Anchored to the floor by spilt wax, the flicker of a single candle offered the damp crypt’s solitary illumination.

Pressed against the opposite wall, another sorry soul shared Pearl’s gloom—a man, cowering and crying, whom Malcolm had shoved into the cell shortly before he’d locked her away. Together, they both had listened to the splat and bang of brick piled up on the other side of the room’s only exit.

Their eyes had met over that candle, both aware this was their end.

A moldering cot under her, Pearl rocked, arms tight around her knees, as if the pain of her cheek and gums might be soothed by such movement.

Nothing helped.

She was in agony.

“Please... don’t hurt me.” Like a cornered animal, the man—and unlike the other things she’d seen upstairs, he was a man—stared at her with wide, bloodshot eyes.

He was petrified.

Pearl could hear his heart, the thrum of his blood loud, but she paid him no mind, too wrapped up in her own misery to care.

The panicked stranger watched, bracing, as if she were going to leap up to devour him. “It wasn’t my fault... I told them it wasn’t my fault. I don’t want to die.”

Head throbbing, she snapped, words lisped by slack, swollen lips, “No one wants to die. It doesn’t change the fact that everyone does.”

He sputtered out a list of excuses as if she might exonerate him of whatever crime landed him in the same room as her. “The boy. Yes, I took him... but I didn’t mean to kill him. I don’t belong here, dame. You gotta believe me. I do not deserve this.”

Pearl wanted silence. “The thing upstairs would disagree.”

The fretting human was so much larger than her, but he cowered as if a slurring, toothless girl was the greatest threat in existence. “Please don’t eat me. I want to go home...”

“Eat you?” She scoffed. The taste of men was foul and this one smelled especially vile. “I am not going to eat you. Find your way out. Go home for all I care.”

He took her word to heart, and like a fool, tried to pry open the door. “It won’t budge.”

Nor would it.

It was bricked shut.

Unless he was set free in a few days, the male would die from lack of water and food. Then she would have his corpse for company and the sweet smelling rot that putrefied the dead. And it would grow quiet—fitting that they’d shoved her into an old tomb.

Pearl had to admit, the candle was an interesting touch... one last moment of light soon to snuff out. The stone walls held no windows, only the notched shelves of a coffin-less crypt, the cot, and the dirt.

When she’d first been dragged into this horrible place, before her interview with the devil, the stone structure looked like a church. Now she was certain it had been before being desecrated. It was the feel to the place: ungodliness, desperation. Bad things had happened in these halls over various, sundry years. How many other old tombs held prisoners bricked away to rot? How many of them had one final candle?

Pearl had considered burning her clothing to extend the light, but it seemed pointless. Dark would intercede soon enough, and she’d rather be warm... as warm as one can be in a freezing box... than hold onto false hope.

Knees under her chin, she watched the flame spark on the last fragment of wick, until it was only an ember. The tang of smoke in the air, the space grew stygian. Eyes open or closed, it made no difference. There was nothing to see.

But there was something to fear.

Now that all the light had been snuffed out, she could feel it watching from the dark.

Before having her cast down into this pit, it had looked at her, the feel of its cold hands had caressed her face. She could see the glowing red eyes, the devil peering at her from the lightless abyss. And then he was there, growing from the shadows, seeping up from the floor as if pulling darkness into the form of his desire.

Screwing her eyes shut, Pearl buried her face against her knees.

Standing over her, towering and projecting agitation, the demon hissed, “You were ordered to be fed. Why is this human still living?”

The human started screaming.

Pearl shrieked herself when a cold touch landed on her stinging scalp. “I can’t!”

The caress of talon tipped fingers tripped over her skull. The feel of wind moved through her hair, the creature’s nails teasing a lock of blood-matted sable. “Have you not learned how to bleed them without using your teeth? It is not difficult to open a vein.”

Why was it touching her, lightly following the shell of her ear with a claw?

Petrified, Pearl tried not to breathe, not to move. Still the red-eyed monster explored, dipping his yellowed fingernail lower to explore the curve of her throat before pulling away.

Moments later, across the room there was a wet sound, a squelched squeal from the human.

The screaming stopped.

“There, I have done it. His throat is open. Drink.”

Pearl refused to budge.

Another threat was issued. “Do you wish me to force you, child? Obey me at once.”

Her disgust was obvious.

