star !

You didn’t mean to.

The incantation you studied for nearly six months was perfect. In no way, shape, or form should the ritual have gone awry even if stray magic emerged. At worst, nothing should have happened. You’d should’ve ended up with an empty summoning circle, wasted materials that would need to be vacuumed up. At best, you’d have a servitor ready to assist with the more mundane parts of your thesis research. 

As with every ritual, you drew the proper wards in salt and bone ash, some graveyard dirt on hand just in case. You had the knife, ready to sacrifice a few drops of blood for such a useful creation.

You recited the incantation, pricked your finger and then…

Nothing.

The sulfurous stench occult didn’t flood the room, the wards didn’t even manage a flickering glow. The candle flames didn’t even wince.

Utter failure.

You were too tired to do much more than release a choked scream in frustration before blowing out the candles and running upstairs.

Tomorrow you’d study the ancient manuscript for what you missed and try again. You just needed some sleep first.

You barely managed a few hours when you wake up with the distinct feeling something was wrong. 

Everyone else left for winter break, leaving you alone with a mountain of books and articles to skim for the thesis you’ve been writing for years. It’s why you need a servitor to begin with; there was too much work to be done and simply not enough time. 

No one should be in the house, but you got the distinct feeling someone, or something, was.

Only the noise of the house rang through your ears, the creak of the floor boards, the wind battering against the windows. The occasional owl calling from the tree outside the window of the living room on the ground floor. You swiped a knife from the kitchen and one of the spare jars of graveyard dirt before heading downstairs.

What a terrifying image you portrayed: a raggedy university sweater and pajama pants, dark circle bruised beneath your eyes, and a dirty kitchen knife.

None of it mattered.

The sharp scent of magic clouded the air at the bottom of the steps leading to the basement, thick as a curtain. But it wasn’t the rotten scent you were accustomed to. It was heavier with the sickly sweetness of flowers, like a poisonous bloom attempting to lure you in.

And what would want to lure prey into a trap more than a predator?

Standing in the circle was a man, but he was too perfect to be just a man. Gold flowed through his veins, illuminating him from the inside out. His eyes glowed like honey as he stared at you, watching. Waiting.

You were so distracted by his eyes you barely realized he was naked. He didn’t seem to care either, or register the fact he’s hard and you could see the way his length bobbed between his thighs. 

Embarrassment didn’t have a chance to take root because he said your name just as sweet as the flower smelled. 

You launched the jar of dirt at him in shock, the bottle shattering into a thousand pieces at his feet. The man made no move to avoid the explosion, didn’t disappear like the undead usually did when confronted with the reminder that they were no longer of the living. He didn’t even blink. 

“What are you?” you shouted, brandishing the knife as if that could do anything. He was in the circle, that was safe enough for now.

“Yours.”

“That’s not,” you start, breathless. “What are you?”

“I’m…” He struggled with the words to explain his purpose. 

You tried to keep your eyes level with his but miles of bare, tan skin, with taunt muscles corded underneath proved too tempting. A few silver scars littered his body, indecipherable in the light and the passage of time. He was much older than you could even begin to imagine; this form only the briefest glimpse of his actual power.

“I’m a servant.”

“You’re the servitor I summoned?”

The manuscript you studied didn’t specify what a servitor looked like, only that it would serve its summoner with whatever tasks it was assigned. 

He nodded widely. “I’m meant to serve whoever I’m bound to.”

“And now you’re bound to me.”

“Yes,” he swallowed. For the first time, he seemed to realize he’s naked but continued to be unbothered by it. His palm shakily grazed over himself before curling around his thighs. 

Other passages from your reading came to mind as you forced your gaze away. 

Bind your servitor to their duties as soon as possible, they don’t do well without direction.

They are eager to please and are capable of any task their summoner presents them with.

“We need…” you swallowed, trying to hide the squeak in your voice. “We need to make a deal.”

He nodded.

“You have to follow all of my commands.”

“Of course.”

“If you don’t,” you stuttered, grasping at straws for a threat. “I–I’ll banish you to a demiplane.”

His head tilted to the side, eyes pouring down your figure. Perhaps the stains of your sweater weren’t intimidating to him, but you held the power. He was still stuck in the circle, and you could send him away with a few words. Either he listened or turned back into nothing. Or worse; stuck in a demiplane with no purpose for the rest of time.

“Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do,” he rasped.

“Good. Give me your name.”

“Hoshi.”

You almost settled for that but something told you that wasn’t right. Occult creatures weren’t predisposed to honesty no matter how simple minded.

“Your true name,” you commanded.

He watched you for a long moment, eyes fading from gold to brown. Human eyes. Something familiar flickered in them when he said, “Soonyoung.”

As you repeated it, he shivered, a strangled inhale to match. You didn’t mean to, but a quick glance down showed he was still hard and leaking. Obscenely so. To the point it mixed with the circle drawn on the floor.

“Swear to do everything I say, and to never disobey me,” you said, eyes fixed on his, now golden once again.

“I swear to follow your every command, exactly as you say them.”

“And…”

“And to never disobey you or betray you. I bind myself to you, and anything you wish of me,” he vowed. Soonyoung attempted to take a step forward but stopped once he realized the circle was unbreakable.

Something wasn’t right. Soonyoung seemed like he wanted to tell you more, but you needed to ask the right questions. You knew what the question was, and that made you dread it all the more.

“You’re not a servitor at all, are you?”

Soonyoung rolled his shoulders, his muscles shifting and flexing with the motion. He seemed to grow taller, take up more space with the action as if only a fraction of his true form existed in front of you and the rest hid out of sight. “No.”

“Then what are you?”

“I think you know what I am.”

Since childhood you managed to summon all types of beings: spirits, a few hellhounds, a shade that left your mother locked in her room for weeks, refusing to see you. They appeared whether you called on them or not, flocking to you like a beacon. Summoning had never been your forte and now was no exception. But Soonyoung wasn’t like anything you accidentally called before. 

