Page 7 of The Filled Vessel (Cambric Creek After Darkverse #4)

Chapter eight

Corviss

H is cock was already drooling.

Corviss had expected the girl to already be sleeping when he arrived that night; expected to climb atop her as he had since his summoning. He had not been prepared to chance upon her pleasuring herself.

She teetered, balancing on the knife tip of her world and sleep, making it easy for him to enter. Her mind was heavy and tired, her body warm and wound tight as she held the vibrating apparatus, sinking into her pillows and the dreamscape alike. Her full breasts had taken on the same lovely flush of her face, and her head tipped back, mouth open, looking as beautiful as one of the nymphs at the Firefly Queen’s Midsummer Revel, being taken by a cluster of other partygoers.

He slid like a shadow to the foot of the bed, sliding his nails up her thighs as he took his perch, curling one finger and then a second into the hot cavern of her sex, as tight and sucking around them as it would be around his cock. The girl cried out as she unraveled, the device she used to aid her pleasure finishing her off quickly. When she tightened around him, Corviss nearly took wing at the flood of slickness around his fingers, the smell of which made his feathers fluff and raise.

He could taste her desire on the air, and it was even more delicious than her fear.

His cock was dripping, drooling pre-cum, hard and eager, and he didn’t need to wonder what the incubus who should have been here would have done. He would have fucked the girl before she was even sleeping, hard and punishing . . . But you’re not a demon. You’re a nightmare, and you should do what nightmares do. He was and he should . . . but instead, he did neither.

She had not been fully asleep yet, he realized, her conscious mind not beneath the waters of the dreamsea, and she struggled against the paralysis that came with his perch. Good. Perfect. He turned where he sat, pushing her legs open and curling in on himself until he could reach his prize. Pushing his face between her soft thighs, the heat of her beckoned him. He wanted her fear, fed on her fear . . . but he wanted to taste her desire more, and he didn’t actually give a shit about what the incubus would have done just then, nor what he was meant to be doing.

The first dip of his tongue between her hot, slick folds made her back arch as if she were being electrocuted. The taste of her slick was sweet and thick like ambrosia, absent the sharpness of her fear. It enveloped his tongue and coated his throat, and he licked deeper, wanting more. The girl made a gurgling noise in her throat, jerking against his mouth as his tongue moved from her slit to clit, licking a broad stripe up the lips of her sex, grunting at the delectable taste. She made one of her small animal noises when he suckled that protuberant little button, and so he did it again and again, finding that she jolted every time he did so. He wanted her to climax again, wanted to feel that rush of hot honey against his tongue, wanted to swim in her juices.

He could feel her tension, the tremor in her muscles and the pulsing in her cunt, telltale signs that she would soon be wracked by convulsing contractions, flooding his mouth in her sweet nectar. When she did so at last, he crowed in triumph. The rest of her body was still frozen by his presence, but her cunt was not, and it pulsed against his tongue as she shook with her orgasm, nearly shaking apart. He lapped her up, uncertain of how this knowledge had been kept from him all his life. He wondered if they all tasted this sweet, all the humans whose fear he fed on, or if the girl was singular.

When she slackened beneath him, he nearly fell off the bed in his haste to turn. He desperately needed to bury his cock in her, and his eyes rolled back at the now-familiar, sucking heat. He should take her back to the unwaking world with him, Corviss thought, force her to keep his cock warm with her body every minute he was not otherwise engaged fucking her, feed on her fear and her desire and take an early retirement . . . it was something to ponder, but for now, he wanted to sink back into her unconscious mind.

He had felt her pleasure, clenching around his cock and fingers, had smelled it and witnessed it, and now he’d tasted it. Tipping forward with a splash into her mind, he wanted to see it, and he was not disappointed. A kaleidoscope of color swirled through her dreamsea, and Corviss realized he might not have need of her fear again. He was sated on her pleasure, well-fed from the ecstasy he licked from her cunt, and had no cause to pull her into a nightmare.

He was not expecting her to be waiting for him.

He did not know enough about humans to be able to say if she was beautiful by their own standards. Her hair was the same color of the stygian cliffs where he nested, overlooking the waters of the Lethe, and her soft skin was the same color as a newborn fawn. Her eyes resembled a fawn’s as well, luminous and dark, opened wide as she took him in. Her body was soft and round and warm, and he did not relish the thought of perching next on a human without her soft plushness. He didn’t know what humans considered attractive, but she was lovely, he thought.

