by Seth Eden
He wore a pair of white tights, silky as running shorts Kiera had once owned. His feet were bare, toes long and tapered, the nails more like talons. She had a hard time looking away from them because they were among the least human things about him.
And because she didn't want to meet his eyes.
Finally she blinked rather than sliding her gaze up the bunched quads and hamstrings of his thickly muscled legs, or along the impressive abdominals that allowed him to move so strangely, or along his arms. She just blinked, one minute looking at his face.
The next looking into his eyes.
She thought she might be in love with him. If that was Stockholm Syndrome, so what? It would fade, then, when whatever finally occurred to free Earth from the tyranny of the invaders.
Something would happen because something always happened. That's how things worked for mankind. She'd know, then, depending on what happened when she was free to make her own choices.
In the meantime, he had chosen to stand in for her to receive a punishment neither of them deserved.
In the meantime, he hadn't hurt her any of the times he could have, and with impunity.
In the meantime, the way he looked at her now it was as if she were the only thing in the world.
Kiera couldn't take her eyes from him. Even when her parents were led in across the auditorium, held by men with guns, her father held upright by more guards, his chair nowhere in evidence, her mother instantly in tears, reaching for her, Kiera barely looked away long enough to acknowledge them. Her father, weirdly, was getting help and because it made it simpler for the Vampyrens doing the research, her mother was with him.
She couldn't think past Loren.
In her horrified, pacing-filled hour she'd imagined scenarios from B movies and weird old seafaring pirate flicks from Hollywood's golden era. There'd be chains hanging from something like a Maypole, or a stocks set up, or whatever it was called that trapped the person's head and hands.
There was none of that. There was Loren, in white.
There was the pit of stage, where once the rich and blustering had stalked.
There was a Vampyren coming through the door at the bottom of the auditorium and she caught her breath, gagging.
The vampire with the whip was Sav.
It began without warning. There was no ceremony. Whatever Loren had been told to go and do to prepare in that hour, it was past.
There were no stocks, no whipping post, nothing to hold on to, nowhere for him to go and contrarily, nothing to restrain him.
Nothing but the pride of the race. Loren stood, facing outward, and when Sav delivered the first blow, putting his whole body into it so he shook and shuddered, Loren took one deep breath and looked hard at Kiera, as if telling her something. Then he looked away. He focused somewhere on something she couldn't see and kept his eyes open, his expression neutral.
And Sav began to beat him.
It took no more than five minutes, or several lifetimes. Afterward she had no way to be sure. One minute Loren had been standing, his arms straight out to the side as he had been ordered, the dark blood of the Vampyren staining the white of his tights.
The next he had collapsed to his knees and Sav had instantly stilled the whip.
Above Kiera, where she hadn't seen them come in, the Council members instantly gave voice. "You were not told to stop!" the leader shouted.
Sav looked up at them and Kiera held her breath. How deep was the hatred between the brothers?
Sav took the whip in both hands and she cringed, but he merely held it between them, down across his thighs. "Not until he stands."
"You were told to continue!" The shriek of a council member echoed through the room.
"Not until he stands."
On the floor, Loren trembled, one foot planted, knee bent, forearm across it bleeding into the tights.
"Stay down," she whispered. "Please. For everything, for you. For me. Stay down."
He looked up at her, as if he could have heard her, and with tremendous effort, shoved himself to his feet.
Instantly Sav delivered a blow that snapped against his back. Blood flew and this time, Loren fell.
And this time, he stayed down.
Sav looked up at the council members, his eyes burning with hatred, and threw down the whip. He did not take his eyes from the Council leader as he did so.
"You were not told to stop!" The leader was on his feet.
"Would you kill a prince?" Sav's voice carried easily.
"You were not told to stop!" Spittle flew. The man was apocalyptic. He shook, pointing with a finger that could barely pick out Loren. "Keep! Going!"
"Mahn," one of the other council members said quietly, so coldly that Kiera twisted round in her seat to see him standing behind the leader, his face calm. He was the right hand man, she realized, vice leader or whatever they called him. "It is time for you to step down."
The leader spun, hissing, hands tensed into claws. He lunged at the second.
Who caught him easily and opened his neck with a single, savage bite, shredding ancient flesh and spilling foul blood.
He looked down to where Sav stood over his brother, chest heaving. "Put them in a cell."
Sav hesitated for only an instant. "Together?"
The second – now the leader – looked back coldly. "Together."
Loren
They'd sent them together for the night because they believed he would hurt her. The Council found him weak. He didn't kill enough, or often enough. He had secured a place for Kiera's family and even excusing it as research on the blood illness wasn't enough.
They thought him weak and whatever happened in the room between them, the Council figured it would benefit. Either Kiera would be gone, and therefore her family other than her father could be disposed of, or Loren would refuse to hurt her and lose his command, quite possibly.
Or he would slaughter her and drink all her blood. Certainly the best outcome for the Council. He would be vicious again.
