Lilith
There was no sound, no feeling, except for the beat of my sternum against the frozen air.
I could feel the cold slowly violate the solidness of my bones, and I knew that, sooner or later, the wet heat of my beating heart would freeze. There would be nothing after that. A sucking void of endless blackness.
My mind screamed against that inevitability, as I saw the chain devil’s lips curl into a malicious smile.
No, my death would not be swift at his hand. He would draw out my suffering, my horror, for the same reason I sucked the human men’s vital essence dry – because that’s what he did. It was a depraved play on the circle of life; everything needed to eat. Some are predators, and some are prey.
I had begun this night believing myself safe from the human man, then thought myself the predator. Now, as I felt the ice-covered chain freeze the skin on my ankle, I knew that I was neither. The devil before us was something ancient and primeval, to whom both I and the human would be nothing more important than a speck of dust.
How had I missed this? How had I missed this power, all this time I had lived here?
Cold, seeping terror dripped down the centerline of my body. How had I been so stupid, as to not notice this evil, overwhelming power?
The chain devil laughed, like a nightmare become sound.
“I am the energy of the earth itself, the wheel of time. I have felt your hands, my little firefly, scraping through the energy that I provide.” He wrapped a length of chain around his wrist, shortening my lead and dragging me toward him.
I couldn’t even make a response. My vocal chords were iced solid. I could feel my eyes, much too wide, the corneas slowly succumbing to the devil’s frost. If I did not blink soon, I would go blind.
Again, the devil laughed. “Tempting, firefly. To steal that green fire from your eyes.” He seemed to consider it. “Maybe another night. After you beg me for the privilege.”
A choked sound came from the human’s mouth, as he struggled in his own chain.
The devil’s red eyes glanced for a half a second toward him, with the same care that one might give to a squashed tick, filled with your own blood. A thief, but one whose time is short.
“Blink, firefly. You have much for me to take, and I will enjoy every willing, begging sacrifice.”
I felt the air warm by decimal degrees in front of my face, and I closed my eyes. Tears burned as they washed over my eyes, warming to the horror of what was happening – and what would be happening to me.
There was a spark of something in that ocean of fear, and I realized that it was a mote of gratitude. Some twisted thankfulness at his kindness for allowing me to blink. That itself was a variation of horror – to be grateful to the predator for each continued tear.
I did not want to think too hard about that.
Aleister
I had followed her, hunted her, for half of my lifetime, and of course I knew of other monsters – but now, sitting in the deathly cold of the chain devil, I knew she was a tiny power in comparison. I gritted my teeth as I watched the way he looked at her. Like a toy, or a piece of meat. All of my training couldn’t have prepared me for meeting a power like this.
It was a calling that all monster hunters took pride in. Our little bands became like family, if family would happily slash your achilles tendon to be able to be the first to capture a mark. Some men took on many hunts, many monsters. Some, like me, took on only one.
Only her.
I struggled to my knees, my shackles clanging pitifully against my thigh. The thought seeped into my mind: what is the use of cold iron against this shuddering freeze, itself? The thought, I knew, was poison, and I tried to push it from my consciousness. I couldn’t afford that weakness now. But as I looked at the devil and the succubus, I watched him drag a long, purple tipped claw up the line of her throat. He inflected her face toward him, and I saw a single drop of her blood drip down the line of her neck. A tendril of steam curled away from that red, red line, before the warmth of it was extinguished.
She closed her eyes at his word.
Her fear turned her skin pallid, as she knelt there in front of him.
Warm, burning possessiveness scorched my veins. She would not kneel for anyone, except me. Her skin would not heat for anyone, except me. That power – her power – it belonged to me.
Rage melted the fear, the ice. My jaw ached from the pressure of my own teeth, but even that pain felt good and right.
He – this thing – would not take her from me.
My fingers curled around my hunting knife, and I tried not to think about how I couldn’t feel my fingertips. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except getting to her.
My body tensed, as I gathered my strength. The chain around my ankle shivered along the frozen grass, moving millimeters through every blackened, broken blade. I saw the devil’s eyes move a fraction toward me, and I smiled.
