Chapter 15 When the Fly Welcomes the Spider
WHEN THE FLY WELCOMES THE SPIDER
ELIZA
Ididn’t know why I was back inside the club.
Didn’t know what would ever possess me to return. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, as I knew one insane reason I would sneak back in here, and he had a name.
Wyedari Oblivion.
Veneficus stretched out before me in all its dark, seductive opulence, the low pulse of music vibrating through the building. The air was thick with heat, with danger, and something far heavier than fear…
It was desire.
The low lights glowed an ominous red, casting everything in shadowed, gothic luxury, and for a moment, I simply stood there, locked like a deer caught in headlights.
But then came a sound. An intimate whisper brushing against my thoughts like a breath against my skin. My name wasn’t spoken, yet I knew it was meant for me. The low murmur curling inward rather than outward, warm and coaxing. One threaded with quiet authority.
‘Come closer, little one.’ The words were not a demand, but an invitation wrapped in inevitability.
As if there was no doubt that I would comply.
The alluring voice settled into my chest and loosened something there, easing the tension and anxiety from my limbs.
Although the fear didn’t vanish completely.
No, it softened and blurred at the edges.
It reshaped into something heavier, something far more dangerous.
Until standing still felt impossible, like resisting gravity itself.
So, I started walking.
I didn’t question why or where I was going because some part of me already knew.
The path opened ahead of me as if the club itself was guiding my steps.
A room full of bodies parting without resistance, faces turning toward me as I passed.
I could hear their laughter, their murmured conversations.
The clink of glasses and soft sway of bodies.
Yet all of it felt distant, muted, like sound heard underwater.
My attention was pulled forward irresistibly toward the raised platform at the far end of the room.
Toward…
Oblivion’s throne.
The dark and demonic chair waited for me beneath the glow of a shifting light. Its imposing carved frame was beautiful in a way that made my stomach twist. But it was nothing compared to the masterful figure who commanded its space.
Hell’s judge and executioner.
He was exactly as he had appeared the night before, massive and composed.
One arm resting against the throne as if it were an extension of his body.
His gaze fixed on me with quiet, devastating certainty.
His startling eyes caught the light like a blade just drawn, dangerous in a way that made my breath hitch.
When his gaze met mine, the reaction was instant, a quiet tug low in my belly that I hadn’t been prepared for.
A command that did not need words, but he added them anyway.
“Closer now.” A smooth and rich tone slipped through the noise of the club and settled directly inside my head. It wasn’t loud, wasn’t forceful, but it wrapped around my thoughts all the same. It was spellbinding, coaxing, threaded with something that made my pulse stumble.
I took another step and then another.
But that was when the image ahead of me flickered.
For half a breath, the club dissolved around us, replaced by something far older and far more terrible. Stone walls rose into darkness, the air thick with heat and power.
For he was no longer seated in his club but instead upon a hellish throne carved from bone and demonic shadows. His deadly frame crowned in firelight and ancient authority.
His form shifted, his presence expanding with wings half-unfurled behind him.
A pair that looked enormous, with each dark feather like a layered blade or sharpened shadows.
Their edges ragged and serrated as if carved from night itself.
An eerie emerald glow pulsed beneath the black, veins of luminous green threading through the feathers like living embers.
His aura cast a sickly, otherworldly light that breathed and moved with him.
Like some restrained power barely contained beneath the span of wings.
Glowing white eyes pinned me in place, and my breath caught painfully in my chest. Pure, undiluted fear shivered through me as he reached out, beckoning me closer with a sharp jerk of two claw-tipped fingers.
Then Hell evaporated, and the club snapped back into place with startling clarity.
The music returned, the lights glowed once more, and he was back to being the same Oblivion that I had seen anchored to my own world.
Calculated control, watching me as though nothing had changed at all.
As though both versions of him existed at once, layered over each other.
Truth and illusion flickered together until I could no longer tell which one frightened me more.
