The Demon of Her Dreams
Although the House of Night could indeed be a sanctuary of an ancient power, cradle sweet, delicious secrets every now and then, most of the time, the only thing about that place that mystified Neferet was how plainly boring it could get. Her classes, her council meetings, Goddess, even her lovers. Dull, repetitive, predictable, all failing to capture her shifty, seeking eyes for more than a moment. She'd have a time better spent staring at a broad white wall. At least the wall has the potential of being appropriately decorated, Neferet grumbled internally as she climbed the stairs to her private chambers. The only decoration that would make the fools around me sparkle is a necklace made of their own teeth.
Neferet nodded her greetings to the handsome vampyre whom she passed by. The man stopped in his tracks and dropped in a reverance, with all the grace a vampyre should possess and all the impure thoughts a perverted human should conceal. Neferet's gaze didn't dance over him twice. His mind said it all, and she wasn't in the mood for the particular ballad it was singing. No, she'd had enough of clumsy, pretty toys. At least for now. There had been a time when they'd used to excite her, make her blood boil with savagery and her stomach pool with a powerful, demanding heat. Now they only served to annoy her. Annoy her with their profound love confessions, with their inexpert caresses and—most of all—by refusing to die when she was done with them.
Neferet glided to her room silently, screwing the door shut behind her with a passion she usually saved for the bedroom. She imagined slamming the door in the faces of the whole lot of vampyric idiots. It almost made her smile. Then she remembered that tomorrow, she would have a school to maintain, a pack of irritatingly decent professors to dazzle and a scant amount of desirable men to dignify with her attention. Neferet sneered, resenting the pesky routine she had let herself slip into.
Grown weary of thinking about all the unsettling things she had been forced to settle for, Neferet quickly changed into her nightgown. A scarlet velvet, of course, because red was the only color she had ever known. She had been born in rivers of crimson, her innocence had been shattered in rubric tears, her tongue had yearned to swim in pools of red long before she had been marked, and after her change, her entire being had began to pulse with need and want, lusting after blood the way a devoted whore lusts after married men.
Neferet crawled in her bed and eagerly drifted into the realms of her dreams, her mind submitting to the undemanding, simple state of peace.
What she found at the gardens of her sleep, however, was as far from peace as heavens were from earth.
The scene was gruesome and disturbingly alive in all her senses. The air was dense and reeked of death. The ground was covered with the dead bodies of miscreated, hideous beings that looked like ravens, and yet had parts where their black feathers gave way to human curves. The corpses had taken over the horizon, drawing a black line where the ground met the pale sky. The naked earth was cracked, as if dried, thirsty to feed on the blood of the fallen monstrosities. And blood there was. Enough to feed entire worlds.
Neferet felt like she could devour it all.
No winds were there to shift the layers of invisible darkness, but Neferet could feel it. It was oozing on her skin, rippling in her veins, battling to dominate her very core. Black feathers were raining down in whirling cascades. Neferet decided there was something tantalizingly feral about this place. Something that smelled of calm, steady danger. Something utterly tempting.
Temptation is not far from your grasp indeed, Tsi Sgili.
The voice was deep and powerful, and radiated immortality. It came from everywhere and anywhere, from outside and from within. Somehow, Neferet understood that Tsi Sgili was a name she should identify with.
'Who speaks to me?' The question poured right from her mind before she even parted her lips to form the words. She found it bizarre, needing no words to talk, like soaring in a certain kind of zero-gravity.
The one you shall forever listen to, came her visitor's enticing response. Neferet's knees went weak at just the sound of his voice.
I am no visitor, Tsi Sgili, the voice corrected. Tonight I am your host. But soon, my priestess, I shall indeed come to you and to your world asaguest. And then I hope for you to greet me with a warm, warm welcome.The words caressed Neferet, kissed her skin and set her flesh aflame.
Once you disentangle me from the chains of earth, you and I shall seize the reign we deserve.
