Original Fiction
Bump in the Night
In a world that has finally learned to see demons, Aaron is a soldier who has walked away from the fight. Not only is he questioning what he's done in the name of orders, but he's also fairly sure that the things that go bump in the night are stalking him back. However, running away doesn't mean you run fast enough to outrun fate.
Aaron walked in the door and kicked it shut with a foot. The streetlights left dim shadow bars across the stained beige carpet, and for a minute, he simply stood in the dark--listening, searching each corner for movement.
For too damn long he’d hunted things that went bump in the night, and now, every time night fell, he would imagine every sound meant a vampire or a lesovik lurked around some tree. That’s why he’d left the service. The religious nuts who had finally proven the reality of demons might have thought they were improving the world, but Aaron had preferred ignorance. Ignorance and a good bottle of rye whiskey featured in his fantasies these days.
Once he was sure no one had broken into the apartment, Aaron headed for the tiny kitchen. He never thought he’d miss military life, but living off the grid was hard on his retirement pay. He could make more than enough upgrade his living arrangements if he went into private security, but that would defeat the purpose of having left the army in the first place. The refrigerator hummed when Aaron opened the door to stick the paper bucket of fried chicken inside.
“Got to have the landlord take care of that.” The landlord had a long list of repairs that he never seemed to touch. However Aaron didn’t know enough about refrigerators to fix it, and he didn’t want to wake up some morning to find his dinner had turned into a science experiment. As he was heading into the bathroom to wash his face, the phone started ringing. It had taken three months for him to stop reaching for a cellphone every time he heard a ring, but those things made it too easy to track someone. Aaron couldn’t believe how many demons they had tracked straight back to lairs because of their fondness for human cell phones.
The automated voice on the hopelessly outdated machine clicked on, announcing the phone number and beeping so the caller could leave a message. Aaron slipped his shirt off and hung it on the knobbed end of the towel rack as he heard a familiar voice.
“Gustafson, man, is that you? The major asked me to track down a couple of guys who left the unit, and I’m pretty sure this is your number. Man, if it is, you are living on the far side of paranoia, you know what I mean? It took me for fucking ever to find this number. Anyway, the service is offering big bonuses for people who come back in. You know the number. Call it. That is, if you have your head back together and in the game. Of course, maybe you’re out earning the big money and bedding all the chicks and dicks. I hope so.” The phone clicked and the answering machine recorded a few seconds of dial tone before turning off.
“If my head is back together….” Aaron shook his head and wandered out into the living room to pull the sofa bed out. The remote came next.
Once he had the news running with the volume low, Aaron went for the beer. He’d drink stronger, only he didn’t like the feeling of being out of control. He’d felt that too much. “My head is never going to be back together,” he told the empty apartment as he sat on the edge of the bed, the metal rail pressing into the back of his thighs as he pulled his boots off. Then he settled into bed with his beer.
The newswoman had on a solemn expression as she discussed the ACLU’s case against the Army Non-human Response Teams. The screen shifted to show an ACLU representative angrily pointing out that the AN-ReTs violated the civil liberties of people who had just as much right to protection as humans. And he did it in front of an oversized picture of ukobach bodies stacked on top of each other, limbs grotesquely intertwined. Ukobach had oversized heads and long, spindly bodies that made them look uncomfortably like holocaust survivors. It wasn’t a coincidence.
Aaron turned the channel.
“What’s the matter, bothered by the reality of this new would you’ve helped make?”
The low, silky voice sent Aaron scrambling for the side of the bed, his hand going for the hidden spot where he’d tucked his weapon. His fingers brushed the cold metal when he felt strong hands grab his legs and pull. Aaron knew his enemy, and he knew if he didn’t pull his hand clear, he’d end up with a broken arm. So he lost his chance to grab his gun and make the easy kill. That didn’t mean he was down for the count.
Aaron let the damned creature pull him until Aaron’s butt fell off the end of the bed, and then he thrust himself forward, his fist flying out toward his attacker. Aaron wasn’t the biggest marine in the unit, but he was two hundred and sixty pounds of military-trained muscle. He threw everything he had at the monster, and he missed. Stumbling first to his knees and then falling on his stomach, he realized the creature had moved out of the way faster than any human could have. Aaron rolled fast, his body coiled for an attack, but the thing only chuckled softly from the shadows.
