She nodded. “I even sound better,” and she sang the words for the song they were working on.
Natty’s brows rose. “Damn, girl.” He eyed Lee and shook his head. He was no dummy. He knew the other man didn’t want to go there with him.
“Come into the bathroom downstairs,” Eyoen told him. He would heal the man because Cass wished him to and because if he did so Natty would be able to think more clearly, work faster, and leave sooner. “We’ll need more room.”
Natty looked like he wanted to protest, so Eyoen gave him a little psychic push and he followed with another frown.
“Flush my toilet!” Cass called through the door, then Eyoen heard her go back upstairs to the studio.
“You don’t have to do this,” Natty began.
Eyoen didn’t even bother to reply, he just thralled the man into pulling his pants down and sitting on the toilet, then handed him the small yellow bucket that Cass used the rinse out the tub after she used it. He didn’t have to do much massaging, since Natty wasn’t really aware of what was going on, Lee simply ran his hands over the man’s limbs, letting his magic free as he circled the producer’s head, concentrating on his throat and chest and lower back, and like Cass, his internal organs and bowels.
In short order Natty began to evacuate into the toilet and spit into the bucket. Gobs of tar and chemicals were expelled from his lungs. He actually filled up the bucket, and Eyoen emptied it before he gave him a glass of purified water to drink.
He waved a hand at a window and it opened, a sweet wind blowing through to air the place out, though Natty had been flushing even more diligently than Cass. But cleaning one’s abused system was a nasty, smelly business. Thirty minutes later Cass knocked on the door.
“How’s it going in there?”
Eyoen had just coaxed the last of the refuse from Natty’s body and had him remove his clothes and wash in the shower.
“We’ll be out in a minute,” he answered, while the other part of his brain implanted memories in Natty’s head of a lengthy massage, a great urge to shit and spit, and repeated flushing. He added a few jokes like those the man might have made under the circumstances and left it at that. If the outline of the story was solid, it was likely he’d feel so good, he wouldn’t bother to examine the particulars that closely.
Eyoen had to support Natty when they left the bathroom and made their way to the kitchen. He wasn’t in as good a shape as his Cass, and was weak after the purge.
She’d fixed the man a similar meal to the one he’d prepared for her, and made him a smoothie with fresh fruit and vanilla frozen yogurt.
He enjoyed his smoothie while Natty demolished the food.
“Add this yogurt to the list,” Rierdane said.
Eyoen laughed in his head and agreed as he enjoyed the treat. Of course, Rierdane, both kinds.
“There are two kinds?” the servant said, excited.
Actually I think there are dozens.
“Wonderful,” the servant breathed.
“How you feel?” Cass asked.
Natty yawned even as he continued to hungrily chew his way through the vegetables. “Amazing, starving, tired. Lee, man, you should do that for a living and charge a fuckin’ fortune.”
Cass laughed. “That’s exactly what I told him.”
“Seriously, brother. You would be so paid. Christ, I need a nap. You mind, Cass?”
“Nope. You know where the guest room is,” she laughed, and watched him yawn his way from the room.
“Where are Priti and Boyd today?” Eyoen asked, realizing he’d been so busy with Natty and Cass, he’d missed their presence.
“It’s Sunday. You know they go visit Priti’s parents and eat dinner over there.”
Eyoen nodded as though he’d just remembered. He eyed Cass as she came around the kitchen table, and he opened his knees until she was pressed close, her nose and lips a hair from his own.
He loved how she teased him, inhaling deeply, deliberately, so that her breasts pressed lightly against his chest, her breath feathering his lips. She blinked then yawned delicately into one hand.
“You need a nap too,” she told him. “Making people feel better’s hard work.”
He nodded. “Yes, indeed,” he agreed. “I think you are also due a small rest, my dear. Creating such wonderful music does not happen without exacting a toll.”
