Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (22 page)

“How is one so young already tired of life?”

I put in a quick word, not wanting to see Kinsey’s suffering end too soon.  “You can’t kill her.  She’s my father’s fiancée and will soon become your mother-in-law.  Besides, where’s the challenge?  She’s hopeless out-matched by you.”  I gave Kinsey a hard glare.  “You should know who you’re fucking with before you run your mouth.  Don’t follow my example.”

She looked like she wanted to be offended, but couldn’t get past the obvious truth.

The Old Man dropped back in his seat, setting a nonchalant atmosphere for the rest of the room.  “Selene, I am Caine’s father, in all but blood.  I welcome you to this engagement party and to our family.  Pull up a chair.  Have some wine.”  His gaze scanned the assorted guards.  “The rest of you, stand down, grab a table, and order some food.  That’s an order.”

Hearing that, the two children Selene had brought, rushed to the empty end of the table and seated themselves, hunching a little, taking care not to challenge anyone by making eye-contact.

Tera stared at them curiously.  “Hello,” she said.

“Greetings, noble one.”  The boy dipped his head in respect, taking no chances with an unfamiliar crowd.  His sister copied the gesture.

Tera giggled, and began talking up a storm as if these were long lost friends.

Drake, too, gave a stand-down order to his guards.  They grabbed a couple of tables, but stayed close to Drake and Kinsey.

Selene smiled brightly at Lauphram.  “Thank you for your gracious welcome.  Any father of my beloved’s is a father to me.”

“Then don’t give him any trouble,” I muttered.  “That’s my job.”

She sat down in the chair at my right and stole one of my skewers.  “I’m surprised at you.  When have I ever caused trouble?”

TWENTY-THREE

“You can’t hang onto love with clenched

fists.  Chains work much better.”

                                                    —Caine Deathwalker

I finished my steak and lobster tail—except for those parts that wandered off to Selene’s plate—and poured myself a final glass of wine.  I was eating and drinking with my left hand because Selene had moved her chair up against mine and my right arm was imprisoned by her left. 

I looked at her.  “Why don’t you just climb into my lap and get it over with.”

Her smile brightened.  “Oh, can I?”

“No.”

By this time, Kinsey had agreed to move into a suite here at the Clan House—provided it had numerous locks and she could install a few magic wards as well.  She let Drake know she was only going along with this for now to save the family.

Desert came.  I kept my promise, giving Tera two servings of ice cream, and Julia none. Tera dug in, fully enraptured.  Julia pouted, throwing me baleful glances. 

The Old Man noticed.  “Julia?  You don’t like ice cream?”

“I like it fine,” but Caine is being a butt-head.  He won’t let me have any.”

“Standards must be upheld, lessons must be taught.”  I set aside my empty glass. 

Lauphram asked, “Did he say you couldn’t have some of the tiramisu?  It’s excellent.”

I stared at the Old Man, “You’re not helping.”

“Grandfathers are supposed to be indulgent.”

I grimaced as my right arm was gripped much tighter.  As I lost feeling in my right hand, I shot Selene a what-the-hell look.  She wasn’t looking at me, but at Julia.  “She’s your daughter?  I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“Her mother died the Night of the Red Moon, killed by my enemies,” I said.  “I’ve been looking after her ever since because she’s like me, born with a foot in two worlds.”

“You adopted her?  So no other woman has yet borne you a child?” Selene asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said. 

Her death-grip on my arm relented.  She said, “Good.  I want that honor.”

I wiggled my fingers, waiting for feeling to return.  “Well, one of these days—”

“Now,” she said.

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Getting pregnant takes months you know?” I said.  “And there’s that whole awkward gestation period.  Maybe we could just buy you a kitten.”

The room paused.  No one breathed.  Everyone had become statues, frozen in position as deep silence reigned.  The air felt heavier.  “Selene, what have you done?”

“I have pulled us between seconds, into a new temporal dimension.”  She stood, dragging me to my feet with superhuman strength.

“Yeah, but what’s the idea?”

“Come, it is time you rewarded me for my recent efforts on your behalf.”

“Speaking of which, how is our spy in Fairy doing?  I see you got her kids out of harm’s way.”

