The fairy lights, attracted by Nymre’s fury, danced around her and dispersed as she flicked them away with her gloved hand.
Lorian…
His secrets, his lies, his… everything. Her spells drowned in his dark aura, swallowed by a sea of old blood – sticky, heavy, reaching for her with tendrils of oil-black night. She felt it curling around her, pulling her deeper into the blackened soil of his deception. Her mausoleum of false hope.
Her grave of wishful thinking.
And now – now that she knew. Knew what he was doing. Knew what he had subjected himself to. The torment he had chosen. She was furious. More than furious. The past screamed at her how things had changed, how nothing – nothing – could bring it back.
But the cruelest truth? She loved him. Wildly. Foolishly. And in his own twisted way, he loved her, too.
A poison cloaked in silk and gold. A well in which she sat, chained, even as the locks lay open.
She felt his arms slip around her.
“Your mind creates the most enticing visions, my raven…”
Her jaw tightened. His presence clung to her like honey – sweet, binding, impossible to escape. Like a spider’s silk strung between her ribs, tightening with every breath.
“You are a hopeless liar, Lorian,” she growled, voice thick with suppressed fury – a beast lurking beneath the veneer of beauty. “How long would you have kept this from me? How long would you suffer alone until it consumed you whole? You dared to love me while those gods drilled agony into your body. You knew how I would react, yet you continued your lies. And now – now you decide on a whim that it’s enough?”
She shoved free of his embrace, turning to face him, her eyes burning white with rage.
Lorian did not falter. His smile remained, his aura pooled around her – warm, suffocating, intoxicating. She knew this gaze; she had been drowning in it before. But this time, she would pull something from its depths.
A confession. A promise. Something he could so easily break again.
She wanted to hate him. But instead she adored him.
No, she hated him now. Even though she knew it was only temporary.
Somehow she tortured herself with vicious pain as much as he did. But he was her god from whom she drank.
“Ah, but perhaps you were too proud?” her finger touched his chest. Feathers from his robe brushed her hand. Raven feathers. Her lips curved into a grin. “Afraid of weakness, that this pain will make you look less good in my eyes?”
Lorian… laughed. His hand moved to her hair, but she caught it in mid-movement. He smiled wider.
“You read minds no less skilfully than I do. My cruel raven, exposing my motives faster than I find your spells buried within me to extract the truth.”
“You dare to compare!” she scoffed. Her fingers still clasped his hand, held in front of her like a defiant trophy. “Put away your masks once and for all. You can parade them in front of your pet, Leira, but not in front of me. I have known you too long, Lorian. And I am not a fragile human you can deceive and destroy.”
His eyes smiled. She saw that he was amused, which made her angry. But before she could think of anything else to say… his features lost their youthful mockery. His eyes shone with attractive earnestness. He drew back his hand, which she released. She could feel his aura lighter, less tense, less overpowering.
“This was never a joke, Nymre. This pain is no joke.”
“Why? Why did you never tell me?”
His bitter smile brought a retreating storm to one’s mind.
“Because you would want to stop me.”
“Of course I would. I would never let you…”
“And that is not an option and never has been. I’m addicted and even if I wasn’t… you know very well how this would end. With death. Not just our court’s. Yours. Mine. I could not care for them, but I would never allow us to perish. They would have awoken years ago, if not for me. And they would leave wreckage behind, drowning us in our own magic.”
He moved closer to her. This time she let him. Her anger still flared within her, but muted, dull, like a pain in an old wound.
“We are old creatures, Nymre,” he whispered in her ear. “And lies cling to us. We are cobwebs that attract secrets…”
She felt the dark flame, radiating with his power, pulling her into the abyss. Her own aura pulsed around the shadows, pulling at her.
She was lost.
He was lost.
She pushed him away herself.
She could see how this would end.
But… this was the only way, and they both knew it.
He grinned at her, his smile cruel, just the way she loved it.
“No.”
His expression changed, as if touched by starlight. Like a black sun coming out of a total eclipse. They both needed it. Forget the tension. Forget the looming danger. Destroy the web of uncertainty that spread between them, devour the doubt, allow for forgetfulness. And paint it with blood.
Curse it, Lorian.
His hand reached her hair again, moving slowly down, through her chin; to her neck, to finally caress it, a slow, slow movement. She felt the scent of his aura, sweeter now, thicker.
“Your burning rage is intoxicating. Filling, like human fear…”
“Human fear!” she chuckled, but allowed his caress… allowed it. Leaned into it, against her will. “I’ll never fear you. Not like this.”
“Even if I pull out your feathers, one by one…” his voice a tease and a threat.
