Page 24 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Thank you, to you all, for the help you gave me today.’

Ezume did something odd with its lips, a smile, though it was a gruesome thing to behold. Chinami croaked, nodding its head, the water sloshing about in the cavity.

‘Matilda, if you will please excuse us? I think perhaps I should like to have a few words with Mr Astaroth, alone.’

Matilda’s bland expression did not alter. There was no telling what she thought of this…of anything at all really.

‘Fine. But if you’d be so kind as to stay out of the pond, the kappas would appreciate it. It will take a good hour or so for all that silt the daemon churned up to settle.’

Chinami croaked its agreement, a sound like a broken town-square clock. Pitch wriggled about, taking a breath to reply.

But Silas was in no doubt it was high time for a departure, and he hurried away with his bristling, shivering passenger.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SILAS HADthem inside, out of the elements, as quickly as he could. The run-down cottage consisted of a single room with one very smudged window, making the cluttered interior dimmer than the grey morning outside. He was trying to decide where to set Pitch down when the daemon delivered a vicious slap to his backside.

‘Jesus,’ Silas cried.

‘No, only me. I thought you might like to see how it felt.’ Pitch’s voice slunk low. ‘I do think there is some pleasure amongst the pain.’

A lovely heat rose to Silas’s cheeks. ‘Do you now?’

With his skin smarting, and likely some water in his head making him a bit foolish, Silas landed another slap against delightfully firm princely buttocks.

‘You prick!’ Pitch cried.

‘What? You said you liked it.’ He readied his hand, enjoying this far too much.

Pitch swore and laughed and turned into a daemonic octopus, his arms and legs everywhere at once. The prince found his way off Silas’s shoulder and ended up somehow clinging about his waist like a fetching wet towel. Silas held him easily with one arm, the other darting in to try to deliver another slap.

‘Stop it, you bastard.’ Pitch was hollering the words but really not fighting as hard as he could to escape.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Silas tried for stern, but could not suppress his laughter. ‘Christ, you’re like a bloody squirrel on a tree.’

‘Is that so?’ Pitch was breathless now in a much more pleasant way. ‘Then where shall I hide my nuts?’ Somehow he managed to keep ahold and send his hands into uncouth places at the same time. ‘Oh, this seems a promising spot.’ His fingers danced pressure between Silas’s legs.

‘Don’t you dare!’

Of course the daemon dared. Fingers squeezed tight, and Silas’s balls fired with a pain that was only partly unpleasant. He hollered, dropping to his knees upon a rug made of pieces of interwoven rags, a wonderfully soft place on which to dump his royal load.

Pitch landed with a dull thump, laughing with far too much gusto.

‘That was truly unkind,’ Silas groaned, hands hovering over his pained balls. A pity his cock seemed to enjoy their discomfort, stiff and wholly roused.

‘I could kiss them better if you like?’ Pitch still lay on his back, his head slightly lifted where it rested against a pile of empty hessian sacks stacked beside the table.

Silas swallowed. ‘Oh…bloody hell.’

Pitch sat up, using the edge of the table to steady himself. He rocked onto his knees, shuffling in so he was right up close. The warmth of his breath and the dank scent of pond came at Silas in a rush.

‘Would you like that, Mr Mercer?’ There was enough tightness beneath his trousers to make it clear thathewould.

It was as though the entire incident in the pond had not happened at all.

‘I think I would like it very much.’ The reply came with a shiver, but not one born entirely by the suggestion of Pitch’s mouth between his legs. Silas was very damp and cold.

He traced his fingers over Pitch’s cheek. His skin was only faintly warm, tugging Silas’s thoughts away from what those bowed lips could do to his balls and back to what had brought them to this cottage to begin with. The prince had been in a terrible panic, which was very unlike him. ‘But I am coated in silt and god knows what else…and you…you need warming up.’ Not four words he ever thought he’d say to a daemon with fire in his veins.