The moment she knew the fight was over, the tension went out of her. She sighed beneath me, the rain catching on her eyelashes like glittering jewels as she peered up at me. Not in submission, no, not at all. Her dark eyes were hard with pride, utterly unafraid, but they were calm. The quiet after the storm, the gentle exhale as the chaos passed.
I’d hunted hundreds of humans over the centuries, only to be so often disappointed when they couldn’t rise to my challenges. Warriors, murderers, criminals, killers from all walks of life — I hunted them for the challenge, because I didn’t want prey who gave up when there was still a fight to be had.
I wanted those souls who got out of bed and went to war against the world, those humans who raged against the futility of their small, insignificant lives. Those were the souls I would bring to Hell, those were the souls I would lay my claim to.
Juniper was all of that. I felt electric as I knelt over her, and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d experienced such a rush outside of Hell itself. She was vicious, brave, a wild little thing.
And for some reason, when I’d seen the pain in her memories rise to the surface, all I’d wanted to do was take it away.
That wasn’t part of the deal. Vicious jealousy had rushed over me when I realized the God still had Its tentacles wrapped around her mind. Her soul was mine — mine. Nothing else, no other creature, was allowed to torment what was mine.
I’d never been one for jealousy, but it would make claiming her even more satisfying.
The wound in my side stung as it healed. I wanted to slow its healing if only to feel the thrill of it a little longer. When she stabbed me, fuck, I nearly came then and there. I didn’t want to stop, truly I didn’t, but if there was one thing I’d learned of this vicious human, it was that she’d exhaust herself before she gave up. So I had to call the end, and seeing the relief on her face stirred up a strange feeling in my chest.
I caressed my fingers over her face for a moment, marveling at the softness of her skin, cool with the rain, before I leaned close to her and nudged the knife against her jaw.
“Last chance,” I growled. “Do you still want this?”
She didn’t look away. Her skin twitched at the touch of the blade, but she said, “We have a deal, Zane. Do it. Take me.”
Dangerous words for such a breakable creature. I wanted her to scream, I wanted her to beg. She could wield the knife so well, but could she take it in return? Could she bleed as beautifully as she fought?
I tossed her knife away. It would have done the job just fine, and perhaps it was just me being a goddamn snob. But willing my own blade into existence, bringing together the shuddering, shimmering wisps of aether to construct something beautiful and deadly, was far more satisfying to me than wielding a bit of pounded metal.
I straddled her back, slicing the sharp blade through her jacket from the collar to the hem. She gasped as the rain hit her naked flesh, and goose bumps lined across her. Her hips pressed up as she squirmed. I groaned, knotted a hand in her long, wet hair, and said, “Keep moving your hips like that and watch what happens. You’ll get this cock pounding your cunt.”
She was panting as I tugged her hair, and again, this time with purpose, she arched her back and ground her ass up between my legs. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she muttered, and I nearly lost it.
I tugged away the ruins of her clothes, leaving only her black bra. I flipped her onto her back, and gazed upon the scars etched into her skin. Lines and symbols, runes in a long-dead tongue: a devotion to an ancient God. She’d tried to cover them with tattoos, but they were impossible to hide. Her face hardened when she realized I was looking at them.
“They’re ugly as fuck,” she said. Her voice was rough, as if it was an effort to get the words out. I dragged my claws down her chest, making her arch up and hiss.
“Every inch of you is a tease,” I said, bringing my face down close to her breasts. I ran my tongue along one of her scars, following the line across her chest, savoring every inch of that beautiful flesh.
I could see it in her eyes when her mind wandered, when those memories took reality from her, when they stole precious seconds of her ticking mortal life. It was wasteful, and infuriating, and if I could consume the pain from those old wounds, I would.
I sliced the blade through her bra, and the tight fabric snapped back, laying her bare in the cold rain, her nipples hard. They were tattooed, like the rest of her, each one adorned with a Flower of Life. I took the tip of the knife and teased it against her nipple, and then the other, before I closed my mouth over one of them. She gasped sharply as my tongue teased the swollen bud, flicking it and sucking before giving it a little nip with my teeth. The other breast got the same treatment, and she began to squirm, shuddering beneath me.
