Demon's Promise: a high fantasy femdom novella Read Online Free Page A

and scampered off.
    Ruen led Astarte to her quarters, where they dined
and sipped on lukewarm tea, exchanging more idle pleasantries.
    But Ruen did not hear a single word, or taste a
single bite.
     
    * * *
     
    The demon did not touch him again that day. Nor the
next. Nor in the week that followed.
    Ruen’s dreams were filled with her hot red mouth and
her lithe wet tongue, but no matter how he tried to pleasure
himself with his own hands in her place, the relief he brought to
himself was only temporary, and ultimately unsatisfying.
    Instead of touching him, she began, as promised, to
tutor him in the ways of magic.
    And it was true he was but an infant, hardly even
aware of his own power. Simple tasks that should have come as
naturally as breathing – or so it seemed to Ruen, in some deep and
secret place inside him – left him choking and dizzy and doubled
over in pain.
    But he did not complain. This magic was his. After
all these years, it was his. He could afford to wait a little
longer to master it. He could wait his whole life to master it,
now.
    Astarte disagreed.
    “Most of your kind who are born to the power are
already completely versed in the basics by the time they are
toddling about their nurseries. At this rate you shall need another
decade just to catch up with your peers! And by then most of them
will have come into their primes.”
    “Perhaps so,” Ruen replied noncommittally. “I hardly
think it matters. Magic or no magic, I shall never amount to anyone
important enough to be a threat to them.”
    The demon’s eyes flashed at him, but she said not a
word.
    He didn’t see why she should care. She had lived
longer than any of them, seen more than any of them could even hope
to witness in a single lifetime. What difference to her, a decade
or two?
    “That aside, you look lovely today, Miss Ash,” he
said. “That dress becomes you.”
    She was wearing a delicious fur-lined crimson gown,
its lines tailored perfectly to the curves of her body – and cut
impractically low at the neck, revealing the swell of her creamy
white breasts.
    “Flattery will get you nowhere, pup,” she replied,
but her lips curved in a smile, and Ruen’s blood sang in his
veins.
    “May I inquire what the occasion is?”
    She laughed, that startlingly girlish giggle that
never failed to seize up his heart.
    “We,” she said, “are going on a picnic today.”
    “A picnic? In this weather, Miss Ash?”
    “Are you questioning my orders, boy?”
    “No, of course not. But I thought I might remind you
that not all of us are quite so immune to the elements.”
    She laughed again at that.
    “The elements are yours to command – this one in
particular.”
    “I suppose. Will you keep me warm if my strength
fails me, Miss Ash?”
    She looked at him with narrowed eyes, still
smiling.
    He grinned back. “Surely you wouldn’t let your
precious student freeze to death out there alone?”
    “That depends on his behavior.”
    “Then I shall make sure to be on my very best,” he
said, cheerfully lying through his teeth.
    For a moment she held his gaze. Then she leaned
in.
    Whispered, her breath hot against his ear, “I never
stated the type of behavior I expected.”
    With that, she swept out the room, leaving Ruen to
trail after her, gaping like the village idiot.
    Fortunately, by the time they set out, strolling side
by side down the frozen forest path – she still dressed in her
deliciously impractical gown and Ruen buried in several extra
layers – he had managed to regain his composure.
    “Do you have a location in mind already?”
    She did not respond, and Ruen almost kicked himself
for his gaffe. Demon or not, she was a guest in his domain, and
could hardly be expected to know the area well enough, even after a
week or two.
    On the other hand, she was the one who suggested the
picnic in the first place. Surely that meant she had some
idea…?
    “If you don’t, why don’t we take this opportunity to
let me show you