The Duke’s Demon by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 10

Devon was carried on the back of Sebastien’s horse, through the woods of the Chastain estate and into the low hills beyond d'Hiver. Snow fell softly over the village in the shadow of the Abbey, but it didn’t touch Duchess, who loped alongside the horse and snapped at the heavy flakes, looking far too pleased with herself when they melted in the air.

Devon was shaking by the time they made it through the gates of the Abbey. The fear and fury had drained away as they rode, replaced with a dizzying, drifting feeling that made Devon fumble on his way down from the horse and slip on the hay. Sebastien caught him with a hand on his elbow, and Devon ran shaky hands through his hair.

“I thought.” His voice was too hoarse, dry with the cold. “Thought you’d come for me. When they were…when I was taken, I knew…”

Sebastien kissed him, even though Devon’s lip was still a mess and his face was stinging with bruises, and Devon grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket to kiss him back.

There was a pattering of footsteps in the courtyard, and Devon drew away to find Clara striding in the dark with a covered lantern in her hand. Her long hair was braided and twisted in a crown, and she was wearing a heavy jacket several sizes too large over her nightgown.

“You’ve found him, then, Your Grace,” she said, raising the lantern. Her eyes widened as she turned to Devon. “Oh! What have they done to your poor face?”

“Is it that bad?” Devon asked. He almost stepped back, alarmed, as Clara approached him. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and briskly pressed it to Devon’s temple.

“Those brutes,” she said, smoothing down Devon’s disheveled hair. “I’ll speak to the village alderman tomorrow, make sure none like them come ‘round again. Ah, here, now.”

She patted Devon’s cheek, and it was only then that he realized he was crying, soft, quiet tears burning hot against the chill air.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Sebastien said. “We’ll need to see to him, still.”

“Of course,” Clara said. “And I’ll have Joaquin bathe that little fiend of yours. The other one, that girl, she’s been put to bed. She hadn’t been eating, you know. You saw the state of her.”

“I’m sure you’ll fix that soon enough, Clara,” Sebastien said, wrapping an arm around Devon. She walked with them to the doors, where she turned towards the servants quarters with all the air of a queen in her palace.

Duchess, however, would have none of it. She insisted on following Devon and Sebastien up the stairs, so they had to bathe her together in one of the spare tubs, where she paddled around quite contentedly while the water steamed and boiled in her wake. She made an utter mess of the towels and curled up in a tangled pile of them, watching Devon and Sebastien possessively as they finally stepped into a bath of their own.

“So I’m your consort,” Devon said, sinking into the bath as Sebastien ran long fingers through his hair. “I like the sound of that.”

“It’s true,” Sebastien said. “You were ours when we brought you here.”

“But you didn’t love me,” Devon said, closing his eyes. “Not yet, anyways.”

“Perhaps we suspected.” Sebastien was careful, slow, ghosting his hand over the bruise on Devon’s cheek, the old, pale scars from the night Devon shot Sabre. “You weren’t unlovable, as you were.”

“Mm. Maybe.” Devon sighed. “It’s like dogs, perhaps. We used to keep them, before, and every now and then the gamekeeper would receive one from another lord who thought a beating would make a hunting dog tame. Beat them long enough, and they lash out, or they shrink. Marius shrank, I think.”

“But you were always a flame,” Sebastien said.

“They used to call it difficult.”

“They were fools, then,” Sebastien said. “And they are not here.”

Devon turned in the bath, running his hands up Sebastien’s chest. “Commoners have a tradition here, you know. Some of them. If a submissive and a dominant marry—Which doesn’t always happen—the dominant gives their submissive a…token. Something to wear, like a ring, but…some use necklaces, or bracelets. Clara probably has one, I’d bet.”

“Yes, possibly.” Sebastien stood there, waiting, giving Devon time to collect his thoughts.

“I think I’d like one,” Devon said, at last. “Something people can see, to know I’m yours. A…” He touched his neck. “A collar.”

Sebastien’s eyes flashed with heat. “You would want this?”

“Yes.”

Sebastien trailed a finger along Devon’s neck, and Devon tipped his head back, baring his throat. Sebastien smiled.

“We will have one made, then,” he said, and there was an echo of Sariel’s voice in his, the flat ringing of bells. “And you will wear it always, to show that you are ours.”

