Ivan's heart pounded in his chest. Pain lanced in from all around, the cold, as much as the loud sounds of screams tore at his mind. His heart was pounding in his ears and hammering through his arms and legs. He was trying to get up, to run, to move, or simply do anything.

  A face filled his mind. Red skin, healthy and vibrant, but the color of blood. A face he knew and loved. Horns of ivory growing like a sprout of thorns from her head. Her soft lips kissing his forehead, her hands, so large compared to his little fingers. Running. Running. The desperate cries. Screaming. Her face. Skin as red as blood. Purest white ivory and a presence so undeniable it could only by that of a God.

  The dream was a Memory broken from his mind, sealed and wrapped in bonds of iron. Ivan's heart still hammered in his chest. Tendrils of darkness threatened his mind, strange comforting, and carrying a familiar inviting scent that flowed through him. Vague, lewd, and desperate suggestions intruded upon his thoughts, and struck at his mind and this long forgotten dream trying to pull him away. His heart was galloping in his chest feeling like it was about to burst. The grasping tendrils of his mind fought against the burning bonds around the memory, tearing at them, pulling out the memory locked behind those bars.

  The undeniable presence came into his mind from the depths of the memory like a helping hand through time. The scarred face, a white beard as pure as the endless snow and the thorned ivory crowning his head. A bow, the spirit of the hunter, pride. The man was the presence, he was more, and he was ancient. He was the great father, his spirit, and his flesh part of Ivan's own, the connection pulsing in Ivan’s veins. The Great Hunter. The Hound Master. Demon and God living as one, young and vulnerable, but yet still so undeniable. Ivan's mind shrieked and rattled like a caged animal. Memories of blood. Screaming. Words came that made no sense. Words came that he did not understand, but whose meaning he had always known. The sound of them burned like hot branding irons into his ears, into his mind, and deep into his spirit. Then his pain lifted soft lips upon his brow.

  Pain. Power. Understanding. Blood. Skin as red as blood. A crown of ivory horns sprouting from his head. Screams. Blood.

  Ivan came awake with something between a snarl and a whimper. The Shroud billowed around him, consuming the faint moonlight, and deepening the shadows of his room. Quixla's dagger was a red-black fang in the darkness, and its grip warm as if it had been pulled from a warm body into his hand. He shivered in fear, confusion, and anger as he looked around the room, his mind not awake enough yet to realize he had woken himself with a nightmare.

  He panted into the dark of the tiny room as he began to calm. There was no threat. It had only been a dream. Yet he did not drop the dagger, or pull himself from his fetal position in bed.

  The shadows of the Shroud thickened and the leather of the cloak came free of his side enough to give space for Penelope to appear. Her petite form came into being at his side, legs curled close beside him, and her weight pressed against him.

  “Ivan...” She whispered, her voice a delicate purr.

  Ivan shuddered and finally let the dagger and his tension fall. Quixla's dagger fell away into the shadows of the Shroud. Ivan's hand went to his temples. His skull was on fire. His mind was a roiling sea of chaos. His feelings and thoughts were barely discernible to even his own mind.

  “Shhh... Shh...Ivan...” Penelope whispered comfortingly to him.

  Ivan drew the Shroud around them tightly with a thought. It became a billowing shadow, and the darkness of the room became absolute. He could feel Penelope there, and pulled her close to him. Her scent and touch was the only balm he could think of for this pain. He held her close, and let her drag her fingers softly over his face as he buried his nose into the hair line at the back and side of her neck and rested his aching temples against the cool surface of her twisting ram's horns.

  Her breath was hot and her body soft and warm. He took her up in his arms and felt her come willing into his embrace, but he was in too much pain to do more even if he wanted to. Her scent and being was what he needed. He laid down then with her in his arms, their limbs twisted in an embrace that blurred the lines between them.

  Ivan didn't know how long he lay with Penelope in his arms, but he found himself later coming out from the sea of chaos within his mind. He was nestled into Penelope's neck and this form's meager breasts. His lips were touching the bare skin of her chest, and his hands lingered in the soft svelte curves of her body that were covered in her silken black fur. Her fingers worked gently through his hair and stroked his face as gently as any lover could wish.

  He drew her nearer, kissing the soft curves of breasts with a feather touch of his lips before raising his head and sinking his nose into her sublime flesh. He realized with sudden clarity that as close as he was and had been he wasn't overcome with lust and his mind wasn't fogged. At least not like it had before. The new sensation was heady and fulfilling in a strange way. He couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

  He let out a hard breath.