“So be it.” The thing took her by the hair, tilting her head back. Something hot and wet dripped on her cheeks. Papery lips fell on hers, the devil’s mouth opening so coppery fluid might pour from him to her.

Gagging, Pearl tried to push him off. It was no use. He was going to drown her if she didn’t swallow. Obeying, blood went down her throat like acid all the way to her belly. The instant the demon pulled away, she retched, every last drop spit up on her lap.

“I see...”

It drew away, Pearl curling into a sobbing ball on the cot.

She didn’t need to see him to know what the red-eyed monster was doing. Sounds of slurping, of human pain, mixed together until the dying man’s stuttering heartbeat told the story.

When it was done, a corpse thudded against the floor, and once again it slithered closer. “Shall I offer a female? Can you drink from them?”

In sharp jerks, Pearl shook her head.

A smile altered the monster’s growl. “What of children, babies... do they not tempt you?”

She was going to throw up again. “God, help me.”

Again he dared to lay his hand atop her head, to finger the spot where chunks of hair had been ripped out by his minion. A laugh layered the devil’s offer. “And what of me, do I entice your attention?”

Pearl vehemently refused, shrinking from the feel of unyielding arms slowly encircling her shoulders. The cot creaked, the weight of the demon settling close enough those glowing red eyes hovered inches from her face.

When instinct moved her to struggle, to kick and scream as if she stood even a chance of forcing the vile thing from her, the devil seeped into her mind. He manipulated her just as he’d done when she’d been dumped before his throne—slipping behind her barrier of fear—taking it away until his prey lay still and calm.

He had her quiet. He had her controlled. “Tell me your name in this life.”

Torn lips parted. “...Pearl.”

“And you find me so repulsive, Pearl?” The creature did not require a reply. Instead he offered a lesson. “I offered you dark, so you might not gaze upon what you openly recoiled from at first sight, and still you cower. I offered you food, the comfort of my presence, a gentle touch... yet still you dare to refuse my attention”—the red-eyed demon let that horrid gaze go to her ruined mouth—“my Pearl.”

Powerless, she unfolded when his body shifted against her, bowing back at the feel of a light grip about her throat. Unable to see beyond the glow of his eyes, she could only feel—the chill of him, the whisper of his breath on her face.

Pinned to the mattress, Pearl lay listless while his fingers both crept and cradled. He moved her at will, laying her head to the crook of his shoulder, her legs entangled in the tattered fabric of his rotting garments.

“So lovely...” He was more enraptured than she, fingertips ghosting over the arch of her brow, teasing the fringe of her lashes.

The icy touch receded, but not before the tatters of her jaw were made to part.

There was a crunch, a sound similar to the snaps of splitting wood, and the thing began to bleed. Having rent its own tongue straight down the middle, it laved it against the roof of Pearl’s mouth, over her teeth, until the sweetest flavor she had ever tasted began to trickle down her throat.

Blackberry cordial. Melted ice cream. It was like sipping moonlight laced with wine.

Sluggishly, thick blood flowed, the forked tongue of her tormentor toying with hers. She found herself keening, pants of trapped air puffing from her nostrils as she succumbed to hunger and drank. Sucking his tongue, frustrated when the source of nourishment healed before she’d had her fill, she tried to bite. Her teeth could not keep his flesh open no matter how she gnawed.

Without her fangs, she could do little more than inspire a rumbling chuckle in the demon’s chest.

His invasion of her mind withdrew, the hunger remained. Pearl found it was she who clung to him, she who lapped at his mouth, greedy for more.

That was his trick...

He stole his arms back, left her lying dazed and starving on the cot. “Are you not going to kiss me, Pearl?”

She’d swallowed enough to feel the effects of a sip of darkness. The skin of her cheeks was pulling together, itching as it mended... but her belly was still so hollow.

It wasn’t enough.

Daring to admit confusion, repulsion, and delight, Pearl grew drunk. “I’m still hungry.”

A sharp nail gently grazing back and forth over her collarbones, the creature smiled. It leaned down, mouth working over her throat, teasing gently at her pulse point. “Shall I slit my throat so you can feed?”

The instant desire for a deeper drink was at odds with clearer thought. What he offered was not what it seemed.

Breathless, eyes open and unblinking in the dark, she felt a sharp nail graze over her nipple and complete revulsion returned. The demon’s hand crept lower as if to delve between her legs.

