Maryna
I was not awake.
I was not asleep.
I was somewhere else.
The space between breath and oblivion. Between fire and shadow. Between what I feared…
And what I wanted.
I stood in a chamber I did not recognize. The walls were carved from stone, ancient and veined with glowing sigils. Candlelight danced across the floor in red and gold halos, and incense thick as silk laced the air—sweet, earthy, and spiced with something darker.
I was naked.
Utterly bare.
But not cold.
Heat emanated from the center of the room—a ritual circle drawn in salt and ash. Three thrones surrounded it, draped in velvet black. And in them sat the Elders.
Malenthros.
Marek.
Vasilios.
I should have run.
I should have screamed.
But I stepped forward.
Drawn.
Malenthros rose first. His black eyes shimmered, bottomless and unreadable. He moved like smoke, drifting behind me, his hands finding my hips with supernatural certainty. His voice was a hush beside my ear—warm, commanding, familiar.
"You've been dreaming of us, haven't you?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
His hand slid up my torso, possessive and reverent. His fingers cupped my breast, thumb circling the nipple until it stiffened under his touch. I gasped—wanting to pull away, wanting more, not knowing which would destroy me faster.
"You think this is a dream," he whispered, kissing the curve of my shoulder. "But it's only a taste."
Marek was at my feet, kneeling like a penitent. He kissed the inside of my thighs, open-mouthed and hungry, leaving a slick heat in his wake. My legs trembled.
And then Vasilios stood.
He stepped into the circle, his gaze on fire, his shirt undone just enough to expose the curve of his throat, the sharp line of his chest.
"She's ready," he said.
"Almost," Malenthros corrected, tweaking my nipple, making me cry out softly.
"Let me finish her," Vasilios said, voice low and magnetic. "Let me make her ours."
They moved like planets around me—pulling and circling and consuming.
Marek lifted me onto a stone altar etched with gold. My back hit the cool surface, and I arched into it, lips parted, body flushed with shame and heat. I should've covered myself.
But I didn't.
I wanted them to see me.
To taste what had been stolen, what had been traded.
To take back the power Rick had tried to claim.
Malenthros pressed kisses along my collarbone. Marek stroked my inner thigh. But it was Vasilios who stole my breath.
He knelt between my legs.
And I let him.
His eyes met mine as his hands gripped my thighs, spreading me wide.
He did not ask.
He did not need to.
This was a ceremony. A rite older than memory.
His mouth hovered just above the heat of me, his breath teasing my slick skin. And then he bit—not piercing, not wounding, just enough pressure to brand the soft flesh of my inner thigh.
I moaned.
Blood beaded from the mark, slow and thick.
He licked it away with a hunger that made my toes curl, my belly tighten.
"You taste like fire," he said. "And fate."
His fingers were next.
One.
Then two.
He parted my lips, slowly, reverently, sliding inside with a tension that bordered on reverence. My walls clenched. My hips lifted of their own accord.
I was wet.
Dripping.
Needing.
Malenthros whispered filth in my ear, painting visions of what they'd do to me. Marek sucked at my breast, sharp teeth grazing without piercing.
And Vasilios…
He looked up from between my legs, blood on his lips, fingers inside me.
His gaze locked on mine.
"This is not real," he said softly.
I blinked.
His voice was different now—gentler. Pulling me from the edge.
"But soon," he whispered.
"Soon."
I woke up with a gasp.
The silk sheets twisted around my thighs, my nightgown bunched around my hips, my skin slick with sweat and something worse—something deeper.
I was aching.
My thighs were sticky. My nipples peaked. My breath still caught in half-sobs, half-moans.
But no one was there.
Only the shadows.
Only the memory of his voice.
It was just a dream.
Just a dream.
But it didn't feel like one.
Not anymore.
Ever since the tower—ever since the man with the black eyes whispered into my bones—I'd felt… different.
Tuned to something I couldn't name.
And worse—
I didn't know if I wanted it to stop.
I pulled the covers tighter around me and whispered into the darkness:
"I have to get out of here."
But even as I said it, my hands drifted between my thighs, searching for something I couldn't name.
My fingers trembled.
And somewhere—across stone halls and guarded doors—I knew he could smell me.