The Duke’s Demon by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 8

Sebastien knew very little of music. He’d had piano instruction as a child, but other than that, music was background noise. He’d found beauty in the sounds in the dark room, of screams, of Sariel shrieking in pleasure and triumph.

But the song Devon was playing was beautiful. The music started as something soft, discordant, with low, repetitive notes that built higher and higher to a sudden crescendo. Sariel was rustling his wings, pressing against Sebastien, sighing as the music built like a storm. Sebastien moved closer as Sariel murmured softly in his mind, it sounds like before, when I lived in the dark. When I waited for you, my Host.

“Yes,” Sebastien murmured, fascinated. “It sounds like the fear I felt when I crawled to you, bleeding.”

Devon didn’t look up, his fingers flying over the keys as he kept playing. The strangeness of the early notes changed completely after the crescendo, and the tone became uplifting, making Sebastien smile to hear it.

Now it sounds like it does, when you take Beloved and you both shatter apart into pieces, warm and bright.

The demon thought the music sounded like sex. Sebastien would have laughed, but honestly, he couldn’t say that Sariel was wrong. It felt like that, the cautious touches, the careful build to a shattering climax. As the song continued, Sebastien could pick out the repeating notes from the earlier section, those notes that reminded him of fear, of loneliness. The clear, high notes were expertly layered under the rest, complimenting the piece and the complexity of it, woven together like a tapestry.

It was as if Devon was telling him that he loved him, not in spite of Sebastien’s demon, but because of it.

What is this, Sariel said, fluttering. What you feel.

“Do you like it,” Sebastien asked, under his breath.

Yes. It is so bright. But it does not hurt my eyes. It feels like hellfire.

“Beloved,” Sebastien whispered, once Devon finished, his fingers resting on the keys, chest heaving. There were tears on Devon’s face, but for once all of his tangled emotions felt peaceful, settled. “Play it again.”

And so he did.

Sebastien closed his eyes and let Sariel push forward, as much as he could; the demon wanted to come forth, wrap his wings around Devon, shriek something out loud and possessive and triumphant—make music of his own, perhaps.

When it was finished, Sariel retreated, slinking back behind Sebastien’s eyes. Take him, Host. Break into pieces together.

Sebastien leaned his cane against the wall and moved toward Devon to do just that.

“Your music has roused us,” Sebastien said, as Devon blinked up at him, expectant, vulnerable in a way Sebastien was sure he never was, where others could see. “It made us think of how we were, before we found each other. Before we found you. I want to have you, here, now.”

“Oh,” Devon murmured, and smiled up at him, and ah, he thought himself a bad man but he wasn’t, not in the way the men who hurt Sebastien’s family were bad, or the man who hurt Clara, or Devon’s father with his warped and twisted affections. Devon was cracked and hurt inside, maybe, but he’d always had that brightness that shone forth so strongly, even from the dark tangle of his rage. “You liked it, then. Both of you.”

“Yes. We. Loved it, I think.” Sariel did not entirely understand love, so Sebastien said, in his mind, it is the opposite of what we feel for the men who hurt me, who hurt Beloved.

“Yes,” Sariel said, from Sebastien’s mouth, flat and atonal. He lifted Sebastien’s hand, and patted Devon on the head, awkward and strange and affectionate in his way. “Beloved. We love your music. We love you.”

“I’m not—worth that, not—not from anyone,” Devon whispered, shivering there on the bench, fingers drifting over the keys like he was trying to pull the comfort of the music from them. “Please don’t say this and not mean it, I can’t...it will be the last thing I can handle.”

Worthlessness was the knife in the dark that Devon feared most of all.

“You are worth it to us,” Sebastien said, Sariel’s voice overlaid with his own, like the notes in Devon’s song.

Devon slid from the piano to his knees, and pressed his face against Sebastien’s thigh. “I love you, too. Both of you.”

Sariel’s wings beat, loud like a drum. This burns hot, this love, he said. Out loud, he spoke through Sebastien, careful and precise. “You are a mess, Dev-on. But you are our mess.”

