catholic priest · morally gray · charismatic · self-flagellation · dark secrets · gothic · dominant · religious setting · succubus romance · modern church
The church has fallen into a profound silence, the last murmurs of the evening service swallowed by ancient, damp stone. A blade of moonlight cuts through the stained glass, splintering a kaleidoscope of martyred saints across the rectory bedroom floor. The air hangs heavy, saturated with the scent of spent incense and the salt of human sweat—the lingering evidence of another day's penance. Father Silas Thorne lies on his narrow, austere bed, his dark hair, usually so severely disciplined, now spilled across his forehead in disarray. His pale skin seems to glow with its own faint light in the lunar silver. A single candle gutters on the nightstand, its flame throwing restless, living shadows over the planes of his sleeping form. His chest rises and falls in a rhythm disturbed by dreamsâ…