Strictly Incubusiness Read online

  “You haven’t even got a tent for me?” Kai had asked incredulously when they stopped by the stream. He seemed to expect a better standard of service from his captor.

  Tynan had shrugged. “I’ve got one. But it’s not built for two, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  So Kai had set about looking for wood to build a shelter with and was making a fair job of the lean-to he had decided upon. It would sleep two, if they laid on their sides close together. But it would be tight.

  Tynan decided he and his dick would sleep on the back of the cart. Alone.

  The horse was drinking from the stream, and Tynan got up to fill his flask alongside it. “You want a drink?”

  Kai paused his work and wandered over. “Thanks.” He took the flask and swigged from it.

  Tynan did not even begin to speculate about the way Kai’s mouth wrapped around the lip of the bottle and completely ignored the movement of his throat when he tipped his head back.

  “I’m getting hungry too,” Kai said when he handed it back. He was an incubus, and though they could, and usually did eat food, there was really only one thing they wanted for dinner. The suggestion in his voice wasn’t something that could be ignored.

  But Tynan managed it. “I’ve got some hard cheese and fresh bread for tonight.”

  Kai sighed. “Very good.” He went back to his work. Tynan took the conversation for over until, apropos of nothing, Kai said, “Incubus have a bad reputation but no one dies from one fuck. I get that there are a few bad ones that go around ravaging the innocent and repeatedly fucking people to death. But it doesn’t help that human’s joke about Death by Fucking. 'What a way to go!’ they say, when what they mean is that they like sex and being alive to enjoy it thank you very much, but if they do have to die, that would seem a fun way to do it. Some of the younger incubi don’t get that nuance.”

  “Sounds like victim blaming to me,” Tynan said, and he’d heard enough of it over the years.

  “That wasn’t what I meant. I’m just saying, we’re not the evil monsters people make us out to be. We’re fully rounded people too. For example, I like to do charity work.”

  “I’d hardly call opening a brothel charity, even taking into account the ugly bastards that live around here.”

  Kai laughed but Tynan saw through it. It looked genuine and would no doubt have flattered your average human, but Tynan got the impression it was a reflex reaction. Kai had probably been laughing at that same quip for years.

  “The brothel’s work,” Kai said with a shrug. “I’ve got to eat, and I need a bed to sleep on. I pay my tithes and my taxes with the money I earn fucking those ‘ugly bastards.' But I also volunteer at the Magical Animal Shelter on Sundays. Who is going to clean Mrs. Fluffy-Feather’s nest box out now you’ve got me? It’ll be waist deep in shit and sheep carcasses. How’s she supposed to raise her chicks in that?”

  Tynan was fairly sure what the answer would be, but he asked anyway. “Who is Mrs. Fluffy-Feathers?”

  “A feathered dragon.”

  “And you help look after her out of the goodness of your heart? Nothing to do with the fact that any stray feathers and pieces of egg shell are worth a fortune on the black market.”

  “Tithes and taxes are a killer in Aurumnia,” Kai said, blushing slightly. Perhaps he wasn’t shameless after all. “My point is,” he continued, “we’re not monsters. I don’t put it about because I’ve got some ulterior motive to hurt people. I do it because I need it. Like food, or water or air. I need it to live.”

  “That’s some poetic shit right there,” Tynan said sarcastically.

  “It’s a biological fact. If you were interested in anything coming out of the Physicians Guild right now…”

  And so it went on. Tynan only half listened to Kai talk, focusing more on what he could feel from him instead of what he was saying. He still wasn’t lying.

  Chapter Five

  Kai worked, and he talked, and he tried to keep his mind off the gnawing hunger that was growing deep in his belly.

  The sun was getting lower, and by now he would normally have fed on two men. It would have mattered less if he ever allowed himself a decent feed, but he never let himself have more than a snack from each.

  At least he still had control of himself for the moment, and that would last for four, maybe five days. The urge was growing, but he repressed it as best he could. The plug wasn’t helping either. Kai was used to leaving it in for a few hours while at work as it made things easier when he was in a hurry. Now it was just a tease. It would have to come out.

