Torturous Love - 3. Chapter 3

I opened my eyes and got instantly confused. My hand was curled in front of my face, and my wrist was bruised. Another hand sheltered mine, slender with short dark fur and tipped with sharp black claws. My back was warm and I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck. Everything ached, I hurt all over and my ankle twinged from the fall.

Something had gone very wrong with my life in the last twelve hours. I seemed to be missing huge chunks of time, and what I could remember was too painful to think about. OK Tobias, why my inner voice called me by my full name I never understood, think about the situation. You’re in a barn. I noticed the holes in the panels. Alright, a disused barn, which means you must still be somewhere in the fields between home and the pub. You didn’t go far.

And now I’m sleeping in the arms of a-a-a a what? What the fuck was going on? I sat up and looked around. It was dusky outside, the sun had gone down and night was creeping in. Apart from falling again there was no other way down from the hayloft. In the last of the light I stared at my captor.

There wasn’t a single word that sprang to mind to describe the creature. Werewolves, zombies and vampires were all good stuff of fiction, but this wasn’t any of those things. The…monster was humanoid and he had short dark grey-ish fur. He had long straight hair and horns. He looked like a cat, that muzzle, but no tail was visible. He was also covered in blood.

Is that my blood?

I looked down at my own skin, bruised, marked, bloody. There were open oozing wounds in my thighs. The sight of the creature fucking me flashed across my inner vision. Fuck. My hand went to my throat, looking for wounds, but all I found was the chain. It was thin and cold. I gripped hard and went to rip it off. The beast’s acid eyes flashed open.

“Don’t do that.”

“Please,” I begged as the creature sat up, “Please don’t do this to me. Let me go.”

“Why?” the devil creatures voice seemed to laugh at me, “Why would I let you go?”

“Kill me then.” I regretted my words instantly. Not a second had passed and now I was flat on my back, the beast over me, hands on my throat, all his weight bearing down over me. Claws punctured my skin. He put his face close to mine and I felt my breath catch in my chest.

“Is that what you really want little Toby?” I didn’t remember telling him my name, “You want to die at the hands of a demon?”

I wanted to say yes, to have death come and take me. But my mind wanted my body, I wanted to be alive. I shut my eyes, tears falling from my face. It was fully dark now, the hayloft was silent except for our breathing.

“You’ll make a good plaything.” The beast said, “Very unusual.” The darkness made his voice complex, almost seductive. When I had woken during the day he had sounded almost human. Pissed off and able to crush me if he so wished, but human.

I knew about a second before the pain blossomed through me that he was going to hurt me again. His claws tore into my chest, blood pooling and dripping down my sides. The pain was unimaginable. Repaired nerve endings fired through my body and I only realised my scream when I stopped. I hated that I was conscious, and I hated that I could focus on his face and see in those eyes what on any human I would call lust.

Hurting me gave him pleasure. I wondered if I screamed that his pleasure would be less. Claws stabbed into my bicep and I gritted my teeth against the pain. There was a sickening sensation of claws on bone. The beast looked just as delighted. I whimpered. Sharp fingers clawed at the firm flesh of my rear, streaks of blood following them. The beast dipped his fingers into the blood that pooled in the wounds of my chest. My brain followed the conclusion of that gesture before I’d fully realised it.

“Oh no,” I tried to wriggle away from him, “No. Don’t. Don’t do this to me!”

Fingers warm and wet with my own blood circled my rim and the devil beast chuckled.

“Oh to see you in such torment…” his sharp fingers plunged past my opening and I cried out in pain and terror, “Is so delicious.”

His fingers pushed inside of me, stroking my tight flesh. I tried to push him away but his free hand held my wrists tightly. We both stared at our collective extremities.

“No, no, please don’t.” I was shamed by my words. Was is better to let this beast rape me, lubricating me with my own blood, than to break my wrists again? My body certainly thought so. The demon grinned possessively, and I realised that it wasn’t my choice to have one or the another. He grabbed my hand, pressure, he squeezed the centre of my palm and I screamed, the muscles in my jaw nearly tore apart as a thin bone inside my hand snapped in his fingers.

The beast above me hissed, a sharp intake of breath, and the lust in his eyes redoubled.

