by S J Doran
you only think you know me
At some point, Levistus had abandoned his magazine to stand at the bars and stare down at Cass. He wasn’t sure when that happened, his mind kept blanking. Levistus didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, those intense black eyes just watching. Waiting.
Cass didn’t know how to articulate this particular issue. Hell, and he didn’t even know if he had an issue. He’d never had any complaints. He’d never said anything. Why was it wrong now when it hadn’t ever been?
Or had it always been wrong, and he just didn’t know any different?
“We’ll escape, and you won’t ever have to do that again.” Her voice whispered up from the shadows of his mind.
Her hand reached out from the bars, touching his.
No. not real.
He squeezed the ball in his hands, finally tossing it against the wall with a snarl of rage.
Why had he come back to the dungeon? Hoping to find compassion from his prisoner? The demon his father had imprisoned for centuries?
“You’re stronger than he is, Cassius,” her voice floated through his mind, “don’t let him touch you. You belong to me.”
“Naga tiit, I’m yours Assat Sa,” he muttered, out loud.
He tossed the ball again, surprised that his eyes burned, his throat raw-
She wasn’t real.
He didn’t have a wife. He didn’t want a wife, and he was never going to give anyone so much power over him that he’d refer to them as his reason for living.
“You’re the air that I breathe,” his own voice floated through his mind, a wistful breeze of a thought.
No. He’d always been ruined. Never had a chance- he’d been shaped by his father, molded by Bas’s deceptive hands.
He took a moment to steady his breathing. Odd, but he hadn’t noticed he was out of breath. His hands were shaking. Vivid images flashed through his mind.
Of himself.
That hollow-eyed look had been familiar, because he’d seen it on himself, so many times in his own mirror.
Emotions swamped him. Feelings he hadn’t felt in… hell, that he didn’t ever remember feeling. Violated. The sanctity of his own flesh had been taken from him. Stripped away.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Levistus finally spoke, his voice low and even. Coaxing.
Cass looked up to see Levistus staring him down. Knowledge burned in his eyes, and perhaps… compassion? He knew. Somehow.
He got to his feet, his body a shaking coil of turbulent energy.
He stilled. “I can’t…” walked closer to the bars, avoiding Levistus’s knowing gaze. Shame burned through him, his head lowered.
Part of him wanted to rip the still-beating heart from Bas’s chest. Envisioning it made him feel vindicated— and raw.
No. He shouldn’t have feelings, they shouldn’t fucking be there.
With a snarl he tossed the ball off into the blackness of the hallway. Why the fuck he ever held on to that garbage—
His hand pressed to his chest, trying to ease the tightening ache, trying to catch his fucking breath. He slid down the wall and dug his hands into his hair, trying to capture his fleeting thoughts. Grasp on to some semblance of sanity.
Maybe… he deserved nothing more. He was a demon. This was his lot in life. What he was created to be.
He slowly climbed to his feet, anger building. No— rage.
Basileus wasn’t going to continue making him look weak.
“So, I’ll repeat myself. What are you going to do about it?” Anger leaked into Levistus’s tone now, snapping some sense into Cass.
Annihilate his enemies. Raze them so completely they’ll speak of it in hushed tones for generations to come…
He unlocked the cell door and held it open.
“I don’t want him dead.” Cass whispered, not trusting his voice to remain steady.
Levistus reached out to touch him, then must have thought better of it, his hand pausing mid-air.
“Son, he deserves to be drawn and quartered and have the buzzards set upon his viscera as he watches. Your father too, for all that occurred.”
Cass turned his head, shame again washing through him, heating his cheeks.
“Don’t kill him.” Bas’s clear blue eyes came to mind, followed by a confusing mix of emotion. The thought of him dead, of no longer existing, stole his breath.
“I’ll acquiesce to your wishes this time. My Lord.” Levistus bowed his head. “But know that I am advising against letting the hell spawn live.”
“I’ll have a room readied for you.” Cass said, tone flat. “You don’t have to return here.”
Levistus’s hand rested on his shoulder, and Cass jumped back. Fuck. He was so keyed up… he had no control over his reactions.
He didn’t watch as Levistus stalked off down the hall, whistling a haunting tune. He’d just unleashed the demon that once nearly brought their race to their knees.
With an anguished roar, Cass pulled himself through to the Temple. Straight into Amara’s quarters, uncaring that he was uninvited, that he might be interrupting something, or how much it might bother her for him to intrude on her private space.
He was in need of oblivion, and she hadn’t left him extra potions.
He started rifling through vials, searching for something familiar, needing to lose himself, reset, restart, forget this ever happened.
“Sin-eater.” Amara glided into the room, sidling up to him without him even noticing, “my poisons are to be treated with respect, not as a selection off the happy hour menu.”
Cass took in a deep breath and turned to face her, his breath caught with the anticipation of her anger.
He couldn’t … he just couldn’t deal right now.
“What’s the worst you’ve got?” He tried to give her a cocky smirk, to play off his intrusion as a game, but the emotion burning through him was too powerful.
She didn’t look angry. Her expression remained neutral, but her eyes were rapidly looking him over— as though she were concerned. For him.
