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Demon biology was contradictory, Shinobu concluded, watching as Douma panted underneath her like a dog. The grass tickled her where he had torn her uniform, at the knees and along her thighs, while her white haori sat carefully folded beside them. The night wind howled between the trees, the forest as the sole witness to their frantic coupling. If there had been any animals or other demons, they all had scattered upon sensing the aura of the predator lying on his back under her.
This bizarre, unnatural predator.
Demons, all of them, had so many unnecessary parts, leftovers from their shed humanity, transformed and twisted into parodies of their former functions. Shinobu was well aware of that, of their flexible throats, their stagnated blood, and their immune systems. That understanding allowed her to develop her poison, after all—cleverness and ruthlessness in equal amounts.
Among all demons, there were few shared traits. This one was one of them.
“Having fun?” Douma spoke awfully clearly for someone with a thumb pulling at his cheek, tongue lolling out in a depraved display of eagerness. As she straddled his hips, his cock poked her thigh even as their clothes were still on, ever so eager to please.
She ignored him, preferring to stare at his teeth. Her eyes glazed past his canines. She was well familiar with those, he liked to use them, biting at her lip and prickling her skin bloody.
“Why do you even have these molars?”
There they were, a set of perfectly straight pristine white teeth despite the large pairs of canines protruding from his gums.
The mouth of an omnivore tacked on an exclusive carnivore.
Somehow he managed to pout. Or, at least, to convey pouting with his teary puppy eyes and his elegant nostrils flaring while her thumb was still hooked on his mouth.
“I was human once! Did you forget?” He wrapped his long fingers around her wrist, taking her hand out of his mouth, only to press his lips to her palm. He placed gooseflesh-raising quick kisses as he stared at her, icy intensity burning bright as if attempting to outshine the moon above.
His eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors and Shinobu couldn't see them, not any more than you can see a window. She could only witness the chilling empty vastness inside of him melt with every irregular beat of his undead heart. That was the most terrifying thing about him. That marbled face sculpted to perfection, larger-than-life in his childlike glory, looking at her with an infatuation pulsing in his heart so fiercely that his blood-crown bled anew into his fine silver hair.
“I did not,” she grunted between her teeth, readjusting her weight on top of him, feeling the pulse between her legs grow stronger as their bodies rubbed together.
“Really?” He pushed himself up on his elbows and she felt his abdomen tensing. His head tilted to the side, like a peering dog and his hair slipped off his shoulder, it didn't even look like he had been lying back on the dirt, silver and unruly like a white fox’s tail. “Sometimes I feel like you forget!”
Shinobu opened her mouth for a rebuttal, yet only a quick yelp left her throat. Douma sat up, laughing like a savage, hands on her waist to steady her and press her down against his cock as arousal spread inside her like wildfire. He whimpered, open-mouthed and unabashed despite their wild tryst. If nothing else, it seemed to excite him even more that they roughened themselves up before in battle, as if they were tenderizing each other’s flesh.
Answering to his enthusiasm, she pressed a kiss to his lips, teeth clicking together in her haste. It felt like heating a lump of snow in her hands, a cold burn as he yielded to her, letting her tongue slip past his lips, grazing his fangs. As her hands clung to his shoulders, she melded her chest to his, feeling the firmness of muscle as his hands roamed up to feel the swell of her breasts at her sides.
When she pulled back to catch her breath, he whimpered at the loss. A flare of annoyance lit up in her chest at the realization that, just as a demon could hunt a slayer until sunrise, this hot-blooded man would not even run out of breath while she ran herself ragged.
“Shinobu,” he purred, emphasizing each syllable of her name in the exaggerated pop of his pink lips. “I think I know what those molars are for.”
“What?” she spat out, impatience cutting through her usual veneer of softness. Douma had that effect on her.
He winked.
“To chew you better.”
