Merrie smiled to herself as she slept against Borias. Touching his body still hurt, but it was now only a mild itching. The frequent touching and orgasms had helped reduce the pain as pleasure overcame her pain. It felt good to have his warm body against her icy one. It was comfort in the darkness and gave her hope that she would recover enough to see the light again.

It had been a four days since Claston and the others left for the fair. Bass would be back the next evening, which both excited and terrified Merrie at the same time. She knew that her hatred for him was because of Haviston's compulsion but she still had a fear she would attack him. She knew that she could hold her own against Sable, simply because she had become more powerful than the one alpha. It was different with two of them, between Dixie and Sable, they would easily win.

The last time, she was able to fight with Bass, Tabitha, and the two alphas because she had Lady Anasome's perfume with her. The scene, Complicated Bitch, was her own private scent but it also pushed away compulsions and commands. Without it, she didn't know if the compulsion to avoid the mill would somehow come back.

She wasn't sure why she was worried. She was back at the mill. She was in the basement with her naked body pressed up against Borias. The one thing Haviston didn't want was for her to return, that has already been broken.

With a sigh, she pressed her cheek against Borias' chest and listened to his heart beat. She wasn't sure what happened to her anymore. Was her recovery because of the collar's powerful regeneration or something else? Did the Lord of Shadows have some other plan for her? Someone once told her beings that powerful always had a cost when they helped her.

Not wanting to let her thoughts dwell on uncomfortable topics, Merrie cast her senses out to her cloak. It billowed out of the darkness and flowed over her, looming like a dragon over her head. When she gave her own vision to the cloak, it was much easier to sink inside it and use its body as her own.

A ripple of power ran down the length of the cloak before it flowed along the ceiling and found the crack to the next floor up. Underneath the couch, it stretched out along the darkness and peered into the room beyond. It was dark but long before the false dawn. There wasn't a single creature moving but she could hear the buzz of summer insects outside and the ripple of smaller life surrounding the house.

She smiled to herself. It was nice not to be trapped in the room, though she didn't dare find out if the cloak could handle sunlight. Even if she could figure out how to see in the intense glare, she didn't want to risk it being burned away or destroyed. It was part of her, but the effort to recover the cloak sapped her strength. She had created it only a few days ago but she still had not recovered the energy to create a new one.

Rippling along the ground, she slipped through the house and enjoyed the memories that came from each room. She recalled when she was fucked in the bathroom, raped against the stairs, and even when she was comforted by Borias on the stairs back when she was just accepting her new role as a bitch and an alpha.

Flowing up to the third floor, she slid underneath Bass' closed door and into his room. It was almost like she remembered it. Along one wall were piles of pillows scattered in a large pit. That was Sable's bed when she wasn't sleeping on the mattress with Bass. Merrie remembered her first night there and sent her body exploring through the gaps of the pillows before cascading up along the bed.

Moonlight speared through the window. It was bright and glaring, blinding her. She pulled away but not before lingering along the shadows of the mattress and the headboard. After a few seconds, she lipped down and along the line of shackles where he had bolted her into place before gently fucking her ass with his massive cock.

After a few minutes of basking in the remembered pleasures, she slipped through the open door and back into the hallway. Her cloak flowed down the stairs in a sheet of black. It felt good to just spread her power out across the surfaces of the house while it was empty.

She reached the second floor and froze.

The door was closed when she entered Bass' room. Now it was open.

Fear prickled her thoughts. Down in the basement, her physical body squirmed slightly.

She sent her cloak back up the stairs, no longer enjoying herself but keeping it tight to the edges of the stairs and as hidden as possible. As she did, she reached out for Bass' room to double-check the door.

Merrie couldn't find it.

Frowning, she stopped at the top of the stairs, a puddle of darkness, and looked around. She saw Rendi's old room but her eyes slipped away when she looked to where Bass should have slept. Her mind was convinced there was only one room on the top stairs, but she knew it was otherwise. She spent days in it, days of being raped and pounded, trained and broken. She had every orifice of her body impaled on his thick, huge cock. There was no way she imagined any of that.

