He acted as though he had not heard her. His fingers dug into the soft skin of her thigh. "Give yourself to me. Open up and let me in, my sweet.”

"No," she said, pushing at him. The arms that had held her close now seemed like shackles, imprisoning rather than embracing her. "No, this is wrong. You promised my father ...”

He laughed again, but the sound was ugly this time, mocking. "You think any oath to a mortal could ever keep a Fey from taking what he wants?" He lifted his head, and ice rushed through her veins. His eyes! Instead of the glowing lavender eyes she'd come to love, there were only pits of blackness, flickering with malevolent red lights.

She screamed and shoved him away.

Mocking laughter rang in her ears, and Rain disappeared in a swirl of black smoke. The twinkling glow of the fairy flies was extinguished, plunging her into darkness.

"Bright Lord protect me," she whispered. She knew where she was, knew what was happening. This was a place she'd been many times before. This was the malignant womb from which all her nightmares sprang, the dark home of monstrous horrors and unspeakable evil.

This was the pit where the Shadow Man dwelled. Haunting her. Hunting her.

Hide deep and well. Never let him find you. If you reveal yourself to him, all will be lost. The urgent directive that had guided her from her earliest memories now shrieked from the depths of her soul. Hide, child! Hide now!

It was already too late.

She tried to flee, as she'd fled so many times in the past, but something held her fast, trapping her in the dark nexus. Panic rose, swift and sharp. Unable to escape, she tried to make herself small and invisible and tried to direct her consciousness, her thoughts, her entire being inward—hoping silence could conceal her. But she could feel him coming closer.

Cold enveloped her. Terror choked her. Each beat of her heart became a painful blow, as if someone were hammering spikes of ice into her chest.

Whispers snaked around her, the sibilant voice ancient and sinister and harrowingly familiar. "Girl ... I know you're here ... I can taste your nearness ... Show yourself”

Something brushed against her, something small and furry with sharp little claws. A rat running across her hand. She bit back a scream, knowing the Shadow Man would hear. Knowing, somehow, it was what he wanted. If she made a sound—even the tiniest whimper—she would seal her doom.

The rat brushed against her again. Its sharp claws scratched her skin. The long, naked tail slithered across her hand, twitching back and forth like some hideous pendulum as its pointed snout poked and sniffed at her. She squeezed her eyes shut, shrieking in silent horror and revulsion as the verminous creature crawled over her. She didn't dare move, didn't dare fling the filthy thing away.

Something else brushed her hip. Another rat had joined the first. A third climbed over her leg, then a fourth brushed her foot. Soon there were dozens, circling around her, crawling over her skirts and up her arms, growing bolder as she offered no resistance.

"I sense your fear. Have my little friends found you?" When she didn't respond, his voice hardened, "Come, now. Show yourself. I can use much more unpleasant methods to get what I want.”

Sharp teeth sank into her finger as the first rat closed its jaws and bit. Agony lanced up her arm. Another rat bit, then another. Oh, gods! The silent scream ripped through her soul. She was being eaten alive!

Her flesh was on fire. Though her eyes were blind in the utter darkness, she could feel each tiny scrape and bite, the pierce of long sharp teeth, the agony of skin peeling back from bone in bloody shreds.

With frantic urgency, she began to whisper the Bright Lord's devotion in her mind, reciting the words again and again. Holy Adelis, Lord of Light, shine your brightness upon me. Glorious Father, Sun of my Soul, grant me strength to stand against darkness. Adelis, Bright One, Lord of my Heart, bless me and keep me always in the Light. The devotion offered only a fraction of the peace it usually did, but even that little bit she grasped with desperate gratitude.

Again and again, she repeated the devotion, and with each repetition, the pain in her flesh grew slightly more distant. Still there, still agonizing, but muted. As if she'd managed to push it into a small corner of her mind and lock it there.

Time crawled by. Moments stretched out for what seemed like bells. She clung to her silence with ragged determination. No matter what he did to her, she mustn't reveal herself.

"You are stronger than I believed." The Shadow Man sounded triumphant, almost ... proud. `But your efforts are in vain. You will reveal yourself to me." His voice became a cold whip of compulsion, battering at her mind, eating away at her defenses as relentlessly as his vermin gnawed at her flesh. "You want to reveal yourself to me. You can feel the darkness within you, demanding release.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed a silent cry, trying to block out the sound of his voice, the insidious words worming past her defenses. She wanted to scream out that he was wrong, that she wasn't dark, that she didn't feel the evil inside her. But she couldn't. Such a claim would be a lie. Deep, deep inside, in a place she had long ago refused to look—in a place so terrifying she'd never spoken of it to anyone, not even her father—something monstrous lived. An evil thing she'd always feared, a terror that dreamed of rending flesh with fangs and drinking blood rain from the sky.

It shifted inside her now, restless and hungry, its rage growing by the moment. Her skin felt stretched. Her hands clenched in fists. She mustn't let that thing out. Not now. Not ever. The world would fall to darkness if she ever set it free.