Her vampire nature, expressing itself through light rather than shadow.
And gold.
Fae.
The heritage she only recently discovered, already integrating into the power that defines her.
The colors swirl around a central point that begins to take shape—darkness organizing itself into form that I would recognize anywhere, at any distance, in any circumstance.
The figure is a silhouette of power.
Not detailed features, not the specific arrangement of face and body that I've memorized across three years of watching her. Just essence given shape, presence manifested as outline, the particular impression of someone who has become central to my existence without us ever having the chance to properly explore what that means.
But those silver glowing strands of hair could be recognized anywhere.
My Wicked Cataclysm.
The nickname surfaces with the particular weight of everything I've never been able to say—all the times I watched her from shadows, all the moments I intervened without her knowledge, all the silent declarations of devotion that circumstances forced me to swallow rather than speak.
She walks toward me in the darkness.
Her steps carry the particular confidence that has defined her since the day she arrived at the Academy—refusing to be intimidated, refusing to submit, refusing to let circumstances dictate who she chooses to be. Even here, in this space between consciousness and curse, she moves like someone who has decided that fear is irrelevant.
She stops before me.
Whatever form I take in this mental space—whether hellhound or man or something between—she faces it without flinching. Her silhouette radiates warmth that I can feel despite having no physical body in this place, comfort that reaches me regardless of the barriers that should exist between us.
Her warmth is a blessing.
Despite me being a form that rules over flames of a thousand suns.
Despite carrying heat that should make any external warmth meaningless.
She still reaches me.
Still matters.
Still provides something that this cursed existence desperately needs.
Her hand touches my cheek.
The contact sends sensation cascading through whatever passes for my nervous system in this mental space—not physical touch, not the actual pressure of skin against fur or flesh, but something deeper. Connection that transcends bodies. Intimacy that doesn't require physical presence to achieve.
Then her hand moves to my neck.
The gesture is possessive in ways that my hellhound nature should respond to with aggression, with resistance, with the particular fury that this form directs toward any attempt at control. But instead?—
Peace.
She's offering peace.
And I want to accept it.
Her voice vibrates around us.
Not sound in the traditional sense—not vibrations passing through air to reach ears that process them into meaning. But communication nonetheless. Meaning transmitted throughchannels that the curse apparently can't block, words finding me despite every barrier that should prevent them.
"Do you trust me, Damien."
