by Yume Arashi (夢 嵐)
(mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/189987.html)
The demon Beleth, Prince of Nightmares, stirred on his dark throne. Some distance away, he sensed a human intruding in the deep woods that surrounded his desolate keep. A point of interest, to be sure – no human had ventured anywhere near for decades, the demon’s aura proving to be a more effective deterrent than any guards could be.
As Beleth rose, the infernal body began changing, flesh shifting and bones rearranging. Moments later, a great eagle could be seen taking wing from the castle.
The human grunted as the raptor dropped him ungently onto the stone floor of the throne room. Eyes wide, he watched the being change form, shifting into something that might have been a cross between a dire cat and a dragon.
“Know, human, that you have trespassed on the lands of the demon Beleth. Why did you so?” The deep voice echoed around the chamber sibilantly.
“I did not know what manner of being it was that claimed these woods as home, my lord,” the human answered. Beleth narrowed his eyes at the reply; he had heard the words countless times before, but always offered as an excuse, never as simply an explanation. This human was no warrior, he looked to be no more than a mere traveler, yet there was no fear in him as he stood before the demon.
“You knew something did, even if you knew not what. Yet still you entered.”
“I have never gotten anywhere in my life by turning tail and running, my lord. I didn’t plan to start now.”
Beleth laughed outright at that. Shifting again, this time to a form half-human and half-snake, he coiled around his captive. “Foolish creature. Unlike many human emotions, fear has a purpose. Fear tells you what your ‘intelligence’ can’t, warns you of danger you’ve forgotten how to sense. A human with no fear is destined for a short life.”
“At your hands, in this case?” Dark brown eyes met his, unflinching.
“Most likely,” Beleth purred. “But not right away. I haven’t had a new pet in quite some time, and you have me wondering what I can make you do that will break you in the slowest and most painful way possible once I have possessed you.”
“I know that you can’t possess me unless I allow you to. Every child learns at least that much about demons.” It was strange, Beleth mused, to hear these words, usually hurled at him in fearful defiance, spoken as a mere statement of fact from this oddly unemotional human. Still, he answered them as he always had.
With a cold smile.
*****
Beleth waited until his captive was deeply asleep, then changed form into an attractive human male. Reviewing his naked appearance in the mirror, he smirked. It was true what the impertinent creature had said about possession requiring the consent of the victim, but that was easily enough obtained, even from another male.
Slipping into the room, he crawled over the bed to the human’s side, leaning down to press his lips against the other’s. Lightly at first, until he felt the man’s dreams slide into a more physical nature, then deeply as the strong jaw relaxed, allowing his tongue entrance.
A promising sign, Beleth mused, pleased at both the unconscious compliance and the firm grip that sleep still held over the human. This was always far easier without the victim’s conscious mind screaming objections. Shifting a little, he began kissing down the corded neck, finding the most sensitive spots and worrying at them with his currently blunt teeth as his hands caressed teasingly down the muscular chest.
The human was stirring now, not yet awake but no longer in the depths of sleep. Beleth smiled, moving to trail his kisses down the lean torso, licking almost playfully at the dent of the navel. Soft fingernails flexed into razor-sharp claws just long enough to make scraps out of the sleeping pants the human was wearing, reverting back to allow the demon to caress the strong legs without fear of damaging his pet.
Brown eyes fluttered open vaguely, only to close again as Beleth wrapped a hand around his arousal, skillfully manipulating the hard flesh. Moaning softly, he allowed the demon’s other hand to press at his shoulder, rolling him onto his stomach.
Beleth was a little surprised, though pleased, to find the human’s back unusually sensitive, a series of pressure points running along the spine which made the human arch and shiver and cry out softly when he bit at them. He might have felt this was almost too easy, he considered as he pressed one long finger inside the man, drawing a whimper and a tensing of muscles but no other protest. But acquiescence was a rare thing in his world, and anything out of the ordinary was welcome in an immortal life.
Smirking, he crooked his finger, ending any thought of objection the human may have entertained. His pet really did make the prettiest sounds, he considered, listening to the cries of pleasure as he ruthlessly manipulated the sensitive area. When he’d finished claiming him, he’d enjoy this often.
Judging the man to be sufficiently lost in pleasure, he withdrew his hand and pressed against the trembling body, teasing at the entrance with the tip of his own aching flesh. “You want this?” he purred, breathing the words into the shell of his ear. The human nodded, a soft, pleading sound escaping the back of his throat. “Let me in,” he murmured, and received a shuddering whimper in response. “Open to me, surrender yourself to me, let me take you.”
With a submissive moan, the human yielded to him, body and soul.
