Netta never thought that it would ever end.   Gentle, crazed, shocking - 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 as one, they both collapsed on the red sheets on the massive four-poster.

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 herself collapsed facedown, managed to lift her head up to look at her lover's 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. "I thought you said you could never be sated."

She felt him tense, then heard him say, First times for everything, I just 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 through the air. "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 talk a little more in-depth yet?

Netta shifted on him, trying to press her skin as much as she could to Ash's. She was rewarded when he flopped a tired arm around her. She was fearful of this next aspect to come, was content, for the moment, to just be content. "Oh, not yet. Please."

No need to ask anything of me, Master.

Tiredness provoked out of Netta something that she had wanted to tell him for a long time. "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, warmly. 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 Ash had withdrawn his finger, Netta 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, he 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 his broad form, her chin resting at apex of his chest. Her feet laid against the taut curve 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 the wind.

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 content man, thanks in no small part to you. 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 mischievous 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." She paused. "I think it's time you tell me what you mean by "dark secrets"." Almost as soon as she said it, Netta wished she could take it back. She feared what she could stand to lose, what aspects of their relationship could change.

Ash sighed, dropping his head back. Ah, yes. The caveat of you wanting a relationship with the "real" me. I'll tell you what-

Netta sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. "Can we just stop with the games? Haven't we gone past this already?"

She felt Ash's hand as it reached, took gentle hold of her chin. He rose her face, stared at her, a tender expression on his rough features. Just a little more, I promise. Let me into your mind, I can show you something. On the off chance that you were crazy enough to want everything that I am - and you still have the choice, just tell me you want me to be a pretty boy and I can be anything you desire - I've planned a way to show you."

"What do you mean - let you inside of my mind? Aren't you in there already?"

He smile faintly at her. Humor me for once, Nettles.

Netta closed her eyes, sighed. Alri-

Ash held tightly to her, wrapping himself around her, arms tightening around Netta like vines with shocking speed.

She choked out a cry as she felt it happening, instinctively she tried to withdraw. She had not before felt Ash's presence as it filled, broadened inside of her mind, like this. She stilled, feeling a wave of fiery darkness descend on her. It was so real, so potent, that for a moment Netta thought that she would be bathed in flames. As moments passed, trapped in the hot whirlwind, 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 Ashwood, the one without the human voice, the one that went beyond maleness, the one that used sarcasm and rage, lust and hate - calling out to her.

It spoke to her, for the first time free of any physical or mental manifestation. There was, she found, an odd purity to Its voice. Of course, it was not a voice, as when It spoke, no actual words were used to suss meaning from. The meaning, the intent, was raw.

She felt, as she listened to It, that the presence was speaking in a language comprised only of truths, sensation. Then felt It embrace her in a light that was somehow made utterly of shadow. She could not respond in any other manner other than to open herself fully - for the first time in her life - to It, to Ash.

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.

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.

It shared with her so that both were cycling into each other like mouths sharing breath. Netta perceived 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.  The tender voice that reminded Netta, in a moment of shocking sorrow and happiness, of the first stirrings of romantic passion she had ever felt as a child, towards some amorphous ideal of a beautiful, tender -

Prince.

But this was no prince, for Its kind had only ever had -

Give YOURSELF to ME

Netta shook in terror, then as she felt something slipping from her, the world shook and then the storm abated.

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

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

"We made it." He said, eyes shining with tears, an unguarded, joyous smile on his mouth. Even the sharpness of his heavy teeth could not detract from the almost innocent that his happiness leant him.

Netta found that there was something odd about Ash's 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," she remarked, still recovering from her daze.

Ash flashed her a larger 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."

"We're in my mind." The realization came. She should have been shocked, horrified at proof of how powerful he was. Instead, she felt no fear, not much of anything.

It was when she looked at him that she began to feel a warmth that she recognized, somehow, as belonging to Ash. Terrifying outwardly, his heat, burning and misunderstood though it was, still warmed.

Ash smiled, then wiped the tears from his eyes, clearing his throat. "I think a celebration's in order - at least, a first dance." He bowed, one of his hands extended to Netta.

Netta saw that she had not imagined a transformation. Ash looked changed - his horns seemed less wild, massive. The darkness of his hair seemed lightened. His height was 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 less tarnished of a gold.

And his eyes - she had been too shocked at first to recognize it -

Ash wore a red dress shirt that fit his muscled body tightly, a white cream-colored vest, tucked into black pants that fit snugly. 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.  She had never taken dancing lessons, but it was as though it was an automatic, thoughtless action in Ash's arms to move gracefully.

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 warm in embarrassment as she recognized the words that he had already all but said aloud. 

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

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 his body, his personality. Still she could not have ever possibly conceived of the truth.

Ash 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 that 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.  His lips, his taste, his warmth was a pure distraction.

And then he had dragged his mouth from hers to whisper into her other ear. "That's the name I was given by the first Human to ever love me. Would you like to know the one I was born knowing?"

Netta nodded automatically.

Ash pressed his lips fully to Netta's ear and the sound that came from his lips had Netta arching her back, moaning. It was ecstasy, pain, sweet torment - but not a name, not in the way that a Human could understand, or cope with, hearing. She shuddered, rising her arm up to his neck, then begged him to repeat it.

Ash chuckled, the sound rasping, intimate, then did as she asked. It left Netta shaking, her body pressed, helpless, to his, so that he had to gently support her as he breathed tender death into her ear to stop her from spilling to the floor.

After Netta had regained some modicum of control over herself, they danced. It was as he twirled her that Ash bent his head and whispered the most wicked, taboo thing that a Monster could say to its Master. Even one whose legend stretched as far back as the first crude, heavy black shadows drawn on cave walls. 

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

Her entire being shook in answer to this confession.