Leira looked at Lorian, her whole being protesting, but she couldn’t stop looking. She could feel his displeasure, his usual calm, almost bored demeanour now transformed into a deadly calm before the storm that seemed to enter not only her heart – it entered everyone present in the throne room. His enchantment assaulted her senses, beautiful and terrifying. She felt it touch her, slide over her, fill her with conflicting emotions.

Don’t do this to me.

She couldn’t stop looking.

She didn’t want to stop. It pulled her in, a spell she was not ready for.

Neither was the lower fey who was responsible for the boy’s escape. His aura was frantic, like a trapped bird that knows it is about to be sacrificed.

Leira watched with fascination as Nymre and Areltha crept up behind Lorian, dark creatures, ominous harbingers of death who couldn’t wait for their lover to punish the guilty.

The fey knew he stood no chance. Leira didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to look. Never. But she looked, and that alone made her so afraid. Why are you doing this to me?

“So,” Lorian raised a brow, his voice deep and only slightly tinged with anger, sweet as honey, far too sweet to taste good. “I was under the impression that you wanted to explain yourself. Don’t. I am in no mood for words aimed at saving you. The only thing I would really like to hear would be the sound of your punishment.”

The fey’s expression showed only resignation. He has spent too many years here, he knows how Lorian punishes those who displease him. He only hopes it won’t take too long.

I am not your toy. Even if my mind begins to believe that it’s the only way. That it’s all true.

“I find you very brave. Allowing the prisoners to escape. So I thought you would be brave enough to amuse my lover. She really needs it. Something to light her fire.”

Nymre clung to Lorian’s shoulders and looked at the fey with a gleam of sick fascination, pure as a winter’s morning.

“Not too deep… please…” he said, but it only made Lorian furrow his brow.

“Make him feel, deliciously,” Nymre sighed into his ear, and he looked at her with an undecipherable expression, and… misplaced hunger.

And a single pulsating wave sank into the prisoner’s body, almost invisible, but Leira choked in her place. Lorian slowly rose from his seat and approached the fae. The captive tried to move away, but Lorian’s darkness held him until he was face to face.

He caressed the prisoner’s tense face, tenderly, almost affectionately, and slid his hand into his abdomen. And filled him.

The fey stood there for a moment, paralysed, until something inside him began to move. His mouth opened in a silent expression of pain. Something was tearing through his flesh, burrowing into his veins, something inexorable. He wanted to scream, but found that his voice was swallowed by the power that now beat within his body.

The fairies gathered in the throne room watched with sick interest as he gagged, trying to catch his breath as Lorian’s power burrowed deeper. There was no blood, only spreading skin to show what was happening inside, a defiant sign of his failure.

Lorian seemed to glow with blackness, filling every crevice of his prey with his spell. His eyes took on additional depth, now looking like black holes that swallowed all hope.

It went on and on, until time ran out and all that remained for the fey was pain, pain and the gaze of Lorian’s black eyes, drilling wounds into his soul.

“Now,” Lorian smiled, his features brightening. “Mercy tastes better when it comes after suffering” Leira looked at him again, this time with more fear than anything else, she knew he was going to do something malicious. His dark glow seemed dim and subdued, his disappointment and hunger pulsing around him. “If you express how much you regret. I will end this. If you don’t… more will grow in you.”

Nymre and Areltha laughed softly, amused and pleased. They leaned over Lorian and pressed themselves against his back.

Stop it. Do not do this. I am not your plaything.

The captive fey’s eyes filled with tears, both of pain and of utter hopelessness. Lorian took his voice and didn’t give it back, the power he sent choking him, strangling every word before it left his mouth. The enchanted tendrils moved deep into him and he knew he wasn’t even close to dying. They were dark enchantments, so they could grow inside him for months until they dissipated. He groaned in pain, doing everything he could to show Lorian that he was at least trying. Please allow me to speak. I beg you. Please.

“Such a loss,” Lorian purred. His hair brushed with shadows, his eyes blank in their pitch-black darkness.

The Fae flinched as Lorian’s power pushed into him again, burying itself deeper, taking what now belonged to the night.

“I don’t think it was that deep,” Lorian smiled, a sharp grin on his otherwise ethereal face, looking curiously at the trembling Fae. He turned to the lower Fae guard, who looked at him with a gleam in his almost white eyes. “Take him and lock him up somewhere low. I don’t want to hear from him again. Look at the others, they never tried to help him. He must feel it, savour it like wine.”

Nymre looked at the punished fey with deep fascination, her eyes never blinking, her hand clenched tightly on Lorian’s arm.

Leira felt as if something was squeezing her heart, hard. Lorian was never merciful, but to see this always made her feel the deepest sadness and regret.

Even when she couldn’t stop looking.

Do not look at him. He does it for a reason, to possess your emotions and your soul. Just…

… do not look.

But you want to.

You want him.