Chapter 1
The blood wouldn’t stop pooling.
Anya knelt on the attic floor, her bare knees grinding against splinters and dust, her small hand trembling as she dragged the ritual knife across her left palm. The cut was deep—deeper than she’d intended—and the blood came fast, dark ribbons of it dripping onto the chalk circle she’d drawn from memory. Her mother’s book lay open beside her, its pages yellowed and brittle, the ink faded to the color of old rust. She’d read the passage seventeen times. She’d drawn and redrawn the sigils four times. She’d vomited twice from nerves.
But she hadn’t stopped.
The semen was already there, mixed into the paste she’d used to draw the outer ring. She’d collected it three nights ago, after the Prince had finished with Cinderella. She’d waited in the hallway outside Cinderella’s room, listening to the sounds—the wet slap of flesh, Cinderella’s performative moans, the Prince’s grunts that sounded more like exertion than pleasure. When he’d left, sweaty and careless, he’d discarded his handkerchief on the landing. Inside it, still warm, still sticky. She’d taken it with shaking hands and locked herself in her room.
Now it was part of the ritual. Her blood. His seed. The sigils. The words.
Her voice cracked on the first syllable of the incantation. She swallowed, tasted copper and bile, and tried again.
"Voco te, daemonium libidinis. Per sanguinem meum et semen alienum, te invoco. Per carnem et dolorem, te clamo."
The attic went cold. Not the cold of winter or drafty windows—this was a cold that started in her marrow and radiated outward, turning her breath to vapor, making her teeth ache. The candle flames didn’t flicker. They inverted, bending downward as if gravity had reversed, their light pulling into the chalk circle like water draining through a hole.
"Voco te, daemonium libidinis—"
The circle ignited.
Not with fire. With something else—a light that had no color she could name, that existed somewhere between violet and the space behind closed eyelids. It crawled along the sigils like living things, and where it passed, the floorboards blackened and curled as though centuries of rot had been compressed into seconds.
Anya scrambled backward, her wounded hand leaving smears of blood on the floor. The light converged at the center of the circle, and the air there thickened, becoming visible, becoming substantial, like watching heat shimmer off summer stone except this heat was cold and the stone was the fabric of the world tearing open.
He emerged the way a birth emerges—messily, violently, in a rush of something that was not quite fluid and not quite light. One moment there was a hole in the air, and the next there was a presence, and then there was him.
Taeyung.
He was not what she’d expected. The book had described him as a shadow, a whisper, a suggestion of form. What stood before her was solid—overwhelmingly, oppressively solid. He was tall, impossibly so, his head nearly brushing the attic’s sloped ceiling. His body was human in shape but wrong in proportion—limbs too long, torso too broad, hands that could palm her entire skull like a fruit. His skin was the color of a bruise, deep purples and blacks shifting beneath the surface like oil in water. His eyes were the worst part. They were human eyes—dark, almost black—but they moved wrong, tracking her with a predator’s precision, and when they caught the candlelight, they reflected it back like an animal’s.
He wore nothing. She could see everything.
He was already hard.
The sight of him—of it—made her stomach lurch. He was enormous, thick and long and veined, the head flushed dark and glistening. It hung heavy between his thighs, curving slightly upward, and even soft it would have been intimidating. Hard, it was terrifying.
“You called.” His voice was deep, resonant, the kind of sound she felt in her chest more than heard with her ears. He spoke the common tongue with an accent she couldn’t place, each word deliberate, as though language were a tool he’d learned recently and hadn’t yet mastered the casual use of.
Anya’s mouth opened. No sound came out.
He stepped out of the circle. The chalk lines didn’t break—they dried, the moisture leaching from them as he passed, leaving white dust in his wake. He moved with a fluidity that suggested his joints didn’t work the same way human joints did, each step covering too much ground, his body flowing rather than walking.
“You’re small,” he observed, stopping in front of her. She had to crane her neck to look up at him. From this angle, she could see the muscles of his abdomen, the ridges of his hips, the way his cock swayed slightly with each micro-movement of his body. “How old?”
“N-nineteen,” she whispered.
“Virgin?”
The word hit her like a slap. She nodded, unable to speak.
He crouched, and even crouching he towered over her. His hand reached out—those long, impossible fingers—and caught her chin. His grip was firm but not painful, tilting her face up, forcing her to meet his eyes. His skin was warm. She’d expected cold, expected the clammy touch of death or decay, but he was warm, almost feverish, and where his fingers pressed into her jaw she could feel the heat of him sinking into her bone.
“You know the price,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
Her throat worked. The book had been explicit. The summoner shall offer her maidenhead as payment, and the daemon shall take it as he pleases, in whatever manner serves his hunger. There is no gentleness in this. There is no mercy. There is only the price.
