by HP Mallory
There, I’ve said it. I’ve said exactly what he wanted me to say. And now maybe he’ll leave me drowning in my own self-hatred and shame.
Cambion tilts my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. I look away in defiance, but the warmth of his touch is welcome even though I hate admitting the fact.
“Then you’re telling me you enjoyed it?”
My mouth drops open in shock as I shake my head, but I then realize the uselessness in trying to defend myself. “What difference does it make? If I defend myself, you won’t believe me anyway.”
“I saw the tears in your eyes when I witnessed the vision.”
I feel my stomach drop and I can’t look at him. “Then you know the answer for yourself.”
“You didn’t enjoy it, but you weren’t able to stop it.” His voice grows soft and I can’t answer him because there’s a huge lump in my throat. “That doesn’t sound like a demon of lust to me.”
“It doesn’t change the fact,” I start and then furiously bat my eyelashes as I try to get control of myself. “It doesn’t change the fact that I… touched myself.”
“You had no choice,” he answers with a shrug. “You were captured by Variant’s will. You had no control over yourself.”
“Do you believe that?” I ask him, finally finding the strength to spear him with my gaze.
“Yes.”
I’m surprised, so surprised I have no response.
“Tell me how Variant was able to control you,” he continues.
“I don’t understand.”
He nods as if realizing his words are confusing. “Tell me what he did that forced you to… touch yourself.”
I eye him suspiciously. I don’t trust him. “Why?”
“I could help you...”
Why would he want to help me? I think to myself. Usually, Cambion wants nothing to do with me and before we were imprisoned, he wouldn’t stop going on and on about leaving me somewhere to fend for myself. I don’t say anything, and he explains.
“I could teach you how to defend yourself if anyone ever tries to force themselves on you again.”
It isn’t like Cambion to ever offer anything. Since I’ve met him, he’s struck me as self-centered, proud, stubborn and too convinced of his own importance. Yet the hailstorm of emotions in his eyes causes my heart to clench. I won’t lie to myself and think he cares, but he feels something. He must. There’s no way anyone could fake the emotion I detect in his eyes.
I start to nod, and the anger flows out of my entire being. “Compulsion. Or at least that’s what I think it was.”
“Why do you think it was compulsion?”
I shrug. “Variant waved his hand and he took control of me, just like that. And no matter what I did or what I thought, I couldn’t curb his control. It was like I wasn’t even in my own body. He forced me… to…. to pleasure myself and there was nothing I could do to stop it.” The venom in my voice startles Cambion, but the expression in his eyes doesn’t change.
“Compulsion sounds about right.”
I nod but there’s hesitancy in me, at the same time. Hesitancy because I haven’t explained everything yet. I’ve left out some of the details because they’re details I’m not exactly comfortable with.
“There’s more,” he says. It’s as though he can read me.
I swallow hard and before I can stop myself, I begin to explain. “When Variant was… doing that to Anona,” I start, sounding as awkward as I feel. Cambion smiles a bit at my choice of words but says nothing. “I hated him,” I continue. “I hated the control he had over me. I felt disgusted and violated and…”
“And what?” he prods as he studies me narrowly.
I sigh. This is the part I don’t want to admit. This is the part I’m sure will kill whatever good will Cambion has towards me. But, it’s also the truth. “Part of me liked it, even though I couldn’t understand how or why. And I hated myself for liking it. I still… I still do.” Tears start to blur my eyes and I look away from Cambion again. It’s too hard to admit all of this and wonder if the understanding in his eyes is going to turn to judgement and disgust. There’s no way I’ll tell him about the following evening when Variant buried his face inside me. That will be a secret I’ll take to my grave.
Unless Cambion receives a vision of that too…
Cambion reaches forward and swipes my tears away with his thumb and I’m momentarily floored. “Why… are you being nice to me?” I finally ask.
He swallows hard and he’s quiet for a moment or two. “I don’t know,” he answers.
