After Venger gave her the jewelry box and clothes, the days settled into a routine. Several times a day, the dark lord would enter her chambers and use her body, teaching her new positions and pleasures as he went. Sheila would always try to fight, but each session ended in the same shameful realization. The thief had an affinity for Venger's brand of sex, twisted as it was.

Occasionally, he would beat her for defying him. Those times were the worst. Tears would flow freely but she refused to cry out until the very end, when her skin was bleeding and she lay on the floor whimpering in misery. Then, usually an hour or so later, he would heal her with a wave of her hand, the glowing light encasing her body like a cocoon.

For some reason, the dark lord could not stand to see her looking anything but beautiful and perfect. He could also not stand to see her in pain. She was grateful for the healing sessions and did not argue, but rather lay perfectly still as he caressed her body, healing the wounds. Still, she could feel the evil lurking just beneath his red eyes.

The nights, however were different. Venger was more like a lover after the suns set over the fire tinged mountains off to the north. He still used his arsenal of sex toys on her, as well as experimented with new positions and pain levels on her body. However, Sheila could always see a part of the handsome Venger shimmering just over his normally horrible face.

It confused her, these feelings that stirred with in her. She loved Hank and always had. Whether or not he returned her feelings was something of a debate, but none the less, she had been unwavering in her silent devotion to the ranger. Yet, part of her was undeniably attracted to the kind man who had healed her hands during the first night of her captivity.

She was forever mulling over these thoughts and feelings when she was alone, which was just about every minute of the day when Venger was not in her suite. He had prohibited visitors so she usually only saw the servant who brought her meals, an elderly woman who had some sort of perverse loyalty to Venger.

Her name was Denara and she visited Sheila three times a day with meals and anything new that Venger might want her to her to have in preparation for that night's sexual acrobatics. Denara was nice enough but she spoke little and it was clear she found Sheila extremely foolish for refusing to submit to Venger willingly.

Other than the servant, her only other visitor was Shadow Demon. He mostly relayed messages from Venger or simply checked on Sheila to make sure that she wasn't injured. Though that wasn't very likely. Venger would know in an instant if she was hurt or attempted to injure herself. Her attempt at self-injury had brought a particularly brutal beating a few days before and Sheila was not stupid enough to do it again.

Most of the time, Sheila spent reading books from the enormous library Venger had provided for her in a separate hall just off the sitting room. There were books from all across the Realm as well as other worlds, including Earth. Even if they weren't written in English, as soon as she opened them, a spell transformed the words and allowed her to read the pages.

There were history books, works of fiction, volumes of poetry and even biographies of famous people through the Realm. It amazed the thief that not only did Venger own these books, it appeared as though he actually read them. From time to time, a book would disappear, only to reappear a few days later, the pages freshly dog-eared.

When Sheila wasn't reading or writing in the journal that Venger had sent with Denara one morning, she was in the bath. It had been so long since she had experienced a proper bath or been clean for more than a few hours at a time This was one of the few parts of her imprisonment that she didn't mind so much.

A part of her brain told her she was being disloyal to the others for enjoying her private bathroom, but the part of her which longed for the comforts of Earth very often was able to silence the inner voice of dissent. Back home, she had spent hours on end soaking her in own bathtub. She had lavishly applied lotions and brushed her hair until it gleamed, all while sitting in front of her dressing table.

Somehow Venger had known or guessed this. As far as Sheila was concerned, it really didn't matter. This room and its contents were hers and if she had to live the rest of her life like this, then she would take what comforts she could get.

So while Sheila brushed her hair one particularly hot afternoon, her jewelry box open beside her as she tried to decide what to wear, she heard a soft female voice call out her name. She jumped up from the table, looking around. Denara was no where to be seen. Neither was Shadow Demon.

"Down here, Sheila," the voice said again. "In the box."

Puzzled, Sheila sat back down and tiled her jewelry box towards her. On top of the pile was the opal she loved so much. Except that where the iridescent veins of color should have criss-crossed the surface, there was a face looking up at her. It was a stunningly beautiful woman with shimmering golden blonde hair and magnificent violet eyes.

"Who are you?" she breathed. She had always thought that the opal seemed alive. She never imagined that anyone really lived in it.

"My name is Queen Rianna," the face shimmered once and to Sheila's surprise, a translucent figure appeared before her. "I was once like you, a prisoner of Venger's. Here in this very room."

