She could never quite categorize what had happened between herself and Asriel.

Desire is a powerful thing. Once locked in a person, it permeates into every nook and cranny of the body and soul. It transcends societal norms, cares not about taboos or scandals. Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter desired one another, and since they were both powerful, manipulative people, used to getting what they wanted, there was nothing anyone could do to stop the storm of their passion, the intensity of their attraction.

It happened like this. Edward Coulter was away on business, and Marisa had a party. She didn't particularly like having parties, but she had to host them, to keep up her position of influence. She hadn't invited Asriel, but he showed up anyway, and she did not turn him away.

Throughout the party, he stayed so quiet and out of the way that she almost forgot he was there. The wine and the noise and the music and the conversation was enough to distract her. But, even if his name and his face wasn't always in her mind, she felt his presence looming over her—his gray eyes gazing at her supple limbs, the curve of her breasts, the smoothness of her pale white legs. He remained as stony and silent as his snow leopard daemon, and when the party was over, when the last guest had been ushered away (all except for Asriel) she nearly flinched when she saw him standing there, hands in the pockets of his great black coat, eyeing her intensely.

"You should take your coat off," she said, and walked out of the sitting room into the parlor, to see if he would follow her. He did. She turned and looked at him. His coat was discarded. She noted the fine, chiseled lines of his chest and the bulk of his muscular arms underneath his buttoned white shirt. He was every bit as powerful and mysterious as his daemon, with her beautiful spotted coat and unswerving green eyes.

There was still wine on the table in the parlor. She poured two glasses, and handed him one. "Let's sit down."

They sat together on the sofa, and the corners of Lord Asriel's mouth twitched. He looked at her with an expression of amusement that was not without a touch of cruelty.

"You've done this before," he said, and it was almost a sneer, the way he said it. If she had been the kind of woman who blushed easily, she might have; but she kept her composure, and met his gray gaze with defiance.

"So what if I have?"

He placed his glass of Tokay on the table; he hadn't drunk a drop. "You're awfully young to have accumulated a collection of lovers, don't you think?"

"Don't patronize me, Asriel," she said coldly. "I have no collection. If it bothers you, why are you here, then?"

"Oh, I didn't say it bothered me. On the contrary – I couldn't care less." His snow leopard daemon stretched her front legs forward, sitting upright, like a sphinx. Marisa's golden monkey ruffled its shimmery fur, and remained alert. Quite suddenly, but with grace and power, the snow leopard padded over to the monkey, and lightly touched his fur with her nose.

Marisa Coulter felt a warm buzzing sensation inside of her then, a combination of the wine and the interaction between their daemons. She too placed her glass on the table, and Lord Asriel raised his hand. For a second Marisa thought he was about to slap her, but then he lightly, carefully, brushed his hand across her cheek. She looked at him, and he could not read her expression. His hand went to the back of her neck, and his other hand began to caress her hair.

"Asriel," she murmured, "what are we doing?"

He kissed her softly. It was so much gentler than she'd ever expected from him, this hard, cruel, stoic man with the stony gaze and the leopard daemon.

Then, his hand brushed her upper thigh, and it was as if someone had pressed a button somewhere that had created a spark, a zap of lightning, and then their arms were around each other, devouring each other's lips as though they had been waiting their whole lives to do it, their daemons nuzzling and caressing each other with chatters and purrs and growls of delight. Marisa's head spun, and she broke away, breathing heavily as though gasping for air. Lord Asriel regarded her stonily.

"I will not be your lover, Marisa," he said finally. She felt something strange through her desire—was it disappointment? No, it was something more profound, like a distant cousin of despair. But then Lord Asriel's arm encircled her waist, and he pulled her close. "You'll be mine."

His lips found hers again. The hand around her waist was stroking her side rhythmically. She gasped as it lightly brushed the bottom of her breast. Her fingers curled in his hair. She pressed herself closer to him. She felt his other hand moving up her thigh again. A warmth spread through her like she'd never felt before. Her stomach twisted in excitement. His hand reached higher, and then hesitated, which surprised her. She had never thought of Lord Asriel as a man to hesitate before doing anything, but here he was, waiting as if to ask for her permission.

She buried her face into his warm neck, kissing it. That seemed to be all Asriel needed: his hand located what it sought, and they both sank down onto the sofa together.

Later, she would see their relationship as a series of images: Asriel kissing her softly as her body arched towards his; she, running her hands over his bare chest; he embracing her from behind, his face in her shoulder and his hands massaging the skin of her stomach; the feeling of him inside her, that feeling of wholeness; her face buried in between his legs as she tasted him, knowing that the powerful Lord Asriel was turning to putty beneath her hands and lips; the swell of their child inside her, the fear that came with not knowing whose it was, and the even greater fear that came with finding out the truth.

She saw these things as she fell into the abyss, at the edge of the world. But she saw them differently now. Before she'd met Lyra, her own daughter, she regarded Asriel as one of her lovers—the best of them, perhaps, but one that did not care a mite about her beyond her body. But after Lyra, after she felt the deep, profound love that only a mother can feel, unexpected and abrupt though it was, she realized her villainy, her mistakes, and her regrets. And she regretted most that she had only just started to uncover the father in Asriel, and that she'd never given either of them a chance to become people that were capable of—and worth—loving.

That was what she told herself as she tumbled into the darkness, that she and Asriel were doing this for Lyra. And the last thing she saw, as her mind closed and the darkness enveloped her, was an image that had never been: Asriel lifting a young Lyra up in the air playfully, Marisa clinging to the crook of his arm, the portrait of a happy family, brimming with happiness and love.