Chapter 5.2

“Finally decided to show back up?” Yulia asked. Her eyes briefly scanned over the magical array around me before proceeding to ignore it.

I gulped. I knew I’d have to face her eventually, but I had certainly hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. In truth, I had been hoping I’d be human again and long gone before she ever came back to the room. Now that obviously wasn’t going to happen. Had I really made the right choice? Was it a choice at all?

She closed the door behind her, strolling into the room like a predator. “After your last punishment, I would have thought you’d be a bit more compliant.” She moved past me, still sitting on the floor, and made her way toward the closet. “I don’t particularly care if you skip your classes. What good is an education to a bimbo succubus like you? What I care about,” she paused and smacked the closet door closed. Her eyes met my own. “Is you not following the rules we agreed on. So let’s do what I should have done from the beginning.”

Dangling in her hand was a familiar black collar. My eye’s narrowed. How could I get out of this, I wondered?

“No, I refuse.” I scooted back, eyeing the fiendish object. I wouldn’t become a pet. Not for her.

“Oh Gordon, my silly little succubus. You belong to me. I own your contract. You don't get a choice here.”

At hearing my human name, my eyes widened. How did she know? Who had told her?

“What? Did you really think I didn’t know who you were? I’m not an imbecile, Gordon. Even if you weren’t the talk of the school, I’d have easily put two and two together.”

For whatever reason her continually calling me Gordon made my wings twitch in annoyance. I didn’t want to hear her say it. “My-- my name is Ivy,” I declared. It was a better name, anyway.

A fierce grin spread across her face. “Finally beginning to accept your place? It’s about time.” With a wave of her wand, the magical collar began to float toward me. I stood, my eyes widening further, and shook my head. “Now, now, don’t be like that. This was inevitable. You know this.”

“No. You can’t do this!” I asserted. My back pressed up against the wall as I ran out of space to move, and my eyes drifted across the room to where the door was. Could I make it?

“Don’t you worry your little tail. I’ll take good care of you. You’ll be a nice and pampered little demon.” For just a brief moment, I considered it. How easy it would be to just accept it and become her pet plaything. Yet the malicious glint in her eye and smirk on her face told me how terrible of an idea that would be. Yulia only cared about herself, and certainly wouldn’t treat me as an equal. I was nothing but a toy in her eyes. Somehow, I had to find a way out of her clutches.

My feet shot forward, skidding toward the door. I used every ounce of strength I had in my legs to propel myself further, praying I would make it.

“Stay.” With one word, I slid to a halt, finding my legs unable to continue. No, I thought. I had to keep going! My foot lifted up, and a warning flashed in the back of my mind. If I moved forward, it would be a breach of my contract, I realized. My foot stepped back into place. Breaking the contract would mean being ripped from this realm and sent to the Under. My brain faltered for a moment. Did she really have so much power over me that she could control me with a single word? How?

Footsteps approached me from behind. “I’d been planning to find a way to obtain your contract one way or another. Imagine my surprise when the Housemistress simply gifted it to me. Better than that, however, was what I found inside once I read through it. To think that it had such generously vague wording. ‘Any commands given by me, so long as they be feasible, shall be followed.’ It’s too bad that you put such little thought into making it. You could have made something much more favorable for yourself.” Her hand rubbed against my neck from behind. “Bad for you, but quite convenient for me.”

I ground my teeth. She always had to rub in as much salt as she could manage.

“Were I in your place, I’d have never been so careless,” she continued. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised with how empty that little head of yours probably is.” She circled around me, the collar once again in her hands. “You need someone to take care of you. It’s evident you can’t manage on your own when you can’t even follow a few simple rules. You’re just a bimbo little demon who doesn’t even know how to make up a proper contract with someone, something that should be simple for your kind. You need someone like me, else others are going to take advantage of your ignorance and impotence. But I’ll take good care of you.” She bent down in front of me, her eyes meeting mine with a confident smile.

She couldn’t be right. I’d made mistakes, sure. And maybe I wasn’t the smartest, nor could I use magic or really defend myself physically. But… Okay, when I thought about it, I was really vulnerable to being taken advantage of here at this school. Yet that didn’t mean I wanted it to be Yulia lording over me. Even if I needed protection, I could do better than her. My mind went to Victoria and the loving care she’d given to me, despite seeing me as a simple demon. I didn’t think I’d mind perhaps giving myself to her...

But not Yulia. I shook my head. “No.” My eyes held hers, a lighthouse shining out my defiance into the uncaring void.

A flash of annoyance went through her eyes. “Now now. You want this; you need it, even if you don’t want to admit it. You love being dominated. You like being my little plaything. I’ll bring you to heights you’ve never experienced before.” Her arms circled around me from behind, and the collar slid along my throat. I tried to move away from her, but the power of the contract was strong. I could barely lean a few inches before I began to push its limits. Even trying to shove her away did little good to stop her. With a small click, the collar latched together, sealing my fate.

In truth, the collar was symbolic more than anything. She already had my contract. As long as she did, I was her’s. Yet somehow, the collar made it feel so much more real and final. My fingers traced up along it.