“Business later, I come first.”  She dragged me from the room, into the outer hall, taking what seemed to be an arbitrary direction.  We reached what should have been a dead end corridor.  A crimson elevator was down there now.  The doors opened as we arrived, revealing a red metal interior and a red-velvet couch.  Inside, the control panel had more buttons than a craft store.  She pressed the top button.

“We don’t have that many floors,” I said.

“You do now.  I never let reality get in my way.”

Slowly, teasingly, she turned her back to me and began to strip her robes away.  A bare shoulder showed, then both.  Her robe slipped lower, revealing a back the color of milk.  I wanted to lap up her creaminess.  Her robe dropped to encircle her feet, from there, melting like red snow, the run-off evaporating at once. 

“Is it so terrible a fate, to make love to me?”  She looked over her shoulder, her eyes shimmered, ablaze with need.  “You want me too, right?”

My gaze swept her naked flesh, inviting curves, and the sweet tremble of her lips as she ached for my kiss.  I answered her question, “Right.”

“Then why are you waiting?  Isn’t it your way to take what you want by whatever force is necessary?”  Magical, unseen hands caressed me, parting my clothes like water so they fell off me.  One of those hands skimmed lower, gripping my iron hard erection. 

Selene said, “Mmmm, that certainly seems happy to see me.  What’s wrong?  Too much whoring around lately.  Tired?  Perhaps you’d like me to take the lead.”  Her suddenly evil tone of voice scared me.  She said, “Perhaps, you would rather I did the taking.”

Alarm shot along my nerves as my well-honed survival senses shouted dire warning in the back of my head.  “Hey, wait a second.  I think I need a safe word before we go any further.”

“Beloved, here are your safe words: ‘Let me fuck you.’  Say them quickly, or else.”

Women never fight fair
.

“Fine,” I said.  “You asked for it.”  I shoved her into the steel wall, and slid my hands around her body.  I clawed at her tits, my erection pressing into the crack of her ass as I bit her left shoulder, trailing kisses across her back.  “You want to be fucked?  You want your pussy pounded while you scream like a good little bitch?”

Her head went back.  “Mmmmm, yes, yes!  Hard and fast, then soft and slow, then fast again.  Bruise my thighs with your passion, Beloved. I burn for only you.”

The elevator continued its smooth, eternal rise. I rolled her against the steel wall and dipped my head.  My lips and teeth played with her nipples, licking and nibbling from to the other. 

She pulled my face up for a kiss, slipping her tongue into my mouth, caressing mine.  We shared a heated breath.  She broke the kiss.  Her lips settled against my neck.  The warm pressure became a sharp bite.  She gnawed one spot then roved on, rising to nibble an earlobe, pressing the ripe globes of her breasts against me.  Her hands slid behind me, gripping my ass.  She liked to be in control despite all her talk of me taking her, it was in her blood.

I spun her in my arms, taking back momentum and initiative, and swept her to the red-velvet couch, laying her out on that bloody altar.  She stared up at me, reaching, smiling as I descended upon her, my cock poised to stab into her silky depths. 

Then gravity intensified, shifting vector by ninety degrees so I was slammed into the back of the velvet couch.  Like living things, chains slithered out of the cushions, wrapping around my limbs, returning to the backrest.  Hanging sideways, I could barely move.  The entire couch slid toward the elevator doors while the back of the couch fell level with the floor.  I was left looking up at the red steel ceiling, laying on a bed.  All that was missing were red silk sheets, fluffy pillows, and my freedom.

I made my voice firm and commanding.  “Selene, fun is fun, but what the fuck?  Take off the chains.” 

She rolled on her side to look at me, placing a finger over my heart, drawing little circles there.  “It will be all right, beloved.  I will love you with such furious abandon that you will never miss your freedom.  Songbirds come to love their cages in time.  So will you.  And if—in a few centuries—you remain adamant, I can always return you to the moment on Earth I took you from.  Soon, we will reach my moon, and you will know such delight as only a soul—as twisted as your own—can deliver.”

I looked past her, up at the LED panel over the doors that was supposed to number floors.  Instead of a number, there were words: WAY TOO GODDAMNED HIGH! 

What the hell.

“Seriously?  You’re kidnapping me?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.  It’s more like you’re going into the shop for servicing.”  She spun, sliding across me and my chains.  The heat of her mouth enveloped my cock.  Her lips went to the base of my shaft and clung there.  I swore, her tongue had to have morphed because it was doing things around my shaft that were anatomically impossible.  She came up and the tongue spiraled off my cock.  “Is this really so terrible?”  She followed the question up with a gentle squeeze of my balls.  And then the mouth descended again.

