Caught in the Devils' Hand

by Ruby Duvall

  She was experimenting, perhaps selling some of it for exorbitant prices.

  “Vallen…your cure is in a locked chest in the witch’s hut. You can have hope again,” she said, her hand tightening upon his arm, an excitement building inside.

  “There is no way for me to get it,” he said, shaking his head again with a defeated voice. “The witch would not give up such a book and though I can get inside the village’s barriers, the witch has barriers that I cannot pass. I could feel that she was practicing strong magic inside her hut but I could not come very close without tripping an alarm spell that tells her of visitors.”

  That explained why she never needed to knock.

  “When I had my magic, I could have easily diffused everything she had in place and bound her magic before she could even say half a word,” he boasted. “But now…now I’m powerless. It’s one thing to search for a book and another for me to get it.” She frowned a bit, disliking the defeated tone in his voice. He always acted so confident and pushy, but to hear him talk of giving up even after locating the single object he had been seeking for who knew how many years…

  “Well, I could trade her for the information we need. Perhaps she would let me trace a copy of the right page—” she began to say, but he cut her off.

  “No, she will definitely know our secret then. She’ll use it against you and I don’t want you to trade anything more with her,” he commanded, slashing his hand through the air. She felt her jaw stiffen a bit at his authoritarian attitude. “She will ask for something much worse than a kiss and a grope. No one will touch you but me,” he said, his hands grasping her forearms and jerking them up. She was forced to drop her dress, exposing her full breasts to his possessive gaze, and a startled gasp escaped her mouth.

  They both took in a deep breath, and the air was suddenly charged. Her eyes flicked down to his lap, and she watched in fascination as his cock quickly hardened, standing up straight as if to salute her.

  He wanted her again.

  It was a long ten seconds before either of them spoke.

  “Don’t you want to have hope? Don’t you want to be human again?” she asked quietly, feeling the first stirrings of arousal deep inside.

  “Of course,” he answered, lightly shaking her arms within his grip. “But I would never risk you,” he gruffly declared. He roughly pulled her to his chest, wrapping his arms around her body as she sprawled across his lap. His hand came up to tangle in her curling black tresses, holding her head in place as he hungrily pressed his lips to her mouth.

  She immediately opened for him, letting his expert tongue slide inside. His lips massaged, a bit too roughly, but she moaned into his hot, wet mouth, sliding her arms around his lean torso and pressing her breasts against him. The smooth skin of his chest was incredibly warm against her aching nipples and she reveled in the heat that soaked into her body.

  He breathed in the freshness of her mouth, licking every soft surface with relish. As he hungrily sucked at her lips, the hard peaks of her breasts were a pleasant distraction against his body and his palms itched to touch them.

  They came up for air together, panting as their hands began to roam. Shumei caressed the tight muscles of his shoulders, sweeping her hands down his back and around his sides, where she pushed up and thumbed his flat male nipples. Vallen kept one arm around her, letting the hand in her hair slip down her soft shoulder and around her side to almost mirror her own movements. His large hand confidently held and gently squeezed the firm but soft flesh of her breast, her nipple searing his hand.

  Both moaned low, their breathing uneven and shallow as their lips began to seek each other’s again. She continued rubbing the stiff male nipples under the pads of her thumbs, enjoying the sharp tingle that she knew he was feeling too. Vallen was rougher, pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger before massaging the abused flesh with the palm of his hand. He began to feel impatient though and slid his hand down her stomach to press between her legs, cupping the warm, moist heat of her sex.

  “By the gods, I already want you again. Even more than before,” he rasped as their kiss broke again.

  “Then have me. Take me. Fuck me,” she begged, eagerly opening her thighs to give him more room. Two of his fingers slipped inside, roughly shoving while his thumb rubbed her clit. “Yes,” she moaned, kissing the side of his mouth as she twined her arms around his neck. They embraced as he worked his hand between her legs and he brought his mouth close to her ear.

