A/N: In case anyone was curious, the time line for this story is Pre-Force Awakens, but we are catching up to the Force Awakens time line very quickly now, so just hang in there. We will be seeing Rey, Finn, Poe and the rest of the awesome new characters and old characters of the Star Wars universe very soon!

And sorry for such a long delay. Lots has happened. But I am writing this and another Kylo Ren/OC story with an OC almost opposite of this one and might be interesting. If you care enough to, be on the look out for that! It will be called Wild and Caged.

Thank you so much:

HappinessisMusic

Ismira Shadeslayer

Lurker128

PrettyRecklessLaura

I thank you guys so much for reviewing and continuing to read this! Love you guys!

A Demon's Light

"Tried to keep you close to me

but life got in between.

Tried to square not being there

but think that I should have been."

-James Bay 'Hold Back the River'

Chapter Seven: An Awfully Big Adventure

The sparring, though slightly new and intimidating to her, she knew he needed it and it felt good to help him.

It was even quicker for her to learn to defend herself when she was just tossed into a fight. They spoke no words to each other except for Kylo who gave her a few tips here and there, but he felt it would be good for her to leap into something unknown so she would better learn to prepare for anything and everything that could be thrown at her.

Somehow, it worked. Within a few short hours of sparring in a wave of his rage, she managed to block him a good portion of the time. Her form was still lacking but everything else was nearly spot-on.

What also made her at such a disadvantage was when she seemed to shut out the Force when she was sparring. She refused to call on it for help when battling, which would be a great fault if she didn't start using the Force against her enemy.

Kylo was almost impressed with himself, but of course, not nearly as he was impressed with Josie.

"I think we should continue this next time. It's very late."

Josie deactivated her saber, feeling a little disappointed. She was having too much fun with him, but more so she didn't want to have to go to her room and leave his side. It was strange but fitting that she became so attached to someone so quickly. After all, having so little other people talk to her in her lifetime -

"Must we stop?"

He cocked a brow. "We won't get maybe five hours of sleep if we keep these up. We do have a trip tomorrow, remember?"

She smiled at that. "Oh, yes. I nearly forgot! I guess we should be off to bed then. Wouldn't want our trip cut short because either of us are tired. No fun in that. What will we be doing tomorrow?"

"It's a surprise. Come on. Let's go back to our chambers."

Josie sighed but nodded. As much as she wanted to stay with him all night, she knew he was right. They had a big adventure tomorrow and staying up all night wouldn't help them enjoy it. But how could Josie possibly sleep knowing Ben was just in the next room awaiting the next morning where they would get away from orders and responsibilities and enjoy a new place just the two of them?

Oh Maker, would she get any sleep?

xxx

Early that morning, not managing to get but a couple hours of sleep, Kylo Ren was summoned into the assembly chamber to speak with Snoke. Though irritated by the indecent time what with so little sleep and having to rise early to take Josie on a short trip, he managed to keep himself in check as he walked the bridge to the holo throne where Snoke sat.

"I feel you have changed, Master of Ren." He looked down at Kylo so suspiciously yet casual like nothing could touch him. Of course, that was very true considering he showed his physical form to no one.

"My duties for the First Order have not, Supreme Leader."

Snoke squinted. "Something in the Force has changed. I feel a powerful Force that somehow involves you, but can't quite make out how. Something is in the mix. How is the training with the girl?"

"She is more powerful and more adept with the Force than originally anticipated, Supreme. Even better, she is more willing to stay with us and deny any other alliance."

"On such short notice? Tell me, Ren, how have you been able to convince her?"

Ben hesitated. His jaw clenched, running quiet thoughts through his head. In all honesty he really didn't convince her of anything. He was simply himself and so far, she has not asked to go home - but the one time.

"I believe she trusts me, Leader. Her loyalties seem to lie with those she knows and are close to. With having so little contact with anyone, it wasn't difficult to gain her trust."

"Good work, Kylo Ren. But make sure of this," he began, leaning down his throne and getting close enough to Kylo to make him almost nervous, "Do not let this girl get in the way of your focus on the Dark Side of the Force. I feel your darkness wavering. Don't disappoint me."

"Never, Supreme Leader. You and the darkness are the only things for me. I won't let you down."

"Good," he said sternly and quickly. "I'm sure you haven't forgotten the map to Skywalker then?"

Unfortunately, he had. The map went completely out of his mind especially after first laying eyes on Josie. Everything from then on was all about her. He couldn't put her out of his mind. However, there wasn't any way he would let Snoke know of that.

"No, General Hux and I have been working vigilantly to hunt down the piece of the map. We have a lead. We believe the map is on the planet of Jakku in a small village named Tuanul. Hux is preparing the barracks and troops this very day and the assault will begin tomorrow."

"Good," he said again but this time with sickening pleasure. "I want you to report back immediately after you obtain the map. And once that is finished, bring the girl to me."

