But he is not a man, her treacherous mind reminded her. He eats people, Mayleen. He is an incubus who seduces and then consumes you.
Wrapping her protective sheet around her, May began to circle the room again, this time pausing at a huge window that appeared to go nowhere and had not been there before.
But a window was exactly what she had been looking for. Now, wasn’t that odd?
“Even now, I am covered in darkness,” she murmured. “Even now the darkness himself is trying to consume my soul.” Yes, she decided. That made sense. That was why she had been brought here. She had been seduced by darkness. She had been steeped in its addictive charm. And now she was seeing things clearly for the first time. “He wants to consume my soul,” she decided, running her fingers over the frame of the window that suddenly appeared.
What would a window in the underworld look out upon? she asked herself, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of her mind telling her not everything was as it seemed. “I bet he planned this,” she argued, her eyes narrowing. “I bet he wants to keep me down here as some slave or servant girl.” May never noticed the red tint coloring her eyes, glinting in the glass of the window.
But then there was that nagging voice, that tiny squeak telling her she was wrong. Tears ran down her face as she began to breathe hard, her mind in turmoil. Why was it that no one ever loved her? Why was she always alone? She would be better off dead.
Into this confusion, that small squeak became a roar.
This is madness.
That roar began to draw her from the confusion swirling through her head.
Has Manx ever harmed you? Has he in fact saved your life? Has he put up with your ramblings and still treated you with respect?
But then the doubts came again, tearing at her mind. She was worthless. She was a waste of space. No one ever wanted her, so she’d ended up here, in this pit, away from everything… lost. Before she realized it, she was standing on the ledge of the window to nowhere, staring down into a seething black void.
It would be better if she just… disappeared.
When would the pain stop? It had to stop. Her pain was almost a living thing now, an entity that wanted control of her body and her mind, and she just didn’t have the strength to fight any longer.
Tears ran down her face as a silent breeze began to ruffle her short hair and to tear at the sheet wrapped around her. “I am nothing,” she panted, her eyes now glowing bright red. “I am just another cum dump. I should just cease to be.”
But then that roaring voice began to speak. Has it come to this?
May froze, listening to the one strong voice amidst the clutter and confusion of the voices in her head. Suddenly your life is not worth having? After it took us this long to find him?
Mayleen sniffed and took a step back, nearly falling off the ledge as she began to receive her lecture.
All your life, you have been searching for something to make you complete, searching for the thing that makes you whole. Have you ever felt such utter completeness? When has your soul ever been more at ease?
“But what about tomorrow?”
Let tomorrow handle itself. You have to live your life today.
“But he always leaves me. He left me. He keeps leaving me. It was so dark and lonely and I waited for him. Where was he? Why didn’t he come? I waited so damn long!” Mayleen was screaming by the time she finished her reasoning, her hands scrubbing at her face, and she felt as if she were a child, being abandoned once more. “Where was he?”
He was looking for you.
That statement made her freeze.
He was looking for us.
“Us?”
You and me, me and you. We are one. And together with him, we are complete. No more darkness. No more loneliness. Together we are one.
“If we are one, then where is he? Where are you, Manx? I thought you were looking for us? Well, now that you have found us, what will you do?”
No one answered.
“What will you do, Manx of the Moddy Dhoo, what will you do?”
Again, there was no answer. That was all she needed to know. No one was there. No one would ever be there. She was alone. She was better off gone. She took a step toward the edge of the ledge, the chaotic voices in her head urging her onward as the strong voice in her head began to scream. She closed her eyes, prepared to jump, when a voice from behind called out to her. “I’ll love you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Then I’ll learn to love you!”
Mayleen turned, staring at him, ready to jump and spite him for all the chaos in her head. But she looked at his eyes, and she felt herself sinking.
“You are all that I have been searching for. It is you who will make me whole, you who binds me to this flesh and bone and earth. Without you, there is nothing, I am nothing.” His sincerity bled through his eyes as he stepped close to her.
“I am no part of you.”
“You are,” Manx insisted. “You are already harnessing the shadows, minn ást. You are using our energies, controlling what is ours by fate. I can feel you inside my head, inside my heart. I know I am lost without you.”
She took a step closer, closing the distance between them even as he tried to use his will to close the window to the shadow realm that she had opened. “You are trying to trick me,” she insisted, taking a step backwards as she saw him drawing closer. “You will leave me again.”
“I never left you.”
“I was so frightened, Manx. It was cold and it was dark and I could not find you, minn ást. I could not call out to you. I saw you crying. You never cry. I saw the worlds tremble and heard the belling of the hounds. But I could not find you. I was all alone.”
