FROM THE AUTHOR: So sorry it has been forever! Hope you love it and thank you if you've read this far :)
Juliet dreaded walking the castle halls late at night, which was unfortunate because lately, she found herself grasping at the dark more nights than not. Her silken cloak blended with the lack of light, shimmering like the vapor between earth and the beyond at her ankles. She padded silently, careful not to make a sound.
No sconces were lit in the narrow, earthy labyrinth that had rested here long before Hogwarts was declared, but she knew the way. She had memorized this shade of black that existed only so deep beneath the castle. She used to trail her finger against the mossy stone to mark her path, but now she knew the maze by heart.
It had been her third year when an older boy from Gryffindor first asked her to sneak out in the early morning before even the birds awoke. She didn't recall much about those lost hours, or the boy for that matter, but she did remember how the darkness had felt against her skin.
Seen—alive. It was like a shock to the heart, reigniting a fresh taste of life.
She didn't care much for the moonlight as Dahlia did. No, she much preferred the shadows and the permission they gave her to make mistakes and live too freely. She liked the true quiet of the night without the fuss of the stars. It made words sound more delicate, every promise more sure, every thought more thorough—and every panted breath a bit less sacred. Touched or tasted, how could something unseen be sinful? But she knew now that the shadows saw all, and maybe that was why she had become just as terrified as entranced by the dark.
One, two, three, four.
Juliet counted her steps, not that she needed to, but the voices were on her heels. She felt the chill on the back of her neck, the doom in her gut. Something lingered—again.
One, two, three, four.
She repeated the count, a self-soothing habit from her dance lessons. She thought of her mother, sewing her slippers and counting the stitches while she sat with dread in her bones before class when she was young. Her mother would tell her not to cry today, that she was too gentle for the scoldings of the teacher. The gleam in her eye suggested that she should toughen up for the world. Juliet hated that she had been right to suggest she callous her heart in the long run.
One, two, three, four.
"Be the best, my jewel. You have a gift. Don't waste it," her mother would whisper as she counted to four, wrapping her brutalized feet before every lesson. Counting was a sick habit that cleared her head. It was a bit sick to find peace in such moments, but those were her favorite memories—when she was the pride of her parents. When she was a true treasure, pretty and pleasing for all to critique and mold. Ready to Jump higher, bend further, always breathing through the pain. When she had someone to guide her, perfect her, and lay out a path for her future.
One, two, three, four.
The cold stone creaked like cracking bones, still settling in after all this time. She was getting closer. She knew this narrow path by heart by now. One left turn, circle, then another left turn. She quickened her pace, the shadows nipping at her ankles to remind her that this was now her darkness as much as his.
"Do you like the night?" Lucas had first whispered, finding her creeping through the dark of the dungeons beneath the Black Lake. "Or the darkness?" His voice was pointed, swaying to the thrum of the distant music.
His footsteps were light and lean, true to a phantom. He had been in front of her or maybe behind her? She only remembered being relieved he couldn't see her skittish grin as he neared that first night.
"They're different, did you know that?" he murmured, neither close nor far from her earlobe. His breath was hot like hellish fire, but regardless, her skin had already been burning.
"Are they?" Juliet had asked, sounding far more meek than intended. Her voice nearly caught in her throat as he stole the air from the dungeons. Her stomach turned with anticipation. They had been playing this game of cat and mouse for what felt like an eternity, stealing glances and smirks, trading too polite pleasantries.
She had pictured his fatal grin, mysterious and lovely. Perhaps her answer had been read as coquettish, or at least she hoped it was.
He had pressed himself against her back. It had felt like gasping in the air of a shadow, taking a cold plunge in the winter. Now, she knew it wasn't just shadows or the chill of the Black Lake; it was the frosty embrace of one who was born in the binds of necromantic magic.
"Do you want me to show you?" he had asked, wrapping an arm around her waist, lips pressed to the crown of her head. His hand was pressed against her lower stomach and cold as ice. The chill bled through the satin of her dress. The sensation rattled her breath like the sweetest sense of death—a euphoric nothingness where only they breathed amongst the darkest of shadows.
That's when she first became haunted.
It started with a subtle, small knocking. She thought she had only mistaken the sounds but soon realized something was amiss when her books began falling from her desk at night. It was always the same textbook, always opening to the same page. She knew the ghosts of the castle, but this haunting felt different—unsettling.