“That’s not a good response,” I say with a faux laugh, even as the tears continue to escape.
“I’m sorry, but it’s all I have,” he says and steps away from me.
I curl my arms around myself and sigh. “I know you think the worst of me. And, I don’t blame you at all. I think the worst of myself too.”
“That’s not what this is,” he nearly interrupts and closes the gap again. He looks like he wants to touch me, but he doesn’t. His eyes, however, are deep and… kind. I don’t understand.
“What this is?” I repeat.
“What happened—the way your body reacted—was natural even for someone who isn’t a Succubus.”
“He killed her, Cambion, in front of me!” I almost yell at him.
“And, tell me, Eilish, were you turned on at that point?”
“Of course not!”
He smiles. “You’ve just proven my point. You had no way of knowing Variant was going to murder Anona. All you knew was that you were witnessing a sexual act and you were forced to pleasure yourself. It isn’t your fault that you liked the way your fingers felt against your own skin. It isn’t your fault that watching Variant fucking Anona turned you on.”
I swallow hard because I’m more than turned on just listening to Cambion talking to me. And his body is so close, and his energy is so bright, so overbearing.
“It isn’t my fault?”
“No,” he answers as his eyes settle on my lips. I can feel the change in his energy—he’s stimulated—just as much as I am.
Before I can stop myself, I ask: “Would it turn you on to watch someone fucking me?”
I don’t know where the words come from or how I have the courage to even say them, but before I know it, the words are out. Cambion’s eyebrows shoot for the sky and he seems taken aback for a moment or two. Then he swallows down his pride and nods.
“I imagine it probably would.” Then he quickly adds: “I’m not saying that’s what I want, by any means. But, were I in a similar situation, where I was forced… to watch someone inside of you…? I’m sure my cock would act on his own natural impulses.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t respond. Instead, all I can think about is Cambion watching Dragan or Baron fucking me as he strokes his cock and then announces it’s his turn.
“My disgust is with Variant,” he says and interrupts my wandering thoughts.
“Thank you,” I say, and he appears surprised.
“For what?”
“For actually listening and believing me and trying to make me feel better.”
He nods. “Don’t get used to it,” he says with a smirk and then turns and walks away. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the bulge in his pants is a little more pronounced.
###
Baron
The forest is quiet. Not the sort of quiet that helps me relax, but the kind that puts me on edge. And through that silence breaks the sound of a trickling stream.
Every inch of my body aches with a newfound agony. Whatever was on the end of the blade that pierced me, must have been some kind of contaminator. And something I’ve never been exposed to, as I’ve built a tolerance to most poisons. Well, at least to the types of poisons one can build a tolerance to.
Cambion stands over me with my shirt in his hand. He dips it into a hollowed-out piece of tree trunk he’s magicked into a bowl. In the bowl is enchanted water that’s be
en given healing powers. As to whether the water will have any effect on my wound…? Who’s to say?
He runs the shirt over my torso, dripping the water over my wound in his attempt to clean it. It burns like all the fucking demons of hell. A slew of uncultured words drifts from my lips as I bare my fangs at the elf. Cambion, of course, ignores me with the same impassiveness that he ignores everyone.
I’ve mastered a similar cold indifference.
Regardless, I’m about to punch his skull into powder if he doesn’t stop touching me. I try to push him away, but my arms won’t move. The fucker must have cast a spell to keep me still. “Okay, enough,” I snarl as Cambion smears a poultice over the deep wound on my arm.
“I’m the only one keeping the bloody thing from becoming infected,” he spits back at me.
“At this point, I’d fucking rather die.”
“Well, lucky for you, you’re immortal and can’t die,” Cambion responds in that familiar teacher speaking down to a student tone of his that makes everyone want to take his head off.
Where the fuck is Pyre? I wonder.
“I don’t have anything to sew you up with, so binds will have to do,” Cambion announces.
