The Devils Daughter

Chapter Two: Valdin

The darkness moved.

That was the only way I could describe it.

The shadows themselves seemed to coalesce, to gather and thicken in the corner of my room. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through. The invisible force holding me down pressed harder, and the mattress dipped as though something of immense weight had settled beside me.

Then he appeared.

It wasn't a gradual manifestation. One moment there was only darkness, and the next he was there, looming over me like a nightmare given form.

He was massive. Nearly seven feet of solid presence that seemed to drink in what little light remained in the room. Long black hair fell past his shoulders, moving as though caught in a wind I couldn't feel. His features were angular, almost savagely beautiful, all harsh lines and predatory grace. But it was his eyes that froze the scream in my throat. Colorless as milk, as though he were blind, yet the weight of his gaze stripped me bare.

Dark markings covered his skin, swirling patterns that moved like living smoke, curling and shifting across his chest, his arms, his neck. And rising from his head, curving back like a crown of bone, were horns. Long and black and utterly inhuman.

A demon.

A real demon was in my room, pinning me to my bed.

"Elara." My name in his mouth was a caress and a threat. His voice was deep, resonant, like thunder rolling across distant hills. "Do you know why I'm here?"

I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. My body trembled beneath the weight of his presence. Every instinct screaming at me to run, to fight, to do anything but lie there helpless.

He leaned closer, and I caught his scent. Smoke and something darker, something that reminded me of the forest at midnight, of things that grew in shadow.

"Someone has paid a price for your soul. Offered you up as a sacrifice, and I have come to collect what is owed."

The words penetrated through my terror. Someone had sacrificed me? Who? Father Benedict? Thomas Blackwood? Did it even matter?

"I'm here to kill you, Elara. To take your soul and drag it down to the darkness where it belongs." His frost-colored eyes studied my face, watching my fear with something that might have been satisfaction. "The devil's daughter, they call you. How fitting that you should finally meet one of his children."

Something in those words, the casual certainty, the assumption that I would simply accept my fate, sparked a flame in the frozen wasteland of my terror.

No.

I had survived too much. Endured too much. I had clawed my way through every day of my miserable existence, had refused to break under the weight of their hatred and their cruelty. I would not die now. Not like this. Not without fighting for myself the way no one else ever had.

"No." The word came out as barely a whisper, but it was there.

His head tilted, a predator intrigued by unexpected prey. "No?"

"I won't die." My voice grew stronger, even as my body shook. "I won't let you take me without a fight."

He laughed, and the sound rolled through the room like dark honey. "You think you can fight me, little mortal? You, who can't even move beneath my power?"

"Then kill me." I met those terrible, colorless eyes. "But know that I don't accept it. Know that I refuse to go quietly into whatever darkness you've come from."

For a long moment, he simply stared at me. The shadows on his skin swirled faster, and the pressure on my wrists shifted slightly.

"Interesting," he murmured. "Most humans beg. They plead for mercy, for more time, for salvation. But you..." His hand solid now, no longer invisible, reached out and traced the line of my jaw with a clawed finger. His touch was cold, but not unpleasant. "You have fire in you."

My mind raced. If he was intrigued, if I had caught his attention, then perhaps... Perhaps there was a way to survive this. Demons were creatures of bargains. Of deals and exchanges. My mother had told me stories before she died, warnings wrapped in fairy tales.

"What if..." I swallowed hard. "What if I offered you something else? Something instead of my death?"

His eyes narrowed. "What could you possibly offer me that would be worth more than your soul?"

"Myself." The words came out in a rush. "My body. My... my virginity." Heat flooded my face even as terror still gripped my heart. "I know demons crave such things. I know there's power in it. Take that instead. Take my body, but let me live."

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the night sounds outside seemed to have stopped, as though the world itself was holding its breath.

Then his hand moved from my jaw to my throat, not squeezing, just resting there. My pulse hammered against his palm.

"You would offer yourself to a demon?" His voice had dropped lower, darker. "You would let me defile you, corrupt you, use you, just to survive?"

"Yes." I didn't hesitate. Survival was all I had ever known. "It's all I have to offer. My body is the only thing that's truly mine. But it's yours if you let me live."

His thumb stroked along my throat, a gesture that was almost gentle. "And what makes you think I want your body more than your soul?"

"Because a soul is a one-time prize," I said, the words coming from some deep well of instinct. "But a body... a body can be taken again and again. Every night, if you wanted. Isn't that worth more?"

