Chapter 1 - One - An Exchange of Gifts

Chapter One – An Exchange of Gifts



We’d been on our way to Vastayar, an eleven day journey from our home in Enten, when the demon found us.

His dogs came in the middle of the night, sniffing out our wards and lurking in the shadows just out of sight. They were huge creatures, unnaturally large and black as the night. 

The three of us sat with our backs to the fire, watching the dogs watch us, knowing who they belonged to, and knowing that if their master wanted us, there would be little we could do.

He came for us at dawn, the sun at his back, and took us to his palace in the mountain.

We thought he’d kill us for trespassing on his lands (the journey to Vastayar from Enten was fastest through the demon’s lands, but safer if one avoided his mountain altogether), but he put us in a room with a skylight and sleeping mats.

“I told you we should’ve taken the long way,” Iven grumbled, not for the first time. He was the worrier.

“He hasn’t killed us yet,” Orrek reminded us, also not for the first time. Orrek was unfailingly optimistic, annoyingly so.

We were not in that room for long before grey-skinned golems came to the door and dragged me from the room.

“You are a healer,” the demon said, when they brought me before him. It was less of a question and more of a demand. He sat on a white-stone throne that seemed to radiate light in an otherwise dim room. The floors were covered in thick, intricate rugs, and he wore robes of blue and gold. He looked like a king. A mad king, but a king all the same.

“I am, sir,” I replied. 

We’d all heard of the demon. He was a common character in the darker songs and mothers always warned their children against him. He was said to eat them. Children, that is.

No one really knew how long he’d been living under his mountain. The popular songs said he’d once been a great wizard-king of the north who was exiled from his kingdom hundreds of years ago. He’d crafted a palace out of the inside of a mountain and made it his own. The years of isolation had made him go mad; his only companions were creatures he’d created with his magic, and each set of creatures he made was more demented than the last.

He certainly looked mad.

His hair was dark and long, uncombed and sticking out from all sides of his head. His fingers ended in dark claws instead of nails and his mouth was too wide, as if had more teeth than a normal human. His eyes were big and bright gold and his body was huge; he was almost four heads taller than me, and I was not a small man. His arms were bare and muscles rippled when he moved. He radiated power, unsettling and unnatural power.

“I require your skills,” he said, pushing himself up to his feet. “Follow me.”

His dogs were behind me, and I felt the fangs of one brush against the back of my thighs.

So I followed him.

The demon had many secrets, and his son was one of them.

The boy had been hurt hunting; a bear had clawed him down the side of his body.

I didn’t ask the demon king what he or his son, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen, were doing hunting bears. I really didn’t want to know.
The demon stood close behind me as I inspected the wounds. Too close behind me; I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, his solid and looming presence unnervingly near.

“Can you heal him?” The demon demanded.

I was rather certain that if I said no, we would all be killed. He was so close, he could bent his neck and rip out my throat from the behind.

“Yes,” I said. It was only partially a lie. The wounds ran deep and they’d been left untreated for a day or so. I’d been trained as a healer, and was a good one, even by Enten’s high standards, but much of the boy’s recovery would be up to him. 

I worked for two days on the boy. I watched over him as he writhed in his sleep from a fever, and I only breathed easier when his fever broke and his eyes fluttered open, finally conscious.

We would be allowed to leave the demon’s mountain palace.

Before we left, the demon once again called me before him.

“You have done me a great favor,” he said. His son sat beside him, pale and thin, but alive. “For this, I will grant you a gift.”

I didn’t want a gift from him.  The stories and songs about the demon always warned us against his gifts. “Our lives and safe passage from your lands are enough, sir.”

The demon bared his teeth in an expression that once must’ve been a smile. It was terrifying now. “That is no gift,” he said, his voice a growl.

He stood up and strode towards me. His dogs were behind me again, breathing on my legs. I couldn’t move away. 
He stopped in front of me. Closer, I could see the madness in his golden eyes. It was like a fire raging inside him, only contained by his skin. His smile widened. Some of his teeth were sharp.

“You gave me the life of my child,” he said, reaching out a clawed hand. I knew some magic, and I could feel it swell up around him, more magic than I had ever felt anyone control. “So I will also gift you with life.” He put his hands on me, on my chest. “May you be blessed with many children.”