Now he was delusional. More delusional, he should say.
“You need to feed?” She pressed her hand over his rapidly beating heart, and he tensed, waiting for his body to reject her touch and betray his feelings.
Instead, her presence calmed him, his heart stopped trying to escape its confinement, his lungs filled fully, and he nearly collapsed. Adrenaline spent, he had nothing left but raw emotion that he didn’t even want to touch on.
“No. I don’t want anyone...” He swallowed hard, turning back to her collection of poisons. “I don’t want anyone touching me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
there is freedom to be had
She found the sin-eater standing amidst the shadows of her resting chambers, too consumed with pillaging through her poisons to notice her arrival.
In both appearance and mannerism, the hubristic veneer he wore seemed... lacking, something had unsettled the demon. It had been centuries since she had last seen him in such a state. Back then, the princeling had always come to her prison cell, now it appeared the king had found his way to her chambers.
His brows were knitted together, a habit of his whenever he was lost to deep thought. The glow of candlelight highlighted the streaks of gold that weaved through hair, likely an inheritance from his mother for Asmodeus himself had hair black as night.
His feet were bare, his shirt wrinkled and untucked— unkempt and harmless looking the demon was far more dangerous to her than his usual polished elegance. He reflected too much of what she had lost, he looked too much like him.
To complicate matters further, their dynamics had been shifting, and still she struggled with the implications. After what transpired in his bedchamber, she wasn’t so sure she was strong enough to be a friend to the sin-eater. What were the expectations between friends anyway? She sorely lacked the experience.
After moments of observations his recklessness made it necessary for her to reveal
herself, the demon either unaware or uncaring that most of the toxins he rummaged through would prove too potent to ingest in undiluted form.
“You will find very little pleasure in their effects demon…”
With care she plucked the vials from his grasp, and was surprised when the weight of his body pressed into her side.
“I thought you did not wish to be touched.”
His arms encircled her, “I’m making an exception.” His voice sounded small and exhausted compared to his usual tone, but he still managed to sound like a spoiled princeling.
For as lean of form as the sin-eater was, he nearly toppled her as he slumped over. His towering height throwing off her balance, while the weight of solid muscle and bone anchored her to the spot. Ideally, she’d move him to the brocade divan, getting him comfortable and warm in front of the massive fireplace, the demon was shivering.
She tried to coax him in the direction, but he stubbornly resisted, and calling for the guards posted outside her doors was simply not an option.
There was no one they could fully trust to not exploit an exposed weakness, especially not amongst her own greed driven warlocks and the corrupt members of his demonarchy. That particular lesson had come at a heavy price; their future, his soul, her heart.
“Sin-eater, what’s happened to you?”
When he didn’t immediately answer her, she eased back the tight rein on her magic ever so slightly, just enough to allow her senses to probe for the origin of his debility. A hex or curse, possibly? Perhaps the Sword of Justice had been capable of inflicting delayed damage?
As soon as her energy made contact with his, a rush of power began to bleed out, agony flowing from the demon like an opened artery. “Hells…”
With a sharp hiss she instantly closed off, retracting her powers. She would have physically pulled away had she not feared dropping him to the floor by doing so. His misery and pain were awe-striking, and as soon as her magic sensed it, it latched, feeding from him like a leech.
“Damn it demon, why do you seek me out in such a state? You know how agony calls to me.”
Not many knew, mostly because her ability to feed from dark emotion was a demon trait. One she had inherited at birth, kept hidden as a child, and had rejected as an adult. The sin-eater had accidentally discovered her ability to draw from pain; once when she had been physically starved and injured, her magic had latched on in attempt to strengthen her body.
He had never asked about it, and she would never tell, and for over a century that unspoken arrangement had served as guideline for their collaboration. Until today...
“Take it Mara, feed and free me from this anguish.”
His fingers closed around hers, returning her hand to his chest. His sigil on her palm covering her sigil above his heart, both pulsating with energy. Odd. Their rhythm seemed to match.
Energy began to flow through her, his pain calling out to her, her magic rushing to the fore, greedy for the power he offered her. “Demon…”
Her low growl of warning ended in a moan as she pulled back from him, her eyes falling shut with each draw of his pain. The hurt and confusion inside of the sin-eater a toxic poison to him, and a feast to her. One couldn’t blame parched lips for drinking when offered a cup of water, and she drank deeply from his offering.
The energy harvested from his pain moved through her like acid, her body burning with it before her magic consumed it, transforming it to fuel. The intensity of energy shared combined with the intimacy of the feeding made mockery of every line she had drawn between them. Pain became power, and slowly, power was turned into pleasure.
“Enough...” she couldn’t withdraw, tried to unlatch her magic but it wouldn’t release. His pain kept calling to her. The more she gorged, the harder it would be to let go. It was too easy to slip, too easy to forget he was not hers. Damn him- he still tasted the same.
“Take what I offer Mara, set me free from it.”
And she did, surrendering to the pleasure which built beyond her control, while held in arms where she didn’t belong. The demon was a drug she had broken from, leaving the craving to forever linger.