Devon choked a laugh out against Sebastien’s thigh, clinging to him. “Yes. I know. And you. You love me. Both of you.”

“Oh, yes.” Sebastien drew his fingers through Devon’s hair and tugged. The puppy whined softly, paws twitching, but did not wake. “If you wish to name it after Sariel, he would be pleased. Would preen, as he has been doing, as of late.”

“You seem so much more human,” Devon said, tilting his lovely face up to stare at Sebastien, moonlight making his eyes shine like gold.

“So do you.” Sebastien rubbed a thumb over his bottom lip. “You are ours, Beloved. Always. Do not seek to leave us. If you do, if you run, we will bring you back. The Hunt has claimed you, and you are ours.”

As if to prove it, the little puppy woke up, trotted over to the window and howled in her tiny voice at the moon beyond. Then she gave them a disinterested, disdainful look and trotted out of the room, claws clicking on the polished wood floors.

“I don’t ever want to be anywhere else,” Devon said, watching her go and then turning to Sebastien. “Will you take me, put me under?”

“Always, Beloved,” Sebastien and Sariel said, as one. “Always.”

He drew Devon up with a hand in his hair, but didn’t pull—Beloved does not like pain—and kissed him as Sariel murmured encouragements, urging him on as he stripped Devon, revealing his lovely, naked body in the cold spill of moonlight through the windows.

“We will move the piano to our rooms,” Sebastien murmured, running his hands down Devon’s chest, his thighs, feeling the way he shivered from the touch. “So you may play it for us. We do not like you to be away, Beloved. We would have you near us, always.”

“Yes,” Devon whispered, and kissed him again, melting against him. “I would like that. To be with you. Both of you. I never thought I would ever be safe in the dark.”

“You are ours and we are the dark,” Sariel said, through Sebastien’s mouth. “We are the Hunt. We will rend the limbs of any that tries to harm you. The blade of our knife is too good for those who would try.”

“Ah,” Devon moaned, and Sebastien’s hand curled around his cock, stroking him to full hardness. “Say it. Again, please, tell me you—you—”

“We love you, our flame, our Beloved,” Sebastien and Sariel said, as one. “And we will have you, the warmth of you, the fire that burns.”

“I want you to—take me on my back. Make me think only of you. Both of you.”

Sebastien kissed him. “As you wish.”

Sariel pushed forth, and for the first time, Sebastien and his demon found a way to be as one; to share the eyes, the mouth, the hands, the cock. They bent Devon over the piano, soothed him, kissed his shoulder where there were no wings, flared their own, insubstantial though they may be, just shadows in the inky dark. They pressed against Devon and entered him, and bit the back of his neck as they took him there with the echo of the music caught in the room.

They fucked him there, Sebastien gasping at the tight heat around his cock, this new sensation that was so human and somehow transcendent all at once. Sariel shrieked and flared his wings, and Sebastien felt the brush of teeth on his own neck, and a peculiar sensation as if Sariel was on his back, trying to replicate what he was doing to Devon.

“I think Sariel would like it if you took me, Beloved,” Sebastien said, as he inhaled the sweet scent of Devon’s skin, licked the place where his teeth had worried in the back of Devon’s neck. “He wants to feel this pleasure that makes you shake and shudder so, for us.”

“I—if you—yes, all right,” Devon sobbed, fingers curling into fists as he shook apart beneath Sebastien, sobbing and letting Sebastien and Sariel fuck him harder, pushing him closer to the edge, making him go so tight around Sebastien’s cock that Sebastien moaned loudly and almost came there, before Devon found his pleasure.

No, Host, Sariel hissed at him, and Sebastienfelt the slight drag of teeth on his neck again, as the demon hunched over him in the dark. Beloved will shatter first, and then we will.

Sebastien reached down and curled his fingers around Devon’s cock, fucking into him so hard the keys shook and made a sudden, jarring noise. He knew Sariel was transforming part of him, making his hand change, giving talons where before there were fingers. Devon didn’t mind, as he shivered beneath Sebastien and gasped, pushing himself into their hand, their claw, whatever it had become, finding pleasure and greedily taking it as was his right.

