Chapter 14: Morning Ritual
The jasmine scent was a lie. Elara swam up from a depthless sleep, her mind parsing the sensory data before she opened her eyes. Jasmine from the hotel’s cheap diffuser, undercut by the darker, muskier truth of sex and demon. And beneath that, the sharp, clean ozone of spent power.
She was on her side, his body a furnace against her back. One of his arms was a dead weight across her ribs, possessive even in unconsciousness. And pressed insistently against the curve of her ass, the hard, thick length of his morning erection.
She didn’t move. She listened to his breathing, even and deep, felt the slow, powerful rhythm of his heart against her spine. The previous night wasn’t a dream. It was a brand, seared into her muscles, soaked into her bones. The soreness between her thighs was a visceral testament. The memory of his words—my proof—echoed in the silent room.
His hips shifted, a minute, unconscious grind against her. A low, rasping sound vibrated through his chest and into her back, more growl than sigh. He was awake.
Before she could speak, before she could even turn, his hand was on her hip, heavy and demanding. He flipped her onto her stomach with a casual, brutal strength that shoved the breath from her lungs. The sheets were cool against her cheek. Her heart hammered, a frantic drum against the mattress.
He didn’t say a word.
His knees nudged her legs apart. His hands, those elegant, cruel hands, grabbed the cheeks of her ass, spreading her open. The morning air was a cool shock against her most intimate skin. She was exposed, vulnerable, laid bare for his inspection. A tremor ran through her, part fear, part aching anticipation.
Then his mouth was on her.
Not a kiss. A claiming. He buried his face between her thighs, his tongue—broad, hot, and relentless—parting her folds with a single, wet stroke. He licked her from her perineum all the way up to her clit, a slow, filthy drag that made her gasp into the mattress. He tasted her, the remnants of their coupling, her own sleep-warm musk, and he growled again, the sound pure, predatory satisfaction.
“Oh, god…” The words were muffled, torn from her.
He didn’t let her adjust. His tongue speared into her, fucking her with shallow, rapid thrusts. The sensation was shocking, crude, overwhelmingly intimate. She could feel the rough texture of his tongue, the hot puff of his breath against her. He ate her out with a single-minded, desperate hunger, as if he could consume the very essence of her, as if he could devour the anchor she’d become.
“Azazel—” His name was a plea.
He answered by shifting his focus. His mouth sealed over her clit, sucking the sensitive nub deep, then releasing it with a soft pop before his tongue began to circle it, fast and focused. The coil of pleasure, still loose from the night, tightened with a vicious snap. She clawed at the sheets, her back arching, a moan ripping from her throat. It was too much, too direct, too soon after waking. Her body bucked, but his hands held her firm, keeping her open, keeping her there for his feast.
“Oh yes…,” she moaned, her face pressed into the pillow. “Eat me out, Azazel! Fucking… ruin me.”
He redoubled his efforts. His tongue was a wicked, clever thing, flicking, pressing, lapping. One of his hands slid down from her ass, his thumb finding her entrance. He pushed it into her, just to the first knuckle, a blunt, stretching pressure that made her cry out. He fucked her with his thumb in time with the ruthless circles on her clit. The dual assault was blinding.
“Come for me,” his voice was a muffled command against her flesh, hot and wet. “Do it. Now.”
It was an order she couldn’t disobey. The orgasm detonated, a white-hot wire of pleasure shooting from her core out to her fingertips, her toes. She convulsed around his thumb, her cries strangled, pathetic things. He didn’t stop. He worked her through the shudders, gentling his tongue but not relenting, drawing out the aftershocks until she was a trembling, boneless wreck.
Only then did he pull back. He released her, letting her collapse fully onto the bed. She heard him move behind her, the shift of weight on the mattress. She was still gasping, her face wet with sweat and maybe tears, when she felt the broad, slick head of his cock nudge against her soaked, sensitive opening.
“No… wait…” she whimpered, oversensitive, raw.
He didn’t wait. He pushed in.
The stretch was breathtaking, a glorious, burning fullness. He was huge, and she was tight, clenching around him involuntarily from the aftershocks of her climax. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound of pure pleasure as he seated himself to the hilt in one slow, inexorable thrust. He held there, buried inside her, his body draped over her back. She felt his breath on her neck, felt the rapid beat of his heart against her shoulder blades.
