They hadn't wasted a moment, even in the eternity created in a second's prison.

Netta, emboldened by the assurance of Ashwood as her husband - and taking no small thrilling joy in the sheer taboo of their union - finally did as she had longed to do. She felt stronger in her desire with each loving touch, each hushed assurance whispered in her ear.

She tasted his flesh everywhere, thrilled at the electric sensation that her tongue gave, sensing where his illusion of a physical form stopped. He tasted of Earth and not unpleasantly of ozone, as though he were the leftovers of a clap of lightening.

She flicked her tongue over the puckering curves of one of his nipples, felt a thrill of joy at his surprised moan, then returned for another go before laving at the other one on his broad chest.

They did everything that Netta had ever hoped of doing with her exotic lover, with Ash asking at first aloud and then in their minds what she wanted to do next at each turn.

The fact that with each ensuing act built onto an unbreakable bind between them that was well above and beyond what was considered safe for a Witch - it made each one feel more dangerous, lust-fulfilling to Netta.

And then they went into territory that Ash lead her, willingly, into.

The only trouble being that with each new go, she found a hunger more yawning than when she had begun.

She never thought that it would ever end, gentle, crazed, shocking, tender - each one seemed to reflect some aspect of their personalities. Fucking, love-making, sometimes falling into an embrace that never seemed to end as they shook in each other's bodies, minds.

And then in a moment, they both collasped on the red sheets on the massive four-poster that they had expended their wedding energy on.

It was Ash who spoke first, apparently too weakened to speak aloud. Nettles, please tell me you're tired. I cannot be held responsible if I faint on top of you. Even in her head, his voice sounded haggard, but relieved. Deeply relieved.

Netta, who had collasped herself facedown, managed to lift her head up to look at her husband's own still form.

Ash lay on his back, his penis for the first time during their time in the bed flagging, exhausted looking.

She crept to Ash's, throwing an arm over his chest.

She felt him tense, then heard him say, Gah - I hope you're alright with my hands and mouth - it's not as though I'm not willing, eager, even -

Netta dropped her head onto the crook of Ash's neck, allowed herself the luxury of feeling his near-burning skin on her naked flesh, pressed against hers. Their shared smell - coating her body as well - seemed to float into the air like motes.

"I'm tired, too, Ash, so stop with the bravado."

Ash sighed, then she felt a low humming start in the back of his throat. Are you wanting to go back, yet?

Netta shifted on him, trying to press her skin as closely as she could to Ash's. She was rewarded when he flopped a lifeless arm around her.

"Oh, not yet. Please."

No need to ask anything of me, Master.

"Even as a joke - don't call me that. Or Lovely."

Ash shifted slightly underneath her, and she looked up at his face to see him looking down at her, slowly managing to recline on his other arm.

Mmm... what about Nettles?

"What about it?"

Ash shrugged, the fire in his eyes still there, but smaller than it usually was, dancing softly in his eyes. His smile was strained, weakened. It was the nickname that your Sisters gave you. To hurt you. He blinked at her, an alien softness in his eyes.

Netta reached a hand up and did the one thing that she thought that she had not managed to do earlier.

With a hand that shook slightly, either from anticipation or just her own exhaustion, Netta reached up and allowed her hand to palm the expanse of the horn that grew on the right side of Ash's head. She shivered as she felt the breadth of it, the ridges on the dark bone.

Her hand traveled up, curving through the intricate arch, ending in the sharp and pointed end.

She drew her breath in as her hand passed over the sharp, pointed end of the horn. Drawing her hand away, Netta looked down to see a small line of blood trickling from a wound on her palm.

As she looked at the blood, she felt Ash's massive hand gently close around the back of her injured one. She watched as his leftmost ring finger danced down past the lines of her fingers to gently graze against the small puncture wound.

There was a feeling of warmth that traveled down her body from that spot.

He did not release her hand, but when he withdrew his finger, she looked down and saw that the wound had disappeared, leaving a thin line of blood.

