Waylon's Crossing - 26. Chapter 26: Stupid Demons

Waylon's Crossing
Chapter 26: Stupid Demons

Bryce was half-way out of town, without any indication of returning, by the time Azil caught up. "Arawn," he called. "Arawn, wait!"

The vampire just kept walking, not looking back. Azil gave his brother a pointed glance. Not yet having gotten the tirade owed for leaving Azil alone to go into the city, Timolin was not inclined to add to the list. He responded with a carefully sculpted blank look.

Azil hissed, "Ass!" Demons were not built to run. He glared at Timolin. "Go stop him."

With a quick look around to make sure no one would pop out of the bushes as soon as he left, Timolin took to the air. The land here was farm country, full of gently rolling hills. There was no one, besides their trio, in sight. He passed Bryce in only a couple wing beats, landing in front of him on the road. Bryce kept walking, forcing the demon to stretch out his arms to stop him walking straight into him.

"Bryce?" he questioned, keeping one eye on the vampire, and the other roving the dirt road.

Bryce shoved against the restraining hands, stepping around the demon and snarling when Timolin shadowed his every move.

"Arawn," panted Azil, hurrying closer. "Arawn, stop, wait."

"Augh!" growled Bryce. He spun around away from Timolin to face the smaller demon. "It's Bryce, damn you!"

Azil pulled up short, wings fluttering awkwardly to keep his balance.

"Why are you following me?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" He turned, only to find Timolin standing right behind him. "Get the fuck out of my way!"

"Ara -- I mean, Bryce, I know you're not fine."

"Fuck you." He wasn't hearing this, wouldn't let Azil twist his words into anything he didn't mean.

"I know you can't shoot off powerful emotions in the presence of a --"

"Shut the fuck up!" He spun once more to face Azil. "No one's getting in my head, fucker. Not you; and definitely not some juiced-up incubus!"

"Look, will you just --"

"No, I will not 'just' anything! To hell with your prince and his fucking vendetta! Leave me the hell out of it, I'm leaving!"

Just from looking at him, Azil could see the vampire growing angrier. Something was pent-up in there, and he was just on the edge of an explosion, now if Azil could just tip the scales a little....

"So, you're just going to walk away?"

"You're damn right I am! Just tell your walking wall here to mosey-on and mind somebody else's business." He ignored Timolin's long-suffering sigh.

Azil frowned. "You can't leave."

"Fuck you! Why the hell not? What more could you possibly want from me? I've given you everything!" He shook his head, braids knocking together, hands balled at his sides, not caring that he was mixing the past with the present and that Azil would realize the slip and use it against him.

"You've taken everything from me! My home, my family, my life, I can't even die because of you!" A spoiled aristocrat, he'd been lured from his bed by the siren song of a succubus, to walk willingly into the dungeons of the World of Utter Hell.

"I hate you! I so fucking hate you, and you can take this goddamned war and to hell with it!" The cords stood out on Bryce's neck as he yelled, physically shaking with rage, his voice growing louder and harsher until he was gasping for the breath to keep going.

Azil stared. Bryce was a fighter; he'd always known that, but he was so outwardly calm and contained that the demon-like temper completely shocked him. He let the words wash over him. Experience with Karadur told Azil that if he waited, then the real reason Bryce was upset would eventually surface.

"Arawn --"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT! My name is BRYCE!" He'd screamed it at his captors every day for years. His past and memories were the only things that couldn't be stripped from him. No matter what they'd done, he'd refused to give in. Sanity, however, was relative and a transitional phase anyway.

"What do you want?" asked Azil, cautiously feeling his way. He felt a twinge of concern. Bryce looked very ill, but who'd ever heard of a vampire getting sick? Other than in the head? If that was happening, well, Azil didn't want to be the one to put this vampire down.

"Tell me what you want A-uh, Bryce."

The vampire's answering cackle made Azil wince.

"Yeah, let's just have your pet wizard-mage-whatever to summon the dead, shall we? Let's just add that to my list of all-time favorite things to do, shall we? Screw the world, everyone else is, why the fuck not?"

"Um ...?"

He stomped a few strides in random directions, pausing now and again to fling his hands around. "You must have seen it! They'll be fucking like rabbits soon enough. Sure, get the lovebirds back together, pulled from certain death and it's an incubus! I fucking risked my life, and it's a fucking incubus! And you and Karadur -- what about me? What do I have? Nothing! Abso-fucking nothing because you even had to take that from me!"

