!!! Trigger warning!!!

Sexual content, sexualised violence

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He numbly slipped the vest off Tazeel's slender body. Pulled the skirt from his hips. Pushed him to the bed until the seducer bumped backward against it. Pressed him onto the edge, spread his legs apart. Then he moved closer to him on his knees, pressing their bodies together. His mouth found the demon's shoulder, his tongue tracing a line up to Tazeel's ear.

In his mind, his tongue was a blade for a moment. Slit open, letting blood gush out in a satisfying fountain. But it didn't help.

It was safer to remain empty, to feel nothing. He blocked out the hands on his skin, as well as the pleasurable moans that the man in his arms was making.

Tazeel's whispers glided over him like more touches. He tried not to listen, because with every word that penetrated him, his desire to kill the seducer grew.

"Touch me."

The demonlord's arousal was clearly palpable to N'Arahn. He had never liked letting anyone get close to him. But this was worse. While he had tolerated the lust of other demons well, even considering it a success, every fiber of his being resisted touching this demon. Nevertheless, he slid his hand between their bodies, finding a rhythm that made the seducer gasp.

"Don't lie to yourself, you want this. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so good at it."

The words were lies, provocations. They both knew it. But they ate away at his thoughts like acid. Because his actions confirmed everything, even if he felt nothing.

The green-skinned demonlord placed a hand on N'Arahn's neck, pulled his head toward him, and kissed him. His wet tongue dug between the warrior's lips, and a new wave of nausea and anger washed over him.

He had to do something, had to give his aggression an outlet.

"You want everything?" he asked when he was able to pull away from the disgustingly moist kiss.

In response, Tazeel closed his eyes and spread his arms as if to invite the warmonger.

With a jerk, N'Arahn pushed himself up from his knees, pulling the seducer with him so that they both ended up lying on the bed. Before Tazeel could react, he had turned him onto his stomach and knelt between his legs.

He pulled the seducer's hips up, grabbed him hard, wanting to leave marks on him. Scratches, welts, bruises. He wanted to humiliate him, to take his breath away. To inflict on him everything that was possible within the terms of the contract.

Excitement now flowed through him, but only that of the fight. His shadow power helped him, replacing his lust so that he could take possession of Tazeel. As he thrust brutally into him, he leaned forward. One hand clawed into his enemy's hip, while the other pressed the demon face-first into the yielding fabric of the bed.

He had wanted it rough. He could give him that. He bared his teeth, but resisted the urge to bite. Not more of that taste.

The seducer writhed and moaned under his movements, not pulling away. N'Arahn realized with horror that the demonlord was enjoying this. But he didn't stop, making Tazeel bleed for what he had done to him and Veidja.

Veidja...

Suddenly, he realized what he was doing here. How he was doing it.

The brief elation of revenge collapsed. Involuntarily, he loosened his grip on the green-skinned man's neck.

He heard his voice muffled, permeated with perverse joy.

"Too late. She already knows what you're capable of."

N'Arahn froze.

Beneath him, the demonlord shuddered with a lustful sound and collapsed.

The warrior let go of him, released him, and sank back onto his heels. He had failed and lost in a way he could never have imagined.

Tazeel stretched out contentedly on the sheet and turned halfway toward him.

"What an intense experience. I didn't expect so much emotional devotion." He ran his hands over his body, which already showed the aftermath of N'Arahn's rough treatment, and grinned. "I'll remember for a while how vigorously you treat your partners."

The warmonger could no longer bear the sight of the demon, and even though he knew it was a mistake, he looked over at Veidja.

Horror and disgust were so clearly written on her face that something inside him broke. A tender hope, an unfulfillable desire.

The emptiness he had felt earlier was nothing compared to the darkness that now engulfed him.

N'Arahn rose from the bed, burying the dark chaos in his heart beneath familiar routines and the one thing he could always rely on. Anger. It would burn him out, purify him.

But first, they had to get out of here.

He gathered his clothes and dressed. Then he took the crystal from the table and threw it to the seducer on the bed.

"Time's up. I've fulfilled my part of the contract." He pointed at the angel. "It's your turn."

Tazeel nodded with an inappropriately gentle smile.

"Of course. The price has been paid." He chuckled. "Thoroughly."

His snap of the fingers was followed by a soft click. N'Arahn knew without looking that the ring had opened. He felt little relief.

Suddenly, his vision blurred. He roared furiously against the fall that pulled him deep into a thick fog.

With a gasp, he sat up, ready to defend himself against any attacks Tazeel would rain down on him.

But all he found was the dim light and familiar smells of his private quarters. Sweaty, he had kicked his sheets off the bed and apparently torn a pillow.

A dream?
Suspicious, he searched himself, even smelled his own skin. But he could find no traces of the other demonlord on him.

A dream. But also more than that.

He didn't know how Tazeel had managed it, but he was sure that what he had experienced had been real in some way.

Now he noticed inconsistencies that should have shown him much earlier that something was wrong. Where had they been? How could Tazeel have gained access to Veidja?

