Crave (2 page)

“You will force my death sooner; you will put in a clause so that I die. I know your ways.”

“I will add to your deal that you will die no earlier than the coming of age of your first born’s child. That gives you nineteen years, Jacob. Interested?”

“Write it and I will read it.”

“Already written.” He untied the string and unrolled the parchment, flipped it and pushed it to Cromwell’s hands. Raising his brow, he studied the old man’s eyes. “Take your time, but remember, your debtors close in each passing moment. Read it as quickly or as slowly as you wish.”

Cromwell studied it, shifting the spectacles on his nose.

“It seems in order.”

“You may not sell my diamond; if you lose it the deal is cancelled. To reap the rewards you must conceal it until my return. Only you need know its hiding place. As soon as you sign, it will happen. Your destiny is in your hands.”

“In blood?”

“But of course. Oh, there is one more condition. The slave Ettie, I want her as my own servant.”

Cromwell nodded and reached into a drawer, pulling out a small knife he used to open letters. He pricked his fingertip and the blood pooled at the incision. Without further hesitation, Cromwell signed. He turned it as it dried and pushed it back to the devil, who read it.

“Thomas.”

The boy walked in and stood still.

Cromwell had the look of confusion on him.

“Did you not read the deal, Jacob, word for word?” The room went cold.

“What have you done?”

“A mere celebratory action for you, Jacob. Stand up.”

Cromwell moved in a rigid manner, unable to control his own body as he walked to the desk’s side and unfastened his pants, allowing them to puddle at his fine leather shoes.

“Thomas, fuck your Master. Fuck his tight ass until he is hoarse in the throat from begging.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The devil rose from his seat.

“Take care of my diamond, Jacob. The parchment is your copy; frame it with pride and treasure the deal. He’ll only fuck your sweet ass once, and then your troubles will be over.”

The boy Thomas dropped his pants. The devil grinned as he unleashed a well-hung phallus. Settling behind his master, he stroked his cock and spat on it, ready to celebrate Cromwell’s newly attained good fortune.

Ettie met the devil in the grand hallway and led him upstairs to a bedroom. On opening the door, the dark perpetrator spied his newly-acquired first born. She was beautiful indeed and subdued by her new Master. She dropped her robe and climbed on the bed. Ettie undressed and joined her as the devil smiled. He too would celebrate with a night of carnal lust. Oh, the things he would do to his two beautiful girls.

––––––––

I
am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

Elizabeth Cromwell snapped the book shut when she read the line. Jane Eyre had always been one of her favorites. Along with all the women that wrote proper dark romance in the gothic eras, full of powerful women pretending to be male. Elizabeth lifted her chin and looked over the stale, ancient library she’d been trapped in for over a year. The decrepit convent which housed a secret order of priests and sisters who combated evil at its core; evil which she knew she’d brought with her when she came to them.

Lonely, desperate, and leaving all her dreams of the future behind—Elizabeth stepped through the heavy oak doors of the convent in Italy and handed her life over to them.

Maybe I should just pretend to be male.

Letting out a strong sigh, she rose from her chair and headed back over to the enormous bookshelves. The library resided on the ground floor, and it was normally icy cold. The cool night of Italy and the stone that built up this place made it the worst, and most calming place in the whole convent.

Elizabeth enjoyed her solace. If she couldn’t go back to school and her friends, she figured she would wallow until she found a way to break this horrible ‘deal’.

A deal that had marked her soul before she’d ever been even a thought on the radar. Then again, wasn’t she fated to exist? Sucking in her bottom lip, she slipped Jane Eyre back in its spot and went back to work. The library housed volumes upon volumes on everything from every translation of the Bible all the way down to exorcisms. She’d exhausted all of her means so far. She’d made a very proud attempt at the age of nineteen to exorcize the devil out of her life.

Elizabeth wasn’t possessed. She was owned. By the purest form of evil known to all of creation—the devil. The Beast had taken every first born female before her. They all went, willing and obedient. They were educated on him, groomed to become his. When their time came at eighteen years of age, they embraced their fate.