"So soon?" he asked, trying hard to hold back his surprise and fear.

"If what you say is true, I want her to pledge her allegiance to the First Order as soon as possible. With the newly acquired map, it is you and this girl whom I want to hunt Skywalker down and finish him."

"Of course, Supreme Leader."

"Go."

With that, Kylo walked out hastily regretting ever bringing Josie on board.

xxx

Somehow she managed to get a few hours. By blessing of the Force she was able to fall asleep within minutes of laying her head on the soft pillow.

Of course, she thought it helped when Ben escorted her to her room and said, "I will see you early morning and we will leave as soon as possible. Now, get some sleep for me." Yes, that helped her quite a bit.

Josie was all too excited when something woke her up. It was a strange awareness she felt in the Force that let her know it was time to get up and that Ben was up too. Then again, he had spoken to her in her heard through the Force.

She would have to ask him about that soon enough.

After taking a shower and putting on her clean dress she wore the very day she first saw him, she awaited the knock b y sitting on her couch with VB. He was beeping away, making small conversation and of course mocking her and Ben.

It was now his favorite pastime.

When he did finally come knocking at her door, she opened it with a wide smile. Surprisingly, he didn't have his helmet or his typical black combat robes on. He was wearing perfectly normal garb. She liked him much better looking less like a Dark Sider and more like a normal human; more like himself, but still, there was something inside that brewed within him. And she couldn't quite place the difference she felt in him this very morning.

"Don't get your hopes too high," he warned. "We will be taking some of the day to train."

She didn't care. She was too happy to see a brand new place to bother with what they were going to do there.

"This way. My pilot already has the ship ready to go." He led her to his black command ship docked in the ship bay. It was sleek and grand, more technical but darkly beautiful than she had ever seen before. She almost admired it.

The excitement in her was so strong that it was difficult to be a good passenger and keep seated. She wanted to jump up and look outside the window and she wanted to examine everything in that ship. She wanted to take everything in.

"You know how to fly a ship?" she asked Ben.

He chuckled. ."It is my ship after all. I mostly put it on autopilot however." He went to the control panel and flipped a few switched.

Ben felt proud to be able to show her new things. It gave him a sense of duty and purpose that didn't concern killing or destroying. It was simply pure and simple.

When she was done looking out the window and settling only slightly from being so anxious in excitement, she managed to look back at Kylo. "So, I've been meaning to ask you about how you spoke to me last night through my own head."

Kylo was hesitant to answer. "It's called a Force Bond. It forms between a Master and his or her padawan. It connects one to the other through the Force in ways no other person could. They share what the other experiences. Depending on the strength of the bond, you can project thoughts and feelings, and sometimes even know where the other is and what they're doing. Bonds such as these can be a great advantage in battle because you share each other's strengths and get better coordination, almost like the other is merely an extension of yourself."

"That sounds very…" she said, thinking for a moment, "intimate."

"I suppose," Kylo said, almost feeling uncomfortable.

Josie felt like she had a bit of power then; she wasn't the only one who could get uncomfortable.

"Why didn't you tell me of the Force bond before you decided to spew raging words in my head?" she asked more teasingly than angry.

"I wasn't sure if there was a strong one present; one that was enough to even speak of. I suppose the bond was stronger than I originally thought."

"Hmm. I think the sound of a bond sounds pretty amazing."

Just before anything more was said, the pilot called out that they had arrived and were landing in sixty-seconds. Sufficient ship, Josie thought.

They walked off into the heat of the planet. Everything was sand dunes and sand and even more sand. She knew on hot days on Takodana she avoided wearing anything dark, so she felt absurdly dressed with her black uniform under the two hot suns.

Kylo moved ahead of her, and she began following him. There was a bustling town in the near distance and they were headed straight for it. Never had she seen so many odd looking creatures speaking such unfamiliar languages.

"I've never seen a crowd so unique and diverse," she remarked in nothing but a whisper.

For putting her in such awe, he would have smiled, but Kylo Ren could not shake Snoke's request out of his mind. Looking at her now with her smiling at every person showing off their trinkets and wild fruits on a market stand and with her taking such time to converse with strangers in such an intricate manner, he couldn't possibly think of throwing her to the snake.

Josie took the offered pair of earrings from the elderly woman and put them up to her ears. She turned her head to the side along with tucking her hair behind her ear so the woman could praise how pretty they looked on such a beautiful lady.

He watched her pull a small sack out of her pocket and hand her a few credits.

"I could have paid that for you, Josie," he said.

She shook her head. "I have my own credits. I mean, it isn't much. Maz told me if I were ever in trouble or in need of something to use it. If course, I am in no need but I thought it would feel good to buy something nice all on my own. I've never been to a market before."

"Well, whether you like it or not, I will be paying for our meal," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Josie suppressed a smirk. "As you wish."

