11 comments/ 57242 views/ 14 favorites A Demon's Heart By: Roslien21 The night itself seemed to yawn as a small, dark girl murmured in her sleep. The breeze that blew in from her open window gently caressed her skin and produced a small smile on her face as it slid through her short hair and cooled her body. The body of the girl was not as tiny as it looked as she moved within her dream, but she was tangled in sheets and a floral blanket on a huge bed that dwarfed her. She was so involved in her dream, about being thrust into the world of the medieval Knight and his pure Lady, that she barely woke when her movements tangled her so badly in the sheets that she could have been strangled. She also did not feel it when the sheets were untangled and pulled away to reveal her half-naked body. Or perhaps she did feel it and her mind translated it into yet another sensation of the dream. After a few seconds, the air from the open window chilled her skin and stiffened her dark nipples beneath the T-shirt she always wore to bed. She opened her eyes, but saw nothing unusual in the darkness of her room as she absently touched her exited nipples and let one hand wonder between her legs as she pulled her blanket up to her neck. When she closed her eyes, her index finger barely touching the entrance to her damp vagina, she fell instantly back into the dream she was having and forgot that she had ever been awakened. As her dream progressed, her virginity was taken by her own Knight and her finger moved on its own slowly into her slick tunnel. She moved very slowly in a half dazed, half awake state as her index finger traced patterns around her swelling clitoris and brought stifled moans from her lips. As the man in the dream pushed himself further into her dream body, she allowed her finger to traverse deeply into her and she began to writhe with an orgasm that came in immediate shudders. When she had released all that was inside her, her finger dropped out and she continued to drip her hot, sticky juice onto her starched white sheets. As she was laying in a puddle of it, the same gentle hand that had untangled her sheets reached for her again and removed her blanket so that she was exposed once more. The cool, crisp air of the night assaulted her pores and she let out a gasp as a singular sensation erupted from between her legs. Her eyes abruptly popped open for when the wind licked her damp opening, she was brought to immediate arousal. Of course, her nipples stood firmly, demanding attention but she suppressed to feeling as she looked at the clock on the nightstand opposite the window. It was 3am and she sighed for she was fully awake and very sure that it would be difficult to go back to sleep. She pulled her blanket back up, just a little past her breasts, as she wondered why she kept kicking it off when it was so cold in her room. She closed her eyes as she decided that she would pleasure herself a bit more so that she could fall asleep more easily. One of her small hands massaged and gently tweaked the nipple on her right breast as the other found its way back to her warm mound and began to gently slide along its outsides. As she was slowly building up tension in herself, bringing her temperature back up, she barely noticed as something seemed to be moving beneath her blanket. It slithered slowly towards her exposed mound and placed its hot stickiness into her as soon as she stuck two fingers into herself. She moaned loudly as the foreign object explored her and she removed her fingers to allow it to take up more space inside her. The thing lurched hungrily, pushing itself deeper as she opened her legs wider to let it in. She pushed her blanket aside to see what had invaded her dream, since she was sure that she had somehow never been awake at all, and she was not afraid to see what looked like a snake but was actually a huge, disembodied tongue. She laid back down and allowed the tongue to crawl deeper within her as it darted around, feeling every pressure point that she had within the walls of her vagina. She whispered encouragement to the strange dream, thrusting her hips towards its advances, making it dark back and forth within her. At one point, it was so deep inside her that I almost hurt her but the pleasure of it was so intense that she only begged for more. It continued to squirm and writhe within her as her own fingers began to aid her orgasm by rubbing on her stiff clitoris. As soon as she started rubbing, the frantic licking of the tongue within her increased its speed and her breaths grew more ragged as they were choked off by screams that approached agony. When she reached a height that she felt she could not endure, her screams grew so strange and loud that she could no longer hear anything as her entire body ached and begged for that same release. It was only a few seconds after that that she was raised up in bed, her fingers pressing down on her clit, that she exploded with such force that her whole body shook violently. And then she fell back into the soft bed as it lapped at her sweet juices. After she had recovered from that orgasm, she was soon asleep and the tongue disappeared, leaving behind no trace of its presence. It was when she woke, turned her face away from the window and opened her eyes that she beheld something in her room that chilled her to her bones and made her wonder if what she had experienced had been a dream at all. She saw, in the corner of her room, a statue of a man holding a woman in a position that implied that they were dancing. The man was dressed in clothing appropriate to the medieval era that she had been dreaming about and the woman's hair was lose as it hung freely from her head as her body swayed in an exaggerated