Torturous Love : Version 3 - 8. Chapter 8

Tobias did not much like the idea of meeting the Prince of Hell wearing nothing but a towel, but he was surprised to find, having rubbed his hair dry until it curled, a neat pile of his clothes, complete with the soft, fur-lined slippers he adored, waiting just outside the bathroom door. He couldn’t discern any emotion from them, so wasn’t sure who’d left them, but he got dressed just the same, and padded down the main, sweeping staircase in an open fronted shirt with laces and blue jeans.

The Prince of Hell was standing in the hall, talking with Zai as though he often dropped by for a casual conversation. Tobias reached out with his mind towards the figure shrouded by enormous bronze feathered wings, and faltered on the steps as Zai’s claws raked at his mind.

Don’t touch him.

Tobias speared his demon companion with a glare, as though daring Zai to say something, but the ash-furred demon stared back at him and their eyes met, more or less, with a clang.

Don’t. Please Tobias. I couldn’t bear to lose you now.

There was something in Zai’s tone which made Tobias pull back, a sweet, intoxicating softness, almost as good as the glowing rope of pleasure. He felt, suddenly, wanted. The young man descended the rest of the way without using his empathic abilities, and arrived to find the Prince turning to smile at him.

“Tobias… it is a pleasure to finally put a face to the name. I am Nassau.”

His Highness, Lord Nassau Del Rae, Commander of the Seven Armies, Last Scion of Ifrit, Master of Storms, Heir and Prince of Hell. Zai whispered in his mind.

What a mouthful! Nassau’s mental voice laughed like the chiming of delicate bells. Just ‘Nassau’ will do.

“Zai has just been extolling the virtues to me of living with the greatest chef in Hell. Would you show me your kitchen, please?”

Just as Tobias realised that Zai was not following them, he felt a sharp pang of regret as he realised he’d missed out on a chance to touch the ash-furred demon, and an answering sensation that came from under his ribs told him Zai was missing him too.

“I promise I won’t keep you long.” Nassau said with a light smile. Just long enough, came his clear mental projection. Tobias knew that he needn’t have been an empath to hear the Prince in his head, and he realised that Nassau was powerful enough to speak directly into the mind of anyone he chose. “Well you’ve certainly left your mark on the place,” he commented as they entered the kitchen, and Tobias went directly behind the long counter to frown at the contents of the dry-larder.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Outside of the palace, there is no need for formalities.” Not between us. “I hoped when I built this place that someone might end up in it who knew about food. It’s a shame it took so long.”

Tobias gaped at him.

“You built this house?” The Prince of Hell looked barely old enough to have started courting, and though Tobias had realised long ago that appearances were deceiving, it was still hard to imagine the slender, pale skinned, auburn haired young man with the smooth, delicate hands, being responsible for a building hewn from a single piece of solid stone. Tobias tried not to trace the thin threads of living fire from his finger and up his arm. A forked blaze like echoed lightning marred one side of his jaw. He realised he was staring, and looked away quickly.

“Yes. A very long time ago. In the early days Father was happy to have all the demons living around him, like dogs.”

The mental image Nassau projected was as crisp and clear as Tobias’s reflection in the bathroom mirror: the Devil himself – glorious and terrifying in red and black – upon his throne in the centre of a pit of fire and things Tobias only barely recognised as demons. They were all kinds of shapes, but most slithered or crawled rather than walked. They laughed at his bidding, swarmed to touch him when he reached out to one of them, bickered and fought with each other when his attention drew elsewhere. As Tobias watched, he saw time pass all in a rush as the number of demons grew, and individual figures rose from the melee into creatures more like Zai and Sitka.

“After the First Rebellion, Hell was a rather empty place for a bit, until I begged father for a friend, and he made me Kiorl. Once we were older, and there were once again a lot of demons living in the palace, I decided that we should spread the population about a bit. Zinkara Rumah was the first house – though not many people know or remember that fact.”

Tobias blinked, reeling at the amount of information he’d been given, but something about the words ‘First Rebellion’ and the way Nassau’s mind had twisted and glowed when he said them, drew Tobias in. There was something important about that he needed to know. Important to him.

A conversation for another day, Nassau told him silently. Tobias shuddered as he realised that with Nassau, even more than with Zai, every thought and feeling he had was laid open and bare to the Prince.

“Tell me about Zai,” prompted the Prince.

Tobias frowned, took a large earthenware bowl and began to measure out flour by eye. It wasn’t quite like normal flour, but it rose well with the powdered yeast Sitka had been bringing him, and tasted basically the same as bread.