Aaron got up slowly, his fisted curled and ready to go. He spared the couch and that hidden weapon one glance, but he knew he would never make it that far. His best bet was the knife he kept down the back of his jeans. He would wait until the creature got up close and personal and then strike hard and fast. It was his best chance of survival. Shadows within shadows shifted in the corner—a dark body dividing itself from the darkness.
“I missed you. You left the hunters’ group, and they weren’t any fun to play with anymore.” The voice sounded almost like a scolding mother.
“Fuck you,” Aaron answered.
“I’d rather fuck you,” the demon responded. Actually, that was a pretty predictable retort, but Aaron wasn’t functioning at his best; he hadn’t been for a while now.
Aaron gave the beast his most viscous grin. “You can try and rape me, vampire, but you may find I'm not easy prey.”
“Do I look like a vampire? Do I have pasty white skin and sharp teeth? Do I smell like a demon hiding inside the body of some dead human?”
The monster glided out of the shadows, its wide shoulders and long limbs amazingly graceful for a man his size. If a person looked quickly, they might see some Adonis, some impossibly perfect male. However, the spell that had revealed the demons had stripped the willful blindness from reality so that all the alien features were immediately evident. The skin wasn’t quite the right color. It was dark enough to be African, but there was a bluish or maybe a purplish undertone to the dusky black skin. The eyes were a little too large, the mouth too wide. He was handsome… irresistibly handsome. But the dangerous sense of wrong also clung to him.
“I don’t give a shit what you are, demon. Get out of my house.”
“After I went to all the work to hunt you down?” The voice was silky, the way only an incubus’ could be. Aaron could feel the shiver go through his body. His dick was reacting, but that’s what an incubus did, it hijacked a man’s good sense and made him into a slave to his own dick. Aaron knew one or two men who’d had their own genitals removed after having incubus target them. Up until this point, Aaron had never understood that, but right now, as he felt the ground slip away under him, Aaron would have paid a lot to regain any sense of control.
The monster slid closer. “No comment? Don’t you want to ask how I found you?”
Aaron glanced over toward the machine. Waddy had found him, so it made sense someone else had too. Clearly Aaron was not as good at living off the grid as he’d thought.
“You aren’t being any fun.” Again, the demon sounded almost as if he were pouting, which was one emotion Aaron had never expected from a demon. As a member of one of the Army’s AN-ReTs, he’d seen demons furious, terrified, and even drunk—but he’d never seen one that pouted. He certainly never expected an incubus that stood at least six foot five to put on that particular expression.
“Feel free to leave.” Aaron gestured toward the door, and when he put his hand back down, he angled his body to hide his right hand as he pulled his knife. The monster tilted his head to the side.
“You don’t want me to leave.”
“Yeah, I do. You see, I left the service to avoid you, so I really don’t want you here.”
The monster’s head tilted to the other side, and Aaron could feel the desire wrap around him. He knew why people used snakes as the symbol of temptation because he could almost feel his lust like a palpable monster wrapping slowly around his body and squeezing.
The incubus was so damn beautiful, so strong. It shifted, and even in the low light, Aaron could see the definition of the monster’s muscle and its already hardening cock. Aaron had always known that it was an incubus who stalked the unit even as the unit had tracked down other monsters; however, it was easier to think of the thing as a vampire. Vampires might be beautiful creatures in fiction, but in reality, they were horrors. Aaron tried remembering every vampire he’d ever seen—the milky, dead eyes, the mottled gray skin. If not for their intelligence, they were hard to distinguish from zombies. That made his lust go into full retreat.
The monster in his living room hissed and stood up straight. “Whatever are you thinking about to make yourself go so cold, Master Sergeant Gustafson? Maybe you’re remembering the herd of orobas you slaughtered, the children cradled in mothers’ arms, bodies red with blood and torn apart by your weapons. Did you sign up to kill women and children?”
“They were demons, we had orders.” Aaron could feel his guts knot. He had pushed that memory away so successfully that he rarely even thought of it. And if the sight of a horse made him run for a toilet and vomit, he didn’t allow himself to connect his aversion to horses to that calm summer day when the unit received orders to take out a herd of prophetic demons, shape changers who would hide among normal horse herds. Only after they’d slaughtered the whole herd could they distinguish the horses from the orobas as the demons took their true form in death.
“Orders.” It made a little huffing noise. “Such a nice word for such distasteful work. No matter. You’ve left the work, and I’ve finally come for you.”
The words slid across Aaron’s skin, a chill sinking into him as he realized that this couldn’t end well for him. A human had very little chance against an incubus, no matter how much physical training he did. His best hope was to fight hard enough to make the monster kill him. Aaron swung around, his knife pointed at the enemy. “I’ll kill you, monster,” Aaron snarled.