dip. She was smiling brightly, her eyes half closed in a delighted laugh most likely, but his face showed a displeasure so intense that it seemed he would rather drop her from the statue's pedestal and watch her shatter rather than hold her a moment longer. The effect of the piece was rather disturbing by itself, but then the girl had to reach out and touch the thing and immediately recoiled. It was deathly cold to her, most likely made of something akin to iron, and the whole thing was black. She resolved to find out how the statue had gotten in her room as she backed away from it in its corner and went out her doorway, noisily rattling the gypsy-like beads as she passed beneath them. When she had gone halfway down the steps, she suddenly stopped and turned around to go back to her room. She had forgotten that she was barely wearing anything, but hurriedly slipped on a pair of panties and covered her large breasts in a gray bra. After that, she slipped her T-shirt back on along with a pair of shorts as she stepped into the Bugs Bunny slippers that her mother had gotten her for Christmas. By the time she got back down the stairs, her phone was ringing loudly and she ran to answer it, beating the machine by one ring. "Hello?" she said as she ran a hand through her short brown hair and looked around her spotless kitchen. "Good morning, sunshine," the voice of her mother greeted her. "Morning, mama," she answered unenthusiastically. She heard her mother sigh. "Did you lose another boyfriend, dear?" she asked. "No," she answered. "I had a strange dream last night and this statue..." "Aren't you a little old for nightmares, Shenia?" "...is in my room and I don't know where it came from," she finished. "Silly girl, your father brought that statue over last night, he thought that it might help you with all that daft research you're doing," her mother told her. "Well, its tres bizarre," she murmured. "I told the old fool not to bring it in the middle of the night while you were sleeping, but what he listen to me?" "Mama, I've got to go." "Of course not," she continued as if she did not even hear her daughter. "That man will be the death of me, I swear it." "Mamma!" "Yes, dear?" "I said I have to go," she repeated softly. "Ah, you have to get ready for class now," she answered. "Well, you have a good day and consider giving up a few nights of your research to go out and find a man worth having," she advised. "Yes, I'll think about it." "Goodbye, darling." "Talk to you later," she said as she put the phone down. With that mystery solved, Shenia returned to her room and looked at the statue again. It certainly was an odd looking thing, but she had no real reason to believe that it had anything to do with her dream. She shook her head as she stripped her clothes off and wondered why her habit of sleeping almost naked and rushing to put on something when she woke up had transferred from her parent's house to her own. She knew that there was no one there to see her in the mornings, and that she could have easily walked around nude, but the habit had not gone away and she had been living by herself for three years. She shrugged it off as simply another of her many eccentricities and pulled a sun dress from her closet as she headed into the bathroom. When she passed the statue that time, she saw a white square leaning against the base. 'To my darling daughter,' it said in her father's spidery handwriting. She smiled at the thought her father put into all his presents to her, even if the presents were strange, and she wondered how she had missed the note when she inspected the statue before. She shrugged that off too as she put the note on her desk, beside the picture of her parents holding her up and beaming at the camera, and went into the bathroom to begin another of her busy days. The day was Monday and she washed away the weekend with a quick shower, a brush of her teeth and a song in the mirror along with the radio. Her parents swore she was weird for blasting rock music at eight in the morning, but it was the only thing that could wake her up and keep her awake without complaining too much about how horrid Mondays were. When she was done singing her song, she put moisturizer on her face and sprayed her hair with a product that promised to make her hair smooth, shiny and soft. She then combed her hair into the same style that she wore pretty much every day, dressed herself, put her glasses on, grabbed a few things and threw them into her bag and hurried out the door without another thought about the strange stature or the dream. Later that day, she returned to the house exhausted. She did not even stop to make dinner as she came in the house, dropped her bag on her living room couch and dragged herself up the stairs to her own room. Once there, she kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed without even thinking about undressing herself. She was so exhausted at that point that as soon as her head hit her fluffy pillow, she was snoring softly and off into another dream. In that dream, her Knight was dancing with her as he whispered poetry in her ear and teased her body by rubbing his fingers lightly across her thighs. He kissed her deeply, but it seemed that his tongue was in two places at once as it explored her mouth and tickled the hair on her mound. She moaned even as her mouth seemed to be being consumed by his and his fingers stopped teasing her as he roughly tore her dress away and thrust his fingers into her. She was aware that they were not alone as their dance turned to that, but she did not care as she pulled him closer to her and she moaned into his open mouth. As his fingers explored her, and her vagina began to coat itself with a generous