“If I could but take that memory away, my Frau,” Manx whispered, his eyes glistening with unshed tears as he listened to the account of her death. “If I could have taken your place…”
“The men were screaming and calling us names. There was fire and shouting, and…”
“And you slipped from my hands,” Manx breathed. “I held you as you died. I watched the life leave your body and I killed them all, my Frau. For you, I killed them all and then I tried to do the hardest thing I have ever done. I tried to live for you.”
“You… you lived for me?”
“As I would die for you.”
“No!” May screamed, and the confusion that clouded her brain eased for a moment. “You will not die for me. I have waited too long for us to be separated now. You will not die!” May tried to step forward, but the sheet tangled around her feet and suddenly she was floating, feeling herself flying backwards into the darkness. Again, she was cold and in the dark and alone.
“No!” Manx screamed, leaping forward.
The last thing Mayleen saw was those concerned red eyes, staring down at her, a large hand reaching for her. “Not again,” she groaned to herself, then she knew nothing.
Chapter Eleven
When Mayleen next opened her eyes, she was lying in a huge bed covered in black satin, a sense of déjà vu filling her. She tried to lift her head, but it felt too heavy and stuffy, as if filled with cotton.
“Stay still,” a voice murmured, and hands tucked a blanket around her shoulders. “Your system has had a shock.”
“What’s wrong with me?” May managed, too tired to lift a hand to assess her condition.
“I am so sorry, little one.” The voice May recognized as Manx’s spoke from above her. “You were poisoned.”
“Poisoned? How? I don’t even remember eating anything…”
“You won’t need to. You are drawing from me, my Frau. You will not have to worry about consuming flesh. That is my job -- to provide for you.”
“Really?” She raised her eyebrows at that.
“That is, unless you want to,” he added with a smile. Then he frowned. “But that is how he got to you.”
Mayleen tried to smile as Manx came into view, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Who?”
May felt her heart turn over for the man. He looked like an odd little boy, not the master of the darkness that she had come to know. “Um, did you do it on purpose?” she finally asked, quirking one eyebrow.
“No!”
“And did you know what he had planned?”
“No,” Manx rushed to answer. “That was my fault, minn ást. I didn’t mean to…”
“And did you come for me?”
“Of course!” Manx sat up straight as his indignant voice filled the air.
“I’ve waited so long.”
Manx sucked in a deep breath as he realized what Mayleen was saying. “Minn ást.”
“Minn ást, min Verdun, min velgengni,” she breathed, “minn taerleiki, min audaefi, min virda og min edli… eru pu.”
“My protection, my prosperity, my riches, my purity,” he repeated, “and my eternity all belong to you.”
“Our souls are one,” she whispered, her eyes glistening with the knowledge that suddenly filled her head. This man was hers. All that he was belonged to her. They were truly one being.
“One soul,” Manx answered. “One soul.”
“And the rest will come tomorrow.” Mayleen smiled. “I plan to live for today -- for today and for you, Manx.”
“You remember.” Tears ran down his face as he gathered his lover in his arms. “You remember it all.”
“And,” Mayleen added, nestling closer to her lover, “we will never be alone again.”
Epilogue
“Are you ready?” Manx called, tapping his fingers as he waited for his love. “I have things to do, femana!”
“Well, you try to walk in these,” Mayleen snapped, adjusting the ropes that twisted and twined around her body, the well-placed knots pressing against several erogenous zones.
“Well, you designed them.” Manx chuckled and watched her bare body twist and squirm as she attempted to pull a loose dress over her head to cover the essential bits.
“And you love them.”
“And I am sure others will as well, little one,” Manx chuckled, reaching out and tugging her toward him, his shadows reaching out to pull at her ropes.
“As long as you do,” she purred, as a second set of shadows, a lighter set of tentacles ran along his clothing, tugging at his growing erection.
“You do that well,” Manx purred, then reached out to tangle his hands in her hair as he tugged at her collar. “Just remember who is the master.”
“As if I could forget,” she whispered, as his lips took hers in a brutal kiss.
And the two hounds seemed to roll their eyes as they exited the room, as if they had seen it all before.
Stephanie Burke
Stephanie Burke, known to friends and readers as Flash, has a warped, twisted sense of humor, and she isn’t afraid to let it show. From pregnant men to six-foot cockroaches, she’s covered the gamut of the weird, the unusual, and the just plain strange. She has about five million books currently in publication with one house or another, all under the name of Stephanie Burke. She says she won’t use a pen name -- she’d have to learn how to spell it. Too much like work. Visit her website at www.theflashcat.net and be sure to join Flash’s “Flame Keeper” loop at Yahoo Groups -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlameKeeper/join.
Rookery Cove: The Darkness Page 8
