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  The alpha had found us.

  And he was not pleased.

  Chapter Four

  A genoux, progéniture de Satan, et repens-toi!

  Oui, mon seigneur.

  Yes, yes a thousand times yes.

  The musky scent drifted in turgid eddies, caressing the Abbot’s fevered flesh, the scapular draped artfully, allowing Dreu to burrow under the weight of undyed wool. Like an animal tunneling for safety. If anyone should look into the chamber, the corpulence of His Grace would mask the abomination. Their liaisons in the Chapter House made use of the abbey’s regimented work schedules, assuring a measure of privacy. And keeping Dreu safe from overexposure to unnecessary sunlight, and labor, in the fields.

  Propriety maintained.

  Eternal damnation assured.

  The rules were clear: whosoever ejaculated seed into the mouth—that was the worst of all evils. The transgressor would repent to the end of days.

  There was nothing written about the receiver of said seed. A fact Dreu held tight to the habit, preferring to let his superiors stand before their liege lord without prejudice.

  Maman’s Sire would no doubt applaud his resourcefulness. Of his father’s kind, he had no clue.

  ****

  The pain passed in waves, huge tsunamis sucking on his bladder, then releasing to spin against unforgiving flesh. His balls were on fire. If he even had any left. The jury was still out on that.

  He lay where they’d put him. Wherever ‘here’ was, it was not his cell. And there were none of the small amenities he’d come to expect and appreciate as payment for his acquiescence. The bare stone floor reeked of mold and piss and other things too loathsome to think on. Above him the weight of the structure bore down, encasing his lungs in fetid decay.

  The demon part of him allowed for small breaths, the Vampyr rocked in silent wails of dismay as the rank odors rose up and overpowered his senses. If they’d imprisoned him there so that his immortal body would fester and dissolve into the fog of perdition, they couldn’t have chosen a better spot.

  Buried alive.

  Without sustenance.

  Without mercy.

  When he tried to uncurl from the protective position, to stretch his legs and relieve the pressures on shoulder and elbow and knee, he could not. Muscles that should have wept in pain as movement commanded the return of feeling instead rested atrophied and unresponsive.

  He zoned, the air filled with murmurs, chants, and supplications.

  Then silence.

  ****

  The vision didn’t look anything like what he’d expected.

  Surely this couldn’t be the vile creature he was primed, indoctrinated to fear. Aveline had incarcerated the fruit of her loins for a reason…

  To save you, my dearest Dreu, to protect you from him.

  Good job, Mom. I’ve had over nine hundred years to prepare for the Big Bad.

  To be corrupted and abused and singled out for the most special of treatments, learning to anticipate and then embrace all manner of perversions, for the sheer pleasure of doing so, without repercussions. Without consequences.

  The creature in Armani leaned with lazy elegance against the white stone portal, watching with interest as the woman deployed her considerable expertise in tantric massage to coax the maximum pleasure from his own pliant body.

  Apparently the demon was invisible to everyone but him.

  It’s good to have an imaginary friend. Madness deserves company.

  Except, maybe not at the point when Divya, the divine, left off the delightful probing around the groin to position his legs in preparation for that exquisite penetration. There was an intimacy to the act he usually refused to share.

  The demon, the man, inhabited the small space as air filled a bottle, unassuming, unnoticed. Neither short, nor tall, he commandeered Dreu’s attention, competing with the pressure of the woman’s palm at the juncture of sin and desire, imparting her inner warmth through the mehandi design.

  He tensed, questioning.

  What is your name?

  Who are you?

  What are you?

  Divya paused, allowing the fragrant petals of oil to drizzle carelessly, splink splink splink, runneling with lazy warmth along the valley between his quivering thighs. Blunt nails raked sensitive flesh, dancing over and around the rim. The heel of her palm kneaded heavy muscles up and away, spreading him, priming him.

  Desperate to buck away, to deny himself, to deny him … he tried to lift a head grown heavy with dread.