Good. Watch, see your destruction.
My muscles coiled.
I pounced, screaming my fury, blade brandished toward the waiting devil.
Samael
Arrogance.
The planet creaked underneath me, shivering under the turn of my hand. I felt my lungs expand as time dripped slowly forward, as I watched the human’s movements telegraphed through waves of infinity. His march toward death was in motion; I watched the future play out as his skin turn gray and his bones to dust.
I knew his fate, but he didn’t yet.
He screamed toward us, full of unbelievable arrogance. Such unbelievable humanity.
I smiled, as I shook my head. I was almost sorry for what I was about to do.
Almost. Regret was not an emotion that I was truly capable of feeling; everything that I did, every decision, every movement, became right simply because I made it so.
But now, I almost regretted that this human’s death would be so quick. I would have enjoyed drawing out the agony of him watching me defile his prize.
I wrapped four slithering, freezing chains around my palms, before flinging them toward him. The ancient metal cut through the air, and I didn’t need to watch to see that each had met its intended target, one for each limb. He grunted in pain as the unearthly heavy chains wrapped around each wrist and each ankle, pinning him to the frozen ground. His weapon clattered helplessly to the ground, its mundane manufacture shattering in the icy air currents.
I wrapped my hand around the back of my firefly’s neck, and curled my claws through her hair. I dragged her to her feet and brought her face close to mine. From this close, I could smell the fear on her, and it was gorgeous. Every pore seeped terror.
I took a deep breath, drawing in her terror to feed my strength.
It was sweet and bitter, glazed with her delicious panic. I pulled her head to the side, reveling in the tiny mewl of pain, before taking a long, slow lick of the curve of her neck.
She froze, in my embrace, as I drew my tongue across her nerves. The salty tang of dread filled my mouth, and the blush of her pleasure thrummed underneath her skin. I watched her emotions play out over the surface of her mind, and each was delicious, a feast.
I was going to feast on her, for a thousand lifetimes. Every delicate emotion was going to be mine. Every movement, every tear, every begging word, every pathetic show of her gratitude, would be mine. She would thank me for every agony, and it was going to be delicious.
But she needed to be alive, to be my prey.
I had felt her aching need. She needed to eat.
I smiled as I brought my lips close to her ear, thinking about the bloody punishment I would subject her to later, after she had taken her fill. After she had sullied herself with this human man. “You are mine, firefly. Say it.”
Her breath came in a quiet hiss as I tightened my grip on her hair, the points of my claws digging into her head.
I knew I could puncture the bone itself, truly impale her with my corruption. But she did not deserve that much pleasure tonight, so I restrained myself to only drawing tiny points of blood, quickly lost in the blackness of her hair.
“I’m… Yours.” Her voice was soft, pain-filled. Helpless and hopeless, a true piece of prey for a true predator. “Yours, please.”
There was a shudder in the cosmos, as if something had changed, or something that had always meant to be, now was.
I felt reality shift, the binds of her words wrap themselves around her own neck, never to be undone. The earth underneath us settled into a new rightness, falling from a skittering point of inflection to a new, more stable vacuum state.
I smiled down at her. “Mine. And your suffering at my hand will be never-ending.”
A single, hot tear ran down her cheek, leaving a trail of ice on her skin. “Yes… Master.”
The shape of that word on her lips satisfied the cosmic desire, and the universe heaved a breath it had been holding for far too long.
“Good. Now, eat, slave. Eat, so you may sustain your Master with your blood-choked screams.”
Lilith
I looked up at the red-eyed devil who held me fast, my mind undulating wildly between a gamut of emotions. Fear, horror, hopelessness… desire?… banged against the sides of my brain. I didn’t understand the aching arousal that teased along the strings of my body, but I watched him breath in every sensation, every agitation. He tasted every drop of awe-struck horror that dripped from my mind, before shoving me to my knees again.
“Eat, slave.” The chain around my ankle uncurled itself. And then he took a step back, cloaking himself in that freezing fog, leaving only his burning eyes, like bloodied steel, to watch me. The implied threat against my disobedience was left unsaid.
