Lake of Sin (Prince of Lust #4)

Chapter 5

5

B y the time I had emerged from the tunnel, my body ached. My knees bore the most damage; the caps were red-raw and bruised. Indents scooped into my palms and dirt covered all limbs. The coolness of the tunnel had given me goosebumps, but the keep itself was warm, and a fine sheen of sweat had begun on my lower back.

The keep was very fine and very human in design. I went rigid just being in there. My body stiffened on impulse, and I felt shamed for my nudeness—which I realised was the point of this place’s design. After Asmodeus’ insight, I understood better that my wantonness was a state I could achieve, one that fell behind a wall of fog whenever I was reminded of my humanity or my once-faith. Anything close to human made it more difficult for me. I wondered vaguely if the monstrous bodies of my lovers so far had allowed me to be free with them.

The imps walked me forward through lustrous corridors that seemed to go on endlessly. The walls were decorated with all manner of art or hanging bronze armour, and again, the art appeared human. Painted portraits of unknown nobility lined the walls, and much was in a style I recognised as Italian. This might have been an amalgamated castle, with influences from across Europe, but I could imagine it most suited to Italy. I could imagine in that moment that I was still a priest, summoned to take a final confession, or bestow last rites upon a wealthy lord.

The imps’ surcoats flapped as they moved. In this light, I could better see the designs they bore, which was a sigil like the many I had laid before during my time in Hell.

Indeed, the room they brought me into was a large bedroom, fit with a four-poster bed, a swooning sofa, a desk, a carpet, and a large expanse of floor before the door. On that wooden floor, the sigil sat etched.

Once I was inside, the imps closed the door without a word, and I was left to my own devices.

Usually, I would have gone to my knees and fumbled with some blade or another to bleed into the sigil and summon the next demon with speed. But here I hesitated.

I was frightened, you see. More frightened than I had been for any of the demons. The false bravado I’d possessed for Marchosias seemed a distant dream. If all I had to do was bend over and take whatever this Vassago wanted to do to me, I would!

But the thought of looking in his eyes as he touched me, fingers trailing over my skin, kisses soft, thrusts slow—my stomach rioted!

I sat down on the swooning sofa and put my head in my hands, and when that did naught to calm me, I shot up and began to pace the room. I opened the closets expecting to find them empty but instead found them brimming with clothing. All manner of tunics and fanciful clothes burst free. I closed the wardrobe and walked next to the desk, which had papers written in some infernal language I could not understand, though the occasional word became familiar the longer I stared at it. I could read “ Vassago, Prince of Hell ” and “the good-natured prince ” as terms that occurred excessively throughout the letter. Besides the letters was a sharp letter opener and a leather-bound journal. I left the letter opener for later and unwrapped the book, which was a sketchbook.

And in it, there were drawings of me.

As realistic as the most precise portrait, these drawings showed me in every stage of my descent into Hell. Some showed me in my cassock, or with my clerical collar, or on my knees glistening with the fluids of other creatures. They showed me wanton and desperate and alive, and all of them were drawn with great care.

Perhaps with affection.

I dropped the leather-bound book and stepped back from the table. My heart raced—not because I had been watched by this Prince, nor that it seemed to have captured every blemish and detail of my body, but because of that affection.

I had two choices: stand here in fear eternally or turn around and face this demon. In a moment of immense bravery, I wrenched the letter opener from the table, stalked to the sigil, and slit open my palm as I had done so many times before. My stomach lurched as the blood dripped to the ground. I did all this standing without my usual reverence; I stripped the sacrosanct from the ritual. I felt too nervous to bow, too shaken to show much deference in that moment. The sigil shone a bright gold, and an answering rumble shook the castle. Then: silence.

I waited, poised in eerie stillness. Time conspired with my anxiety to weaken what little confidence I had remaining in my body, and it became impossible to watch the door at all. I turned with embarrassment burning my face and stumbled back to the desk, where I carefully replaced the letter opener and waited for the wound in my hand to knit itself up.

It didn’t.

The door creaked open, and I spun to face Prince Vassago.

And he was not what I expected.

Vassago appeared as I would imagine any beautiful human prince. His eyes were warm, and crows-feet pulled the skin around his eyes towards a look of eternal amusement. In fact, all the lines on his face suggested human emotion: smile lines at his cheeks and across his forehead. He looked like he might have been from Italy, like an emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor, possessing that dark raven colour in his hair and the warmth in his skin. He had a dazzling, wide smile that he flashed at me immediately, and his eyes were a warm brown struck through with amber. His hair was slicked away from his face with a moustache that curled at the sides. Beautiful sapphire earrings dangled from his lobes. The Prince dressed in a heavy, fur-lined cape with a stunning blue velvet doublet with gold buttons and decorations. A lopsided hat draped over his head, and red- and-white feathers burst from the right side. Underneath it all, Prince Vassago still smiled that dazzling, welcoming smile.

“Oh, pardon me!” he said, and his voice had a honey warmth to it. Jovially, Vassago swung his arms out and walked across the threshold. The door closed gently behind him without so much as a wave towards it.

