The Cobbler's Soleless Son Read online

  There was a rush of warmth and Renart shuddered as arousal hit him. Even through that feeling, he could feel another strange sensation, a tightness on his foot, a tingling, a relief from how much it hurt—It's healing, he thought, a bit surprised. He's healing me.

  Lowering his foot to the bed, Hrahez picked up the other and did it again: checked it over for any remaining glass, kissed it, healed it. Renart supported himself on his elbows, watching that heavy-horned head bowed over his foot, and tried to breathe evenly. Part of the effect was just Hrahez's nature as an incubus, the arousing aura that his entire breed had. But the rest…

  The rest, he thought a little hazily, was just the moment. Finally being here with Hrahez after all his planning, all his efforts. Keeping him company. Talking to him so comfortably.

  The healing came in a rush, the cessation of pain so complete that the space it left behind could only be filled with his desperate desire.

  This foot, Hrahez didn't lower—he kept it raised, mouth slowly kissing across the sole, lips lingering on the toes. Renart drew a slow, sharp breath at the deliberate intention in that motion, shuddered as Hrahez's mouth closed around his big toe, tongue winding between them. Must taste bad, he thought briefly, and choked on a sound that was as much laugh as moan.

  "Hm?" Hrahez murmured, and he could feel that against his foot, the warm rush of air, the vibration of his mouth.

  I can meet that invitation halfway, he thought. He shifted, running his other foot down Hrahez's stomach, resting it just over his groin. "The salt," he said, in explanation.

  Hrahez snorted inelegantly, and his long tongue slid down over the sole of Renart's foot like he meant to lick the salt right up. Hrahez clearly didn't care, eager and heated. Hrahez might not have cared, Renart thought dazedly, even if there had been any glass left.

  Renart shifted against the bed, grinding his other foot down on Hrahez's groin, trying to nudge his robes aside. He didn't feel like he was getting anywhere with that, but didn't much mind. One way or another, he could feel his foot rolling against the hard length of Hrahez's cock, feel himself pushing and pressing against it—it felt good, amazing, knowing that he was turning Hrahez on in return.

  Hrahez exhaled softly as his tongue pulled at Renart's toes. Hrahez's hands were busy unbuckling the anklet on the foot he was holding, but once he'd finished with that, he let go almost at once and pulled his robes up and apart around his waist, letting Renart touch him directly.

  That made Renart's heart beat faster—not just the shifting, firm warmth under his foot, but the idea that Hrahez was this hungry for his touch as well. Renart rubbed his foot up against Hrahez's cock, pushing it up to his stomach, toes catching and pulling at the head. The angle wasn't the best, but it gave him room to grind his heel in at the base just above Hrahez's balls.

  He was going to check in, ask if it was good, but his eyes met Hrahez's again and he found he didn't need to. Those green eyes were heated, so intense they'd turned almost gold, with the sideways pupils flared wide. His mouth was hot against Renart's other foot, sucking and pulling at his toes, tongue sliding down across the near-ticklish underside of his foot to wrap around his ankle and back up. Renart shuddered helplessly at the sight, hips rocking up against nothing, skin feeling almost too-tight with his need. He was overheated, overwhelmed in his good clothes and tight breeches.

  But he didn't try to ask for more, not yet, and didn't try to touch himself. He wanted to, but there was something too good about the moment to want to interrupt, about Hrahez playing with one foot, his other foot toying with Hrahez. He ground his foot hard for a moment, almost roughly, and then shifted to push Hrahez's cock back down to his thigh, dragging his sole along it from heel to toes.

  Hrahez moaned.

  The sound rocked through Renart as if it had physical force, stroking along every nerve in his body like fingers raking through hair. He shuddered, arching a bit, his one foot slipping in Hrahez's grasp, his other grinding roughly against his cock.

  Hrahez seemed, for a moment, like he wasn't going to act—then shifted abruptly, wrapping his free hand around Renart's foot on his cock and began thrusting, rocking up against it, jerking himself off against the sole. Renart's thighs ached from his attempt to find balance with his other foot still lifted high in the air, but before he could do anything but open his mouth to ask for help, Hrahez was already letting go and letting it slide back to the bed.

  Hrahez looked up at Renart while rocking against him, grinned, and came against his foot.

  It was fast, Renart thought through his half-dazed confusion. The waves of Hrahez's pleasure were a tangible presence in the room that made breathing difficult. Deliberately fast, he thought a moment later, as if Hrahez, being an incubus, had just chosen release to calm himself down and draw the whole experience out. That was the look in the demon's eyes, anyway, a heavy determination.

  "My Lord—"

  "Enough of that," Hrahez murmured. "You came here to find me, didn't you? Use my name."

