Page 3 of King’s Obsession (Obsessions #5)
Dougal
The demons are coming. I can feel it in the air.
Dougal snorted at his random thought. The demons had already been, were there, and were fast becoming a part of the forest Dougal had dedicated his life to.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the demon Dougal had been waiting for, but the demons drawn to his space were a step in the right direction.
It had been a week since Scott and George had their meeting with the other two blissful pairs, helping them to find resolutions and a chance to build their life together.
Dougal had attended, more out of curiosity than anything—information gathering in the hopes that his own demon would finally come to his senses, which didn’t happen.
He was left, as he always was, with the trees and the bushes for company.
To so many who just visited, they saw the forest as a group of trees, bracken, wildflowers, and grasses. To them it was pleasant, mildly boring, but in their mind, there wasn’t anything happening in the scenery they walked through, and largely ignored.
The forest folk, those who lived there, didn’t see things that way.
Dougal had been on the land where the forest now stood, since there was nothing but a few seeds and wispy saplings filled with hope for more.
To him, the forest was the encapsulation of life, complete with births, deaths, drama, love stories, and survival.
Every being in his space, whether it was the trees that soared high into the sky providing shade and relief to smaller plants below, or the smallest rodent scuttling among the rotting leaves on a fall evening—they all had a place, and perhaps more importantly, they knew their place and owned it.
Although that didn’t stop some of the plants from getting a little over ambitious. “Look at you.” Dougal shook his head at a vine that was doing its best to weigh down and suffocate a younger tree. “You have been growing fast, you little rascal.”
He tugged at the tendrils of the vine, moving them off the bark in the higher branches, and settling them around the base of the tree. “If you swallow up that tree, then it dies, and you’ll fall to a messy heap on the ground. You’ll never find the sun that way. Work with the tree, not against it.”
The tree gave a grateful sigh and rustled its leaves.
Dougal got the impression that the tree had spent the past few days wishing it had fingers and thumbs, so he could pluck off the vine that was pushing through the crevices of its rugged skin.
Dougal patted the now clear bark. “You’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
Wandering back to his small cottage, it was natural for Dougal to think about his missing demon.
It wasn’t something he intentionally did—or at least he tried not to, but sometimes, like seeing George’s open acceptance of Scott, or the way Silas and Dakata were now both bound to Silas’s tree, it was difficult not to feel bitter at times.
“What choice have I got but to wait.” Bending his head to step inside the coolness of his one-room space, Dougal wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing him. From the moment his cottage had been built, he’d kept his specific demon’s privacy in mind.
I even keep you a secret in my thoughts, refusing to use your name for fear of outing you, and yet…
The entire cottage was warded with a combination of troll and demon magic, making it impossible to find by people from outside of the forest, and no sounds ever escaped the wards into the surrounding forest. Wouldn’t want to scare the trees, or make the grass blush, Dougal thought with a quick smirk.
The problem, Dougal considered for the gazillionth time, was that while his demon was powerfully strong, he was also hellishly conflicted.
The man just overthinks too much, he thought ruefully.
Scooping himself a mug of cider from the cauldron he kept over his small fireplace, Dougal situated himself in his armchair, his eyes straying to the stone his demon had left him such a long time ago.
It tempted him. All he had to do was pick it up, and he’d be able to see whatever his demon was doing.
But Dougal resisted. It was too much fun to tease and taunt his demon with a hard cock when the nights were long, but deep inside, Dougal knew he wanted more.
Also, he deserved more. He knew that, too.
So many times he thought it would be better for both of them to leave—leave the forest, leave behind the stone that was his only tie to the demon, and just start again somewhere new.
The demon would never find him again if he did that—just thinking about it had Dougal squeezing his eyes tight against the pain.
Not that he would do it. The world had changed so much since Dougal had claimed his land and carved out his space. Wide open spaces, like the land the forest had been built on, would be impossible to find in a land bursting with overpopulation.
And the people in the forest had become Dougal’s family over the centuries.
When Silas had first turned up, looking for his tree, Dougal pointed him in the right direction.
A bond was made and new connections formed.
Then came Wanda… Dougal sighed into his mug, glad she had finally found someone—her blissful one—to keep her happy, and more importantly, safe.
In contrast, George had been a relative newcomer, but Dougal valued his friendship and the way George had done his bit in keeping the forest safe, and the people who lived there happy.
In theory, there was nothing positive about his bond with his own demon.
Sex. That’s all that ties us together. It’s just sex.
And it hurt him thinking that, even when it was obvious that it was true.
Dougal wasn’t under any illusions that there was any love or caring in the way his demon treated him.
The moment his cum hit the floor, the demon was gone, leaving Dougal’s arms empty and his heart aching.
Time and time again, Dougal told himself he wouldn’t do it.
That he’d hide the next time the rampaging demon came hunting him.
“But the ties that bind us go both ways,” he admitted in the silence glumly.
Leaning back, Dougal stretched out his legs, thinking back to when Silas had first mentioned his own demon—Dakata.
How he’d gotten swept away and couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Dougal had known Dakata would be sticking around even then.
He shook his head as he remembered what he’d told the young dryad.
“A demon can put down roots… It’s very rare, but there are stories of a demon who loses his heart to another, and if that ever happens, they never break that commitment.
It’s just not easy for them. A demon and his human side are two distinct personalities, and for a bond to take, both sides have to have an equal attraction to the focus of their obsession—an equal desire to commit beyond a fuck. ”
Dougal had seen it happen—seen his own demon face the fact one of his own kind had found his blissful one.
Dougal carried the hope for a week afterward that the clueless lump would put two and two together, but he hadn’t.
The same demon doubts that had persisted since their first encounter were just as alive and well when Merihem met his blissful one, Peni, then Wanda and Christa, followed by Scott finding George.
“Maybe it’s me that’s doing the overthinking.
” Dougal pointed his finger at the alluring stone.
“I believed the first ‘mine’ you uttered was the one that counted, but maybe it’s me that’s wrong and I should listen to my own advice.
When you come here, all you’re looking for is a fuck.
You’ve never once asked my opinion, you’ve never once thought to hold me or even clean us up before you’re gone.
We’ve never shared a meal together or simply walked through this wondrous place hand in hand.
You claim you want answers, but maybe it’s me that’s been ignoring the answer that’s been staring me in the face from the very first fuck. ”
Annoyed with the way his thoughts were dragging him down, Dougal put down his mug and stormed out of his cabin.
Moving faster than could be seen by the human eye, he sped through the trees and the undergrowth to the very far corner of his forest. Miles away from his friends, he stood on a spot high on a hill that looked out to the sea beyond.
Letting loose his true form, Dougal screamed out the fury and despair that threatened to swallow him whole.
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t!”