The dream faded as quickly as it began, reclined in Ashwood's arms. Around them the world lost its detail, seeming to melt around her.

Unease formed in Netta as she felt the bed that Ashwood laid on disappeared underneath them. They were laying in a phenomenally large, empty, dark chamber.

Netta shivered, burrowing into Ash. "Where are we?"

Netta realized as she said it that she had never considered asking that question, since she had come here and had found herself confronted by these visions. But now she could not stop herself from wondering.

Ash sighed, reclining back. He stretched so that he formed a large moving landmass that Netta was precariously on top of.

He drawled, his voice lazy, and although Netta thought it possible that she only imagined it, he sounded - happy. "And here I thought it was obvious to you." He closed his eyes, the oddly complacent smile on Ash's mouth giving him the absurd look of a man who had finished his meditation.

When Netta said nothing, only leaning to roughly pinch the reclining Monster's nipple, he opened one chastising green eye.

"Can't I be allowed a moment of respite? It's you that became fatigued. It's taking a lot in me to not press an advantage, as we speak. If you must know, we're in the subconscious of your mind."

He frowned, his eyes opening up. "One other. I don't know how to best express to you the fact that I am not enthused about having to share you. As a barely reformed God King, I cannot exaggerate to you when I say that I am utterly incapable of thinking of sharing you with someone else. It's not a good thing to ask too much from me - I feel like an old man enough, thinking about how long I've been kicking..."

As if in answer, Netta felt a part of him pulse, lively and youthful, against her ass. He was so hot and boisterous that it felt as though it was about to leave an imprint where it rested itself.

"It's not what you think." Netta blushed as she understood in a moment, feeling it imprinted clearly in his mind for her to see. "It's - um, it's complicated..."

Ash glanced up at her, then rolled his eyes as she felt, with a gasp, as he entered her mind, where he searched the contents of her memory.

She could feel ancient power as it flowed through her, for the first time did not bother dampening his full potential as he rolled through her memories like a lingering fog.

She gasped and wondered how much of himself he had been hiding from her as he was, rightfully, concerned with her being intimidated by the feel of his radiating potential.

How deep in denial had she been in, not allowing herself to feel the full brunt of himself that Ashwood could not hide? It had been like she had believed that the tip of a dragon's tail was the full body of the beast.

Oh, I'd say about half and half. He purred, leisurely as he took the information that he needed.

Ash yawned, "accidentally" pressing his filling erection against her.

Netta groaned and pitched forward, attempting to scoot away from him. Moments later, she found that Ash had "somehow "adjusted himself underneath her so that he happened to be pressed yet more fully against her.

The length of him was nestled against the folds of her labia.

All of this never stopped the many and powerful fingers of his mind as they sifted, happening to stroke itself on one too many occasions against her.

As he finished, Ash's real hands seemed preoccupied with running through Netta's hair, caressing her shoulders.

Mmm. Well, aren't you still full of surprises for me? I am relieved to know that you did not have occasion to find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having to rely on - what was his name again - Wally?

When it took Netta a moment to realize who he was referring to, she felt a flush of prideful pleasure run through him. Ash chuckled and rested a hand against the back of his neck, leaving her left shoulder bereft of his touch. He was pleased by her missing his touch, she could feel it in the happiness that ran through him.

"Wallace? Ash - I married you, and I meant it. I - I'm not a bigamist," she shifted under him, mostly unconsciously, and felt an answering surge of tense pleasure ripple through Ash as she gyrated against him.

Netta was aware that she was very close to causing a chain reaction that would lead to them spending more time locked in this room.

She nervously dislodged him from herself and cursed for a moment their bond that increased their sensitivity. Even with the heat of Ash's skin pressed to her own, her nipples were hardening into sharp peaks.

Stuttering for a moment, Netta continued, "We have other things to attend to -"

Ash bounced her atop him, filling the curve between her legs easily as he pushed her back on him. A wicked smile created a sharp-edged crescent on his face.

Can't I just... Mmm... Go for one more? Just one more? To help make up for those long, lonely decades you locked me away in that bad, terrible memory -

Netta growled, then sat up on him, her arms crossed over her sensitized breasts. "I am not falling for that "just one more time for old time's sake" routine, Ashwood! The last time I fell for it, I ended up impaled for so long that I think I passed out."

Ash quirked his brow at her, his smile fading ever so slightly.

Nettles, I would have felt you fading from me the moment your focus flickers, of that I can assure you. I have felt what it's like to be you in such a situation, and let me tell you - your kind is made of much more elasticity than you give yourself credit for. And besides, to give respite to the wicked and unnatural carnal desires that bother me so - wouldn't that be construed as an act of charity on the behalf of a tormented, ancient, lost soul as I am... And your rightful King, no less?

He was trying an attempt at subtlety, but Netta was aware of the insertion of unfurling desires that arched through her mind, unfocused and hazed like the streaming consciousness from a lust-filled daydream.

Netta tried to push herself off of him, only to find arms secured around her hips, gently but insistently.