Devon couldn’t trust himself to answer, so he surged forward in the bath, backing Sebastien up to the edge. He smiled into the kiss as Sebastien turned them both around, pinning Devon in place just the way he wanted it.

“I think, maybe.” Devon gasped as Sebastien kissed his neck, where his collar would be. “I think this place, it doesn’t call evil to it, like they say. I think it calls people who are hurt. Those who want to do harm, sometimes, yes, but Clara thinks it called her. It called Joaquin, who loves her. It called me. Even that girl, the strange one, who wasn’t scared of Duchess.”

Duchess whined, lifting her head off her enormous paws at the sound of her name.

“There may be some merit to that,” Sebastien said, holding Devon by the hips. “We never gave it much thought. Whatever it was made for, whatever purpose the mages who founded it had, it is ours, now.”

“Like me,” Devon said, and laughed.

Sebastien kissed him, and there was a shift in the air, like the faint fluttering of wings. “You’re a mess, Devon.”

“Yes,” Devon said, and kissed him back. “I am.”

* * *

Sariel wokehim a few hours later, whispering, intent.

Host. Host. Host. Come back from the shattered thought place. Come back.

“Sariel,” Sebastien murmured. “My demon.”

I love you, the demon purred. Host. I love you.

He smiled and pulled Devon closer. “I love you, too, Sariel.” Sariel liked that word, Sebastien realized. Love. It made him preen, flare his wings. Feel clever, adored.

Host.

“Yes, my demon.” Sebastien yawned, content to be wrapped up in Devon, safe in the dark of his bed, the curtains drawn.

Devon, naked and marked from Sebastien’s eager passion, mumbled and pressed his face against Sebastien’s shoulder.

Host, I love you.

“I love you, too, my demon,” Sebastien said, again.

I love Beloved, Host.

“Yes.” Sebastien pressed a kiss to Devon’s forehead. “I love Beloved, too.”

Bring him to the room. I would have the pleasure you gave him. I would feel it, too.

Sebastien thought about this. “You want him to take me?”

Yes. I would feel you shatter for him. For me. Sariel’s wings flared. You are mine. Both of you.

“Of course,” Sebastien said. Honestly, they really were Sariel’s pets. “But perhaps, in the morning,.”

Now, Host.

Laughing softly, Sebastien shook Devon awake. “Devon. Our Sariel, it would seem, wishes to assert his dominance.”

“Are demons all dominants,” Devon asked, into Sebastien’s shoulder, his voice lazy and warm. “Or is ours just bossy.”

“I think perhaps ours is just bossy,” Sebastien murmured.

What is that, Sariel asked, eternally curious.

“Bossy?” Sebastien thought for a moment. “It means, demanding, wanting control.”

Oh. Yes. I am that. Take Beloved to the dark, Host. I would have him take you. I want to know why it makes Beloved shatter. Clever demons know things. I would know this.

Sebastien drew back the curtains, the cool night air making Devon burrow deeper into the covers. He took the oil from the bedside and said softly, “Come along. Sariel calls for us.”

Devon only grumbled a bit as they left the enclosed warmth of the bed, heading toward the black doors on the second floor that stood open, waiting.

“I was terrified of those when I first came here,” Devon said, reaching out to draw his fingers over the strange pattern that adorned the interior surface of the doors. He frowned. “Were these always here, these markings?”

“I do not think so, no.” Sebastien studied them, and felt Sariel rouse.

They were. We did not know how to see them, before.

“Why do we know how to do it, now?” Sebastien asked, as they stepped through the doorway into the dark.

I will know when you know, was Sariel’s answer. Like words on pages, now I know how to see them, and know the meaning of them.

“To read, you mean?”

Yes. You see the symbols now. When you know them, I will know them. We will read them together.

Sebastien peered at them, again. They looked like nonsense to him. He glanced at Devon, still sleepy-eyed and tousled, who shrugged.

“They mean nothing to me,” he said, as the doors slowly began to close. “I’m still trying to figure out how I can see you in here, when there isn’t any light.”

Sebastian thought about his dream, where the light flooded the room and he saw his little brother, heard Devon’s voice. “There is light, my flame,” Sebastien murmured, drawing him close. “It is you. I think that is what you are, for Sariel and I. Our flame. Our light in the dark.”