amount of lubrication, a strange sound began to bother her in her ecstasy. It was the sound of a woman weeping softly, holding her sobs close to her chest so that no one could really tell, but it was a sound so sad that Shenia had to listen. The sound was coming from behind her in the dream and she tore herself away from her Knight, eliciting a cry of anguish from him, and turned towards it. When she looked, she found that the woman huddled in the corner by herself was a person that she had never spoken to but was sure that she had seen somewhere. She began walking towards the woman even as her lover reached out for her, but the woman only continued to cry with downcast eyes as if she did not feel the shift of attention. When she knelt down and touched the woman's shoulder, she finally looked up and allowed Shenia to see the same face that she had seen laughing so delightedly in the arms of the wrought iron Knight who looked as if he abhorred her. Shenia was sitting up in the bed before her eyes popped open and she began looking frantically around her room. The problem was that the sound of the woman weeping was not only in her dream for she still heard it and she was certain that she was awake. As she glanced around the room, with the light still on in the middle of the night, her eyes fell on the statue of the two dancers and it suddenly occurred to her that woman's smile was not a real one. As soon as that thought occurred to her, the sound of the weeping died away and was replaced by an eerie silence that was somehow worse than the sound that had followed her out of her dream. She was sure that the man that the statue depicted would soon drop the maiden he was holding and come to her, crushing her unintentionally with his might. 'This is ridiculous' she said to herself as she got up, undressed herself properly, turned out the light and lay back down in her soft bed and tried to get back to sleep. She could not return to sleep, however, for even in the dark her eyes rested on the figure of the man who held onto a lady that he hated. She rose again from her comfortable bed, mumbling to herself as she grabbed a sheet, and covered the statue so that it looked like any other exaggerated shadow in the dark. Oddly, her mind accepted that as a distraction and she fell asleep without wondering if the expressions on the people's faces had changed or if the woman that the Knight held had become her. She simply drifted back into sleep and had happy, sexless dreams for the rest of the night. When she awoke, a shrill noise was sounding in her ear and it took her a while to realize that it was the phone that she heard. She stumbled down the stairs, without bothering to grab anything to cover her completely naked body, and answered the phone with a sleepy yawn that gave up her whole situation. "Shenia, wake up!" her mother shrieked at her. "I don't have nay classes today," she murmured as she allowed herself to slide down the wall of the refrigerator and sit on the cold floor. "No, but you have a lunch date with your father and its almost noon!" she said. Shenia rubbed her eyes and remembered that she was supposed to meet her father that day. "Tell Daddy I'll be there in five minutes," she said. "And just how are you going to do that when..." her mother began before she slammed the phone down. "Shit," she said to herself as she went back up the stairs. In the bathroom, she turned her radio on and tried to sing a little as she splashed water on her face and got through all her usual morning rituals in record time. She then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, ignoring the statue under its white sheet, and ran out of the house as she pulled on a pair of earphones and plugged them into her portable CD player. She turned it on while strapping herself onto her motorbike and wondered when she had loaded Incubus into the holder. She shrugged as she wondered what her father would talk about when she got to her parent's house and if he would tell her where he had acquired the odd statue that seemed to be giving her odd dreams. For a moment, she considered asking her father to take it back to that dealer, but then she decided that it might be interesting to keep it around if only to see which path her dreams took. Her parents only lived a few minutes away from her, so the CD was only halfway through a second song when she pulled into their driveway and parked her bike. Her mother was standing on the porch shaking her head as she poured a glass of lemonade. "Afternoon, Mama," she said sweetly as she took the glass her mother held out to her as soon as she joined her on the porch. "Don't 'afternoon mama' me, young lady. Where is the helmet I bought you for that hell machine?" she demanded. "Daddy still has it from the last time he rode on my bike," she answered. Her mother shook her head again. "Well, go on in the kitchen because he's in there waiting for you," she said. As Shenia walked towards the kitchen, she saw a number of odd little statuettes and miniature versions of the things that she had in her room. They were all just as disturbing as the one she had had covered with a sheet the night before and she wondered if the creatures within it had thrown it off yet. She smiled to herself at the ridiculous thought and managed to walk into the kitchen without tripping over any of the little figures whose faces were all twisted with various emotions. When she entered the kitchen, she found her father sitting at the table with a mound of clay in front of him and a try full of sandwiches behind him. He did not look up as she came into the room, and she did not speak to him as she took the tray off the counter and sat it on the table as she sat down. She absently picked