A demon.

A demon who gave you his name and bound himself in service. To you.

Horrified, you rushed back up the way you came, the worn edges of the stairs bruising your knees as you tripped. If Soonyoung was truly a demon, then the wards would only keep him trapped for so long and the last place you need to be was next to him when he escaped. Profound relief greeted you once you were safely tucked back upstairs knowing that he hadn’t followed.

And perhaps a trickle of disappointment.

The dreams started a few nights after Soonyoung got stuck.

Stuck was the only way to describe him. Sandwiched between this world and the next, trapped in that tiny circle in the ritual room like a chained animal. He couldn’t leave the circle anymore than you could send him back where he belonged. You didn’t plan to conjure a demon with the incantation, which means you didn’t have a plan to banish him either. What had been done needed to be undone the exact same way, without error. Which meant late nights reading the same books you studied for weeks leading up to summoning the servitor, looking for any clue as to what went wrong; if it was the words, or materials, or anything else seemingly inconsequential. But no amount of reading gave you a clue because you followed the ritual to the exact letter.

He proved no help in the beginning, simply staring at you after each question about what he was and how he got here. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up each time you ventured to the ritual room for a new book, no matter how you tried to ignore his presence. He studied you with hunger

Then the dreams started.

They always began the same: you waking in bed, the aching in your core demanding attention. And then you’d be in the ritual room, or still in bed, occasionally in the archival library. You looked for something, someone. He was always there too. Soonyoung would pin you to the bookcase, down into the sheets, or against the floor boards so hard it hurt.

It was his teeth biting along your hips.

His lips sucking bruises into your thighs.

His tongue working over you in heavy strips; from your ankle, between your legs, across your breasts, caressing the sensitive flesh of your neck.

His voice crying your name, desperate pleas for something. To touch him too. To reveal in the bliss he so freely gifted.

Soonyoung knew how to touch you, skillfully working you into a pitiful mess every night. He knew exactly how your body worked, what you needed, all the tender spots to abuse until you begged him to stop.Every dream ended the same: you alone, overly aware who waits in the basement, unable to shake the feeling he knew and his pleas in your dream was for you to join him and make them reality.

Two weeks passed and you stood no closer to banishing Soonyoung than you were curing cancer. Perhaps closer to the latter.

You’ve all but ceased visits to the ritual room since he decided to finally speak. Soonyoung stared at you every time you entered the chamber. Even after weeks he did nothing to hide his arousal. The sweatpants you dug out only hide the plain view of his cock, not the fact he’s hard or the fact he wanted you to look.

They do nothing to muffle how he watched your every move, the heat of his gaze burning down to your core. Like he’s studying you, figuring out any sign of weakness, what made you tick.

“If you’re stuck here, you might as well work,” you said, approaching him. Magic had a unique smell. Stale smoke and rot. This close you realized Soonyoung didn’t smell like the magic you were used to. He smelled like old paper and night air, the richness curled around you and tempted you to take another step closer to him.

Your demon watched as you shuffled forward, eyes glued to your hands. “How?”

“Read this. I don’t have time to figure out how to banish you and continue my research.”

You handed him the leather bound tome through the circle without losing your hand, ready to release it the second it passed into his domain, but Soonyoung was faster. He snatched the book, pulling you in up to your elbow. Your wrist snared between his fingers, his tongue on your palm. 

“My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie, How blest am I in this discovering thee, To enter in these bonds, is to be free; Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.”

He licked between your fingers, sucked one into the hot swell of his mouth. The prickle of his teeth vibrated to your core. 

“You taste amazing,” he moaned, eyes slipping shut. He followed the arch of your thumb, tonguing at the bare skin of your wrist between his fingers. “Better than those dreams.”

That snapped you out of whatever lust-fueled trance he put you under. Snatching back your hand, Soonyoung blinked as if he too was put under a lull, but you couldn’t focus on that. You needed to be away. As far away as possible in the massive house. And even that wasn’t far enough.

You had a demon problem. 

Winter break was almost over, which means students floating back to campus. And students back on campus meant Soonyoung couldn’t stay a secret much longer. 

No one else could know. Summoning creatures was out of bounds even for a house that specialized in using the dead and demonic for their bidding. When the dean discovered a demon on campus the punishment would be tenfold that of if you did manage to summon a mindless servant.

After nights researching in other libraries on campus, buried under books so old they verged on crumbling, you had answers but you’re no closer to a solution.

A servant of Asmodeus. Lustful, sinful.

Soonyoung’s purpose was to serve whoever calls on him, but the fine print is that he is the embodiment of desire. Not exactly an incubus but not exactly anything else you could find either. There are basic ways to expel him: exorcisms, burning incense, birch branches. Though, all your research leaves more questions because the creatures described in text take the form of dead lovers and Soonyoung is like no one you’ve ever seen before.

The stress of research made the dreams worse.

Soonyoung on top of you, behind you, beneath you. The positions changed depending on where you found him, but he was always inside you. His fingers, his tongue. Untangling all your nerves until they exploded and then doing it again and again and again.

The one time you begged, salty tears streaking down your cheeks, he gave you his cock. Inch by inch until your ass sat flush with his hips, Soonyoung’s arms bracketing you on either side, his chest sticky against your back.

“Imagine how much better I can do,” he moaned into your hair, hips ripping the air from your lungs, “if you let me.”

Another week and no matter how much you avoided Soonyoung, his presence lingered like the chill of winter barking at the windows.

The dreams changed again. Still full of naked skin and debauched sounds, but sometimes you woke in his arms, limbs heavy and satiated as if you really did let him into your bed. He was still behind you, on top of you, beneath you but he curled around you like a soft blanket instead of a needful lover as he pulled you apart until you couldn’t breathe.