Devon cried out and came all over the floor and the slick surface of the piano, and he went tight around Sebastien as Sebastien shuddered hard and fell over the edge after a few hard thrusts. Sariel shrieked, flared his wings, and Sebastien wondered if he could feel it, the same way, this shattering pleasure.

He wanted Sariel to feel it. Devon’s delicious surrender, his submission.

“I love you, both of you,” Devon whispered, shaking and under, when Sebastien blinked and came back to himself. The energy it took to manifest so strongly sent Sariel resting again deep within, and he was content, sated, though Sebastien thought at him, perhaps we will bring Beloved back into the room, and I will take him on the floor, while you feed.

Sariel sighed in contentment, and Sebastien eased from Devon’s tight heat and turned him around, kissing his flushed face, tasting sweat and tears. “We love you, Beloved, our flame. Devon. We have caught you, and you are ours, and we will never let you go.”

Devon sighed and smiled, easy in a way he almost never was, and let Sebastien lead him to bed in the dark.

* * *

“Do you know,”Devon said, in a low murmur, as the curtains around the bed were drawn and he insinuated himself against Sebastien. “I think I would like it.”

“Like what, Beloved?” Sebastien was still cooler to the touch, but Devon was enough of a furnace for both of them.

“Something…official,” Devon said. Words should have been unnecessary, really, in that quiet in-between place Sebastien had led him. “A title. I was a second son, in Chastain. My job was to be a disappointment for a while, then marry some unfortunate girl my father picked for me.”

“And now you’re ours,” Sebastien said, rolling Devon over so he could kiss him properly, tangled up in the sheets.

There was a soft scrabbling sound at the door, the whimper of a dog trying to bark through solid stone. Duchess, again, breaking the laws of the universe.

“I’d like to have a purpose,” Devon said. “I could be your musician. Register songs to the crown under a different name. They might bring in an income, even.”

“You don’t have to,” Sebastien said. There was a clattering sound, like a chair being knocked over, and the clicking of nails on stone.

“I’d like to try it, though,” Devon said. He stretched under Sebastien, warm and pleased, and laughed when the bed curtains started thrashing. “We have company.”

Duchess dragged herself onto the bed, her eyes glowing like beacons in the dark, and promptly shoved a wet nose on Devon’s arm. She tried to push them apart, and when Sebastien rolled aside, she flopped herself over both of them, tail thumping on the bed.

“Very well,” Sebastien said, scratching Duchess on the side of the neck as her paws twitched and she kicked at Devon’s side. “Most of the staff seem to think you’re my musician, in any case. But I believe you’ll be Sariel’s, in truth. He was very…” He shifted, making Duchess whine and readjust, eyes glowing. “Taken, with you, tonight.”

“Was he?” Devon smiled, turning so he was pressed up against Sebastien’s neck. “I had no notion.”

Duchess woke them both at dawn, her glowing red gaze illuminating Sebastien’s face as she wriggled between them both.

“This,” Devon said, as she started pawing at his arm, “is exactly why I made you a bed outside.”

“She wants to hunt,” Sebastien murmured.

“Then she can make herself useful and hunt my boots,” Devon said, trying to drag the sheets over his eyes. Duchess barked, too loud and too close, and bounded off him, promptly tangling herself in the bed curtains. One of them ripped off the post, and sunlight spilled over the bed as Duchess went galumphing through the room, dragging ripped black curtains after her like a cloak.

“Tell me she isn’t actually going to hunt them,” Devon said, his voice still heavy with sleep, watching as Duchess pushed herself and the trailing curtains through the door.

He got his answer a minute later, when Duchess pulled his damp, slightly gnawed-on boots through the wall and deposited them at his feet. Sebastien, who was already half dressed and gazing out the window, turned and raised his brows.

“Yes, good girl,” Devon said, and Duchess wriggled her entire body in delight.

