Disclaimer: Victorious is not mine never will be but i do enjoy using 'dem characters ;) anyway the idea comes from Carol Goodman

The Dark Stranger

Best keep your door locked, Miss.

The housekeeper's words came back to me as I readied myself for bed. It seemed a strange warning in a house as isolated as Lion's Keep where our only neighbors were sea and heath. Had there been trouble with one of the servants-perhaps with that impertinent groom with the roving eyes? Or could it be the Master that Mrs. Valentine was worried about? Haughty, remote Beck Oliver, who had looked down at me from his horse with such icy condescension-a cold look which had paradoxically lit a spit of fire from my toes to the roots of my hair. Surely not. The great Beck Oliver wouldn't deign to bother a lowly governess such as myself.

I locked the door all the same, but let the windows open as it was a warm night and the breeze coming off the ocean felt deliciously cool as I slid between the crisp lavender-scented sheets. I blew out my candle… and immediately noticed something odd. There was a crack of light at the bottom of the door. Had Mrs. Valentine left a candle burning in the hallway for my benefit? If so, I ought tell her it wasn't necessary.

I threw the sheets off and swung my legs over the side of the bed, preparing to go investigate, but froze before my toes touched the floor. The bar of light at the bottom of the door had been split in two by a shadow as if someone were standing there. As I stared at the door, seeking some other explanation, the brass knob silently began to turn. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. My throat was frozen with fear, as were my limbs, powerless to run from whoever was at the door. All I could do was watch as the knob turned… and stopped.

The door didn't open. It was locked. The knob paused there as If whoever was turning it was deciding what to do next. Would he break the door down? Would he force his way in and then… what then?

But he must have decided that breaking down the door would make too much noise. The knob silently revolved back. The shadow disappeared from beneath the door and the light slowly faded.

I let out a shaky breath, my limbs reduced to quivering jelly now that the moment of crisis was over. Should I go find Mrs. Valentine and tell her what happened? But tell her what? That I had seen a light? A shadow? A turning knob?

Already I mistrusted the evidence of my own senses and I had no wish to look an hysterical child on my first day of service.

So I crept back into bed, pulling the sheets over me, but kept my eyes on the door. What if he had gone to retrieve a key? I lay like that ridged beneath the crisp sheets, all my attention riveted to the door, for I don't know how long, I was sure I would not sleep, but it had been a long day of weary travel and learning new faces and duties, and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore below the cliff and the scent of saltwater mingled with honeysuckle from the garden were hypnotically soothing…

I must have drifted off cause when I came to the room was bright with light. I startled awake, thinking the light in the crack below the door had seeped into the room, but then I saw that the light came not from the door, but from the open window. Moonlight spilled in, white as cream soaking the sheets and my nightgown. . . I was wet, too , from the heat . . . drenching the whole room except for a pillar of shadow that stood at the window . . .

A pillar shaped like a woman.

For the second time that night I opened my mouth to scream, but my throat was frozen as if the moonlight was a carapace of ice. I could not see the woman's features, but I knew it not to be Mrs. Valentine. I did not recognize that arrogant bearing,tall,big breast and slim agility of her hips as she moved forward . . .

She was moving forward, slowly , gliding across the floor so as not to make a sound. She must think I was still asleep. I must let her go on thinking I was asleep. If she knew I was awake she might become violent , even though I did not know who this shadow lady was I could sense I should not get on the wrong side of her

I clenched my eyes shut. Perhaps she had only come to look at me, perhaps I could bear it if she only came to look . . .

I felt a tug on the sheet that lay over me, a minute movement as if the breeze had lifted it, but then it began to slide down, dragging across my breasts, tugging the placket of my nightgown . . . which I'd left unbuttoned because of the warmth of the night. The cool air tickled my bare skin and to acute embarrassment I felt my nipples harden beneath the thin cloth. I could feel her eyes on me, a prickling sensation that made the hairs on my lags stand up . . . my bare legs! My nightgown had ridden up around my hips in my sleep. Cool air licked at my thighs, my calves, and finally, as the sheet slipped away in a soft swoosh that sounded like running water, my toes. I lay, still barely daring to breathe, alert for the slightest sound or movement. If she touched me I would scream. I'd have to. But nothing happened. The breeze played across my skin, teasing the bare places-my breast, the crook of my arm, the inside thigh. At last I couldn't bear it- I risked a peek through slitted eyes . . .and saw nothing. The room was empty.

Had I imagined the shadow at the window? Perhaps I'd tossed the sheets off myself . . .but then I felt something touch the sole of my foot. A breeze warmer than the outside air, warm and moist as breath. The shadow was still there, at the foot of my bed crouched by my feet, but whether human or dream I could no longer say. The pull it had on me seemed otherworldly. Why else would I lie silent as it breathed on my calf, its breath hot and wet? Why else would I stir only to widen my legs as its breath traveled up my leg? Why else would I close my eyes and give myself over to its rough warmth lapping inch by inch up my thigh? Like a wave lapping at the shore, leaving wet sand as it retreats, and traveling a little further each time it returns. Insinuating itself into the cracks and crevice, wearing away the stony shore. I felt my own stoniness wear away as the warm tongue found its way into my very center and then licked deeper into the depths I didn't know I had . . .deep underwater caverns where the surf rushed and boiled, retreated, lapped again, and filled me. Retreated, lapped again, filled me. I was riding the waves now, born higher and higher. The room was filled with the smell of salt and the roar of the ocean . . . and then the wave dashed me down to the strand.

I opened my eyes and watched the shadow slip away like a retreating tide leaving me wet and spent as a woman drowned. I knew at last what had happened to me. I'd been visited not by Mr. Oliver or Mrs. Valentine – or any other mortal – but by a succubus. The demon lover of myth.