Asmodeus – Demon of Lust: Part 7

A/N – My dear readers! Thank you to everyone who has emailed me with your praise, encouragement and ideas! I love you all dearly and you keep me writing whenever I feel like throwing my laptop away. It is because of you that I present in all its ten thousand word glory; PART SEVEN!! As always PLEASE rate, comment and email me! I love hearing from you guys and I will reply to every email. Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Steelkat

Part 7

My bed is much too hot, burning my skin through the soft material of my pyjama bottoms and making my feet sweat. I kick at the covers and free my tortured legs, allowing them to dangle off the side of the bed. Fresh air caresses my feet, but the relief isn’t enough to cool my bothered flesh. Huffing with frustration but reluctant to open my eyes, I kick at the flannel pants and manage to get them off.

Sighing with sleepy content, I snuggle into the covers further, my feet still sticking out from under the duvet. Just as the irresistible weight of sleep settles over my eyes again, something wet and rough scratches against my big toe. The sensation is so unusual that I jolt awake only to find the golden eyes of Nala, my tabby cat, staring back innocently, as she is caught in the act of licking me. With a soft purr, she jumps onto the bed, kneading her claws into the duvet. I feel the pressure of her paws on my thigh beneath the covers and, startled, I sit up so quickly that she bolts, flying off the bed and through a white door.

A strangled gasp escapes my tense lungs and my heart races as I take in the beautiful familiarity of my bedroom. I feel as if I have been on a perilous odyssey, journeying to lands afar, for years unknown. This room should be forgotten, yet it is exactly as I remember it, with my bookshelf in the corner, stuffed full of romance and fantasy novels. How I’d wished to be a part of those worlds. The DVD rack stands beside it, displaying rows of blockbusters and TV shows. Empty canvases lie beside a wooden easel, just waiting for me to breathe life into them. Completed works colour the walls, claiming this space theirs, claiming it mine.

I’m home!

I spring out of bed, tugging my pants back on, then chase my skittish cat down the hall and scoop her up into my arms. I give her a little squeeze, hugging her tightly but mindful that I do not hurt her. When she voices a muffled meow of protest I laugh delightedly and drop her onto the soft carpet.

No more hard earth and falling rocks! No rapists or demons! No magic or power! Just the wonderful regularity of the human world. Boring, predicable and safe.

I shriek my joy!

It isn’t long before the lights flicker on and my father steps out from his bedroom, tattered baseball bat held tightly, my mother clutching his arm in her fear. I’m so ridiculously happy that I pounce on them, hugging them both as if they’d disappear the moment I let go. The bat thumps softly against the carpet floor and my dad pushes at my vice-like grip, trying to look at my face.

When I finally give in and let him hold me at arm’s length, he stares at me with a concerned expression, reading my face.

“Selena?” he asks, looking slightly alarmed.

“I’m back,” I croak, the words rushing out with a river of tears.

Mum steps past the protective shoulders of her husband and pulls me into her embrace, holding me the way she used to when I was a child. The nostalgic comfort this brings me only increases my tears.

“What’s wrong Lena?” she asks desperately and I hear tears thicken her own voice, “Tell us what’s wrong so we can help you my baby.”

I don’t understand her reaction. I’d expected relieved sobs and frantic questions regarding my disappearance, not puzzled looks and reassuring hugs. My confusion crescendos when mum asks me if I’m feeling sick. Unsure how to respond, my tongue locks and I look back at her stupidly, grasping for an explanation for this bizarre encounter. Surely they would have noticed that I was gone for five days?

My father seems to have gathered his wits by this point and he pulls my mother away.

“What do you mean you’re ‘back’?” he asks, looking as confused as I feel.

Realisation dawns on me as I process the implications of such a question. My parents have absolutely no knowledge of my disappearance. Could it be true? Could it all have been a dream?

“A dream,” I whisper.

“What was that babe?” my dad asks, suspicion colours his tone.

“I’m so sorry dad; it was just a dream.”

“Then why were you crying?”

“It was an awful nightmare, I’m sorry I woke you two up.”

“What are you doing?” a male voice whines at my back.

“What’s with all the noise?” calls another, female this time.

I twist my body toward them slightly, throwing a quick glance at the fatigued figures of my older sister and younger brother.

“It’s nothing,” I tell them, “Go back to sleep.”

I hear a gasp from my mother and turn back to her horrified face. My father’s face has drained of colour but as I watch it surges back, an angry purple flooding his cheeks as his eyes harden. His hand strikes out and clamps onto my arm, squeezing so tight that my eyes water.

“Ow, dad! What are you doing?! Let go!”

“Shut up!” he roars, “Who have you been seeing?!”

My mother cries silently behind him, eyes wide and jaw slack.

“What are you talking about?!” I scream back, frightened at how quickly this situation has changed.

“You know damn well what I mean! Stop acting stupid and answer the question!”

“Dad, I really don’t know what you’re talking about! I woke you up because of a nightmare, I swear!”

But he isn’t listening, he’s still firing questions at me; where have I been? Who was I with? How long have I known? They all blur together and my mind reels from the assault.

A few questions slip through the haze though and I catch them from the endless stream.

“Who have you been seeing?” he asks again, “Who’s the father?”

The father? The question falls like a stone to the pit of my stomach. Of their own accord, my hands drift toward my belly. I press them down, hoping to feel a soft, yet flat abdomen but begin to realise with a sinking certainly, that hope is not always fulfilled. I run my hands gently over the bump there and fall to my knees before the eyes of my family, sorrow closing my throat.