“You taste like us,” he murmured, his lips against her ear. “Like me, inside you. It’s all I can smell.” He began to move, a deep, rolling withdrawal and a hard, possessive thrust. “It’s all I want to smell.”
His pace was steady, relentless. He fucked her on her stomach, his hands braced on the mattress on either side of her head, caging her in. Each thrust jolted her forward, her breasts rubbing against the sheets. It was raw, animalistic. A taking. She could do nothing but take it, her moans punched out of her with every drive of his hips.
“This cunt,” he grunted, his voice strained with effort. “Mine. This perfect, greedy, human cunt. Clenching around me like it’ll never let go.”
“It won’t,” she gasped, the admission torn from some honest, shattered place within her. “I won’t.”
His rhythm faltered for a second, a stutter in the perfect, punishing pace. Then he fucked into her harder, deeper, as if trying to reach her very soul. One of his hands slid from the mattress to her hip, his grip bruising, holding her in place for his assault. The other hand tangled in her hair, fisting the red strands and pulling her head back, arching her spine.
“Say it again,” he snarled.
“It’s yours,” she cried out, the words shredded by his pounding. “All of it. Yours.”
He came with a roar that seemed to shake the cheap chandelier above them. His hips slammed into hers, locking, as he pumped his release into her in hot, pulsing jets. His body went rigid, then shuddered violently above her before collapsing, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his cock still throbbing inside her.
They lay like that for long minutes, a tangled, sweating, spent heap. The room smelled of sex and jasmine and them. Slowly, his weight shifted, and he rolled off her, pulling her with him so her back was against his chest again. His arm came around her, holding her close. His softening cock slipped from her with a wet, intimate sound.
Silence, thick and heavy, filled the room. Outside, the city was waking up. A distant siren wailed.
Her hand found his where it rested on her stomach. Their fingers intertwined. It was a simple gesture, devastating in its normalcy.
“Malkor will come back,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse.
“Yes.”
“The auditors… they’ll find this hotel. The clerk will talk.”
“Eventually.”
She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. His eyes were closed, the long dark lashes fanned against his cheeks. The silver streaks had faded to faint, shimmering scars. “So what do we do?”
He opened his eyes. They were a calm, deep amber. “We run. We hide. We find the ones who wrote the original binding. The ones who know how to unmake a leash without killing the bound.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I think,” he said, his thumb stroking the back of her hand, “that I am no longer interested in being free of my anchor. I am interested in making it unbreakable.” He met her gaze. “That requires power I don’t currently possess. Power we will have to take.”
A cold thrill, different from the fear of Malkor, snaked down her spine. “We.”
“You’re in it now, archivist. Up to your neck.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Your curiosity led you to a demon. Your stubbornness kept you alive. Let’s see where your intelligence leads us.”
He shifted, disentangling himself and swinging his legs off the bed. He stood, a tall, naked figure of impossible beauty and latent violence in the dim room. He walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside a fraction. The grey dawn light cut across his torso, highlighting the pale scar tissue of his wounds.
“Get dressed,” he said, not looking at her. “We have maybe an hour before the sniffers catch the trail.”
As she moved, sore and stiff, to gather her clothes from the floor, her phone, discarded on the nightstand, buzzed. Once. Then again. A text notification glowed on the screen.
Unknown Number. Thorne. Your absence has been noted. The University Archives have been sealed pending investigation. We have questions regarding several restricted texts. Please call this number.
A second message followed, a photo. It was the front door of her apartment building. A dark, unmarked sedan was parked at the curb.
Azazel didn’t turn from the window. “The auditors,” he said, as if smelling them on the air. “Ahead of schedule.”
Elara stared at the glowing screen, the cold, professional threat of the words sinking in. Her old life was not just ashes. It was being catalogued, dissected.
She picked up the phone, her fingers steady. She deleted the messages and powered it off.
“Where do we start?” she asked, her voice clear in the quiet room.
Azazel finally turned. A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face, the first real light of the day catching in his gold-flecked eyes. “We start,” he said, “by going to church.”
The smirk died on his lips. His head tilted, a predator catching a scent on a shift of wind. The fine hairs on Elara’s arms rose. “They’re here,” he said, the words soft and final.
“Already?” Her breath hitched. She’d just powered off the phone.
“Not here-here. In the lobby.” He was already moving, a blur of motion snatching his discarded trousers from the floor. “They’re whispering to the night clerk. Buying the security footage. They’ll be at the door in three minutes.”
