Note: I apologize for the late update. I hope it's up to par with what is expected of a Lucien romance. Next chapter will explore the demented relationship between Speaker and Silencer. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

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Lucien watched with remorse as his Silencer's mouth gaped in horror at his words. Before he even had time to think of a response, a loud smack reverberated and echoed through the cavernous room. She had slapped him as hard as she could, resulting in Lucien's cheek reddening by the second.

Aeris didn't have an answer in her throat. Instead what she felt was a lump, dark and twisted and tasting of bile, as she tried to grasp what her Speaker had just uttered to her. He had asked, no, demanded that she kill the very beings that she had grown to call Family. From the moment she had set foot in the dark chamber of the Cheydinhal Sanctuary, they had welcomed her with open arms and accepted her. Ocheeva took her in like a lost mother finding her child once more. Vicente had shown her the wisdom and experience of centuries of knowledge, all the while trusting her completely. Aeris felt as though she could even live without the others as long as she had those two wonderful souls by her side. But that wasn't enough; fate smiled upon her and brought forth more family members, each with their own unique type of love to share with her.

And suddenly, she was expected to accept a new title and eradicate those nearest to her heart. Aeris felt dizzy as the whole of her world began breaking and cracking at the seams. She vaguely registered Lucien's movements from the bed towards her. How was he walking so soon after her restorations? It was a surprise that he wasn't at least stumbling or taking a few moments to catch himself before continuing on. But as her focus returned to her mind, she realized he was too close. His arms had her not a second later. She was taken into a tight embrace.

Aeris pulled away and a plume of ice left her fingertips as a warning. But then her back hit a solid wall behind her, and she felt Lucien's hands over her wrists, moving digits up the length of her arms. They hit her shoulders, rubbed a bit, squeezed, and then moved down to her waist, where they rested above her hip bones, pressing and massaging the tight muscles surrounding them. A whimper rose from Aeris's chest as she lost control of her nerves, allowing them to bask in the comfort of another's touch.

Who was she kidding when she showed anger in her eyes? It was so short lived towards the man because… because, well she needed this. Aeris longed for his touch from the moment she first met him and it was finally happening. After weeks of not seeing him, she was here in front of his warm body, willingly accepting his distractions from a job she had already accepted in her subconcsious. She knew in her heart, confirmed with her foggy mind that he was doing this on purpose. He was lying to her, pretending to care, feigning his attraction; so that she might have some sanity before delving into the recesses of the Void itself.

And yet, here she stood, feeling herself spiral the slightest bit into a small pool in the back of her mind; A pocket that held a fragile portion of her character – madness. She could feel it, rising up and finding a fuel to its fire. She had denied it all her life, counteracted against it throughout the years. But as this seductively hot-mouthed man pressed himself into her body, she felt the twinges of a crazed lust nip and bite at her heart, begging for an out. She finally gave in and wrapped her arms around Lucien's neck, pulling him in further and tangling her fingers in his hair. What else could there be in this world but pure, selfish desire? The man in front of her was giving her exactly what she wanted all along, and who was she to deny the kind offering?

As her brain vaguely registered soft kisses trailing from her temple to her collarbone, she began to feel in her heart why she joined the Darkness; why she joined Sithis. It was because she was running from an indefinite loneliness that would appear to her in the form of treachery and deceit. Wasn't that why she had killed? Not just for personal vengeance, but for the satisfaction of delivering unbridled retribution to those who deserved the worst. And when the blood was washed from her hands after each of her judgments to the damned, all that remained was her. She owed it to herself to take what she wanted and live with the sacrifices that came with it. If selfish bliss came at the price of lives, so be it. Those at the Sanctuary longed for Sithis anyway, perhaps it was time to allow them that precious gift. Besides, Aeris had lived without them before; which means she could do it again. Sithis had helped her take control of life itself, and she needed to repay the favor.


