Playing with Fire [COMPLETED]

2 ~ the demon's home

The carriage ride is bumpy and long. I know I should have slept, but my anxiety kept me awake. When we arrive, and I step from the carriage, I expect it to be hot. After all, this is a demon's home. Also, the first day of summer.

But snow falls from the sky, and blankets the earth below my feet. I shiver as I step onto the snowy ground and walk across the yard before me. The snow is pristine beneath me, and up ahead, there's a black-painted brick mansion. It's a huge place, one of those places you're bound to get lost in. I have only ever read about its likeness in books, never seen such a huge place in person.

Why would someone need such space? I swallow the lump in my throat as I approach the mansion. Snowflakes dance all around me, and I ascend the stairs and step onto the enclosed porch.

Anxious and scared all at once, I knock on the door. It creaks open, and I nervously, reluctantly, walk inside. The heat hits me first, like a man just rammed into me and tackled me to the floor. But only if that same man was heat incarnate.

The mansion's interior is luxurious. Blood-red carpet is draped over the black, granite floors, a crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling, glistening red and silver. Two steps of sweeping staircases lead up to a balcony on the second level. But beneath them, are doors. Three doors are across from me, and I slowly approach one.

Gripping the doorknob of the center door, I pull it open. A massive dinning room lays beyond. A huge, polished wood table is in the center, surrounded by at least a dozen chairs. Food, an amount of it I've never seen, lays spread out upon the table.

Tentatively, I approach it, despite the hunger gnawing at my stomach. I am shaking when I reach my hand out to touch the chair in front of me.

What is this? Just another way to fatten me up before I'm devoured by this thing? Just for the sake of my village, I'm to be its food. What a fucking joke.

I turn and leave the dinning room. I enter the room on its right, but that is just a sitting room with nothing but a pair of couches, a hearth, and a table in between them. The door on the left, however....

As I walk into that room, I hear .... laughter? Is that what it is? No. It .... it can't be.

What would a demon laugh about? How its going to eat me?

The room is also unremarkable. I'm pretty sure it's what fancy ladies refer to as a "powder room" — where they'd go to put their makeup on. I shake my head and leave that room too. I climb the stairs, and find six doors, and another staircase going up.

I walk up those stairs and find myself in a large living room. But there's no one in this living room, either. So, I head back to the room I heard laughing from.

And I find another door, one that leads to a hall. Having nothing better to do, I walk down the hallway until I come to a big lounge type room. And that room is full of people.

I see five men and four women, and one man who looks different from the rest. He sits in a large, black throne with carved wings behind it. The man is devastatingly handsome. His black hair is slicked back, his pale skin is flawless, and his bronze eyes glow from within, as though the firelight is glowing within them. He wears a black suit, one that fits to his broad frame.

His gaze sweeps to me, and he stands up. And I realize something.

Those wings are not on his throne. They're coming from his back.

I stare at the gorgeous man — no, he's not a man .... he's the demon. He shoves his hands in his pockets and saunters up to stand before me. His black, feathered wings move a little as he adjusts them, and he stops just a foot from me. The demon stares me down, before a small, crooked smile appears on his face. His glowing eyes flick to the space behind me, and back to me.

"So .... you're the demon," I say.

"That I am," he says.

"So, what? You're gonna.... eat me?"

A smirk. "Only if you ask me nicely."

I scoff and shake my head. "What .... why am I here then?"

He shrugs. "Your backward village sent you here, for another year of my protection, I assume."

"Don't mock my village," I snap.

"Dearie, your village just sent you here to die," he says, his tone dripping with disdain. "You cannot tell me that that is not backwards."

Well, he's got me there....

"What is your name?" I ask.

"First lesson you'll learn here, dearie, names have power. Perhaps it would be wise to .... lie, when someone asks you what your name is." He leans closer to me, and the scents of winter wind, a crackling wood fire, and pine trees wafts to me. Somehow, the smells are .... familiar. On a deeply personal level.

I swallow the anxiety in my throat. Lie about my name. Which also likely means to not trust anyone here. Well, I always liked the name Elorha. So that will be my name here, I suppose. "Elorha. Call me that."

He grins. "Wise choice, Elorha." He turns back to the people sitting in the room beyond, and gestures to me. "Welcome Elorha from the Village."

Murmurs erupt, and then, the demon looks back at me. "You may call me Ruin."

I look at him, and see the seriousness in his gaze. "Hello, Ruin."

Ruin smiles. "Hello, Elorha."

"Well, I'd like my friends to meet you," he says. "So, let's meet them."