The Duke’s Demon by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 6

Sebastien was dreaming.

This time, he was in the dark room, and Devon was strung up for him, like those he’d brought to put under the knife. Devon was weeping, thrashing about in his bonds, pleading with Sebastien, begging. Tears poured down his face, and every time Sebastien raised the knife he sobbed louder.

Sebastien could not make himself do it, draw the knife down and cut the skin, make the blood flow. Instead, he was pressing himself up against Devon, licking his tears while Sariel flared his wings and purred.

Host, the demon sang, soft and quiet in his mind. Host. I want.

“What do you want?” Sebastien asked, in the place between dreams and waking. “Sariel. My demon. Tell me.”

Beloved, the demon murmured.

In his dream, Devon thrashed, begged. But his please, no, don’t hurt me, turned to yes, take me, Sebastien, please.

“He would scream for the knife,” Sebastien said, his dream-self drawing the tip of the knife down Devon’s naked chest. “He would be betrayed. It would be anguish enough to glut you. But I do not want that for him.”

Host, he is not for the knife. He is for us.

“Yes,” Sebastien said. The dream-knife was gone. In its place was a ribbon. Sebastien drew it down Devon’s chest, then up so he could tie it gently around his neck. The wide red silk ribbon was the color of hellfire. “He is ours, isn’t he.”

Host, Sariel murmured, quiet. I want.

Sebastien wanted, too.

He woke up in his bed, his cock hard, his hair loose and the sheets tangled around his legs. Sebastien kicked them off, then stood and left his room. He walked barefoot down the hallway, hair loose around his face, though he needed no light to traverse the halls with the demon there to help him. Sebastien could feel Sariel pressing in against his awareness, distorting his eyes, pulling them into a shape too round and wide to be human.

And that was how he turned a corner and came upon Clara, in a dressing gown with her own dark hair loose, holding a candelabra in one hand and a mug of something warm and steaming in the other.

She startled when she saw him, but then she smiled. “You looked like this, a bit, Your Grace. When you came to collect the man who brought me here and took him into the room upstairs.”

Sebastien blinked. “I would have at least tied my hair back, I am sure of it.”

“I meant your eyes, Your Grace. They looked like this. The way they do, when you are not entirely yourself.”

“Ah.” Sebastien studied her, curious. “Did I frighten you, then, when you first saw me? I do not recall.”

“No,” Clara said, shrugging. “I was given to the man who brought me here before I was old enough to understand what was happening. I begged to be free of him. I asked the lord in the village where we were from to intervene, but he refused. I went to my knees and cried for mercy to his lady, who stared at me in disgust and did nothing to stop him from taking me from my village. In the morning, the innkeepers would refuse to meet my eyes after listening to that—man—rape me while I begged him to stop. He took what he wanted before the wedding and my parents knew he would and didn’t care. They were glad enough to be rid of me, a submissive who wasn’t meek as she should be. My only saving grace was that I was beautiful. So they said, anyway.”

Sebastien studied her, this woman who came in a storm and stayed in the house where he’d killed her fiance. He had not thought much of where she’d come from, or why she was in the company of a man she hated. “You are also a capable housekeeper.”

She laughed at that, as if it were a joke and not simply the truth. “You don’t even notice that I’m beautiful, do you?”

“Perhaps as one would notice the loveliness of a painting,” said Sebastien. “I do not mean to offer offense. You have value in our household, we appreciate your service, here.”

“Thank you. And I’m not offended. I quite like it here. You were the only one who ever helped me,” she said, with a soft sigh. “The only one.”

“While I am glad to hear it, you must know that wasn’t my motive.” Sebastien thought it best to be honest about it.

“Oh, I am aware, Your Grace. But your demon didn’t call for me that night, and I think it knew that he was nothing worth saving. And that maybe I was. So.” She curtseyed. “Thank you. If I haven’t said.”

Sariel pushed against him, and murmured, she has another that dwells within. Not like me. There is a heart that beats, faint.

Sebastien gave her a slight bow. “My demon says you are carrying.”

“Oh.” She startled a bit, then placed a hand on her abdomen. “Yes, I...yes. Joaquin and I, we were intending to speak to you about it. If we were permitted to keep the child and raise it, or if we should take a house in the village.”

Sebastien shrugged. “I would say this is no home for a child, but not because you will have anything to fear from me or my demon. It pays little attention to children.” There were a few around the Abbey. The stable boy, the girl who washed linens. Sariel had never spoken of them.

“That is what I told Joaquin, but I am glad to hear it. If you will excuse me, Your Grace. Joaquin will worry if I am gone too long.”

