Page 27 of Demon Food

“My gods, he’s deep,” Neopal was whispering against my skin, licking again from the base of my spine to the top. “What is that?”

“A well,” the king answered, smirking as he twirled the wine glass. “That is a deep, never-ending well of life.”

Their words were beginning to get a little misty, soft around the edges as if they could’ve been spoken from a couple of rooms away. Another deep, epic gulp from the commander had my stomach muscles constricting in pleasure while more precum spilled.

“Where does he end?” the commander was saying. “It’s like he’s bottomless inside. Shall I call in another soldier?”

“No, he’s almost there,” the king said, petting my hair. “He’s just stubborn. Give in, my pet. Sleep.”

So, they wanted to put me to sleep. They were trying to put me to sleep. Fear struck my heart. I knew it. I fucking knew it.

I pushed against the king uselessly, whimpering when Neopal drank another huge gulp and a wave of pleasure vibrated through me in its wake. It’d barely registered that his mouth was on my ass, licking and biting as he pressed a thumb against the plug.

Black orbs dotted my vision as I tried to keep my eyes open, but they were too heavy.

The king chuckled as he fisted my hair to keep me from crumbling to the floor in a worthless pile of bones. “I didn’t want to alarm you, sweetness, but we need you asleep. It’s just a precaution. Boring palace chitchat that you wouldn’t want to listen to anyway. You understand.”

His cock was rock hard through his trousers. He pressed my mouth against it and gently rolled his hips as if to shove it into my mouth through the expensive fabric. My throat was parched and my head absolutely swimming. All I could do was drool.

“We won’t hurt you, my pet. Trust that we want you very much alive. Why don’t you close your eyes and rest? Let your worries drift away.”

I was as hard as the king. The only difference was, he was getting stronger as each moment passed and I was getting weaker as an airy sensation slithered up my throat, demanding I give in.

“There it is, Neopal. Can you feel it? Wait for it.” The king held up a palm. “Almost. Ten seconds… three…two… Annnd stop.”

Neopal pushed himself off me and roared in his natural demon voice, “FUCK, THAT’S GOOD.”

Pain—excruciating and mind-scrambling—splintered in my ears. Their organic voices, the ones they shielded from us, were so wrong. They sounded like an echo in a tunnel, screamed by a hundred different suffering voices.

But I barely had the strength to open my eyelids, much less cover my ears.

“I’m counting on you to keep him asleep the whole way,” the king said, blotting his mouth on a handkerchief. “Trust me, you’ve been tasked with worse.”

Someone lifted me into their arms. The commander, probably. He wasn’t pristine like snowmelt, so it wasn’t the king.

“How would you like me to handle the keeper?”

My eyelids stung as I tried to pry them open, and my brows pinched together. I writhed in Neopal’s arms, my body desperately demanding sleep. No, I wouldn’t give in. I had to stay awake. Stay AWAKE. I had to.

“It doesn’t matter,” the king said. “Pay the owner for his loss and be done with it.”

What? What loss? Wait. My thoughts were trying to swirl the drain. It was like swimming through the wreckage of a ship with a hundred broken planks of wood and all of them too small to keep me above the water.

Pay the owner. Someone had mentioned loss…

The distinct sound of a bag of coins tossed onto something startled me from the twilight of unconsciousness I’d drifted into. My eyes wouldn’t open to see how much, just like sleep wouldn’t just leave me alone. It beckoned cruelly.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” someone said. The king? “I’ve never seen such a shithole. We’ll have to check him for lice.”

Every other thought was bleeding into the next. Something about paying the owner. About handling the keeper. Landry. Lennox. Loss.

I gave into the darkness as someone said, “Then again, that’s the price of a diamond.”

10

My body was warm as I lay on my stomach beyond the silk of a black-gloved hand palming my ass. Stroking it. Kneading it.

I lay over…a lap. The lap of someone strong with solid thighs and hands, my face heavy against upholstery. A man. A vultus.