I had to admit, this was the most diabolical trap that had ever closed upon me.  I couldn’t complain that she was ruining all my plans since I was effectively outside linear time with her and she
could
put me back at the moment we’d left, with none the wiser.  My concern was my own narcissistic nature.  It might buckle after eons of sexual pleasure only the Red Lady could deliver.  My very nature could be altered.  I might wind up—eventually—not wanting to return.  I think she hoped for an outcome where I was all hers, and she never had to share.  Born a dragon, she was still dragon enough for that attitude.

I looked at the indicator display again.  The text like writing had changed again: WAVE GOODBYE TO YOUR PLANET.

“Selene!  You should have asked.”

Her mouth came off my cock. 

I could hear my cock’s voice. 
No, come back!  Suck me some more.

She turned above me, swinging around to face me, her tits bobbing in a hypnotic manner.  Straddling my hips, she lowered herself upon me, becoming a warm, wet sheath for my weapon of love.  “But, dearest, I
did
ask you to
fuck me
.  Don’t you remember?”  She ground herself against me, stimulating her clit with the friction, and I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this without donating a considerable amount of sperm.  She leaned forward, dangling her large tits in my face.

“Bit me.  Hurt me.  Punish me all you like, but I hate it when so many women can have you and I don’t even get a number at the end of the line.”  She pulled back a little so I could see the tears brimming her eyes.  “I have needs, desires.  Every bitch needs a bone now and then.”  The rocking of her body intensified.  Her head fell back.  Her breathing came in gasps as she begged.  “Oh, please, please…”  Then came an inarticulate growl as she approached climax, the first of what probably be a hundred or so.

My body responded to her velvet heat, her naked flesh, and her wanton fire.  How could I not?  We’d bonded as dragons.  My nut sack tightened.  I exploded inside her.  It pushed her over the edge; her channel tightened on my cock like a squeezing fist.  Her whole body went rigid as she screamed.

I had felt
off
in some indefinable way ever since she first showed up. In a moment of clarity—and orgasmic release—I realized what was wrong.  My inner dragon was silent, not sharing any of this with me.  His sleep was deeper than I’d ever felt, like he was being … suppressed.  I felt human, just human, or as close as my non-dragon side got to it. 

I hadn’t ripped away the chains because, well, who doesn’t want a hot fuck?  But I tested them with my hands, as Little Willie relaxed within Selene.  My dragon strength was gone, suppressed along with my inner dragon.  Selene was serious about keeping me for a while, as in maybe forever.

Relaxing, she wilted on top of me, squishing her breasts into my stomach, lying her head on my chest, warming a nipple with her breath.

I looked over at the LED display.  It said: TWO HUNDRED MILLION MILE HIGH CLUB. 

“Selene,” I said.  “I am a man, and I have the balls to prove it.”

“Yes, beloved, you certainly do.”

“I’ll become something neither of us respects if you tear out my pride.  You’ll destroy me doing things this way.”  Destroy us, because, in the end, I’ll hate you for it.”

She shoved with her hands, lifting herself.  She stared down into my face, reading the truth.  “You’re serious?”

“The weakness of dragons is their all-consuming greed.  If not controlled, it destroys their relationships.  You can love me, but not own me.  Not without killing what you love.”

It was sappy, sure, verging on a hallmark moment, but that’s how you talk “chick”, getting their full attention before something shiny lures it away.

“You can see time from the outside,” I said.  “Look into our future.  Isn’t there a branch that wasn’t there before, an alternate future where we’re not together?”

Her eyes went vague, staring through me, into a reality only she could see.  Her eyes widened in horror.  She whispered.  “I see it.  You’re right.”

“We are the kind of beings that need both challenges and limits,” I said.  “I’ll give you tonight, but in my world, in my bed.  And I will make more time for you.  I promise.” 
A promise made under duress isn’t legally binding.
  I smiled.  “What do you say?  Press the down button already.”

She gently kissed my lips and pulled back.  “No.  I’ll let you go, but one night is not enough.”

There was a ding as the elevator doors opened.  Outside the cage, I saw the interior of her palace on the Red Moon.  The LED over door said: ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

Ah, well, it’s my kind of hell after all.