Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian (15 page)

She gasped as his cock withdrew and thrust in
smooth back and forth motions. He did it again and again, gradually
speeding up until he was definitely pushing her up the slope to
climax. She didn’t know if it was due to his thickness or if his
technique was just that good, but every inward shove gave the
nerves of her clitoris a solid jolt.

He didn’t seem to mind that she dug her heels
into him as she met his motions. Though she couldn’t help crying
out, she didn’t have a chance to be self-conscious. He was groaning
himself, as if everything they did was extra good for him. His cock
grew harder inside her—and it had been plenty hard before. His grip
on her butt was tight and exciting.

In truth, everything about this was exciting:
his cock, his heavy breathing, the bunching power of his big
muscles. Elyse held on tight and gave herself over to the ride. Her
pussy contracted on his shaft, eager to pull the wonderful
sensations more greedily into her.

Arcadius cursed in a foreign tongue. He
shifted their angle of conjunction a few degrees. Suddenly
wonderful sensations changed to insanely amazing. His cock hit
something good inside her, and hit and hit it until her body seized
with a huge climax. Her head arched back on the shower wall, her
fingernails digging into his shoulders.

Arcadius grunted and pumped faster,
stretching out her sharp orgasm.

Somewhere in the middle of her bliss, she
noticed him start thrusting for himself.

The sounds he made then were more urgent, the
length of his strokes shorter. Each thrust stayed deeper inside her
in his quest for maximum friction. Though this felt great to her,
she didn’t want to miss what it did to him. She forced her gaze to
refocus.

The effort was worth it. His eyes were
screwed shut, his gorgeous face twisted into a mask of need.

“Yes,” she encouraged him. “Come,
Arcadius.”

His erection pulsed. He slammed it up inside
her even as his tight grip on her hips dragged her pussy down.
Their pelvises smacked together. His head flung back, the groan
that tore from him rough enough to scrape his throat. Heat flooded
her deep inside.

“Ah,” he sighed as the pulse came again. One
more burst warmed her, and then his eyes opened.

Water beaded his dark lashes and cheekbones,
his blue gray gaze sleepy. Elyse’s afterglow spread through her
like warm honey.

“Wow,” she panted, her lungs not recovered
yet.

Arcadius’s lips quirked at their corners. “I
concur.”

His voice was hoarse, which gratified Elyse.
His cock remained inside her, not as big or stiff as before but
comforting. His weight pressed her more heavily to the shower’s
curved glass wall, both his feet on the floor again.

Giving in to temptation, Elyse rested her
cheek on his broad shoulder. “You have to stay where you are,” she
said. “I don’t think I can walk.”

“Was I too rough at the end? I’m afraid I was
more . . . enthusiastic than I’m accustomed to.”

Elyse grinned.
Enthusiastic
was a good
word for it. “You were perfect. All my kinks are worked out.”

She patted his wet back and yawned. Maybe
that was rude, but after the night she’d had, she couldn’t restrain
herself.

Arcadius let out a quiet laugh. “All right,
sleepyhead. I’ll carry you to bed.”

To herself, Elyse admitted being toted around
like a girly girl was nice. David hadn’t been a wimp, but Arcadius
was a regular Hercules. And maybe a sexual Einstein. That climax
had knocked her socks off—and his had seemed pretty much the same.
She and David had worked their way up to being good in bed
together. Though Elyse had never thought she was missing out, she’d
never experienced pleasure this epic. As Arcadius settled her on
her bed, she was kind of sorry she wasn’t up for another round.

His manner as he pulled the sheets over her
was nice but not overly romantic. He didn’t join her in the bed
himself. In her current mood, that seemed fine. She was alive, and
David wasn’t coming back, but that didn’t mean she had to skydive
that very second into something serious.

However long Arcadius stuck around, she
decided to enjoy him.

ARCADIUS hadn’t forgotten Elyse’s bed was the
same she’d shared with her deceitful dead husband. Because he had
no desire to stir up memories of the man, he didn’t attempt to join
her there. Instead, he pulled a broken-in leather chair closer to
the bed. As he sank into its cushion in his comfortable boxer
briefs, he realized his core hummed with repletion.

