"I have returned," said a low, harsh voice from beneath the blackness behind the raging fire.
She was ready and knew what he wanted. He wanted more of her. It was the cost of her creation.
It came back after each task to consume, to take more of her essence.
She had a choice. In the beginning, she always had an option. She could pay, or she could lose her creation to the void, and thus, part of her. She had taken the former course many times, because it was the smart option, the way to spend less of her in the long term. All she had to do was to utter the words of banishment and he would be gone, never again to return to her world.
The fire at which she had first created him still burned hot and bright in the basin carved into the black marble floor of the chamber. The flame had not dimmed in the two years and five feedings that had intervened since its birth.
She had already fed him too often. Already she had given him so much of her magic that he was acquiring some independence from her, to have his own motivations, his own wants, his own needs. It was too much. The years of training she had gone through at the hands of her teacher and master told her to let him die of starvation or soon she would never be rid of him.
Soon he would not need her; he would be completely independent and she would lose forever the essence of herself she had put into him. She would be forever diminished, if only by a small piece, but that small piece would not grow back while he lived and she would never have the means to kill him. He would cease to be her magical creation and would begin to become her own personal demon, forever longing to feed from her, forever bleeding her but never again completely doing her bidding, never again... controlled.
His form became visible behind the flames, fading slowly from the other world, solidifying in hers.
She wondered if he was yet strong enough to know what he risked. She wondered too if the taste of her essence had limited his sexual awareness. She hoped not.
At the first glimpse of his solid form, her resolve weakened, her desire to feed him once more awoke. In the pit of her stomach she felt the flutter of energy inflame her, it burst, like a lightning bolt from her belly. Colour inflamed her cheeks, and, on the Throne of Bone her hips moved slightly.
It always happened, she remembered. And she knew why. When she made this one, she had been in love - in lust. The ritual undertaken to make these creations had inflamed her passion and her lust, that she could not control, had somehow taken the ritual further than she had ever gone before. In her moment of orgasm, that was the climax of the ritual, she had momentarily lost her grip on the powers that she wove into this new creature. In a moment of abandonment she had given it a piece of herself. She had never felt such powerful lust, such a powerful burst of emotion, that powerful lovemaking with any man. It had lasted minutes, tens of minutes, while she burned in an inferno that was so intense as to be painful; so consuming that for the duration of it she had forgotten who she was and what she was doing.
And that passion, she now knew, was to be her bane. From it had come the 'being' she had intended to create; a servant. It was intended to be a simple thing, a mindless, almost formless creature. But the intensity of the ritual had breathed into it a vitality that she soon recognized. Her passion had given it the form she most desired. In her moment of boundless passion, she had created her dream.
******
He looked toward 'Her.' His task was complete, he had done Her bidding. He was going home again, to his reward.
He did not remember the first task, and he did not really recall his own creation, but he knew from whence he came. He knew also that he was alive and that he was not supposed to be alive. His first clear memory was his first reward.
He remembered the taste of 'Her' was exquisite. The flood of 'Her' essence filled him, making whole his emptiness, making real his life, making solid his flesh, his very existence made him of value.
He knew what he was, what he was created to be; 'Her' servant, 'Her' worshipper and in a perverse way, 'Her' tormenter. He knew this was so, and he revelled in his cause, his mind consumed by these thoughts when alone and inactive.
Forgetting the task he had just completed he willed himself from the flames, saying, "I have returned," in a voice so low as to be almost below the capacity of earthly hearing.
She sat on her Throne of Bone; long black hair falling over her pale, white skin. She sat on the skeletal lower jaw of the long dead dragon, its huge curved fangs polished into arm rests. It was jet black. Its bones shining a malevolent black glare; empty eye sockets stared a hateful blackness throughout the cavernous room.
She was naked. She always was at the time of feeding. Her flesh glowed with lustful anticipation. Her proud breasts rose and fell with each ragged breath, each full breast tipped with a hard, erect nipple.
Against the scarlet cushions she moved slowly, hips rising and falling in a continuous rhythm. Her pale hands clenched and unclenched, gripping the dragon's teeth, as though she feared being torn from her sanctity. She had drawn one leg up to her, and the other stretched before her, rising and falling with her hips.
Her motion gave her an undulating, pulsating appearance.
Her eyes followed his glistening body and her gaze alone gave him reward.
He rose from the fire pit, his skin almost indistinguishable from the fire at first, then gradually forming itself into human shape, he stepped forward and up onto the black marble floor.
He was a tower of musculature and even the slight step he took showed the grace with which he had been endowed. His form was a wedge, muscles rippled like a panther's before the burst of killing speed. He flowed as he moved, one motion into the next with no hesitation, more creature than man. His hair was the same colour as the flame from which he stepped, and his skin also, though a few shades darker. He looked like a moving sculpture of liquid bronze, and he flowed forward, almost floating in his grace, slowly, towards her. His arms hung loosely at his side and swung gently, slowly, in time with his movements. He was enormous. Tall, broad shouldered and densely muscled, as though built from a perfect mould.
Her perfect mould.
He stopped, perhaps ten feet from her and raised his head. His eyes, black as coal, lifeless before his first feeding, locked with hers.
She knew then, without a doubt, no regret, that she would feed him again.
