Chapter 3
Three nights of careful feeding had established a rhythm between them. Adrian would sit in his warded study while Lirith drew small amounts of essence enough to quiet her hunger without endangering him. It was clinical. Controlled. Safe.
Until the mist followed her home.
Lirith materialized in Adrian's study to find him asleep over his books, ink staining his cheek. She smiled despite herself, reaching to wake him, when the temperature dropped sharply.
The candles guttered. Shadows pooled wrong.
"Adrian, wake up!" She shook his shoulder hard.
He jerked awake. "What…"
A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere: "So this is the mortal who's tamed you."
Lirith spun, positioning herself between Adrian and the coalescing darkness. "Corvain. You were warned."
The spirit manifested in fragments a face here, hands there, his form splitting across multiple spaces simultaneously. His obsidian eyes fixed on Adrian with predatory interest.
"Warned, yes. But not forbidden." Corvain's smile was razor sharp. "I've been watching your little arrangement. How... domestic. The mighty succubus, reduced to sipping essence like weak tea." He circled them through impossible angles. "I came to remind you what real hunger feels like."
Adrian stood, placing a hand on Lirith's shoulder. She felt his pulse racing but his voice stayed level. "You're a jealous spirit. Envy manifest. The wards should hold you."
"Should they?" Corvain's laughter fractured across dimensions. "Your wards were designed for simple demons, boy. I am older. More patient." His form split further. "And I know what she really craves."
Before Lirith could react, Corvain's essence slammed into her mind visions of consuming Adrian completely, of the power his scholarly soul would provide, of ending her hunger permanently. The curse roared in response, recognizing truth in the images.
"Stop!" She staggered, fighting the temptation.
"Why deny yourself?" Multiple versions of Corvain surrounded her, each whispering. "He's just meat. Just fuel. You're fooling yourself with this partnership charade. Eventually you'll slip. Eventually you'll drain him dry. Why not now? Why not end his fear and your hunger in one perfect moment?"
Adrian's hand tightened on her shoulder. "Lirith. Look at me."
She did, seeing his amber eyes clear and certain despite the terror underneath.
"I trust you," he said simply.
Those three words cut through Corvain's manipulation like light through shadow. Lirith's power erupted not in hunger, but in fury. Her true form manifested, wings unfurling, and she grabbed Corvain's primary manifestation by the throat.
"You don't understand anything about what we have," she snarled. Purple light blazed from her eyes. "This isn't denial. It's a choice you'll never comprehend."
She pulled, ripping essence from him not to consume, but to scatter. His multiple forms screamed as she tore his cohesion apart, forcing him to retreat or dissolve entirely.
"He'll die!" Corvain shrieked as he fragmented. "Mortals always do! And when he does, when you're alone again, drowning in grief I'll be there! Waiting! Always waiting!"
Then he was gone, leaving only dissipating shadows.
Lirith collapsed to her knees, shaking. The hunger had nearly won. For a moment, she'd actually considered
"Hey." Adrian knelt beside her, not touching but present. "You didn't. That's what matters."
"I wanted to," she whispered. "For a second, I wanted to consume you. To end this constant hunger and just…" Her voice broke.
"But you didn't." He finally touched her hand. "And you won't. I know the difference between someone fighting their nature and someone embracing it. You're fighting. That's enough."
She looked up at him, this fragile mortal who somehow saw her more clearly than she saw herself. "How can you trust me after that?"
"Because trust isn't about certainty. It's about choice." Adrian smiled slightly. "You choose to resist every day. That's worth more than never being tempted at all."
Lirith felt something crack in her chest not the curse, but something older. The belief that she was only her hunger. Only her nature. Only the sum of what she consumed.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
They sat in silence as the candles steadied, the shadows returning to normal. Finally, Adrian spoke again.
"We need better words. Something specifically for obsessive entities." He stood, pulling books from shelves. "And I think... I think we need to address the underlying problem. Your hunger isn't going to disappear. We're managing symptoms, not causes."
"The curse," Lirith said.
"Exactly." He spread a journal. "My grandmother's last entries mention something called the Binding Ritual—a way to potentially weaken curses by creating an alternative anchor. If your curse binds you to consume essence, maybe we can partially bind you to something else. Someone else."
"You." She understood immediately. "You want to deepen our connection."
"It's risky," Adrian admitted. "The bond we formed was passive. This would be active. Intentional. It might make the feeding easier, but it would also tie us together in ways we don't fully understand." He met her gaze. "I'm willing to try if you are."
Lirith thought of Corvain's words that Adrian would die eventually. That she'd be alone again. The spirit was right about that much. But maybe the point wasn't avoiding the pain. Maybe it was choosing what mattered despite it.
"Yes," she said. "Let's try."
They worked through the night, translating his grandmother's notes, preparing the ritual components. As dawn approached, they stood in the center of a new circle one designed not to contain, but to connect.
Adrian took her hands. "Ready?"
Lirith nodded, feeling the curse writhe uncertainly. "Ready."
He spoke the words Evelyn had written, and Lirith felt power flow between them not consuming, but intertwining. The curse fought, trying to maintain its hold, but something else was forming. A bridge. An anchor. A choice made manifest.
When the ritual was completed, she gasped. The hunger was still there, but quieter. Manageable. And underneath it, something new: his presence, constant and steady, like a heartbeat she could always feel.
"It worked," she breathed.
Adrian swayed slightly, and she caught him. "Dizzy," he muttered. "But alive. That's good."
She laughed despite everything, helping him to his chair. "Very good."
As he recovered, Lirith noticed something on his desk a single flower, glowing with soft light. Impossible in his stone study, yet there it was. The same type that had bloomed in the Veiled Gardens when she'd refused Corvain.
She picked it up carefully, understanding it was blooming with it.
This was what they were creating together. Something that shouldn't exist but did anyway. Something fragile and impossible and worth protecting.
"Adrian?"
"Mm?"
"Thank you. For seeing past what I am to what I'm trying to become."
He smiled, eyes already drooping toward exhausted sleep. "Thank you for choosing to become something. That's harder than staying the same."
As he dozed, Lirith kept watch, the flower's light reflecting in her eyes. Somewhere in Ebonveil, Corvain nursed his wounds and plotted. Somewhere deeper, older entities took notice.
But here, in this moment, in this room
, something unprecedented was growing.
Hope, watered by trust, taking root in darkness.
And refusing to die.