Vassago’s eyes flashed to me and then to my hand, which I held away from my body. Droplets of blood were gathering at my feet.

“Well, that won’t do, will it?” he murmured, still smiling. “Come, Alessandro. Come and sit!”

He took me very gently by the forearm. Beneath his touch, my body was as brittle as a sheet of ice and just as cold. I walked where he directed me, and I sat on the waiting bed, arm resting in his lap.

“Are you alright?” the Prince asked me.

I had said nothing, though I felt the blood had drained from my face. How alright could I be about being treated with kindness by a demon? I couldn’t trust it.

I said eventually, “You know my name?”

“Oh, yes.” His hand dashed into his tunic, and from it, he pulled free a missive, which he waved at me, the thick parchment warbling from the movement. “Our King Asmodeus Itself has warned me of your approach. You’ve been quite exceptional so far, haven’t you?”

“ Warned you?” I picked my words carefully, but I couldn’t help but snag on that.

A warm smile bloomed beneath Vassago’s moustache. No hint of malice clouded its eyes. “That’s right. I do believe we have a lot of work to cover. Why don’t I take my clothes off?”

Vassago began to stand, and my stomach dropped. “It doesn’t have to be. A lot of work, I mean. If you were to use me as you saw fit, then I?—”

“Well, it’s not about using , is it?” Vassago freed himself from his fur-lined cape. It fell to the ground in a heavy heap. Vassago looked at me, brown eyes narrowing. “I was told you wanted to be pleasured. That you were brazen enough to petition Asmodeus for reciprocal touch. Have I been misinformed?”

I shook my head and told him the truth. It all came out in one great rush. I sat there naked, exposed on the bed, feeling that everything was far too human and familiar for me to be acting as I was. At any moment, I feared someone I knew might walk through those doors and see me. I feared everything had been a dream, and I would wake in the monastery alone and untouched for eternity.

“I’m frightened of such a touch. I had a moment of lucidity, I believe: a blip where I knew the best whore for Asmodeus would be a man who knows his own pleasure, his own body, that it might be used by the Prince of Lust more intentionally. I am doing this because Lord Asmodeus saved my life. The least I can do is ensure a human is perfectly settled to their new role.”

Vassago barely shifted. “ What type of touch frightens you?”

And I said, “A loving one.”

Vassago’s fingers moved to pop the first three buttons of his doublet open. The tan flesh beneath burst with black chest hair. He held my gaze and gently lifted my chin with his finger. Vassago’s face drew very close. Raspberries and cinnamon, his scent was. . .far too sweet for a demon.

And he asked me: “Do you want to be raped , Alessandro?”

I jolted back away from his touch, but I held his gaze, and without thinking, I had a dozen visions flooding my weak mind. I imagined Vassago with his hands around my throat. I imagined kicking weakly as his strength picked me up, and turned me, and held me down. His weight would crush me into the mattress of this bed, and in amongst its soft sheets and pillows, I could hide my face. How much easier would it be to cry out if I had the excuse of pain? I could hide my desire and justify my shame in the one act; a facsimile of rape meant to shield me from my own fears.

Cold doused me.

Is that what I had been doing all this time? I had opened myself immediately to rough, violent fucking, and yet I grew frightened by the thought of sweet touches. That intimacy was far worse than the intimacy of giving my body over to be used.

Vassago was saying, “It’s a fantasy I wouldn’t be averse to indulging, but it would only be a fantasy. I enjoy consent the most.”

I blinked at him, and likely, he could see or smell my fear. Vassago sat back down beside me and took my bleeding hand in both of his. The warmth from his touch made my heart race.

“What is it that you want, Alessandro?”

I fought the urge to claim I didn’t know what I wanted. I closed my eyes and thought and sat with the uncomfortable dread pooling in my belly. I wanted to be had and used and fucked to the point of oblivion. At the same time, I wanted to be taken care of and treated kindly—even if this frightened me.

I told Vassago, “I want to. . . I want to be able to enjoy myself. I want to feel pleasure. I enjoy being told what to do, but I also wish I knew—what I wanted for myself.”

Vassago waited in silence, and I dredged up more things to tell it.

“I’ve never. . .” I flushed to the point my cheeks hurt with their burn. “Why does this feel so horrible?”

Vassago made a low, soft noise and dragged its hands away from my own. His fingers grazed my palm, and not even an ounce of pain flared beneath the touch: the wound was healed. Vassago reached up and placed his hand upon my cheek, thumbing gently at my face. It was hard to look at him. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

“Hidden secrets reside in your subconscious,” he whispered. “Why don’t we look?”

Vassago knocked our foreheads together. His breath mingled with mine. When I opened my eyes, I hoped he would be looking at me—but he wasn’t. His eyes were closed, one hand holding our heads together and the other resting gently on the bed. I was brave. I slipped my finger into his and jolted when he squeezed back.

Then, I felt him rummaging. He used no fingers, but a fuzziness overwhelmed my focus. I groaned as vertigo attacked my senses, and Vassago slipped his other hand free of mine to steady my head.

“Calm,” he cooed, but his voice was a distant fog. I was enveloped by something more, and soon, my consciousness had faded entirely.