"Shall we train before we eat or sightsee?"

She sighed playfully. "Well, if we must train, I guess it would be better to get it over with now. What are your plans of torture today? Don't tell me you brought the weights with you!"

He chuckled. "No. Fortunately for you, training today won't consist of any lifting. Just sprints."

As they walked outside of the village, he gestured towards the sandy hills. She couldn't imagine trying to even walk quickly up such a slope let alone sprint. The ground beneath her wasn't like Takodana's dirt; it shifted much too easily. However, as much as she dreaded the workout in such a heat, she was much determined to impress and get it all over with so they both could continue the fun.

"Just sprint up and down the hills?"

He nodded. "Glad you wore black; it helps with your endurance of the heat."

"And here I thought you would pity my baking in the suns." She gave him a small smirk before she began her sprints.

Kylo Ren stood tall with his hands behind his back while he observed her. He kept telling her to straighten up and that her posture needed to be perfectly straight. Always bad form it seemed.

When she felt she had been soaked in sweat, she began regretting training before the fun. Now she was smelly and messy.

"Tired yet?" he mocked.

She stopped right in front of him, panting. "Oh sure, now you ask. You, sir, should try sprinting up and down these hills without sliding and falling."

"Shall we go eat lunch now?"

"As much as I've been dirty most of my life, I fear I smell and will probably upset some of the villagers."

"I've brought extra clothes on the ship. There is a body of water nearby if you would like to bathe."

"Are you going to bathe with me?"

His face immediately turned blank.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"I'll be waiting on the ship for you whenever you've changed."

Xxx

As she washed herself clean, her cheeks burned red.

When she asked Kylo if he would join her, she didn't think far enough ahead to notice that if he had said yes, they would both be in the water naked. She felt more embarrassed the more she thought about it. So she tried to shut the thought of seeing him out of her mind.

Kylo was just finished chatting with someone on a holo-table just as she entered the ship with her clean dress on. He looked worried and frustrated. His brows were furrowed and his eyes were glaring down at the table where she had seen just a glimpse of a blueish figure disappear.

"Is everything alright, Ben?"

He almost flinched at hearing his birth name. But all at once, something else caught his attention, something that was not inside the ship, but somewhere outside in the distance. Not a single window was in that compartment of the ship, but he was still somehow looking past the metal walls, feeling the Force, she was sure.

"What is it?"

He looked up at her. There was a forced smile, but the wrinkling and creases made her smile as well. She only wished he did it much more. It seems like no one in the First Order smiled all that much. Not unless it was mischievous smirk.

"It's actually a good thing," he said. "We are preparing for a raid tomorrow. What we have been looking for has been located and Hux is putting together a band of troops to fly out. We will have the map to Skywalker before tomorrow's over."

"Your uncle," she said in nothing but a whisper. He might have said it was a good thing but something was strange and unsuited with those words when comparing them to his expression.

"Hungry?"

The sudden mention of food made her stomach growl.

xxx

They were seated in a nice underground restaurant. The waiters were very tall droids with towels over their two left arms and a tray on either of their two right arms. There were only three in such a largely packed place.

"Correllian wine for you, sir? And what can I get for the Mrs?" the waiter asked. It turned to Josie, who had a confused look.

"The name is Josie," she said with a toothy smile. "I think I'll have the same."

"Forgive me, Ms. Josie. I'll bring you a bottle and then take your order. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

Kylo spoke, "That's all, thank you." He appeared less keen to smile than Josie was.

When the droid rolled away, Josie looked back at Ben. "Why did she call me Ms. Josie instead of Josie?"

"It's a term to label a woman married or unmarried."

"What about others like you?"

"You mean men? We just have Mister. That's about it. Nothing to distinguish one group to the others."

Josie suddenly smiled. A sort of amused kind of smirk where she was trying to suppress a laugh.

Kylo clenched his jaw. "What?"

"It thought we were married. That's a funny thought."

He nearly choked on his water.

Josie finally released her laugh. "Are my words making you so nervous, Ben?"

"The raid tomorrow; they expect you to join in. The Supreme Leader specially asks you to join."

"What am I supposed to do?" Josie felt suddenly uneasy. The word raid alone was enough to make her stomach flip.

The droid rolled over to their table, placing two glasses of wine in front of them and pouring about an inch or so of red liquid.

"What can I get you two to eat tonight?"

Kylo ordered them both Hors D'oeuvre with some wild fruit on the side. It sounded very strange and she almost began to worry about how her stomach would take it, but she trusted Ben to only ordered the most exquisite meal. After all, he seemed to hold a high ranking on the ship. She even recalled someone calling him Prince Ren of the First Order.

It was almost fantastical to Josie; like a fairy tale.

It accepted the order and rolled back to the other customers; tables.

