June 2
Liliana and Audric Audric's penthouse Late night
It was not every night she slept. Liliana was beyond such basic concerns and any such indulgence was a matter of pampering, a luxury which she granted herself for the simple sake of a whim. This particular one was more often than not inspired by Audric Palais. Odd that such an innocent, almost tender act as sharing a bed for sleep should be at his suggestion. She was as inconsistent in this as she was in everything else, but her nature left her sensitive to the wants of others. She could play off those desires or counter to them as she saw fit. So it was that some nights she nestled close, the very image of fragility, leaving him to feel that sense of being needed and trusted. It was impossible to say how much truth there was to that, or to anything with her. They were alike in that way, as in so many others.
It was not the same thing as feigning aught for the sake of his desires. No, with Liliana, it was as flattering a responsiveness as any, no different than arching against his touch or melting into the strength of his embrace. His emotional hold over her was telling, if confusing. Other nights, she seemed content to merely share the space, lithe body occupying her own section of his bed. On occasion, she did not opt to stay at all, though a story was always enough to convince her if he truly did crave her companionship for more than the physical needs she was so skilled in sating. At the start of it all, she had been one of the better assignments that Kitriel sent Agent Palais on. She had been just coy enough to present a challenge, so that when she did at last succumb to her interest in him, it provided a sense of real accomplishment that a man of his particular power must seldom have experienced. She wasn’t human. If anything, her pedigree was superior to his own in such arts. Liliana was the best and worst sort of drug, and if his own powers had any impact on her, well, it had never been enough to stop her from walking away when she chose.
No matter how she chose to sleep, clinging or distant, she was consistently calm and unobtrusive about it. She didn't writhe overmuch or steal blankets. Temperature was one more thing that didn't trouble her unless it reached extremes, so why would she? If she had experienced nightmares before, they had never been of an intensity to jolt her awake, let alone to have her cry out as she did tonight. Clinging to the blankets suggested a modesty that typically she seemed incapable of, but nonetheless tonight she grasped them to her desperately, twisting beneath the luxurious warmth of them--nothing but the best for our Audric. It was whimpers at first, but all at once she was screaming, tangled up in the sheets she had climbed beneath hours before, half-awake. The problem this presented was that Liliana, as slight and sweet a thing as she was, could also be incredibly dangerous. The air in the room for now seemed unperturbed by her turmoil, but that could change quickly, as he well knew. She had slipped up once before, for one terrifying moment, and stolen his breath away in a manner that was not at all appealing.