Soonyoung would whisper more poems in your ear, lips etching the words into your skin, gently rocking into you with sweet whimpers. No longer were you bound to just the house, your subconscious took you farther and farther; into fields and caves, castles and mansions; in the soft glow of sunrise and into the eye of hurricanes; and your bodies met again and again and again.

After, he’d pull you his chest, tracing the skin between your shoulder blades as you dozed off.

“She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright. Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light. Which hell to gaudy day denies.”

“I don’t remember that being the line,” you hummed.

Soonyoung pressed his mouth to your hair, inhaling deeply before speaking. “Blasphemy won’t earn you favors down the line.” 

“I think I’ve crossed the line too many times already…” you said, moving to straddle him. “What’s one more?”

After another round — Soonyoung fucking up into you while you held on for dear life, eager to take pleasure from someone so willing to give — he laid you back down and buried his face in your stomach.

“How could something as divine as you be a sin?”

You realized the dreams were as much his as they were yours.

A week is all you had to banish Soonyoung back to wherever he belonged.

In seven days, the other members of the house returned and shortly after that, they’d descend to the ritual room and find him. He needed to go home. The sooner the better.

After an entire day studying the necromancy texts kept in the archives, you moved to one of the other society houses, hoping their library proved more useful. None of them liked sharing their magic but it’s easy enough to lie your way in under the promise of noting anything useful. They’d rather have a bookworm pick through the fluff and regurgitate the most interesting pieces than look for answers themself.

Chan was no different but he liked to pretend demonomicons and dusty grimoires fascinated him if it meant you’d let him sit with you. Two dates and nothing more didn’t seem to deter him from trying for a third, if anything he seemed eager to prove he deserved another chance.

It was well beyond midnight when he offered to walk you home, frigid wind curling through the streets. Chan was the one struggling to keep up as you all but sprinted home.

“I could come inside,” Chan suggested with a hopeful look on his face.

“No,” you shouted. “I mean…I have to clean up before everyone comes back. It’s a complete mess.”

He nodded, pretending not to be embarrassed from your easy refusal. “Alright. Well, have a good night.”

Maybe he’s what you needed. A quick romp, something to clear your head. Someone to fulfill all the fantasies Soonyoung planted and let bloom for the past month. 

“Actually,” you said. “Maybe you could come in. Just for a little bit.”

Chan’s inability to satisfy you had nothing to do with him. Even as he rolled into you, attentive to every embellished moan you rewarded him with, you had to remind yourself that it felt good. His fingers between you would make you cum, his lips on your neck would make your blood boil. The way he groaned around your name sounded divine.

But every time your eyes slipped shut, someone else was saying it. Someone else touched you, tasted you, fucked you. You felt Soonyoung’s hands on you, confident where Chan was clumsy, knowledgeable where Chan was a novice. 

If Chan knew something was wrong, he didn’t let it show, leaving just as the sun rose with a bit more pep in his step.

You managed a few hours of sleep, dreams melting with reality. Chan in your bed, except it was Soonyoung’s throaty moans filling the air as you rode him. Then you sprawled between his legs, back to chest, while Chan took the space between your thighs. Soonyoung gripped his hair, pushing his face firmer against your pussy, guiding him exactly how you need to be touched. But when Chan failed to do a satisfactory job, Soonyoung shoved him out of the way and showed Chan how you like to be played with until you woke up with a cry.

An hour long cold shower left you with numb fingers but had no effect on what plagued your mind.

Two days buried in books and diaries to avoid sleep and finally you had a lead.

There’s something to be said for carnal desires, and those created in service to them. The only way to banish those beings mirrors one’s own methods for purification in times of rabid depravity. — Jeonghan Yoon, class of 1923

Soonyoung must be what Jeonghan referenced in his diary; what he was and how to get rid of him once and for all. The ritual room had an entire bookcase dedicated to exorcisms, both new and old texts mingling on the shelves. You already exhausted most of them but the earlier pages of the diary quoted a line in a demonomicon you pushed to the side; it’d only been twenty pages, all shuffled around in the worn binding.

Jukoth’s Daemonum.

The pages were online, the LED screen of your laptop presenting the neat script. They held no rituals or instructions. Merely classifications of demons, from kings of hell to lowly vampires. You knew the copy downstairs would be far more useful. Frustratingly, Jeonghan’s handwriting littered many of the house books, Jukoth’s Daemonum would no doubt be graffitied in the same fashion. 

Soonyoung said he’d do whatever you asked. Perhaps he knew the ritual to send him back where he came from. If he didn’t, maybe he knew where to look for one. 

Tip toeing down to the basement, your demon waited inside the circle of salt and wax just as you left him. The aura of gold had yet to fade. Soonyoung looked almost more punishingly beautiful here than in your dreams. The full force of his presence warned every part of you to go back upstairs, put up the safety of new wards added in the last few days, lock the door, and hide until you found a way to get rid of him.

But wasn’t that why you were here? In this very house, at this very university? Decades of illicit occult activities the university would never officially acknowledge, silenced by millions of alumni dollars to keep the houses open. Your research was valuable enough for a well funded PhD as long as there were results. Results you couldn’t obtain if your demon stuck around much longer.

Thumbing through Jeonghan’s diary, you looked for the page you read last night. Several other books were listed along with the demoniomicon; all stored in the basement. Eyes low, you entered the room and scurried to the bookshelf opposite the door, Soonyoung's gaze pierce into your back the entire way. 

Each leather spine slipped under your finger, a clean streak left in the dust as you searched for what you needed. Whoever last organized the shelves, some new initiate decades ago most likely, didn’t have a knack for alphabetization. French, Latin and Greek translations were sandwiched in tightly, obscuring the titles. 

The basement was silent, sans the creaks of the warped wood beneath your feet. You could almost pretend to be alone. 

Almost.

“You smell like him.”

Jeonghan’s diary tumbled out of your hand onto the floor as you choked on a scream. “What?”

