Chapter 34 Desvistating Souls
(The Devil)
He needed blood.
Pain. Violence. Screams.
He needed anything strong enough to drown the wildfire eating through his veins. The bite-pain in his arm had become a constant, throbbing drum, beating under his skin in time with a heart that no longer felt like only his.
He stormed through the lower corridors of his palace, ignoring the lesser demons that scurried out of his path. His bare feet pounded the stone floors; the glow from his tattoo pulsed in furious rhythm with every step. Blue torches guttered as he passed, their flames bowing toward him, then snapping back as if singed by the force of his magic.
Her blood still clung to his tongue. Her scent still lived under his skin. The memory of her naked on his bed ignited something feral in him every time he blinked. It was there behind his eyes, burned into his mind in brutal detail: the curve of her waist, the defiance even in the slackness of her unconscious jaw, the mark on her neck glowing faintly like a brand he’d given and received in the same breath.
He snarled. “Bring me someone,” he barked at the demon guard stationed near the torture wing.
The creature—a tall, spiked thing with hollow eyes—bowed in a jerky motion. “Who, my lord?”
“I don’t care,” he snapped. “A soul. A demon. Something that bleeds.” His voice cracked the air like a whip; the walls themselves seemed to flinch, dust sifting from high stone ribs.
The guard scurried off.
He pressed a trembling hand to the wall, inhaling sharply through his teeth. The stone burned against his palm, but that pain was nothing compared to the storm in his body. The palace fed on his temper, absorbing it, amplifying it, reflecting it back at him in the way the floor vibrated and the torches roared higher.
Why did you bite her? Why did you taste her? Why did you carry her instead of killing her?
The questions hissed through his mind like venomous whispers.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He saw her immediately. Her body limp in his arms. Her pulse fluttering beneath his bite. Her skin pressed bare against his chest. Her fingers twitched against his shoulder before going still, as if some stubborn part of her refused to stop fighting even as consciousness fled.
He groaned, head tipping back against the wall. He had never reacted like this at an offering. Not once. Not even to the old bloodlines.
Her taste had been worse than intoxicating. It was binding. It curled around his magic like a noose made of silk and fire, soft and merciless at once.
He had licked her blood. And the mark on his arm still burned in response.
He paced the corridor like a caged animal. Claws itched beneath his human nails, his shoulders rolling with contained violence, his teeth grinding as if his body were trying to shift without his permission.
Footsteps approached. The demon guard returned, dragging a condemned soul by chains—a half-formed, screaming thing begging for an end.
The Devil was on him in an instant.
He seized the soul by the throat and slammed it against the wall. The creature shrieked, dissolving partially into smoke and shadow between his fingers.
“Shut up,” Apollo growled.
He wanted to kill it. Wanted to crush something. Break something. Burn something. Anything to drown the memory of her skin. Anything to silence the sound she made when he bit her. Anything to erase the taste of her. Anything to prove to himself that he was still the one in control of his hunger.
He inhaled sharply. His mind replayed the moment without mercy: her blood on his tongue, her tears on his jaw, the soft gasp when his mouth left her skin.
He slammed the soul harder against the wall.
“Why can’t I get you out of my head?” he snarled, but the question wasn’t for the creature. It was for her. For the girl sleeping naked in his bed.
The soul’s screams grated in his ears. He crushed it—just enough to feel the shatter of bone that wasn’t bone, hear the splintering shriek of spirit matter collapsing.
But it didn’t help. The hunger didn’t fade. The rage didn’t settle.
The ghostly remains dissolved in his hand, drifting like ash. The taste of its fear hit his tongue and vanished, pathetic and flavourless compared to the bright, burning echo of hers.
He exhaled sharply, chest heaving with something too raw and too mortal for his liking. “Another,” he snarled.
The demon guard flinched, bowing before scrambling away. It returned with a second soul—dragging the wailing thing by its chain.
He seized it without hesitation, slamming it into the wall so hard the obsidian cracked in a spiderweb pattern beneath the impact. The creature’s scream ripped through the corridor—and he crushed it just as easily as the first.
The mist of its disintegration curled around his arms, cold and useless.
“Again.”
A third was brought. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. He destroyed them all. Some he threw against the stone until their bodies shredded. Some he dragged claws through until they fell apart. One he punched so hard the shockwave rattled the torches along the walls. Screams layered over screams until the corridor became a tunnel of noise, but still there was one sound missing—the ragged way she’d said no, the broken edge of his name in her pain.
His breath came heavier. Rougher. More desperate. Each soul dissolved into nothing, leaving only a fading echo of its final scream. But the storm inside him did not abate.
“Another.”
The guard hesitated. The Devil turned his head slowly, eyes glowing with such violent malice that even the demon recoiled as if struck.
“I said… another.”
The creature bolted, returning seconds later with two at once. He took them both—one in each hand—and slammed them together. Their bodies burst in a spray of shredded shadow, dissolving instantly.
Still nothing.
His hunger only sharpened. His rage only thickened.
A low roar tore from his chest—a sound of pure frustration, pain, and something far darker. He drove his fist into the wall, cracking it open, shards of glowing stone raining to the floor. Liquid light oozed from the fractures, hissing where it hit the ground, the palace bleeding its own molten lifeblood in answer to his temper.
He tasted blood. His own. He welcomed it. Because nothing—nothing—was enough to drown her out. Her skin. Her scent. Her defiance. Her blood on his tongue. Her limp body in his arms. Her pulse beneath his teeth.
His jaw clenched until it ached. He closed his fist until his claws broke human skin, and blood dripped down his forearm.
Useless. All of it was useless.
He couldn’t hurt anything enough to drown her out.
He couldn’t kill anything enough to silence the memory of her in his arms. Or strip away the feel of her body pressed against him. Or erase the sight of her naked and vulnerable in his bed.
He had locked the door. He had walked away. He had forced distance. But his mark still burned with her magic. And something inside him whispered that the distance was temporary.
Very temporary.