Cass laughed softly. “You are so clever.” Her brow wrinkled as she realized what she’d said, and how rarely she’d had occasion to say something similar in the past. Before recently, Lee hadn’t been that clever. He’d always been full of common sense, but he’d never been particularly quick witted.
Seeing clearly where her thoughts were, Eyoen distracted her with a soulful kiss, and rose from the chair with her in his arms. Cass wrapped herself around him and let him carry her to her bedroom.
“You’ve healed so quickly,” she whispered into the hollow of his throat. “Sometimes it feels like you’re even stronger than you were before.”
“I’ve been doing pushups and sit ups in the evening and in the morning,” Eyoen said easily.
“Very good,” Rierdane said softly.
Do not compliment me for lying to my woman, Rierdane.
“Apologies, sire. I meant no offense.”
“Yeah?” Cass asked, as he pulled the tee over her head and tossed it aside. She moved her hands to his button fly. “That would explain why you haven’t lost any muscle tone. Though I think you do look a bit thinner. Not that it makes you look worse. You actually look better.”
Eyoen wasn’t listening; he groaned into her mouth when she was naked and his hands were filled with her warm curves. Happily he rubbed his chest against her softness, loving the feel of her in his arms. He wanted to pull her to the ground and roll around with her, lay with her flat on top of him, her arms tight around his neck the way they were now. Or even better, they could lay on their sides with their legs tangled tight around each other.
He would have merged with her if he could, never allowing her to stray far from his side. But strangely, now that he’d spent time with her, watching and listening and observing her interactions with others, he found he liked that she was so independent. He had little to no experience with independent women with a harem of lovelies and female servants waiting patiently to be told how to fulfill his every need. But he enjoyed how she teased him, withholding herself from him deliberately to whet his appetite and add spice to their lovemaking, or unintentionally as she lost herself in her work.
It didn’t matter if her actions were deliberate or not. She had only to look at him, to slant him one glance out of the corner of her large brown eyes and he wanted to strip her naked and lick her until she screamed. When she teased him it was all he could do not to ravage her like a ruffian from the Cyani portange.
The gate to his star was manned by the lowest of society’s criminals. They were uncontrollable, literally chained to the ground, big, hardened brutes as mean as a nest of rousted snakes. Many would serve out their sentences, be released, commit crimes immediately and end up right back where they started.
However, there hadn’t been an unannounced or unwanted visitor to the star in more than 559 Earth years. And when that breach occurred, there hadn’t been enough left of the pitiful invaders to identify.
All Cass had to do was look him to make him feel that out of control. He shuddered to think what would happen if she ever withheld herself sincerely.
He wondered if it was novelty that held him so in thrall. His harem would never think to employ such tactics. He wasn’t even sure if they knew them. His houris knew sexual tricks aplenty, but their first and only thoughts were to please him, immediately, thoroughly, as many times as he might require. They’d have been confused by the idea of playing hard to get.
Cass sighed as he nibbled her neck and collar, bringing his mind firmly back to the present. He licked gently at the tops of her breasts before suckling one tip firmly. She stroked the back of hi
s head softly, almost curiously, and he knew that she knew something was off. He also knew that she wouldn’t say anything until she had something solid to go on.
He knew he was different. As much as he tried to act like Lee, to think like Lee, as much as he actually did look like Lee, his sudden cleverness, the directness of his gaze, his love making, even his habit of saying ‘My dear,’ was all Eyoen.
All he had now was distraction. And that wasn’t going to be enough. Cass, as much as she lost her head when he made love to her, as much as her music absorbed her, was clever too. Soon she’d stop buying the accident and its subsequent knock on the head as a reason for his odd behavior. Time would pass, he’d continue to act different, and he’d make a mistake.
Rierdane sighed. “It’s inevitable.”
Leave me, Eyoen ordered, nibbling his way into the warm v at the juncture of Cass’ thighs.
“Kiss me up here first,” she whispered, and he groaned but obeyed.
