Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy)

by Harley Laroux

  “I can tell you what I’m going to do, and what you’re going to do,” he said, his arm around my shoulders so I was held against him. “I’m going to keep you safe. And you’re going to listen to me, so that I can protect you properly.”

  I raised my head, grinning mischievously. “I’ll listen. Doesn’t mean I’ll obey.”

  He snorted, squeezing my arm. “Henceforth, the consequences for endangering your life will be severe, Rae. Think twice before you decide to be a brat.”

  “Henceforth?” I giggled. “Your 17th century came out there a bit.”

  “Back in my day…” He put on a gravelly old man voice, and easily rolled me onto my back, following after me so that he straddled me as I lay there. “Humans had a much more proper fear of demons than to be teasing them, baby girl.” He snapped his teeth, all sharp and wicked, and said softly. “Still feel like teasing?”

  The playfulness in his eyes made my heart skip. I traced my fingers along his chest, finding the smooth pale lines of his scars and following them. Torture scars, battle scars, stories of pain that lingered on this absurdly strong, immortal body. He watched my fingers move, suddenly still as stone, and I wondered if it was because he was trying not to flinch away, like he had the first time I’d touched him gently.

  “Are we safe here?” I whispered. Strong as he was, I didn’t want to see him fight again. I didn’t want to see him have to turn into an animal to survive or to ensure I survived.

  “For now. We’ll stay here for a while...then move on if the Hadleighs or any of the beasts get wind of where you are.”

  “I can’t hide forever.”

  “I know. And you won’t. Just until it’s safe.”

  “I know there are other Gollums, besides the one last night.” I gulped. “I saw them.”

  He frowned. “When?”

  “When you were gone.”

  His frown intensified, and he stood up from the bed. I sat up, hands knotting nervously in the blankets as he picked up a black long-sleeved shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “You should get dressed,” he said. “There’s some clothes in the bags near the door. I need to do some scouting today, make sure no one’s on our trail. And I need you occupied while I’m gone so you don’t go wandering off.”

  I was about to remind him that I wasn’t a puppy who would go running off without a leash, but stopped myself before I lied. I was a wanderer, and he was absolutely right to worry what I’d do if I got bored. I worried what I’d do if I was bored. The plastic bags near the door had an assortment of clothing in them, mostly in black, brown, and dark blue.

  “How do you know my size?” I said, holding up a long blue plaid skirt to my waist in front of the mirror. “And my style...this is cute…”

  “I’ve been observing you for months,” he said, lacing up his boots. “How could I not know those things?”

  He’d even gotten the right size in a pair of chunky boots. With a black turtleneck and gray denim jacket atop the skirt, I turned away from the mirror and found him watching me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his joggers.

  My ex had once said that my style was like, “if Janis Joplin had a lovechild with Sisters of Mercy.” It was more weird than sexy, which wasn’t something I thought about most of the time — except when a supernaturally sexy demon was staring me down like he was considering eating me again.

  “Why are you blushing?” He took my face in his hands, which made my blush far worse, considering I couldn’t look away from him. “I thought I’d fucked all the shame out of you already?” He kissed my forehead, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Apparently I need to corrupt you a bit more, baby girl.”

  I didn’t know what to expect when Leon said he was going to keep me “occupied” — but leaving me at the hotel’s spa for several hours hadn’t even been on my radar as a possibility. Getting my nails done and my back massaged after soaking in a mud bath was a bizarre contrast to the past few weeks; it felt too normal, too safe.

  Not that it had ever been exactly normal for me to have a spa day. That wasn’t something that typically fit in my college-student broke-vlogger budget.

  I couldn’t fathom where Leon had gotten the money for this, either. Did demons have money? Did they have credit cards?

  “You’re carrying a lot of tension in your shoulders.” The woman massaging my back was blonde, pretty, a few years older than me, with a voice so soft she probably could make a fortune off recording ASMR videos. “Slow, deep breath…I’m going to work out the knots here.”

  They’d given me wine, and after a glass I found it pretty funny that she probably thought all that tension was from stress at work or school, rather than being hunted by monsters and a death cult.