up one of the sandwiches as began to munch on it as she watched her father's hands shape the white clay into something that she thought could not be reproduced in such a medium. He was shaping a human face, her face, out of the fluffy stuff and she was sure that he would paint it bronze when it dried. "You are a beautiful girl, Shenia," her father said without looking up at her. Shenia said nothing. Her father sighed as his hands expertly shaped the clay even as he looked up at her. "Your mother is right about you needing to find someone to fall in love with, but I don't want you to go into any bar with your makeup on like some common prostitute." "Prostitutes are anything but common," she answered without thinking. "You must know a couple personally," he commented as his eyes lowered themselves to watch his hands' progress with the clay. She finished the salami sandwich and she reached for another one. "I do actually, but I want you to tell me where you acquired that odd statue you left in my room instead of talking about them." "One of my friends had it in his basement, it was a work he said he inherited from his grandfather. Why? Don't you like it?" he inquired. "I like it fine," she lied, "its just that it seems so odd." He nodded. "I was under the impression that you liked odd things." "Sometimes," she answered as she finished her second sandwich and began sipping the tart lemonade that her mother had handed her. "Now, tell me why you really called me here," she said once she put her glass down. "I wanted to ask you if you had noticed anything odd about the statue." "The only thing I noticed was that the woman looks like she's having a grand time while the man must be contemplating dropping her," she answered. Her father smiled. He then took his fingers out of the clay he was kneading hair into to reach under the table and pull out a large black book that had an odd seal on it. He pushed the book towards her as he returned his hands to their damp work. "You'll see what the stature was originally meant to look like in that book," he said as she opened the book and began to flip through its black and white drawings. She stopped flipping when she saw a drawing of a woman with the face of the statue in her room. The woman was posed in the same way, her hair blew and she looked just as rapturous as Shenia remembered her. The odd thing about the picture was that there was no one holding her in her dramatic dip, as if her Knight had been erased and she was doomed to complete the dance night after night alone. "Is this the picture?" she demanded. A Demon's Heart Her father glanced at the page she was on, made a face and straightened his glasses on his pudgy nose. He shook his head and gave her a puzzled look. "That is certainly the woman, but her partner seems to have stepped right out of the flame," he admitted. Shenia felt a shiver go through her. "This must not be the page," she said as she started to flip through the book again and tried in vain to find another picture of the dancing couple. Her father shook his head, making some of his unruly salt and pepper hair fall into his eyes. "There was only one picture in there of the couple," he told her. "But it can't be, you can't just erase charcoal cleanly from a book that's generations old," she insisted. "Its gone despite your logic," her father said calmly as he continued perfecting his clay version of his daughter. "Perhaps the fire consumed him and left the woman." "What fire?" she demanded. "Didn't you look at the statue carefully? Didn't you notice what the two of them are doing?" "They're dancing together," she answered softly. Her father laughed even as he shook his head again. "They're not dancing, darling. The man looks so disgusted because the woman is burning and she is smiling because she does not even seem to notice it." "What? Burning? Who would make such a statue?" "I'm not sure who made it, but my friend said that the fire is symbolic of the woman's sins eating her from the inside," he said. Shenia frowned deeply. "Well, what was the thing originally supposed to look like?" "Look at the woman's face in the picture, since that's all that's left and see if her expression is any different," he suggested. She looked down at the woman's smiling face and saw that it was different. In the picture, her smile looked genuine while on the statue she looked as if she was forcing the expression to stay on her lips no matter what happened. "She's not burning here, is she?" "No," her father answered. "My friend said that in a letter he found addressed to his grandfather, he explained that when he tried to render the happy dance in the metal it wouldn't cooperate and it seemed to shape itself," he explained. "Your friend seems to know a lot about this author," she said. He smiled. "He knows those things, but he never knew his name because nothing is signed." She shook her head as she stood up to get another glass of lemonade from her mother, but she froze when she looked at the clay that her father was shaping. He was too busy looking at her to notice what his hands were doing and so he flattened out all her features and began to make a new face without noticing. The face that emerged from his efforts was one that was very familiar to her, it was the one that had haunted her dreams in the guise of her dance partner in her dreams and turned up missing from the drawing book. She stifled her gasp with a hand over her mouth, but her father noticed anyway and looked down at what he was doing. He recognized the face after a moment of thinking about it, but when he looked up to tell his daughter that the clay had once again shaped itself she was gone. She had fled the house, knocking down several of the statuettes