Her kisses were rapturous. He almost wished he had his seer so he could watch her enjoy himself later. Cass kissed him like his lips tasted of nectar and his tongue of ice cream. She kissed him slowly and thoroughly, her hands in his hair tugging in time with the pull of her mouth, and his hips answered the rhythm without conscious thought.
He caught a few of her thoughts, he couldn’t help it; their bodies were so close, intertwined like strands of braided rope. With every inch of her warm, soft body pressed tightly against his the curtain between his mind and hers grew thin. He groaned as she enjoyed the shape of his lips, their red color, the pink of his tongue, the hard curves of his ass in her hands, the strength of his corded neck.
His cock swelled helplessly as she appreciated its heat, its length, the hard press that made the juices flow like watered honey from her body. She was thinking he was the most sensuous, sexy man she’d ever met, and she wanted him inside her.
She opened herself when he pulled away her clothes, and his conscious flowed unimpeded into hers before he caught himself and pulled back. She groaned at the subtle invasion, shivering and moaning louder when the odd sensation bombarded her flesh. Her body instinctively shifted here and there to make it easy for him to disrobe her, all without ceasing her relentless feeding from his lips.
He’d never been kissed like that, never had a lover take the time to get into him so much, to run her hands over every inch of skin, to pull his hair, to tease him with gentle nips of her teeth. Nor had he had ever taken the time to enjoy every curve of his lovers’ body quite this thoroughly.
He made sure to satisfy his lovers, it was a point of pride to hear the orgasmic cries of the woman beneath him. But never before had he cared enough for his partner not to invade her mind and cheat the loving, sneaking a peak to find what little trick he might employ to wring the most pleasure from her body and then take his own. Now he operated by instinct alone, and he reveled in that fact, because if her response was any gauge it seemed he needed nothing else. Cass fit him perfectly.
In the past he’d always skipped over this type of foreplay, his royal blue cock quickly shafted hip deep inside one of his houris, or whoever had caught his eye in town. There were Palace visitors, merchants selling cloth shot through with the brightly colored minerals that others mined for his father, even the maids who weeded his mother’s garden. Tumbling them in perfectly manicured flower beds had been a particular pastime for him until his mother put a stop to it, with a well-placed, deliberately motivated nitsx – a Cyani version of the bee – sting.
Now Eyoen found himself gasping like a virgin, moaning as he squeezed Cass close, nose buried in her neck while his rampant cock rooted between her legs.
“I’m, I’m sorry, my dear.” He whispered, breathless. “You just feel so good. My stars, I could eat you up.”
Cass just laughed. “Then do, my baby. Do.”
Chapter eight
As his master made love to his woman, Rierdane made his way to Cyanus’ royal council chamber where King Carlow sat brooding.
No one knew how Rierdane always knew where to find members of the royal family. Most people assumed it was because he had a network of spies helping him keep tabs on everything, and that was true. It wasn’t the whole truth, however, but like most powerful demons behind the scenes, he knew well how to pretend, and he never tipped his whole hand.
He bowed. “Sire.”
“How is my son?”
“Well. Worrying.”
Carlow sighed. “He’ll have to tell her soon.”
Rierdane nodded once. “Yes. She’s very intelligent, is Cass. I think he should volunteer the information before there is an altercation, but the prince is stubborn. I think he’d rather hold on as long as he can and then ride out the storm when it comes; particularly now that they’re sleeping together.”
Carlow laughed softly, and Rierdane frowned at the fatigue he heard in the deep sound. The King had been looking more and more drawn. He was actually pale, his vibrant blue skin appearing washed out to go with the increasingly deep lines of strain that bracketed his full mouth. Rierdane wished he was allowed to do more to help.
“Sire,” he began.
The King waved away the offer before he could make it. “I am tired, Rierdane, but it is nothing I cannot handle.”
