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Introduction:

Lucius has been one of the violent damned since the battle of Silva Arsia and he is unique, reborn of a cruel mistress, with the demon of Depravity assimilated in his blood. And that demon has strange hungers and stranger offspring.

Author Note: Okay, this one was originally under erotic horror and it was posted as a single story, instead of being broken into parts. That seems a bit too long for this venue's formats so I separated it as best I could. The horror elements involve vampires, demons, torture, a little noncon, modification. Really, it’s most of the fun things that go with vampires and demons :). The erotic elements include M/f, Mm/f, F/m, M/m, bdsm play, mind control, noncon, lactation, modification. I might have missed some and I’m sorry if I did. It’s not a short story. Anyway, I wanted to give fair warning as to what you were getting into and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing because this one was a lot of have fun. As always, feedback and comments are welcome, but if you don’t have time for all that, so is a rating, too!

Lucius

It all started with a man named Lott, with two Ts. He and his wife were trying to escape Gomorrah, when she turned back.

Just kidding. Actually, now that I think about it, if you spin the story in the right light and tell a few lies, that’s not so far off. Anyway, the truth was that I never wanted to be the king of vampires. I never wanted most parts of the story that happened, really. All I had wanted to begin with was a specific set of tarot cards.

————

“Hello, Sirekiller.”

I smiled at my human contact. The name had stuck with me for decades now and I encouraged it. Fear was a good deterrent against challenges to my authority in the underworld of damned creatures and I liked to be left alone. Even among vampires, it is an awe inspiring thing to come across one who has murdered their own Sire. It meant killing the creature whose vein I had fed at for so long, meant killing someone whose supernatural authority over me was supposed to be law.

How did one kill the creature whose every word one was magically compelled to obey? I didn’t give that answer freely, nor did I give the answer for why I would want to. I let creatures wonder instead, let them spread their own tales to inspire fear against me.

The human before me had healthy amounts of fear of me. He reeked of it, the pores in his body excreting sweat infused with the spicy tang of adrenaline. Fortunately for him, I was not a young vampire at that time, or he would have teased my hungers. “Mr. Lott.” I shook his hand politely. “Our mutual friend put us in contact over something I very much covet. He assured me that you are the best purveyor of certain... types of items.” I flashed my teeth because he knew all this.

And I knew he knew all of this because for a half hour before meeting him, one of his hired servants had taken me through a long way of his mansion, ensuring that the route showed off all the oddities and rarities that he owned. I had been shown a great many magical trinkets. A very old edition of the Book of the Dead, for instance, written in hieroglyphs that still held magic in their ink from long dead Egyptian priestesses. A skeletal hand was another thing, one that had been infused with such black magic that it made the demon inside my blood purr to see such corruption. A dagger lay in a case and that had been forged with the blood of a very powerful fae. There had been countless toys, ageless delights, and Lott’s family was an old money name, so the mansion he lived in was an even more surreal and wonderful home for these objects. They looked every bit like they belonged there.

Despite his fear of me, Lott grinned with a confidence and pride that he had earned the right to have. It was far from easy to collect these things. “Yes, as you can see. Forgive the waste of time, but I thought it might be better to open with some confidence building.”

I waved my hand. “I have nothing but time. And I appreciate the thought it came from. Now, did he tell you what I am looking for?”

Lott smiled and gestured to his Conservatory lounge chairs. I inclined my head at the propriety, amused at the politics involved in something as simple as the seating arrangements in a room like that one. As it was, Lott sat a seat away from me, enough to display respectful caution of my species, but not so much as to appear rude. “He did, indeed. Would you care for Scotch?”

“Yes, if you’re offering. What kind?”

He listed the brand and I pretended to have heard of it. I didn’t truly care for or about human liquor, but after enough millennia, all alcohol bragging was the same conversation, and I knew how to play with vagueness. I knew very well how to sound polite while saying nothing at all, so that the person I spoke with felt both impressed and felt as if they had gotten to flounce their own knowledge.

When I sipped, I swished the liquid in my mouth, tasting the poison that translated to human drunkenness. For me, there was little else I could taste besides the variations of poison in liquor, and poison was the best word I could give it for my kind. It didn’t give us any of the good feelings while giving all of the bad, unless we drank it in the blood of a victim. That, on the other hand, could be quite enjoyable. “Forgive the civilities. I’m a creature of habit, Lucius. May I call you that?” At my polite nod, he continued. “Yes, he said you sought the tarot cards of one of the Prague Gypsies.”

I smiled in pleasure. Those cards would have been well seasoned with a particularly powerful readers’ aura. She had known the true magics, the incantations and rituals required for enhancements. “Indeed. Can you find them for me?”

“I can. I also demand payment for doing so up front.”

I considered that. As a vampire, it would not be enticing. I would have been a fool to agree, especially for something so undoubtedly expensive. But I was not just a vampire anymore and this was the same secret that had earned me my title. The demon of Depravity was assimilated in my blood and his magic would ensure recompense if a pact was made.

“As you will.” Lott’s shock pulsed through his blood and he made my nostrils flare with the scent. “I require your word. Would you swear, say, on your first born, when they come of age, to follow through your end in two months’ time if I pay beforehand?”

He tilted his head. “With all due respect, Lucius, you realize that in today’s day and age, such contracts are not enforceable and my death would be noticed if you tried to kill me.”

I shrugged. Let him think as he willed. If he failed, he would not be the first creature tricked by a demon. “With all due respect back, Mr. Lott, I am from a different species and a different world than you, a more violent world. It is a ritual that is more for my benefit than yours and one that soothes me. I ask that you follow it.”

He considered me, but a man like Lott had already had encounters with the underworld of creatures and our idiosyncrasies, it seemed, because his shock faded for speculation and consideration. His nerves even faded and I could easily see what had made him such a good heir to his family’s legacy. “Very well, Sirekiller. I swear on my first born child when they come of age. Pay up front and you will earn what you’ve requested in two months’ time.”

I smiled, flashing my fangs. “It’s a deal then. I have already been named your price. Is that the number you will hold to?”

“Yes. Up front, I’ll even lessen it.”

That’s when I knew. He wasn’t actually trying to trick me. I could smell the sincerity. Sad, then, how the story ended. We left on good terms for the time being, the demon inside of me having sealed our word exchange with his own strange brand of magic, and I was confident that Lott would indeed try to hold to his end of the deal. When I was safely outside the bounds of his domicile and not restricted by invitation on the magic I could use, I dematerialized and willed myself back to my own home. It wasn’t something most vampires were capable of doing, but like I said, I had assimilated the demon of Depravity and he was a timeless, powerful creature in my blood. If not for him and my willingness to do whatever necessary to be free of my Sire, I would still be trapped in an undead hell.

I had not lied when I said I came from a different time.

————

Let’s go back together, to that different time. 509 BC, winter, to be precise. The Battle of Silva Arsia had just come to its bittersweet conclusion. Our Roman forces had been victorious... at the cost of one of our consuls. That night had both the air of celebration and the toasts of sadness for the fallen.

And I? Well, I had garnered a reputation for myself during the battle. My name was said to be one of luck, as it was the name of the consul fallen, but more to the point was my sheer size and background. From the beginning, I had been a brute of a creature. I had been practically bred, born, and raised to be one of the fiercest Roman soldiers. And I had earned every scrap of fear that came with my name.

It was as if some demon had been with me during that battle. It was as if I had been possessed. No thoughts had occurred in my mind at all. No, the strategy and obedience to command were things that had been drilled into my being. Blood had flowed forth from my hands, so much of it. Lust and wrath pulsed through my veins and I had had the sensation of being where I belonged, of being the hand of death. The stench made boys sick, but I inhaled it only to feel myself turn erect with excitement. It had been ecstasy, every nerve pulsing in pleasure with every fleck of blood that rained on me. I had breathed it, choked on it, swallowed down mouthfuls of it.

When I lay in my tent after it was done, I was drinking and I had wanted to be alone for a time, actually. Sure, I could take a whore if I wanted and I intended to in the nights to come, but for the moment I still rode an excitement that burned me and I was worried I couldn’t fuck without killing the partner in my pleasure frenzy. I was in a surreal state, wishing I was back in that rain of bloodshed. As it was, I was already generally rough in my carnal attentions. Violence was who I was and the red haze was my euphoria.