Prey. I was just prey, now.
I shivered, as cold hopelessness filled my ribcage. Choiceless prey.
I took a step toward the prone hunter, still struggling against the infernal chains. I saw him for what he was, for what the devil saw him as, and for what the devil must have thought about me. Food.
I watched the human struggle, and it was at once pitiful and glorious, the fighter’s last push of strength in the heat of the battle. I remembered what I had thought of him, as he had crashed through my wards earlier this night. As my bare feet crunched over the frozen glen, I remembered admiring the strength, that tenacity. My mouth began to water, as the thoughts returned, unbidden.
It had been so long since I had eaten.
The realities of life thawed my bones and blinded me, momentarily, to my future. I felt my eyes burn with their green flame.
The devil was right. I needed to eat.
My footfalls brought warmth back to the grass, and I smiled, feeling the slippery green of living things. I fought the urge to look back over my shoulder, to see my Master’s reaction. I had an eternity to tempt him, I realized, and a droplet of my icy terror metamorphosed into burning desire. That should have scared me, too, I realized, that minor transmutation.
A chittering giggle escaped my lips, and I felt my teeth elongate and sharpen as I knelt and swung my legs over the hunter’s hips. It didn’t scare me. I could drown in my fear of so many things, but transformation was my magic, and it felt good.
The hunter’s eyes were wide, human brown, freezing in the icy air. I undid the zipper on his jeans, breathed the heat of desire to bring him to full hardness, and brought my mouth down on him. His back arched underneath me as much as his chains would allow, and he made quick, needy moans, in spite of himself. My eyes cast luminous green light across his skin, as I pulled myself up and prepared to take him inside of me.
The shadows of light from my eyes pulled the desire from his mind, and I drew it into my body like hot steam. He was so strong, so arrogant. Broad of shoulder and narrow of waist, the pinnacle of human masculinity. As I ground myself over the hardness of him, I basked in this perfect specimen of maleness. Each breath was delicious, a feast in itself.
“You…” his voice was hoarse, still with that drawl that should have left scrapes along my skin. “…fuck.” He bowed his back as his breath came in quick bursts.
I was going to take everything from him.
And, after centuries of living, I was not going to regret it. The hunter became the hunted. Predator became prey, and prey became predator.
Such weakness, in the midst of strength. He truly did not know what he was dealing with.
“Yes, I fuck.” I punctuated the last word by slipping him inside me, and we both groaned from the warm, wet pleasure of it. I snapped my fingers, and green flames danced around us. His muscles tensed under the weight of his forced pleasure, and his hips slammed into me.
His eyes were wild as he strained against the devil’s bonds.
I had a moment to imagine myself similarly trussed, begging under His ministrations. Again, my fear welled deep in my body and crystalized into the structure of desire. That desire felt… good. Right. Twisted, warped, natural… inevitable.
The hunter gave his last eager push before he spilled his life seed into my body. I breathed in the power of it, let it warm my bones and feed my spirit. I sucked in everything he had to give, until his eyes fluttered closed and the blood stopped flowing under his skin. Energy flowed through me, casting dark green light over the circle of melted ice around us.
I stood up, leaving the human cold in my wake, and I turned toward the devil. I saw Him smile, without knowing how I saw it, as He was still cloaked in that ice fog. That smile stirred the fear back into my body, but it felt into neat crystals of desire, cascading in perfect nucleation through my mind.
I would always be afraid, always drown in my own bleeding terror, but I would never be able to truly run from Him.
I let my fear and desire transmogrify, as I fell to my knees in front of the devil.
A single chain, almost delicate, hissed through the air and wrapped itself around my waist, welding itself together like there was never any break in it. As he stepped out of the fog, laughter like the sound of a nightmare crept over my skin as he twisted the chain around his wrist. Every twist shortened my lead, dragged me deeper into his clutches.
Fear. Desire. Inevitability. Arousal. Helplessness. Predator, prey.
He dragged me up to him, and His voice carried the weight of creation itself. “Mine.”
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