A Bloom of Darkness

"Arthur, that doesn't...." I couldn't even say those words, that doesn't make any sense. Superficially, I felt as though they were true. Felt as if I needed to say the words that I knew should be right. But they wouldn't come, because it did make sense. I could feel it and knew what he was saying to be true.

"I was always part of my family, so I am always born back into it somewhere, knowing what I am. But you? You were always alone, before me. Having given so much of yourself, you often don't remember, like now. And so I find you. You are always my light, Lucia. And I will always be your shield, protecting you, come what may. That first time when I had you in this body, when it was different, it was all our past lives, reflections of them, joining together. That's why it was so...."

"Perfect?"

"Yes," he chuckled. "That's why. And that was the first time I knew you were you. It's been ages since I'd found you so early on. I was over the moon, if you'll pardon the expression. But given—"

"Why? Why would I need to pardon that expression?" He looked at me a bit cock-eyed, but that seemed an oddity among the bizarre to me.

"Do you remember anything?"

Wide eyed, I could do nothing but shake my head.

"You are the celestial moon, embodied. Selene, Luna, Hecate, and countless other names. And I am the luckiest demon in the world. The only child of a cunning demoness and a misanthropic sorcerer, I was adept enough in the ways of both lineages to eventually get close to you. I almost captured you, and your light. But that vanity nearly cost me my life. And then I fell in love.

"You took me in. Healed me... in so many ways. And I've been happily ensnared ever since."

He leaned in and kissed me. The kind of kiss that told me he was done with his explanation and wanted to show me just how thoroughly I'd entangled him. Covered in blood and guts and gore, all baking onto me as we sat too close to the fire, I still needed answers more than I needed my own passions quenched.

"So, you remember our... what? Past lives?"

"It's not so much past lives. We fall apart when we die. But we, as we always have been, come back together. You bound our essences together. Think of the binding like gravity, powerful, perpetually pulling us back into one another's orbit. And so we get to be us again, and again, and again. A blessing you gave us a very long time ago. We're not invincible, and we're not all powerful. It took a lot out of you to do this for us. And we're still weakened from it. But we're not powerless."

"A blessing? Look at me, Arthur. Are you sure it's not a curse?"

"I get to have you forever. You are my blessing! Occasionally that means things get a bit messy. It's their own fault."

"If that's really what, who, we are... Why did you ever let me go?"

"We don't always come together. Unfortunately we do sometimes miss one another. We're generally miserable, but we do try to make the most of it. And I wasn't going to force you, push you into us if you weren't ready for it, or maybe didn't want it anymore. I tried helping you. Whenever Greg would see you needed something, I did everything I could to be there for you. When he showed me that I needed to let you go, I did. When you were attacked, he saved you, well, he gave you an opportunity to escape. I only wish I could have gotten there sooner."

"Wait, Greg? My millipede Greg?!"

"Yes. Greg- the giant African millipede that lived an unnaturally long life. You really never wondered about that? He lived nearly twice as long as they usually do."

"I... I thought I was just good at taking care of him," I confessed, an ocean of turmoil and rage threatening to engulf me. He'd saved me countless times. I hadn't been able to save him once. And selfishly, I thought about how that little arthropod had been with me through the worst parts of my life, the only thing with me. And now he was gone.

"He wasn't the only thing, Lucia. I was there with you whenever he was."

"I'm not imagining that, am I? You can read my—"

"Thoughts? Yes, and communicate with you on a somewhat more eldritch level. But you need to be perceptive to it. It'll be easier once you remember. I did try a couple of times to give you hints, clues as to what you are. Maybe someday I'll learn, you're not ready until you're ready. There's nothing I can do to hurry that along. As much as I'd like to." He half smiled at me, but it was tainted with a sadness that I was just starting to appreciate.

"So how were you there with me? Or Greg?"

"I gave him a piece of me. You were leaving, needed to, and I needed to make sure you were okay. Especially after they'd already found you that night."

"Why didn't she just take me out then when she found me? You weren't there. Neither was Greg, though I don't think you'd done whatever to him yet. Why did she just let me go?"

"You weren't a threat yet, not really. Until you remember, there's little you can do to them as a whole. Attacking you that way isn't worth the risk, as you both found out earlier. If we didn't come together, they'd never bother. I knew when you left you'd be safe, but I was greedy and wanted more of you. I should have left you alone earlier, trusting you'd come back to me. I'm sorry, my Light.

"Once we did come back together they knew they had a very small window of opportunity. It was foolish of me to not think this through, I just never thought you'd leave your lab as early as you did. This version of you is an annoyingly diligent worker. Still, I should have stayed with you until you fully reclaimed your light, but I wasn't going to go against your wishes again.

"That first night when she found you was mostly a message. I think they were hoping to scare you away from here, or from me. They don't seem to realize we're getting stronger with every new version of us. Now the only real chance they have at all, not that it played out well for them, is attacking when they're at their strongest, and you at your...."

"Weakest? I can feel that. But why?"

"It's the Blue Moon. Your physical embodiment is still somewhat tied to your etherealness. It being where it is, and you being where you are, it... drains you."