Still, she went back to him, desperate to thaw the coldness he had put in her bones with the warmth of his skin. He expected nothing from her. He asked no questions and came to her only when she called. In the beginning, they rarely even spoke; they just listened to their fighting breaths as they fell into each other in the midst of darkness. He never smoothed her hair or attempted to perfect her outfit when they dressed afterward. He was never afraid of being rough with her. He never asked for anything more, and maybe that's why she had been unable to stop herself from giving him everything.
"I love you," she had breathed. It fell from her mouth before she could stop it. Her voice cracked, proving she meant it and that she might give anything to hear him say it back.
He had gone heartbreakingly still beneath her, halting even his breath. She had never even bothered until that moment to notice that his heart had a fainter beat than any of the others. She wasn't sure she even remembered who she had thought she loved before him. She hadn't wanted to think a thought that wasn't about him. She didn't want to love anyone else now that she knew what it was like to love him.
"Juliet..."
She could still hear the delicateness of the shock in his breath. The uncertainty and hesitation rang as if the shadows were laughing at her. It was the only moment she had hated the silence of the dark, the only time she had felt cold and unwanted in his arms.
She must have eventually whimpered or made some gut-wrenching noise that resembled a sick kitten.
"It's okay. That's all right," he had cooed, cupping her face as he sat up.
His shock was received as rejection, and they fought about those three true words for weeks. Back then, she wished she had never mistaken his shrewd nature as thoughtful shyness. She had hated the way his golden hair was thicker than hers and fell like the billow of her silk sheets when she made the bed. His eyes? Too green, and they shone brighter than her own. He fit none of her requirements, being too tall to compliment her height in pictures and not one bit pliable. He was as stubborn as she was and not nearly as devious when it came to anything fun. But he soon became her ground, pulling her down from the skies when she grew too tired of all of it—the mess. And still, she fell into him, never questioning his special shade of magic. Perhaps he was just gifted, as she was.
She wasn't sure what her parents would make of him. Maybe before the Dark Lord had come back, they would have had a more open mind. Her father had been a Gryffindor during his time at Hogwarts. He had fallen for her mother, who had grown up with a small, muggle fortune and had nothing else to do but dance and pass the time. Lucas had never said one unkind thing about her mother's lack of magic or her blood status, but her parents wouldn't approve. His mother had practiced death magic, lost herself to necromancy, and he had been born amongst shadows. There was something darkly uncanny in his golden beauty once you had looked at him for too long. His inclination for the Dark Arts permeated the air if he stayed in one place long enough.
It wasn't his fault he had been born this way, but Juliet often wondered where the line between nature and nurture lay inside him. She didn't know exactly what he had done to her or why the beasts between worlds haunted her. They whispered now, strengthened by the pitch of darkness in the underbelly of the castle.
One, two, three, four.
Juliet swore she could feel them reaching for her beyond the plane, desperate to steal the warmth from her cheeks. She nearly ran as she turned the corner.
I'm here. I already made it, she thought as she threw herself at the decaying door. She undid the latch, rusting beneath the moss, and pushed hard.
She breathed in relief as the subtle moonlight shone upon her face, taking in the sweetness of the spring air.
"How's the cloak?" Lucas asked, unphased by her lack of breath. He closed a book in his hand and leaned off the towering wall of rock. Hogwarts loomed high above, perched upon the aged stone. The candlelight danced, even from this distance.
Juliet untied the clock at the base of her neck as Lucas sauntered towards her. "Beautiful—as you can see."
Lucas snorted, halting in front of her. He ran his hands softly over her, assessing her physical state for anything sinister. "Lovely as you are, that's not what I meant, and you know it."
"It's better, but I can still sense a presence."
He nodded, wincing with concern. He took her hand and led her beneath the hanging vines of the old trees where tiny fae rested, twiddling their illuminated wings. The shore lapped quietly in the distance against the rock.
"I can still hear dull whispers," she added.
Lucas signed, circling his thumbs against her waist as he held her in his hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured, rife with regret as he pressed his forehead to hers. "This is my fault. I should've been more careful."
He turned his gaze to his lake, unable to stomach his self-hatred.
"Hey," Juliet whispered, tilting his chin back to face her. His piercing eyes reluctantly returned to her. "I love you," she said profoundly, running her palms up his cheek. "We can do this—I can do this."
