The Devils Daughter

Chapter Four: Possession

I woke to pain.

Every muscle in my body screamed as I tried to move.

My thighs were sticky and sore. The ache between my legs a constant, throbbing reminder of what had been done to me. What I had allowed. What I had bargained for.

Dawn light filtered through my small window, pale and gray, and I forced myself to sit up. The movement made me gasp. Everything hurt.

My hips bore dark purple bruises in the exact shape of his fingers.

My breasts were marked with bite marks, some deep enough that they'd broken the skin. My throat showed the imprint of his hand, and when I touched it I felt the skin protest back.

The torn nightgown lay in tatters around me.

When I looked down at my thighs, dried blood and his seed mixed together, it was proof of my lost innocence.

I should have felt shame. Horror. Regret.

Instead, I felt... claimed.

The thought disturbed me more than anything else. I pushed it away and forced myself to stand, my legs trembling. I needed to clean myself. Needed to face the day as though nothing had changed, even though everything had.

The water in my washing basin was cold, but I welcomed the shock of it against my heated skin. I cleaned myself carefully, wincing at every touch, watching the water turn pink with my blood. The marks on my body stood out starkly in the morning light. Evidence of his brutality, his possession.

Evidence that I belonged to a demon now.

I dressed slowly, choosing my oldest work dress because bending and stretching to put on anything else was agony. Every movement reminded me of him. Of his hands on my hips, his c**k tearing me open, his teeth on my throat.

The chickens were waiting for me, clucking impatiently, and I went through the motions of feeding them. But everything felt different now.

The world looked the same. My small cottage, my garden, the forest beyond, but I had changed. Something fundamental had shifted inside me.

I was no longer Elara the virgin, the shunned girl they whispered about.

I was Elara who belonged to a demon. Elara who had screamed his name while he took her brutally and would do so again tonight.

The thought made heat pool low in my belly, and I hated myself for it.

I worked through the morning, tending my garden, collecting eggs, milking the goats. But I couldn't escape the constant reminders. The soreness between my thighs with every step. The ache in my hips. The tender spots on my breasts that rubbed against my dress. My body had been marked, used, and it wouldn't let me forget.

By midday, I found myself touching the bruises on my throat, tracing the shape of his fingers. Remembering the way he'd held me down. The way he'd commanded me to say his name.

Valdin.

I shouldn't be thinking about him. I should be planning how to break the bargain. How to escape, how to survive this. But instead, I found myself wondering what tonight would bring.

Would it hurt as much? Would he be as rough? Would my body respond the same way, betraying me with its shameful pleasure?

The day crawled by with agonizing slowness. Every hour felt like an eternity. I tried to keep busy, tried to focus on my tasks, but my mind kept drifting back to him.

To the way he'd looked looming over me, all harsh angles and inhuman beauty. To the way his markings had moved like living smoke across his skin. To the way he'd felt inside me, impossibly large, splitting me open, claiming me completely.

As afternoon faded into evening, I grew restless. Anxious. My heart beat faster with every passing minute. Was it fear? Anticipation? I couldn't tell anymore. The two had become tangled together, inseparable.

I made myself eat, though I had no appetite. I needed my strength. He'd said so himself.

As darkness began to fall, I found myself preparing for him. I heated water and bathed again, washing away the day's work, making myself clean. The thought should have disgusted me, but it didn't. I was simply... accepting what I had become.

His.

I put on a clean nightgown. One of my only two remaining, and brushed out my black hair until it fell in waves down my back. My reflection in the small mirror showed a stranger. My lavender eyes looked darker somehow, haunted. The marks on my throat were visible above the neckline of my nightgown.

I looked like exactly what I was: a woman who had been thoroughly claimed by something inhuman.

I lit a single candle and sat on my bed. Waiting.

The anticipation was almost unbearable. My body remembered what was coming. The pain, yes, but also the dark pleasure that had torn through me despite everything.

I was sore, marked, still healing from last night, and yet I could feel myself growing wet at the thought of him returning.

What did that make me?

Full darkness fell, and still I waited. Every shadow seemed to move. Every sound made my heart race. Where was he? He'd said every night. He'd promised, or threatened, to return.

Then the candle flame flickered and I knew.

He materialized from the shadows like he was made of them. His massive form filling my small room. Those colorless eyes fixed on me immediately, seeing everything. The dark lines on his skin writhed and twisted, and his horns seemed to catch what little light there was.

"You waited for me," he said, his voice that deep rumble that I felt in my bones. "Good girl."

I should have protested the condescension, but instead, the words sent a shiver through me.

He moved closer, each step deliberate, predatory. His gaze traveled over me, taking in the clean nightgown, my brushed hair, the way I sat on the bed as though I'd been preparing for him.

"You bathed," he observed. "Made yourself pretty for me." His smile was sharp, knowing. "Did you think about me today, little mortal? Did you feel me every time you moved? Every time you sat down? Every time you remembered what it felt like to have me inside you?"

