Ice and Fire

Euphoné, gasping, opened her eyes. There was light everywhere around them. The dungeon seemed far away, a distant memory. Was she... was she dead? Was this paradise?

She tried to move. Her body burned with pain. Ah. The slide. This was not paradise.

She felt beside her. Something soft, moist to the touch. Quickly she rolled over.

Large eyes stared into hers. Beautiful eyes, despite their feline slits. Or maybe all the more beautiful because of them. But they were glassy, staring right through her.

Ice gripped Euphoné's chest. "Vervain?" She shook her gently.

"Hungry...." whispered the demon.

Relief flooded her. She was still alive!

"Shhh," said Euphoné. "Do not try and move. I will see where we are."

She sat up. Beauty filled her eyes, but indeed this was not paradise. They were still in the dungeon. They'd slid down into a natural cavern. The walls were all of faceted crystal, like the inside of a geode, capturing a glow which was coming from somewhere deeper into the cave. The light was a spectrum of green and red and yellow and blue and as she crawled forward the canvass of her pale skin shifted as though she was a living rainbow.

Water. There was water here, a deep pool, glittering. They'd landed on a strip of beach. But the light was coming from somewhere. Euphoné could feel a breeze on her face.

She returned to Vervain. "We are safe, Vervain. We must not be far from the outside. Just a short way to go. Why don't you try to--"

Vervain weakly lifted a hand. Euphoné took it.

"Can't..." she whispered again, but this time so soft that Euphoné could barely hear her voice. "Too... weak... Hungry."

Euphoné looked about her in despair. "But there's no-one here!"

"Please..." Vervain's hand dropped away slackly. "Energy."

"How? There's no-one..." Her voice dropped away. She was there. But how... how did a demoness feed?

She took out her knife. "Life-force, right? Blood? You drink blood?"

Vervain took hold of the knight's hand, poised with the blade over her arm. "No," she whispered.

Her hand reached higher, to Euphoné's lips.

Ah. The knight understood then. Her breath!

She leaned down, her face close to Vervain's, feeling awkward. But how? How was she supposed to feed her her breath?

Euphoné exhaled. Her breath blew across Vervain's mouth and the demoness gasped. She lifted her head, sucked the air, then slumped back down. Euphoné leaned closer, breathing on her lips in a steady stream. Vervain gasped like a fish, but could draw little of the breath in.

The knight sighed. There was nothing else for it. She brought her lips against Vervain's and blew into her mouth.

The demoness's lips pushed back against hers. They were surprisingly soft. She breathed out more deeply. It was not her breath she wanted, was it, but her life-force?

Euphoné did not stop to think how losing part of her life-force would affect her. The demoness had expended the last of her energy saving her life and as a knight of Aeovel she could do nothing short of paying her debt.

Vervain inhaled against her lips, sucking more in. She seemed to be growing stronger. The demoness reached for her. Euphoné tried to take her trembling hands in her own, but Vervain reached higher and cupped the knight's chin.

Vervain's hands were smooth and warm against her skin and Euphoné's heart ached. Ah, what was this melting feeling inside her? Her life-force... was it melting away?

She felt a familiar liquid surge below her waist. Her face burned with shame. She was melting there as well!

Pleasure flowed through her and she gasped. Vervain was not sucking at her lips now, but kissing her. Dazed, she kissed her back tentatively -- it had been so long since she had kissed anyone. The demoness' lips grew firmer against hers. The tip of a forked tongue darted past her teeth, seeking her own.

Euphoné pulled away, gasping. Vervain's eyes could focus now, the irises alight like tongues of yellow flame. She smiled, a strangely shy smile, her expression fragile but for the fire in her eyes.

She licked at the their shared moisture bedewing her lips. "Delicious," she murmured.

Euphoné blinked at her. "Delicious?"

"Your energy," said Vervain. She eased herself into a sitting position. "And potent! Even such a small drop and I can feel it burning inside me, right here."

The demoness pressed her hands against her chest, between her large breasts, and the knight, flushing, turned away.

"I-- I am pleased you feel better."

Vervain took her hands and Euphoné turned back. The demoness' violet eyes glistened. Her chest was heaving and when the demoness pulled the knight's hands to her Euphoné felt how hot her skin was.

"Do you feel, that?" whispered Vervain. "My heart. You've set it beating again."

Euphoné blinked. "My life-force did that?"

