A/N: Again, any feedback about this story and/or how to improve it is appreciated.

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Vengeance?

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So he did.

He took her body completely, finding all its secrets, leaving her nothing to keep for her own.

But as she lay there, as he thoroughly violated her, she did not fight. She put up no struggle. But oh, how she battled to keep that calm. Her efforts to remain subdued poured the sweat off her body even though she was not moving a single muscle.

He paused once, leaning on his arms, looking down at her face. Her eyes were shut with concentration, but not squeezed shut. And even that took effort. She slowly opened her eyes and gazed coolly up at him.

"I hate you," she intoned. He frowned and began again, his efforts shaking her so her words became blurry.

"I...despise...you." He closed his eyes, breaking her, breaking her...but never overcoming her.

"I abhor you." Her voice became crisp, clear, sharp. He affected her no more than did the noiseless fire across the room, or the sun that must have been starting to rise outside by now. His efforts made no difference to her drone.

"Your very presence fills me with loathing." He grew frenzied in his need to defeat her, to utterly destroy her mind -- her soul, despite all his previous claims.

"But you will never vanquish me!" she shouted, fervent for one moment.

And through his frantic abuses of her body he could feel her soul slipping past him....

Suddenly her efforts toward complete relaxation stopped. Her head lolled back, and her eyes opened wide. She drew in one long shuddering breath and cast it out.

And on that breath floated a lingering laughter, leaving the dead eyes behind and merging with the blaze that roared up from the previously silent fireplace, consuming the entire room.

And as that laughter shot up the chimney in a raging pillar, the only thing to be seen in the small room was the lifeless body of a beautiful woman, held across the lap of a man.... The man’s eyes were rounded by shock despite the smoke, and his gaze was fixed on the dullness of death in the woman’s eyes, as if he were receiving some message from her face. He bowed his head, the fires melting his frigid soul, and as their bodies were wreathed with flames, he closed his eyes.

One lone tear slid quickly down his cheek, fizzling as the fire overcame him at last.

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