Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 18 of 21

The last worshipper filed out of the new hall as dawn pressed at the high windows. Lilith watched them go and felt the pull of the sentence she had spoken over them. Every prayer would find Damien first now. She needed to know what he did with that weight when no one was watching. She turned to him at the altar and told him to follow her. She led him down the back stair to the private sanctum she kept below the hall. Candles burned in the wall brackets. A tall mushroom glowed in the corner where she had planted it for light that did not need tending. The chamber bed stood against the far wall, dark wood carved into spires, ropes and straps draped over the posts, a few scattered keepsakes on the coverlet from a night she had not yet finished. Her shadow dragon padded in behind them and settled by the door. "Sit," she said. Damien sat on the edge of the bed. He watched her the way he had watched her the first night in the cave, before he had any mark at all. She stood in front of him. "I named you my vessel. I can't take it back. Every word they say to me now goes through you first." "I know." "Then I need to know what stops you." "Nothing stops me." She went still. "Say that again." "Nothing stops me from giving it to you." He held out his wrist, mark up. "Take what you want. My soul is yours. I'm not afraid of you." She had wanted him to flinch. She had wanted a crack to press her thumb into. He gave her none. She climbed onto the bed and pushed him back against the pillows. She lay down beside him and put her hand flat on his chest, over the shadowflame. She drew. Power came up under her palm. It came easier than it ever had from him. He did not fight the pull. He fed it to her. She felt her strength rise and felt his rise with it, the way water rises in two joined cups. "You feel that," she said. "Yes." "When I pull, you grow." "Yes." “I have only one rule I hope u accept” he said. “In front of others i obey you as a follower should. Punish me discipline me anything do it. Behind closed doors when it is only us, u obey me when we get to play our game. Deal?” “Deal.” She said. She kept her hand there. She could stop. She did not stop. She lay with him until the candles burned low and her breathing matched his. The dragon watched from the door and did not growl once.