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through her. She scrambled for her own clothes, her fingers fumbling with the buttons on her wrinkled shirt. The mundane act felt absurd. “The window? The fire escape?”
“Sixteen floors. My power’s still… gauzy.” He zipped his trousers, his movements efficient, deadly. “And you are delightfully mortal. We walk out the front.”
“They’ll see us!”
“Let them.” He tossed her sweater to her. His eyes had hardened to polished onyx. “I want Malkor to know I’m not hiding. I want him to know what I’m protecting.”
The casual possession in his tone should have rankled. Instead, it lit a fuse of defiant heat low in her belly. She pulled the sweater on, the wool scratchy against her sensitized skin. He was at the door, one hand on the knob, listening. The ordinary hallway, with its ugly carpet and faint smell of disinfectant, felt like the mouth of a trap.
He looked back at her, a final assessment. “Stay behind me. Don’t speak. Your mind is a open book to them, and your thoughts are currently… vivid.”
A flush burned her cheeks. He was right. The memory of his mouth, his hands, his cock, was painted across her consciousness in brilliant, shameful detail. She shoved it down, building a mental wall of archival catalogs and Dewey decimals. Azazel’s mouth quirked. “Better,” he murmured, and opened the door.
The hallway was empty. The elevator dinged softly somewhere around the corner. Azazel moved with a silent, ground-covering stride, pulling her along. He didn’t head for the elevators. He pushed through a heavy door marked ‘STAIRS’.
The concrete stairwell was a dim, echoing throat. Their footsteps were too loud. “A church, Azazel? Really?”
“Not for prayer,” he said, taking the steps two at a time, forcing her to jog to keep up. “For theft. The Basilica of St. Ignatius. They have a reliquary. The knuckle bone of some martyred saint, steeped in centuries of fervent belief. Ritual focus. Potential energy. It’s a battery.”
“You want to steal from a church?” The absurdity almost made her laugh.
“I want to consume it.” He shot her a glance over his shoulder, his eyes glowing faintly in the poor light. “To fortify the anchor. To make you harder to unknit from my essence. It will also,” he added, pushing open a door marked ‘LOBBY’, “piss off my brother immensely. He finds mortal faith tiresome.”
The lobby was a pool of calm, beige light. The night clerk, a pimply young man, was nodding intently at two men in severe, charcoal-gray suits. The suits were impeccably tailored, their posture perfectly upright. They didn’t look like government agents. They looked like undertakers.
Azazel didn’t break stride. He walked straight for the main glass doors, pulling Elara close to his side. His arm draped around her shoulders in a gesture that could be read as possessive or protective. It was both.
One of the suits turned. His eyes were the flat, glossy black of a shark’s. They passed over Azazel without recognition, a calculated dismissal, and locked onto Elara. She felt it—a cold, invasive probe, like psychic fingers scraping against the library stacks in her mind.
She focused on the feel of Azazel’s arm, the residual ache between her legs, the scent of him on her skin. The probe slid off, repelled by the sheer, visceral immediacy of her thoughts. The auditor’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
Azazel shouldered through the doors into the damp, early morning air. A black sedan idled at the curb. “Keep walking,” he murmured, his lips against her temple. “Don’t run. They won’t grab us here. Too many potential witnesses.”
They walked. The city was stirring, delivery trucks rumbling, a few weary souls trudging to work. The sense of being watched was a physical pressure between Elara’s shoulder blades. After two blocks, Azazel steered her into the mouth of a narrow alley, reeking of garbage and wet brick. He pressed her against the cold wall, his body shielding her from the street.
“They’ll follow in the car,” he breathed. “We need to disappear. Now.”
He kissed her. It wasn’t for pleasure. It was a distraction, a cover. As his mouth moved over hers, his hand came up, fingers sketching a swift, complex pattern in the air beside her head. The shadows around them deepened, congealed, and then poured over them like thick oil. The sounds of the city muted. The light faded to a murky twilight.
“A shroud,” he whispered against her lips. “It won’t hold long. Hurry.”
They ran, not on the sidewalks, but through a labyrinth of service alleys and back ways, Azazel’s hand clamped around hers. The shroud made the world seem muffled, dreamlike. After ten frantic minutes, he dragged her into the recessed doorway of a shuttered bakery. The shadow-cloak evaporated with a soft sigh. He leaned against the grimy door, breathing heavily. The silver streaks on his temple had returned, livid and fresh.
