2. Valefar
Valefar
Idon’t know if I should be terrified of this pretty beastie or bewitched.
But something is happening. Something I’ve never experienced in all my eons within the Pit.
It’s as if the ancient, obsidian ice in my blood is beginning to thaw.
The frozen river of my being is cracking and groaning under a heat I cannot name.
A ravenous savagery surges through me, unlike anything I’ve ever fathomed.
As I follow Vesper through the damp shadows of the forest, I can’t stop watching her. She moves like a monstrous poem—all sensual curves and a fluid, dangerous grace.
The world all around me wages a sensory assault, firing through my being with a relentless madness. The smell of wet earth is too rich; the sound of the wind in the needles is too sharp.
But she is the wildest of all. Her energy is a vibrant, chaotic thing, and it could drive the most hardened of demons to a blinding insanity. Her aura is so bright, it nearly burns my retinas, powerful enough to stare down the Morning Star himself without blinking.
I follow her up a set of creaking wooden steps.
I’ve heard whispers of the human dwellings—frail, boxy things made of dead trees—but I’ve never seen the interior of one.
My home is a jagged outcropping overlooking the sulfur pits of the Third Circle, where the screams of the eternally tormented serve as the only lullaby I’ve ever known.
She slides a transparent glass wall and steps inside. I follow, but the transition nearly knocks the air from my lungs. I stop dead, my tail sweeping the floor in a frantic, curious rhythm.
Earth. The scent of it fills the air. I gaze around, blinking as I adjust to the soft, artificial glow.
Dried herbs dangle from a nearby wall, their scents casting a potent, floral haze.
Glass jars filled with dried leaves sit on a stone counter.
Vesper sweeps into the room while I linger behind, drawn to a metal grate on a white pedestal.
Curiosity, my greatest sin, compels me. I turn a small plastic knob. Click. Click. Whoosh.
A ring of blue fire springs up from the iron grate.
“What the sorcery!” I exclaim, leaping back, my hackles bristling, my tail whipping a nearby chair with a violent crack.
Vesper groans softly, hurries to the knob, and turns it, snuffing out the flames. Throwing me a disarming glower, she crosses the space between us in two sharp strides and pokes me directly in the center of my chest. Her finger is small, but the impact feels like a brand. I stiffen.
“No touching,” she snaps.
I look down at her finger, then up into her flaming emerald eyes. “You just touched me.”
She sticks her nose up, her chin defiant. “My house. My rules. If you don’t follow them, I’ll put a pretty collar around your neck and chain you up in my basement dungeon.”
I swallow hard, the mental image of a chain and her hand on a collar doing something traitorous to my pulse.
But then I breathe her in, and that sensation returns.
I wear nothing more than a leather loincloth, but beneath the hide, my cock twitches with a sudden, violent life. What in the unholy fuck?
It bewilders me. I have never felt the likes of anything like this in the Pit. I have seen it from the ones I torment. Their dicks rise, and I do my duty, tormenting to extract secrets, or punishing the weak.
But the closer Vesper stands, the more the ice doesn’t just thaw—it boils. My blood quickens with a growing fire I cannot extinguish.
What is happening to me? What is this witch doing to my very nature?
I lower my focus to her lips, then lower, to where the wet silk of her slip clings to her breasts.
Every luscious curve maps out in the moonlight filtering through the glass.
I’ve never put much thought into the bodies of humans.
To a demon, the dead are just meat—unappealing, gray, and smelling of rot.
But here, in this world of vibrant colors and blinding lights…
it is overwhelming. I don’t know how to react.
I don’t know how to respond to the way her skin seems to glow with its own internal heat.
She passes a large white box on the left, which hums with a low, mechanical growl. I try to ignore the sound, focusing on the sway of her hips as she turns a corner into a corridor that looks like a minefield of vivid, plastic objects.
Vesper pauses, kneading her brow with her free hand. “I forgot. I was going to clean up after the ritual. Damn.”
My tail flicks in agitation, searching for balance, and accidentally swipes at a strange, padded chair on springs. Multiple objects of stimulation hang from it, and as my tail hits it, a spinning rattle bursts into a frantic, playful song.
The sound is so sudden, so high-pitched, I flinch, slipping on a small, sharp plastic brick. A Lego, the human world calls it. It’s a weapon of pure malice. One we use on some of our deepest offenders.
I stagger, but Vesper grabs me by the arm, her face flushed as she yanks me back with such unexpected strength, it prevents me from crashing into her wall.
I can’t help it. My gaze drops. Her breasts swing with the sudden movement, and the predator inside me salivates in an utterly wondrous way. My hands smolder from where she touches me, a phantom heat to crawl along my flesh.
She doesn’t notice. She’s already rushing to the singing chair, flustered and panicked, turning a knob to kill the music.
I admire the curve of her bottom. I’ve never appreciated such a plump, perfect heart shape until this very moment. When she spins around, her gaze is lethal.
She huffs and points a finger at my tail. “Control that weapon of mass destruction or I will tie it up in such a giant knot, it’ll take a team of specialized engineers a week to untie it.”
My tail doesn’t listen. Instead, it pops out and coils around her ankle, the spade-tip resting against her skin. Every nerve inside me erupts. A heavy ache surges in my groin, threatening to break through the leather of my loincloth.
She glances down at the tail, then looks at me, her expression incredulous. “Really?”
I manage to eject my tail, bringing it back to my body and using every spare muscle to keep it pinned against my spine. “My deepest apologies.”
“Good,” she croons, the sound vibrating through me like a physical touch. “Now be quiet. Quiet as a grave.”
I furrow my brow. “We don’t have graves in Hell.”
She clenches her hands into fists, her spine stiffening, but she picks up the pace again. We navigate around more small, colorful objects scattered across the floor.