"You shouldn't have to," Lucas answered. He had never wanted her to have to be strong for him, never wanted to give her expectations to meet when she had burnt out already at just eighteen with pleasing others.
"But I will," she murmured, leaning up to kiss him softly for only a moment. His shoulders refused to relax, and he denied falling into her. "Give yourself some grace for once, and don't tell me what I shouldn't have to do."
Juliet brushed her fingers through his falling hair. Death had spun it gold only to torture her more. His handsomeness was always a reminder of how nature had a way of disguising its most deadly creations.
"I love you," she repeated, heartbroken he hated himself so much and mad at herself for putting up such a fight against it. He was everything and all she needed, even if appearance or circumstance had others convinced he was no good for her.
He gently took her face in his hand, placing a chilled finger on the pink of her bottom lip. He held his gaze upon her mouth, growing cruel as if remembering who he was. His darkened eyes lifted to hers once more. "I'm not merciful, Jules. If they hurt you...her."
His glare softened as he dropped his gaze and caressed her hip as if wasn't a mistake. Juliet let the cloak he had given her as protection from the veil fall to the dewed grass. She placed her hand over his and pushed lower. He breathed in, sharp and harsh, as she guided his hand beneath the waistband of her skirt.
His eyes ignited as her mouth parted, gasping as his fingers moved against her. His thumb tugged at her bottom lip as he pushed himself closer. Juliet found the hem of his white shirt, gliding her hands beneath it to feel the way his muscles tightened for her.
She closed her eyes as he plunged his fingers inside her, head tilting back as if to beg for forgiveness from whatever higher power ruled the heavens. Her mother had been a good Christian, finding faith every Sunday. Her stomach turned at the thought. She hadn't meant to fall for him—this demon.
"I need you," he groaned, breathing hotly into her mouth, but she was already ahead of him, unbuttoning his trousers. He gripped her rounded cheeks with gentle harshness, hazy shadows dancing in his eyes. "I need to taste you."
She felt something unseen tug on her curls as he leaned over her, face in his grasp. A heaviness pressed against her rapidly beating heart, and a hot breath panting at her ear.
"I don't know what they want from me," Juliet whimpered, terrified beneath the pleasure as he pushed his fingers deep inside her.
"I can fix it, but you won't like it," he murmured slowly and with great effort, lost in the lush haze as she stroked him in her hand.
It was all so beyond her control, which may have been what horrified her the most. She shook in his arms, kissing him hard like it might count for something. If she could just prove this was love, maybe she would be forgiven—protected from what lies beyond the veil.
"I don't want to talk anymore," She moaned, tugging at his lip.
He released her face and pulled his hand out from beneath her skirt. He wiped his mouth with his fingers, tasting her with a grin. He took a step back, stripping off his clothes. Shadows skittered across his skin like smoke. The fairy lights painted him as something both defiled and divine. The small fae sighed and swooned.
"Then don't," he answered, pushing back his falling hair and leaving the next move up to her. Control—he gave it up easily as if he only lived and breathed to please her.
So Juliet stepped forward, bare and haunted, her bones irrevocably chilled with his cursed faith. He grinned as if she was lucky he wasn't getting his way. She dropped to her knees before him in the dewed grass on sacred ground, more than ready to worship the heir of death.
—
The early light breathed through the high windows, shimmering through the lilac bed curtains. Dahlia's eyes adjusted to the morning rays. she was quick to admire how the jeweled hue complimented Draco's cool complexion.
Dahlia reached out and stretched within Draco's loose embrace, trailing her hands up his bare chest. The sheets were twisted at their ankles beneath the fluff of blankets. He somehow managed to look twice as menacing within her sheets, wrapped in dainty silks and satins. Her bed was his nightmare, girlish and nothing like the crisp, sleek sheets he preferred, but he tolerated the cocoon of pinky-purple pillows to sleep by her side. However, he did threaten to burn them each morning, voicing his preference to see her draped in silky blacks. He liked her in darker shades. He thought she looked crueler.
Her gaze drifted to the Dark Mark. The ink looked more prominent, somehow grossly barbaric against his skin in the safety of her bed. She traced around it, careful not to touch it. He took notice of her stare but didn't break the sweetness of their early morning silence.
