Liam was dying. His face was pale, ashen, as he lay prostrate in bed. She sat by his bedside anxiously watching his face, her heart rising at each flutter of his eyelids and plummeting again with each hacking cough. For cough he did, continuously, his weakened body racked with the hoarse, gut-wrenching convulsions that tore at her heart. Gently she brushed back a strand of the white-blond hair from his face, her fingers lingering on his burning skin. As she drew back he was seized with another coughing fit, spasming with a new ferocity. A drop of blood appeared on his lips, and then more, staining the clean white bedspread. The crimson expanded to fill her vision, slowly growing darker until she was consumed by the blackness...

Ayame jerked back into awareness, her kin cold and clammy. Shivering, she sat up, and then suddenly registered the cold place beside her where Liam should have been. Then she realized that she was in a different place altogether, and not the cell where Liam had been before; she was lying in a bed, in another room, and there was someone there. A dark shape, rising and falling almost imperceptibly in the steady breathing of deep sleep. Instinctively she knew it was not Liam, scrambled out of the bed and crashed onto the carpeted floor, wakening the person in the bed.

There was a seemingly long period of muffled scrambling noises, then a lamp flared to life next to the bed, the flickering glow illuminating the face of the stranger: Madi. Ayame shrieked and sprang upright, taking several steps back. "What am I doing here?" she croaked, her voice oddly harsh and grating. "Where's Liam?"

The prince was already standing and moving towards her, as she moved backwards at the same time. "Forget Liam," he whispered hoarsely. "You don't need him. You don't need him anymore…" Her back struck the wall, the cold of the stones seeping through her shirt. His hand outstretched, his fingers slowly traced her jawline, sending a chill down her spine.

"Get away from me," she whispered, jerking out of his reach. "How dare you try to do this to me? How dare you?"

Madi's eyes burned with something more than anger as he flung her down onto the bed again. "How dare you?" His voice was barely audible but filled with a restrained passion and fury. "Love that filth, that piece of common, insolent low trash! I could give you so much more than him…" She could barely breathe for the terror that constricted her throat, the terror of blind fury and helplessness. His hot breath fluttered on her neck, his hands pressed against her body. There was a pause that lasted eternities for her, and then slowly, reluctantly, he rose.

"Love him, then," he murmured, drawing his hands away. "Love him, but do not hate me, that's all I ask you. Stay here one night with me…please…"

Ayame closed her eyes, wishing for death. Surely it had to be better than this harsh reality, to be suspended forever in the darkness she knew only too well. She had not asked for this life, not for the power granted to her nor the overwhelming responsibility. But what choice did she have? She turned her face away from him as she agreed, to her own disgust, and let him climb into the bed beside her. He did not touch her, save for one brief instant where his fingers brushed hers, and she was afraid he might reverse his decision to let her go; but then he moved back and let her sleep.

Sleep she did, though it was long in coming, and it was broken by the same nightmare of losing Liam to the terrible sickness. When she awoke fully again, she found Madi already conscious and watching her, his eyes fixed on her. Her eyes met his, and he looked away, but not before she saw the ferocious longing and desire in their silvery depths. He let her go back to Liam but refused to let them out of the cell, no matter now much she begged.

Liam embraced her fiercely, his crystal azure eyes filled with concern. "What happened?" he murmured, stroking her hair as she clung desperately to him. "Shhh, it's all right, you're here with me now." She told him everything, and as she was talking it became clearer in her own mind that Madi was intensely in love with her and would stop at almost nothing to win her over from Liam. "But I promise, I would never leave you for him," she assured him hurriedly. Liam said nothing, kissing her softly and pulling her closer.