“Certainly.” Sebastien stepped aside, so that Clara could continue to the stairs.

“Your Devon is in the music room. In case you were curious as to his whereabouts. He fell asleep there, again.”

Ah, it must have been obvious why he was walking about the hallways, then. “I see. Thank you, Clara.”

“Good night to you and...yours, Your Grace.”

Devon was indeed asleep at the piano, a pillow shoved beneath his head. Sebastien stepped next to him, reached out and then remembered Devon did not like to be touched unaware, especially in the dark. “Beloved.”

Devon stirred, then blinked awake with a startled jerk. “I—oh. Fell asleep.” He pushed back from the piano and drew his fingers through his hair, with that same look he wore when he thought he was nothing but prey. Eventually he calmed, but he gave Sebastien an odd look. “You’re all disheveled.”

“We woke up, and we wanted you,” Sebastien said. “May we have you?”

“You—wanted, what?” Devon looked suspicious.

“Not the knife,” Sebastien murmured. “Never that.”

Devon looked down, fingers glancing silently over the keys of the piano. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve said it, but I don’t trust easily. When I’m woken up, I think of...it’s fine.”

“Shh,” Sebastien murmured, tipping his face up. “We will reassure you if that is what you need. But you will not sleep here. Come to bed.”

Devon rose and stretched, and Sebastien and Sariel enjoyed the sight of him there, alive and warm in the darkness as he came fully awake. He blinked again, then his gaze slid from Sebastien’s down his naked chest. He reached out slowly, and touched Sebastien’s stomach, where the faint, silver scar from the massacre cut across his pale skin. “I’ve never seen this...what is it from?”

“The night my family was massacred, one of them sliced my stomach with his knife. He wanted my mother to watch me suffer as she lay dying. But I tried to run, or I suppose crawl, to safety. I made it to the second floor, and the doors stood open and it was within that I found Sariel, and gave him what was left of my soul.”

“Did you find out why the men came to kill your family in the first place? Was it just robbery?” Devon asked, as they made their way up the staircase, through the quiet hallways.

“I am not entirely certain,” Sebastien admitted. “I suspect he was in debt to a few unsavory people, and they grew tired of waiting to collect what they were owed. The Abbey as it was, when my parents lived here, was far more grand. It took quite a bit more upkeep, and finding help wasn’t always easy. The place has always...called to some and discouraged others. And there is nothing produced here, no goods or services to be bartered.”

When Devon moved toward the staircase that would take him to Sebastien’s old bedroom on the third floor, Sebastien shook his head briefly and said, “No, you will sleep in our bed now, Devon. We would have you close to us.”

“Oh. All right.” Devon glanced at him, but all he said was, “Is the estate still in debt, then?”

“Not currently, though I do not live nearly the extravagant lifestyle as my father, or his father before him. No one has ever come back, though, so I suspect the men who came to murder my family thought they would simply take what they needed after we were all dead.”

“Why didn’t you move to the capital? Nobles have townhomes, suites in the palace. Your father was a duke, didn’t he have access to those?”

“You would think that, but the d’Hiver dukedom has always operated somewhat differently. The Abbey was, for a short time, where the Court summered. Our name means winter in the old tongue, as it was the responsibility of the d’Hivers to look after the Abbey in the winter months when the Court returned to Duciel. It wasn’t a long-lived tradition—I have some forebearer who once swore he married a specter, I assume he went mad—as the Court decided it was too difficult to relocate. But we are expected to maintain the house and the village in lieu of production of food or other goods, and it meant our dukedom had very little influence at Court. My parents went a time or two, but I did not, until Emile’s coronation required I attend.”

“Oh. So you had to stay here, and you think your father wanted you all to leave?”

“Yes.” Sebastien pushed the door open to his bedroom, and went to light the fire. “My brother always swore he saw ghosts. The cold here, it is relentless. It grows darker sooner than it does near the capital, and stays that way for longer. I assume my father worried about his heir, and his youngest, who was found occasionally sleeping in front of doors that did not open, but would, soon.”

“You,” Devon said, quietly. He stood beside Sebastien, shivering a bit in the cold. “Are there ghosts, here?”

“If there are, I have never seen them, and could not say if they were marriage material or not.”

Devon laughed, husky and a little surprised. “Did he really marry a ghost?”

“So it is said. I shall show you the portrait, if you like, in the morning.”

“Do you hate your father, then,” Devon asked after a moment, as Sebastien moved close, embracing him before the fire.

“No. I suspect he did his best, trying to please a wife who grew up in the hustle-and-bustle of court, and keep his eldest son from the madness they say runs in the family. Perhaps he knew what was beyond the doors, and wished to keep me from them. I think my parents were not happy, but might have been, had we been able to leave here.”

