Panther Park white winter hymnal

Just like that, he was back again! But instead of slowly coming to, he gurgled and squirmed and then sprang from her loving caresses in a flurry of black velvet. Again, this assault was preceded only by an ominous noise, this time a low, rolling growl [similar to the cavernous beat of the berserkers hooves upon the earth]; a sound  which had been easily missed in her sorrows. The woman was both delighted and taken aback by his movement; but for a moment, all was right. He was alive and she was alive and they were no worse for wear. Hell, she would be angry too if she had just been pummeled and pulverized at the mercy of your own prey, so his alacritous reaction seemed, to her, justified.  Olive smiled at him, hope blossoming within her chest.

But then he spoke and her heart died. 

The difference between the two star-crossed lovers was palpable. It was less his words that drove a shiver down her ashen spine, and more his demeanor. Never before had she felt her lover regard her in this way, even when they were complete stranger upon the mountainside. Every nerve in her small body twisted and twanged in protest of this new reality. No. No. No. No.

"Dak?" she questioned, softly setting her pale body against the ground in an act meant to placate the angry man. She had never had to submit to him before.

 Then, she pleaded. “Baby, it's me.” Her voice felt heavy in her throat and thick in her mouth, burdened with emotion and reeling from loss. Loss of what, exactly? Dakarai was here, alive, in front of her. He was talking to her, very much alive. This man looked like Dakarai, but wasn’t Dakarai. It confused her and did not make sense. Shock kept her tears at back, for now — she was much too wracked with shock and horror to think about what it actually meant.