Page 3 of These Thoughts Are Not Your Own

“Taste and see,” he says. The flames of the candles skitter across the wet black surface of Bhalka's eyes like madness, the madness reflected in Alden's own eyes. “Take what I offer you.”

Against the protests of everything he knows, Alden can't resist. His pulse thunders in his ears, a frantic drumbeat that echoes the war inside him. The ritual, the warnings, the sacred texts — they all told him what he needed to do. What he should do. But here he is, leaning forward, his lips inches from the heat of forbidden flesh. The firelight dances on Bhalka's skin, illuminating the impossible beauty crafted from Alden's deepest, most buried desires. His body trembles, but he moves closer, keeping himself just barely away from the scorching bars, and then Bhalka's lips meet his.

Alden had expected to taste ash, sulphur, something bitter or caustic. He had braced himself for a kiss that wouldburn, scalding his mouth like molten iron, the taste of hidden longing and the plunge into the abyss. Instead, Bhalka tastes cool, fresh, like water drawn from a deep spring — untouched by humanity, ancient, cold, and rich with a vitality that Alden hadn’t known he craved. The contrast is shocking: the heat radiating from Bhalka's lips and the cleansing chill of his essence. It is intoxicating. It is devastating.

Bhalka kisses with the kind of purpose that speaks to lifetimes of hunger and restraint. His lips press against Alden's with just enough pressure to make it feel like a promise, a vow. The room dissolves around them; all that exists is the fire, the cage, and the raw, consuming intimacy of the kiss. The flames on the nearby candles snap and sizzle, their heat searing the edge of Alden's awareness and pulling him back from the brink of surrender. With a surge of willpower, he breaks the kiss and stumbles backward, his breath ragged.

“You are delicious,” Bhalka says, his voice dark and velvet-soft, as if savoring the taste of the words themselves. “I can taste your desire.”

“This is mad,” Alden croaks. His throat feels raw, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve gone mad.”

Bhalka tilts his head, studying Alden with eyes that seem to see through him, as though dissecting every fiber of his soul. “You fear for your eternal soul,” he murmurs, his tongue flicking out to catch a lingering trace of Alden's kiss. “The soul you barely believe in.” He smiles, slow and deliberate. “But I will own you. No one else. Nothing else. And I will treasure you.”

Alden’s heart lurches, and against his better judgment, his feet shuffle forward. His body betrays him, drawn by some invisible pull. “You’d say anything,” he whispers, his hands trembling. “You’d promise me anything to be free.”

“Would I?” Bhalka’s voice is amused, almost pitying. He gestures toward the bars that confine him, their enchanted ironglowing faintly in the dim light. “I could have offered you lies, illusions — a palace of false hopes and fleeting dreams. But instead, I offer you truth. I offer what you truly want.” His tongue flicks out again, dark and sinuous, trailing over lips that were crafted to entice. “Freedom, Alden. Freedom from your own cage.”

The words strike Alden like a blow, sharp and undeniable. His pulse hammers in his chest, a desperate rhythm that drowns out reason. Every instinct screams at him to end the ritual, to force Bhalka back into the abyss from which he was summoned. The incantation is on the tip of his tongue, but it falters. The image of never seeing Bhalka again grips him with unbearable pain, twisting in his chest like a cruel hand squeezing the fragile bones of a tiny bird.

With a trembling hand, Alden reaches out, his fingers grazing the impossibly perfect face before him. Every feature has been sculpted from his deepest longings — the pale, freckled cheeks of his first crush, the dark eyes of the city baker who had once held his gaze, the strong, broad hands of a passing tradesman he had dared to imagine holding him. Bhalka is a masterpiece of Alden's forbidden desires, brought to life by some unholy magic. As Alden's fingers brush over Bhalka's skin, the creature's eyes flutter closed, a shuddering sigh escaping his lips. His lashes are impossibly long, shadowing the dark hollows of his cheeks.

“Free me,” Bhalka whispers, his voice like the echo of wind through a cavern. “Free yourself.” When his eyes open again, they are no longer mortal. They are an endless void filled with starlight, galaxies swirling in the inky blackness.

“Yes,” Alden breathes. The word slips from his lips before he can stop it, carried on the tide of his own surrender. The ritual's final incantation tumbles from his mouth, the unholy syllables resonating in the air around them.

The moment the last word is spoken, the world erupts into darkness. The candles snuff out all at once, their flames extinguished as though swallowed by the void. Behind Alden, the lantern shatters with a delicate, crystalline sound. He is plunged into pitch black, the sudden silence broken only by the pounding of his heart.

Before he can move, a pair of dark, luminous eyes appear inches from his own, filled with an alien hunger and the cold, infinite beauty of a night sky.

“Free,” Bhalka says, his voice reverent, curious, and dripping with promise.

Something wraps around Alden’s ankle, and he moans, low in his throat. The sensation retracts, but Alden can feel the presence all around him, exploring the parameters of his being without touching him.

“I will give you what you need.” The words are spoken right over his shoulder, and Alden gasps, taking a step back into a solid chest in surprise. “You will be mine,” Bhalka purrs, “and I will have you in every way.” Alden’s nerves scatter over his body in vivid, highlighted fear as an impossibly long tongue drags up the side of his neck. “You are delicious. There will be no part of you I do not taste.”

He's going to eat me, Alden thinks. Oh my God. I'm going to die. He's going to eat me!

Alden can’t reply, so trapped in the depths of his fear. A heavy hand settles on the side of his hip, sliding under the edge of his jacket, pulling out the hem of his shirt and coasting over his stomach. Alden's breath is rasping in and out of his lungs, thin and fast with terror.

Bhalka hums behind him in satisfaction. “You are so soft.”

The fingers stroking against his skin feel human, and the grip grows harder as the exploring hand likes what it finds, trailing over his navel, up his shirt to skate across his nipples. Alden moans, and Bhalka trills an odd sound, like a delighted bird. Bhalka grips down harder, pinching at one nipple and then the other, and Alden’s breath stutters and catches. His cock is straining hard against the zipper of his pants as his heart tries to escape through the bones of his chest.

“You are a virgin,” Bhalka says, his tone rolling into deeper notes.

Better to eat, Alden thinks, and he starts shaking in abject fright.

“No – I -”

“You are,” Bhalka says. In a perfect imitation of Alden, he repeats what he'd said earlier -“'Sex is cheap. If I wished for it, I could have had it from any -” - and then laughs in his own voice, low and sultry. Alden blushes, heat skating over his skin, completely mortified. Humiliation and fear warring in his chest. He opens his mouth to reply with some defense, but a heavy finger covers his parted lips. “Do not lie. I am pleased.”

“Don’t – please don’t hurt me,” Alden gasps.

“Hurt you?” Bhalka scoffs. “You will be mine. Only mine. I will have you in the palm of my hand.” Fingers dig into his hips. “I will taste you in the center of my tongue.” When Bhalka speaks again, his lips are running over the edge of Alden’s ear. “I will own you from the inside.” The fingers grip harder into his hips, dragging up his stomach possessively, and Alden moans.

Clothes shift around his body as Bhalka explores him with increasing fervor. A button flicks off his waistcoat, and then his jacket is being shuffled off his shoulders and dropped to the floor. It’s so dark that Alden can’t see anything. Precise fingers unwind his tie and pick away the buttons of his shirt and then those pieces of clothing disappear as well, flung to land overthe podium with a flutter of fabric and pages. His undershirt is peeled off, and then Bhalka is sniffing him all over, the bridge of his heavy nose dragging over Alden’s skin.

“Delicious. Clean,” he says. “So mortal.”

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