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Tales of the Wildermere: Darkness Bound, Chapter 1
Warnings for violence, kidnapping, non-consensual/psychically-induced forced arousal, and injury in this chapter. Proceed at your own risk.
Dorian Ash didn't enjoy this place, even though he was in part made from it. Even though he spent the better part of his time here. The Wildermere was a hazardous realm, full of things that can follow you back to the real world if you weren't careful. It was not an easy realm for mortals to access as a rule, but they still had a tendency to stray here sometimes, stumbling on access points in their dreams. Occasionally they found themselves trapped, perhaps caught up in the illusions and memory fogs of the place, perhaps captured by dream-feeders or other, more terrifying creatures, and sometimes simply lost, unable to find their way back to their bodies and awaken.
And there were predators from outside this realm, predators from the other side of the proverbial sea, that also hunted here. He had been on the trail of just such a predator for some time, a powerful, elusive creature that used this place as its stalking grounds, tagging victims to abduct later out of the waking world.
Tonight, Dorian was here to stop the creature, whatever the cost to himself, and to save the people it had abducted, if they were still alive to save. It was a part of who and what he was. A faction of the Dragons friendly to humanity had created him long ago to be a protector, a guardian to the mortals, eons ago when they had removed themselves from the human world to retire to the cliffs and aeries of the Wilderland, the world that existed on the other side of the Wildermere. It was his purpose, his drive. It was in his blood.
The stone in his hand looked like a cut garnet, and it gave off a faint glow and a softly melodic hum whenever he turned in the direction of a deathly frightened human in need of help, however far off that human may be. Dorian remained alert. In this place, wherever a terrified human was, there were sure to be predators close by. They were drawn to mortal fear like moths to flame.
The glow and hum grew steadily stronger as he neared his quarry, and as he pushed through the brambled underbrush that crowded the twisted, nightmarish trees of the forest, he saw the young woman curled up in the roots of an ancient oak.
She was dressed all in white, with luminous, pale skin, vibrantly blue eyes in a sculpted, somewhat angular face, and a fall of waist-length hair the color of ravens. She had her arms wrapped around herself as she rocked and trembled, murmuring unintelligibly. He approached her and lowered himself beside her as nonthreateningly as he could manage, and she looked at him with wide, clear eyes.
“A-are you going to hurt me?” she whispered in English.
“No,” Dorian said gently. The accent of his youth still tinted his words, a hint of old Scandinavia, though it had come from a different world altogether. “I'm here to help you get home. Come with me.” He offered her a hand.
She hesitated, then reached for his hand, clasping it with her own.
Her hand was cold, like that of a corpse's, and very solid, unlike the humans who became lost here, and it pulsed with energy black as the furthest reaches of space. Dorian tried to snatch his hand away, but the woman gripped it with surprising strength. She flowed to her feet, and the image of the raven-haired beauty melted into that of a sensual nightmare. Her skin turned several shades whiter, white like bleached bone, the hollows beneath her cheekbones and around her eyes dusted with grey, and her features became sharp, angular, though her lips remained full and inviting, their shade deepening to the color of blood. Her eyes were jet black, and a pair of twisting horns grew from her head. She was fully six feet tall when she rose to her feet, and a pale, leathery tail flicked about her legs. The sheer white shift mutated into a skimpy leather bodice which crisscrossed with strategically-placed straps that barely covered her small breasts, a skirt made of writhing, fluttering shadows that was almost indecently short in the front and trailed long in the back, and a pair of black leather, spike-heeled boots that reached halfway up her thighs and gave her enough height to be a sliver above eye level with Dorian. Only her hair remained the same, still long and black and impossibly glossy.
A tidal wave of lust crashed over him, and he gasped, struggling to hold it at bay.
Still gripping his hand painfully tight, her claws digging into his flesh, she stepped closer to him, brazenly crowding him with her body. He held his ground and snarled at her, and she smiled, reaching up to touch his face with her other hand. “Such a beautiful man,” she purred, gliding one black-clawed finger over his cheekbone, tracing the stubble-dusted line of his jaw. “I think I might keep you.”
Dorian’s body became instantly, painfully hard at her featherlight touch, somehow made all the more intense by the growing pain in his hand as her claws gouged deeper. Frantically grasping for the last shreds of his control, he gnashed his teeth at her and jerked his hand free, heedless of the way her claws rent his flesh or the bright red drops of blood that blossomed on his skin. The instincts that guided his steps and provided him with insight honed in on a crystal-clear fact: this creature was the one he had been hunting.
His purpose here was at a head. His intended nature took over, and whatever seductive magic the demoness was using on him shattered like brittle glass. She took a step back, surprise flickering across her features.
“Found you, demon,” he growled, and bared his teeth in a way that only distantly resembled a grin.