I moved lower, tugged open the buttons on her pants and pulled them from her legs. But I had a surprise waiting for me beneath — she wasn’t wearing any panties. I glanced up at her with a grin, tracing my claws along her thigh. “No panties, eh? Are you trying to make me fuck you?”
I got up, yanking her with me, one hand in her hair, the other gripping the knife. I brought her to her knees and held her there before me as she looked up at me with utter defiance on her beautiful face. I’d never met a mortal so demonic. Holding back from playing with her as roughly as I pleased was sheer torture, but it played perfectly to my masochism, edging me every time I had to temper my strength.
“I don’t really have to try, do I?” she said. “I don’t think you have much control over that thing in your pants, do you?”
I laughed. “Really? You think I don’t have it under control?” I traced the knife lightly along her collarbone. “If I didn’t have control, you wouldn’t still be mouthing off. If I didn’t have control, that mouth of yours would be occupied with other things.”
She laughed too, but hers was sharp with something like fear, wild with something like ecstasy. “So says the demon. All talk and no —”
“This is where I’ll mark you,” I said, tapping the knife against her chest and watching with satisfaction as the smile melted from her face. “Here, right below that gorgeous face, so no one will ever look at this body without knowing who it belongs to. It’s going to hurt, Juniper.” I grinned as her throat tensed with a gulp. “Don’t pass out on me.”
I cut into her skin. She flinched, but didn’t whimper, her eyes fluttering closed as fear rushed over her in waves, the scent of it bitterly sweet in the air.
“Stay with me, Juniper. Repeat my words back to me. Remember where you are.”
The pain in her memories would swallow her up if I let it, and I wasn’t going to lose her for even a goddamn second. To claim a soul was sacred; even when it was filthy, even when it was bloody. I wanted her in this, wholeheartedly. I hadn’t hunted her for all these years to have her lost in her mind at the culmination.
I wanted her fear, her desperate pain, her hateful desire. I could see it in her eyes: the struggle against wanting this, the confusion and disgust that she found herself desiring more. She suffered for her own lust. She let herself fall into utter corruption amidst a torrent of pleasure and pain.
A willing sacrifice, for me and me alone. An offering, as ancient and primal as Earth itself. Blood and flesh, lust and need. The Libiri had treated her like a lamb to be slaughtered, but she was a wolf, and a wolf wouldn’t bow its head if it wasn’t willing.
She opened her eyes. She held on to my arm that gripped her hair, chin up, jaw clenched. “Don’t stop. I want this. I need it.”
“Repeat back to me, little wolf. Be brave now. I, Juniper Kynes, offer my soul —”
“I, Juniper Kynes, offer my soul…”
“By the terms of the deal agreed between us.”
“By the terms —” She hissed as the knife edged lower. “By the terms of the deal agreed between us.”
It was my own mark I was giving her, my own name. All demons had two names: the one by which we called ourselves, and the one that called to our very beings. The name by which we could be summoned and imprisoned was also the name by which we claimed our offered souls. To claim a soul was to entrust the most vulnerable part of ourselves to another.
“I accept this deal of my own free will.”
“I accept — I…fuck —” Her eyes closed again as a rivulet of blood streaked down from the cuts. I was careful, cutting only as deeply as I needed to scar. “I accept this deal of my own free-fucking-will.”
I grinned. Only one more line. Warmth grew in my chest, like hot strings tugging at my ribs. Her scent was stronger, her mind more open. When I reached out my being, with a subtle nudge to give her the sensation of gentle hands caressing her back, it was far easier than it had been before.
She was binding to me, irrevocably.
I gave her the final words, drawing the knife down between her breasts as I did, and she repeated back, “With this blood I spill, my soul is yours, forever, beyond my earthly life, to be claimed by no other, guarded and owned by you alone.”
Claiming a soul was nothing short of sheer ecstasy. The words didn’t matter, it was the blood and the will that did it. The final moment, when the mark was complete, stole the air from my lungs. She gasped, her nails digging into my arm. A binding like this could heal wounds, it could awaken one on the verge of death.
Two beings bound into one, two forces of life intertwined. It sent tingles down my arms and shivers up my back, and my cock throbbed until I truly couldn’t bear it another second.
I tugged down my waistband and wiped the edge of the bloodied knife across my rigid shaft, shuddering at the uniquely cold touch of the blade. She watched me, eyes wide, breathing deeply, her arousal sweet and pungent in the air. I gripped my cock and growled, “Now you’re going to use that filthy mouth of yours to show me how sorry you are for fucking stabbing me.”
