Page 27 of Where the Dark Knelt (Worshipped by Darkness #1)

She reminded me of stories I had heard long ago, whispered between realms, about the high Fae courts and their dragon-guardians…

but there were no dragons here. No Fae courts here.

Only humans and demons walking unnoticed among them.

We demons lived peacefully enough with mortals; more precisely, no one knew about us.

To them, we were myths, old tales, nightmares they refused to believe in when the sun rose.

And that ignorance… it was beautiful.

Of course, there were people and witches who believed.

They summoned us when they wanted power, lust, vengeance, knowledge…

selfish wishes woven into fragile contracts, offering their souls in return.

Each soul tasted different; each one had its own secret flavor of magic, granting us what we craved to survive in this realm.

None of us complained about how this world was arranged. It was… comfortable. Predictable.

But Eveline… she was anything but predictable.

She shifted slightly, placing her basket on a dry rock beside the steaming water.

The roses inside burned along their edges like living embers, flickering softly as if each flower carried its own flame, its own quiet agony, its own secret rebirth.

She looked down at them with a wistful smile, then reached up to her shoulders.

In a single graceful motion, she pulled her dress over her head and let it fall to the ground beside her.

My breath caught so violently it almost hurt. My chest tightened, my cock throbbed painfully against my palm. I let out a quiet moan before I could stop myself.

She froze.

Slowly, almost fearfully, she turned her head in my direction, her damp hair clinging to her bare shoulders, water dripping down her breasts and over her stomach, tracing a path down to the soft curls between her legs.

The moonlight framed her like a painting, a perfect creature carved from innocence and hidden sin.

But even though she turned towards where I hid, even though her gaze seemed to search the shadows, she didn’t cover herself. She stood completely naked, her skin glowing under the silver light, her chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.

She couldn’t see me. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

My hand moved faster along my cock, desperate now, aching with the need to claim what was already mine in every sense except the physical.

My little saint… she looked like she belonged in a cathedral painting, but here she was, nude under the night sky, gathering roses that burned like hellfire.

My body trembled with need, my moans barely contained in the thick dark of the trees.

She stood there a little longer, her head tilted as if listening for something, perhaps for the ragged sound of my breathing, or the racing pulse she could not hear.

But then she simply turned away again, stepping down into the hot spring, sinking slowly until the water reached her breasts and then her collarbones, embracing her in gentle steam.

She closed her eyes, her lashes wet with moonlight and mist, and let out a sigh so soft it wrapped around my soul like a prayer.

A prayer… to whom?

To a god who would not hear her.

Or to a demon who already did.

I gripped my throbbing shaft with desperate urgency, the pleasure cresting as I watched, transfixed and enraptured by her ethereal beauty.

It was impossible to look away, impossible to resist the siren call of her allure.

She seemed to sense my gaze, and with a coy smile playing at her luscious lips, Eveline reached up to cup the ripe mounds of her breasts.

Her fingertips teased and tugged at the stiff peaks crowning each soft swell, a tantalizing display that sent fresh jolts of lust surging through my veins.

Unable to withstand the exquisite torment any longer, I let out a guttural moan as my climax overtook me, my pulsing cock spurting thick ropes of seed in pulsing jets. The ecstasy was fleeting, yet all-consuming, a momentary respite from the relentless hunger gnawing within me.

As the waves of rapture began to ebb, Eveline turned to face me, her hair slick and clinging to her face, rivulets of water coursing down the elegant column of her throat and disappearing into the shadowy valley between her breasts.

The heat in her eyes was unmistakable, a mirror to the inferno raging within me.

In that charged moment, I knew she could feel it too, that irresistible pull, the inescapable magnetism drawing us together like opposite poles of a magnet.

I yearned to gather her into my arms, to feel her soft curves mold against the hard planes of my body, to lose myself in her welcoming warmth until we melted into one.

The need was overwhelming, a primal cry of a beast desperate to claim its mate.

She looked at my side again, but I had already vanished from her field of vision before she could truly search for me.

Shifting silently into a sleek white cat, I padded around her, making sure not to give away even the smallest hint that this creature was anything but an ordinary or perhaps an old familiar stray drawn to her warmth.

I meowed softly and trotted up to her, my tail flicking with calculated innocence.

“Oh my God, Di!” she exclaimed in that sweet voice that could bring entire armies to their knees.

She knelt down, gathering me into her arms with a smile so kind, so gentle, it made something ache deep in my chest. She pressed me against her naked body, the soft peaks of her nipples brushing against my fur as I let out a deep, rumbling purr and closed my eyes, melting into her embrace.

“You came back!” she squeaked, her voice bursting with pure excitement as she pressed me closer to herself, her arms wrapping around me like she was afraid I might disappear again.

I felt her trembling slightly, her warmth sinking into my little body.

For a moment, just one fleeting moment, I allowed myself to imagine what it would feel like in my true form — to have her hold me against her chest like this, to feel her arms wrapped around my shoulders, her body trembling under mine, her lips whispering my name with reverence and longing.

And with that comforting thought, lulled by the rhythmic beating of her heart and the scent of roses clinging to her skin, I drifted into a sweet sleep in her arms.

When morning came, I woke before her prayers began.

Moving silently through her room, I added a few more flowers to her basket of roses, the white garden roses twined with the ashen ones she had picked the night before.

The bouquet was striking. It spoke of fading innocence and blooming temptation, of hope poisoned with decay and reborn into something darker… something eternal.

I left a note among the petals, a simple phrase scrawled in curling black ink:

“The time has come.”

Then I slipped out of her room, disappearing into the thinning shadows of dawn before she could wake to see what I had left behind.

Once again, I ran away. But this time, it wasn’t out of fear or hesitation. This time, it was to prepare.

Ten years… ten years had passed in the blink of an eye.

It felt like I had simply closed my eyes and opened them to find her transformed from a timid young girl to a woman of thirty-one, with gentle lines around her mouth that only made her beauty deeper, more real.

And still, she resisted me. Still, she clung to her prayers and vows, refusing to give herself to me in the world of dreams, no matter how much her body burned with need for me in those silent, hidden hours of the night.

No matter how I tempted her. No matter how sweetly I whispered. No matter how fervently I begged her to surrender… she denied me, as if she understood that these dreams were traps woven by a demon, as if she sensed I was not merely a figment of her mind but a danger clawing at her soul.

Yes… a new plan was needed.

My cock twitched eagerly at the thought, pulsing with the thrill of conquest yet to come. I licked my lips, my body aching with anticipation as I walked into the rising dawn. The time for gentle dreams and whispered temptation was over. It was time for something stronger. Heavy artillery.

First, I would capture her body. Break down every wall until she gave herself to me completely. And then, when her soul lay trembling and open before me, I would take it for myself and bind it to me forever.

The time had truly come.

Chapter Seventeen

Eveline

After so many years of struggling with myself, I think I have finally stepped onto the path of full self-acceptance. Soon, I will take my final vows and become a nun in every sense of the word.

There were so many times over these ten years when I strayed, so many times when I faltered and almost gave up.

Honestly, I’ve lost count of my failures.

But… life has never been perfect, and I have come to terms with that.

I am simply grateful that the sisters chose to give me chance after chance, forgiving my weaknesses and guiding me back whenever I fell away.

With time, I grew accustomed to this life.

Patience became part of my being, and the depression that once gnawed at me from within transformed into something quieter, something that gave way to meaning.

My life became about service: service to others, service to the world, service to God.

Caring for myself faded into the background, a sacrifice that somehow brought peace. Now, only God mattered to me.