"That doesn't make any sense. I don't understand...." I truly didn't understand, but I knew his words to be fact. I knew it in the deepest, darkest corners of my being. He watched me patiently, affectionately as he reassured me.

"You may not understand now. But you will."

"Is that, this, why I never— Why my mother hated me?"

"Yes, and no. Some are more sensitive to what we are. She likely could sense there was something different about you. Regardless, no mother should treat their child the way she did."

"And my husband?"

"Oh, he was just an asshole. But I've taken care of that. Each of our reincarnations has its own kinks. I've always howled for you. And you've always been after your Wolf."

"But I married an asshole...."

"Well, yes. But you thought you'd found him. Everything seemed to fit well, yes? Or maybe you were still just running from...." He grumbled to himself, not wanting to finish that last thought, true as it was. "There can be a fine line between a Wolf and an asshole. Do you remember what I was like to everyone? Still mostly am."

"I do. But you always treated me kindly. Almost always."

"And I always will, and better. Even when you ask for harshness. It killed me when I nearly made you cry, when I hurt you right after you came back. I wanted what we've always had so badly. But that's a shit excuse and we both know it. The mere idea of being cruel like that, to you, it pains me. It always has, even before I knew you were you. I've always wanted to shower you with care and compassion."

"And you have. So, what were you doing that summer? Before you knew it was me?" He blushed now and for a moment he looked like that teenager all over again.

"Well, I do need to find you. I'm pulled to you, even when I don't realize it. And it isn't like it was outside the realm of possibility to find you so soon. And I did like you. I just—" He was rambling and lost. Adorable as it was, I had to save him. But I also wanted to one more thing about that summer.

"If I hadn't been me, if you'd found that out right away, would you still have—"

"It would have been an amazing summer, yes." He kissed me again, trying desperately to distract me from his flushed cheeks. Or possibly to make mine match. Which reminded me of something.

"Is this why I can't have children?"

"You can't have children with mortal men, at least not how mortal women do. It's a more directed process for the embodiment of a goddess. We'll have time for that later, if you wish. Any other questions, my Light?"

"One more. What did happen to your hair?"

"Ah, well, when my father died I became the head of my family. My sorcerer side became more prominent than what this mother gave me. As such, many of the tributes from his family line became more prominent- my hair, abilities, familial obligations, that sort of thing. I'd love to tell you everything. One day. For now, let's get you cleaned up. You'll feel better without their poison on you."

"And how do we do that? We're so far away from—"

"You'd be amazed what a half-demon, half-sorcerer can do with a well-equipped pack." He took a few steps and brought over a large hiking pack, remarkably stuffed. I watched him at his craft, awed and mesmerized. Pulling bundles and bundles of oddly shaped lumps of things from his pack, all wrapped in dark fabric, he lined them up in front of the fireplace. Next he pulled several bottles of water out, handing me one and lining the rest up off to the side. Finally he heaved and yanked at the pack until a small cauldron emerged.

Amazed, all I could do was watch as he toiled at his expertise. He placed the cauldron in the open flames of the fireplace and poured bottle after bottle of the water into it. Unfurling and adding bits and pieces from the multiple bundles, he worked to fashion an amalgam of sorcery and mending. Springing from the cauldron, colorful sparks danced and whirled before and around him. Ignoring all the lively splendor of what he was producing about him, focusing solely on his creation, he still found a moment to press me to drink the water he'd given me.

When he seemed satisfied with his concoction, he pulled the red-hot cauldron away from the fire with his bare hands and took a long, deep breath. "It's ready. Nothing terribly special, but it will replenish you. And it'll help you remember. Is that.... Do you want—"

"To remember? Of course!" I exclaimed. How could I not?! As crazy as everything he'd told me sounded, I believed him. He'd never lied to me before, and there was something ancient in me telling me that he never would.

A wave of relief washed over him as he let out a heavy sigh. He helped me out of my ruined dress and tenderly assisted me out of my undergarments. I was so worn out, bruised, and damaged, I could barely move. Chaste had never been a word I'd use to describe him, but if he'd had any untoward thoughts as he stripped me bare, not even his eyes betrayed him.

He retrieved sheets of a silken cloth, soaking them in his potion. Taking a handful of the goop he'd made, he strung it through my hair, letting it fall down the rest of me. "Just relax, Lucia. It'll do what it needs to." Continuing to deposit more of the stuff on my face, neck, chest, he saw when I could feel a light coming to life as it settled on my flesh, giving me a somewhat soft glow.

When it started to prickle at my soul he stopped applying the tincture and started wrapping me in the rolls of soaked fabric. He whispered unknown words under his breath as he swathed me in the cloth. Faint markings enchantingly lit up on the saturated material as his breath moved over it. Those illuminated patterns looked to have extinguished as he wrapped it around my naked body, but I could feel them. Feel them seeping into me, under my skin, down to my bones and into my primeval blood.

"Are you there?"

"A little, I think?"

"It can be a slow process, but it's begun now that you've chosen to remember. Ask anything of me and it's yours. Knowledge, resources, me- I'll give you what I can, my Love."