Devon shivered and ran his hands up Sebastien’s chest. “I would have let them kill my father, those men, if they’d come to House Chastain. I would have, I think, opened the doors to them myself. Does that make me terrible, I figure that it does.”

Sebastien leaned in and kissed him. “You are asking me, who has played judge and executioner for years to those whose screams my demon wishes to devour? Your father hurt you in the worst of ways, and I think it would not take a man possessed with a demon to feel the same way about it.”

Devon kissed him back, fingers curling into Sebastien’s arms. He was chilled, even in front of the fire, so Sebastien drew him over to the bed and pressed him down into the soft sheets and warm blankets. “Either way, your father is dead, and so is mine, and we have found our way somehow to each other.”

Sariel roused, and settled in behind his awareness, peering at Devon.

Beloved.

“Yes,” Sebastien murmured, tracing fingers over Devon’s throat, smiling in pleasure as Devon tipped his head back easily and showed it to him. “All three of us have.”

“Yes. Maybe that’s what your line was meant to do.” Devon shivered under his touch, voice going soft, drowsy. “Not steward a house for a king, but have a...duke, to shelter a demon.”

“A charmingly fanciful thought, my flame.” Sebastien came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Sleep, now.”

“Aren’t you going to sleep, too?” Devon curled up in the blankets as the firelight cast shadow over his face.

“I was asleep before I sought you out. Sariel becomes restless when I dream, and woke me.” He sat on the edge of the bed, stroked Devon’s hair, his face.

“What were they,” Devon asked, turning toward his touch. “Your dreams.”

“You may not wish to hear.” Sebastien rubbed a thumb over Devon’s lower lip.

Devon kissed it, sweet and gentle. “No, I want to know.”

“I see. We had you in the room, strung up for us. For the knife. But it was not what we wanted, in reality or in our dreams. We woke frustrated, unsure what we wanted to do to you, but we knew we wanted you here, in our bed.”

“Do you want to have me,” Devon whispered, pulse racing fast against Sebastien’s fingers. “To—to take me.”

“Like we take your mouth, when you kneel for us.” Sebastien was fascinated at the way Devon’s heartbeat raced against his fingers, but there was no fear there. Only desire, warmth, as Sariel would call it.

“Yes. Like that.”

Host, Sariel murmured. Will it make Beloved feel as you do, when I consume things and swallow their essence.

“Yes,” Sebastien murmured to his demon. “I believe it shall. That is the point of it, as I understand.”

Then yes. Let us take him.

“We would like to take you, yes. But we know you fear touch of this kind, in the dark.”

“Not from you,” Devon said, showing his throat again. “You’ve always asked me, first.”

Sebastien pressed a kiss on the frantic pulse beating at Devon’s throat. “Then ask us to have you, and we shall.”

“Please,” Devon gasped, shifting beneath him. “Please, take me.”

Sebastien moved so he was settled on top of Devon, kissing him and pushing him back against the bed. “We can still taste your fear, beloved.”

“I—haven’t done this before. Just when it was, when it was him.”

“Ah.” Sebastien curled his fingers around Devon’s neck, holding it. “As I said, when it was your brother...your father has no place here, between us.”

Devon shifted again, and Sebastien felt his fingers glance briefly over his shoulders. “Will you bind my hands?”

“Of course.” Sebastien climbed off him and went to his dresser, where he pulled a cravat of silk from the top drawer. He stripped his clothing and then returned to the bed. He helped Devon pull off his shirt, and they kissed with increasing fervor as Sebastien’s cock grew thick and hard.

“Does he like this,” Devon gasped, as Sebastien stripped Devon’s pants and stroked his half-hard cock firmly before urging Devon to lay back on the bed.

“Oh, yes.” Sebastien drew Devon’s wrists up to tie them with the strip of white silk. “Sariel does not entirely understand sex, but we both enjoy seeing you spread out for us, so eager to be taken.” Sebastien liked the way Devon writhed, the short, soft gasps he made when Sebastien bit him on the shoulder.

“I—ah,” Devon moaned, as Sebastien settled on top of him, his cock hard against Sebastien’s. Devon pulled on the silk of the cravat binding him to the headboard, back arched as he shamelessly rutted against Sebastien.

“Would you like to call to him, my flame? Go on,” Sebastien urged, watching him hungrily, as every shiver and moan made his own desire hotter. “He is waiting for you to do it. To hear that you want him, as you want me.”

“Sariel,” Devon moaned, reverent and eager. “I—please, I want you.”

