Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 13 of 21

Damien's mark stayed cool under Lilith's hand. The twenty villagers watched the bed and waited for more. She had spent too much of him to build the frame, and now they wanted the show she had promised. If she pulled again, she would break him in front of them. If she gave them nothing, the coronation crowd would shrink before it grew. She looked at the toys scattered on the covers. Small carved things. Purple and pink. She had shaped them out of stone and cloth without thinking, filler for the spectacle. They were hers. They were empty. She turned her back to the villagers and bent over the bed as if adjusting a strap. Her fingers closed around one of the toys. She pushed her own power into it. Not Damien's. Hers. The small weight warmed under her palm. She did the same to the next, and the next, until six of them hummed against her skin. Her knees felt the cost. She locked them and did not sway. "Watch," she said to the room. She climbed onto the bed beside Damien. She freed his loose wrist and put the first toy in his hand. She pressed his palm to her own throat, then to her ribs, then lower. Each place the toy touched, her power slid out of it and into him through the mark. His color came back. His breath deepened. The villagers thought they were watching her use him. They were watching her feed him. Damien's eyes changed. He felt it. He knew what she was doing and did not say it. He turned the toy in his hand and dragged it along her collarbone himself. The mark on his chest brightened. He was not weak anymore. He was warm under her. The succubus at the foot of the bed watched the mark brighten and tilted her head. She had been watching Lilith's power for a long time. She knew the direction it usually moved. She saw it move the other way now. Lilith rolled off the bed and stood before the villagers with her crown steady. "Kneel," she said. They knelt. All twenty. The altar between them filled with the sound of it. She had held the room. She had kept Damien standing. She had done it by pouring herself into him in front of everyone and calling it worship. Damien sat up on the bed. He looked at his own hand. He looked at her. He was stronger than he had been an hour ago. Stronger than he had been yesterday. She could feel it in the mark like a second pulse, no longer smaller than hers. The succubus smiled at the floor. Lilith saw it and understood. She had solved the hour. She had also given Damien something she could not take back.