Nymre sighed when Lorian’s hands squeezed her hips and pulled her closer to his. His black eyes seemed to penetrate her soul, deep, really deep, into her marrow. His allure stronger than her will, his fingers trailing over her skin with hungry shadows, teasing her and tempting.

“My beautiful darkness” she whispered when he pressed inside her, a wave of pleasure and something more, something thrilling, which was filling her with night and she almost felt like her whole body dissolves into sparkling particles. His shadows were filling her crevices, making her want it to never end. And she knew he felt the same, when their auras collided and absorbed, sucking each other in, with hungry, unsated maws.

She moaned when he got deeper, so deep. Her legs dragged him in even closer, closing over his back, trapping him in her embrace. His moves were hard, slow and strong, sweet as black honey. Tasty.

“Delicious raven…” he purred, his hand slowly lifting her chin, fitting into her with especially strong thrust. She smiled at him, a ravenous smile.

“Yes…” she grunted with a low voice, changed by desire.

Filled with touchable darkness she groaned like a trapped animal. Taking him all in, allowing the night to consume her whole.

And it was so hungry. In Dal’coler it was even hungrier than anywhere else. It was his element, and she was spread under it, waiting for the stars to fall on her skin.

It was tight and filthy, in the best way possible.

She felt him so well, while he slowly dragged her closer to the edge. She felt she was so close.

She sighed and her eyes locked at his when her climax rushed through her body and took her over completely. He joined her  in a delicious kiss, his tongue in her mouth, his hips tightly pressed to hers, when she crashed into white.

You are mine, she felt more than heard, just in her mind, a voice inside her that caressed her in her afterglow. Her thoughts drowned in his aura, her lips curving in smile, wicked and joyful at the same time. Vicious. Knowing. Filled with elated gleam.

*

The nights in Dal'coler were never silent. They were never safe too. But Leira wouldn't live for so long, if she didn't grow spine hard as rock and fast mental agility. Here, everything was a trap. Here, humans lived mostly few months, especially when they tried to escape. High Fae considered them toys, and toys they were, used merely for fun. And fey's understanding of fun was very gruesome.

But she fought against all odds, and got protection. Even though serving Lorian was hard, and dangerous, she learned how to please his whims. She didn't care how dark he was getting, her heart was becoming darker too, dripping off his shadows.

Until she grew into his life, like a root into the floor.

The fey were able to be kind, they were able to give. But even that was dark, in its own twisted way. Their kindness was like a moon sucking light from the sun, bright and offering a clear path, but still shining with a stolen gleam.

One of the things that she got from Lorian, an act of generosity or boredom - or both - was long life. Having a long life in Dal'coler meant two things. You have witnessed many losing their own, those you have attached to as well. And... you learned many things, useful ones. And Leira was clever. With Lorian's protection, she already had the position of a useful servant. Not a slave, a servant. Not a toy.

And a spy, close one. Deceitful. Cruel.

It infuriated other fey, even if they didn't know her real position. But that only was motivating her more. You wanted to spread dark over my life. I have become darker too.

She was passing corridors which brimmed with light and darkness, both, mixed in unhealthy proportions, which was making newly captured humans lose mental stability. Fey palace was a place where you could lose mind so easily. She sensed how Dal'coler breathed. With trees growing through walls, it looked like a living fortress - and that it was too. Old as time, remembering times of the gods...

"Leira..."

She halted in the midstep.

Now... of all places, secluded ones, it had to be here. Of all fae... him.

A voice from the past. Past that shaped her -  gave her strength, changed her; past which was cruel, tainted with pain and shadows, which she never forgot.

A small moment of peace among raging waters. A touch of kindness in the walls that held only cold. And her betrayal.

She didn't feel guilty anymore. It allowed her to live, and understand her place here. Understand that nothing is black and white. But the same woman who allowed tears to stain her dress, back then, now felt a chill grasping by her spine.

A feeling from the past, just like the voice.

She felt a light fear. Not full. He knew that Lorian would punish him even worse than by taking him the voice, replacing it with a painful whisper. If he wanted to resort to revenge, after thirty years. But she felt he wouldn't, not now.

"Lord Alnam" her voice, a perfect calm, her bow only slight. His smile at the other hand bitter, putting a contrast between them.

"I always wondered how much you changed" she could see that even after all this time, speaking still makes him feel pain. "To grow so strong into roots that swallow these walls."