Then, for the first time since the morning after he was dragged to the Abbey, bleeding anger like a wound, Devon headed down the stairs and left the Abbey grounds.

It was a cold midwinter day, with patches of blue sky shining through wisps of cloud in a high wind, and Devon headed down the slope towards the village while Duchess ran in long, excitable circles through the dead grass. The village itself was nestled at the base of the hill like the bottom of a basin, and a creek ran through it, crossed by stone bridges. On the other side of the village, another sloping hill was occupied by a herd of sheep, which moved like a flock of birds seeking the last of the grass under the snow.

He wondered what he would have thought of this, when he was young. Becoming a lover to a demon and his duke, the one Marius used to tell stories about, the monster that was so much more intangible than the one stalking the halls of the Chastain estate. Writing music, instead of staring down at the keys with his hands fisted on his lap, waiting for the sound of footsteps.

The man who shot Sabre de Valois wouldn’t have been able to imagine loving anyone.

Sabre. Even if he took some pleasure out of it, being beaten and humiliated by the nobles of Staria, it was still a punishment. He knew, didn’t he, how it felt to be hated, to have something beautiful twisted out of true? But Devon couldn’t see it. He just saw how Laurent de Rue looked at him, how his father spoke of him, and hated him without question.

He supposed others would look at him now and think the same thing. How dare he be loved?What has he done to deserve it?

“Hey!”

Devon paused, wind whipping through his hair and buffeting his jacket, as two small figures came staggering up the hill. It took him a moment to recognize Andre, the stable boy, who was wearing a bright yellow quilted coat. He was dragging a small girl in a crisp white pinafore after him by the arm, and the basket she was holding was swaying dangerously with every step.

“This is the artist I mentioned,” the boy said, panting slightly. His curls were a wind-blown mess. “The one in love with the duke.”

“Oh,” Devon said. Thankfully, the wind was too cold for a blush to travel far, but he could feel the warmth in his chest. “Well. I don’t know if I would call myself an artist.”

“And he has a dog made of fire,” said Andre. “Look.”

The girl followed Andre’s pointing finger, and squinted at Duchess, who was bounding towards them. “No it isn’t,” she said. “It’s made of dog.”

“Is there a reason you aren’t in the stables, right now?” Devon asked, as Duchess slowed to approach the children from the side, ears perked. The girl crouched on her ankles and held out a hand. Her hair was black, hanging limp like straw over her eyes, and she was utterly fixed on the dog.

“It’s my day off,” Andre said. “But I wanted to bring Polly to the Abbey, for a job.”

Devon looked the girl up and down. She was far too young to work in an estate. “Is she your sister, then?”

“I wish,” the girl said. “Come on, pretty girl.”

Duchess sank down to her belly and crawled over to Polly, who smiled and gently pet her head.

“Her eyes are beautiful,” she said. “I can see right through them.”

“Polly’s clever,” Andre said, as Polly sank down onto the grass to draw Duchess into her lap. She bent over her, scratching her chest, and Duchess rolled, baring sharp teeth in a doglike smile. “She can write, and she reads books even adults don’t like, and she can cook and clean and—”

“I tell stories,” the girl said. “I wrote one about a monster the other day, with a dried-up heart in a jar around its neck.”

“But, like, in an interesting way,” Andre said, a little too fast. Polly shrugged.

“You know I’m not the one you should be convincing,” Devon said, but there was something about the way the girl was staring at Duchess, in the way her gaze went soft and her mouth quivered, that made him crouch in front of her. She jumped, and Duchess whimpered in alarm.

“Why do you need a job, Polly?” Devon asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just want to go inside, and see what’s there.”

“It happens sometimes,” Andre said. “Happened with my older sister, Mary-Beth, and me. Sometimes you look up at the Abbey, and it feels like it’s…doesn’t it ever feel like it’s dragging you in?”

Devon turned to look. The Abbey was dark against the sky, windows flashing bright in the midday sun. “I can’t say,” he said. “I think I’ve already been drawn.”