as she passed, and jumped on her motorbike without even saying goodbye to her mother who was sitting on the porch with a few of her friends. Her mother only shook her head. Shenia was back home again in less than two minutes because she was driving so fast and because she was driving without the music that usually distracted her by making her want to sing and show the world how multi-talented she was. When she got to her door, she turned the bike off, let it drop, and plunged her key into the door as she prayed that it would not get stuck on such a weird day. She opened the door without any problem and ran up the stairs to her room, shoving the beaded curtains aside so that she would not have to hear too much of their racket. Once in her room, she tore the sheet off of the statue and studied it even as her heart beat twice as fast as normal because she was so sure that the man would reach out for her even as the woman he held wept. To her disappointment, and relief, the statue did not move and she sat down on the floor as she wondered why such daft thoughts had entered her mind. Perhaps there was a way to erase charcoal cleanly from an old art book and her father had shaped the face of the man because they were talking about him and his woman so much. She convinced herself of those two things so well that she was up and breathing normally again after only a few moments. She went back outside, put her motorbike in her garage and closed her door as her nosy neighbors peered at her from behind their blinds. She knew they were looking so she waved before she closed and locked the door, thinking that they had bought their blinds because they were sure that no one could see them looking. When that was done, she went back up the stairs and laid down in her bed for a little nap that would replace the sleep she had lost that morning. She resolved that she would call her parents whenever she woke up and explain away her hasty departure from their place with some probable lie. She knew that her father was not too worried because he was used to her doing far stranger things than leaving without saying goodbye, but her mother would be obsessing over the fact that there had to be something wrong for her to leave in such a hurry. When she laid down, it took her a while to fall asleep, but when she did she fell directly into another dream. That time, her dream was taking place in her own bedroom as she lay helpless to stop it or cry out to the neighbors who had been watching her when she pulled up to her house after her scare. In the dream, she was laying on her bed as if paralyzed as the statue in the corner began to move as if it were breathing. The metal changed colours and became flesh, but even as the man moved towards her the woman he had let go of gained her balance and began pulling him back to the statue so that he would stay next to her. Her feet were still attached to the base of the statue for they had failed to grow flesh, so she could do nothing when he pulled away from her and walked unsteadily towards the bed. She reached for him however, stretching her body so much that she lost her balance and sent the base of the statue toppling forward. Her Knight ignored her as she scratched at his ankles and screamed out unintelligible curses as he climbed into the bed. He laid on top of Shenia and turned her still face towards him as he kissed her lips. As he kissed her, he licked them even as he dipped his tongue into her mouth and tasted the sugary sweetness that he knew would be there. He moaned against her as her body began to react to him involuntarily as her eyes remained closed and her breathing remained calm as if she were slumbering against him as her lust moved her. She kissed him back gently and could feel him shift on top of her, allowing her to feel his excitement as he rubbed his naked skin on her fully clothed body. He suddenly moved off of her, making her body cry out in protest, and kneeled on the bed as he began to rip her clothes off of her. It was pretty easy since she was only wearing a pair of jeans and a thin sweater. She had not even bothered to cover her beautiful, large breasts with a bra and her panties barely covered her large bottom. He slid her panties down her legs as he gripped them with his teeth. When he got them off of her he held them in his teeth for a moment so that he could relish the delicious odor that her womanhood left in them. After he had gotten his fill of her musk, he threw the panties to the side and began kissing in a path that started at her ankles, skipped her mound, and ended at her lips. They kissed each other as he pressed his stiff penis against her and she raised her hips to encourage him to enter her. Instead, he started kissing back down her body and that time he licked her clit so deeply that she could not stifle a scream as her body bucked with desire. He was smiling as he licked her again with a similar reaction even as he reached down between his own legs and began to stroke his throbbing member. As he pleasured himself, he allowed his tongue to dip into her with a rhythm that matched his stroking and immediately set her afire. She was pushing her hips at him, silently demanding that he push his tongue into her deeper as she moaned, but he refused to lick anything but the entrance. Her juices were flowing easily with her anticipation and after a while he dipped his tongue in deeper so that he could taste what he had smelled in her panties. He smiled when the musky liquid touched his tongue for he swore that it tasted even better than it smelled and he pushed his tongue in deeper so that he could have more of the delicious fluid. Shenia moaned loudly on the bed, praying that she would never wake up from