  Funny. Just hilarious.

  She did her job though. I hadn’t felt so relaxed in months. As I walked back up to the room that evening with my body feeling like jelly, I realized that I couldn’t wait to move out of Abelaum. I couldn’t wait to leave that goddamn town behind.

  Fuck reconnecting with the magic of my childhood. Once I’d graduated and gotten to see Inaya’s wedding, I was moving as far away from this place as I was able to. Money was an issue, but I’d rent out an unfinished basement on the East Coast if I had to.

  And Leon…

  It had become too easy to imagine him going with me. Living with me. Staying with me. But as I got back up to the room, and ordered room service again for dinner, I knew that was a dangerous train of thought to go down. Dangerous because that wasn’t something I should get my hopes up about.

  Leon was a demon. An immortal. A monster. He wanted my soul. He wasn’t about to be domesticated — and I didn’t want him to be. I didn’t want a demonic variation on the white-picket-fence nuclear family ideal. I just didn’t want him to leave.

  His absence would be a void I couldn’t fill, which seemed so silly considering the lifetime I’d been through since moving here had really only been a few months. But it was like the first time I’d seen a ghost; it had been so brief but so stark, and the moment I’d realized what had happened I’d known I could never let that go. It’s weird that one brief moment can change the course of your whole life.

  I finished dinner, and the sun set, but Leon still hadn’t returned. I streamed Youtube on the TV, putting on some deep-dive into an unsolved mystery from the 1970s to keep myself distracted. Nothing like watching the story of a woman disappearing without a trace to soothe my brain.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I paused the video, looking around the room with a frown. I’d thought it was the sound of raindrops hitting the window, at first, but the sound was too steady, too purposeful. I waited, listening for it again to figure out where the hell it was coming from.

  Tap, tap.

  I got up slowly from the bed. It sounded like a finger tapping on wood, but it made no sense — it sounded like it was coming from the far corner, near the sliding door out onto the balcony. The only thing on the other side of that corner was the bathroom on the inside, and the balcony outside. I stared at the wall, at the shining, roughly polished wood, my heart beginning to pound.

  Why did it sound like it was coming from inside the wall?

  By the time I saw the movement behind me reflected in the window, Leon had already clapped his hand over my mouth, and wrapped the other around my throat.

  “Fear smells good on you, baby girl,” he murmured, and twisted me around so I faced him, one hand still over my mouth and the other wrapped tight around my back. He flashed sharp teeth at me, his eyes bright. “I missed you today. It’s torturous, spending hours thinking about what I’d get to do to you when I got back.”

  He uncovered my mouth. I smiled up at him breathlessly, my pounding heart beginning to slow. “Are we safe? No one’s after us?”

  “We’re safe,” he said, still not giving me an inch of wiggle room as he held me close. He frowned a bit. “I couldn’t find the Hadleighs. They’re up to something, or…” He shook his head. “They ha
ven’t managed to track us. So, on to better topics.”

  He nudged a black paper bag on the floor with his foot, and I picked it up curiously. My mouth gaped open as I pulled out the plastic packaging inside.

  “Holy shit, Leon, you…you think it will fit —”

  “If I can fit, the toy can fit,” he said, as I stared wide-eyed at the dildo I’d pulled from the bag. It was absurdly thick, around his same size, and molded of purple silicone with a suction cup at the base.

  “I didn’t know you were into toys,” I said.

  “I’m into whatever I can use to make you scream.” He grinned as I rummaged a little further in the bag, and pulled out another box containing a blue and white vibrator. “I suspected our playtime tonight might be too intense without some distractions.”

  I was excited for anything he had in mind that involved toys like these, but he caught my curiosity. “Intense? What…what do you mean?”

  He used his claws to slit open the packages, and handed the toys back to me when he was done. “Go clean them, and try to remember: what did I tell you I’d be doing today?”

  It only took me a minute to remember, and fear’s cold fingers slid up my back again. Fear and hot arousal coiled inside me like a snake; just as dangerous, and just as terrifying. Music began to play from the TV as I cleaned the toys, and I recognized the haunting, gravel tone as Anti-Social Masochistic Rage by Ghostemane. And I’d always thought my music taste was creepy.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, he was sitting at the edge of the bed, running a cotton ball along a thick steel needle, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol at his feet.

