Devoured: A Dark Monster Romance Novella (Pythonissam Filia), page 8
“Ysu…” I choked out, unsure of what I was asking him. Drool dripped from my swollen, tingling lips as I tried to decided if I wanted him to stop this torture, or never end it.
His tongue extended, licking it from my chin as his spider arms tugged at the silk that kept me aloft. My suspension was a mastery of attachments and pulleys, and I flipped over, my back no longer arched. He stepped between my legs, spreading them wider. He traced the length of his bottom cock through my soaked heat, and I could see my arousal coating him slowly.
He tugged another thread, and I rose to be nearly in a seated position.
“You are mine. I think it is time you take me completely.” He grinned.
“You mean…both? At once?” The thought sent shivers through me, and they weren’t because of fear.
Serrated claws danced over my skin, making the tingling there almost unbearable. They traced around my swollen breast until I was writhing again. He stroked down his cocks, coating his fingers and palm in the thick precum he produced.
Then he swiped his thumb over my clit, circling it torturously slow. But with the restraints and pressure all over my body, and the incessant teasing of his claws I felt ready to combust at just that small touch.
His smirk told me he knew it. “We have all night. Why rush things?”
“Ysu, if you tease me much more, you may not survive the night.” The boldness of my words took me by surprise, but not as much as the heat that rose in his eyes.
“Such a violent thing when angered.” His words dripped with approval. His thumb circled tighter, and my legs shook in their restraints. He watched my chest rise and fall with each pant as I got close…so close…
As the pressure in my core built nearly to that point of no return, I felt his other slicked fingers press into the tight ring of my ass.
“Ysu…” I felt myself clenching down again.
“You are safe. Surrender to me. Trust me.”
He pinched the flesh around my clit, and I took one last deep breath, relaxing to let him in as my orgasm consumed me.
He groaned in approval, his finger working me open with each shudder of pleasure. He coated himself with more precum before slowly pressing back in with two fingers this time, and the sting was even less this time.
“If I flip you over, it will be easier–”
“No.”
He paused.
“I want to see you.” The words admitted more than I wanted, but trust was a sword that cut both ways.
His face revealed nothing, but then his spider arms tugged at the web again so we were face to face, and his lips found mine.
It was a tender kiss, not filled with claiming but something softer. I closed my eyes, swiping my tongue over his bottom lip. He returned the gesture playfully, and something in my chest cracked open. This was what intimacy could be, not just pleasure, but connection.
He continued to gently toy with me, opening me even more with his fingers, but he didn’t rush. He kissed me, and I knew he would until I was ready. I reveled in the taste of him, the strange sensation of running my tongue over the venom sacks behind his fangs, and how he would shudder as I did. Small drops of venom emerged, and they tasted sweet. They fed the tingling in my skin until heat built in me again that I couldn’t ignore.
I pulled back, and all of his eyes watched me closely.
“I’m ready.”
There was no smirk this time, only reverence as he held me with all his arms, positioning himself against me. His fingers retracted and were replaced with the broad head of his larger cock. He pressed slowly, and the stretch was intense as he entered my cunt and my ass, but he held me close, and our breath mingled as he guided my breathing.
“Ysu…”
“I have you, my neidr.” Inch by inch, I took him. It was slow, but inevitable. The tingling of his venom beneath my skin died down, and all I felt was him.
He bottomed out, and for one more moment he held me close, placing a gentle kiss on my temple. “You’re doing so well.”
His hand locked around my throat, just tight enough for me to feel my heartbeat beneath his fingers. The other gripped my breast, while his spider limbs held my hips and spread my legs. He slid back, before snapping his hips forward, and my eyes rolled back.
Over and over he claimed me, each thrust more desperate than the last. All eight of his eyes squeezed shut as his grip tightened, and I realized he was just as overcome as I was.
“Ysu, look at me.”
His gaze locked with mine, and I wanted to touch him more than anything. I struggled to free my arms, and he sliced the silk off with one swift motion. I grabbed his face, holding his forehead against mine. His dark eyes shimmered in the moonlight, and for a moment there was absolutely no barrier between us.
I kissed him again and our bodies convulsed in unison, rapture flowing through us as our orgasms chased each other.
“My perfect neidr. In all the dark corners of this world, in all the forgotten places where old magic sleeps, there is nothing more beautiful than you, here in my arms.”
Chapter 11
Ysu
My serpent sat at the heart of my grove, her small hands holding the meal I had brought her. I found myself just watching her more and more. Admiring the beautiful curve of her spine, the way her full lips were stained red by fresh blood. She was the most beautiful thing I had seen in all my long years. She was like the moonflowers that grew around my spring. Pale and fragile in appearance, but beneath it all, deadly to those who disrespected her power.
But right now she wasn’t eating, just fidgeting with the meat I had brought her. That wouldn’t do at all.
“You need to learn to hunt properly,” I said. “This human habit of scavenging from my kills won’t sustain you much longer.”
She looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the grove floor, the flecks of gold in her eyes catching the moon’s light. “I eat what you provide. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.” I moved closer, pushing her hair out of her bloodied face. “Your body is changing. It requires fresh blood, fresh meat. The hunt itself feeds your transformation as much as the consumption.”