“Why?” You know far more about him than I do.

Sometimes having a conversation without speaking takes its toll, came the Prince’s silent warning. “Use your voice. It’s good to talk.”

“Alright.”

Tobias began to mix warm water into his dough mixture, and because he couldn’t think of anything to say, began talking about food whilst he thought about everything else.

“The bread was the first thing I learnt to make at the Inn. Every day starts with bread, and my Father was really pleased when he realised we’d no longer have to spend precious pennies on loaves from the baker.” I can’t remember the last conversation Zai and I actually had. Not one that didn’t end without me running away. I miss him, and there must be something wrong with me for that.

“I love making bread, kneading the dough is kind of therapeutic, and it gives me time to think before starting on prepping vegetables and stoking the fire ready for the lunch rush. Midday meal is popular at the Inn, was popular. Damn, I suppose it’s all there still. Carrying on without me.” Zai took me from my world, from my life. And I’ll never learn to make the pastries we used to serve to noble guests, or finish the owner’s instruction on sauces, or make Forgotten Cookies. It’s not fair.

Instead you get to live here, with a demon who doesn’t like you, waiting for him to kill you and dump your body somewhere. Unless he lets Inai eat you.

Tobias swore at himself, and glanced up from the mound of stretchy bread dough to find Nassau watching him intently, arms folded on the long counter.

What did I do wrong?

Nassau’s huge wings shivered, his feathers rustling softly, and his grey eyes, swirling gently like rain-laden clouds, were full of sorrow.

“Nothing, nothing at all. Zai chose you because you’re special, and because he was there, and so were you, and the time was right. The ‘verse conspired to bring you together – or the Gods did – because Zai reflects something in you that you need, and you certainly reflect something he needs.”

Tobias stepped back from the counter where the bread sat on the floury surface, beginning its slow but inexorable rise to spongy goodness, put his face in his hands and cried. Nassau was telling him the truth, every word an irrefutable fact, and that meant that whatever purpose he was supposed to fulfil by being Zai’s mate, he had failed, because the demon didn’t like him.

Tobias.

The young man glanced up, and all of a sudden, though nothing in his vision had changed, he saw Nassau for what he really was. The patterns he’d seen which made up the world where they’d stepped through the portal, were suddenly everywhere, and standing before him, Nassau was bigger than the room, bigger than the house, bigger than campfire studded sky. His patterns were myriad grasping tendrils, furling and unfurling, touching everything in the world around them, absorbing information and emotion from every single soul in the realm. Somewhere it what Tobias could only think of as his centre, the patterns were denser, darker, and in there was a pain that had no end.

All empaths are broken, Tobias. Every single one of us. When Zai thought you were amusing, interesting, sexy, you felt it all – even though you didn’t want to. Now he loves you, adores you, and you feel nothing. It’s not fair, but it is how you were made.

Can you fix me? Tobias would have asked the question, but he couldn’t find his voice. There was nothing in him but the burning desire to feel the hot, bright pleasure he and Zai had found together again. Regardless of how much it cost him.

It can be done. It is not easy. He is trying to make you happy, Tobias. But neither of you are talking to each other, and his efforts have made you both miserable. Learn to trust him.

Tobias remembered the way Zai had pulled him out of the fire of the portal, how he’d clung to the demon in the wake of his fear of Inai, the sweetness of Zai’s kiss as they’d stood under the waterfall and watched Tobias’s blood pouring from his body, feeling Zai’s pleasure flooding every corner of his mind. He wanted that feeling again.

I promise, you will.

Nassau smiled, and Tobias reached out with his mind to thank the Prince of Hell, without considering Zai’s advice.

The pain in Nassau’s heart overwhelmed him. The image of a man with broad shoulders and ready smile, rough skin marred by the scars of many battles past, threw his head back and laughed before wrapping a skinny young man with ash-brown hair up in his arms. It was Nassau, and the man was his lover. Like a hammer to the heart, Tobias knew that the man in the vision was dead, that somehow Nassau had killed him trying to show him how much he was loved, and the pain had nearly destroyed him too.

A loneliness lived inside Nassau bigger than anything Tobias had ever felt, a deep and empty longing to feel the touch of the man he still loved. Tobias saw the stretch of centuries passing by him, all the time that Nassau had been alone, and it threatened to swallow him whole.

Forever is a very long time. An eternity to spend alone and I would not wish another to suffer this fate.