I drank some more of the wine in my tent, having earned a never ending font of it. I was a prized warrior and whatever followed the death of the consul, my future was set. Hell, all of Rome would be set up for a powerful opening with her armies after that battle’s victory, if the politicians just wouldn’t fuck it up. As it turned out, they wouldn’t fuck it up.

But I wouldn’t get to be around to see it.

It was somewhere in that pitcher of wine that I felt a chill that made me turn with a soft snarl on my face. It didn’t feel like the chill of winter. It felt like the chill I would get down my spine when danger surrounded me. I loved that shiver when it was in battle. Like a sixth sense, it ensured my survival. I disliked it, however, when it was in the safety of my private tent, while I was drinking to calm my lusts.

When I turned, however, I went still and my annoyance faded far away.

She was the most exotic thing I had ever seen, something more lovely than any whore I had ever touched, and she had this femme fatale look that taunted a man’s entire being. Danger sparked in her eyes and I felt a desire to violently tame that danger, to subdue it. She rendered me speechless with just a look and I knew not what nationality she was. Her skin was bronzed and glistened. Her eyes were an impossible color and I thought it must have been a trick of the light at night because they appeared feral yellow. Her teeth were sharp and bright when she smiled at me. By the force of her gaze alone, she held me still and silent.

“Such a handsome one you are.” She seemed to sigh her words with a soft catlike pleasure, a purr of approval, as she circled me. “It’s too bad you cleaned all the blood off of you. Did you know, my dear, that you killed the most of anyone today? The death toll you managed to exact was so high that it screamed out to me. I have never heard the Dark Embrace crave to punish one so fiercely. And of course, I couldn’t resist coming to see whose soul would cry out with so much pure, defiling wrath. Those pesky, deadly sins.” She said the last teasingly.

Her words didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but they made me afraid. I didn’t know much of the monotheistic religions at the time, but I knew enough of punishment after death. What was more, she spoke with the light of the insane in her eyes. “Forgive me, my lady, who-?”

“Am I?” She smiled, finishing easily. “My name is Astarte. You may call me ‘Mistress’ from now on, I believe. Yes, the call is still strong and it has been so long since I’ve had one to amuse me.” Her eyes flickered with this light, this irresistible flare, and my willpower was abruptly crushed. It was the strangest sensation that made me gasp and stare at her with wide, helpless eyes. “Come to me. You have not lain with one after your glorious battle, warrior. Allow me to give you an eternal reward. Lay down on your furs.”

I could no sooner fight her command than I could suffocate myself. Where I had once been a flame of violence wanting to conquer this woman, I obediently walked to the furs as if I were her puppet. I would soon realize that was exactly the case. “As you wish,” I said softly, and even my voice was submissive.

She purred again, that sensual sound. “Very good, little warrior. Perhaps I’ll let you up from the Compulsion at times to see you struggle against me. But for right now, I shall enjoy your lion fierceness in the manner of a kitten at my side. Look at you, so proud and bloody. And yet, isn’t it so sad to cut those claws and rip those teeth from your lion head so you can’t even run from me?” I could no longer focus on anything, couldn’t even consider her words or the fact that they should anger me. I couldn’t consider that I should have been physically stronger than this insolent female.

All I could think of was how she looked, undressing as she spoke, how she easily undid the strings of her dress and stepped out of it. I didn’t even notice that she was not wearing clothing or underclothing that I was familiar with. All I could think enough to do was to say, “Yes, Mistress,” and to salivate over the sight of her breasts when she bared them to me.

She chuckled. “Good little lion. I assume you’ve eaten your fair share of cunt, a warrior like you?” Her smile widened when I nodded. “Excellent. Let’s see your skills then, see what I have to work with for my entertainment.” When she was naked, she lay down beside me and spread her legs for me to see.

And pleasure shot through me. Her pussy was shaved bare, without the tuft of hair that would have decorated the triangle between her legs, that would have hidden her sex from my gaze. No, she was perfectly hairless, even there. And I couldn’t find the anger to wonder who this bitch was, that she would walk into my tent and command me this way. As soon as my thoughts would manage to turn to anything rebellious, anything at all, a fog oppressed me so that my body was obeying the next command without considering.

I pressed my lips to that perfectly hairless sex and sucked, moaning. She tasted delicious, spicy and wicked. It turned out that this was part of her glamour, but I didn’t know that then, so I sucked her cream from her and sighed with my own pleasure. Oral and serving another had never been my thing. I was a violent, dominating creature by nature and, evidently, my lack of practice showed.

Astarte lifted me with a cruel, clawed hand in my hair and she slapped my face, the nails of her other hand leaving bloody scratches across my cheek, making me blink with shock. “Look into my eyes, lion.”

I had to obey and fell even deeper into that terrible fog. “Yes, Mistress?” The words left my lips without my even thinking of them, so complete was her Compulsion hold on my weaker human mind. As it turned out, she had tons of control over me, due to the sheer amount of wrath I had displayed on the battlefield. It was the thing that had damned me. Her magical hold was in direct correlation to my transgressions and apparently they were legion.

“That’s a pathetic effort. You are a warrior male of age and I want you to spend this night pleasing me. You are to eat me with the hunger and fervor you displayed on the battlefield.” And then she pressed her palm to my forehead and I felt...

There was nothing like it. No worldly pain felt like what she suddenly did, whatever it was. It was an endless abyss of agony with no source for me to stop it. It was soul crushing despair with no hope for the light of day. When it ended, it felt like it had lasted eternity and I stared at her in horror, my mouth open, though I had not managed to utter a sound. Sweat coated my body and she smiled at me with a sickening form of pleasure. “If you don’t please me, little lion, I will make you suffer until you do.”

I dove into her pussy, sucking, thrusting my tongue like I had never done before. I used my hands, both of them, desperate to avoid that horrible agony, that abyss of misery. I couldn’t think beyond the fog of her Compulsion, couldn’t do anything except suck like my life depended on it.

“Good boy.” Those words soothed over my sweat sleeked skin and I felt immense relief at the very sound of them. “Oh!” She came with a soft cry on my tongue and I lapped it up.

For the first time since her torture I spoke, and it was to give her a compliment that I hoped might please her, hoped would help me to avoid the hell she threatened me with. “You taste amazing, Mistress.”

She chuckled and stroked my hair. “Good little lion. But I didn’t tell you to stop eating it. You don’t want more punishment, do you?”

I didn’t. I dove back into eating her.

The night faded into a memory that I would forever hate. There was nothing but cowardly fear, obedience, and frantic sexual service from me. When she finally decided she wanted to feel my sex, she smiled wickedly and gave me a new command. “No orgasms for you, little lion. I think I like you desperate and afraid for the moment.” I whimpered and it was terrible. Her commands forced me to perform with the roughest, most delicious sex I had ever experienced. I should have orgasmed five times by the end of the night and, instead, all that happened was my blood burned hotter and my teeth snapped with frenzied need. I was trapped in that hard state right before orgasm, so hard that it was agony. I grabbed her by her hair and scratched her and didn’t even notice how the wounds I left on her flesh instantly healed. I was rougher with her than I had ever been with anyone and she cooed at me with every thrust, laughing at my torment.

“Poor little lion.” But the words were said with a smile every time she said them, a lecherously sadistic smile. She had me fuck her in the position of animals, had me lay down while she turned around and rode me. And that one was a different kind of torture, because she held her asscheeks apart and told me to stare at her asshole, to imagine the pleasure of eating it. She made me beg her for the privilege of getting to worship that hole, in those words.

It was the middle of the night when she finally sighed with a little bit of melancholy. “Well, I did enjoy getting to use you as a human toy. It’s too bad that it’s going to end, but you’ll make a very delightful fledgling. The Compulsion is going to make you a fun one.” And then she grinned and her voice came out a dangerous purr and I couldn’t even focus on her words. “And you will be able to sustain far more damage. I shall enjoy getting to cut you open and seeing the torment you can scream from. Come to me, little lion, so we can be buried before the sun comes up to threaten us.”

Once again, in a fog, I obeyed and walked to her Dark Embrace. Astarte smiled up at me and pulled my head down so that she could press her lips to the hollow of my throat. I felt a sharp pain of twin punctures.

