Prof closed the doors behind him, clicking the lock and taking a step forward, “Why don’t you sit down, and we can talk about this, about what happened to you.”
Raven wasn’t fooled, he could hear the unnatural beating of the man’s pulse...the uneasiness of his breath...sweat dampening the man’s palms. It was not fear, it was deceit. He watched the old man venture closer, aware of the hand behind his back, smelling the sedative in the syringe.
Raven tilted his head to the side. “You actually planning on stabbing me, old man?” Raven smiled, baring his fangs. “I’m something brand new.” He held his hands out, then pointed to himself. “I’m different than the others. Who says your little needle will affect me?”
“You’re right.” The professor held up both hands, moving to a desk and laying the syringe down. He slowly backed away.
Raven turned from him, already feeling the small amount he had consumed burn out, making the hunger even more relentless. His eyes scanned over vial bottles behind glass doors, his nostrils working over time. He need more of that stuff and fast.
The hand on his shoulder made him spin. He snagged the professor at the throat and brought them face to face and drew in a deep breath of the man’s scent.
“You disgust me!” Raven snarled, and flung the professor back. The force sent him crashing through a set of French doors. He heard the man yell out in pain as he landed on the polished wooden floors, sliding to the opposite wall, and slamming into it. Raven stepped out of the room, pulling his face in disgust at the blood running down the professor’s scalp, tinting the gray hair pink, a shard of glass protruding from the man’s right arm.
Raven caught the baseball bat inches before it could connect with his face, Arthur’s hands were trembling where they gripped the bat at the handle. Raven yanked it out of his hold and snapped it in two.
Arthur quickly backed away, the boy wasn’t scared, didn’t smell frightened of him, just careful. Raven had often thought the kid would make one hell of a good enforcer. The room blurred, and Raven found himself staring at the front door. The annoying prickle, smashing him like a sledgehammer against the back of the head. The door before him was a barrier keeping him safe against whatever was outside, but the hunger was slowly sinking its claws deeper into Raven’s mind, heart and soul. He pulled open the door, surveying the night, houses with Christmas lights, glaring brightly. He pulled in lungfuls of air, tasting the scents as they danced over his tongue. He stepped out to the middle of the street. He could hear a car’s tires screeching as it sped around a corner in the distance, saw the flashing blue and red lights reflect off the snow into the sky. A siren growing closer.
Raven still could not make sense of the prickle now probing every part of his body, his skin growing hot. The slight tingle of warmth soothed him, overrode any warning about what was to come. Besides, there would always be danger in the world. None would stop him from pursuing more of the godly subsistence his body craved like a long lost affair.
Raven looked up at the moon, eyes going large as it felt as if she was sucking him in, mesmerizing him like a moth drawn to a flame, spellbound to its own demise. The waning crescent was big and bright and…she was laughing at Raven.
Raven fell to his knees screaming, smoke pouring off his skin, the smell of blistering flesh sharp in his nostrils, heat boiling him from within. Pain, seeming to come from the depths of his soul, forcing him forward and anchoring his arms on the concrete. The muscles in his body cramped and pulled as heat burst from them, a white hot exploding from his chest, sending him on to his back. Fire ran through his veins, bringing his body unimaginable agony. He hissed and screamed, clawing at his skin to extinguish the white flames consuming him.
The car rocked, Jessy slammed on the brakes, causing it to swerve to the side of the road. Metal and glass exploded into the air as Bla’Gar wrenched himself from the passenger seat upon seeing his pet burst into white flames.
The leap was nothing in his demon form, an easy feat to overcome, but liquid fear flooded him that he might be too late. He planted his feet on either side of his burning Raven, fracturing the tar road as if it was fragile porcelain.
He reached for his pet, pulled him to his chest, and bounded for the house Raven had just come out of. The flames in his arms died almost instantly, but his pet was still hot, smelling of burnt flesh, smoking.
