His Dark Delights

REN

The pattering of raindrops on glass windows used to herald the start of my favorite season. Spring storms once accompanied meager flower bouquets perfuming the house, Mum’s humming, and her baking my favorite sweet breads to celebrate the return of life to the land.

I didn’t recognize the thumping of rain or the silent ambiance of my current location. The rain came and went. It certainly didn’t sound like the incessant torment of rain on a canvas tent.

Rain in the field meant danger and unpredictability. It meant the enemy had an advantage. Vicious adrenaline coursed through me, breath trapped in my lungs, waiting for an attack to come from any of the numerous shadows.

Yet no attack came.

The rain was not cold, nor was it touching me. It wasn’t leaking through the crevices of the tent and soaking into my clothes, chilling me to the bone. I wasn’t huddled with my comrades, back-to-back and gripping pommels with near-frozen fingers.

Shredded, shallow breaths scratched through my chest. Throbbing aches paralyzed me. Each rasp stung; movement pained me through the layers of my muscles. Cold and hot; reality and dreams; a frigid forest surging with enemies and the warmth of some place that felt terribly like home.

A fever seized me, I realized in fleeting moments of clarity. And in those moments, I heard her. A divine voice that reached through the veil of sickness and knit my mind back together.

Delicate brush strokes traced my wounds, my scars, mapping the constellation of war on my skin. The fingers of a holy creature reached into the essence of me and drew me from the cusp of eternal darkness.

In some dreams, the voice belonged to my mother. Mum sang her favorite songs as she used to when tending the sparse garden behind the house. Her dark curls piled atop her head, a content smile on her lips despite every hardship she’d faced. A woman of strength and determination who would have given up everything for my sake, and in many cases, she had.

Lows in the fever accompanied those bittersweet dreams. They were quickly erased by highs where tides from malevolent red seas reached beyond the bounds of shore and leashed around my legs. Sea monsters with gnarled tentacles and gaping beaks twisted around me, dragging me across the sand and pulling me under the oppressive weight of an ocean of blood.

Thin, scratchy gasps for air squeezed me as if caught in the enormous fist of an angry god. Then the voice returned, soothing the fever and talking me through the pain. Tender touches stroked the sides of my face, as delicate as flower petals and just as sweet.

When the rain sighed a final breath and gave way to the vibrancy of spring light, I crawled through the aftermath of strife and tore myself from the grasp of death. My eyelids weighed tons, lashes glued together and refusing to open. It might have been seconds, hours, days, but I forced them open to see gauzy midday light drifting lazily through a window.

A sharp breath filled my lungs, and every muscle tensed through my frame. Various injuries screamed, restraining my movement, but nothing I couldn’t push through now. Awake and alert, I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.

My feet met hardwood, and my eyes cut to the welcoming fire crackling in the hearth. A thin, cushioned seat under the window held a short stack of worn books. The top one had a violet ribbon in the pages.

Confusion snarled through me.

How did I come to be in such a place? Where am I?

My leg buckled under my first step. A frustrated grunt echoed through the room as I attempted several more steps, faltering from the edge of the bed to the doorway. By the threshold, I had my bearings and shoved away from the support of the wall. I couldn’t have anyone see me that way or else they’d presume me weak.

I couldn’t afford weakness when the enemy hid in every corner.

Deafening silence stretched around me, only broken up by my hitched, pain-fueled gasps. Despite the lonely quiet, I sensed no waiting threats hidden among the modest space. It was cozy and lived in. The home of a farmer, I assumed. A quick perusal through a window showed off a vibrant-green field and a bright sky.

No soldiers, no guards, no signs of a family, no enemies patrolling.

Who lives here? Why am I here?

A lance of pain jolted through my head. My hand flew to my temple, and I groaned as memories flooded my bruised thoughts. I sank into a wooden rocking chair in the corner as images flashed brutally inside my skull.

Trenches. Fires burning day and night in the woods to drive out enemy warriors. Boots slogging through blood-soaked ash and mud, each step heavier than the last. Heavy, brutal combat. The ringing of blades clashing, creating a symphony of death and savagery. Soldiers took arrows to the throat, choking as they died in front of me. Dying. Slashing, cutting, cleaving. Dying.

Wildflowers trampled underfoot.

Death. An endless cycle of suffering and final breaths wheezed through bruised, chapped lips. Gore and barbarity on display at every turn. Stinging breaths sawing through tired chests. Fatigued limbs barely lifting a sword in time to block the next blow. Crimson ichor splattered across a faceplate and dripped into the eyes, obscuring the view when it mattered most.

Then he appeared.

The bastard exploded onto the battlefield like a giant fucking bug that needed to be squashed. Anger blazed through me and renewed my energy as the fairy prince descended on the battle. Arrows rained from him and his reinforcements, driving my forces back into the cover of the trees. The Fae followed, and we engaged in the grisly dance of combat.

If only he fluttered near enough to land a killing blow. Exterminating the bane of my existence might finally fill the wounded chasm in my center. To kill the Fae prince and all the vermin of his kind.

And then maybe I might find peace.

Then maybe I might rest.

