Daemour Castle Nights Ch. 01

Author's note: This is my first work of Erotic fiction, based off a roleplay in the Literotica forums. The prince is the Sole Property of KittenofDeath and is used with his blessing. Feedback is appreciated, flames cheerfully ignored. There will be more of Valya soon, but only if it is asked for. I apologize for any rough spots, like I said, this is my maiden voyage, so to speak. You always remember your first...

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Valya Cachtice paced like a caged animal along the walls of her small cell in the slave quarters, her lithe, nude form sliding gracefully through myriad small shifts of body structure, skin tone and hair color. She was new here, and apparently the ones who had dragged her to this castle, daemons rot their souls, hadn't gotten around to even providing her with the quarters usually assigned a slave. She had a pallet in one corner, but that was effectively it for furnishings.

No food had been brought in the few days she'd been cloistered here either. This was not the end of the world, since being half-daemon meant she could go quite a while without sustenance, but she was a succubus, and being starved and celibate at the same time was NOT fun. But she wasn't sure what to do about it. She could hear a guard patrolling the halls outside, but her door was solid, so she didn't have line-of-sight into the hallway. She could hear screams, and moans, and piteous gibbering, interspersed with shouts and commands and the sounds of leather on flesh, so she guessed she was in the dungeons. There had to be a reason she was down here.

She was a slave now, that much had been made clear. What hadn't been clarified was what her duties would be, or how to go about them, or even who's thrice-damned castle this was! She had a pretty good idea what they wanted with her, though. She was half-succubus, beautiful, and capable of an astonishing number of variations in her form. That screamed "joygirl" or "pleasure slave" or "concubine" or any other of the popular euphemisms for "whore." She was no stranger to sex, and enjoyed it more than most, but being imprisoned and enslaved for it was new. Still, it was better than the only alternative reason for why she had been taken. Even a half-breed daemon represented an awful lot of power, and she feared that if she wasn't being held for sex, then she would be used in some terrible ritual, or ritually bound, or sacrificed in a dark and terrible ceremony.

She hoped that her jailers would come soon, if only to break the monotony. Maybe then she could get a better grasp on the situation...

Hours passed before anything happened, but eventually, Valya heard footsteps in the hallway, pausing before the door to her cell. Valya looked up as the port in the door was pulled open, letting in the torchlight. After so long in the utter darkness, even the weak light was almost painful and her eyes had trouble adjusting, so she let their vision slide into partially into the infrared. What she could see was little better than a silhouette with color highlights, but she could make out long black hair and vibrantly purple bangs framing a pale, fine-boned face. Her heat vision told her that this woman's body was heated like a furnace, and that meant that whoever she was, she had a vastly accelerated metabolism of some sort. Whatever the cause, it was causing her to glow like a lamp to Valya's eyes.

"Here," said a voice, and a slot further down the door, almost at the floor, slid open and a tray of food was pushed through. The voice was beautiful, especially after days with no sound but the pathetic mewlings of the other captives for company.

"I...thank you." Valya's normally strong, high soprano sounded rusty and faltering. She hadn't spoken a word since they threw her in here, and the language spoken here was not Valya's own. She had a good grasp of it, but it wasn't her native tongue (which would dislocate the jaw of any normal human trying to approximate it) and it would take time for her to remember all of the linguistic nuances.

Valya let her form stop shifting, settling for now on a pale, slender girl approximately five-foot-two with ash-blonde hair, a sensuous mouth, and bright blue eyes. This form was calculated to seem young, innocent, fragile, and pretty without having the lush curves that might exacerbate the lust of any who looked upon her. In short, it looked like it wanted to be protected, a badly frightened sixteen-year old girl who just wanted someone to hold her.

As she stepped over and retrieved the tray, Valya tried to put just the right quaver into her voice as she asked, "Who are you? What is this place? And what are they planning to do with me? Please, I don't know what I did, and I just want to go home..."

G looked at the woman with something that was almost sympathy, but not quite. She slid a cup of water under the door, too and answered, "My name is G. This is Daemour Castle, domicile and stronghold of The Prince. I, like you, am a servant and a slave. To be honest, I have no idea what they have intended for you. I imagine you will find out soon enough though."

