The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3)

by Cassie Alexander

  Whether I liked it or not we were bonded.

  “Put your dress back on. We have things to discuss.”

  I waited until I heard the first fasten click shut. “What do you know of my kind?”

  “Only what I have been told.” She looked shyly over at me, through a rippling wave of hair. “That you are a Zaibann, destined to be my King. From the council, the celestitians, and the children’s stories that you mocked.”

  “And what do you know of blood?”

  “I…have cut myself before.” She sat back on her bed now, watching me with caution.

  So much innocence. It was both alluring and repulsive. I wanted to smother it with blackness, to change her, to punish her as it seemed I had been – and I wanted to shelter her forever from the world outside. I was like a starved artist finding a uniquely perfect white dove – I didn’t know if I should set her free, or eat her alive.

  “Zaibann are priests of blood and smoke.” I held up my hand in front of her and let it dissipate – her jaw dropped in surprise. I reformed my hand and laced my fingers together in my lap.

  “That is how you got out, isn’t it.”

  “Precisely. I followed one of your accursed metal beasts and found a route.”

  Her face sank. “Which means I cannot follow.”

  “Not that way, no.”

  “Could Airelle?”

  I shook my head. “She was not Zaibann. Not even a Queen can manage what we do. We are born to it and then trained.”

  “My stories never mentioned that. The history did – but I didn’t want to believe it.” Her hand went to her neck, where my bite was already healed. “And nothing ever mentioned biting.”

  “When one is a creature of smoke long enough, you need an anchor to bind you to this world.”

  I watched her swallow. “Were you bound to Airelle?”

  “No.” She blinked, and I went on. “She wouldn’t let me. When you are tied by blood –“ My voice faded. How often had I asked her for her blood? How often had I begged? Of course the first thing I wanted upon waking was her.

  But she knew as Queen that she might die – and she wouldn’t see me fade.

  “She wore a collar at all times. It was a symbol of her defiance.”

  “Should I withhold my blood from you, then?” Ilylle said, attempting to take a regal tone.

  “You wouldn’t be able to if you tried.” I looked over at her, so small upon her bed, and saw her frowning furiously. My impotent, impostor songbird – something like pity for her moved in my heart. “But were you able to, I would die,” I answered honestly.

  She inhaled in a gasp. “Really?”

  “Yes. To taste someone’s blood is to begin to die.” I said the second phrase in the old tongue, surprised to see her nod as though she’d understood.

  I expected some change to come over her at my revelation, a realization of the power she now held over me, some latent cruelty to shine through, but instead she leaned forward, her expression one of genuine curiosity.

  “How often do you need it? And how much?”

  “Once a day, and it depends.” I touched my tongue to the tips of my fangs. It had almost been a day, now, and I had traveled very far as smoke.

  She took several long breaths and I could tell she was thinking. “So when I woke you and I was collarless – you thought that I was her, granting you permission to take blood?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And now you are bound to me? You need my blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” she asked, and then drew her lips into a straight line. “Because you did not believe me, until you went outside.”

  I nodded.

  “What is it like?”

  Her eyes on me then – they were beautiful and serious. Blue as the dress she’d worn, as the money her image was embossed on. “It is very different from my time.”

  “Of course,” she said, relaxing a little, giving me a soft smile. “But is it good? Are people happy?”

  “I do not believe that happiness is a good thing, in and of itself. Pleasure must always be earned.” On that, Airelle agreed with me.

  Ilylle frowned. “Are they…earning it? Or are things too soft? Like – in here?”

  “No.” How to tell her that the pictures her screens showed her were false? That the first thing a man from her time had done was try to rob me?

  She read the truth in my eyes and sank back. “It isn’t like the screens show, is it.”

  “As Queen, you should know the truth -- the air over your land tastes like ash, and your streets smell like a sewer.” She shuddered bodily as I told her, like my words were blows. “Your people – the ones I saw were fighting one another, or being gnawed upon by rats.”

  Her hand went to her mouth in horror. “It’s just like the screens –“

  “I tell you, it’s not –“

  “No – the ones Yzin brings.” She leaned over the edge of her bed and held up a stack of thin metal. “The stories in them. They’re so dark. Bad things happen all the time. But I always thought everything in them was made up. Just stories.” She looked over at me. “Same as you.”

  I shrugged.

  “Is the…whole world like that? All of Aranda?”

  “I do not know.”

  “What have I done to it?”

  I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees, piercing her with an intentionally cruel stare. “You have done nothing. Which is almost as bad a crime as doing evil itself.”

  She swayed on the edge of her bed, looking around the confines of her room. I may have lost twenty-thousand years, but she had lost her sense of self. I wasn’t sure which of us was currently poorer.

  Her mouth opened and closed several times as she sought out the right words. “How can I fix it?”

  “Become a Queen. A real Queen.” I stood and crossed the room to her. “You need me as badly as I need you. Without your powers, you will never leave this palace, girl.”

  She straightened, attempting to be stern. “I am three hundred years old – my name is Ilylle.”

  “I am twenty-thousand, or so you say, and I will call you what I like.” I leaned forward and took her chin in one hand. “You will give me blood and I will teach you how to use your magic as Airelle did.”