The last thing I remembered with any clarity was a fire rapidly spreading through the trees. Plumes of smoke tainted the air and spread like an ash-laden plague. Elleslan forces splintered and fled for safety. Blinding pain crowned my head, and another blow struck my side before darkness drowned me.

But I wasn’t in the mountains or the capital city.

I wasn’t with my forces or captains.

I was alone, healed by a mysterious force that brought me to a strange place.

When I placed a hand on the bandages hiding my injured ribs, a vision darted behind my eyes. A goddess, certainly. But maybe she’d come on the tail of my fever dreams.

Surely, there was no one as ethereal and resplendent as that in the real world. A woman such as her could only exist in the land of gods and dreams.

“Gods—fuck,” I grumbled, tugging my hands through my hair.

My head ached in protest as I built mental walls around those fleeting dreams to prevent myself from grasping at wisps of an impossible wish.

Someone had found me and nursed me to health. Presuming my host was an ally, I rose from the rocking chair and strode for the door.

I braced myself for the worst. Complications could arise if my savior recognized me.

Bribery, extortion, or danger. It might serve me better to find a horse and escape without receiving answers. I was too injured to find myself outnumbered or trapped.

The front door swung open. Easily.

Freedom spread out beyond the door, and a delightful breeze swirled in with the afternoon sunlight.

Lured out into the open, I followed the illogical tug of an invisible rope in my chest. Like a leash, I ambled into the light, shielding my unused eyes from the sun.

That insensible string went taut, guiding me around the cottage and past a thriving garden. A red hen squawked and leapt ahead of me, nearly underfoot.

A goat bleated at me, but I ignored it in favor of the lure within me that pulled me through the pasture.

Harmonious humming floated to life, dampening the sound of the coursing stream. On the other side, an astounding, vibrant meadow stretched to the edge of the distant forest.

If not for the pulsing wounds, I might have believed myself dead and heading toward the peace of the afterlife. Part of me longed for it.

Then she giggled, and I finally noticed the cow with her. An odd sight to be sure, but something about it ensnared my undivided attention.

My feet moved of their own accord, dragging me through swaying flowers that rivaled those of the royal garden. I was seeking the source of the divine voice that mirrored the humming goddess from my dreams.

Gods above…

It was as if I had been struck by lightning.

Watching her was like seeing clouds part at the end of winter to reveal the sun after the brutal, freezing months. Warmth suffused my chest and spread through my limbs. It ignited a heat between my ribs that pooled lower in my abdomen.

I couldn’t help but stand rooted in place and stare; my jaw dropped at the wondrous sight before me.

She was real, twirling barefoot in the meadow as if she was lighter than air and bound to take flight at any moment. She was a messenger of the gods, a being of primordial power, bewitching my senses.

A goddess sent from above to tempt mere mortals such as myself.

Her eyes were alight with joy, crinkled as she spun and giggled with the black-and-white heifer. From a distance, her eyes appeared light, perhaps some riveting shade of blue.

Silky threads of rose-gold hair unlike anything I’d ever seen fell in luscious waves to the small of her back. They were ribbons that called for my fingers to run through the strands.

At first glance, she seemed so wholesome. Innocent and pure.

She was smiling and beaming with some inner glow that rendered me speechless—thoughtless, even.

Her outward innocence called to the rot living within me. A contagion that roused to life and spread through me, slithering through my ears with whispers to corrupt, to claim, to possess.

That asphyxiating longing burned through my veins and incinerated the edges of my restraint.

She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

Like the rarest butterfly in the world, I wanted to capture her. To pin her down and spread her out on display.

She would be my most prized possession, and I’d keep her front and center for my delight. I wanted her with an instant need that should have frightened me.

Is this creature of beauty the one who saved me?

Despite the remaining distance, the light of her presence seized me. A creature of curiosity and yearning stirred within my chest, prowling under the surface.

My mind waffled through a barrage of questions and barely restrained impulses. Something about this woman sparked my intrigue and strung together a rope of intangible allure.

Lost to my mindless desires, I watched as she danced through the meadow with the cow as if they were old friends.

There was something infectious about her joy, and it made me want to hold her hands and lead her into a dance. A thought that left me almost unsettled as I’d never taken a woman to the dancefloor or even considered the prospect of offering.

So absorbed in her amusement, she didn’t notice me observing her from the edge of the meadow. And I continued watching her, my interest intensifying with each subtle movement and gesture she made.

She danced with the grace of flowing water; not a trained skill from endless etiquette lessons in youth, but a natural talent inherent to who she was.

Something simple she found joy in. And the sparkle in her eyes as she danced with the heifer and that effortless grace captivated me.

Here in this meadow, surrounded by wildflowers that had bloomed too early for the season, she was elated. She was at peace.

And there was an aura of contentment and hidden resilience within her that held my interest and propelled me into motion once again. There was something about this woman that spoke of soft sighs, demure touches, and innocent desire—something that spoke of secrets hidden in her heart and mind just begging to be discovered.

Secrets of the heart and body I was determined to uncover and keep for myself.

And it was that thought that sealed my resolve and sent me into the all-consuming gravity of her orbit.