She leads me to a small alcove where four doors wait like portals.
One straight ahead is open. One to the right is closed tight.
To my left, a door reveals a porcelain white throne, small, with a bottomless hole and a curtain adorned with a smiling orange fish.
And another door to the left, in the corner, sits barely ajar.
Vesper turns on a heel, her face becoming deadly serious. She points to the closed door on the right, from which a soft, rhythmic snuffling noise echoes. Perhaps some sort of small, sleeping dragon pet.
“Never ever open that door,” she whispers, the intensity of her gaze more frightening than an Archangel’s sword. “That’s the number one house rule. Understand?”
I nod solemnly. “I understand and agree to your command, pretty beastie.”
“Hmm…” she hums, sizing me up as if I’m a particularly troublesome familiar. “Good boy.”
Why did my cock just jerk again? Why did my eye twitch? And the muscle tick in my jaw?
She leads me forward, breathing visible relief as she enters the final room and closes the door behind us.
I inhale, and the scent hits me like a physical blow.
Her bedroom. It is saturated with her—a raw, concentrated femininity strong enough to drive a lesser demon to his knees.
I stagger, my shoulder gently knocking into her.
She arches a brow in obvious puzzlement, but she shrugs it off as she moves toward the bed.
I marvel at it. We have beds in the Pit, of course, but they are formed of rusted nails or jagged metal spikes to ensure no one ever truly rests. Hers…it reminds me of the plush floor couches in Lucifer’s private chambers, but covered in a soft floral design instead of silk and jewels.
I take in the different sights—the wall mirror reflecting my own bewildered face, the strange, flat black rectangle on the wall, polished like a gem.
But then, she moves toward another door, just to the left of the bed.
It looks similar to the one in the hallway, and I quirk a smile when I recognize the bath within.
Not that I’ve ever had the pleasure of one. Washing is a luxury reserved for the Morning Star and the higher-tier nobility.
Vesper turns and nods to me. “You stay out here. I need a shower. Don’t touch my stuff.”
Then she closes the door, and the sound of a roaring waterfall erupts from beyond it.
I loosen my tail, the tip curling as I wander the room, curious. As I approach a closed door in the corner, a strange and heavenly scent—sharp, floral, and deeply intimate—propels me to open it.
The scent grows stronger. My staff throbs, a rhythmic pulse I still don’t fully understand. The small room seems to hold only clothing, hanging in dense, colorful rows. But then, I notice a box on the top shelf.
A sudden rush of mischief overcomes me. She said not to touch her things, but…she never said anything about stealing them. And I am, after all, a Prince of Thieves.
I use a flick of my power to lift the box lid. A blast of her scent hits me, the concentrated floral and musk so intense, it knocks me back into the mass of hanging dresses. I freeze, utterly gobsmacked.
Inside the box are objects I recognize. Fear shoots through me, but also the throes of an uncontrollable heat. They look like the torture implements used in the Fifth Circle, but instead of spikes and metal that burns, these are made of smooth, colorful silicone.
I coil my tail around one, suspiciously turning it over. It’s shaped like a small violet egg. With a thought, I trigger the mechanism.
Bzzzzzzzzzz. It releases a humming sound like a swarm of angry bees, vibrating intensely.
“Extraordinary,” I murmur.
But the scent all around the item is what truly bewitches me. It is her—the raw femininity laced with a florid seduction. It is the scent of her desire, her privacy, her self.
My ears prick. The waterfall has stopped.
I hurry to put the box back and close the closet door, my demon heart pounding against my ribs. I step back out into the room just as the bathroom door opens.
A raging heat screams through my being.
Vesper stands there in nothing more than a white towel, her skin still glistening with moisture. Her wet, dark hair falls in heavy, wavy locks nearly to her shoulders. Her pheromones are now a sensory assault, fresh and warm and utterly intoxicating.
The predator inside me salivates. A dark, possessive hunger claws at my insides, more intense than any fire in Hell. My pupils dilate until the room is nothing but her.
And then, the fire lances through my chest.
I stumble from the blinding, white-hot pain and clutch my hand to my heart, bowing my head and closing my nostrils, trying to regain control as my vision swims.
Vesper approaches me, her gaze sharp and concerned. “Are you okay, big guy? Does it hurt again?”
I nod, my great shadow falling over her as the words stick in my throat. “Yes…but…different.”
She heaves a sigh and shrugs, though I can see the gears turning in her mind. “Well, we need to test something.”
“Another rule?” I ask in more of a grunt.
She shakes her head, her wet hair flicking droplets of water onto her shoulders. “No, just…stay here. I want to try something.”
I oblige, grateful for even an inch of distance from the heat of her skin.
“Okay,” she says, her gaze fixed on me. “Now don’t move.”
She turns and starts to walk toward the opposite side of the room, heading toward a tall wooden chest covered in more of her glass jars. As she moves, the distance between us grows. I brace myself, waiting for the invisible hook in my chest to snag and tear at my flesh.
Ten feet. Fifteen.
Nothing. Only a dull, thrumming ache deep beneath my ribs—a persistent tug, like a taut thread vibrating in the wind, but miles away from the agonizing burn of earlier.
Vesper pauses at the far wall, turning back to eye me with mild surprise. “Not bad. Alright, new test.” She gestures toward the hallway behind me. “Take a step out of the room.”
I furrow my brow, but pivot on my heel. The moment I cross the threshold of her bedroom door, the “wire” in my chest snaps from a dull tingle to a jagged saw-blade.
I gasp, stumbling backward until I am fully inside the bedroom once more. The agony instantly recedes to that manageable, thrumming ache.
Vesper nods slowly, gnawing on her bottom lip. “So, seems you’re bound to the room I’m in. Well, that’s…interesting.”