“Chan.” He spat the word, something animal and primal and full of disdain behind it. Soonyoung’s rage washed over you like a blast of heat. Of course he’d know Chan’s name, he knew everything.

“Oh,” you squeaked, cheeks heating. There was no reason to feel ashamed but you curdled like a scolded child. “Just a friend. He was helping me with research.”

“Did you tell him about me?” Possessiveness twined through his voice.

“Tell him what? That I have a demon in my basement I can’t get rid of? Of course not,” you scoff.

You flipped through Jeonghan’s journal, nearly tearing the pages in an effort to ignore your demon’s eyes raking over your skin.

“Did you tell him how wet you get when you have my tongue between your thighs?” he asked smugly. “Or how you like being taken from behind?”

“Shut up,” you whispered.

“I listened to the entire thing and never heard those little sighs you make right before you come. Did you fake it for him?”

“Stop.” You didn’t dare risk looking at him. You didn’t dare risk turning around and fleeing upstairs either. If you moved a muscle, you’d be lost. 

“He didn’t help you at all, did he? You wanted me inste—”

“I said shut up!”

Your hand came down onto the bookshelf, knocking an ancient vase covered in dust to the floor where it splintered into a thousand pieces.

“Shit!”

Only in a pair of wool socks, you stood trapped, surrounded by jagged shards in the dim candle light. Soonyoung’s very own captive. Diving to the floor, you clumsily picked up pieces to clear a thin path. The splinters split the skin of your bare knees and fingers, ribbons of blood trickling down your skin.

The smell of night and incense washed over you as you worked in a trance. You needed out. Out of this room, out of this house, out of this town. 

But the warm presence kneeling over you wiped those thoughts away.

“Let me see,” Soonyoung murmured, warm hands wrapping around your wrist.

“It hurts,” you whimpered, dropping all the pieces you so carefully collected. He felt warm, real. Solid. That rich smell of night washed back over you, urging you to dive into his bare chest and drown in it.

And you realized—

Soonyoung was out of his circle.

“You—”

“I’ll go back, if that’s what you want,” he whispered. Despite his promise, he nuzzled into your neck, inhaling deeply.

“You could leave the whole time?”

“You need something stronger than salt to keep something like me contained.”

“Like what?”

“Words,” he says, with no hint of amusement. “You do your work somewhere else. Why?”

“Because…”

“Because why? I can help you,” he whispered, pulling your hand to his mouth, waiting for you to pull away. When you didn’t, his tongue flicked out, lapping away your blood before sucking it into his mouth. 

“I…” You faltered under his ministrations. Soonyoung’s tongue curled around your knuckle, his teeth teasing just enough to light a fire in your belly.

Realizing you couldn’t answer like this, he released your finger but moved on to licked across your palm before inhaling deeply. 

“Because you’re still afraid of me,” Soonyoung sighed, disappointed. He rose to his full height, pulling you along. The movement gave you enough clarity to speak.

“You stare at me.”

He stared at you now. Past your rumpled pajamas and stretched out sweater, beyond the surface fear and annoyance he wouldn’t just go away. Soonyoung looked at you like he saw the very core of your entire soul. 

“How could I not?”

You went silent.

“You know why I stare at you?” he pleaded, chest brushing against yours. He still held your hands, your blood making his grip slick and warm. “Because I don’t want to miss those moments when you look back.”

Soonyoung buried his face in your throat, lips tracing over your pulse. Tasting, teasing. “Every night, you cry in your sleep. For me. You beg me to touch you like I do in our dreams and I stay down here despite wanting nothing more than to bury my head between your legs like you need me to.” Instead of his tongue, his nose followed the curve of your shoulder, greedily inhaling your scent like it might evaporate. “I listened to him fuck you and it made me want to destroy the entire house. The entire town.”

With each word, you stepped back, Soonyoung quick to follow, his thigh slottied between your knees. With your eyes shut, it felt like all your shared dreams. You could pretend it was just another night of Soonyoung plaguing your subconscious as your back met the wooden bookcase, arching away from the dig of the shelves. All those useless manuscripts that failed to warn you, kept the secret of what Soonyoung was tightly bound up, were better used like this. For him to show you exactly what he was.

“You called me here. I’m yours. I’m always yours. Every time I’m yours.”

You squirmed in his hold, hips rutting against the muscle of this thigh. A step ahead, he flexed and pressed harder, enough to hurt in the best way. He was already hard. You knew what he looked like — what he felt like — beneath the pair of sweatpants you currently loathed, the draw string tied tight enough to prevent you from pulling them down in the haze of lust.

“The first day you summoned me, you asked me what I was made for.”

Your head tilted back against the bookcase, Soonyoung’s teeth razing into your neck. You wanted him to bite you and he knew it, digging his teeth in just enough to hear you moan before drawing back and moving to a new patch of revealed skin as he tugged down the collar of your sweater. Every rut against his thigh pulled you closer to the sun, you were Icarus and he was melting you into nothing. Maybe this was the only use those books would serve; a backdrop to using Soonyoung’s body like he wanted you to.

“I was made to do this,” he sighed, drawing in a long breath of your scent. “To please you, to serve you. To love you.”

“I—” you choked, hips curling into the muscle of his thigh. He was so close. Close enough to taste and feel and it was far better than any of the dreams. Better than anything before. 

“I was made to fill this perfect,” his fingers squeezed your ass for emphasis, “fucking pussy until you can’t take anymore. Until you can’t think of anything else. Not your research, nothing. Just us.”

You were tempted to let him take you. On the floor, against the bookshelf, on the stairs because the bed was too far away. Fucking around the entire house, everything beyond where your bodies join burning into nothing. Every squeeze of his fingers, the raze of his teeth, pure gluttonous temptation to give in. 

Wedging a hand between your bodies, twin sighs of relief mingled together. Your knees ached to buckle so you could taste him, the glass still scattered around the floor. The burn of his teeth on your throat answered your desperate plea to do just that.

