Chapter 10: Lana

I 'm pretty sure a demon lord just saved me from a golem. Nothing I have yet encountered while down here has had this astonishing amount of power, the sheer oppressive and suffocating presence that makes you want to bow to your betters. Seeing as I'm still splayed out on my back, I went a step further than bowing. I laugh to myself in disbelief. What the fuck.

I roll to my stomach, then climb up to my knees and plant my good foot down. I brace my hands on my knee to stand up and test how much weight my abused leg can hold. I mean, I'm not going to be running another sprint today, that's for sure, but I can, surprisingly enough, hobble a step forward.

I look around and try to sense anyone still lingering in the vicinity. There's nothing at all. He vanished into thin air, and his aura of malice with him .

I need to get back to Kevin before some lucky imp makes a meal out of him. I'm not losing him like we lost Simone. I don't think I could handle something happening to him.

As I limp past the now more scattered stack of boulders, I gasp from the electricity I suddenly feel, thousands of pinpricks over every inch of my skin. A gloved hand wraps around my throat and pushes me against the boulders. I recover from the surprising sensations and look up (and further up) at the demon standing there.

"Holy fuck…" I gasp, my eyes widening and my mouth falling open.

The side of the demon's lip twitches into an almost-smile. "Not quite," he whispers patronizingly, both words carefully enunciated. The whisper is laced with arrogance and I have no doubt he believes himself superior. Despite feeling that he's condescending to me, his voice hooks itself into my lower stomach and tugs the insides towards him. It's like my womb and ovaries want to escape my body and worship their new owner. I must be ovulating or something, because there's no way I'm getting a daddy demon breeding kink right now.

"Perhaps an unholy fuck?" The demon finishes, and this time he does curl his lips into an arrogant smile, his eyes narrowing imperceptibly. The way he holds his chin tilted upwards makes me feel like I'm a subject kneeling in front of the throne he's sat on.

His eyes begin to follow a path down my body, audaciously exploring me with his gaze. He deliberately stops at the apex of my thighs, then leisurely continues his survey back up to my face, his smug smile widening once our eyes meet, as if he's relishing the upper hand. Plumes of fire now glow in his amber irises.

I really hope he has no idea that what I'm experiencing right now isn't just fear. That his dominant perusal flicked a neglected switch inside me. What the fuck, Lana, no. No. Bad girl .

But his smell is all around me, like marshmallows and wood smoke, and fuck, they should bottle it for posterity .

I can't help but catalog the being holding me captive against the boulder by my throat, his hand splayed in dominance. Raven-wing black hair caresses his face in a careless way that's probably unintentional, but men everywhere would spend hours of their lives trying to achieve the same. There's a crown on his head, resting over a slight widow's peak and an expressive brow. The material is like nothing I've encountered before; it seems to suck the light out of its surroundings and glow with darkness.

He watches me admiring him as my gaze moves down over straight, slashing black brows, past those glowing, calculating eyes and a strong blade of a nose, to the piece de resistance – that mouth. Sweet baby Jesus, I have never seen a more attractive mouth on a male, with a strong and defined bow, and a lower lip full enough to nibble on for hours. That mouth twitches under my gaze and I tear my eyes away from it, over his defined cheekbones and strong jaw, past his strong neck, to the collarbone I can see peeking out of his armor. His skin is a golden tan and the size of his body matches his towering height – he's muscled. Not like some of the brawlers in Ramel's group, but with functional lean cords of muscle, down from his wide shoulders to the long, strong legs. A body that's meant for the battlefields of Hell.

I bite my lower lip and he chuckles, just two expelled breaths of air that hit my cheeks with incredible warmth. With a shake of my head, I snap out of my reverie and my eyes refocus. I need to mentally slap myself back into the land of sanity – I'm ogling a demon strong enough to snap my neck with as much effort as it took to expel that breathy laugh, and a part of me thinks I would appreciate it because the death would come from his hands. This absolutely magnetic, beautiful creature was created to be perfection, and my brain is short-circuiting. I meet his burning gaze and try to speak. "What…" I choke on air and clear my throat, then try again. "What do you want?"

The regal god in front tilts his head indulgently, and looks at me like he's feeling magnanimous enough to grace me with an answer. "Gratitude," he says.

"T-thank you?" I stutter. That evil grin returns to the mouth of all wet dreams combined, so beautifully sculpted but still sensual, lips both elegant and symmetrical. Anything with a pulse would instantly imagine it between their legs.

"Master." He enunciates the word clearly so there could be no confusion, and I bristle, despite the obvious danger I'm in. Pride is definitely one of my sins.

"Excuse me?" I say, a bit louder than I spoke before.

In answer, he presses me tighter against the boulder with the hand that was lazily resting on my neck and collarbone, and takes a step forward, bathing me in his electric warmth. His fingers tighten and my mouth opens again in fear.

Yes, um, definitely fear.

The flames in his eyes intensify as his expression becomes serious, and I kick my pride to the curb with a belated healthy dose of self-preservation.