A pressure built in her head, forcing her attention away from his door.

The fear built up. She experienced the same thing many times in her life, it was a repulsion spell. It was a way of pushing attention away from a person or location by forcing their eyes to shift to the side and twisting the mind to stop thinking about it.

Merrie had spent years with Rimmy, a master of the repulsions. She also had exceeded the dark-skinned woman when Merrie took over shading their house over the years.

A pang of sorrow flashed over it. Someone had broken her shade—her repulsion spell—the night Kine was murdered. The gaping hole in her heart when her first master died tore at her and she felt despair coming in along the edges of her thought.

It took all her will to force her thoughts away from the dark night. When she did, she looked around and found that she could see Bass' room once again. She didn't remember when it became possible, only one moment it was there and the next she was dragging her thoughts back to it.

Warily, she focused her attention on Rendi's room and found that it was impossible to find.

The repulsion had moved but she sensed no magic.

Someone was in the house.

The hackles on the back of her neck rose up and a low growl shook her body.

She felt Borias waking up next to her. Frustrated, she yanked her cloak back and it raced into the basement, using the cracks in the house to hopefully avoid detection. As soon as she could, she released the spell and let her hearing and sight return.

“—wrong?” Borias whispered next to her.

Merrie let out a shuddering breath. She reached out and probed the shields around Borias' room. He was skilled at creating shields, but she didn't know if they had been pierced. She looked around, wondering what the stranger was doing in the various rooms.

“Merrie?” he asked again.

Merrie reached up and pressed her wrist to his lips. With a soft moan, she crawled up on his body and slid down until her damp pussy pressed against his limp cock.

He started to ask something but she silenced him with a thought. (Someone is in the house.)

The muscles in his body tensed.

(I don't know if they are watching or how long. They were in Bass' room and now your mother's.)

Borias tensed, the muscles of his body locking. He glanced around and she could feel him cataloging any spells he had nearby that could be used for defense.

Merrie sent a pulse of pure pleasure into it, forcing it along his veins.

His cock grew instantly and painfully hard.

Without letting him respond, she sank down on it and impaled her cunt on the hardness. With their bodies intimately together, she opened up her connection with him and felt the intimacy that only an alpha could have with their lover. (Fuck me,) she ordered.

Borias did after only a heartbeat of hesitation. He gripped her waist, his palm burning along her skin, and began to thrust. The pleasure slid into her thoughts and she felt the swelling of energy.

(Harder, dominate me.)

Borias grabbed her hair and rolled over. As soon as he was on top, he began to pound into her pussy, slamming it home. “Be taking this,” he snapped as he fought with fear, anger, and lust at the same time.

Merrie moaned and writhed underneath him, enjoying the hardness that impaled her. With each thrust, little burst of pleasure and energy coursed along her body. She let her mind drift as she inspected his shields for any sign of intrusion. They were solid as she remembered it, a shimmering wall that would keep out any magical intrusion.

Borias grabbed her throat, squeezing down as he accelerated his thrusts. Her entire body shook as he drove her into the mattress.

Not expecting his hand or being choked, she came as his cock pounding into her pussy. She sank into the helplessness and the difficulty breathing and thrust up against him, meeting each stroke with her own wet smack. Her body strained to keep up, she was still weak from recovering.

A heat rippled from the door. She looked at it but saw nothing but her eyes slid away. With a start, she realized that the intruder was about to enter Borias' room.

Frantic, she grabbed all the energy from her orgasm and wrapped her own mental shields around her. Darkness plunged into her thoughts as calligraphy swirled across her mind. The ink darkness flooded through her veins as she pulled a shade right around her body but left Borias exposed.

Borias faltered. (Where are you?)

(Keep fucking! Just pretend you are masturbating.) She knew her thoughts were tinged with her fear. She could feel the light coming under the door but couldn't see it. It burned at her skin as it peeked through the cracks. Whoever was coming had a lantern but was using their own repulsion to shield her attention away from it.

