By: Bookwolf and Bre Quintana
Sintan!
Ahzek's voice boomed her mind.
Sintan moaned and rolled over in bed, scooping up her pillow and cuddling it a little bit longer. She wasn't ready to leave the lovely dream with her wrapping her arms around Ahzek's trim waist and her head resting on his taut stomach. Feeling his warm, strong arms around her.
Safe.
Sintannn!
Another loud, irritated cry waffled in again, sounding more like a whine. Obviously, he wasn't in mortal danger. Not if he had time to sound like a child.
Sintan ignored him, trying to settle back into dream Ahzek's arms. Her full, heavy breasts, bare and pressed on him. The sensation sent tingles up and down her body, from her horns to her tail.
Dream Ahzek gave her a sweet kiss, his dark eyes not filled with their usual sarcastic look, but with affection. A beautiful smile tugged at the end of his full lips.
Sintan, come now!
A shimmer of anger rolled inside as dream Ahzek disappeared into a fog and Sintan stumbled through him, landing hard on the floor.
She shot up in bed. The thin gold chain around her neck felt hot.
The bastard actually activated the spell.
Her amber eyes narrowed as she threw off the sheets and noticed it wasn't even dawn yet. Annoyance and anger licked under her skin.
The wizard better have a good reason for waking her up this early.
Stomping down the hall of the second floor of the penthouse, Sintan ignored the glittering sight of Paris at night. Her dark brown hair flowed behind her, cracking energy snapping off her tanned demon skin. Her heightened sense of smell alerted her that Ahzek was in his workshop downstairs. She stomped down the stairs barefoot. Not really noticing the elegant furniture and priceless antiques decorating the tasteful apartment.
After all, objects were just that, things. Only valued by humans. Demons had no use for objects. Not when everything you needed you could create with your mind.
An ability which humans obviously coveted and tried, time and time again to replicate.
Not with much success.
Sintan slammed open the door to her master's workshop. The heavy wooden door bounced off the wall and she stopped it from hitting her face.
"What!" She howled back at the man currently occupying the room.
Ahzek's Elbon, Europe's premiere wizard gave her a quick look and returned to tinkering with the small cauldron in front of him.
"Ah, you're up. Good, finally."
Energy sizzled from her, causing her little baby doll nightgown to flitter around her bare legs.
"Ahzek..." her voice held a warning. However, the human didn't appeared fazed in the least to have a pissed off demon, literally ready to spit fire all over him.
At thirty, Ahzek was still a man in his prime in human terms. But in demon terms, he was less than an infant. Average height, trim, lean build. His dark hair and eyes complemented his tan skin. Nimble fingers moved with a grace rarely seen in the human realm. He muttered something and the contents of the cauldron popped. Grayish green smoke bloomed in front of him.
Without looking at her, he said, "Sit."
The command slammed into her through the chain and even though her anger seared in her mind and she wanted to disobey, the power of the spell forced her to move and sit down in the chair next to him.
For the first time in recent memory, Sintan was shocked into silence. The fury she felt only moments before dissolved into uncertainty, confusion and not a small measure of hurt.
He continued to work as if she wasn't there.
Twice tonight.
Twice he used the spell.
Chaos rioted in her mind, trying to understand.
Sintan sat, dumbfounded. Not because of the spell, though she knew she wouldn't be able to move until he commanded it, but because he
had
used it.
She could count on hand how many times he had in the past. Once it was to stop her from killing another familiar who had tried to harm Ahzek. Another had been when she fell into a heavy spell by a rival wizard and almost ripped off the chain around her neck. Ahzek's voice had cracked like a whip then, "STOP!"
Her fingers had released the chain. Thankful beyond words when the spell clouding her mind cleared. She was made to be a familiar. And because she was made to not really exist in either world, her chain was her only tie to the human world. Remove it and she would disappear back to the demon realm, lost and without form.
In Sintan's hundreds of years of existence, her purpose had been to be an object. A fountain of power. A gateway between the moral realm and the demon world. She was made to corrupt, to bind the souls to hell as payment as much as she was bound to them. Darkness and pain, those had been her constant companions. There had been times she wondered if an eternity wandering the netherworld would be preferable to obeying the whims of humans.
Many of her masters had been cruel.
Many used her in ways she would never describe.
