How to Love a Blue Demon (5 page)

Suddenly he laughed. “How appropriate,
Rierdane. I go into this new body as naked as I came into my own.” Then he was gone, and Rierdane was left standing on wet marble tiles with only a bath sheet for company.

The servant handed the towel to another servant. “Gods protect us,” he said, and returned to the
King’s side to talk strategy.

*****

Eyoen had been told what to expect, but it didn’t compare to reality. Not at all. It was faster and – though he’d have his claws pulled out before admitting it – it was more frightening, as he shuttled like a ghostly freight train through time and space and slammed into a painful and restrictive space.

Gods, he hurt. Every
thing ached terribly, especially his head at the back of the neck. He tried to stretch, to relieve some of the tension he felt, but couldn’t seem to make his arms move. Nor could he open his eyes. His heart rate accelerated as panic threatened to overwhelm him, then, as a voice whispered somewhere in his mind, he calmed.

“Sire,” said
Rierdane. “How fare you?”

I feel awful,
he thought, growling, or at least he would have if he could.
Is this normal?

“The body you’ve taken has been in an acciden
t. The host did not survive, so the wounds were grave, and it will take some time for you to heal yourself.”

I need no time,
he said and would have buzzed himself and his new, battered body back to health, but Rierdane hissed in alarm, and he stilled.

“You cannot, sire
! You are in a human hospital, and were you to suddenly spring up from the bed fully healed there would be too much attention. You must have patience.”

Eyoen grunted, and his servant laughed suddenly.
What is so bloody funny?

“Oh, my sire, you will be s
o pleased when you find out whose body you’re in.”

Before he could demand to know who,
Rierdane faded, and he was alone with his many aches and pains. Truthfully he already felt better. His spirit seemed to have resized to fit its new confines so that horrible cramped feeling was gone.

H
e estimated that his host was perhaps four to five inches shorter than he was, which meant he’d been a tall human in life. Big too, though this man’s muscles were not the same size and breadth of his own. Nor was he as powerful. Remembering what Rierdane had said he worried, knowing his own healing ability was far superior to a human’s. Even without deliberate effort, his spirit would heal his body quickly. The process had already begun. He just hoped it wouldn’t happen so fast that he drew attention to himself.

Things were starting to take shape for him now that he was calm. Instinct told him to keep his eyes closed, but
with his minds’ eye he easily discerned that the room was large. He lay in a bed with bars on either side of his body. It was a hospital bed. He’d seen pictures on The Box. The metal bars were to keep his wounded body from rolling onto the floor.

He could hear the hum of machinery, and knew
some of it was attached to him. He could feel the pinch of a needle and the drag of fluid as something dripped into his veins. How primitive their medicine was. Effective in some cases, but primitive.

His ears pricked as there was a commotion in the hall. His new nostrils flared slightly, and
compelled, he inhaled as deeply as he could though it pained him mightily to do so. That scent! The female was so luscious his senses swam inside his thick, painful head. He knew he’d never smelled this woman before. How could he? He’d never been to earth, had never beheld an Earth woman outside of watching them on The Box. But this female in particular, somehow he knew her, and she was coming into his room, two smaller females and a large male on her heels.

Cass threw the door open so hard it bounced against the wall. It would have hit her had she not already been
across the room and at his side.

“My God,” she breathed. “He looks like he’s dead.”

For one moment, Eyoen’s heart actually stopped beating he was so shocked, then he was ecstatically happy. It was her! His Cass. But then she began to cry, and his soul dipped as waves of her sadness washed over his battered form.

He wished
with all his heart that he could comfort her, but he could do nothing, say nothing; he couldn’t even lift his bedamned hand to stroke her curly black hair.

“Leave it to you, you idiot,” she cried
to him. “Only you would be silly enough to get hit by a cab.”

Was that what
had happened to him? He’d been hit by a car. But then Eyoen realized what this meant. He was in her lover’s body. The Fates had been cruel and kind all in the same moment. Her lover was dead, and now he was her lover.

“They said he would be okay. It was touch and go at first, but he’s
rallied in the last half an hour. He’s strong. Aside from the head injury, he’d relatively unscathed. Superficial cuts and bruises. Poor thing. I’ve had to cancel all his appointments for the next few weeks.”

Cass glared at Paulette, Lee’s agent, who had followed them into the room.

“Why the fuck are you talking about work at a time like this? Who gives a shit about those jobs!” and that was the last thing she said for awhile.

Cass refused to leave his side, Eyoen
realized happily. Eventually Paulette left, as did Priti, Cass’ companion and someone called Boyd, the bodyguard if he wasn’t mistaken. But Cass stayed. She’d pulled a chair over and was leaning on the side of his bed, his hand in hers.

Eyoen never would have thought he’d be so happy to be mute, incapacitated and in pain, but he was, and all because she was touching him.

She sighed then, and his nose tingled at the sweet scent of her breath. She’d eaten candy earlier. He’d heard her crunching it before the smell of peppermint touched him.

“I was going to break up with you this week,” she told him softly.

Eyoen’s heart jumped in alarm. What?

“But I won’t leave you
until you’re okay, Lee-Lee. I’m not in love with you anymore, but I do love you. I’ll always love you. My sweet boy. Get well for me, hear? Get well. Wake up and like me,” she laughed softly. “But don’t love me. Let that knock on the head change your personality so that we can be friends, but not lovers, okay?”

Absolutely not! He wanted to yell at her. They would be lovers. He would see to it. Furthermore, he would make her fall back in love with him. He sent her a little suggestion to keep talking. He needed as much information as possible.
The thought of her leaving him had his human heart thudding erratically.