It had the audacity to laugh at him, and Aaron lunged. He kept his movements carefully controlled even as he tried to give the impression of reckless abandon. The monster didn’t fall for it. It circled carefully, its eyes watching Aaron with a thinly veiled lust that threatened to break through Aaron’s control.
“You want me,” the demon whispered, his voice sure.
“You may have the power to make my dick sit up and take notice, but I’d cut it off before willingly going with you.” Aaron thrust again.
“Such lies. Such inelegant lies you send out into the world.”
Aaron didn’t even bother answering.
“Do you know why humans hate us?”
“Because you’re monsters?” Aaron tried lunging in again. He couldn’t even get close enough to pose a real danger.
“We’ve never changed, but humans—you go from worshipping us to hiding from us to dancing with us under the moon, hiding from others. And now you hate us. It’s because we know what you want. We feed off a partner’s satisfaction, so that makes us the perfect lover, but humans don’t like to admit what they truly want. They like to think that they’re all too good and too pure, and all that time while words fall from their mouths, they put out these delicious pheromones begging us to come to them. You can’t blame us for answering. We’re nothing more than the moth to the flame.”
Aaron lunged again, but he could feel his control slipping. He went too far, and the monster darted in, shoving Aaron’s knife hand to the side and delivering a blow low on Aaron’s left side. Aaron fell back, the wind knocked out of him temporarily. A few more blows like that, and Aaron wouldn’t be in much shape to object to anything.
“You called me here,” the demon whispered.
“That’s the claim of every rapist.” Aaron’s voice caught in his throat at that word, but he refused to sugar coat this. If an incubus demon was going to rape him, he wouldn’t play word games with reality.
“Rape is a human term. If you didn’t want this, I wouldn’t be here. Tell me you don’t want me.”
“I don’t want you.”
“That is why you call me so sweetly.”
“What?” Aaron pulled back and looked at the demon. “I just said I don’t want you.”
“Words.” The demon fell out of his fighting stance and twitched his body seductively, his white smile standing out against his dark skin. “Words are nothing. Your smell tells the truth.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. With that logic, the demon could make any claims he wanted. “I’ll get a new deodorant.”
The demon’s smile grew wider. “You want someone who will appreciate that humor of yours. You want someone that will let you stop fighting.” The demon ducked his head low and slid closer by an inch. Aaron bit his own tongue despite his many denials. If he could get the monster close enough, he’d have a better chance with his knife. “You are so tired, so tired of not knowing right from wrong, and you suspect that people have ordered you to do such wrong things. You remember seeing that oroba child, her mother’s arms around her, her mother’s body trying to shield her from the bullets. You remember her roan coat slowly fading as the child reappeared, and you hated yourself. You don’t want to make that decision again. You don’t want to make any decision again.”
Aaron’s mouth was so dry that his tongue stuck to the top of his mouth and his stomach churned uncomfortably. He might have run for the bathroom to vomit, only that would leave his back undefended, and Aaron had no doubt that the monster wanted that.
“You doubt that things are simple as demon versus human, but as long as you have a weapon in hand, you feel a need to fight. Walking away from your unit was so hard. You wouldn’t have, you would have kept right on fighting only you heard my voice, and you wanted me so much that you would stare out into the night and cry.”
Aaron wanted to deny that. He’d never cried. He had, once or twice, entertained a stray thought of reporting himself as compromised and a stray thought of volunteering for castration had drifted through his mind only to be quickly dismissed, but he hadn’t cried.
“If I’d just come and taken you, then you wouldn’t have to fight. It wouldn’t be your fault. None of it would be your fault. I would never trust you with a weapon; I would keep you chained to my side. Therefore, you would never have to kill for me. But I’m a demon, so you would never again have to look at a demon child in her mother’s arms and know you had murdered her. Orobas are peaceful. Did you look that up before or after your officers ordered you to slaughter them? Despite what human scientists think, our mindreading powers are so limited that I can’t actually tell. I do know that you found that out. You found out that they are truth-tellers, incapable of lying, even under threat of death. They are loyal to whomever they claim allegiance to, conjurer or lover. They are family oriented demons. As an incubus, I don’t understand the idea of family, but as a human, I think you can.”