Vervain shook her head and laughed. "Oh, the energy I took from you was not your life-force, my darling. Orgone is what I feed on."

"Orgone?"

Vervain lifted the knight's hands to her lips and kissed her fingertips. "Sexual energy. And I'm still hungry."

"No, no," muttered Euphoné, shaking her head as Vervain took her shoulders and gently pushed her back onto the sand. "No, I--"

"Shh," said Vervain. "You don't have to lie. I can smell the orgone flooding out of you." Her eyes grew coquettish. "Am I-- am I really so attractive to you?"

Euphoné made no reply, and when Vervain leaned closer she feebly tried again to push her away.

Vervain took the knight's hands and drew them down onto the curve of her breasts. Euphoné gasped.

"For such a strong knight you're not really putting up a fight," murmured Vervain. She closed her eyes. "A woman's hands! Ah, even a knight's hands are soft."

"But, but I--"

Vervain, her eyes still closed, brought her face close. "You'll have to show me what to do," she whispered. "I've never lain with a woman before."

Euphoné's heart leapt. "Never?"

"No," she breathed.

Euphoné senses reeled at the soft heaviness of Vervain's breasts, the sweet scent her skin was giving off. Her mind and her body were melting away! But still she hesitated.

Why should she fight against this desire? Wasn't it what she wanted? Wasn't she just as hungry as Vervain was now? Didn't she want to taste the source of that gorgeous scent?

Euphoné's pride vied with her shame, but the struggle did not last long. She slipped her arms around the demoness' slim torso and drew her down until their mouths came together. Vervain's eyes went wide, and when Euphoné playfully licked her tongue against the demoness's lips she gasped.

"Ah! Your orgone. The flavour is so different from a male's!"

"Shh," Euphoné murmured against her mouth. "That is but a little taste. I will feed you all the energy you could desire."

She rolled the demoness onto her back and swung herself astride her. Vervain was taller than her, it was true, but drained of her energy she was strangely lighter than before. The demoness's new-found submissiveness excited her and Euphoné leaned down and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

Euphoné's tongue dipped deeply into the sweet heat and Vervain intercepted the girl's agile tongue with her own.

Ah, so here was that brave and energetic knight she knew! But this was a kiss. A demoness seldom had reason to kiss. When feeding, sometimes a human might wake and seek out her lips, but she had always found it an amusing distraction from harvesting the sweet pure energy of male seed. But now, as the knight kissed her, Vervain felt Euphoné's orgone filling her, flooding her body along with their mingled saliva. She clutched at Euphoné, felt the roughness of her doublet against her naked breasts. Her hands slipped down the knight's back, clawing at the material as she burned with liquid fire. The material-- she hated it! She wished to feel Euphoné's bare skin, that beautiful ice-pale skin she had seen before, pressed against her own.

Euphoné unlaced her doublet and slid it off her shoulders, then reached down and lifted the hem of her tunic up until it bunched around her middle. Vervain's hands fell upon the now-bare skin of the knight's waist, caressed it.

Ah, but there was still material there-- the waistband of her underwear. Vervain slipped her hands over it, followed the smooth tone of the muscular buttocks underneath and squeezed.

It was Euphoné's turn to gasp. She pulled away, reached back and pulled the waistband down with Vervain's help. Then she returned to kissing the demoness, drawing her lips across the ridge of her slender jaw and down the soft valley of her neck.

"Ah!" Vervain had abandoned Euphoné's underwear around her knees, greedy to feel the newly-bared smoothness of her skin. Her fingers danced up her legs from the cusps behind her knees, along the back of her thighs and over the gorgeous curve of her buttocks. Her fingers slid around them and found a boiling wetness waiting between her legs.

Euphoné cried out. Vervain's fingers slid into her and sent a jolt of pleasure blazing along her spine. Inflamed, the knight's kisses dipped lower, becoming bites as she fed on the smooth glossiness of the demoness' skin.

Vervain bit her lip and struggled to keep herself from moaning. Oh, so this was how another woman's kisses felt! Euphoné's lips were so soft, yet hungry, too, and knew where another woman wished to be touched. Her kisses followed the curve of one breast and then the other, teasing her, leaving her nipples untouched.

But when Euphoné's lips slid over a nipple at last and plunged it into a world of molten heat, Vervain could no longer hold back her cries. The desperate excitement in them set Euphoné alight and she wrestled the nipple in her mouth with her tongue and grazed it with gentle teeth.

