Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 33 -

Damian

He had always considered himself a disciplined man. Disciplined in action, in work, in desire. The alternative, to let emotion take command, or lust steer him, or fear and anger drive him, was to risk his own life more than he already did.

Damian feared a lack of control, more than anything. More than the horrific creatures he faced, more than the death that lurked around every corner, more than the thought of the reaper who waited so impatiently to someday collect his soul for its unknown fate. He had been witness to control being entirely gone. He had seen the catastrophic trauma it caused. He had watched his own mother die after giving it up.

Even when it came to something so inconsequential as the perverted desires within him, a lack of near-perfect control was not an option. He had always felt - subconsciously, quietly - that he was not fit to court a lady, not fit to seek a wife or family. Women were the most powerful beings he had ever met. His grandmother, an immovable force of wisdom and strength, was the feminine divine under whose tutelage he had become a man. And though he could psychologically explain it, there had always remained a lingering guilt over his desires. A guilt that his sadism, no matter how carefully wielded, made him a villain.

So he paid women - of course he paid, as much as he could and often more than they asked - for the privilege of their submission to his desires. He had never allowed himself the thought that the opposite to his lust, the masochist to his sadist, would ever show herself.

Until Samara, with her beautifully mad, passionate desire. Until that first evening they had shared together. And now it had become so muddied, so intertwined, his work and his lust interchangeable. He'd felt it when he knelt beside her in the chapel, when his hand had grasped hers as she fell deep into the fight against her demons. He had felt his own voice shake with a desperation that was usually so carefully controlled.

Give what you can, and know when you have given enough.

An exorcist gave of their own strength when words and runes were not enough. Their strength, fed to the victim, united in a battle of the soul. And Damian had gave, and gave, and gave. Because even for all of Samara's strength he had felt the demons overwhelming her. They were ancient beings that had infested her. Powerful...terrifyingly powerful.

His grandmother would have told him to stop. That it was not a fight worth pushing himself past endurance for. Live to fight another day and help another, for there shall always be another.

But he had not stopped, and he had felt himself failing by the time Samara returned.

He had done his best to bury his desire since discovering her scars. It was not proper, it was not right. She was a patient, a victim, a woman in need and a dangerous woman at that. Dangerously intelligent, clever, with her sharp tongue, alluring...

Yet it had begun to slip out: the half-angry threats that kept spilling out of him just to see the way her eyes lit up. As if challenged, as if she had been promised a game she was longing to play. He'd scolded himself for it, berated himself for even allowing himself to think...

About putting her over the desk again. About feeling the way her body surrendered. About the vibrant, teasing glow in her eyes and the crooked smirk that hinted at an invitation.

Except now...here it was. An invitation. A plea, from her own lips. The tension that bubbled beneath the surface of his every interaction with her was dangerously close to frothing over.

So he stared at her a moment longer, merely a breath between them as they faced each other in the hallway. His heart was pounding, his tired body felt electrified. Merely the smell of her sweat and the blood on her skin was nearly enough to drive him mad. She couldn't mean that. She was in distress. She was surely tired and it wouldn't be right of him...