Page 28 of Bound By Darkness

After another few hours, Baron returns. He makes his camp within a dense section of the forest, maybe twenty feet awayfrom the rest of us. Dragan’s taken a spot beneath a tree ten feet from me. Once he gets up to tend to the fire and his back is towards me, I glance down at Flumph.

“Flumph,” I whisper in a voice so low, Dragan doesn’t hear me.

“Yeah?” the little creature asks as he looks up at me from my lap.

“I need you to untie my ropes,” I say.

Of course, he looks apprehensive. “I ain’t thinkin’ that’s a good idea, Angelbus,” he says.

“Please. The ropes are cutting into my wrists and my arms feel like they’re pulling out of their sockets,” I say persuasively as I make sure Dragan’s back is still facing me. “I won’t be able to sleep like this, and Cambion wants us all to rest for the walk tomorrow.”

“But Cambion gonna be real pissed-like if he find out I let ya loose.”

“He won’t find out,” I answer quickly. “I’ll have you retie me first thing in the morning, before he wakes up.”

Flumph hesitates and I realize I’ve got him.

Yes, I feel sorry for the little guy because Cambion will be annoyed with him once the morning comes and he realizes I’m gone and Flumph untied me. But ultimately, my leaving them will be better for everyone concerned.

“Okay,” Flumph says as he pushes off my lap and jumps to the ground before starting around to my back where my hands are tied. “But you be sure to wake up real early.”

“I will,” I assure him.

Once he frees my wrists, I pull my arms forward and flex my hands, trying to get the feeling back into them. Then I lean against the tree and drop my arms behind me, so Dragan won’t notice they’re unbound.

After another hour, Flumph is snoring in my lap and Dragan’s eyes are closed as he leans against the tree with his long legs extended out before him. Cambion’s eyes are wide open but only the whites of them show—it’s part and parcel of his meditative trance. Baron is nowhere to be seen.

The moment for me to make my escape has come.

I carefully shift Flumph and place him on a bed of pine needles. Then, watching Dragan, I move as stealthily as I’m able, tip-toeing away from the perimeter of our camp. It’s maybe a few more seconds and I’m bathed in the darkness of the trees. I don’t hear anything from the camp that would hint to the fact that I’ve been discovered missing.

With a new sense of determination mixed with even more worry and fear, I start making my way through the dark forest. There’s an overall sense of foreboding and heaviness weighing me down, but I try to shake the feelings off. There’s no point in wishing things could be different—they aren’t.

As I travel deeper into the forest, sounds distract my ears. I hear the calling of a lone owl off in the distance, and the shifting of the foliage as woodland animals scamper through it. The moon lights my way in milky rays of blue, but there’s no path to follow. Only miles and miles of endless pine trees and forest scrub.

I notice a spring bisecting my path so I decide to follow it, hoping it will lead to a town. Once there, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’ll be sure to hide the fact that I’m an angel. As long as I can keep my back covered, I should be able to pass as something else. Granted, I don’t have the ears of the fae and I don’t look like I’m demon, much though I am one.

You’ll figure it out when you get wherever you’re going, Eilish,I tell myself. The good news is that I’m no longer an addict, so at least I have that going for me. Maybe I’ll be able to find a respectable job and earn a wage, meager though it maybe. Beggars can’t be choosers and I’ll be happy doing anything as long as it doesn’t involve selling my body.

But what about the Succubus within you?I wonder.What about the fact that you’re going to need a man sexually in order to feed yourself?

I’ll worry about that later,I answer staunchly.And finding a man for sex will be the least of my worries.

But then I begin to wonder what it will mean to have sex with a man again. Immediately, my thoughts return to Dragan and the memories of our lovemaking. I’m overcome with a deep sadness as I remember the expression on his face as he pushed inside me. The idea of having sex with anyone else leaves me cold. I don’t want another man. I want…

It doesn’t matter what you want!I rail at myself.Dragan is your past, and this moment marks the start of a new life for you, Eilish.

I notice Morrigan’s voice is conspicuously silent. I wonder what she thinks of the fact that I’ve gone off on my own. I figure she doesn’t approve, or else I would have heard from her? Of course, the more I think about it, the more I realize I haven’t heard from her much at all lately. Usually, though, I only hear from her in times of crisis when I’m physically threatened by something, so maybe this silence isn’t so odd?

I immediately envision the man, Silvanus, who visited me. Although my memories of him are sketchy at most, and seem to grow sketchier as more time passes, I remember his distrust of Morrigan. I wonder if he has something to do with the fact that I haven’t heard from the Midnight Queen?

I don’t have an answer for myself so I return to thoughts regarding what it means to be Succubus. I have so many questions about this part of me. Not that I ever had any real answers about the angel side of me, but of this demon side, I know even less.

If I’m forced to have sex with another man in order to feed the Succubus, will I drain him of his life essence and kill him, similar to what a vampire can do? Will my sexual needs be the same as Baron’s bloodlust? Will I be overcome with… lust? Such that it consumes me and I can’t control myself?

CHAPTER EIGHT

DRAGAN

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