Tobias quaked in the storm of the Prince’s despair, and suddenly he realised he couldn’t find his body, his own mind, and the little core that made up himself was being torn apart by the enormity of the mind he was trying to understand.

Of all the ways to die…

I am NOT dying! ZAI!

And there was the demon, the warm, familiar, twisted wash of his mind, and Tobias tried to grab onto the sensation.

I’m here. Come back to me.

He couldn’t find his body, couldn’t feel the tears on his face or his feet in slippers standing in the kitchen. Couldn’t smell the soft yeasty scent of the rising bread, or the cold stone surface under his hands. Then pain speared up his arm, hot and bright as Zai’s acid yellow eyes in the black of night, and Tobias wrapped his mind around it.

Find me. Feel my claws in your flesh, the blood staining your pale skin. Come back to me!

Tobias could feel his body, the pain in his arm, and then the tendrils of Nassau’s mind were receding, losing their hold on him, and his vision swam as the patterns faded until Nassau stood, as normal as demon royalty could ever be imagined, smiling softly. Tobias turned and looked at his bloodied forearm, Tobias’s dark claws sunk into his flesh up to the first knuckle. He frowned.

You just ruined my favourite shirt.

Before Zai could even finishing thinking his apology, Tobias flung his free arm around the demon’s neck and shoulder, and pulled himself as tight to Zai as he could.

There was no pause, no hesitation, and Zai crushed the young man against his chest, face buried in the curve of his neck, and inhaling his scent as Tobias did just the same.

Please, don’t ever leave me like that again.

And Tobias saw Zai, standing in the passage outside their bedroom, dejected, lost, tears staining his soft fur, feeling wronged and bruised and like he wasn’t worthy.

“Oh, Zai…”

Nassau arched a perfect eyebrow and smiled.

“I told you the two of you should talk more. There’s only so much being an empath can tell you.”

“Thank you, Sire.”

The Prince shrugged, the movement magnified by his wings, and brushed the sentiment off like it was nothing.

“Tobias was teaching me how to make bread, do you think it might be ready to bake yet?”

By the time the other demons arrived, the kitchen was thick with the complex smells of baked and baking bread, roasting meat, and frying onions. Tobias stood behind the stove, an object he had come to love, still wearing the bloodied remains of his shirt, though his arm was healed, moving the translucent strands of caramelizing allium around in the hot fat. He glanced up to find Zai watching him, something deep and complicated in his eyes.

He wants you.

Tobias smiled.

He’s going to hurt you again.

Yes. Tobias blushed to remember standing in the kitchen whilst Zai lapped at the long cuts in his arm. Nassau hadn’t been embarrassed, but knowing the Prince could see Zai’s lustful intentions just as clearly as he could made Tobias almost ashamed.

Nothing is ever really private in Hell, the Prince reminded softly. I promise not to hunt through your memories.

Thank you. Tobias bit his lip, and aimed his question for the Prince. Zai wouldn’t be able to feel the specifics of the question, only that there had been one. Am I sick, do you think? I like how we feel together, even though it’s wrong and even though it hurts.

You never thought you’d say that, did you? Nassau smiled knowingly. There are plenty of stranger kinks in the ‘verse. As long you and he are doing something together that you enjoy, then who’s business is it to say if it’s wrong?

But, even though he…?

Yes, even that. No one here would judge you. Especially not for that.

“Oh.” Tobias removed his frying pan from the heat, walked around the bar, and took Zai’s hand. “Come with me a moment?”

There was no one in the den, the wide mouthed fireplace was empty and cold, and Tobias pulled Zai back into a shadowy corner, and kissed him hard. The demon responded to him instantly, moulding against his body, opening him up with his tongue, and purring as Tobias ran his fingers through his short soft hair. They broke apart panting, and Zai grinned.

“What was that for, Sweetling?”

“I just wanted to kiss you.”

“Heck, you didn’t have to drag me in there for that. Just think how jealous Shindae would have been… oh.” Zai blinked, the brightness in his eyes dimming. “You don’t want them to know you like me?”

Tobias tempered Zai’s bitter disappointment with another kiss.

“No, that’s not it. I don’t want to make them jealous over something they can’t ever have.” He touched the chain at his neck and smiled. “I only belong to you, and no one else gets to see what we do together.”

“Privacy isn’t usually considered much of a big deal down here, Sweetling.”

“It will be now.” Tobias told him firmly. “Come on, let’s go have dinner.”