Lucien groaned at the feel of fingers and nails massaging and scraping lightly on his skull. He had only meant to hold her and comfort her at first. His verbal attempts left much to be desired and he instead decided to try calming her in a different way. This was, after all, the ending goal of the game he had begun playing with her when they first met. It was just… poor timing the way that it was happening at this particular moment. Though it wasn't without reason; he had wanted her to do the unthinkable. To kill for him. He told her that she was to become his Silencer, the one who carries out its Speaker's demands. She was hesitant, though as he moved closer to her, touched her with more fervor, he saw her resolve breaking. Her mind was truly, finally, giving in to Sithis; giving in to him.

So he couldn't stop now, as much as he wanted to leave her alone with her thoughts. As much as he wanted to give her some time and space to prepare herself for her most important job yet; he just couldn't leave. It was hell, trying to avoid touching her all this time. Lucien honestly saw no point in waiting, but he was for some reason compelled to keep the woman waiting, wanting. He wanted to see how long it would take her to break, to finally give in to her desires and accept advancement like this, no matter the timing. It seemed at this moment she had finally decided to let go of an older train of thought inhabiting her being. She was making it very clear to him that she no longer cared about allies, about morals, maybe even about the job. In fact, he was almost convinced that she didn't really care about anything besides having his body in such close proximity to hers.

He responded to each breath that she let out, with each small whimper he moved his hands to a different part of her torso. Lustfully grabbing at Aeris's plump breasts in turn filled his loins with desire. Alternating in kneading first one, then the other, then both, he watched as his Silencer squirmed underneath him. She arched her back and pushed her chest towards his hands in a silent beg for more. He gave it to her.

Running one hand down the side of her nimble frame, he reached her hip again. He squeezed her love handle before trailing towards her backside, grabbing as much of her luscious ass as he could with just the one hand. Quickly realizing that he couldn't resist, he leaned his weight into her, covering her mouth with his own and reaching his other hand to meet with the neglected half of her buttocks. As their lips moved against each other and their bodies melded together and growing hotter by the second, Lucien felt himself losing control of any inhibitions he might have still had in her presence. If she wanted it, he would give it to her, twice over. He might have been her Speaker and her - his Silencer, but in this moment he was the one ready to perform her every command; she need only ask.


Warm lips met each other in hot, breathy kisses. A flick of Aeris's tongue meant a soft retaliation from Lucien's. Aeris barely realized throughout their foreplay that the Speaker's readiness to take the woman was becoming apparent in more ways than one. She could tell from the way his mouth moved against her, from how he ran his hands up and down her body, from the heaviness of his breathing when their kisses broke. His nose was in the crook of her neck now, blowing heat into her hair while his lips grazed the sensitive skin on her shoulder. The combined sensations of his hands and breath and lips and - oh! She sighed in pleasure when she felt teeth nip at her ear lobe. It was a small, yet sharp pain, but was quickly mended by a lick of Lucien's hot tongue over his bite. She became completely lost in him.

Growing more heated by the second, Aeris wondered with what little bit of sentience she had left, just how this man was doing it. How could Lucien be this into her despite only doing this to simply give her what she wanted? Unless… no. She blinked her eyes and pushed that thought out of her mind. There was no way in Sithis's Void that Lucien actually wanted this just as much as she did. So she forgot about it and took advantage of the opportunity while it was here, as if it would never happen again. She circled them around, Lucien's back now the one against the wall with a siren's body in front of him, pushing and rubbing her frontal assets on his chest. If he was pretending, she'd try to make it at least somewhat enjoyable for him.


Lucien was about to lose his own damn mind. Somehow, in a matter of seconds, he had been stripped of his control over Aeris and she was the one doing the teasing. The man was at her mercy, slowly growing more and more aroused with each flutter of her fingers over the skin on his neck. She was teasing and pushing him towards the brink of losing it, yet dangling her treasure just outside of his reach. He needed more and by Sithis – what is she doing? Aeris's mouth was pressed firmly on his wanting lips, but her hands had disappeared from his hair. Lucien's nerves barely felt the traces of her light touching inching slowly down the length of his torso. When she reached his lower abdomen, just above the lining of his trousers, he shuddered in anticipation of what might come next. His mind reeled and told him to grab hold of the situation, don't let her do this to you, you take it from her! But he was too far lost in her hot touch to care. He wanted what she was giving to him, wanted to see where she was leading them. A shiver of pleasure rippled through his spine when her trailing hand had found what it was searching for and closed around his bulge. She grabbed firmly and left his mouth alone to breathe heavily with desire into her face. When Lucien opened his eyes he found himself spiraling into blue orbs, staring into the eyes of the woman he had kept himself from for so long.

