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The neutral territory's ritual chamber was small, intimate in a way that made Lilith's skin crawl. Stone walls glowed faintly with bioluminescent fungi that cast the space in a pale blue light, giving it an eerie, ethereal quality. The floor was unmarked except for a single circle of white sand, pristine and stark, that defined the working space.
The Arbiter had explained that this chamber, though small, was deliberately chosen for its potent but unstable wards, requiring the participants to maintain constant magical cohesion. The confined space was a deliberate tool for forced proximity and amplified magical interaction. Damian was already there when she entered, standing at the far side of the circle with his arms crossed over his chest, his dark silhouette stark against the glowing wall. He wore simple black clothing with no ornamentation, and his dark hair fell loose past his shoulders. When he looked at her, his golden eyes were sharp as a blade, assessing, challenging.
“You came,” he stated, his voice holding something almost like surprise, a hint of grudging respect.
“I gave my word to the Arbiter,” Lilith replied coldly, stepping into the circle, the sand soft beneath her boots. “Unlike some, I honor my commitments, especially when my family’s survival depends on it.”
A slow smile played at the corner of his mouth, a flash of predatory amusement. “My dear Lilith, I honor my commitments. It is simply that my commitments generally involve things like conquest and domination, not sentiment or forced unions.”
She wanted to hit him, the urge immediate and visceral. Instead, she simply stepped further into the circle and waited, her gaze locked on his, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
The Arbiter materialized, though Lilith had not seen her enter. She had simply appeared, as if she had always been present in the shadows. “The second stage requires you to merge your magical signatures through sustained physical contact. You will stand within the circle. You will not speak. You will not resist the magic that flows between you, allowing it to seek its own path. The stage is complete when your magical rhythms synchronize perfectly, weaving into a single, cohesive pattern, or when one of you loses consciousness.”
Lilith felt the blood drain from her face, her body suddenly cold. “How long will that take?” Her voice was barely a whisper, laced with a fear she rarely showed.
“As long as it requires,” the Arbiter said, her voice echoing with ancient patience, and then she was gone, vanishing as completely as she had appeared, leaving only the soft hum of the wards in her wake.
Damian took a step toward her, then another, closing the distance between them. “We should probably get this over with,” he said conversationally, his voice surprisingly calm. “The sooner we begin, the sooner it will end, one way or another.”
Lilith's entire body had gone tense, every muscle coiled, ready to recoil. She could feel the bond thrumming between them like a second heartbeat, a low, constant vibration. When he was this close, the sensation intensified until she wanted to claw at her own chest to make it stop, an invasive awareness.
He reached out and took her left hand in his right. The contact sent a sharp jolt of electricity up her arm, a familiar but unwelcome surge. His palm was hot against hers, a searing contrast to her perpetually cold skin. Her breath hitched, an involuntary gasp.
“The first barrier is pride,” he said softly, his golden eyes studying her face with an unnerving intensity. “You are going to have to let that go, Mortaine.”
“I am not letting anything go for you,” she shot back, her voice tight with defiance, though she knew he was right. Her pride was a shield she had wielded her entire life.
“Not for me,” he corrected, his voice a low rumble. “For Lucy. For your coven.” The mention of her sister was a low blow, an expertly aimed shot. Lilith felt her jaw tighten, but she could not argue with the undeniable logic. She took a shaky breath and tried to relax her shoulders, forcing herself to yield.
Damian moved closer until they were standing almost chest to chest within the circle, their bodies nearly touching. He used his free hand to reach up and gently tilt her face toward his, his fingers warm against her jaw. The touch was gentle, which somehow made it worse, a deceptive tenderness from him that felt like a deliberate weapon.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice a soft demand, devoid of mockery.
She did, meeting his golden gaze directly. This close, she could see the intricate patterns in his irises, the thin ring of amber that surrounded his pupils, like molten gold. She could see the moment when his own expression shifted, becoming something darker and more dangerous, a flicker of something raw.
“Breathe with me,” he said, his eyes locking onto hers, compelling her. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Just follow my lead, let our rhythms align.”
She wanted to refuse, to fight him, to break the connection. Instead, she found herself taking a breath at the exact same time he did. Their breathing synchronized, became a shared rhythm that filled the small chamber, an intimate tempo.
The magic between them began to move, flowing like liquid fire through the space they shared, seeking connection. It was not painful, but it was intensely invasive, a persistent hum that vibrated through her bones. She could feel him, could sense the shape of his power, vast and burning and nothing like her own cold darkness, yet now intertwining with it.
