The Game (A Dark Romance)

She didn’t want to kill them. She didn’t want to hurt anybody. But she couldn’t help herself. Guard after guard came, no matter how many she disabled. It was as though they were simply spawning in from some unseen location. New Rahvin never had this many guards, not enough to line the entire market with wounded and dying bodies.

“HAIL!”

She heard Bryn’s voice, and a moment later, felt herself yanked into the realm of the Dark. She looked at him in horror, tears coursing down her cheeks at the awfulness of what she had been forced to do.

“Did I kill them? I didn’t mean to kill them.”

“You did damage,” Bryn said. “I told you to stay inside the den.”

They were not in the den now. They were in the realm of the demon, and that demon was laughing uproariously. The Dark’s mirth filled their ears and made conversation impossible for an uncomfortably long length of time in which she had to stand there under Bryn’s disappointed and stern stare.

“I was hungry,” she said when she could be heard again. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

“While you are corrupted, things of this nature will always happen. Violence will erupt around you of its own accord. You will be a catalyst for chaos. You must be purged, Hail. You must…”

The Dark was coiled around them both now, tendrils encapsulating them in an intimate shroud. She could feel the breath of the beast on them both, a cold breeze which made her nipples rise in response.

“I must claim you as he claimed you. I must break you to my will, once and for all. It is the only way to free you, Hail.” Bryn’s expression was grim. He knew what had been done to her. He understood the intimacy of it. And, if he were to take her… she felt a throbbing between her thighs along with a twist of guilt. She wanted what she should not want.

“Take your clothes off, Hail.”

The order was given firmly. She felt a fresh flush of shame at the notion of being naked again with Bryn. This time it would not be an innocent bath in which he washed and tended to her like one of his whelps. This time he would do to her what a man did to a woman, and he would do it in such a way she would never be the same.

“Disrobe!” Bryn snapped the order and she obeyed. She pushed the light clothing from her body and let it fall. There was nothing but a tunic between her and Bryn and the Dark anyway. She could not forget the Dark. It was there looming, coiled, a leering, scaled thing capable of all manner of cruelties, including this one.

“Bryn, you have been like a father to me. Sleeping with you…”

“You were my whelpling once,” he admitted. “But you are no longer lyrakin. You were changed by your congress with the Dark, and you can only be returned to some kind of humanly acceptable creature by being re-initiated into the light.”

“That’s a lot of justification for doing what you always wanted to do,” the Dark chuckled.

Bryn flared with anger. He was not a sick man with twisted desires. He was a good man, who had never done anything to harm any of those in his care. But Hail was no longer a whelp. She was a woman, one who had made choices, which in turn had consequences.

“You cannot stay in the shadows forever. I will not allow it.”

She dropped the tunic and gave him a defiant smirk. She couldn’t help it. Everything she did had a hint of rebellion even when she was complying. Hail was born to be a lyrakin. She was born to stay outside the realm of proper society, to exist on the verges. She was what she was, and she had become what he had always known she would become.

Was this what he had always wanted? To take the rebellious wench and break her? Force her obedience? Defile her body? No. He had wanted to love her and tend to her needs. He wanted to look after her. Now, looking after her meant thrusting himself deep inside her.

Hail stood between Bryn and the Dark, naked, as sacrifice. This was a game of chess with only one pawn on the board. It was a game which could not be won by strategy, but by brute force.

“How will you take her? Will you have her on her hands and knees? Or will you lay her on her back and make this romantic?” The Dark was enjoying this to an excessive degree. His foul whispers and filthy suggestions were having an effect on Hail. Bryn could see every inch of her body, save the internal places he was going to violate.