How to Romance a Succubus III

As the dawn light approached, Xorovamathandris reentered the barn. She dropped the deer corpse she was dragging behind herself and stared at the fire he’d built, banked and already dying down. He couldn’t help but be pleased. A deer, assuming it was as clean as he had commanded, would be enough to feed him for days. If she could skin it as well as she had the squirrel, he might even be able to sell the hides and buy another coat.

“You could have made a fire at any time, then?” She said, a mysterious smile dancing across her face. “I see. You’ll pay for that one.”

“Perhaps,” Kavros said, “but not this night. You will prepare a pound of the deer’s flesh for me, taken from the flank and cooked over the fire to be fit for human consumption. Provide the choicest cut of meat you can find without damaging the hide.”

She began the process of butchery, which Kavros watched carefully. He only interrupted her long enough to command her to put some clothes back on, at which point he belatedly noticed that her leather dress had changed since being cut off. Already, it was dried and cracked as if it had been left exposed to the elements for months.

She didn’t even glance at the discarded dress, instead seeming to extrude two leather tubes directly from her pale flesh: one wrapped around her bountiful chest, and the other her near equally bountiful posterior. The result left most of her back and stomach exposed, and was quite nearly as distracting as if she’d remained nude.

She didn’t even interrupt her work on the deer as she made them; it was entirely possible she’d made such simple, barely present clothes because she was distracted. It also may have been a gambit to distract him, but he hardly needed to be enticed. Only his hunger stayed his hand as it was.

He watched with wary appreciation as she pulled a bloody red tenderloin out through a shockingly small incision. She must have known precisely where it was; another reminder that this was an old and powerful entity. He jumped slightly as she spoke to him, her tone lighter and more casual than he had heard from her up to this point.

“So, what’s your name, mortal?” She asked. “You could slip at any moment, so I should probably find out sooner rather than later. I don’t want to just call you basement guy forever, like my last summoner. Besides, isn’t an even exchange more polite?”

Kavros regained his focus; he was alone with a demon. Even this information was potentially deadly. According to his book, some demons could reverse the spells of binding entirely if they had their summoner’s true name. Such techniques were usually the exclusive purview of djinn and occasionally sidhe, but Kavros had summoned a succubus at random. There was a chance, however minor, that he’d called forth an unusually devious creature from the pits of hell. Luckily, he’d planned for this.

“Kavros Darkstorm,” he said, “that is the only name for me that you need.”

She nodded upon hearing his shadow name, chosen to protect the innocent from reprisal. Only his true birth name could be used against him, even by the mightiest of djinn.

“Great! So, Kavros, why permanently bind yourself to a succubus?” She said thoughtfully, “A powerful warlock like you probably doesn’t have much trouble finding companionship, at least not if you try.”

The obvious sarcasm bit deeper than the more direct jabs ever had. A dark scowl overtook Kavros’s face.

“I seek to avenge a great injustice.” He declared, ignoring the implications, “My lands, my father, my dignity? All were robbed from me. All that is left to me… is vengeance. You shall be the instrument of that vengeance.”

He might have side stepped the issue by explaining all the research he’d done into various demon types, but in truth it had been somewhat anemic. The Liber Demoniaca was a wide ranging treatise, but it was merely an overview. A primer for advanced apprentices. He’d chosen to call a succubus because, forced as he was to call a demon without knowing its true name and individual properties in advance, succubi were the most powerful breed that he had the resources necessary to call and control.

A fiend would have already killed him after that initial lapse in consciousness, an imp would have almost certainly been useless without a grimoire allowing him to call upon one that had already been tamed and uplifted by warlocks past, and a hellhound like his father’s would be entirely hopeless for anything requiring the least bit of subtlety even if that was the only species he had any personal familiarity with.

He monitored the fire with his other eye, and readied his dented iron pot. He didn’t feel quite comfortable letting her cook his entire meal, not when he was this hungry.

“Great!” The demoness chirped while she handed him the meat, her mocking cheer only deepening his scowl, “Who did it?”

“The crown itself is ultimately responsible,” Kavros said, eyes narrowed, “but the man who killed my father and now lives in my home goes by the name of Major Richard Montford. Until I have his head, the rest will be spared.”

“Major.” Xorovamathandris said, “Sounds important. This should be fun!”

He glared at her. He didn’t expect sympathy or understanding from a demon, so he supposed this was the best he could hope for. The Liber Demoniaca made it clear that a bored or disengaged succubus was far more dangerous. Nearly every suggestion to manage them focused on either restricting their ability to function or keeping them entertained, usually in ways that lacked much sophistication. Even if she sought to mock him, zeal for his cause would be a blessing.

“This is no game, wench,” he growled, “but if you wish to make sport of Montford’s downfall, I will not complain. So long as it is a game you seek to win. Now extract some fat from the deer and hand it to me, then sit on that stump and do nothing until I call upon you again.”

She nodded, smile bright, glacial eyes seeming to glow in the darkness, and did as commanded. It seemed she properly respected the lash already. He must have gotten lucky; “basement guy” was an inauspicious title, but it seemed that he’d called upon a demoness who had already received some measure of discipline.

The truly wild beasts of the Nether were notoriously harder to break in. She wouldn’t be like the cowed, docile succubi employed by the crown’s military, but nor was the fire that drove her entirely doused. She’d be stronger for it, though he knew not why. His tome had been terribly coy about such things, but unambiguous on the count that succubi fully broken to the lash traded away much of their initiative in favor of obedience.

