A Demon for Forever Read online

  He tugged; Justin came readily and settled into the giant plush bed with him, both of them mostly dressed, with Justin curled up more or less in Kris’s lap and being petted.

  “Not that I’m not enjoying this,” Justin said, head settled against Kris’s shoulder, “but I just want to know, you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

  “I would, and it’s not.” He ran a hand over Justin’s head, soothing fire-tendrils. “You don’t dye it much anymore.”

  “I’m not hiding, and having flaming hair is pretty punk-rock anyway.” Justin didn’t move, though his voice offered the shrug. “I like being me, when I’m with you.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.” Justin stretched up to kiss him. “I’m safe with you. No matter what the world thinks about demons, no matter what…what’s happened in the past, to get us here…we are here. And I’m me and you’re you, and I’m marrying you, and I’m happy, Kris, I really am. I promise.”

  The world had taken some big steps toward being marginally okay with demon-kind, in large part due to Justin Moore. Justin had slipped into his true form to save a baby, and later on to give an interview and talk about loving Kris, being a music lover, being a person. He’d lost a job he’d loved, lost the then-boyfriend he’d thought he’d loved—in a spectacular and violent way that’d ended with Justin in pain and sobbing in Kris’s arms, and oh Kris still felt the deep dangerous throb of anger at the memory—and then rebuilt a life, with help, with friends. With powerful friends in the media and music industries, people who knew and respected and liked Justin Moore; people who’d stood by his side even when that meant taking pro-demon stances.

  That didn’t mean trust came easy. Rumors about demon deals and tricks and cruel magic still ran around and leapt up and down and begged for attention. Justin—and his family, especially his father, who’d once loved and lost a demon wife, a magical person who’d been as mortal as anyone else and who’d left behind a devastated widower and young son—faced the reality of those prejudices every day.

  Kris rubbed a thumb along the line of Justin’s throat: no pressure, but a reminder of belonging, assertion, affirmation. Justin liked that, he knew. “You started to say something. Last night. Before I distracted you.”

  “I did?”

  “About being human.” He took a breath, let it out: measured, careful, trying not to feel too much or project too strongly. The anxiety swirled, though touching Justin helped with calm.

  “Oh.” Justin bit a lip, let it go. “Yeah. It was more about you.”

  “Was it about us doing this? The wedding? We can always elope if you want.” He considered this, added, “Your family might kill us. But I’d be a ghost married to you.”

  “My family would figure out a way to yell at us even if we were ghosts,” Justin pointed out. “You know how excited they are about this? Kelly and James are planning some sort of engineering pyrotechnics, the twins keep sending me pictures of centerpieces and color schemes, and I think Dad’s on the verge of spontaneous combustion. I mean, I’m marrying you.”

  “I like your father,” Kris said, “even if he did go through with that threat to quote me in a scholarly article about international regulations of magical talents with regard to the psychic fields. ‘Medium-to-high-class projective empath and classic rock icon Kris Starr says it just feels natural to use the full extent of his talent…’ What the actual hell.”

  Justin’s father continued to be an enthusiastic Starrlight—and Kris Starr solo career—devotee. The appearance of Kris in his son’s life had, if anything, intensified the enthusiasm.

  “All-natural,” Justin said solemnly. His eyes were dancing, not quite metaphorically: tiny twinkling flames made them a redder shade of spice-rack brown than any human range. “That full extent. I should know.”

  “You don’t want to know how many minutes Reg spent laughing. He called me up just to laugh. Not even any words.”

  “I think you’re very high-class. Not at all medium.”

  “And classic. I’m ancient. You’re marrying an antique.”

  “Don’t worry,” Justin said serenely. “I love old music.”

  “We’re not getting the carrot cake, just for that.”

  “I liked that one! It had pineapple!”

  “We’ll get it and you can have it. But answer the question.” He pressed a kiss to Justin’s forehead, let the please hover, silently and tangibly extended in the air.