Sebastien felt the demon stretch, uncurl, and press forward against him. He could not come forth as he did in the dark room, but when Sebastien pressed his face to Devon’s and breathed, Sariel’s voice was there, beneath Sebastien’s own, discordant and clarion. “Beloved,” they said, as one. “Now we will make you ours.”

* * *

Devon waslikely out of his depth again. A small note of panic sounded in the back of his mind— he only knew how to make it hurt, how to grit his teeth and force himself through it, how to treat his own pleasure like something shameful to be dealt with in silence. He pressed his lips to Sebastien’s, felt the slight ridged sting of teeth too sharp to be human, and stared up into eyes gone wide.

“Do you have oil,” he managed, softly. “For, for this. It’s usually kept near the bed, makes it feel better.”

Sebastien practically climbed over him to check the drawers by the bed, and came back with an unopened bottle.

“If you, ah. Slick your cock with it,” Devon said, and gasped as Sebastien’s hard cock slid along his. Sebastien took himself in hand, oil dripping onto Devon as he stroked himself, and Devon’s breath was short and his pulse too fast, desire hot under his skin.

“If you could.” Devon took a shaky breath. “Take me like this, on my back.”

“Yes,” Sebastien said. “We would see you, while you shake with pleasure under us.”

“Fuck, just. Just, you can, you can—take my hips, pull them up like—” His breath hitched as Sebastien manhandled him half onto his lap, Devon’s arms straining as he kept his hands above his head. “You can just take me. I can take it.”

Sebastien met his gaze, and Devon remembered that Sariel could feel the old fear uncoiling far below, a memory of pain, of dread.

“If I’m…too tight, you can always…with your fingers, first, and the oil…”

Sebastien reached for the bottle again. Devon tensed when he felt Sebastien’s fingers brush along his backside, but Sebastien was still watching him, holding him with his gaze.

It didn’t hurt, this time.

“You were right, my flame,” Sebastien said, when he was working two fingers into him, and Devon was clenching his hands and trying not to rock back on the sheets. “You can take it very well.”

Devon blushed hot, and his lips parted as Sebastien pressed against something that made the building pleasure spike in the core of him.

“Ah, what was that?” Sebastien tried again, and Devon bit down a moan.

“It’s. There’s, ah, there’s a place inside where…” Devon did moan, this time, low and breathless, head tilted back on the mattress. “It feels…good, sometimes, when you’re being taken, and—ah, Sebastien, you’ll—push me over the edge if you—”

“You won’t come until I give you leave,” Sebastien said, relentless, and Devon shook and writhed as pleasure rolled through him in waves, building to a dizzying peak. Then Sebastien drew away, and Devon let out a great gust of breath.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck me, please. Sebastien—Sariel.”

Sebastien smiled, small and fleeting, and knelt to line himself up while Devon panted on the messy sheets. When he pushed inside, it was just enough for Devon to feel it, without the sting of pain to make it unbearable. He stared up at Sebastien, clenching and unclenching his hands around the silk at his wrists, and tried to roll his hips to take more of him in. Sebastien’s nails dug into his hips, and his hair slid over his shoulder, hanging loose.

“You. You need to move,” Devon said. It didn’t feel right, giving orders—He should have known all along, really, that he wasn’t a dominant, what was he thinking—but he couldn’t just lie there, either. He tried to move again, and Sebastien held him in place in a firm grip, brows raised.

“This is not so different,” Sebastien said, and there was an echo in his voice, the distant flat ringing of bells, “that we do not require you to beg.”

“Oh.” Devon struggled for the words. “Please. Please move. Please, just take me, I’m here, you should take me—”

Sebastien thrust into him, and Devon let out a soft cry, eyes closing in pleasure.

“Yes, you’re ours,” Sebastien said. They said, drawing back so slow Devon almost sobbed with it, before pushing him up the mattress. “You’re here for us, you’ve come for us. We’ll have you here, in the dark, which is ours. As you are.”

“Yes,” Devon whispered. He strained against the silk around his wrists. Sebastien kissed him, clumsily, fucking him with a fervor bordering on wild, hard and fast and overwhelming. Devon kissed him back, just as desperate, moaning into his mouth when Sebastien hit that sweet spot and heat rolled through him. “Yes, please, may I come, Sebastien, Sariel, may I…ah—” He raised his hands off the bed as the wave of pleasure almost broke, and trembled in Sebastien’s hands. His head thrashed on the bed as he fell back, and Sebastien thrust into him hard, right in that spot again.

“Come for us,” he said, and Devon cried out as he came between them, untouched.

