How to Love a Blue Demon

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

How to Love a Blue Demon Copyright © 2013 Sherrod Story

Co
ver design by Kasey Doshier-King

Publication
August 2013

“Well?”

Eyoen shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He was more than 250 years old, and his father made him feel like a pup just weaned.

“Well?” his father’s voice demanded louder. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I didn’t know she was our neighbor, father,” he said softly.

“You didn’t know that you were fucking our neighbor’s daughter?” his sire yelled. “That’s what I’m supposed to tell the man? My son defiled your
oldest child, but he might not have if he’d known who she was? She hasn’t been home a full day, and he’s already preparing to send her back to the convent. The convent, Eyoen! How did you manage to corrupt a virgin in less than 24 hours?”

Eyoen sighed. He’d heard that tone of disbelief so many times before. It was one of three tones he had heard from his father in his life: anger, disbelief and unremitting fury.

King Carlow sighed and shook his head. “Oh, Eyoen.”

He scowled. He’d forgotten one, disappointment.

“You’re sequestered.”

Eyoen’s head shot up, his mouth fell open in shock. Locked away from all of Cyanus? From all of the family?

“I’m being banished.”

His father sighed irritably. “Stop being so bloody dramatic! If I don’t punish you in some way I’ll have to
throw your whoring ass in jail.”

“Jail! For fucking some stiff ne
cked little wanton?” Good grief. She hadn’t been worth all this. All she’d done was lie there with a shocked look on her face, making the same sound over and over with every thrust: “Oh, oh, oh!”

She did have
nice tits though. Round and firm, they’d bounced with every swing of his hips. He’d always been partial to the bounce and sway of a woman’s breasts, especially during the sex act. Her pink nipples had been sweet, he recalled. They’d budded with barely a touch, barely a look, really, pebbling like little fruit colored stones.

But
sequestered? This was serious business. He thought about lying, saying that he didn’t know she was a virgin. But he didn’t. Even if he could stomach lying to his sire, the girl had virgin written all over her.

Hot virgin
, true, but her innocence had been palpable. It was one reason he’d accepted what she offered in the first place. In his harem full of beauties, virgins were thin on the ground. He hadn’t initiated an innocent in so long. Strange. He remembered it being more fun.

He sighed irritably.
Having your virtue stolen wasn’t the end of the world, after all. Certainly it was no small thing, but sequestered? It was ridiculous. He hadn’t harmed a hair on the chit’s head, to be punished like this?

He sighed again.
He wouldn’t embarrass the girl further by telling his sire it had been she who jumped him, not the other way around. Honestly, he was a yellow blooded demon just like everyone else. What could he do when it was thrown at him? It wasn’t like there was anyone within 1,000 parishes who didn’t know his particular shade of blue skin meant royal family. Or that blue skin meant pleasure unparalleled thanks to the pheromones that turned the royal skin that shade of blue to begin with.

The little nun, former nun, he corrected himself, had been so wet, he couldn’t resist her. The scent of her arousal, the sight of those high pink breasts when she stripped off her shift. She’d had an amazing nape he recalled. He’d bitten it as he fucked her from behind.

“Eyoen!”

Eyoen fell to his knees
, forehead nearly touching the floor as the wind kicked up, blowing the drapes behind his father’s throne like fabric in a gale. He began to sweat as the temperature in the throne room rose at least 120 degrees. The water in the fountain in the center of the room began to steam along with his father’s anger, and the servants lining the walls seemed to wilt even as they produced fans and began to wave them frantically over the King’s head.

“You will be sequestered
in your rooms, away from all but three servants until I can convince our neighbor not to demand your imprisonment. You will stay there until I call for you.”

Eyoen shivered at the warning he heard clearly de
spite his father’s quiet voice.

“Rise, son.”

Eyoen rose slowly to his feet and raised his eyes to his father’s. They looked so much alike. The same blue skin the color of a cornflower. The same tall muscular body, though Eyoen was a hair taller than his father’s 6’6”. Despite being the youngest he was the tallest of his six brothers, and only he shared his father’s golden yellow eyes.

“I love you, Eyoen. But you’re going to be the death of me.”

Eyoen sighed happily as his sire began to smile. He came forward slowly, respectfully, his hands folded behind his back, chin and eyes down as was proper.

“Sire,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Suddenly Carlow laughed, his deep, beautiful voice ringing throughout the chamber and into the courtyard beyond. The heat died down as the King’s voice caressed ears nearby. The servants sighed, straightening as their flesh cooled; they put the fronds away.

