Around them, the basin stretched in tense silence.
The demons, both within and without the barrier, had retreated to a respectful distance, their primitive instincts warning them away from the dangerous conversation between powers they could not hope to understand. Fear kept them at bay, their gazes averted, their ears straining but their bodies remaining cautiously distant.
No prying eyes would witness what transpired now. No eavesdropping ears would carry tales of this private exchange.
At least not on Adam's side… that's why Kaelgor put up a barrier on his.
Feeling himself free of any gazes, Adam's grip on Saphira's neck loosened. Then, with a casual, deliberate motion, he let go entirely.
The effect was immediate and harsh.
Without his support, Saphira's battered body had no strength to remain upright.
Her legs buckled, her knees striking the jagged ground with a dull, meaty thud. Her torso swayed, then collapsed, her seductive body crumpling onto the burnt earth like a discarded marionette with its strings cut.
Yet, despite the fall, not a single groan or moan escaped her lips. No gasp of pain, no whimper of protest.
She simply lay there for a moment, her eyes squinted in pain. She lay as a heap of crimson skin and fur, her silence a testament to the depth of her exhaustion and the stubborn fortitude of her pride.
Slowly, with a visible effort that trembled through her entire frame, she began to push herself up.
Her arms, battered and bruised, broken even, shook under the strain. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she ignored them, driven by a stubborn, flickering ember of pride that refused to be extinguished.
Inch by agonizing inch, she raised her torso, her legs folding beneath her, until she was sitting, her back slumped against nothing, her head bowed.
"Sighhh~"
A long, shuddering exhale escaped her small, cute, bruised lips. A sigh that carried the weight of a thousand defeats.
The borrowed fur cloak, under the sudden fall and then the clumsy movements, parted in several places, revealing tantalizing glimpses of the damaged beauty beneath.
Sections of her fair, crimson skin, marked with bruises and stained with the evidence of Adam's possession peeking through the gaps.
Most prominent was the vivid fist-mark on her chest, the bruise a dark, purple-black bloom against her red flesh, drawing the eye inexorably towards the deep, enticing cleavage of her breasts.
The cloak had slipped from her legs as well, revealing the smooth, powerful curves of her thighs, and the faint, glistening trail of mixed fluids—blood, semen, and her own shameful climax, that led inexorably towards her hidden, violated garden.
Kaelgor's gaze, which had been fixed on Adam with cold, indifferent calculation, for the first time, shifted.
It dropped to his daughter's broken, partially exposed form, and for the first time since Adam had met him, his eyes kindled with something other than strategy or suspicion.
They burned with lust.
Not the crazed, all-consuming fire of a devil wholly given to the sin of lust, but a sharp, predatory interest, an unabashed, unrestrained appreciation of the female form presented so vulnerably before him.
He stared at Saphira, at her bruises and her exposed flesh, at the evidence of her recent conquest, with a hunger that was both disturbing and, in the context of hell, entirely unsurprising.
"Magnificent," Kaelgor rumbled, his voice a low, approving growl, "I was always aware of Saphira's beauty, of course. Such was her usefulness. But this…" He gestured broadly at her disheveled, battered form, crouching slightly to get a better, admiring view, "This is the first time I am truly seeing her. Her seductive body. Her struggles," His gaze lingered on the fist-mark, on the glistening trail between her thighs, "I confess, I wonder what it would be like to enjoy her myself. To have taken her as a concubine or wife instead of trading her..."
The casualness of his words was chilling.
He spoke of his depraved, incestuous desire as if discussing the weather; his tone light, almost jovial, as if he had forgotten, for a moment, the gravity of the situation.
He was testing Adam, probing the boundaries of his possessiveness, seeing how the lust-driven newborn would react to the suggestion of sharing.
Saphira, for her part, remained utterly still.
Her head was still bowed, her black hair hiding her face. She gave no indication that she had heard her father's words, no flicker of horror or disgust or fear.
It was as if she had retreated so deep within herself that the outside world no longer touched her.
Or perhaps, she simply had no energy left for reactions, only striving to heal her aching body, her will to draw another breath being the only reasons she had made concession after concession to get to this point.
Adam's smirk did not waver.
He looked from Kaelgor's lustful gaze to Saphira's motionless form, and back again.
"She is beautiful," He agreed, his voice relaxed and casual, "And I have deeply enjoyed my 'gift'," He emphasized the last word, reminding Kaelgor of the transactional nature of their arrangement, "But you should stop looking, old devil, for I will not be giving you a chance with her."
The words were not a suggestion.
They were a declaration, a boundary drawn in the ash and blood of the basin.
Adam was a possessive devil of lust, and his possessiveness was a fundamental aspect of his sin.
It was not merely about ownership; it was about the validation of his power, the proof of his dominance. The woman he had conquered, the bodies he claimed, were his alone.
To share her would be to diminish himself, to admit that his claim was not absolute.
There were, of course, other variations of lust-devils.
Some found a twisted thrill in watching their partners be defiled by others, their arousal fed by the humiliation and the shared experience.
Others took a perverse pride in their beauties, wanting others to lust after and enjoy their prized possessions, proving through them that their choice in trophies were validated.
Others like to showcase their possession, so that others would covet what they could not have, the unattainability itself a source of satisfaction.
But Adam was not one of those.
His lust was intertwined with his pride, his greed, his wrath.
What was his, was his.
The thought of another, especially this cunning, manipulative father, touching what he had claimed was an intolerable violation.
Kaelgor clicked his tongue against his teeth, a soft 'tsk' of mild disappointment.
It was not the sound of a man whose hopes had been shattered, but of a gambler who had placed a small, casual bet and lost.
He was not a devil of lust, not primarily.
His sins lay elsewhere: in fury, pride, greed, in the cold, calculating ambition that had kept him in the first layer for a century.
The desire to sample his daughter's body was a fleeting fancy, a momentary impulse, not a burning need. He had taken a chance to have his fun, but now that the chance had passed, he found he could shrug off the disappointment with relative ease.
"Ah, well," He rumbled, his lustful gaze fading, replaced once more by his usual calculating calm, "It was worth the attempt."
Adam's next words, delivered with a cold, sharp edge, cut through the casual dismissal like a blade through flesh.
"Did you really think," Adam said, his voice dropping to a dangerous tone, "That I would let you fuck my property, Kaelgor? Especially after you tried to have me killed?"
The accusation hung in the air, heavy and damning.
The pretense of cordiality, of mutual respect, was suddenly stripped away.
Everything was laid bare.
Adam knew.
After thinking over the matter logically, he realized that Saphira was never meant to show up alone, but yet she did!
He quickly recalled and dissected Saphira's and his earlier conversation; realizing the truth and lies that were woven to deceive him.
Everything after that was easy; Kaelgor had indirectly manipulated his daughter to go to him and assassinate him, but in the form of completing his end of the bargain.
So now, he was reminding Kaelgor that their alliance was built on a foundation of betrayal, and that trust, once shattered, could not be so easily rebuilt.
Saphira, still sitting motionless on the ground, might have been the weapon for this confrontation, but the true conflict was between the two devils who stood on opposite sides of the barrier.