The sun of a promising spring heated Dahlia's skin from her bare back to her flushed cheeks. She wondered if her freckles would return as they did every year or if the black in her bones and boundless well of night would correct her imperfections, erase the proof of her best summers—probably the happiest moments she'd ever known. Draco seemed to be debating the same question as he traced the faintest of patterns across her cheekbones as she lay on his chest.
"We'll travel one day, replace them if they dare to fade," he murmured, always in sync with her own thoughts.
Dahlia stretched with a smile, reveling in his feather-light touch. He traipsed his fingertips from her jaw to her earlobe and down her arm as if she were carved of priceless stone. He brought her wrist to his lips and felt her heartbeat pulsing through her. He closed his eyes as if thanking the Fates he had found in her.
Draco thumbed her bare finger within his hand as if sliding a ring on and off.
Dahlia groaned. "Don't be gross," she joked, tilting her chin up to him with a widening cheeky smile.
He shook his head, biting his lip, then shoved her off his chest. "It's too early for you to be such a pain," he teased, prowling over her. He kissed her nose before falling to his side and pulling her back into his arms. Dahlia propped herself up on her elbow to face him while Draco rested a lazy hand on her hip.
"Good morning," he whispered groggily as he smoothed her knotted hair.
"Good morning," Dahlia answered. "I love you."
Draco feigned shock, placing a hand on his bare chest. "I get an 'I love you' this early in the morning? I must alert the press, or take you to the Hospital Wing." He checked her forehead for fever, assuming delirium.
Dahlia snorted, rolling her eyes as she wiped away lingering mascara.
"I love you," he sighed," and I love how you always resemble a wild dog when you wake up." He slowly smirked as Dahlia slapped his hand away from her hair.
"I love you more when you don't speak," she quipped longingly.
He chuckled low and hazy, a sweetness that she only heard when he was freshly escaping sleep. It had her stomach turning in knots, and she squeezed her thighs together more tightly.
You have to be honest, she scolded herself. The knots in her stomach only tightened with nerves. She pursed her lips, contemplating how to approach this.
"You're in a good mood," Dahlia questioned, holding her breath only because she was about to ruin it.
Draco pressed his lips together as he trailed his long fingers up her hip to her waist, over and over again like a clock as she waited in his silence. She had stirred unwanted tension into the air, and he let it break her for a good, long moment. He was giving her the chance to fess up, but her mouth wouldn't move.
Finally, he answered. "I don't have to ask who had you in a shit mood last night."
His grey, thundering eyes condemned her with a single glare, and Dahlia felt the dread prickling her skin.
"You're not nearly as good as you think you are at shielding your emotions from me..."
Her cheeks went hot. He had felt her heartbreak, grief, and rage, but she couldn't fathom the embarrassment that he might have felt whatever hateful lust she still might have carried for Theo last night. It was more horrifying that he could probably sort out what she felt for Theo better than she could. Draco sensed her emotions blindly without the chatter of her thoughts. It was a pure feeling. She could only hope whatever he felt last night hadn't mimicked a forlorn love.
Dahlia swallowed, too ashamed to give answers or a gross excuse. His eyes rose up like daggers, and Dahlia winced, quickly becoming nauseous.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, hiding her tremble of a bone-shaking regret.
Draco only shook his head, running his hands through his mused hair and then resting his temple on his palm for support. His muscles were tight and nearly flexed. He was raging beneath his calm demeanor.
"I warned you, Dahlia. I won't share you."
He was sickly stern, blunt, and cuttingly serious.
The gravity of what she had risked was now clear. He wasn't Theo. This wasn't a low-stakes, endless game of push-and-pull. Theo hated his circumstances and blamed Draco when she strayed. It had never been her fault or Theo's, just a mistake to throw away and give reason to start over again, but Draco's steeled eyes held her accountable, blaming no one else but her—rightfully so.
She thought she might crawl under the bed with the disappointment that filled her gut. The grimness in his expression was not for himself but for her—the fact that she had let herself down for seeing him.
"Did anything happen? Did you fuck him?" He questioned, far from a whisper to damn her but casually enough to suggest he didn't want to fight—he wanted the truth. "I want to hear it from you, not sense it through your heart."
He stiffened, hand finally coming to a rest on her waist.