She knotted her hand into the soft hair at the base of his skull and tugged, uncaring of how much strength she used. If he wanted to resist he could've, but Douma acted as if she had just dismantled him, tipping his head back to expose the sharp curve of his jaw while his arms went slack at his sides.
“Ouchie,” he whined, his eyes filling with fake tears. They came to him like second nature, she had figured that out once the novelty of seeing an Upper Moon cry had worn off. She huffed and tugged harder. “You don't want to really hurt me, do you, Shinobu?”
Her name rolled off his tongue in a way that made the knife hidden in her belt feel heavier. Instead, however, she contented herself with smiling, close-lipped and demure.
“What if I gutted you right now?” she said, sickly sweet like the smell of disease.
“Go up a little and get my heart while you're at it!” he answered far too quickly, then laughed at himself as if proud of his own comment.
With a groan, Shinobu let go of his hair and his head bobbed forwards, forehead coming to rest against hers as he doubled himself over. This close, he was a little cross-eyed. Her hand, quietly, rested on the knife’s handle.
For a moment, they did nothing besides breathe each other’s air. While his body wasn't cold, his breath felt like a winter breeze.
Impatience broke her first.
“Doesn’t even pain bother you?” she sighed, tired of threats he inevitably saw as foreplay.
He raised an eyebrow.
To prove her point, Shinobu cupped his cheek and sunk her nails into the soft flesh. His skin was very smooth, the skin of a man who had never known hardship, and the crescent red marks she made on it made a wave of arousal rise in her veins.
He said, with the gravity of a wolf-dog-boy, “Pain cannot be pain if it’s pleasant, darling. This must have another name! Me, well, I call it love for good measure.”
Love! What good was love from a predator that kills more than what he can eat warm, dragging corpses back home? She would only end up crushed between the beast’s maws. Anger boiled to a red-rising point, warming her thoroughly despite the chilly night.
In an impulse, she drew the knife.
Douma didn't move.
Fighting was tenderizing the meat, no more and no less. The things they did to each other were not things lovers should do to one another.
“Feisty!” he said, adding to his tone a provocative perk so intentionally malicious, it bordered on devilish.
Shinobu’s temple pulsed, staring down at this creature.
A beast. Douma lived as he pleased, debauched in his undomesticated state. They had put a black hat and a collar of beads on a boy-dog-wolf and called it divine when he chewed quietly on human bones. Beasts such as he have been killing men for centuries and men hunted them down in revenge. This was no different. She plunged the knife into his winter-cold throat and watched, a perverse satisfaction filling her chest, as blood gushed out in warm spurts, spraying on her face.
It wasn't a nichirin blade. Even if she were to cut off his head with this knife, Douma wouldn’t die.
Nevertheless, it felt awfully easy to cut his throat. He didn't struggle or resist, the rest of his body didn't even flinch. The kanji emblazoned in his eyes denounced his strength, his neck wasn't meant to be this relaxed, with the knife catching on muscle for only a moment before opening his neck into a second, macabre grin.
“Feeling handsy, aren't we?”
She had hoped that it would have shut him up. Shinobu plunged the knife to the ground. The only warning she received was a maniac grin before he pulled her into a tight embrace, tumbling them both over, and taking her into an all-consuming kiss.
When her back hit the ground, her lips parted in a shallow gasp and Douma took the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth, sloppy and wet and tasting of iron. Shinobu pulled back and her fleeing only enticed her pursuer further.
She pushed him off her, dragging him down to the dirt. The grass tickled her nose but it didn't matter at all as Douma gasped, ever the performer, spreading his legs to make space for her without even being told. If Douma were to resist, she could never topple him but he didn't, he didn't, he never did, he was as pliant in her hands as clay. Hers, as long as she kept molding him with her own two hands.
The blood ran freely from his neck, dirtying their clothes as she kneeled between Douma’s parted legs, sparing a glance at his bulge, aching hard. She cupped his crotch, her small hand squeezing his cock.
