Prologue

Through the decade-old layer of dust coating the small picture window he watches her with hidden intensity, a keen focus that is determined to miss nothing. It's become a ritual. In the three months since taking residence in this building she's become an obsession. Eyes like fire trail her every step down the busy sidewalk.  He sees only her.

The flow of white gossamer dances in the late evening breeze. The cardigan she dons always gray or a variation of that color follows the waltz of her skirt. She walks with certain grace, her very movement an unintentional ballet. He knows her like the air he breathes, has put to memory the delicate feature of her face. Despite that they were bastardized versions of the real thing, he holds to the image like life.

She greets the humans like old friends, gifts them with her smile and laughter. She stops at the local flower shop, the rotund florists with the thinning hair and lecherous grin offers her a basket of peonies. She's courteous in dodging his advances even as she purchases the basket with a smile. Her innocence, her naivety a rarity in this city both fascinates and repels him. The darkness in him, the one that feeds on cruelty, bathes in avarice, nurse' hatred and anticipates anger longs to capture that essence of her and gorge itself for days.

She stops at the fruit stand next, a bag of Tangerines, Lychees and Guava's exit with her. She heads home now to the building adjacent the one where he watches.

‘It won't be too long now' He murmurs silently, retreating into the shadows that are so familiar. He sits on the floor blanketed by dust, chipped paint and years of abandonment and waits. He hasn't to wait too long and soon Beethoven's Appassionata fills the air, the quiet and ominous arpeggios of the first movement, full of longing echoes through his very bones.

There is nothing else in this moment but the beauty of the melody cosseting him into a world unlike any he's ever known. The transition is gradual. Colors creep in from the edges of his vision turning his monochrome prison into a realm of diluted colors. The strains of piano chords ascend and descend skimming effortlessly over complex intervals with dexterity.

It is wondrous. Tints of violets, reds and greens wash over the gray coolness of his vision, giving him the ability to see color. Three months now she's been able to do this. Gift Cyvian with the impossible. The very first time he heard her play had been after a hunt. He'd been successful that night. Having bled four of his kind, fed from two, killed the rest, he'd been well sated. Bromhein, the King of Northeastern Coven of Bloodletters had expected prisoners for questioning, Cyvian had taken no casualties. They'd needed his expertise for a reason. He was an Ancheron, a mercenary demon who did his job well and owed allegiance to none. 

Once he'd concluded the meeting with the Bloodletter king, with the assurance that his contract remained intact Cyvian immediately returned to his temporary residence. The building. The Ancheron, despite having fed and fed well off Satian energy, had been oddly restless. Thirsting for something that had been beyond Cyvian's reach.

He'd hung himself from the rafters for hours in the hopes to silence the piercing screams of the demon that was so much a part of himself. When that had failed to work, Cyvian returned to the ground, the cat o' nine tails he remembered too well from his days with that demented Bloodletter bitch hailed him forth. Desperation had gripped Cyvian than, needing to silence both the Ancheron and the dogged memories snipping at his conscience he'd mercilessly flayed himself raw, using all that he was to sadistically strip the flesh from his bones.

Breathless, bleeding and teetering between pain and pleasure, he'd heard the first strains of piano chords. Chopin, Prelude. It'd come on wings of air, so gentle, so quiet that Cyvian thought he'd imagined it. He'd drawn lungs full of that air, inundating his very core with each melody she'd played. The memories evaporated and the demon quieted instantly quick to return beneath the shallow pool of Cyvian's soul, but Cyvian had felt its curiosity before it'd taken its leave. It had been that curiosity that had finally provoked him to open his eyes.

His first glimpse of color hadn't been as vivid then as it was now, but still the shock, the sheer wonderment had resonated. He'd wondered how and understood all too quickly when the music faded away taking the hues of color with it. He'd leapt to the open window, impervious of his nudity, knowing his wounds would heal, he'd wanted, needed to find the human female who'd been able to gift him with something so priceless. Cyvian had had no doubt that she was human or even that she was female. Her very scent, lavender and oranges had coated the notes she'd played. But the stirrings of Satyan demons somewhere in the city feeding off humans had curbed his yearnings and the Ancheron had answered. Ready once more to bleed his brethren.

It was not until shortly after, a week maybe, that he was finally able to put a face to the music and again, Cyvian had been taken aback by not only her beauty, but the innocence that had radiated from her had nearly driven him mad.

By the Hell, he'd never felt anything so---so, he hadn't been able to put a name to it. Was still unable to put a name to what it was he felt when he was within her vicinity. But he was never foolish enough to actually go near her. Sure, humans were aware of demons and those that haunted them, fed off their emotions were considered run-of-the mill. But Cyvian, an Ancheron was the sort of demon that humans were taught to fear.

Forged from the deepest, darkest part of Hell itself, Ancherons, warrior demons created from Ba'al himself to serve in his army had been at the very top of the demon hierarchy. They'd been created colorblind, easier for them to detect the energies of their enemies.

There'd been a hundred total. Arch-demons they'd called them. Recognized solely by their scarlet left arms Ba'al's own flesh. Cyvian had been leader-prince of these powerful demons. But a betrayal, an act worse than Dai'ga, by one he'd considered friend had reduced their numbers to singles digits three centuries ago and had gotten Cyvian captured by a sadistic Bloodletter bitch who'd taken great pains in seeing how far she could push an Ancheron before he died. Cyvian, stubborn fool that he'd been had lasted nearly a century in her hold.

He absentmindedly ran a hand over the scar bisecting his left arm; the wound having gone down to the bone had taken years to heal. Despite that he was a mercenary Cyvian owed what little allegiance he had to Bromhein and his Dytons. If it hadn't been for the Bloodletters, he knew he still would've been in that dungeon, tied between the black marbled pillars, slowly bleeding to death. She'd left her mark on him, in more ways than one and Cyvian anticipated the day when he would finally return the favor. Until then he took up contracts with the Bloodletter king in exchange for freedom about his territory.

Cyvian stayed away from her, kept his distance because he knew the dangers otherwise.  He presented a danger for her. He would protect her; he'd vowed that much to himself and he did so nearly every night she ventured out alone. He walked in the shadows, manipulated them to his whim so that she remained ignorant to his presence. He would remain her protector for however long he was in the city while he basked in the gift she unknowingly bestowed upon him every night.