  I froze at the sight of that needle. Shit. Shit.

  “I’ve never pierced a human before,” he mused. “When I pierced Zane’s tongue I didn’t have to worry about any infections.” He glanced over at me and winked. “Don’t worry. I did my research. I wouldn’t want to break my little doll.”

  I wanted to run for the door. I wanted to scream. I wanted...I wanted him to do it. My hands were already shaking. My heart was a fluttering bird trapped in the cage of my ribs. My head was light as a balloon.

  Leon curled his clawed finger at me. “Come here, baby girl.”

  I stood in front of him, the toys nearly forgotten despite how tightly I was gripping them. He set the needle aside on a towel he’d laid on the bed, beside a pair of metal forceps and two small stainless steel bars with balls at either end, and took the vibrator from my hands. “Put down the toy. Position it so you can kneel on it.”

  My mouth was suddenly dry, but my pussy certainly wasn’t. I positioned the dildo on the floor, suctioning it to the shining wood at his feet, giving myself enough room to kneel over it. He switched on the vibrator curiously, the buzzing sound igniting some instinctual arousal. I loved the vibrator I had at home, but damn, that thing could take me from zero to one hundred painfully quickly.

  He laughed darkly as he switched it back off. “Oh, Rae...I’m gonna make you scream.”

  I laughed, sort of. The sound was a little too tinged with hysteria to be purely laughter. The anticipation was an adrenaline high, absolutely merciless, as it made every muscle in my body twitch and my clit swell with warmth. He reached out and dragged a single claw slowly across my cheek. “What’s your safeword?”

  “Mercy,” I whispered.

  “Good girl. Undress.”

  I stripped off my shirt, tugged down my skirt and goosebumps prickled over my skin. He didn’t touch me as I unhooked my bra, then slid down my panties. He just watched, golden eyes taking in every inch of me with the slow, calculated gaze of a hungry wolf. Planning where to bite first.

  “I can smell your wet cunt.” He chuckled. “Touch yourself. I want you to feel how wet you are.”

  I obeyed, sliding my fingers down. I was slick, and the sensation of my fingers sliding over my clit made me shudder. I tried not to gasp, but my eyes fluttered and I couldn’t bite back my whimper.

  “Put your fingers in my mouth.”

  Again, I obeyed. His forked tongue slid between my two fingers and swirled over them before he sucked them clean. He closed his eyes, savoring the taste and licking it from his lips.

  “Kneel. Press the toy inside yourself.”

  I dropped down to my knees on the cool smooth wood. He held out a bottle of lube, and squirted it into my hand so I could rub the slick concoction over the dildo beneath me. Wet as I was, a toy that thick wasn’t going to go in easily. I gulped as I positioned it at my entrance, watching his eyes as he watched me in return.

  “Impale yourself for me, baby girl.”

  I groaned as I lowered myself onto the toy, the thickness stretching me until it ached, until I had to pause halfway down, panting. He leaned down, caressed his hand over my face and gripped the hair at the back of my head. “Deeper.”

  I pressed down, whimpering at the stretch of it inside me. Finally I was kneeling all the way down, resting on my heels as my legs shook. He tipped my head up, using my hair as leverage, and kissed my mouth slow, taking his time as his tongue played with mine.

  As he kissed me, he turned on the vibrator. With my eyes closed, I had no idea what he was doing until the vibrations pressed to my clit and I cried out into his mouth. He kissed me harder, muffling those cries of pleasure as he held the toy against me, sending tremors through my legs. Only when I was at the edge of orgasm did he pull back, grinning wickedly at my desperate gasps.

  “Ride that cock, baby girl. Slow and deep.”

  I did as he said, even though my legs were shaking and weak. The fullness of the dildo inside me had me moaning, my pussy clenching around it as I lowered myself down again. As I did, Leon wet another cotton ball with isopropyl alcohol and took my breast in his hand.