They could use that as their enemies, the Lucian, made their way to Earth.
As himself, he would never hurt her. But tonight, the dark and the cold pressing in from outside, the room he had been given with her, top floor with no curtains on the window and the dark and the blizzard pressing in. That combined with the bloodlust, the exhaustion and the burning, unending pain.
He wouldn't hurt her. Would not.
…but he couldn't be sure.
Kiera
He wouldn't hurt her.
The instant they entered the suite, she turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders where she could see the skin was unmarked and unbloodied. He shuddered away from her, shrank back from her touch, and she knew what he was afraid of. Logically the Vampyren would eat to maintain their health or to heal injury.
The beating had been severe. Kiera had refused to look away, had watched until the last blow and watched as the Council leader was killed and found her own Vampyren-like satisfaction in his death.
Sav could have all but killed his brother. That he didn't spoke of some lingering brotherhood between them. Whatever it was that was there, she was grateful for it.
Now Loren had to heal.
They'd locked them in together. Probably there was some explanation for it. Their own safety. Because of the death of the Council leader. Or because of something one of them had done.
Whatever the official explanation, it was bullshit. They were locked in together because the Council wanted him to hurt her.
And she didn't think he would.
When the door closed and locked behind them, he started to sink to the bed. She caught his wrist. Not that she could have stopped him from sitting, not when he was so very much bigger than she was, but she kept him up by touching him.
"I want to look at those. Come into the bathroom."
He murmured something about superior healing and about genetics and species and something about blood and she listened, decided it was garba
ge, and told him to shut up.
Even injured the look he gave her was utterly bemused.
Under the harsh light of the bathroom fixture she examined his back. The flesh was in ribbons, tatters hanging. Tears ran down her face while she asked him everything she could think of about how he could heal. What he needed. Whether Vampyren needed antibiotics, antiseptics, if it would hurt him for her to wash them. She was babbling, terrified of the silence that would follow when she stopped talking.
Loren himself finally stopped her by turning out from under her careful hands and taking her in his arms with more strength than she would have expected. He kissed her roughly, hard on the mouth, leaving her bruised.
Kiera pulled back, surprised, looking up into his eyes.
"There are four ways I can heal," he said. His eyes roamed her face. "There's mud on our home world that has more healing powers than anything humans have ever developed, but it isn't here and its use over the years has made most other cures less than useful."
That didn't make perfect sense, she thought, but it didn't matter – the clay was on his home world.
"There's time. Because Vampyren heal better than humans. What would be weeks of pain for –" he shuddered, and didn't say you – "One of you, is only a matter of maybe a day for one of us."
She tried to pull away so she could look at his back again. When he didn't let her, she nodded at his back, kind of tilting her head forward and to the side. "That's superior healing."
His voice was unexpectedly dry. "You have to give me more than five minutes."
It wasn't funny, but she giggled. Sarcasm from the Vampyren. What next. "What are the other things?"
He'd been smiling at her, his eyes bright with pain but the smile real enough. Now he sobered and said, "Sex with you."
She swallowed. Started to nod right before he said one more thing.
"And your blood."
Even as scared as she was, Kiera laughed when Loren told her to just relax.
"Dude, I'm not going to relax again this century."
"It will be a very long century, then," he said, and moved across the room toward her.
"What are you doing?" She peered at him. He'd turned down the lights in the room and now he was coming toward her again but he'd just stopped.
"I should think that would be obvious. I'm taking off the running tights."
Kiera found her voice came out squeaky. "Why are you doing that?"
There was a pause, both verbal and physical, and then Loren said, "You humans are so strange. You've seen me in far less than this."
"The circumstances were better." She mentally kicked herself. "Different."
His voice held laugher. "I'll go with better."
She looked in his direction at that, and that was when he materialized out of the darkness, his erection leading the way, full, hard, definitely interested.
"Oh, my god," Kiera said.
"That's good," he said, smiling, reaching out to stroke one hand through her hair. "The more distracted you are, the less you'll notice me taking blood."
She breathed in through her nose. She was unable to look away from his body, the shoulders and chest, the abs and the cock. "Then I should be completely past noticing anything at all. Seriously, run the parade through the room, I won't notice."
He laughed deep in his throat and this time when he reached for her, he made contact and pulled her into his arms. His kisses landed on her mouth, her ears and eyes, his tongue touched her tongue, snaked out again and moved down, explored her throat. He breathed in the scent of her hair and kissed her behind the ear.
Kiera's pulse sped up, her breathing went shallow, and Loren nuzzled his way along her throat, kissing and licking, reached down and pulled her shirt over her head, kissing and licking his way down to breasts.
She tensed then, as if concerned his fangs were going to come out now but still she let him kiss her, let him move down again to bite and suck and nip at her nipples. The tension hadn't left her.
"When are you going to – "
"Shh," he said into the crook of her neck where he was kissing her. "The more excited you are, the more your blood will be hot and sweet."
