A hand stroked the hair back from her face. Raiden, she thought immediately surfacing from a sleep so deep that it had been dreamless. Something was wrong, she realized immediately. Something was not right. She remembered glass shattering, and Raiden changing into his wolf, the battle. She opened her eyes fearfully, but needing to know…
Lucian, spectacularly gorgeous, smiled down at her, his white-blonde hair falling over his shoulder and backlit into a white halo around his beautiful face. He lay along her side, completely and magnificently naked, every inch of him proudly on display.
And aroused.
Oh god, she thought, fear oily in her stomach. She knew, with absolute certainty, what would follow.
“You were more difficult to obtain than I anticipated,” he grinned revealing his elongated canine and premolars. “But I always get what I want.”
She was in a box of a room, the light a bare bulb overhead, and the walls peeling grey paint over concrete. There were two doors, one presumably out of the room, as the other was slightly opened and showed a small en suite. The bed was the only furniture in the room, the mattress was bare of linen, and stained with blood and other things she did not want to think about. There was a subtle smell that arose from its fabric – fear and sex.
“Incendi-” She started, but his hand closed over her mouth. She grasped his wrists, trying to pull his hand free, her struggles futile as the vampire was simply so much stronger than she.
He laughed at her attempts. “Oh, I was warned that you could be quite a spitfire. We will fix that soon enough,” he leaned over her, and she screamed into his hand as he sank his teeth into her neck.
Unlike when Alex and Toby had bitten her, he did not taste and then withdraw, but continued to drink until her limbs grew weak, her grasp on his wrist falling away. She could feel her heart struggle against the draw of blood, and her breath dragged in around his grasp on her face. He released his grip on her jaw and she mouthed the words, unable to put sound behind it.
He slid his hand up her ribcage and cupped her breast, teasing the nipple between finger and thumb, his touch transitioning from gentle too painful as he tightened the pinch, deliberately hurting her to prove that he could. Just as she worked up the ability to scream, the pain becoming too great, he released his hold. His tongue stroked over the wounds in her neck, and up her cheek to her mouth.
He kissed her, his tongue stroking against hers, and she could taste her own blood. Her breast throbbed hotly, the residue of pain from his torturous pinch seeming to spread through her flesh far further than his hold had done.
“That is better. You will be more docile now,” he said with a gentle smile as he leaned back. He bit his wrist and held it to her mouth.
She moaned, twisting her face away from the slow drip of hot blood, but she did not have the strength to evade him, and he tsked softly. “Swallow, sweet one,” he told her, his fingers stroking her throat until he felt her do so. “Good girl.” He lifted his wrist to his lips and licked the wound, showing it to her so that she could watch the wounds heal. “Magic, just like yours.”
“No,” she whispered, a protest against his words, against his blood, against everything in the grey room, and against what she knew was still to come.
He leaned over and kissed her again, silencing her fragile protest with his tongue. His hand stroked over her breast again, and she tried to push it off, whimpering, fearing his touch. He laughed. “Alright, have it your way,” he moved his hand to her hip and kissed his way along her jaw to her neck, and she thought that he would bite her again, and that if he did, he would kill her, but he didn’t.
He kissed his way along her neck and shoulder, before laying his head down so that their foreheads touched, grazing kisses against her cheek. She could feel his thumb stroking where her t-shirt had ridden up on her stomach.
“You will be begging for my touch, soon enough,” he told her. “It takes time and patience to create a blood-slave. Lots of little drinks over a length of time, is the only way. Not many vampires have the patience for it. Too much of your blood, and the slave will become a vampire, too little and it is not effective.” His hand stroked up to her rib cage and she found the energy to protest again. He chuckled, sliding his hand back to her hip. “You are a stubborn one.”
She fought to keep her eyes open. She could feel her pulse in her throat, the beat fragile and labored. She dragged in air and sighed it out.
“That is right,” he murmured. “Surrender one little breath at a time.”
He bit his wrist again and put it to her mouth, letting the drops strike her lips. She did not have the strength to move her head more than slightly to the side and doing so caused the blood to run into her mouth. Her eyes met his startling blue gaze. There were tiny shards of brown amongst the blue crowding the iris.