“My virginity,” she said, and her voice broke on the last syllable. “You take my virginity.”
“And your wish?”
“I want...” She swallowed. The words tasted like ash. “I want power over men. I want any man who looks at me to want me. Not love. Not affection. Desire. Pure, undeniable desire. I want them to ache for me. I want them to lose their minds.”
“And the Prince’s downfall?”
“I want him destroyed. Stripped of everything. I want him to know what it feels like to be powerless.”
Taeyung studied her for a long moment. Then he smiled, and his teeth were white and sharp and too numerous, rows of them like a shark’s, and the smile did not reach his eyes.
“Your wish is granted, little one.”
He moved fast—faster than something his size should have been able to move. One moment he was crouching before her, the next his hand was fisting in her hair, yanking her forward, and her face was pressed against his abdomen, his skin hot and smooth and smelling of something dark and sweet, like overripe fruit left in the sun. She gasped, and the sound was muffled against his flesh, and then he was pulling her up, his other hand catching her around the waist, lifting her as though she weighed nothing.
“Wh—what are you—”
“Taking what I’m owed.”
He carried her to the far corner of the attic where a threadbare blanket lay folded on a pile of old trunks. He dropped her onto it, and she bounced once, the wind knocked from her lungs, and then he was on her, his weight pressing her into the thin fabric, his hands finding the hem of her nightgown and pulling it up.
She fought. She didn’t mean to—some animal part of her brain took over, the part that recognized a predator, and her hands came up, pushing against his chest, her legs kicking. Her nails raked his skin and left no mark. He caught both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head, his grip unbreakable, and with his other hand he tore her nightgown open. The fabric gave way with a sound like a scream, and then she was bare beneath him, her small breasts exposed, her thighs pressed together, her entire body trembling.
“Please,” she said. “Please, I’ve never—I don’t know how to—”
“I know,” he said, and there was something almost gentle in his voice, almost kind, and that was worse than cruelty because it meant he knew and didn’t care. “Hold still.”
He released her wrists. She didn’t run. Where would she go? The attic door was closed, and even if she reached it, even if she opened it, even if she screamed—who would come? Her mother was asleep. Cinderella was asleep. The servants were asleep. She was alone.
His hands found her thighs and spread them. His fingers were so long they spanned the entire width of her inner thigh, and when he pushed her legs apart, she felt the stretch in her hips, the strain of muscles that had never been asked to open this wide. She whimpered, and the sound was swallowed by the darkness.
He positioned himself between her legs. She could feel him against her—the heat of him, the impossible size of him, the slick wetness at his tip that smeared against her inner thigh like oil. She turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut, her hands fisting in the blanket beneath her.
The first push was a burn.
She gasped, her back arching, her fingers clawing at nothing. The head of him pressed against her opening, and her body resisted, the muscles clenching, and he didn’t wait—he pushed, steady and inexorable, and she felt herself stretch around him, felt the burn become a sting, felt the sting become a tearing.
“Ah—ah—”
He didn’t stop. Inch by inch, he worked himself inside her, and with each inch the pain intensified, climbing from discomfort to agony to something beyond language. She could feel every ridge of him, every vein, the impossible length of him pressing deeper and deeper, and when she thought he must be fully inside her, when she thought there couldn’t possibly be more, he pushed deeper still.
“You’re tight,” he murmured, and his voice was conversational, as though he were commenting on the weather. “Good.”
He bottomed out.
She screamed.
The sound was raw, torn from her throat, and it echoed off the attic walls and died in the rafters. She could feel him everywhere—in her belly, in her chest, in her bones. He was so deep she could feel him pressing against something inside her, something that shouldn’t be touched, and the pain was a living thing, a creature with claws that raked her from the inside out.
He withdrew. The relief was instantaneous and devastating—a moment of emptiness so profound it felt like loss. Then he pushed back in, harder, faster, and the pain returned with interest, and she screamed again, and again, and again.
He set a rhythm. Slow at first—long, deep strokes that made her feel every inch of him sliding against her inner walls, the friction burning, the stretch unbearable. Then faster. His hips pistoned, and the sound of their joining was wet and obscene, flesh slapping against flesh, her small body jolting with each thrust, her breasts bouncing, her head knocking against the trunk behind her.
He leaned down and his mouth found her neck. His lips were soft—shockingly soft—and then his teeth were there, sharp points pressing into her skin, and he bit. Not deep enough to scar but deep enough to hurt, deep enough to draw blood, and she felt the warm trickle of it running down her collarbone even as he sucked the wound, his tongue rough and hot.