  "Hrahez," Renart croaked, shuddering. He was too turned on. He almost couldn't think, almost envied the demon's ability to regain control like that. If he just let himself come now—and it was a tempting thought, even untouched—he'd just be tired, he thought.

  Though with Hrahez in front of him, real, able to be touched, maybe not too tired to go on.

  Hrahez barely gave him a moment to think regardless, slowly lowering Renart's foot to the bed. Thick come stuck to his sole, sliding down; Hrahez didn't bother to clean him off at all, just let him drip onto the sheets and went for his breeches.

  Renart groaned again, reaching for him, finding the heavy curve of Hrahez's horns. As he grasped them and curled his fingers around them as best he could, Hrahez's eyes flicked up to meet him again, as though he were actually asking permission.

  The softness in his eyes, the consideration in the gesture after the pain and the salt and all the rest, was almost overwhelming. He couldn't remember having been with a demon who had asked a second time once they were already into the thick of things. Renart nodded, helpless. "Yes," he said.

  Hrahez smiled briefly, then swallowed him down with no hesitation, Renart's cock sliding deep into his throat, long winding tongue wrapping around the base. It was blindingly hot, tight, and he felt pinned by Hrahez's gaze. He couldn't look away, entranced, rocking into Hrahez's mouth as he pulled and sucked and wound his tongue against him all at once.

  It was too much.

  "I won't last," he croaked, urgent. "I'm sorry, but—"

  With a laugh, Hrahez pulled back, pointed tongue stroking through the slit. "I'll keep you going," he promised, his tone low and warm. Although Renart knew he should probably read some threat into it—he knew demons—he didn't feel a sense of danger at all.

  "All right," Renart managed thickly, more than a little distracted, and let Hrahez swallow him down again.

  He came twice like that. The first time was soon after his words, hands white-knuckled with tension on Hrahez's horns. The second time was slow, Hrahez's mouth working him into hardness again, taking his time with him. Hrahez teased him for such an agonizingly long time that he couldn't handle it any more, came almost more for relief than pleasure, sobbing out and gripping tightly to his horns.

  After, Renart barely had a chance to catch his breath before Hrahez surged up, shoving him down into the bed. He leaned over Renart, forcing arousal back into his body again with a surge of demonic energy.

  It was more than Renart could handle, and everything he wanted. He'd only dreamed of this, to be overcome completely and brought back over and over again. He let out an involuntary sob, arching. It was amazing and painful, perfect torture. He felt wrecked, brain in tatters, completely unable to do more than grasp onto the form over him, holding tight, feeling him.

  He would have accepted anything, taken anything, but Hrahez seemed to realize he was falling apart and was almost gentle, rutting against him with their cocks held tight together in one hand. H
rahez braced himself on one elbow, hair falling around them, and worked them in a steady, quick pace, murmuring to him.

  It took a moment for him to make out words through the exhausted shocks of pleasure. They were praises—soft, light praises. He writhed at the sound as he was pulled closer to orgasm again with every pass of Hrahez's hand, with the sensation of his cock squeezed against Hrahez's. Hrahez kept complimenting him in soft murmurs: good, sweet, lovely. All the while seeming as eager as Renart felt, holding him and rolling against him.

  Renart pushed himself up, grinding frantically, moving over and over again, and tried to give as good as he got. Tried to make Hrahez feel as good as he did.

  He groaned as he came again, shuddering hard through the force of it. Hrahez let out a moan at the sudden slickness in his hand, and followed a moment later, head dropping forward heavily, semen spattering up across Renart's stomach. The pleasure tore through Renart, leaving him feeling raw and shaken and sated. Tired and warm, pushed supernaturally beyond his body's limits, but not drained. Not like he usually was with cubants. If Hrahez had been drinking from him at all, it had been subtly only, tasting and not taking energy any faster than could be restored.

  Even though he could barely focus, that drove the last nail into the metaphorical coffin. Renart's suspicions might not be confirmed, but they were awfully, delightfully plausible.

  They lay there gasping for a long few moments. Renart shivered through the aftershocks of pleasure, indulging in the long moment of listening to Hrahez's breath slowly get back under his control.

  "Mm. We done?" Renart asked finally, his tongue heavy and disobedient. His limbs were even weightier, and he'd sunk back against the bed in an enormous sprawl. The wetness on his feet had cooled in the air and he was starting to feel chilly as the pleasure ebbed, but he couldn't bring himself to move. To his delighted surprise, Hrahez tucked himself warmly against Renart's side, curled against him so closely that he started to suspect they were actually cuddling.

  Hrahez laughed. "Oh, now, I don't know," he said. "If I were done with you, I'd feel obliged to throw you out."

