Page 133 of Damsel in Disguise

The floor clears in slow increments, red thinning into absence until only faint smears remain.

Delilah lifts a hand to cradle her head. Her fingers press lightly against the clean slice across her throat. She pushes herself upright with her free hand, too cautious not to destabilize her recalibrating body.

There’s just a moment where her balance falters before she stabilizes herself in a blink.

If only her head had been fully severed or her neck twisted, this wouldn’t be happening. But that knowledge belongs to only Dominion members and the buyers.

“Mm… that was excessive,” she murmurs, the sounds low and distorted, layered with a mechanical rasp that fractures the sound into something inhuman.

Each vibration of words sends a fine spray of blood droplets into the air from the slit of her throat.

“I needed her convinced.”

“Whatever,” she mutters, already disengaging and moving on.

Delilah walks toward the nearest mirror with small, careful steps, each one placed with precision as her body isn’t fully finished regenerating yet.

“You owe me for that performance,” she stops in front of the mirror.

The edge in her tone sounds almost… amused.

“Why didn’t you kill her anyway?”

“I thought you liked it each time she watched you fucking me. And then performed somnophilia on you,” she scoffs. “But wow, I didn’t know she was Ariella. No wonder you bought it here for her recovery.”

What was I expecting?

I watch her aligning her head—tilting, adjusting, pressing until the edges of the wound meet perfectly, readying to fix it with a grotesque kind of perfection.

“Do they know?”

“Of course they do. But not that she was Ariella,” she rolls her eyes, “since I know it just now. Didn’t have much time to dig about your human admirer.”

Through my peripheral vision, I catch a slight disturbance in the stillness. A shift in the shadows.

The line of sight is calculated. Ariella lingers behind the glass, half-concealed by darkness, watching us—no, watching her—from behind the windows.

Is Delilah aware of her presence?

One corner of my lips subtly curves up into a smirk.

She wants a show? I’ll give her something worth remembering for life.

The thought alone is enough to drag heat back into my veins, enough to stir my cock from its brief lull. It swells against the fabric, thickening, pressing insistently until there’s no ignoring it.

Meanwhile, Delilah lifts her hand, her index finger hovering just above the gaping slash at her throat. The moment her fingertip aligns precisely with the wound, a thin beam of surgical light slices into existence. It glides over torn flesh, mending as it goes.

I think she’s too busy with healing herself to notice the presence observing her from the shadows this time.

I wait for her to regenerate.

Tissue knits. Veins reconnect. Bone realigns beneath the surface with a grotesque efficiency. Even her vocal cords are restored with the same unhurried precision.

The wound seals itself into seamless continuity, as if it were never there to begin with.

By the time the beam flickers out, there’s nothing left. No trace. No scar. Just smooth, unbroken skin where death should have lingered.

She rolls her neck, a sharp crack echoing in the silence. Then coughs once, testing her vocals.