“It’s-it’s you,” she wheezed, suspended in the rippling dream water like a pixie floating in a birdbath. Her long, dark hair wavered behind her like seaweed, her limbs floating weightless. “I knew it, I knew you would come again. But why? Why are you here?”

“You’re the one who summoned me, pet. I am only here because you called.”

Dawning realization bloomed across her face just as she went slack around him. “The ritual . . . do you mean to tell me it-it worked?!”

He nodded, watching as her eyes cast about as if she had dropped something.

“But-but that doesn't make sense! I was supposed to gain clarity, be in tune with the other side. I'm supposed to understand what I'm supposed to do next."

Corviss watched as she sputtered. He understood the cat's frustration, he supposed. The girl was still under the impression she could simply buy a spell and make her life easier, despite having been told it didn't work that way. He wasn’t quite sure what she was seeking clarity on. It seemed to him that her problems lie only in how she perceived herself, versus how she wanted to be perceived.

"You were tricked. By the cat. The ritual you completed was to summon a demon."

Her mouth dropped open. "A demon ?!"

"An incubus, to be precise. You should have known from the —"

"The candle," she whispered, drawing a hand to her face, slowly through the rippling water. "I should have know from the shape of that fucking candle. I knew it looked like a cock!"

She looked him up and down, and he could tell she wondered if her face betrayed her feelings over his physical appearance. It did, he thought dourly.

"An-an incubus. Is that what you are?" The levity he had been feeling quickly dissipated, and he scowled, shifting. In the waking world, she cried out, his avian talons digging into her skin.

" I am no demon, little fool. I am here because you called. The ritual you completed summoned a particular incubus, and I . . . I am covering his shift this month." He realized they were no longer swimming in the dreamsea, but rather, they were back in her bedroom. Her mind had brought them somewhere more familiar, more comfortable, and he could not say he minded. "As I said, you were tricked. By the cat."

"Cat . . . no, by Holt. He's a man, he runs a shop. They sell —"

"He is a cat," Corviss interrupted. "Cats are malevolent creatures, all of them. Corrupt to their cores. They serve a dark master and would never deign to make themselves low for love of a human. Trickery is a skill they have long mastered."

She gaped at his words, but then after a moment, the small smile curved her lips.

"Well, you would think, being a bird."

It was Corviss's turn to sputter.

"I am not a bird, stupid girl! I am the thing you fear most in the dark, your worst nightmares made real."

"You don't look that scary," she mused, the small smile still on her face. "Did you get the bird food I left you?"

His nostrils flared and her smile stretched, before being replaced with a look of confusion.

"Wait, if you're not in incubus . . . My dreams. You're the one who crashed the plane." She sucked in a breath when he knotted, echoing the motion. "I already knew that. I knew it was you. But an incubus wouldn't care about my dreams."

"I already told you, I am not —"

She held up an interrupting hand, cutting him off.

“So if you are doing the work for an incubus, does that mean you've-you’ve been . . ." She trailed off, both hands raising to cover her mouth as her eyes widened further.

She understood then.

“You’re cock warming me right now, sweet pet,” he crooned with his own dose of malice, regaining the upper hand, grinning as her eyes bulged. He could feel her muscles twitch in the waking world, testing the veracity of his claim. Corviss groaned, giving her his most malevolent smile. “Mmm, do that again.”

She gasped when she realized he’d been able to feel it, that this was, in fact, only a lucid dream, that her body was actually pressed beneath his.

“That means you've been . . . to me . . . in me. Since the ritual."

It was a good thing she had moved her sleeping mind back to her bed, for she may have fallen otherwise, Corviss thought ruefully. She swayed where she sat at the edge of the mattress, her lips moving and no sound coming out, her eyes casting about, turning swiftly to whip back her comforter and gaze at the sheet, as if she expected something to be there.

"The true incubus would have been rougher with you," he grumbled sullenly, quite annoyed at the way the evening had turned out. He should have pushed her into the deep the instant he entered the water, or better yet, he should have climbed off her body once his hunger was sated and he had feasted on her cunt, and flown home. His cock jerked, reminding him that it had not yet been satisfied, his balls still tight and hot. What happened to blow a load and clock out? This is what you get for being a sentimental simpleton.

"That was you earlier? Just before?"