“That… took more than I have,” he gasped. His skin was pallid.
“Azazel…”
“I’m fine.” He straightened with visible effort. “The church is eight blocks north. We walk. Normally.” He looked at her, really looked, and his expression softened a fraction. “You’re shaking.”
She was. The adrenaline was crashing, leaving a hollow, jangling fear. “I’ve never been hunted before.”
A slow, wicked smile touched his pale lips. “It gets the blood moving, doesn’t it?” He reached out, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw. His touch was warm, anchoring. “Come. Almost there.”
The Basilica of St. Ignatius rose like a soot-stained prayer against the grey sky. Its Gothic spires speared the low clouds. It was massive, older than the city around it, a weight of stone and faded glory. Azazel didn’t approach the main doors. He led her around the side, to a small, arched servant’s entrance half-swallowed by ivy.
The door was oak, banded with iron. It was locked. Azazel placed his palm flat against the cold metal. He closed his eyes. A minute tremor ran through the stone frame. With a gritty, reluctant groan, the lock slid back. “No power in the lock,” he muttered. “Just old metal. I can still talk to metal.”
He pushed the door open. The smell that wafted out was centuries deep: cold stone, damp, incense, dust, and the faint, sweet-decay scent of old wood and mortality. It was dark inside. Azazel stepped over the threshold, pulling her after him.
They were in a narrow passage, a vestry of some sort. Robes hung like spectral sentinels on hooks. Ahead, through an open arch, the vast, vaulted cavern of the nave stretched into shadows. Stained glass saints watched them with colored, unseeing eyes.
Azazel moved with a new certainty, his weakness seemingly forgotten. He was in his element here, amidst the symbols of a faith that opposed his very nature. He led her past shadowy pews, towards the chancel. The high altar stood austere and forbidding. To its side, on a pillar of marble, sat a glass and gold box. Inside, on a bed of faded velvet, lay a single, yellowed human knuckle bone.
“St. Vitalis,” Azazel said, his voice echoing slightly in the hollow space. “Thrown to the lions. Rather dull fellow, by all accounts. But they prayed to this bit of him for four hundred years.” He reached out towards the glass case.
“Wait.” Elara’s whisper was sharp. “Isn’t it… protected? Holy ground?”
“Holy is a point of view.” His fingers hovered an inch from the glass. “To me, it’s just… concentrated longing. A energy signature.” His gaze shifted to her, molten gold in the gloom. “I need you to take it.”
“Me?”
“Your hand won’t trigger the wards. Mine will. Probably unpleasantly.” A faint, shimmering barrier, like heat haze, became visible around the reliquary as he spoke. “You are the anchor. The conduit. Reach in. Take the bone. Then give it to me.”
The responsibility felt immense. She stared at the bone, this fragment of a man who died for a belief. Now it was a battery for a demon. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She glanced back towards the dark nave, expecting to see the gray suits appear at any second.
She swallowed, steeling herself. She reached for the simple latch on the glass box. It clicked open with a sound like a breaking sacrament. The air around the reliquary vibrated, a silent hum that made her teeth ache.
She reached in. Her fingers closed around the knuckle bone. It was warmer than she expected, dry and smooth as old ivory. A jolt, not painful but profound, raced up her arm—a cascade of whispered Latin, the phantom scent of frankincense, a vision of sunlight through dust motes in a simpler time. Then it faded.
She pulled the bone from its velvet nest and turned, holding it out to Azazel on her palm.
His expression was one of raw hunger. He took it from her, his fingers brushing hers. The moment he made contact, the bone began to glow with a soft, honeyed light. The light seeped into his skin, traveling up his arm like liquid gold. He threw his head back, a silent gasp tearing from his throat.
His eyes flew open, blazing like suns. The silver streaks on his body flared, then dissolved, absorbed. The pallor left his skin. He seemed to grow taller, more substantial, the very air around him crackling with contained power. He crushed the bone to dust in his fist. The glow died.
He looked at her, utterly restored, thrumming with stolen divinity. “Now,” he breathed, the word rich with promise and threat. “The anchor.”
He grabbed her, his movements no longer weakened but fueled by a furious, sanctified energy. He pushed her back against the cold marble of the pillar, the hard edge digging into her spine. His mouth crashed down on hers, a kiss that tasted of ozone and old stone and stolen faith. It was bruising, demanding.