Nimble fingers shoved your shorts and panties to the floor. If it was anyone else you’d be embarrassed at the sticky cling, but Soonyoung was made for this. He was made for you and only you. 

Your mouth caught his roughly, eager to suck at the swell of his bottom lip for a distraction from the unbearable want. 

You wanted his hand around your throat, forcing you to watch the mess between your thighs soak between fabric down to his skin. You wanted his fingers tangled in your hair, pulling hard enough your back bowed. But you couldn’t keep your eyes open at the soft pets to your clit. 

You needed to touch him too. Scratching at his sides wasn’t enough to curb the potent need to feel all of him unfiltered through sleep. He just needed to give you enough space to do so. 

A mangled wait just barely passed between your lips.

Woken from a trance, Soonyoung jumped away. His hair is a mess, chest heaving.

It was enough to send the consequences of whatever this was toppling down on you like a house of cards.

When you didn’t speak, he returned to his circle and faced the wall, back stretching over each ragged breath. He didn’t turn around as you pulled your bottoms back up, now cold and uncomfortable but you saw the way his hands flexed; the tremor he tried to hide. You shuffled away from the wall, only to realize too late that the vase would be a problem. 

Or it would have been but the glass once littering on the floor sat back together on the shelf, the vase perfectly mended as if it never fell. 

The isolation and darkness of winter break was catching up to you. It had to be. The lack of sleeping or eating as well. Your muddled senses had led you down this path without care for the consequences. and without Soonyoung seducing you, they became much sharper.

The entire night Soonyoung stayed downstairs, most likely fighting the same thoughts you were. He didn’t follow you upstairs. It’d only take a word, but you stayed quiet, tucked between the sheets, door locked as if that could stop him when fine tuned wards couldn’t.

The only proof of what happened was the teeth marks at the base of your throat and the mortification that even hiding in your room with new salt wards and ruins to keep him away, your fingers itched to take advantage of the wetness in your panties and finish what he started.

But for the first time since Soonyoung arrived, your dreams were filled with nothing.

Two days until campus came back to life and you remained hidden in your room. The first floor of the house was a makeshift no man’s land; an illusion of space between you and the demon waiting in the basement. Somehow you knew he hadn’t moved since you fled the other night, he hadn’t so much as made a sound.

His absence in your dreams was almost worse than his presence. You’re still looking for him; searching the house, bumbling through a maze, calling for him on the shores of the beaches you two tangled at before. But he never answered. Like some demented game of hide and seek, he evaded you even though you knew he’s somewhere watching. Waiting for something. 

Every morning, you woke up more aggravated than before. Sweaty and confused, frustrated because you were just on the verge of finally catching him before your alarm went off. 

Jeonghan’s notes in the demonomicon, and Soonyoung's explanation that night in the ritual room tangle together until you finally have an answer.

Command him to return to hell, and he will.

Overly simple. Embarrassingly obvious you didn’t consider it. A command would get rid of him entirely. Forever.

But even with the knowledge, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

You wanted him to stay.

Which meant he had to go.

You woke up a sweaty, pitiful mess. Soonyoung remained hidden in your dreams but the seed of want continued to bloom, choking out any other desires you might have. You couldn’t breathe without remembering his scent, couldn’t look in the mirror without imagining how his body would look draped over yours as you both watched your reflections move together.

You wanted him.

You needed him.

It was a slow start. You didn’t remove all your clothes, just pushed your shirt up and your panties to the side. Somehow that would be admitting defeat but not the careful way you retraced Soonyoung’s path. Pinching where he pinched, squeeze at your breasts like with the same force he did. Your hips ground down, desperate for something after so many weeks of torture. 

You fucked yourself in jerky strokes, dedicated to pretending it’s as satisfying as when he did it. Three fingers don’t substitute for even one of his. 

You didn’t care anymore. If this damned you to hell for all eternity then at least you’d have Soonyoung there to make it worth it.

“Soonyoung,” you whimpered, beckoning him from the basement where you knew he listened. 

When you opened your eyes, your demon waited at the foot of the bed. 

“Tell me what you need,” he demanded, crawling over you. Soonyoung followed a frustrated tear as it streaked across your cheek only to kiss it away. “Tell me what you need. Please.”

“You.”

There was no fear here, only the relief of his lips on yours. You sighed in relief as your hands found his skin and cataloged every curve and dip. He tried to take off your shirt but you wouldn’t release him, forcing him to rip it into ribbons of fabric instead.

“Dreamed of this,” he moaned, nipping at your chin before descending to your breasts. 

Your hips kicked at the sting of his teeth. “I know.”

“You don’t,” he said as he kissed over to your neglected breast, pinching at your nipple. “You can’t.”

“Show me,” you commanded.

Visions flashed in your head: Soonyoung curled on the rug in front of a fire, chin on your stomach as you cried at some silly joke; floating in a deep lake with you tangled around his back, counting the freckles sprinkled over his shoulders from the sun. Fingers intertwined under a full moon.

Distracted by his dreams, you didn’t realize he settled between your legs, the thin pajamas tattered on the floor. His fingers pressed your legs apart. Completely bare. All for him as Soonyoung traced the crease of your thigh with his teeth.

“I’m yours,” he murmured again and again.

“Mine,” you answered.

Soonyoung lapped between your legs like a starved animal, whimpering at the taste of you. His fingers twisted, welcomed by the soaked warmth of your walls. Nothing would ever replace the intoxicating bliss of how perfectly he was made for your body.

“Oh god,” you moaned before wincing from a punishing bite to your thigh, hard enough to draw blood. But Soonyoung sucked away the mess and returned to your clit.

You’re covered in sweat, hot to the touch from his touch and freezing from the chill in the air.

“That’s right,” he moans. “Touch yourself like I do.”

