Dion's POV
The moment Ciaran's hand sliced through the air, Dion felt it—like being ripped from the room, the heat, her skin. Her sounds. One second he was on his knees, tongue coated in the taste of her pleasure, her body arching in shared release—and the next, he was nowhere.
Nowhere and everywhere.
The world around him was black. Not shadow—shadow he could fight. This was void. It pulsed with Ciaran's cruel magic, and Dion's body was no longer fully his. He couldn't see her anymore, but her sounds echoed—muted, distant, wrapped in velvet sin. Each moan, every soft cry she gave him… it was still reaching him, tormenting him.
And he was hard. Achingly, painfully hard.
He clenched his jaw, his hands trembling at his sides. "Damn you," he whispered, but his voice was swallowed by the dark.
"She asked for it"
Ari's voice echoed in his head, but it wasn't mocking—it was soft, torn. Conflicted. Dion could feel her just beneath his skin, like static. Her soul pressing into his ribcage, trying to bleed through.
"She asked for him not us".
"I know," he breathed. "I know. But did you feel it, Ari? She still responds to us. Still—still needs us."
"But she wants him".
There was silence. Then a whisper: "He's marking her in ways we can't undo."
That truth slashed Dion like a blade.
He'd tried to undo Ciaran's spell—tried everything. Each time he did, the magic lashed out like a living thing, drinking him dry, turning his power against him. It was feeding on him, binding itself to Therrin deeper each time he resisted.
He couldn't save her from this.
"She doesn't need saving. Ari said. "Not like that. She needs someone who will understand what this means. What she's becoming".
Dion clenched his fists, panting. "And you think he does?"
"No I think he only understands what he wants to take".
Another sound came through the void. A whimper. Her voice, strained and high. Not in pain—worse. In overwhelming need.
Dion groaned, folding over himself. Her desire throbbed in his chest, laced with shadow and magic, but it was hers. Raw. Real. He could taste it on the back of his tongue. She was close again, trembling again, and he wasn't there.
"She asked to be alone," he hissed. "She doesn't want us watching."
"And yet you still feel it" Ari murmured. "You feel everything".
Dion slammed his back against the unseen wall of the void. "Then what do I do?" he asked bitterly. "Just stand here? Burn? Watch her give herself to someone who doesn't deserve her?".
There was no answer at first. Then a slow hum from Ari.
"No. You don't just watch. You learn. You learn how to make her choose you…even when her body is begging for him".
Dion's heart stopped. Then thundered.
"You want to be worthy of her? Ari asked gently. "Then feel this. All of it. And remember it. Because when she's finally free…you'll be the one she begs for".
The sounds of Therrin's moans deepened, sharper now, her breathless gasps reaching him like sirens through storm water.
And Dion—helpless, burning, aching—closed his eyes and committed it all to memory.
The void pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, deliberate, cruel.
Dion knelt in it, his chest bare, still slick with sweat from when Therrin had writhed under his mouth. Her taste haunted him. Not just her physical scent, but the way her soul had bloomed beneath his touch—how her magic had responded, flaring like a second sun, even as her body begged for Ciaran.
He'd felt it—felt her core trembling with confusion, need, chaos.
And he hadn't been enough.
"You think she's lost to him now?' Dion whispered aloud, not expecting an answer.
But Ari stirred inside him, a slow shadow stretching along his bones. "No. She's not lost. But she is… slipping."
Ari's voice wasn't angry. It wasn't even jealous. It was haunted. Because she knew what Dion knew:
Ciaran was marking her not just with magic—but with pleasure. With ownership. With touch that rewrote memories and made her body forget the difference between danger and desire.
"I should've fought harder"
Ari sighed. "We did fight. That's what got us banished here."
A pause. Then:
"It's not about fighting now. It's about knowing when to move".
Dion's hands curled into fists.
"She's starting to see, you know"
That brought Dion's head up. "What?"
"It's faint…but her sight. It's returning. Like magic. Ciaran is fueling it somehow. He's showing her things, in ways we can't. That's why her body is turning toward him. He's gifting her the illusion of control".
Dion stood. The void didn't stop him—it let him. It was more cruel that way.
"Then we take it back".
Ari was silent for a long time. Then: "How?"
"I remind her who I am," Dion said softly, his voice turning sharp. "Not the man who worshipped her from afar. Not the fool who waited politely. But the one who knows her—the one who loved her before she even knew what love was."
He closed his eyes, reaching for the string that always connected them. It was faint now. Buried under pleasure, need, control. But it was there. It had to be.
And then—
He found it.
Flickering.
A single thread of gold tangled in shadow. Her heartbeat. Her soul. Still his. Still hers.
