Chapter 9: Flowery Petals of Death
Chris woke, thinking it must be daylight. As he tried to sat upright, he was hindered by the lump of feminine flesh clinging like a vice-grip on his chest. Her strength unknown to a young lady destroyed any means of instant escape.
Chris sighed as he gave up. The feeling of her hair, the edge of her horn nudging his cheek, her warmth permeating on his chest - when was the last time he slept so peacefully? He couldn’t even remember the last time he held a woman in his arms like this. Definitely not in those five years of solitude, Chris thought with a smile.
He raked his hand down the stream of black hair, in between her black wings, cascading to her treasured softness. He satisfied himself by cupping one cheek then the other, but the moment Chris retrieved his hand, the Demon’s eyes shot open.
She stared, flushed and tongue-tied, yet her blue eyes carried an unusual glint. She chewed on her bottom lip then smiled sweetly, and Chris felt his life in imminent danger. Last night told him what that expression meant; that Chris was part of her rotating food chain.
Remembering how succubus were described in the books he read - the ultimate seductress who apparently feeds on a human male’s sperm - Chris felt even more reluctant to have any sort of sexual activity with his wife.
To dispel that feeling of dread, Chris moved his hand upward to her left cheek then brushed his thumb across her left eyebrow. “Good morning?”
Nastassja trembled, closing her eyes for a moment. “What do you find fascinating about mornings, Chris? Rather, a Demon as strong as yourself should be hating the sun.” Nastassja stood up, wobbling, and moved the curtains they forgot to close last night. “This much light in the morning weakens a Demon of your caliber incredibly. Please be more of wary of your health, it concerns me.”
Those last words drew a grin on his face. He wondered how she'd react after knowing the truth - that he wasn’t a Demon to begin with. Chris dismissed the idea for now. It wasn’t the right time, nor the right place. Chris watched her stretched her wings before he slipped out of the bed and got up himself.
“I’m hungry.” Chris complained, rubbing the bite marks on his throat. She really overdid it last night. “Though I want a quick bath before anything else.” Chris yawned a big one.
“If it is a bath you need, then we have one here in our room.” Nastassja walked to the door on her left, opened, and showed Chris what they have inside.
“Faucet?” Chris blinked in his bewilderment. It was his least expectation to see a device here that was quite similar to the other side.
“Yes,” she answered. “This room is plumbed to a nearby well.”
“I see,” mumbled Chris. “But where did this technology came from?”
Nastassja tilted her head, running her index finger to the corner of her mouth. “A little over a decade ago, my father brought this innovation back from the western continent. Directly to our northwest, across the seas, is the land of the Demon Artificer - your elder brother, I assume?”
“My elder brother?” So he wasn’t the only one chosen by Mr. Lee? It made sense in his mind, but he still found this information hard to swallow. Then again, he didn't really care. What he would find harder to believe was that if he was the sole desperate man to click that advertisement. As he thought about it, Chris laughed.
But that laugh didn’t do his wife good. Her expression darkened instead. “You do not know? His continent is well known for its transportation vehicles that run on a combination of steam and magic. Everything is well organized - unlike us who still fancied the use of Sleipnirs.”
Her words suggested her honest concern toward their residents. Like a caring mother, she would jump onto anything that could help improve the lifestyle of the demons here - her attribute that attracted Chris the most.
Despite his urge not to, the smile on his lips reappeared. “So, how far is the western continent from us?”
Nastassja crossed her arms as she pondered. “Hmm, if I have to use Felicia as a traveling basis, then it would take us shortly after the sixth of Velmont.”
“And how many nights of travel is that?” Chris asked while fiddling with the faucet, and though it seemed undrinkable, water - clean enough to use for bathing - did came out.
“It is Rosalia 24th, so seventeen straight nights of travel if we do decide to leave now. Why?”
“Nothing. I figured I want to see the place myself, but not after we finished these pressing matters at hand first.”
“I agree.” She nodded without reluctance.
“So, want to take a bath together?” Chris considered his luck with a hint of smile. Who was he kidding? A pretty woman is a pretty woman. He wouldn’t want to waste this chance now that the atmosphere between them two stepped out of the danger zone.
But her response to his joke made him blink. On the next blink, her dark dress was pooling on her feet. Mamamia! Chris blinked again, and this time she jumped on him, wearing nothing but her skin.
* * *
Chris traced his steps back to the dungeon, a certain part of his body was aching with pain. They were like a pair of vampire couples in the bath, sucking each other’s blood as if it was the high school norm. Still, where were the Lycans when he needed them? The morning sun was disastrous to a demon, that much he could understand after Nastassja went limped on their bed again, but this kind of carelessness was fatal. He would need to reprimand these trackers later but, for now, conversing with the Elves was his top priority.
Chris found a torch lighted by a crimson crystal before he entered the same wide room down a staircase below. The stench of death was gone and the prisoners wore a clean match-up robes of grey and white.
“Good morning, ladies.” Chris tapped their cell twice, and heads began to turn, fear etched on the Elves’ beautiful faces… except for one. “You, the feisty one, would you mind coming closer? I’d like to have a word with you.” After all, he found no use on questioning the girls who were still terrified of him.