The incubus was close now, close enough that Aaron could smell the musk and mint of him and feel his own body temperature rise. Aaron wanted to scream for the demon to stop. He wanted to have a gun in his hand so he could pull the trigger and feel the bark of the gun, see the holes torn in the demon’s body. But some indefinable feeling locked him in place.
“You often remember two little girls. I thought at first they were your offspring, but now that I’ve seen more of your mind, I think they’re sisters. They grow so beautifully in your memories. Would that oroba girl had been as beautiful as your Connie? Would she have run with pigtails bouncing?”
Aaron sucked in a breath. He should strike. The demon was too close already, but his muscles trembled, and he couldn’t find the strength to thrust his arm into that solid body that was slowly crowding him back toward the wall. A gun would be easier. Pulling the trigger was so much easier, the small jolt up your arm and the enemy magically disintegrated, holes ripped in anonymous chests.
“You don’t know what that little girl would have been, but you know your bullets killed her,” it whispered. Aaron shook his head even though he remembered lying on the hill, his weapon resting against the sniper stand as he lined up his first shot. He could feel the sun on the back of his legs, a clicking in his ear from the comm unit as the marines got into position and waited for the commander’s order. He’d aimed at the adult, but the foal was playing with her new found ability to jump, leaping up with awkward and stiff legs before running in circles, tail high.
“You don’t want to make choices. You so desperately need to not have any choices.” The words were warm against his ear, and Aaron realized he’d closed his eyes, seeking some shelter from the memory, but there wasn’t any. He’d made a choice, and it was the wrong one. No matter what the report said or even what the damn medals shoved in his suitcase under the sofa bed claimed, he’d made a bad choice.
“You don’t have any more choice. I’ll never give you a choice, so you’re safe.” A hand closed around his wrist, and Aaron knew the time to fight back had ended. However, his eyes came open and he drove his knee up into the demon’s crotch.
“Fuck you!” He screamed. With his free hand, he clawed at the demon’s face. When the demon grabbed his left hand, Aaron head butted him. Unfortunately, incubus heads were stronger than human, and Aaron blinked as the world grayed out for a moment, his head throbbing in time with his heart.
“There will be punishment. You need to be punished until you learn to not fight, don’t you? You need to know you don’t have a choice.” The demon threw him toward the bed, and Aaron crashed into it, his hip hitting the metal side rail hard enough to make tears come to his eyes, but Aaron ignored his aching head and the sharp pain in his thigh as he scrambled for his gun. It was his last chance.
A weight landed on his back, and Aaron screamed in frustration as the monster pinned his arm to the bed with casual strength. Arching his back, Aaron tried to dislodge it, but strong legs closed around his waist, and no matter how Aaron bucked and writhed, he couldn't break free. Worse, his cock was rubbing against the mattress, bringing him to full hardness. He didn’t feel desire. He couldn’t, but his body kept right on getting hard without permission from his will.
"I know you," the monster whispered, his words a warm puff against Aaron's ear.
"No, you fucking don't. You're a fucking monster."
The thing laughed. "I am a demon who fucks, most certainly. But I know how much you need this. If you didn't want this, I would draw no energy from it. I would be weakened by your disgust. Admit that you need to be taken, to be held and kept from yourself. Until you admit it, I will not allow you to come."
"Fucking--" Aaron didn't have words vivid enough to describe his feelings, so he settled for bucking harder than ever, bracing his one free arm against the bed and trying to roll so that he could force the beast off him.
Instead, it grabbed his free arm and pulled it around to the small of Aaron's back, pinning it there. Aaron had to relax his arm or risk having it broken, but that meant that he couldn't effectively fight at all. He pressed his forehead to the mattress and gasped for air, his lungs burning from the short fight. It pulled Aaron's other arm around to his back and began winding something strong around the wrists. Aaron tensed and angled his wrists to try and keep some slack in the bindings, but the incubus gave a sharp tug, and Aaron's wrists were pressed tightly together before it finished tying them.
"You smell so good." The incubus had that same silkiness to his voice as he ran his hands up Aaron's bare back before lying down so that he covered Aaron. As a large man, Aaron wasn't used to partners even larger than he was. The incubus kissed the back of Aaron's shoulder before trailing his tongue up to suck on Aaron's ear. The path he left behind cooled, making Aaron shiver as the demon slowly undulated against his body. "So much desire." If Aaron didn't know better, he'd swear from the slow and honeyed tones the thing was drunk.
"Just do what you're going to do," Aaron snapped.
"No need to hurry, we have forty or fifty years."