Her heart was beating only slightly faster, but her mind was calm. He was talking about her appearance. The appeareance given to her by Lorian. Immortality.

He couldn't know. Not about her role in Dal'coler.

"I observed that change. Of becoming one with this place."

A tint of curiosity mixed with regret in his silent voice. She was a servant of Lorian, Lorian, the person who Alnam hated above all. She didn't know it back then, about his hatred, but did now. She knew everything, almost, about most of the fae living here.

Power. And the painful - beautiful - realization that Dal'coler is even darker than she thought before.

He slowly approached, his leaf-colored, warm eyes set on her, with muted intensity, old one, very old. The darkness - the one that harms the owner, not the world around him - still lingering in him. 

Maybe he liked it that way.

She did not feel guilt anymore. Staying alive was her priority. 

When he was so close to her, that he almost could touch her, his body tensed and he halted.

You can't. You wanted it long ago. Now you can't.

That was giving her a feeling of safety. Maybe Alnam was not cruel... but he still was a fae. If he wanted revenge, he could do it in so many ways.

Exposing himself on Lorian's cold and ruthless anger. Just like before.

Safety. Moderate. She wasn't able to look into Lorian's heart, like he was seeing into her mind. But she knew that he wouldn't allow Alnam to harm her, not then, not now.

She was his.

Alnam's light aura, so much different than Lorian's shadowed one, seemed repressed too.

Lorian knew perfectly what he was doing. Punishing Alnam for touching her. Making him unable to feel anything for her... if he ever even felt it. Now, when she knew more, she was so glad that thirty years ago, she didn't run after him.

First hopeless thought of someone much younger... and much more foolish.

She didn't feel guilty.

And she fought for too many years, to feel pity. Which he wouldn't take from her. He hated her now.

And that was the only feeling between them.

"We all become one with it" her voice devoid of emotion, like words which were leaving her lips were not hers. "... my lord."

"Yes." his lips formed a dark smile. Darkness that harms the owner. Memories. Rotting in him for way too long. "You need to prove yourself worthy of being the ghost of Dal'coler. Ghost of this palace. A ghost... of the past."

The way he said it.

Ghost of Dal'coler. How much he knew? After all, she was still was here. Not dead. Still close to his worst enemy.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but the moment passed. His dark smile dwindling, becoming pale like his white robe.

You chose.

Yes.

And she would choose that once again.

Even if she left ashes behind her.

*

Leira's heart squeezed with anxiety, her feet carrying her fast through empty passage, a fast stride with which she tried to give herself the confidence she didn't feel. Ghost of Dal'coler. Was she only an apparition? Or something more? Was her humanity completely lost? And if it would be so bad, if yes?

The cold wind from nowhere, perhaps flickering of the magical barrier separating the palace from freezing winter, made exposed skin on her hand creep with goosebump.

And then, in the fast midstep, like a wave, it hit her. A pain in her chest, spreading over her skin, flesh, bones and bubbling in her spine. She groaned, when whole body started to burn, her eyes filled with unwanted tears.

It spread so fast, too fast, like a growing parasite inside her tendons, injecting toxins as it went.

The pain lasted and lasted, Leira bent, unable to stand straight, her teeth biting her lip with a furious will to not give a sound. It sipped from her marrow, like a hungry leech, taking all strength from her, leaving debris in her bones.

She would scream, if not well-learned caution, more engraved in her mind, than any pain.

Stop, stop, stop. Just go away.

She found herself on the floor, her eyes taking in the whole corridor, in fear that someone saw her. Her legs fumbling, when she tried to get up, pain still lingering in her flesh, like a ball of sharp metallic pieces, placed in her insides.

Oh, by the goddess... What was that?

That felt...

She knew how it felt. With perfect clarity.

She felt it in the past. When she was foolish enough to anger Lorian.

*

His eyes looked like dying black moons. Nymre looked with fear into them, empty holes painted with deepest blackness.

"Lorian?"

He never made her feel afraid before. Only when they both needed it and when it was more a sweet and dangerous game than reality. But now he looked... empty. Like darkness without soul, like night without a single star.

"Lorian? What happened?"

It was a fleeting moment. A glimpse. But it really made her feel terrified.

A touch of void, she hoped that never was in him. A fairytale soul from the stained glass-window, a lost beast she was not expecting.