Insidious fear bloomed right back to life, licking through her, ruining any chance Pearl might have had at further reason. She did not beg for mercy, or scream when a talon pierced through her undergarment. She was past that point when a separate flash of claw raked through leathery skin.

The monster sliced himself so deeply, a river spurt over her face.

Perhaps if she had not been so hungry, Pearl might have exercised self-control, but one tiny taste, his offering dripping over her lips, and she latched on despite the dry digit wriggling deeper into her body.

Fixed to his wound, she opened the fissure of flesh, jabbing her tongue into the meat of his neck to force the fountain wider. Greedily she gorged, never having known a meal that fulfilled and warmed as this deep drink did.

While she gorged, it pawed at her clothing, picking it apart with nail and fist until breasts popped free of her dress and cold air moved over bruised thighs. He stripped her naked, the scraps of her clothing left to bunch under their bodies, and then he did the same to his own ancient garments.

She would have drunk him dry, utterly unaware of his actions had his palm not settled like sandpaper over her breast. One scrape of his dry-skinned touch grating her nipple and she whimpered, lips parting from his neck.

It felt... odd.

The pebbled tip of her breast tingled, responded to a pinching roll of the monster’s forefinger and thumb. When his thighs purposefully maneuvered to her parted legs, when pressure was placed against her mound, Pearl found she had no control to pull her lips from its neck and run.

While she fed, the monster spoke. The things he said, had Pearl been beyond bloodlust, would have set her screaming. “I have waited an eternity for you, kara sevde. Your blood will be my blood, your cunt dripping nightly from my attention. Every last part of you will be saturated in me, in your lord. Forget your God, and worship at my feet.”

When her belly grew full and her mouth fell from his throat, Pearl was given no absolution.

It was a devious seduction; the red-eyed one having waited so it might look upon her face when his cock speared straight into her unsuspecting body.

The shock was less from pain and more from astonishment. Pearl’s mouth fell open, head thrown back at the intrusion. The deceitful monstrosity had taken raw advantage, leaving her cramped around the dead meat inside her.

Her female parts... the slit he’d called her cunt... felt stretched unmercifully. The burning wash of sensation didn’t ease no matter how hard she tried to crawl out from under the unwavering glowing red eyes.

There was no negotiation. He did not try to soothe. Instead the creature roughly jerked his hips, ground against her, and restrained with ease. When his thrust grew more than experimental, when her breasts bounced and friction built, it began to groan.

The hissing breaths and pleasure saturated hums were grotesque, the way her body responded sickening.

She was engorged, nerves tingling, tightening, fear and hunger feeding the buildup. If the ruthless pounding did not stop, Pearl was going to split in two.

Tears leaked from her eyes when the ripple of muscle where he invaded began to seize. Unsure what was happening, she called out to her God.

The devil laughed.

Pain crept through nerves, coming to life in her gut, and forming into something obscene.

She wasn’t screaming in pain at all, it was something else—something foreign.

Pulling out until only the tip of his instrument was tucked in her sopping slit. Once she’d found her breath, staring up in horror, it began all over again.

Every time she was on the cusp of abandon, the devil took away what tore her apart. It may have been hours, it may have been days, before Pearl understood his brand of torment.

It was never going to end until she begged for the very thing she found so disgusting.

Sobbing she asked for mercy. He told her what to say—filthy words worse than any she’d picked up from men in the supper club fell from swollen lips, desperation lacing every last entreaty until the monster reared and redoubled his effort. The instant she discovered her first climax, he put his teeth to her neck, puncturing soft skin.

His cock kicked and he gushed.

He didn’t drink much, but exhaustion unlike she’d ever known made Pearl’s eyes heavy and her limbs useless. The dusty groan of a beast still filled the air, and it was not until he’d fully savored his pleasure, that the demon laid his lips to the very skin he’d bruised.

Small kisses peppered flesh tender from the scrape of his chest. Gently, he sucked her nipple, tongue teasing, teeth nipping. Warm breath fanned over her flesh as he sighed. “How I wish you would remember the glory of this moment as I will, but alas, that cannot be.”

While she lay struck and horrified, it rolled its hips to tease out a cruel reminder that she had enjoyed his blood, his cock, and even his brutality.

The room was once again cold, Pearl aware of the hideous thing that had fucked her raw and the threat his last words posed. “I don’t want to die.”

If pure evil might be sweet, the demon made an attempt, cooing at her gently. “You are too valuable to break. No, my Pearl, you will be mine forever.”