Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 19

He smiled, and it was not quite a smirk as he kissed Lily for a moment, "Lily, what are you saying to me? What am I to hear in your words? Should I hear what I want to hear? Even I do not know what I would want now. You and I, Lily – I do not know if we have had our time and can never hope to regain it, or if we might forge something new now – as I feel coming from you as a hope to me.

Do you really want me, Lily? Why? Why now? What has changed? You have your human lover. Why would you want me?"

She nodded as she thought about it and she kissed him over his heart, knowing what the gesture meant to him, "Well I can think of a few reasons that I might string together as an answer to you," Lily sighed, still holding his hand over her breast, "While I love Sharon, at some point, I would need to make her my pet so that we could go on. That is one reason. You know that if I were to do that, she would need to leave her life. I think that she might want this, but I can see that there are others who could come to need her as well – here.

Another reason is that the male who I loved with so wildly ages ago has this night given up trying for the succubus who really only used him. If that had been a real love, Racephet, you would not let me hold your hand where I have been holding it, would you? I know you, old friend. When Racephet loves, he loves only one and holds no interest in any other female, though there are so many who would be happy to have him.

It may sound cold and calculating to you if you think in ideals, but this night, you have removed the reason that I sought out a lover for me. I was waiting for you – once more. And I can see that if I keep on with Sharon, and what you had with Megaera came to an end as it has, then you would be the one waiting for me – once again, Racephet.

So I make a decision. I choose this night to end this waiting game that we are in. We both still have such feeling for each other and the emotion of love – whether it lies between humans or much more rarely, between demons such as us – it is really a selfish thing at its heart, isn't it?

I am being selfish here and I know it full well. I choose this night, before what may come to us for good or bad, to declare that I want more than anything to love with you again, Racephet. I ask you to be selfish as well. You know what we can have, and you know that we are still young enough for it. Let's end this waiting and love each other. That is my wish and my hope for us."

She looked down and her gaze took in his chest there before her, just as it had always been for most of the time that they'd known each other after they'd parted as a pair. He was in his reptilian shape. Though she loved it, she wanted now to see him as she had the very first time that they'd met, many thousands of years ago.

The first inkling of his answer came to her as she watched that shape fade into the male demon whose honey-colored hair had taken her breath from her that first day. She looked up and Racephet saw her golden eyes fill with her tears.

"Do not cry, Lily," he whispered. "Tears in those eyes are sins. I have always been a little thankful that I saw them so seldom."

She felt him turn his hand in hers to grasp it gently. For an instant, she thought that perhaps he was going to lower his hand in gentle rejection and for the briefest sliver of time, Racephet saw that the storm demon was afraid. It was something that he hadn't known since they'd begun. But it didn't last for longer than an instant. It was gone when he lifted her hand so that she might put it the rest of the way around his neck.

Lily smiled through her tears with a soft sob as she threw both of her arms around him to hold him tightly.

"Very well," he sighed in between them, "Woo me then."

Lily marvelled at the way that it felt to hold him. It was the same as it once had been all that time ago. She reached up across the small height difference between them and she kissed him for a long time, lost in the way that she felt.

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"Twice now," Sharon smiled as she hugged Lewis and sighed, "I am so sorry that I wasted all that time, never making the effort to get to know the quiet man who worked on and on so carefully as he looked after the little bit of Yester that we all knew about. "You're a little amazing to me, you know."

Lewis lifted himself up and smiled down at his boss, "At first, I thought that you were just another of the young administrative types, sent to run things for a time until they landed the job that they really wanted and were gone again. But you stayed.

I was always careful in our dealings with each other. I gave my reports, but I did have the time to admire you. I just knew my place, that's all."

"Well I wish that I hadn't been so stuck up, Lewis, "she said, "If I'd only given it a thought, I'd have seen. It took me a little while, but I did come to admire you too. You always got it done, no matter what I asked, or how stupidly I asked for it. So now we're here, aren't we?"

