CHAPTER FOUR
DAMIEN POV
The first time the voice spoke inside my head, it wasn't a whisper.
It was a command—heavy, absolute, and nothing like my own.
Take her. Now.
My entire body stiffened.
My thoughts scattered like frightened birds.
No… I can't… I don't even know her, I tried to think, to shove the voice out.
But the darkness inside me swallowed my protest like smoke disappearing into night.
The voice pressed harder, filling my mind until I felt nothing else.
You said you'd go as far as she wants. This is what she wants. Take her.
The room around me flickered, bending at the edges like heat rising from asphalt.
Then—
Everything changed.
I wasn't sitting in the bar anymore. I wasn't surrounded by noise or cheap music or drunks shouting at each other. The hard chair was gone from beneath me. The glass that should have been in my hand wasn't there either.
I was standing in a room I had never seen before.
Soft golden lights glowed from a single lamp. Deep curtains covered the windows, muffling the world outside. A large bed dominated the space, white sheets spread perfectly across it.
The air smelled of jasmine and something darker—something that tingled against my skin.
I swallowed hard.
"How did I get here?" My voice sounded hollow, like the words came from someone else's throat.
She was suddenly close.
Too close.
"You ask too many questions," she said.
Her beauty was sharper in this light. Almost unreal. Her skin glowed with a faint shimmer, not from makeup, not from sweat—something more. Her eyes seemed deeper now, shifting gently, as though shadows moved inside them.
A warning pulsed through my veins.
Move away.
Run.
Escape.
But my body didn't listen.
Something—some force I didn't understand—pulled me toward her.
Before I could think or breathe or decide, I reached for her. My hand slid around her waist. My fingers curled against the warm fabric of her dress. And then—
I kissed her.
No hesitation.
No thought.
No choice.
Cold and hot at once.
Soft but biting.
Her lips felt like sin shaped into flesh.
I should have pulled away. I should have fought. I should have remembered every warning my mother ever whispered to me.
Instead, I leaned in deeper.
And that's when I felt it.
Something crawled out of her mouth into mine.
Not a tongue.
Not a breath.
Not physical.
Not human.
But real.
A dark, thick presence—like liquid shadow—slid down my throat. It filled my lungs, pushed into my chest, coiling around my heart.
My body convulsed violently. My muscles spasmed, my fingers digging into her arms so hard I felt my nails press into her skin.
I tried to pull away—God, I tried—but her hands held my face in place, steady and unmovable, like stone wrapped in silk.
Then the visions hit me.
Fire everywhere.
Rivers of flames rising and twisting into shapes that looked like screaming mouths.
Shadows crawling along walls.
Bodies writhing in pleasure and pain, tangled together like vines.
Voices chanting in languages I had never heard but somehow understood.
Hands stretching from an endless void, reaching for me, dragging me, claiming me.
Pain exploded in my skull—sharp, bright, infinite.
Then—
Silence.
A deep, unnatural silence that felt wrong.
Empty.
Echoing.
The presence inside me settled into place with a slow, deliberate weight—like it belonged there. Like it had been waiting.
My heart beat once.
Too hard.
Twice.
Harder.
A third time.
Different.
Heavier.
Hungrier.
She pulled back from the kiss, and I gasped for breath. But the air wasn't air anymore. It felt thick. Sweet. Strange.
"Congratulations," she whispered. Her voice was almost tender. "From today, you belong to us."
"Us?" My voice came out rough, broken.
She lifted her hand and placed it over my chest. Heat radiated from her palm, sinking into my skin, spilling into my bones.
"You wanted success," she said softly. "Power. Freedom from poverty. Doors opened. Paths cleared. All of that comes with a cost."
My mother's Golden Rules thundered through my mind.
Don't look twice at what you don't want.
Don't hold what will hold you back.
Don't go where you're not seeking anything.
I had broken all three in the span of a single night.
And now something foreign lived inside me—something dark, something hungry.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
She smiled gently, the kind of smile a mother might give a child on their first birthday—warm, soft, loving.
But this smile was wrong.
"I'm the one who came when you were desperate enough to say yes."
She leaned closer, her lips brushing the shell of my ear.
"And he," she added, tapping my chest once, "is the one who will never leave."
Fire roared through my veins. Pure agony. Pure power.
I screamed.
And the world collapsed into darkness.
---
When I opened my eyes, sunlight filled the room.
I was lying in my bed.
My small mattress.
My cracked ceiling.
My broken fan squeaking in the corner.
Normal.
Too normal.
My mother stood in the doorway, relief flooding her eyes. She said she thought I had just come home late and collapsed from exhaustion. I didn't tell her otherwise. I simply told her I quit the bar.
Then I showed her the bank alert.
She cried—real tears of joy.
In one week, she paid off every debt.
In one month, our landlord started greeting us respectfully.
In three months, I was registered to take my exams.
Life shifted.
Everything shifted.
But the biggest shift was in me.
At first, it was subtle.
Dreams—dark, vivid, filled with shadows and whispers.
Then desires—
I started seeing people differently.
Their wants glowed around them like colors.
I could feel what they craved.
Hear their unspoken wishes.
Sense their fears.
People said yes too quickly.
They touched me too eagerly.
They leaned in too easily.
And every time I gave in—
Every time I touched someone—
Every time I allowed desire to unfold—
The dark presence inside me purred.
It was alive.
Awake.
Growing.
That night, the poor boy named Damien died.
And the creature inside me opened its eyes.
I became an incubus.
A seducer.
A weapon.
A servant of shadows.
A collector of willing souls.
---
Now, in the present, I sit alone in my car. The engine hums. The night outside is thick with the kind of darkness that feels familiar to me now.
My fingers drum against the steering wheel.
Ashley has no idea.
She has no idea what walks the city after midnight.
What watches her from the shadows.
What sent her a message without ever touching her phone.
She doesn't know what I am.
Not yet.
But she will.
Because unlike that night when the shadows chose me…
This time, I am choosing.
And I have already chosen her.
I want her.
And what I want—
I always take.