“I’m not,” Devon protested. “I’m not a good man. I’m weak. A coward. I—I shouldn’t have shot Sabre. I shouldn’t have let my father—I should have insisted you let the king’s men take me.”

“Shh, Beloved. You are a man who has made mistakes. But I know the taste of what you would call evil, and I know the taste of you, and they are not the same taste. Your soul burned bright enough to call us from our home, to collect you and bring you back so that you could warm us. It has come to my attention lately that I am not the man I was before, either.” Sebastien reached out and drew his fingers down Devon’s face, smiling at him. “When I was young, there was a troupe of puppeteers who would sometimes come here. My mother would hire them to perform for us, in the courtyard. I feel as if I went a long time as one of those puppets, and that is not to say I feel any resentment toward the creature who pulled my strings. Only that I remembered, I think, what it is to be alive, to move about without any strings at all.”

“That’s, I’m not…no one’s ever.” Devon grabbed him and pulled him in, kissing him. “I’ve only ever been a problem.”

“You’re a mess, Devon,” Sebastien said, and Sariel’s voice was there, over his. He kissed him back. “But you are our mess. And we are not so perfect that we are not, on occasion, a bit of a mess ourselves.”

What is perfect, Sariel asked. And stop. I would come forth.

“Our demon is eager to be with us.” Sebastien kissed him, again. “Will you kneel for us?”

“I will,” Devon whispered, and then there in the dark, sank elegantly to his knees.

There was a pressing weight against Sebastien’s eyes, his mouth, and then Sariel pushed out of him, spilling into the dark place between them.

Sebastien stared at the being before him, known and yet new, resplendent.

The creature standing before them now was more distinct than he’d ever been, and he was magnificent. He stood on two legs, dark wings spread out behind him, his horns curved and rising from his head. His eyes were red and slitted, like Duchess’, with that same sharpness behind them. His feet were tipped with curved talons that clicked on the ground when he walked. This was the creature Sebastien had seen before, in the same way line art became a painting.

“Sariel,” Sebastien whispered. “Look at you, my demon.”

Sariel’s voice shivered over Sebastien, chill and bright. “ I am what we become, when we are clever.”

“May I touch you?” Sebastien asked, enthralled.

“Yes. That is why we are here.” Sariel flared his wings, and his tail swished, but he did not seek to spear anything with it. “Do you see, Host. How I am clever.”

“You are beautiful.” Where before Sariel’s body was almost incorporeal, when Sebastien reached out to touch him, it felt more solid. There was something halfway between fluff and scales on his body, which was delightfully unexpected. “Tell me how you are clever, my demon.”

“For a demon, it takes a long time to come together from the Pit. To grow into things, many things that grow together and become one.” Sariel, who’d been standing on two legs, went to all fours and butted against Sebastien’s hand like a cat. “Come, Beloved. I would have the petting from you both, now.”

“Bossy,” Sebastien said, smiling. “That’s being bossy, my demon.”

Sariel, in the way of any cat, ever, didn’t seem to care about that. He was making the rumbling sound that Sebastien thought was purring.

Devon moved closer, though a bit more hesitantly.

Sariel clicked and flared his wings, which now Sebastien could see had feathers. “Why do I taste fear, Beloved. No knife, for you.”

“I am used to seeing you, my demon,” Sebastien said, reaching out and taking Devon’s hand with the one that wasn’t petting Sariel. “Our Devon is not.”

“I am clever,” Sariel said, to Devon. “I brought you a small one. You love the small ratchet. She found you in the snow.”

“She—yes, she did.” Devon breathed out, slow and even. “I’m not trying to be afraid.” He reached his hand out, and drew it down Sariel’s spine.

“There is nothing in the dark to frighten you,” said Sariel, preening under the attention and tossing his head so that his horns shook. “The things here, they are weak. They are not strong, or clever.”

“Like you,” Devon said, breathing beginning to come easier.

“Yes,” the demon sighed. “Like me. I grew fast.” Sariel abruptly raised on his hind legs, wings flaring, and shrieked. His pointed tail swished, and something squealed off in the distant dark of the room. In a flash, he was eating it.

