“Be able to resist what I am about to offer you. Pain, pleasure. Endure… without sobbing, movement or sensual cries. Fill our eyes with your strength. And I will give you your life back.”

The woman behind her laughed. Leira felt an icy chill of her fate uncoiling, and her limbs became even weaker than before.

Don’t say a word.

Fill our eyes.

His eyes.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. But when she looked at Mira and saw him writhing in agony…

He could suffer like this for months.

And she knew she had to.

“Yes,” her lips moved before her mind could even process it. She raised her head. A glistening wetness appeared in her eyes, but she was ready.

Even if she wasn’t.

The man dismounted his horse, gracefully, like a fallen god. His steps were supple, soft, when he was approaching her, like a predator slowly getting to his prey, a sacrifice hypnotized by his gaze. His smile was frighteningly sweet. Like a sugar trap.

“Yes… fascinating,” he said with genuine, unfeigned interest. “Strong character, so endearing.”

“I’ll play your game. If you let him go,” her voice trembled this time.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I? Since I can enjoy much more interesting struggles.”

Leira closed her eyes. There was only one path. Only one way. Otherwise this man will take. And this will be the end.

Do what you want. I will not back down.

The wind ruffled her hair, a wind carrying snow. It tangled it and covered it in white. The whole world stood still, waiting to see what would happen.

Leira knew that the world would not save her, she had to save herself.

The man with the black eyes touched her cheek. His fingers were long and pale, but the touch was soft and sensual, almost pleasant, like she waited whole life to be touched like this…

… and suddenly she was full. She was full like never before.

Filled with a burning pain that spread over her body; the scream of a melting flesh. Sharp nails digging into her muscles, a mouth devouring her alive. And something even worse. Something pooling between her legs, a cruel pleasure, worse than pain, worse than anything she had ever felt. The man with the black eyes had become the only point that existed now… sucking in both her pain and her pleasure… as if… feeding on them.

Leira’s mind drifted away so quickly. Pain built up in her muscles, in her very being, dancing with pleasure that overwhelmed her senses. No… you can’t scream. You… can’t… scream.

Shadows crowded into her veins like a cruel stimulant. Like the cruelest instrument of torture. Designed to break her and condemn Mira to death.

No…

You cannot scream.

Her back did not bend and her tears did not bead her skin. She had to hold on. She had to. It was her only hope, her only way to escape. One minute. Five. Ten.

Too long… I can’t…

Her will fought against the pain, but she was so close to losing. One more second. One more… her body twisted in an agony and in a delicious touch of night in her most fragile places.

It was…

It was wrong…

I can’t, Mira…

…please forgive me.

She wanted to scream; broken by sensations that were not meant for a human being. But both the pain and the pleasure stopped.

Her body collapsed on the forest floor like a rag doll.

“That was… impressive,” the man said again, his voice so tempting and kind. Cruelly sweet.

Her throat burned.

Her muscles ached.

“Mira…” she gasped, her vocal cords failing her.

The man watched her for a moment, then slowly approached the crawling Mira. Her lover was cowering, suffering as she had suffered a few seconds earlier. The man’s boot raised his chin, and Leira could see the agony in his teary eyes.

“Your beloved wants me to keep my word,” he murmured sensually. ‘But how can I let you go from under my control when she has not kept hers?’ He turned to Leira. “No scream is louder than the wailing of a tortured mind. And no movement is more eloquent than the twitching of tense muscles under the skin.”

An angry scream, full of pain and defeat, broke out of her chest.

Cold. So cold. Outside and inside her. It devoured her slower than the shadows of that monster.

He would never spare Mira.

He had prepared this answer especially for her to show her how powerless she was.

The man in black waited, curious, dangerously focused on her. She was filled with a powerful hatred. Hatred, fear and a hopeless will to fight. But she knew she couldn’t. And that was the cruelest thing in this already cruel game.

Tears finally filled her eyes—her defeat and their victory—but slowly, feeling as if her body did not belong to her, she picked up the knife Mira had dropped; her eyes were empty inside, even if moist with salty tears.

He could suffer like that for months.

The thought of it was terrifying. Even if it was the only way. Even if it was salvation.

Mira just looked at her. The tormenting shadow receded, his body was still tense, it still hurt, but… his eyes were set on her, with trembling consciousness.

“Leira…” the whisper was almost noiseless.

She couldn’t.

She had to.

The black-eyed one would fill him with shadows again. He wouldn’t be allowed to live. And he had made him stay conscious just so he could look at her in that way.