My father is still questioning me but I tune him out again and rake my nails against the threads of the carpet, needing to feel something, anything, to awaken me from this hollowness which grows as I think my next thought.

It wasn’t a dream.

* * * * *

My own sobbing wakes me and the tears burn my cheeks. I am enveloped by strong arms, pressed against the hot body behind mine but this brings me little comfort. I want to feel the warmth of my father’s hugs, not the heat of my lover’s. Just when I think that I have finally accepted my place here, a single, crushingly vivid dream crashes through my fragile tolerance and I feel my heart ache to be safe and sound at home. I cling to Asmodeus’ steely forearm, needing to be held, even if it is by the wrong person.

“I want to go home!” I moan, burying my face into his shoulder.

“You cannot, my Selena,” is his impassive response.

“Why?!” I shriek, shoving at his arm, hopping off the bed and turning to glare at him furiously, “Why not?! Why did you choose me?!”

He is silent while I continue my rant.

“Why, out of the billions you could have picked, did you choose me? What the fuck have I done with my life that could possibly warrant such an honour?” I snarl, disgusted.

My fury escalates as he watches my agitated pacing silently.

“Well, since you’re not sharing, why don’t we play a game? I’ll try to guess a reason and you tell me if I’m getting warm.” My palms feel hot and itchy, I rub them against the dress I slept in.

“Hmm, let’s see, did you choose me because I was a virgin?” I ask, but I’m not really looking for an answer from him. My anger has boiled out of control and I couldn’t care less what he has to say in this moment.

“No, that can’t be right, there are still millions you could have chosen from. It must be because you think I’m pretty, right? Let’s have a look shall we?”

I face the nearest wall and curl my fingers inwards, drawing a mirror out of it to the sound of cracking and wind-chimes. I stalk closer and scrutinise my face and body in its surface. My fury shatters the glass before I turn back to the demon, who now stands beside the bed.

“Nope, that’s not it, I see nothing special there.” I watch as he grits his teeth at that comment. Like he should care what I say about myself, I mean nothing to him. I’m just his breeding bitch.

“I know what it is!” I exclaim suddenly, “It has to be the fact that I’m the most pathetic human being you could find. All alone at twenty with no future partner in sight, you thought you were doing me a favour right? Let’s save poor, fat, worthless Selena from a life of misery.”

“Enough,” his low, hard voice resonates authority and he closes the space between us.

“Well guess what lover, you failed.” I continue, poking his chest with my finger for emphasis, “You’ve taken me away from the only people who have ever cared about me and forced me to become, what? Your whore? Your wife?” I scoff with derision.

“Yes Selena, my wife!” His outburst is as sudden as mine but ten times more shocking. “Why is it so unfathomable for me to possibly love you?! Do you really think so poorly of yourself?”

I’m so stunned to see the fierce passion in his eyes that my mouth gapes open and my mind is too slow in allowing a response.

“You think that I carried you here out of some misguided attempt to save you? From what? A lifetime of misery? Is that truly how you see your future? What are you fighting to return to then, if all you have left is loneliness and self-pity? Is it truly inconceivable that I chose you because of who you are and not out of mercy?”

His voice softens a little and his gaze breaks away from mine. He looks ashamed almost, bowing is head in uncharacteristic defeat.

“I have done you a great disservice, Selena,” he whispers, before turning his blazing eyes back toward mine, “Not because I have saved you from your life, but because I have stolen you from it.”

There is a bitter sorrow which weighs down his entire frame and I can’t help but be sympathetic.

“You know as well as I that you were destined for a noble life on Earth. You would have helped others, as is your beautiful nature. You would have found yourself a human husband who would have loved you, I know that. You would have had human children. And I have taken it all away.”

More tears blur my vision and my voice is raw.

“Then why, Asmodeus? Why did you bring me here?” I beseech him, reaching up and holding his face in my hands.

Anger clouds his features and I take a step back, hugging my arms close.

“I was weak! I was selfish! I brought you here not by my choice. I stole you because I simply had to have you; I saw her light in you. Selena, my soul met yours at the birth of humankind. A true testament of my adoration would have seen you living on Earth still, content in your new body and with no knowledge of my existence,” he chokes on the next words, “But I am weak and I have loved you always, my Elysia.”

Elysia?

“Have you not wondered why you never found a human mate? Did you merely cast if off as fastidiousness on your part? No, my love, there has been no other because your soul craves only mine, just as surely as mine hungers after yours. We were mated once, when you were known as Elysia.”

His eyes are tender, swirling pools of lava, somehow expressing more emotion than anything he has said thus far. But I am numb to it and this realisation constricts my chest.

Why don’t I feel anything?

“No, that isn’t possible, you’ve got the wrong girl.” I protest against this latest disclosure half-heartedly, voice hollow. Am I disbelieving just because it is expected of me? I can’t honestly say that this new information shocks me and the thought that I have become so accepting of my fate is terrifying.

“I would find your soul in deepest pit of hell my love, I know you are the woman I crave.”

“Woman?!” I laugh humourlessly, “I’m just a child to you! Six days ago, I’d never been touched by a man and now I’m carrying your baby! What makes you think that I’m ready to deal with that, let alone your revelation that I’m supposedly your lover from another lifetime. You robbed me of this life.”

He closes his eyes as if in physical pain.

“Of that I will be eternally remorseful, but my choice cannot be undone. I swear by everything in my power that I will keep you safe from pain and sorrow.”

“How Asmodeus? Everything you do causes me sorrow and pain. Did you think that chaining me to a rock would make me love you? Or using me as a bitch for your offspring would make me feel important? Did you think I would melt in your arms when you told me that I am your lover incarnate?