Aaron froze, even his breath stopping as he considered that. "You're lying," Aaron finally managed, his voice a whisper.
"Most demons don't lie. We can't. The idea of saying that which is not true and risking changing reality with words which warp the lines of existence... it is an anathema to us. Humans often worry us with their willingness to cast words out into the world without thinking."
"You... but...."
"Besides, the truth is a much sharper knife." The incubus licked a line under Aaron's ear, and Aaron's whole body shivered. "I shall keep you chained to me for so many years, tend you, feed from your lust and grow strong. You will never have a chance to make another mistake because you will live on the end of my leash, and I will always tend you." It licked the back of Aaron's neck, and Aaron found himself unable to even move. “You will enjoy every second. But first, you must know that you are well and truly captured, and that means that disobedience comes with punishment--that is the nature of things, yes?" It sounded far too amused by its own musing.
Aaron pressed his lips closed and refused to answer, but that didn't seem to slow the incubus. It shifted its weight backwards until it was sitting on the back of Aaron’s knees. Straining at the wrist bindings, Aaron tried to find some weakness, but nothing budged.
“Kneel up,” it ordered as it put a hand on each of Aaron’s shoulders and simply lifted him so he knelt on his bed, the monster behind him. “Do you always wear your jeans to bed?” it asked as it pulled Aaron close against its chest. Aaron couldn’t feel any difference between the monster and the various marines he’d taken to bed over the years. However, having a lover so large made him uncomfortable in ways he didn’t want to face. In particular, he’d never bottomed for any man who he didn’t outweigh by at least fifty pounds.
“Did you tell yourself that you left the service because of me?” The incubus unzipped Aaron’s jeans, and he tried hard to deny the fact that his cock was hard, straining against the blue boxers that tented out obscenely. “You need this so much. Why would you run from that?”
“I don’t need anything.” Aaron had to talk through gritted teeth. The incubus ran his finger up Aaron’s cock before he pushed Aaron’s jeans down. Once his jeans were out of the way, Aaron noticed the demon’s cock was pressing against his ass crack. Closing his eyes, Aaron took a deep breath, shuddering at the pleasure when the incubus cupped Aaron’s balls, squeezing them gently.
“Admit that you want this, and you can come.”
Aaron had to take a few breaths before he could gather his thoughts. “Fuck off.”
The demon chuckled and then kissed Aaron on the shoulder as tenderly as any lover. Aaron struggled against the restraints, but he only succeeded in making his shoulders sore.
“The rule is that you are mine. You obey. When you don’t, there’s punishment.”
A rough laugh slipped out of Aaron. “Don’t make excuses for beating me. If you want to do it, just fucking do it.” Hands trailed down Aaron’s arms before the whole bed bounced as it climbed off. Aaron stayed where he was. With his jeans around his thighs, he was effectively hobbled, not that he could outrun a demon under the best of circumstances, and he definitely wasn’t at his best today.
“I don’t have to make an excuse. If I wanted to simply hurt you, I could, but then you would stop enjoying this, and I wouldn’t get to feed. You are so delicious, but I only feast when you get to indulge those secret needs of yours. So, you can stop feeling like a martyr any time now. It sours the energy.” For a second, it stood next to the bed and stroked Aaron’s arm. Aaron grimaced and had to order himself to not flinch away from the intimacy of the touch. He was soldier enough to survive whatever some damn demon could hand out. The incubus gave a sigh and sat on the side of the bed where Aaron could see him. “You are going to be a handful.”
“Feel free to fuck off any time, then it won’t really matter.”
The thing smiled slowly, the mouth just large enough to remind Aaron that it wasn’t human… and to make him wonder what it could do with that mouth. All soldiers these days got briefings on how the enemy might try to compromise them, and incubus weren’t exactly known for their sexual restraint.
“I like a challenge. And I already claimed you, so you can settle in quickly or keep fighting, but you’re mine, human.” Aaron clenched his teeth so hard that he could feel his jaw getting sore. “Now, over my lap.”
For a second, Aaron thought he’d misunderstood. He’d prepared himself for a beating or a whipping, but going over the lap of a very naked man… that was not happening. “Fuck you,” he snarled.
