The burning, blinding pain disappeared with the weight of the heavy arms that fell around her. For a moment, all that Netta could do was sag against him.

Ash.

In the next moment, she felt herself being wrenched to the side. She looked up to see Ash blocking a blow from Sylvester with Its arm.

Sylvester hissed, falling backward.

Ash left Netta with surprising speed, diving after Sylvester. As It ducked Sylvester, blowing a shot of fire so hot that it was white, Netta watched Ash's seemingly easy movements with shock.

She nearly missed as Ximenia came up on her.

Shouting, Netta shoved away her Sister's outstretched hands as she tried to wrap them around Netta's yelling throat.

Flailing away from Ximenia, Netta tried again to beg her Sister.

Ximenia, her eyes oddly bright as she seemed to weep with an oddly horrifying, maniacal grin spread on her lips, spoke. "Let me kill you."

Ash's voice, slightly out of breath, called out, "Defend yourself, Nettles - don't let this bitch kill you!"

Ash's voice seemed to break through the paralysis that had taken over Netta.

Netta felt herself tripping over something as she struugle to run, sending her falling. The world seemed to uproot itself, as she watched the night sky, black and devoid of any stars.

As she stared blindly at it, she found the deranged, tear-filled face of her Sister replacing her vision of the night's sky.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, Netta watched as her Sister prepared as if she meant to kill Netta with her bare hands.

In the next moment, The fire in Ximenia's eyes died completely.

The deranged Witch seemed to have been torn where she had been looming over the fallen Netta, a bestial scream tearing out of her as she flung herself away.

Netta crawled to her feet. She looked up in time to watch as Ximenia bum rushed to where the two Monsters had been warring with each other.

Netta recognized for the first time what the two Monsters had been doing. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.

Sylvester lay on the ground, a leg torn clear off, looking more like a stuffed, large doll than something with life, energy in it.

From the socket where the leg had once been, fire seemed to be pouring out, wrapping up so that it was swallowed the Monster.

Ash stood over the lifeless form, Its back turned on the encroaching Ximenia. Netta realized, with horror, that she had pulled what looked like a knife from out of her clothing.

There was no moment of hesitation, and after all that she had gone through, there wasn't any question in her mind of what to do. Netta reacted, legs moving and arms reaching out to grab Ximenia, even as her sister had the blade raised.

Intending to disarm and pin her Sister, Netta was surprised when she wrenched her to the ground and immediatally felt the Witch fall limp.

When she turned her Sister around on the ground, Netta saw the blade buried to its hilt in Ximenia's chest.

Netta wasn't much aware of what she was doing, but when she came out of the muffled wind tunnel that seemed to threaten to suck all of her through it, she was sitting in the passenger's seat in what she vaguely recognized as her rental.

The world ended around her, a maelstrom enveloping her in its cold grasp.

The ride back was quiet, tense and numbing.

For a moment - just one - Netta almost asked herself aloud if she was still in the real world. Perhaps this was the true real world and she had been tossed into it, cold, and left to swim ashore on her own.

She swore that somewhere on the horizon of her consciousness, she could hear a familiar voice as it laughed, senselessly, wildly.

Her nostrils felt as though they were coated in the stench of burning flesh.

She wanted to weep, but couldn't. Netta felt incapable of doing anything, as though she was trapped inside of her own body.

She could swear that Ash had been speaking to her. He told her of a beautiful place in the glade of a wood where small animals, gentle and intelligent in their own way, once dreamt, safe, in his embrace.

She must have fallen asleep, because when Netta came to, she was being carried out of the car.

She groaned, but remained still in the arms that carried her. All the while, her mind was filled with memories of her murdered adopted sister.

Ximenia laughed at her, tearing Netta's hair out with clawed hands.

She heard, then felt him opening a door. Netta felt the change in temperature as she was brought into a house.

She was carried with abnormal speed up some stairs, brought into a room moments before she was placed on a bed.

Opening her eyes, Netta recognized the interior of her childhood bedroom.

She gasped as she was pulled her out of her daze. Glancing up, she caught Ashwood a moment before the Monster was completely undressed.

Netta gasped and shrank back on the bed, scooting backwards with her feet on the dusty bedspread.

Her voice was a cry. "Oh - oh goddess, Ash -"

Ash said nothing, standing at the foot of the bed.

All of the front of It was easily accessible to her gaze, no matter how she tried to make her daze decent and remain at the Monster's hauntingly still, handsome face.

She found that her mind was rapidly assembling a collage of sorts of It, the complete makings of a map of Its body in front of her.

Although there were long, leanly muscled thighs that were met at Its angular hips to consider, the journey of her gaze began at the center of Ash's chest. It was an almost hairless, long expanse of wilderness that ended in a flat stomach that had the makings of hard, contoured muscle.

At the jutting bones of Its hips, Netta knew laid uncharted territory. Still, she tried to stop herself from imprinting the image of on her mind.

Try as she might, however, it was impossible to not be left with the afterimage of It.

Even at gentled rest beneath a thin patch of golden, curled hair when she let her gaze bob down there once, it was a shocking sight to behold.

Still, in her mind was a creeping shadow. It was one that it was becoming increasingly hard to see through, struggling to free herself from.

Ash spoke, a hand resting on the bed.

"Please forgive me for this later, and forgive me, now, for insisting that this is necessary for your life. Even as you know so little about me." The Monster sighed deeply, and Netta forced herself to stare into those deep, dark purple eyes as It spoke.

