The Demon Lord's Vessel(1)

I’m on my hands and knees on the cold stone when Damien’s heat closes over me, his scales warm against my skin. The stone under my palms is rough. My knees ache from the hard surface. Every nerve in me is awake, and I rock back toward him anyway.

He grips my glowing wing stubs and pulls them back. My spine arches. The stretch in my shoulders makes my breath catch, and a faint light spills from the stubs across the stone, gold against the dark. The glow trembles with every breath I take.

“Deeper,” I say, voice cracked.

He gives me what I ask for. I move with him, meeting every pull, my hips answering his before I’ve decided to. The scales drag against me, rough and burning, and I welcome the sting. My divine blood runs hot under my skin, and where his claws graze me, it hisses against the heat of him. The sound is small, but it fills the dark.

He pulls back, then returns, and the force of it shoves me across the stone. My hands catch the edge. I drag myself back against him at the same moment he draws the wing stubs toward him, and the double pull makes my arms tremble. My wings try to flare. They can’t. The stubs pulse with light, as if they’re fighting the same restraint I am.

I match his rhythm. My thighs shake. I don’t stop moving. Heat builds low in my belly, slow and certain, and I breathe through it with my eyes shut. The cold stone under my palms is the only thing keeping me grounded.

“More,” I say.

He tightens his grip and gives it to me. Exactly how I want it.

He draws the wing stubs back until my chest presses flat to the stone. I hold the position myself. The cold of it bites into my skin, a sharp contrast to the fire at my back. My wings try to flare and can’t. The light from the stubs flickers, as if it, too, is struggling to breathe. My fingers curl against the stone. I don’t pull away.

He lets go of one wing stub, and a claw finds my hip instead. I reach back, cover his hand with mine, and press it harder against me. The claws sink in just enough to sting. The pain is sharp and clean. I want it.

“Don’t stop,” I say.

He doesn’t.

At some point he turns me over. I don’t remember how. I only remember the stone scraping against my wing stubs, the rough edge of his horns above me, and my own hands pulling him down by them. The heat of his scales presses against my whole body. His tail curls around me, and I gasp, arch, and take it all. The stone is cold against my back. His body is burning.

“Don’t stop,” I say again, nails digging into his shoulders.

My vision blurs. The room narrows to the stone beneath me and the weight above me and the burning line of his claws at my hip. Horns scrape across my chest as he leans down, and I pull him closer. I want to be closer. I want nothing between us, not the air, not my own fear, not the memory of what I used to be. The glow from my wing stubs paints his face in gold. His eyes are fixed on mine.

The stone had been cold when this began, and it was cold still, but I barely felt it anymore. Somewhere beneath the heat and the dark, I knew I was leaving something behind. I didn’t look back to see what. I only held on.

The sound of our breathing filled the dark, mine ragged, his low and rough. The glow from my wing stubs trembled across the walls and swallowed our shadows whole. I held on to the sight of it, and to him, and to nothing else. My hands stayed in his hair, on his horns, anywhere I could reach.

“Damien,” I whisper.

He presses closer. His claws slide from my hip to my throat, and I catch his wrist and press his hand tighter there, daring him. His breath comes in rough, uneven pulls. Mine breaks into pieces. The light from my wings flickers wildly across the stone.

Heat floods through me. My whole body locks, and the stone, the dark, the glow of my own wings, all of it falls away. There is only the pulse of my own blood and his name caught in my throat.

“Damien…” My voice breaks.

And somewhere beyond the edge of the world, something in me finally lets go.