“You do like that word. Luckily, so do I,” it answered with a cheerfulness that made Aaron want to shoot it in the nuts. When the thing reached for him, Aaron tried to throw himself backwards, but the demon’s hand darted out and caught him and pulled him down over its lap so fast that all the breath left Aaron when he landed. He knew he had lost the fight, but he couldn’t give up without trying. He kicked as hard as he could, pulling his knee up to try and strike the incubus’ body, but the thing put a hand on Aaron’s back and pressed down so hard that it trapped Aaron like a pinned bug in a collection box. He couldn’t do more that wiggle, and Aaron refused to wiggle in a man’s lap. He wouldn’t fucking do it. Just no.
“Tell me the reason you’re being punished.”
“Because I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough to shoot you in the face.”
“Clever, but no. You yielded to me, and then when given very simple orders, you tried to fight back. You will never be strong enough to fight me. I own you.”
Aaron eyed the bastard’s hip and wondered if he was flexible enough to reach over and bite him.
“When I tell you to do something, you have to do it. You don’t get to make choices, and you never have to carry the burden of responsibility again.”
“Just fucking stop with the mind games.”
“How amusing.” It ran one hand over Aaron’s ass while the other rested against the small of Aaron’s back, holding him immobile. Fingers slipped under the waist band of his boxers, teasing the sensitive skin where the ass crack ended. “Humans play with reality. I told you, demons are honest.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?” Aaron was an idiot. He could count the number of ways he’d contributed to this fucked up situation, starting with his failure to inform his commanding officer about the fact that an incubus would drift through the shadows every time Aaron patrolled, whispering promises that made Aaron cling to his weapon and his sanity with an increasingly cold desperation.
“You have time to learn.” It pushed Aaron’s boxers down, and now Aaron felt truly ridiculous with his boxers around his thighs and his hard cock resting on the valley formed by the incubus’ thighs. He pulled against his wrist restraints again, but he couldn’t make anything budge, no matter how he strained. He had to lie still while the demon’s hand explored the round of Aaron’s ass, fingers delving down to stoke the perineum. Aaron grunted, his whole body tight like he could just push all these feelings away if he strained against the hands that held him. The first swat was light, little more than a friendly pat, but Aaron froze. The next two were the same; each time the demon hit a different part of Aaron’s ass and then stroked the newly heated skin.
“Good boy.”
“Fucking stop.”
“If I did, that would be you making a choice. We’ve already established that you don’t get to make choices. I think I need to get you a collar and chain to remind you of that.” The next two strikes were a little harder, and Aaron had to bite down on a surprised yelp. The demon was strong, but it was using only enough strength to make Aaron’s ass sting before stroking over the overheated skin. “Why are you being punished?”
This time Aaron tried not answering.
The blows came harder, focusing on the round of Aaron’s ass until Aaron found himself holding his breath, each strike forcing a little more air from him until he was breathless and tense. Then the demon stopped and gentle fingers trailed over his ass. Fisting his hands, Aaron tried to gather up his thoughts—to someone rediscover some emotional balance. The demon started again before Aaron could do more than suck in a ragged breath. This time the slaps came down as steadily as rain, spreading out the fire across the back of Aaron’s thigh and the whole curve of his ass up to his waist. Before Aaron could understand what his body was doing, he found himself arching his back.
Immediately, the horror and shame washed through him, and dignity be damned, he fought. He wiggled and squirmed and used every curse learned over seventeen years in the Army. He fought with everything in his being, and the slaps continued—no harder and no softer. They were the steady drum beat that forced Aaron’s whole body into its rhythm. Aaron’s struggles synchronized until some distant part of him realized that even this was part of the demon’s plan.
His butt now truly burning, the dull ache radiating down into his thighs, Aaron finally slumped. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered because he wasn’t not strong enough to stop it. “No,” Aaron whispered, clinging to the word to reinforce his crumbling defenses as the heat in his ass grew. Now little sparkles of real pain interrupted the ache with each new smack.
“It’s not your choice. It’s not your fault. Nothing will ever be your fault again.” The spanking tapered off, each new slap a little lighter than the last.
Aaron could feel the sweat between his thighs, individual drops sliding over his skin while his cock pressed against the demon’s thigh. He never used pain in bed, he’d never gotten hard from being punished, but he could feel an urge to open his thighs, to arch into each new hit. But then the spanking was over, and the demon stroked him gently.
“This time, I’ll help you,” it whispered softly. “You’re being punished because you’re mine. You never get to turn against me. You’re mine, Aaron. You need to listen to that and believe it because your life will be so much harder until you admit that and stop fighting the reality.”
“Why me?” The words escaped before Aaron could edit them. It was the one question a prisoner never asked after being captured. Some cracks in the psyche were too hard to defend once you opened them up.