  Enough.

  Stop.

  Talons pierced stubbled flesh, impaling intent and nailing it just beyond reach, almost within hope. If he opened his eyes, Dreu understood he’d be gazing at his own soul, forever trapped in silk and saviors.

  The precepts had promised autonomy and moderation, a way to channel zeal within a community of believers, not a path of corruption and isolation. He’d migrated to the Black Sea to discover if he, or any of his kind, could transform—reconcile—into a union of knowledge and self-awareness.

  To see if he could finally live, not merely exist…

  Mysticism failed, it always did. But the pleasures had enticed.

  More than that, they had delivered … ecstasy and pain in subtle balance, the pursuit of the tipping point too compelling to ignore.

  The finger probed, gently at first, seeking relaxation, acceptance … then two, scissoring and kneading and demanding access. Pressing back, he fought the probe and the barbed cage holding his head in an unforgiving snare.

  Whispers. In his head. A tickle. Pricking at his consciousness like an invitation, a suggestion.

  Perhaps this day you will find the man and release him.

  Rich iron-copper filled his mouth, flooding his senses, hot with desire, competing against the flush of voluptuous surrender.

  Slick narrow fingers massaged around the rim until, with the ultimate betrayal, his body drew on the promise, seating and confining her with pressure out of his control. Murmuring encouragement, the woman stroked and honed sensations into blunt weapons pummeling his flesh, sending nerve endings in a scream for release, terrorized and sodomized to a perfection so true, he no longer needed the lie to sustain it.

  Please…

  Slipping into her native Urdu, Divya crooned encouragement, pressing down and around the traitorous nub, releasing and slip-sliding away to coat divinity in warm oils of sanctity, then returning to begin again.

  Stop.

  Don’t stop.

  The shallow breaths his demon half allowed coated his tongue thick with fetid, putrid gangrenous filth, the sacs releasing in a rush of joy, too long denied. Tendrils of spittle dribbled past parched lips, the surface roughened and sere.

  That’s right, my boy… Soon you will understand.

  Warm lips stroked over an ear lobe, whispering endearments and welcome.

  You were lost and now you’re found.

  Withdrawing the iron spikes piercing his skull, the beast rendered fluttery kisses along his jaw, the folds of raw silk from the jacket coddling his nipples in slimy chill. The touch of slick fiber was replaced by wicked fingers, pinching right, left, the nipples distending, saluting in mock approval, and repeated in unrelenting, endless succession. A rapid-fire staccato beat mimicking the throes of a phantom heart nearing cardiac arrest. An erotic defibrillation of epic proportions.

  Hissing in dismay, his body rent in two, ripping the aural gap between craving and control, leaving upper and lower connected by only a thread, a vague pulse of life bridging sensation too intense to endure.

  Controlling the platform with ease, the woman applied insistent pressure, forcing him to the point of no return, agony replacing carnal decadence as he peaked in slow, torturous cycles over and over and over.

  Shoulders pinioned to the table, he couldn’t move, though his fingers scrabbled in frantic time to the pulses of energy consuming him from the inside out. She would allow him to release to the rapture in his own
time, extending sensation, drawing it out until he reached for his cock and fondled with sure, determined strokes, milking his essence dry in a wave of euphoria.

  But not this day.

  The demon nuzzled inside his head, murmuring soft endearments, raping his spirit with assurance.

  I am not a child.

  But you are my child…

  No! That cannot be.

  Why?

  Maman…

  Lied.

  Why?

  Why not?

  A warm mouth pressed on his larynx, sealing it shut until not even a plea for mercy could escape his lips.

  Pain … in his belly, his chest. A thousand million needles lanced his soul with the sting of comprehension. He slid into the valley, the pieces of him vibrating along the string of anguish uniting rapture and despair.

  Oh gods, that’s good.

  It is, isn’t it?

  Stop… Let me touch…

  Not you.

  Her.

  No.