Rules be damned.

With a new zeal in his motions, Lucien wrapped his arms around Aeris's torso and pressed his mouth to her ear. He huskily whispered to her exactly what he wanted to do with her body and felt the woman gasp into his neck. When she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, he lifted her legs up, guiding them around his hips with his hands firmly gripping her butt. As Lucien walked them back over to his bed he felt himself questioning one more time if this was the right thing to do. But he blinked the thought out of his mind for the last time with the deciding conclusion; Aeris wanted this. As her Speaker, he was obligated to help her in her time of need, just as she is to help him when the need arises. Not that he particularly felt obligated, in fact he wanted it just as much, if not more than she was expressing. And he was going to show her just how badly he wanted her, for they had reached his bed and he already had her underneath him.


Hips grinded against fabric and the sounds of breathy gasps and moans filled the chamber. Somehow, amidst the rubbing, kissing, and touching, the two had rid themselves of their clothes. They laid together, Lucien on top of Aeris with his hands running all over her thin frame, never satisfied and always needing more. A pleasure filled yelp left the woman's hot mouth when strong fingers found the wet folds between her thighs. The fingers played and trailed around her opening, teasing her with light scratches and rubs. The hand found the bead above her waiting lips and ran its forefinger just along the top of it, causing Aeris's toes to curl and her abdomen to tense up with want. She grabbed at Lucien's neck, pulling him into another set of kisses, all the while breaking here and there to whimper a soft 'please' before locking mouths again. He complied and delved three of his digits into her opening, pushing and flexing his hand's muscles to rub against her sweet spot.

By the second time she had released a dripping orgasm on his hand and forearm, Lucien was beside himself with lust for the woman's body. He planted kisses up and down her neck and collarbone, pausing that particular onslaught to catch one of her pink nipples in his mouth to suck and lick in stimulation. Her cries rang in his ears as he brought his throbbing member to prod at her opening. Another 'please' left the woman's moist mouth and Lucien thrust himself into her, savoring the feel of the first entrance. Together they climbed to the height of their climax, groaning and gasping with each thrust. Aeris tightened her legs around Lucien's waist as her stomach flexed and her spine shivered with another rippling orgasm, this time from the unending movement against her insides. The pulsing and throbbing of the woman's tight lips around his burning cock was too much for him to keep control and he let out a throaty moan into the crook of Aeris's neck as he let loose his seed to mix with her own juices.

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Aeris rubbed at her left breast, alleviating the dull throbbing of a growing bruise underneath the skin. Her bout of 'romance' with Lucien had left her with small marks of his love here and there. This particular one was from him grabbing at her a little too hard in his lusty haze. She didn't mind, anything that he did to her body was welcomed with the expectation that it helped her forget what she needed to do after their sex was over. But now the time had come, all too quickly, and she sat invisible in the corner of Vicente's room, waiting for him to return from his moonlit walk for slumber. She had known his routine well, and that would be his downfall. Aeris chose to remove Vicente first from this world, after much deliberation. In her thoughts following her meeting with Lucien, she felt herself going mad thinking of which family member to kill first. She tried to stop at the Cheydinhal tavern with the hope that a few swigs of liquor could ease the burden. They only made her regret the decision that much more. She left the tavern with a sour aftertaste in her mouth, partially from the liquor and partially from the guilty anticipation of her task at hand.

