Page 15

My First Tra in in Ages

Helena would not stop grinning at him as she held his arm walking down the platform. They were both carrying overnight bags slung over their shoulders, looking like the dozens of other travelers boarding the train. He followed Helena’s lead as she led him into one of the cars. Having consulted her ticket, she let go of his arm so she could navigate down a narrow hallway until she stopped by the middlemost co mpartment.

“Here we go; this is us,” she pronounced, and slid the door to one side to enter. “What do y ou think?”

“It is not how I last remembered,” he said, following her in, sliding the door shut behin d himself.

Plopping down on the gray two-seater to the left, she dropped her carry-on bag on a single seat opposite. “What were you e xpecting?”

Rafferty ran his hand over the top of the seat, all efficient g ray vinyl.

“Jewel-colored velvet. Ruby red or sapphire blue, wrought iron filigree.”

“Hmm,” Helena cooed. “That does sound more romantic.”

He grinned as he settled down next to her, dropping his bag onto the floor, and she immediately cuddled into him, slipping herself under his arm, fitting against him as if made to be there.

“This is nice too,” she said, relaxing in a way she hadn’t in the last few days.

He knew that they were headed to a possibly stressful situation, but there was something golden about this moment. That ecstatic feeling echoed inside him from the first time it hit him that he was alive. Running his hand along Helena’s back, breathing her scent in, as long as he forgot the new truth of her existence, he could just be happy.

“So you didn’t just get summoned into kitchens, if you’ve ridden in a train before,” she said, picking up the conversation after a moment of blissful peace. They both gazed out the window, though there wasn’t much to look at yet except the side of another train waiting in the depot.

“Yes, I’ve ridden in a train before,” he agreed. “A long time ago by your per spective.”

“It wasn’t for anything cooking rela ted then?”

He shook his head. “No, that particular mistress wanted something very different from me. I’m not even sure how she got my name to s ummon me.”

“What did she want?” Helena rested a hand on his chest, brushing slow circles through the fabric of his shirt, slipping under the edge of his coat and out again. It felt so soothing. “If you want to talk about it. You don’t have to.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I will tell you anything you ask,” he assured, then took another moment to collect his answer. “Being a demon is more about being willing to say yes to anything than it is anything magical or mystical. The power of yes seems to be just as rare, if not rarer than anything I could conjure.”

She snuggled into him as she listened.

Rafferty cleared his throat and continued. “I don’t remember when it was, what year. People wore hats in public. I was dressed in a vest and jacket. It was hot, so probably summer. She…” He swallowed. “She was escaping her parents and their designs for her future. She wanted me to protect her as she journeyed out to the west and a dventure.”

“Hmm, I wish I could see that, you in old-timey clothes,” Helena said, as the whole car jerked, shuddering into motion. “Did she fall in love with you?”

He twitched. “She… lust maybe… or at least… I wouldn’t have called it love.”

Helena spun around, her expression delighted and teasing. “Oh, really?” she asked, setting her cheek on her fist, her elbow propped against his che st. “And?”

He felt like a bug pinned under a particularly deli ghted cat.

“You said you wanted to be honest with me,” she continued to tease, her eyes dancing merrily like candle flames, reflecting gold flashes over her natural s tone blue.

“When did I say that?” he countered, just as playfully.

“Oh, I don’t know. I feel like it was recently.” She pouted, which made her even more achi ngly cute.

Words were failing him. He had never needed to speak of such things and normally he wouldn’t feel so shy about it. Shame about sex was not something he could ever afford, and he had done too much too many times to really be affected by a trivial emotion. But what he felt and did with Helena was different. It was more than simply desire and heat, it touched his soul and cut through the shield of disinterest he had used to protect himself. It was terrifying and yet healed him at the same time.

Or at least it had before when she had been human and he the unnatura l monster.

Closing his eyes, he brought his forehead forward, cupping the back of her head to draw hers to meet him.

“What are we doing?” she asked after a second, her words barely forming out of th e whisper.

“You may eat the memory,” he said. He felt her go completely still under his hand.

“But… won’t that destroy it for you?” she asked.

“I don’t care. It’s not one I treasure,” he said. “You may have it.”

She pulled away a moment, her golden eyes studying his, glinting hungrily.

“I offered myself to you, mind, body, and soul,” he affirmed, so there would be no doubt. “You need to feed your power to stay here. And I want you here.”

“But won’t I be doing to you what the others in… that place di d to you?”

