His appendages flared and curled in the shadow of the chapel, the sun no match for him. The brighter he shone, the more intense his shadow and the greater his power. His beauty was so intense, the marble pale texture of his skin stretched over impeccably handsome bone structure, the golden flash of his dragon-slitted eyes. She felt her breath catch in her throat. She couldn’t breathe, and it didn’t matter, because she was looking at him.
“Don’t tell me you love me.”
The Dark slid forward, his handsome, horrific visage more tender than it had ever been. “I would never do that.”
“Where are we?”
She lifted her eyes from his, finally realizing that there was no church in his realm. No sunlight either. They had moved without her noticing it, phased through states and places and times to arrive somewhere somewhen.
“Where are we?”
“We are in Entigon City,” he said.
“Are we really? Are you letting me go here? That would be amazing.”
She looked around herself gleefully. Entigon City was a bright place full of large buildings and well-dressed people. It was nothing like New Rahvin, when even the richest people’s clothes were worn and faded from years of repetitive use.
The ladies walking past them were wearing brightly colored silks. There was a lot of yellow, and a lot of pink and red. Warm colors dashing about the clean, paved streets. Very pretty, very inviting. The air was full of perfumes and spices and the scents of various complicated dishes wafting out open windows. This city was alive in a way no place she had ever been was. It was full of chatter and cheer. There were endless streets all running off one another. From where she was standing she could see at least a dozen of them, all lined with enchanting shops and homes and places of interest.
“I am not letting you go anywhere,” the Dark replied. His voice drew her gaze back to him. Back to the shadows where there was no joy. “What I am showing you now is nothing but a trick of the light.”
The light faded and so did the city, and Hail was left wondering if she had been there at all, or if it had been nothing but an illusion conjured by an angry demon.
“What was that?”
“A sight you will never see again. I hope you drew it all in. You will never see anything but my shadows again.”
“Never is a long time, demon.”
An appendage whipped from the demon and lashed across her rear and thigh, leaving a long red welt in its curved path. She cried out in pain, and then again as another appendage lashed against her. This beast had no mercy in him. Her pain was sustenance to him. He did not want her submission. He had no use for it. What this demon wanted was her pain.
Hail flailed helplessly as one of his lengthy appendages wrapped itself around her and held her for his discipline. The Dark whipped her for her insolence, for his gratification, and for the joy of punishment. The most evil always enjoy the feeling of righteousness, while the good are never truly sure if they are correct or not.
“Never is an even longer time when you are in my grasp. Eternity itself is a cruelty,” the Dark hissed. “I could leave you in a little dark corner of my world and I could wait a hundred years.”
“That would save me your inane babbling,” Hail replied, shrewish as ever and unprepared to give into mere pain. She had been hurt many times in her life. Pain alone would not break her. The Dark could whip her all it pleased and never make an impression on her. It would learn that eventually and give up, as all those who had ever attempted to control her had learned.
“Do you seek this hurt? Is that it? Do you want me to make you scream? Are you the little human lock to my key, the one who wants to be defiled as much as I want to defile her?”
She felt the appendage between her thighs again, or perhaps for the first time. All things seemed to be happening in a single instant now. The past, the present, the future. They were all one and the same. Her ravaging was nigh. Her appetite for pleasure made her easy prey for this creature, but it also denied him the satisfaction of humiliation.
His appendages slid up inside her, spread her open and filled her up all the way, until there wasn’t a bit of room left inside her. She felt the Dark throbbing inside her, making her ache even as she writhed and arched her hips, forgetting his hatred even as she used his unholy flesh to sate her own need.
Seven
You Lose
“Where is Hail? Why didn’t you find her?”