"You feel it too, don't you?' He whispered aloud to her, even if she couldn't hear him "even now. Even under him".
"You know I'll come for you".
The thread pulsed.
Ari gasped inside him. "She heard that."
Dion's smile was slow. Dark. Steady.
Good.
Then he spoke again—this time directly to Ciaran, knowing the bastard might hear:
"You can have your moments, your games, your stollen moans…but her soul doesn't belong to you. It never did. You're just a cheater, Ciaran. I'm the end of the story".
A sudden crack split the void—like glass fracturing under pressure.
Ari shivered in his chest. "That… was her," she said.
Dion nodded.
"She's still ours. Even if she doesn't know it yet."
Therrin's POV
The moment Dion vanished, it was like a veil lifted — not from her mind, but from her world. The air grew thicker. Darker. Richer. The only light that mattered now flickered from Ciaran's eyes.
He was still above her, crouched low like a beast tasting the curve of its prey. His shadows pulled tighter around her body, binding her ankles to the air, her wrists to nothing. She didn't struggle. She offered herself, spine arching like a bowstring drawn tight.
The last breath of Dion's presence was gone. And with it, the hesitation that haunted her.
Ciaran hovered just above her lips, his smirk razor sharp.
"That's better," he whispered. "Just you and me now."
Therrin met his gaze without flinching. "It always should've been."
He made a sound—half-laugh, half-growl—and kissed her hard. Not a claiming. A celebration. Like he'd won something no one else ever could.
"You say that now," he said against her mouth, "but I'll make you mean it."
"I already do."
Her voice was low, heavy with hunger. And he heard the truth in it.
She didn't want soft. She didn't want salvation.
She wanted shadow.
Wanted him.
"Tell me what you need," he said, lips brushing her throat. "What do you crave, Therrin? Be exact."
She shivered.
"I want your shadows around my throat. I want them inside me, deeper than they've ever been. I want your voice in my ear telling me I'm yours. That I'm not getting out."
Ciaran groaned low in his chest, dragging his hand down her torso. His fingers left marks of chill and fire in equal measure.
"So greedy," he murmured. "You really do want to be ruined, don't you?"
"By you," she breathed. "Only you."
He snapped his fingers and the air around her throat tightened, not painfully—but possessively. A whisper of shadow coiled down her body, curling along her ribs, teasing her hips, sliding between her legs in a touch that was almost sentient.
She cried out — and he smiled like the sinner he was.
"That's it," he said. "Sing for me. No one else is listening now."
And he dove back in, mouth and shadow together, as if he meant to worship her until she forgot her own name — and only ever remembered his.
She was floating—no, unraveling—thread by thread beneath Ciaran's touch. The shadows curled into her like smoke with fingers, like memories that burned.
She'd asked for this. Every whisper, every press of him into her body, into her mind, was exactly what she wanted.
But then—
"You know I'll come for you".
The voice was faint. Far. But it scraped across her skull like a dull blade.
Her breath caught. Not from pleasure this time—but from intrusion.
Dion.
No matter how far Ciaran had cast him, some tether still clung to her soul like a stubborn echo.
"Ciaran…" she rasped, turning her head, her brow furrowed in frustration. "I can hear him. He's still trying to reach me. I didn't call for him—I don't want him. But he won't let go."
Ciaran stilled. His mouth paused just above her collarbone. Slowly, dangerously, he lifted his gaze to hers.
And smiled.
Not kind. Not amused. Something darker. Like a god who'd just found a reason to punish.
"Still clinging like a dog to scraps," he murmured. "Even when you're already mine."
He raised a single finger, and a wisp of shadow slid upward like smoke until it hovered near her temple.
"Let me speak to him."
Therrin nodded once.
The shadow touched her skin—and Ciaran's voice echoed through her mind like a thunderclap.
"She doesn't want you, Dion. Do you hear her moaning under you now? No. That's me. That's my power she's begging for. My name she's whispering when she arches and breaks and begs for more."
Silence.
Then the faintest pulse of protest, like Dion was trying to respond—but couldn't get through.
Ciaran chuckled, low and mean.
"You had your chance, golden boy. You wasted it with soft hands and false hope. She doesn't need light—she wants the dark. She wants to be used, possessed, ruined. And I…" He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Therrin's lips, claiming the sentence with his mouth before finishing, "…I give her what she begs for."
Therrin's body trembled beneath him—but it wasn't fear. It was power. It was freedom.
"I don't hear him anymore," she whispered, voice rough and glowing with lust and loyalty. "Just you. All I want is you."
"Good," Ciaran said, kissing her throat where the shadows curled tight. "Because I'm never letting you go."