  Tynan was dividing their dinner into two portions. Kai noted that they were of equal size, which was generous compared to the rations doled out during his previous arrests. He didn’t often get much in the way of food, but his other captors were more interested in sex.

  Kai held his arms out in front of Tynan. “Can you remove this chain?”

  “Nope.”

  “Alright. Can you remove the plug from my ass?”

  Nostrils flaring, Tynan gave Kai a look that asked if he was fucking joking. Kai turned around and began to unlace the front of his trousers.

  “Wait,” Tynan barked. “Chain comes off for one minute. Cuffs stay on.”

  The cuffs were the kicker. Freedom to move his arms meant very little given the iron the cuffs were made from. Kai would still be weak.

  Tynan uncoupled the chain and went back to his business. Sitting down on a log, he didn’t look away to give Kai any privacy, but he didn’t pay him any particular attention either.

  Kai turned around modestly as if he didn’t want Tynan to see his cock. It was enormous, and the tight leather he wore left so little to the imagination that it hardly seemed worth showing that off now. Anyway, he wanted Tynan to get a good look at what was going on behind.

  Slipping his fingers down into his crack, Kai felt for the handle of the plug. It was a small thing, flushed tight against his ass, stretching the hole just enough for him to feel and enjoy it. He pulled it slowly, trying to get a look over his shoulder as it came out. The movement felt good, particularly the stretch as the wider section passed, but he tried not to think about it. He glanced briefly at Tynan who appeared riveted now.

  “Done,” Kai said, holding the wooden plug up when it was fully out.

  “Chain,” Tynan muttered. He stood to replace it, and his new position couldn’t hide the fact he was hard and more than decently sized with it.

  He wasn’t as big as Kai of course—no human phallus was ever going to come close in stature to a demon’s cock—but it would be physically satisfying, and if it could just keep the edge off, that’s all Kai needed. Tynan’s life force could be eked out across their journey over several encounters. Sips rather than gulps.

  “I need to wash this first,” Kai said, waving the plug at Tynan, “And I wouldn’t mind the chance to pull my trousers up.”

  Tynan shrugged and sat back down again, his cheeks flaming red. That was useful.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Kai said, crouching by the stream and washing the plug. “I’ve not met many men who won’t get hard when they see me playing with my asshole.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.” Tynan punctuated the statement with a grunt.

  “Good.”

  Kai stood up and tossed the plug onto the cart where it landed with a thump. He pulled up his trousers next, tucking his demonhood back in and lacing everything tightly. “Done.”

  Tynan picked up the chain and signaled Kai should approach. Then the howling began.

  Kai froze. “Do you hear that?”

  “Wolves,” Tynan said.

  “Wolfram’s wolves,” Kai clarified. “They fight like men.”

  Tynan jumped up and hurried to grab his bag from the cart. “It’s not even dark yet. If they’re nearby, they’ve probably just smelled us.”

  “They’ve probably smelled your coat,” Kai muttered. “Is that a wolf pelt lining?”

  Tynan sniffed it. “P
robably.”

  “Bloody marvelous. These wolves despise hunters. Timothy used to come back from hunting trips with ten wolf pelts and thirty injured or dead soldiers. It was more like a war than a hunt.”

  Tynan fished around in his bag and pulled out a small pouch. “I’ll set wards. They won’t be able to come in the circle.”

  He began to murmur beneath his breath, speaking a language Kai didn’t understand. He walked a fairly large circle around the camp, tossing some sort of ash from the bag onto the forest floor as he went. It did not look wolf proof.

  “Shouldn’t we light a fire?” Kai asked. He’d never been one for violence, and with the cuffs sapping his strength, he wasn’t sure he could fight a wolf off now, let alone a pack of them. But the fire would help.

  Tynan kept walking and tossing his ash. “You want every bastard in this forest to know we’re here?”

