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Silence

Ghostly fingers across her face, cold and skeletal She sat still, let the spirit read her And breathed a sigh of relief when the shian to fade

He is ours We will protect hiic, one that made every hair on her body stand up in alarateway to the Abyss was closed once again Letting out a sigh of relief, she got off the bed and unlocked the door But when she looked out into the corridor, she saw only absolute darkness, all the la power

She could have easily relit the her father’s daughter, tired of being ugly, tired of finding herself aching for a wonderful, powerfulfrom the door, she crawled into bed

Evil found her in her drea at her until she bled "You think to escape , she held up her hands, backed away "No You have no claih made her bones tremble, her throat lock "I own every part of you"

Her back hit a wall, and she looked around in panic, searching for a way out There was nothing She was trapped within a glea black box, her father’s form a cadaverous shadow that melded with the darkness

"Now you will tell me where you are" It was a sinister co into her throat "You’ll tell me or you’ll die"

That hen she realized this was no dream It was a spell for which her father had spilled not only innocent blood, but his own For blood would call to blood, and his ran in her veins If she died in this nightmare prison, she wouldn’t wake in the real world

Calling her own ic, she tried to shove hih blood to armor himself in it Her power skated off the malice of him with a shrill shriek that sounded like a wohtened his hold, she clawed at his wrist Her hands caan to squeeze the edges of her vision, his breath noxious on her face "Where are you, dearest daughter?" Lips alainst her own, a terrible kiss "Where do you hide?"

No She couldn’t die She hadn’t brought Micah ho the life out of her, her heart a scrabbling rabbit in her chest Lifting hands weak and treers slipped, slick with her own blood No! She refused to give up, refused to surrender Not to hie of power - clean, pure, potent - sla it to the surface as her lungs released a final breath, she threw it at her father in a hail of razor-sharp daggers His screa into the drea and stabbing Gasping, choking, she used the intoxicating power in her veins to break the final threads of his spell, falling back into reality with a jerk that had her bolting into a sitting position

To look into the face of the Lord of the Black Castle

His eyes burned with black, and when he shoved back her hair to bare her face to the lahtstand, she didn’t resist "You bleed" It was a harsh state chamber, he returned with a soft towel in hand She raised her fingers to her throat, felt the welts, the stickiness of blood Shocked and shaky, she didn’t protest when he put the towel to her throat with his right hand, his left tightly fisted

Her eyes locked on that fist

Tugging at his fingers, she felt a dark wetness "What did you do?" She stared at the ash across his pal the towel to her neck flexed, pressed again "You do blood sorcery"

Shuddering, she understood He’d seen her trapped in the nightet herself out, his blood heady Her oas paltry in comparison Elden itself ran in his veins "Thank you," she murmured, even as she took a second towel he’d dropped on the nightstand and pressed it to his cut "You shouldn’t waste your blood It holds incredible power"

The Guardian of the Abyss gave her a look filled with such fury that she froze "So I should’ve let you die, Liliana? Is that what you would will of me?"

She’d insulted him "No," she said at once "But you’re far more important than me" Far more "If you die, ill becoer continued to glitter in the eyes becoreen once more "There will never be another Liliana"

Her heart kicked, stopped, and when it started again, it belonged to him, this Prince of Elden become Lord of the Black Castle She couldn’t stop the tre of her lower lip, couldn’t stop the tear that rolled down her cheek For the second ti in front of him when she tried never, ever to betray such vulnerability

The Guardian of the Abyss h sound in the back of his throat, and then she was being scooped up and settled on his lap, against the cool chill of his ar pressure on her wounds, she obeyed, even as she refused to let go of the hold she had around his palh the tears "I can taste the power" It was rich and dark and te The sorcery she could do with his blood No She threw aside his hand and the towel at her throat to huddle into herself, horrified "Let hter, after all

Strong fingers against her face, his arhtly in place "The blood you taste is freely given," he murmured in her ear "It intoxicates"