Touch of the Demon

Gestamar rumbled, and Mzatal settled back in his chair. “It was your year, sixteen thirty-two,” Mzatal said. “When I arrived in the atrium, Marguerite, a busty and hitherto unobtrusive woman in her late thirties, approached and sought to press her advantage, obviously quite inebriated.”

Gestamar elaborated. “She threw her arms around his neck and pressed everything against him. Including her advantage.”

Mzatal gave a grudging nod. “I simply put her aside and thought the matter done,” he said. “However, when I ascended to my chambers later, I found her naked at the top of the stairs unable to get past the warding to my bedchamber, which had likely been her goal. And I never bed in my bed.” He shook his head and smiled. “She was spread, and ready, and reaching for me.”

I laughed, though I almost felt sorry for the woman. “And what did you do?”

“She was far too much in the wine,” Mzatal said, “and would not have approached me without. I moved to step past her so Gestamar could carry her down, and…” He paused, drained his glass.

The reyza tapped the table with a claw, rumbling. “If you do not finish it, I will.”

I looked to Gestamar. “I think you’d better. I have a feeling he’s going to leave out all the juicy bits.”

Gestamar snorted. “She grabbed his cock through his breeches and held on like a graa on a tagan fruit.” I gathered from the way the reyza clenched his hand that he meant to convey with great ferocity.

Mzatal cursed softly in demon. “To this day I do not know how she managed it.”

Gestamar continued. “She yelled out all of the things she could do for him, and he was…in shock.”

I didn’t think I’d ever before heard a reyza rumble that heavily with laughter.

Mzatal leveled a frown at Gestamar. “It was unexpected and hurt quite a lot.” He looked back to Idris and me. “As Gestamar said, I was indeed stu

“That was unwise,” Gestamar commented.

Idris cringed noticeably. I burst out laughing. “Oh no.”

Mzatal cleared his throat. “When I recovered from my error, I breathed a pygah and used potency to prize her fingers off. And still the woman screamed what she could do for me,” he said with a shake of his head and an amused smile. “I stayed well away from her reach.”

I wiped tears away from laughing so hard. “Did she ever leave? Or did you have her carted off?”

“Mzatal set a triple pygah,” Gestamar told us, “which, along with the wine she had consumed, eased her greatly.”

Mzatal nodded. “The faas reclothed her, and Gestamar carried her back to her quarters. And I continued to mine.”

“He continued slowly and carefully to his chambers,” Gestamar clarified.

I tried hard not to snort my wine. “Did she remember any of it the next day?”

“Only vague remnants,” Mzatal said, “though I remembered all.”

“And the parties were never the same after that, I bet.”

“I maintained light physical shielding among the humans,” he said with a smile. “But Marguerite…” He paused and his eyes went distant as though remembering, a slow smile growing. “All of the delicious acts she screamed out? She could perform every one and more.” His eyes flashed with good humor. “This I determined in the next week when I encountered her by the little waterfall.”

That got even more laughter. “And I bet she was much more fun when she wasn’t blitzed,” I said.

Mzatal raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. I prefer coherent, cognizant, and inclined,” he said. “While inebriated, she was most inclined, but neither coherent nor cognizant.”

I leaned back and sipped my wine. It was clear that the lord was far from chaste, but I had to appreciate his desire for a willing partner in full control of her faculties. Hell, better than a lot of guys back home who’d have taken advantage of a situation like that in a heartbeat.

Mzatal opened his mouth to speak again, then turned and looked at Faruk. He stood abruptly, strode to the faas and crouched while Gestamar hissed softly.

I set my glass down. “What’s going on?”

Mzatal laid his hand on Faruk’s back and spoke softly in demon. The faas seemed to huddle in on itself, tip of its tail trembling like a rattlesnake’s.

Idris glanced over at me. “Faruk is being summoned to Earth.” His brow furrowed. “It doesn’t happen often for her.”

“Her?” I blurted, then grimaced at how stupid that sounded. But none of the faas had any sort of visual or behavioral features to indicate gender. I usually winged it and guessed, but I had a feeling Idris actually knew.

His eyes crinkled. “Yes, and Jekki is male. They’re a mated pair.” His gaze went back to Faruk, and I stood, deeply curious about what a summoning looked like from this side.

Faruk detached her pouch of kek tokens from her belt and tossed it to Gestamar, then laid her hand on Mzatal’s knee. Wind swirled around them, and the whine of a portal overrode the incessant rush of the waterfall. Mzatal stood and stepped backward to the table, eyes on Faruk.

The portal opened with a rush of wind and the stench of sulphur, and a heartbeat later, tendrils of luminescent mist-like potency wreathed the faas, and she disappeared. Jekki chittered, his tail twisting and writhing in what I’d come to recognize as faas agitation.

I remembered to breathe again as the arcane wind died away to nothing. “Do you know who summoned her?”

Mzatal nodded slowly, eyes narrowed. “Rasha Hassan Jalal al-Khouri. I had thought her dead, she has been so long without summoning.”

The name didn’t ring any bells, and I filed it away. I glanced at Gestamar as he moved to clear the residuals from the summoning. A pang of selfish longing tugged, as I wished it had been Gestamar, along with my letters, rather than Faruk. I pushed down my impatience. There were two days yet during this Earth full moon for Gestamar or the other designated letter-carriers, Jekki and Bezik, to be summoned.

Mzatal turned back to Idris and me. “It is late, and we meet early tomorrow,” he said, edge in his voice and the set of his face indicating that the party was over for him. Jekki pressed close to his thigh, and the lord laid a hand on the faas’s head.

I got it. One of his demons was out, and he was back into serious lord mode. I acknowledged with a nod, hesitated, then moved to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re okay, Boss,” I said smiling up at him. “Thanks for the Christmas.”

He stood unmoving for a heartbeat, then lifted his hands to the sides of my head, leaned in and kissed my forehead. He tucked his hands behind his back again, inclined his head a smidge. “Rest well, Kara Gillian.”

“You too, Mzatal,” I said, then gave Idris a hug before heading out. I looked down at the ring on my right hand and smiled. All in all, it had actually been a pretty decent Christmas.

Chapter 33

Thirty. My hand touched the stone at the end of the pool. I tucked my legs as I glided to a stop, pushed off the end, and began another lap. Fifty laps. That was my goal.

Mzatal’s palace was full of things that were just plain Awesome. The library with three full floors of books and spiral staircases, the greenhouse on the north end of the roof with its collection of weirdest-plants-of-the-demon-realm, the waterfall walkway that spa

But hands down, my favorite was the pool that I’d dubbed The Very Awesome Pool of Awesomeness. This wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill indoor pool. Hell, it wasn’t even a really fantastic luxury pool that you might find in a mansion or high-end hotel. No, this thing was glorious. Fed by the river, it was like an indoor grotto, with a large i