He was always watching. Asteroth never once took his eyes off Roarke after his escape from Hell's solstice ritual. He watched the man sleep. He watched the man eat. He watched the man bathe. Fuck. Breathe. Bleed . . . He watched Roarke fight off the legions of lesser spawn that he sent to retrieve him each night. Every night for five years, four months, and eight days. Asteroth had never been known for patience. In fact, as far as omnipotent, semi-mortal beings of darkness went, one might say Asteroth was the least patient to have ever been birthed from Lucifer's gullet, and he was quickly reaching the last drop of reservation remaining in the bucket.<br/><br/>Pride held him at bay. He refused, once again, to acknowledge the longing ache in his blackened heart, the straining ache in his cock. While he had ample company, any number of warm bodies both willing and those yet in need of convincing, he truly only craved one body. Roarke. Balam's lecherous and twisted soul that fit oh-so perfectly against his own. But he didn't dare allow his brothers and sisters to see him in such a state, lost, empty and pining for another. It was but weakness, a disgusting remnant of the centuries-damned, tortured and re-molded human from which his mettle had been forged. Asteroth would sooner admit defeat in battle than admit that he needed Balam.<br/><br/>That he needed Roarke.<br/><br/>He knew his siblings were watching with amusement. He knew Lucifer watched, though none knew his creator's thoughts and motives. And thus he waited, sending demon after demon to retrieve the mortal body and drag him back to Hell, where Asteroth would show him exactly what he'd been missing for five years.<br/><br/>As he watched the man plow his muscular form into cheap, mortal concubines, the Knight envied both parties. He could feel Balam's energy, could feel that his brother had grown bored of the proceedings, bored of flesh that could never satisfy him as Asteroth could. For what felt like the thousandth time, he watched Roarke's pathetic attempts to satisfy Balam, quench the lustful void time and time again. The man's sexual exploits heightened in their aggression and explorations, but Asteroth knew it would always be in vain. Balam wouldn't let Roarke satisfy himself, not until both demon and mortal came to a mutual climax.<br/><br/>Asteroth was hard within his armor, even though the bodies before him were but sweaty mortals. He wanted Roarke to fuck harder, grip harder, tear out their hair, make those whores reconsider their line of work. He wanted to to bury his cock inside Roarke, his aching organ envying the prostitute's oiled digits as they slid inside those molten walls. He wanted to show the vessel a real fucking.<br/><br/>But he knew he was being watched. And pride wouldn't let him lift a finger to open a portal within the brothel. Pride would not let him push himself inside Roarke and end this five year charade. Pride kept him hard and wanting as he waited until nightfall, when his lessers would attack yet again. Maybe tonight was the night. After all, he had decades.<br/><br/>It was not but one demon that rose out of the darkness, surrounding the sleeping man and his sword, but dozens. With the lower bodies of goats, the faces of men and the claws of eagles, the army of Hell crept upon him, claws reaching, dead silent, towards the blade in Roark'es grasp to disarm him. But not silent enough. Asteroth suspected that Roarke and Balam had coexisted long enough for the man to have learned to sense demonic presence. His eyes flew open.<br/><br/>And the bloodbath began.<br/><br/>It was over quickly. Roarke ripping the weak demons to bits with a fury he'd only seen in his own kind, the mark blazing red on his forehead as he made quick work of Asteroth's forces, leaving the self-proclaimed Prince of Hell less than pleased. While the immortal realm was filled with beasts to do his bidding, Asteroth was beginning to realize that Roarke only grew stronger by the day. His willpower, on the other hand, had grown thin. Why send cannon fodder to do a real shadow's job? Why bother with the snide comments of his fellow Knights? Especially when he was as hard as steel and foun no end to this madness in the foreseeable future? With the snap of his fingers, Asteroth summoned a portal before him. If his brothers and sisters dared judge him for doing his own dirty work, he decided, they would soon find themselves crawling among the cesspool of worms beneath the throne room.<br/><br/>His gleaming boots parted the puddles of dark blood spilled by Roarke's blade as he emerged, standing proudly before the naked man bathed in gore and sweat, barely a scratch marring his sculpted flesh. The stench of decay surrounded them as the demon's bodies disintegrated, turning to ooze and siphoning back into the immortal realm. But Asteroth hadn't come here to watch his army fade. He'd come here to bargain.<br/><br/>"Roarke. Sleep well?" He stepped closer, his armor reflecting only the mortal's own face back at him. "Perhaps you'd like a second round? Or maybe you'd rather discuss an end to your . . . night terrors?" Asteroth smirked, the expression clear in the tone of his honeyed voice as he downplayed five years of endless hellish onslaught. "After all, you certainly appear in need of your beauty sleep." He could feel Balam beneath the surface, his aura growing stronger in his own presence. "Or perhaps you'd like a round of another kind, hmm?" They stood nearly nose to nose now, Asteroth a few inches taller, but lankier in comparison to the tank of a man before him. His own cock begged to close those couple of inches, but tact would prove the more useful tool here. Asteroth's smooth gauntlet cupped a rugged, scarred cheek. He remembered that scar. His finger caressed down his neck, the naked chest, sliding downward, over the plains of a muscular torso . . . lower still, into a nest of dark hair. His finger stopped there, just above the root of Roarke's manhood. "What do you say, mortal? Fight, talk . . . or . . . " His gauntlet cupped the man roughly as he waited for an answer. But after all, he literally had Roarke by the balls this time.