On his knees, Bla’Gar gently held Raven in his arms, took one look at his blackened skin and pressed his pet against his chest. He tightened his hold until Raven whimpered. A cold whisper against his chest had him holding Raven slightly away from his body so he could gaze at him. Raven’s face was charred black, his left eye half melted into its socket, the opposite cheek completely burned away, showing bone and teeth and bubbling tissue.
“Oh, Raven,” Bla’Gar cupped his cheek and brought his lips onto his pet’s forehead.
“More…” the brittle voice spoke. “You smell... Need...more... Now!” Raven snarled, and latched his fangs into Bla’Gar’s neck. At first he was surprised that, in Raven’s current state, he had the strength to, but also that his pet’s fangs actually pierced Bla’Gar’s thick demon skin, drawing blood.
Raven’s sucking was slow but increasingly became more violent, fingers latching on to Bla’Gar’s lats, the deeper his pet drank from him.
“Raven, stop,” Bla’Gar urged in a gentle tone. A Strigoi drinking from a demon was unnatural, and feeling light headed was not normal for Bla’Gar.
He reached up, grasping a handful of Raven’s hair, trying to peel him off only to have his fingers slip, weakened, and fall to his side. Bla’Gar’s vision started to dim, his head spinning when a voice shouted in the distance.
“Eg stro-gosh!”
Raven twisted away from Bla’Gar, teeth ripping his flesh. It was as if the hand of God had picked his pet up and flung him against the wall, pinning him like doll against it.
Bla’Gar fell to his side, his body weak, breathing shallow. There was a man standing before his pet, left hand outstretched, palm open, a string of prayer beads around his wrist, the tassel pulling towards Raven as if he was a magnet.
Bla’Gar focused his eyes on his pet’s face, Raven hissed and snarled angrily, Bla’Gar’s inky-blue blood dripping from his lips, all evidence of Raven’s combustion gone. His pet’s eyes glossed over in liquid blackness. It was in those eyes that Bla’Gar recognized it.
Those were the depths of hunger staring back… The depths where his Raven had drowned…
Far in the wilderness north west of Québec City, an abandoned mining town was silently stirring.
Things squealed and screeched in their cages, sounds Seth had never heard before. One of the sounds sent needles down his back. Or was it the cold hard metal floor he was being dragged on?
There was a fist in his hair, hauling him along, something around his neck with sharp spikes pricking into his flesh. His limbs dragged motionless, numbed, he willed them to move to no effect. But the fire in his veins was relentless, whatever chemical they had injected into him was causing him serious agony.
A woman’s voice spoke ahead, “Put the experiment in cell 178.”
The one whose hand was in Seth’s hair smelled of sulfur, his voice deep. “Pity, he is such a beautiful little puppy. Are you sure I can’t fuck him first?”
“The last time you screwed an experiment it died, or should I say, you fucked it to death. Now, cage the animal, before I get fleas!” she snapped, her heels clicking on the hard floor as she walked away.
Seth flinched, would have yelped if he could speak when he was slung into a dark room, metal upon metal, slamming and locking. He held his breath, but he did not hear the male walk away. Is this to be my lot for not being strong enough, for being a weak alpha? Seth wished he’d shown Lucas his love sooner.
Hands came at him then, yanking him up by the shoulders, a tongue long and slimy, licking over his soft cock, the tip already sneaking in between his crack.
He couldn’
t scream, even if he wanted to. The pain riddling his body deafening his mind’s thought. He could still feel, ever turned and slam against the cold hard wall, and every time the male entered him with something thicker than that tongue, now pressing past his lips and down his throat.
SHADOWS OF OUR FORMER SELVES
He had been here for so long… The black tears never stopped; they kept dripping, falling, plunging… Each time he looked down, he found they had sunk beneath the surface of the shallow, clear water. The tears danced in it, delicate threads of dark ink dived and exploded, swirling as the ripples stretched the black thin.
“The mind is such a beautiful place. Vast; we can drown in it. How much more beautiful could the chambers of the heart be?” Raven Jr.’s whisper echoed back to him.
Fingers bit into his chin, lifting Raven’s head, until their gazes met. “We are the same, you and I.”
Those pale lips edged closer, a tongue licking across them, an icy breath flowing from between.