He let the change take him, shifting form as quickly as the demon woman had. It was easier in this place, with its far more malleable reality structure, than it was in the real world. Urged by curiosity long ago, he had once looked at his shifted form in a mirror. He knew that he maintained his height and build, but the color of his skin had deepened, taking on a metallic, gold-dusted bronze hue. A pair of enormous, black-feathered wings, each tipped with an obsidian claw, sprang from his back and beat the air, and his fingers also tapered into claws. His eyes burned golden in a face that now had bony ridges accentuating his cheekbones and the line of his brow, and he bared gleaming fangs at the woman, a low, animalistic growl rippling from his throat. His fingers closed around the long, wickedly sharp dagger that he had strapped to his leg. It was a gift from an old friend. A demon killer.
He just had to get close enough to use it on her.
The demon laughed. “Oh, magnificent. I knew I liked you.”
She hurled herself at Dorian before he could register that she had begun to move. Her claws raked towards his face, and he threw an arm up to block them, taking a row of long, bloody furrows down his forearm that seeped a deep scarlet into his torn sleeve.
He whirled and thrust the blade at her, but she spun out of the way, shadows whirling and whipping around her like living things. He followed her movements, matching her speed, striking and pivoting and dodging in a blindingly swift, deadly dance. Tendrils of shadow leapt out from her, reaching for him, but he scurried out of reach. The tendrils followed, darting towards him like serpents, and he slashed at them with the dagger, disintegrating them in a sweep of light, shadows fracturing and scattering like an explosion of dark glass.
The demon gasped in pain, and the shadows still undulating around her suddenly swept around her, concealing her from sight. An instant later, she was a dozen feet away, leering at him.
Star Queen's Fire! Few creatures of flesh and magic could move like that, even demons, even Dragons, and certainly not that quickly. Teleportation spells were possible, but it took hours of planning and careful quantum-geometrical calculations to pull off, and even then they were often highly dangerous even to innately magical beings. The risk of coming back wrong was too great. Dorian had seen the aftermath of some botched teleportations; he wouldn't wish that fate on his worst enemy.
And this Damiana had transported herself in the blink of an eye, none the worse for wear. What was this creature?
She prowled towards him, a feral grin twisting her lips and baring her fangs. “Oh, you beautiful, foolish man. You believed I was simply a night-wight, didn't you? A mare. A skulking little imp that sits on the chests of mortals and drinks up their fear like fine wine. But I am more than that. I am Queen Damiana of the Night Realms. I created nightmares, and all the intoxicating pleasures they bring.” She tilted her head and regarded him, hungry eyes traveling over his body. “Have you no desire to taste my delights?”
“Not interested,” Dorian rumbled, and started forward.
“But I have so, so much in store for you,” she murmured. She threw a hand out, and a ball of inky energy hurled towards him with astonishing speed. He tried to dodge, but it followed him, whipping around and striking him in the chest with the force of a freight train. He felt several ribs crack under the strength of the blow and flew backwards, slammed into a tree, and tumbled face down to the ground, the breath knocked out of him.
She was on him lightning-fast, pouncing on his back with an avian shriek, tearing at his wings with her claws. Agony ripped through him, and he screamed and bucked, thrashing his wings, and she tumbled off. He leapt to his feet and drove forward with the dagger, his eyes flaming molten gold, and she vanished in a puff of darkness again, reappearing several feet away.
“Give it up, handsome,” she crooned. “You're not going to prevail. I have the upper hand. I always have the upper hand.” Her lascivious black eyes roamed over his body again, and she licked her lips. “What a fine plaything you're going to make. I am going to greatly enjoy breaking you.”
She sent another wrecking ball of dark energy towards him, and this time, he danced to the side, stabbing at it with his dagger. The shadowy sphere parted like water, disintegrating around the blade in a spray of shrapnel that tore thin ribbons of blood all the way up his arm and lashed at his face, but the tremendous force it had generated still carried forward, unstoppable. It wrenched the dagger from his hand, snapped his wrist like a twig, hit his stomach, and sent him hurtling through the air, hitting another tree with enough force to split its trunk. He flopped bonelessly to the ground, his face in the dirt, the breath torn from his lungs even as he tried to choke out a cry of agony.
She held her arm out and he felt cold shadow-tendrils wind around his body. With a quick motion, she turned her hand palm-up, and the tendrils flipped him onto his back, twisting around his arms and legs and immobilizing them. Her fingers curled into a fist, and he found himself being dragged towards her, struggling and snarling but unable to break free.
He had one last chance. It was a terrible risk, but he was out of options.
He closed his eyes, reached out with his senses, and connected with the Wildermere.