“Ahhh…” his voice was low on the edge of my hearing, “Such beauty…”

Wet fingers inside me stroked at a bunch of nerve ending that sent spasms through my body. My teeth set in my lips and I tasted blood.

“I’m not so selfish as all that,” the demon smiled, and I felt his teeth at my neck. Fangs grazed across my skin, his tongue, slightly rough, lapped at my skin. I scrunched up my eyes, hoping to block out the sensations of my body, and felt the licking change. The beast was kissing my neck. I squirmed, half wanting to get away, but his fingers inside me turned and claws touched at my most sensitive flesh. I stopped squirming. “Well done. I see we’re learning.”

My hand was a funny shape, kind of lumpy and going purple in the centre where the bones were broken. I was going to be crippled. Hardly, you’re gonna be dead. I shook my head to silence my inner voice. The beasts hand closed over mine, I snarled in pain, the bones grated against each other and made by stomach flip. I thought I was going to throw up. The kissing on my neck stopped. The demon’s fingers still moved inside me, stroking pleasure through my system, and his rasping tongue touched the broken place in my hand.

The sensation of bones knitting together was almost as painful as them breaking apart. My brain was preoccupied with the pain in my hand and the devil beast removed his fingers from me. I felt the hot hardness of the demon’s erection pushing against me. I’d been wrong, this was worse, and I didn’t want it. The beast smiled.

There was a moment of tension, my ring refusing to open for him, but he plunged fingers into my shoulder and tore down towards the bone in my arm. It was enough distraction to force other muscles to abandon their protest. I screamed and he thrust his cock inside of me. I pushed his chest away from me, trying to keep him from me in any way I could but it was useless. My muscles were like custard, and he was strong, the rolling muscles of his chest like steel against my hand.

The demon’s face was hovering above my own, his mouth close to mine. I turned away, eyes tight shut again the acid look of lust and want in his eyes. My brain snapped that I’d left my neck exposed about a second after it was too late. Pain blossomed, stabbing down the side of my jaw and my neck. Tendons broke and tore with a ripping noise that made my stomach turn even more than grating bones. My breath started to hitch and come short in my throat, blood was bubbling from my lips. There was a wet trickle in the back of my mouth that made me want to cough.

The beast was panting, half growls and odd purrings in my ear. He slurped at my neck, teeth nibbling at the skin of my neck. With each thrust pain and pleasure were getting mixed up, but I was losing blood. The demon seemed unable to stop himself, claws dug into my hips, blood flowed and trickled across my skin, and I shivered. The heat building inside me where the demon thrust could not combat the chill that spread through my limbs.

Death was coming. I was going to die. And I didn’t want to.

My brain was screaming inside my skull. I had longed for death, and end to this pain and torture. And now that I could feel it coming, blackness creeping into my vision, numbness spreading through my limbs, I didn’t want it. I wanted to live. Even with pain, the hot shame of unwanted pleasure, the tearing of skin and muscle and snapping of bones I wanted to live.

My good hand reached out, fumbled, and grabbed hold of the beast’s hair. He snarled, and I struggled to focus on his face.

“No.” I fought with my voice, trying to get it to do what I wanted in my broken throat, “I don’t wanna die.”

“Ah shit…” the beast’s yellow eyes looked wide and sort of panicked, and then the blackness was crawling in, and then there was nothing.

The dream was good. Everything was soft and warm. I lay on a bed of wool, on my back, and some dream figure loomed above me. He was beautiful, but indistinct, strong arms, a torso made of thick rounded muscles and tan skin, big wide shoulders. His fingers touched at my genitals, cupping my balls, big fingers stroking softly. His lips were warm and wet on my neck, moving down my body. I could feel my cock hardening under his hands, my breathing was loud. A warm mouth closed over me, his tongue running along my length and causing me to shudder. Hands wandered over my skin, teasing my nipples, gripping and massaging the muscles of my chest. I gasped under his hands, under his expert mouth and as my pleasure rose the dream began to fade…

I was hungry.

