Thread: The Gift [DirtyNerd x sweettea203]

Arcadias smoldering gaze was filled with rage and hatred. Rage that Dura thought that he could play his trifling games with Arcadia. Rage that Dura thought Arcadia could be distracted from his goals. Rage over the fact that it was working. That gaze, still overflowing with his hatred for Dura focused on Adeline as she stood before him as an offering. Need surged through him as he remembered his past. There was another witch, once upon a time and long ago. Arcadia had been little more than a Scavenger then, a lowly Demon whose task it was to clear the battlefields of Limbo of the fallen, maimed, and useless Demons who had fallen in battle. They were taken back to Butchers, who would recycle and repurpose the power of those Demons who had proven to weak to advance the main assault on the gates of Limbo as Demonkind sought to sunder their prison gates and advance en masse on the mortal world in the great culling that was to come. He had played a dangerous game back then and come out victorious. When a witch from the mortal plane had laid out a summoning, Arcadia had answered it to escape the enemies that would come looking for the power he had suddenly come to possess. To a Demon, time is meaningless. But the decades he spent in service to the witch had been pleasant enough. She sated his lust for blood by sending him for her enemies and she pleased the sinful needs of his body with her own. Helping her during his time on Earth, the witch had amassed great power. And then she made a mistake. The witch mistook Arcadias contentment for love and she had grown to care for Arcadia as an advisor and as a lover. Foolish mortals. She did not realize, of course, that Arcadia was just biding his time. The lifespan of a mortal was but a flickering candle to that of a Demons and he was content to wait for hers to end while he hid himself in the relative safety of the mortal plane. And then she freed him. Arcadia could still hear the witchs wail as he devoured her, stealing her power for his own and setting off across the mortal world to reap the world of mortal souls. It had been what had set him on the path to becoming Lord of Lefue. Adeline was not the witch he had devoured, but she was a witch and Arcadia couldnt help but wonder how delicious her lust for power could be, or how soft and warm her flesh would be beneath him. His skin burned as the tempest within him swelled. Need, anger, lust, hatred all swirling in a maelstrom of past memories and future possibilities. Still, he could perhaps swing this in his favor. A witch could more easily traverse the mortal realms to do his bidding. A witch could be a powerful servant. Not only that, but this mortal had obviously struck some kind of deal with Dura. No doubt the Lord of Luxure planned to use that covenant to get information about Arcadia, but this was a blade that could doubtless cut both ways. Composing himself Arcadia nodded, though his hungry gaze never left Adeline. I graciously accept your gift, Arcadia said, his voice surly and grim. Come witch, we leave immediately, he said finally, beckoning her forth. At the top of Duras castle his chariot awaited. It was a cabin of bone and sinew pulled by winged demons attached to the flying chariot with barbed chains.