Raven was too weak to resist, too tired to fight back.
Each kiss, each lick, each wet brush of lips and tongue stole something from him. A little part of Raven’s soul eroded away with the other him.
This kiss was no different.
The fingers on his chin slid down, mapping the sinew under the skin of his neck. A nail tapped against his throat to the rhythm of his heart.
Tap…
A tongue licked a cold trail down his jaw.
Tap…
Lips ghosted damply against the skin.
Tap…
Teeth punctured his shoulder, brutally sucking his life’s blood.
A hand grasped his stiffening cock, it stroked along his length, leaving a grating trail
Raven’s whimper was ripped out of him when that palm stroked over his cock’s head.
“We taste so good,” Jr. rasped against Raven’s shoulder. Fangs sunk deeper as Raven’s orgasm exploded. The hand continued to milk him long after he’d spent. His body too weak to even shiver at that sensitive touch.
Nails driven through his palms, biting into his raw flesh; his feet submerged in the shallows... Raven hung there while black-bloody lips consumed his.
Bla’Gar shifted his cool glare to the thing that whispered no remnant of Raven White. Even in the creature’s state, it clutched onto the Strigoi mentality of superiority above all things, regardless of that fact that Bla’Gar could end its life with a single fist, tearing out its heart.
Yet he couldn’t, could he?
Selfish.
He preferred to drag out the creature’s immortality, because there was still a pathetic thread of hope in him that his Raven was trapped in there somewhere.
Hunger… Greed giving birth to an all-consuming devastation; worse than the touch of Death to a soul.
A terrible, decaying darkness.
Even if he did manage to bring forth his Raven, the stain of voracity on his soul would forever remain, blackening it with malignance. Always growing, always eating.
Always stirring.
Bla’Gar pinched his brow as yet another attempt was made by the creature to escape the blue flames keeping it prisoner within the circle.
Professor Bloodimir had knowledge of old shaman magic, for which Bla’Gar was grateful. If not for that, who knew what would have happened to Raven. However, two things about the professor’s scholarly revelation bothered Bla’Gar. A shaman or spirit walker was rare—and far more capable than an ordinary witch. But, the professor was romantically involved with one of the teenagers, now all grown up, who’d destroyed the veil. It made them both targets for many disgruntled paranormal and supernatural creatures, those not pleased with the veil’s demise. Revenge was sure to haunt those boys, along with any who were involved in its destruction, even though those kids had no concept of what they were doing at the time. Bla’Gar, along with many others, suspected this was only the beginning of the Trickster’s plan.
A wretched screech pulled his mind back to the creature. He had lost count of the innumerable times It had seared itself on those flames. And each time, It was as persistent as ever. The image tore at the demon to see his pet’s face, cringing and sneering, hissing at the flames as if they could understand the hindrance they brought to the creature.
A demon’s true retribution came when they were reborn.
They were never meant to hold happiness or hope, it was their punishment to suffer and live in misery, yet there were those among the legions who drew pleasure from it. It appeared they were content.
This was his new torment, not those countless days spent in Hell, receiving unnamable pain. This. This eternal feeling of merely being able to glimpse hope, to taste bliss, and have it trickle through his fingers as if it were loose sand.
And Raven was to suffer for it.
That alone wounded.
Now Bla’Gar understood why other legions slaughtered their pets on sight, proving once again that their pets were their very heart. It had demoralized him each time the creature carelessly hurt itself. But it was nothing in comparison to when Bla’Gar had to feed the thing. No matter if heart and mind—and demon—told him this was not his Raven, but a soul being consumed by the primitive instinct to feed. The thought did not remove the image carved into Bla’Gar’s mind: his pet’s eyes liquid-black and large, lips dripping inky-blue gore, cut raw from its own fangs.
And still so avaricious for more.
The clothes they had forced him into currently lay in shreds. Bla’Gar could only watch the capricious swelling of Raven’s cock, leaking and then bursting with spurts of white come, followed by a contradictory expression of disgust on his face as it happened. Only for him to bend over and sneer at his own semen before lapping it up from the floor.