I felt his magic tear through me, ripping through my muscles and blood and bones, hotter around my lower abdomen, hottest in my groin. I groaned, for with the searing pain came a deep sense of pleasure, curling my toes and shortening my breath. I longed for penetration, for release, but as quickly as his magic had infused me, it was gone. 

I stumbled on unsteady feet and barely caught myself before I fell.

“What have you done?” I asked, my body hot from his magic. He’d removed his hands and was already striding back to his throne. I felt agitated, uncomfortable, as if I’d been taken to the brink and pulled away before I could be swept away. I was panting, and I realized the feeling was arousal. 

The demon didn’t look back at me. “I have given you the gift of life, and the gift of fertility.”

His dogs nipped at my legs, and I realized he wanted me gone.

I was still feeling uncomfortably aroused when I was taken back to Iven and Orrek. They saw my flushed cheeks but mistook my expression. “That bad, huh?” Iven asked.

“You saved his son’s life,” Orrek said, shaking his head. “He didn’t do something terrible, did he?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I didn’t tell them about the demon’s gift. I still felt uncomfortable and too hot- as if something was different. I couldn’t tell them though, as I didn’t even know what it meant. 

I found out that evening.

We’d put as much distance between ourselves and the demon’s mountain as we could, pushing our horses more than we normally would.

We didn’t speak much when we finally stopped, falling into our usual routines.

I stopped for a piss as I was gathering firewood.

I pulled down my pants, adjusting the front of my robes and reached for my penis.

It was gone.

I stared at the spot where it had always been, not believing it at first. There was my patch of hair, and then… nothing. I felt for it again, for my balls, but my hand met only a soft cleft, folds of skin, something wet.

I jerked my hand back as if the spot between my legs was fire.

I knew what that was, I’d certainly encountered enough of them in my life to know a vagina when I felt one. How many times had I slipped my hands down a woman’s robes to fondle her gentle flower? How many times had I spread a woman’s legs as I thrust my hardness into her? How many had I licked, how many had I pleasured as the woman moaned and writhed above me?

My cock was gone.

The women had always exclaimed when they saw it fully erect; I knew I was bigger than many of the other men, and it was something I had always taken pride in. I’d been bigger and thicker and stronger and women had adored my cock. They’d sucked it and licked it and rubbed it and taken it in their wet fold with groans and screams of pleasure.

It was gone.

I sat down heavily, my pants still around my ankles.

The demon had turned me into a woman.

…but no, that was not quite right, for I was still myself everywhere else. My chest was still hard and muscled, my shoulders still wide, my face still growing a two-day beard. My hands were still strong, my voice was still deep.

But I had a pussy.

And I still had to piss.

It took more planning than a piss had ever taken before, as I didn’t want to get it on my pants or shoes and I didn’t know if I should sit or squat, as standing straight certainly wasn’t an answer.

It made me flustered and I was never flustered.

The Healer Masters had always praised me on my stolidity. “You are unflappable, the calm in the center of the raging storm,” Master Irynna had always teased. She’d liked watching me perform healing under pressure, she’d liked being fucked against the wall after I’d passed a test. I’d suck her tits as I thrust into her and she scream so loudly I was certain all of Healers’ Hall could hear our rutting.


“What took you so long?” Iven asked when I finally made my way back to our camp, firewood in arms.

“Just thinking,” I muttered, dropping down next to the spot we’d designated for our fire pit. Orrek had dug it out partially as they’d been waiting for me.

“Probably whacking one off,” Orrek said cheerfully. Orrek was the youngest of us, and had gotten it into his head that I was a man of great and admirable sexual prowess. He wasn’t wrong. Well, he hadn’t been wrong. I didn’t know what I was now, what that made me.

I turned my back to them as I built the fire. 

Even with my back turned, I could practically feel the look at Iven and Orrek exchanged.

“Are you doing alright, Ben?” Iven asked. Uncomfortable, he added, “you’ve been quiet since we left the demon’s.”

“He didn’t curse you, did he?” Orrek wondered. He sounded as eager as he was horrified.

He had cursed me.

Not like I could tell them.

“Just been thinking, that’s all,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at them. I made up a lie. “Still wondering where he got a son from. Everything else under that damn mountain was made from magic, but not that boy. How’d he do it?”