Dying was strange. I wish I could say it was a memorable, or even noticeable, event. It wasn’t, at least for me, but that might be because it was not so very different from the fog of Compulsion. Her commands already left me dead in my mind and forced me to obey. Actual death was just one step away from that and the gray film covered my eyes while my body disappeared, as if from a great distance.

But then, instead of waking to a new afterlife, there was a different sensation to wake me from the dark slumber. It started as a scent, something that was sweeter than anything on earth. It smelled like the purity of water when one is near death in the desert. It tasted like the nectar of the gods when one has paid the dearest price for eternal life.

Astarte’s blood flooded my mouth and the sensation of my body slammed back to my awareness. I lifted to that taste and drank it while my cruel, terrible Mistress of the dark cooed over me with such depraved laughter. I would only remember one sentence she said.

“Take of your eternal punishment, little lion, and bask in the glorious pain of the insatiable sins that will never cease their cries for more.”

And then there was nothing but terrible hunger.

————

I had taken to visiting Mr. Lott often during the days when he was searching for my tarot cards. I wanted to study the soul bonds and spiritual seasoning done with those cards specifically, for my own black magic purposes. My paranormal interests involving any kind of bond had grown far more aroused with my demon roiling through my blood. It had always been clear that there was some bond between he and I that was strange. Holding a demon was not something easily done and yet, I was managing to do so for millennia. Of course, some nights he would demand I take a guilty female, demand I rip her apart with my cock so that her blood dripped on my thighs even while I drank from the font in her neck. He was a demanding little fuck in my body at times, but he was worth the price of the sickening acts I had to commit.

Far more sickening acts had been done to me all those years ago. Grant you, I was a guilty soul as well.

But he was mostly quiet now after so long in my body and he fueled my interests in things like bonds to tarot cards. And Lott was more than amenable to a vampire companion, so long as he could ask me questions every now and again. I had considered this deal of his with the thought of a business perspective. His time was valuable for a human’s timeline, and should be bought. What information was it worth to be able to study his collection of artifacts, to be able to make sure he retrieved my cards and fulfilled his pact?

Not overly much, actually, I decided. My demon would let me know if he failed and there was a contractual timeframe set. “You may ask me about my life and experiences, excepting secrets of demonism and dangerous magics. I will tell you some of the lighter magics if it applies to your questions, however.”

My life was not a secret, but the fact that I had a demon basking in my blood was, as was the knowledge of how I killed my Mistress. But I would pay the price of some light information to combat some boredom for the time being.

Lott thought on it. “None of the big secrets, then, I’m assuming. Alright, deal. How old are you?”

“2,500 years, give or take a few decades,” I answered easily, as we drank more of his expensive alcohol. I leaned back in his lounge chair, grinning when his eyes widened.

“Holy shit. That’s why even I, as a human, can feel your presence. Did you know that? You have an aura about you that is black and vast and...” He looked away as if to deliberately break his focus on whatever my “aura” was. “It’s terrifying. You’re the oldest I’ve ever met, then.”

I considered my words carefully. “My particular lineage of vampire is not well equipped to hide our presences. You may find that you come across another of my kind who is older, and you won’t notice a thing besides a slight madness behind their eyes.” It was somewhat true. The real reason was that it was my demon who made my presence so terrible. But arguably, my demon made me a new lineage of vampire altogether and I had not procreated since assimilating him. Whenever I went to try to create companionship for myself, something strange happened to my anatomy. Vampires felt a tug to procreate in the same way humans did. I wouldn’t know, but supposedly it was intense pleasure. It was even pleasure to feed a fledgling, to have them take nourishment from our veins.

And yet, when I went to create, the interest left me and I ended up murdering instead. It was as if I had two biologies to sate in making a creation and the demon was not satisfied. As to what would draw his interests, I wasn’t sure yet. Either way, I wasn’t exactly lying. I was all there was of my “lineage”.

Lott nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I have heard your kind speak of bloodlines before. I did not consider it then, but I assume that means different forms of power or aura would come with each.”

I inclined my head. “Just so. Although I doubt you’re interested in the politics behind it. Vampires have nothing but time and are very, well, boring about their pettiness.”

As I had planned, he leaned forward. “Tell me.”

I did, gladly and without fight. If he was asking these questions then there were no secrets in them. They were like his trinkets, useless bits of knowledge for him to possess, and harmless to tell him. In that way, I paid for the right to accompany him through his nighttime business. He would command me away in the earlier hours of the morning and I would go to find other pastimes to occupy myself, which was not difficult. America was my favorite country, especially during the turn of the century. It was a country founded on rebellion. Hell, there was an entire genre of music created out of rebellion, one that had ruled Woodstock music festival. You could protest anything in this beautiful place. It was so easy for a vampire like me to make a little background chaos, to cause a little turmoil. All it took was one wrongful whisper in the right politician’s ear, one terrible little nudge to a city boiling with tension, and I could spend the next few nights with my hands in the pockets of my blue jeans, walking through streets filled with riots, enjoying the scents of fire and looting and fear. War was a joy of mine as well, and it was really too bad that it was never done on American soil. No one had to kill up close and personal anymore and I could whisper in the right ear that all it took was a trigger pull.

So I found things to get into at nights. Then, I spent the days safely reading and painting in my secluded manor. By manor, I mean that it was really more of a very large house. Think upper middle class, but the location had been the real key to my home choice. Once upon a time, long before the Indians that the British conquered, there were different kinds of Indians and these were far more depraved. The land had been untouched and unknown, so demons had found such fertile ground to encourage things like human sacrifice. We had learned that if human races and tribes were in a large span of land without enough water to separate them, like Africa and the Middle East, they would find each other. This was a better scenario for us to have them murder each other. But the isolation of the Americas? The barbarism of ancient societies? My demon purred inside my blood any time I so much as considered it. Depravity. Such a delicate word, with an artist’s touch to the genesis of it. All it took was that first snap of temptation and something beautiful was born.

Anyway, all that is just to explain that my land was desecrated. To the human eye, nothing would grow there, but to my demon hybrid eyes, the ground breathed sin. Lesser demons couldn’t handle my home. It sickened even them to suffer the stench too long. To them, it smelled strongly of boiling blood and burning sulfur, all the delectable things of their real home.

Depravity was strong. We delighted in it. I could even open my windows and bask in the sunlight, within the safety of that patch of land. I knew not what had happened in that place, only that it must have been terrible because there was no hope for redemption. It was wonderfully secluded and I had every manner of protective magic around that place. As soon as anything so much as disturbed my daytime rest, I would know.

It was one of those nights, though, that Lott and I were speaking. We walked through his house and I was powerless to harm any within his residency, excepting in my own self defense, but I never worried. He was far too curious and I had too much information for him. In between his phone calls, he would look to where I read one of his books, in one of his armchairs, and spout off another question for me. His mind never ceased and I was happy for some company that knew what I was.

That specific night he was sitting with me, got the phone call, and politely disengaged himself. Normally, I tried to not listen. It truly wasn’t fair to have supernatural hearing and it was just rude to eavesdrop.

Just kidding. His business actually bored me to tears. What more do you want from me? It could have been a selfless reason that made me refrain, though.

But then I heard his frantic voice, speaking denial in Italian. And I heard my tarot cards brought up, which earned my interest. His heart rate was thundering in terror, his voice was discordant with distress, his eyes were dilated. He argued. Oh, how he argued with whoever was on the phone with him.

When he hung up, however, he did not have the appearance of someone who had won that argument. He had the appearance of someone walking to the gallows, instead. “Problem, Lott?” I asked it softly, gently even.

It took an immense amount of courage to do what he did next and I had to respect him for it. It was the moment that let me know that I would be kind to his first born. I wouldn’t torture them or kill them. I might drink, perhaps, from a fresh supply of the blood they would offer, but I would be kind.

Because he swallowed and sat on equal level to me. And he did not try to lie. He spoke true. “Your cards were taken from the men I sent to retrieve them. They won’t say what stole them and they won’t go after them. I will not have it to you in the agreed upon time.” His voice shook and he had to force the words out, but he did so with all the honor and courage of men far better than he.

I inclined my head. “Don’t worry about it then.” There was no point. The demon pact would seal the fate of his unborn child. “I am sorry that our business went wrong. You have been good company and I thank you.”