I glanced nervously over my shoulder, only to find that the crowd behind me had thinned.
Where once there were dozens of bodies pressed together, now there were fewer, their shapes indistinct, their faces turned away.
Unease rippled through me, but it did not stop me.
If anything, it drew me onward. My steps slowed as I continued toward him, my awareness narrowing to the space between us.
Another step and another pause was all it took for him to lure me once more with his words. His voice was closer now, more intimate, as if he were standing right beside me instead of waiting upon his throne.
“You are safe here.”
I swallowed, my throat dry, my heart hammering as I looked back once more. The club was emptier now, vast stretches of darkness where people once stood, and the sense of isolation thundered in my chest. It dawned on me then that they weren’t leaving on their own.
No… they were being removed.
Eradicated for me.
The realization should have terrified me.
It should have sent me running, screaming for an exit that no longer existed.
Instead, my feet carried me forward, betraying me with every step, drawn by something I did not understand and did not want to resist. The throne loomed closer, its dark lines resolving into something more intricate, and I saw it for what it truly was.
A web.
Invisible threads stretched outward from it, subtle and impossibly strong.
Each cord humming with power, thrumming through my veins.
Each step I took brought me closer to it, closer to the core.
And I knew with chilling certainty that once I erased that final distance between us, there would be no pulling free.
I looked back one last time.
The club was now completely empty.
No music, no laughter, no bodies, nothing but darkness and silence stretching infinitely behind me, like some endless oblivion.
I was completely alone with him now, the weight of his attention pressing down on me until my skin prickled and my breath came shallow and fast. My heart was in my throat as I turned back toward the throne, my mouth opening to demand answers I was not sure I wanted.
But he was no longer seated.
No, now he was directly… in front of me!
I screamed.
He stood impossibly close, towering over me, his features no longer restrained, no longer softened by illusion.
His eyes blazed white, his presence overwhelming, and his form unmistakably demonic as his arms closed around me.
A cage of muscle trapping me against his chest with unyielding strength.
There was no pain, no struggle, only the crushing certainty of his hold and the heat of him seeping into my bones.
“You are mine now.”
The words reverberated through me, settling deep and final, until fear and desire collided so violently that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. My breath tore free in a broken gasp as his grip tightened. The web closing around us both as the world collapsed into darkness.
Into his seductive Hell.
I woke with a sharp intake of breath, my heart racing, my body damp with sweat as the echo of his voice still rang far too clearly in my ears.
His words of dark seduction clinging there as if he had never truly let me go.
The room slowly came into focus around me, the darkness of the dream giving way to the thin, early morning light.
However, the sense of his presence lingered stubbornly, heavy and intimate, refusing to fade with the night.
I lay there for a moment, tangled in the sheets, trying to steady my breathing and convince myself that it had only been a dream.
Yet his voice still curled through my thoughts with unsettling certainty, as though it had left something behind.
A lingering residue that clung on and refused to let go.
He was a sorcerer, after all, so it made sense to ask myself if he could have done something to me? Perhaps, when touching me, even briefly last night, could have done more than I realized. Could he have woven something subtle and unseen into my sleep?
The thought sent a fresh ripple of unease through me.
I didn’t know if I could endure nights like this, caught between fear and longing.
Nights when my subconscious would start replaying his claim over and over again.
Worse still was the possibility that the dream hadn’t been a dream at all, but more like… a warning.
That he hadn’t simply let me escape. That whatever had passed between us had marked me in ways I was only just beginning to understand, and that this was only the start.
‘You are mine now.’
“Oh my God,” I rasped dramatically, closing my eyes once more and letting my head fall back.
I then found myself dragging in another shaky breath as I clawed at the blankets, my fingers curling into the fabric as if that alone might anchor me back to reality.
My chest ached, my pulse roaring in my ears, and for one terrifying second, I expected to open my eyes and see glowing white staring back at me from the shadows.