her wonderful dream, and he continued to shove his tongue into her as she opened her legs wider. It felt exactly like the dream that she had had two nights before, when the tongue had entered her without warning, crowding out her two ambitious fingers. She was glad that his tongue was not disembodied, but she was sure that she would not have cared as her body began to vibrate with the orgasm that had been slowly building since he had kissed her. As soon as she was about to explode, he pulled his tongue away from her and slid himself into position above her. As her body cried out for more, he plunged his rock hard phallus into her slick tunnel and she went straight over the edge. Even as she was screaming out in her delight, her eyes began to open and she cursed because she was sure that she was waking up. Her eyes were not fully open yet, but she still felt the fullness inside her and the weight of a man as he pushed himself inside her with all his might. Her eyes popped open and she saw the man, the man whose face she had seen on the statue and in the clay that had father would have sworn shaped herself. He no longer looked at all angry or full of hatred for his features were twisted with pure ecstasy as he pulled himself out a little and plunged back into her with a ferocity that would have hurt some women. She was used to rough sex, but even she gasped as the pain of the thrust hit her and the pleasure behind it began to overwhelm her. He continued thrusting in and out of her happily, though a bit more gently, even as he kept his eyes closed and his mouth open in a moan that never escaped his throat. She could not even think about fighting him as she was suddenly brought to another earth shattering climax as he vibrated on top of her. Her entire body was shaking and as she screamed his breathing became heavier and he began to thrust into her harder. She continued to scream for his pumping had become frantic, as if he was desperate for a release, and the pleasure of it would not let her down from the heights of her orgasm until he was done. His breathing became ragged as tiny droplets of sweat began to form on his forehead and as they fell on her breasts they seemed to enflame her even more. Her vagina was aching, the pleasure of the orgasm turning to pain, and he finally exploded inside of her at the very moment when she was sure that she could take no more of the throbbing heat. When he fell on top her, depleted, she closed her eyes and was sure that the both of them would faint from the over-excitement of their hungry bodies. She was a little surprised when she felt his lips wrap themselves around her nipple and she opened her eyes just as he began to suck it very gently. "Who are you?" she demanded, her voice a weak whisper. He let her nipple slip from his lips and he licked them. "My name is Ladon," he answered just as softly. "What do you want from me, Ladon?" "I want nothing save the right to love you forever," he informed her. Before Shenia could say anything in response to the comment, as if there was anything she could say, the woman that he had been clutching when he was a statue stood up. Her feet had turned to flesh and she was so close to the bed, looking very angry and ferocious, that Shenia was sure that she would strangle the both of them. "You have no right to love her, Ladon," she said in a voice that was half human, half throaty snarl. "Why don't I, Lilith?" the man demanded. "She is not one of us and you know it," she accused. "You may play with her for seven days and then you have to return to us in the hell where you belong," she said before her cruel face and form disappeared in a huge, black puff of smoke. "Lilith?" she asked when the woman was gone. "She is not the high demon from Hebrew mythology, she simply wishes she was," Ladon answered as if that was supposed to reassure her. "Then what is she?" "She is a very low demon on the scale in hell and she used to be my wife," he answered as he looked into her eyes. "But I no longer want her or the life I have with her, I will renounce everything in that life if you will just allow me to stay here with you." "Why would you want to stay here?" Shenia asked despite the tears that were slowly rolling down her cheeks. "Because I love you, Nia, I want to be possessed by you," he told her. She stared at the creature who looked like a man, but had just admitted to being a demon in the same breath that he had used to claim he loved her. "But demons don't have hearts," she said more to herself than to him. "I have a heart," he said as he rolled off of her, took her hand and placed it over the spot where his heart should have been. "I don't feel anything," she informed him. "You can't feel it like you feel yours, my darling, it doesn't beat it whispers." "Whispers?" she repeated incredulously and when he only nodded she pressed her ear to his chest so that she could hear whatever sound it made and thought she did indeed hear it whispering within him. "Is it saying anything?" she inquired. He smiled as he nodded. "Listen carefully." She closed her eyes tightly and tried to listen carefully and thought she heard it saying something that sounded like her name and she recoiled. "You cannot stay here, Ladon," she said as she jumped out of the bed. Instead of becoming angry and using some queer power to bind her, as she was sure any demon would have, he simply stared at her in bewilderment and began to cry. "But I love you, Nia," he insisted. She bit her lip as she come closer to him and touched her finger to his face so that she could catch some of the liquid that poured from his gray eyes and splashed onto his dark chocolate skin. He watched her, and made no move to hide his tears, as she put her