  “Squeeze them, Shumei. Tighten yourself around my fingers,” he hotly whispered into her ear. She fervently did so, clamping her muscles around his thrusting fingers as he continued to lick and suck at the skin on her neck.

  A thought popped into her head and she felt a great thrill as she pondered it. Taking one arm from around her lover’s neck, she brought her hand down, finding his stomach and pressing her palm flat against it. Sighing heavily as her body began to grow very wet around his powerful fingers, she rubbed her hand downward, searching for the part of him that she enjoyed the most. He grunted against the side of her face, his fingers pausing as she grasped him. His wonderfully soft white hair was brushing her cheek, his breath hot on her neck. She almost gasped as well, feeling a jolt of pleasure shoot through her that was so strong it was almost painful.

  He was so hard—as hard as stone—but the skin was as soft as velvet. Her fingertips barely met on the other side and the heat of him was surprising despite the fact that she had felt him inside her several times already.

  “Is this good?” she asked, a bit worried that perhaps she had hurt him. “I want to touch you here.” She felt his slick fingers wrap around hers, and he immediately began to help her rub her hand up and down the thick shaft throbbing inside her grip.

  “It’s wonderful. It’s glorious,” he hurriedly praised, his voice reaching that deep pitch that made the air shudder. She moaned loudly, loving the sensations inside her that mirrored her own hand on his body. “Rub it, Shumei…up and down. Use your thumb and press on the tip like thi—” he suddenly stopped speaking, groaning loudly into her neck as she followed his instructions. She cried out, pumping her hand faster to get more of the intoxicating sensation.

  “I want more,” she pleaded a few seconds later, listening to his harsh pants as she fluidly rubbed her glistening hand over his cock.

  “Then suck it,” he uttered, his voice raising goose bumps on her skin. His tongue licked her cheek, his hand still following hers as she masturbated him. “Put those gorgeous pink lips around my cock and suck the orgasm out of me,” he gruffly demanded, bringing his hand up and holding the back of her neck. He shifted a bit, putting her on the carpet, and turned so that he could pull her head between his legs, his feet on the floor and knees up. Her breasts swung heavily from her chest, her hand still grasping the base of his cock. He let go of her then, letting her take over, and placed both hands on the carpet behind him.

  He watched the slight indecision on her face and wished with every fiber of his being that she would do as he asked. Seeing her mouth on him would fulfill one of the biggest fantasies he’d had about her since the first night they encountered each other.

  At first, she was confused. No, a bit shocked and yet it made sense. He had done the same for her before by kissing her most intimate parts. Why couldn’t it work the other way around? Thinking on it now, she only felt slow for not realizing earlier that she could do this for him.

  She looked at him from this angle, his face tight with lust and passion, his beautifully sculpted chest heaving slightly as he took in air. His thighs were corded with hard muscle, his abdomen flat and smooth. He was so masculine and the part of him still grasped within her greedy fingers was the most masculine part of him.

  She wanted it inside of her mouth.

  Leaning down, she pressed a chaste kiss to the tip and made a small mewling sound at the mirrored pleasure inside her body. She knew then that the tip was the most sensitive part, like her clit.

>   Slowly sliding her mouth down the length of him, she softly moaned the entire way, stopping about halfway when the back of her throat stopped her. She heard another, deeper moan and looked up briefly at him to see a hot look in his eyes. She began to get into a rhythm, knowing from her own feelings what felt good.

  She already knew his taste, but it was strongest here. She could even taste his spicy soap and underlying it all was just Vallen. Probably what he had always tasted like, even before his curse.

  She groaned loudly, her hips moving involuntarily, as a particularly hard stroke of her tongue produced a very pleasant result. She felt swollen between her thighs, her sex crying for release. Both she and her demon lover were gasping and crying out, and though she was having some difficulty concentrating on sucking, she didn’t and couldn’t stop doing it.