“Binds? What binds?” I insist. I hate anyone fussing over me. It’s irritating and it’s even more irritating that it’s Cambion. At least if it were Eilish, I could hope to get a peek at her cleavage or her shapely ass.
“Whatever clothing we can spare,” Cambion responds as he turns to look at the rest of our group. “That means start donating.”
Dragan grumbles something unintelligible but strips off his black tunic and tosses it at Cambion. Flumph lifts his shirt as well, but the gargoyle stays his hand. “No one wants to see that.”
“Well, fuck you too, big fuckin’ ape!” the sprite says as he flies over to Eilish. She grips the hemline of her long, satin gown and rips it past the slit that ends at her knees. She rips it upward until we’re all endowed with the sight of her milky thighs. Then she rips the fabric sideways, thus making her long gown short. Noticeably short, in fact.
Her hands tremble slightly as she hands the fabric to Cambion, who makes it quite obvious he’s trying to avoid looking at her long, toned legs. If not for the intense pain and weakness I feel, I would toss her to the ground and fiercely satisfy her every need.
Cambion shakes his head as though he can read my thoughts. He drops the donated fabric to the side, before selecting the satin from Eilish’s gown and ripping it into a four-inch piece. Then he rips a piece of Dragan’s shirt and soaks it in the water bowl. He wrings the shirt out and wraps it around my arm, carefully tying it into a knobby knot at my side. He covers the material with the strip of Eilish’s dress and then uses the remaining satin for one more go-around.
The elf stands and then looks down at me before he nods, satisfied with his work. I want to snap at him, to tell him this act of kindness doesn’t redeem the fact that he got us captured by our enemy, but I don’t. For some reason, I sympathize with Cambion.
Each and every one of us has at least one act of pure stupidity tainting our pasts. Acts that remind us not to fuck up again. If not for trusting the Midnight Queen, I would never have allowed myself to be betrayed. As far as I’m concerned, Morrigan guided us through the oath and we followed obediently, claiming the thrones and our powers without question. The balance was restored, yes, but at what cost?
The more time I’ve had to think about it, the more I’ve realized our chief mistake was that unquestioning loyalty we placed in Morrigan. It was my own stupid trust that got me, er Baron, killed.
And I will never trust anyone again.
Everyone is capable of betrayal.
EIGHT
Baron
The Forest in the Sky
I feel something—a slight hitch in the energy of the forest. I roll into a fighting crouch, before I forget my injury and simply collapse against the ground. I look up to see Pyre standing just out of sight. He’s slightly hidden between two immense oak trees, maybe twenty feet into the distance.
He reveals himself slowly, looking over at Dragan for a moment and I notice the gargoyle’s stiff.
“It is time you left this place,” Pyre says, looking at each of us in turn.
He raises his hands and chants in a voice too deep to be natural. The trees shrink from his power as energy crackles in the air and emerge as lightning. Bright green light tears open the veil between this land and the next. The portal appears as a circle, the perimeter comprised of various colors of light. The circle floats in the air, perhaps four feet off the ground, and within it, we can see the landscape of another location. Pyre bids us to step through.
Dragan glances back at Eilish, where she stands near me. Meanwhile, Flumph and Cambion enter the circle and disappear. Eilish hesitates.
“Eilish,” Dragan says as he bids her to approach him.
“I want to make sure Revenant,” she starts as she glances back at me. Her eyes are wide pools of concern. They incite something deep within me that’s both resentful and angry. I don’t want her pity nor her concern.
“Go,” I bark.
She looks back in the direction of Variant’s castle before turning to face Pyre. “Your spirits told us the Midnight Queen is held prisoner at Variant’s palace. Will you help us rescue her?” she asks with a tone of insecurity.
I swallow hard. Eilish doesn’t know where I stand with regard to Morrigan. No one does. Regardless, I will not be involved in the Midnight Queen’s rescue. I’ve already stuck my neck out too far and I’ve compromised myself in ways that still bewilder me. I’ve had enough of compromising myself.
