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?”
His heart dropped to a low throb, feeling a sharp need to debase himself at Her feet, for the error. Her hand at his chin prevented this and he barely held back the motion to move. His throat contracted, dry heaves as he gathered air to speak, putting all the pent-up feelings into the answer. “No, Goddess I crave Your touch, nothing else, makes me happier.”
She smiled at this, the dark line of Her mouth, quirked at his words, and She curled the hand at his chin over, and traced the nail along his lips. “You carry My mark dark one, I chose you.” “You are mine”, and these next words were hissed into his ear. “I shall touch, taste, and satisfy My desires with every inch of you.” “No motion, no words, no amount of struggle, will stop Me.” And with that She dropped the hand from his chin, in a move so fast, it registered only as an ashen blur, and then intense pain, as Her nails ripped four long furrows in his flesh.
His cry of shock echoed around the stones and he swayed, barely staying upright even his knees unsteady now. The scrawling lines burned into his chest, and leaked with the onslaught of thin watery blood. The agonized wheeze he exhaled as the lines began to throb and bleed harder, soothed Her. Her gaze went from boring into his eyes to the spill of life sustaining fluid. She brought Her hand up and like a child with a sticky treat, licked it off Her fingers with such intense concentration not a single stain remained.
His body went taut, watching Her, the hardening flesh of his nipples standing out against the streams of scarlet liquid. A chuckle left Her lips, like a dissonant wail from a possessed lute its tone tightened even more things. His lower belly and abdomen clenched in response to that sound of darkness. His eyes dared a look to the wings that rippled with each movement She made, he was fascinated by them the slightest touch from those sleek, and satiny feathers made him rock hard. Just thinking of the caress, drove him mad. To be able to gaze upon them was a torment, he could scarcely stand, wanting even more to touch and stroke and lavish them with attention, each time he was allowed to view them.
She stepped away from him and folded those extraordinary appendages back along her sides. Fluttering them a bit, preening. She knew how much the wings enchanted him. She kept them at times hidden, wanting each moment he gazed upon them to be something he would never forget. He delighted Her in every respect, coming to Her with only the desire to please, to give of himself. It was what drew Her here. His wants and needs, they gave Her so much pleasure to fuel, and then breathe life into, take and give in counterpoint to each other. She needed him it was true, but She gave of Herself in return. Nurturing his needs and accepting them, with no holding back.
His vision blurred, and wavered. He blinked rapidly trying to clear it, and when he glanced back up again She was gone, the hackles rising quickly upon his neck, gave the only clue. She bent low over his forehead, curtaining the world away with the long strands of her hair. A damp odor assaulted his nostrils, the smell of earth, decay, and animal muskiness hit him like a blow, and reeling forward he was captured in Her arms, the swift motion keeping him close. A voice painted with tones of need he was used to slithered around his ear and was dropped against the rapidly pounding nerves of his vulnerable flesh.
“Chosen, I must feed.” Her tongue snaked around the outer lobe and drug a moist path from his squared off jaw to the tautly held tendon of his throat. He quivered caught up in the dance. His breath blew outward in a long sigh that matched Her desires.