“I’m taming it,” Hail declared. “It’s going to be my friend.”
“It should be eating your liver.”
Hail smiled brightly. “It likes me. Even if you don’t. Your little pets are starved for attention. Just like you.”
“You think I need attention, human?”
“I think you were lonely. I think you took me because you were a sad and lonely little… oW!”
She squealed as the Dark lashed her, predictably. He always lost his temper when she spoke to him as if he were human with human needs. He did not like admitting that even a demon haunting a parallel realm and holding a human hostage might have taken her because he was in need of companionship. But that was the truth, as far as she could tell. The Dark had no intention of seriously harming her. These whippings, painful as they were, did not help convince her otherwise. He was entranced by her. He might even be as much her captive as she was his. No, that was an arrogant step too far.
“Bryn always used to get angry when things didn’t go as he thought they should where I was concerned.”
“I am not Bryn. Bryn is a fleshy mortal with a magical mechanic in his favor.”
“A magical mechanic?”
“He can save the state of the world, and then restart from that point later on if he decides. But he can only have one save at a time, which means every time he makes a new save, everything which came before is undoable. I sense every time he makes one, or reloads one. He last saved before coming down here to try to take you back.
“Did he? Did he try again?”
“No. He’s still got that save set right before he came to attempt to lure you back.”
“So you’re telling me he can magically turn back time to that point, before…”
“Before I claimed you? Yes. Unless he sets a new save for some reason. Even if he did, you would not remember. You would still be your stubborn self hiding from the man who loves you. You would refuse to reveal yourself, and I would have you again. And again. And again…”
As the Dark spoke, he began to coil around her. She felt a tendril slithering around her, between her legs, spreading them wide. It always spread her wide. It always made her feel as vulnerable as it could.
Hail moaned her pleasure to the shadows as they wrapped around her, claiming her, giving her every reason to sink into them.
“I did not bring you down here because I was lonely,” he said. “Loneliness is not an affliction I am cursed with. I took you because you had something most do not. Talent.”
“You think I am talented?” Hail glowed bright with light and pleasure at what felt like a compliment which had been a very long time coming. Nobody had ever admitted that she was talented. Bryn had made her feel like she had no talent at all, that what she had was nothing more than a remnant of something she shouldn’t have had.
“You have more talent than most. Humans these days are dim. They have little in the way of magic, and even less in the instinct to use it. You may not be vastly gifted, but you reach for your magic at each and every moment, and that is what will make you great.”
Before Hail could even begin to bask in the warmth of that most astounding compliment, the beast was whipping her again. Each of its many thousands of flailing shadowy tentacles seemed intent on taking its turn upon her flesh.
This time, it did not feel like an attempt to break her so much as it felt like a test of some kind. She could not tell if she was failing or succeeding.
“I am making you into something I can handle and yet no other man will ever be able to contain, much less tame,” the Dark purred. “I am making you into an animal of my own creation. Do you understand?”
She was drooling and panting out of need. Her orgasm was close, but not yet accessible. He knew her physical form so well, he knew how to stroke and touch, how to tease with the very tips of his appendages, the soft, wet parts of her body further excited by the agitation of his agile form.
“I will teach you how to use your talents, but only in service to me. You do not exist without reference to me. In this realm, and in any other. Do you understand?”
“You’re not making any demand a human man wouldn’t. You’re just making it more eloquently.”
The Dark smirked slowly. “A human man at his fully realized state, might be able to approximate some parts of me. But he will never embody all that I am, nor all I can be for you. More than teacher. More than lover. More than any relationship you have ever encountered. I will consume you, Hail.”