  She stared up at me, her expression defiant, scared, aroused. “Must there always be biting?”

  “Not always.” Then I smiled down at her so that my fangs would show. “But often.”

  #

  As he stood smiling down, I was conscious of the way he loomed, and the fact that him standing and me sitting put my mouth on a level with his unseen cock. He let go of my chin, stepping back, and I swallowed.

  “When should our lessons begin?”

  “Now. Tell your beasts of metal and unreal creatures not to intervene.”

  While my servants were not in my room, I knew they were always listening. “Joshan, Beza – no matter what I say, leave the two of us alone for an hour.” An hour was long enough for one lesson, wasn’t it?

  Zaan smirked. “Will they hear you?”

  “They always have before.”

  “Good. Stand.”

  I did as I was told, not knowing what would come next.

  “Take off your dress,” he commanded.

  I put my hand back to the fastens and paused. It felt like my dress was my last piece of protection – or would be, until I learned how to use my powers. How cruel that I could only access them without it. I started opening the fastens slowly.

  His eyes flickered to my hands and then back to my gaze. “I won’t kill you – killing you would kill me.”

  My fingers stopped. “But you admit you mean me harm.”

  “Your powers will never arise without it. Others learn to fight against their siblings as children, or parents -- the push and pull of growing up. But as you have none – and I doubt anyone inside this palace has ever told you no -- you never had will to p
ush against, remaining ignorant. And the servant that you’ve fucked – you never got any true power from him, because he doesn’t know what it is to be powerful. He would never fight back.” He reached out a hand for the bottom set of fastens. “I, on the other hand –“ he began, and jerked me toward him. I gasped as the last set of fastens fell free inside his hand, and reached to catch my dress as it dropped to my hips.

  “Your life has been too easy, walking listlessly from room to room, watching caged jacars.” The word he used for them was strange, but I knew what he meant. “Reading stories you didn’t even think were real – not knowing what was happening right outside your door.” He stood so close, looking down at me, no matter how many times Joshan or Beza had seen me naked, I’d never felt so exposed before. “I have to baptize you in reality, girl. It will not be my fault if it feels like drowning.”

  I nodded, not daring to look up, and felt his hands upon my hips as he threw me onto my bed.

  Zaan crawled up after me, armor and all. My heart leapt into my throat and started fluttering. His armor pressed against me and a knee slid between my legs and I thought I would feel him in my dark place, my pussy, but no – he rose above me, knees on either side of my hips, straddling me trapped between his thighs. His eyes wandered over my body and I almost wished that he’d touch me instead of using his calculated stare, looking down as if he were seeing through me, until he finally spoke.

  “The first time you felt your power – tell me about it.”

  I inhaled, then looked away, suffused with an unfamiliar feeling – shame. Yes, this was definitely shame, from what I’d read about it before – Zaan leaned forward and took my left nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinched it, hard. I gasped and looked up at him.

  “That hurts!”

  “I know,” he growled. “Tell me your story.”

  “It was in front of you!” I confessed, but the pinch didn’t stop. I breathed through the pain and went on quickly.

  “It was after the celestitians chose you and had the zoomers bring you up. There was a feast, all the councilmembers came, and their wives and servants – everyone was happy. Happy to be there, and happy for me. It wasn’t until afterwards that I had time alone with you, to see your face.

  “I –“ It felt weird telling him this story – how I’d looked at him, trying to figure out what kind of man he’d be. “I just wanted to know who you were.”

  One of his eyebrows rose but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’d never seen a Zaibann before. And – I’d never seen a cock.”

  “How did you learn its name then?”

  “Joshan.” I felt myself flush red. “I – he caught me looking at yours. I said it seemed silly and he said that it was not.” It was unlike Joshan to disagree with me – that was the first time he ever had. “And I asked how he knew and he said that he had one too. I commanded him to show it to me – and when he did, when it was hard, I knew where it must go.”

  Zaan made a low sound, and reached into the plackets of his armor with his free hand, without letting go of me. “Go on.”

  “I told him to lay down on the ground, on the floor in your chamber. I straddled him, much like you’re straddling me now, and I moved my skirts aside, sitting slowly down, until his cock pressed against the entrance of my dark place –“

  “Your pussy, girl, get it right,” Zaan said, pulling his own cock out to stroke in front of me.

  “My pussy,” I corrected, watching his hand move. “I took him inside me, slowly at first, then faster and harder, and then he moved beneath me, too.” I remembered that it felt so good I’d wondered aloud if it was right. Faithful Joshan had told me, “You are the Queen. All rights are yours,” without missing a single thrust.

  “And that was when it started?” Zaan asked, one hand still pinching me, the other calmly stroking himself.

  “Yes. I could feel it then. Gathering inside of me. In my hips. Pulling in and coiling tight, getting ready to release.” I grew breathless at the memory. “I rode him and he rubbed places that I never knew inside of me, like we were locked together in a dance that I didn’t want to end.” I looked up at Zaan, I could feel my power gathering again underneath the weight of him. I wanted to touch myself – I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to take his hard cock and push it into all the places Joshan had ever touched and more.