"Oh gods, oh gods!" Vervain cried out, entwining her fingers in the knight's hair.

Euphoné chuckled deep in her throat. She let the nipple pop wetly from her mouth and trailed her tongue along the whole centre of Vervain's body, leaving it to linger at last in the charming depression of her navel. She slipped the tip in, dipping it lightly, and Vervain cried out again. The knight felt the demon's thighs parting, that involuntary movement of girls who wished to be fully taken.

A final lick and Euphoné turned from teasing. Her hands on Vervain's knees, she gently parted her legs further. Beneath the coppery V of her fiery pubic hair, the demoness was awash. Her lips, startlingly pink against her black skin, were open and glistening. Euphoné could not resist teasing her one last time -- or was it herself she was teasing? -- and hesitated, her face buried between the demoness' wide-open thighs with her lips just inches from her sex.

Vervain's pants grew shallower, more rapid. Euphoné moved closer, admiring her beauty. She truly was perfectly formed, and the spicy clean scent from the slick dew covering her was thickly narcotic.

Vervain lifted herself up on her elbows, face flushed, her eyes desperate.

Euphoné grinned. That was the look she had wanted to see. She would teach this wicked demoness the error of her earlier impudence!

Her blue eyes glued to the demoness's violet ones, Euphoné slid out her tongue and brushed the tip just above her swollen cleft. Vervain gave a little cry and fell back.

It was no use. Euphoné had wanted to bully her further, but the scent was too delicious for her to hold back. She slid her tongue over Vervain's hard button, pressing it down and sending the demoness' impassioned voice echoing across the cavern.

The flavour! Euphoné had never tasted anything quite like it. Sweet and savoury, so like and yet unlike a human woman's intimate juices, she felt her blood turn to fire as the rich flavour filled her mouth and the fragrance her nostrils. The slick tunnel beneath promised more of that intoxicating dew and hungrily she burrowed her eager tongue deep into Vervain's sex.

Drool spilling from the side of her mouth, Vervain stared up at the glittering crystals spread across the roof of the cavern. Oh gods, oh gods! She had never known feeding could feel this way! That swollen tension as she bounced herself on a human's stiff erection, that itchy need which rubbing her clit against his wiry pubic hair as he pierced her would only partly assuage.... This was so different! The passion boiling up in her was like magma, filling her to overflowing.

Ah, the energy! It was flooding her in pulses, springing along her spine from where Euphoné's exquisite tongue was dancing all over her. Vervain gripped Euphonés head, wishing she could open her legs wider, wanting more of that amazing tongue, more!

The demoness' fingers were squeezing her scalp, but Euphoné paid them no heed. The pain sublimated to pleasure as she delved her fingers between her own legs, finding herself a mess of stickiness there. She plunged her fingers inside herself, left her thumb to slip over her slick button in time with her licking. Her fingers grew quickly soaked and a dreamy pleasure spread throughout her as Vervain's aphrodisiac juices numbed her mind.

Vervain felt herself growing close, but she would not allow herself that final desperate eruption of her building tension. Behind her own soft cries and panting she could hear Euphoné's delighted murmurs, the wet sound of her fingers, and she desired to return the pleasure she was being given.

With a supreme act of will, Vervain pulled herself up onto her elbows. Euphoné, in surprise, lifted her face from between the demoness' splayed-open legs. Her eyes were hooded, her lips swollen and sticky.

Grinning, Vervain pushed the knight onto her back. Euphoné's fingers, wet with her juices, slid out of her and Vervain hungrily replaced them with her long forked tongue.

She had often sampled the delicious seed of a human man, delighted in the thick musk and saltiness, but the strong feminine fragrance and wild spiciness of Euphoné's sex was new and exquisitely exciting. Her lips and chin quickly grew wet with her fragrant juices, but Euphoné only permitted her the briefest of tastes before she curled herself around and took hold of Vervain's waist.

The demoness knew what she wanted. A few awkward moments later, she was straddling Euphoné's face. The knight pulled her down and Vervain quickly felt lips of liquid fire once again glide over her, followed first by one and then another slick finger slipping into her.

Vervain bit back a cry, her whole lower half shivering, and smothered her face between the knight's thighs.

Euphoné could not longer contain herself. As the demoness' amateurish but eager tongue delved within her she felt the crests of the waves of pleasure washing over her growing closer and closer together. She buried her mouth against Vervain, desiring to bring her to her climax at the same time.

