2

“You are delicious,” Bhalka says, his voice dark and velvet-soft, as if savoring the taste of the words themselves. “I can taste your desire.”

“This is mad,” Alden croaks. His throat feels raw, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve gone mad.”

Bhalka tilts his head, studying Alden with eyes that seem to see through him, as though dissecting every fiber of his soul. “You fear for your eternal soul,” he murmurs, his tongue flicking out to catch a lingering trace of Alden's kiss. “The soul you barely believe in.” He smiles, slow and deliberate. “But I will own you. No one else. Nothing else. And I will treasure you.”

Alden’s heart lurches, and against his better judgment, his feet shuffle forward. His body betrays him, drawn by some invisible pull. “You’d say anything,” he whispers, his hands trembling. “You’d promise me anything to be free.”

“Would I?” Bhalka’s voice is amused, almost pitying. He gestures toward the bars that confine him, their enchanted iron glowing faintly in the dim light. “I could have offered you lies, illusions — a palace of false hopes and fleeting dreams. But instead, I offer you truth. I offer what you truly want.” His tongue flicks out again, dark and sinuous, trailing over lips that were crafted to entice. “Freedom, Alden. Freedom from your own cage.”

The words strike Alden like a blow, sharp and undeniable. His pulse hammers in his chest, a desperate rhythm that drowns out reason. Every instinct screams at him to end the ritual, to force Bhalka back into the abyss from which he was summoned. The incantation is on the tip of his tongue, but it falters. The image of never seeing Bhalka again grips him with unbearable pain, twisting in his chest like a cruel hand squeezing the fragile bones of a tiny bird.

With a trembling hand, Alden reaches out, his fingers grazing the impossibly perfect face before him. Every feature has been sculpted from his deepest longings — the pale, freckled cheeks of his first crush, the dark eyes of the city baker who had once held his gaze, the strong, broad hands of a passing tradesman he had dared to imagine holding him. Bhalka is a masterpiece of Alden's forbidden desires, brought to life by some unholy magic. As Alden's fingers brush over Bhalka's skin, the creature's eyes flutter closed, a shuddering sigh escaping his lips. His lashes are impossibly long, shadowing the dark hollows of his cheeks.

“Free me,” Bhalka whispers, his voice like the echo of wind through a cavern. “Free yourself.” When his eyes open again, they are no longer mortal. They are an endless void filled with starlight, galaxies swirling in the inky blackness.

“Yes,” Alden breathes. The word slips from his lips before he can stop it, carried on the tide of his own surrender. The ritual's final incantation tumbles from his mouth, the unholy syllables resonating in the air around them.

The moment the last word is spoken, the world erupts into darkness. The candles snuff out all at once, their flames extinguished as though swallowed by the void. Behind Alden, the lantern shatters with a delicate, crystalline sound. He is plunged into pitch black, the sudden silence broken only by the pounding of his heart.

Before he can move, a pair of dark, luminous eyes appear inches from his own, filled with an alien hunger and the cold, infinite beauty of a night sky.

“Free,” Bhalka says, his voice reverent, curious, and dripping with promise.

Something wraps around Alden’s ankle, and he moans, low in his throat. The sensation retracts, but Alden can feel the presence all around him, exploring the parameters of his being without touching him.

“I will give you what you need.” The words are spoken right over his shoulder, and Alden gasps, taking a step back into a solid chest in surprise. “You will be mine,” Bhalka purrs, “and I will have you in every way.” Alden’s nerves scatter over his body in vivid, highlighted fear as an impossibly long tongue drags up the side of his neck. “You are delicious. There will be no part of you I do not taste.”

He's going to eat me, Alden thinks. Oh my God. I'm going to die. He's going to eat me!

Alden can’t reply, so trapped in the depths of his fear. A heavy hand settles on the side of his hip, sliding under the edge of his jacket, pulling out the hem of his shirt and coasting over his stomach. Alden's breath is rasping in and out of his lungs, thin and fast with terror.

Bhalka hums behind him in satisfaction. “You are so soft.”

The fingers stroking against his skin feel human, and the grip grows harder as the exploring hand likes what it finds, trailing over his navel, up his shirt to skate across his nipples. Alden moans, and Bhalka trills an odd sound, like a delighted bird. Bhalka grips down harder, pinching at one nipple and then the other, and Alden’s breath stutters and catches. His cock is straining hard against the zipper of his pants as his heart tries to escape through the bones of his chest.

“You are a virgin,” Bhalka says, his tone rolling into deeper notes.

Better to eat, Alden thinks, and he starts shaking in abject fright.

“No – I -”

“You are,” Bhalka says. In a perfect imitation of Alden, he repeats what he'd said earlier -“'Sex is cheap. If I wished for it, I could have had it from any -” - and then laughs in his own voice, low and sultry. Alden blushes, heat skating over his skin, completely mortified. Humiliation and fear warring in his chest. He opens his mouth to reply with some defense, but a heavy finger covers his parted lips. “Do not lie. I am pleased.”

“Don’t – please don’t hurt me,” Alden gasps.