  Arching, he rose into the strong hand, thrusting with abandon. The release, when it came, was nothing compared to the promise of perversions awaiting him.

  There would be no penance, no absolution, his surrender complete.

  ****

  A film of moisture coated his upper lip, the rest of his body, at least the parts still functioning, were glazed with slime. His Vampyr would have ignored it, but the demon reveled in the putrefaction encasing his limbs.

  Flesh caressed rough stone along the length of him, naked to the thick weave of granite. Sometime during the time he’d been rendered unconscious, he’d uncurled to lay spread-eagle, cock flaccid and soft against his belly. His balls no longer burned but the ache remained: a muscle memory to set aside for later, for when retribution and revenge released a monster serving of whup-ass on the silver alpha.

  With an effort he rolled to a sitting position, the effort almost more than he could tolerate. While he could see perfectly well in the dark, his cell managed to shield all wavelengths, either by accident or design he couldn’t tell, leaving him effectively blind. He’d once been in a sensory deprivation chamber, as an exercise in self-discipline and retreat, and that effect was close to what he experienced in the bowels of the castle.

  Snorting, he recalled with some embarrassment that indulging in that little experiment had been the reason why the brigands had successfully spirited him away from the safety of his Crimean cave and thrust him into a Keystone cops skit with Ukrainian thugs overwhelmed by Somalian pirates who then stumbled on the good offices of a badass Mafiya.

  Only, his Mafiya was a riot of balkanization and misogynistic lycanthropes, wearing fur instead of leather. They’d cooed over the ordnance and creamed over his prone form. How the silver had recognized his Vampyr half was no mystery: an airless chamber, lips lolling at half-mast revealing fangs, no heartbeat but a flutter of a pulse. Even wolves could connect the dots.

  The old man of the pack was no fool. He’d read up on the mythology. Much of it plain wrong but, as with all legends, there were truths and implications and foundations on reality enough to lend His Most Alphaness an air of entitlement over his newest acquisition.

  He, Dreu, and the inner circle had yet to explore how a mutually beneficial union of interests would play out on the arena of arms, drugs and pedophilic hobbies.

  I’m no child…

  You’re my child…

  Born in isolation, raised in community, he understood pack mentality, how it aided and abetted individual gifts. He also knew how it could be turned on its ear, creating weakness where strength once ruled.

  He also knew the pack extracted their pound of flesh from one of their own deemed disloyal. Dominants ruled. Young Fane had violated basic pack hierarchy. If the boy-man were lucky, he would simply be banished to make his own way in a hostile environment.

  Dreu didn’t think his almost lover would be that fortunate.

  Not that I care about what happens to a pup. All endgames have collateral damage.

  You’re mine.

  “Fuck!”

  Fists clenched, he pounded the stone until his knuckles wept and the bones in his wrist buckled and shattered into pin-prick shards.

  A moan of ‘Fuck you, Father, for we have sinned and corrupted and debased all that was good’ registered weakly, only as an echo inside his head as eternity stretched without compromise or compassion.

  If he squeezed his eyes shut tight against the maw of blankness surrounding him, he could envision the broad expanse of Fane’s thick black, wiry hair arrowing down to a paradise of potential. Reimagine the sweet, delicious scent of fear and yearning … when the young opened like petals unfurling in the first light of awareness, when all was new and precious and without guile.

  Innocent.

  Dreu rocked on his knees, mindless to the shearing pain rocketing up his arms as he clutched his chest in misery, each small bone grinding in distress against another.

  They would rape the boy to unconsciousness, until he bled freely, lubricating their stabbing dicks in violation after violation, choking the breath from his throat with penetration so deep his esophagus would rupture, then tearing at his guts with fangs and vicious growls.

  And the boy would pray for death.

  Cold iron creaked in objection. Dreu stood and faced the sound, willing his head to stop spinning at the sudden glare infusing his cage.

  It was time to negotiate terms. He smiled at the advancing escorts.

