Chapter 11 The Best and the Worst
The Best and the Worst
Ragnar
Ragnar hated what he was about to do, but he pulled his cock out anyway.
Brioni had been gone long enough that he knew she wouldn’t suddenly reappear, pretending to have forgotten some meaningless object or feigning like she was cranky and determined to take it all out on him.
At least she’d left without real animosity this time, but there was something new, something that made his cock ceaselessly hard and made her obscenely pouty.
It crawled around under his skin even after she was dry and dressed, after she said goodbye to each veilhound individually, and after she gave Moar a kiss on the top of his head. Lucky dog.
Up in the loft alone with the door locked and the candles snuffed, Ragnar stretched himself out on his bed to strangle that something into submission.
He might not plan to lay his hands on Brioni again, but he would never be so steadfast with himself.
With a quick glance first at the side table, he turned the little papercraft of Moar around so that it faced away then closed his eyes.
There she was in the pond, only this time he had her bent over one of its rocks, round ass tipped up, skin as red and warm as her hair.
She was begging him—for what, he wasn’t entirely sure: to be released, to be shown mercy, to be fucked, it didn’t matter as he swatted her backside one more time.
His body shuddered with the lewd vision, and he caught the anticipation leaking out of him with the next stroke down his length.
Damn it, she was perfect, and while the fantasy drove him closer to the edge, the reality dragged him back like ebbing at the disturbed pond’s bank.
Despite being equally obstinate and adorable in ways he’d always wished to find in a mate, Brioni wasn’t for him, and it barely mattered that she was human.
He couldn’t have her—couldn’t have anyone, not with his lack of magic and inability to bond.
Demons were right to be wary of Ragnar, of his color, his size, his occupation.
He’d had his fair share of dalliances, but no one wanted him for much longer than a few sessions of detached debauchery, and he understood.
Brioni, like every demon who had dared come before her, deserved so much more than the isolation of his barn and the worst of his temperament.
He was a monster, really, stroking his cock to the thought of her punished for defying him and spread out, waiting for the rest of what she needed—what he thought she needed.
His pumping had slowed with those melancholy thoughts, but his next inhale was deep, and he caught the last of her scent left on his tunic and trousers.
I wanted to know what would happen when you caught me…
Ragnar thrust into his fist, imagining Brioni’s tight walls gripping him as he pressed inside her. This is what happens, he thought, grip contracting like her unstretched body would. I make you mine.
He’d heard her squeal and moan enough times to cobble together what her cry of pleasure might sound like.
He would rut that out of her, deeper and more uncontrolled than the noise she’d made when she pressed her ass to his hips.
His grunts filled the loft as he fucked his hand and remembered the flash of fear in her eyes.
He liked a little fear if she liked it, and blazes, did that wicked smile of hers say she liked it.
Fuck me harder, Ragnar, he heard in her voice, but no, sweet Brioni would never use such vulgar language.
He chuckled lowly as his body shivered at the thought of her utterly scandalized by the sight of his cock—another thing she would have some syrupy word for, surely.
But she would want it all the same, beg to be filled, and climax when he spilled his seed inside her.
Ragnar came with a growl that ripped out of his throat, his hips bucking violently.
It was fast and aching and brutal, but he clung onto the relief as it trembled down his thighs and convulsed in his gut.
He stroked himself weakly as he came down from the savage eruption, and then fell limp, immediately dissatisfied and disgusted.
Then there was that tickle in his chest again, the one that kept plaguing him. He could never bond to another’s soul, not after losing his magic, but desire played nasty tricks. You could love her, it said, though the tone was mocking. Maybe even be loved in return.
Except the most likely truth was that Brioni was simply playing whatever game she thought she had to in trade for his friendship.
Because she was desperate for a friend, she had all but said so, the truth folded up into each of her anecdotes like diary entries hidden inside paper animals.
She named the demons and the humans she had come to know in Heck, told him details she admired about their personalities, boasted about how proud she was of the strength one had built and the smarts another employed, but she hadn’t said a word about her relationships with them.
Those were the torn off corners, the lost tails and ears, sought after and unfound.
Except maybe in him, a demon who was selfish and disgusting enough to use her bright smile and soft body to break himself apart. And he refused to ruin that for Brioni.
***
The kettle was warm, Ragnar knew, and yet he grabbed it without protection anyway. He snatched his hand back and shook away the burn. What in the hells was he thinking?
Well, he wasn’t—not about kettles and fire anyway, but about guests.
The atteapir liked Kizros, Ragnar also knew, which was good since she was going home with him. The discussion was done, though there wasn’t much of one because Ragnar had made up his mind the moment he read Kizros’s letter requesting an animal helper.