He swallowed, eyes wide and wild with terror when I stood. But he got to his feet. “I can send your money back to you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I repeated it softly. Because he would pay me back. He likely didn’t remember that fact and he knew nothing of demons anyway, didn’t even know I was one. I didn’t say that reason out loud. Instead I said, “Consider it a gift for any future run-ins we may have together. A peace offering of a kind. Have a good evening, Lott.”

The demon snickered with the feeling of having a human in his debt. He licked his lips and flexed his magic, powerful as it was. I knew before Lott did as soon as his seed took hold in his wife. I knew as soon as she conceived. It woke me from a nap and I blinked in interest. Of course, this would technically not count until the child was born, hence the language first born and it would not belong to me just yet. I would have to wait for the birth and then another 18 years after that.

But it was almost as if the magic was a doctor, of a sort, and this doctor considered it my right to know about the possibility. This life was my potential possession. I lifted my hand up to rest my head on it, smiling at the ceiling where I lay relaxed on my bed.

My demon was pleased. He was excited.

————

Before the demon’s company, I had her horrible company. I quickly learned that my Mistress was a terrible creature. As soon as I woke, that curse of my kind fell upon me. We called it the Compulsion.

Newborn vampires would have rampaged if given half a chance, would have harmed their food source of blood as well. Nature, or divinity - whichever one a man chose to believe in - had an answer for this. A vampire’s Sire held absolute authority over their children. The Sire’s word was law and could not be disobeyed in any capacity.

I learned that very well and very harshly. Within a week she had taken me, traveling at night, to an underground nightmare of a place. It was a crypt she had used for safety during the days and she smiled when she had me there. “This is where you’ll stay for a time, little lion. Stand right here against this wall.” She pointed to a place that was the safest of the crypt. Even if there was a collapse, I would have been shielded from the sun’s rays. “Now, I have a meeting to keep and I don’t need a fledgling following me to it. You are to stand exactly as you are until I return and release you, understood?”

I had already started to realize that my body obeyed her no matter what my will was. It happened without my thinking about it, that obedience, and I hated it more than anything already. “Yes, Mistress.” I intoned the words respectfully, as she had also commanded.

She left with a nod of satisfaction and she did not come back for days.

I would never know how long it was. My vampire muscles cramped from standing straight for so long when the newly born strength was dying to be used. But I barely noticed that fact at all because I quickly had all of my attention taken with something else.

Hunger. Thirst. It ruled every part of my being. It was the worst thing I had ever experienced, an insatiable hole in my stomach. My teeth elongated in animal need, my eyes burned, and I was blinded, snapping my teeth. I tried to focus on anything besides that terrible feeling, but there was nothing else to focus on. I could not sleep through this suffering, couldn’t so much as move from that wall.

I could smell her when she finally approached the crypt and the scent of my Sire’s blood made me salivate, made me pant with frenzy. She grinned when she saw me and I snapped my teeth.

“Hello, little lion. You won’t be needing those murderous intentions for a while yet, pretty boy. You’ll be at my vein for a long time. Now, I imagine you would like some of...”

I groaned as soon as she slit her wrist, using one of those nails of hers, and held it over a glass. The scent was so strong, so desired by my body, that it hurt me to smell it, actually hurt me. But I couldn’t even think straight enough to beg. Astarte laughed at my suffering. “Look at me, little lion.” I was forced to turn my gaze and attention to hers, as broken as both were. Even when she held the glass to my nose and I choked on bile and my mouth went dry as a desert, my attention was compulsively forced to her. “You have to earn your food. Every drink you have will come with my permission forever. Every second of relief is a gift from me. You will learn that. Now, you are going to show me that you understand by stripping naked and kneeling as my sexual slave. We are going to have a nice, long session where you eat me out and we fuck a few times. If you service me well, I will allow you the glass to drink. If you impress me, I will even offer you another glass. But if I don’t feel your hunger in every stroke of your cock and every thrust of your tongue in my cunt, then I will leave for another meeting and who knows when I will be back? Kneel and thank me for my kindness.”

I was forced to obey, near to tears. How had I fallen so low in that one night, what felt like eternity ago? How had I gone from being a death toll that rivaled a small plague to that?

I begged her to let me worship at her pussy and her asshole and it was more than heartfelt. The sooner she gave them to me, the sooner I could pleasure her and slake some of the eternal thirst in my being. I thanked her when she finally graced me with her sex on my face while I knelt.

I worked her for everything I had and it turned out that starvation for a vampire was even more of an incentive than the pain she had given me as a human. I fucked her on my tongue and I did every trick she commanded as soon as she commanded it. She came, crying out above me, over and over on my face.

And she used a riding crop on me when she had me fuck her from behind, like an animal. She smacked me with it, hard bites of the cruel leather, as if I were a prized stallion. “No orgasms permitted when you’re earning food, fledgling.”

By that time I didn’t even care. My cock turned to that impossible hardness where I was trapped in the state of being about to cum and unable to achieve it because her word was law. But the pain was almost a slight distraction from the thirst. And she tapped the crop back against me cruelly. “Harder, little lion. I know you have more in you.”

I obeyed. And I earned both glasses, though it was only just enough to take the edge off my hunger madness and nowhere near enough to satisfy.

The thirst ruled me, constantly, as per her commands and starvation diets. I ate her cunt more than I drank blood, and was never allowed to orgasm for the longest time. Everything became agony and I very quickly learned a self control that would become a monumental asset for me one day. Her cruel commands forced me to control. When she switched or whipped me, I was not permitted to fall and my muscles shook. But it turned out that it didn’t matter how much pain she gave me. My body had the capability to stand through it and it did. It was knowledge that I locked in my head, along with the knowledge of hunger having no end and being a way to control a vampire, along with the fact that my body healed remarkably and the healing process increased my need for blood as magic repaired me. She would often whip me until the cuts wouldn’t heal anymore and the flesh would just be laid bare, bloodless and agonizing. And then she would claw her nails across those marks so that I howled in torture.

The dungeon would change with our travels and I wouldn’t even notice. I locked myself in a safe compartment of my mind and I don’t know why that was, except to say that it was probably a basic self preservation instinct. I would have quickly gone mad in her dungeons if I hadn’t. As it was, I kept that secret self locked up and stored little bits of hope and knowledge. I didn’t know how I would get out of her grasp, but there had felt like impossible moments in battle too, so I would do so if it killed me.

I did something I wasn’t good at. I bided my time and waited. I won’t sicken you with all the details, except to say that I thanked her for every second where my pain was lessened. Starvation and torment became friends of mine in her dungeons and I learned to think through the pain, learned how to focus and not go absolutely feral under the hunger. I learned a great many things when it came to pleasing a woman and she did at least like it rough, so I got to indulge in that. There were silver linings. Small ones, but they were there.

I faded, with that one part of my mind safely locked away for the day when I could use it again and I let myself sink to the suffering, lest it destroy me. Every sentence out of my mouth ended with the word “Mistress”. She would have me worship her asshole for hours, while she cropped my shoulders with instructions and called me her little lion. There was never any affection in the nickname, only degradation. At times, she would collar me with a cruel device that pierced into my neck and let my blood onto my shoulders so that I would have to smell it in my hunger, would have to feel the waste of such a precious fluid that I never received enough of.

And of course I learned her pussy both inside and out. I learned the way it looked spread around two fingers, the way it looked spread around my fist. I learned the way it pulsed and flowered apart with her arousal, the lips thickening and reddening and falling open to accept more. I learned the way her clit turned engorged and swollen to better allow me access to tease it.

So, it’s true that I learned much from my cruel Mistress, perhaps more than any fledgling ever has under a proper and caring Sire. My Mistress, as it turned out, was not at all the norm. I would learn this later because our relationship did change. Eventually, after decades, she decided I was quite well broken, and allowed me certain freedoms. I would receive a night for myself, for instance, after she commanded me to not feed and to not fuck another. And no orgasms, always that. She would give me times when I was to be back. I obeyed every one of her commands and curfews, even returned earlier than commanded, always. I needed her trust, needed her to know me for a truly insane fledgling. So when she would have guests over and would make me kneel beside her to humiliate me in front of other vampires, I suffered through it. She was delighted when she commanded me to bark, saying I was her little stud, and I did so with a crazed little smile.

Her guests were my first tip off. Most of them would react to my service to her with horrified amazement. “You are a cruel Sire, Astarte.”