He sucked in a breath, eyes going hazy before he tossed his head back and bucked his hips. Rubbing himself into her hand, Shinobu was fascinated at how he didn't hesitate, his deviancy knowing no bounds. The moment of distraction, however, had its price. Before she could react, Douma gripped her shoulders, pulling her down so she was lying on top of him.
His arms wrapped around her in a hug, keeping her trapped as he kissed her. The taste of blood was inescapable, his mouth soft and pliant while his fangs caught on her lips, prickling her and mixing her blood with his.
If she were to swallow this blood, she would become a demon like him.
For a moment, her imagination betrayed her. Creativity had no morals.
In another world, they would hunt together and fight each other for the tastiest chunks of their prey and then hide in their underground den to flee from the sun, filled with blood and bones and air.
Then she remembered Muzan Kibutsuji, the Unspeakable—Kanao and Kanae and the silent betrayal she was doing by even being here.
Never.
Shinobu pulled herself back. Her head snapped to the side as she spat out bloody saliva, foamy and foul-tasting. Once it hit the ground, it evaporated and turned into ashes in the air. Coughing, she kept spitting until she was sure none of it had gone down her throat. Only when the taste was faint and all that dirtied her clothes were ash and earth did she dare to stop.
Tears welled in her ears after coughing so hard, but she steeled her spine before turning her head towards Douma. Shinobu gasped. He was close. His nose touched hers as he searched for a reaction to poke and prod.
Slowly, he pressed his lips to hers, chaste, an invitation for an eternal macabre dance.
Shinobu snarled at him, more annoyed than angry.
“Not yet,” he whispered into her mouth, a little sigh puffing a cloud of cold mist into her lips. His throat closed itself in a bubbling rush of self-absorbing blood.
“I’d rather die,” she hissed out, biting his bottom lip. He moaned as his nails sunk into her back by reflex, pain flaring like frostbite as she arched her back, pressing herself into his chest. She could feel rivulets of blood running down her back as Douma kissed her, his tongue licking her bottom lip, asking for permission. One of her hands clutched on his sweater, feeling his heart hammer against his ribcage, while the other gripped the soft hair at the base of his head, tugging it hard to tip his chin backward.
“Let me,” he whispered between kisses, a ragged desperation breaking through his soft perked-up tone. When she didn’t answer, something shifted in the air, a sense of gravity taking over them both. “Please.”
“Yes.” Shinobu didn't recognize her own voice.
As soon as the word left her mouth, she was tossed on her back. He must have broken her fall, for all she could think of was the halo of moonlight framing his head and his lovelorn gaze of a thousand colors. His lips were split into a grin, but it was frozen in place, a mask trying to keep together a semblance of divine as they crawled through the dirt in mutual madness.
He went for the throat, mouthing blindly at her neck with lips and tongue and teeth. When Douma kissed her pulse point, Shinobu let out a whimper, her face twisting as arousal clouded her senses. With a rush of cold air, he pulled back and an indignant growl slipped past her lips.
Kneeling between her legs, he pulled his shirt out, revealing the rest of his body. She had seen him before, of course, but it was still an odd sight under the moonlight. A man with hands so soft and a carefully constructed muscular body, one that cared more for aesthetics than for strength. Blinking slowly, she watched as he purposely set his cloak to the ground, easily grabbing and setting her on top, shielding her from the dirt.
A display of strength.
She had seen many strong men, surely, but few that made themselves so to inflate their pride.
She huffed as he grinned, surely preening under her attention like an overexcited peacock. Before he could gloat, she hooked her fingers on his belt loop, tugging him forward.
“What are you stopping for?” she groaned, clawing at the dip of his hips to drag him back. He opened his mouth, wide eyes all too innocent as he nodded vigorously.
Caprice dripped from him as he doubled over her. As if her height wasn’t already a sore point, Douma also had to be freakishly tall, tall enough that he had to bend over to run his hands along her sides, hunched over her like a thirsty beast.