Kizros was quite likable, but Ragnar suspected it was his nervous distress that drew the atteapir’s need to work. The green demon made himself into the perfect job after the horse had gained its courage and the veilhounds were inherently wary of help.
Everything was working out exactly as Ragnar had intended: the perfect candidate was more than ready for the job Kizros needed to fill. What Ragnar hadn’t expected was such an agitated visitor. So far, teatime was going quite chaotically.
Kizros had been calling himself “horrible” and even “the worst,” so Ragnar didn’t exactly need the animal’s keen sense to point out the green demon’s anguish.
Dropping his horned head to the table without taking off his glasses first was another clue, and the limpness of his tail was a dead giveaway.
It wasn’t true, of course—Kizros was the best demon Ragnar knew—but the atteapir’s attention suggested no amount of protest would change his mind.
Not that Ragnar knew how to do that anyway.
Thankfully, Kizros continued to babble, which was more natural a state and one Ragnar found endearing, until he mentioned fucking his human.
Ragnar almost broke his teacup.
Kizros didn’t use that word, of course—he was far too civilized—but he’d still admitted to…
conducting interspecies experiments. Ragnar couldn’t know about Kizros’s bedchamber personality, though, because he wasn’t lucky enough to have access to a whole book chronicling the demon’s lewder activities.
Humans, thought Ragnar with a snort. They must have innate magic if one of them can convince Kizros to go against his ethics. How had she seduced him? How had Kizros not thrown himself on the mercy of the council? How in blazes did it fit?
Ragnar shook his head and wiped a hand down his face, stoically requesting more information, and to his credit, Kizros told him everything. Not details about it fitting, but rather how he had fallen in love.
Not that he used that word either, but Kizros said about a hundred other ones that all meant the same thing.
This human woman, this Aofe of Ankerick who showed prowess with runes and kindness to demons, she was the reason Kizros had come to the barn to collect a creature—a shock because Kizros didn’t seem the kind to keep a rambunctious critter running between the fragile shelves of his shop—and she was apparently perfect.
As perfect as Brioni, just in her own way.
A way that made Kizros want to keep her all to himself, as wrong as he seemed to think that was.
A sentiment they shared, but the reasons wholly different. Or so they thought.
“I don’t know what to do,” his friend finally said, breathless with his head hanging.
Ragnar took a sip of tea because neither did he, and then he told him just that.
But Ragnar did know something—he knew Kizros was good, and he told him so.
He also knew, because he’d picked it out of Kizros’s diatribe, that his human had been rather honest with him, something he wasn’t about to get out of his own—or rather, the other one.
Kizros’s human colleague sounded more than willing to be charmed, and Ragnar pointed this out as if his friend had completely missed it, too blinded by his own worry to see the truth.
“I like Aofe. A lot,” Kizros said, finally giving the atteapir the attention she craved so she no longer whined with her head in his lap.
“Then stop wasting your time here. Take the runt and go.”
Why Kizros wanted to spend even one second with Ragnar when he had a human who was begging to be taken back in his home, he had no idea. Visits were nice, but fucking, he presumed, was a blazes of a lot nicer.
Ragnar walked him and the atteapir downstairs to the mouth of the barn but stopped them before they left.
“Humans are strange, aren’t they?” he mused, staring out at the path that led back into Heck.
The lanterns were glowing a little brighter thanks to the green demon, and the way looked more inviting than usual.
Kizros snorted, running a hand between his horns and through his dark shock of hair. “I don’t know that I would call them strange. Peculiar, maybe. Interesting, definitely.”
Ragnar crossed his arms over his chest and did his best not to look directly at the other demon. “Do you ever get the feeling they want…er, they might be interested in…I mean, do you think they could be as…as deviant as demons?”
“I think they might be worse,” Kizros threw his head back and laughed then sucked in a sharp breath like he’d just remembered something terrifying and straightened his glasses.
“That is, uh, I think they’re just like us.
They have likes and dislikes and…um, limits, boundaries, and preferences you might be surprised by if you’re…
willing…to…ask.” He had been rolling his hands over one another as the words came out, and Ragnar let his discomfort eclipse his own.
“They have souls too,” he added, and the heaviness of those words hung in the humidity of the summer air between them.
Kizros left then, the atteapir on his heels. She would do well in the apothecary, much better than in the barn, though Ragnar would miss her, occasional bad behavior notwithstanding.
In fact, that might be what he would miss the most, though he knew of a good replacement.
Humans and demons were compatible, Kizros had said it plainly, and even if he hadn’t, his affect was one of a soul ready to be bound. The way he spoke of this Aofe, he didn’t know it himself yet, but Kizros was completely smitten.
But that meant all of Heck’s humans could find places to belong, Brioni included. She could be bound to anyone else, all of them much better demons than Ragnar.