  Penelope sighed and kissed the top of his head.

  “Shhh...rest my young master. Shh...let your mind still and be quiet some little more. It will only pain you for a little longer. Shh.....” She whispered, her words a haunting spell like caress.

  Her arms closed their embrace around his neck and shoulders. In response he took a deep breath of her scent. It was sharp, almost animal in nature, but clean and delicate as the scent of any flower. He wanted to bury himself in it. Surround himself in it and drink of its essence. Each taste of her supple skin upon his lips told him he needed more of her.

  He knew something more about her now. He could taste the age and divine nature of her soul, or at least the poor sliver of it contained within the body he could manage to produce for her. Its materials were good and would last until they were destroyed in battle, but he was using just the tiniest percentage of her power. He could feel what lay beyond now, and could imagine the struggle of frustration and patience it took to guide him as she had been these past few weeks. He knew then that he was ready to do more for her—that he needed to.

  Penelope felt his desire of course, her insight on him was probably all the more accurate for reading him constantly from within the Shroud. She let out a soft amused sound, a pleased and malevolent little giggle.

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  Ivan kissed the top of her breast and moved to her neck to do the same. Penelope practically purred with his gentle worship of her form. She made more soft sounds and her hands guided his kisses up to her mouth where he was granted a long taste of her.

  She let out a gentle, very soft laugh as she took a breath before kissing him again and again. He learned the shape of her soft tongue, and his hands massaged her back and muscles of her hips under her soft fur. This went on for a little time, Penelope praising him with soft sounds, and tinkling laughter until in the shadows a purple light began to shine and illuminate their faces.

  Ivan caught his breath as he stared at Penelope and the soft planes of her body as they were illuminated beneath him. Just below Penelope's breasts a circle was taking shape made of demonic runes. She made soft pleased sounds as she guided his hands down her body, over her breasts, and to the dark circle of power that was radiating menacing purple light.

  His fingers fell upon it in the small hollow below her solar plexus. A rush of tingling energy shot up Ivan's arm as he did and Penelope wasted no time in pulling at his shirt and its buttons to expose his chest. One by one he watched her draw them down, and saw the light of the demonic runes duplicate themselves in the very same spot upon his abdomen. Her fingers of one hand touched there, and she made more delicate pleased sounds as the other hand pushed him gently down away from her face.

  A shot of exhilaration filled his body as he realized what this new binding would demand, and as he moved following new instincts. He found himself kissing first the circle upon the very top of her smooth and lovely belly. And then kissed down, and down, and down.

  Each kiss brought another breath of excited energy from Penelope and each kiss made her body shiver with delight. He went on until his kisses past a soft line of fur and down still more. Her body trembled as he reached the destination, spent some time giving her loving service, and came to know yet another taste of her flesh. He went on as her breathing heightened, her legs tightened around his skull, and her fingers threatened to rip the hair from his scalp.

  All the while the energy he felt from the runic circle beat like the heart of a drum, filling him, binding him, more and more to her until it was hard to tell Master from Summoned being.

  Finally her back began to arch and with a sound of intense pleasure her divine taste filled his mouth. He gasped and drew away slightly as the ritual, and its perverse act was done. He could only stare at the trembling body of his lovely summoned companion as she lay before him, still entirely within the folds of the now massive Shroud. The Shroud itself was pulsing with dark energy and Ivan's mind itched with potential.

  “Here.” Penelope panted. “Come here.”

  He came without further instruction. It was a delight to hear her panting for breath in such a pleased manner.

  He laid beside her, somehow knowing that as much as his body might desire it, it was not the time to continue with any act like he had just done. All the same Penelope's first action when his face came within reach was to kiss him until he was yet again struggling for breath.

  She was breathing heavily herself, so much so that she struggled to speak.

  “You will take me into your Shroud. And you will go out. You will find a couple seeped in the depths of love. And you will kill them. Take the essence of their love in their still beating hearts and offer it to me. Please Ivan. Please do this for me. It will bind us together deeply now that we have reached this stage. Please.” She begged, barely able to speak with the rapid rate of her breath.

  He kissed her neck and drew her close by her hip with one hand. She clung to him as he rose, and faded as he drew away from the Inn's small bed. She withdrew to within the Shroud, pulsing with energy all the while as he moved like a shadow itself into the hall.

  He glided out of the hall, moving half in the shadow like a wraith. He didn't stop, but he stared back at the door. Had he opened it? His head was full of something heady and energizing. He could feel the various emotional states of resting patrons like heat rising in rooms otherwise full of the stale energy of rooms lived in only temporarily. He nearly came to a stop at a door not five down from his own.