Something came back to me in a flash. "You're...!" I squealed in joy, remembering sparks of the love we'd been sharing forever, but not quite his original name. His roguish smile impossibly added magnitudes of joy to my elation.

Removing the cloth and wiping away the gunk, my body had now been cleansed inside and out. I still felt weak, but not as though I was a step away from passing out. It was more of a comfortable calm, a contentment. A warmth enveloped me in tranquility. Smiling softly as he took me in, all of me, he managed to pull himself away as he grabbed a robe from his pack. Shining under the light of the Blue Moon that had risen above the opening in the ceiling, it somehow seemed newly... familiar to me.

With a reverence that should have surprised me, he placed the garment around my shoulders. It was a concurrent balm for my nerves and whetstone for my mind. So much more came rushing back to me. Life after life with him. We had missed some, and we truly had been miserable, but those were wonderfully anomalous. He was wrong about a few things though. He was my Darkness as I was his Light, but it was so much more, shades and shadows, depravities and obscurities. Ever since I'd agreed to bind us together, we'd needed one another to come back to who we truly were. He needed my light to cast his shadows, and I needed his darkness to fully bloom.

I'd taken my time coming around to him this life. But it made me treasure the time we'd had when we were younger all the more, as well as the glorious present. We had forever, but it never seemed like enough. Turning to him, much of myself restored, I needed him. Needed to have him, needed him to have me, needed us.

He came to me, our spirits crashing into one another with mutual need. I slipped out of my unearthly robe as he hurriedly tore away at his own clothing. Still fidgeting frantically with his pants, he watched as I first laid down the robe in front of the fire and then myself atop it. Legs spread wide while he was still kicking off his shoes, I began playing with myself. Pinching a nipple with one hand while the other slid over my smooth mound. Tracing my slit with only one finger, feeling my warm juices, arching my back, eyes closed in pleasure as the heat from the fire tangled across my skin with the chill from the late summer evening.

Realizing he should have been done and on me by now, I paused my self pleasure and opened my eyes. He stood mere inches from me, his cock hard and throbbing, his chest slowly rising and falling as he worked to control himself. I could see myself reflected in his black eyes. Our love was an ancient one, filled with darkness and dread and desire. I could see all of that within me, and within him.

"My Dark Wolf, I am yours." My Wolf had found me, howled to me, and I'd finally come around.

Blazing red eyes swooped down as he placed himself above me and swiftly buried his cock deep within my warmth. He plunged himself into me, filling me, stretching me out, hitting my cervix once again. Sensual pain combined with the primal sounds of his own pleasure- I couldn't get enough! The muddling of sensations, so much pain and pleasure, enchanted me. I finally understood why it had happened our first time. I was trying to remind myself of everything. My climax peaked while he was still steadily thrusting, my whole body vibrating like never before. I managed to pull myself from the stars to really look at him. The expression on his face, the bliss and longing being conveyed- for the first time I realized why it had hurt so much losing him. I hadn't lost him, I'd been running from him, from the other half of my heart.

Details still evaded me, but I'd died countless times for him, and he'd died countless times more for me. He'd been the only wolf howling that I ever noticed, and I'd been trying to get back to him for an eternity. I pulled his face down to me and kissed him as though I was about to lose him again. That was a long ways off now, but I'd never forget its seemingly perpetual imminence.

Heavy lidded, I let go. Switching our positions, he sat me atop him, firmly impaled. I started instinctively working my pussy up and down his length while holding onto him. It was carnal and corporeal, and as I was about to cum again the moon shone down upon us. For the first time I could see his demon half.

His countenance darkened, his horns perceptible and tangible. They rested against his head, hard, black, and ridged. Three on each side, every consequent one smaller than the last and all lying in a row of crescent shapes embedded in his hair. I traced one with a hand, letting him take over as he thrust forcefully in and out of me. At my touch his eyes again glowed red. Another orgasm was already building. The pleasure was overwhelming and without thinking I grabbed hold of two of his horns as I rocked myself up and down, my hot cunt clenching onto his cock as the building waves began.

He growled and grabbed hold of me, fucking me with a wild and frenzied need. It was as though he was possessed, the force of his thrusts as he held me down to him propelled us into a spin and onto our sides and then I was on my back again. His arms still wrapped tightly around me as he claimed me, holding me to him as he went faster, and harder, and rougher.

My mad demon Wolf felt my climax as I tightened around him, and he truly let go. Howling up at what was left of me above, marking me down here as his own, cumming alongside me and filling me with his hot seed.

After a few moments of heavy panting and sweet whispers, his grip loosened. He held himself off of me slightly, admiration clouding his sight. Once more I could see myself reflected in his dark eyes, luminous and no longer lonely. He could see that I finally saw myself, his chest again puffed with pride and delight.

"Will you take off with me now, my Lucia, my Light? Cross the country, see the world, never look back, all that?"

"Yes, my Dark Wolf."

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This is my entry for Lit's Summer Lovin' Contest. If you enjoyed it, please vote/rate it!