That was a weird first sensation to have. But I hadn’t eaten in more than a day, and my stomach was making itself vocal. I didn’t want to open my eyes and see where I was, I was scared to see where I was.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, warm, soft, fuzzed with fur. My eyes snapped open. I was still in the hayloft, but I was lying on a blanket, which was clean and looked relatively new. It was defiantly soft. I raised my head and saw just beyond the edge of the blanket there was food. Looked and smelt like bacon sandwiches. I lifted myself up on my elbows. The devil beast was lying next to me on his back, one arm still holding onto my shoulder. He winced as the light hit him and I realised I’d pulled the blanket back over him before I’d even thought about it. I reached for the plate and wolfed down the first sandwich without thinking. I sat up and felt the beast’s hand move down my side to my thigh, never losing contact. I munched through the second sandwich and looked down at myself.

I was healed. I was a mess. Dried blood, fresher blood, mud, dirt, grass stains, dried semen. I ran a hand through my hair pulled out twig and bits of straw. The only permanent marks on my skin were shiny pink scars and purple bruises touched with yellow. I used my right hand, the one that hadn’t been broken or had the wrist snapped, to feel over the rest of my body. No broken bones, no deep wounds, my neck was fine, I rolled my head around and cracked my knuckles. I could hardly believe I was alright.

I finished the sandwich and sat on the blanket, the beast with one grey furred hand still wrapped around my ankle. The exploration of my hand had found the chain still attached around my neck. I tugged at it but it would not break. I wondered what it was for.

The blankets were thick and plaid, woollen, red and green. He must have left while I was asleep to get them, and the sandwiches. Through the gaps in the panels of the barn I tried to make out the angle of the sun. Low and sort of toward the pub. It was mid-afternoon. I counted back nights and realised it must be Sunday. I would be due at the pub, my family had no idea where I was. Were the police out looking for me? Would there be someone roaming the fields outside the barn if I shouted?

Surely the blood in the road and on the verge where I’d been attacked would show I hadn’t simply run away. Teenagers didn’t exactly go missing a lot around here. There’d been Matt’s older brother a couple of years ago who actually run away to join the circus. But he’d called like every day so that everyone knew he was OK, and came back every couple of months to visit his parent and his brother. I had no phone, no clothes, and not a single earthly possession.

You’re sitting in a hayloft with a…furry thing with horns. This wasn’t exactly the plan.

I put my head in my hands and whimpered. I’d begged the demon not to kill me, to let me live. Even though the pain had been immense, the shame of what he’d done to me burning my insides even now. I’d begged him to let me live. Death would have been so much easier.

Why had the beast not killed me? It couldn’t just be to keep me alive, he’d gone and got food, and blankets. He…what? Cared about my comfort? My brain was refusing to wrap around that concept. How could a beast that had raped me and had murdered me more than once care about my comfort? I drew me knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I was sort of cold, but more worrying was the chill that wrapped around my heart. My skin didn’t hurt though my muscles were sore and where my bones had been broken I felt weak, but my insides burned with shame. My arse was raw, my butt felt like I’d been sitting on rocks and sharp things. I felt…stretched, thin, and ashamed. I hung my head and cried.

The sky was getting grey and dim by the time I looked up again. The blankets over the beast moved, his hand around my ankle, tensed and relaxed, and the creature grappled with the plaid wool. I dragged the blanket off him. Apart from the blood which turned his fur nearly black the beast looked no worse for his sleeping in a hayloft. His hair was still impossibly soft and smooth and tangle free, his fangs sharply white in his muzzle.

“Did you eat yet?”

“Yes.” I was surprised at how normal his voice was. Not smoothly seductive or grumpy as he had been in the sunlight, but like an ordinary person.

“Sorry it was cold. You didn’t look like you much wanted to wake up.”

“That’s OK,” I clamped a hand over my mouth, horrified by what I’d just said. This was so much not an OK situation, “Why did you save me?”

“You asked me too.” The answer was a simple one, “And a good thing too, I was so distracted I hadn’t realised you’d started to slip away.”

“What are you?”

“A demon. Are we playing twenty questions because I think I know a bunch of the other ones already.”

I shut up. I wiped my eyes, it must be obvious to him that I’d been crying. My cheeks were wet and my eyes were probably red and my lips tasted of salt.

“My name is Zai,” his voice cut through me and I felt something deep inside, something that was not me, respond to his name.

I touched the chain on my neck.

“And what about this? What is this?”

“Chain of Possession,” you could hear the capital letter when he spoke, “It claims you as mine. You can go very far from me. And the longer you wear it the more influence I’ll have over you.”

“Are you going to hurt me again?”

“Not tonight Toby, not tonight.”