She needed a moment to heave in disgust just as she’d done years ago after her first kill. She’d seen death. She’d met wicked, cruel, and repulsive men. She’d encountered soldiers and warriors and power-hungry military officers. This was the first time she’d met a true demon.

Eramus was a monster. She bent herself over the table while he remained trapped in whatever remained of his shell of a person-suit. Nox held her head in her hands and wasn’t sure if she would scream, laugh, vomit, or cry. After a time, she felt herself begin to grin, though not with joy. The smile was not one of happiness but of vitriol. She was a force of nature; she was lightning and thunder and the pewter gales of the stormy sea personified. She was the night. She was the creature in the shadows.

“How are you doing down there?” she asked. Nox feigned a pout as she looked at the crumpled man, her conviction returning.

Her calm was replaced with something else entirely as delicious justice tingled on her swollen lips. She pulsed with triumph.

She straightened from the table as she examined her conquest. She wiped her mouth clean of him, teeth glinting from her victory. Nox ran her hands down the black silk of her sensual gown, straightened her dress, smoothing it like a lady. A hand went to her hair, fixing it as she raked her fingers tenderly through her inky locks, appreciating the soothing familiarity of grooming.

Perfectly presentable to claim her prize, she crossed over to him and spat on him. Nox lowered until she was at eye level, the water of her spit glistening upon his unmoving features. She stared into his baby blue eyes for a long time, allowing herself to see into the depths of the blackened soul she’d stolen.

“You still in there, Eramus?”

He let out the barest whisper of a terrified moan.

“Good.”

She took the tailed flogger from where it had fallen on the floor and brought it to one of the blades on the wall. Nox snipped the long strand from its flog and returned to Erasmus. Nox sighed as she began the laborious effort of shimmying the captain’s pants farther down his hips, revealing his testicles. She made a noise to express her displeasure before she set to work. She wrapped the leather strand tightly around his scrotum, watching the testicles grow purple instantly as they filled with blood. She knew enough from the gelded horses in Farleigh’s stables that it would take two weeks for his manhood to fall off in its entirety, and she wasn’t sure she’d let him live that long. Two weeks was too long for a man who did not deserve to draw breath. Still, castration—even a slow one—was a relatively satisfying victory. He would never, ever be removing this leather band.