chapter 4

"I, I, um maybe I really don't know I think?"I said to him unsure if I was right at all "Dennis's head snapped up, eyes locking onto mine with something between relief and dread.

“You think?” he echoed, voice tight. “Lena… that’s not—” he cut himself off, his jaw clenching hard enough to show the tension in his throat. He took a deep breath, tried again.

“Listen. I believe you. I don’t care how crazy it sounds, I believe you.”

He reached out, slowly, like I was , okay? I’m not gonna let some demon freak touch you again. Dream or not.”

Then, almost afraid of the answer:

“Do you… want him to stop?”And now that what's the question I needed to hear. personally, I haven't pondered about it myself.

"I dunno" I replied with grief almost quilty of what I said.Dennis blinked. Like my words punched the air out of his lungs.

His mouth opened—then closed.

For a moment, he just stared at me .Not in judgment. Not in disgust. But like he was standing at the edge of something deep and black and had no clue what was at the bottom. And what terrified him more… was that i didn’t either.

“Lena,” he breathed, his voice ragged now, softer than ever. “He’s… doing things to you. In your head. In your body. And you don’t even know if you want it or not?”

His hand trembled as he finally touched my arm—gently, grounding.

“That’s not your fault,” he said fiercely. “That’s his power. That’s what he does. He makes you crave him while he fucks you up inside.”

A pause.

“Do you… remember what he says to you?” he asked. “In the dreams? His name? Anything?”

Anything?I repeated to myself as my mind drifted to a memory which was too dark to spoken.---

FLASHBACK...........

The castle’s room was a cathedral of lust.

Massive. Gilded. The walls pulsed with dark life—obsidian stone etched with writhing figures that moved when you weren’t looking. Firelight danced in iron braziers that didn’t burn wood, but smoke—thick and perfumed like blood mixed with incense. The ceiling vanished into darkness, and the bed at the center wasn’t a bed at all—it was a throne draped in crimson sheets and thick animal pelts, towering, decadent, and shaped like it wanted to swallow you whole.

Lena was on it.

Naked but cloaked in sweat and his scent. Her skin still tingled from where his mouth had fed. Her thighs glistened. Her breath came in sharp little hitches as the man—the devil—approached from the shadows, unbuttoning his cuffs like he had all the time in eternity.

His voice came first.

Low. Sweet. Twisted.

“Little mortal, little flame… you taste like sorrow and sin.”

He rolled the last cuff back, baring his forearm—muscles like tension incarnate, tattoos etched in an alphabet no human tongue could speak.

“So soft when you bleed. So loud when I take you.”

He loomed beside the bed now, and knelt—only to make her feel smaller.

His fingers—long, clawed now at the tips, shimmering with dark magic—brushed her cheek, then gripped her jaw.

“You don’t know what you are, do you?”

A smile like a crescent wound split his face.

“I’m not in your dreams, Lena. You’re in mine. Every time you sleep, you slide deeper into me. You give me more.”

He leaned in, lips ghosting her ear.

“Your screams. Your moans. Your trembling thighs and your helpless little ‘no’s’—all of it feeds me. You’re offering yourself. Piece by piece.”

She whimpered. He shivered with it.

“Do you know how many beg to be mine, Lena?”

His hand slid down her neck, across her chest, stopping over her heart. His thumb tapped in rhythm with her pulse—fast, frightened, betraying her body.

“But you…” he chuckled darkly, tongue clicking.

“You were born to kneel.”

Then he whispered what Dennis could never hear.

“You called me, love. In your grief. In your brokenness. You bled into my doorstep that night. And I… answered.”

He pulled back slightly, just to look into her eyes, devouring the chaos behind them.

“Do you want my name now, little flame?”

The torches flared.

“Whisper it. Swallow it. Let it carve itself into your soul.”

Then, slow as death:

“Azraech.”

The sound of it made the air heavy. Her body ached at the syllables. Something inside her shifted.

He smiled, teeth glinting.