Damian's Oracle

Leave. His command reached her as she opened his suite door. He stood on the balcony, visible beyond the transparent curtains rustling in the moving haze. She hesitated before moving forward again.

"Sofia." The warning in his voice was plain. His whisper reached her across the room.

"No," she told him.

Fear unfurled in her breast, and she clenched her fists. Shadows crawled over the world around her, and the tension in the air made it hard to breathe. The hair on her arms and neck stood up. She'd never seen him not in control. His powers were quiet and exploring, crawling over the physical world.

The air around him was even harder to breathe. Her breaths quickened, and her heart pounded.

"You need me," she managed.

"I need nothing from this world!" he said with an undertone that was purely inhuman. His fury, pain, and sorrow choked her. Her eyes watered at the soul-wrenching emotions. She'd never felt pain like his!

"Damian."

He whirled and stalked toward her, his face a mask of fury. She sidestepped him and retreated until the balcony railing trapped her. He planted his hands on either side of her and lowered his face to her level. His presence was overwhelming, and her body reacted with both terror and lust so strong it made her head spin.

His eyes were black, fathomless, the eyes of a god among men.

"Tell me, Seer, what do you See?" he rasped in the inhuman voice.

Her breaths came in short gasps, but she refused to back down. She belonged to his world as much as he did. She belonged to him.

"I see a man who just lost the last connection to someone he loved to his soul," she whispered.

The burst of furious power shot through her, the shockwave rattling the windows of the house. She closed her eyes. An eerie quiet followed, and she wasn't sure if he'd shed his human body and take out her and everything else.

She opened her eyes when nothing happened, shaking from both cold and fear. Damian's head was bowed, his tense body still. Compelled to him like nothing else in the world, she touched his face with a quivering hand. He was still for a long moment before he nuzzled it. She raised the other hand to his other cheek, sensing his resistance. A moment later, it melted, and he embraced her. She wrapped her arms around him, at home again.

"I was getting ready to destroy the world."

Cold fear trickled through her. He wasn't joking.

"Good thing I felt hungry tonight," she said.

"You were right. I was a coward," he said after a moment. "My brother loved her with all his soul. She was all I had left of him."