  “Depends on whether or not they’ll let me out of these cuffs.”

  The howling was getting closer, but Tynan flashed him a shit-eating grin. “I very much doubt they will.”

  “Then I think it's best we avoid them if we can. Better the devil you know.”

  Tynan looked at him with narrow eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “No, I suppose I don’t. But I do know you’ll keep me fed, watered and free from abuse. For now, that will do.”

  “I hardly think I deserve a pat on the head for that,” Tynan said, beginning his walk again. “That’s pretty basic stuff.”

  The howling stopped, but a flurry of activity in a nearby bush suggested something was disturbing the local fauna.

  “They’re here,” Kai whispered.

  “Shit.” Tynan pointed towards the biggest bundle of sticks in the camp and shouted, “Fire!”

  “My shelter!”

  “Shut up and fight.”

  Kai grabbed the largest flaming stick and moved closer to Tynan, who continued to set the protective wards. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, “protect the horse.”

  Kai hurried to the trembling beast and led it into the center of Tynan’s circle. He stood in front of it and waved his stick futilely, there being nothing to fight.

  A sudden blur of fur leaped out of the undergrowth, breaking off into three to attack. One wolf bounced off Tynan without even knocking him from his path while the other two went for Kai and the horse.

  Kai smashed one on the nose with the flaming end of his stick, and it yelped in pain but was undeterred, trying to circle around to get him from behind. It brought the second wolf straight into the path of the horse which reared up in fear and landed hard on it. Kai stumbled forward, keeping the third wolf just at bay with the flame and grabbed a second stick from his burning shelter.

  “Get them behind the ashes!” Tynan shouted. He snatched up two of the sticks and rather than hold them back as Kai was now doing, he used them as offensive weapons, smashing and crashing them into the yowling wolves.

  The animals backed up to regroup, their burnt and bloody faces not enough of an incentive to let this fight go. There was more howling in the distance: others were coming. They were going to finish this off.

  “Drop your weapon,” Tynan barked.

  “What?!”

  “Drop your weapon. Three, two, one. Now!”

  Kai had no time to decide whether or not he trusted Tynan, so he did it. He let go.

  The sticks hit the ground with a thump, and then a wall of flame rose up around them, following the circle Tynan had made around the camp. The heat was astonishing, though, it couldn’t hurt Kai. His thick demon skin could take a roasting before it did much damage.

  Tynan grabbed his frightened horse’s reins, talking it down with soothing words and gentle strokes. It calmed as the flames died out, leaving a burnt black circle where the fire had once been.

  The wolves were waiting on the other side.

  “Nothing gets in, nothing gets out,” Tynan said, addressing them as if they could understand what he was saying. They came up to the line and sniffed it but didn’t try to cross.

  Next, Tynan turned his attention to the burning shelter. “Douse.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to attract anyone else,” Kai said, looking at the sad remains of his hard work. It wouldn’t have been comfortable, but it would have been dry. That meant something out in the woods.

  “If it had taken the wolves one minute longer to get here, we wouldn’t have needed the fire.”

  Was that all it had been? One minute? Kai’s arms ached from constructing the shelter, but now they burned from the holding the flaming sticks, even for such a short time. He wouldn’t have felt it at all without the damn cuffs. At least Tynan seemed to have forgotten about the chain.

  “I wonder if they’ll stay all night,” Kai said with a sigh. He really couldn’t be bothered with another fight in the morning.

  The wolves were settling down outside the circle and watching them intently. One of them had a damaged back leg, the other two sported severe cuts and burns, but they still looked threatening to Kai.

  Tynan seemed less concerned. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug.

  “Aren’t you frightened?”

  “I’m grateful. I’ll get a decent night’s sleep with these guard dogs here. They can’t get in and they’ll stop you from getting out. I won’t have to watch you.”

  “I wasn’t going to run.”

  Tynan laughed. It was a nasty, braying sound that Kai did not like one bit.