"No!" Dahlia answered quickly. "I wouldn't do that to you." She shook her head fervently, looking down to pick at her nail in the horrid silence.
"You did it to him," Draco calmly, lethally fired.
"Well, I hated myself when I was with him," Dahlia shot back, raising her voice with a glare.
Draco only raised a brow, not denying that what she and Theo shared was far from healthy. Dahlia knew it was worse than bad when a Malfoy thought it toxic, but he had been there, seen it firsthand, and then picked up the pieces. Theo waged a war on her, physically and mentally.
"Fair enough," he sighed, dropping the topic.
"Why didn't you come for me?" Dahlia found herself asking. He had sense she was with Theo, and had chosen to remain and do nothing.
Draco gave her a dubious look. "Dahlia, I want you to choose me in every moment. I don't want to keep you from happiness—even if I believe it will be your downfall."
Dahlia chewed her lip, lost in thought, as she digested his answer. Did he ever wonder if the bond was only what kept her happy with him, that she might be happier without it?
" Why did you see him?" Draco quietly asked in a much gentler tone.
Dahlia flicked her hands to suggest she actually had little clue. "To check in since his father passed? I wanted closure, maybe, and I needed answers," she mumbled, unsure of why she was always being pulled into him.
There was a long moment between them. Dahlia studied every crevice and line on his lean, muscular torso. She admired the blue hidden behind the vicious grey. He bundled her hair in his hands, enamored by the curve of her breasts beneath the thin sheets and the creation of worlds in her simple eyes as he studied her all the same.
"Did you get what you wanted?" he whispered, placing a sweet kiss on her forehead and holding her tightly.
"Worse," she grumbled, voice muffled by his chest.
He chuckled in a manner that suggested he had warned her. He fell on his back, crossing his arms behind his head. "Give me a high-level summary," he ordered.
"Well," Dahlia started, rolling onto her stomach to face him. "The Order killed his father—"
"Obviously," he chirped.
Dahlia harshly slapped his chest but continued. "It seems like he might have had a falling out with Alex, although he asked about the curse I put on him." She held her hands up, pausing the conversation to give a less relevant update. "Draco, he has a fucking dragon! It's stomping around in the forest, eating all the chickens."
Draco shrugged, focusing on her bra's black lace more than anything. "I am intrigued by how he might have pulled that off. My mother is thrilled it won't be nesting in her gardens," he answered, tugging on the thin strap at her shoulder.
Dahlia's eyes widened in surprise as she slapped his hand away. "You knew about Valeria?"
Draco's features fought annoyance as she denied his request to remove the rest of her clothing. He sighed, "My mother knows everything, and she writes to me incessantly." He lazily turned to look at her with callous intentions. "What I did not know is that he named some big-arsed beast after your mum..."
Dahlia rubbed her face in frustration. She hadn't thought of it that way.
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. "Continue," he sighed.
"It's not good," she warned.
"It never fucking is," Draco maffled, exasperated by what could possibly be worse.
Dahlia placed a nail at his hip, trailing towards the center of his low abdomen, unable to resist him so bare and stretched in her bed. "So, you know the myth of the Bloodwood? How a goddess was slain, and the killer and the land were cursed?"
He said nothing, skeptical of the myth and distracted by her touch moving south.
"I think the Notts are descendants of the killer. The bloodline—it's cursed. When he went to the pool of starlight, voices told him he was of the God's Killer—and the God's Killer is one and the same as the No-Name Prince. He thinks it's his birthright to kill the Fates, and he thinks once they are dead, I won't be in love with you anymore."
He furrowed his brow, fatigued by the lunacy and nonsense, even more fucking tired of hearing about Theodore Nott. "You sound insane—because he is insane. Dahlia, what is the reality?"
"Well, he has a new time-turner..."
"Clear," he nodded.
"The Bone Ring..."
"There's that," he winced.
"The potion that alters one's destiny—the fool's potion is what he called it. And, I saw a weapon to kill a Fate in my vision, but I don't know where he is keeping it."
"Well, fuck," Draco exclaimed flatly, throwing his hands in the air. He sat up on his elbows, finally intrigued. "What's stopping him?"
Dahlia raised her brow, shaking her head. "He learned, rather serendipitously, from another seer that the ring I gave him isn't just my essence; it contains years of my life. Because I didn't understand the gravity of the spell when I performed it, he can't be sure how much of my life is within it. To use it on the time-turner to find the Fates might kill me..."