“Calm yourself or the hospital staff will come and make her leave,” Rierdane cautioned
.

Eyoen obeyed.

Cass barely needed the little nudge he gave her. He could sense the affection she had for him, for Lee. But it was as she said, platonic. She went on to tell him that while the sex between them had always been good, lately it had grown just the tiniest bit predictable. Not boring per say, she hastened to tell him, as though he were awake, just not terribly exciting.

“You know how when people have been together for a long time, and they get comfortable with each other and stop trying? That’s how I feel. The only thing you ever
get excited about these days is drinking,” she told him, a hint of scorn in her deep voice now. “And that shit’s gettin’ real played. I got nothin’ against a body having a drink now and then, but almost every day? Bore-ring. I don’t understand you anymore. You’re looks are your stock in trade; it’s stupid of you to abuse your body this way.”

Eyoen agreed.
He’d never understood demon’s who had to partake of Cyani ale and flower wines every day. There were no lasting affects like alcoholism, but it had been known to cause an otherwise upstanding demon to act like a complete nuisance in public.

I
n all the years he’d been watching Cass, he’d only ever seen her drunk once, maybe twice, and those times she’d been more tippled than intoxicated. She was so cute in those moments. She laughed a lot and made faces, talked in funny voices. One had been like a small feathered animal humans called a duck.

She’
d grown sleepy, and in his mind’s eye he could see her chin on hand, her eyes closed, lips slightly parted. He sighed mentally, enjoying the quiet, and the heat and scent of her next to him. They would be happy together, he told himself, not realizing his thoughts had already shifted toward the permanent, though his time in this body was finite.

He knew sexually t
hey would be glorious together. He also looked forward to talking with her. She was intelligent and funny, stimulating to him in a way no other female had ever been before. She would love his star, and his father and siblings. His mother he wasn’t so sure about. He loved her of course, but she was certainly an acquired taste. Of course, her flightiness couldn’t be any more exasperating that dealing with someone so vain they were perennially called Priti, could it?

He chuckled inside his head, wishing h
e could hold her hand. Being incapacitated was a ridiculous waste of time. Humans were so frail. Not that his people were invulnerable to harm, but they were certainly made of hardier stuff. Plus, even the lowest demon caste possessed some healing ability.

Only the poorest, most wretched souls suffered physical infirmity
, and wherever his father found those demons he took them in hand, found them work and got them straight. Even the elderly remained hardy until they just wore out after about 1,000 years or so. His own sire was almost 600 years old, and showed no signs of slowing down. Of course, the aristocracy was almost another breed altogether, possessing a different skin, and various degrees of magic.

Soon,
Eyoen told himself. Soon he would hold her the way he’d dreamed of doing for so long. He’d stroke that long, brown body, caress her full breasts, rub his face into the little belly she occasionally poked at while she was jogging on her treadmill or outside. He liked that softness in her. The firm roundness of her ass, the slender, muscled legs, it was all wonderful, but that tiny belly had always captivated him. She called it her candy pouch, since candy was the only bad thing she ate on a semi regular basis. He would treat her to all manner of sweets when they went back to his star.

He felt his battered body stir as he im
agined stripping off her perennial jeans and t-shirt. Yes, by Gods he would get her naked at the soonest opportunity. He’d lay her on her lovely back and toss the little black cotton panties she usually wore aside. He knew that from obsessively watching The Box. The bra would go next.

His father had come in on
ce while he was watching her. He’d begun to complain about the amount of time Eyoen spent watching Cass.

“
You want to do nothing else it seems,” the King observed. “If it weren’t for the fact that you still visit your houris I’d be worried,” he’d said, a silently laughing Rierdane in the background.

But one time h
e hadn’t known his sire was there, and the King had watched Cass shower before Eyoen realized he wasn’t alone and waved the Owe crystal into silent darkness.

“I can see why you are so enamored,” his sire had said quietly, and then diplomatically left, knowing his son
was chafing to watch The Box again lest he miss a moment of Cass.

She’d just come in from a run outdoors, and as was h
er custom after exercising she stayed in the shower for awhile letting the hot water soothe her tired muscles. She always pushed herself. He liked that about her, that she wasn’t afraid to ‘go hard’ as she called it.

She’d picked up a round cake of pale orange soap and sni
ffed it appreciatively. He entertained himself for hours thinking about what scent it might be. He watched barely breathing as she began to wash herself. Stroking white suds over her slim arms and legs, she’d treated him to a lovely, illicit picture of her mons by stretching and washing at the same time. She sighed as she bent from the waist and cleaned her feet without bending her knees. He could tell by looking at her that the stretch along the back of her legs and thighs, the lovely smooth curve of her high round ass felt good.

She’d used a rough-sided sponge to scrub her knees and elbows and feet where the
brown skin was just a bit darker. His mind drifted back to the way her lovely, long-fingered hands had washed her front next, cupping her large breasts as she soaped them and then her belly. He couldn’t wait to lick inside the shallow dent of her navel.

He’d watched breath held as she washed herself between the legs.
She kept her pussy hair very short. He’d watched her trim it often standing with legs spread over the toilet. After her shower she laid down for a nap, sliding between the sheets naked and falling instantly to sleep.

He’d
wanted desperately to slide inside her sleepy, shower damp warmth while she was soft and naked and pliant. Now he stifled a moan; he craved her. It was why he’d petitioned tirelessly to get an Earth visa. He’d endured hours of lectures from his sire, about the dangers of interspecies marriage, the difficulties she would have acclimating herself to life on the star, the problems he would have even getting her to believe that he was from somewhere outside the known universe.