Chapter 7 - The Plot Enters Growing Season
Cold.
The young concubine, Elli, isn't very surprised by this though. Her family's cottage was also drafty, but sharing a bed with her youngest siblings helped. Thom, only a few summers younger than Elli, used to hide in Mother's old blanket and keep watch over what few animals the serf family had to help work their lord's field. Sometimes Elli wasn't sure where her father slept.
Now that she is alone for the first time since the attack on her home, Elli feels the weight of it all. Aescaster is a magnificent place, but she isn't a wife, only a concubine, and that means she can't always be allowed into her new king's bedchambers. She can't even attend to her queen. No, some surviving servant or maybe lesser noblewoman gets that honor.
Elli curls up, her feet tangling in the far too soft and far too light bedding, the warmth she'd tried to add from a few coals in a metal dish having long since faded.
In her heart, she knows these monsters killed her family. It was their deaths and her fear that fueled her magic. She'd nearly joined them if not for some unspoken rule.
New rules, from mysterious rulers. That was what Arisselia had been warning her about, wasn't it?
The untrained and uneducated young woman had lived under an entirely different set of rules and expectations, and not even the wise Sorceress of the High Veils fully understood the demonic creatures' games. All that Elli knew was that eventually she would be hidden away among her king's other concubines and only brought out when he wished to play with her again.
The worst part of that? She really, really wanted to be his favorite toy and feel his massive tool inside her again.
And until there are more concubines and the renovations of Aecaster's inner sanctum are finished, Elli was going to be very lonely and cold.
Maybe...
Half-frozen toes seek out the bitterly cold stone beside her bed. Maybe he wouldn't mind a little surprise visit? Arisselia certainly wouldn't complain if another served in her place.
Elli makes it all the way to the door, hand poised over the handle.
But what if she got caught? Elli went to sleep in only a thin shift and her silver collar. Just the thought of running into anyone...
The grunts would report it. The soldier beasts would... Elli doesn't want to start a fight and she already doubts her safety around those monsters. The human servants and supplicants are almost worse. She can't brave the judgemental stares without her king or queen. And the robed ones, Elli supposed they were all generals or knights or something, they'd probably have some preset punishment waiting until the demon king could hand out a final one.
Elli fingers the thin metal 'round her neck. No. She must be a good pet. That's the best way.
Instead, she returns to her bed and gathers all the bedding she can carry before plopping it in front of the nearly dead fireplace. A little skill with the poker, a fresh log, and some luck fills the room with the crackle of new flames.
It might not be safe, falling back asleep in a bundle of fabric in front of the fire, but it is warm. And it's safer than leaving her room without permission.
"Are you that defeated, my pet?"
At first, Elli thinks she must still be dreaming. But she blinks away the sleep from her eyes and looks up, and up some more, to find a bemused expression on a pale, greenish face.
"Or are you more comfortable down there?" King Orduzell questions. The tapping of his clawed fingertips on a crossed arm indicates that he expects a proper response from the sleepy girl.
"It was cold." She doesn't exactly know what to do with herself, but she lets the bedding drop from her shoulders as she kneels before him. "And lonely. I only had the fire to seek comfort from."
As she hoped, the response seems to appease the demon king.
"I too am a little lonely this morning." He sighs dramatically as he looms over her. "Someone insisted that I leave the bed this morning and go bother someone else. She's lucky that I enjoy breaking past her contemptuous nature. I'll make her lose our little game yet." He turns away, two quick strides taking him to the chair by the window. Dawn's light hasn't quite struck the room yet.
"Arisselia doesn't seem to like losing." Elli offers gently before following the silent command of her king tapping his thigh. She continues as she crawls over to where he sits. If he wants a pet to play with and reward, she can certainly act like one! "But I think she's kind of, well the look on her face when she's frustrated or plotting is... well, I like it."
The chuckle above her is almost as warm as the touch of his hand on her head. "That look. I know it well. Her brows start to grow together. Battling her has been as amusing as it is exhausting. Come, my pet. Help your master with his own frustrations."
His claws pull aside the front of his soft white night robe, and Elli reacts quickly. She shimmies her own nightclothes up over her head and wiggles her butt closer to his seat.
Now kneeling naked before her king, she reaches out with two delicate hands to stroke the soft skin and firm ridges of his mouthwateringly amazing cock. The scent of sex and musk, tinged sour after a night of passion and sleep, chases away all thought of her loneliness and worries.
The concubine leans forward, arms pushing her breasts together in a way Arisselia said means "please use these fluffy things any way you please," before she begins kissing the underside of the demon king's thick unwashed shaft.
Already covered in a mix of dried juices and sweat, one lick brings a glossy sheen to the mottled green and pink flesh. The taste is an unusual mix of salty, bitter, and sour that would usually leave the girl disgusted at whatever she had put in her mouth, but in this moment it was all she craved. She wets it well, working her tongue along the ridges and finally up to the spines near the tip.
Drool drips down Elli's chin as she suckles at a spot just under the crown. The grip of his long fingers in her hair tells her she is doing well, but the growl above her urges her onward. She presses her lips over the slitted end, tongue testing the little hole curiously as she envelops what she can of the massive thing in her warm mouth.
"That's a good pet, I can always count on you to treat your master well, can't I, Elli?" She'd nod in agreement of the pleasure-fueled praise if she could, but she can only bob her head and look up with what she hopes is a doe-like expression of absolute obedience and longing. "Yes, that's a good girl. Come, use your breasts too." He orders with soft insistence. Meanwhile his fingers burn against her skin, stroking one of her tits before tugging playfully on her nipple. His other hand reveals that it has found a vial of lubricating oil.
Yellow eyes watch intently as the oil falls drop by drop onto the plump skin of Elli's bosom. The girl drags her tongue over the cockhead as she suckles, and seeing that he's in the mood to be entertained, she releases the tool in her hands and presses them into her own flesh. The oil makes it easy to glide her hands over the silky mounds, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks in their passing.