The climax he’d enjoyed with her had been one
for the record books.

He wouldn’t have minded another. His recovery
time seemed to have been reset to that of his youth. His cock was
heavy again, needing little encouragement to stir. Unfortunately,
he’d tired out his partner.

Clearly drowsy, Elyse turned her head to him
on her pillow. “You’re staying?”

The question offended him. Of course he was
staying. Not that she was aware of it, but someone had tried to
kill her. He wasn’t leaving her unguarded for one instant.

“I’m staying,” he said. “Just in case you hit
your head in the accident.”

“My head is fine.” She wriggled around onto
her side without exposing her nakedness. “Neither of us has a
scratch.”

“We were fortunate,” he said sincerely.

She smiled, one hand under the pillow beneath
her head. The fingers of the other drew an idle pattern on the
sheet in front of her. “I’m not quite asleep. You could finish your
story.”

“Ah,” he said. “You’ll have to remind me
where I was.”

“In the tavern. With the sultan and the
artist and the commander. They’d just decided the commander’s
servant would compete for who could tell the most horrifying
tale.”

“That sounds right,” Arcadius said, pleased
she’d remembered. “So, to continue . . .”

* * *

The Servant’s Tale

AS you’ll recall, the tavern’s demon
proprietor issued the challenge for the duel. According to the
rules, he told his story first. He related the account of a hideous
female ghoul, notorious for lying in wait for travelers near a
graveyard. Disguised as a lovely woman, she’d promise unsuspecting
gentlemen a night of pleasure. Once they were enticed, she’d lure
them to her crypt, where her bloodthirsty children would eat them
up. The tavern owner’s storytelling style was lively, involving
acting out gory scenes. His ifrit friends enjoyed it immensely.
Whether they were horrified was a separate matter. One or two among
them might have been ghouls themselves.

As the audience clapped and whistled, the
eunuch rose and came forward.

“What a marvelous story,” he said, his manner
all modesty. “No doubt I should concede, but for honor’s sake, I
will try my humble best.”

The audience quieted as the servant
began.

“Once upon a time,” he said, “but not too
long ago, a male child was born to a poor family. At the age of
fifteen, because he had certain talents, the boy’s parents
apprenticed him to a powerful magician.

“What the parents didn’t realize was that the
magician’s nature was black as night. He worked the boy like a
slave and demanded other terrible things besides. Every month, when
the dark of the moon arrived, he ordered the boy to kill one of his
relatives. ‘I own you,’ the magician would remind him. ‘And you
must do as I say. If you refuse, I’ll summon a demon to murder your
entire clan. Then what good will your scruples do?’

“The captive boy could make no argument.
Luckily, he knew a few tricks himself. Each month, when the dark of
the moon arrived, instead of a relative he sacrificed a poppet—a
straw doll he’d animated with his own blood. He would do this alone
in his little chamber, whisking the relative by magic to a far-off
town. Such was the apprentice’s skill and such were the shrieks of
the poppets as they were slain, that the subterfuge was successful
for many years.

“In the seventh year of his apprenticeship,
the last according to the agreement his parents signed, one of the
magician’s associates happened to travel to the village where the
young man’s relatives now lived. Furious over being made a fool of,
the magician sent his men to arrest the apprentice’s father. He
would be the next sacrifice, and the death would take place in
public, in the magician’s green courtyard.

“The young man begged his master to relent by
all the names of God, but the djinni was deaf to his pleas. He even
refused the apprentice’s offer to give up his own life instead.
When the father heard this, he tried to intervene.

“‘You must do as he asks, son,’ he said. ‘I
sold you into servitude. Though I only wished you to have a trade,
my ill-considered bargain led you to this trouble. Surely the debt
is mine to pay.’

“What son could murder a father so loving?
Not the apprentice certainly. Enraged, the magician ordered his
personal pack of demons to torture him for the next fortnight.
Every moment the fiends were at him—pinching, biting, whispering
any nastiness they could think of to drive the young man to
despair. If the apprentice slept, there was no escape. The demons
entered his very dreams, turning the smallest scrap of sweetness
into a dark nightmare.