“Hurt you?” Bhalka scoffs. “You will be mine. Only mine. I will have you in the palm of my hand.” Fingers dig into his hips. “I will taste you in the center of my tongue.” When Bhalka speaks again, his lips are running over the edge of Alden’s ear. “I will own you from the inside.” The fingers grip harder into his hips, dragging up his stomach possessively, and Alden moans.

Clothes shift around his body as Bhalka explores him with increasing fervor. A button flicks off his waistcoat, and then his jacket is being shuffled off his shoulders and dropped to the floor. It’s so dark that Alden can’t see anything. Precise fingers unwind his tie and pick away the buttons of his shirt and then those pieces of clothing disappear as well, flung to land over the podium with a flutter of fabric and pages. His undershirt is peeled off, and then Bhalka is sniffing him all over, the bridge of his heavy nose dragging over Alden’s skin.

“Delicious. Clean,” he says. “So mortal.”

Bhalka’s hot, wet mouth meets his own, and Alden freezes in place. The tongue that slides between his lips is gentle but claiming, seeking his own, and a heavy hand grabs his jaw and forces his jaw open. “Mmmph,” Alden says, but Bhalka doesn’t relent, taking more, drinking him in as Alden shakes in his grip.

“So good,” Bhalka hisses, licking around the edges of his lips. Bhalka presses closer, and the heavy weight of his cock and hips press into Alden’s stomach.

“Say that you want this.” Bhalka’s hand drifts down, stroking over the erection that strains against Alden’s zipper. “I wish to hear you speak it.”

“Oh,” Alden says, and though he's still trembling with terror, he wants this so bad he can barely speak. “I want – want that,” he gasps.

“You do,” Bhalka replies, pleased. “And you will have it.”

Alden's pants disappear with the same rapidity as the rest of his clothing, thrown aside somewhere in the hungry waiting dark. Bhalka is all around him, exploring him with alien interest; Alden feels a tongue slide all the way around his wrist, then disappear. He's moved around like a doll, and Alden can't stifle his nervous laughter when Bhalka buries his face under his arm, sniffing and licking. Hot breath huffs across the fine hair. It tickles, and he tries to step away, but Bhalka holds him in place, licking and teasing over his skin.

“Stronger smell here,” he grumbles into Alden's armpit. “Better.”

After a long, wet investigation of both armpits, Bhalka keeps going, his face dragging down the camber of his thin ribs, and Alden gasps when the tip of a nose digs into his crotch. He is painfully erect, more afraid and more aroused than he's ever been in his life. The head of his cock is straining at the edge of his foreskin, slick with precome.

“Shhh,” Bhalka says, and closes his mouth around Alden's cock in one gulp.

Alden stumbles forward, making incredibly humiliating noises, his hands resting on Bhalka's big shoulders, and is rewarded with a low, humming growl of approval. Sparks skate up his spine to explode behind his eyelids as an inconceivably long tongue wraps around the shaft of his cock and slides back down. The tongue twists and curls around his length, lapping at the head at the same time that Bhalka is pulling his cock into his throat, and Alden thinks he might die. Pleasure whites out his mind. He is immediately shaking, pulled up on tip-toe into the tug of Bhalka's persistent tongue, and drool is coursing down his thighs.

“Jesus Christ,” Alden whimpers, and Bhalka laughs.

“That is not a name I would have you speak to me.”

Bhalka stands, and for a second, Alden is pulled up by the hips with him until the tongue releases, slithering back into Bhalka's mouth. Alden can hear it in the dark, the slick slide of it, and then the tongue is on his neck, gliding back and forth over the thin skin of his pulse. Teeth flicker over his jugular vein, and Bhalka hums in delight as Alden gasps, as his hands reach out to cling to the broad form in front of him.

“You do not have to hide your desires from me,” Bhalka croons. “Say it. Say what you wish to do.”

“I want to – to do what you did to me,” Alden says weakly. “To you.” His cheeks are burning, to have admitted even that much, and his insecurity surges up hard against the inside of his chest. He can hardly perform an act half as impressive.

“Not enough,” Bhalka chuckles. “Say more.” His mouth presses up against Alden's ear, his tongue darting out to slide around the cup of his ear, sharp teeth teasing at his earlobe. “Speak filth to me, as you spoke the words to free me.”

“Oh, shit,” Alden says. It feels stupid that this should be more difficult than freeing a creature, but if he's going to die, he will have this, and he leaps forward. “Fuck. I – I want to suck your cock,” he blurts, the words tearing out of his chest.

“Yes, you do,” Bhalka says, laughing again, but it doesn't feel cruel, as Alden had feared. It's still a little humiliating, to be laughed at as he would laugh at a puppy that was excited to go on a walk, but Alden is reassured by Bhalka's thumb stroking at the edge of his jaw, gentle and placating. “And I will let you.”

Gently, Bhalka guides Alden down, joining him on the floor with a susurrus rustle. The stones of the floor are cold and hard, and Alden has entirely forgotten about it as Bhalka curls up next to him on the ground. He hears the scrape of the podium as Bhalka moves it aside, and then strong arms are curling around him, holding him close. It suddenly occurs to him that he doesn't know the last time someone touched him, and he grips harder on to Bhalka, a frantic level of need scraping under his skin. His breath stutters in his chest; he aches for to be touched, aches with lust.