Yulia’s arms wrapped around my back, my face pressed against her neck as she hugged me. “Ivy, my beautiful pet succubus,” she whispered into my ear. A finger trailed down between my wings. Her tone changed from wistful to assertive in a breath. “From now on, I expect you to call me Mistress.”

I shook my head once more, my nose brushing against her skin as my teeth clenched shut.

“Let me make it clear. That was a command, understood? It was a simple rule yesterday, but since you don’t seem inclined to follow those, now I’m making it a contractual obligation. I want to hear you say it,” she commanded.

I struggled for a moment, but the words were ultimately forced out of me. “Y-yes, Mistress.” I had to do as I was told, a part of my mind seemed to whisper.

“Good,” she purred. “What a good girl.” My breath caught as she rubbed her hand up through my hair until fingers brushed against my horns. Her other arm slid down my side until a hand stroked along my tail. I squirmed, wanting to pull away, yet still couldn’t. Not until she allowed it. “Now, what am I to do with you? After all, you still need to be punished for breaking the rules.”

I let out a sigh and mentally gave in to my fate. There was nothing I could do; I belonged to her and she could control my actions. Was this going to be my life now, a simple demonic servant or pet worrying over being punished for my blunders?

Something warm touched my shoulder, and I looked over to find a dark black ooze dripping down my and Yulia’s backs. She stepped away from me, and my eyes shot up to the ceiling only to widen in horror to find it bubbling. From the center, a black void-like slime spread and gurgled outward. Out from it dripped what quickly became several liters of the thick liquidy substance to the floor around us. A few seconds of stunned open-mouthed silence from both of us was all it took for it to cover several meters of space. It was then that a slime-covered tentacle twisted out of the upside-down pool and against the bare roof.

“Oh no,” I muttered.

“Move, demon!” Yulia yelled as she shoved me forward out of the way.

I spun and landed with a plop on my butt, my hands smearing up against a small pool of black liquid that had fallen to the floor. My eyes were unfocused, staring up at the tentacle creature in a slight daze. Mistress Yulia chanted a quick spell, and from her wand, a continuous cone of fire poured out like a current of water. The pool of black liquid that defied gravity sizzled and popped until it began to seemingly boil. Despite her efforts, the tentacle ignored her, and several others found their way out of the black pool and grappled against the roof. They squirmed and pulled as though they were trying to push something down… or up? Several others reached down and Yulia stumbled away, cutting off her flame before the dripping black tentacles could find her.

I wanted to get up, to run away and not look back, but Yulia’s command to stay still lingered in my mind. I couldn’t leave until she gave me permission. Instead, I cowered on the floor, staying low enough to avoid anything from grabbing me. Several arcs of lightning flew through the air from Yulia’s wand as she shifted around the room, avoiding the ever-increasing number of tentacles reaching out. She weaved around them and watched in gleeful delight as they shriveled up and thrashed at the powerful electricity flowing through them. I could tell she was tiring, as her breath slowly became more ragged and laborious. The amount of magic she was throwing around was taking every bit of energy she could manage.

A tentacle moved down toward her path, and she stumbled back away from it. Her shoulder bumped into a different one, and my eyes widened as it quickly curled up around her. A shout escaped her mouth and she thrashed against it. It did little good, completely ignoring her scrapes and kicks. Finally, she came to her senses and cast a spell, the one spell that had proved to work against the things. A bolt of lightning flashed through the tentacle and her alike. It dropped her, and she fell to the floor twitching, her hair a frazzled mess. She blinked as yet another tentacle quickly circled down and scooped her back up.

“W-wait,” her voice croaked out. Her arms began to struggle against it, but the creature quickly had her surrounded and bound up. Slowly she rose up into the inky pool of black void. “No!” Her eyes met mine as her side moved into the strange substance. “Ivy h-hel--” Her words were cut off as she disappeared into the void above. The rest of the tentacles followed, and the pool of black ceased its movements and formed a slick pool of calm. I gave out a sigh of both relief and despair.

With Yulia now in a different plane of existence, I realized I could once again move. Her hold over me had disappeared. A shrill mad laugh escaped from my mouth.

I’d caused this. I’d done all of it. And for what? Something I didn’t even truly want? If anyone had deserved to be pulled up into the Above, it was certainly me. Yulia wasn’t a great person, but did she deserve this when it was I who had been the cause of it? I looked down at my black-stained hands. What was I supposed to do now?

I heard a gurgle and looked up to find the portal once again bubbling and popping. My eyes widened once again as several tentacles slipped back down, one wrapping around my leg. I yelped out as it pulled me off my feet, and then up into the air legs-first. I wiggled and tried to kick, but it did little good against the black slime-covered creature. My foot met the cold inky substance of the ceiling and was pulled in. Slowly, I sunk upward, my head spinning as gravity seemed to stop making sense. I knew the floor was supposed to be down, yet as I became waste deep, it felt more like it was up above me. My eyes closed as first my shoulders, then my neck, and finally my chin submerged. I tried to keep my head above it for as long as I could, yet ultimately had to hold my breaths as I plunged into the Upper darkness.