Elizabeth was an exception to this ‘deal’.

The moment her parents told her when she was fifteen about the family’s past—how they were so wealthy, and how they maintained wealth through every depression and the rise and fall of the stock market—Elizabeth had been in denial.

Until the first dream.

It wasn’t terrible. She just somehow knew. Deep down inside, Elizabeth knew exactly who the male was visiting her in her dreams. It felt like she was in a
Nightmare on Elm Street
movie. As she got older, the dreams got more intense. He stopped talking and started touching. It was then Elizabeth pushed sleep to only three, four hours a night, if that. She would take powerful antidepressants which seemed to ward him off, and read that fennel plant staved off evil. She started to drink a cup every night before she slept and the dreams stopped.

She felt free. For the first time in two years, hope surged inside Elizabeth.

She should have known better.

College started, and she had a few boyfriends here or there. She was a year off graduating from UCLA when she saw him, leaning against her car. The threat was silent, disturbing, and very real—just the glimmer in his eye, and the wicked smile that curled his lips. So close to a sneer of triumph. He’d found a way around her teas and herbs, and had come to claim her.

She drove back home to Malibu that day and demanded her parents do something, anything. They called a priest and performed her first of three exorcisms. The devil came to her that night in her dreams. He popped up as her professor in one of her classes. He knew every which way to get to her and it was then she realized she needed to discover more.

Forum searches on the web led her to a faceless friend.

Jared253
.

A religious studies minor, majoring in anthropology.

Elizabeth never knew the guy’s actual name. He’d helped her through everything she was going through. He even found this convent, where she now lived.

Reaching for a large, rough-looking tome from the mid-shelf, she went back to her seat. The steaming cup of tea looked delicious in that moment. Elizabeth breathed in the calming steam of chamomile. She’d given up on the fennel when the devil started making appearances in her life.

Flipping through the seemingly endless pages, she scanned through all the known documentations of deals with the devil. They had mountains of these books. It would appear that nearly every successful person this earth had, more than willingly, signed over their souls and that of their families to the devil. Her family seemed to be the only one that signed over the females. They were his breeding ground. His whores.

Elizabeth knew one thing for sure. She was not going to be a slut to the devil. She was her own person with her own soul. Some fucktard from the past couldn’t make a choice for her future. Her life was her life. She was nearly done with her education. She was majoring in computer sciences and she wanted to get a normal job, have a normal relationship, and have babies—babies that wouldn’t be owned by the devil.

Somehow, somewhere deep inside, she felt like she was the link that was needed to break the chain. She was the lone descendent that could end all this bullshit.

Elizabeth remembered being social. She remembered trusting people. Most of all she remembered her last boyfriend. The one she was so ready to sleep with. The moment they had done anything the pain started. Doctor after doctor could tell her nothing. She thought she had cancer; it had been so painful when Robert touched her.

All that added up to was that HE had never left. Always a part of him was embedded in her life to make her hate him, to make her hate her entire being.

She hated him.

And she would have her life back.

Sweat started to bead along her forehead. Her thick, full mane of dark hair suddenly felt hot and stifling. Elizabeth grabbed it in a messy ponytail and twisted it until she could knot it high on top of her head. The room seemed to still around her. Her vision wouldn’t focus. Heat seemed to consume her. On a grumble she pushed away from the table, but turning around to open up the window, she stilled.

The window was open.

Reaching a shivering hand out, she felt the quenching breeze tickle her fingertips. Elizabeth sucked in her bottom lip and turned her back, but the heat didn’t abate. If anything it got worse. She was in tight skinny jeans and a sweat shirt. Normally, it was frigid in this part of the convent. Also, the dress code was ‘keep every inch of your skin covered’. She grabbed the sleeves and shoved them up her arms, giving her body some reprieve.

