Deion gave him a look of confusion, clearly not understanding who he meant. But Xander remembered now, he remembered everything. And as he whispered her name, too afraid to voice it loudly for fear of her coming back, he watched as Deion remembered too.
“Lilith.”
Xander closed his eyes, the gruesome tableau before him eclipsed by the memory of her, the last memory he had as a mortal. Her voice, even from his fragmented recollection through his previously human senses, was a melody woven from moonlight. She called out to him in an impossibly angelic language that he knew with absolute certainty he wasn’t fluent in, and yet understood. Her song had drifted through the trees behind where he and his squad laid low in the grass, trying not to be seen by any of the other soldiers on the field before they made their escape from the battle.
As his head turned of its own accord towards her voice, his ears straining to pick up her message, he finally began to understand.
“Alexander,” she cried, though not in sadness, but in what sounded to be pure ecstasy. “Alexander, come to me. Find me.”
Lost in her call, he didn’t even try to fight against the tug in his chest that pulled him to stand and face the trees, a willing puppet eager to dance to her tune. And then he’d seen her… and all concept of reality fell away. The only thing he could care about was the figure in white that beckoned him to join her, before she danced beyond the treeline and into the woods.
He rushed to follow her, to catch even a glimpse of the beautiful woman that seemed to control his very soul. He had not heard his friends’ frantic cries to stay with them, he couldn’teven hear the screams and gunshots from the battle. All he could sense was Lilith.
He had stumbled into the woods seeking her out, similar to how he used to drunkenly stagger out of the inn from his village to follow one of the girls back to their brothel. He was a good looking man, he knew that, but he knew looks were just for display, appearances were only useful to appease others. His mother had been beautiful, and that, in return, had been good for her business, good for pleasing men with pockets that were heavy with gold. But when she became sick and had started to wither, so had her beauty, and she was no longer useful to the prying eyes of men, nor their heavy pockets, leaving Xander a poor orphan when death came for her.
Xander knew that beauty was just a tool to fulfil one’s desires. He appreciated the prettiness of the girls at home, just as he appreciated the soft sound of the tavern singers or the warmth of the sun, but he had never been taken by anyone’s looks. Not until Lilith.
He didn’t know how he knew her name, couldn’t remember ever learning it, but he felt as if he had known her his entire life. And so he had followed his desire for her deep into the woods.
The abrupt urge to rid himself of his weapons caused him to drop his rifle, along with his knives and sword. He knew it was a terrible idea to approach unknown territory unarmed, and yet he could think of no reason to fear, thus no reason to prepare himself for an attack. Not when her voice called out to him over and over.
“Alexander, my sweet. Come to me, my Alexander.”
He heard his name in the wind, the wind that carried her whispers through the trees, as well as the aroma of the most alluring scent. He followed it, and found her standing beneath a large willow tree, waiting for him. Her long, golden hair cascaded down her back in waves, each strand catching the rarestreams of sunlight filtering through the thick canopy above. Her ears, subtly pointed at their tips, confirmed her otherworldly grace; a delicate sharpness that hinted at a lineage beyond the mortal realm. And her skin, a perfect porcelain, seemingly lit from within and radiating a soft luminescence, even under the shade of the branches. She truly was a vision plucked from a dream, an ethereal being that threatened to undermine his disbelief in gods.
With a languid grace that seemed to defy gravity, she slowly peeled off her white dress, letting the thin silk float into the air before it disappeared entirely. The sight of her tall, naked form, the strong figure she carried so well—it made Xander blush. He had only ever been in the presence of naked women when he was too drunk to know what to do, leaving him clumsy and unsure. But Lilith’s confidence, her unashamed beauty, was something else entirely.
A soft giggle escaped her lips as she noticed his flushed face, before she whispered his name once more, instantly soothing the nervousness within him. Her hand reached for his, gently pulling him to join her under the large willow tree into a space that felt both sacred and forbidden.