“You’re so cute,” he said, giddy like a young boy, swaying from side to side. Shinobu knitted her eyebrows together and huffed. “I could spend a hundred years looking at you like this.”
“Get on with it.”
“Aw, Shinobu, do you want me to rip off your clothes? I can, you know! It wouldn’t even take effort!”
She ran out of patience.
Pushing herself up on her elbows, she entwined her legs around his waist, locking him in place as she kissed him hard, forcing him to finally shut up. As his hands fumbled with her buttons, they both leaned back down. Shinobu’s hands traced the bumps of his spine.
When they parted for her to catch her breath, he had only managed to open two buttons in his distraction, so she helped him the rest of the way, shimmying out of her uniform. Douma stared at her, slack-mouthed and shameless, his eyes roaming up and down her body.
“So cute.” It was a whisper this time, before he bent forward and kissed her neck again, slow this time, controlled, or as controlled as he could with his hands clutching the grass at her sides.
His mouth traced a path downwards, kissing her collarbone and the center of her throat. When he rested his chin on her sternum, her hands found his shoulders, tightening her grip in anticipation. Instead of diving in like the hungry bastard that he was, Douma rubbed his cheek on the side of her breast, eyes half-lidded and humming praise. She couldn’t make out what he was saying and, before she could ask, he lifted himself, kissing her breast until he gave her pink nipple a tentative lick.
A shot of sensation ran up her spine and he grew bolder, kitten licks as he mouthed her nipple, careful to drag his fangs just enough to draw a whimper out of her. Her nipples weren't very sensitive, but she couldn't draw her eyes from how eagerly he circled his tongue, drawing out of her steady pleasant sensation that made her relax into his touch rather than curl her toes.
When he looked up at her, a strand of saliva hanging from his tongue, his smirk almost felt genuine.
Douma leaned in to kiss her again, this time slower and she savored him back, splaying her hands on his broad back. Even as he kept himself in check, his energy vibrated along his whole being, as if he could barely contain himself, that this moment of bliss was just to decide if he wanted to eat her whole or to fuck her hard.
Then again, could she blame him? Shinobu had put herself, willingly, into the jaws of the beast.
With a twitch of annoyance, she sunk her nails into his back, feeling him twitch as he intensified the kiss, groaning low in his throat.
“Just fuck me,” she growled. “Come on.”
“Don't you have any patience, Shinobu?”
They were half-naked in the middle of a forest. They could have even gotten a bed anywhere, but this was what they preferred, this was what they were here for.
“Not for you,” she answered, annoyance bleeding through her usual steady tone.
Instead of waiting for an answer, Shinobu shifted her head, kissing along his jawline and down his neck. He flinched, because even if she hadn't the weapons to decapitate him at hand, she was a slayer and he was a demon and a demon’s neck was a fragile thing. She kissed his pulse point and he let out a choked-out moan, half-caught in her throat.
Her hands slipped between their bodies, caressing his chest until he pulled himself up a little, allowing her enough space to let her hand slide along his abdomen, caressing gently the soft patch of hair right below his navel. A bellybutton! The demon had a belly button, and the mad thought came to her, leaving her breathing into his shoulder in a daze. Nothing about demon biology made sense.
Her fingers found their target, blindly palming at his belt buckle.
“Aww, you could have asked!”
“You're unbearable,” she groaned as he leaned back, untangling himself from her grip.
With him kneeling between her legs, her knees awkwardly pressed against his waist and one of her hands clinging to his belt buckle, Shinobu expected him to be smug and, while she wasn't wrong, the glint of excitement in his eyes told her another story. It was boyish. It tugged at her heartstrings, a pang of warmth rushing through her body. She had cut his throat because he deserved it, yes, this was a foul demon, yet he also had this strange facet of him that was excited at everything, like a boy holding a snowflake in his hands only to watch it disappear.
