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“For me?” I breathed.
“You freed me.” His sincere gratitude was melodic. Bells and harps sang behind his words only to crash to silence in the pauses we shared. “I am in great debt to you for ending my solitude.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” I tried to reason with myself more than the demon I had inadvertently been carrying around with me for weeks.
“Celeste, ask for whatever your heart desires. Wish it and I’ll make it so.”
The space between our bodies was beginning to hurt. The tiny hairs along my spine rose and my skin ached to be touched. My fuzzy, jumbled mess of a brain reached for any desire outside of wanting him to rip my clothes off and do unspeakable things to me for hours.
Clarity would not come, but greed did.
“The fellowship. I want the first pick of the cultural anthropology fellowship.”
It sounded small in comparison to what he was offering. I imagined, if I had thought of it, the demon would have given me the world on a platter. But the fellowship had been my goal for the last six years. All of my postgrad work had been solely focused on the opportunity to join some of the brightest minds who were rewriting history as we knew it with technology that would give Malinowski wet dreams.
I was in the running, but the choice hadn’t been made yet, and the candidates were just as, if not more, impressive than me.
I had no plan B.
“Speak my truest name and it is yours.”
His truest name. How was I supposed to know that?
No sooner had the confusion clouded my mind than my lips formed the syllables, the taste of them stinging and scratching to the tip of my tongue.
“Vassago.”
Chapter2
Vassago
Celeste was my reward. A gift created and given to me by our Father for all His years of mistreatment and dissolution. I was once one of His most loved sons. Back when He was feared. Vengeful. A wrathful Creator who doled out punishments to His children in spades.
When we were driven beneath His heel in exile, I knew one day He would realize the mistake He made and bestow the most precious offering to win over my favor.
Celeste was that and so much more.
There was nothing short of magic lurking under her skin. Her voice was the most powerful command. Every nerve, cell, molecule in my being answered to the slightest hum of her breath.
When she moved, each cord of her muscles strummed the blood through my veins. The pump of her heart was reason alone for my eyes to open and endure another day on this plane.
Her mere existence was messianic. A prophecy promised unto me and fulfilled in the purest form of glory. Not a day ended without the pleonectic need to taste her flesh on the tip of my tongue like ambrosia. Carnal desire to sink my teeth into her while I senselessly ravaged her consumed me. My desperation to be close to her wouldn’t be sated until my heart beat within her chest and hers in mine.
The moment my true name left her delectable lips, there had been a resonating confirmation that no one else would own her the way I would. We belonged together, and eventually, she would see it too. The itch was there. The mutual connection of our souls wasn’t only in the deal we’d struck. Her pupils gobbled me up, and her body responded so easily to my touch.
She couldn’t rid herself of me. Not in any aspect of the concept. Our souls were intertwined in a tight weave, and I would never allow anything to sever that bond, not even her fear. It would be natural to fear such an engulfing presence. A fate so grand that it would threaten to burn her from her soul to her fingertips.
Without a doubt in the grand design, Celeste would sit upon my throne with a sea of blood and broken bones at her feet. My altar. Mine to worship, and the world’s to fear.
The one being I knew who would be able to help see my vision become a reality was across the country but a small step through the dark, sucking void between time and space.
The apartments above The Deacon were occupied by those Sitri saw fit. I could feel the presence of more than just demons lurking beyond the door of Sitri’s penthouse. I knocked softly at first, unsure if he would even welcome a visit from me after all my time away.
After no answer, I pounded my fist over and over.
“All right!” Sitri opened the door wide, and his expression melted from anger to something else. Pity? “Vassago?”
“Hello, brother.” I smiled and walked into his home.
