He heard her voice it whispered into his sleeping body, echoed down his spine, and stirred his flesh. The soft tones vibrated to life against warm skin, he turned expecting to see her and found only the darkened room. Its emptiness mocked him. Daniel’s hands tightened into fists it had been so real the voice.
Something tugged at him, getting his body out of the bed and he stalked to a nearby window scowling out at the sky. A faint light a gathered, hundreds of stars like diamond shards dotting the heavens. The moon was only bare sliver of gray in the midst of the scattered gems. He shook his head again the voice seemed to ripple inside him, it was her tones and the soft sounds he knew to be hers. It called to him and he, even while shaking his head at this nonsense, pulled a pair of dark colored jeans over his lean body, and slid a pair of scruffy tennis shoes over bare feet.
He stepped out of the cabin’s threshold and into the sifted dirt of the path, the oaken door swinging shut behind him. He was enveloped immediately in shadows, the inky darkness of his hair, blending in with the canopy of trees just to his left; he stood still for just a moment in a listening pose. His body turned a small circuit in place, before he frowned and headed off into the trees, leaving the light of the cabin behind. He didn’t question why he was going, only felt the urgency of the voice, as it seemed to grow ever more frantic. His feet moved faster, the dark path as quiet as a tomb. His hazel eyes, glowed with a faint hint of yellow, almost like a cat; his feet too were agile like the feline. Stepping over small branches, and slipping between bushes with hardly a ripple his head always turned to the sound.
The path, plowed between a dense thicket of brush, and then out into a road, the asphalt gleaming under the light of the silver stars, and he walked silently along this easier stretch with the gait of one well used to such travel. Vaulting over a low fence, he stopped in the middle of a courtyard; the gabled end of a house could be seen just beneath a copse of maple trees. He turned toward the structure, breaking stride only once, to shift almost sharply to the left, towards a small building a wide rock wall surrounding it. He stepped carefully between the columns to either side of a wrought iron gate. The hinges squeaked in protest when he pulled it open to enter the area the voice had brought him too.
“Greetings, my chosen.” He jerked upward, his head rising to Her face. It was She the winged one of his dreams. He knelt before Her, his hands outstretched in supplication, his eyes drank in the sight of Her, greedy and wanting.
“My goddess,” words other than this failed him. He was in some portion of his mind sure it was an illusion, his mind conjuring Her up from the faint mist surrounding the upright stones. The obelisks stood as sentinels grouped around Her, in an ever-widening circle. A wicked smile curved Her lips, as She laid a hand upon his head, her fingers burrowing into the soft curls of his hair. With a sharp tug She fisted her hand around the sleek strands, and pulled him up.
“My own.” She cooed at him, it was the only word, he could think of to use, and She devoured him with her eyes. The gaze hot and heavy sliding over him, her free hand went up to smooth over his bare chest. Goose bumps cascaded down his body, Her palm was like ice, a frozen gathering of fingers.
The hand in his hair, came down like a comb, and parted the strands of his shadowy mane, in long twisting bits of silk. He shook all over, his knees buried themselves in the crackling leaves that gathered about the ground, and he settled back upon his heels savoring Her touch. He tipped his head upward then a quick gaze focusing upon the dark wings that beat a quiet pattern of sound around them. Like his heartbeat, they thumped in time to his increased breathing. The wrap of sound echoed against their flesh, and turned the small area into a cocoon of Her presence, the dampness of the air, the faint smell of jasmine, the tint of blood, all these things he gathered close, searing into his memory all the moments that were increasingly precious to him.
He didn’t care what any others thought, they had told him, She was draining more and more of his life force, surviving by feeding off him. He shook his head and gave no more than a passing mind to it, he could have told them She never took anything he didn’t freely wish to give.
The cold hand upon his chest, was freezing to his skin, and leeching his own body’s warmth away. He made a soft sound of protest, and She narrowed her eyes at him, voice a sibilant whisper in his ear. “Are you uncomfortable, my chosen?” He went stock still, worried She would be unhappy, and shook his head quickly in denial, embracing the icy touch by closing his eyes and concentrating instead on the hand buried in his hair.
“No, Goddess.” These two words were etched with his desire to please, voice steady and spoken rapidly. She laughed, and moved the cold fingers and palm to his chin pulling it upward and holding it in place, the second hand slid from the raven curls to snake a sharp nail down his jaw line.
Her eyes glowed with a hint of the frost that still flowed from Her hands, and Her voice questioned again. “Do you dislike My touch, chosen?”