He struggled for a moment, his cock slipping out.

Merrie used the intimate connection between them to give an image of her body underneath him. She threw everything she could into giving it as much detail as possible. (Dominate me! Be a fucking master, now!)

He realigned his cock and drove it hard into her pussy, slamming it home. “Fucking cunt!” he snapped as he clamped down on his hand. He grip wrapped around her throat and choked off her breath.

Dark pleasures surged through her body and she fed it into the shadow, wrapping herself in a repulsion that she hoped was stronger than the intruder's ability to break it. Her attention was forced away from the door and she knew they were inside. Her body burned with their light, black mist rising off her skin as it began to darken and peel.

Merrie almost screamed out. (Don't scream!) she ordered herself. The command rippled away and came slamming back, a powerful command from her mistress. Her throat seized up as she continued to project her agony into Borias' mind.

He continued to slam into her, driving hard and fast. “Fucking bitch! Fuck, fuck!”

Knowing that an active spell might break the shade around her, Merrie cast out her senses and let them wait. It was a passive sense, not as powerful but much harder to detect. She focused on the places her mind would go but mapped out the places she refused to look. The moving heat and the burning of her skin confirmed their position. More of her skin peeled away, revealing shifting blackness that made up her core. Veins, dark as pitch, pulsed with her orgasms and the rapid beat of her heart as agony tore through her. She could feel her glass-like bones coming dangerously close to the invisible light.

The repulsion field moved across the room at a steady pace. It didn't rush, it didn't stop.

She bit her lips against the agony. Blood dotted her lip and she could taste the ether on her lips. She could barely concentrate with the rapidly pounding cock that slammed into her, driving her hard into the mattress. Pleasure and agony warred with each other. Her vision blurred as she mapped the intruder's circuit of Borias' room.

When it stopped, it was right at the foot of the bed. Whoever it was, it was looking straight at Borias and maybe her. The light from its lantern or torch tore along her skin, peeling back more of her flesh. Black blood poured out across the sheets, staining it almost instantly. Wavers of energy rippled off it as the shadows seemed to gather around her own life's fluids.

The fear rose inside her, choking her as she prayed her shade would keep against who ever was less than a meter from their bodies. She didn't know if they would attack or try to kill them, she only tried to shield herself from their attention and be ready to strike if they did.

“Why be fucking leaving me!? Why you be sold!?” Borias' cock was larger than it had ever been before. It slammed into her hard and fast, splashing cum everywhere. He had already emptied his balls into her and the wetness splashed everywhere. Each thrust of his hips ground against her pelvis. His knuckles creaked as he strangled her, the pressure on her throat threatening to collapse it.

There was a flash of energy, a detection spell. It slammed into her shade and slid off. A second spell went off, this one was lost in her shade, sliding to the side without even a ripple of power.

She studied the magic floating around her. It felt and tasted differently than her shadow or psionics. She thought it was related to Borias' magic but it was more dynamic and threaded with energies that were otherworldly but not divine. Borias' energies was controlled and structured, this one wasn't. She knew it meant that the person watching her had learned it intuitively instead of being trained to use magic.

The energy waved over the bed as the intruder focused one spell after another against the bed.

(Don't stop!) she commanded, driving pure lust through his veins.

Borias groaned and came again, his cock swollen and hard as he drove into her. Each thrust slammed his head against her cervix, punching it with incredible force that added to her agony.

Merrie screwed her eyes tightly close, fighting against all the pains that sparked along her pussy and throat. Her legs were burning, the air burned in her lungs, she was bleeding, and her shadows were leaking out. She could feel the black veins of her heart struggling to keep her inside her shell but it wasn't going to last much longer. She bit down harder on her lip, her teeth cutting into her divine lips.

The intruder pulled away.

At first she thought they were going to attack but it was a leisurely movement. The long agonizing moment for them to leave the room was torture. She could feel every beam of light as it burned away her skin, tearing away her only way of surviving.