Neferet nearly cried out. This whisperer, this nameless demon-god, he knew. He knew it all. All the darkness that lurked within her, he knew of it. He awakened it, along with her desire, he ran his expert caress over it like one would stroke a beloved pet. Every fiber of her being was telling her to seek him out, to kneel before him, to succumb to him, to worship him. Her mind painted the invitation on its own accord. 'Reveal yourself and perhaps you shall see your intentions embraced.'
Is the sound of my voice not enough to satisfy your curiosity?
'It is not my curiosity that desires satisfaction.' Neferet never meant to give voice to the thought, but in this dimension, the line between mind and speech was nigh inexistant.
How very interesting.There was a pause. Very well then, Tsi Sgili. I shall allow you to steal a glimpse of me, the one who seeks your alliance.
She knew he was behind her long before she turned around. She could feel his divine breath on her exposed neck, its freezing heat sending her into a throbbing fire. For a moment there, Neferet dared not turn to face him, afraid that he would disappear the moment she lay eyes upon him.
I am not going to vanish, Tsi Sgili, came his reassuring voice, this time breathed directly in her ear. Not in the shadow of such a promising encounter.
Neferet felt his fingers snake up her bared shoulder. As they traveled up, they left behind the red markings of sliced flesh. She arched in a bow of lust and pain, writhed against his touch, yearning to turn around, to touch him in return. She heard his throaty laugh echo in her head.
By all means, do turn.
She did, and he was everything a demon should incarnate, and nothing a god should not fear. His face was blurred, features hidden behind the mask of mist and shadow. Though Neferet needed no visage to remember him, to mark him as her new-found passion. The naked rest of him seemed to suffice for her heart to forget the rhymes of its own beating. His muscular figure was a work of art, his hair—a living raven. The ink-black wings that were rooted to his back swayed in their dark glory, ominous and enchanting, threatening and secure. Neferet trembled at the thought of having those wings wrapped around her form, pulling her in an embrace of ice and fire.
'Who are you?' she repeated the very first question she had asked him.
Kalona, priestess. The fallen god that shall yet rise.
The name was as mesmerizing as its wielder. Neferet imagined him erupting from underneath a thousand layers of ashes, his blazing hand reforming the world, structuring it to fit his liking. And hers. He had just promised her the heavens. She found herself longing to greet that moment, aching and bleeding inside to seize the power she deserved. But why had Kalona, this sleeping god, chosen her?
'Why did you come to me of all priestesses? '
Come to you? It was you who invited me, unconsciously be it.
'I do not understand.'
Your scent sweetens, Tsi Sgili. You smell of darkness, and of lustful ambition. You smell the way a queen should. It was that sweet perfume of yours that brought me to your dreams.
'You would answer the summon of a stranger such as me?'
I tend to accept all kinds of precarious invitations.
'And do you get many of those?'
His laugh was hazardous and deep.Perhaps, perhaps not.
'You could have said no.'
Kalona's melodic chuckle charmed her senses. I never say no.
'And I hardly say yes.'
There was a thick, pulsing silence. Neferet felt the demon's hands encircle her, snaking around her waist and claiming her as their possession. Need surged through her every cell. Tonight, Tsi Sgili, you shall find yourself saying yes until you no longer have the breath for words.
And she did. She said yes to everything he asked, said yes to everything he did.
With thoughts of reign, power and complete divinity, Neferet gave herself to the terrible wonder named Kalona in a way she'd never given herself to a man before. The demon had her, perhaps in ways she didn't even have herself. Amidst their passion, a child was conceived. A child with many names. Death and Madness and Destruction. To Neferet, it mattered not how they'd call the fruit of her newly forged alliance. The only thing that mattered was that in this dream, her world converted into something dark. In this dream, her world converted into something wonderful.
Neferet woke up with flushed cheeks, a pounding heat between her thighs, and the name of Tsi Sgili carved on her soul. She laughed in the darkness, against the darkness, with the darkness. Ah, how she would enjoy the nights to come.