The Wildermere is psychically connected with all dreamers, though it was created by beings much older than humanity-- older and more powerful even than the Dragons. For reasons he might never know, the Old Ones had created the Wildermere to serve as a bridge between the human world and the Wilderland, accessible to the mortal human minds that created an anchor point by which the denizens of the Wilderland could enter into the mortal world. Though it has an ostensible kind of stability to it, a strong human mind can still shape it to a degree-- at least until the Wildermere takes note of it and turns its hunger on the human.
Dorian wasn't human. In fact, he was in part made of the same stuff as the Wildermere, fashioned to be a champion of humankind, a being of immense will and mental strength who could walk between all three worlds at will. When his mind touched the world around him, it responded instantaneously, reaching back and entangling with him until it became an extension of his own consciousness, and he an extension of it.
It was not a thing he cared to do often. The Wildermere was sentient in its own right, and furiously hungry, ever greedy to expand and grow. If he did not keep full control of himself, he would be consumed, reduced to a dream-lost ghost forever haunting the forests, moors, marshes, and deserts of the place.
He lifted his head and locked his eyes on Damiana, and the root systems buried in the forest floor sprang to life, reaching up through the soil and lashing themselves around her, much in the same way she had ensnared him with her shadow-tendrils. She screamed as she was dragged to the ground, writhing and straining, her hold on Dorian falling away as he turned the hunger of the Wildermere on her, feeding it on her power, her darkness, weakening her. He rose to his feet, retrieved the dagger, and stepped closer, his face an implacable mask.
All at once, Damiana stopped struggling, and her features hardened into a mask of grim determination as she dug her will deep into the Wildermere. He felt the world around him respond to her in the same way it had to him, recognizing a being birthed from it, longing to re-merge with it.
She was strong. She was nightmarishly strong, and he wasn't certain if he could defeat her. If she took control of the Wildermere, he was finished. Dorian felt her will press back against his hold on the roots, and he shoved back with his own will, beads of sweat forming on his skin. He took another step forward, his lips peeling back in a snarl. The Wildermere roared in his head, its consciousness rushing through his body, chewing at his mind, trying to consume him. He held it at bay, forcing it to bend to his desires.
One step closer. Another step. Another.
He saw panic flash through her features as he loomed over her, and felt her double her efforts. Dorian dropped down into a crouch and raised the dagger.
She stared up at it in horror.
He plunged the dagger down.
She shouted a word and vanished within a swirl of darkness before the blade could touch her.
Dorian swore acerbically and spun, eyes sweeping the forest. The Wildermere surged within him like an incoming tide, bursting through his defenses. He would need to push it out of his mind soon or he would be lost.
The demon woman was gone. He could feel that clearly through his connection to the realm.
He sank to his knees, grimacing, and with a monumental effort of will purged the Wildermere from his mind. It poured out of him like a river emptying itself into the ocean, merging with the world around him once again. He let his human form flow into place once more so he appeared once again as a dark-haired, well-built man in his late thirties, with chiseled cheekbones, a dusting of beard growth on his jaw, and amber eyes.
He knelt there for a moment, panting, his many injuries throbbing jolts of pain through his whole body, too exhausted to consider moving.
A voice drifted on the wind. A woman's voice, moaning softly, the sound strained with terror-laced need. Dorian whipped his head around, on high alert. He retrieved the stone from his pocket and saw that it was still glowing, still humming. Whomever the stone had been guiding him towards was still here; it was likely that the demon had been tormenting the poor soul, and he had stumbled on her while searching for her victim.
He dragged himself to his feet and started in the direction of the moans.
He found her bound to a tree with her arms over her head. She wore a sheer white shift-- exactly like the one that Damiana had worn in her disguise-- that revealed the lovely, generous curves of her body. Her head was bowed as she whimpered, spilling a wealth of golden hair down over her front.
She jerked her head up as Dorian approached and stared at him with wide blue eyes set in a delicate face. Soft, mewling sounds left her lips as she tried to shrink away from him.
“Don't be afraid,” Dorian murmured. He moved closer, still wary. This woman was probably the real victim and not another illusion, but he needed to be sure.
Gently, he brushed a lock of hair away from her face, letting his fingers graze her cheekbone. Her skin was warm and soft and human, partially immaterial as most mortals are in the Wildermere. She gazed up at him with frightened eyes, but her jaw was set in a way that hinted at courage and defiance. In that moment, every fiber of his being awoke with the deeply-ingrained instinct to protect, to shield, to heal. Her fear and suffering tore at him like the claws of the creature he had just fought.
“What are you going to do to me?” Her voice broke on the question, but she kept her eyes locked with his. Whatever the demon woman had done to her, she had not been broken.
“I'm going to help you get home,” he said. “I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you. I promise.”
A sob tore from her throat, and she lowered her head. He passed a hand down her silken hair, pushing a soft, soothing energy through his palm. She trembled, but some of the tension left her body, and she leaned into his touch. “Help me,” she whispered. “Oh, God, please get me out of here.”