She grinned a little as she ran her hand over his shoulder, "Can you imagine how it felt to me when I found that the man that I'd been sneaking little peeks at – when I made my way here on whatever pretext that I could find to do that, was a demon scholar all along? There's so much that we have to share."

"I have all of your books, you know," he smiled a little shyly.

Sharon laughed and then she hugged him again.

"Hey," she said up to him, "how would you like to work on my next one with me? I know that I'd really enjoy having your help."

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"Woo you?" Lily asked when she remembered what had been said, "Have we come this far that the female now woos the male?"

He smiled, "Well, I did it the last time, if you recall. I thought that it might be your turn now."

It made Lily laugh and she felt like the young female that she'd once been as she kissed his throat and nuzzled her lips against his ear lobe. "Do you wish to hear my offer?" she whispered.

He sighed, "I wish only to hear your soft voice like this. But you were about to plead your troth to try to move my ancient and stone-cold heart."

Lily smiled as she looked up at him, "Your heart is not cold. I can feel it from here where I stand. I am glad of its heat," she smirked, "for without that, I would not be able to feel the other heat from you," she said as she leaned forward against him just a little so that she could feel his hardness as it began to rise to meet her. She didn't need to look. She knew that it was already beginning to glow a little.

"You were hated in the hells because no one understood you, and so they called you the Feared One because you never did what was expected, other than to leave a trail of corpses behind you when you were forced to. But I have always understood my old lover Racephet. When the knowing of it came to me, I just knew everything all at once, and that was when I gave myself to you. I just didn't know that our joining was of more than our bodies. It lasts to this night, and now I know that it always will."

He held her and whispered to her, dragging his lips against her cheek and her ear, "Your offer," he reminded her with a soft smile that she could feel against her, "I wish to know if what I feel from you is in your words."

Lily chose her thoughts carefully, wanting to express what she felt and knowing the meaning of it all.

"I offer my heart and more," Lily whispered, leaning in more, "I offer it with no reservation and with everything that I can put into it for you. There really is not anything holding us back anymore, Racephet. All that we must do is to survive what comes, and after that, we are free to set what limits there might be ourselves. All that I ask in return is your heart as well and in the same way."

She hesitated just long enough for him to sense in her that she was genuine. Because she was.

"I offer a binding - between two of the most powerful that there ever were. I offer a binding to Racephet the Mighty, Racephet the Wise. I wish to be bound together with Racephet the Feared One forever."

Racephet had some thoughts and just maybe a hope springing to life in his breast. He pulled back to look into her eyes to be sure of what he'd heard.

Lily smiled very softly and nodded as he gazed at her.

Barometers all over that part of Scotland began to plummet, registering the sudden drop in the barometric pressure there. Above them, the clouds roiled and tumbled as the winds began. If he accepted, Lily knew that this event had to remain hidden until the right time. That moment would not be too far off, but she wanted no one to be able to see that it had happened here. That would bring too much attention a little too early for them all.

His gaze didn't waver, "Is there more, Lily? Are you offering this to be consort to a lord with no hell?"

Lily looked a little shocked, "Do you need more?"

"No," he grinned, shaking his head a little, "I was just hopeful that there might be more in your words. You forget, I know you as well. You never seek to bargain without more hidden in your hand, little things with which to sweeten the deal or turn it so that you might get what you seek. To an adversary, this is a maddening ability that you have, but to me, I have always thought that it was so nice to see. You might have been trying to get me to agree to something – whatever your heart wished for when we were young, and you always smiled when you won whatever it was from me. But I always enjoyed seeing this – even though I would have given you anything anyway."

Lily rolled her golden eyes. There were very few anywhere who would know her enough to be able to see it, thinking them to be featureless, but Racephet above all knew what he was looking at. It made him chuckle, and of course, Lily knew that he saw it in her.