  “I was thinking about being human,” Justin said. “About my family…you know my aunts mostly won’t come, but some of them will.” This meant Justin’s demon aunts. His mother had had dozens of sisters, all beautiful, all magically wickedly seductive, mostly more mischievous than outright harmful. “They don’t really see the point of human ceremonies, not a demon thing, but they love me, in their way, so they’ll show up. At least the three you’ve met will. They approve of you, Aunt Mara says.”

  “Right,” Kris said cautiously. “Do you…I mean, you’re also a…you do want to…you don’t not want to….right?”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “You want to get married,” Kris tried again. “Not just—you’re not only doing this because I asked!”

  “Oh. No, that’s not it.” Justin grinned, which provided even more reassurance for Kris’s heart. “No. I’m half a demon and I’m half human and I’m all me, and the me I am…I never thought I’d get married. I know you know; I told you. I never thought I’d find someone I could have this with, all of this…being me, out in the open…”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you. Even though I didn’t think I’d have it, I wanted it. I always did. The symbol of it, the celebration, the whole public joining of our lives together…what my dad and Kelly have, what my dad and mom could’ve had, if things had been different, the way they’re starting to be…” Justin’s father and stepmother were cheerfully busily blissfully happy, building a life out of their love and their respective university research departments. “I wanted that. And then you did ask me, and now I get to have it…not just as a human thing, not pretending I’m not a demon, but as me.” His gaze was fierce and bright and glorious, filling up the world. “I want this.”

  “Good,” Kris breathed, rapt. “Good. So…”

  “So it was about you. I did say.” Justin freed a hand from all the cuddling to poke Kris in the chest. “I was thinking about family, all of mine, and then I thought, well, you might want…”

  “No,” Kris said. “No, no, a hundred times fucking no. A thousand.”

  “He’s your father. Your literal only family.”

  “We’re not inviting him.”

  “It’s your wedding. Our wedding. You don’t think he’d—”

  “I think he’d turn around and sell every detail on the invitation to anyone who’d pay for it. And then use that to pay for the closest bottle at the closest pub.”

  “He’s still your father,” Justin said. “If there was ever a time to try…”

  “No.”

  Justin looked at Kris’s expression for a second, then sighed, gave a small eyebrow-shrug, and reached up to cup Kris’s cheek and guide their heads closer together, an apology. “Okay. Your dad, your decision. I won’t bring it up. Do you think we can have Aunt Mara sit with my dad and Kelly, or is that asking a lot as far as demons hanging out with humans? Or just inviting embarrassing stories about me? You know the aunts all think I need to be using the seductive tempting-of-humans powers way more.”

  “I’d say you’re using them pretty well,” Kris observed, and kissed him: acceptance of the apology and the distraction. “Want me to show you how well you’re using them? I’m seduced. I’m very seduced…”

  In between the laughter and the nakedness and the shuddering gasping coming-together, his body fitting into Justin’s as if made to do just that, he thought again about how much he loved this man. How good Justin was, at heart: believing in people. Wanting everyone to be happy. And in the process defying
tradition and demonic reputation and everyone’s expectations, time and time again.

  Justin made him, Kris, happy. He’d thought at one point that he’d forgotten how to feel that emotion. But Justin was all his love songs.

  Justin gasped a little as Kris thrust; his nails flickered in painted-blue color, clutching Kris’s biceps, and became fleetingly sharper as he lost control. Everything got sharper, just on the other side of too-human prettiness: uncannily defined teeth, jawline, tiny outlines of horns, the fire in curling hair. Kris kissed him and drove into him harder and heard Justin scream his name, coming apart, head falling back and climax erupting from that long luscious cock as his body tightened; Kris heard his own voice splinter over Justin’s name, the word love, a groan, as the heat washed through him and gathered itself up and spilled forth, pouring out in a long rapturous release inside the clutch of Justin around him.

  They held each other, panting in the aftermath.

  Eventually Justin said drowsily, “I might’ve scratched you…” and eyed a claw, and winced. Most of the demon appearance retracted, leaving behind a hint of restless hair, inhuman eyes, utterly ruined and flaking-away nail polish. “Um. Sorry.”

