A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

What followed was a few more minutes of chaos, during which Emily started by thoroughly demonstrating the erosion abilities of her darkness, before explaining exactly what she was going to do with it, and then slowly creeping the darkness up his legs.

For some reason, she had a quick flashback of the moment she tortured and killed Liam, back in London, which only exacerbated her anger.

Naturally, this process ingrained Dimitri with terror at the idea of his brave little soldier suffering a terrible fate, which made every man in that courtyard flinch a little. Unfortunately, neither his, nor anyone else's, plea had any effect on Emily.

That is, until Erik showed up.

At that point, the memories ended, and Erik snapped back to reality. He blinked slightly, and quickly realized that only a few seconds had passed for everyone else.

He turned to Dimitri with a raised eyebrow and a frown, "You're not good at taking no for an answer, are you?"

Although he felt annoyed at this man's behaviour, he wasn't particularly angry. In the end, nothing happened, and Dimitri didn't seem like a malicious person. Rather, Erik judged him as someone who'd been skating by on charm for most of his life and was used to turning a no into a yes.

And Erik could see why. Dimitri was an objectively handsome man, with a charming smile, an exotic accent, and a cheerful vibe. It wasn't surprising that many people fell prey to his personality.

Only, this time, he'd met his match. Neither Erik, nor his wives, were so easily impressed. Erik was no less handsome, and while he might be a little too rough around the edges to be considered traditionally charming, he didn't care to be either.

Regardless, neither Emma nor Emily was impressed. In fact, Dimitri's attempts at charm just annoyed them instead.

Of course, had this man touched any more than just Emily's shoulder, Erik would have had to take more drastic measures. But, as it stood, he decided that Emily had already punished him enough, seeing as this man was just about ready to soil his pants out of sheer terror towards Emily's darkness.

Dimitri tried to shrug helplessly, despite the restrains, while his eyes were still wide in panic. "M— Most people enjoy hugs!" he exclaimed desperately. "I didn't want to offend! Very sorry! Please, talk to her for me, yes?!"

Erik grinned at him a little, somewhat enjoying the man's panic, because he still felt annoyed with Katya's brother. Then, he turned to a slightly anxious Emily, who was looking at him, wondering what he'd think. In response, Erik grabbed her chin, still grinning, and planted a heavy kiss on her lips.

Instinctively, Emily responded in kind, moaning softly. At the same time, she dropped her hands with the magic circles and caused the darkness clinging to Dimitri's body to disappear.

Instantly, both Dimitri and Eloise relaxed and breathed sighs of relief, despite still being restrained, because Emma had no intention of letting them go before Erik told her to.

At the same time, however, they looked at Erik and Emily a little incredulously, because the terrifying woman from before was now melting obediently into Erik's touch.

After a few seconds, Erik separated from Emily, and smiled as he looked into her eyes, hazy with love and devotion. "You did good, little shadow. No other man can touch you besides me."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Emily grinned widely in response, happy to be praised by the only man whose opinion she cared about.

Then, he raised an amused eyebrow. "But I think he's been punished enough, don't you think? We still need to deliver him to Katya, after all. Besides, I think he's learned his lesson…"

He turned to the somewhat relieved, yet still anxious Dimitri, and smirked a little, "Haven't you?"

Unsurprisingly, Dimitri nodded enthusiastically, "Da, Da! I've learned lesson!" Then, he shook his head with an equal amount of fervour, "No more hugs! Dimitri will behave!"

Grinning, Erik looked at Emily again. "Well, what do you think?"

Emily pouted a little, but still nodded. "I suppose if you say so, he can go, Master. But tell him to stay well away from me!"

Naturally, Dimitri could hear her, but the raven-haired beauty simply had no more interest in interacting with him. At this point, realizing he'd received a stay of execution, Dimitri decided to just be obedient and quiet.

Erik nodded complacently at his wife, but did not tell Emma to release the constriction spell just yet. He could tell she had enough energy to keep it up for a little longer, so he first turned to Eloise, who he presumed to be the wife of Alexandre, based on the guard's reactions.

"Well, now that we've dealt with that, how about you tell me what you're doing here?" he asked her curiously. "Did you fall for his charms?" While he didn't particularly care, it was Elora who'd asked him to inquire about this, promising to explain later.

Despite her earlier relief, the woman's eyes were downcast and depressed, as she shook her head. "No, nothing like that... Dimitri is a nice man, but I'd never betray my husband," her voice was full of conviction and love, presumably aimed at Alexandre.

She angled her head to look Erik in the eye, still clearly depressed, "I just wanted the killing to stop… I'm sure Alexandre will be disappointed, but I didn't want any more death because of me. I just want this thing to end. I want my husband to be released and able to follow his conscience."

Everyone in the courtyard looked confused, as they had no idea what she was talking about. Not even the Dimitri or the guards appeared to know.

Eloise turned a little wry, "I wasn't sure you were here for Dimitri, but I took a gamble. And since Carl and the others likely would have stopped me if I'd come through the front door, I decided to sneak around." She smiled, although it was still a sad, almost heart wrenching smile, "I'm glad it worked out."

Erik immediately assumed Carl was the guard captain, but also quickly discarded that realization as unimportant. He did, however, grow some respect for this woman. She was clearly a devoted wife, and a generally good person.

But that didn't matter right now, because her answer was what Elora had expected, which meant she quickly shared her newest scheme with him. What he heard made him grin a little, as the love he felt for his scheming first wife grew once more.

Before he could move on her plan, however, Carl the guard captain finally stormed out of the front door.

Surprisingly, it had only been a relatively short time since Erik had left Carl without telling him why, and since Erik, as a Runebound, was far faster than him, it took the captain a while to realize where Erik was going, and then to catch up.

Of course, his arrival heralded some more chaos when he realized the lady of the castle was restrained by greenery and the other guards felt emboldened, but it didn't last long.

Erik finally asked Emma to release the spell, after which Eloise quickly settled the guards down, and convinced them to let Erik and the others leave without any more conflict. Not that doing so was particularly hard to do, because the guards were perfectly aware of the outcome that battle would have.

They just didn't care about their lives when Eloise was in danger, showing a degree of loyalty that could only be admired.

However, before Erik left, he pulled Eloise out of earshot from the guards, to discuss something with her.

Finally, no more than 45 minutes after they first stormed the castle, Erik and the others quickly left Bamburgh castle behind. On the castle's ramparts, Eloise watched them go with a face that showed some concern, as she rubbed the small, dark-green mark of a covenant gracing the back of her hand.

But her contemplation was short lived. She turned around and sighed sadly at the tens of dead first-rankers this battle had left behind. With determination, she began coordinating the guards to arrange for the burial of their comrades.