Head falling back, you tweaked your nipples still wet with his spit. His unused hand snaked possessively up your chest, pinning you to the mattress while splaying you on his fingers. You rocked into the dull throb of it.

“Soonyoung, fuck,” you hissed, hand tangling with his. He sucked your clit hard enough to break you.

The rush of your orgasm blasted through every pore.  There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to keep you afloat, inky splotches staining your vision. Sweat whimpers turn to pitchy whines as he whispered dulcet praises between each punishing suck to your sensitive clit.

You shoved him to his back, surprised by your own strength until realizing Soonyoung was merely eager to do exactly what you wanted him to do just as you were for him.

His cock shined in the light filtering in through the window, wet with arousal and so hard you’re tempted to skip this and plant yourself on his lap and never leave. You would. Eventually.

You took him into your mouth, sighing at the weight against your tongue, eyes slipping shut. This was a rare occurrence in all the shared dreams. All of them were your demon serving you like he promised, focused on your pleasure at his hand. Now, you wanted to reward him. 

Soonyoung might be from hell but his groans sounded like pure heaven. You swallowed down what you could, unafraid of the consequences if it meant hearing him sigh your name again.

When you looked up, Soonyoung was already watching, eyes glued to his cock disappearing between your lips. He stroked your hair gently. You appreciated the sentiment but you didn’t need him to be sweet. You needed him as desperate as you felt. 

Soonyoung continued to stare and you stared right back. A demon rendered speechless. He’d done so well, snuffed the clawing ache in your veins temporarily. You wanted to reward him. Show him how much you cared even if he was something otherworldly. 

He wanted the moments you looked back and you would give him that in spades.

His cock sat pretty in your hand, glossed in spit and his own need, throbbing with each tight stroke. Every pass allowed you to take him deeper until you choked.

“Angel, fuck, look at you,” he panted.

Yes, you thought. Look at me. Never stop looking at me.

You drew out the next stroke, moaning at the taste of him. It’s all so much better than you imagined it would be but the euphoria didn’t last long enough. Soonyoung pawed at your face, fingers wet against your cheeks, your own arousal smeared against your jaw as he dragged you into a kiss. He knocked your hands away when you attempted to keep stroking him. His mouth tasted like you.

The room filled with desperate pants. Soonyoung pinned you to the bed, wrists caged in one hand, the other titling your chin for more languid kisses. You lit up inside, his glow consuming you as well.

Hours or days passed like that: pathetically rutting against each other, whimpering for more each time the friction was too much. Your ankles linked over his hips, encouraging him to finally make those dreams real but Soonyoung had a millennium of patience on his side.

“You deserve this.” He nipped along your neck, sucked the delicate skin beneath your ear until your pulse sped up.

“Soonyoung,” you whimpered, tears blooming. You thrashed in his hold, nails scratching at his hands frantically, humping down against in hopes he’d give you something. But your strength was no match for a demon’s.

“Say it,” he commanded. “Tell me you deserve this.”

“I—” you break. You can’t. Not with the way he choked the next breath out of you with a press of his cock.

He pinned you in place, golden eyes level with your own. “Say it.”

“I deserve this!”

“That’s right. So fucking smart,” he grunted, finally giving you what you both needed. “You’re perfect. Gonna fuck you until you believe me.”

He drew back slowly, the pull out verging on pain at the idea of being empty for even a moment. But Soonyoung was in full control and rolled back into your tight heat eagerly. You want everything he can give you so bad it hurts.

“Oh my god,” you croaked.

You’re torn between sinking deeper into the mattress and taking, letting Soonyoung ring you out to dry with each thrust. Or forcing him on his back and taking every last drop of pleasure he offered.

“S-soonyoung.”

He ignored the command but freed your hands. You only got a moment to scramble for balance as he pulled you up into his lap, sitting on his heels as he fucked you deep. A hand punishingly tight on your ass. Entirely at his mercy.

You fall into a daze like that, nothing more than a limp ragdoll as Soonyoung wrings another orgasm from your body. 

“That’s it,” he cooed against your trembling lips. “Mine. All mine.”

Speech evaded you. All you knew was the feeling of him inside you, the heat he kissed you with. Completely limp, you whimpered.

Yours.

He came like that, trembling and hot in your core, forcing your body harder onto his cock as you promised your soul to him. There’d be bruises on your ass and hips, teeth marks branded into your neck but you didn’t care. You never wanted this to end as he caged you into the bed, both of you limp and sated.

On your back, Soonyoung’s fingers prodded between your thighs, sinking into the mess of your cunt. You couldn’t survive another orgasm so soon but the idea of him stopping silences your concerns. After a few curls, he reveals the dewy pads of his fingers. You’ve already committed yourself to a life of sin. That’s what you tell yourself when you snag his wrist and suck his cum from his fingers, never looking away from him as you swallow. Soonyoung took the taste back with his tongue in your mouth and then with his tongue inside you, collecting his spend before spitting it into your mouth and watching you greedily.

You swallowed and whimpered, “more.”

Soonyoung obliged, lapping at your entrance, leaving wet kisses to your clit that made you twitch. You wanted to pull him off and taste the combined mess. You wanted to soak in the press of his fingers. You wanted him to fuck you until the house collapsed around you two.

He did all those things. Rolled you onto your front and spread your ass, touched you like no one else ever had. He held you against the bookcase in the corner of the room, kissing away the overstimulated tears. Soonyoung balanced you in his lap, whispering praises despite the jerky way you rode him, muscles fatigued. 

You lost all sense of self through it.

Soonyoung’s arms wrapped possessively over your naked body, the moon already dipping low outside the window was what you woke up to. 

“You never told me what you are,” you said.

“I’m yours, and you're mine.”

“Like soulmates?”

“I don’t think that’s a strong enough word.” Soonyoung pulled you further into his chest, his lips dragging over the pulse of your wrist. “I find you in every lifetime.”

“Have you?” you asked, half asleep. “Found me before?”