  “Keep riding, nice and slow, just like that.”

  He disinfected one nipple, then the other, the damp cotton cold against those hardened buds. Then he took the forceps, clicking them together ominously. “All the way down, Rae. Fill yourself up. Now, hold this against your clit.” He handed over the vibrator, which I held between my legs with shaking hands. He took up the needle. “Hold as still as you can for me.”

  “Fuck,” I gasped, shaking, terrified, so turned on that I knew I was only seconds from coming. But he was only seconds from piercing that needle into me, and by the way my belly was tightening, my body was eager for that pain. I craved this intimate, gentle violence.

  He pinched the forceps around my nipple, holding it tightly as I stared down at it with wide eyes, anticipation stealing my breath away. “Look up at me, baby girl.”

  I looked up, and he gave me that sharp, demonic grin. “Are you scared?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “Do you want this mark?”

  I nodded quickly, my entire body shaking with the waves of pleasure the vibrator was forcing through me. “Yes. I want it. I want your mark, please.”

  The needle pierced through my skin; my vision flashed and my head went light. The pain was sharp and pinching, but not unfamiliar. I’d gotten piercings before, just not there. But the meeting of that pain with my pleasure, the pinnacle of anticipation finally reached, shattered me like thin glass. I screamed, not from the pain but from the release, from the exquisitely perfect cocktail of sensations.

  I came as that needle pierced into me. The pinching, merciless pain tipped me over the edge. I shook, moaning as Leon fit the jewelry in.

  “That’s my girl,” he murmured, and held my head in his hands. “You took it so well, fuck, look at you.” His eyes moved over me — my face, my chest, down to my shaking legs. “Beautiful girl.” He kissed my forehead, my cheek, the breast he’d just pierced, while I floated in ecstasy, the aftershocks trembling through me. “One more, baby girl. One more. Ride that cock again.”

  I didn’t know where I found the energy to obey. I’d sunk so deep into that blissful headspace of submission, of pleasure, of willing helplessness. It was a dimension without fear, without the dread that had hung over me thos
e past few months. It was safe, it was beautiful, it felt so good. My pussy stretched and pulsed around that thick toy as he unwrapped another needle from its clear plastic seal and cleaned it.

  “Hold still for me. Turn the vibrator back on.”

  My clit was so sensitive that just barely touching the humming head of the vibrator against it made me groan. Holding still was so much harder now. I couldn’t stop shaking, as if my body couldn’t contain the multitude of sensations flooding it. I kept my eyes on his face as he positioned the forceps, and smiled when I saw the barely-tethered excitement flash in his eyes as he held up the needle.

  He was monstrous, but he was mine. And I was his, as surely as if he’d already claimed my soul.

  I’d spent so many years chasing darkness, reaching out for it, calling to it, and now I’d sunk into it. It had embraced me and I didn’t want it any other way. The darkness was sharp but, God, it was warm. It was terrifying, but it was safe.

  The darkness was a demon leaning over me with fire in his eyes, whispering, “You’re mine, baby girl.”

  The second needle hurt worse, but it shattered me just the same. My head tipped back, eyes closed, groaning at that brutal sharpness and the tingling, fiery pleasure that flowed through my veins, from my core all the way to the tips of my toes. I dropped the vibrator, the stimulation far more than I could bear. My head was so light, I was sinking so deep.

  Leon didn’t let me fall. He was on his knees beside me, arms around me, cradling me against his chest as he lay kisses over my face and whispered, “There’s my girl. Ssh, easy. Easy. Deep breaths, baby girl.”

  I realized the music had changed. I recognized it...Cigarettes After Sex...Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby. I floated there, eyes closed, shattered and warm, protected in his arms. I could forget all the danger outside these walls, and let darkness be my shelter here. I could let wickedness be my sanctuary, perversion my therapy, and a monster be my lover.

  “I can clean them myself, you know...doesn’t that gross you out?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her as I carefully nudged the cotton swab along the bar through her nipple. “I’ve done things for pleasure so disgusting it would make most humans vomit. Cleaning the marks I gave you is far from gross, Rae.”