He put his wrist to his mouth, licking the wound closed, and then smiled, his eyes warming.
“You will be my greatest slave,” he told her, reaching up to stroke her cheek. “I have never had a witch as a slave. I believe it has not been successfully done before. It will be quite a boon to have one, to possess what no one else has. I knew the moment I saw you that you were something quite extraordinary.”
He kissed her again, and she was not sure if the taste of blood was stronger in his mouth or hers. She heard the tear of fabric and knew he was undressing her, his hands on her skin, but she could not resist other than to close her eyes and cling to the thought of Raiden, to try to replace Lucian’s hands with her werewolf’s in her mind, to wipe the taint of one out with the purity of the other.
She slept, in a darkness so thorough that being dragged from it was painful when he woke her again, his wrist at her mouth. She protested trying to push it and him away, her eyes bleary, the glow of the naked bulb overhead smearing between her eyelashes, her eyes unable to open fully.
“Your pupils are beginning to pin,” he murmured, his lips against hers, and the blue of his eyes all that she could see in focus, face and hair lost to the halo of light. “I bet you are feeling very tired, your limbs are heavy, and your mind foggy. Sleep some more.”
She closed her eyes obediently and realized what she had done, fighting to open them again, and failing. She could feel him touching her but could do nothing to stop him. Raiden, she thought, clinging to the thought of him as she felt the pain of Lucian within her. Raiden, as the vampire’s thrusts shook the mattress on which she lay, and his grunts sounded in her ear. Raiden.
She woke shivering. His skin against hers was barely lukewarm, and the room was bitingly cold.
“A bit brisk,” he commented. His wrist was at her mouth again. “I don’t feel it anymore, but I remember the sensation. There is a blanket in here.” After a moment, she felt the blanket settle over them, carrying with it the scent of laundry powder. It, at least, was clean, although the mattress below them was not. “It does nothing for me, of course, but it seems more companionable.”
“I hate you.”
“Not for long. Go back to sleep.”
She closed her eyes. When she woke next, she was alone. She sat up, holding the blanket to her, and the world dipped and twirled until she fought it back into stillness. Her eyes felt sandy, her head too heavy for her neck, and there were points of pain all over her body from his torturous touches, an ache low in her stomach, and a rawness between her legs.
Tears fell hot and heavy down her face. Raiden, she thought with misery. Was he alive?
There was a tray on the bed to her side, set with a plastic bottle of water, and a cloche covered plate. A red rose was set to the side of the plate. She threw it across the room, repulsed by the implied romance behind the gesture, as if anything that had taken place within the room was romantic.
The cloche covered a roast meal, almost cold, the meat pre-cut into bite sized pieces, she presumed to compensate for the lack of cutlery. She was starving and fell upon the food with an appetite that had her wondering how long it had been. Her thoughts felt thick and vague, as if she were trying to think her way through soup.
Raiden. Her fear for him made the meal sit uneasily in her stomach.
There were no clothes, and her own were gone. Her mind shied from the memory of tearing cloth, and what had followed.
The en suite door was still open. It seemed a very long way to go, and her muscles were weak, trembling from the effort of sitting up to eat.
She had to use the toilet, however, so she forced herself to stand and staggered to the door, sagging against the frame, and dividing the trip into two distinct movements, from bed to door and door to toilet, her body screaming in protest, each action accompanied by pain, each pain a new discovery of injury and indignity.
She flushed and hung the blanket on a hook, crossing to the shower. There were two towels on a small chair, and a washcloth. She turned on the taps and but did not wait for the water to warm.
She stood under the flow as it transitioned from cold to hot, the heat reddening her skin, combating the shivers that shook her with the heat. She had a sudden flash of Lucian over her, and gagged, pressing her hand to her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit down.
She poured soap into the washcloth and scrubbed every inch of skin, trying to wash Lucian off of her.
She wrapped the towels around her, and the blanket around the towels. There was a toothbrush and toothpaste, the kind that hotels left as complimentary gestures for guests. She scrubbed her teeth and tongue, removing the remembered flavour of his blood.