Trying to summon anger, Netta focused on the problem that had been boiling in her the moment that she had learned its truth. "When were you planning on telling me about smelling Monster in me, my liege?"

For a moment, the Monster that tried to be unflappable seemed to be at a loss for words. Blushing softly, he coughed. Well, you see - it's just - if truth be told -

"Oh, I insist on that part."

- as I was saying, I thought it was just something that made you all the more unique. When Netta did not respond to him, Ash craned his head up and she could feel the fingers of his mind pressing into hers. I hope with time that you can understand that I wanted to do what was best for us -

Netta sighed, closing her eyes. "You tell yourself that, Ash. You could have at least trusted me enough to try to make me understand."

Ash shifted underneath her as he seemed to be aware of a different turn that their conversation had taken on. H-hey, I never admitted to ever trusting you, I only ever loved y-

At that word, a simple one that nevertheless conveyed a world of meaning, the two stilled.

Netta realized that he had never before said it to her. She felt his shock and surprise at finding that he had said it.

As Ash seemed to have great difficulty trying to come back from his unintentional admission, Netta caught a hold of a thought as it tried to pass by her, unseen.

She understood the stigma he attached to that word, saw how Ash felt his trust was betrayed whenever he voiced such a sentiment.

First a young girl that he had felt an adolescent's protective, pure, naive liking for, then a woman who wielded his sentiment as a manacle and an executioner's axe.

Even if she had not felt the fear that he experienced from that word, Netta could easily see the despair - the fear - that passed in his eyes, the way that his throat seemed to constrict.

Netta hurridly tried to find a clever way to rehabilitate the moment that they had found themselves in. Instead, she found herself choking out, "It - it's alright, I trust you, Ash." She coughed. "I meant - that is to say - um, I love you."

Ash was quiet for a moment, then he laughed. It was a sincere, loud and booming sound that reverberated.

When he finished, he pressed a hand to his face as though sheepishly. His voice, speaking aloud, was hoarse warmth. "This was never going to be like the dramas, no, but I had an inkling that it would be a bit less... silly, no?"

Netta dropped her head forward, her face burning with embarrassment as she wished that she did not know the true nature of the man that she was sat on.

She was acutely aware of how unmatching of a pair the two of them made. It was made only worse, it seemed, by her every attempt to assuage it.

Muffled against his chest, she said, "I am so, so, so sorry - oh, why can't I do anything right..."

She felt the warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart, comforted by his concessions to human nature.

Ash held her back tenderly. No. Never mind what I said - this is perfect, this, right here.

"How can this possibly be anything but ridiculous?"

Did she need to state the obvious? She was still chubby, plain at best, looking every bit like the spinster that she was -

"Stop." His voice was like a stern hand held out, only to reach forward to hold in a gentle grip. I won't let you disparge yourself like that. I have spent over a human's lifetime trying to make you see that not just anyone can come away from me, unscathed.

"But I'm not... unscathed."

Ah. Bad comparison on my part, then. You are, however, resilient. And, mmm, your track record now against other Witches, being integral in their deaths... That, and your love of letting me take as long as I want with the all-too important business of performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on your sweetest parts...

Netta gasped as she felt him buck up against her, the earlier moment all but forgotten as he slapped her with his erection.

She tried to steady herself on him and found that she could not find any safe place to rest.

Without warning, he seemed ready to take her.

The realization that this may have been a round-about way of getting what he wanted from her - the close intimacy of love making - through a round-about trap of feelings and logic, hit her hard.

"W-wait, Ash -"

She held a hand out, only to find him reaching his own up to take hers in his, carrying it to his face to envelop her knuckles in a strangely chaste kiss before he unfurled her willless hand to take her index and middle finger into his mouth, sucking on her digits with his insidious green eyes trapping her own.

"Oh, Goddess, Ash -"

Do me a kindness and in the future subsitute any calls for her with the name of your King, Monster. It makes me feel at home to be called upon in times of great need, and I assure you that I am more than able to fulfill any of your needs at a moment's notice -

"Ash!"

He bucked his hips up again, this time with enough strength to send Netta, for a moment airbourne, tethered to him by her fingers, still trapped in his mouth that suckled meaningfully, laving a thick tongue against every concave between her fingers.

She yelped as she landed and could hear the lusty growl that resonated in Ash's throat. She knew that she was on the verge of being enveloped in his desire.

Her own need was building steadily, not to be ignored even in the face of better sense.

The outcry of a male voice that did not belong to her husband stilled their writhing dance.

"Neith, I think that you're close to finding Ashwoo- Oh! Oh, I am so sorry -"

Caught, nude, on top of a very naked Monster by her father was the last thing that could ever be considered an aphrodisiac.

With the knowledge that she was in the world of her own subconscious, Netta managed to put clothes on herself, but only after she instinctively crouched down on top of Ashwood.

The position had hidden her breasts from her father, but the position left her all too open from the back.

By the time that she blinked herself so that she was standing opposite her father, with Ash in between them, Netta could not find it in herself to make eye contact with either.