9. Sacrifice and Worship
Stavros
M y heel jiggled as I waited against the wall outside the shower, listening to Deyva’s soft humming and the rush of water on the tiles.
There were other voices too, some families using the reading room for lessons with the community children and the sound of Kais going over plans to repair one of the nearby windmills we used to help power the town.
It wasn’t safe, I wasn’t alone... and yet all I could think about was pushing my way into that shower and lifting Deyva up against the wall with me between her wet, slippery thighs.
She probably wasn’t even hungry. What had it been, five hours since I snuck back out of the church before dawn?
I was a little heavy and tired today, but that might’ve had more to do with the three rounds of fantastic fucking in the middle of the night than the little drags Deyva was taking off me for the past few days.
The water stopped in the shower and I straightened, nodding at Derrick as he left Kais’ office.
I had clothes draped over my arm—a pair of women’s leggings and one of my own flannel shirts—and he frowned at me briefly before leaving the hall.
It was probably a good thing I’d tucked the bra Kais found for Deyva inside the bundle.
The door cracked and I turned, lips already twitching with a smile as Deyva’s eyes widened. Her hair was wet, soaking into the t-shirt she’d been wearing all week, and one of her bare feet was pressed over the other ankle.
“Put these on,” I said, pushing the clothes through the open door to her.
Her nose wrinkled as she caught the bundle. “Why?”
“It’s cool today and I’m taking you out.”
Her lips parted and it was a miracle I didn’t lean in just to nibble on the lower one. She’d healed already, but I’d left that one swollen and a little bruised before slipping out this morning.
The door snapped shut and I turned back to watch the hall as she shuffled inside. When it opened again, I had to look twice.
Deyva looked...almost human. Or she did until you got to the horns, and the preternatural beauty of her features. Her smile was sly and she batted feathery black lashes tipped with gold at me. “Stavros, is this a date?”
I grinned but double checked the hall over my shoulder, making sure Kais didn’t catch me. “It’s...more like a visitation with the outside world,” I said.
I expected to find Deyva grinning with the same mischievous feeling I had, but she only looked thoughtful and a little wary. “But inside the gate?”
My chest tightened at the reminder that Deyva wasn’t quite the woman I’d been dreaming of for weeks. She had shadows at her back and I regretted stumbling into them.
“Yup, just a little reward for good behavior. Come on.” I jerked my head toward the hall and grinned as her smile finally appeared, sly and toothy. “Stay on my left as we pass Kai’s office?”
“Ohh he doesn’t know?”
“I mean, we’re all responsible for you. He doesn’t need to,” I said, winking at her.
“Naughty boy,” Deyva purred.
Fuck. I weighed the idea of tackling her into the nearest room, but I didn’t think either of us could manage to be quiet enough to keep from attracting attention.
If I’d been addicted to the dreams Deyva had sent, it was nothing in comparison to the actual release and relief of real life.
A week ago I couldn’t wait to fall asleep.
Now I was afraid to, afraid that I might not wake up and go to her.
You’re doing this so others don’t have to, remember? I thought. It was meant to be a sacrifice.
I was starting to realize that I was doing it because I didn’t want anyone else but me to be this fucking lucky.
“Where are you going?”
I startled and spun and Deyva shifted smoothly behind me. Kais was sitting under his window in a beat up old armchair that had been scorched in a house fire ages ago. He had a map open on his lap, probably marked with the route we’d take to the windmill tomorrow.
“I’m...going to the diner,” I said shrugging and pointing to the clock up on the wall in his office. “Lunch.”
“And where is she going?” Kais said, eyes narrowing and a small smirk on his lips as he glanced down at my feet.
I tried not to look so guilty, stepping aside and revealing Deyva, as if I’d never meant to hide her. “She’s coming with me.”
“No.”
“Kai—”
“We promised them.”
“We promised them they’d be safe, Kais. They are safe.
” I looked around the hall and then caught Deyva’s elbow, ushering her inside with me.
“Are you really thinking that long term she’ll just..
.exist in here? Hiding? That’s not feasible, man.
Think of it like...exposure therapy,” I said, shrugging.
“She doesn’t need to eat,” Kais said, hands tight on the arm of the chair.
“I like to eat,” Deyva said, stepping forward. “Food. I like to eat food.”
“I can think of a hundred objections they’ll have, and I can guarantee you there’d still be more,” Kais said.
“It has to start somewhere, Kais.”
