Lascif

She tossed and turned, restless in her sleep. The same recurring dreams haunting her sleep of a dark, enshrouded, nightmare horseman on a demon-black horse; in whispered silence racing through the misted moors . . . and through her dreams. However, tonight was different. Tonight she could hear the thundering hoof beats and snorted breathing of the raging beast, its muscles glistened in the moonlight; hot leather jet black, the crack of the whip echoed down the shadowed corridors and she could see a face on the nightmarish rider. Fiery eyes that burned blood-red from under a black, wide brimmed hat as he cursed like a banshee, fiercely riding on into the night.

Louder and louder, the hoof beats became. Closer he became and she could sense him drawing nearer. Then, as his horse reared as sharply as a lightning bolt and let out a horrific laugh---a thunderclap, a slashing scream in the night . . . she awoke.

Cold and sweating, shivering, she sat up in her bed and quickly drew the dampened sheet up to her breast. The ominous darkness held an eerie presence that sent an electric current pulsating through her and she nervously leaned over to a night stand beside her bed and turned up the oil lamp that with only a hinted glimmer sat idle on the table.

He was there . . . in her room! Standing. Staring. Expressionless, his shadowed face foreboding and she gasped at his indignant appearance. She tried to speak, to scream, to confront this intruder but terror had stolen her voice. She could not speak, as her chest rose vehemently and she could only stare into his burning glare. Hypnotized, captured in his spell, she remained still as he seemed now to talk to her through her eyes. Her mind tried to fend him off but her body had become his and as she fought the urge to look at him, she unwarily lowered the sheets revealing herself to him.

Her strapped satin gown was damp with perspiration and her long blonde hair was disheveled as it lay limp across her shoulders and down her back. With what aplomb remained, she brought her arms across her chest and gripped tightly to her shoulders.

. Frozen with fear, she remained still, her tethered limbs bound by the shackles of his consuming stare restraining her as he slowly, seductively, stepped toward her. He was silent as he stepped up to her bed. The hard leather soles of his riding boots were mute on the hard tiled floor and all she could hear was her own heartbeat thundering in her chest like the hoof beats of the demon cursor of her nightmares. A nightmare that now stood before her, staring, terrorizing. As he removed his hat, the bangs of his night black, shoulder length hair fell about his face and like the enshrouding cape he wore about his shoulders, hung limp and mysterious. She could not speak or reason, and the cold fear in her eyes had become his aphrodisiac, and he wanted more.

Leaning over her, she could smell the cold, cruel whisper of death on his breath, however, like the proverbial, moth to the flame she was drawn to him. Trembling as she unconsciously, invitingly, held out her hand to him, long, gray fingernails and coarse palms gently took hold of her wrist. Immediately, she could feel the energy of a thousand lives race through her body. As he softly, sensually pressed his lips to her wrist, she tilted her head back in surrender, to exhaust the raging electricity that vibrated through her. He too could feel the energy her terrorized body supplied as he pressed his dry lips harder onto the tender flesh of her wrist, and savoring the sensation of her lifeblood pulsating through her arteries, softly bit into her tender flesh. And smiled down at his now, most willing prey.

Whimpering quietly, she cringed at the sting of his teeth and cried out into the shadows as he scraped his teeth along inside of her forearm, into the crease of her elbow. Soft, pale flesh that beckoned his desire drew him up her arm to her shoulder and the sensation was like a firebrand up her arm as he caressed her shoulder with his teeth. Erotic, tantalizing, she turned away from him and with her left hand that still tenaciously clung onto her shoulder, deftly loosened the knot that tied the strap over her shoulder and releasing the satin material and tensing her body in anticipation of his touch.

His eyes ignited with an insatiable thirst as she revealed her neck to him and she could physically feel the burn of his desire as his eyes seared lashes across her bare flesh. She was his one desire, to have her, taste of her, to take her, his nightmarish passion, his darkened covet calling him.

With one hand still clasping her wrist, he whispered his fingers through her long, soft, blonde hair easing the feathered tresses that hung down over her shoulder back over and down her back. Nothing could impede his task and as he put his gnarled palm to the nape of her neck she arched her back in licentious abandon and slowly drifted down onto the satin sheets that covered the billowy mattress.

The bedside oil lamp, providing the only illumination to the room, spawned demon- like shadows to the limestone walls, dancing in audience to their master's clandestine opera. Veiled in darkness, he coveted his mistress as she lay still before him. Her head turned on the pillow, her breathing deep and loud, she whispered cries of anticipation and sharp gasps of terror melding into muffled moans that provided his prurient overture. He would strike in his own time, though the gray moon that waned on the horizon would soon betray him to the garish rays of dawn. His world is of darkness. In this nightmare realm of the undead he resides as ruler from coffin to shadow and the nocturnal beasts his court, and tonight she would join him; married to his lust, confined to the shadows.

Holding the back of her neck with one hand he gently lowered her hand down onto the bed beside her before he put his other hand against her cheek. Then, lifting his head away from her, he bared his fangs and growled as he pressed her head into the pillow. With saliva dripping from his teeth he screamed wildly releasing her from his hypnotic clenches, she recognized the screams from her dreams, and now fighting against his strength she searched the darkness with only her eyes for the source.

His mouth on her neck, her senses elevated and she could feel the intense pain of his teeth penetrating her skin and the unholy energy that possessed him racing through her. From her neck through her lungs then into her stomach. Down between her thighs, escaping down her legs sending her into climatic convulsions.

Her left hand clinging to the mattress cover, her muscles taunt as her legs twisted with the convulsions kicking the light material that draped her legs and lower body onto the floor. His fingernails gouging into the celestial soft flesh of her cheek, forcing her head deeper into the pillow and restraining her in her spastic shock waves that were overwhelming her. She could hear him on her. The guttural noises he made, the slurping, the sucking, the growling as he took her . . . into the darkness.

Quiet, still, in the darkness she lays. Her left-hand still clenching the mattress sheet while her right hand lay limp along her side. No sounds permeate in the room, her breathing short and shallow her body lay heavy in the bed. With only the distant cry of an owl echoing across the moors, she lies awake. Her darkened, distant eyes staring up into the infinite void as a trickle of her life force slowly trails down her neck and down her body only to be lost in the warm crimson stain underneath her. And into the darkness . . . she screams.