He cupped her face and pulled her in f or a kiss.

It happened then. Her resistance gave way, and he could feel her slip into his mind. It was slower than the first time he had eaten her memory of the taste of chocolate cake. Then he had simply wanted to do her as little harm as possible. In quick and out again, capturing the delectable memory of the taste of cake. At the time, it was a shadow of what a real taste would be, but more than he had know n in ages.

But he recognized this was Helena’s first time. She was cautious, reaching out on instinct to go where she didn’t belong. Ice knifed through his brain.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she breathed, pulling away, but he locked his hand behind her head to keep her in place.

“It’s alright,” he breathed. “I’ll live. Just take it into yourself.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered. Her hand snaked around to cup his own head fr om behind.

“That’s it,” he confirmed as he felt her move into him again. And then the memory ignited, pla ying out…

She sat across from him in the car. She had been smiling shyly at him all morning. He could smell it from where he sat. The musk of her desire, the rapid beating of her heart as loud as a drum, at least to his ears.

He knew what was coming before she said it. He simply waited, with his ankle crossing his knee, his hands resting on both as the train rocked them hard from side to side. After five days of traveling, he was getting used to the sensation.

The motion was also making his mistress’s desi res worse.

“If I order you to, you have to do anything I ask, correct?” Her handfan fluttered as she asked the question, which did little to move the summer air i n the car.

“As you command, my lady, ” he said.

She snapped the fan together. “Then, kiss me,” she ordered, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, the training she had received in being a lady who could command a room manifesti ng itself.

He dropped his crossed foot and leaned forward, letting his grin slide onto his face. This had been easy. Barely a week and this innocent ingenue was ready to partake of his pleasures. But it wasn’t the prospect of sex that excited him; it was the thrill of taking the energy of her body. She was a rich vein that would increase his wealth sign ificantly.

“Lift your skirt,” he said to her, his voice low and rumbling.

It was bold. She c ould buck.

Maybe that was why he did it. Some small part of him wanted to give her a chance to escape what was about to happen. She would never be the same afterward. There was a good chance that if she only did this with him once, she wouldn’t even notice that she had even lost anything until she was quite old and it was too late. If she only congressed with a demon once, the damage would be minimal to her long-te rm health.

Her eyes went wide, her brea th caught.

Then slowly, she lifted her skirt, bringing it up past her knees, the cloth trembling with the excitement and terror that always came with defying the forbidden. She hesitated when the cloth reached her mid-thigh. The garters she wore were now clearly visible, but as he suspected, she didn’t wear any drawers due to the heat of the year. It was more th an enough.

He slid his hand along that exposed skin, and she gasped in a sharp breath. Fearfully, her eyes flitted to the door of their little private compartment. It hadn’t occurred to her to save money by taking a lesser class. The shade over the window was drawn down, and the door would not open without a warn ing knock.

Just so, he expended a little bit of power to encourage all those who would interfere to continue past as quickly as possible, automatically skipping the door.

No one would disturb them, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. The thrill of being caught added to the ap hrodisiac.

He pulled at his cravat and undid the top button, showing her a scandalous amount of his neck. Pure as the driven snow, she gasped again, her own fingers lifting to touch the beckoning skin. That alone made her moan, and it was at that moment when his fingers darted in past her defenses.

She gasped and squeaked. As she did so, he moved in and slipped his tongue into her opening mouth, swallowing her cries, as his digit slicked along her wetness. He didn’t enter her. Not yet. Only traced along her folds and back, feeling for the erection of her clitoris, already sparking.

Her hands grasped feebly at his shoulders, yet she did not push him away. Only hesitated as she tried to comprehend what was happening. His fingers moved again, exploring her, mapping out her responses to the touch, all while he continued to ravish her lips.

There was a temptation to slip one of his fingers inside her, test out that virginity she had been so proud of a few da ys before.

“Oh Rafferty,” s he moaned.

That was wrong. That… that wasn’t h is memory.

Breaking the kiss, he looked down at the young woman before him, but she had changed, been replaced by an angel with golden -red hair.

Helena smiled up at him, wrapping her hands around his neck to pull him back into another ro bust kiss.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t change what had happened. This was a memory.

But guilt was introduced, a feeling he knew he hadn’t felt as he deflowered… he couldn’t remember her name. That was gone, consumed by the demoness invading this memory. The woman beneath him as he opened his trousers to set his cock free was a different woman. And she was consuming him instead of him consu ming her…