He cooked the meat carefully. He wasn’t a gifted chef, but he hadn’t had servants to rely on in quite a long time. One did not waste good meat, and burnt meat meant only that he’d need to force himself to eat something he wouldn’t enjoy.

Kavros allowed himself a small smile. He hadn’t managed to bring down a beast like this on his own since parting from his sister; he’d been forced to sell his pistol long ago, as shot was expensive, and only occasionally managed to trap anything with his crude snares. Xorovamathandris was a strange tool for hunting, but she did seem effective. Hopefully her utility would extend to many more domains than this.

••••••••••

Thankfully, Master’s order to do nothing went directly counter to all prior orders, so even though he hadn’t ended his big fancy binding, the energy draw from it went down to almost nothing. That was good. They could share life force, but two people still needed to eat for two. Xorova was hungry after feeding Kavros so much energy, and the meat smelled amazing. Hopefully she’d be allowed to eat after he was done.

He was so focused on eating, and she seemed to have offended him by being so excited about the mission. Her new master had been so free with punishments so far, she didn’t want to spoil his mood anymore than she already had. He’d completely ignored the pigeon she’d caught using magic, for example. Instead of pushing, she kept quiet and smiled to herself.

The other girls were going to be so jealous. After so long, it would be good to have something to brag about.

An instrument of vengeance? She’d never been an instrument of vengeance before. Her last master had just kept her chained up in a basement most of the time. He’d given her a lot of opportunities to practice her acting skills by pretending to be mortal, but other than that he’d been super vanilla. He hardly ever even slept with her himself.

As far as she could tell it had been some kind of business he was running to help men practice their dominance techniques. Some of them had come in to beat or torture her two or three times a week! A few of them had even given her portraits and coached her so she could pretend to be certain people. No doubt their wives had been thrilled at their improved technique. Xorova liked to imagine she’d helped a lot of marriages that way, but decades of just that had really taken the shine off of torture for her.

Before that had been a few centuries worth of military guys, and most of them had just used her as a glorified scrying sensor. Sometimes an assassin or scout when she was lucky. Honestly they all blended together after the republic transitioned into an empire. At least it had been steady. Much better than random shaman or accidental summonings before that.

Kavros ate quickly once the meat was ready, cutting off slices with his knife and shoving them into his mouth. He really was hungry, wasn’t he? He burnt his tongue and everything, not to mention that he let the juices out by not letting it sit for a few minutes. He really was trying so hard to be commanding, and she appreciated it, but it was nice to have times like this where they could both just relax.

She studied him. She was far more aware of the female form than the male, but he didn’t look bad or anything. Quite tall at least; half a foot taller than any other master she’d ever served in fact. She decided quietly that she regretted repurposing his coat. The fitted sleeves had looked good on him, really selling the commanding noble look, and these rags he was dressed in now really didn’t suit him or his role. They showed how narrow his frame was far too clearly; she could see the outline of his bones.

She’d need to feed him more, which meant she’d need to eat herself so she could feed energy into him instead of the reverse. If she could ensure that all of his food went to building more body instead of running what he already had, he could build more muscle and fat. Eventually he might even get strong enough to physically overpower her. The magic was hot, of course, but you can’t go wrong with the classics.

That would have to wait, though. He’d wanted a tall woman, and she’d added a lot of muscle so that he could take her seriously when it was her turn to dom him. Sure, most of that muscle had gone into the legs, but she’d learned her lesson about trying to fly without a properly developed core a long time ago. Naturally at that point, she’d needed to bulk up her arms just so she wouldn’t look silly.

He worked through the tenderloin very quickly. The fact he’d kept it in a state where he even could eat it that fast showed that he was legitimately a competent cook. Wild game could be pretty tough if you cooked it wrong. She wondered if she should have looked around for herbs to garnish it? Probably not; she didn’t even know what was poisonous yet, let alone what would taste good.

She was trying her best to pluck new language out of his subconscious so she wasn’t completely lost, but it was all a bit alien. Words were easy if she already knew the idea, but the more complex a concept the harder it became to map onto everything else. This tended to happen whenever one of her kind went for a while without being summoned. If she tried to speak the language of her first summoners to him, he’d probably be very confused. She smiled at the thought. Rambling in old tongues tended to be at least a bit unsettling, no matter what she actually said. It was a fun little trick to add to the scene when she got the upper hand.

By the time he finished eating, the light of dawn was staining the sky. He looked up, sighed, and cracked his neck.

“I’ll need to leave you here today.” He said. “I don’t have a better plan yet, so I’ll need to simply contain you.”

Xorova’s eyes lit up. Containment? That could be fun. Her favorite was being kept in a bottle or maybe bound into a gemstone on a ring. Maybe that’s what his metal box had been for? She hadn’t touched it, obviously, since it was made of iron. Being kept in an iron box sounded incredibly painful. She was so ready.

“Do your worst, mortal.” She purred, “Escaping shall be an interesting diversion before I come for you.”

He dismissed his command binding first, which was normal. Hard to establish a new binding when the old one was in the way. Then he said a few words, etched a rune into the dirt floor of the barn, and Xorova couldn’t move a single muscle.

Or a total petrification spell. That was fine too, she supposed.

He dragged her into the barn and covered her with old, half rotted hay, then left her alone next to the deer after he finished removing its organs and hanging it up. For hours. Still hungry, and without even commenting on her pigeon.

Nobody was perfect.