She set aside the half-eaten flesh, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I’ve killed. Marcus. Gaius. Isn’t that hunting?”
“That was revenge. Beautiful, but personal. Hunting is…” I paused, searching for words to explain what had become instinct centuries ago. “Hunting is accepting what you are. Predator. Part of the natural order, not above or outside it.”
She hid her face from me, something she rarely did now. “I was human a week ago.”
“Were you?” I settled onto the ground across from her, close enough to see the faint scaling beginning along her arms. “Or were you always this, waiting for permission to emerge?”
She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice carried a tremor I hadn’t heard since our first nights together. “If I hunt—truly hunt—what’s left of me? The girl who sang songs in her head during the worst of it, the songs of my ancestors—my people?”
“She remains. But she becomes more.” I wanted to reach for her then, realizing it was to comfort, not to consume. Instead, I held still. “You think predators cannot appreciate beauty? Cannot create? I’ve walked this forest for three centuries, neidr. I know every tree, every stone, every small life that moves through my territory. The hunt doesn’t diminish appreciation—it sharpens it.”
She lifted her head, studying me with those warm eyes. “Show me, then. But if I ask to stop—”
“We stop.” The promise came easily. After what we’d shared, after the trust she’d shown letting me bind her in silk, I would not break faith over this.
When had I become so soft-hearted?
The forest breathed differently at night when one moved as a hunter. I watched my serpent follow me through the underbrush, noting how her movements had already begun to adapt. Not the flowing grace she would eventually achieve, but better than the clumsy creature who’d first stumbled my grove.
“There,” I whispered, pointing to tracks in the soft earth. “Deer. Young buck, from the depth of the print. Perhaps an hour ahead.”
She crouched beside the marks, and I caught myself admiring the curve of her spine, the way moonlight caught in her hair. Dangerous thoughts—not of possession this time, but of something softer. More and more frequently, I found myself craving not just her body but her presence. The way she challenged me. The way she trusted me despite everything that I was.
“How do you know it’s male?” she asked, pulling me from my reverie.
“The drag marks here. Young bucks testing their antlers against bark.” I moved behind her, close enough to feel her warmth. “Close your eyes. What else can you sense?”
She obeyed, and I watched her nostrils flare slightly, her tongue flicking out. “I smell... musk? And something fresh.”
“He’s been feeding on the young shoots near the stream. Follow that scent.”
We tracked in silence for nearly an hour. I stayed behind her, letting her find the trail, only correcting when she veered too far off course. Part of me wanted to simply show her, to demonstrate my centuries of skill. But watching her learn, watching her mind work through each puzzle had become its own pleasure.
When we finally spotted the buck drinking at a moonlit pool, she froze.
“I can’t,” she breathed. “It’s… beautiful.”
The deer was beautiful. Young and strong, its coat catching silver light as it lifted its head to scan for danger. I understood her hesitation. But I also understood what she needed to become to survive in a world filled with humans who wanted nothing more than to crush anything they did not understand.
“Beauty and death aren’t opposites,” I said softly. “Watch.”
I moved swiftly, circling wide to approach from downwind. The buck never sensed me until my hand was already at its neck. One quick motion and it dropped without suffering, life to death in a heartbeat.
My serpent approached slowly, her face unreadable. “You didn’t make it suffer. I thought you fed on fear?”
I chuckled. “I do, but human fear. Humans have tried to remove themselves from the natural order. When they are faced with the realization that they are not as powerful as they have deluded themselves into believing, nothing is sweeter. But the creatures of this forest? They understand the order of things. Their suffering serves no purpose.”
She knelt beside the deer, running her hand along its flank. “Tiberius made everything suffer. Said it made the meat sweeter.”
“Tiberius was a fool.” The words came out harsher then intended. Even trapped in my web, his shadow lingered over too many of our conversations.
I often regretted letting him live. Seeing her now, how anything could have wanted to harm her set anger simmering in my core unlike anything I had felt before. The marks on her skin I had once been indifferent to now filled me with visions of his blood and organs smeared across tiled floors after I’d made him scream for hours.
But it was not my place. I knew when the time was right, my serpent would find the strength she needed, and it would be glorious. Still, I wished I could free her from the mental cage of his making. “Cruelty is not strength. You survived him because you were stronger, not crueler.”
“Was I?” She looked up at me, and in the moonlight, I could see tears threatening. “Sometimes I think I survived because I was too cowardly to die.”
The hollow sensation in my chest intensified. Without thinking, I pulled her against me, her back to my chest, arms wrapped around her. I found myself wishing I could pull all her worry and pain into myself, so that I could bear that burden for her. A dangerous feeling indeed.
“You survived because you had fire within you he could never extinguish,” I said against her hair. “Every time he tried to diminish you, you endured. That’s not cowardice. That’s the kind of strength that remakes worlds.”
She relaxed into my hold, and we stayed like that. I found myself not wanting to move, not wanting to return to the grove where old patterns drove me to coldness. Here, holding her, I could admit what I’d been denying since she had awoken in my web.