“Just like those poor birds those fools killed to sew you a robe,” her laughter was no less cruel.
“No…” he purred. “It will be much more painful…”
Her heart beat like a wild drum. Pulsed with lingering rage. He won’t have her.
And that was the most beautiful and desirable thing of all…
He caught her by the waist and pulled her closer. The warmth she felt from him, boiling shadows into which he poured the power of those hopeless gods he ate every day, licked her like a lover, like a flame.
He caught her hands and bent them behind her back. She threw in his grasp, her smile wild and defiant. She was his cruel raven. And he was her dark king.
“You are perfect when you seethe with rage…”
And he bit her. Hard.
Just above the collarbone, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh. Blue blood began to trickle, slow, mesmerising. There was something in it, the pain and all the pleasure, that made her moan, desperate and needy.
Desperate to please.
“Fuck you…”
“I’d rather have your welcoming body…”
He lifted her up, her wings hitting him with all the strength they had as he dragged her with him and threw her onto the bed.
Feathers fell from the wings. Pulled by her struggle.
“If you let one more fall…”
“I’ll rip them all off your back…” he whispered into her neck and she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. Pleasure washed over her in a warm sea of pure desire. “I’m going to do such exciting things to you…”
“If you dare…”
He laughed. In that beautiful and threatening way she loved so much. No, admired. Adored.
He pinned her brutally to the bed as she wriggled wildly, trying to crawl out from under him, fighting him, not letting him…
… allow. Completely.
His one hand closed over her throat, nails digging into a place where he had bitten her; she welcomed it with a sigh as she still struggled, kicking him off her body with her legs, powerful kicks, to cause pain, to hurt him.
His hand blocked her air completely, blood trickling down his fingers, staining the sheets azure blue. Her convulsive gasps only made him press harder against her, pinning her to the bed with his body, his shadows slowly entering between her legs, so cruel and hot.
“Shall I have you like this?” he purred, just in her ear as she struggled for breath. “On the verge of death, squeezing the life out of you?”
Her claws dug into his flanks, drawing blood, his back arching slightly and she knew he loved it. His black eyes shone with fierce desire.
She wanted to run.
She wanted to feel him slowly sending her into oblivion…
He released her throat, her lungs filled with a blessing of air. She saw, as if through mist, how he pulled himself out of his trousers, how he drew her violently closer.
Her feathers…
…scattered about, his trophy…
He silenced her again, so easily. Leaning over her, he cupped her cheeks, her eyes hating and admiring him.
“You want it so much… a willing raven…”
“Never… ever…”
His kiss was like molten iron, killing her inside, pouring shadows down her throat, hot and merciless. So delicious, so wrong, a taste of burning violet mist… His other hand slipped between her legs. She squeezed them tight, so tight, resisting him with everything she had, but he opened them, forcefully… and she was wet… so much of it pooled between her thighs as his fingers entered her, rubbing inside.
“You…”
She thrashed wildly, his fingers deeper inside her, she pressed herself against them, a desperate and angry moan leaving her mouth, straight into him, he swallowed her again, with a fierce kiss.
“I’ll kill you if you come inside me,” she moaned, but her thighs were dripping with wetness and her eyes were shining as viciously as they were victorious.
He smiled at her and, despite her protest, she pulled his fingers out.
And thrust himself into her.
Violently.
Hard.
Her wings trembled in convulsions, flapping against him, losing feathers where his hands pressed her to the bed – trying to hit where it would hurt him the most. But he fucked her into the pillows, oblivious to her attempts, with that beautiful, cruel smile she loved more than anything.
He pressed her even harder against the bed, almost melting into her. His wild thrusts sent shivers down her spine, wet flickers inside her, like tiny tongues, hungry mouths. Shadows crept, right inside her, licking her with heat, painful, pleasant, all the same…
“…you will pay so much for this…”
“I’m counting on your imagination… and your skilled hands…”
She came quickly, she always came quickly when he was violent with her. She buried her face in his arm and gave him a desperate growl.
“You’re the best prey I ever had,” he murmured as he filled her with his release. Hot, shadowed, just like himself.
“You horrible, awful…” she moaned, but the feeling of him coming inside her was too delicious not to give in completely. He took in the scent her hair and she pulled him closer, caressing him with her feathers; a pleasure only she could give him.
She knew they hadn’t solved their problems. They hung over them like the moon over Ain’asel… huge and threatening.
But it was sweet, the abandonment of what they loved most.
Hungry gods at one end of that tangled rope.
And the foolish human slowly reaching Dal’coler, weak and pathetic, at the other.
A human he chose. A human who travelled here… to die. Shining with the gentle light of mortality.
Lorian…
…. has always loved the taste of this.