Chapter Twenty-One
I pushed myself upright, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, my vision blurry, out of focus, and everything painfully bright. How long had I been asleep? It was hard to know. Long enough that I’d woken on my own, and not at Sitri’s insistence, or at the whims of the household’s demons.
As I glanced around, my sight cleared. I blinked. Then I frowned.
This was Sitri’s bedroom. I recognized its furnishings and the discarded tools on the desk.
Harsh light bathed it, so intense that no shadows formed, but I didn’t see the source.
The Prince still snored beside me. He’d wrapped himself up in the thin sheet from last night and had only started to stir.
Something was missing, though, and the longer I looked around, the faster my heart beat.
The room was a near-monochrome image. The only splashes of color came from the red-pink glow beneath Sitri’s blanket and the matching sigil on my arm.
“Sitri?” I asked, prodding at his shoulder.
He let out a groan in response. “What is it, darling?”
“I think something’s wrong. Everything is black and white, and the lighting doesn’t make any sense.”
The Prince sat up and looked around. “It’s alright, nothing is wrong with the lighting. It’s just dark. That’s all. When we light the candles, the color will come back, and everything will be normal again.”
I took a deep breath and gave the room another look. When I inspected it closer, I realized he was right. The candles had burned out while we slept. Where our sigils cast their glows, I could make out faint shadows and splashes of color. As the light dimmed, they faded into uniform monochrome.
This was how demons navigated in the dark, why Zaleos hadn’t needed his lantern, why Sitri only lit his mansion after I’d arrived. They had near-perfect night-sight. And now, so did I.
I took stock of my new body, noting all its subtle changes. My senses had grown sharper, more in tune, making scents and sounds seem richer than they’d ever been before. For the first time since my death, I felt rested. My lingering aches and fatigue had dissipated, and my suffering had eased.
When I lifted my hands, I found flesh had returned to my bones.
I rubbed my fingers together, half afraid that any friction would strip them bare.
It didn’t. Sitri laid a hand on my back.
No pain, a sign the burns he’d applied were gone.
The knife wound on my chest had vanished, too, and was nothing more than a thin, pale scar.
I ran my tongue over my teeth. They’d sharpened, turned into calcified daggers, and my canines had transformed into fangs.
I was no longer human. At Sitri’s hands, I had changed into something more.
Once my transformation was complete, I thought I’d be disgusted by what I had become, twisted into some cruel, nightmarish version of myself. Instead, I was fascinated. Sitri had left my mind intact and lent power to my soul. Power I found exhilarating.
“I didn’t realize it would be like this.” I flexed my fingers, savoring the newfound strength they held. “Is there anything else I can do now? Magic I can wield?”
Sitri lightly slapped his face to drive the sleep from his body and laughed, clearly pleased by my sudden change of tune.
“You don’t have any more magic than before, but its nature has changed.
I am the Prince of Lust and Lies, darling, and I have shared my power with you. If you call, it will come.”
I reached within myself, summoning Vapula’s talents. For the first time in seven years, they didn’t answer. The flexing muscle he gifted me had been severed, and something new materialized in its place.
Gossamer threads unfurled in my mind, a spiderweb with my consciousness at its center.
Through them came vibrations, subtle cues I would otherwise have missed.
The Prince looked me over. His attention shook the web.
Then, it caught. I pulled at the magic, and a realization hit me: Sitri wanted me to like what I’d become.
I released the web, and Sitri’s gift dissipated, its threads curling inward on itself.
“Lust and lies?” I asked. “It feels… different. Less utilitarian, and more delicate, more intricate.”
“Did you expect all magic to be alike, darling? These sigils are like living things, more diverse than you can imagine. The talents of lust and lies unearth desire, expose secrets, enable seduction, and empower deception. Use them as you see fit.”
Sitri caressed my arms, trailing his fingers down my side.
I shivered as the sensual touch woke my nerves.
He coaxed me closer. I followed his lead, draping myself across his chest as he lay back.
My hands roamed his skin, exploring the contours of his muscles and the scars of countless battles, tracing over the lines of his bindings, the faint welts beneath them.