It was a joke. A demon and a human? Something without a soul bonded to something as fragile as a mortal? It couldn’t work.

“Always,” he said, rolling you onto your back. Every inch of him burned against you, weighed you down into the mattress as if you’d run away. As if the idea would cross your mind to leave him ever again.

“And?”

“It never stops feeling like the first time even if it always ends the same.”

You wanted to ask him how this ended but the words melted on your tongue as he sheathed himself inside you again, opened your heart to him like a flower in bloom. All you could do was splay beneath him, taking everything he offered, sucking his vows of devotion straight from his lips until you both seized with a cry.

Curled around your back, he memorized your body with his hands, molding you to fit perfectly in the curve of him. In the warmth of his body, you drifted off.

This dream didn’t feel like a dream at all.

It was a memory. It had to be Soonyoung’s, because you only recognized the cottage from the other dreams you shared; but those in those dreams it was merely a stage for his torture. You recognized this place. This was home. 

You knew outside the winter had killed off the beautiful flowers he tended to, that up in the attic a cat slept curled up near the bricks of the fireplace rather than chase off any mice. The bed in the corner was barely big enough for the two people who lived here to share. A husband and a wife. The unique little girl from the village who talked to ghosts and everyone vexed in public but begged for help in private. And the boy who burned so bright everyone turned towards him like flowers searching for the last sun before winter.

It was dark outside, the chill of winter creeping in as you tended to the bubbling caldron, stirring just right for the potion to have the effect the mayor’s wife wanted. A simple love potion to stop his affairs meant enough gold pieces so that Soonyoung could afford a new horse.

Humming the incantation, you turned towards the door when your husband arrived. Instead of the dramatic dip and kiss he greeted you with even on the coldest days, Soonyoung opened his bag and began shoving things inside.

“You need to leave.”

It was your demon but not. He lacked the sharp edge of the supernatural you knew him to have. Soonyoung was human and he was your husband. Or he should have been. The Soonyoung you summoned and this Soonyoung blended together. He moved with unnatural speed he didn’t possess before. His shoulders were broader, more intimidating.

You grabbed his arms to stop him from packing but he was too strong.

“What did you do?”

Soonyoung continued shoving valuables in a sack. “They’re on their way here.”

“What did you do?” you cried. 

“I’m protecting you.”

Something was wrong with him. You didn’t know what but this wasn’t the Soonyoung that left the cottage this morning for the mills. He was different. He wasn’t yours.

“No,” you shook your head, “this isn’t right! Tell me what yo—”

“We’ll be together,” he smiled, tears streaking down his face to join yours. “I’ll always find you, I promise. Now go!”

“No,” you argued. 

“You have to go, they’ll kill you if they find you here.”

“They’ll kill us both! I won’t leave you to die alone.” 

But that wasn’t true. If you gave yourself up, they’d let Soonyoung live. His marriage to you was their betrayal. One of their own siding with the woman who kept death around her like an old friend. Soonyoung’s life could be bartered with your own. 

Outside, the darkness morphed into torch light, the hum of an angry crowd swelling as they surrounded the house. There was nowhere to run. 

“You have been accused of witchcraft!” called the mayor. “Come out at once or we will burn this house to the ground.”

Soonyoung pulled you into his chest, hands framing your face. A gold ring had begun taking over the warm brown you’d grown to love. “I will love you until we are nothing but dust.”

Before you could respond, Soonyoung kissed you like he did the night of your wedding and then marched towards the front door, skin glowing a faint gold. You tried to follow but he was too fast, out the door before you could even take a step. 

Then the screaming started.

Clawing at the door, you found it locked. The back one was as well. You couldn’t do anything but try to watch from the soot stained windows as the screaming crescendoed like a boiling kettle.

When it finally stopped, you scrambled for the door once again and opened it to a graveyard.

Blood stained the ground, thick puddles collecting like it rained for days. Lifeless bodies decorated the ground. Some ripped in half, others with their extremities bent at unnatural angles. Skulls indented and bones protruding out. 

You didn’t care.

You searched the dead for hours, until the sun hid behind the clouds and cast everything in blues and greys. The mess of bodies clung to your skin and beneath your nails. You had to breathe through your mouth because the metallic scent became too much. 

No matter how long you searched, Soonyoung’s body was nowhere to be found.

The memory changed. Soonyoung crouched in a dirty cell, a woman with your face sneering at him. A different life where he arrived at your doorstep and you took him in like a wounded animal without any fear. Lifetimes of your bonded souls flashed by, some where you loved him and others where he was nothing more than a pest. The only constant was you never recognized him but despite that, Soonyoung kept loving every new version of you he met even if they refused to love him in return.

You watched your lives play out over and over before finally settling back in your bed, tucked beneath your lover's body as he stroked your hair, your stomach, your thighs. He committed this version of you to memory while you lived the ones forgotten.

“Why?”

He focused on the dip of your waist, fingers curling perfectly like you were made for him to do so. Soonyoung pulled you closer before whispering, “Because an eternity in hell is worth seeing you again, even if it’s only for a short time.”

“Isn’t it torture? When I don’t recognize you?”

This time he didn’t answer. Your heart ached, having felt what he felt in those memories. Soonyoung didn’t care if you couldn’t love him in return, he only cared to hear your voice. He would love you until time ceased to exist. He needed to know you were happy on Earth, that his pain in hell wasn’t in vain even if it didn’t serve him.

“Please stay,” you croaked. 

Soonyoung nuzzled your throat, delaying the obvious truth. 

He was never meant to stay.

“You’re the most you here,” he whispered. “Always summoning things you weren’t supposed to.”

Nudging him away, you looked at him. Really looked at him. The scary demon you once believed haunted your existence stared back. A few hours ago you would’ve wilted under the intensity but now you embraced it. Him. The closer you looked, the more human he became. You didn’t want to hide from him anymore, the man who sold his soul for you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t remember,” you said.  You needed him to know that even if you didn’t recognize him in this life, you believed him. You wanted to remember him. 

