And love—true love—was far more perilous than adoration, more naked than desire, more undoing than lust. It was so raw, so consuming, that I could not even answer myself. SoI turned inward and focused on the one part of my body that could always, inevitably, be coaxed toward arousal.
I recalled the way Asmodeus had touched me when at last I ascended those infernal stairs. I mulled on how hollow I had felt when it withdrew from my hole, how sharply frustration had bloomed the moment it told me to stop squeezing between my legs. Wasn’t it all some grand and drawn-out ritual of denial, stretched across death and damnation like a taut string, vibrating with want? A cruel, exquisite game where desire was never quite fulfilled, only prolonged
Yes, in truth, I had been edged from the instant it left that monastery and summoned me to Hell. No other demon had managed to satisfy me fully—not when my life, and all that remained of my soul, had already been laid at Asmodeus’ feet.
With that pulsing and eager arousal, I stared at it. Beneath my chin, I could feel the slow rise and fall of breath within its body, though neither of us had needed breath in some time. That struck me as strange.
Was it anticipation that made the Prince of Lust tremble beneath me, or only the echo of my own yearning, reflected in flesh I longed to study like sacred text?
I wanted only to be close, to pull on that tether anchoring the two of us.
"Will you take me now?" I asked, my voice raw and unsteady. I had not meant to sound so desperate, but once the words left me, the want surged like a tide, unchecked and overwhelming. My cock throbbed, proof that my body had long outrun my thoughts. It moved ahead of reason, already certain of what was to come; my very flesh was convinced it was about to be claimed by the Prince of Lust. So, when Asmodeus remained silent, offering no answer, frustration bloomed hot beneath my skin. I spoke again, unbidden andtoo bold. Near growling, I asked, "Won’t you finish what you started?"
And I did not mean only that recent moment against the pillar. I meant long before, back to the beginning, when I had first summoned it. I meant the night it had taken me, unmade me, ruined me so utterly that no mortal touch could ever satisfy me again.
My fingers drifted down the inside of my thigh, to the place where it had marked the tender flesh with its teeth. The puncture wounds remained.
It had said, “You’ll think of me every time you see them. Every time you touch yourself, I’ll be there.”
I remembered how I’d screamedmercy, writhing, weeping, impaled on its cock, certain I would die from the force of it. How Asmodeus stopped, kissed the blood from my lip, and told me I was doing so well.
So, so well, little priest. Let yourself go.
But I did not want mercy now.
I wanted what had come before: fear, ruin, the razor’s edge where death dressed itself in ecstasy. Now, as its consort, I craved more. I wanted Asmodeus to test the limits of my newfound immortality, to see just how far I could be pushed before I shattered.
“Well?” I hissed.
It growled in reply, the sound more laughter than wrath. It offered no words nor clarification, only placing its hand at the back of my neck and tilting my face upward. The heat of its palm spilled through my spine, steadying and commanding all at once. I shivered beneath its touch, a flicker of awareness stirring as I remembered we were not alone. But when my gaze dared drift toward the watching Kings, Asmodeus’s grip tightened.
Look at me,it murmured. Not aloud, but inside my skull, a voice that brushed over my mind.
I obeyed without thought, fixing my eyes to its burning one. And the longer I stared, the less certain I became of what I saw. I blinked, and for a moment, it wore the form from that first summoning: two eyes, a face almost human, red flesh, a tail. Familiar. Almost mortal.
Then I blinked again, and the illusion slipped. The beautiful monstrosity returned. Its strange mouth curved into something close to amusement as it descended.
And then it kissed me.
It was a kiss that burned, a conflagration pressed to my lips. Heat roared to life inside me, total and consuming, and I inhaled as though drowning; lungs frantic, body alight. It felt as if it was stealing the last of my soul, and I gave it willingly.
It no longer mattered that I was no longer human, that breath was no longer necessary, that I had crossed the threshold into immortality. My mind still clung to the memory of flesh, and the animal that once needed air took me over. So, I chased my breath now, gasping into the kiss and pressing myself as close as possible, as though proximity alone could fill the need in me.
Two warring instincts moved within me. One yearned for the demon to breathe life back into me. The other, darker and more honest, wanted Asmodeus to draw the breath from my body, to consume the whole of me. I hoped it would somehow inhale my flesh, too.
Another dizzying wave crashed through me. My knees gave out, and I collapsed against it, trembling and feeling absurd. My cock stirred, aching faintly, but there was something greater than lust within me now—adoration, awe, an almost unholy disbelief.
I was shocked, still, that it wantedme, that everything I had given up to be here was about to culminate. Asmodeus must have sensed the unravelling in me. I was perilously closeto tears, undone not by pain but by the sheer magnitude of it all.
It cupped my face in its hands and sighed against my mouth as it kissed me once more. Slowly, so slowly, as if sealing a vow.
Its tongue pressed against my lips, and I parted them without hesitation, offering what it asked for. We kissed slowly, though my heart pounded with infernal urgency. With my eyes shut, I tried to taste all of it. Asmodeus in full. The inside of its mouth carried the copper tang of blood, the salt of sweat, the damp chill of ancient stone. Yet beneath it all, I tasted hunger, fierce and familiar. It mirrored the shape of my own.
The demon’s tongue slid against mine, and its hands, once reverent, became possessive. Clawed fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips, and I whimpered into its mouth. That sound earned me a low growl, a sound of dark approval. Oh yes, I thought,thiswas how it wanted me: pleading, desperate, stripped of pretence. And I gave it that, without artifice. Every sound it drew from me was real. I felt newly made, and thus young and inexperienced, utterly untouched by the layers of filth I'd earned clawing through Hell’s ranks. That virginal fear I had never known at my first summoning found me now. I was all nerves, trembling at the edge of want and terror. I was caught between desire and the dread of beingseen. The fire had, in its way, purified me. I felt as though I were being touched for the first time.
Asmodeus gripped me harder. There was no tenderness in the kiss now, no mercy to brace me. My legs gave out, and I was held aloft by the strength of its hands alone.
When it pulled away, a silken strand of saliva still connected our mouths. I was panting, staring up through half-lidded eyes and utterly at its mercy.