In a motion, Ash lifted her hand to his face and, making eye contact for a moment before he closed his eyes, Ash reached his wickedly curved tongue out and made a long lap against the expanse of her palm. Lapping her blood up.

In spite of her sheer exhaustion, Netta felt some answering jolt inside of her abdomen.

She whimpered.

Ash's eyes opened and he looked at her, a smile seeming to stir with reawakened deviousness.

Clearing his throat, Ash said, aloud, "Back to the first question."

Netta struggled for a moment to recall what he was asking. Finally, she answered, "They said it in a way to hurt me. You were the second one that said it as if I was special. As if there was something important about being nettles."

Ash shifted gently underneath her, and before she knew it, she was laying on top of hus broad chest, her chin resting at top of the center of his chest. Her feet laid against the curved fullness of his thighs.

Back in her mind, he lazily answered, If you want me to, Nettles.

Netta rested her head against the impressive span of his chest.

As if to humor her, she heard a deep intake of breath in his chest, felt as he expanded a moment beneath her before shuttling back down. It sounded to her ear like the gentle sigh of a wind as she shook through grass.

The thought of woods jogged something in her memory.

She looked up at Ash, whose eyes were closed, the earlier tension arising from his exhaustion gone from his face. "Ash?"

Hmmm... He rumbled in her mind as well as aloud, the gentle sound of it in his chest vibrating her.

"What are you?"

A married man. Why do you ask?

Netta felt an embarrassed blush grow on her face. "I don't mean that. I meant - that game we were playing... before..."

Ash's eyes opened. He looked down at her, a laschivous look in his eyes.

You speak of that any more and I'll drain my life energy away to have another go until we're both dried out husks...

"N-not that!"

The twisting in Netta's gut was not being dissuaded by the soreness there. In fact, the desire in her was starting to overtake the pain.

"I meant - the Twenty Questions part..."

Ash sighed, dropping his head back. If you want me to answer you, I want you to ask the question to me intimately.

Netta didn't have to ask what he meant.

She asked him, and was surprised, when she spoke in his mind, when she felt as though her mind, then her entire body, was encased in him.

He held tightly to her, wrapping himself around her.

She choked out a cry as she felt it happening, instinctively she tried to withdraw.

When Ash remained, she felt something entering her mind. She stilled, feeling a wave of fiery darkness descend on her mind.

It was so real, so potent, that for a moment she thought that she would be bathed in flames. As moments passed, trapped in the whirlwind of flames, Netta felt herself relax as she realized that it did not hurt her.

In the middle of the flames, she could hear Ash - the real Ash, the one without the human voice, the one that went beyond maleness, the one that used sarcasm and rage, lust and hate.

It spoke to her for the first time free of any physical or mental manifestation.

There was an odd purity to Its voice - of course, it was not a real voice, as when It spoke, It said no words aloud.

She felt, as she listened to it, then felt it embrace her in a light that was somehow made utterly of shadow, that it was speaking in a language comprised only of truths, of sensations.

She could not speak back to it, she only opened herself fully - for the first time in her life - to Ash, letting him spend an eternity if he wished, in her mind.

If she had the choice to escape then, she would not have. It was like being crushed and upraised at the same time, horrible, wonderful. Beautiful.

As it was, Ash's presence was a siren song, a bewitchment that left no quarter, took her mind totally.

This was the prelude to possession, although Netta had no ability to understand it, it was the most danger that a Witch could ever be in. A danger that threatened their humanity, their souls.

For the uniquely magicked soul of a human - a Witch's own - was the most coveted weapon to a Monster. With it, one of Its kind could dominate, kill humans.

Again.

Ash entwined with her in an unbreakable seal, filling her with him. It burned away no small aspect of her humanity, ending only when it had scorched away her mortality, then filling the scorched space in her soul with his own long livedness. It shared with her so that both were cycling into each other like mouths sharing breath.