Damian closed his eyes, his expression a mask of intense concentration. After a moment, Lilith did the same, surrendering to the inevitable. She existed in a state of constant adjustment, every moment bringing her closer to him until she could not tell where she ended and he began. His strength was suffocating, his presence overwhelming. Everything about him felt dangerous and consuming and utterly compelling.
At some point, she could not say when, her resistance crumbled. The fierce walls she had built around her magic, around herself, simply dissolved under the relentless pressure of the bond.
She stopped trying to maintain the boundaries between them and instead opened herself to the connection, yielding fully. The moment she did, the magic surged. It moved through her like lightning through a storm, bright and terrible and beautiful all at once. She gasped, her eyes flying open, a raw cry escaping her lips.
Damian's eyes were open too, his pupils blown wide, mirroring her shock, and he was staring at her with an intensity that made her stomach clench, a primal awareness. “There you are,” he whispered, his voice rough with revelation.
Before she could respond, a vision crashed through the bond like a physical blow, a sudden, brutal memory.
She was standing in a burning room. Fire surrounded her on all sides, the heat so intense that she could barely breathe, scorching her lungs. She was small, perhaps seven years old, tiny and terrified, frantically looking for a way out. The exit was blocked by roaring flames. The stone walls were collapsing around her, threatening to crush her.
Then Damian was there, small as well, shaking with fear, his face streaked with soot. A man stood in the doorway, a towering silhouette against the brightness of the hallway beyond. Michael Dwayne’s voice cut through the roar of the flames, cold and merciless. “You will not leave until you can master this. You are weak. This is the only way to forge your power, to become what you are meant to be.”
The door slammed shut, echoing like a death knell. The flames grew hotter, more consuming. Young Damian grabbed her hand, a desperate, childish grip, and she understood that she was experiencing his memory, his raw, unadulterated terror, his absolute certainty that he was going to die in this burning room with no one to save him. The fear of fire, for a warlock who commanded it, was a devastating paradox, a deeper wound than she had imagined.
Then the vision released her, slamming her back into her own body.
Lilith gasped and stumbled backward, pulling her hands away from Damian with a violent jerk. She fell onto the white sand of the circle and lay there panting, her entire body shaking, disoriented and reeling from the unexpected trauma.
Damian did not move. He was still standing in the center of the circle, his eyes closed, his expression devastated in a way that made her want to scream, a raw vulnerability exposed.
“That is what I saw,” he said quietly, his voice rough and hollow, opening his eyes to reveal their golden depths clouded with pain. “When our magic connected, that is what flashed through, the deepest part of myself. The memory you fear most about me.”
Lilith could not speak. She lay on the ground and stared at him, unable to process the magnitude of what she had just experienced, the shared pain, the profound invasion of his darkest secret.
“You see now,” he continued, looking down at her, his voice devoid of its usual arrogance, “why I do not speak of my father's methods. Most would find them barbaric, even for a Dwayne.”
“You could have died,” Lilith whispered, her throat tight with a mix of horror and unexpected empathy.
“I nearly did,” he agreed, a grim edge to his voice. “Seventeen times, by my count, before I could master the lightning to protect myself from my own father’s flames. But I survived, and I emerged stronger. That is the Dwayne philosophy: strength through suffering, and absolute mastery over fear.”
He extended his hand to help her up, his gaze steady. She stared at it for a long moment, wrestling with her warring emotions, before placing her hand in his and letting him pull her to her feet. The contact sent the familiar surge of electricity through her arm, a thrumming reminder of their unwelcome bond.
“We will need to do this every day,” he said, his voice firm, his grip on her hand solid. “The merging, the synchronization, the opening of our magic. If we do not maintain the bond, it will deteriorate, and the blight will consume us all.”
“I understand,” Lilith said, her voice still rough, her eyes avoiding his.
What she did not say was that she was not certain she could survive doing this every day. She could not imagine opening herself repeatedly to this level of invasion and vulnerability, to the raw exposure of shared trauma. She could not contemplate the prospect of sharing more of her own darkness with him while he shared more of his, an intimacy she had always resisted.
But she thought of Lucy, of her sister's gasping breaths and darkening veins, of the cold dread of failure. She thought of her mother's cold ultimatum and the Arbiter's gentle certainty that one of them would die before this was over. She had no choice but to endure.
“Tomorrow,” she said, her voice firming with a renewed, grim resolve. “We will do this again tomorrow.”
Damian's smile was sharp as a razor, a flash of predatory satisfaction. “I was hoping you would say that, Mortaine. After all, the fun has only just begun.” The raw power of their connection, the painful intimacy of their forced union, was a dangerous thrill, and she sensed he was already becoming addicted to it.