Something flickered in those colorless eyes. Interest. Hunger. Something that made my stomach clench with a confusing mixture of fear and something else, something I didn't want to name.

"You're clever, little mortal." His hand slid from my throat down to my collarbone, his fingers tracing patterns that made my skin prickle. "Desperate and clever. A dangerous combination." He leaned down until his lips were nearly touching my ear. "Very well. I accept your bargain."

Relief flooded through me so intensely I felt dizzy.

"But understand this, Elara." His breath was hot against my ear despite the coldness of his touch. "I will come to you every night. I will take what you've offered, and I will take it thoroughly. Your body belongs to me now. Every inch of it. Every sound you make. Every tremor, every gasp, every moment of pleasure or pain. All of it is mine. Do you understand?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

"Say it." His hand moved lower, over the thin fabric of my nightgown, and I gasped. "Say you understand."

"I understand," I whispered.

"Good girl."

The invisible force holding me down released suddenly, but before I could move, his body covered mine. The weight of him was real and solid and overwhelming.

His hands caught my wrists and pinned them above my head, and I realized with a jolt of fear that I had just traded one form of helplessness for another.

But I was alive. I would stay alive.

That was all that mattered.

His mouth descended on mine, and the kiss was nothing like I had imagined a kiss would be.

It was consuming, demanding, a claim that left no room for gentleness. His tongue invaded my mouth, tasting me, and I made a sound that was half fear, half something I didn't recognize.

He pulled back, his gaze gleaming in the darkness. "Afraid?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"Good. You should be." His hands released my wrists and moved to the neckline of my nightgown. "But you're also curious, aren't you? I can smell it on you. Fear and curiosity and something sweeter."

Before I could respond, he tore the fabric. The sound of ripping cloth was shockingly loud in the quiet room. Then I was bare beneath him, exposed to his gaze and the cold air.

I wanted to cover myself, but his hands caught mine again.

"No hiding," he said. "You offered me your body. All of it."

His gaze traveled over me slowly, deliberately, and heat rose in my cheeks. No one had ever seen me like this. No one had ever touched me. The vulnerability was almost worse than the fear.

"Beautiful," he murmured, and something in his voice made my breath catch. "Untouched. Mine."

His mouth descended on my throat without warning, teeth scraping hard enough to make me gasp in pain. There was no gentleness, no exploration. Just raw possession.

He bit down on the tender skin where my neck met my shoulder, hard enough that I cried out, and he smiled against my flesh.

"Scream if you want," he growled. "No one will come for you. No one cares what happens to the outcast."

His mouth moved lower, rough and demanding, leaving marks in his wake. When he reached my breast, he didn't tease or caress, he took. His teeth closed around my n****e, biting hard enough to send a shock of pain through me that made my back arch off the bed. His hand gripped my other breast roughly, squeezing, his fingers digging into the soft flesh.

I whimpered, my hands pushing weakly at his shoulders, but he was immovable. He moved to my other breast, giving it the same brutal attention, and tears pricked at my eyes from the intensity of it.

But beneath the pain, something else was building. A dark heat that made no sense, that shamed me even as it grew.

"Your body knows what it is," he said against my skin, his voice a dark rumble. "A vessel for my pleasure. Nothing more."

His hand slid down my stomach roughly, no careful exploration, just possession. When he reached between my thighs, he didn't ask permission or give me time to prepare. Two thick fingers thrust inside me without warning, and I cried out at the sudden intrusion.

"Tight," he said with satisfaction, pumping his fingers roughly. "But wet for me already. Your body betrays you, little mortal."

The stretch burned, his fingers moving without mercy, and I couldn't stop the sounds escaping my throat. Whimpers and gasps that seemed to please him. He added a third finger and I nearly screamed at the stretch, at the burn, at the overwhelming sensation of being invaded.

"Please," I gasped, though I didn't know if I was begging him to stop or continue.

"Please?" He laughed darkly, his thumb pressing hard against that sensitive spot that made lightning shoot through me. "You offered yourself to me. There is no please.There is only what I take."

He worked me brutally, his fingers pistoning in and out while his thumb circled and pressed with no gentleness. The pleasure built despite the pain, despite my fear, my body responding to his rough handling in ways that horrified me. I grew wetter, my hips starting to move against his hand even as my mind screamed that this was wrong.

Just as something was about to break inside me, he withdrew his fingers abruptly. I made a sound of protest that I immediately hated myself for, and his smile was savage.

"You don't get to come yet," he said. "Not until I'm buried inside you. Not until you're screaming Valdin."