It made a degrading portrait of the man Bla’Gar held dear, the human Raven, he loved so deep.
And still he could not fight the demon inside him, Bla’Gar’s own starving cupidity pressing forth to devour Raven.
A Strigoi’s transition wasn’t one short instance after death. It was a continuous struggle for eternity, always fighting its darker nature. They were, by proper means, part-demon.
Bla’Gar clenched his jaw, squinting, when the creature howled in pain.
He could sit here no longer and endure the torment of watching this, yet he knew himself.
He would return…eventually.
He stormed from the dungeon, past the kitchen, ignoring his butler, Hans, and burst out of the back door, before running into the back garden.
The night was clear, lit by a fat moon. Her radiance so sharp she left a cock’s eye around herself in the nocturnal sky. Bla’Gar did not favor the token, nor her silvery beauty, any longer.
He drew in deep ragged lungfuls of air—not that he needed to breathe oxygen. What he wanted was the life he tasted on his tongue, the scents that played in the mortal realm. They had the power to calm him at times. He peered at the foliage before him. The ivy had overtaken most of the garden, wrapping and entangling sculptures, and the fountains that no longer sang with water. In summer the roses that had somehow survived the usurping ivy would bloom between the lush green verdure. The garden had a wildness—a sense of freedom—that reminded Bla’Gar of humans, of what they had. It was the sole reason he never had it cleaned out and reshaped into something more sophisticated.
This unruliness, this untamed beautiful, anarchy… Raven… it reminded him so much of his pet. Now lifeless skeletons of brown veins webbed the garden, cold and empty like his heart.
And on top of this, alpha Seth remained missing, four days and counting.
He reached for his phone, not surprised his hand trembled. If only the destruction of the veil had not sealed the Gates of Hell, he could call on his hounds, they surely would find Seth, no matter where his scent led them.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had tried to help his pet, and he was failing, and fucking Belail, the two-faced fils d’u
n cochonne, had not answered Bla’Gar’s summoning.
He heaved a sigh and searched his contacts, finding the name and number, knowing she was going to be pissed. But he would deal with that.
He listened as it rang, waiting impatiently.
“Hello?” she snapped, always such an unpleasant yapping dog.
“Clarissa, it’s been…” Bla’Gar licked his lips, “long.”
“Fuck you, Bla’Gar! Fuck you!” she jeered. Bla’Gar could see her livid face, as if she was standing right in front of him: saliva flying from her mouth, fangs out and seething, eyes wild with crazy anger.
“I need your help.”
“Why the fuck would you need my help? How did you get this number? And why the hell are you calling me?”
Bla’Gar held back his snarl, fisted his empty hand, nails slicing deep into the human flesh.
“Please. I know the things I have done in the past are unforgivable—”
“Unforgivable?” She spat. “You fucked me over the railing of the Eiffel Tower, made me squirt over your cocks and then left. Unforgivable, my ass. You. Broke. Me!”
“Sweetheart, no mortal or demon can break the heart you never owned.”
“Argh! You haven’t changed, Bla’Gar, not one single bit.”
“I love him!”
“Tell it to someone who gives a fuck.”
“He burns in moonlight!”
“A vampire, you’re fucking another vampire!”
Bla’Gar nostrils flared, this was going nowhere. The wretched wench was so vain, she only cared about her own penniless ass. In a moment of pure, raw fury and frustration, he flicked the mobile device off into the distance, the light still shining as it fell and sunk between the naked ivy branches, onto the snow.
He grunted, even from this far he could hear her bark from the phone.
Defeated, Bla’Gar took slow steps to where the mobile had landed. She was the only one he could turn to. He would never deny it; his time as Second Hell’s Master. He was a heartless monster. He’d done terrible things, cruel and unnamable to humans and supernaturals alike. But he trusted her. Regardless of the fact they had fucked over a century ago, Clarissa was the oldest vampire currently awake in the world. If there were answers, she would know them.
Neon White Season One: A Tooth, Claw and Horns Chronicle Page 15