The Graveyard (Zeldris x Female Reader)

Part 4

The door swings open again, he mutters something about the cultists being stupid, and you sit up. Bad idea. A massive head rush makes you fall back onto the stone slab that your legs are still tied to. Your head is caught in someone's hands.

"Ugh."

"They drugged you."

"Yeah."

You see the flash of something metallic and try to sit up again. A firm hand on your collarbone pushes you back down.

"Is that a knife?"

"Stay still, I'll cut the ropes."

The silence grew eerie as he cut the ropes and was punctuated only by the snapping of broken bonds. When he's finished, he comes back into your field of vision.

"Can you stand?" he asks.

"I can try."

You sit up again, wincing at your head's protests, and swing your legs over the side of the stone slab. You push yourself off like you normally would, hoping your legs will catch you but the stranger catches you instead.

"I guess we should find you some clothes."

You nod and he carries you into a room full of corpses. Seeing your distress, he covers your eyes and tells you not to look. Weren't his hands cold before? You doubt your senses as his warm hand pulls you against his almost-bare chest.

"Hey, uh, did the cultists summon you?" it's a stupid question but you ask it anyway.

"Not properly, but yeah."

"So you're..."

"Zeldris."

"I'm y/n... What did the cultists do wrong?"

"They're supposed to sacrifice willing members of their own cult as a show of devotion. They disobeyed me by kidnapping you."

He sets you down on the middle cushion of a couch in another room and turns away to examine something. Clothes that you assume once belonged to the cultists lay strewn all over the place. You grab a green sundress and pull it on over your head. It's loose but, hey, it's clothing. Zeldris turns back when he hears that you've stopped moving. He's holding your necklace.

"Y/n, this has your name engraved on it. Do you recognize it?"

"Yeah. They cut it off me when they stole my clothes."

He approaches you and ties your necklace back around your neck.

"I should kill them again for trying to take this as a trophy."

"You can do that?"

"No. I already ate their souls."

You flinch.

"They knew what they were getting themselves into. They knew the consequences of that kind of mistake" Zeldris speaks calmly, but his nonchalant comment about eating people's souls leaves you on edge. He sits down on the couch beside you and runs his hand through his hair, looking at you with curiosity and pity.

"You're staring at me. What's up?" you ask.

"I don't want you to freak out."

"I'm already freaked out; what's one more thing?"

He shrugs, "do you know what kind of sacrifice you are?"

"Uh, no? But I'm guessing not blood."

He nods and clears his throat, "if you were, you'd be dead with the cultists. They wanted to sacrifice energy, your energy, when they should have sacrificed the energy of another cultist..."

"Energy."

"Yeah."

"I dabble in witchcraft a little bit... which kind of energy are we talking about?"

He gives you an apologetic look, "sexual."

"WHAT?"

"You said you weren't going to freak out."

"I said I was already freaked out. What the fuck?"

"That's why I gave you the chance to back out. If you were a cultist, I would have been able to leave after you said no. But instead I hoped killing the cultists might release the spell and free us."

"You're bound to me?"

"I don't like it any more than you do, but I can't go home until the ritual is considered complete. I'm okay with that not happening, honestly, I could use some time out of the Demon Realm."

You appreciate his honesty and his respect for your consent, but as you process what he has said, you move away from him, heart racing. You stand and immediately fall over. As Zeldris catches you, your vision fades to black.