Her anger, strong and defiant, choked her. Fear was replaced by dark determination. They could torture her. But they would not take away her love. Her body refused to obey, but she crawled to Mira, fighting for every inch of the way to him. She would not let them win.

She would not let that man gloat over his suffering.

Their last moment of pure love filled her mind. She wanted to leave her home, to hunt with him, to live with him.

She wanted to carry his child.

The only person who truly cared for and loved her.

The only person who truly mattered.

But now… she would die too. With his blood on her hands, her last minutes before death would be filled with pain after she had taken his life.

She caressed his face, hating herself for it… She touched his hair… it was wet and sweaty under her trembling hand. She despised herself for daring to touch him, but she had to feel him one last time.

She remembered his smell of leather and sweat and smoke and moss, his lips on hers when he took her to his house in the forest. The warmth of his bed, his embrace.

His tender and loving touch.

She would die today, with the knife that took his life in her hand.

She couldn’t think about it, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Leira, please…” his voice was low, altered, unlike the one she heard every day. He didn’t want to die. And that tore her heart into a million little pieces. She felt a ball of grief and fear suffocating her, pushing the air out of her lungs.

She grabbed his hair… once rough to the touch, familiar… now tousled and wet, so terribly wet….

She lifted his head, revealing his neck, now tense and hard as stone…

“Leira…”

Her hand did not tremble, which frightened her even more…

… and she cut his throat.

The knife went in so easily, frighteningly easily. Separating him from the life they could have lived together.

The man in black looked at her with cruel emptiness.

The others laughed, satisfied, which was slicing her already deep wounds. As if she did something they appreciated.

As if she filled their eyes.

Blood spurted onto her hands, her vision blurred; she dropped the knife in the grass, the laughter of her tormentors reaching her like from a bottomless well.

But the man in black was looking at her, not even smiling… he was looking at her with morbid curiosity.

As if he were judging her and wondering how much more she would be able to take.

Leira’s body trembled. Only a few minutes ago, he had loved her. He would never do that again.

She wanted to scream at the man in black, to tell him to kill her now if death was so exciting for him. But her throat was unable to utter a word and her mind was—to form a coherent thought.

And she didn’t want to die.

The black eyes pierced her soul.

The masked woman was saying something to him; her hand on his lap.

But she couldn’t hear it. Shadows wrapped around her neck and crept under her clothes, penetrating her skin. She felt both pain and an unwanted pleasure. Not as strong as before, but not related to pain and more… perverse. She lost herself, despised herself, her body pulsed and tried to resist.

But the goddess had mercy. She fainted before anything happened that she would have truly hated.

She sank into the void.

*

Lorian’s smile faded. The human woman lay unconscious at his feet.

Humans are so fragile.

So easy to control.

So eager to bend, begging to be broken.

He could still feel the fire, the cruel flame in his veins, travelling to his most sensitive places, mixing agony with pleasure. An outburst of suffering, incomparable – this time – with his nightly tortures, but even worse… blurring the boundaries.

Nymre came closer. Her aura was wild; she wanted him, he could feel it. His vicious raven. The violence increased her desire tenfold.

However, this human woman amused him. She was… promising.

“We are taking her with us.”

Nymre’s smile disappeared from her face, her desire for sex cut like with a sharp knife.

“Why? You already have many slaves,” she didn’t add too much, but Lorian knew that was what she was thinking, even if he didn’t read her mind. This time.

“Your Majesty…”

Alnam. Of course. Always present.

‘It was amusing, my lord, but most of our portals will not accept her. She will die. If we transport her in the traditional way, even through those that allow it, it will take… much longer.’

Lorian’s eyes met Alnam’s gaze.

Yes, Lorian knew what Alnam was thinking now. Cruel. Unnecessarily ruthless. Sadistic for no reason. He killed my son—the thought surfaced, even though Alnam didn’t want it to, an old wound from which pus was still oozing.

Pain. Hatred. So strong that it touched him in an almost intimate way.

Alnam’s strong will to resist, even if he would never do it, not in reality. Perhaps it was Alnam’s suppressed, hopeless hatred that brought him the greatest pleasure and pain, the boundaries blurred again, a cloying and desired taste of rot.

“She will hate you, Your Majesty,” Alnam added.

“Perhaps her hatred is what I really need,” Lorian offered him his most beautiful smile. The sun rising over the winter mountains.

Perhaps hatred was what kept him sane as pain came, the world exploded in blue, and blood boiled in his veins.

Beautiful. Powerful.

Intoxicating.

Pure.

And dangerous. Impressive in its strength.