Heading back over to the table, she reached for the book, ready to get back to reading, when she heard it. It was muffled, and low, but it was something akin to a—moan. Furrowing her brows, she got back up and headed towards the door. She followed the narrow stone passageways until she heard the sound loud and clear through the church doors.

Moaning, panting, breathless mewls filled the halls in this part of the convent. There was no way she’d heard right. Fingers trembling, she gave the door a light nudge and slipped in through the thin crack. The sounds came louder. The confessional in the far corner shivered against the wall.

This could only be two things: a group of teens had gotten in on a dare and were doing this. Or one of the sisters was getting busy in the confessional with one of the priests.

Impossible.

Each step felt like lead filled her toes. She didn’t want to move, but curiosity took over and she was propelled by forces out of her control. Looking back on this later, she was almost positive she would notice the flashing red warning signs that blazed from this whole situation. But now—she was consumed and needed to see into that confessional.

Her fingers reached for the maroon silk curtains that covered the confessor side. She rarely visited the church. You would think someone meant to be the devil’s courtesan would pray until their knees bled. Elizabeth didn’t believe in God, not anymore. No God would allow someone innocent like all the girls before her to be taken by his arch nemesis.

Right?

Brushing the curtain aside, she dropped into the tiny bench and peeked through the blurry grate. Sucking in a breath, pressing her palm flat against her mouth, she froze.

It couldn’t be.

It was.

Something inside her own groin fired up and she found herself getting wet at the sight before her. Sister Margaret lay back against the wall, her cornette still perfectly on her head yet the rest of her habit was stripped away, revealing curves that Elizabeth would kill for. Margaret’s breasts were large and pert, the nipples pointing towards heaven in silent worship to what was being done to her.

Elizabeth pressed her thighs together, fighting off the arousal that thrummed through her body. Nipples poked into her lacy bra, her panties soaked through as she watched the young priest that even she had forbidden eyes for feasting on the sister between her legs. He was growling and snarling against her pussy as she thrust her hips against his face. Her fingers clawed at his scalp as she begged for more. Lapping sounds filled the small space. The scent of sex filled Elizabeth’s nostrils and she fought against her urges.

Flashes of a man touching her, parting her legs and pinning her thighs to a bed of red silk sheets filled her mind.

Yes, my sweet one. Feel it, taste it.

Her tongue swiped over her lips and a salty yet sweet taste burst onto her taste buds. Elizabeth realized in that moment, it was the musky flavor of—female. This female. The sister she trusted, that she’d handed her life over to, was being ravaged by this priest. He tempted her, and all the things she knew to be right and true were exploding in her brain. Her gaze found the man between the sister’s legs again and this time his grey-eyed gaze was on her.

It wasn’t the young priest. No, this couldn’t be right, it couldn’t be him. Her heart punched into her ribcage so hard she felt like she was going to stop breathing at any moment. Her arousal shot up another notch and she reached between her legs to ease the ache that had started to build. She could swear she felt his tongue on her own sensitive clit. His tongue flicked out again and the sister hissed. She mirrored the woman, her head falling back as the building heat started in the back of her neck and traveled down her body. Her fingers found the seam of her jeans and pressed it hard against her aching button. Desire swept through her and she was lost to this wave of heat that teased her nipples, made her breasts swell.

“Please,” she begged.

Oh, God, what was she doing?
This can’t happen
. Blinking her eyes open, she looked up and that wicked, evil smirk was in place on his ridiculously handsome face.

“NO!” she screamed.

She backed out of the confessional and fell. Sprawled on the floor, she hit hard, her ass hitting solid stone. Elizabeth crawled back like a crab before finding her footing, using one of the pews for leverage as she got up to her feet.

This can’t be happening. How did he find me here?

––––––––

T
he devil, or Asmodeus as he preferred to be called, stepped out of the confessional, licking his evil, pussy-coated lips. Elizabeth, his future bride, his rampant sexual submissive to be, stood breathing hard, her fingers red as they held on to keep her steady.