He’d been without sleep for several days now, and it was wearying, but he could tolerate much in defense of his home. It was laughable that the enemy thought he was unaware of the probing of his star’s outermost borders.
Even if the sentries that dotted the perimeters of his holdings had not reported suspicious activity he would have known Unjel’s band of miscreants were poking about. He could feel their negative, grasping energy pawing at his lands in the corners of his minds, greedy, strange feet polluting the ground and disturbing the magical monitors only a few knew even existed to guard what appeared to be peaceful, empty space.
And then there were the sentries themselves. Cleverly disguised to blend in with their barren environs, these trained soldiers were so well hidden, so adept at exploiting night or prevailing weather, few could match them for stealth, or brute force for that matter.
His men had been trained to work with an economy of force, to reconnoiter the land and identify even the tiniest clues to indicate an enemy’s presence. They were skilled and loyal and willing to lay down their lives in service of their King, but Carlow guarded their lives fiercely; they were his first line of physical defense.
When there was peace, he was at peace. His people busily, happily, conducting the activities of their lives without incident, squabbling over the best deals in the market or placating irritable houris concerned they had not gotten their fair share of largesse during a gift-giving session.
When there was strife the King knew that too, and he rose up immediately to squash petty quarrels or the more serious fights that exploded from time to time.
Now he sighed, doing a final, mental sweep of the eastern most borders of the Cyani plains that touched space. There was a vulnerable spot there he made note of, sending instructions to the guard to quietly shore up their defenses. There was no point in alerting the enemy that he was aware of their surveillance. It was always better to be underestimated. Then he would have the advantage should he need to strike out suddenly.
“But sire I could –”
“No. Focus on my son. Watch over him. Guide him. He will need you soon.”
Rierdane scowled, his favored position allowing him to show more emotion than many would dare.
Carlow smiled. “You are thinking that is easier said than done. That the prince is headstrong and not prone to listen, and you are right. But you can still give him valuable information. He is not so silly and in love that he will not listen and take your good advice.”
“I would also be of service to you, my King.”
“You will have your chance to aid me, my friend. But for now guard my seed. He is the most important thing to us all right now, and I want him to enjoy this time with hi
s love. Just in case,” the King broke off.
Just in case he was unable to hold onto his crown. Rierdane knew what others outside the royal family did not; Carlow would kill them all before he allowed his wife and daughters to be despoiled or sold off as trophies of war, his proud, powerful sons turned into the lowest of slaves or tortured and displayed like toys for common rabble.
And Rierdane would help him, just as he always had. Now, however, he did as the King requested, bowed and faded away, praying the King would be able to rest soon, that there would be a resolution, and that he – and Eyoen unknowing of the drama unfolding at home – would be able to return to the star as they knew it.
*****
Eyoen continued to accompany Cass on her various meetings. He even helped her land the movie role. The director’s mind was mostly made up; the meeting had just been a formality to look her over and see if she was as smart as he’d heard. But when Cass was too clever, poking gentle fun at the man’s rather frail but over inflated ego – something he wasn’t at all familiar with – Eyoen coaxed him to forget his pique, and TomTom was able to unofficially seal the deal before the dessert plates had been cleared from the table.
“Do you know what this is going to do for you?” she hissed as they waved the director off.
“Since you’re talking through clenched teeth, I’m guessing a lot,” Cass laughed, swinging Eyoen’s hand happily as they waited for the valet to bring her car.
“This is the entre we’ve been waiting for, baby girl. One movie means more movies. Action, romantic comedy, maybe even a drama.”
“I’m no movie star, TomTom,” Cass warned her friend and colleague. “My music will always come first.”
TomTom waved her hand irritably as she slid behind the wheel. “That doesn’t mean you can’t sip from more than one well. I’ll call you tomorrow! Bye, Lee.”
Eyoen waved, then dismissed the valet, opening the driver’s side door for Cass himself when the car arrived.
How to Love a Blue Demon Page 10