finger in her mouth to test the authenticity of the tears. "They taste real," she said aloud. "They are real," he cried. "I love you, Nia and all I want is for you to tell me I can stay so that I don't have to go back to that horrible woman I was holding in seven days." She shook her head. "Even if I tell you that you can stay, won't they come back for you anyway?" she asked. "There is a way that they can't take me back," he said, "but it could kill me," he admitted. "Could it kill me too?" "It would do you no harm as an innocent, beautiful mortal," he assured her. "I'd just lose you," she concluded. He nodded as he starred at her eyes, taking her nakedness for granted. "I love you, Nia." "Stop calling me that," she said suddenly. "Only my father calls me that and made him stop when I was sixteen." "I know," Ladon answered sadly. Shenia looked at him suspiciously. "How do you know?" "I know because your imagination created me, my love, you forged me into being with your own hands and you taught me how to live with your own heart." "How could that be? My father said..." "Your father said what he knows," he answered before she could finish. "The artist truly did make that metal statue without knowing what he was making, but it took years for me to penetrate it and imbue it with my life force so that I could hide from the horrid demon that my wife had become." "And she came in later?" she asked. He nodded. "She put her life force in it in order to torture me, but when your father took the statue and brought it here I recognized you and began to try and come to you just as I had in your dreams." "How did you get in my dreams in the first place?" she demanded as she remembered the first dream she had had of him, when she was sixteen. "I came into your dreams when you cried out for a lover that would never abuse you the way your first did. I was running through the dream world looking for somewhere to hide and when I found you I couldn't keep myself away." "And you feel in love with me through my dreams?" "Yes, my Nia," he said. "Within your dreams, you changed me from the demon I once was and shaped me into a being who could only live with you in his arms and a heart that sung your name," he told her. "But, Ladon, you must understand that dreams are not real. You were not real to me until a little while ago and you should not be here." Ladon shook his head and his eyes twinkled as he smiled at her. "My love, you must understand that your dreams might be the most real part of you and there is only a thin veil of gold glitter separating them from what you call reality. With that in mind, I tell you that I have as much right to be here as you do." Shenia opened her mouth to speak, to deny what he said or to somehow make another reason why he could not stay with her, but she somehow knew that he was right so she closed her mouth and wondered what he would do next. He only smiled at her and held his arms out to her when she looked at him so she walked over to him and laid herself down beside him so that he could wrap her up in his embrace. She sighed at the warmth she felt next to him and wondered if the cold she felt from the statue had been Lilith's only and not attached to him in any way. All thoughts of Lilith, the statue, and anything else for that matter disappeared when he put her head against his chest and allowed her to hear the queer sound of his heart whispering her name in its chant of devotion. His smile brightened as his fingers tangled themselves in her short, soft locks and he fell asleep with the sweet smell of her breath cooling his chest and her own steady heart beating out a rhythm on his naked skin. In their dream world, the two of them were walking hand in hand through a garden as the song of spring played itself over and over. They heard birds singing, butterflies flapping their proud wings and various creatures scampering about very close to their bare feet in the lush green grass. As they walked about, the sun managed to bath them in a radiant light without flying their already dark skin or bothering their minds as they wondered on a plane even higher than the one they were walking in. They were two lovers walking in a garden, but before long they were met by an enlarged version of Lilith with red eyes and a snake's tongue that darted in and out of her mouth as she informed Ladon that his seven days of bliss were up. She then began to drag the dark skinned, bald Knight away from Shenia even as he screamed and reached for the love of his life and his heart screamed her name. His love tried to snatch him away from his demon wife, but she could do nothing. "What do I have to do?" Shenia asked as soon as her eyes were open. "I will show you," Ladon said as her sense of urgency woke him too. He got out of the bed, walked to the place where the statue had once stood and picked up something else that she had not noticed when she had done her incomplete inspection of the statue that seemed to be giving her the dreams. She admitted that she thought that they had been the strangest, most real dreams that she had not endured since she was very young until she found out from Ladon that they were not dreams at all. A Demon's Heart There were tiny things that looked like daggers at the bottom of the statue where Lilith's feet would have been and Shenia could only guess that those were the artists representations of the fire that was supposedly eating her from the inside out. It was one of those things, very sharp on the top, that he handed to her as she too rose from the bed and looked at him with a question in her large brown eyes. He made no answer to her as he laid back down on her bed and looked at her eyes. "I love you, my Nia (my purpose) and if I do