Page 26 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

I burst out of Laphriel’s eerie room, still breathless from his touch, and let the door slam shut behind me. I’m back in one of the hallways of the mansion, the flowered wallpaper peeling off in strips, a broken chandelier hanging sideways overhead.

I honestly don’t know what the fuck is going on.

I dart forward, moving as quickly as I can. Not that it matters. If he wants to find me, he’ll find me.

He doesn’t, though. Not right now. I move through the chained rooms of the house: a dining room with a sagging oak table, an office lined with moldering old books, a sunroom that looks out over the ocean.

That’s where I finally stop, my hands falling to my sides as I gaze through the grimy glass walls. It’s hot, the sun bearing down through the glass, but I can hear the ocean, and if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine that I’m outside. That I’m free of this nightmare.

Nightmare . The word jars around in my head. And yet I still let Laphriel touch me back there. I let him sink his fingers inside me until I was shuddering with pleasure.

I chose it.

I put my hands on the warm glass, like I might be able to push through. But I know I can’t. Not just because of the glass itself, but because there’s that oil slick shimmer on the other side, turning the mansion into a prison.

Something clicks in the corner, and I whip around, expecting to see Laphriel. He’s not there, though, and I’m not sure if I feel relieved or not.

Something else is, though. A dark slither of a tail thrashes against the wall and then disappears into the hallway.

I frown, not sure what to make of it. An animal? I haven’t seen any for the last few days, but the house is falling apart, so it’s not exactly a surprise.

Whatever it is, I can hear it scraping and scuttling around in the hallway. I step forward, cautious, and peer out

A thick, dark blur vanishes into an open doorway across the hallway. Had that door even been open when I walked by? I could swear it wasn’t. That everything had been shut up tight.

I step out, my eye on the open doorway. If it is an animal, there must be some way to get in and out. Maybe a gap in the boundary. Or some other hidden path out of here and back to my life.

The thought brings me up short. I’ve been focused on escaping, but what exactly is waiting for me in my old life?

A low-paying job serving tourists? A falling-apart old swamp house that, quite frankly, isn’t in much better condition than this one?

An escape fund that I have to keep pulling from every time my bills come up short ?

No. It doesn’t matter. I can’t stay here. That I would consider it, even for a half second, is absurd

I step into the doorway. It’s too dark to see anything in the room clearly, since the windows are covered with a thick, impenetrable veil of passionflower vines.

That skittering, scraping sound picks up again, and I squint against the darkness, trying to see what it is. I can just barely make out movement in the corner, but something’s definitely there, hunched and low to the ground.

All of Laphriel’s words from earlier run through my head, the whole confusing jumble of them. Choices and pleasure and how I’m a fragile little thing. A human.

I step backward, moving back into the hallway, and the thing in the corner looks at me with two red, glowing eyes.

For a moment, we only stare at each other, and I can sense the malevolence radiating off of it.

Then it launches itself at me, a black missile that shoots straight for my chest. I scream and duck, moving more quickly than I think possible. The thing crashes into the wall, plaster and wood scattering across the hallway.

And I get my first real look at it. At first, I think it’s an alligator. I mean, it looks like an alligator. But alligators can’t launch themselves through the air, and this thing is scrabbling around too quickly, moving with the whip-crack of a snake.

Then it’s facing me again, and it has bloody-red eyes and odd, flowery growths pushing out from between its scales, with the same quivering petals as the passionflowers that are everywhere in this house. It opens its mouth and hisses, a sound like steam escaping from a kettle.

Then it lunges at me again.

I move without thinking, like I did before. But this time, I don’t duck. Instead, I catch the alligator around its neck.

For a moment, I can only stare at it in disbelief as it thrashes and whips its tail around and snaps its enormous, cavernous mouth.

I don’t know how the hell I’m holding this thing because it’s enormous, nearly the same height as me, and I can feel its muscles fighting against my own.

It also has more teeth than an alligator should.

At least three rows of them, jagged and stained and stinking of carrion.

Then it slams its tail into my waist. Pain erupts in my side, and I react again, flinging the alligator down the hallway. How I managed that, I have no idea.

It leaps again, moving in a way alligators definitely do not move, and I jump out of its way and?—

And I don’t come down.

The alligator slams into the floor, splintering the wood, but I just float a few feet above the ground. Weightless.

The alligator bellows, so loud that the walls of the house shake. I scream back at it, a wordless wail of frustration, and kick out like I’m in water and trying to swim away. It doesn’t do much good.