Netta percieved it, in red, black, strobe-like flashes of white. It was like descending into a nightmare, only to be reprieved by the sound of a voice soothing, cooling.

Give YOURSELF to ME

Netta shook in terror, as she felt a vestige of herself, her independance, hanging in front of her.

She reached for it instinctively, moments before he gave it away, throwing it upwards, where it floated, free.

The world shook, then the storm abated.

When she came to, she was crouched low on a marble floor, in the center of a temple. As she looked around, she was under the impression that this was a larger version of the Monster's temple.

She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, there he - It - was.

"We made it." His voice shook with emotion, tearful.

Netta found that there was something odd about his appearance - his voice - but she could not put a finger on the exact difference. Only that it was there, in the man that she had grown to know as intimately as one could.

"You're speaking out loud again."

Ash flashed her a smile - a warm, genuine one, that Netta was unused to seeing. Or, maybe, she was simply not used to seeing it so genuinely. "But I'm not."

"Where are we?"

Netta looked around and found, uneasily, that the temple never seemed to have an end. For all she knew, it could go on forever.

"Guess." He said it in a gust of a sigh.

"We're in my mind." The realization came, and she recognized that it should have been a time for shock, terror on her part. Ash was standing with her, in the very place where a Witch was never supposed to allow his kind.

She felt no fear, when she looked at him, all she felt, instead, was a warmth that she recognized, somehow, as belonging to Ash. Terrifying outwardly, his heat, burning and misunderstood though it was, still warmed her.

Ash smiled, an enigmatic expression in his eyes. "I think a celebration's in order - at least, a first dance as husband and wife."

He bowed, one of his hands extended.

It was then that Netta saw that she had not imagined this, either. Ash looked changed - his hornsseemed less wild, massive. The darkness of his hair seemed lightened somehow. His height seemed different - it was as though he was shorter, or she was taller. His face seemed less ravenous, softer, his lips fuller. His skin seemed a few shades lighter, a paler gold.

And his eyes were undoubtedly red, but they seemed richer, like a blood red wine, possessing less of an unholy glow to them.

He wore a red dress shirt that fit his muscled body tightly, and a white cream-colored vest, tucked into black pants that also fit him tightly. With his hair swept softly back, he looked - well, princely.

She did not know what had prompted this change in him, but it made her heart seem to constrict in her chest.

Slowly, Ash rose his bowed head, his red eyes examining her.

Netta walked to him, placing her hand in his.

She was swept into an embrace, then felt as he lead her into a soft, slow dance.

The temple was filled with the sound of an orchestra that didn't exist, playing music that Netta had first heard when she was a child. Trumpets, piano and a violin played to a beat that Ash spun her in, each turn soothing some aspect of the terror - and confusion - in Netta.

She was on the verge of forgetting her earlier question when she felt Ash's mouth brush against her left ear.

There, he told her the truth of his power, his energy.

Netta clung to him dutifully as he told her, and felt her face redden in embarrassment as she recognized the words that he spoke to her as what she had already been told.

Haven't I told you my truth in a thousand small ways? In my persistence, my arrogance, my power?

His life had been one of broken promise, then of being the first of the many to bow to her kind. A broken crown, a world aflame, a hundred years of humiliation and pain.

It had been the one thing that she had not thought was the truth of him, befuddled by his half-truths, riddles, distracting her with with body, his personality.

He spun her, cleansing her mind of her surprise at his answer, then bent his head back down to whisper to her, "Don't fret, Nettles, what we begin life like is not often what we end as. You know it better than anyone."

As he bent down to take her mouth with his changed lips, Netta reflected that if it was the truth that she had finally heard, that it was one she could not focus on.

As they danced, Ash bent his head and whispered the most wicked, taboo thing that a Monster could say to its Master.

"Mine," he said, clutching her tightly to him. She could feel him shiver as he said it.

Her entire being shook in answer to this confession, more meaningful and powerful than his admission of love.