I was falling into something I had no name for. She filled my every waking thought. Her warmth, her challenges, her trust had become part of my daily existence, shifting from possibility to necessity. I had trapped her in my web, but now I was the one whose heart was ensnared.
“Tomorrow,” she said finally, “I’ll try. To hunt. Properly.”
“Tomorrow,” I agreed, still not releasing her.
But inside, the hunter who’d walked alone for centuries wondered what he would do when she no longer needed these lessons. When she became the predator she was meant to be, would she still choose to remain? I would allow nothing else. No matter the cost, I would keep her with me until the very earth cracked away beneath our feet.
Chapter 12
Flavia
The forest dreamed through me, or perhaps I dreamed through it—the boundaries dissolved like mist between ancient trees.
I moved through undergrowth that parted before my presence, my body flowing in serpentine patterns that felt more natural than walking ever had. It felt right, just as Ysu had said. A part of me that had just been waiting to awaken.
The Roman scout ahead crashed through bracken with the graceless noise of civilization, his bronze armor catching moonlight in flashes that announced his position to every predator within miles.
My tongue flicked out, tasting his fear-sweat in the air. He was young—barely past his first campaign season, sent to patrol borders his commanders no longer truly controlled. The leather of his sandals was still stiff and fresh from the armoury.
Foolish humans, a voice that sounded like Ysu whispered through my consciousness, though I knew he slept back in the grove. They send children to map territory that was never theirs to claim.
But as I descended from the canopy the voice shifted, deepened, became something older than even Ysu. The trees themselves spoke, their roots pulsing with words that tasted of mycelium and blood and patient fury.
The roads cut us. The stones suffocate our soil. Their ordered grids carve wounds that will not heal.
The scout stopped to drink from his waterskin, oblivious to how the shadows had changed around him. I could see the pulse in his throat, count the rapid heartbeats that spoke of exhaustion and unease. He was lost—had been for hours—though he didn’t yet realize the forest had been guiding him in circles, eating up his markers and shifting his path.
Show them what they cannot tame, the forest-voice commanded, and my jaw began to ache with transformation.
I dropped silently behind him, my body elongating in ways that no longer frightened me. He turned at the last moment, eyes widening as he took in what I’d become—neither woman nor serpent but something between, something impossible.
His scream died in his throat as mine opened wider than any human mouth should. The forest held him still, roots tangling his feet, branches ensuring he could not flee. I tasted his terror as my transformed jaw accepted what it was made for, swallowing him in sections that should have horrified me but only satisfied the deep hunger.
Yes, the ancient voice thrummed through soil and stone. Let them know their empire will end, but we will always endure. For every tree they fell, every road they build, a new monster will be born.
I felt the scout’s life force spreading through me, not just sustaining my body but feeding something larger. The forest drank through me, used me as a conduit for its patient rage. I knew now that each Roman life I would claim returned strength to the wounded land.
The scene wavered, my consciousness wanting to return to my sleeping body, but the forest wouldn’t let me go, not just yet.
More will come, the voice promised. They always send more. And you will be waiting, my serpent. You and others like you. What they thought conquered will devour them from within.
Ysu wrapped several arms around my body, his physical presence pulling me out of the dream. His touch was protective, possessive. He was satisfied with my hunger, but beneath that I felt a hesitation.
I was no longer just Flavia seeking revenge. I was the forest’s hunger given form, its answer to centuries of systematic destruction. And somewhere in the ordered villas and geometric cities, Romans slept uneasily, dreaming of roots cracking through their foundations and shadows with too many teeth.
The dream claimed me again, and I saw them—others like me. Old blood singing with ancient magic, where nature and humanity were merged into new demons who stalked the night.
I woke with dirt beneath my nails and the taste of bronze on my tongue, wrapped in Ysu’s silk while he watched with all eight eyes.
“It has been many nights since you had a nightmare, my neidr.” He traced a cool hand down my cheek. “What disturbs you?”
I swallowed again and I could still taste that soldier on my tongue. It had just been a dream, hadn’t it? The wind picked up and I swore I heard laughing. Ysu’s grip tightened around me.
“It wasn’t a nightmare.” Had I changed so much that the thought of swallowing a man whole no longer disturbed me? That I found the embrace of a monster all that I needed? I curled in tight to Ysu’s chest, and he relaxed as I traced my fingers over the dark markings that whorled over his skin.
“Sleep now, my spider.” I curled my fingers through his hair, and emitted a sound almost like purring until his chest rose and fell with the soft pattern of sleep. But as I dozed off, the wind rose again, its laughter tracing down my spine.
Chapter 13
Flavia
The grove had changed since I had first arrived. Ysu’s web had grown, silver strands threading through the forest. My sleeping hammock hung low, and he had built new webs around it, more intricate than elsewhere. A beautiful canopy filled with his art, the webs creating tessellations and patterns I hadn’t seen anywhere else. Had he done this purposefully, to surround me with beauty? A part of me thought he hadn’t even realized what he was doing, which brought a smile to my face. My soft-hearted monster.
