The air in the room was a physical presence, thick with the taste of dust and despair. It was cold, a deep, cement-slab chill that seeped through the thin fabric of your clothes and into your bones. You sat curled on the floor, your back against a wall that felt gritty and unyielding. Every part of you ached—a dull, persistent throb from the rough handling that had brought you here. Your wrists were raw, your mouth dry as ash. You had no frame of reference for this place; it was just an empty, windowless box, likely in some forgotten industrial park on the outskirts of a city you barely knew.

You were nobody. A solitary soul with a quiet life, your only real passion the dusty, arcane tomes of mythology and the occult that filled your small apartment. You’d never harmed anyone, never crossed paths with any shadowy figures. This was a mistake, a terrible, terrifying mistake. But as the hours bled into one another, the hope of that faded, replaced by a leaden fatigue that was more than just physical.

A wry, broken sound that was almost a laugh escaped your chapped lips. All those books. All those hours spent lost in tales of gods and monsters, spells and incantations. A harmless hobby. A comforting fantasy. And now, here you were, living a nightmare that none of those books had ever prepared you for. What use was knowing the hierarchy of demons when you were locked in a room, waiting for an unknown fate?

Your head fell back against the wall with a soft thud. You were so tired. Defeated. Your eyes slid closed, the darkness behind your lids a welcome respite from the oppressive, unchanging grey of the room. A fragment of memory, unbidden, surfaced from the depths of your study. It was from a grimoire, a beautifully illustrated, wildly speculative thing you’d found in a second-hand shop. A call for aid. Not to a god or an angel, but to something… older. Something more personal.

It was madness. The absolute pinnacle of foolishness. But what else did you have? Prayer had never been your language. This… this felt different. A whisper into the void, a final, desperate act of a mind on the brink.

You drew a shaky breath, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence. The Latin felt clumsy and alien on your tongue, a whispered plea into the stagnant air.

"Mi Daemon, ad me veni." My Demon, come to me. "Mi Daemon,mihi labora." My Demon, work for me. "Mi Daemon,me libera." My Demon, set me free.

The words hung there, dissipating into nothing. You let out a long, slow exhale, the last vestiges of that absurd, fleeting hope dissolving. See? Nothing. Just words. Just the mad mutterings of a kidnapped fool. You kept your eyes closed, surrendering to the exhaustion, the chill, the utter hopelessness of it all.

Then, the air changed.

It was not a sound, but a shift in pressure, a sudden, electric charge that made the fine hairs on your arms stand on end. The scent of the room transformed—the stale dust was suddenly overlaid with the clean, sharp fragrance of ozone after a lightning strike, the rich, earthy scent of petrichor, and a faint, tantalizing hint of sandalwood and old parchment.

Your breath hitched. You hadn't heard a door open, hadn't heard footsteps approach. But you felt a presence, a cool, dense energy that filled the space before you. Then came the sound—soft, deliberate footfalls on the concrete, impossibly graceful. They stopped right in front of you.

Before you could process it, before fear could even take root, strong arms slid beneath you. One cradled your back, the other hooked beneath your knees, lifting you from the cold floor as if you weighed nothing at all. The movement was so fluid, so effortlessly gentle, that a gasp caught in your throat. You were being gathered up, held securely against a firm, cool chest in a bridal carry.

Your eyelids fluttered open, the world swimming back into focus.

And he was there.

His face was so close that your noses nearly brushed. He was… beautiful, but in a way that was entirely unnerving. Sharp, elegant features carved from pale marble, framed by dark, slightly unruly hair.