She looked at the petite woman more closely. Curiosity led her to ask "Why does your form change so much?" Her cat-like night vision allowed her to see the woman in detail even though the lighting in the dungeons was terrible.

Valya was wrongfooted by the question, but then, most never saw her shift, or they knew her nature already. She had forgotten mortals didn't have any way of telling, and that simple mistake had caused her to reveal one of her most potent secrets. Still, as long as G already knew, there was probably no harm in telling her why and how. Besides, the tone of her voice, non-threatening and filled with a simple, non-sexual, non-threatening curiosity struck a chord in Valya.

"Please don't tell anyone!" Valya begged. Her voice began to quaver as the enormity of what the knowledge of her powers could cause her captors to do sunk in. "Please! I'm not dangerous. Its just...something I can do. I'm not human, not completely. Its just something I was born with." This was not entirely true. She was dangerous, being faster and stronger than a human, and a modestly accomplished sorceress back in her own infernal home. Though gods alone knew what would happen if she tried demonic magic here.

Valya stopped and took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing that what she was about to say might frighten this woman away, but she had to give her the whole truth. Maybe then she wouldn't go running to this "Prince" and possibly get Valya horribly killed.

"I'm a half-succubus, the sort of demon that tempts mortals, turning them into nothing more than bundles of carnal desires, each more depraved than the last." she paused, then made a face, and added, "Though by the standards of that side of my 'family' I'm not very good at it. I can't even siphon off an entire soul, only pieces of it." Valya suddenly realized how awful that sounded and hurried on. "I don't have to! Honest! Its how a succubus feeds, like a human would eat. I can do either one, or both. Please, please don't tell anyone!" she begged, "I'll do anything!"

Valya quieted then, mostly because she didn't know what else to say. She'd been in tight spots before, as part and parcel of her heritage and her homeland, but she'd never had death so close, so implacable, before. Valya knew, knew, that she was one wrong word from being burned at the stake, or decapitated, or racked, or raped to death. As she stood, hoping against hope that this woman would take a chance on her and not out her to her captors, she silently began to cry, the tears rolling slowly down her alabaster cheeks.

G watched as the woman spilled her entire story to her and wept, begging. The entire time, her face kept the same expression. Slightly curious, but otherwise showing no real emotion.

"At this time, I see no reason to tell anyone anything other than that I have seen the new prisoner and that she appears to be a short human woman. Just don't give me any reason to tell them otherwise." Though G had always been a servant, she was highly intelligent. She knew the values of having some form of leverage over someone with power, and this woman certainly seemed to have power. "What is your name?" she asked her.

Valya got a hold of herself almost immediately. This woman wasn't going to have her killed, which was a relief. Besides, if she could get into the general servant population, she may be able to disappear, if she had to. Shapeshifting was funny that way. Especially a demonic shift. It wasn't sorcery, though sorcery could probably detect it, unless Valya took...steps, that were probably a Bad Idea unless absolutely necessary. Still, it was nice to have the option. Not even the woman in front of her knew what she really looked like, so if she had to disappear into the servant population and someone DID come looking for her armed with magic, all she would have to do is revert to her mostly-human true nature, and they'd be shit out of luck. It wasn't perfect, but it was as good as she was going to get for a while.

G asked her a question, but it took a moment to register that she was asking Valya's name. Since Valya was only an approximation of what her name ACTUALLY sounded like, she saw no reason not to give it to her.

"My name is Valya, Valya Cachtice. And thank you, G. I owe you my life, and I meant it when I said I'd do anything." With that, Valya took the tray and cup and retreated to the far wall of her cell to eat.

G nodded at Valya and turned to walk away. "Someone will be by for that plate and cup later. Don't tear them up too badly. Wanna make a good first impression." Without further speech, she walked out of the dungeon to attend to her other duties.

Valya ate slowly, forcing herself to stomach the food. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate that someone had brought something for her, it was that it was typical dungeon food, which is to say that it was awful in a vaguely stomach-churning sort of way. As she ate, she shapeshifted her tongue to much longer than normal human length, to make sure she got everything off of her fingers (no one had provided a utensil). She finished the food, and the water, taking care not to damage the flatware.