She was exhausted from having just done that much and she knew she had little left in her. Part of her wished to conspire for a way to seek freedom, but she doubted she could affect any plan. She was too weak, too tired, too sore.
As she stepped out of the bathroom, she cried out in fear and horror when she found him waiting for her, naked, on the bed. The tray was gone. He grinned and patted the mattress next to him. “Don’t talk. Come here,” he instructed, and she fought against the command, but it was as effective as a werewolf’s alpha command, her body walking placidly over to him and laying out on the bed at his side, and the words of a spell stolen from her tongue.
She clung stubbornly to the blanket and then the towels as he pulled them away. He laughed. “Still fighting. I like your stubbornness.” He bent over her, and she whimpered beneath the pain of his teeth. He did not drink as deeply or as long, but it still left her lightheaded, the world spinning, as he bit his wrist and placed his wrist to her mouth. “I will be interested how long you manage to hold on to it.”
“Elior,” she managed to say through the blood.
He laughed harder. “Oh, do you think Elior will come to your rescue? How sweet. Elior likes to think that because of his family line, he holds authority over the rest of us. But, in this modern world, blood lines matter not at all. Gold, not blood.”
“Incen-”
“Silence. You like that word. Let me guess, a fire spell?” He arched a brow as he brought his wrist to his mouth and licked the wounds closed. She felt the press of magic, smelt it sharply on the air. Something to do with the blood, she thought. “Well, you are going to forget that word. It is gone, gone, gone. Isn’t it?”
She couldn’t think of what he spoke. The residue of his blood on her tongue was as thick and heavy as poison. “What is?”
“Good girl. Now, we have some time to waste,” his hand slid along her skin, and she whimpered, squirming away from the unwanted touch. “Would you prefer to be asleep or awake this time, I wonder? I prefer it when you are awake, you plead so prettily for me to stop f-king you.”
Raiden. “Stop. Please, stop,” tears slid scalding trails down her cheeks.
“Ah,” he murmured. “There we go. But I can be kind as well as cruel. Go to sleep, there is a good girl. Go to sleep, and dream of what I am doing to you.”
She fought against it, her eyes sliding to half-mast as she felt him lift over her. “I… kill… you…” She managed to say, the words slurring and barely audible.
“You keep saying that.” He kissed her, his tongue stroking into her mouth. “Go back to sleep.”
She fell into the dark.
She woke, and he was still at her side, his eyes closed. He barely breathed, and in sleep was as still as a corpse. With the low body temperature, she could understand how the legends of vampires had been born. They would have appeared to be walking corpses to people in the past, and probably to humans now, she thought wearily as she fought for control of her body, for the energy to rise from the bed, to do anything but lay beside him, staring at his hated, beautiful face.
How long would he sleep for? She wondered. She needed to kill him. She did not think she could stand his body on hers again. She would go insane, she thought. She needed to kill him before he woke and touched her again. But she could not remember the word for burn. There was a moment of panic, and then she calmed herself. It was okay, that was just one spell.
“I don’t normally sleep with my slaves,” he commented without opening his eyes. “It encourages them towards unproductive thought processes,” he added, as if he had a window into her mind, and knew the path of her thoughts.
“Glaci-”
His hand closed on her jaw, the movement so quick she did not see it, and he tugged her against his chest. “And here I thought we were beginning to get along,” he murmured, his lips near her ear, and his voice holding an edge of humor. “You seem to have found another word to use against me. I don’t want to strip you of your entire repertoire of spells, or you will lose some of your value to me as a slave. How about we try a different command this time? Let me think…”
She struggled against his grasp, managing to sink her teeth into his finger. She realized her mistake when she tasted his blood. He chuckled, enjoying her frustrated desperation.
“How about this one? I command you to stop fighting me,” he whispered into her ear, and she could taste the magic in her mouth. “You are in love with me, you adore me. Don’t you, precious?”
Raiden. She closed her eyes and clung to the name as Lucian sank his teeth into her neck again.