“Hear my vow before I go.” He said something else; something in Greek you couldn’t decipher as he pushed your legs apart and rolled into you. Your new memories of your first life together flashed in your head: a secret wedding, making love beneath a full moon, a harvest festival where every other woman in the village watched as you and your husband spun around the room like teenagers drunk for the first time.

You tried to ask him what it meant, but Soonyoung silenced you with a kiss.

When you finally woke up, the sun was high in the sky and the sheets were cold. 

Your skin was pristine where the stain of bruises and hickies and bite marks should be.

You knew the house was empty. Nearly a month of Soonyoung’s presence lurking in your mind, weighing down your shoulders. You knew he was gone. 

But it didn’t stop you from looking.

The other bedrooms were empty, beds made and ready to welcome home their rightful owners. In the kitchen, the accumulated mess from break disappeared; no dishes, or towels, or stains on the cabinet. Dusty books were all that greeted you in the archives.

You saved the worst for last.

You tried to take the steps slowly, delaying the inevitable knowledge that waits beyond the basement landing. But no matter how much you try to pry the seconds apart and make them last, you’re in the empty ritual room staring at nothing.

The circle was gone. The candles and ruins vanished as well. 

Like he never existed at all.

“Soonyoung,” you said, voice cracking.

Nothing.

“Come back.”

Still nothing.

Your demon was gone.

All alone, you sank to your knees, curled on the floor until sleep took you away. Hopefully where he waited for you.

Students were set to return to campus that evening and you weren’t ready for different reasons than a few days ago.

No matter how many times you called for him or followed it with a command to return – whether cursed, spit, or plead – Soonyoung was gone.

You walked the house aimlessly searching, knowing he wasn’t waiting behind a closed door or just up the steps. The dreams you shared didn’t hold him hostage either. There’s no proof he even existed beyond the fading bruises and soreness in your muscles.

The book you brought him with was open in front of you, a circle of salt drawn haphazardly in the corner of your room. If you could summon Soonyoung once you could summon him again. You just needed to concentrate on messing up in the exact same way.

But right as you opened your mouth to being, someone knocked on the door.

Throwing the door wide, you barked. “What?”

“Sorry!” The man jumped back, nearly tumbling down the steps before he caught on the last stair. “I’m Soonyoung, the new grad student. Dr. Credew said we might be able to help each other. He said he emailed you about me.”

You must be hallucinating. This Soonyoung didn’t have the same golden aura as the Soonyoung you knew but he looked the same. Same sharp jaw, fox like eyes. 

But it couldn’t be.

“I…” you trailed.

“This is 1520 Orange street, right? Or am I completely lost?” He joked.

“No, this is it. I must have missed the email. The past few weeks have been…Weird.”

The street bustled with the few early student arrivals but was mostly abandoned. 

“Your thesis is on ritualized sex, yeah?”

You nodded and he said, “Cool. Mine is on Asmodeus and blood rites.”

As the initial shock wore off, the winter chill creeped beneath your robe and you remember that you’re not wearing much beneath. 

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“I—” you choked. “No, I don’t think we have.”

“Sorry, I’m just getting weird deja vu. Really weird,” he said.

“Tell me about it,” you mumbled.

He walked through the house like he’s visited before even though you both know he hasn’t made himself at home in the living room before you excused yourself upstairs to change.

“She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright. Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light. Which heaven to gaudy day denies.” 

You rooted to the spot on the stairs, limbs locked. “What did you say?”

“Are you a fan?”

“Of what?”

He flashes you the cover of a book. A collection of Byron’s poems you don’t remember leaving on the table but must have. The only person in the house all winter break was you. 

“Personally, I think Maid of Athens is his best work.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”

“Maid of Athens, ere we part. Give, oh, give me back my heart! Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest! Hear my vow before I go, Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ,” he recites again, flipping through the pages but not reading them. “She Walks in Beauty is another great one but you seem to know it already.”

Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπ.

My life, I love you.

“Would you like some tea?” you asked, mind half gone.

“Tea sounds great. I can do it while you get dressed.”

He ignored your protest, racing into the kitchen and filling the kettle before you were able to stop him.

In your room, you rushed to get dressed only to find the pair of sweatpants your demon wore folded and tucked away in the back of your dresser. You pulled them on, along with a thick sweater and socks before collapsing onto the bed.

Soonyoung had come back. He returned in a form that might be able to love you in the light of day, in front of others, even if this Soonyoung didn’t know it yet. Maybe this was what he meant. This was the way things always ended in every life, he got to have you before sending you off to be with his mortal self.

The whistle of the kettle beckoned you back downstairs to find out.

“Thank you,” you said as he handed you a mug full of tea. 

Soonyoung shrugs, the fabric of his shirt pulling tight over his chest. “I like being useful.”

Weeks later, after a successful ritual to raise the dead for Soonyoung’s thesis, when you’re both thoroughly debauched —sweaty and pink between the sheets of your bed, the windows fogged and clothes strewn haphazardly about — you find his tattoo.

Soonyoung dozed on his stomach, one arm wrapped around your middle to pull you closer every time he woke back up. Your fingers traced along the dark ink of a double ouroboros, two snakes intertwined, swallowing their own tails, nestled between his shoulder blades. Every loop around the circuit brought you to the same start.

“It means—”

“Fates. Intertwined,” you cut him off.

Silence hung heavy in the air. Comforting, not suffocating. You’ve got new bruises and teeth marks painted over your skin, ones you knew would last. Soonyoung is covered in ones of his own but you feel the need to add more, just to make sure they’re real.

Sooyoung leaned back from your shoulder, pulled your hand to his mouth, lips grazing your knuckles as he spoke. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

“I think some people are destined to find each other in every life.”

“Me too.”

In the afternoon winter sun, the warm brown of his eyes flashed gold.

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