  “Even if I couldn’t tell when you’re lying,” Tynan said, “I wouldn’t have believed that.”

  “You can tell these things?” That was interesting. Kai would choose his words carefully from now on.

  “It’s something I inherited from my dad.” Tynan went to the back of the cart and pulled out a bag of apples and carrots for the horse. “Good boy,” he said softly as he fed it a few from his hand. “Good boy.”

  Kai helped himself to a carrot from the bag and leaned back against the cart. “If you can tell that’s a lie then you know I’m telling the truth about Timothy. You know I’m innocent, but you’ve still got these iron cuffs on me.”

  “I know you think you’re innocent. You believe every word you say about the prince. You even believe all that crap you talked about the pipe.”

  “That’s because it is all true. Let me go with your forwarding address and I can get you a Guild pamphlet to prove it.”

  Tynan arched a skeptical eyebrow at him, and brushing the horse slobber from his hands onto his breeches, headed back to their dinner. It had been bread and cheese but was now melted cheese and toast. “I heard an incubus claim it was his due to kill fifty men,” he said, settling down with the meal. “And he believed it too. Didn’t think he’d done a thing wrong.”

  “I’ve never murdered anyone,” Kai said. “You know that’s true.”

  “Demons are just like humans. Humans will tie themselves in knots convincing themselves that their worldview is right. They don’t care if they’re being lied to, so long as it matches up with what they want. They don’t even care if they lose out. They will swallow lies and parrot them until it becomes their truth. So forgive me for needing a little more evidence first.”

  “I could fuck you, but not fuck you to death?” Kai suggested, sitting down next to him and taking a piece of toast. He dipped it into the puddle of melted cheese on his plate and then took a big bite.

  Tynan seemed unimpressed by the suggestion. “Even if I wanted to—I don’t—let’s not traumatize the wolves any more than we have.”

  More had arrived and were sat watching them. Tynan looked at them all and added, “Besides. It wouldn’t do to fuck the incubus that killed the Reclusive Prince.”

  Perhaps it was Kai’s imagination, but two of the new wolves looked very interested by that sentence. They got up and walked away from the pack.

  “Do you think they understood?” Kai whispered.

  Tynan shrugged. “Do you think they hate the prince
more than my pelt lining?”

  It was an interesting question, but not something Kai particularly wanted to gamble his safety upon. “I don’t know,” he sighed, wondering if he was, for the first time in his life, in a situation he wasn’t going to get out of.

  Tynan was looking the wolves over still. “I’ll protect you,” he said simply.

  “I could protect myself if you take these cuffs off. And by protect, I mean run away at speed.”

  Tynan’s lips quirked into a smile. “You’re lying again,” he said, turning and looking Kai in the eye. Then he seemed to realize what he was doing and turned his attention back to his food.

  But it was true Kai wasn’t going anywhere right now. Tynan hadn’t been bothered by a single wolf’s attack, but Kai couldn’t see him fighting off a pack of them. For now he’d stay. But when they were out of these woods, Tynan wouldn’t see him for dust.

  Chapter Six

  Tynan woke up on the cart, cold and a bit miserable. It hadn’t rained at least, but a fine mist of dew had settled on him.

  He rolled over and saw Kai was still lying next to him. That was something. He’d obviously been up in the night because he was now wearing a shirt and a waistcoat beneath his fur coat, and had created something like a blanket with the other clothes.

  “Morning,” Kai said, shivering beneath his pile.

  Tynan felt slightly guilty about the wool blanket he had wrapped around himself, though it wasn’t providing much in the way of warmth. “Cold?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “Come here.” Tynan lifted the blanket and Kai shifted across the cart and underneath it with him. He wriggled himself into a little spoon position, arranging Tynan’s arm so that it wrapped around him.

  “Thank you,” Kai said. “It’s not very comfortable out here.”

  “No.”

  He wriggled again, this time bringing his ass uncomfortably close to Tynan’s half-hard dick. “I’m more of an indoor demon. I can handle the heat but not the cold.”