As they exited the room, the castle was oddly quiet again, though they both knew the remaining demons had likely taken refuge and hid away from the intruders, now that their mistress was no more.

Lyssa set the horn down on an old, accent table in the hallway, taking a moment to remove her coat and draw out a red, leather satchel that she had kept underneath.

"Oh, damn. That probably hurts."

As she stashed the horn away in her bag, she saw Dante's eyes fixed on the gushing wound on her arm. Lyssa smiled, shrugging it off.

"No, it's fine. No big deal-"

Her words were contradicted as she staggered suddenly, and her vision began to blur from the blood loss. Dante was quick to rescue her with an outstretched arm, and she barely managed to catch herself on the table that she set her bag on. "Don't be silly," he said. "You've lost a lot of blood. It's remarkable that you lasted as long as you did back there."

Just a few paces away, there was a chair that he pulled over for her to sit down. She abided, stealing a glance out of the window that overlooked the courtyard. While there was no artificial lighting inside the castle, the bright moon gave plenty of luminescence, especially when reflecting off of the endless blanket of snow.

Lyssa sat quietly, her body tense as he fixed up her wound. She had a wild thought to pull him in and taste his lips, but she restrained her succubus needs. She had never been with a demon hybrid before, having only ever been with several humans, though none of them had exactly ended well for the other party involved - which was precisely why she wanted to rid herself of this affliction.

"Something tells me you aren't just keeping that horn as a trophy."

She averted her eyes back to the window, tearing her gaze away from the tantalizing lines of his chest. "It's for a potion." She kept it simple, and did not have any intention to elaborate, but it didn't matter. Dante was undoubtedly very knowledgeable in all things within demoncraft.

"There's only one potion I know of that the horn of a lichera is used in." There was a pause, and then, he gave her a look that seemed to soften. "It's not always easy, being what we are, but hey... it can't be that bad, right?"

So, he figured it out on his own. Lyssa inhaled, then looked at him with a disapproving look. "Of course you would say that. The famous Son of Sparda." Her voice sounded colder than she intended, and she gave him an apologetic look "Your life is very different from mine. You're a demon hunter, and a good one at that. Me? Sure, I hunt demons, and that's all well and good, but I've hurt a lot of innocents, too."

She winced as he rubbed a bit of green liquid from a small vial onto the deep cut on her arm. He didn't seem to have a smart comeback as he tore off a strip of the liner in his coat, using it as a bandage.

"You must have not meant to. You don't look like the sort of person that enjoys hurting people."

"You're right, but you know what I am," she said, "and therefore, you know what I have to do to survive." Her tone suggested that she didn't really want to spell it out, and Dante seemed like the sort of person who was smart enough to put the pieces together.

"Guess we all got a little bit of a monster inside of us. Sometimes, you just gotta let it out."

"Yeah... but I've killed people." Now, Lyssa felt disgusted with herself, and her behavior showed it.

Dante paused, and at first, his expression was hard to read. He didn't seem overly bothered, but there was a flicker of sympathy in his eyes.

"It's not like I meant to. I just... lost control."

The first time Lyssa ever had to feed, it was at an old inn. There was a man there. Dark hair, blue eyes... Good-looking guy, like Dante. His name was Liam. He had been eyeing Lyssa all night, and she would have been lying if she said she hadn't been eyeing him, too. They got to talking, and before she knew it, they were sharing a bed. Long story short, she was hungry for a lot more than just a good night.

Lyssa trailed off from her bitter memory. That was two years ago, only a couple of weeks after she turned eighteen. She had never told anyone about the first time she ever ate a human soul. It wasn't exactly something she was fond of, but something about this fellow demon, which was the first one she had ever encountered that she could actually hold a conversation with, caused her to simply open up. It was almost as if her mouth was moving on its own accord before she could stop it.

Dante finished wrapping her arm up, but his hands didn't leave her right away. "Talk about going through changes as you become an adult, huh?" Her lack of a response caused him to change his approach. "It must have been hard."

"At first, I didn't even know I had killed him. It's not like I spilled any blood. I just thought he had been so exhausted that he just passed out. When he didn't wake up the next morning, I started to suspect something was wrong."

"What did you do?"

Lyssa's green eyes shifted uneasily. She didn't really want to share that, but she felt obligated, since Dante went out of his way to help her out.

"I disposed of the body in a dumpster in the back, then phoned a friend with some devil hounds to get rid of the evidence. What else?"

He cracked a smile now, and somehow, recalling the mistake she had made almost seemed laughable, even though it really wasn't.

She had talked enough about herself, and though she was eager to return to Edenshore and give the horn to the mage to brew her potion, Lyssa felt indebted to Dante.

"I recall you were looking for something, too," she said. "If you aren't bored of me just yet, I can help. It's the least I can do.'

"Bored?" Dante scoffed slightly. "Not a chance, but you've lost a lot of blood. Sure you're up to it?"

Having gotten her second wind, Lyssa shook her head. "I'm fine. Thanks for fixing me up." She stood up, confident in her words. "Do you know where to go?"

Dante didn't really put up much of an argument after that. The pair would backtrack to the foyer, taking the only other path that Lyssa had not yet seen. It was a long hallway - one which would eventually started descending into the darkness of the castle, sending the two half-demons retreating from the sunlight that was beginning to peak through the windows.