  “Not here. Not here. Keep moving, Ivan. Go outside. Follow their scents out of the Inn. It can't be done here. They'll know. They'll suspect you.”

  Ivan didn't question her words, her voice was a sweet melody in his ears. He could still hear her panting, but inside the shroud she was just a mist veiled shape, a shadow of dense fog, only vaguely resembling her former self. He listened, and slipped away, the blade of Quixla's Bloodletting Dagger shining like a hungry fang in his right hand.

  Ivan...slipped through the window. It had only been open a crack, and was on the second floor besides, but he was suddenly outside in the street striding down the back alley. He blinked, and staggered under the strain of large use of mana, but so much was flooding into him from the strange new circle trying to bind him and Penelope. And there was something more. It was just beyond the sight of his mind to grasp, but yet it seemed ready to lend him strength and mana in fitful bursts.

  “Go! Go!” Penelope demanded in harsh whispers.

  Ivan followed the strange new sensations he was feeling. He slipped through the streets as silent as a stray cat, and for all that left even less of an impression as he passed. When he caught the scent he needed his pace increased and it began to feel as though he were sliding through shadows more than simply walking through them. His pace increased to more than he could sprint when he was entirely consumed in shadow, but though he realized at some point he was using magic to do this he didn't have the presence of mind to stop and reason it out. This ritual needed to be done. His offering to his mistress was of utmost importance.

  His...Mistress?

  Ivan came to a stop, his head aching from the active use of mana. Even if his mana pool was replenishing at a startling rate, his pool was the size it was for a reason. Part of a balance of being alive, and using his whole pool like this was exhausting. If he kept this up he would use more mana in an hour than he probably could manage in a whole day on his own. The backlash of this was the headache, and the mental fatigue currently plaguing him. It had finally done enough to trigger something in his brain to make him stop and re-access.

  The moment of clarity escaped his grasp as the scent of love came to his nose. He could hear them too. For a moment his reaction was entirely as he suspected, but then…

  Jealousy rolled over him like a sickness. Feverish anger beyond what he could comprehend made the street spin under his feet. It passed, but the need to complete the ritual was upon him again pressing out all other thoughts in his mind.

  “Gooooo! Iiiiivvvaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” Penelope screamed inside him.

  Ivan strode from the shadows, or rather, strode with them into the light. The innocent young couple were trying to keep their voices down, but they were full of drink, and good cheer besides. A guard of the night watchman saw him, the simple militiaman jumped out of skin seeing the shadows come alive from the dark of an alley and rise to a height greater than a man.

  “TAKE THEM! TAKE THEM INTO THE SHROUD IVAN!” Penelope demanded, her voice a terrible, all consuming roar inside his head.

  Ivan strode toward the couple. His head was spinning, and aching. His heart was hammering in his ears and through his body leaving lingering fingers of tingling, stinging phantom pain as mana was forcefully channeled through the impotent and weak circuits of his body. The effort of it redoubled as he cast forth a hand buried in deepest shadows.

  The couple, a pair of youthful adults, perhaps only a year or two his elder, were helpless against whatever he had done. Once he had taken them it was simple work with Quixla's dagger in his hand. The shining red blade parted bone as easily as it did armor, and their bodies came apart under his hands like puzzle pieces as he sought out his Mistress's treasures with dark fire burning through his veins.

  The Militia man strode forth with lamp and sword in hand, terrified, but sworn to his duty. He wore no symbols other than that of the town guard; his position, job, and rank given to him not by a God, but the town Mayor whose job was given to him by the will of the people, and as easily taken away. The narrow street of cramped houses in the little town of Suther's Ford bore some lights in their windows, and some even displayed the tall lamps known to the followers of light, but the creature of shadow and the happy drunken couple were nowhere in sight.

  The Militia volunteer was no coward, in fact he had raised the Militia job from its basic Class Job of Militia Recruit all the way to level 10 of the Standard Class Job of Soldier by both fighting and doing his duty. He had fought to defend the little town against the forces of light; essentially anyway, since he had stood in line with the adventurers and all the other members of the town guard to safeguard the people and their freedoms. What he had fought however had only been low level monsters, and normal things like giant predatory bugs, and large beasts. Nothing truly magical at all. The sight was too much for him.

  He ran and reported the missing couple to his superiors, but no sign of them was found for better or worse come morning, or days on as the search continued. The reinforcements would find nothing. And they never would.