Chapter 7

When it finally rolled forward, Asmodeus was still moaning keenly. It kept its softening cock deep in me as it leaned forward to kiss my neck. Sweat glistened off both our bodies. It put its head into my chest, a moment of vulnerable affection. Cautiously, I put my fingers into its hair. Smelt the cedar. The caramel. The sweat, the cum, the sex. Breathed it all in and felt—satisfied. For the first time in my life, there was no noise in my head.

“My little whore,” Asmodeus growled from my chest. “My priestly slut. What a surprise you are.”

It peeled its face from me and bared its sharp canine. Its fork tongue split around its teeth to lap at the sweat and cum smeared across my belly. I had nothing to say, and so the only noise that came out of me was a sigh.

“Fucked your thoughts away,” the Prince of Lust commented. It pulled out of me unceremoniously and stood with its cock leaking. “You really are worthless, aren’t you?”

I shivered and laid there. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to do anything that might dislodge the perfect moment.

“How will you live with yourself?” Asmodeus laughed.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Don’t think about tomorrow. Don’t think about it.

But the soft call of birds had already started somewhere beyond my small room. It wouldn’t be long before the new bishop was summoned. Not long before the scroll was recorded missing, and I was marked as the culprit. Not long before I would be put to death for a myriad of crimes—for the sin of my lust. For the sin of partaking so happily in it.

Asmodeus tutted. “Don’t look so despondent, little priest. There are plenty of cocks for you to bounce on.”

I shifted and stared at it. “I thought I was yours.”

The prince snorted. “In a sense. But whoring yourself out to anyone who looks at you is the proper way to worship me.”

I sat up with a shiver. The shame of that—the nervous, excited thought of it—consumed me. Is that what I was now? Is that what I should do? Leave here, be used by whoever might want me?

“Have I sold my soul to you?” I whispered. God’s anxious worry gnawing at my head.

Asmodeus looked down and toed the line of the pentagram with its foot. It glanced at me over its shoulder and ignored my question. “Do you plan to keep me, little priest?”

“What if I came with you?”

Asmodeus laughed again. “Ah. I didn’t think it would happen so soon.” When I said nothing, Asmodeus turned to me and tilted its head. “I’ve tasted you now. And you’ve tasted me. I can smell you. Feel you. I am an infection, little priest; I will destroy you from the inside out. Fill your core with rotten thoughts and let them fester for years until you open Hell itself and walk into it gladly. I do not need your soul. You will give it to me freely, just as you give your body.”

I gulped. I blinked at it. “I can’t wait years.” My voice came out hoarse and frightened, but it was true. My body had learnt bliss after decades. Mortality is a curse; I didn’t have eons to explore this. I didn’t have millennia to whore myself. I had the moment. I had this life. I say again, slowly, “I can’t wait years.”

Asmodeus’ smile held a dark, twisted glee. “I know,” it says.

The unspoken thing passed between us: if I did not summon it again, I would find a way to go to it. I would worship it more keenly than I have worshipped God and with a feral need for it. I would walk gladly into Hell to taste it again. To be had by it again.

“But you cannot have me if you’re caught now,” Asmodeus murmured. “You can’t have any of us.”

“Us?”

“Plenty of demons in Hell,” the prince said, sultry and slow. “My pathetic little priest.”

Heat flooded me, but I got up.

“I. . .”

I didn’t own Asmodeus. Not the way it owned me. In this sense, I knew I shouldn’t have felt the way I did—like I was losing something. My stomach seized and I walked forward, pressing my hand against its chest.

Something akin to softness flared in the demon’s eyes. “Missing me already?”

“Something like that.”

A grin split those red lips apart, and sharp canines left indents against Asmodeus’ lower lip. “Then let me leave you with a reminder,” it said, and it went on its knees.

I jolted away as hot breath curled around my cock. But the demon’s lip didn’t part for me like that. Instead, it bared its teeth against my inner thigh—and bit.

I howled, slamming my hand against my mouth to smother the sound. Pain flared in a searing burst as teeth sank into my flesh, and I stumbled back against the bed, trying in vain to flee.

Asmodeus pulled away. My blood had stained its face and dribbled down its neck. “Hush, little priest,” it cooed to me, licking my blood from its lips. “I’m just leaving my mark.”

The Prince of Lust stood and assessed me. Sweat and panic had left me spread and quivering. Blood pooled down my inner thigh and onto the sheets. The puncture wounds ran deep. And they would scar.

“You’ll think of me every time you see them,” Asmodeus said with a grin. “Every time you touch yourself, I’ll be there.”

It leaned down, bracketing my hips with its clawed hands. Then it kissed me chastely. I tasted the metallic twang of my blood and gasped when it pulled away.

“Free me,” it said. “Now.”

I didn’t want to. Believe me—the thought of blasphemy of a different kind curled in me. I wanted to trap the Prince of Lust there with me. Keep it in my room, use it the way I hoped it would use me.

I think Asmodeus knew what I was thinking because its eyes sparkled bright with amusement. It did not touch me again, and nor did it speak again. It waited to see what I would do. Whether I would obey it.

If I hadn’t—if I’d trapped it there—I knew it would never fuck me again.

Which simply wouldn’t do.

So, I moved. I followed that final order, and I rubbed the pentagram away.

Asmodeus smiled at me and nodded before it vanished into smoke.

I stood there and felt its absence. The air grew noticeably colder, and I shivered, first from the change in temperature and then from the growing abysmal knowledge that it would be some time before I saw it again.

But I would never see Asmodeus, Prince of Lust, again if I didn’t manage to cover my tracks.

The only thing left to do was return the scroll, which I managed without issue. I burned the blood-covered sheets, went to mass that morning, prayed with my brethren, and waited for the bishop to come.

I did all these things with piety and faith—but not in the name of God.