Why had he agreed to this contract so quickly?

A mixture of anger and relief flooded him, making his muscles weak and heavy. Groaning, he laid his head in his hands. This "dream" would haunt him for a while. Tazeel had gotten his revenge.

After a long bath, during which he tried to wash away the false memories of Tazeel's touch from his body and soul, he decided to move up his meeting with his angel.

A fight would be just the thing to finally get his emotions under control again.

The sand under his feet and the familiar sounds of the arena lifted his spirits. The exercise would do him good, and a few healing pains would finally make the phantom touches disappear.

He watched Veidja as she slowly stepped out of the usual passageway, her helmet still tucked under her arm.

Suddenly, he tensed up. Something was different.

There was a new caution in her movements. She had never really shown fear of him, had always faced the fights with him without hesitation. What had changed?

When she finally stood in front of him, he saw that expression in her eyes. An echo of horror and disgust.

She had been there. They had shared the dream.

Their eyes met and for a brief moment her eyes widened in recognition, but immediately she closed her feelings behind a mask of defensiveness and indifference.

Despair settled like an icy clamp around N'Arahn's heart. There was nothing he could do. Only recently had he had the faint hope that Veidja might someday see more in him than her enemy. That they might find a connection, despite all she had had to endure because of him.

She knew what he was. She knew that violence was a big part of his life. Maybe it didn't change anything?

But it didn't look like she was unimpressed by what she had experienced.

"So it really happened."
The occasions when she spoke to him on her own initiative were so rare that N'Arahn saw it as a bad sign that she was doing so now. But he wasn't going to let the chance pass him by.

"In a way. Yes."

"Did you know it was a dream?"

The challenge in her attitude made his heart skip a beat. There she was again, his fearless warrior.

"Will you believe me if I say no?"

She shrugged.

"I didn't know. Does it make a difference?"

Veidja tilted her head.

"Maybe."

They were silent for a moment.

Then the angel shook her head.

"I wish it hadn't happened."

"Me too." N'Arahn could hear how rough his voice sounded.

"He really is... powerful, isn't he?"

N'Arahn nodded briefly.

The fact that Tazeel had managed to get into the minds of both another demonlord and an angel was proof enough.

Veidja shifted her weight, adjusting the helmet on her hip. N'Arahn couldn't be sure, but to him she now looked rather pensive.

Fool, that's just your wishful thinking.

"You hate him." A statement.

N'Arahn nodded again, then affirmed, "He disgusts me."

"And yet you were able to..." Her voice trailed off. He knew what question was burning inside her. If the situation hadn't been so serious, her curiosity about his preferences would have amused him.

After all, as long as she was asking questions, perhaps not all was lost.

"Not really." N'Arahn raised a hand, letting shadow power glow visibly around his fingers. "It was just a... special use of my resources."

"Hmm."

She was surely unaware that she was drumming her fingers on her helmet. So much had already happened between them, but N'Arahn had rarely seen her show her inner turmoil so openly.

In a strange way, it pained him to see her like this. He wanted to assure her that he would never treat her the way he had treated the seducer. He wanted to prove to her that he wasn't the monster she had seen. Not to her.

He hated to admit it, but he was frightened of himself.

In the past, he had thought nothing of signing contracts that turned his body into a piece of meat for the fulfillment of others' lust. He had only stopped because he no longer needed the payment. No matter what had been done to him or what he had been asked to do, it had not humiliated him. He had often been able to fulfill the contracts without using his shadows. He didn't have to like the other demons, just find them somewhat attractive. After all, it was just sex; he had never really been involved.

Tazeel had changed that for the first time in a very long while. In the worst possible way.

Even though he believed that the green-skinned one deserved far worse than the pain he had caused him, nausea rose in him when he remembered Veidja's expression. Angels certainly did not treat each other like that.

How much divides us.

And as unlikely as it seemed, he understood it a little now. He felt defiled. He felt disgust at the thought of Tazeel's hands on his body and the brutal act that followed.

He wanted to cleanse himself. He wanted to pull Veidja close, to calm himself with her scent. To erase the memories of the seducer through her touch.

The shadows frayed and he lowered his hand. What a pathetic demonlord you are.

"Enough of that. Let's begin."

Her brief hesitation, the slight uncertainty in her gaze, stabbed him like a knife between the ribs.

The fighting with the angel was the time when he could be light-hearted around her. When she seemed free, wild, energetic. Even if it was only the prospect of hurting him, a demon. He enjoyed those times. He didn't want that to change. If he couldn't get what he secretly desired from her, he at least wanted her wildness.

She took a step back and the knife in his stomach twisted painfully. He fought against the hoarse growl that gathered in his throat, triggered by the pain in his soul.

Veidja grasped the helmet with both hands, put it on, fastened the strap under her neck, and drew her sword.

"Alright, let's go. Just be careful you don't end up getting castrated after all."

N'Arahn stared at the warrior in disbelief for a moment.

Then he laughed roaringly and launched into an attack without warning.