  "Hmm." Now was the time to say it, if ever. Renart tried to shake his brain back into some semblance of order. "Well," he said, sitting up and running his fingers through his hair, catching immediately on snags, "'f you're gonna throw m'out, c'n I…" He worked his mouth, tried to enunciate more clearly. "Can I have one last look at my soles first?" Then, with exhausted humor, "I didn't get to say a proper goodbye, and you people know the importance of a man's sole."

  Beside him, Hrahez had gone very still. Renart stole a glance, finding Hrahez's eyes wide and surprised, his mouth open. The overall expression on his face was strangely vulnerable as a result.

  Renart found he really, really liked that.

  "What…?" Hrahez asked finally, his voice extremely tentative.

  Despite his certainty, Renart's stomach clenched a little. He could be wrong. If he were, this would be a terrible insult. But he thought he'd realized, and he needed to know for sure. Needed Hrahez to know he knew. "Well, you're the demoness who took them?" Then, even less certain but not willing to second-guess himself, "I think you're the footman as well. The one who lavished such attention on my feet before I got into the ball."

  For a moment, no reaction showed on Hrahez's face. He stared at Renart with that strange, open, curious expression, like Renart were suddenly speaking in tongues. Slowly, horribly, Renart's heart dropped.

  And then Hrahez let out a breath, starting to laugh giddily. "How did you know?"

  The rush of relief hit Renart so hard that he was abruptly grateful he was already sitting down. "Your eyes." Renart tapped his own cheekbone, then felt a little silly about it. "Our eyes met when you were riding that one day and I don't think I'd ever forget how they looked. You changed everything else completely but your eyes were the same all three times." That deep, gold-flecked green. He watched Hrahez's horizontally-slitted pupils contract, then dilate again slowly as he reacted to what he was hearing.

  He licked his lips shakily, and went on before Hrahez could answer him. "I didn't know until I saw your eyes without the veil. I think—I don't understand why, but—I think, you were as interested in me as I was in you, back during that parade."

  Hrahez laughed again, the sound sudden and light-hearted. He flopped across the bed, reaching down to rummage underneath it. The long line of his back trailing into his tail seemed relaxed; Renart wanted to reach out and run his fingers along it, but resisted for now. Everything felt too uncertain.

  "Awfully smelly things," Hrahez said, coming up with a small box and opening it. He plucked one of Renart's old shoe soles out with his fingertips. "But a bit of a trophy, regardless. I admit they charm me."

  "Like I do?" Renart asked, and let himself indulge a little, running his fingers along Hrahez's side. "I can't believe you came to me three times. Why?"

  Hrahez snorted and dropped them back into the box. "Yes, you incorrigible thing, just like you charm me." He turned his face away a little as he put the box down on the bed between them, slowly and with care.

  "It was just interest," Hrahez said after a moment, sounding almost hesitant. "I wouldn't read too much into it, if I were you. The entire crowd was hungry, passively wanting me, but you wanted me in a different way. A discordant note in all that mess. I thought for a moment you might shove your way through the crowd and throw yourself under my horse. To my ability to sense desire, it was like you were screaming, 'Come and get me'. It made it difficult to forget about you. I kept wanting to know more. So, yes, I walked past your door deliberately that day."

  Was that actually a spot of color on Hrahez's cheeks?

  Renart beamed, holding his arms open. His heart sang. All this time, all these months, all that agonizing about how to go to him, and Hrahez had been doing the same. Triumph and genuine happiness mingled together so fully that they became a feeling he couldn't begin to describe, tears in his eyes, relief shaking him.

  "Come here, then," Renart said. "You aren't ever throwing me out, are you?" No focus, his mum had said. Always faffing about. Chasing his dreams. And why, he thought, was that ever a sign I couldn't focus?

  He'd just needed to find what he wanted to focus on.

  Hrahez sighed. "I suppose I'm not," he said, a sullen fondness on his face. He pushed the box aside, dragged Renart down, and pulled the blankets up over them both.

  Pulled them up too far, Renart realized. Probably didn't even notice it with his hooves.

  "My feet are out," he said.

  Hrahez propped himself up on an elbow. "And?"

  Renart gave him a wide-eyed look. Tried to say it with his face: Shouldn't you know already? "They're cold. Since they belong to you, treat them nicely."

  Hrahez snorted. "Like you can complain about that after everything you've done to them," he said.

  But he leaned down and tucked Renart in anyway.

  Fin

  About the Author

  Meredith Katz started writing around the same time she started to walk, a 6 page ‘book’ called “The Baby Dragon” (spoilers, there was an egg, it hatched, and then there was a baby dragon). She hasn’t stopped since, and after many years of writing slash and femslash fanfiction, she is only too excited to share her original fiction. She lives in beautiful BC, Canada with her gorgeous fiancee and adorably nerdy cat.

  Tumblr: http://king-of-katz.tumblr.com

  Website: https://meredithakatz.wordpress.com