Finished, she sat in the near-total darkness and thought. For the good, she had food, and a measure of her strength back as a result. She had met another slave and gotten her name. She had found out that this was the castle of a Prince of some sort, and that she had not been forgotten. She knew that the slaves, at least, were unaware of her true nature and thus her capabilities.

For the bad, while her strength was coming back, it wasn't fully replenished, nor would it be. She needed to feed, and she needed to do it soon. Preferably with a mortal or demi-mortal, but a sufficiently powerful being would do in a pinch. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know who, or what, the prince was. She knew that there were magical wards all over the place, and that they would interfere with some of her powers and nearly all of her magic, either damping, canceling, or reacting with it depending on whether she tried mortal magic or infernal.

Lastly, she was tired, still weak (for a succubus), and completely nude, and stuck in this miserable form if she didn't want to give her secret away. It had been calculated to keep people from lusting for her, but the sadistic types who generally staffed a dungeon or an evil powermonger's guard were likely to get more enjoyment out of beating, torturing, or raping what appeared to be a defenseless sixteen-year-old, albeit a fairly developed one. If it came to it, she could try infernal magic, or use her full strength, but then the masquerade was up, and that might mean worse than physical punishment. She was good at hiding her feelings, and had learned to take pleasure in almost everything. She'd had to, as a defense mechanism. Not for the first time, she was grateful for it. But now, she needed to sleep. She curled into a ball on the pallet and drifted off to the screams of the other prisoners...

Hours came and went. Valya slept, awoke, slept again, awoke again. After waking the second time, she found that she could not get back to sleep, and decided that if they planned to leave her here, they had damn well better be able to do it properly. With that, she began probing the cell for weak points.

Being demonic hath its privileges, such as increased physical abilities. Still, she was no hulking brute, and it was a pretty sturdy looking door. Besides, without boots or gloves, hauling off and applying more than human strength to an ironbound door would probably be more harmful to her than the door itself. Between that and the walls, constructed of something that was at least superficially large stone blocks, the physical realm was pretty much out as a way free, unless she could use magic to bring her physical power up to the necessary levels...

...which brought her to the other part of her tests, and the much trickier part, at that. She sat crosslegged in the middle of the cell and closed her eyes. First, something simple. A succubus was naturally a telepath, able to dominate minds. Valya, being essentially a watered down version, couldn't dominate a mind, but she could push pretty hard in a given "direction." Her range wasn't that far, but there were plenty of prisoners in what sounded like fairly easy reaching distance. She chose one, right next door it seemed, who was shrieking loudly. Perfect. She gathered her concentration and pushed at his mind, willing him to be silent.

Nothing happened.

Damn.

She tried again, harder this time. All Valya got for her efforts was a splitting headache for a moment, which passed quickly. Ok, they knew to an extent what she was, or this place wouldn't be this locked down. No point in hiding it, then, and she would get a fair bit more power out of herself if she didn't have to maintain the shift. She relaxed and let her body slide into its natural configuration, sighing as she "went home" to her regular form. Ok, telepathy was warded. Magic too, probably, if they were going to go the distance. How about innate abilities?

She drew a bit harder on her succubus lineage and tried to become ethereal. Surprising herself, she succeeded. That had always been one of the hardest of her abilities to call on, even at the best of times, and she never could do the teleport her full-blooded sisters seemed to manage. Still, this was a step in the right direction. She looked down at herself, marveling at her incorporeal state, but she also knew she couldn't hold it for long. She strode toward the door, fully intending to pass through it. She reached the door, put one hand out...

...and was promptly blasted to the floor and right back into material form. The blast hadn't hurt a whole lot, but it definitely spoke with authority. She lay on the floor blown back into her true form, her red hair fanned above her head, her body sprawled haphazardly across the stone, and it was a long moment before she could bring herself to look up to the door. When she did, she saw an indelible image of her own handprint glowing in crimson on the doorway, over what looked like some sort of hexagrammatic ward, also giving off a deep glow, though it was purple rather than red. They faded after a moment, but she knew that she'd just tripped something, and that it was unlikely to be good...

"Oh, you're new" he said, looking in through the hatch in the door "who do you belong to?"