He paused, pulling on his braids, voice going hoarse from all the shouting. "I had ... I had one good thing in my life, to come from all this and now that's gone, too! You ruin everything! All I wanted -- all I ever -- It's gone, do you understand? Gone!"

Flinging his head back, Bryce let the remainder of the pain that could not otherwise find a voice come roaring out in an anguished scream. It went on and on and on, only fading to an end because he lost his voice, but the scream continued silently.

Azil recovered from his surprise and wrapped his arms around the stiff vampire, hugging him close, making a face but otherwise ignoring the smell. He sensed more than felt Bryce gasping, fighting tears and ran his hand over hair and shoulders soothingly.

"It's okay to hurt, Arawn. Let it go. Let it go."

Bryce hit him with a closed fist to the chest. "I want AU-RE!" he wailed at last, and collapsed against the demon weeping fit to put the werewolf to shame.

Exchanging a look with his brother over Bryce's head, Azil tensed as something with a consistency somewhere between cotton and fog drifted out of the back of Bryce's shirt. The white-gray cloud coalesced on the vampire's shoulder and rubbed against his cheek.

Breath catching in his throat, Bryce's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He pulled away from the demon minstrel, catching the ball of fog in his hands. He raised the weightless blob to look at it more carefully.

"A-Aure?" he whispered.

As if naming it had certain power, the wisp of elemental changed again, arms and legs, a body and head emerging in miniature upon Bryce's open palms. Huge, silvery eyes peered at Bryce, and a tiny mouth tilted upward in a wide smile. Grasping the vampire's thumb in both hands, the elemental rubbed itself against him.

_"Bryce?"

He trembled, biting a quivering lip and not caring that his nose was running or his eyes hadn't yet finished leaking. He couldn't speak; he could only stare. Never had he ever seen an elemental as small as this. It was not a replica of Aure, its cloud white-silver to Aure's smoky-gray, and the body shape was more rounded instead of Aure's angles. They had the same impish grin, but this elemental smiled without malice or mischief, for all the world appearing to be an elemental's child.

"Oh, my God," breathed Bryce. Aure's child! "You're ... you ... I have to name you, don't I?" Names were very important to an elemental and they had several, chosen at each aspect of their lives as their life's path developed.

He shivered harder. If he didn't pick out something appropriate, something purposeful and meaningful, then the little guy would be laughed at by the rest of his kind. Bryce needed to think of something to memorialize the momentous occasion and still acknowledge the parent.

Eyes closed briefly in a bitter, aching throb of loss. A surge of anger, directed at the enigma in his hands, he found harder to shove back down. Why was this thing here and not Aure? He didn't want it! He wanted Aure back!

His battered, bruised, little heart gave a pathetic whimper. It was really true. He wasn't coming back. Not if he'd sent this little guy, as cute as a puppy, but he wasn't Aure, and never would be.

But if this was all that was left....

With a near-silent sob, Bryce lifted the elemental to hug the warm fog against his neck, body curled around it, huddled in on himself. Miniature features darted across his skin, wandering over to ears and braids, nose, lips, and pausing on the wet cheeks. Bryce tucked his chin against the back of his hand, braids falling forward to hide his face, shoulders hunched protectively.

"Delaur." He mouthed the word in consideration for an elemental's restrictive ways and considered how much he did and did not know about them. Damn Aure! He had to see the little one safely through the current mess and into the hands of another elemental, and no telling how long that would take. Then, and only then, would Bryce be free. He had to live until then.

Sometimes, he admitted in the very bowels of his heart, I really hate you, man.

*          *          *

Oblivious to all that occurred beyond their little room, Kynan shoved the heavy, ponderous new wings out of the way mercilessly to reclaim his pairling, currently trying to worm his way out of the wide bed. He wasn't sure why, but Kynan needed the skin-to-skin contact, the comfort that came with feeling strong enough to place his body between Alan and any danger they might face. The skin on his back and legs stuck and pulled, but the discomfort was minor compared to the sea of pain he'd been drowning in lately. His head still hurt, though, in waves of agony that reverberated in his skull like a drum and he blinked aside multi-colored sparks of bright lights that speckled his vision like confetti. The intense throbbing drowned out Alan's mental voice, leaving Kynan to decipher the werewolf's expressions on his own.

"Alan, shh, shh, why are you crying?" For once, there were no words, no annoyingly logical reasoning behind his actions for Kynan to disentangle.

He batted at Kynan, biting off a growl of irritation. "'Cause you're making me!"