“I will.” He used the dagger to cut her bonds, and she sagged into his arms as if the ropes had been the only thing holding her upright. He held her for a moment, stroking her hair, then asked, “What's your name?”
She tilted her head back to look up at him, and a frown darkened her lovely features as she noticed the cuts on his face and his rapidly swelling wrist. “Angelica. You’re hurt.”
Gods, she was beautiful. She seemed lit from within like her namesake, sweet and untainted even by this nightmare. Again, he felt a surge of fierce protectiveness towards her, and a burning attraction that he refused to give quarter to. This was not the time or place. There may never be a time or place. She seemed to belong to an entirely different world than his own dark, violent home.
Still, though, it had been ages since he had been with somebody, sharing lives and intimacy with love and trust.
He shook his head, partly to clear his mind of that train of thought, and partly in reply to Angelica’s statement. “It’ll heal.”
“But I should--”
He shook his head, then gave her a reassuring smile and held out his good hand. “It’ll heal,” he said again. “Come with me, Angelica, and I'll take you home.”
She hesitated, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, then relented and took his hand. “What’s your name?”
“Better you don’t know.”
She stopped walking and glared at him. “Okay, mister tall, dark, and mysterious. I won’t press you for your name if you let me take a look at... all of this. I’m a medical student; I’m starting my ER residency next year.” She reached for his arm. “I... heard you fighting that creature. I don’t know how you beat her, but I’m grateful you did.”
Dorian let her take his arm. “Your gratitude is appreciated, and I promise to see a healer to make certain everything mended properly. I’m sure your medical knowledge is sufficient for the care of humans, but my physiology is different. My body heals itself very quickly.”
“Can’t hurt to look anyway.” Carefully, with hands that still shook a little, Angelica turned his arm this way and that, peering at the cuts, probing his broken wrist with expert fingers. Though his skin was still streaked with blood, the wounds themselves had already closed, leaving light scabs, and the bones in his wrist and his rib cage were slowly, nearly imperceptibly shifting back into place and fusing. He would need to sleep to heal fully, but he was in no danger now.
“See?” Dorian said softly. “I’ll be fine. Angelica, we need to move.”
“You should at least let me put that arm in a sling. It needs to be immobilized or it won’t heal properly.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Like hell it’s not!”
“Angelica,” he said, “will you please come with me before something else tries to take a turn at us?” In his present condition, he wasn’t sure if he could handle another attack, let alone protect the innocent woman accompanying him. They didn’t have time to wait around while she fussed over his injuries.
Her glare could melt a glacier, and even Dorian shifted uncomfortably under it. “Fine. Be an idiot.”
She fell into step beside him, marching with her chin up without so much as a glance his way, and he guided her through the forest, searching out the soft, moss-covered paths that would be gentle on her bare feet. A glimmer of insight ignited in Dorian’s mind as they walked-- Angelica had wanted to feel useful, to feel like she could contribute and take an active part in this situation, instead of being the damsel in distress that had to be rescued. She had felt powerless, tied to that tree, unable to defend herself from the demon’s torments, and wanted to reclaim her sense of power.
He reached out to touch her arm and said, “Keep watch as we walk, please? Medical professionals have an uncanny way of noticing tiny details that are out of place, and I might not notice these things since I’m searching for the portal.”
Her eyes widened a fraction as she looked at him, but then the determined, clinically detached expression returned to her face, and she nodded. “I’m on it.”
They walked side by side for a ways, Angelica scanning the forest for potential threats while Dorian split his attention between watching for signs of stalking predators and homing in on the way out. The portal burned bright on his senses as they drew near it, and he turned to look at her. “Go through. You'll wake up, and this will seem like only a bad dream. It would be better if you believed that.”
She looked at the drifting, twisting white tendril-lights of the portal, then back at him. “Was it a dream?”
He hesitated, conflicted. On the one hand, she would be safer if she didn’t delve too deeply in this world. But on the other hand, once a mortal crosses into this place, they always bring back a piece of it with them. And there are... things... in the Wildermere and beyond that might be attracted to that. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Stay out of this place, Angelica. Don't step through any more mirrors in your dreams. They always lead here.”
She chewed on her lip for a few seconds, then asked, "Will I see you again?”
He shook his head. “No. It's better that way. You don't want to be a part of my world.”
The flash of irritation returned to her eyes. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want.”
“You shouldn’t want it. My paths always lead here, in this place. It isn’t a good place.”
She nodded, lowering her eyes for a few seconds, then glanced back up at him, tremulous smile playing at her lips. “Thank you. For saving me.”
He gave her a faint smile in return. “Go. Don't look back. Don't hesitate; you might accidentally leave a part of yourself here.”
Angelica turned to face the portal, took a deep breath, and stepped through, leaving Dorian standing alone in the forest.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
