She came to me, walking through a door into my study after an evening meal one night. I looked up, saw one of the maids, and on a chance second look noticed a familiar set of features.

Just like that, she was standing in front of me. Our respective auras darkened from the proximity, my intuition warning me that such a concentration of power was dangerous, unpredictable, lethal.

She was unbelievably attractive. There was a dark magnetism about her, a promise – an offer of fulfilment for a desire you never knew you had, in a way you never would have guessed, to a degree you could never begin to imagine.

“How do you do it?” I asked, though it was difficult to think clearly.

She smiled wickedly, as a huntress at her prize.

“You play the puppetmaster. I simply play… the puppets.”

And then there was no more resistance, only an acceptance that power calls to power and that mortals dare not pit themselves against such an attraction.