“You think I’ll apologize?” she said. The blood loss and fading adrenaline had left her dazed, but I could smell the dopamine flooding her system.
“I don’t think you’re going to say a goddamn word,” I snarled. “Because your tongue will be too busy pleasing my cock in apology.”
Her eyes flickered to my cock, gripped in my hand. It always pleased me to see a mortal balk at its girth. It wasn’t built to enter a human body, but enter it would — no matter if she bled, no matter if she screamed, she’d melt on it.
“Can you take it?” I said softly, as her gaze moved back to my face. She was trembling, the kind of subtle tremors that came over her in little waves. Humans were fragile, and vicious as she was, I wasn’t trying to ruin my little pet already.
She held my gaze, rain streaming down her face as she said, “Of course I can.”
“Then open up, Juniper.”
Her lips parted for me as I pressed my cock against them. I barely fit in her mouth, the squeeze alone making me groan as I went deeper, and her throat convulsed around me with a barely suppressed gag. Her tongue caressed my shaft, stroking over the ridges near my head. I held her steady by her hair, her eyes tearing up as she struggled to take me down her throat.
I’d been slow at first, to ease her into it, but I’d had enough of that soft shit. I fucked into her mouth roughly, hard and fast. She clawed at my arm for something to grip on to, her nails digging into my skin. Every squeeze of her throat spurred me on, her tongue stroking me, eager for me, tasting me like she couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t avoid her teeth since her mouth was such a tight squeeze, but I was a sucker for pain. She gazed up at me, tears mixing with the rain, lips embraced around me.
“God, you look sexy when you’re sorry.”
Her mouth was so full, she barely managed to smile. But she did, and her tongue curled around me as I fucked her throat. She felt so tight, so warm, and took me well. My balls tightened and my abdomen tensed, ecstasy shooting through me as I throbbed in her mouth and spilled down her throat. She clung to me, unable to swallow as I pumped into her, my cum spilling over her lips. She gasped as I left her mouth, desperately trying to catch her breath as my seed dripped down her chin and I hauled her up to her feet.
“Your mouth got its punishment. Now it’s that tight little pussy’s turn.”
I pressed her to the trunk of a nearby pine, slapping the palm of my hand against her ass, first one cheek and then the other. She gasped sharply, then hissed as the tree’s rough bark prickled against her bare breasts. I was careful to ensure the fresh cuts on her chest didn’t rub as I secured her wrists in one hand above her head and reached between her legs with the other.
“How are you still hard?” She gaped at me in disbelief as my rigid cock pressed against her ass. I slid my fingers between the slick folds of her labia, wet with her arousal, her clit hot and swollen with need. I sheathed my claws, massaging her roughly until her legs began to shake.
“As long as you’re wet for me, I’m hard,” I said, my teeth grazing her ear as her eyes rolled back. Her mouth gaped open in a soundless cry as I pressed two fingers deep inside her, her walls throbbing around them as I stretched her open. She moved her hips with me, arching back to give me a deeper angle inside her.
But she was going to get a lot more than just two fingers.
I withdrew my hand and gripped her hips, squeezing my cock inside her. She whimpered with every inch, panting desperately. Her pussy gripped me tightly as I pressed all the way inside — before withdrawing completely and plunging in again. She screamed, the sound choked with frantic need. I pulled her hips back, fucking her mercilessly until her knees buckled, and I had to loop an arm around her to keep her upright. I reached between her legs and rubbed her clit, grinning as she shook from head to toe and went limp in my arms, the pleasure shattering her.
“Is it too much for you? Hm?” She managed to shake her head, the defiant little thing.
“Please…” she moaned. “Coming…make me come…”
There was urgency in her cries. Her clit was hot beneath my fingers, her muscles squeezing me as she reached the edge.
“You’re going to…to…make me…come…fuck…”
“Who do you belong to, Juniper?” I hissed, gripping her throat as I kept working her clit. “Say my name. Tell me who fucking owns this cunt.”
“Zane…” Her voice broke as she cried my name, and so did the rest of her. She convulsed, her breath hitching as I brought her to her peak, shuddering violently in my arms.