Her eyes moved from each object in the room, taking in their significance and respective insignificance. A fork left on the table from a previous meal, a quill still dripping with ink left hastily on the desk, light tendrils of smoke from a candle next to his bed. The light flickered and bounced all the shadows of his room against Aeris's waiting figure. When she heard footsteps approaching down the stairs, her stomach tightened and she found her palms were slick with a cold sweat. She couldn't move; her feet were frozen in place as the door edged open, allowing a dark figure to pass inside quietly, then shut again. She watched with nervousness as he moved slowly to the seat at the table and sat with much effort. After a few ragged breaths, the vampire spoke.

"I know you are here, Angel of the Night. Just take my life quickly, so that I might find some peace in the Void."

With steps wavering and anxious, Aeris moved before Vicente, kneeling at his feet and dispelling her invisibility. Vicente looked on her face with a smile so kind and genuine, it caused Aeris's tear ducts to falter, and she felt her eyes well with the liquid substance. Her shaky voice betrayed the cool aura that she wanted to give off when she asked with strain how he knew.

"My dear child," he started while cupping her cheek gently, "I would be a fool to not have some idea of my death after living for over two centuries. Two hundred years I have walked among the living, a dead thing still moving lifelessly through thousands of lush, vibrant people. The first half of my life, I sought righteousness. Even after my transition into the life of an undead, I vowed to make well with my gift. But I found that society is not inherently good. It was pointless for me to continue my fight against evil when each person has darkness in them. I discovered the ways of the deadric gods, and I let myself go in their twisted embraces. Now here I sit before you, ready to die and face a true afterlife. My regrets and mistakes have caught up to me, and I find myself no longer wanting to be here."

A shaky hand reached into the pocket of his tunic, bringing forth three items; a polished silver dagger, a small wooden totem of Arkay, and a single clove of garlic. Aeris stared in shock at the items, realizing that these objects were the source of Vicente's apparent suffering this night. She sat on the table in front of the vampire, gently sponging away beads of sweat on his forehead with her sleeve. Vicente closed his eyes and regulated his breathing. He reached a hand out towards the woman, who took it and pulled him forward into an embrace. Tears trailed down the Silencer's cheeks in sorrow as she held her breath and pushed the silver dagger slowly through the vampire's chest. With his heart pierced, his hand moved to the symbol of Arkay. Aeris looked into his face before taking hold of the garlic clove. She crushed the clove with the bottom of the divine icon, creating a paste. When her gaze met her victim's once more, she found peace in the orbs.

All around Vicente's eyes were the signs of struggle and grief. From the sweat on his skin, to the wrinkles in his brow; he now appeared older to the woman than he ever had before. She watched his expression change to reflect pain as she removed the dagger from his chest and rub in the paste with the totem of Arkay. It was an unexpected ceremony, as Aeris had imagined many different senarios of Vicente's death. None of them involved him anticipating his murder, and yet this outcome now seemed to be the most natural, the most respectful. Vicente's life force drained from him, leaving a lifeless corpse for the Silencer to hold in her arms. She wept quietly yet freely as her magical aura captured and moved the cadaver onto his stone bed, leaving him to sleep until the end of time.

Aeris ceased her sorrowful crying as she tucked a blanket around the body, covering it's decay from the world. As she left the small room and moved her feet towards the stairs, her gut tightened and she felt a barb of darkness inside her. It persisted through the rest of her assignment, occupying her mind in a static cloud. It hung around her and eventually overtook her. She was finished before she even realized, and upon waking from her crazed trance, she was in a clearing. Away from Cheydinhal and away from its citizens, she had built a pyre with which to burn away her family. It was her final gift of respect to them; though the guilt of taking their lives in their innocence tore through her being. She set fire to her family and watched as the darkness grew in her mind.

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Lucien's warm touch cut throughout the whole of Aeris's being. She had returned to him, presenting him with seven vials, each filled with a sampling of ashes from her seven victims. Words were not exchanged upon her arrival. An embrace, a kiss on her forehead and a silent question through his eyes was all she received from her Speaker. Her body felt weak, and she gave into the comfort that was the only other being in this world that could know her plight. Lucien kissed her softly and signaled through his lips a reassurance that Aeris had never felt before. She accepted, and kissed back through her tears. Passion and understanding was what he offered her; that was all that was needed, and all that was given.