His mouth traveled lower. He bit her shoulder. He bit the swell of her breast. He took her nipple into his mouth—small and pink and painfully sensitive—and sucked, hard, his tongue rolling the peak, his teeth grazing the tender flesh, and the sensation was so intense, so overwhelming, that she couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain. Her nipple swelled in his mouth, engorged and aching, and when he released it with a wet pop, it was red and puffy and twice its normal size.
He bit her other nipple. Sucked harder. She felt her body responding against her will—a heat building low in her belly, a tingling in her thighs, a dampness between her legs that had nothing to do with pain. She hated it. She hated him. But her body didn’t care about her hatred; it only knew sensation, and the sensation was too much.
His hand slid between their bodies. Those long fingers found the place where they were joined, felt the stretch of her around him, and then moved higher, finding the small, sensitive bud hidden in her folds. He circled it once, twice, and she jolted, a sound escaping her that was half-gasp, half-sob.
“Don’t,” she managed. “Don’t—please—”
He didn’t stop. He circled and pressed and rubbed, and the pleasure built alongside the pain until she couldn’t tell them apart, until they were the same thing, until every nerve in her body was firing at once and she was drowning in sensation.
He thrust deeper. She felt him hit something inside her—a barrier, a wall—and the pain spiked so sharply that her vision went white. She felt it tear. She felt the warm gush of blood, felt it slicking his shaft, felt it running down to the blanket beneath her, and the pain was so intense, so absolute, that her consciousness flickered like a candle in wind.
She passed out.
He didn’t stop.
When she came to, he was still inside her, still moving, but the angle had changed. He’d pulled out at some point—she had no memory of it—and now he was pressing against her from behind, her face pressed into the blanket, her hips held in an iron grip, her ass raised in the air. She could feel the stretch in a new place, a place that had never been touched, and the pain was fresh and sharp and wrong.
“No,” she tried to say, but the word came out as a moan, and he pushed inside.
This was worse. This was so much worse. The angle was tighter, the stretch more severe, and she could feel him pressing against her from a direction that made no anatomical sense, could feel him filling a space that wasn’t meant to be filled. She screamed into the blanket, her voice muffled, her tears soaking the fabric, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the smooth wood floor.
He took her like that for what felt like hours. When he finally pulled out of her ass, she collapsed, boneless and broken, her body a single continuous wound. But he wasn’t finished.
He rolled her onto her back. Her legs wouldn’t hold her weight. He spread them anyway, lifting her hips, and she felt him pressing against her mouth—his cock, slick with her blood and his own fluids, pushing against her lips.
“Open,” he said.
She shook her head. She tried to turn away. His hand caught her jaw, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her cheeks, forcing her mouth open, and then he was pushing inside. The taste was copper and salt and something darker, something that made her gag, and she retched around him, her throat convulsing, tears streaming down her face.
He fucked her mouth with the same relentless rhythm he’d used everywhere else. In and out, in and out, his cock hitting the back of her throat, making her choke, making her eyes water, making her feel like she was drowning. She could barely breathe. She could only taste and gag and cry.
When he came, it was in her mouth. She felt the first pulse—a spurt of hot, thick fluid that hit the back of her throat—and she gagged, trying to pull away, but he held her fast, his hand fisting in her hair, keeping her in place as he emptied himself inside her. She swallowed reflexively, choking on the volume of it, and what she couldn’t swallow ran down her chin, dripping onto her chest, mixing with the blood and sweat and tears.
He pulled out. She coughed, gasping, her throat raw, her mouth filled with the taste of him.
He stood. She lay there, broken and bleeding, her body a ruin, her mind a blank white void. She couldn’t feel her legs. She couldn’t feel anything except the ache between her thighs and the burn in her throat and the phantom sensation of him still inside her, still moving, still taking.
Taeyung looked down at her. His expression was unreadable. He reached down and, with one long finger, traced the line of her jaw. His touch was gentle now—almost tender—and that was the cruelest thing of all.
“The price is paid,” he said. “The wish is granted.”
He crouched beside her, and his hand moved lower, resting on her abdomen. His palm was hot—burning hot—and she felt something shift inside her, felt her body changing, felt her bones and muscles and flesh rearranging themselves according to some alien blueprint. Her breasts swelled, the tissue expanding, the skin stretching to accommodate the new weight. Her waist narrowed, her ribs shifting inward, her stomach flattening. Her hips widened, her ass rounded, the flesh filling out, becoming soft and full and obscene.
The pain of transformation was nothing compared to what had come before. It was a deep ache, a stretching, a becoming, and when it was over, she lay on the attic floor in a pool of her own blood, her body remade, her innocence destroyed, her wish granted.
Taeyung leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. His kiss was soft. His breath was warm.
“Until next time, little one.”
And then he was gone, and she was alone, and the attic was silent except for the sound of her breathing and the slow, steady drip of blood onto wood.
