2. “Through me, you will dream. Through you, I will awaken.”

Chapter 2

"Through me, you will dream. Through you, I will awaken."

NYXION

"Lovely" by Billie Eilish - Lauren Babic and Seraphim Cover

"Hypnosis" by Sleep Token

YESTERDAY

S he cannot see me, but she can feel me.

That is all I need.

She's the one.

I knew it the moment I saw her trying to escape Purgatory.

She is a walking daydream-wrapped nightmare.

Untethering the strings of her hospital gown, I strip her to my all-seeing eyes. Her dark purple hair swells around her head like a royal halo. Her bone structure is lovely. Her limbs are strong. Her heart is stronger. Her spirit is strongest.

Her skin is the definition of two-faced theater masks. Love and hate. Light and darkness. Bubbly joy and twisted horror.

Zenya Elise Myre has lived her life between worlds. She is perfect for me. I knew it from the moment I first saw her on the longest night of her life. Soon, I will share with her…

I brush my flesh-less knuckles along her right collarbone, which is clad in iridescent peacock feathers, loving how her decorative skin responds to my touch. While her high breasts lack ink, shield piercings surround each rose-tipped nipple. The left bears a slithering black snake enclosing the hard bud. The right, a Celtic sun.

One touch of my bony fingertip to the left nipple kindles her pheromones, and I smirk internally from the heat stirring inside her fragrant center. I grow harder at the scent. So dark and lovely—like a floral offering to the dead, blood roses resting on burial soil. And a hint of incense, warm and sensual.

I familiarize myself with her tapestry of artwork where the extreme contrasts of her persona merely brush one another at the center of her body. Sharing heat. A never-ending war of emotion—Devil vs. Angel, heaven vs. hell, sin vs. purity.

"Zenya Alice Myre," I murmur in the sterile air of the hospital room. "You are my vessel. Through me, you will dream. Through you, I will awaken."

I trace my finger along the circular serpent and the sun before roaming my hand lower. Across her abdomen, spirals of fire and water intertwine, representing her dual natures. Each caress draws out her potential, unlocking the hidden depths of her subconscious.

Zenya stirs slightly, her breathing deepens, as if she's reacting to my presence on an instinctual level. Her magnetic pull strengthens, even in her unconscious state. A low, possessive growl rumbles in my chest, bred out of my instinctive desire. More blood surges to my cock, and my balls swell, growing heavy.

I lean closer, my breath whispering over her skin, merging our auras.

Without another word, I remove the tube fed down her throat, nullifying any alarms that would signal the nurses. I'll be feeding her throat something else quite soon. Blood droplets escape her mouth and drip a thread of a crimson line along one corner of her mouth.

Placing my skeletal hand over her heart, I lower my head to curl my tongue along that corner, claiming the blood, drinking in her essence. My spinal cord locks up, and a deeper growl intensifies in my chest. Her blood is my darkest opiate. An addiction like poison in wine.

Little time passes as I eye her full lips, pink and pouty before I claim them. Parting them with my tongue, I capture her. She tastes of black-infused honey and fiery ginger—like an eclipse.

Her body rises, even in its comatose state.

Freeing myself of my dark robe, I take a deep breath and shift into my god form—save for my skull. For this transformation to take effect, she must receive both of my forms. She will take my blood, bones, and breath.

I undo my belt and fold the leather before whispering it down her form, imagining what her skin would look like beneath its striking heat.

After tossing it aside, I mount her and trail my fingertips along the delicate curvature of her throat. She is soft as gossamer. My cock throbs more at the thought of that tight, little throat strangling me.

Unable to wait longer, I grip her jaw, force her mouth open, and ruthlessly thrust my length into her mouth. Surrounded by the wet heat rouses a carnal need. I plunge harder, deeper, cursing under my breath as her tiny throat grips me like a vice. Unwitting tears stream down her cheeks. And a whimper leaves her mouth.

"Yes, sweet dreamer, you're taking all of me. Beyond the comprehension of any human, but you love it, don't you, little killer? Taking all of me. Every godly, damn inch."

I give her deep, violent thrusts, so once she comes to me, even in her wildest nightmares, she will feel the ruination of her throat like an echo.

A sudden splash of those delicious pheromones perfumes the air, heating the icy blood in my veins and triggering me to fuck her mouth harder. I fist her purple hair, driving myself deeper until a tremor shudders through her body—evidence of her shriveling lungs.

I pull out, cover her mouth with mine, and feed her the air she needs, tasting the dark honeyed eclipse.

Balls ready to explode, I contain myself, controlling my need to savor her.