  “Go on,” Zaan said, his voice rough.

  “And then my magic exploded.” I moved my hips below his in imitation of the moment, begging for his cock, but the stern expression on his face did not change. “I felt it roll through me, blinding me with power.” My hand came up to cup the breast he didn’t pinch, pulling at my other nipple. “And I knew then that I was meant for something more.”

  He released the nipple he held and I hissed aloud in pain, as blood ran back in, reviving angry nerves. At that, he stroked himself in earnest, until his hips thrust and he gave a low groan, his seed shooting out of his cock to spill across my stomach.

  I lay beneath him, panting – unsure what I was prepared for, but knowing that I was ready. He smeared his seed up my chest and neck with one hand, and pressed two fingers into my mouth, pulling my jaw open as he stared down. Then with a grunt he released me and dismounted, stepping off of the bed and leaving me behind, naked and stained. He was walking toward the open hallway.

  “Zaan – wait –“ I sat up, throwing an arm across my breasts. “What happened? Was that…okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Was it?”

  I looked down at myself, I could still feel the heat of him, and I was still wracked with need, my magic surging in me, unanswered. “No. It’s not. What about me?”

  “What about you?” A cruel smile lit his face. “Did you want something more?”

  I opened my mouth, afraid to say what I wanted – then my anger made me bold. “I wanted to be taken.”

  He laughed, a harsh sound in my quiet chamber. “You will have to learn to take what you want, girl – or learn to live with what you’re given. Consider that your first lesson, I’ll be back later for your blood,” he said, and left the room.

  I sank back onto my bed, my dark place aching, my mind utterly confused.

  Chapter Eight

  I tried to make sense of things and then I started feeling sticky – I stood and walked to my bathing pool, where Beza met me and washed away his seed without asking any questions. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but what would be the point? She wouldn’t understand.

  So I swam laps and thought. What would he do next? Was he lying about teaching me? What could he teach me, treating me like that? I put a hand to my nipple underneath the water. It still stung.

  I rose out of the pool with more questions than answers, and ate bites of fruit as Beza dried me off. When she was done, Joshan appeared in the doorway.

  “Councilmember Yzin is here to see you, my Queen.”

  I froze. Where was Zaan? If Yzin saw there was no statue – “Take him to my chambers, and keep Zaan out.”

  “Yes, my Queen,” he bowed, and left to do as he was told as I snatched a fresh dress out of Beza’s hands and yanked it on.

  By coming in the council door and going directly to my chambers, Yzin wouldn’t see the empty room further down the hall. But I hadn’t told Joshan to block Zaan bodily, and if he wandered – I flew down the halls, running into my great chamber at full tilt to find Yzin calmly sitting on my couch.

  “Councilman Yzin –“

  “My Queen!” He stood due to politeness, and at my apparent alarm, he looked behind me for a threat. “Is all well?”

  I took in the room. Zaan wasn’t in sight and Yzin did not seem displeased. “Everything’s fine,” I said, with a calm smile, giving him a gentle curtsy. “I was only excited to see you. I get so few visitors.”

  “I am sorry for that, my Queen. I have been overly busy of late.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, and sat down casually across from him. “And the matter
with Mazaria? Is that cleared up?”

  I watched him carefully. He hesitated for a moment and glanced away before answering, “Yes.”

  I could hardly call him a liar without any proof otherwise, could I? And all avenues to get proof were closed to me. “Good,” I said, with a tight smile. “So why have you come?”

  He pulled a shard of pottery out of his pocket. “You gave me this.”

  “Ah, yes.” I took it back from him, rolling it against my palm. “Is it special in any way?”

  Yzin looked from the shard to me. “Only due to its age. It appears to have come from a very old vase. Maybe one of the oldest in your collection.”

  “I’m sorry we broke it then.”

  “Was there anything else strange about it?” Yzin asked, his shaggy brow raised high.

  I suddenly felt guilty – or maybe afraid. Yzin had always been a mentor to me and it was his screens that first told me the truth – but I was still trapped in here, while he was free to go. What was the point of him telling me about the outside world if I would never live in it? Was my life just a game?

  He continued solemnly. “Sometimes the artwork on the sides of old pottery tells a story. And sometimes, there are stories on the inside, too.”

  I froze. Did he mean the book? How could he possibly know about it? I opened my mouth to ask him, and then saw Zaan in the hallway door at Yzin’s back. I begged him to leave with my eyes, then smiled graciously at my councilman.

  “I haven’t had a chance to read your latest screen yet, Yzin. You know I do love stories, though.”

  Yzin leaned back, the moment between us lost. “It was a trait I tried to cultivate in you.”

  “And I appreciate it.” He rocked to standing, his knees creaking again. “Will I see you again before Tide’s Day?”

  “I would like that. Have Joshan call me when you’ve finished your latest screen.”

  “I will.” I stood and followed him to the hall, only relaxing when I saw Zaan was gone. “Thank you for coming all this way. I know the stairs must be hard on your knees.”

  “I would climb a mountain of stairs for you, Ilylle,” he said, turning towards me. Then he gently caught my head in his hands and kissed my forehead, before walking down the hall.