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“Kill us, and be done with it,” said the blonde elf, not moving an inch from her sprawled position, her back pressed on the wall covered with an intriguing glyph. “In the end, you Demons are just animals seized by the power of your lust. The only fate that awaits us is death, so why prolong our lives? Ah, I know. You wouldn’t be satisfied unless you’ve addled our mind and body in repeated humiliation - a typical behavior from a Demon. How sickening.”
“Shut your mouth,” Chris snarled, more annoyed than he ever was. “Yes, we are different. But even us Demons have our own set of morals.”
She snorted. “Babble whatever excuses you want - your hypocrisy makes me want to vomit. Men like you would debase any helpless woman in front. How is that any different from a livestock animal?”
“I see.” The injustice of her words burned inside of him, and he knew that he couldn’t allow it. He still didn’t know what it meant to be a Demon but it just wasn’t fair to judge them like that. “Curse me all you want - you may even go as far as to call me a heartless son of a bitch - but that is exactly how you will end up if you don’t cooperate.”
“Why didn’t you say so from the beginning?” she scoffed, and it was well received.
Chris glared back at the Elven woman. “No, I have nothing to prove to you. Your delusions brought this judgement upon yourselves. Those of you who want to return home, just answer my simple questions and you will have my permission to leave.”
Those words gave life to the other three. Chris began to question them one by one. “So, what’s the purpose of this investigation?”
“I… We were sent here to see how the new Demon Lord would react,” the nearest one said, all too happy to oblige.
“And you came here knowing that you could die?” Chris asked in his frustration. “What kind of standards are you following to obey an order like that?”
“All is the will of the Goddess.” She clasped her hands together and knelt, as if offering a silent prayer.
Goddess my ass, Chris mocked in his mind. He certainly wouldn’t follow a God that would send him to his death. The other two said the exact same thing, but he let them off with a simple sigh. It wouldn’t do him any good to vent his frustrations on these girls who were clearly used themselves.
Just when he was done with the questions, the door opened heavily and a Lycan descended on the stairs. His long silver hair was a giveaway - it was the man who greeted him on the roof last night. But something was different about him. Chris didn’t like the way he growled and gritted his teeth aggressively.
He noticed some sort of flower growing out of his left eye. The vines protruding out of the flower's base slowly reached the ground as the man approached in slow steps, heavy boots clomping their way down the stone corridors. His body started to distort with every step. He grew fangs, claws, and an extra set of jaw - it was unlike anything Chris had ever seen before.
His instincts screamed for him to dodge, and he did. Chris rolled to the side, and the vine-like tentacle that went past him was strong enough to destroy a cell - the cell containing his Elven prisoners. The Elves scurried out, one by one, and Chris watched them all flee, unable to do a thing to stop them.
The sudden unfamiliar stomping caused him to focus on the foe ahead. The transformed monster glared at Chris, and albeit deformed, he could still see the man’s face. A line of sweat passed in between his brow, but Chris was determined to keep his wits about him. Chris shook his fears and began to rise. He drew his sword and bent his arms up against his body, as if he readied himself to take the swing of his life.
“Come!” Chris clasped the handle of the sword and treated it like a baseball bat.
WIth those words, the monster ran forward, jumped in the air, and brandished both claws at Chris! But Chris knew what he had to do. He took a single step forward and swung his obsidian blade. Sparks flew as his sword went through the monster’s claws, and he felt its flesh cut from his sword to arm - an odd sensation he couldn’t describe. The monster was cleaved in half and down into a heap on the floor.
“Did that do it?” Chris wiped the blood off his face. He knew he what he did was ruthless but he needed to heed his instincts to survive. The same crunching sensation developed in his stomach, and he felt like vomiting again, but Chris saw something that made him narrow his gaze at the corner of his eye. Something started to sprout from the monster’s corpse - it was the vines forming together like a tree trunk.
But the surprises didn’t end there. A dark shadow, around five feet in diameter, circled around it as the epicenter. All of a sudden, dark energy emerged from the ground, swallowing the plant whole like a hungry mouth. None, no traced was left behind as the shadow returned back to his sword.
“Cornelius - a cursed sword.” Chris turned his head at the familiar voice. Nastassja came down the stairs carrying a set of heads, one on each arm. “Once it had a taste of the your mana, the curse will activate and chase you as far as the abyss, whoever you are. I mean to kill you and your father with it once it had gathered enough strength.”
That made Chris gulp, as if the icy grip of death claimed his legs. “Surely you think different now?”
“Maybe.” Dark flame erupted on her fingertips, burning the heads she was carrying and leaving nothing but ashes of their former glory. Nastassja clicked her tongue. “They tricked us, Chris. These Elves were meant to be eaten from the start. The seeds were already planted in their body before they even came here.”
“Seeds?”
“Yes, Tree of Life seeds.”
Since the Elves lacked the ambient mana produced on their territory, they used the energy inside the Demons as fertilizers instead - he got that much from seeing the results firsthand. Chris didn’t have to ask what they needed to do. There was no need to harbor any stubborn hope. It was clear - all he needed to do now was to stop this madness from spreading.