Kais narrowed his eyes at Deyva, flicking them briefly in my direction and then right back on her. “For starters, everyone who eats in this community, contributes to the community. Farming, cleaning, cooking.”
“I don’t know how to… do much of that, but I can learn,” Devya said quickly, nodding.
She always brightened when I showed up in the night, and I hadn’t caught her in another nightmare, but I could see the way the captivity in the church made her shift restlessly.
It wasn’t just for her sake either. The best way to protect the community from Deyva, and vice versa, would be to make her a part of it.
Everyone was always suspicious of newcomers.
This was just a heightened version of that.
“Fine, but I’ll be there to talk with anyone. Sit her away from others and keep her bound,” Kais said, rising and going to his desk, retrieving a rope.
Deyva’s lips hardened into a thin line at the sight. “I don’t mean to be a brat,” she started, in a tone that I was very aware meant she was about to be a brat. “But that rope isn’t really going to protect anyone. Touching is always welcome, but I can feed without it. I just won’t .”
“Be that as it may, it will reassure our people,” Kais said, coming forward with the rope.
“And remind them that I’m not like them, that you don’t trust me.”
Kais arched an eyebrow as if to say ‘and I don’t’ and I stiffened, wanting to soothe Deyva or argue with Kais on her behalf, but afraid of what it would reveal. Before I could work up the nerve, Deyva raised her hands in front of her, glaring back at Kais.
“Not my favorite use of ropes, Kai, not gonna lie,” Deyva muttered as he started to bind her wrists.
Kais huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Not mine either, Daisy, but you gotta serve your penance before you get to the fun stuff.”
Well, hey now . Kais avoided my eyes as he stepped away, covering the smile that had appeared on his mouth.
He hadn’t even realized he’d been flirting with our succubus and I was a mix of sympathy and amusement.
I accepted my urges, and the fact that I never won the battle against them, but Kais was in for a rough road in fighting his attraction to Deyva.
Kais cleared his throat and looked blankly around his office for a moment. I could guess where his thoughts had gone, mine were in about the same place. Deyva gave me a sly warning glance as I stared at her wrists.
“I’ll head over there first, maybe give a gentle heads up. Gimme five minutes,” Kais said, voice rough.
I nodded and watched Kais hurry out of the office, leaving Deyva and I together.
“That wasn’t my fault,” she said, when his footsteps faded.
“Uh huh.” I grinned and hooked my finger into the ropes, glad to feel that Kais hadn’t made them quite so tight this time.
Her rough scratches from the first rope we’d used had healed after that first night together, and days later she only had a few old, ugly marks on her legs and back remaining. I tugged and Deyva shuffled closer, one leg tucking between mine, her hips leaning into me.
“You know, you’re going to have to feed me,” Deyva said, smiling up at me.
I shuffled back to the edge of the desk, drawing Devya in until she was almost straddling my thigh. “Thought you said you only needed it once a day?” I teased. I thought I was the one who just couldn’t get enough.
“Not like that,” she laughed, raising her bound hands between us. “I mean at the diner. You’ll have to feed me.”
I took one look at Deyva’s sinful mouth and imagined her licking salt off my fingers after I fed her a fry. And then I cursed and she laughed.
“Fucking Kais,” I muttered. How was I supposed to go through lunch, sitting next to Deyva, feeding her, and then wait until nighttime to be back inside of her?
“Hey, this was your idea, Father,” Deyva said, wiggling against me.
I sucked in a breath, heat burning up my throat and into my cheeks. What kind of sick asshole was I that I was ready to get off on her calling me that? I had a vision of Deyva in one of those horrible, Halloween naughty nun costumes and decided that I’d officially lost my mind.
And in spite of that, I tugged her closer by the lapel of my old shirt and caught one deep, licking kiss from her mouth before swatting at her ass and turning her to the door.
“Come on before I try and feed you a different kind of meal,” I growled.
Deyva shot me a hot look over her shoulder, the tip of one golden horn catching the light through the window, and then hustled for the door ahead of me, a soft giggle falling free.
Her bright mood dissipated slowly as we headed for the diner, passing a couple on the street, watching them hurry out of our way. Seeing others rush in the opposite direction.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” she murmured, shoulders drawing up, watching a teenage boy gawk at her through an apartment window.
The diner was mostly deserted as we reached it, Kais scowling over the counter, and those remaining stared defiantly back at Deyva as I led her to a booth out of the way.