"I am?" Surprised, Kynan thought hard, but happier thoughts were hard to come by with so many hot vortices of chaotic emotions so close at hand. He couldn't sort them out, and his curiously sore mind refused to capitulate and block them out. Kynan's mental shields had holes the size of wagon wheels.

"But, I'm not --"

"Shut up, I know. Just hold me a wh-while, okay?" Alan snuggled into Kynan's arms, weeping freely, the tears dripping from his face into a meandering river down Kynan's broad, muscled chest. As if he needed anything else to worry about, his and Kynan's emotions were all tangled up together. Alan could feel their bond moving and shifting and he hoped things would settle down soon. Preferably very soon. The sooner the better.

A hand flattened, palm to the hard muscles, skin dark against Kynan's pale tones. He was going to be all blotchy and bug-eyed when he finally got a grip again, he just knew it!

Kynan's chuckle rumbled from his belly upward. He rubbed his cheek against the top of Alan's head. "Don't be silly."

A light touch tickled up Alan's spine, making him squirm and moan softly. "Don't be starting nothing," he warned, sniffling loudly.

"Very well," Kynan replied, thinking that not starting nothing was the same as starting something, and laughing as suspicion distracted from the prevailing mournful tones.

"Seriously," Alan protested, though he wiggled further into Kynan's embrace. "Should we? I mean ..." Just thinking about his Kynan -- he shivered at that. His. Mine. He'd never thought ... hoped, maybe ... In all the years, had Kynan really not ever known the depths of Alan's feelings for him? How long had he been in Alan's dreams? His first-ever wet dream had involved the big Hunter, and what was clumsy reality to something like that? Alan wasn't sure when exactly he'd realized it.

His parents had seen to it that he had a large social circle, children of his parents' friends, other kids in the neighborhood, but none of them had ever made him feel the way that Kynan did, like being hot and cold at the same time, like the world was filled with puppies and kittens and dancing girls, or like a dream. A wonderfully languid dream that he could never remember but from which he awoke grinning despite the knowledge that he'd have to sneak his bedclothes into the wash so nobody thought he was soiling his bed; that'd be horribly embarrassing.

Being together made Alan's body hum, like a piece of iron vibrating in his hand from the impact of his hammer. He stared at his hand against Kynan's skin. He blushed, tongue flicking out to lick his nose as he snuggled closer. He groped vainly at the embarrassing thought that skittered free, blushing hotly.

He'd imagined how it would all go, Kynan kissing him, his skin soft over muscles that seemed sculpted and not real at all, and a body straight off a painter's canvas. He lost it there, usually, losing himself in the way his body reacted, heat pooling in his groin, muscles trembling and breath wheezing. It was too embarrassing to actively seek out any information, so his imagination was restricted to what he occasionally saw folks do in public, or what he ventured to try in the privacy of his room. Kynan really, actually kissing him was far beyond anything he'd ever imagined.

Kynan groaned. His breath stuttered to a halt as Alan's tongue flicked out to outline the curve of his pectorals.

On the surface, the taste was bitter and dry, of old sweat and illness, but beneath was Kynan's rich scent, like gun-smoke and steel, hot out of the forge and being quenched in a steaming trough of water. He breathed in deeply.

That tongue licked out again and Kynan surged forward, trapping Alan beneath him. A primal growl rumbled out of his throat, his internal beast alive and sparking from the depths of his soul. Alan growled back and that was too much.

They met beneath the shadow of wings, a few feathers drifting free to brush against skin. The kiss pressed Alan deeper into the mattress, legs and arms trapped beneath Kynan's commanding bulk. In one dim section of his brain, he wondered if he ought to be frightened, but....

The ghost of a memory made Alan moan, his eyes rolling back in his head under closed lids. He arched under Kynan's touch, lost amidst the fluttering of tiny muscle spasms and tingling in the extremities. He was already aching and hard, and all Kynan had done so far was kiss him.

No, kiss was far too mundane a word.

The briefest, lightest of touch, the barest edge of a fingernail along his side, and Alan melted, bursting into one thundering arch of red-hot pleasure to collapse into bleary-eyed, amazed rapture. Eyes half-closed, he lay there, gasping, shivering, hair standing out from his skin in a delicious, pins-and-needles sensation.

"No!"

He was rising and falling in darkness, skin on fire, panting and aching in a way he did not understand. Opening his eyes, he was at first confused, Kynan's frightened face swirling in and out of focus. His happy grin faded into a frown of frightened anger and he started weeping again. The instant flop from wondrous orgasm to hurt dropped his stomach into his toes with a nauseating whoosh. The ache inside spread upward and outward from his stomach, prompting him to roll over on his side, arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

"Oh! It hurts, it hurts!" he moaned.