Every slam of Borias' hips threatened to break her control. When the door closed, she tried to project to him but he was lost in his fantasy. She almost let her shade down to let him down he was killing her but then realized the intruder might have left something behind. She screwed up her courage and focused her attention on Borias.

His mind was a ragged mess. Her desperate projection and command had burned into his thoughts, driving him to masturbate with the image of her. It took her long moments to pry his mind away from her domination. With the telepathic intimacy, there was nothing to shield him from the full brunt of her command. (Stop!)

Borias slowed down and then stopped. Panting, he shuddered with one final orgasm and pulled out. The coppery scent of blood filled the air and she could tell that some of the stickiness that poured out of her wasn't cum but his own life.

“F-Fucking… bitch,” he gasped and rolled over.

(Heal yourself,) she projected.

Borias shook violently as he reached down. Energy rose around his hands and they began to glow.

At the first touch of light, Merrie jumped and realized she was vulnerable. With a cry, she rolled off the bed and hit the ground hard. Heart pounding in her chest, she crawled underneath the bed and summoned her shadow to wrap around her.

Even with the darkness suffocating her, she could feel the light against her skin. It only lasted a few seconds but those moments were agony with her burned skin ground into the hard-packed earth underneath the bed.

(M-Merrie?)

Merrie wiped back the tears and peeked out of the room. It was dark again. She kept the shade tight around her as she crawled into bed and nestled up against him. He didn't respond to her until she projected her position to him.

He wrapped his arm around her as if he was cradling a pillow. “G-Good… girl,” he gasped. (Merrie?)

(I'm here.)

(Why can't I see you?) It was always strange how Borias could communicate clearly via telepathy but not while he spoke.

(I shaded myself. They were in the room with us.)

(Did they see you?)

(I don't think so.) She projected memories of what she saw through his mind.

He stiffened for a moment and then groaned. (I've never come so hard that I started to bleed.)

(I'm so sorry,) she sent only a fraction of her despair at him, (it was the only thing I could think to do.)

He leaned back on the pillow. The air wavered around him as he exhaled hard. (Good girl.)

The remembered phrase rippled through her body, giving her a bit of strength.

(Do you think they left something behind?)

(They didn't attack and they didn't take anything I saw. What else would they be doing?)

(Detection or remote sensing. Mages used to put them on bugs to spy on others. It could also be a trap.) He held her tight against his body.

The movement caused pressure on her wounds and she winched from the agony. (Wouldn't they just set them off.)

(It depends on what they want. Sometimes it's better to have them ready in case you need them at the right moment. At school, I heard how some mages would leave killing traps hidden in an embassy for years until they were needed. By then, everyone stopped looking and never realized their death was only inches from their head.)

Merrie shivered at the thought. (They were in the rest of the house. I felt them moving around but I don't know for how long.)

(There could be dozens of traps or bugs then. No chance we would catch them all.) Frustration and fear rose in his thoughts. (We wouldn't even know if there were any in here. Is that why you are still hidden?)

She thought about it. She was just using remote sensing herself, it made sense that someone else would do it. She couldn't drop the shade without risking being caught. She nodded and projected her thoughts through the intimate connection.

To her surprise, sadness and helplessness came back through their connection.

(Borias? What's wrong?)

(I can't heal you.)

Surprise rippled through her. (What?)

(I felt what the light did to your body. I felt your pain. I can't heal that without revealing you. There is no way to heal those injuries without using magic.) The sorrow deepened and she felt it echoing in her own thoughts.

Taking a deep breath, Merrie looked down at her skin. It had peeled back to reveal the dark shadows again. Wisps of obsidian rose out of her body, blowing away with the faint breeze from both of their movements. It hurt but she knew she could take it.

Turning back, she looked up into his eyes and smiled. (Just tell me to survive.)

Tears ran in his eyes. (You be a good girl.)

She moaned and let the pleasure ripple through her body. It may take a while but she would recover. She had experience far worse already since she was reborn.