The nightmares stopped.

I finally had blissful nights of dreamless sleep.

I almost wept with joy the first morning. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night screaming. I was able to sleep through the entire night.

I was no longer in my cell. I was back in the room from the first night. I slept on the bed relishing in the comfort it gave.

I wasn't sure if it were my actions or the words of the man and woman at the party that acquired my new freedom but I didn't care.

Azazeal was never too far and stayed with me for most of the day.

I was a ghost lingering in the halls and in the rooms. I floated on my day to day grateful for the air, the sun and freedom I was being granted.

I only saw Robyn for dinner. He'd talk for what seemed like hours about things I just didn't care about.

He seemed happy enough.

It was on no particular day at all that something changed.

I was sitting on the banister of one of the many outside balconies of the mansion watching the sun set behind the trees. I breathed in the night. I both hated and loved it.

The darkness reminded me of the dark cell of my nightmares that I'd stay in for so long.

But the night also bring the sprites. I would watch them dance on the branches in the woods giving the trees fanciful colors in the inky darkness.

A raven flying overhead landed next to me on the banister. I watched it as it watched me and it then gave a deep bow.

I frowned. How peculiar.

I extended a hand towards it so it could perch on my finger but all it did was watch me.

Strange. All birds lately wanted to do was be nearer to me.

The raven wouldn't come a step closer.

It cawed then nodded towards the woods.

I looked to where it pointed, squinting against the twilight. The trees were swaying. But there was no wind.

No. They weren't swaying from the wind. Something was moving them out of the way, making the tops move with them.

As I continued to watch, Robyn's voice broke through the silence. "Azazeal!"

I watched the bird suddenly fly away and turned to look at Azazeal, his white eyes still expressionless. Instantly, he disappeared.

I left the balcony minutes later, bored, going back to the room ready to have dinner when the doors of the room suddenly burst open from the hall.

Damien broke down the doors, a commotion of flying bodies and swords swirling behind him. I watched perplexed.

This was a new one.

He began to walk towards me when someone stopped him, grabbing his hand. Damien's violet eyes never left mine as a dark tendril started to coil around the man and flung him away letting Damien go.

I held his gaze as he walked to me, his boots reindeer's as he neared. I watched as a smile began to hint on his perfect lips. He was dressed in battle gear, the leather and armor clinging to him like night.

His smile spread wider as he stepped closer. He grabbed me and hugged me tightly, too tight to breathe. He breathed me in then stepped back. His hand ran through my hair, his eyes scanned mine then over all of me, his eyes watching me over as if he was making sure it was really me.

I was frozen throughout.

I knew what happened next.

His lips gently brushed my brow. "I'm sorry I took so long."

I didn't move. "That would be something he'd say."

He pulled back and frowned, his fingers still in my hair. "Em, I'm here to take you home."

I shook my head. "No. You're not really here. And at any moment you're going to die."

"Gods," his eyes scanned my eyes, my cheeks then my skinny arms. "What has he done to you?"

I laughed. Gods. He'd say that all the time. "That is something else he'd say." He'd done such a good job of making him real in my dreams.

He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "Em, it's really me. It's Damien. I'm here to take you home. But we need to leave the mansion in order to do that. Will you walk with me?"

I shook my head. "No. I can't leave. If I leave, you'll die again."

He growled, his temper was flaring. Electricity filled the air.

He looked kind of cute.

"We need to go, love, and I'm unable to move you by force because of the wards. I can prove it's me." He paused for a moment, thinking. "I'm in love with you."

I nodded. "Yes. Robyn knows that. He's been in my head."

He growled. "The first time I showed you magic it was a coin behind your ear."

I smiled. "Robyn knows that too."

He touched my cheek gently, "The night we started your plan to meet Leah at the bookstore, you were crawling all around the floor of the coffee shop to make sure she wouldn't see you. My heart melted when I saw your little head pop up from behind the counter. I was ready to abandon the plans right then and there."