“Shinobu,” he whined, pulling her attention back to him. His hands rubbed up and down her thighs, as he rocked his hips into her touch. “Come on, I want you so bad.”
Madness. This had to be madness. His voice made heat pool between her legs, she couldn’t even distract herself from how wet she was getting. Shinobu pushed herself up on one elbow, fumbling to open his belt.
“I would do anything for you, you know?” Douma said, his voice light as if he was commenting on the weather.
Most terrifyingly, it felt real, even if it came out of his dirty lying mouth. Her heart raced, struggling to keep up with her thoughts and the arousal filling her body.
Shinobu was so damned. She still wanted to kill him. She would still kill him. Maybe tonight would be the night when he would sate his hunger and take them both to hell.
Douma must have taken advantage of her distraction because his hands slipped down to her calves and she heard a soft snapping sound.
He cut off her socks with his claws.
“Hey!” she blurted out, annoyed at his haste.
“Sorry!” he said and, before she could muster a reply, leaned forward to muffle her complaints with a bruising kiss.
Idiot. She should stop teaching him tricks. Heh.
He pulled back.
Douma squinted.
“Is that a smile I see?”
Shinobu’s whole face twisted as her insides rearranged themselves to strangle her. Only spontaneous combustion could save her from this embarrassment. Douma threw his head back in laughter, pervasive perverse delight. Instead of paying attention to her, however, he unbuckled her belt and hooked his fingers on the hem of her pants. He tugged it, pulling it out, but got stuck at her knees. His eyebrows knitted, staring helplessly at the situation like a child.
Rolling her eyes, Shinobu moved her hips and helped him, slipping out of her garment. She was naked, now, fully naked. It wasn't the first time, yet the fire in Douma’s gaze remained burning just as bright. Fine, then. If demons were contradictory, then so was she for all of this. If she was going to lay with a creature she ought to kill, then she should at least earn the sin.
His fingers slipped between her legs, a soft wet noise filling the space between them as he parted her folds.
She was fine, she must have been more than fine for a while by now with how the heat ran under her skin.
“Come on,” she rasped. “Don't be a gentleman now.”
He pressed his thumb against her clit in short circles, too fast to be purely pleasant, like pressing ice to a sprain and feeling it burn.
“Oh, darling, for you? Never.” He brought his hand to his mouth and licked her fluids off, staring at her while he did as if to prove his point.
Boastful bastard.
He slipped his arms under her knees, bringing her ankles to his shoulders. Her back dragged on the cloak as he readjusted their position. Their hips were better aligned now and it gave her a good view of his body. With a purr of approval, he slipped a hand between their bodies, tugging his cock out.
His chin was on his chest, the tip of his tongue slipping out of his lips as he looked down between the junction of their bodies. Shinobu watched, fascinated, as he used one hand to keep her hips up while the other held his cock, aligning it with her entrance. He was giddy, he must have been, because he couldn't keep himself still, eyes gleaming as he rubbed the tip along her wet folds like the bloody tease that he was.
“Douma,” she groaned, the plea left unspoken.
His head shot up, lips parted.
For the first time, Shinobu wished he had made a snarky comment. It would have been less disconcerting than his eyes shining with pure infatuation as he pushed into her, drawing a moan out of her throat.
“You're so pretty,” he purred, pulling back his hips. “So tight.”
Idiot.
In that position, she could do little but grit her teeth as he took his time, rolling his hips slowly. With little preparation, the stretch to accommodate his size burned pleasantly, but Shinobu bit her bottom lip, focused on the weight and the stretch of him slipping inside her, inch by inch, keeping her breath steady. Yet she couldn’t help but smirk at that frozen perfect face of his flushed pink, so rare a sight. It felt like winning, somehow.
Her sweat clung to his cloak at her back, dragging it with her with every deepening thrust. The slide became easier soon enough, but her legs began to prickle, the position rather unfavorable despite the good angle. When he thrusted deep, finally burying himself to the hilt in her, Shinobu’s eyebrows knit, her eyes closing as her fists balled on the satin fabric of his cloak underneath her.