"Alan! Shit!" Kynan tripped over and kneeled on the damned wings in his haste, fumbling to stay close to his pairling. What was going on? Was he hurt? He hadn't done anything!

He was scared to even touch Alan, and the werewolf cried even harder than ever. "I didn't do anything! I -- Karadur!" The door swung open at once, but Kynan only had eyes for the squirming, trembling young man trying to curl himself into a tight ball. "What's happening?"

Foreign demon scent was suddenly close and Kynan snarled, crouching over his pairling, limbs and wings sprawled awkwardly. "Get away! Mine!"

"Please, my Prince." Karadur dropped to his knees, hands out in front of his body in clear sight. "You must calm down." The room reeked of sex, and as Kynan's fierce eyes held his own, Karadur's groin ached and he clenched his teeth around a groan. Azil, get your ass back here!

Jacen stepped forward, making both demons flinch. His voice took on his authoritative, the-doctor-is-here tone. "Everyone, just be quiet. You." He pointed at Karadur, and then indicated the far side of the room with a flick of his wrist. "Over there." He turned to Kynan, dismissing Karadur from his attention. "And you, get back."

Alan growled, eyes opening enough to glare.

Jacen raised an eyebrow, noting the half-demon's angry, possessive posturing, despite the spill of black and gray feathers and worn-down appearance. He took a determined step forward, forcing Kynan back, tripping over his wings to get out of the way, as Alan's eyes slid shut again and he cried out.

The werewolf's muscles were rigid under Jacen's questing touch. There was nothing wrong that he could see, but, there was something! Looking up, he held firm beneath another aborted lunge by the slavering incubus, the halfling's demon eyes blazing full and blue with thwarted fury. Alan's breath came in hitched gasps, like a baby bird, sprawled from a fatal, too-early flight.

Azil! Karadur demanded, clenching his hands into fists where he stood in the corner. What do you know about incubi?

Not much. What's happening? His pairling's need to have him near tore at Azil and he urged Timolin faster, the demon floundering a little with the uneven weight he carried. Karadur made this look so easy!

I don't know! If he'd rescued the Prince and nursed him back to health, only to have him die before his eyes, Karadur was dead, worse than dead. The Queen needed an heir, and this was it.

Jacen looked up as the red demon burst into the sickroom. He gestured to Alan helplessly.

Azil watched Kynan warily as he stepped forward. His wings jutted out awkwardly, feathers drifting lazily down all around him, but his muscles stood out in stark relief. He jerked forward and back against the half-unicorn's presence, moving on hands and knees because his body lacked the strength to stand.

"Wait, Jacen." Azil reached past the healer and underneath the werewolf's bent legs. Healer and minstrel jumped back together when Kynan screamed in maddened rage, throwing himself at them to curl around the werewolf, hiding them beneath a wing.

"Shit!" gasped Jacen. He rubbed his back, having landed on his butt in an undignified heap. Looking up, he saw the two demons exchanging a long look. "Okay, what's going on?"

Karadur stepped forward, grimacing, to grasp Jacen by the back of his shirt. "You need to leave."

"What? No way! What are you going to -- hey!" He threw himself forward, but the door closed in his face. He banged with a fist and kicked, but the stout wood would not budge. "Augh! You stupid demons!"

Grabbing Azil by his plain, golden torc, Karadur pulled his mate into an ardent embrace. Are you sure about this?

The smaller demon moaned, body going limp in his pairling's arms. No, but ... but, I think -- think that it's -- he's always -- "Oh!" Forget it! I -- "oh, lords!"

Karadur chuckled smugly. Goblin got your tongue?

Shut up! Just --

"Please!" gasped Kynan. He squeezed his eyes closed, holding Alan tight to his chest. "NO!" Alan writhed beside him, but Kynan paid no attention to the limbs pinching his new wings. All he could feel was the slink and glide of something dark and sinister inside, clawing to get out.

He had always been able to tell when Azil and Karadur were on the cusp of moving beyond comfortable companionship into intimacy. At such times, he would flee to avoid temptation, but he couldn't move this time. His body was too exhausted, the wings unfamiliar and bulky, and Alan's mind beat against his own, hammering him with agony.

Azil and Karadur drew apart, the smaller demon pushing Karadur insistently. He'll take it better from you.

Ass. He was no good at this! Why did he have to be the one to give the sex-talk?