The alligator bellows again, red eyes fixed on me. The muscles tense in its legs.

It’s going to jump. It’s going to launch itself at me like it did before. I kick more furiously, trying to move out of the way, but it’s like I’m caught in a whirlpool, like I’m fighting against the tide.

The alligator leaps like a cat. I scream and cover my face, bracing for death.

And then there’s a pale flash and a sickening ripping noise and blood. The blood is everywhere: splattered across my dress and hair, dripping off the walls, seeping across the floorboard.

Laphriel hangs suspended in the air across from me, his cruel wings spread wide. He drops something that hits the floor like a sack of wet laundry.

Then he looks up at me.

I sob and retch, the blood sticky and hot against my skin. “What did you do?” I scream. “What was that? Why am I?—”

Laphriel flashes over to me, wraps his arms around my waist, and drags me sideways through the walls. I scream the entire time, flailing against him. I’m so upset, so frustrated, and so confused that I don’t even think to be frightened.

We arrive back in my room, although it takes me a minute to recognize it. The passionflower vines are everywhere, draping along the walls, their blossoms enormous and quivering. Their scent is overwhelming, a sickly sweetness like rotting meat.

Laphriel lowers us both down to the floor. As soon as my feet touch, I jerk myself away from him and claw at my blood-soaked dress, desperate to peel it away from my skin.

“Allow me to help,” he says softly.

“Go fuck yourself!” Somehow, my blood-sticky fingers land on the zipper, and I yank it down and rip the dress off, realizing a second too late that I’m naked underneath. And still covered in that creature’s blood, anyway. It soaked through the fabric.

“I need a bath!” I shriek, whirling around to face him. “And you need to?—”

His eyes drink me in, all twelve of them running up and down my body. Whatever I was going to say evaporates on my tongue, burned away under the intensity of his hungry, desperate gaze.

His black tongue slips out and runs along his lips.

“What was that?” I say weakly, drawing my arms up to cover my breasts, crossing my legs to hide my pussy. “I know it wasn’t really an alligator, even if it?—”

“It was an alligator.” Laphriel steps up to me and takes my hands and pulls them away, baring my breasts. I let him. Why do I let him? “Living beneath the house. It changed.”

“Changed?” I whisper weakly.

Laphriel nods and bows his head toward me, his long tongue unrolling out of his mouth. Unlike before, I watch it, black and snakelike, as it crawls across my chest, lapping up the blood.

“What are you doing?”

Laphriel lifts one pair of eyes to meet mine as his tongue twines around my throat. I tremble, waiting for his answer. I want to push him away. I also don’t want him to stop.

He drags his tongue back into his mouth and straightens up. “I told you. Suffering is my nourishment. Lay down. I’ll clean you.”

The idea sends sparks through my core, but I shake my head, firm in my resolve.

“I want a real bath, and I want you to tell me what the fuck is going on.” I jab my finger toward the door.

“Why was that alligator changed? Why did I—fight it? And fly? I can tell something’s happening here, and if you won’t explain it, I’ll?—”

I falter. Do what, exactly? It’s not like I have any leverage.

Laphriel makes a strange face.

“You’ll lie on that bed,” he says calmly. “Allow me to consume my nourishment. And I will answer any question you have.”

I glare at him. “No.”

I brace myself for rage, but instead his lips curl up, revealing a flash of sharp teeth. “What if I allowed you a bath?” He smirks. “A real one?”

I open my mouth to protest, but come up short. A bath. Something to make me feel normal again.

Laphriel’s smile widens. There’s something beautiful about it, but also cruel, and I think of what he told me earlier, about me choosing. This is what the devil does, isn’t it? I remember that much from church. He tempts you into sin.

That’s what’s happening here. I’m Eve in a tropical garden, surrounded by passionflower vines, and he’s the serpent offering me a bite of knowledge.

I take small, shuffling steps backward until I bump against the side of the bed. Laphriel moves toward me, slow and predatory.

“Lie down, Natasha,” he says softly, his hand trailing up my arm. The unspoken part rings in my ears: Give in to me .

I sink backward, stretching myself out on the bed. Laphriel’s eyes glitter, and I can feel the weight of every single one of them.

“A good choice,” he murmurs, climbing onto the bed and then on top of me. I feel his erection, stiff and hot through his clothes, and I shiver with fear.

Fear, and excitement.

“Now,” he says, nuzzling his nose through my hair. “Let’s begin.”