I frowned. "But you're married now ... "

He leaned closer. "After the bookstore closes and you're doing a closing shift you put on your headphones and dance as you put things away." He laughed. "You look like Elaine when you dance."

Something snapped through the haze. "Is that an insult? Cause I'm pretty sure I'm a good dancer."

He smiled in relief and I smiled too. My heart gave a jolt as we watched each other, as his eyes melted.

"There you are," he murmured as he ran a loving hand through my hair. I took his hand and leaned my cheek against the other relishing in the soft touch of his hands.

He suddenly moved, picking me up by my middle and hoisting me over his shoulder.

I laughed and snorted as he carried me over his shoulder. "Well, this is new."

He stopped suddenly and I craned my neck to see around him. Robyn stood at the doors, hair disheveled, coat ripped. "Put her down."

Damien did but placed me behind him.

The blood froze in my veins.

I was wrong.

My nightmares - this was just another nightmare.

I watched the exchange between them.

Most of the nightmares were of Damien breaking me out of the cell, the two of us alone. He wouldn't come with the cavalry that was fighting behind Robyn.

And Robyn definitely didn't look as mad as he did now.

He was flippant, casual, taunting.

Now, he looked like he was about to burst a vein in his neck. His beautiful features were contorted in hate. Evil oozed from him.

Was it really Damien standing in front of me?

I touched his arm feeling his tense muscle beneath the thick black sleeve. He felt solid.

I poked his shoulder. He seemed so real.

"Stop poking me, Em."

Robyn smiled. I watched as the familiar darkness started to consume his features. His blue eyes started to turn black as I felt new energy rise within him. "This certainly moves up my schedule."

Damien chuckled as he turned his head, his shoulders shrugged and he rolled his neck in preparation.

The doors and windows slammed closed around us with a deafening pounding as they did so.

I watched Damien's hand wave in front of me black lightning sparking from his fingers. He spoke to me even though he didn't turn. "Do me a favor, love. Don't move."

Instantly I was sent back to the other end of the room and placed into a chair, the chair almost falling back from the force. I gasped at the sudden energy and tried to move my hand as it sat on the armrest of the chair. I couldn't move.

I was the only spectator in a fight between Damien and Robyn.

Blue light cracked around Robyn whereas Damien had black instead. Robyn spoke, "Child, you are no match for me. Allow me to spare you embarrassment in front of your friend."

Damien didn't say anything. Instead, he sent a force of power towards Robyn.

Robyn barely stepped back. Two large swords appeared one in each hand. They seemed to move just as an extension of him even with the tendril smoke-arm he used. They looked ancient, sharp, used. Like they had been his fateful companions in hundreds of battles.

He charged towards Damien both swords in his magic and non-magic hands glinting in the light.

Damien didn't move.

Darkness exploded. Pure, inky darkness surrounded the room, engulfing the marble floor, the gold fireplace. Dark, black tendrils radiated from Damien flying towards Robyn as fast as light. I recognized the darkness, the same had held Azazeal in place when Damien burst into the room and attacked him.

Robyn dodged it, swinging his large sword high then coming straight down on the tendril that reached for him. Robyn sliced the shadow in half before it even reached him, a clean cut of the night that surrounded him.

I balked not believing what I was seeing. How had he managed to do that?

Damien flinched but didn't stop his attack.

Robyn deftly avoided them all but could hardly make ground towards Damien. For each and every shadow he avoided and cut, three more grew and all with more deadly precision than the one before.

Damien only smiled as he watched him struggle against the power he continued to push towards him.

He even seemed to be restraining himself as if he wanted to draw the fight out.

Realization dawned, he was tiring him out.

He turned to me and smiled, he knew exactly what he was doing.

I grew distracted as I stared at him. Robyn always made Damien's copies just like him. They had the same smile, eyes, clothes. There wasn't ever anything that set them apart that made me realize right before the terrible end that they were fake shadow copies of my friend.