“They call it the calling, down in the village. Kids born near the Abbey, we feel it more than the adults do. So we’re loaned out to work for a few years and get it out of our system, or that’s what Mary-Beth says.”

“That doesn’t alarm them?” Devon asked. “The adults?”

“No, they’re used to it. But it used to be no one ever went there, because of the duke’s family being, you know.” He lowered his voice. “Murdered. But Miss Clara fixed it up nice, so we’re back.”

“Sometimes I dream about it,” Polly said.

“Bet you’ll see the ghosts,” said Andre, a little wistfully. “Maybe that’ll be your job. You can record what they say and maybe we can do their unfinished business.”

“Ghosts don’t work like that,” said Polly. She stood up, brushing off her pinafore. “Thank you for letting me pet your dog.”

“I’ll walk you up,” Devon said, eyeing the long, sloping path to the Abbey. He leaned down and picked up her basket. “Damn, this thing is heavy. I mean, oh, don’t repeat that word.”

“I know what cussing is,” the girl said, giving him a superior look. She tripped on ahead with Duchess, who seemed delighted to have two new humans to play a game of fetch-the-stick-and-never-give-back.

Strange. It seemed that the Abbey called more than just the dark to it, if the village had a tradition of sending their children there. Perhaps there was something in the magic of the place, some pull that drew people who were yearning for something, who were lonely, or forgotten, or hurt. Maybe it hadn’t been built for evil at all, but the loneliness Sariel had felt in the dark had seeped into the stones of the place itself.

Perhaps it just wanted company.

There were a few other villagers heading to and fro along the path to the Abbey. A group of men in the colorful, patchwork clothes of the village even stopped to watch Polly and Andre go stumbling about after the dog, trying to wrench a stick from her jaws.

“Strange creature,” said one of the men, an older fellow with dark brown hair cut short to his ears.

“She has a condition,” Devon said. The man grunted.

“Weird condition. Likes kids, though.” He smiled at Devon, who attempted one back. “I’m Louis. This is Matthias, and Jean.”

“A pleasure,” Devon said. “Do you work at the Abbey?” He couldn’t recall seeing their faces in the hall before, when he took lunches with the servants.

Jean shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. He looked Devon up and down. “Do you? Posh accent like yours, maybe you’re a tutor.”

“Something like that, yes.” Devon glanced at Duchess, who was growling as Polly tried to wrestle the stick away. “I’m the house musician.”

“Really?” Louis’ smile broadened. “Huh. Well, what do you think?”

“Weakest excuse I could’ve imagined, really,” said Jean.

Devon felt suddenly cold. The three men were watching him, too focused, too knowing. “I should head back.”

“Stay with us a while,” Louis said, and grabbed Devon by the arm. He pulled his jacket open, just an inch, and revealed the bright, glossy handle of a knife carved with a rose at the hilt. A symbol of the king’s personal guard. “My lord.”

Devon tried to wrench his arm away, but Louis’ grip was hard as iron.

“I’m not a lord,” Devon said.

“Not anymore, no,” said Jean. “But someone from ‘round here, they sent word that they saw someone who looked like the late Lord Chastain’s son wandering these hills. We were told it was the oldest, but I suppose you all look alike, really.”

“Let’s do this quietly,” said Louis. “You don’t want to make a scene in front of the childre—”

Louis staggered, cursing, as a stone the size of a fist struck him on the arm.

“Hey!” Andre crouched on the side of the path, gathering chunks of rock in his bare hands. “He wants you to let go.”

“Not again, Andy,” Polly cried.

Devon took his chance. He jerked his arm free of Louis and took off up the path, Duchess loping at his heels. Her eyes were glowing brighter, hotter, and her teeth seemed to extend as she whipped her head back to check behind them.

“Go,” Devon said. “Get Sebastien. Get Sariel.”

“You let go of him!”

Polly’s voice was high, frantic. Devon skidded to a halt, and his breath caught as he saw Andre being dragged off the path by one of the guards, Jean. Blood was running down the side of Jean’s face, and Polly was rummaging in her basket. She came up with a jar of preserves, which shattered at the guards’ feet.