To which she would laugh. “Why else would I make a fledgling?” More rarely, there were other friends she would invite over and they would be amazed, but would want to see more of my humiliation. To which she would also laugh. “Come here, little lion. My friend is going to fuck your asshole with a toy while you fuck me. No orgasms.” And she would take up the crop to stroke me with it like I was an animal while I took these things. I had never been interested in males and yet I learned to fuck those as well, especially after the first time I balked from doing it.

I took it, worshiped her as if I were a broken creature. And it pleased her so that she even started to allow me up to a week of freedom when she had to leave and didn’t want me to go with her. “I will leave blood that you are allowed to drink every other day. No orgasms. And you may do as you please, so long as you are in this bed to serve me when I return.”

“Yes, Mistress. Your leaving wounds me, Mistress.”

“Then I’ll give you an extra terrible whipping tonight, little stud, to take your mind off of it.”

But I didn’t care about suffering the pain and humiliation and starvation anymore. I only knew that she was taking trips and leaving me be.

And I would find a way to be free or die trying. Desperation makes men do very insane acts. Vampires, as it turns out, are similar in that aspect.

————

I felt the flare of my demon’s magic another night after Lott’s pact, but this time it was far more intense and wild. It reverberated through me and I shot up in my bed, excited. Depravity sang in my blood. Lott’s wife’s pregnancy had been a success, it seemed, and the child was born right in time for the sun to fall. By the time I was readied and dressed in a black Rolling Stones shirt and some cargo pants, it was time for all demons to be let loose on the earth.

I willed myself to his house and then focused. The magic pointed in the direction of a child, directed me to what would be mine in exactly 18 years, but the direction was more precise the nearer I was. I got the bearing and willed myself to the new location.

“Oops.” I said it softly. Evidently his wife had given birth in a very prestigious hospital. In my excitement I hadn’t considered that fact, somehow. I had materialized right in the middle of a hallway. But fortunately, at night, there wasn’t anyone around. I was safe to look in the window where Mr. and Mrs. Lott held their first born together. Beside them were expensive little dresses and pink balloons that let me know-

Their first born was a daughter. My demon giggled in my veins, already imagining her father’s horror when I took her the day she came of age. His pact would haunt him until the day he died and the little girl would still remain mine. Of course, I would keep her safe and honor him enough to never harm her. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been capable of harming a creature pledged to me in the same way I had been so harmed and violated.

But he wouldn’t know that, would he?

As if he felt my demon’s presence, his head abruptly snapped up and the blood drained from his face as soon as he saw me. His mouth fell open in a kind of horror that amused me, and I inclined my head with a small smile. He managed to leave his wife, who seemed all too happy to rest with the child that she would be taking care of for me. Of course, she didn’t know that she was merely a surrogate now, but it didn’t matter.

I moved behind the door where she would not have to suffer my appearance. This pact was not with her. No, it was with the man who walked out the door and stared at me in a panic. “Lucius, you can’t do that. You’ll give someone a heart attack one day. What the bloody hell are you doing here and how did you find me?”

I smiled a calming smile before I answered, deliberately and slowly. “Your first born is a beautiful girl.”

He stared at me for a long while and, of course, he didn’t even comprehend at first. He had thought it a formality, hadn’t he? But then his lips fell open and he choked out, “You can’t mean it. Here? Now?”

I waved my hand in exasperation, enjoying his fall to madness while it happened before my eyes. “Of course not here and now. Did you not listen to the pact at all? It doesn’t take effect until she comes of age. That’s 18 years from now.”

His panic was fast evolving into that other emotion of desperation. Anger. “You will never take her. You will not have her. You will never even see her again. I revoke any and all invitations to my house for you.”

I inclined my head politely and quietly said, “I am saddened to hear it. It is a rare thing when I get to enjoy another’s company, and I enjoyed yours, Lott.”

Perhaps if he had stopped to consider it, he might have realized that I had been undeterred by the rest of his words. As it was, he snarled at me. “Get the fuck out, Lucius, and I never want to see you again. I will lock her away from you if I have to, lock her away from everyone if I fucking have to. Leave.”

That was all rather rudely said to the demon hybrid who would be taking his daughter from him, but who was I to judge? I nodded again. “As you wish.” I walked past the window one more time to look at her through the glass, curious to the demon’s reaction to that child. He was... purring. He was happiness in my bloodstream. Together we decided that we would push Lott. His threat had been to shelter his daughter if we didn’t stay away and we both wanted her sheltered and protected, safe and well taken care of.

I decided that a little glimpse of me here and there when he was out and about would do the trick. I started stalking him, teasing him with little sights of me watching while he ate with business partners, while he made deals, while he got so much as a coffee.

He was true to his word and locked her away in her pretty castle of a mansion, like a princess in a tower that I could not enter for the time being. Schoolmistresses were called to homeschool her in all things and he never allowed her to leave the estate. It was all very excessive, very insane. She had no friends, except for very close family members, and even during the daytime hours I suspected she was not allowed to so much as go and buy a cookie.

What was I saying before that bit? Oh, yes. People do very insane things out of desperation. Lott went fiercely insane with my tormenting him. It was quite a bit of fun watching what he would do, all for such futility. He had already given her to me. No command would keep me from what was mine by demon pact, be it vampire invitation or a Sire Compulsion. Demon pact was an incredible thing.

————

I first learned about pacts during one of the weeks my Mistress allowed me freedom. Wherever she took me, I learned to seek out and take advantage of any nearby exotic places. I learned which types of magics were real and which weren’t. I learned some basics from different religions and warlocks, and eventually that search led me to demonism. After my goddamned torment at my Sire’s hand, that was something I felt certain had to hold some answers. The tribal bookstore I visited first knew a thing or two about it, too. The only couple of problems were that I wasn’t entirely sure where to continue that strange search and, even if I did, I didn’t know where we were anymore. I can take a guess that it was a long lost tribe’s land now long forgotten on maps, but that wasn’t helpful knowledge at the time. Fortunately for me, the book keeper knew of it, and he knew others who knew more of it.

It was slow work, but whenever we traveled, I started to seek out different, shadier places, learning what to look for. I kept the names of people I met along the way.

We were someplace outside of Egypt, and Mistress was gone for two weeks, when I found a man named Sadra who had the grimoire that would change everything. To my vampire eyes the book glittered with a profound evil, one that made me shiver just to look at it. And here, at last, was the symptom of something that would be worse than the bitch who turned me. That was exactly what I wanted, something worse than her.

Sadra was more than willing to part with the cursed thing. I had expected to have to beg him for such a treasure, but he shook his head violently and thrust it into my arms. He wouldn’t even take payment for it, using the words “pact” and “bad” a lot. So instead I softly said, “I cannot say how much this means to me. If I can return and repay you, I will.”

He nodded at that reluctantly and I left. I went to the strange home my Mistress had left for me, a windowless tomb of a place, but I did not need light. And I read. And read. I was determined that if there was an answer in that book, I would find it as fast as possible. And it turned out that was, indeed, the book.

————

Before I illustrate just how desperate I was with the plan I made, let me first preface it by saying that I had learned a lot about different magic types by then, and I had even learned a few seemingly useless bits of things. One of those things actually managed to come in handy and that was the way to tether myself to the human realm, so that if I left it, then I had a way to return to it. It was a basic teleportation spell, plain and simple, something a warlock had once demonstrated for me. I started with that, making my home pullback a rock in the tomb I had been left in.

And then I did something that only a desperate idiot would do. I opened a gateway to hell. And it was a small thing, a narrow entrance that was short lived. As soon as the door in the rock appeared, it started to shrink, on a very short existence timer. I ripped it open and sprinted through, just in time to fall to my knees in agony while the doorway disappeared behind me.

I stared down at my hands where I bowed in what appeared to be a bed of silt and sand, but the painful part was how hot it burned me. When I lifted my hands, my flesh was seared, and then there was the stench. It was terrible. Cries and moans and sobs sounded around me. No sense was left free of assault in that place.

Fortunately, I had spent decades making those same sounds that I heard around me, and I knew them well. Even more fortunately, pain and I were old friends by then, thanks to my Mistress. I forced my focus through every disorientation and lifted my head to study the place of torment. And I did lay on a bed of sand, as it turned out, beside a river whose image made my eyes go wide with awe.

