Bound To A Demon King

Chapter Five

My eyes widened and my throat went entirely dry. How did he—?!

“Answer me, Rachel,” he barked, his jaw trembling with a dark, rising rage. “Did you go to that graveyard?!”

My hands fiddled nervously behind my back. I tried to hold his piercing glare, but my vision swam. “I-I…”

“Don't you dare lie to me!”

What was the use? He clearly found out everything somehow. Reluctantly, I nodded.

His eyes flared with a sickening mixture of disappointment and fury—a mirror image of my own faded azure eyes staring back at me. He stomped toward me, and though I tried to back away, he caught me in a second, roughly yanking my arm upward.

“For Christ's sake!” he thundered, making my shoulders jump. “Why don't you ever listen to me? How many times do I have to warn you not to step foot into that place?!”

“I'm—I’m sorry,” I stammered, tears pricking my eyes out of sheer terror.

“Sorry?!” He shook me, his grip tightening until it bruised. “Is that what you have to say for yourself? What is wrong with you, Rachel? I work day and night to ensure you have everything you could ever want, and in return, I ask for only one thing: obedience! Why must you be so difficult and ungrateful? Do you have any idea how hard it is raising an irresponsible disappointment like you without your mother?!”

He shook me aggressively again. My arm throbbed.

“Tell me, what does the fifth commandment say!”

My mind was in a complete daze, his booming voice bouncing off the walls. When I didn't answer immediately, he jolted my arm again.

“Answer me, Rachel! Or do I need to call a priest for a deliverance session?!”

My mouth finally parted, my lips moving mechanically like a wooden puppet. “Honor thy father and thy mother…”

“Finish it!” he urged fiercely.

“...that thy days may be long upon the land,” I recited under my breath.

“That's right!” he hissed, leaning in close. “If you don't want to end up dead and buried prematurely like your mother, you better start acting right, or the devil is going to come for you, Rachel!”

‘Well, he better be fast about it,’ I thought bitterly.

Slowly, his grip loosened and he let me go with a disgusted sigh, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Don't you see that I am only trying to protect you?” his voice was calmer now, laced with a twisted sense of righteousness.

“Protect me from what?” I mumbled, a hot tear finally slipping down my cheek. Pathetic!

“What did you say?”

“You aren't protecting me!” I wanted to scream. “You don't care about me. You never cared about Mother either. The only thing you will ever love is your money and your power.

But the coward in me bit those words back, pressing my lips into a tight line.

“I thought as much,” Father nodded arrogantly, “Don't push your luck, girl. Your mother is dead! Get over it!” he shouted right into my face.

He then pointed a finger wildly over my head. “Going to that godforsaken graveyard won't bring her back, and it won't do you any good.”

With that final blow, he turned on his heel and marched toward the door.

“For your foolishness, you are grounded for a month,” he informed me coldly, pausing at the threshold with his hand on the brass handle.

He tilted his head over his shoulder. “Surely, that will be enough time to think over your behavior. As for Mr. Wells, I will teach him a lesson he and his family will never forget.”

I spun around, furiously wiping the tears from my face. “Mr. Wells only drove me because I forced him to! His family has nothing to do with this. If you’re going to punish anyone, it should be me!”

Father gave a cruel, humorless smile. “I've come to see that punishing you alone is fruitless, Rachel. You need to learn that the reckless decisions you make will always destroy the innocent people around you. In far worse ways than they destroy you.”

Before I could say anything else, he slammed the door shut, locking me alone in the suffocating silence of my room.

As the loud thud of the door echoed through the room, the last of my adrenaline evaporated.

My legs gave out and I slumped to the cold hardwood floor, pulling my knees tightly against my chest and burying my face into my arms.

‘Don't do it,’ I commanded myself, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. ‘Do not cry.’

A thick, suffocating lump rose in my throat, threatening to choke me, but I forced it down.

Crying was a luxury I couldn't afford. A sign of weakness and an admission of defeat to a father who used vulnerability as a weapon. And I refused to be weak. I needed to be strong.

Forcing myself to my feet, I wiped my face with the back of my hand and walked back toward the bed. But as I neared the mattress, my gaze caught a dark droplet of blood on the floor.

"Damn it," I cussed under my breath, grabbing a fresh wet wipe from the bedside table, and stepping back to crouch by the stain.

As I rubbed the crimson spot away from the floorboards, I remembered the book. My blood had dropped onto the pages before I kicked it away.