But that doesn't make sense, she started to herself and then decided, Know what? I don't fucking care. Anything that made him do – that – to her, she was in favor of.
His mouth was on her breasts again, first one and then the other, his tongue leaving a trail of warmth between nipples. He squeezed and pinched, rolled and rubbed, so one moment she was arching in velvet soft kisses and touches and the next there was sharp pleasure that hurt just enough to make her wetter.
Her shirt lay in a crumpled heap, somewhere on the floor, but she still wore her jeans and she wanted them off. When she struggled under him to raise her hips, hook her fingers in the waistband, he captured her hands effortlessly and held them over her head with one of his own, so much bigger than she was he could still continue to bite and lick and play with her breasts with his free hand.
Kiera started to moan. He flashed in and out of her view, her eyes refusing to track. The sensations were lovely, sharp and peppery, soft and gentle, the pleasure in her building and building as if she would come from this stimulation alone, right before the imminent orgasm would roll away again.
He kissed down the flat of her stomach, along the body toned by nearly a year of fear and running and training, learning everything she could to protect herself in the wake of the Vampyren invasion. His hand moved down, spread to cover her lower belly, flat now, where once she'd carried an extra twenty pounds she couldn't lose. The changes the last year had wrought meant she could writhe here behind him without feeling exposed, not hating her body.
She loved what he was doing to that body. Leaving her belly behind, his hand traveled down, one finger teasing just the edge of her mons, along the bikini line where hair would start if she didn't shave it off. Kiera lifted her hips encouragingly and was rewarded with a laugh. The finger dipped further south, circled her clit one time, then pressed against it, making her cry out.
"You're too easy," he purred in her ear.
"And you're evil!" She was panting, her eyes closed, body still straining for that touch.
The finger moved upwards, away from where she wanted it, and traced the inside curl of her hip bone. "You're only just discovering that? I'm a vampire. I've seen your films. You expect to be seduced before you run into the rainstorm in your long white gown."
She giggled, threw her head back sucking in air as the finger went back to her clit, rubbing this time, spreading her wetness from her cunt to her clit, then dipping down and toying with her opening just long enough to make her writhe and start to come.
The finger was gone.
She pulled her hands away from his relaxed grip, reached for him, wrapped her hands around his length and felt how hard he was, hard and tipped in wetness, the head bigger than some men's entire cock.
For a second he let her run her hands along his length, making him harder still, feeling him jerk beneath her touch, then he pulled free so effortlessly she had no question which of them was completely in control of everything going on.
And which of them had abandoned control without remorse. In the back of her mind, she wondered if he could maintain that control. Whatever he might be doing to her now, he was in pain and needed to heal. Either her excitement really did help him to heal once he fucked her or once he drank from her, or he was simply superhuman enough to be enjoying this despite the blood still leaking from the ruin of the flesh on his back.
When he pulled free of her, he flipped her over, onto her stomach, held her hands above her head again, pressing them down against the bed with an unspoken instruction to leave them there.
She had never liked being face down but she was too far gone to care. She wriggled under him, trying to grind herself against the mattress, anything for sensation. Then his hands were on her back, rubbing tense muscles, his fingers tickling her ribs, just the corre
ct side of almost tickling. His fingers trailed down, rubbed her lower back as he straddled her thighs. Both hands took her buttocks and massaged them, squeezing the pale globes then gently separating them. Some distant part of Keira wanted to protest, to turn over, felt humiliated despite her desire, but he gentled her, stroking, whispering words she didn't quite understand. When he moved her legs apart, his fingers drifted past where she didn't want them, moving instead to her hot, wet, wanting core.
This time, he ran the tip of two fingers around the outside, then slowly, so slowly she bit her lip and fisted the sheets, he slid those fingers into her. Past the first knuckle, then past the second, then all the way in, withdrawing with infinite slowness, feeling her entire channel, letting her feel his heat, his touch, the way he could rotate his fingers inside her and touch that place deep inside that made her arch into him, saying words that weren't real.
Her orgasm raced through her, pulsing around his fingers, her clit exploding into pleasure, her breasts feeling electric against the sheets, the waves of pleasure focused between her legs but spreading out to encompass every bit of her body.
She cried out, and in that instant, she felt him shift, felt him spread her legs wide and pull her hips up to meet him. He shoved his entire length and thickness into her, the hard, hard cock filling her and she took him as deep as she could, rocking to try and fit all of him inside.
At the same time, he leaned down, his mouth on her throat, his tongue on the pulse there, and then he bit.
Kiera came again, shouting, frantically shredding the sheets under her hand, crying his name. His fangs were a burst of pain followed by a blossoming of pleasure, as if she were being filled with heat and stroked from the inside, the best massage, the best hand job, the best and most intimate fucking of her life.
He didn't lose control. She could feel his own pleasure, some touch of his mind against hers but also because his cock hardened and his strokes moved faster as he sucked, drinking in bits of her, letting Kiera herself, the very essence of her, begin to heal the evil done to him when he had protected her.