“Maybe he sleeps with the river sprites,” Orrek said, chuckling. “Or steals a virgin from the nearest village every year.”

“Why a virgin?” Iven asked, shaking his head.

The conversation moved on, but after we had eaten and as we were rolling out our sleeping mats, Iven caught my elbow. “You sure you’re alright?” He asked quietly, so Orrek couldn’t hear. 

Iven and I had been friends for years. His family had put him in the Healer’s Academy, but he’d left it after a year to study at the Mage Halls. He’d graduated two years ago, and now wore the green and bronze robes of a stesyar, an earth mage. He was of height with me, but leaner and less muscled. We used to laugh that he was the scholar and I was the brawn. He’d thought it endlessly hilarious that someone who looked like they should be smashing heads together in a bar was a healer. I used to push him into lakes. In the past, we’d told each other everything. 

I couldn’t tell him about this, not yet.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. 

He didn’t believe me, I could see it in his face. We looked at each other in the twilight, me trying to look innocent, him trying to furrow my secrets out with his mind. Finally, he sighed and let go of my elbow. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”

“I know,” I assured him.

Iven stared at me a little harder, his eyes narrowing. “Something just seems different,” he said, glancing back up to meet my eyes. “But if you say nothing’s wrong I believe you.”

I snorted in disbelief, and finally he grinned. 

“I’m fine, O Great Worrier,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Now shut up and let me go to sleep.”

Once I was on my mat, covered by my blankets, I laid awake, listening to the others’ breathing. Orrek fell asleep quickly. We always teased him for snoring, but tonight I was grateful for his snores, as they confirmed he was deeply asleep.

Iven was on my other side. He’d put his mat closer to mine than he normally did, probably to make sure I didn’t turn into a frog in the middle of the night, or for some other ridiculously paranoid reason. He shifted position for a while before finally falling asleep. I watched his chest lift and drop the blankets in the flickering light from our small fire and once I was certain he was asleep, I slowly let my hand slide down the front of my pants.

I had almost been hoping my cock would be back, but it was still gone.

My fingers slid over my clit and I had to stifle a gasp of surprise at the zing of pleasure it brought. Women had always enjoyed it when I sucked on that little nub, and now I knew why. 

Without thinking too much about it, I rubbed my clit with my thumb, letting my other fingers explore. I fingered the entrance to my vagina, pressing one finger against it and stifling another moan.

I continued to rub my clit, circling my thumb over it and shivering at the sensation. With my other fingers I stroked my folds, each stroke bringing my fingers deeper towards penetration. I could feel my heart beating fast, and my body tensing at the sensation as my hands brushed over new, sensitive nerves, sending tingling pleasure throughout my body.

I pressed the tips of my fingers against my pussy and my hips bucked involuntarily, causing a finger to slip partially into the wet fold.

This time I could not stop the groan of pleasure.

I’d known that women enjoyed it, but I had never imagined it felt like this, like every nerve in my body was at attention, that this sweeping, wet, warmth could come from just a finger and a thumb. 

I slid my finger slightly deeper into myself, not even up to the first joint, my toes curling as I rubbed against my pussy’s walls, my breath short. Unconsciously, my other hand was rubbing my chest, my nipples, small as they were, flaring with nerves. It felt good.

I wanted more.

I bit my lip to stop another moan as I pushed another of my thick fingers into my tight pussy. Suddenly, I encountered a sudden sharp pain, something blocking deeper exploration of my soaking folds.

A hymen. I was a virgin.

The thought aroused me more than it should have.

My hips still slightly lifted, I let my head roll back and I stared up at the night sky. One hand still tweaked at a nipple, the other flicked over the lips of my pussy and clit. I closed my eyes, imagining rolling onto a soft bed, our heavy breathing, limbs entwined, hot mouth against hot mouth, biting at lips, at tongues, the desperation and need we both felt. I imagined being pushed back, my legs spread and my pelvis tilted up as I wrapped my legs around him, as his cock, hard and hot pressed up against my soaking wet, aching pussy. I clenched at him, needing him to be inside me, to fill me up. I thrust my hips forward, pushing him into me just as he pressed forward, his chest heaving, his cock thick and hard as it broke my hymen, as I screamed in pain and pleasure and as he took my virginity, as he filled me with his stiff cock and thick seed.

Wait.

What?!