I feel Pyre’s blind stare and I turn to face him. In this moment, I despise the mask on Pyre’s face, because I can’t read his expression. Instead, I watch as he faces Eilish and nods. Apparently, his response is good enough for her, because she approaches the portal, with Dragan behind her and the two cross over.
Pyre then faces me, and the necromancer extends his hands in my direction. I feel my body lifting and he then rotates me so I’m floating on my back. He moves his hands in the direction of the portal and I feel myself beckoned forward as if carried by invisible hands. Icy tendrils caress me as I enter the portal, all that energy prickling my skin. Once on the other side, I frown in confusion as I face the same forest we’ve just come from.
But it appears different now. There are no leaves on the trees and a light dusting of snow blankets everything in white. I look up at the sky where snowflakes fall gently from an endless stretch of ebony. A hundred galaxies hang above us in a spattering of stars and vibrant swirls of color, casting an amethyst glow on the ghostly forest below.
“Come,” Pyre says as he leads us down a winding path towards a cottage with black smoke meandering from the chimney. I feel myself change direction—floating upwards—I’m suddenly vertical with my feet below me. I simply hover above the path below as I’m moved forward. Clearly, Pyre understands that I’m too weak to move myself.
I’ve become a fucking invalid and I’m not pleased about it.
The splintered, wooden front door cracks open and a tiny creature peeks her head through the opening. She’s so small, the top of her head doesn’t even reach the doorknob. She sees us and her eyes grow larger with anxiety or surprise. She pulls her head back in and slams the door shut.
“Don’t mind Noni,” Pyre informs us as the beginning of a smile haunts his lips. Clearly, he’s fond of the small creature. “She’s my house brownie.” Then he faces his front door again. “Noni, open the door for our friends.”
She does as instructed and pushes the door fully open, standing there and waiting for us to enter. She isn’t much smaller than Flumph, but her head is larger than her body and her eyes are two huge sapphire orbs. A tiny pink mouth tilts up into a shy smile when we approach her. Pointed ears stick out of a mop of auburn curls that frame her freckled face.
“You bring Noni friends, Master?” the brownie asks in a high-pitche
d voice as she then hides her face behind her plethora of curls.
“Yes,” Pyre answers.
We follow the little brownie into the cottage. With its thatched roof, mud walls and ancient wooden floors, it’s undeniably modest. But it’s also shelter. The brownie closes the door behind us. She then scampers from the main room into an adjoining one, opening and closing cupboard doors as evident by the sound. When she returns, she bears arms full of bread, cheeses, and fruit which she empties on top of a long and rustic wooden table. On either side of the table is a long and unstable bench.
Flumph stares at Noni in obvious annoyance. “Why you serve him?” the sprite asks as he motions to Pyre and crosses his arms against his chest.
Noni crawls clumsily onto the table to light a candle, not hearing the annoyance in Flumph’s tone.
“Noni’s master take good care of her, so Noni take good care of him,” she responds with a large and genuine smile.
Flumph’s eyebrows meet in the middle of his creased forehead and his scowl deepens. “That’s what the giants want you to think!”
“No. Not Master. Noni love her master.” The brownie looks genuinely upset by Flumph’s insinuation and Pyre growls a low warning at the fool sprite. Flumph hides in Eilish’s hair as Noni climbs into the necromancer’s pocket, seeking his comfort.
“Noni was nearly dead when I found her,” Pyre informs us. “She was trampled by Variant’s soldiers when they raided a faerie village,” he continues to explain. “I took her in, healed her, and she chose to remain here as my companion.” Then he turns his sightless gaze to Flumph, who swallows hard. “She’s no slave, so I’d advise you to watch your tongue.”
Flumph deflates a bit. I feel myself floating towards the table and release a heavy sigh as the tension in my bones seems to worsen. Pyre catches my wince. “The pain will leave you soon.”
“I don’t know what type of poison caused this,” I respond.