But after her last master had been destroyed by Ahzek at the tender age of fifteen, she saw something in his dark eyes she had never really experienced before.
Kindness.
She remembered that moment crystal clarity. Her body had been bloody, naked on the floor. Quivering from the battle and Eldritch using her as a shield against his apprentice, Sintan couldn't move. Her powers drained.
Then she felt it.
A hand stroking her hair away from her battered face. She looked up and saw Ahzek's dark eyes, serious but full of an indescribable emotion.
"Wait here," he whispered to her. His voice fluctuating between that of a man and a boy, but warm and compassionate. Eldritch's promising apprentice went up to the defeated wizard.
"Never again," he said to the older man, and quickly motioned with his hands as he spoke the spell.
She remembered Eldritch's eyes grow wide and a silent scream just about to escape his body when he burst into flames. At the moment of Eldritch's death, a golden chain appeared in the air from where his charred body lay.
Ahzek took a step toward it and Sintan braced herself to for the pain of the bonding, knowing as soon as he put it on, it will fuse with his skin and she would be his familiar.
But instead of touching the chain, he looked at her. His gaze serious and steady.
"Would you take me as your master?"
Even in her weakened state, shock reverberated through her.
None had ever asked before. They only took.
"Yes," she said. Ahzek gave her a wry smile and grabbed the chain. The pain of the bonding seared through her, but unlike in the past, most of it was dulled by a soothing sensation washing over her. She actually felt wonderful, excited as Ahzek's mind bond with hers. As his essence curled around her chain, tying them together.
And even though he often insulted, and was brisk and never complimented her, Sintan didn't mind. Ahzek had been the first master she actually
wanted
to be with--in every way.
She shifted in her seat in silence, playing with her fingers and the end of her tail. What had changed? What was wrong?
She tried to think back to the last few days, but nothing in Ahzek's behavior indicated anything had been amidst.
Granted his latest lover, Mercedes, left him in the middle of his party the night before. Cursing his name in French as her long, shapely body stormed out of the penthouse.
The only indication Ahzek had been bothered was the twitch of his left brow. But he returned to the party without skipping a beat and Sintan didn't think twice about it. Women and Ahzek never lasted long. Wizards, especially one of Ahzek's caliber, were often sought out by the members of the fair classes. Powerful, wealthy, due to his connections with several governments and magic inventions, Ahzek was never without a willing partner on his arm.
They just didn't last long.
Sintan tried to suppress the inner glee to see another one bite the dust. Because even though she had spent years lusting after her own master, something which she had never experienced before, Ahzek never touched her.
Never commanded her to touch him. Never forced her to service him in any way-magic or sexually.
In the beginning, it confused her and when she tried to show her appreciation to him for becoming her new master--Ahzek rejected her.
It stung for a long while. But over time, Sintan and Ahzek fell into an unspoken understanding.
They were bound. Having a connection deeper than any mortal could understand. Deeper than family, than friends. But they didn't cross that invisible, but impenetrable line Ahzek forged in those early years. And over time, it simply became the way things were between them.
She sometimes would find a random human unable to see beyond her glamour and Ahzek had his endless parade of women.
Now here she was, sitting next to him at his command unable to look at anything but his jean clad thighs, and the t-shirt spilling from the back.
She wanted to tuck it in. Ahzek always liked looking presentable. It may have been a reaction from growing an orphan on the streets of Cairo, always ragged and alone until Eldritch found him trying to steal his wallet and sensed the boy's innate abilities.
Then Ahzek turned to her. Sintan looked up and into his serious brown eyes. None of the usual mockery and hardness in his glaze.
He muttered a word under his breath, and instantly the hot weight of the chain cooled on her neck.
He had stopped the spell
For some reason, that thought ripped into her heart and tears welled up in her eyes.
Surprise colored his expression.
"Sintan-" he started to say, but some other force swelled inside her and she toppled the chair backwards and ran out of the room and away from his eyes.
It had been years. Years since the last time she sobbed.
Sintan huddled in the corner of her room, letting the cool shadows cloak her. She called on a little of her magic and let herself melt into it.
What was going on with her?
Ahzek wasn't cruel or mean. He never beat or abused her. So what if he used the spell to wake her up and make her sit down? Those meant nothing.
