Kais and Zach?” I murmured on the heat of his skin.
“Don’t worry about them.” His fingers swirled in a repeating pattern through the strands of my hair.
“I’m not worried.” I copied the same motion he was doing on his chest. “But they’re going to worry about you.”
He let out an indignant sound, sliding his arms tighter around me as if the other two priests would physically rip me away from him. I hid my smile in the crook of his arm, the protectiveness wafting from him as cozy as the towel Kais gave me for my shower. It was endearing, if ultimately meaningless. A byproduct of the chemicals his body released after orgasm, nothing more.
“They know how I am,” he sighed. “They know my...habits. I don’t think either one of them will be completely surprised. And if they’re not the ones doing this,” his affection stilled, fingers pausing on my shoulder, “then it’s one less burden for them to bear.”
“Oh, such a burden, am I?” I skimmed a hand across his chest to his other nipple, circling a light touch around it.
“The worst,” he chuckled, lips brushing the top of my forehead. A finger tucked under my chin, returning my gaze to him. “How long until you need to feed again?”
“To feel as good as this?” I grinned. “Once a day. I can make it a week without, but will weaken significantly. Roughly two weeks is when it gets dangerous.”
“I see.”
A new sharp taste emerged in Stavros' emotions, one that seemed to drown out his guilt completely. I didn’t know whether to laugh or growl at him for feeling such a way. It came with a deep, contented huff of air and his hands locking into place on my back.
Determination. Conviction. There were a few words for it.
The perfect sacrifice who would offer himself up again and again.
8
Judgment
Azariah
Opening my eyes was a chore. He had put me upside down again so the blood would drip from my wings to my head. It dried over my eyes and stayed crusted there, even after my wings had healed.
My blurry vision slowly came into focus as my consciousness returned. I did my regular limb check—fingers, toes, and wings. Ugh, that one still hurts.
I tried to bend the primary joint in my left wing, and the shooting pain ran all the way to my neck. It wasn’t broken anymore if I could move it, though. I just had to go easy so it could fully heal before that ugly demon came back.
The chain-torture contraption Kimaris held me in worked on some kind of complex, hellish pulley system. He liked to have me constrained and hovering, like in the middle of a spider’s web, while he pulled and pushed on the chains. Sometimes my wings broke, other times my arms or legs were pulled out of their sockets. He sure liked variety, that demon. Today was apparently a flip-the-angel-on-his-head day. My body was tightly bound, with my wings only chained loosely. Kimaris enjoyed fucking with them the most.
“Lovely,” I groaned, taking in the feathers littering the ground around me. Their golden sheen remained on the quilled end, but the top end had become an inky black, like a raven’s feather. The color shifted from black to gold abruptly, like someone had dipped my wing in an oil spill.
I always knew the corruption of Hell would set in and alter my appearance. I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. Or maybe I’d simply lost track of time since I’d been down here. Time flies when you’re being tortured by demons.
My chain links clinked together in an echoey, metallic sound as I twisted around, trying to get my bearings. Sure enough, small golden horns had also sprouted from the top of my wing joint. Great.
I stilled at the sound of Kimaris' large, hoofed footsteps clamoring through the corridor. Shit, he was coming back sooner than normal. Normally he waited for me to fully heal before starting up my torture again.
The big demon was pissed—I could tell by the aggressive swing of his shoulders and his snorted breaths, reminiscent of a bull. He paced around the cavern at first, seemingly taking no notice of me hanging upside down in the center.
“Oh don’t leave me in suspense,” I taunted, pushing back the fear welling up in my chest. Fear was a human emotion, one bred as a result of mortality. My time on earth must have acclimated me to it. “Tell your favorite punching bag what’s got