“You’re a natural, I might add,” Sitri growled into my ear. “It isn’t every day that I get a reaction like the one I saw last night.”
“That wasn’t normal, then?” A deep heat settled into my cheeks. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but Sitri remained unfazed.
“Far from abnormal, darling, but not what I’m used to when binding human souls. Have you never felt that way before?”
“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t even realize it was possible, not without drugs. What was that?”
“The reason lovers claw and bite under the cover of darkness. Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin; for some, all it takes is an ounce of trust to flip it.”
In life, I’d been no stranger to ass-slapping and hair-pulling, but those rough couplings never elicited a response like Sitri had gotten from me.
Those one-night stands weren’t mutualistic love-making—it had been more akin to use.
I’d presented, they’d gotten their pleasure, I’d satisfied my own needs, and then snuck out before dawn.
There was no trust in that kind of sex.
The Prince ran his calloused hands across my body, and I hummed as he brought me back to the present. I allowed my eyes to close. He wasn’t like the men I’d slept with in life. They had taken what they wanted from me, but Sitri? He wanted me to give, to offer myself up willingly.
The gentle way he touched me had me melting beneath his fingers, hanging on his words, consumed by his commanding presence. With no sense of time or lingering resistance, I sank into the feeling. Sitri chuckled as he watched.
“It’s clear that you have never been an equal in coitus, darling. I think we should change that.”
I opened my eyes and cast them on Sitri. Countless emotions danced across his face. Hunger, sorrow, pride, hope—feelings once concealed, no longer suppressed. Slowly, they shifted to his signature smirk.
“That’s quite a claim to make,” I whispered, warmth flushing my skin. “What gave you that idea?”
“You assumed everything I did was to bed you, and you have only just stopped freezing at my touch.” Sitri ran his fingers through my hair, and I leaned into his caress. “You don’t know your own body, but I can help you get to know it.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What exactly are you proposing?”
“A little exercise in pleasure; a demonstration, if you’d care to let me show you the true meaning of lust.”
Sitri’s hands, once tender, tightened around me.
He pulled me into a roll. I squeaked in surprise as he settled atop me, caging me beneath him.
Desire thickened in the air between us, so intense I didn’t need to draw on my newly gifted talents to taste it; sweet like honey, thick as molasses, and laden with the promise of bliss.
He wouldn’t act on those desires, though. Not yet.
The Prince still wore his leather pants.
They’d clung tight to his body before, but now, his growing arousal strained them.
I propped myself up on my elbows, closing the distance between us, caressing Sitri’s cheek.
He loosed a guttural growl. I moved freely, unbound by clothes, while he was still restricted.
There was something more to it, though—something he desired from me. Hunger burned in Sitri’s eyes. He looked me over like a starving hound, unable to feast without his master’s command. Desperate. Longing for me to give the order and invoke what we both wanted.
Sitri’s lust chained him, and I held the key to his shackles.
“Show me, then,” I said. “Let me see what the Prince of Lust and Lies can do.”
A smile crossed my face, as sharp and twisted as Sitri’s.
I cupped his cheeks in my hands, pulled him closer, brought our faces together, locked him into a passionate kiss.
His mouth enveloped mine, and my lips parted.
Our tongues clashed in a battle to conquer one another’s mouths.
The Prince ground his hips against me. I could feel his need through the web of our shared magic, his desperation to connect our bodies.
I broke from the kiss first, head spinning, heart fluttering with anticipation. Silver saliva strands formed between us. Marked our union. Tied us together.
This was new, so unlike the casual, one-sided sex I’d known. It wasn’t a fix or an obligation, but something fuller. More complete. Alive.
Sitri unlatched his belt, and I tugged away his pants.
He kicked them off, along with his undergarments.
I’d glimpsed his naked form once before.
Now, I got to drink him in. The Prince was a sight to behold, scars and all, weathered and wrought.
His rugged, sharp, lean muscles contrasted against my curves, my opposite in every way, our bodies fitting together as if made for one another.
Between his legs, his cock stood at attention, yearning to be inside me, to fill me. I ached for him, hungered for Sitri to claim my body, just as he claimed my soul.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” Sitri growled as his hand met my thigh. Slowly, firmly, he coaxed it to the side.