It was the deepest of reds and the stench I had suffered came from it, for it was a boiling, viscous pool entirely of blood. Strangely, I would have initially described it as angry and not just angry, but absolutely enraged. That river seethed and churned and bubbled like sludge and it was so hot that, like lava, sparks of fire hissed off its surface every now and again. But the most horrific punchline? There were people in it, or rather ethereal shades of what had once been people. They stood about neck deep and they wailed with cries of misery that I knew well. Those were the cries of people who had been in continual pain for a very long time.

A giggle to my side made me turn my head just in time to see the creature I had been searching for. As soon as I saw him laying so casually on that river bank, watching me and my pain while he stroked his cock, it was obvious who I was looking at. His features were like black smoke that formed a shifting mirage of a person. The effect was such that he appeared either faceless or like many faces all at once. And his voice was the killer part when he spoke, deep and guttural and strangely arousing. “You shift the sands of the Phlegathon with your weight. How exciting.”

“Depravity, I presume?” Honestly, I chose Depravity at random. My book had let me know three things about him that fueled my decision. One, he was one of the demons that was trapped in hell and forced to do his work from afar. Two, he wasn’t a duke or a commander, so he didn’t have armies or some shit. That was important because I didn’t want any part of whatever fights hell was into. And three, he wasn’t one of the weak demons either. He was in the middle, which was perfect.

He giggled again, a mad little sound. “That’s me, vampire. I wonder what would happen to you if I took you for a swim. My flesh is thickened by how often I take a nice, relaxing wade through the river. Maybe I could fuck you and feel you burn too.”

Oh, yeah, this demon had been the perfect choice. I knew exactly what to do with him, how to entice him. Astarte had given me the shittiest practice runs ever with how to talk to this one, that bitch. “It’d be hot as fuck, I would assume, but I could give you something better.”

“I doubt that very much, but I’ll let you try for my amusement.” Great. It was all the opening I needed.

I stood through the pain of the hot sands and approached him steadily enough, while he watched me with whatever emotion he felt. It was impossible to tell on the swirling smoky face, but I felt pretty confident in what would work for him. He tilted his head while I undressed and he cackled when I grabbed him and turned him on his hands and knees. I wasn’t sure how sex and sodomy would work with this thing, but I had seen him jack a cock off, so it seemed a safe guess that it would work the same as it would for a human.

“I assume you could take a female form and voice if you desired?”

He looked over his shoulder at me, laughter in his voice. “Yes, vampire. Is that what you want?”

“No.” I shook my head and fisted my own cock, which was a hell of a lot smaller than a demon’s member as it turns out, but that wasn’t what mattered at the moment. I had to work myself, jerking myself a little. “Because I’m not gay and being made to fuck you while you’re in a male form is a turn on.” And thank God my Mistress was cruel, because my cock was easily hardened even when I wasn’t sexually interested, and it stayed that way easily too. I fisted my sex and stroked it up between his legs until I felt what had to be a hole in his form.

And then I thrust home. Depravity reacted instantly, delight in his cry. “Oh! Are you going to cum in the body you can’t even get sexually attracted to?”

I laughed. “Would that I could. I’m not permitted to. I displeased my Mistress and Sire, so she revoked my pleasure for a short time.” I twisted the words to make them seem like I enjoyed the acts, to make them seem like my Sire wasn’t a cruel creature. It probably would have made him hotter to hear the truth, but I needed him to assume my relationship was as close as any other vampire’s bond with their Sire.

It didn’t matter anyway, as it turned out. Depravity arched on the flaming sand with another, even louder, groan. “So if you fuck me harder, it will only cause you more pain and I can make you do it to serve me, while you get no relief?”

I quickened my strokes in answers and I let myself gasp with pain, knowing he would want to hear it. “Yes. And that pleases you, doesn’t it? Seeing a procreative pleasure act meant to be enjoyed by both parties turned to this, a straight vampire fucking a male demon’s asshole in an act of service and torment? I wonder if I kept doing this by this river long enough, would I go insane from the continual onslaught of pleasure? The thoughts it inspires are just so depraved in nature, aren’t they?” He was arching beneath me and his cries were soft animal hisses. “Are you going to cum for me and sprinkle the sands with your seed from the thought of my snapping from unrequited desire while I’m used like a slut for you, Depravity? You should. It’s hot as all fuck to think about, hot enough to make me suffer all the more.” I reached around him to stroke his cock and laughed.

Because he came, just from my twisted word porn, lifting back in my arms with a cry of feral madness. He was laughing when he finished, too, and turned his head to look at me. “That can’t be all, little vampire. You have good tastes and it was fun, but I still think you’ll be a joy to take for a hellish swim.”

“It’s not all,” I answered, purring it. “I would like to make a deal, with a pact.”

He laughed all the harder at that. “And what do you possibly have that I could want to deal with?”

“A chance to leave this place and be released on the earth. I think the world could use a little more Depravity, you see.”

He lifted and stroked himself on my cock, where I still impaled him, so that I grunted with soft pain and there was a grin in his voice. “I’m listening, little vampire.”

“A human body is weak, but a vampire’s is sturdier. You could use my blood as a vessel to fuse and integrate with, couldn’t you?” Now this and the rest of what I was about to say was the desperate gambit. Demons were not stable creatures, however, and I was banking heavily on the nature of his species. They had become mostly creatures of desires, twisted and made entirely of feeling. Depravity would wreak havoc if released on the earth, for instance, but it wouldn’t be incredibly clever or diabolical havoc. Logic wasn’t their strong point.

Still, he pulled away from me and turned to lay on the sands, frowning at me. “True that I could, but I wouldn’t. Fusing myself to your blood would mean being assimilated with you. I would be prisoner, little vampire, even more than I am here.”

I nodded. “Yes, but you would be able to leave and that’s where the pact comes in. I will carry you from this place in my blood and I will swear on the life of my Sire and Mistress that I will release you as soon as we reach the surface.”

He tilted his head, the smoke swirling at me thoughtfully. If he could tell I was being deceitful, or had the presence of thought to read logic, I was done for and would cook for all eternity in the river of wrathful blood. But by that time, it was a risk I was willing to take.

Finally, he spoke. “The bond between a Sire and their fledgling is very strong, vampire. Are you sure you wish to make this pact with me?”

Holy shit. I couldn’t believe it. The way my Mistress treated me was so basically fucked that a demon could be tricked with this. There was something fitting in that, something that poetically delighted me in the fact that Astarte’s terrible nature would, and should, be the cause of her downfall.

I pretended to consider and then solemnly answered, “Yes. It’s a pact I am willing to make.”

“Take my hand and swear to me,” he purred, and now he stood and the smoke shifted violently, in eager excitement. He truly must have been dying to walk the earth because he wasn’t even asking any other questions.

I stood with him, quelling my own excitement. I refused to fuck up then and ruin it with overeager behavior when I was so close, so flaming close I could feel it like I could feel the sands burning my feet, cooking me. Control. I pulled on another gift my Mistress had been so fucking kind to teach me. “I swear on my Sire’s life that I will release you as soon as we surface, Depravity.”

He shook my hand and squealed happily. “Oh, how fun, foolish little vampire! But you are right. Your body can survive having me fused in its blood. Come here. It’s my turn to fuck you now.”

He turned me around in his arms and I had forgotten a very crucial thing.

Demon cock, while they were in their natural form, was fucking massive, larger than a man’s fist, and painfully ridged. I screamed when he pressed me forward and forced inside me. Blood instantly flowed forth to lubricate his way and he laughed behind me, thrusting so that I howled in shocked pain. But I already knew how to breathe through pain and I did, focusing on the pleasure in his insane grunts. He forced me back on him and my eyes went wide. Black smoke was swirling around me and my asshole stubbornly fought his penetration. He pulsed inside of me anyway and something thick was flowing into my body. I gasped when that smoke thrust up into my nostrils and down my respiratory cavities. The smell was choking, pure sin pouring into me. I felt it down my throat and realized this was the same thing pouring up into my bowels, this filthy smog of defilement.

It was the most intense bliss I had ever felt. My cock hardened to pain again, even with my asshole bleeding from his attentions. I turned to look back at him, but my jaw was forced away by more smoke. “No, no, don’t look. Just surrender and take it, little vampire. Take nice, deep breaths for me, and let my sin pollute your blood. Let it ruin you.”