"Thank you, Master," I breathe quietly, his palm still suppressing the flow of air to my lungs, his fingers and thumb pressing against the sides of my neck, slowing the rush of the blood meant for my brain to a crawl.

He closes his eyes and leans towards my neck, dragging the tip of his nose from my collarbone to my ear, where he murmurs, "I expended energy to save you, little lamb. I think it only fair that you be the one to replenish it."

I unsuccessfully try to ignore the borderline orgasmic sensation the touch of his skin invokes. Holy Hell, I had actual cocks give me less pleasure than this devil achieved with two seconds of his nose on my neck. Heck, my once-favorite vibrator needs to step down from the pedestal of Best Thing Ever. I can't help it; I moan an embarrassing sound of need.

He pulls his head back from the crook of my shoulder and grins widely. "Do not fret, you will enjoy it," he says, while the look in his eyes tells me he fully knows that wasn't a moan of terror. Such smugness shouldn't be attractive.

I think of all the ways demons find nourishment. There's flesh, of course – I witness that too often. There's blood, full of juicy ether, the life force of all creatures. There are acts of corruption, carnage, and sadism. Or sucking down a human's soul like it's a slushie. I'd enjoy neither of these options. That leaves sex. Lust and passion. The soup du jour of incubi.

I open my mouth to protest – I didn't ask for his help after all – but at that moment, he lowers his head back to the junction between my neck and shoulder, licking once. And then biting down.

A scream originating from the core of my very being tears out of my throat. I kick my head back into the boulder with a thud, my eyes tightly shut as a supernova explodes in my head, a solar system annihilated behind my closed lids. My body flushes from head to toe as I'm suffused with a delicious warmth.

I can vaguely hear him grunt once in surprise, because dominating my hearing is the embarrassing sound of me panting out needy moans, like my soul is being separated from my body, and I'm helpless to hold on to it. There's a direct line between his bite and my pussy and, oh God, I need to be filled, I need him to touch me, I need to touch myself and relieve this painful pressure. It's all I can think about.

He's nibbling on my flesh, definitely drawing blood, but I don't get the sense that's what he's after. Licking the wound that he made, he moves a couple of inches lower and strikes again.

I don't resist this time and move one hand up my torso towards my breasts and the other between my legs. I don't get very far before he releases my neck, lifts both of my hands above my head, and holds them against the boulder with one of his. The other grabs my jaw, angling me and holding me still at the same time. I feel like I'm being used, though I have no idea just how he's making use of me.

Through the haze in my mind, I feel a hot pressure spread my legs and I automatically start moving my hips, humping the air.

No, it's not the air I'm humping, but his hard thigh. I'm humping his leg like a dog, rubbing against him with a need I can't suppress, and tears of embarrassment are leaking from my tightly shut eyes.

He ceases his ministrations to my neck and licks my tears away slowly, capturing the salty drops on his tongue, and then dragging it up the path the tears took over my cheeks.

As he moves back I manage to open my eyes. He's looking down his nose at me to admire the anguished pleasure and humiliation he created, his chin lifted, his mouth slightly parted in a smile of sadistic pleasure.

I'm wound so tightly that it only takes a couple of seconds of writhing against his hard body before pleasure coils in my center, and then shoots out to my extremities in a blaze of fire. I scream like I'm being torn apart, my body contracting and arching through the spasms, all while he looks down at me proprietarily. A master who threw his favorite pet a treat.

"Delicious," he purrs as my breaths still come in pants, his thigh the only thing keeping me from collapsing. I'm made of putty, like every last bit of tension in my body was expelled in the explosion of pleasure. "A Nephalem," he says with some wonder, moving his head closer and inhaling deeply. "And you came for me so prettily," he whispers against my lips.

My tears are still flowing and I'm not sure whether I want him to kiss me, to soothe the raw and vulnerable hurt I feel inside me with tenderness, or if I want to sink to the ground and bury myself in my shame. I just orgasmed all over this soulless creature's leg, and it felt like being reborn into a higher state of consciousness.

Before either of us can make a move, he snaps his gaze to the river, as if he can see through the boulders. He suddenly looks pissed as… well, Hell.

"Lana!"

It's Kevin. He's alive, he's okay. I exhale in relief, the worry I didn't know was gnawing inside me throughout this ordeal dissipating, and more tears join the ones that the demon still holding me captive didn't lick away while I writhed against him.

His eyes return to mine, a firestorm of anger churning within them, but his expression softens upon meeting my gaze, which I'm sure reflects a mix of shock and relief. He gives me a fond little half-smile, like one would give to a darling kitten, and says, "Until we meet again, little lamb."

The hand still on my face squishes my cheeks in a degrading and domineering show of ownership. His mouth tightens, and he disappears, leaving me to slide down the boulder, landing in a heap and shivering. It's like True North stopped existing; I'm no longer linked to the ground by gravity, and all the warmth has been leached from my body.

His disappearance hurts more than his bite did.