“Finally, at the end of this period, the
magician came to him. ‘Kill your father, or suffer the same again.’
The apprentice was exhausted but once more he refused. Another
fortnight commenced, with no pleasanter activities. One difference
struck the apprentice. Before, the magician only checked on him
occasionally. Now he came every night to ask the young man if he’d
changed his mind. To the apprentice’s weary eyes, he seemed almost
desperate.

“‘You are wise,’ the apprentice said to the
old woman who each morning left a heel of bread and a cup of water
outside the bars of his cell. ‘Can you explain this mystery? If our
master is so enraged with me, why not simply end my life and have
done with it?’

“‘I will answer,’ said the woman, ‘both for
the sake of your pretty manners and for my own hatred of the man.
You are the seventh apprentice our master has taken on, none of
whom resisted as long as you. The murders he wishes you to commit
are his means of blackening your soul. As each apprentice becomes
irredeemable, he gives him to a terrible demon king in payment for
a debt he owes. It is this demon who gave the magician his great
powers. If our master fails to pay, the demon will visit worse
sufferings on him than you have undergone. The final installment is
due tomorrow. If you hold out a little longer, the demon king will
kill him and you’ll be free.

“The old woman’s revelation filled the
apprentice with fresh resolve. Through all his tortures, the young
man had kept silent, refusing to let anyone hear his cries.
Tonight, however, when the magician returned to ask if he would
submit, the giddiness of his hope robbed him of caution. ‘Have you
nothing more to bring against me?’ he taunted his oppressor. ‘These
fiends are no worse than kittens nibbling at my toes.’

“The magician’s fiends—who were in fact his
former apprentices, merely without their souls—had done the worst
they could devise. Knowing this, and aware the clock was ticking
for himself, the magician seized upon the first terrible idea that
came into his mind. Storming into the cell, he kicked the weakened
apprentice until he lay moaning on the ground. Then the magician
bent, grabbed the apprentice’s testicles, and ripped them from his
body.

“‘These are my hostages!’ he cried, shaking
the bloody things. ‘Kill your father before the next rising of the
sun, and with my magic I shall return them. Defy me by a single
second, and I’ll feed your jewels to my so-called kittens.’

“The apprentice knew the magician could do
this. He’d seen his master remove and reattach people’s limbs for
amusement. Sadly, the awareness only made him feel worse. He curled
on the floor of his cell in shock, clutching his wounds and knowing
his own rash words had condemned him to suffer them forever.

“If he stood his ground, he
and
his
father might survive. The apprentice simply wouldn’t survive as a
whole man.

“He must have appeared beaten as he was led
out trembling into the courtyard the next morning. His father was
there, and the fiends, and all the magician’s servants. Torches
burned, for the sun hadn’t yet risen.

“‘Now,’ the magician said, so confident of
his prey that he held a knife hilt toward him. ‘Kill your sire and
live to have children yourself someday.’

“The apprentice took the knife, hung his head
in defeat, and heaved a sorry sigh.

“‘I forgive you,’ his father said. ‘It is
right that a parent’s life end before his child’s.’

“‘Do it,’ said the magician.

“Dawn began to glimmer behind the near
rooftops. The apprentice knew this was the deadline for the
magician to pay his debt to the demon king.

“‘
Do it
,’ the evil man repeated more
urgently.

“Half-starved, tortured, and weak from loss
of blood, the apprentice leaped toward the magician. With the last
measure of his strength, he drove the knife meant to kill his
father into the black heart of his oppressor.

“Given the magician’s power, perhaps he could
have healed the injury. He wasn’t given the chance to try. Thunder
cracked as a split appeared in the ground nearby, infernal light
glowing in its depths. A terrible form of smoke and fire emerged.
The demon king had arrived.

“‘You have failed!’ the great ifrit rumbled.
‘Now
your
soul is forfeit.’

“With no more ado, the demon king snatched
the dying magician down into his hell with him.”

This seemed to be the end of the servant’s
story. The young man stopped speaking and bowed his head, politely
awaiting the tavern crowd’s judgment. His listeners gazed at each
other uneasily. This indeed was a tale of horror, no less so
because the evil magician—with whom their sympathies naturally
lay—had been defeated.