“Because I liked your reality so much better than others. So many humans dream of taking power away, and your dreams of yielding were so much sweeter. You were the one worth keeping,” the demon confessed.
Aaron could feel the danger seeping into his skin like a poison. He wanted to believe he was better than the worst of his actions—but to believe the demon was to lose some part of himself. He just didn’t know if he was losing the best or the worst part of himself, and he wasn’t sure he would ever know the answer to that. The demon lifted him easily, shifting Aaron toward the center of the bed before rolling him onto his back.
Aaron hissed when the cheap sheets seemed to rasp across his sensitive skin, but then the demon was pulling his jeans off, and he had so much more to worry about.
“If I don’t fight, will you just let me go afterward?” Aaron asked, his voice rough. Maybe he’d been yelling, but he didn’t think so.
“No.”
Once the demon pulled off Aaron’s jeans and boxers, Aaron lifted a leg to kick, to fight with the last thread of strength he could find. The demon stood at the end of the bed and tilted his head to the side. “You offered power, and I am taking it. Each time you disobey or fight, I will punish you.” The demon didn’t reach for Aaron, he didn’t grab his ankle or force his legs back down to the bed. He stood there and considered Aaron. “Of course, if you called your unit—if you called those men with whom you share so much history and so much demon death—your unit might rally around you. They might take you back inside their ranks.”
Aaron could feel his heart beat so painfully fast that he feared he might have a heart attack, which would solve one problem. A demon or a demon-hunting army—those were his choices. Aaron watched the face of his stalker, he studied the nearly human expression of curiosity. The Army would know how to deal with the incubus. They had procedures. Rules. Special teams.
“Promise,” Aaron whispered.
The demon tilted his head. “Promise what? Be very specific because our ability to read minds is so limited by the human habit of thinking truths which do not exist.”
“Promise you will never ask me to kill.” Aaron didn’t know what answer he wanted. Even if the monster refused, it had the power to keep him. He knew how a prisoner’s mind could warp to match that of a captor. But if it did make that vow—Aaron suspected that he would give up more than he should for that one simple promise.
“I give my word—I will never ask you to kill. I will never permit you to kill. I promise to keep you safely chained by my side forever.” It said the words as solemnly as a marriage vow and Aaron slowly lowered his legs to the bed. It smiled. “I will keep my promise.” Slowly it climbed up into bed between Aaron’s legs. Aaron watched, suddenly so weary that he couldn’t find the strength to utter even one word.
The demon’s hands stroked over his thighs and then down until the fingers came teasingly close to the base of his cock. Slowly, the demon lifted Aaron’s legs, and Aaron obliged by hooking his legs over its shoulders. With his hands tied behind his back, he was helpless, and he slowly inched up the bed until his head reached the sofa back and then he was pinned.
The demon ran a finger over Aaron’s hole before reaching up and pumping his own cock. Aaron had read plenty of stories where men seemed to produce precum as easily as pissing. Aaron’s own cock had only the thinnest hint of white at the slit even though he was so hard that his eyes were watering. However, the demon put every bit of bad porn to shame as a frightening amount of precum gathered at the tip of the demon’s cock before it gathered it up on a finger. That slicked finger then slid inside Aaron before he even had a chance to prepare.
“I’m not a fucking virgin,” Aaron complained. He needed to come so bad that the ache in his balls bothered him far more than the awkward angle of his back and his burning ass combined.
“I can keep you hard all night if I want. I probably will at some point, just to show you that I have the power here.” The demon sounded more amused that annoyed. “However, this time we can hurry things. I have hunted you so long. So very long.” The demon slipped a second finger in, and Aaron arched his back at the delicious pressure.
He gasped as it rubbed against his prostate gland, pressing harder than any of Aaron’s previous lovers. It was as if it knew the perfect angle, and Aaron cried out, struggling to drive himself down onto those large fingers.
The fingers withdrew, and Aaron forced himself to open his eyes and watch as the demon shifted closer, forcing Aaron’s weight up onto his shoulders as the demon lined up. Dark eyes found him, watching curiously as it pressed against Aaron’s ass. The head was bigger than any dick Aaron had taken before, stretching Aaron so much that the muscles burned and twinged with pain, but then the head was in, and Aaron panted, struggling to relax as the demon pressed slowly forward.
“Such a beautiful human. I am so lucky to have claimed you before another could find such a perfect beast.”