I tossed the stained wipe into the trash and bent down, reaching into the dark, dusty void beneath my bed frame. My fingers brushed the cold leather cover, and I retrieved the book, placing it on my lap.

My heart did a nervous flutter as I opened it, trying to find the page with the image of the man's muscular back. I flipped through the thick parchment, until I finally found it.

I froze. My brow furrowed as I stared down at the dark ink. There was no bloodstain. The page was entirely immaculate, the cream-colored parchment pristine around the dark lines of the man's tattooed spine.

‘What? That's impossible.’ I blinked rapidly, rubbing my eyes. ‘Did I see wrong?’ I was absolutely certain I had seen my blood hit the page, mixing with the ink.

My mind began to spin, grasping for a logical explanation. Maybe I was just disoriented from the panic. Maybe there was another, identical page in this bizarre book.

I began flipping through the book again, searching for any trace of my blood on the other pages. But there wasn't a single stain.

Instead, my frantic scanning brought me all the way to the very end. My thumb caught the edge of the final parchment, and I flipped to the last page.

I recoiled, completely bewildered.

The illustrations from before were nothing compared to this. The naked man was no longer just an alluring character; he had torn the woman into absolute shreds.

The image was rendered with a horrifying, sickening realism that made my stomach churn. Thick, horns now twisted from his head, and sharp, predatory claws extended from his fingers.

This time, his back wasn’t turned to the viewer. He was positioned sideways, exposing the terrifying profile of his face. His lips were pulled back in a feral snarl, revealing long, razor-sharp fangs sinking deep into the flesh of the woman's neck.

Blood—drawn in dark, heavy ink—cascaded down her throat as his claws ruthlessly tore her body apart.

A wave of pure horror washed over me, replacing every ounce of my previous fantasies with terror.

With a frantic gasp, I swiftly slammed the book closed, shoved the volume to the floor and kicked it back underneath my bed, burying it deep in the dark where I wouldn't have to look at it again.

When I finally climbed into bed later that night and sleep slowly began to claim me, it wasn’t my father's harsh words that lingered in my thoughts. It was the book. More specifically, the story told by its illustrations.

I couldn't stop wondering how something that had begun with such fierce devotion could have ended in such unimaginable horror.

The images played over and over behind my closed eyelids—the man carrying the woman so gently in his arms, the undeniable tenderness between them, and then, the grotesque scene on the final page.

It was a twisted story. One that made absolutely no sense. Yet, no matter how hard I tried to force my brain onto something else, I couldn't erase the image of the woman's torn, shredded body from my memory.

The last thing I remembered before sleep finally took me was how hours earlier, I had looked at those explicit illustrations and foolishly wished I were in that woman's place.

Now, staring at my ceiling, I wished with everything in me that I never had.

That night, I had a very strange dream.

The dream started off in a scene that looked exactly like my actual bedroom. I was lying flat on my back in my bed, but a weight pressed down on my chest. I couldn't move. I couldn't even scream. I could only look.

Suddenly, the lights in my bedroom began to flicker, buzzing weakly before they completely went off, plunging me into pitch blackness.

A second later, the glass windows violently swung open on their hinges. The freezing night breeze forced its way inside, howling like a chorus of the damned as it whipped the curtains wildly into the room.

Next, I felt the mattress sink beside my legs and a touch began at my ankle.

Cold fingers, ice-tipped and slender, traced a path upward along my calf — and where they passed, they left heat. A strange, contradictory trail of warmth that bloomed beneath my skin and made me shiver with every unhurried inch it climbed.

‘Slow,’ I thought dimly. ‘Too slow.’

When the hand reached the hem of my dress it paused — almost thoughtful — then nudged the fabric aside, clearing its path. It found the waistband of my underwear and drew it downward in one long, careful pull, all the way to my knees.

A breath stuttered out of me.

“Faster,” my half-sleeping mind begged. “Please.”

As if he heard me — as if the thought had been spoken aloud — his hand shot upward and pressed flat against my core.

"Ohh—"

The sound left me before I could swallow it. I squirmed instinctively, hips rocking forward, chasing the pressure, greedy for more friction than he was giving me.

"So good," I breathed, the words dissolving into the dark.

Somewhere beneath the haze of pleasure, a small and guilty voice stirred.

This is a sin. Having wet dreams was a sin

But the cold hands were warm on me now, and the guilt was very far away.

If I had known better then, I wouldn't enjoy it so much.

But it was far too late now for regrets.