The demoness arched her neck, crying out, her tail whipping the air. There was no going back. She ground her hips forward and Euphoné took her shivering button between her lips.

With a scream Vervain came. Overflowing orgone poured through her, wracking her body in pleasure, from the pinions of her wings to the tip of her tail. The demoness's entire body shuddered, and Euphoné's mouth was suddenly inundated by a rich flood of her juices. She swallowed, salty-sweetness flooding her senses, and when the base of Vervain's tongue scoured desperately across her clit, she came as well.

Shuddering, her mind went white and every thought dissolved, everything except for the incredible softness of the demoness's sex glued to her lips, the thick richness filling her mouth, the wet sand against her neck and her bare buttocks, Vervain's mouth and tongue basting her in a paradise of wet fire.

Vervain held on as Euphoné climaxed, the human's shuddering thighs squeezing her head, the hard button of her sex spasming against her lips. Orgone spilled from her in waves and soon Vervain's every nerve was saturated to repletion.

And then, with a final shudder, it was over. Vervain collapsed, shivering, and rolled off the knight, who lay there, hands and feet curling up like a baby as the final waves of ecstasy swirled through her.

Vervain slid her arms under Euphoné's armpits, pulled her closer, kissed her exhausted and bruised lips as the two of them lay there on the wet sand, breathing out the last of their shared pleasure.

"Is... is love between females always like this?" whispered Vervain at last.

Euphoné was silent for a moment and the demoness thought she had not heard her, but then she opened her eyes. Tears filled them, mirroring the blue of their source, reflecting the rainbow of the light still playing across them.

"No," she said. "No, it is not." And she squeezed the demoness closer to her, as though she never wanted to let her go.

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"I suppose we should get on our way," said Vervain at last. She gave an immense stretch, exhilarating in the pure orgone still washing through her body and glanced across at the knight.

Euphoné had said little since their love-making and the demoness worried that she regretted what had happened.

Euphoné fingers fell on the gemstone nestling on her chest.

"What's the matter?" asked Vervain.

"I shall release you," said the knight. She drew the necklace from around her neck.

Vervain took her hand. "No. I won't allow it."

Euphoné frowned. "After all we have shared I cannot keep you enslaved any longer!"

"Well, I appreciate that," said the demoness, grinning. "But I still have to get you out of this dungeon, right?"

"The exit is not far from here," said Euphoné. "You have fulfilled your part of our agreement."

Vervain took hold of Euphoné's chin and leaned down and kissed her.

Euphoné sighed. "What was that for?"

"You take everything so seriously," said Vervain. "It's adorable. But this time you have to let it go." She sat down on the sand beside her. "If you destroy the gem now, I'll be banished. That means I'll go straight back to hell. And... well, I'm an Agathos Daemon. We have responsibilities. I... I won't be able to see you again."

Euphoné's chest turned to ice. "Never again?"

Vervain shrugged. "Hey, I have no problems with mortals. It's your god who seems to have a problem with demons. Well, not just that. The infernal authorities won't permit me to do whatever I want, no matter how much I desire it."

"You wish to stay with me?" Euphoné's lips trembled.

Vervain nodded. "I do. Well, that is, if you have space for a demon in your party."

The ice lifted from Euphoné's heart. She got to her feet. "Very well," she said. "Then why are we lingering here? Let us be off!"

Vervain, hiding a smile behind a taloned hand, let the knight lead her across the sand.

-------------------------------

The door glittered before them, a mass of glowing sigils.

"Looks magical," said Vervain.

Euphoné clucked her tongue. "You are jesting, right?"

Vervain grinned. "Guilty." She ran a hand over the surface. "This thing needs a key. We can't just break through it."

Euphoné slumped against the wall of the corridor. "So all of this has been for naught?" She ran a hand across her face and then shifted her sword-belt. "Very well. We will find another exit, then."

"Not so fast," said Vervain. She drew her hand through the air and a key appeared in it, as though drawn from the air itself.

Euphoné gasped. "Magic!"

"Well yes," said Vervain. "Demoness' don't have pockets so it's very necessary."

"But where did you get it?"

Vervain grinned. "I found it on Ondskap's body and pocketed it while you weren't looking." Then, at the knight's scowl, she added, "Well, back then I didn't know if I could trust you to keep your side of the bargain either. Humans do have a bad reputation, you know."

Euphoné was about to say more, but the mischievous expression on Vervain's face melted her annoyance. "Hand me the key."