She watched him, top teeth coming down on her full lower lip in a way that was quite appealing. He decided that the following night, he would paralyze her as soon as he perched, not bothering with her dreams. He would nudge his cock head against her lips until she was forced to open her mouth, and would use her throat the way a real demon might. Blow a load and clock out. It would be better than having to hear her talk, he decided.

"You touched me," she went on, "and you-you licked me." Her eyes moved down his body, taking in his feathered neck and shoulders and wide wings, and the way his feathers began over the tops of his thighs, moving down over knee and calf until they bent back in scaled corvid legs. "It doesn't look like you finished," she murmured in a shaky voice, biting her lip again at the sight of his engorged cock. "Were you planning on using that?"

He nodded, and his cock twitched again beneath her heavy gaze. She jumped when it did so, exhaling sharply, seeming like she was gathering herself for something.

"But you went down on me first."

It wasn't a question, so he didn't feel the need to give an answer. Besides, Corviss thought, he didn't especially want to admit that he had found a way to sate his hunger without threading her nightmares.

He watched the girl take a deep breath, exhaling sharply again as she reached out to him. Just as she had deep in her dreamsea, her hand closed over his shaft, gripping him tightly. It was his turn to suck in a breath when she began to move, using his violet-colored foreskin to stroke him from root to tip, gasping slightly as she moved up his ridged underside.

"What happens now?" she asked, tugging him gently by the base until he made a move forward. When the pad of her thumb found its way to his slit, she coated herself in the pre-come he leaked, using its viscous slipperiness to stroke down his shaft again.

"I will be back tomorrow night," he gritted out. "And every night until my debt is repaid. Then I go back to my own duties." He hissed when she led his cock head to the lips of her sex, rubbing over her clit several times before guiding him to her entrance.

"And what duties are those?"

"I am a nightmare. A sleep paralysis nightmare, to be specific."

She nodded, biting her lip briefly before gripping his hips and pulling him forward. She was as tight and warm as she had been every other time. For a moment, as he rolled his hips into hers, feeling her gasp against him and her fingers tighten in his feathers, he could not immediately discern what was different. She was tight and warm, soft and sweet smelling, and her cunt still felt just as good around his cock as it had he'd slid it into her, but this time . . . this time she was an active participant.

Corviss realized, for the very first time since he had begun flying into the realm of mortals to perch on their sleeping forms and suck up their fear, that he could not quite discern the difference between the dreamsea and the waking world.

"You'll be back tomorrow," she went on doggedly, "and-and you're going to give me another nightmare? Like the plane crash?" She cried out as he lifted her legs, resting her ankles over his feathered shoulders, an exquisite angle to thrust upward into her.

"I am what I am," he snapped, teeth gnashing, close to her throat. For a long moment, he could do nothing but concentrate on fucking her, on the tight press of her inner walls around his cock, on the small sounds she made. He wanted her in the center of the bed, further back where he could climb over her body, but it was impossible to push her into that position as they currently were. It was easier to lift her, he decided, scooping her up from the bed as she squeaked. His hips never ceased that movement, chasing his release with increasing fervor. His balls were tight, nearly cramping with the need to expel, and if he could put her in a position where he could rub her clit again, he might be able to force one final climax out of her for the night, giving him the squeeze he needed to make him erupt.

"Fine. You'll be back, and you'll probably give me another nightmare."

He threw her down to the center of the bed, and the girl wheezed in shock, stretching her legs open wide for him as he settled between them, feeding his cock into her once more and resuming his rhythm. He was ready to explode, was going to fill her to the brim with his seed, and it was almost a waste that she was merely a human. He began to rub her clit, tight circles, fingers rolling over the swollen little pearl, and her breath hitched.

“But you're going to lick my pussy again first, right?”

A choked laughter escaped him at her words, the first time he could ever remember laughing at work. She was audacious, but she had spent a good deal of money on her little ritual. It wasn’t a magic potion, but clearly she still intended to get her money’s worth.

He continued to caw in laughter, groaning when she tightened around him, for he knew her words were true. He would feed on her again, would have his fill, substituting her desire for her fear, a revelation if there ever was one. The girl hardly seemed afraid of him, he realized, wondering when he’d become so predictable that even a human could see through his motivations.

She was right, he decided. He wanted to taste her cunt and feed on the ambrosia of her desire again . . . but he was a nightmare, after all, and her fear was equally delicious. Perhaps, he thought, closing his eyes as he emptied into her, he would do well to sample both.