  It was no accident that most lawyers were demons…

  Chapter Five

  Elliot Vetrović sat with elbows tensed against a stained folding table, fists balled under a jutting chin thick with salt and pepper bristles. Lycanthropes aged slowly, but age they did. Eventually the body spilled its secrets: thinning hair, a prominent widow’s peak, skin pockmarked and knubby with scars and a bad attitude. Eyes that had once been Aegean sea-blue had faded to watery grey, the eyebrows in one angry straight line and wildly unkempt.

  The Alpha was ugly on a visceral level. Mean-spirited and without conscience, unless it came to matters of protecting his pack, he oozed menace. Built like a brick shithouse, he out-massed me by several kilos and topped my modest form by nearly a foot.

  In short, he was a mountain tottering on a short fuse, intimidating and dangerous. As a wolf, he quite simply scared the shit out of me. Enough that if I had the wherewithal and the inclination, I would summon good old demon Dad to provide the attitude adjustment my host so dearly needed.

  The problem was … I was hiding from daddy, or maybe that was vice versa. It wasn’t clear exactly what the outcome of our last dust-up really entailed. There’d been a bit more than just harsh language and hurt feelings involved; and the minions would be doing clean-up in dimension five for the next century.

  That dive into the sensory deprivation chamber, aka coffin, had been a hastily devised solution to out-of-sight, out-of-mind. That I’d chosen a chamber chock-a-block full of Soviet era arms stashed away by Chechnyan warlords put me in the ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’ category.

  If consanguinity to a largesse of firepower shot me to top of the class, then color me unimpressed. I’d never fired a weapon of any sort … well, not unless I counted my…

  His Most Royal Wolfness barked, “Sit.”

  He pointed, so I complied, the metal seat sliding under my naked butt and engaging testicles still sore from visiting with the Alpha’s size fourteens.

  Ow.

  While I jockeyed for a way to protect what was left of the family jewels, he was playing with a wicked looking stiletto. The damn thing was long and narrow, not unlike an ice pick, but with edges honed to paper cut sharpness. Elliot demonstrated with a nick to his forefinger, the movement almost too fast to follow.

  Damn. And I thought I was fast.

  Squeezing the finger tip, he forced thick droplets onto the filthy surface to pool in a brownish sludge I would have called brunch had I not feared for what I might catch
. Being immune to most crap did not guarantee being immune to everything. Restraining myself from sweeping a quick finger through the tempting puddle, just because, I instead folded my hands demurely over my assets and contemplated next steps.

  Easier said than done because what that little demonstration did was kick start my hunger in a big way, a fact about which I’m pretty sure he was aware. While I had no clue as to passage of time, that hollow leg feeling alerted me to the need to feed, and soon.

  “We have a job for you.”

  I kept my mouth shut and waited. Sometimes depositions were best handled through patience and non-aggression.

  Besides, I could smell young Fane. He’d been in that very room in the recent past, the scent still strong. And unsullied. Having feasted on the young man’s blood, I had a virtual leg-up on recognition skills and determining the state of health of my friend and lover. But that was only good until the next infusion. Once I fed on someone else, Fane’s effects would dilute unless or until he once more opened a vein to my eager mouth. It also added to an abbreviated ability to ‘sense’ him. It was similar to a psychic connection but only on the level of intuition.

  My tool box definitely suffered from being a half-breed and I’d yet to discern any synergies between the Vampyr and demon genes that could make me a mutt with benefits.

  It sucked lemons that I’d been on the wrong end of the genetic sweepstakes.

  Aside from my deficiencies, one thing I knew for sure was that the Alpha might be even smarter than I’d given him credit for. Fane was going to be the bargaining chip. My rash act had provided Elliot with an ace in the hole.

  A part of me giggled at the double entendre, but not for long. If I didn’t put a cap on my penchant to revert to juvenile inappropriate behavior, neither side of my genetic makeup was going to come out and cheer me on.