In this silent communion, I envision the Eye of Morpheus—this powerful relic that will soon bind us together. Her dreams will be mine, and through her, I will taste the richness of human experience. I will feed on all those delicious emotions. My admiration for her grows with every second I examine her physical form as I will soon with her spiritual one.

Slaughter and chaos adorn her left arm in a fury of chaos, her battles inked into her flesh. Angry stitches coil around her skin like the aftermath of a monster's carnage. I will give her new marks. Her wrist bears a bracelet of thorns.

A cage of bones tattooed for her ribs.

On the graceful left leg is a mosaic of splatterpunk and grimdark. A symptom of her need to escape the confines of humanity and give in to the dark insanity of the Id inside our souls. Bloody teeth and broken crow wings. Torture and depravity.

What a beautiful fucking apocalypse.

Bony fingertips tracing the serene pink forest on her right leg, I glide my knuckles along the center of her pelvis, marveling at how she encapsulates the balance.

Skimming my skull along the moths inside her left thigh, I breathe in the scent of her glistening arousal until I arrive at the impossible sanctum where heaven and hell pass like strangers tempting one another in the night.

Pushing her knees to her shoulders, fully exposing her to my eye, I examine her.

Rosy, lush flesh shimmering with her arousal. Gluttonous. What a delightful development to find a triangle piercing for her sweet, distended clit. A pretty yellow sunflower tipped on one side with a tiny skull on the other. A piercing that heightens pleasure through direct clitoral stimulation. Or vaginal. Or anal. I wonder if the puckered pink ring has been tried.

After years of traveling the world and hunting high after high, this wanderer is nowhere close to the definition of a virgin. She seizes pleasure of all kinds, including sexual. Another reason she is perfect for me. Her imagination will be vital when she arrives in my Realm of Nightmares.

But she has never been taken by one such as me.

How she will torment me. How I will punish her. She will take it all. Not because she's a masochist. If anything, Zenya Myre is the opposite—too full of life and spirit, she feels too much. A mad storm of light and shadow, good and evil wars within her.

I will give her a siege.

First, I bury my skull in her soaked flesh, breathe her in, and draw torturous circles along her plump nub with my tongue. Her breath grows heavy. Her hips rise even in her sleep.

I work that swollen, little nodule with its pretty piercing. Long, slow strokes with the base to quick flicks from the tip. I seal myself to her flesh, letting her drench my bones and teeth until her center spasms, dripping for me. A mania possesses me until I'm stabbing phalanges into her soaked flesh.

"Come for me, my strange and sweet dreamer," I growl, approving when those strong inner muscles lock around my bony fingers. She gives me her release, her body shuddering with her ecstasy.

With her body softening into the bed from the aftermath of her climax, I tilt my head, gazing at my mad Alice, who will fall into a world darker than the darkest imaginings of Wonderland.

"Our journey begins now, Zenya."

The flicker of her eyelids suggests she hears me. Her soul resonates with my words, acknowledging the bond we will soon share. I mount her, spread her folds to bare her hungry opening, then touch her chest once again, savoring the quickened rhythm of her heartbeat.

"You will never be ready," I tell her, willing the words to penetrate the fabric of her soul. "You will never remember these moments. But you will seek me when you awake in my world. And try as you will to resist, you will be my slave."

I probe the crown of my cock along her wet lips, then part her folds, and slide inside the opening, which sucks me in. "Yes, you love my domination, don't you, little killer?" Our energy is a shared entity. Her world is crumbling away as she prepares to shatter for me.

The Eye of Morpheus is our shared destiny, and together, we will explore the realms of dreams and nightmares. So many centuries trying to create a weaver. So many centuries of only dream walkers who cannot give me their emotions. Others were not strong enough, and they passed into the afterworld.

Zenya is the weaver I've been waiting for. And my brother's Eye will bring her mind and spirit flesh into my world while her true body lies here. With her under my control, I will control her pain and pleasure, numbing and healing her when necessary…unraveling her and crushing her when I desire.

A dangerous risk. Her mind could collapse beneath the gravity of my godhood. Her heart could stop. And her soul would be lost to me, whether back to Purgatory or…Hades. But I've seen her nightmares and felt her terror, her darkness. She loves her demons.

She is ready for me.

I lower my head, skimming my tongue along her delicious lips that taste of honeyed violence. "I will haunt you, corrupt you, and save you until you kneel before me, ready for me to rule you for eternity."

Throwing my head back with a voiceless roar, I drive my god cock of nightmares into Zenya Alice Myre, fill every iota of her, and devour her sleeping scream.

I implant the Eye, knowing she is the only one worthy of its power.

Now…I begin to move.