  Kris inspected a bicep. “Nah, you didn’t. Not much.” Pink, but no broken skin.

  Justin made a face. “Still. Tell me if it’s too weird.”

  “I like you like this.”

  “Kinky. Kris Starr’s into sex with demons.”

  “Kris Starr’s into sex with you.” Kris bumped their noses together. “What was it you said about things that’re natural?”

  “That was a joke about—”

  “Yeah, yeah, got it, thank you. But you are, too.” He nuzzled Justin again. “This. You. Being what you are.”

  “Oh,” Justin said. “I love you.” His eyes were very wide, pleated in shades of garnet and cinnamon sugar, and happy.

  “I know you do,” Kris said. “And I love you. Want to see how many more times we can make you come for me, if we’re on the subject of you and seductive powers? What was that record, eight?”

  * * * *

  In the morning, with Justin thoroughly pleasured and thoroughly asleep, Kris slid out of bed and made tea and cupped hands around the hot mug, not really thinking. Barefoot, more or less wearing a blanket, hair loose in grey-brown shaggy waves, he wandered to the hotel window, gazed out, watched the sun investigate low rippling hills.

  Justin wanted him to be happy. His mother would’ve been happy. She would’ve loved Justin; she’d always believed in Kris, as her only child, her shining son. Not perfect—she’d known that as well as or better than anyone, seeing everything he and Reg and poor tragic Tommy had got up to—but worth loving.

  Sarah Thompson had seen just the beginning of Starrlight’s meteoric rise to fame. She’d passed away believing they’d embarked on that future, that way out, that bigger and brighter life. Kris hadn’t known how ill she’d been; she hadn’t said.

  She’d always wanted him to be loved, and to love others: to give back, to do something kind with his gifts, magical and musical. She’d told him so.

  She’d loved his father, once.

  Kris, sipping tea and wiggling toes against plush hotel carpeting, did not let the thought fully form. But the shape of it drifted, an idea in a cloud, thrown into relief by the sun.

  He took the tea back to the hotel suite’s kitchenette, and set about making coffee for his fiancé.

  * * * *

  “Oh gods,” Justin said, on the sofa back at home in their New York apartment. He’d had editorial meetings, and they couldn’t stay in California forever; they’d come home two days before. At the moment the sofa-cushions perked up, concerned; Kris came over from the refrigerator with leftover pizza and asked, “What is it this time?”

  “The emails,” Justin explained, and collapsed dramatically backward into pillows. One hand came out to grab a pepperoni slice, which disappeared in seconds. Demon metabolism was unfairly quick and efficient, Kris had concluded.

  He looked at Justin’s laptop. The voice from behind pizza said, muffled, “Go on…” so he read the open one.

  “…gods.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We’re not doing this to be a symbol of—what even—”

  “—support of magical creature-human relationship equality—I hate the term magical creature anyway, thanks—”

  “You’re not a creature!”

  “I’m not, and neither are the merfolk nor the Earth People, but demons are even harder to classify. We live in a whole different dimension.” Justin sat up. He had pizza sauce on a finger. “Is there more of the one with artichokes? Love you. Did you read the message from the literal United Nations Special Committee on Trans-World Relations? Tell me when you do.”

  “I’m marrying you because I love you, not because we’re making a statement about equal rights!”

  “We are, though, aren’t we?” Justin finished off the end of the artichoke pizza, and eyed the pepperoni again. Kris nudged it his way, but did take a garlic-parmesan breadstick in self-defense, because they were delicious and he’d had exactly two out of twelve.

  Justin picked up another slice and added, “Even if we don’t mean to. We are.”

  “Yeah, fair enough, but we’re not inviting the UN Special Committee to our wedding!”

  “So you did read it. I think maybe they’re just Kris Starr fans and they want an excuse.”