“There you go,” he commented, kissing her ankle. “Nice and deep. Now…”
He trailed off and Shinobu opened one eye, curiosity getting the best of her. Douma leaned forward, his hands on her calves as he slowly inched himself forward, keeping their hips flush so she could feel every shift, a jolt of pleasure when he finally placed both his hands at her sides, his eyes staring into hers glimmering with divine wilderness.
“Wow, you’re really flexible! I can get really deep in you like this!”
He punctuated his phrase with a thrust, pushing a moan out of her throat. Douma giggled. Oh, she was going to kill him.
“I’m going to kill you.”
Shinobu gripped his forearm to steady herself as he rolled his hips against hers.
“If you do, do it slowly, yes?” he purred, ever the insane man.
His pants, only half-pulled down, chafed at her legs as he thrust, setting a pace as he angled his hips, hitting that soft spot inside of her that made her lose all composure. Beastly man. As his hair slipped from his shoulder, swaying in the air with every pointed thrust, heat pooled low on her belly, below her navel. She could feel him twitching inside of her, eager, insane, pure madness that she answered in kind as her body clenched around him.
Douma let out a choked groan, increasing the pace, and filling the night air with lascivious wet noises. Each thrust sent a shock of pleasure up her spine, moans spilling out of her throat despite her biting her bottom lip. Her hands, in their indecision, clung to his forearms, the cloak, the ground, even reaching towards his shoulders in an attempt to steady herself against the rising waves of pleasure.
As if knowing, maybe he did, one of his hands slipped down her belly, pressing a thumb to her clit again and circling. Shinobu curled her toes, unable to contain a broken moan.
“Say my name, say my name again,” he pleaded, desperate, that divine voice reduced to animal devilry.
“Douma,” she groaned, his name coming out in fractionated syllables. “Fuck.”
Her words spur him on harder as he abandoned all semblance of control, fucking her into the ground. She arched her back to meet him in the middle as her heels pressed down on his shoulders. Answering to the fire rising under her skin, Shinobu bit her bottom lip but she could still hear the soft mewls caught in her throat.
With his fingers working at her, she wouldn’t last long. She gritted her teeth, her whole body tensing as she braced herself. Shinobu wanted it, there wasn’t any time for other thoughts, the warmth creeping into a smoldering heat. Something was cold at her sides, she didn’t care enough to look, not when Douma’s pace quickened as he too hastened himself over the threshold. The air around them felt cold, but she couldn’t have been running hotter.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, mewls escaping her throat as she panted, unable to hold herself back now. Her toes curled and she pressed her hips to match his thrusts because this was too much, surely she couldn’t hold on for any longer now, not at the edge of this precipice.
“Close,” she growled and he was obedient, very obedient, because soon enough he twisted his fingers and his hips and his body just right—
Shinobu tossed her head back, a moment of blinding fiery sensation spreading over her body, tightening every aching muscle. A ragged moan ripped through her throat and Douma answered in kind, high and savage, guiding her through her orgasm until she was squirming with overstimulation. With a groan, her eyes snapped back towards him.
He was staring straight at her. The moonlight reflected over the glints of ice and frost that radiated off him like sparks of a bonfire. His eyes were wild, divinity far gone from that clouded gaze, substituted by something far more human. He held her gaze shamelessly as his thrusts became sloppy, his whole body trembling as he let out a whimper, pulsing inside of her as he came in warm spurts. His abdomen tensed, muscles twitching as he dragged out his pleasure with quick, short rolls of his hips.
Surprisingly subdued, she thought with a low laugh to herself.
In a moment, he slipped off her and, although he didn’t need to catch his breath, didn’t need to breathe at all, he was panting. The sudden emptiness came with a rush of relief, as he tucked himself back into his pants, setting her boneless, trembling legs back down. The cold air felt rather uncomfortable on her skin, her heart aching for a moment before he laid on top of her.