not survive this I want you to always hold my memory dear to your heart and never despair for we will always be together in our dreams," he told her as he put on a smile for her benefit. She was crying as she held onto the piece of flame that he had broken off and she cried more as he told her the horrid thing that she had to do with it. She would have to make tiny incisions, hundreds of them, all over his body so that he would become a sort of blood sacrifice to the lesser god who had made him what he was. In that way, his demon blood could be drawn out of him and as if flowed back to the lesser god he could be blessed with a new life force and a real heart. That would happen if he was lucky, but if he was not lucky then he would bleed to death and have to depart from the mortal world forever. Shenia held on to the flame, which seemed a sacrificial knife to her then, and began to pray for the salvation of his soul so that he could return to her and stay with her forever as he wanted. She was praying even as she raised the dagger and began to cut into Ladon's soft skin with it. The blood that poured out of his wounds as she cut was as black as the statue, as black as the flame that she was using as a knife. As she was cutting him, he kept his eyes open, silently begging her not to stop until his entire body was covered with gashes and he let out no signs of pain. Within his own head, he was screaming in anguish, but he knew that if he cried out his love would stop and he would lose her in seven days anyway. She was screaming in her own head too and every time she sliced his skin with the surprisingly sharp piece of flame, she felt that she was cutting into her own skin and watching the ruby red life gush out in teardrops. As it was, she continued to cut and when she was done, she could no longer even see her white sheets. Even her hands were black, but she did not dare leave her love to wash them. Instead, she watched him and he looked at her through eyes that seemed to be able to convey nothing but love and concern. He was concerned about her and he was the one in danger of bleeding to death, she thought to herself, and she kissed his forehead as she turned her thoughts back to prayers. As soon as she did that, as soon as she kissed him, the colour of the blood that flowed from his wounds changed to red and she was sure that it was a good development. She smiled even as tears poured down her plump cheeks and she kissed him again even as he winced from the contact with his raw skin. She pulled away, scared to hurt him again, but he held his arms out to her so that she could come into his embrace again and at first she shook her head. He mouthed the word 'please' and so she got up from where she had collapsed after all the cutting and laid beside him so he could wrap his arms around her again. To her surprise, he did not wince when her skin came into contact with hers, he simply sighed and laid his head on her shoulder as he breathed in her scent. She was sure that he was going to die, but she held on tightly to a glimmer of hope and began to pray with more passion so that she did not even know that she was saying her prayers aloud and he could hear every word she said. He closed his eyes and listened her voice even as he wondered how long he would be allowed to feel her in his arms before he bled to death. They barely knew it, but they laid there for seven full days. Shenia never stopped praying and Ladon's heart never stopped whispering her name as he listened to the rising and falling rhythm of her soothing voice. It was on the seventh day that Ladon's heart stopped whispering and his Nia's eyes popped open in surprise as she tried to get as close to him as she could in what she thought were his final moments. Her prayers were still on her lips and she was still mouthing them even as she hugged her lover and hoped that he would do well to stay in heaven until she got there. She thought of taking the flame she had used as a dagger to slash her wrists, but she knew very well that that was no way to get into heaven and spend an eternity with those she loved most in the world. She kissed his lips and after a few seconds he was kissing her back, holding her tightly and she heard another heartbeat whose strong rhythm was in tune with hers. She allowed her fingers to touch his chest even as she melted into his kiss and she did indeed feel it beating instead of the dull hum of the whisper that she could barely detect when she touched him. She then moved her hand to his neck and found a strong and steady pulse that certainly had not been there before. In her excitement, she pulled away from him and looked into his sparkling gray eyes and beheld a light that only shined in those whose souls had been touched by God in some special way. Not only his eyes, but his whole body looked and felt different. Nothing about him had radiated anything close to evil before, but with the change that was in him it seemed that he was nothing but goodness and angelic intent, embodied by her prayers. She was certain then that the demon in him had been drawn out with his blood and as she looked at him and smiled, all the foul blood drained away and all his wounds disappeared. He smiled at her for he was alive, healed and human. "No one can take me away from you now, my Nia," he said as he pulled her back to him and kissed her. "I love you," she murmured when the broke apart for a little air. "And I love you," he answered, "with all my heart and soul." Even as she kissed her strange Knight again, Shenia was sure that she heard the sound of Lilith cursing her in a fit of rage, but she ignored it as she enjoyed the miraculous thing that she had done with what had once been a demon's heart.