Valya looked up at the new voice, surprised. It had been perhaps fifteen minutes since her ill-advised experiment, and she hadn't even noticed the approach of the speaker. This one was deeper, more masculine. Sexier. She looked up at the shape in the doorway, again letting her vision shift into the heat spectrum to see what it was she was looking at. Which was...

...Nothing. He just flat-out didn't register at all.

Well, that was creepy.

She thought hard. The wrong answer here might cause all manner of untoward problems, and after getting blown halfway across her cell, she just wasn't in the mood to deal with them. On the other hand, she also wasn't in the mood to be nice, demure, and obedient, regardless of the consequences. Oh, the hell with it, she thought.

"I belong to the 'Prince.' And my name is Valya." She stared back at him, her eyes, cold, ophidian, cruel. And afraid. This one was not human, or demon, and that scared her. But she had her pride, so her shoulders were squared, her head high, and her voice level as she asked, "And who are you, sir?" The sarcasm on the last word was painfully evident...

The prince watched as the prisoner, Valya she called herself, he doubted it was her real name, shifted through what skills she had left to her after the castle's ward went in to overdrive in an attempt to figure out who and what he was. By the expression on her face, she wasn't all that successful, so he decided to play with his food a little bit.

"Me? Oh I'm just a fellow slave to our master the prince" he shrugged "though I don't suppose I'll see quite as much use as you will, his tastes are varied, but he is rather strict on the food being female."

He mentally grabbed a key from the opposite wall and unlocked the cell, the door glowing for a moment as the hexagrammatic wards fell away. All of them. The succubus was free to use whatever powers she wished now, and the rest of the wards stopped her from sensing the guards outside the dungeon. As far as she knew, this man was just some lowly slave, maybe with a bit of kick in him, but nothing threatening. The Prince was quite accomplished at playing a wolf in sheep's clothing, and relished it, though he hated the metaphor.

"Its my duty to inspect the Prince's new acquisitions," he said with a smile as he walked in to the cell, "examining and document them them, so it can easily be determined when there are any changes, such as a warden over extending his authority, or a guard handing out unnecessary...punishments."

He is rather strict on the food being female. Valya's mind kicked into overdrive as she digested this, because it severely limited the options as to what the "Prince" could be. Sure, he could be a lesser fiendspawn, such as tiefling, or a particularly depraved human, but while they were certainly capable of eating human flesh, it generally didn't form a staple of their diet, and she had a fair inkling of what would happen if a human tried to eat a half-demon.

Valya's train of thought was interrupted as the door was unlocked, the runes and sigils limning her cell in particolored light before it swung open. She started to look him over as he continued to speak, but suddenly she was only lending half an ear to his words, as she felt the wards fall and her powers come smashing back in full force. For a brief moment, she was tempted to summon up as much brute force as she could, try and smash this man into the ground, and simply stride out of this place. That temptation, however, was dashed as she realized that her telepathy, while it could now pick up everything in front or to the sides of her, stopped at the ceiling, hinting at the existence of more wards. Valya was impulsive, but not stupid, and she knew that a failed attempt at escape would end very badly indeed. Still, it wouldn't hurt to use what she had, and she turned all her senses, physical and mental, to the speaker.

He was...small, for his voice. That was the first thing Valya noticed. It wasn't that he was particularly miniscule, for he was tall, lean, and well-muscled, carrying himself with a predator's natural grace. But his voice! It was the voice you only hear in dreams, the one whispering half-heard temptations in the darkest hours of the night. Valya had never imagined that a voice could actually sound like that, and it made even her, a half-succubus, weak in the knees. His feathery-looking hair was a grey that was almost silvery in the half-light, and it complemented his pale skin wonderfully. She looked at his robe, which appeared to be some sort of undefinable dark material that looked halfway between silk and cotton, but it could have been a trick of the light. Her eyes were still adjusting and it made colors difficult, particularly dark ones. His eyes...Valya couldn't tell, and she didn't want to offend or bring the wrath of her jailers down on her by moving closer. Still, he was a near-perfect physical specimen, though Valya had to admit that a sex-starved succubus probably wasn't the pickiest judge. Mentally...