Zai grabbed his wrist as he moved away, tugging him back with a sharp gesture which made Tobias gasp, and the demon dug a claw into the centre of his palm as he cupped the weight of his crotch through his clothes.

“If I have to wait until we’re alone together, then it’s gotta be worth it,” he snarled. Tobias whimpered, suddenly aware of the pain, of the red lust that surrounded them, and the predatory look in Zai’s eyes. He knew, with empathic clarity, the demon was going to make him pay for denying him pleasure now, and Tobias knew it would be worth the pain for the pleasure that was to come. Zai growled low, and Tobias quivered with desire. Zai kissed his hand, and smiled. “I knew you were a quick learner.”

You’re a freak, Tobias told himself.

I’m in love with a demon, what did you expect?

And that shut his inner voice up completely.

Tobias had gotten used to the way the house simply washed and tidied things whilst no one was looking, but that didn’t mean he allowed the demons he lived with to abandon their dishes wherever they wanted. Nassau sniggered as Tobias glowered at Shindae, then had to shut up quickly when he too was reminded to clear up after himself. Tobias stood in the kitchen and wiped down the counter, even though Zai had basically hoovered every breadcrumb and scrap of meat available, and listened to Nassau making his goodbyes. The Prince brushed his mind with a wash of gratitude, and Tobias smiled to himself. Having friends in high places could only be a good thing.

Zai tugged insistently at his mind, and Tobias rolled up his knives before taking the back stairs two at a time. Zai pushed him back through their bedroom door with his hands already stripping away his clothes, and as the backs of Tobias’s knees hit the edge of the bed, the young man remembered himself, and pulled Zai’s face away with a hand around one horn.

“Sweetling?”

“No. We have to talk.”

Zai whined unhappily.

“Sex can wait.” Tobias felt a quick, hot sensation deep in his stomach, and then an answering glow of lust and frustration from his lover. “You heard the Prince. We’ve not talked to each other. Now sit.”

Fine, Zai grumbled silently, and pulled his tabard off over his head without stopping to unhitch all his belts. I’m not staying clothed though. Oh, sod it.

“Help me!” came the muffled voice as Zai’s clothes caught on his horns, the belts restricting the movement of his shoulders. Tobias giggled. “I’m so glad you find me funny.” Just you wait, beautiful one, until I get my hands on you.

Tobias stripped out of his clothes, folded them neatly and stepped forward to wrap his arms around Zai’s bare waist. He heard the demon hiss in surprise at the contact, and felt the curiosity in Zai’s mind.

“You’re naked?”

Tobias glanced down at himself, and hoped Zai could feel the way he was trying to be comfortable with the fact he wasn’t wearing anything.

“You don’t have to be ashamed of being naked, Sweetling.”

“But I was always taught to be. Church every week and Sunday school too, remember?”

“Ugh. I hate that that guy has so much influence in your world.”

Tobias frowned.

God is a real person?

“Sure.” And apparently he’s a proper bastard too. “Now, are you gonna help me out of this mess?”

“You promise we’ll talk?”

Zai sent him an image of the two of them sat on the deep dish of furs, Tobias in his lap, and the young man smiled.

“How do you do that? Send images, I mean.” Tobias pushed the fabric of Zai’s tabard up over his chin, then stood on tiptoes to kiss his lover before freeing Zai from the rest of his clothes. The ash-furred demon wrapped him in both arms, hugging him hard, and Tobias felt the hard length of his erection along his thigh and abdomen.

Remember, talking.

I know. But you should know how you look, Sweetling. Never was there anyone more perfect than you.

Tobias blushed.

“To me, you could not be more beautiful. Come,” Zai scooped him up in his arms and carried him to the bed. “Let’s talk.”

Tobias spent a while arranging the furs and blankets around himself, only to have it all ruined when Zai sat behind him, pressing his body in close, and wrapping them both in the great cloak he’d been wearing when they’d first met. Tobias fingered the heavy cloth, and wondered if the object should have made him more scared.

I was scared, that time, and the next, and afterwards for a while. But I’m not scared of you now.

But you’re still scared of something?

Yes. Tobias took a deep breath, aware of the silence in the room. “Me. I’m scared of myself.” He took Zai’s hand in both of his own, and pressed the pad of his thumbs into the centre of his palm. “Tell me about what happened earlier. Why didn’t you hurt me?”

Now it was Zai’s turn to project a sense of shame and discomfort.

