Mistress of Shadow

Chapter 4: Among Satin and Silk

Eymber’s mouth dropped along with her stomach. She wasn’t sure whether or not that she could believe this strange man, but at the same time it was hard not to. He had horns, red eyes, and naturally pointed teeth.

“Satan?” she squeaked. “As in, the Devil? Lucifer?”

The king, newly dubbed Satan, narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I am called the Devil by the humans of Tensiu, but I do not go by Lucifer. That is the name of one of my other generals,” he replied. Eymber wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, she didn’t know how to treat him either.

“Alciel, you have the Herald of the Moon memorised, do you not?” Satan asked, changing the subject crossing his arms. The other thing nodded, “Yes Sire. Would you like me to recite it for you?” Satan nodded.

Alciel cleared his throat, and then began to speak, “Upon the eight hundred and eighty eighth Solstice of the Winter Hunt, a blizzard unlike any Aerith Iblis has ever seen will descend upon the land. A girl shall fall through the portal and into the storm. She shall possess hair the colour of blood and have the sight of another demon. Marked upon her left side, a symbol of a crescent moon crossed by a ragged line. She will be trained and she shall end the war. For Tarrok or Tensiu, one will not know until victory is upon on army. With a sword forged in the fires of Heaven or Hell, she will fight until victory is claimed for her allies. And so the one branded with the broken moon shall win the war.”

Satan shook his head angrily, whipping around and pacing towards his favourite window. He stood on the edge, breathing deeply in the scent of winter and death. “I didn’t want this to be true. I don’t need a person from a prophecy to win this battle. I can do it myself,” he hissed.

“Sire, please. There is a possibility, however small, that this prophecy could be true, and if we throw away this girl we may have thrown away our chance to win. Please sire, we have to train her,” Alciel pleaded, repeating himself. Satan clenched his fists, this time a sign of anger rather than anticipation and longing.

He took a deep breath to keep his composure.

“What’s her name?” he said softly, his voice low with barely controlled rage.

“Sire?” Alciel asked fearfully.

“What’s. Her. Name?” Satan growled. Alciel looked at Eymber emphatically, gesturing with his head towards Satan. Eymber cleared her throat several times before she could speak through her fear.

“I’m Eymber. Eymber Fell,” she said. Satan made a thoughtful noise. He came over to her, a grimace stamped on his attractive features. Eymber mentally berated herself for thing the Devil was hot.

“Listen closely, Eymber…”

When Satan said her voice, Eymber a scintilla of warmth go up her spine. She quickly supressed whatever that was.

“I don’t believe in prophecies, but this one seems to be lining up, so I’ll be taking my chances. You’re going to be training to become a warrior, and you’ll win this war. Do you wish to learn about your new world now, or would you like to sleep and begin in the morning?” he finished.

Eymber remembered suddenly how incredible exhausted she was, and she let out a huge yawn. “I think I’ll sleep,” she said over another one. Satan nodded, but then sighed in annoyance as if he had remembered something.

“With this type of cold, you won’t last the night without a proper bed. This castle doesn’t get overnight guests, especially in the middle of a Hunt, so we don’t have a spare bed,” he began. Eymber was confused. What was the Devil getting at?

“You’ll have to sleep with one of us for warmth,” he finished. Eymber yelped in surprise. “What? No way in Hell I’m sharing a bed with either of you! You’re… demons!” she yelled, her voice rising several pitches in indignation.

Satan shrugged, seemingly indifferent. “If you want to freeze to death, be my guest. Otherwise, share a bed with either Alciel or me.” His sentence was followed by a vaguely sexual rumble. Eymber did not want to freeze to death in an unknown world, so she was trying to choose the lesser of the two evils. Literally.

“Sire, you obviously want her more than I do, so I will allow her to sleep with you,” Alciel said, bowing swiftly. Satan turned his eyes to Eymber, raising his dark eyebrows. “Come with me, I’ll show you to the bed.”

Eymber definitely did not want to be in close proximity to the literal Devil, especially in a defenceless situation such as sleep. The only good thing she could think of was that she was apparently the person prophesised to end a war, so she didn’t think Satan would kill her.

She followed him directly behind the throne. There was a concealed door, which Satan held open for her. She reluctantly stepped into the doorframe. The bedroom of the Devil was tinted with a red colour.

A bed took up almost a third of the room. It was built right into the wall, with a ledge going around the wall that was probably used to put things. Eymber speculated on what he would need a ledge for… It looked as if it was made of expensive, comfortable materials. Said materials were purple and red coloured. Red gossamer curtains were draped around the outside of the bed, shielding most of the bed from the outside view.

“Those shoes look incredibly uncomfortable,” Satan chided. “You should take them off before you sleep.” Eymber was irrationally angry. Mostly because Satan himself wasn’t trying to kill her. Instead he was commenting on her well-being.

What an asshole.

He closed the door, and reached down to his grievers. He unclasped several things before the gorgeously moulded armour fell to the ground, showing that his purple pants reached down to his feet as well. He did the same with the other, and then took off the shoulder guards. He placed them gently on a rack where other pieces of armour were. Lastly, Satan shrugged off his cloak and hung it next to the armour.

Clacking sounded as he walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. Eymber looked down, and saw that instead of normal feet, there were cloven hooves. “Don’t stare, I’m self-conscious,” Satan snarked. “Now take off those horrid shoes and come and sleep. You need it.”

Eymber reached behind her, and pulled off her black pumps and placed them on the ground out of the way. She padded over, and making sure that she greatly avoided Satan, got into the bed.

She faced the wall, her stomach almost pressing against it so that she was as far away from him as possible. Eymber felt the bed shift as Satan crawled underneath the covers.

The light that was permeated the chamber suddenly went out, leaving them shrouded in darkness.

Eymber still felt cold, despite being in a bed. She kept it to herself, however. No way was she going to admit to Satan that she was still cold.

About ten minutes later, Satan spoke. “I can feel you shivering. Come here.” Strong, but surprisingly gentle, hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her to her right.

Eymber yelped when she was pressed against an incredibly muscular, incredibly warm side. The extreme cold already starting to melt away, but Eymber still wanted to move. A surge of warmth went through her again when she felt Satan’s arm move around her, keeping her against him. She was glad for the darkness, because she was sure that she was beginning to blush.

“There, now you won’t be nearly as cold. Are you comfortable?” he asked, pulling her even closer into his side. Eymber inadvertently took in his scent, finding that he smelled pleasantly of fresh rain and thunderstorms.

“Yeah,” she mumbled into his chest. Eymber hated to say it, but it was quiet lovely. Satan was a good cuddler, it would seem. It didn’t mean she had stopped hating him, though. She still very much loathed the demon.

Soon, Eymber found that the gentle up and down movement of his chest had almost lulled her to sleep. In her almost sleep-like state, Eymber realised that she had wrapped her left arm around Satan’s mid-section.

Soon, both of them fell asleep in the other’s (one of them unwilling) embrace, among the silk and the satin of Satan’s bed.