“How many times have you said that to me, imp?”

No less than a million, Eyoen thought, thinking of himself as a tiny blue demon. He’d listened to no one but his father the first 50 years of his life, and half the time hadn’t even listened to him as he ran uninhibited through the castle.

The last 200 or so
years hadn’t been much different.

“Your punishment begins now.” His sire turned away, and Eyoen bowed himself from the room.

He sighed as he made his way to his apartment. Servants turned away as he passed. Until his father lifted his edict he would be unseen and unheard to all but three people, none of whom were his family.

His punish
ment was severe for the crime, but Eyoen was not so spoiled that he thought he could do whatever he liked without fear of consequence. He never shirked a punishment or a duty, unlike many of his siblings, who would do anything to avoid their court responsibilities if it meant they could continue their pleasures without interruption.

He frowned, his elegant stride faltering
as he realized he wasn’t being punished for fucking that little virgin. His father was hiding him from sight because of what had happened afterward.

In that moment Eyoen felt shame the likes of which he had n
ever known. He wilted from it and blinked himself home to prevent anyone from seeing his drooping shoulders.

He hadn’t meant to hurt their neighbor. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what his temper could
do. He’d cultivated a mask of control so sure and strong it rarely slipped. But when the demon had sworn at him, had called him those low names and suggested that his actions – all perfectly normal for any Cyani male – meant he was unworthy of his royal title, he’d, well, he’d snapped.

He hadn’t blustered back, hadn’t sworn, in fact, he hadn’t said a word. He’d just looked at the man, who’d gradually stopped swearing and yelling.
The nun’s father got a strange, surprised look on his face, then slowly, drops of yellow blood fell from his nose. They fell faster, and faster until the demon’s chin and chest were tinged with yellow. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the ground unconscious.

H
is brother Cinque had come running in response to the demon’s wife’s yelling, and seeing their neighbor on the ground initiated a healing spell that brought some color back into his face and stopped the bleeding.

The royal physician
s took over after that. They surmised he’d suffered some sort of stress-related attack brought on by his daughter’s incident. The demon would be fine, eventually, but he would have to live not only with the stigma of his daughter’s lost virginity sans marriage contract – though most would look the other way since it had happened at the hands of a royal and sex wasn’t so taboo on the star that women who had it were utterly ruined – but one of weakness. Few people on Cyanus were ever sick. At least, not sick enough to bleed and lose consciousness without suffering some sort of grievous injury first.

That’s why
Eyoen was being punished. His father knew what he had done. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? It had been almost 190 years since it first happened, but his father’s memory never faltered, ever. He could remember words his wife had uttered before they’d officially begun their courtship, business transactions of the smallest, most insignificant amount, the color of the helio balloons at a childhood birthday party for his 389-year-old brother.

Eyo
en sighed as memories surfaced of the last time he had yelled in anger. He’d screamed into his friend’s face, angered beyond reason by a silly wager. And poor Tegyr had bleed, not from his nose, but from his ears, and then fallen into a coma that lasted for almost a week.

When Tegyr eventually woke he’d wanted nothing to do with Eyoen. He’d been in the wrong, but Eyoen had done everything he could to regain their friendship. Even Tegyr’s father had tried to patch things up between them,
not wanting to offend the royal family or worse, lose the potential benefits that came from the connections, but Tegyr would have none of it. Eventually Eyoen’s father moved the entire family far enough away that they’d never heard from them again, after warning them never to speak of the incident. Eyoen was sent to a special retreat to learn techniques to control his anger.

Now
he’d let it get the better of him again, another demon had fallen at his feet, and his father knew it.

“Sire.”

Eyoen looked up and saw his valet Rierdane standing at a respectful distance.

“Let us get you cleaned up.”

He let the demon lead him away; he’d been standing in the middle of the hall like a statue.

Good Gods. What if his control was fading? What if the episodes came more frequently, if his temper completely splintered?
His family would be unutterably shamed. He’d likely spend the rest of his life sequestered, and though it would kill him, it would be preferable to bringing dishonor on his family. Worse, if left free to roam, he might kill someone with his mind.

“You’ve never seen a
nyone more glad than I am to be sequestered, Rierdane.”

His servant, who knew more than
Eyoen would have ever believed, said nothing, but his hand clapped the prince’s shoulder briefly in sympathy.

“You won’t leave him for a moment, Rierdane.”

“No, sire.”

“I don’t care if he’s hip deep in thi
s Cass; you are not to leave his side for one instant. If Unjel finds him, he’s not going to just kill him.”