  His hand settled on the back of her head, gripping her hair and helping her remember her rhythm as the flower of her body dripped clear nectar down her thighs. One of her hands began to join in, closely following her mouth as she bobbed up and down, swirling her tongue over the tip whenever she was about to start a new down-stroke. The hand in her hair suddenly tightened, and she could feel their orgasm was close.

  “Stop, Shumei…I long to come inside of you as I once did, but stop,” he choked out, pulling her head up. She gasped for air, her thighs trembling, and licked her lips as she looked at him with every ounce of want raging through her veins that second. She wanted him to come inside of her too and she wasn’t sure if she cared where anymore.

  “By the gods, you are beautiful,” he muttered, putting his legs under him and pushing her back to the pillows behind her. She tried to part her thighs and make room for him, hoping desperately that he would put himself inside her now, but he pulled her up to her knees and somewhat roughly turned her over until she flopped on her stomach, landing on a couple of pillows. He packed a couple of loose pillows under her pelvis, keeping one hand on her lower back and admiring the smooth curves of her backside.

  “What are you doing?” she asked a bit shrewishly, bemoaning the loss of sensation when she had been so close to climax just seconds earlier.

  “You’ll see…spread your legs,” he commanded, helping her push her thighs apart. His knees nudged between hers, braced just inside her open legs, and she had a sudden realization. Her hands fisted around the tassels of some nearby pillows.

  His fingers petted the soft skin of her buttocks, massaging them for a few heartbeats. Then one hand left her, and she knew that he was guiding himself to her slick entrance. She felt the engorged tip of his cock butt against the swollen lips of her flower and bit down on her lower lip, whimpering a bit. He worked it against her lips, pushing until it fitted itself in the hollow of her sex. Then holding her hips in both hands, he bucked forward, shoving inside and making her spine straighten.

  “Vallen!” she cried out, letting her head drop down to her forearms. He swiftly drove himself inside of her over and over again, slapping their bodies together and frothing up the lubricant between them. The pillows were soft and yielding against her belly as she rocked over them, the carpet a thick cushion under her forearms.

  She knew he would pull out at the climax and didn’t want him to. She wanted to feel her deepest muscles clamping his solid, scalding cock as he pumped that burning hot seed inside of her.

  She wanted to feel that sticky white liquid soaking into her womb.

  “Come inside me! Please, please come inside me!” she begged, her body violently pitching forward and backward. His booming voice gave a shout of exultation as he continued to jerk her hips back against his thrusting cock. He felt the magic between them flex like a bowstring being plucked and knew that the rule she had placed on him earlier was now void. Bracing his knees farther apart and spreading her farther open, he thrust fully into her, the tip of him gently kissing the mouth of her womb.

  She screamed into the carpet, her orgasm taking over as she drenched his cock with her pleasure. He whipped his head up, groaning, shouting, hollering her name at the cloth ceiling as he exploded inside of her, flooding the gates of her body. Her magic flared out again, reaching into her lover’s body from where they were so intimately joined, and they both cried out again as the magnified pleasure shook through their bodies.

  Then his sweaty chest was on top of her, pressed against her back as they gasped for air together. She was finding it hard to take in a good breath though…

  “Why did you…release that rule?” he gulped out, trying to gain the strength to roll off her.

  “Can’t—breathe,” she gasped, bucking a bit and rolling him off herself. He landed with a huff on the mostly bare carpet next to them and she slid off the pillows to lie against his right side. They were quiet for a minute or two, letting their breath return to them. “I liked feeling it inside me that first time, so I decided to dissolve the rule,” she explained, still a bit breathless but almost ready to purr from her sexual fulfillment.

  “I thought…I thought you didn’t want a demon to get you with child,” he said. “Although…” He trailed off, and she felt him shift a bit awkwardly beneath her. Her eyebrows slanted down a bit, and she felt a frown on her face.

  “Although what?” she asked, curious.

  “Sex demons are sterile,” he admitted, his voice tight.

  “What?” she asked in surprise, lifting her head.