Ash continued, saying, "There is no going back for me, I need you to understand, and you need me as much as I need you. I just - I wish it wasn't like this. I wish that we had some other time, a softer place, for us to be together. I admire you for your bravery, your stubbornness. And I must admit, now, that if you had accepted my offering before now, I would have pressed the advantage. Would have eaten you whole."

Netta opened her mouth. In her ears she thought that all she could hear was what sounded like the primal thrum of a drum.

When finally she spoke, Netta was dismayed when all that could come out was a simpering rattle. Netta closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them that all would be back to normal.

When she re-opened her eyes, she realized that Ash had crawled on the bed, was sitting over her to her.

Ash leaned closer still. The Monster pressed his forehead to hers, pressing soft, full lips to her cheek, began to kiss.

It felt electric, and just like when she had dealt with her Sister, Netta found herself immobilized.

What she felt was a sense of eventuality that was horrible, in light of what had happened with Ximenia.

Her blood continued to pound a ritualistic beat in her ears.

She could hear - somewhere in the room? In her mind? - the sound of her Sister, cursing her. She whispered the very thoughts that threatened to make Netta succumb to despair.

And then she heard a voice that sounded so clear that it could have been in the room with her.

Ximenia spoke.

"Do you think this creature can save you from me? Even if you consent to being Its bitch, letting It mount you, I'll always be there. Always on the horizon, waiting to rise - to burn you."

Her words were emphasized as, unwanted, Netta's mind was filled with the sight of Ximenia screaming in agony as she died.

Ash kissed down her cheek to her chin, breaking Netta's concentration on the sound of the unwanted intruder.

And, almost like an after thought, the Monster rose up a measure to begin to cascade her lips with kisses. It did not kiss her in an insistant and penetrative manner as It had before. Rather, Ash kissed in a way that left and continuously removed the imprint of Its too-warm, tingling lips.

Her lips quivered to kiss It back, but she held herself back. Netta's mind was in chaos.

She morbidly clung to the image that bloomed in her mind like wood rose.

It was of her Sister, laying bleeding to death, her arm extended as though she meant to take hold of her beloved.

She felt her grip on the image of her Sister's still face, the eyes open in shock beginning to rise, overpower every other thought.

Ash intruded her thoughts, lips descending on her bottom lip to grasp, pulling in a tender, almost playful manner.

She closed her eyes, fixed in bad memory on the ceiling above.

Netta shuddered, felt as gooseskin bloomed and spread along her body.

Her mind was drifting for a moment, caught on the thought of Ash's grasp on her lip, which the Monster held gently in Its teeth like a feral animal.

Ash let go, beginning Its kissing where It had left off, traveling down to her neck.

Ash felt warm. So warm, in fact, that it was as though the Monster was burning her flesh where it touched. Where it removed Its touch, the Monster left her cold, needing.

Her bottom lip felt bruised in the middle, swollen and tenderized. Netta's eyes fell open. Her nipples hardened underneath the layers of winter clothing. In the thick padding of her boots, her toes curled.

She could sense Ash's pheromones, clearly, beneath the scent of deep woods, of trails that lead into darkness.

It had to be the Monster's pheromones that held her so easily under Its control.

She was so focused on the sensation of Its lips that she did not feel Ash taking off her coat until it had fallen off of her body.

It was as though Ash had made an incision, cutting with a quick slash.

With a swipe of one of Its lean arms, Ash pressed Itself to her, seemed to somehow meld her body's temperature into Its own. It was as though she were a piece of raw metal submerged into a furnace.

She thought that this all felt familiar, as though they had done this many times before.

That man that seemed submerged deep in her memory was a far cry, however, from the youthful, perfect-looking Monster pressed to her.

She knew with absolute certainty that this was no creature whose main focus was seduction.

No; the Monster exuded Its own power, burned off of Its skin so hot that it felt like being pressed to burning metal, even through the layers of her clothes.

A breath left her, a loud exhalation. She knew Ash had heard it, for the Monster rose his head up. She stared at Its beautiful face, at that dimpled chin and those dark, purple eyes.

Ash, softly, asked her, "Have you ever felt glory so close at hand?"

She felt herself ask It, "Aren't you cold, embracing me with all of this snow and... and you're naked?"

Netta wondered how she would ever survive what was sure to come next. She knew that without Its aid, she would be certain to never survive to see the next day.

But, if she died without Its help - the Devil's own help - she would have her own soul.

She would still be her own person.

Ash paused, then smiled an almost sad smile that was nevertheless tinged with something like deeply penetrative, corrupting lust.

"Lovely, I'm always naked. Every moment that you look at me, I am an illusion."

The thought of Its words rendered her, for a moment, unable to think coherently.

She was taken out of her sudden sense of wonder when she felt Ash's hands roaming over her shirt's front. They slid along the front of the cloth in such a way that she felt that she might as well as not been wearing anything.

Her heart pounded, the sound filling her ears again, noisy as it intermingled with the sound of her hectic breathing.

How could she be breathing, even alive, as she was touched by It, like this?

And then, as though she was hit with some celestial influence, she felt the sudden turn of lust in her mind transform.

The very man that had killed her Sister's beloved arched over her.

When she closed her eyes, she could see It.

Ash was there, looking almost as though he were surrounded by flames. It stood over the burning corpse of a Monster, dispassionate. It looked different, taller, gaunter, sharp as though there were blades protruding from the top of its head.

And then It turned to gaze at her, the Monster's eyes brighter, more manic than the fire that burned, ate at the creature at Its feet -

The second Ash's hand slid underneath the bottom edge of her shirt, the sensation of skin, so very real, she felt herself lurch into Its touch.

His touch burned, scorched.