They were the oddest endearments Aaron had ever heard, but he tuned out the words, listening only to the soothing tones as he struggled to relax around the largest cock he’d ever had inside him. He shifted, the muscles pulling painfully for one second before the angle changed and his body adjusted. Now Aaron could feel only the fullness, the pressure that made his dick want to explode, the pure pleasure that whited out the world and made him so desperate for an orgasm that he’d do just about fucking anything.
The demon started to pull back and then thrust in, each time going a little harder. The strokes grew longer and more intense until Aaron could feel their bodies slapping together, his own hips struggling to thrust up into nothing as the demon used him hard and fast. Then the demon closed a fist around Aaron’s cock, and Aaron came with a scream that burned his throat. Aaron’s body stiffened and jerked, the orgasm ripping through him until every muscle finally yielded and he sank into the gray, his mouth open as he gasped for air.
The demon wasn’t finished, and Aaron drifted through an endorphin-grayed dream as the incubus continued to use him, thrusting into his body over and over, the demon’s back arching and his own mouth open. Aaron could only lie there, helpless as it used him, its face twisting with pleasure, and Aaron found himself tightening his ass, watching the minute changes as the demon reacted. Finally it came with a shout of its own. It collapsed down onto Aaron, its chest heaving.
The demon was overly warm, and Aaron could feel the sweat gather between their bodies as the demon lay on top of him, gently mouthing Aaron’s neck like a lover. Slowly be noticed the city outside—the distant wail of a siren—a soft rumble of the whole building as a train rolled silently over the tracks. Aaron didn’t know how long they lay there, but his arms were painfully tight before the demon finally shifted to the side.
“I have never tasted anyone like you,” he murmured, still mouthing Aaron’s neck like a teenager seeking permission to give a hicky.
“A demon talking about eating me really isn’t reassuring.”
It snorted. “Incubus don’t consume flesh, and you know that.” Despite its objection, it did slowly pull away. Pushing against one shoulder, it rolled Aaron to the side so it could reach Aaron’s bound hands. With a quick flick, Aaron found himself freed. His muscles were too worn out to do anything about it, but he could finally bring his hands around to the front to try and get circulation back.
“So what happens now?” Aaron asked, watching as the demon took the long strip of black fabric and reached down for Aaron’s legs. He quickly wrapped Aaron’s ankles, and the strip tightened on its own. Aaron sighed.
“We start the next forty years,” the demon said. It reached for its own wrist, and Aaron finally noticed that it had a number of black strips wound around its wrist like a runner’s sweatband. It took the new strip and bound Aaron’s wrists in front of him. There weren’t any knots, and as far as Aaron could see, the ends vanished as the strip tightened on its own.
“You can’t just keep me prisoner forever.”
“Of course I can.”
“Someone’s going to notice.”
The demon chuckled. “I doubt that. Oh, we have many very safe, very boring years full of sex ahead of us Master Sergeant Gustafson. Many years.” It pulled the sheets up over then and pulled Aaron close before resting a chin on Aaron’s shoulder. “Basil,” it said softly, which was an odd change of topic.
“What?” Aaron tried to turn and look at the demon, but it was holding him so tightly he couldn’t.
“If I’m going to own you, I thought it might be nice to tell you my name. Basil.”
Aaron’s brain had a small short-circuit as he thought of the big white bear on some children’s show that he’d watched while stuck in a station in Alaska that only got Canadian television. It wasn’t a name that inspired fear. “You’re kidding.”
“Basil Rathbone was a very handsome actor. My mother was obsessed with him in Robin Hood.”
“Robin Hood?” Aaron could hear his tone of voice pitch upwards.
“You are going to be a challenge,” Basil said with the sort of weary amusement that Aaron really didn’t expect from the demon that had captured him. “Go to sleep. You’re exhausted and you haven’t slept well in days.”
“But tomorrow—” Aaron could think of a thousand ways to finish that sentences. They had to get farther off the grid. They had to figure out how Waddy had tracked him down. He had to figure out how to escape They had to get the landlord to fix the damn refrigerator. Basil cut him off.
“My choice. I’ll take care of tomorrow. You are the captive who is tied up in my arms so shut up and go to sleep.”
Aaron opened his mouth to object, but he couldn’t think of one intelligent thing to say. Basil was right. And he was sure that tomorrow he’d figure out a reason to fight or a way to escape, but tonight he was tired and tied up and there really wasn’t much else he could do. Aaron slipped into sleep tucked close to Basil’s chest, with one of Basil’s hands tracing lazy circles against his shoulder.