  “Well, it wouldn’t do for a sex demon to impregnate every woman he siphons energy from,” he explained, his voice a bit angry.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she asked, trying to use a soothing note in her voice.

  “Even if I’m a demon now, I was once a man…and for a man to say that he’s sterile is a low blow to his pride,” he mumbled as an answer.

  “How did you know you were sterile?” she asked, a bit dubious. He looked away from her, staring up at the ceiling.

  “A sex demon is a casual term for an artificial incubus. No one really knows about the term incubus anymore. Now both artificial and real incubi are known as ‘sex demons’. Early into our curse, Rosuke and I studied authentic incubi using books from the Court Library. It was then that we found out that incubi are born sterile. The Dark One wants to kill humans, not make more. He would use any method available to kill them, including seduction. That is why incubi even exist,” he explained, his arm tightening around her shoulders.

  “So incubi do kill women? Then could a sex demon…?” she asked, leaving the question unfinished.

  “Yes and incubi feel no remorse about it. A sex demon could too but we’re different. Being born human, sex demons merely get enough from one woman to last a month and then let the woman go. Perhaps there are some of us that do kill, but Rosuke and I don’t do that. With an incubus, the woman doesn’t feel the effects until they’ve become addicted, and then the incubus kills her after just a few months.”

  “The effects?”

  “An incubus, whether authentic or not, drains a woman of her sexual energy. When they’ve become addicted, they can barely move or think straight. All they want is their lover.”

  “But you and I…we’ve made love many times. Why don’t I feel the effects?” she asked, a little alarmed.

  “You are special. Women with magic could last for decades and besides, in the old days when there was a dark court, noblewomen could recognize and kill an incubus before he could even touch her.”

  “Well, to me, you’re not a demon, at least not anymore. You’re merely…cursed?” she said slowly, trying to put her point of view into words. It was difficult. “And…I like you,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks blush as she tilted her face down to hide it.

  His heart surged with happiness. He had been feeling some camaraderie with her since she had shown an interest in travel, something he had enjoyed despite the underlying mission he had been carrying out, but when he had believed her to be helping him only because it helped her too, his heart had ached inside his chest.

  She said she
liked him though. Surely that had to change things.

  “I like you too,” he said, his arm squeezing her closer. She felt a smile tugging at her lips again, but it still didn’t quite make it to her face. She couldn’t believe that she had told him she liked him. It was true, yes, but would he use it against her? She didn’t think he would—he had been vehemently warning her not to consort with the witch, and he had been sharing stories with her during their times together. Surely that made things between them different.

  Surely…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Making her way toward her home, Shumei pocketed her earnings of three kols as she exited the hut of the Takebe family. Master Takebe had accidentally sliced open his wife’s leg with a field tool, but a clean bandage and a poultice of Sticking Comfrey now adorned her thigh.

  The morning was misty and quiet, but soft sounds of field tools hitting the earth could be heard from one’s door. The mist seemed like a giant, thick cloud sleeping at the bottom of their little valley, and she felt her cheeks moisten as she walked along the outer path, which circled around to the northern end of the village.

  Shumei wondered if she would have even met Vallen had her own field been located within the village’s circle of houses like everyone else’s. As it was, though, she had to walk fifteen minutes on an unprotected path to reach her medicine field.

  A month had passed with very little change. She had continued to meet Vallen for one morning every week, discovering new ways to feel pleasure under her lover’s lustful ministrations. When they weren’t exploring each other, they talked of his travels and of the history of the dark court.

  She always listened with rapt attention, wishing that the dark court would return someday. The stories Vallen told of past empresses and of some of the court’s nobility and their achievements…they sounded like fiction, but every story was true.

  In her village, the Burning had run its course and one hundred and seventeen people had perished. When it was clear that no one had the sickness anymore and couldn’t spread it, the neighboring villages began to trade again. Merchants once more sold their goods to the remaining population, all of whom had to be in the fields in order to bring in the harvest this year. Only very young children and the elderly were spared from any work.