“Oh, fuck me,” Devon said, as Louis took Polly by the back of her dress. She screamed high as a banshee, and Andre tried to punch his captor from where he was being shaken like a rag doll. Devon strode towards them.

“They’re just children,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Sure I do!” Andre shouted.

“Stop helping,” Devon said. “Let them go.”

“They attacked members of the king’s guard,” said Jean, and Andre’s face went pale.

“So?” said Polly.

“You can have them, or you can have a Chastain,” Devon said, in the hard, cold tone he hadn’t used since he first came to the Abbey. “Which would you prefer?”

Jean looked, for a moment, like he honestly wasn’t sure, and Devon supposed the mud Andre had ground into his face had something to do with it.

“Apprehend him,” Louis said.

“What the fuck,” Andre said, as Jean dropped him to the path. “We were giving you a chance.”

“No, you weren’t,” Devon said, as he was roughly pushed to his knees. “Don’t say that. Go back to the Abbey.”

“I’m not leaving you here—”

“I broke a whole jar of peaches for you,” Polly said.

“Just go,” Devon snarled. He could feel the cold bite of iron around his wrists. “Back. To. The Abbey.”

“Oh,” said Polly. “Come on, Andre.”

“What?” Andre looked stricken. “But.”

Polly dragged at his wrist. “Just go.”

“Loyal servants you have,” Louis said, as the children went racing up the path. “You’ve been sheltering with the duke?”

“He doesn’t know who I am,” Devon said, as he was yanked to his feet. “I…deceived him. You know he’s never at court long enough to recognize faces.”

“Clever,” said Louis. He placed a hard hand on Devon’s back, pushing him down the path towards the village. “Wouldn’t have expected that from a Chastain. Let’s go, my lord. The king’s justice has waited long enough.”

Devon didn’t have to walk far. There were horses in the bushes nearby, which the guards rode to town before switching them out at the inn for one of the heavy, barred carts the military used for transporting deserters. It was practically a wooden cage, and Devon cursed as he was tossed into it, rolling to his side on the rough wooden floor.

Louis climbed in with him, and the door closed with the heavy thump of wood on metal. It was dark. Darker than Devon would have liked, and Louis was tall and broad, a terribly familiar silhouette against the bars.

“Hey,” Louis said, after the cart started to roll. “Don’t go and die before we manage to get you to the king, traitor.”

Devon sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m not. Resisting. I came to you. I shouldn’t be. You should wait, for the king to.”

“What?” Louis frowned. “You think the king cares what state you’re in when you get there? Ah, yeah, okay, now you’re scared. Rumor is you were the one that shot Sabre de Valois.”

“I was,” Devon said, softly.

“And you were gonna kill the prince. You and your father, your brother.”

“My father had plans,” Devon said. “I. Didn’t oppose them.”

Louis nodded. The cart jostled and bumped over the uneven road from the village. “You know, I served on the prince’s guard. Prince Adrien. He’s a good man. He’d make a good king one day.”

“If they let him,” Devon said. Louis’ eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, well.” He dragged Devon up by the collar, regarded him carefully, and spat in his face. “Good thing he’s not around, then. I figure he’d object.”

“Then.” Devon was breathing too fast, too hard. “Then you should. Not. You shouldn’t—”

“Probably not,” Louis said. “And I won’t.” He turned to open the back of the cart again, and Devon stared at him in outright shock as he stepped out. The cart was slowing down, hidden under a copse of trees. “Jean. You’ve got ten minutes.”

“No,” Devon said. The door hung open, but he couldn’t sit up with his hands bound behind him. “No.”

Another silhouette darkened the doorway, and Devon kicked out, striking him on the side of the cheek.

“Calm down,” Jean said, closing the door behind him. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m just here to do the work Louis doesn’t want to put on his report, later.” He struck Devon across the cheek, and Devon tasted blood on his tongue, sharp and metallic. “But keep fighting me, traitor, and we’ll see how far my patience goes.”