
“Brave,” she said sharply. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t open his eyes, but he did smile. “I’m considering my options.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m mulling over and prioritizing some first encounter intimacy scenes from your books. I paid special attention to the pages that had seen more wear than others.”
Lana scoffed, but was embarrassed by the accusation and felt her cheeks get even more flushed than they already were from the heat of the bath. “There were no pages like that!”
Brave smiled even bigger, but still didn’t open his eyes.
“Oh, yeah there were. Let’s see. There was the one at the rock concert, in the dark, on the grass hillside that was restricted.” Lana’s eyes flared a little at the knowledge that Brave had not only read her books, but absorbed which parts had been reread. Rereread.
He opened one eye and peeked at her, but didn’t move otherwise. His smile broadened into a laugh. “Oh, yeah, and one of my personal favorites was when the biker hooked the lady’s bra cups under her breasts so that they stood up and out, poking him in the face while she rode him on his Fat Boy. In a tavern parking lot.”
Lana splashed water at Brave like it was a weapon. “That’s enough! You make me sound like a pervert.”
He grinned. “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing wrong with Fat Boy fantasies. She rode him hard. I mean hard.” He noticed the slight widening of her nostrils. “I have more. If you don’t want me to continue, come make me stop.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “You’re taunting me with reading material. You’re the one who’s being silly. Childish even! And I’ve asked you to stop.”
For a moment Lana enjoyed a feeling of being victorious, having found an opportunity to throw the word childish into the mix. But it was short lived, because Brave was true to his promise. He did have more.
“What about the one with the sweet and sour blow job!” He was laughing full tilt by that time. And Lana was horrified.
“Shut up!”
She was scandalized enough to forget about any and everything besides shutting Brave up. She lunged toward the other end of the tub. Brave met her half way and rearranged her body so that she was straddling him.
Before she had a chance to wonder how that had happened so quickly her mouth had been taken by a conquering kiss. It was not a playful sort of kiss to match the mood he had set with his teasing. It was an I’m-staking-a-claim kind of kiss. Every thought in her head disappeared except for one.
Brave. And that’s what came out of her mouth when they pulled back for air. “Brave.”
He reveled in the way his name sounded on Lana’s lips when she was aroused. The friction of their bodies together felt even better than he dreamed it would.
As he kissed down her neck, he took her waist and raised her up so that her nipples were at the same height as his mouth. He murmured her name as his tongue danced around her areola before he latched on and began sucking.
She threw her head back, feeling that pull all the way to her core as if there was a single long nerve ending connecting her nipple and her clit. Her hand made its way between their bodies, pausing to trace the deep clefts of Brave’s abs before grasping his glorious cock in her palm.
He hissed in a long breath as he lowered her and uttered a string of words that she suspected were demonish curse words. Knowing that her touch was having that effect on him was gratifying, because she didn’t want to be the only one who felt carried away with the moment.
Brave pulled her back into a series of kisses that were like a drug. “Lana. Let me in. Make love to me.”
The level of desire made her brain a little foggy, but not so foggy that she didn’t remember condoms.
“Do you have a condom?”
He looked at her blankly. “No? Truthfully, I don’t know exactly what that is. I mean I know people talk about them in your books, and I know it’s a before-sex ritual, but I’ve never seen one. What do they do?”
She sat back, feeling the wave of disappointment take the urgent edge off her arousal. “They’re an insurance policy against getting a disease that’s passed through sex. That and they prevent pregnancy. That’s actually not a risk in my case because I had my annual shot. Stuart made sure of it.”
“Who’s Stuart?”
“Oh God.” She took a deep breath. “A condom covers up your, um…”
He canted his head to the side and looked like he was trying to receive her thought telepathically. “Penis?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes. Tha
t. So neither one of us would get a disease from the other.”
He slanted his head the other way. “Do you have a disease? Because Fortuity…”
“No. I’m not carrying a disease.”
“Well, neither am I.”
“How do you know?”
“Because demons don’t get diseases.”
“Demons don’t get diseases?” she repeated. Then it dawned on her what he was saying. “You mean you’ve only had sex with demons?”
“Well, yeah. Do you see any other humans around?”
“Oh, God.”
“What’s the matter now?”
“My self-confidence just went south. That’s what’s the matter.”
“What does that mean? What does your self-confidence have to do with my sex habits?”
“Habits?!? Oh, God.”
Brave chuckled. “Lana. I can’t be sure, but I’m sensing over-reaction. Why don’t you just calmly, rationally tell me what’s going on behind those mesmerizing gray eyes?”
“Mesmerizing?”
“Yes.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Mesmerizing. Captivating. Alluring. Seductive. And I could go on and on and on.” She stared at him with lips parted. “Lana?”
“What?”
“We don’t have a pregnancy problem. We don’t have a disease problem. Are there any other problems we need to discuss before we get back to the important stuff?”
“I… ah… I… just…”
“Speak!”
“I don’t think I want to be compared to demons.”
He sat back and looked at her like she was insane. “You can’t be compared to demons.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I mean demons can’t be compared to you. You’re Lana.”
He said that like he thought she was a Marvel super hero.
“Yes. I’m Lana who is capable of feeling just as sexually insecure as any other woman.”
Brave’s face softened. “I’m not going to pretend to fully understand. Because I don’t. But I am going to tell you that there is no female of any species, in any dimension, who can compare to you. You’re beyond compare.”
Prince of Demons 1-3, Box Set Page 25