"If you need to hear it," she smirked again, "then I offer to be storm consort to mighty Racephet , lord of the dark realms, who holds no hell because he has no want of one. You are the only lord that one like me can be bound to anyway – for you hold nothing. I need some time to shape my thoughts, but I have the beginnings of a better offer as far as that goes."

She pulled his head down a little so that she could hold hers there, cheek to cheek as she whispered something so that he knew just how serious she was in this.

"I want to be your storm consort in any place, at any time, and I would be proud and happy to stand beside you. You will never be alone again because I will never allow it anymore. If you leave it to me, Racephet, I will stir up something wonderful in the cauldron of my mind, and then I will give it shape and then, my love, ..."

She said nothing else as she thought about it, and realized that it was just barely possible, depending on many outcomes. But it was worth working toward and she could see no reason against it once the pieces were in place.

Racephet waited, thrilling to feel the soft heat of her breath in his ear. He was about to ask, but he felt her smile in that way of hers, the way that told him that she'd found a way toward something. He didn't know what it was, but he knew Lily well enough to believe in her. He'd always believed in her, and still she'd amazed him so often.

"Give me your heart together against mine for as long as we can last, Racephet, and if I am able, I will make Racephet the Fallen into a mighty king."

She heard his breathing stop.

At least she had his attention now, she thought with a quiet chuckle.

"How do you know that I would want this?" he asked, as he slid his hand over her long thigh.

"I believe it is what likely must come anyway, now that I think on it. But I do not wish to think about it now," she sighed, running her hand over his chest. "I have other things to say to the one that I choose for me at long last, one who I should never have let go in the first place."

She leaned in a little more, feeling the thick heated poker pressing against her.

She'd never shown it to anyone other than this one male long ago and in the dark places where they'd gone to hide themselves and make love. No one else knew that Lily had her own secret, and it was easily unlocked by this demon who had once ruled her heart, just as she'd ruled his then.

Lily had her own heat which matched Racephet's, and what he felt now was that heat, beckoning to him and threatening to drive him mad, just as his could push her to the edges of her ability to reason and beyond.

They groaned together as their bodies touched tightly. They each knew the signs, though they'd gone without what was coming for millennia on end. They recognized the next signpost as it flashed by them. The ancient and powerful pair stood writhing together, each wanting to move against the other one, yet needing to be held tightly at the same instant. It was the recognition between them that they'd gotten to the want, and were well on the way to reaching the need.

"Slow a little, fiery one," Lily hissed into his ear, "or my mist will begin far too soon. I have other things to tell you."

"Speak then," she heard him say in the deep and wonderfully grating voice that thrilled her to hear. Lily knew that there was no one on any of the planes who knew this voice. She was the only being that he'd shown it to. She was the only one who could bring it out in him, and it made her wet only to hear it after all of the centuries.

"If my breasts can still make milk," she moaned as she stopped to work her lips against his for a moment, "then I believe that I can still spawn, Racephet." She paused to wait for his reaction. When she felt his chest shudder against her, Lily wanted to cry out in her joy, but she settled for her own shudder of pleasure from it instead.

"I wish to spawn again," she growled, "as I have never felt this want in me since our time.

Dance with me, fiery one," she hissed into his ear, "fly with me in the old way that no one knows anymore."

She moaned as his hardness twitched against her thigh like a hot bar of steel. But this was nothing like the phrase which might be used by a writer of dime-store novels. The thing which throbbed there was actually hot, - dull red near to his body and a light straw yellow at its tip.

Lily knew that it was. She didn't need to look at all.

She remembered how it looked and just how it would feel. Underneath her want of it, she knew that she had to be ready when the yellow glow became close to white-hot.

"Mate with me," she said, "I need you so and I see now that I always have and I always will. This must happen for us this time, feared one. You need it from me for the power of my love. I need it from you in the same way, Racephet. Mate with me."

