Maya couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Lucien waiting for her in the space between consciousness and dreams. But instead of the anticipation she expected, dread pooled in her stomach like cold water.
At 2 AM, she gave up and returned to her computer. The black rose icon was pulsing faster now, like a heartbeat. When she clicked on it, words appeared across her screen in elegant script:
You avoided me tonight. That hurts, Maya. Don't you want to see me?
Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard before typing back: "Elena said you want something from me. Something permanent."
Elena says many things. Not all of them are true.
"Then tell me the truth."
The screen flickered, and suddenly Lucien was there again, looking more solid than before. His amber eyes held something Maya had never seen in them—vulnerability.
"The truth is that I'm dying, Maya."
Her heart stopped. "What?"
"Not dying in the way humans understand death. But my realm is fading. The connection between dimensions is weakening, and without anchor points in your world, beings like me will eventually cease to exist." Lucien stepped closer to the screen. "You're not just someone I've chosen to court. You're my lifeline."
Maya leaned back in her chair. "So this isn't about love at all. It's about survival."
"It started that way," Lucien admitted, and the honesty in his voice caught her off guard. "But somewhere between watching you play for hours just to see my face and listening to you tell me about your dreams, it became something else. Something I've never felt in six thousand years of existence."
Six thousand years. The number hit Maya like a physical blow.
"I know how this sounds," Lucien continued. "But I need you to understand—if I don't find a way to anchor myself to your dimension soon, I won't just disappear. Everyone in my realm will fade with me. Millions of beings who depend on me for their existence."
Maya stared at him, torn between sympathy and suspicion. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"
"Come to me. Not in dreams, not through digital contact. Actually come to my dimension. There's a ritual that can create a permanent bridge between our worlds, but it requires someone from your side who's willing to—"
The screen went black again, but this time Maya heard her apartment door open.
She spun around to find Elena standing in her living room, holding what looked like an ornate silver dagger.
"How did you get in here?" Maya demanded.
"Your locks aren't much of a barrier when you know the right words," Elena said, her earlier warmth completely gone. "Step away from the computer, Maya."
"What are you doing?"
"Saving your life, and probably your soul." Elena moved toward the computer setup. "That thing you've been talking to isn't Lucien Morningstar. It's something much worse."
Maya blocked Elena's path. "You're wrong. I know him. I've felt the connection—"
"You've felt what it wanted you to feel!" Elena's voice cracked with urgency. "Real demon lords don't need human anchors to survive. They don't fade away when dimensions weaken. What you've been talking to is a parasite, Maya. It feeds on obsession and emotional attachment, growing stronger until it can possess its host completely."
The computer screen flickered back to life behind Maya. Lucien's voice filled the room, but it sounded different now—deeper, with an edge that made her skin crawl.
"Elena Walsh. Former witch, current fraud, destroyer of seven happy couples who found love across dimensional barriers. Still trying to play hero, I see."
Elena raised the silver dagger. "Let the girl go, parasite. Find another host."
"But she's so perfect for me," the voice that wasn't quite Lucien anymore purred. "So lonely, so desperate for connection. And that bloodline of hers makes her incredibly... receptive to influence."
Maya looked back and forth between Elena and the computer screen, her world spinning. "Someone tell me the truth. Right now."
"The truth," Elena said without taking her eyes off the screen, "is that your family bloodline doesn't make you sensitive to supernatural forces. It makes you a target for them. Your grandmother didn't have gifts—she was possessed for thirty years before she finally broke free. Your great-aunt didn't talk to dead relatives—she channeled parasites who fed on her life force until she died at forty-three."
Maya's legs gave out. She sank into her desk chair, staring at the screen where Lucien's beautiful face was twisting into something else—something hungry and ancient and wrong.
"Maya," the thing wearing Lucien's appearance said, its voice now a symphony of whispers, "don't listen to her. She's jealous that you found real love. Real connection. Come to me tonight. Let me show you how good it can feel to let someone else take control."
Elena stepped forward, dagger raised. "Maya, whatever you do, don't say yes. Don't agree to anything. The moment you give consent, it can cross over completely."
Maya looked at Lucien's face on the screen—the face she'd fallen in love with, dreamed about, obsessed over for months. Was any of it real? Had she imagined the tenderness, the connection, the feeling that someone finally understood her?
"I need to know," Maya said quietly. "If you really are Lucien, prove it. Tell me something only he would know."
The thing on the screen smiled, and for a moment it looked like the demon lord she'd fallen for. Then its expression shifted into something predatory.
"I know you're going to say yes, Maya. Because deep down, you'd rather belong to a monster who wants you than live in a world where no one sees you at all."