Chapter 285

The devil’s smoldering eyes never blinked. He watched me. I mean, he watched through me—as my mind struggled to make sense of what he had just said. My name was still in the air like a ghost of a breath I hadn’t fully exhaled.
“Me?” I repeated again, as if the word would make more sense the second time. My voice sounded hoarse in the vast nothingness of Hell. “You mean… I’m the vessel? The one to… plant the seed?”
A sound rumbled from deep within his monstrous chest. Laughter. It was low, volcanic, and ancient. The kind of laugh that made the floor tremble and the air crackle with embers. The kind of laugh that reminded you there were worse things than death.
“There is much you do not know, Luis,” he said at last, his voice wrapping around my bones like smoke and brimstone. “Let me finish my story.”
I swallowed hard, sinking deeper into the throne of molten bone beneath me, as if trying to disappear into it. I had a very bad feeling about where this was going.
I felt like he’d give me such an enormous task that I might never be able to keep up with. I fear I’d disappoint him.
He raised one enormous, clawed hand and gestured toward the burning horizon again. The haze parted like curtains of flame, revealing another vision.
“The woman I told you about… the most beautiful creature to ever walk the earth,” he began, his tone now heavy with something I couldn’t place my hand in.
It sounded like longing? Regret? Triumph?
“She was perfect. And I do not use that word lightly.”
The vision sharpened: a woman with hair like midnight silk and a face carved by some divine sculptor. She wore a white gown that glowed against the inferno, her hands pressed over her belly. She looked peaceful. Happy.
“But there was a problem. She was married. To a man not worthy of her touch. A fool with the loyalty of a dog and the wit of a pebble.” His face turned sour.
I flinched. “So what did you do?”
His molten gaze slid to mine, unashamed.
“I took what I wanted.”
The words came out calmly. Bluntly. No thunder this time and no dramatic flare. Just the truth. Yet, the meaning told me I’d been impressing my master with all those times when I forced a woman into intimacy.
“You… forced her?” I whispered, anticipation creeping up my spine.
He let out a breath which was a long exhale and stared at the illusion. “No. I wore her husband’s face.”
My stomach turned. I almost fell forward from the weight of it.
“You mean—she thought it was him?” I gasped.
“She begged for him that night,” he said, as though reminiscing about a fond memory. “And I gave her what she asked for. Just… not in the way she expected.”
A silence fell between us. The air in Hell seemed to tighten around my throat. My master was my role model. He does it better than me.
Oh, I still had a long way to go.
“And she… got pregnant?”
He smiled again. If you could call that jagged, unnatural twist of his mouth a smile.
“She did.”
My heart pounded in my ears as a chilling epiphany began to slam into me. But no, it can’t be.
“And do you know who that child was, Luis?”
I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t breathe. Something icy crept down my spine, wrapping itself around my gut.
No.
It couldn’t be. But the moment he asked, it all began clicking together like the teeth of a trap snapping shut.
The obsession. The tenderness. The plans. María José.
“No way I whispered.
The devil simply nodded.
“María José is… your daughter?”
A storm howled across the hellscape, as if the realm itself responded to the revelation. The rivers of lava boiled louder, rising in angry bubbles.
“Yes,” he said. “She is my flesh and fire, born of deception and power.”
I was silent for a long time. My mind raced with memories of her—her bruises, her voice, her laughter, the way her eyes lit up when she forgot to be afraid. All that pain she’d endured. Don Diego. The butchery. The pigsty. The mockery. The way she cowered and still found ways to be kind.
And suddenly I was glad—genuinely relieved that she was not Don Diego’s blood. That bastard didn’t deserve to be called her Father. Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on.net
“She’s not a De la Vega,” I muttered under my breath.
“No,” he said. “She is mine. Which makes her more than they will ever be.”
I looked up at him, confusion burning in my chest. “But then… how can she be so different from you?”
It didn’t make any sense. María José didn’t have a single speck of darkness in her. How could she be a daughter to such an evil entity?
He didn’t take offense. If anything, he seemed amused.
“Because I allowed it. I needed her to live in contrast to what she was. To see the world in all its cruelty. To believe in tenderness, just enough to make the fall worthwhile.”
I stiffened. “The fall?”
“She cannot stay soft forever. That’s why I placed her in the house of wolves. To be abused. To be doubted. To be scarred. The more she suffers, the more she awakens. And I have a role for you in that awakening.”
I stared at him, mouth opened without shame. “You want me to be the father of this… child you speak of?”
“Yes,” he said, voice full of certainty. “You will be the one. Because you, Luis, love her. Not purely. Not innocently. But darkly. Deeply. Possessively. It is twisted… and that is precisely why it must be you.”
Oh, to be bestowed with such an honor! To father a child so special, the devil would give up his daughter’s virginity.
“You want a hybrid… to produce a sacrificial heir?”
“Yes. And I want you to begin the line.”