Sebastien had to hold him up as he thrust into him, and Devon was dimly aware that he was making soft little sounds, faint, breathless ah, ahhs that almost disappeared in the creak of the bed. When Sebastien came, he was still inside of him, boxing Devon in on the bed as his long hair stuck to their skin like silk. He was nearly as breathless as Devon, but he kissed him again all the same, and Devon could have gladly lain there for the rest of his life, luxuriating in the taste of him.

“Your hands,” Sebastien said, at last, drawing away. Devon winced a little at the loss of him, but he allowed Sebastien to untie the silk from his wrists and rub his palms. “We both need a bath, beloved.”

“I’m not running it,” Devon said, drifting in that slow, dreamy space beyond pleasure. “Stay with me.”

“You are like a cat, after,” Sebastien said, with mild amusement in his voice. “Sprawling in the sun.”

“I’ll accept that,” Devon said. When Sebastien made to move off the bed, he followed after him.

They lounged in the sunken bath, and Devon, eager for touch in a way he could only admit while under, settled in Sebastien’s lap. They were both still so uncertain when it came to things like that, soft touches and the warmth of their bodies together, and Sebastien was almost reserved as Devon draped himself over his shoulders.

“The servants think I’m your kept musician,” Devon said, his mouth to Sebastien’s neck. Sebastien scratched Devon’s short hair, which felt amazing, and Devon melted into it.

“Is that a common practice?”

“In my grandmother’s time,” Devon said. “I hear the queen mother’s submissive is one. He’s a poet she hired for parties, I think. She fought a duel over one of his sonnets and nearly started a minor noble uprising.”

“Did she?” Sebastien started scratching down Devon’s neck like he truly was a cat, and Devon closed his eyes. “I met her once, the queen. The old one, not the one who died. It was King Emile’s coronation. I was still very young, and Sariel was…new, to the world beyond the Abbey. We couldn’t stay long.”

“What was the queen like?” Devon hadn’t met her. She kept to her country estates with her submissive, leaving her son largely on his own while she held lavish garden parties the Chastains were never invited to.

“A bit like a painted doll,” Sebastien said. “They all are, when they have to be seen. The nobility.”

“Which you are, by the way.”

Sebastien shrugged. “In the loosest sense of the word. The king is content to leave me here, and I am content to be left alone.”

“But you went to my father’s party,” Devon said. “The one where you…found me.”

“Mm. Yes. He offered a hunt. I can’t say why I came. Hunts rarely thrill us.”

Devon shifted in his arms, lying with his back to Sebastien’s chest. He kept his eyes closed, lulled by the heat of the water, Sebastien’s careful touch. “Maybe Sariel was called there.” His voice was faint, even in his own ears. “Maybe he should’ve come earlier,” he said.

“Perhaps. But you’re here, now,” Sebastien said. “Ours.”

“Yes,” Devon said. “I suppose so.”

Sebastien turned in the water, pinning Devon to the side of the bath, and lifted him up by the thighs so he was sitting on the edge. The room was warm with steam, and Devon’s breath hitched as Sebastien pushed his legs apart, gazing up at him with his pale, not quite human eyes.

He brought Devon to the edge three times with his mouth on his cock, slow and hot, his hair silk-smooth in Devon’s fingers. Every time Devon’s thighs tensed and his breath came short, Sebastien would draw back and watch him writhe on the tile, panting. Then he’d start again, bringing Devon back to the crest of the wave before pulling away. Devon was desperate by the third time, begging incoherently, head thrown back as Sebastien brought him over the edge at last.

“You’re evil,” Devon gasped, and at first, Sebastien frowned slightly, but it faded when Devon laughed and slipped back into the water, onto Sebastien’s lap.

“You smile more, when you’re under,” Sebastien said, between slow, warm kisses, his hands at Devon’s waist.

“Do I?” Devon kissed his neck, over a mark he didn’t remember making. “Well, I can’t be furious all the time, can I?”

“We don’t mind,” Sebastien said. “Sariel and I. You…” He paused with his hand hovering over Devon’s cheek, and Devon grabbed his wrist, pulling him the rest of the way. He kissed him, tentative, soft. “You feel so strongly, even now.”

“Don’t really know how not to,” Devon admitted. He rolled his hips under the water, grinding against Sebastien’s hard cock. “Would you like to take me again?”

“Yes,” Sebastien said, and leaned back, eyes half lidded, as Devon moved on top of him, one hand on his chest.

The water was lukewarm when they finally made it to bed. Devon was a little unsteady on his feet, but pleasantly so, and didn’t object when Sebastien pulled the bed curtains closed around them. Devon curled up under the sheets in the dark, and when he reached for Sebastien, he found him there, waiting.