"You're supposed to find the piece of the map that leads to Skywalker. If anyone stands in your way, you get rid of them. You have to do everything you can to find that map."

"Get rid of?"

Kylo opened the bottle of wine and poured more into his glass and more into hers. "How about we enjoy tonight and not speak of tomorrow's raid?"

Josie nodded, sipping her now full glass.

"So when you had that vision of that day that you confronted your uncle, what did you think of it?"

"Not much because I wasn't sure if it was real or not."

Josie looked at her glass of wine which was still nearly full and then looked at Kylo's whose glass was almost empty. She knew the drink made you different, so she couldn't quite bring herself to drink much more. She wouldn't forget the night before with Hux.

The droid eventually brought the food and they ate and talked about the rules of the First Order.

"Why did you turn against your parents?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

"I like you a lot, Ben. And want to know more about you."

He stared at her for a long moment. His eyes searched every centimeter of her face. She felt like she was in a spotlight, a warm and gentle spotlight.

Kylo finished the last of the wine, standing up and laying down a stack of credits onto the table. He took her hand in such a rush that she didn't have time to mention the fact that he didn't finish his meal entirely. He led her out of the restaurant.

It was now almost completely dark. The villagers had all gone indoors to settle for the night.

The soft sound of their shuffling feet barely pierced the quietness of the village. As he took her to his ship, he immediately pressed a button to closed the door, kissing her more fiercely than he had ever before.

The intense sparks shot through her body to her mind, rendering it blank to any thoughts. She felt his tongue into her mouth as he hoisted her against the wall. At first she was too unfamiliar to respond with confidence, but she soon surrendered any hesitation when she felt his hands gently caressing her face.

She felt the heat surging through every part of her body as he moved one hand to her neck and one far down her back. She felt something strange in her lower stomach and something in her gut that shouted for him to somehow come closer.

All at once he stopped and took his shirt off, putting his hands then under her shirt, lifting it up over her head.

Josie felt free to rub her hands over his chest and stomach. They felt a lot rougher and harder than her own body.

The curiosity began to overpower the heat of the moment.

She took off her undergarment to expose her chest. She set herself down with her feet firmly on the floor. As she slipped her leggings and underwear down, she kept her eyes on his.

To Kylo's surprise, she was as open and confident as a girl who had done this a million times, but he knew better.

"If we are different up here," she began gesturing to her chest. "Are we also different down here?"

It was then that Kylo remembered just how much she didn't know and how little she knew about natural human interactions. He suddenly didn't want to take a step further.

When she noticed his slight hesitation, she stepped closer to him, wrapping her fingers in his hair and kissing him slowly.

In between kisses, she found herself whispering, "I want you closer to me." She tugged down at leggings, pulling them off gently so he wasn't in anything but undergarments. She was ready for the last piece of clothing to come off, but he stopped her.

"Are you sure you want to go further?"

Josie smiled. "Of course, I am." She kissed him passionately, finally getting rid of the garment. And when she believed there was a difference between their bodies, she didn't know just how different.

"That's really different from me," she noted, looking at him.

His jaw clenched at her openness of looking at him.

She smiled at him, relishing making him uncomfortable.

Josie took his face in her small hands and kissed him, trying not to giggle. "I think this whole time there was something missing, but I didn't know until it was filled again."

Kylo looked at her intently, laying her gently on her back onto the floor. "Ever since I first had that vision of you, I know I had to find you. I spent so long eventually giving up, but right when I gave up, I found you."

"Your Light Force left for a reason. You drove it out. I feel that the First Order isn't as right as they say they are. Maybe your Uncle is in the right. The Jedi...I know he is a Jedi. They are of the Light. You tried to kill him. Is it the Darkness that you chose?"

Kylo Ren grew frustrated. "Why are you bringing this up now?"

"It just came into my head when you spoke about the vision. I'm trying to understand you because when I woke up on that ship, all I felt was an ominous darkness and when I'm with you, I can ignore it, but I won't ignore it forever. I can't." She looked at him and saw the darkness creep into his eyes. Josie put a hand on his face, but he pushed it away and stood up, putting his clothes back on.

Josie felt a strange fire inside her. Not the kind that felt beautiful like when she was kissing him, but the kind where she just wanted to yell at him that he was making wrong choices; that he was going down the wrong path.

"I might seem ignorant. I might say next to nothing about a lot of things, but one thing I know is that there is darkness surrounding that ship and I don't want a part of it."

He clenched his jaw, gripping her upper arms. "I am a part of you, and no matter what you think about my path, you can't change it and you can't leave me. You are me."

Josie looked at him with a kind of anger and fear he didn't know she had. She slowly back away, water threatening to spill over her lids.

She turned away from him, unable to look him in the eye.

Without another word, he started the ship back to base, leaving Josie in the back to curl up and stare at the floor, wondering if she could really ever leave.