“You hated it. Every time. Every time I touched you you flinched away, wondering when I’d hurt you again, praying that I wouldn’t. So I tried to do it your way, and you ran away crying!” Zai’s tone was tight and full of anger, but it was turned inward at himself. “It was one simple thing, and I couldn’t even do that right.”

Tobias frowned, and chewed his lower lip.

But if you don’t hurt me, you don’t feel the same kind of pleasure, right?

Indeed. It’s the way I was made.

“So I didn’t feel it either. I mean, I felt the physical stuff, but it’s not the same.” It’s not as good, he thought privately, hoping Zai wouldn’t sense that particular disappointment.

The demon stroked his chest and pressed his cheek to Tobias’s curls.

“The pleasure of the mind is so much better than that of the flesh – at least, it is to us. Everyone can do great things with their imaginations, but to people like Shindae and Sitka, flesh on flesh is the best it ever gets. We have access to more. Don’t feel bad about always wanting better.”

“But… why didn’t I feel anything? It was like you were just...” Going through the motions. Like it didn’t matter that it was me. As though you didn’t care. Tobias knew that Zai could hear him, but it still felt too awful to say aloud.

Zai shook his head, and Tobias felt him smile into his hair.

“You have any idea how much self control I had to use not to hurt you? How much I’m using now not to just pull you close and sheathe myself inside your perfect arse? How hard it is for me to sit here and hold you and not dig my claws into you?” You don’t, because you’ve been exercising that same kind of self control all your life, haven’t you Sweetling? Not letting anyone know that you’re an empath, that you’re gay, that you know all their secrets. You don’t have to do that anymore. You’re safe.

Tobias shivered suddenly as Zai removed himself from their embrace, discarded the great cloak, and came to sit in front of him, cross-legged, his tail wrapped around his ankles as their knees touched.

“OK. I’ve never taught anyone else to do this. I mean, Nassau taught me, so, just imagine he’s teaching you. I guarantee he’d do a better job.” Zai shook his head sharply, and Tobias heard him mutter to himself sharply as a wave of red rose, then was quickly snatched back by Zai’s mind. “Focus.” Idiot. Not now. Zai smiled. “Remember how I taught you how to see where the world was thin, so we could use the portal stone? This is like that, only now, I want to to really look at yourself. All emotions have a flavour, and you should be able to tell mine from yours pretty easily by now.”

Tobias took a long, deep breath, and closed his eyes. He could see Zai in his inner vision, a dark soft shape, familiar yet strange, and he could taste his mind. Complex and rich like his voice, and full of a myriad of emotions, not all of them good. There was lust, and a desire for pain and blood; unsureness, a timidity which Tobias didn’t like much; a brush of sorrow, and a sprinkling of pity. Tobias opened his eyes, and looked at the demon.

He says he’s holding himself back, but I don’t feel it.

Then let go.

Tobias glanced down at himself, and fought against the blush which rose in his cheeks at the sight of his body, and his half-hard member. His body was marked with the ghosts of scars, wounds that Zai had made and healed, and the memories of working hard in the kitchen and the fields, and he didn’t know why Zai thought he was attractive.

But you think Zai’s attractive, don’t you?

He’s a demon with fur and a tail.

And does that make a difference?

It’s wrong.

Because he’s practically an animal? He can hear you you know.

Tobias looked at his lover, but Zai still sat, hands resting on his knees, tail looped around his crossed ankles, his desire for Tobias evident between his thighs, his taught abdomen flexing in time with his measured breaths. Tobias exhaled deeply again, and stopped denying what he already knew.

I love him. It doesn’t matter he’s a demon, I love him anyway.

And?

And I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m a freak for it.

Tobias stared at Zai without using his eyes, and suddenly he saw it. As though clouds had lifted from his inner vision, he could see something wrapped around Zai’s lust, a double stranded rope of iron self-control, and something he couldn’t see, slippery and see-through as an icicle.

Love. He’s using his love for me to hold himself back.

“Oh Zai….”

“Sweetling?”

Tobias knelt up, leant close, reached out and wrapped his fingers around Zai’s erection. The demon groaned. The young man offered his shoulder to his lover and smiled.

“You can let go now too.”

“You’re not scared anymore?”

Tobias purred as Zai’s claws raked down his side, tiny beads of blood tracking over his pale skin.

“No. There’s nothing left to be scared of. Not in here.”

Blow, Northern wind. Blow. Zai’s inner voice sang with delight as he sank his fangs into Tobias’s flesh. Give me my Sweetling…

Tobias screamed in pain, and it was good.