Her hand slid between them so that she could feel that heat in her hand as she squeezed it gently, already beginning to work that foreskin back. There was no stopping this now. Lily knew it as well as Racephet did. She just didn't know if they could last like this as she said the rest to him.

Racephet stood gasping, barely holding himself in check, but true lord that he was, he waited to hear it all from the one who was his own personal goddess and always had been. Racephet had his own pantheon. It held only one, and that one was telling him that it was now their time.

Lily shuddered a little again from the way that she rubbed the glowing tip of him against her heated furrow.

She moaned into his ear, "I want to spawn with you, Racephet. Breed with me. Make me spawn once more at least, and you will have the chance to be the father that you always should have been to our brood."

She whispered to him so hoarsely that she sounded nothing like her normal and always well-controlled self. The voice that he heard was her true one, sounding almost as two voices, much like the one that Tobias had heard from Maezou.

When it is meant with everything that they have in them, the most powerful female demons can only say it one way.

"I need you," the voices said. "I have always needed you. Give me your heart and your shaft, and you will always have me. I make this promise to you, fiery one."

She pushed herself back, away from him for a moment to get a full breath into her. It was just as she expected, though she had to struggle on the edge of her own wavering control. Lily felt the thrill of the cool night air where she'd been warmed against him a moment ago.

He stood like the powerful demon that he was, breathing heavily as he tried to contain his lust for her. His hot breath shot a plume of steam into the cold air between them each time he exhaled. They matched the ones coming from her.

She watched a snowflake wander down between them to land and disappear with a soft little hiss against her breast. They looked at each other with softly glowing eyes and it brought her memories of all the times that they'd stood just like this in quiet places long ago where they could finally be alone, two young demons who loved each other in the chaos where very few of their kind ever had.

"Speak," she growled down low to him in her double-voice, "Only say it, Racephet, and it is done. I am yours from now unto our end. This is what we have always been. Say it, that I will have your heart forever and it will always be between us."

He tilted his head, staring as he spoke. It came out of him sounding as though his words were spoken through the whirling blades of a turboprop engine, and it signalled that the last of his control was about to leave him if she said the words that he needed. "Are you mine at last? Do we bind ourselves?"

She closed her eyes and a long sigh left her. When she spoke, her voices matched his, only a little higher in pitch and doubled, "I think that I always was, as you have always been mine, or we could not even speak of this, "she groaned in her own quiet way, as though she strained to say it while her body sought to wrest the last of her control from her will.

Lily threw her hands down in a motion that brought bright arcs of lightning to the ground around them. The couple was illuminated in the glow as she raised her arms up over her head.

"All of me," she cried out through the crackling heat of the incandescent curtain around them as her winter storm winds blew past them in hisses and low moans.

"All of me bound to you forever, if you give your heart and breed me now."

Her hands touched above her head and the lightning was extinguished instantly. The thunderous bang was heard miles away, but, ...

In the space which separated them, it was almost silent.

"Please," she whispered so that his heart felt as though it was breaking, "it is the only way out of our long sadness and the empty places we carry in our hearts for each other. If you still have love for me, take me and end this for us both while we can."

His voice turned louder as his own winds came rushing out of the southwest to whip the trees in the forest nearby. He sounded strained, as though the engine which powered him now ran at near to its red-line.

"Ages have passed and I still love you," his own chorus of voices cried out as he stamped his foot and flames sprang from the spraying earth and light snow around them, "I still want your heart and I still hate the ache of wanting one who was parted from me. If it means an end to this, I will bind all of me to you while we live."

Racephet seemed to stand trembling, his head down and his eyes closed, feeling torn between his lust and his endless sadness at what he'd lost for so long.

But his heart still beat inside him, and as long as it did, the ageless male could feel hope and the same want that Lily felt, since they were an old pair and not all that far apart in their nature. He opened his eyes and looked into that ageless beauty. He'd always believed in her.

He always would.