"Yes," I whispered, because there was no point in lying. He would know.

"Show me," he commanded. "Show me the marks I left on you."

My hands trembled as I pulled down the neckline of my nightgown. I exposed my throat, my shoulders, the tops of my breasts. The bruises and bite marks stood out starkly against my pale skin.

He made a sound of satisfaction deep in his chest. "Beautiful. You wear my claim well." He reached out and traced one of the bruises on my throat with a single finger, and I couldn't suppress my shiver. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Good." His hand moved lower, tracing the bite mark on my breast through the thin fabric. "And here?"

"Yes."

"And between your thighs?" His eyes gleamed. "Are you still sore from how I tore you open? How I claimed your innocence?"

"Yes," I breathed.

"Perfect." He gripped the neckline of my nightgown and tore it open in one swift motion, baring me to him completely. "Then you'll remember this even more clearly tomorrow."

He pushed me back onto the bed, his body covering mine, and the hard length of him pressed against my thigh. Despite the soreness, despite the pain I knew was coming, my body responded. I was already wet, already aching for him in a way that shamed me.

"You want this," he said, his hand sliding between my thighs, his fingers finding me slick and ready. "Your body knows what it is now. Knows what it's for."

"Valdin-" His name escaped my lips as his fingers thrust inside me, and I gasped at the intrusion. I was still tender, still healing, and the stretch burned.

"That's right," he growled against my throat. "Say my name. Remember who owns you."

He worked me roughly with his fingers, no gentleness, just raw possession. The pain mixed with pleasure in a way that made my head spin. I was sore, but my body was responding anyway. Getting wetter, opening for him despite the discomfort.

"Please," I gasped, though I didn't know what I was begging for.

"Please what?" He bit down on my throat, right over one of yesterday's marks forcing a cry from my lips. "Please stop? Please continue? You need to be more specific, little mortal."

"I don't know," I admitted, my voice breaking.

"Then I'll decide for you." He withdrew his fingers and positioned himself between my thighs. "I'm going to f**k you again. I'm going to use your body the way I did last night. And you're going to take it, because you're mine."

He thrust into me in one brutal stroke, and I cried out. The pain was immediate and intense. I was still too sore, still too tender, and he was too large. But he didn't stop, didn't give me time to adjust. He simply took what he wanted, driving into me with the same rough possession as before.

"Valdin," His name tore from my throat as he set a punishing pace, each thrust driving me up the bed.

"That's it," he snarled. "Scream for me. Let me hear how much it hurts. Let me hear how much you love it anyway."

And God help me, I did.

The pain was there, sharp and bright, but beneath it was that dark pleasure building again. My body was learning what he wanted, learning to respond to his brutality. I grew wetter, making it easier for him to claim me. I hated and loved it in equal measure.

He gripped my thighs and pushed them up and apart, changing the angle, driving even deeper. The new position made me feel impossibly full. Stretched beyond what should be possible, and I couldn't stop the broken moans escaping my throat.

"Look at me," he commanded. "Look at me while I f**k you."

I forced my eyes open and met his gaze. There was something fierce and possessive in those inhuman eyes, something that made me feel like I was being consumed from the inside out.

"You're mine," he said, each word punctuated by a brutal thrust. "Every. Single. Part. Of. You."

"Yes," I gasped. "I'm yours."

The admission seemed to please him. His pace increased, harder, faster. His hand moved between us to find that sensitive spot that made lightning shoot through me. He rubbed it roughly, and combined with the brutal thrusts, it was too much.

I came apart with a scream. My body convulsing around him, pleasure crashing through me so intensely it bordered on pain. He didn't slow down, didn't give me mercy. Just f****d me through my orgasm until I was sobbing with the intensity of it.

"Again," he growled. "Come for me again."

"I can't-"

"You can. You will." His fingers worked that spot mercilessly while his c**k drove into me, and impossibly, it built again. "Come for your demon, Elara. Show me how much your body loves being used."

The second orgasm hit me even harder than the first, tearing through me violently, and he groaned above me. His thrusts became erratic, harder. Then he buried himself deep and came with a snarl, filling me with his heat.

He stayed inside me for a long moment, his breathing heavy, his eyes locked on mine. Then he pulled out slowly.

"Every night," he said, his voice rough. "Every night I will come to you and take what is mine. And every night, you will give yourself to me willingly."

"I know," I whispered.

He leaned down and kissed me. The first time his mouth had touched mine. It was rough and possessive. His tongue invading my mouth the same way his c**k had invaded my body.

"Sleep, little mortal. Tomorrow night, I'll have you again."

Then he was gone, dissolving into shadow, leaving me alone in the darkness.

I lay there, my body aching, marked, filled with his seed. The soreness was even worse now, the pain sharper. Tomorrow would be agony.

But beneath the pain, that same dark satisfaction stirred. That same sense of being alive in a way I'd never been before.

I was his. Completely, utterly his.

And God help me, I was starting to accept it.