“What are you doing down there?”
Bryn stirred and sat up, smoothing a rough hand through his messy hair to get it out of his eyes. He really looked very good. She felt a stirring between her aching thighs. It was as though she’d been mated, but she knew Bryn would never touch her that way. He was her guardian.
“He came for you.”
“The Dark? He can come here? In the den too?”
“He is present in every shadow. And around you, because he has been inside you, it would seem he can cast himself upon you as and when he pleases. We will have to change that.”
“How?”
“We will have to exorcise him. We will have to purge you of his influence.”
“And if I don’t want to be purged of his influence?”
It obviously did not occur to him that she might have enjoyed the Dark, that the pleasure she had experienced at the demon’s hands might have been the peak of her experience thus far, and that though the beast was evil and cruel and did not care for her at all, she was not ready to forego the promise of eternal pleasure.
“He is evil.”
“So? You told me I was evil…”
“Enough,” Bryn growled. “I never said that you were evil. Not once in all your time here.”
“Not my time here. My time down there. What I did in Old Rahvin. That was evil. Wasn’t it?”
“Not the way the Dark is evil. That was practical. You acted out, and you did what you thought was right. You were trying to gain revenge for what they tried to do to you. The Dark performs its evil for enjoyment. You are a toy to that thing. That is why you must fight it, Hail. You must reject what it did to you.”
“But I liked what it did to me.”
Bryn stood up and stretched. Did he mean to display himself to her? She wondered. He was clothed, but that did not stop the display from being erotic. She was attracted to him as a man. The appetites awoken in her by the Dark were not entirely sated by it. The thing had left her in a state of need which could only be properly satisfied by a human cock. Bryn’s cock.
“There is no shame in enjoying what you must endure. That does not make the need to endure it acceptable. I want you to stay here, in this room, near the light until I return. If I am gone longer than you can bear, there are provisions in the pantry, and you know how to start a cooking fire. Under no circumstances are you to leave the den. Do you understand me?”
“Of course.”
He was only asking if she understood. He had quite forgotten to ask her if she intended to obey.
Bryn cut his way back into the realm of the Dark. He could not allow the monster to keep invading the den and toying with Hail. This had to come to a head.
“You are such an impolite visitor.” The Dark coiled its way out of the shadows, not bothering with the formality of legs for the moment. All it really needed in order to interact with a human was a face, and what a face it was. Bryn loathed the thing, but even he could not deny it was beautiful.
“Stay away from Hail. Find some other hapless girl to torment.”
“No.” The Dark was simple and clear in his response. “I’m not going to give the girl up to you, Bryn. I took her for a reason. You were careless. You knew she had talent, and you thought you could simply suppress it through shame. You were lazy, Bryn, and now she is mine more than she was ever yours.”
The Dark smirked with great enjoyment at Bryn’s obvious frustration. There was no way to attack the Dark directly. That is why the Dark had chosen Hail. Now there was something they could both act directly on, a sacrificial lamb.
“If you want her, Bryn, you’re going to have to win her.”
“Win her?”
“Yes. Drive my influence from her. Replace what I give her with what you give her.”
“I could never do to her what you do to her.”
“Then you will lose, Bryn.”
“Lose?”
“Yes, Bryn. It’s a state in which you do not get what you want, where everything is taken from you. If you are not willing to play, then you will lose.” The Dark spoke as if he were a simpleton, though Bryn understood completely.
Break the girl, win the game.
If he won the game, he would free Hail. She would be able to experience the world and live her life. If he lost, then Hail would remain a captive of the Dark for longer than anybody dared imagine.
He would have to do terrible things to her in order to break the Dark’s influence. That was what the Dark truly wanted. The Dark did not care if Hail was free or not. The Dark wanted to corrupt, and by entering the game, Bryn was agreeing to become corrupt too. The Dark had already won the war, but the battle was still Bryn’s to lose.