It was an awkward fit. He was awfully heavy and didn’t even have the decency to support himself on his elbows, plopped over her with his chin between her breasts. Yet she didn’t push him off, not only because she was tired, but because the skin contact was nice even if there were branches of frost eating away at the grass around them with every beat of his irregular heart. Luckily, at least, he had his eyes closed, squinting like a content cat.
When he spoke, it was so soft, it felt like it was coming from far in the horizon.
“This is heaven, this has to be.”
A funny phrase, because Shinobu did feel like he had dragged her down the deepest pits of hell.
Without knowing what to do with her hands, she settled for tangling them on his hair, soft and silvery, only for him to purr immediately on contact. He was all cold, like an ice cube. Huh. Just moments prior, he had been so warm. When she huffed with frustration, unable to untangle the knots of this stupid paradoxical body, his eyes snapped open. He smirked, so wide she could see his gums. His canines, as long as one of her fingers, gleamed. Yet…
This time, when he laughed, the corner of his eyes creased. Huh.
“Hello!”
Shinobu blinked slowly.
“Hi.”
Her fingertips were numbed as if the blood had run away from his cold body. Shinobu didn’t feel cold herself but when she let out a sigh, a white puff of breath stood between them. He pulled her up as he sat down against a tree, adjusting her on his lap. With a little frustration, she noticed that his breath was steady and he was ready to go again if he so wished, while there was dirt under her fingernails and her thigh muscles ached and sweat coated her skin like a second layer as the hours caught up to her.
If Douma wanted another round, he didn't ask. Instead, his face turned into a pensive pout, eyelids drooping and obscuring the kanji inscribed in his eyes. Huh. Very quietly, not disturbing this strange new expression, Shinobu laid herself down on his chest. Her ear was pressed against his collarbone, but his heart was beating so fast it didn't even make a difference, as if it was thrumming inside his whole chest.
His hand cupped her cheek, a natural invitation. Shinobu perked up just as he was descending to meet her, slow and gentle. When they parted, Shinobu couldn't resist.
“Don’t you tire?”
That was enough to drag out his usual self, a confident smirk taking over his expression.
“Not at all!”
Shinobu wanted to quip back, but, as she straightened her spine too fast, her face twisted in a grimace with a heated pang of pain. Reaching back, she touched the scratches Douma had left in her, still raw and fresh.
Douma hummed low, eyes flickering with iridescent colors filmy and clouded by post-coital haze. Then he spread out his large hands along the dips and curves of her back, a chill that made her whole body tense for just a moment before a wave of ice-cold relief dripped down her spine. Her wounds knitted themselves, leaving just the trickle of melting ice in their wake rolling in drops down her spine.
“There you go,” he said, with an odd tone of bashfulness that didn't fit his high honeyed voice. His cheeks flushed the same shade of pink as his lips. It felt stiff and unpracticed and it tugged at her heartstrings. She wanted to say something, something softer, yet the words didn’t come to her. She contented herself with staring at him.
His face always seemed to phase in and out of reality, a moment of perfection in multicolored irises alternating with a grin so strange that Shinobu asked herself how anyone could mistake this beast for a human. If she stared for too long, even in this moment of post-coital bliss, it was as if he had been shaped from the first winter blizzard. Another layer of frost on top of a vast, blissfully cold nothingness.
Yet, his heart beat erratically under her hand, the only remaining vital sign of his soul. Perhaps demons were all composed of contradictions and Douma, going beyond even his biology, contradicted even his emotionless existence. Then again, so did humans and so did she.
Shinobu dropped that line of thought. It didn't matter. She would get him yet. There was solace in knowing that, even if she didn't kill him, he would die anyway. But neither of them would die that night. She kissed the column of his neck, longing to sink her teeth in and open his jugular vein again.