Warning: Sexual content suggested.

Her throat tightened. Lord of the Void! What do I do? Handsome, dashing man.

“I- why?” she squeaked.

He smiled and gently pushed the curtain open wider, stepping inside and keeping it open. Inviting her to either kick him out or join him.

She was having trouble remembering all the reasons she shouldn’t. She stepped in, intending to pull his arm and tell him to leave.

He let the curtain fall, leaving them in mostly darkness. And she didn’t stop him from wrapping an arm around her waist and gently stroking her neck as he slowly found her lips. Pressing his lips gently to hers. Moving them. Slowly. Maneuvering her so her back was to the wall and his body pressed to hers.

Her breathing became gasps and reason was slipping away.

His tongue, his mouth, tasted so good.

He slipped his hand along her skirt waist, fiddling with it until her shirt came loose. Then slipped that same hand under her shirt. Caressing her breast and fondling the band.

Voids, help her. She was lost.

“Lita!”

She jolted like someone had poured ice water over her head. The voice was still far away, shouting for her.

“Lita! Are you down here?! Mistress Diana Veran is looking for you!”

“Already?” asked Lita. She wasn’t sure if she was more dismayed or relieved. Dalius groaned and leaned his head on her shoulder. “I didn’t think… she’d be back… until tomorrow.”

Dalius grunted.

“Later?” he murmured.

Lita bit her lip, hard, closing her eyes. Later?

“Lita!”

“I’m coming!” she shouted back. She gently pushed Dalius away. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”

“Lita-”

“This is a mistake, Dalius. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let it go that far.”

She quickly stepped through the curtain, her hands shaking from the rush of arousal. He followed her.

“Lita-”

She didn’t let him talk. If she did, she knew she’d be agreeing to see him later. And that was dangerous.

“You want women who only want one night. I want a man who’ll be around for the rest of my life. We’re not a good fit.”

“Lita-”

“Thank you for a good day. I need to go now.”

She hurried away, leaving him at her cubby.

Feeling like a coward.

***

It took a long time to fall asleep. Partly from thinking about Dalius and her disappointed arousal. Partly from fuming at Diana Veran.

How dare she?!

She’d shown up at Diana’s call and the demoness had taken a few deep sniffs. Not, not just a few. She’d grabbed Lita by the arm and sniffed along her body with narrowing eyes.

That man is a snake, Diana had told her flatly as she finally let Lita go. I order you to stay away from him.

It’s none of her business! Lita, more than once, punched the roll of clothes and blanket she used for a pillow. Demons! Tyrants, every one of them. What makes them think they have the right to control my life?

If she hadn’t been exhausted from too little sleep and training already, she might’ve been up all night again.

She would’ve preferred to be up all night.

In her dreams, she’d just gotten off the stage and climbed to the top of the bleachers from a ladder set behind them. The crowd was getting excited and parents were being told to take their children from the stands.

It was the last act of the night and the master wouldn’t perform if there were children in the audience.

She didn’t plan to stay long enough to watch it. Because she couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand the blood and knowing that someone, one of her someone’s, was getting hurt. And doing it on purpose.

She had to see Sheldon, though.

He was at the top of the bleachers, renewing the lights so the magic would last for the rest of the night. Even though he didn’t need to because Taiken regularly trained lighters and currently employed six others.

The moment he saw Lita, he grabbed her in a convulsive hug.

Guilt gnawed at her as he shook.

Behind them, with the last of the children at last gone from the bleachers, the last act had begun. Dalius announced Kelly’s entrance onto the stage, where the beautiful woman glided out of the wings and made the crowd whistle and cheer.

“My good friends! This is a night for revenge on the demons-”

“You idiot,” her brother choked. “What were you thinking?!”

“Kelly said blood would make the crowd go crazy.” And it had. Her heart still pounded with excitement as she recalled their terrified silence and then the cheers. “It’s only a little scratch-”

“A little scratch?! Not all those props are fake. What would you have done if it had cut through your stomach? Or got your heart?”

“Shhh! Be quiet,” someone in the back row whispered.

Sheldon waved apologetically to the spectator, who grunted and turned ahead. More than half engrossed with excitement as people with special tickets filed down the seats and joined Kelly on stage.

Lita lowered her voice.

“I practiced. It wasn’t going to cut anything but what I wanted it to. Besides, the Master was watching. He would’ve just traded-”

Her brother cut her off.

“The Master is sick and still has to be butchered tonight. Both of you knew that and you pulled this crap anyway!”

Lita shrank with shame and guilt under her brother’s reprimand. Unconsciously, she rubbed her stomach under the poncho. This was where she’d deliberately failed to dance through the swords in her routine and sliced herself.

“I’m going to kill Kelly!” Sheldon squeezed tighter. She could feel him shaking. His voice shook, too. “And you! You both were selfish and irresponsible.”

She flinched and responded defensively. “You’re the one who keeps saying demons can’t get sick and not to worry about it!”

“You’re the one who keeps calling me out on that.”

Sheldon took a deep breath, resting his forehead on the top of her head.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

“It’s bad enough I have to figure out how to get him to stop fighting Compulsion,” she heard her brother whisper. “It’s going to hurt everyone when he does. But you! You know better. How can you-”

“Something’s wrong.”

The whispers had been growing for a couple of minutes but it wasn’t until that loud one that it finally got their attention.

Lita had turned to see what they were watching and her brother, who’d only got a glimpse of what was happening and somehow caught on before the crowd did, tried to stop her…

Tried to pull her face into his chest and shield her…

“For breach of Contract.”

Lita sat up with a gasp. Then continued gasping as she wildly looked around her cubby, her eyes automatically being drawn to the cracks of light around her blanketed doorway.

For an instant, her mind went back even further than Kelly’s death and she thought she was in the cave again.

Waiting for someone, anyone, to come find her.

Then she remembered where she was and covered her face in her hands.

It’s been years. Why? Why won’t either of those times go away?

No one is saving me this time. I have to… to… 

She didn’t know what she had to do. Move. Leave the safe, dark, and small places on her own. Stop them from doing any of that ever again.

Agitated, wiping tears, she crawled to her knees. Before leaving her little sanctuary, she found her small bottle of no smell and rubbed a couple of drops on both wrists and ankles.

The Palace was silent. The silence reminded her of the catacombs at the other end of the city. She’d been there once, to attend a memorial of Lloyd’s wife, Trisha, who’d died at the Palace.

The silence was eerily the same. Even the feeling of being watched from the corners and shadows.