Sebastien shuddered, softly, and grabbed at Devon’s hand. “Ah. That. It’s almost…too much.”

“I consume them because I want to,” the demon informed them, while Sebastien tried not to come in his silk pajama pants.

Sariel blinked slowly—which, Sebastien thought hazily, he’d never seen Sariel do, before—and shoved his face close to Devon’s. “Is that how it feels, when Host takes you.”

“I wouldn’t know exactly,” Devon said, very carefully, as if he were trying not to offend or give Sariel any ideas. “But yes, it...seems similar.”

“I would see,” Sariel said, and butted against Devon’s hand. “Take him, Beloved. Make him shatter. I would feel this, as he does, when I consume things.”

“What exactly are they, these...things,” Devon asked, as Sariel speared another, and another; Sebastien moaned, driven to his knees by the shivery pleasure, but Devon looked a bit white-faced at the sound of the demon’s jaws as it snapped shut and Sariel swallowed his prey.

“They are smaller, lesser things. Once I was as they are, when I was new. To grow you must consume them.”

“But you’re...very grown, now,” Sebastien said, catching his breath.

The demon shook his wings, clicked his talons on the floor,. “Yes. But you like the way it feels, my Host. You shiver and shake, you break apart. Like you do for Beloved, like Beloved does for you. I would do this, too.”

“Ah,” Sebastien said, and then, once he could speak again, “You needn’t kill your brethren for me to feel pleasure now, my demon. I am content to pet you, see you come forth, speak to you. Feel you curl up and slumber within.”

Sariel paced a bit, like a cat circling a favorite place to nap two or three times before it would commit to sitting down. “They are not my brethren,” he said, and his voice—always so flat, atonal—sounded strange, still, the shape of the words somehow wrong but not quite as much as before. “I am clever. They do not know things. They cannot see from their own eyes or those of another. They do not have a name. I have a name.” Sariel rose up on his hind legs again. His teeth flashed. Sebastien realized with a bit of start that he was smiling. “I am clever, Host. I called you when you were small and I was newly seeing from my eyes and the things that made me were fading to one sound, within, so that I had only one voice. I wound my essence around your fading light and dragged it back to the glow that you see on the fires, when they do not blaze but are not yet banked. I did not swallow the soul of the small creature who trembled but I wound around it and now we are one. I am clever. I have a name.”

“Do you understand this,” Devon whispered, as if Sariel couldn’t hear.

“I...yes, I think so.” Sebastien thought this through. “The things in the dark, they are demons, but less evolved than you. You would have taken longer to become so distinct, but when I came to you, dying and angry and afraid, you...joined with me. And learned very quickly, what takes most demons several human lifetimes.”

“Yes, Host. You are clever, too. Good. A clever demon should have a clever host. I love you.”

“I love you, too. You saved me by not...taking my soul, but...joining, with it.”

“Yes,” Sariel said. His wings snapped. “You were lonely. I knew the word, then. I knew I was that thing, too. That is why I did not swallow your soul. I am clever, am I not. The most clever.” His tail swished, wings flaring and folding neatly behind him.

“Yes, you are,” Sebastien cajoled, as next to him, Devon coughed quickly as if hiding a laugh. They shared a quick glance and a smile. “You are clever, and you are the best demon.”

“My father had a book in his study, about rules,” Devon said, suddenly. “There was a chapter for, for things you shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t do. As a child, as a submissive, or as a second son. You weren’t allowed to be angry, or to want things, take too much for yourself, or be idle. Be resentful of what someone has that you do not. Or be too...arrogant. Full of yourself. The book said these things came from demons that would slide into your heart. Your soul. They would come for you if you were weak.”

“Your father,” Sariel repeated, slowly. He even tilted his head, like a curious puppy. “I love you, Beloved. You should not fear the dark places that are yours.”

“I—thank you,” Devon said, and sounded a bit startled. “I, ah. Love you, too. But are there demons, like that. Bad ones.”

“Demons are what they are, Beloved. I do not know more than this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Devon assured Sariel, then moved close, ran his fingers up Sariel’s horns, then leaned in and nuzzled the demon like he really was a cat. “I think you’re beautiful. And good.”

“And clever,” Sariel added.

“And that.”