Draco blanched, processing her words.
"He said he isn't sure if he's willing to take that risk yet," Dahlia added.
Draco bristled, triggered, and a moment from wrath. "He'd risk your life?" He growled in disbelief.
Dahlia shrugged. That wasn't even all of it. "And I'd be careful what you drink."
Draco's face fell into confusion.
"Apparently, the potion was meant for you as a failsafe. Whether to kill you or simply switch fates with himself, I'm not exactly sure," Dahlia revealed plainly.
Draco laughed, shaking his head in irony. "He'd poison me...that's fucking rich."
Dahlia tilted her head, far from understanding. "What do you mean?"
Draco shifted his weight as he leaned back, suddenly uncomfortable. "Because of his mother, Dahlia..."
"She was poisoned?" The words fell in secret as she lowered her voice.
Draco's mouth fell into a hard line, softening his tone as the topic clearly upset him. "She did it to herself, Dahlia. Did he not tell you this?" Draco asked, disbelief at how she hadn't known written on his face.
"What?" She breathed. "He told me his father killed her in a rage?"
"Tiberius Nott hated Emma as much as he loved her, but he didn't kill her. My mother told me she couldn't survive the rumors."
"The rumors?"
Draco rubbed his palm down his face, unsure of how long she had been in the dark. "His mother had several lovers, Dahlia. No one blames her since Theo's father was exceptionally cruel. The proof of Alexander's blood purity has always been questioned in smaller circles, which makes you wonder as Theo and Alex look strikingly alike..."
Dahlia's mouth almost hit the mattress in shock.
Draco sighed, shrugging. "Honestly, Dahlia. It's like you barely know him." His jaw tightened as if realizing they barely talked because they were too preoccupied. Dahlia was certain the constant reminder of the heady lust she shared with Theo was enough to push him over the edge, and soon if provoked, he might unleash a merciless terror.
"He's demented, Draco. I was truly scared of him for a few moments last night," Dahlia whispered, reaching out to feel Draco again. She placed a hand on his chest and felt the beat of his heart and its furious rhythm.
Draco looked back at her and quickly pulled out of his thoughts. He took her hand from his chest and pulled her onto him. "I'll always keep you safe. There's nothing to fear, my love."
He grinned, caressing the hair at her temple as she placed her chin on his sternum.
"Do you really believe that?" She murmured, terrified it was only a sweet nothing.
"No," he chuckled honestly. "But I do believe we are something to be feared together."
A wide smile began to break on her lips. She sat up against his chest to nearly straddle him. Draco's lips formed an O, nearly whistling as he bargained to finally rip off her bra.
"Do I scare you, Mr. Malfoy?" Dahlia teased, leaning forward so her cleavage might tempt him more.
He smirked, taking hold of her hips and pushing her down against his cock as he hardened. Dahlia leaned back and let her neck fall to the side as he rocked her hips. Just the sight of him beneath her was still enough to give her goosebumps. "I find you ghastly. I'm terrified now to be in your thrall," he answered, tickling her.
She laughed as he smiled, sitting up to kiss the pattern of words on her side that he had helped forge. He kissed the top of her breasts as he slid his hands to her back to unclasp her bra.
Dahlia moaned, tugging on his silver hair, waved by the morning heat. He threw her bra to the floor and glided his tongue up her sternum to the base of her neck, fisting her breast in one hand and holding her hip firmly against him with the other. He knew how to move against her and find that perfect spot that would have her shaking soon. She gasped as she pushed her underwear to the side and bucked forward. He breathed in her pleasured shock and let it fuel his haze.
He held her in his hands like she was the only thing he had ever loved and kissed every inch of her. She ran her hands down his chest, fighting to find his mouth. This was love. She knew it. She didn't want to exist in any fucking world without him.
"I love you," she gasped as he kissed her neck.
"I love you, darling. You almost make me a better man," he breathed against her jaw, joking as always.
Dahlia rolled her eyes. "You're still awful," She murmured, nipping and sucking at his neck this time. He groaned, growing impatient.
Draco spanked her hard enough to leave a red mark. Dahlia jumped, but he only leaned back on her pillows, crossing his hands behind his head with a proud smirk. "My little nightmare," he sighed, eyes darkening. "Do your worst to me."