But as I watched this one, I realized he couldn't be a copy.

They were never this cocky.

They didn't have that gleam in their eye, the mischievous half smile as he continued to watch me.

My heart swelled and my eyes filled.

He was here.

He was actually here.

I fought against the magic that held me in place in a futile attempt to run to him, to feel him again. I wanted the reassurance that he was actually there, not just a figment of my exhausted imagination.

Somehow Robyn gained on him and when I looked back to him, he was closer. He shredded the last shadow like paper before he reached Damien.

My breath caught. My voice was barely a whisper as I said his name out loud.

Damien turned and was able to block Robyn latest attack with his own sword.

Sparks flew from their swords as they met together with a deafening crash. They continued their strikes across the room, disappearing then appearing again as they moved through the room. I watched them throughout as they appeared near the window, then the doors, then the fireplace.

They crashed through the balcony glass doors making it rain glass all around them.

They both struggled to maintain their ground; both struggled to beat the other.

The darkness that had been restrained before was unleashed and an odious tremor ran through the room making all glass shatter around us. The vases over the mantle of the fireplace erupted, the fire within it roared, the flames climbed and crawled up the wall.

The darkness that had previously choked the air from my lungs that had held Azazeal in place were nothing compared to the power I was feeling flowing through the room. It was breathing - alive like nothing I'd ever felt or seen.

And it was coming from Damien. Damien had control of it, it followed his moves the slightest twitches of his hands, the darkness did his bidding.

He was strong but Robyn was still holding on, barely breaking a sweat as he moved around Damien, anticipating what the darkness would do next.

I wanted to do something - anything to help.

I struggled against the hold on my body that kept me in the chair but could barely move my fingers.

Metal glinted in the light and I watched as a dagger flew towards me.

Damien appeared before me deftly catching it in his hand.

Blood sprayed from his wound, the blade cutting his hand.

Damien growled, not in pain but in annoyance. He turned to Robyn. "That's cheating."

Robyn smiled and his eyes turned to the corner of the room beside Damien and I. I looked to where he glanced and froze.

Another Robyn. A copy of him was behind Damien and before I could scream his name, the copy was on him. He placed his arm on his shoulder and neck holding him in place. His other hand pushed something against his back.

Damien gasped, and at once I felt the darkness start to recede.

Robyn pulled his fist back from where it was digging into Damien's back, metal glinting against the light.

He stabbed him.

I was screaming, thrashing against what held me to the chair as I watched the Robyn across the room suddenly disappear.

He had deceived him, created a copy then thrown a dagger at me to distract him while the real Robyn stood behind me waiting. He knew he wouldn't put me in danger and attacked, placing a knife in his back.

Robyn turned him around so that Damien watched me over his shoulder.

Disbelief was in his eyes, disbelief, shock - terror.

Absolute terror.

My heart shattered in my chest.

As I watched the terror in his eyes I realized ...

I loved him.

Loved him more than I could put into words. Loved him more than I knew.

I was in love with him. I couldn't lose him.

"Let him go!" I was sobbing, the tears were warm as they fell down my cheeks. "Please stop! I'll do anything! ANYTHING!"

He ignored me and instead pushed the dagger against him again. This time tearing through his chest. Right over his heart.

Damien fell on his knees, limp, lifeless - then fell completely to the floor face down.

All at once, the darkness was gone.

The silence was ringing in my ears. It was thick in the air around us.

Everything was still as if it hadn't been shaking with raw power moments before. The power that held me to the chair broke letting me move again.

Robyn laughed the entire time.

I pushed myself off the chair and made my way to Damien, falling to my knees next to him. "Damien?"

I gently tugged on his shoulder and turned him over having him face me.

His eyes were closed, his handsome features were still.

Tears stung my eyes. No. No. He couldn't be.

But I already knew it. I'd proved it when I could easily get out of the chair and run to him. His magic no longer keeping me glued to the chair like before.

Damien was dead.