“You’re a mess, Devon,” the demon said, with the first hint of fondness Sebastien had ever heard in his voice and he understood, then, that Sariel loved Devon because Sebastien did, and while his demon evolved to a being with a name and a fearsome, lovely appearance full of smoke and shadow...it was mostly an overlarge cat with the intelligence of a terrifyingly erudite toddler.

Sebastien embraced the creature that saved him so long ago, when he was dying and alone and afraid. “I am sorry I did not feel more of what it is, to be human, when you came to me.”

Sariel shifted in the dark so his face was level with Sebastien’s. In his eyes, beyond the red and the slitted pupils, there was a vastness, endless. His true form and his true name, forming there in the dark like a star being born in the deep of the night sky. “We will learn together, Host. Se-bas-tien.” He still said Sebastien’s name strangely, as if the sound of it wasn’t natural. “Will we not.”

“I suspect we will, my clever Sariel. Now, shall we have our beloved take me so that you may feel what it is like to shatter?”

“Yes,” Sariel sighed, and then he began to shift and fade, more ethereal but no less beautiful. “I will stay tethered, and Beloved will take you. Show me what it is like.”

And so they did, there on the floor of what was, and wasn’t a room—some portal, perhaps, or the remnants of a ritual that called something it was not meant to draw from the ether into being. Devon lay atop him there, as Sariel had on occasion, and as they kissed and used their hands and mouths to draw gasps and moans from each other, the feelings pulsed along the tethers that bound Sebastien to his demon and Sariel sighed, even as he became more of a shadow against the darkness there.

“I’m your submissive,” Devon said, as he lay between Sebastien’s spread thighs and sucked his cock, teasing Sebastien’s hole with oil slick fingers. “It seems strange to take you.”

Sariel didn’t quite understand, and Sebastien certainly wasn’t in the mood to stop and explain. “I want to feel this pleasure that I give you. Sariel wishes it. You are pleasing us both, serving us both. Think of it that way.”

Sariel snapped something between his jaws and swallowed it as Devon’s mouth lowered again to his cock, and Sebastien arched up off the cool floor—it felt like tile, but it also smelt a bit of earth, and his fingers could sink into it, if he thought about it too hard—and gasped out, “Ah, Sariel, perhaps you should not, while this happens. It takes some time, as you recall, to shatter again.”

Sariel wasn’t quite manifesting strongly enough to speak loudly, but he hissed and clicked, and in his head Sebastien heard we will have to change that, and thought perhaps Devon was right, and their demon was the real dominant. A bit of a terrifying thought, like leaving a child in charge of your home.

When Devon climbed atop him and kissed him, sliding his hard, slick cock against Sebastien’s, Sebastien bit his lip and said, “You will give us this pleasure we have given you, Beloved.”

“I—want to,” Devon gasped, and buried his face in the place between Sebastien’s neck and shoulder, his breath hot on Sebastien’s skin as he pushed inside.

It felt strange, at first, to be breeched so; not quite the easy pleasure of Sariel swallowing the lesser demons, but there was something present about it, the sensation of Devon’s hard cock pushing in, the slight twinge of pain that easily faded. Sebastien felt less like flotsam from a shipwreck carried to shore by the waves, and more like the ship riding the storm to safe harbor.

At first his pleasure came from a curious feeling of fullness and the enjoyment of the demon watching, and the way Devon moaned and gasped against him, shuddering, his hips trying to still as he forced himself not to move too fast, too hard. “You feel, ah, oh. So tight and warm, hot, I—Sebastien, Sebastien, tell me if I can. Move, and. Please, please.”

He was babbling but Sebastien didn’t mind. “Yes, go on.” As he shifted beneath Devon, his hips canted up and it made Devon’s cock brush against the place inside that Devon spoke of, the one that made this feel good, being taken. And it did, and Sebastien let out a cry of sharp delight as Devon eagerly fucked him harder, fingers tight on Sebastien’s shoulders, slick with sweat and so beautifully eager to please.

Sariel shrieked in something like triumph when Sebastien came between them, wet and messy, and it made Sebastien think not of the hunt or the knife or the screams, but the way it felt so long ago when the doors to this very room opened in the worst moment of his life...and something reached back for him, drew him to safety.