Even now, reliving the memory, he could still feel her cool, soft lips against his, her hands running over his body underneath his uniform, his hands exploring her pale skin and golden hair in return. When she pulled away, Xander couldn’t help but groan at the loss of her, but as she sunk her teeth into the inside of her wrist, the sight of her blood made him freeze.
“Calm, Alexander,” she soothed. “Stay calm, my sweet. Don’t you want to taste me? Don’t you want me running through your body? You want this, you know you do.”
His hesitation to drink from her bleeding wrist vanished as the soothing words of encouragement from her angelic voice reached his ears. He could not say no. He did not want to say no.And so he parted his lips as she raised her wrist to his mouth, and drank.
He sucked at her wound as she continued to utter words of praise, the strange sweetness of her blood filling his mouth was unlike anything he had ever tasted. But as her words died, as her soothing voice fell silent, the sweetness gave way to a sour, bitter taste. When she sharply tugged at his hair, pulling him away from her wrist, he noticed the blood was not red as he’d believed it to be, but black as endless night. It was then that he saw the evil that lurked beneath her surface.
The idyllic vision of Lilith twisted into a grotesque nightmare as she shed her disguise. The soft light that had illuminated her skin now seemed to emanate within her eyes, but with a red hue that bled into the glowing rings around her pupils. Her delicate fingers elongated, nails sharpening into curved claws that dug into his scalp, as the subtle points of her ears extended higher towards the sky. Her smile, once gentle and pure, had stretched into a wicked grin with sharp fangs protruding from her lips.
Xander panicked then, snapping out of whatever trance he had previously been in and realising the horrific extent of the situation. Lilith, the sweet angel he followed, was a torturous monster. She was going to kill him, and she was going to make it hurt.
How could he have been so blind? How could he have believed the facade she had presented? Xander couldn’t help but internally scold himself for being swept up in her beauty as he thrashed against her hold. He had abandoned his team, his brothers in arms, all to follow this temptress, this malevolent beast that would now destroy him.
She seemed to like his panic, enjoyed watching him struggle against her as she gripped his hair tighter and tore his head back, exposing his throat. She licked up from his collarbone, along hisjaw and under his ear. Her tongue felt cold and too long to be human.
“Hush now, don’t move,” she whispered in his ear. "Alexander, you shall be my first Daemon creation in this world. My first Lamia. My dark child."
He wanted to ask her what she meant, but he was unable to speak. His body was useless and limp against the consuming hold her words had over him. She laughed, all sweetness gone and replaced with cruelty, before she licked across his throat again. Then she stilled.
Xander held his breath, waiting for her to let go, or to hear gunshots from his squad, or for his body to regain its ability to move. He watched the sky begin to darken, the moon slowly beginning to cover the bright light of the sun. Seconds passed, and then he felt the explosive agony of her sharp teeth tearing through the side of his neck.
He screamed a silent scream and tried to push her away, but it was useless, she was too strong for his sloppy attempts to fight back. He was completely at her mercy as she drank from his neck, her teeth tearing away at the flesh, her cold tongue prodding deep inside his wound. Until finally, he was able to find his voice, and he cried out in agony.
He had never been in such pain before. Not even the time when he took a bullet to the shoulder during a training exercise, nor when he was a child and one of the boys at the orphanage beat the holy hell out of him before Nicolai, his closest childhood friend and third in command in battle, had stepped in. He would endure countless bullets and countless beatings if he could escape the pain Lilith was inflicting.
He wondered if he deserved it, if this was his punishment for planning to desert the fight, for leading a meaningless life. Xander thought he had followed an angel to lead him away fromthe battlefield, but it had been an illusion, a demon playing tricks on him.
There were stories of death taking various forms, sometimes to make those dying feel at ease. Xander was not a man of god or any belief, but in that moment he regretted his inability to pray for his soul and believe in a happier afterlife, because all he could see waiting for him was a world of darkness. His head felt dizzy, his throat on fire, his body convulsed as waves and waves of pain coursed through him. And all he could do was wait until the darkness closed in, and watch the sun become completely covered by the power of the moon.