I moaned and could definitely see why a human would already be dead. The smoke alone denied me any breath of oxygen. It destroyed everything until sin was all that filled me, until my nostrils felt thick and I could feel that sulfuric dust bleeding up into my eyes. It became my world, became everything, and filled me up until I felt like I could barely contain it.

And then finally the cock impaling my dead organs like a stake was gone as well, and I fell to my hands and knees on the banks of the Phlegathon, alone. Depravity swirled in my blood stream and he was still laughing as he integrated. It felt like bliss pulsing through my entire body, like razors coated in euphoria were singing through my flesh.

I felt the exact moment where he integrated enough to know my thoughts. Because in my thoughts he was reading the truth behind my deal with him, the truth of my Sire.

He screamed in rage inside of me. I will watch you burn for this, vampire!

My blood, the little of it I had after such a scant diet, boiled and burned in my veins with his fury. He struggled terrifically in my body, so hard that I grit my teeth and choked in the burning sand, even while he slowly started to become more and more part of me against his will. “I’m sorry! Look, I really am. I won’t let you go but I’ll make you a deal, alright?”

Oh, yes, because you were so honorable for the last one!

“You’re right,” I whispered. “But, this is the real offer. Her life is yours and you’ve seen what she’s done, how she’s committed heresy against the Dark Embrace. Be as depraved as you like with her and I’ll slake your hungers. I’ll show you the world because I want to see it too, and the world really does deserve a little more Depravity. You can read all of this in me.”

He hesitated in my blood, still fighting our integration, but then I had the strangest sensation of my mind being sifted, riffled, through. He searched and, when he spoke, his voice was calmer and his wrath seemed held at bay. You will serve as my tour guide of a sorts? Partner with me and play with me?

“Yes.”

And you understand that the broken pact will give me reign of possession of your vessel, that it will alter you for my own desires and allow me to do as I please to punish her?

“Fuck yes. Show me some real Depravity. Look through what she’s done to me and you’ll find that she is very fitting for your punishment and retribution. Creatures like her are why you exist.” Again, there was that sensation of sifting and then his next response made me smile. It was a giggle, one of those maddened little sounds of his that sent chills down the spine. “Come on. Show me how you like to play, so I can find us some more places to fuck with.”

My Mistress had given me a few gifts to help me survive. By that time, I knew very well how to satisfy the spirit of defilement, knew very well that insane light. If getting rid of her meant that I had to ingest and become that spirit, then I would. And the demon in my blood was all too satisfied with this new arrangement. True, I had tricked him and it would cost me many nights of downright evil bloodshed, many nights of punishing deserving souls who drew my demon’s lust. But, with time and many cruelties, I truly did hope to satisfy Depravity. I had used him for my ends, but I did not want his imprisonment to be a bad one. I would far prefer an alliance, a friendship, if possible, over an eternal headache in my very bloodstream.

I used the tether to draw us back to my tomb and he purred to me. Well, Lucius? Are you going to fulfill your bargain?

I inhaled, understanding. I had to deny him for it to take full effect. “One last thing before I answer. The pact was for her life, not mine, so don’t just keep her alive to torture for eternity. Will you agree to a year?”

He cackled in my head. I won’t need so long. A year with the same screams? That’s oh, so limiting! I prefer variety in my pleasures. I agree to that gladly.

“Alright. Here we go. I deny you your freedom, Depravity.”

————

The effect was instant. The demon burst through the surface of me in a possession and the pact magic overrode everything. It obliterated vampire bonds like they were fragile rope, denied me even the rights to my own body. It was the strangest sensation of being a prisoner in my own mind. I was awake, watching through my eyes, but I had no control where they looked. He had everything and he flexed his fingertips with a gleeful laugh. But I could sense that he too was limited. He was not free to do as he pleased, only free to take what was rightfully his by our bargain failed.

He sniffed the air of the cave and then spun in his circle. “Run away, little Astarte. I want to play and flay all day and you need run away.” His rhyme went something like that anyway. It’s hard to translate his insanity to different languages, but it’s close enough. He said it in a sing-song voice and then stopped his circle, staring in a direction and I felt what he felt.

He could sense her, knew exactly where she was by the powerful magic of his kind. The urge to punish with sin was a demon’s first and foremost drive, with the urge to follow bargains as a second. And with this, he got to do both at once. It was like an internal compass pointed him straight to her soul.

And then I got to experience my first materialization. It was fucking cool. He literally just willed himself out of existence from one place and willed himself back into it in another. I remember instantly hoping that trick might be one of the changes he spoke of that occurred from demon possession. My grimoire had mentioned that too, that diets and appearances and mannerisms and just about anything were subject to change after a demon’s ownership of a body. It was another price I had predetermined worth it, no matter what grotesque changes happened to me. I could earn horns and total disfigurement forever and I wouldn’t have cared by then.

We appeared within a lavish home for that time period too, without needing any invitation at all, without even touching the front door. Depravity walked with a spring in his step, ripping doors just to feel his own strength, giggling when he crushed them into pieces. There was a shriek in response to the noise he made and a sound of, “What the bloody hell is that?”

The first vampire that burst through the next set of doors was another female, and I would later learn that Astarte’s gatherings were all of a political nature for her vampire clan. She served blood teas and hosted dinner parties for others of high stature, keeping her favors with the Dark Court by performing little favors of her own. The vampire that appeared was one of her guests.

Of course, Depravity didn’t see any of that or care about any of it. He giggled again. “Oh, she’s been kind enough to invite voyeurs to watch our playtime together, too! How exciting. Maybe by the end they’ll be mad as a bat with a cat and a rat on a mat.”

Astarte followed through the door and stopped, stunned when she saw what appeared to be a twisted version of me. Ever the high status vampire, she drew herself up against the shock and maintained that regal expression. “Little lion, I do not know what loopholes you found in my commands, but you will pay for this impropriety. At my feet, now.”

Depravity howled in laughter, while I felt as Atlas might have if the world was ever lifted from his shoulders. He wasn’t obeying, wasn’t forced to obey. This was what freedom finally felt like. “You called him little lion and thought you cut his claws, but they grew back twice as long and dipped in poison, too.” He grinned what must have been a terrifying expression because Astarte backed away from him, losing her regal appearance. “I’m not Lucius, Astarte, but he made a deal with a demon on your life and broke it. So here we are, with our little game.” He was pacing, dancing, but abruptly he stopped that and turned to her and his expression switched from madness to pure venom. “How dare you? How fucking dare you! You would break the sacred bond of vampire Sire and fledgling, would break the unholy ties of the punished when our kind is all we have for comfort in our eternal hells? You will pay!”

She must have known instantly what he referred to, because she turned and ran with the supernatural speed of her kind while her friend remained frozen in place by Depravity’s magic. He snarled at her flight and did that cool materializing trick again, so that she ran right into his arms and screamed. She struggled and sobbed, tried to kick him but his strength was incredible. She was little more than a kitten trying to break his hold. And I had the sensation that Depravity, and demons in general, did not exactly have a thought processing. Because he was acting on an instinct of his kind and the sudden burst of rage seemed to be something he was suddenly forced to feel along with that urge to punish, to bring damned retribution on a soul. Eternal life was always a curse and evidently a demon’s purpose was to exact a twisted form of justice. Astarte had been drawn to me because she was a vampire, a creature who feasted on blood, and I had poured out a river of it, so much that the Dark Embrace took hold of her so that she would punish me with eternal blood hunger.

Likewise, Depravity was drawn to Astarte for her twisted performances of his namesake and his nature seemed to make him crave to act, to defile, to debase, to rape. It was so very beautiful, in a strange way, so poetic.

“No! Please! Please, I’ll do anything! Make a deal with me instead.”

He cackled again, his rage switching back to madness and delirious delight. “Oh, you’re the begging kind! How unoriginal. And the scent of your fear is so cheap and... human in nature. That’s boring. I think you can do better, so let’s see what we can do to inspire you. Such a bad mommy you’ve been.” He laughed in joy at the way the word tasted and then he did something I would forever be his friend for.

