He’d stood protectively over her where she’d fallen to her knees in the streets, a small hand on her back and determined chin held high. He’d been looking around for something he could do for her.
“I knew it wasn’t my place to help,” I said with a shake of my head. “I wasn’t there for that. I existed toseducehumans. I introduced them to the thrills of embracing the side of themselves that they were told was wrong. But … I took pity on the little boy trying so hard to be brave for his weeping mother and decided to lend a hand. I bought them a hot meal and even got them set up with some lodging. Akhom immediately took to me, and even though I’d never had an urge to be a father, something inside of me liked being that figure for him.”
Baba! Baba, look at me!
His voice still called to me the way it did when he showed me how he could lift a heavy basket of barley. I’d patted his dark head and took the basket from him while telling him how proud I was of how strong he’d gotten.My son, I’d called him.
“What was supposed to be me helping them once turned into weeks with the two of them, and each day, I started to feel more and more human. I forgot what I was and became a man who could andwantedto raise Akhom and care for his broken-hearted mother. I thought maybe, just maybe, a demon like me could have a family. I could be more than a monster people told horror stories about.”
The somberness strangling me morphed into a violent ball of hatred as I growled, “But it was all a lie.”
Serenity’s eyes widened as she listened to me recount the tale of my stupidity, my fall from hope to anguish.
“Isesu wasn’t Akhom’s mother. She wasn’t a widow. She was a member of a secret group of occultists who had worshipped dark magic and coveted demons. They’d learned about Incubi and realized we were easy to bind to their will if they could get us to sleep with a virgin. They had been trying to enslave one of us to their group and had apparently seen me bedding a human and shedding my human guise in a moment where I thought I was hidden from view. I … I’d walked right into their trap.
“Akhom was actually the group leader’s son, and they’d certainly trained him well. He was a very good actor, even at such a young age.” I couldn’t help the acrimony bleeding into my words. I couldn’t help snarling, “I learned that the hard way when I took to Isesu’s bed and was instantly bound to her after claiming her virginity. She and the group she belonged to kept me prisoner for decades in a well outside of their village.”
For a moment, I was back there. My legs and waist were submerged in dirty water while the rough stones cut into my bare back and the metal shackles burned against my wrists and ankles. The man-made bindings that should’ve been powerless against a demon kept me prisoner due to the command of my bond. The sun beat down on me from the small hole above me, but that wasn’t as bad as when they sealed the small ray of light with the cover. The sound of my own breath would bounce off the stones until it felt like I was going mad in the cramped and cold hole.
“Isesu’s group had done their research, most likely with the help of a different class of demon who liked seeing the torture of others, even if it was their own kind. The group knew the incantations that an Incubi’s bond could say to control them. So in that dark, wet well I lived, alone and chained to the rock walls.”
It was an experience many Incubi had to endure. Individuals or groups of dark worshipers would keep us locked up in somemiserable place like a well. In Zagan’s case, he’d been captured and kept in a coffin that the greedy group hid beneath the pulpit in their dark church. Perseus had been bound and shut away in a tight crevice of a mountain cave, the space occasionally flooding with the Grecian sea. None of us found freedom until Coldin came along, the vicious demon that he was. Only after he’d brutally murdered our bond, the key to our imprisonment, were we able to take our lives back. And our revenge.
It was part of the reason we’d agreed to let Hell’s killer join our band. Sure, he already had a knack for beats, constantly tapping and making rhythms in his stone cell of Hell, but I was pretty sure our lead singer was also secretly grateful to the Letum demon for what he’d done for me, Zagan, and Perseus. Even though Coldin had only killed our bonds as a job from the Big Man, he was still the reason we’d managed to get out.
We’d all been in a miserable situation from bonds; however, Zagan and Perseus hadn’t been swayed intofeelingfor the bonds they’d been tricked into. Isesu and Akhom’s group didn’t have to get my heart involved. They could’ve had Isesu open up to me on night one, caging me to their whims much sooner. But they’d drawn it out, wanting me to fall for the woman and her son as a family of my own. They wanted to control me, not just with food, but with my heart, too.
Serenity’s face had gone pale, and her hand shook as she squeezed mine.
I laughed ruefully. “I only got to come out when they needed me for something—making their crops grow, even during the harshest of seasons, accruing wealth and status for them within society, killing off those who opposed them or stood in their way. The worst was honestly becoming their own personal sex show with Isesu. It was the perfect entertainment at their orgy parties.”
My heart began to race with deep-rooted hatred for myself and everyone who’d crossed my path back then. My body shook as I practically panted through quick, angry breaths, “They’d taken something as beautiful and natural as sex, the very thing I was made to do andloveddoing, and warped it into this fucking nightmare. I’d get sick to my stomach every time they called me in to have sex. I fought against Isesu and my own body, trying so fucking hard to not enjoy what was being used against me. I hated Isesu. I hated that group of people. I hated what I’d once loved.”
Serenity wrapped her arms around me, and I sucked in a lungful of air. I couldn’t catch my breath at first, but slowly, the ability came back to me. She held me tightly and whispered, “I’ve got you. You’re here. You’re safe. I’m right here.”
I wrapped my arms around her and found myself getting grounded again. She was right. I wasn’t there, strapped to a table in the center of the room, being fucked against my will as a show for everyone else. No. I was here where Serenity’s silky hair tickled my nose with its sweet smell. Her soft curves hugged my firm lines. Her heart beat in tandem with mine.
I was inmyhome withmyhuman.
I was safe.
“I’m okay now,” I whispered against the top of her head.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes,” I stopped her. “I do. Ineedto. For you.” I considered it and added quietly, “For me.”
She swallowed hard and searched my gaze. I was sure she felt how much I hated talking about this. My muscles ached from how tight I’d clenched as the story went on. Yet, there was also something freeing about divulging the horrors of my past to someone who cared and wanted to listen. I was sure she saw how much I needed this in my eyes, because eventually, she nodded.
I took a deep breath until I found my voice again. “In the rare moments when my anger faded and I was left with anguish, I’d ask myself, Lucifer, the world abovewhy. Akhom, the boy who’d called me father, the boy I’d been excited to raise, answered that question for me.”
My voice got caught in my throat. I was back in the bottom of the well with murky water clinging to my naked body. My head was tipped back, eyes burning from how exhausted and overworked I was. I stared up at the distant moon through the round opening far, far above me and shouted, “Why?”
Akhom’s little head peered over the edge of the well, and even in that moment, after everything, a small part of me lit up to see that he was okay. But then, he sneered and narrowed his eyes in disdain as he snarled the words I repeated now.
“‘You’re a demon and a stain upon the world. A spawn of Hell deserves this much. You’re amonster, and no one could ever really love a monster.’”
“That’s such bullshit,” Serenity hissed, pulling me closer.