  “I don’t mind being a symbol with you,” Kris said. He didn’t. He’d known that, a rose-red bloom of certainty, from very early on: if Kris Starr was going to wake up and take a stand for a cause, it’d be for this, for the man he adored. “We are anyway. Like you said. But this is our wedding. It’s personal.”

  “Yep.” Justin devoured a breadstick in what looked like one bite. He wasn’t even wearing the fangs, and looked mostly human; Kris spared a thought to wonder about the mostly. “And they need to stop emailing me at the work email. It’s getting awful. And that’s not even counting the articles, the editorials, everyone wanting a comment…or asking what we’re wearing, what I’m wearing, for the ceremony…you know the Daily Star Watch found a picture of me in that pink skirt and the black boots and my Personal Massagers band T-shirt, back when I had the blue hair, right? That’s been popping up all day.”

  “Has it,” Kris said. He’d seen it, not directly from the tabloid in question but from a few reposts and well-meaning forwarded emails. He approved of younger Justin’s taste in proto-punk 1970s rock band shirts, and also of Justin’s long legs in fishnets and chunky boots under a frothy confection of pink ballerina tulle. “You don’t still have that skirt, do you?”

  “No, it fell apart. I had safety pins in it already then.” Justin lifted eyebrows at him. “Hoping I’d saved it?”

  “I like your legs. And you look fantastic in anything. Or nothing. If it really bothers you, could we ask Willie to sort of intervene?”

  Justin made a face. “She’s my friend, but she’s also my boss. I hate asking for that. I should have a thicker skin. And it’s probably unethical. Interfering with the news cycle or whatever.” Wilhelmina Randolph, behind silver-haired charm and pearls and stylish high heels, controlled her extensive media empire with the same decisive authority her husband adored at home. Justin had met Charles Randolph years before ever coming to work for Willie, under circumstances involving that one particular club and some bonding over Charles’ apparently fabulous boots and Justin in a prettily-laced corset. Kris tried hard not to feel possessive or jealous about this sympathetic connection, and generally succeeded.

  “Interfering with the news cycle sounds exactly like something a good rock and roll icon should do,” he pointed out. “Disrupting the system. Protecting people.”

  “Don’t worry.” Justin ate the second-to-last breadstick, and paused guiltily. “You should have that last one. I’m okay. I’m getting used to being a story. And at least if they’re asking about our wedding plans, they’re not runni
ng away from me gibbering in terror, so, hey, win.”

  “You rescue babies.” Kris tore the breadstick in two. Handed him half. “You save people. You save me.”

  “You save me.” Justin licked garlic butter from a fingertip. His eyes were serious, over empty pizza boxes. The pizza boxes beamed in satisfaction. “Every day.”

  * * * *

  “Exactly,” Kris said, on the phone. Justin was out meeting with an author, doing actual work on the next publishing contract, because Justin had an actual job, which was why Kris had time to call Willie Randolph’s personal number and explain. “He says he’s fine, but he’s, y’know. Ninety-nine percent fine. Stressed.”

  “And it’s your wedding, and that’s certainly enough stress.” Willie drummed flawlessly manicured fingernails on her expensive desk; Kris could hear them. “I’ll make a few calls. The noise should let up. Not completely, but somewhat.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s for you and for him. I like him not distracted and doing his job and running his department. And I like him.”

  “Me too.”

  “I assume you’ve had thoughts about a wedding present for him, but if you’d like some advice about good leatherwork, just ask me or Charles. Perhaps white, with diamonds. Or whatever you’d like him to wear. You know how much he enjoys belonging to you.”

  “I know,” Kris said. “I enjoy that too.”

  * * * *

  He did write down the name of the shop Willie had mentioned. He contemplated it for a while.

  He and Justin weren’t outright officially in the sort of relationship that involved variations on the BDSM acronym, but Justin did like belonging to him, and also liked Kris reinforcing that belonging with hands and words and touches and toys. It made sense for them; Justin needed to feel secure and wanted and free and cared for, and Kris had never known just how incredible caring for someone could make him feel, and they both loved that: himself providing exactly the care and control Justin wanted, in bed.