"What happened to you?" Sheila gasped. "Why are you in that opal."

"This necklace was mine when I was alive," the figure answered, "the symbol of my kingdom.

"Venger desired me, but I refused his advances. He took me prisoner and brought me here to be his sexual slave and queen."

"Just like me," the thief sighed.

"Yes," Rianna continued. "I was here for two years, perhaps more. I eventually lost count. In the end, I displeased him for I did not do as he wished. He killed me then and there. Because I died in this place of misery, my spirit became trapped inside my pendant, just as Venger wished.

"He placed me in the jewelry box that you now posses. However, I was not alone. Each piece of jewelry in this box contains the spirit of one of Venger's past queens. All of us dead because of our failure.

"In fact every woman Venger has taken as a Queen, save for one, has had her spirit trapped in this box. He killed us all, except for her. She gave him what he wanted; she did not fail. That pleased him and it allowed her to live long enough to be rescued or escape. We do not know which. The rest of us, he killed."

"In that case, I'll be seeing you soon," Sheila murmured. "I defy him all the time, every day in fact. He's gonna get bored with that pretty quickly."

"I do not think so, Sheila," the queen replied.

"Why not?" the thief asked. "What makes me different?"

"Several things," the spirit shimmered slightly with the effort of holding her form.

"First, you are one of the Young Ones, the people destined to save the Realm from Venger. That gives you power that the dark lord does not yet completely understand, though he senses it in you. This power attracts him to you."

Sheila snorted. "Who are you kidding! The only thing he wants is my Weapon of Power. Nothing more."

"Ah, how you underestimate yourself, Sheila," Rianna sighed. "He may indeed want your cloak, but he wants you more.

"You excite him. Your defiance arouses him, as does your like of his type of sexual pleasure. He feeds off your desire for what he does to your body. And you feed off the pleasure he give you, though you deny it."

Sheila turned away from Rianna, her face scarlet, but the spirit queen persisted.

"You may not realize it, Sheila, but you see something in Venger no one else ever has. You see the man he once was, and for that, he repays you with kindness he never granted any of us.

"Had one of us broken our hands on the door, he would have left us to suffer the pain, our hands mangled forever. Yet you he healed. To you, he was kind, revealing a part of himself. Why do you think that was?

"I don't know!" Sheila was exasperated now. "Maybe because he wants to torture me more?"

Rianna floated directly in front of Sheila and the thief backed up slightly.

"I believe that Venger is in love with you, Sheila. At least as much as he is capable of loving anyone. In turn, a part of you loves him or at least the person he once was. You are the only one who has seen the good in him. You are the only woman who can touch that part of him, a part of himself he denies still exists. Perhaps you are not even aware of it, but it is there, none the less."

"No!" Sheila shouted. "I love, Hank! I always have! I always will! I'll never love that evil thing! Especially after what he does to me!"

She sunk to her knees, crying, her hands covering her face. After a few moments, she looked up at Rianna with a tear stained face.

"Just because I like rough sex doesn't mean I love Venger," she whispered.

"No, but you would have fallen in love with the person he once was. Part of the old Venger still lives inside him. It is enough for you to feel it within him and love what he once was."

"So why does he love me?" she finally stood up to face the ghost, wiping her eyes.

"I am not certain why, only that he does. Perhaps it is because you are more like him than you would like to admit. Alike in ways you do not know. But he knows.

"I must leave now - my energy grows weak. But before I do, ponder this, Queen Sheila, for that is who you are. Venger has never given this jewelry box to any of his other lover slaves. Not even to the Queen who did not fail him. Only to you was this box and its contents made a present."

With that, Rianna curled up into a wisp of smoke and vanished back into the pendant.

Sheila stared at the spot where Rianna had stood, her thoughts in a jumble. As much as she wanted to deny it, the spirit queen had hit a nerve. A part of the thief did care about Venger. At least a little. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out everything Rianna had said.

"Excuse me, Queen Sheila," a serpent–like voice tickled her ear, "but you are requested to join Lord Venger for dinner this evening in the Hall of Perpetual Twilight. He also requests that you dress appropriately for dinner"

She knew immediately who the voice belonged to. She had heard it often enough.

"Tell him I’ll be ready, Shadow Demon," she answered without turning to look at the hazy black figure that half hung out of her bathroom wall. "And I’ll be dressed."