Dizziness took hold as her pulse began to race, and a warm tingling sensation build inside her belly. “Cass.”
Instinct took over, her body obeying lessons it had been taught long ago, and pleasure became arousal. Another moan, not hers this time, as she sensed the demon latch on to her. His pain feeding her as he claimed her lust.
“That’s it…”
Heat spread between her thighs, tension building as they fed off each other, what should have been an even exchange of power. Dark gods, she about to orgasm simply from feeding from him.
“Uhn… demon!”
Warm lips crushed against hers right as her climax hit, his mouth devouring her scream, his power enveloping her in turn, gorging on her release.
Moments passed as she struggled to break through the thick fog of pleasure. Rational thought impossible, her body too spent to move, power humming through her blood. Until slowly, reason returned.
“Oh shit.” Cracking one eye open, she became aware of the fact they somehow had made it to her bed. The sin-eater was taking up the bulk of the space, with her sprawled atop of him.
“Shit? Beg to disagree, I rather thought the experience to have been... mutually gratifying.” The lout had the audacity to smirk up at her right as she glared down at him.
Damnation, she had been determined to place more distance between them. Instead she carried the taste of his lips on her own, his energy searing through her, her body was pressed intimately against his- still trembling slightly from release. As far as plans went, this one had backfired in spectacular fashion.
Her senses returned, yet all were filled with him. His heartbeat filled her ears, his body heat warmed her own, his scent… her nose scrunched in distaste. How the devil had she missed that?
“You reek of Basileus...”
Slowly she lowered her face to the crook of his neck and inhaled the lingering scent which clung to him. Sex, shame, guilt… and horny female.
“Prince of Pleasures and… an Erinyes demon?”
The warmth she had felt seeped out of her, the shivers of pleasure turning to repulsion. She was an idiot, of course he had come here straight from the harem, which was Basileus’s domain.
As if having noticed the turn of her mood, his lips moved to trail the curve of her neck, her weak spot. The caress sent a new jolt of pleasure sparking through her synapses, that odd tingling sensation in her belly returning.
“And a priestess…”
The length of her tiny claws sank deeply into the muscle of his chest. All humor and enjoyment erased, replaced by a small, sadistic thrill at the sight of his crisp white shirt blooming crimson red beneath her touch.
“Never place me in the same category as your conquests, sin-eater, I am not to be used by you.” She huffed, glaring as though her thoughts alone could inflict damage to his person.
Remember what the sin-eater is, and who he is not…
Dominus Oberith’s words echoed through her mind, barricading her resolve. Not her demon, the sin-eater, and she would not be part of his games.
“I appreciate the pick me up, demon. But this will not become a habit between us. I will not be used by you, so if you’ll excuse me.”
With surprising agility despite her wobbly legs, she hurried off him while pressing her nose against the folds of her robes. “I feel the sudden need for a scorching hot shower.”
The scent of sin-eater had mixed with her own upon the soft fabric, but lingering beneath it she had still been able to pick up the foul scent of corruption and sex, traces of the prince of pleasures and his harem. Her efforts in placing her own warlocks there and offer the demon an alternative to Basileus was clearly a failure. She should have expected as much.
“Take whatever poison strikes your fancy and go.”
Fuck it, those poisons wouldn’t kill the sin-eater, only
leave him wishing for death. Maybe this way he would learn to not take liberties, not with her poisons, and not with her.
Her world spun on its axis when she was roughly turned around to again face him. Her anger bristling as long fingers curled beneath her chin to lift her gaze to his.
“Are you jealous, priestess?”
“I am nauseated, demon.”
She stiffened in his grasp, The Malsheem had trained her for the rage which always followed her insolence, her magic rising in response to her anxiety, energy crackling around them. Three hundred years in that Hell hole had not succeeded in tempering her pride, but it had broken part of her, and she had to fight down the urge to flinch.
The rage she expected didn’t come, instead, the sin-eater moved his thumb across her bottom lip in a gentle caress. “It was not my intent to make you feel used Mara, I hold you my equal in all things.”
This would not do at all. Lust and loss were wreaking mayhem within her. She wanted to punch him, to kiss him, to forget him. Moments passed, and under his gentle caress that volatile surge of magic began easing back.
“What were you looking for amongst my belongings, sin-eater?”
“I need to forget… something.”
She had always found the sin-eater’s gaze to be cold and lifeless, now its coal dark depth simply appeared haunted and hurt. And that long dead heart inside her chest gave a single, painful squeeze.
“Never ask for that. You have no idea of the damage that does to a mind. You forget the pain, but you lose yourself with it.”
“Would that be so bad? To forget and lose ourselves? We could forget together and start over.”
Damn him, and damn her too.
“Believe me demon, running away has never been option for us.”
She stepped back, sliding the sharp tip of her claw along the length of his bloodstained shirt, peeling back the fabric to find the shallow scratches and puncture marks already healing. Good.
“Besides, you already consumed your poison rations for the week. If I am to be your dealer, then at least allow me to do so with a conscience. Let me summon the courtesans for you, feed on their lust till you are fully regenerated, perhaps then I will give you my poison.”