The demon hissed in pleasure, his arousal sinking into hot, willing flesh even as his essence invaded the man’s soul, claiming it for his own. The moment of surrender was a thrill he never tired of, triumph and gratification a heady combination. It was invariably followed by a futile struggle on the victim’s part as they realized just what their moment of weakness had allowed, but by then it was far too late.
Only this one wasn’t trying to fight the possession. Beleth frowned at the strangely accepting human, winding more tightly about the fragile soul, thrusting harder into the body beneath him. The roughness met with no resistance; the human even seeming to enjoy the act of possession, body shuddering and arching against him, soul writhing in unabated pleasure as he pleaded for more.
Ice-blue eyes closed as the demon’s hips unconsciously responded to the soft begging, already moving to fulfill the pleas for more, harder, faster. It was a matter of course for his victims to beg, but only for him to stop, to let them go. He could not recall any soul ever accepting his possession, nor voice ever begging for him, and it was curiously arousing. Though he took his pleasure from human pets often enough, he had never truly wanted, and he was realizing, belatedly, what a ruthless master desire could be.
Growling, he took his irritation out on the body beneath him, sinking sharp teeth into the strong muscles and gripping the firm flesh cruelly tight. Even now, the human didn’t object, accepting the abuse with only a little shudder, and Beleth decided that he could puzzle out the human’s compliance after he’d finished sating himself.
*****
When the human opened his eyes some time afterward, they were no longer a soft, warm brown, but the same frigid, pale blue as the demon’s. Satisfied, Beleth smiled at him. “You are my creature now,” he purred, allowing the truth of his words sink in, and he waited for the lesser being to panic, to struggle, to despair, to break down into hopeless tears or virulent curses of his name.
Except he did not.
Incredibly, the human smiled back at him – at him, the Prince of Nightmares! – and brought the demon’s hand to his mouth to lay a gentle kiss on the back. “Yes, my lord,” he murmured, and in his eyes was a look that Beleth had never in all his millennia seen directed at him. Love. Loyalty. Trust.
He must be mad, the being thought, dumbfounded. No human could possibly be foolish enough to willingly accept servitude under a demon, surely. Well, such stupidity was easily cured. “For your first act as my slave, you will kill every last member of your family.”
But the man didn’t move, and the demon scowled. Willing or no, the possession ensured that the human should already be moving to do his bidding. But he simply gave Beleth a slightly awkward shrug, and answered “I have none, my lord. I was abandoned as an infant, and the people who raised me were killed by brigands when I was still young. I have been a wandering tradesman since, never staying long enough in any one place to form ties, much less find a wife or father a child.”
Irritated, the infernal growled. “Fine, then you shall raze the town where you grew up.”
The human smiled wryly, “No more have I such, my lord, the people who raised me were traveling peddlers.”
With a hiss, the angry demon caught the human’s face in one clawed hand. “If you think you can lie to me to protect your loved ones, you’ll soon wish you’d not been born with a tongue to carry tales.”
Unafraid, the man looked back at him. “I’d expect no less punishment for attempting to deceive my master.”
Beleth’s eyes narrowed. “You either are indeed truly fearless or incredibly foolhardy, human. We’ll soon see which.” With that, his mind reached out through the link, searching through the human’s thoughts and memories.
It was an odd experience, not so much to be seeing a mortal life through the memories of that being, but to do so without the slightest protest from said mortal. As a rule, humans reacted far worse to mental rape than they did to anything he could do to their fragile little bodies, screaming in vain as the possession allowed the demon to tear through mental blocks unhindered to every deepest corner of their minds. It was something he did rarely, because most often the victim was left a useless wreck in the wake of it.
But this human threw open every door, offered up every secret, with absolute willingness. Nothing was hidden, nothing impeded, and the demon sailed effortlessly though the years of the human’s life as a welcome observer.
Sliding back into the physical world, the demon cracked open one eye to glare irritably at his newest pet. “You are an idiot. A truthful idiot, at least as yet, but an idiot nonetheless.”
To his astonishment, the human – Jacob, he now knew – laughed openly at this, right to his face. Raising to his knees beside the demon, he began combing his hands affectionately through the midnight hair. “I suppose to you, I must seem such,” he answered with carefree amusement.
Beleth tilted his head back, meeting the ice-blue eyes with incredulity. “I could maim you beyond recognition without allowing you the mercy of death, if I so chose – and yet still you show no fear!”
Jacob looked back at him calmly. “Are you going to?” he asked, genuine curiosity coloring his voice.
After a moment, the demon sullenly lowered his head, allowing the human to continue his ministrations. “Later, perhaps.