His hands yanked her jeans open, shoving them down her hips along with her underwear. The cold of the marble leached into her skin, a shocking contrast to the heat of his body. He spun her around, bending her over the pillar, her cheek pressed against the smooth, carved saint who watched with blind eyes.
“They’re close,” he growled in her ear, his own clothing already open, his thick, hard cock springing free. He didn’t bother with foreplay. He was a being of pure, amplified need. “I can feel them sliding through the shadows. Let them find us. Let them see what I claim.”
He spat into his palm, slicking himself, and then guided his broad head to her entrance. She was wet from fear and the raw charge in the air, but he was huge. He pushed in with a single, devastating thrust, burying himself to the hilt in one stroke.
Elara cried out, the sound swallowed by the cavernous church. The stretch was immense, breathtaking. He filled her completely, a hard, unyielding presence that shoved all the air from her lungs. He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a brutal, driving pace, fucking her into the marble with a force that rattled her teeth.
Each snap of his hips was a punctuation mark in the silent sacred space. The slap of skin on skin echoed off the vaulted ceiling. He gripped her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh, holding her immobile for his punishment. “This,” he grunted, driving deeper, “this is the altar now. Your cunt is the only sacrament I recognize.”
The profanity, here in this place, was a thrilling blasphemy. The pain of the marble, the overwhelming fullness of him, the danger closing in—it all fused into a white-hot coil of pleasure. She was completely at his mercy, a vessel for his stolen power and his fury.
“Do you feel it?” he hissed, his breath hot on her neck. “The power? It’s in you. It’s fucking you. It’s making you mine, deeper than any ritual.”
She did. A golden heat was spreading from where he was joined to her, through her veins, burning away the last of her fear. It was intoxicating. She pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts, a wordless plea for more.
He read her perfectly. One hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. The other slid around her hip, his fingers finding her clit, already swollen and sensitive. He rubbed her there in rough, perfect circles as he pounded into her. The dual sensation was too much. The coil snapped.
Her orgasm tore through her, silent and seismic. Her inner muscles clamped around him in rhythmic, milking spasms, her body convulsing against the pillar. A choked sob was all she could manage.
It triggered his own release. With a low, guttural roar that seemed to shake the very stones, he slammed into her one final time and came. His release was a scalding flood, pulsing into her in wave after wave of stolen, consecrated heat. He slumped over her, his weight pinning her to the marble, his breath ragged in her ear.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant hum of the city.
Then, from the darkness of the nave, came a slow, sarcastic clap.
Azazel went rigid. He pulled out of her with a slick, sudden movement, swiftly tucking himself away and pulling her jeans up over her hips in one fluid motion. He spun, placing himself between her and the sound.
A figure emerged from the shadows near the baptismal font. Not a gray-suited auditor. This man was tall, draped in a long, dark coat, his hair the color of ashes. His eyes were chips of polished flint. Malkor.
“Touching,” Malkor said, his voice like dry leaves scraping stone. “A defilement for every occasion. I particularly enjoyed the bit with the relic. Very theatrical.”
Azazel straightened, pulling Elara behind him. “You’re getting slow, brother. The show was over.”
“I was savoring the finale.” Malkor took a step closer. His gaze, cold and assessing, swept over Elara. She felt stripped, seen. “So this is the anchor. The tether you’d spill our kind’s secrets for. She smells of you. And… piety. How interesting.”
“Walk away, Malkor,” Azazel said, his voice low and dangerous. The stolen power hummed around him, a barely contained storm.
“I think not.” Malkor smiled, a thin, cruel slash. “You’ve been a naughty exile, Azazel. Consorting with mortals is one thing. Fortifying a forbidden bond with stolen sanctity is quite another. The conclave has authorized retrieval. Of you. And your… pet.”
He raised a hand. From the shadows behind him, the two gray-suited auditors materialized, their shark-like eyes fixed and empty.
Azazel didn’t turn to run. He pushed Elara hard towards a small door beside the altar. “The sacristy. Now!”
She stumbled, catching herself. She glanced back. Azazel was standing his ground, facing his brother, golden light beginning to crackle around his clenched fists. Malkor’s smile widened.
Elara turned and ran for the door. As she yanked it open, she heard Malkor’s voice, cold and clear.
“Don’t worry, little anchor. He’ll break. They always do. And then you’ll be mine.”
The door slammed shut behind her, plunging her into darkness.