He ripped into her neck with my teeth and, even in the back of my head, I moaned with relief. Blood poured down my throat, a fountain of it, far more than her goblets, far more than I had ever hoped to have. At least a gallon of it flooded me and the hunger was something that was ever present, something that could never truly be satisfied, but after so long with so little of it, I felt full and soothed. He drained her dry while she sobbed in mad hunger and, finally, I was the one who was replete and she was the animal crying in starvation.

Depravity grinned and licked his lips above her, taunting her while her eyes went flat yellow with her hunger. “You vampires. Such a strong race and yet, so dependent on blood. Oh my, mother dear, it looks like you taught your fledgling control and didn’t even bother to learn any for yourself. That’s not very fitting. Let’s open you up a little and see what we find. You liked your little lion’s cock before, didn’t you? Liked to hold him permanently chaste and make him use that to work for food? He was nice and large to stretch you open. Let’s see if you like how I’ve changed his anatomy just for you.”

When he looked down, I mentally made a sound of exasperation while he clawed off my clothes, working one handed because he was holding Astarte still with the other. Dear Satan in hell, how am I going to hide that? Depravity had enlarged me, so much so that I had his demon cock now, so much so that having sex for pleasure with almost any mate would be impossible. No human sex or hole would be able to take the size of it without suffering... quite a bit. Depravity giggled at my reaction and answered back in my mind. You don’t.

Obviously not. And damn him but obviously I wouldn’t be having sex without his sin in it either. He well ensured that with how he altered me. Just giving incentive for you to keep your word this time, Lucius. Let me demonstrate how well it works on your mommy from hell.

He did. He held Astarte down with a mad grin in her face, the devil’s laughter at her pain. His voice was guttural again and sounded strange from my vocal cords, almost like a combination of both of us. “Let’s see how many thrusts it takes to rip you apart, Astarte, so that we can see all those soulless little insides of yours. And oh no!” He forced my cock inside an opening too small with the power of his species and she screamed while her friend dry heaved in terror in the corner, still held paralyzed and forced to watch the atrocities. “You don’t have any blood left to lubricate the way.” Pain was firing up from my demon organ, as if he were rubbing it against sandpaper, but he threw back his head as if it gave him the most exquisite pleasure. “The pain of another’s suffering... so sweet... like the black river of harboring at the feet of the Dark Lord’s throne. So hot...” He was moaning, grinding into her sex, which was far too shallow to take him.

And for all the control she had demanded of me, it seemed she really did have none of her own. She snapped and howled in agony, unable to think past the pain and starvation.

My demonic savior fucked her open with vicious claws, ripped her bloodless body to lay it bare while she howled and shrieked and hot tears flooded down her cheeks. Her cries were something legendary, something insane. Even I began to pity her.

But not very much. I cherished the memory as a favorite for the rest of my life. It was cruel and it was harsh, but sometimes the only way to soothe a violent, tortured soul was with cruel and harsh. He made it last for weeks before he finally tired of it, so long that her friend went insane with the spectacle. But, to my interest, he stroked that vampire’s hair when he took a break from torturing Astarte and his touch was tender. He shushed her fears while she sobbed and cringed from him. And he fed her from my vein so that she wouldn’t suffer much starvation.

At the end of it, she was broken from the sight of what he did and before he killed Astarte, he went to her and cooed over her. “Look at me, little songbird.”

The vampire did and she was rather beautiful, for all her taste in terrible company. She was an Egyptian, as I had learned my Sire was as well, and her skin had that tantalizing mocha appearance and her hair was ebony. After being forced to watch the most gruesome of tortures from a very adept demon, she obeyed him, and by that time, she no longer cringed and whimpered in terror. Instead, she giggled in a way that was so reminiscent of Depravity. “I don’t think I’m the songbird. I think there was a different song sang but I know other songs too.”

Depravity grinned. “I’ll bet you do, pretty thing.” He stroked her hair with the attention of... a guardian? “Why don’t you go and make all kinds of music for me? Maybe when you’ve practiced, we can even make music together and wouldn’t that be such fun? What’s your name?”

Her mad grin widened. “I don’t know. What is my name?”

“That’s what we like to hear. Let’s see. I once had a pet hellcat, who used to rip souls to shreds on command, and I liked to call her Vika. I think that should be your name. Don’t you?” He stroked a claw down her cheek and drew her blood so that she purred to the pain and moaned to the sight of him licking it casually from that claw.

“Oh, but my name has always been Vika, hasn’t it? I don’t remember another one. And will I ever find you again?”

“Of course you will, little pussy. Now, run along and go make some music for my ears to hear. I won’t abandon you. Once you’ve played enough, I’ll even hurt you one day. Go on now. Back to the garden to play with the little birds.” He watched as she pranced away and left out the door of that place, leaving us alone with a ripped open vampire who had no arms or legs anymore.

And then he whistled happily and went to the writhing, whimpering thing that had once been my Mistress. In a few merciful slashes of my claws, he severed her head and the body disintegrated into dust.

Just like that, it was over and my body was my own again. Depravity faded happily into my blood and he no longer fought the integration at all. His voice quieted and there was little left but an unholy marriage between the two of us. We were almost one being.

Except we had dual desires, dual hungers. I felt these things as strange emotions in my blood stream, separate from my own. Sometimes I would hear that duality in the form of his cackle and mad giggles. Very rarely I would hear him speak, mostly when I left him unfed for far too long, and usually it was short sentences. Be my friend or Play with me. It was things like that and they were always in a softly threatening whisper in the back of my mind, a devious reminder that I had made a promise to him. I would always apologize and feed him when it happened. Much like a vampire, I learned that with each time his hunger turned less intense and less frequent. As the centuries passed, he turned into a happy demon and we got along well together.

And I learned to use clothing to hide the massive fucking bulge Depravity decided to bloody gift me with. Although, I could never have sex without it being a gruesome ordeal after that. I did learn to get off by stroking myself between a girl’s nether lips, instead of through penetration, and that was alright anyway. Well it was unless Depravity randomly decided he wanted to fucking kill her, like a jackass, and then I’d end the night with a corpse to get rid of.

But I did end up with the materialization thing and I got hellish strength, even greater than most other vampires had. I could sense desecrated ground that would protect me, even found a way to look into the sun. Sometimes D’s forays ended with gifts, most often fucked up little pets like Vika who would find me and keep me company and play with me. Needless to say, I considered the rewards very much worth their price.

Anyway, now you can see just how futile Lott’s efforts were to keep his daughter from me. Demonic pact ruled over all other human and undead laws, so completely that it earned me the impossible name of Sirekiller.

————

Lily

Ever since I could remember, my life was a cage. It was gilded and golden and extravagant, but it was always a cage.

The most important rule was that I was never allowed to leave our mansion boundaries, and those were marked with posts and a fences. Of course, they included things like the pool and the gardens and for the longest time I didn't thing there was anything strange at all about any of it. That quickly changed when I turned old enough to understand things like movies and books and I realized that characters depicted were never as isolated as I was, but even so I never fought these strange laws.

I had the dreams and those were things that made me never want to fight.

They started shortly after I brought up my desires to go to school, real school, with my father. He stared down at me with a fond kind of dread and sorrow in his eyes, the same look that he generally got when he looked at me. And he sighed. "I'm sorry, Lily bug, but you can't. You stay in your classes here at the mansion. But what if I offered you something in return for it?"

"What kind of something?" I grinned up at him, easily distracted. My father had all kinds of strange trinkets around the house.

"What about magic?" His eyes twinkled and my grin widened.

"Magic is kids' stuff, Father. There's no such thing."

"Oh, is that a fact? What if I proved you wrong?" He stood, still smiling at me, and I was enchanted. His library was a wild, sprawling place and it had all kinds of mystical books that drew my fantasies. I watched eagerly while he got down a bowl and chalice. He drew a symbol on his desk with a strange chalk and placed the bowl over top of it. I couldn't hear what he said under his breath, but he whispered as he poured water out of the chalice into the bowl. He held his hands over top of it, still whispering.

For a while, nothing happened, but then, while I watched, the water turned to dirt in the bowl and I squealed when a beautiful red lily grew there. "Druids adore the Earth," he finally said, touching my nose.

It worked. He had my attention. He showed me his other rooms, the ones with all of his strange artifacts and I was instantly drawn to a specific glass case. I don't know what it was about that case, except that it called to me, as if many voices swirled inside of it. I wandered over to it and stared into the case, feeling as if those voices were speaking with me. It was as if they knew me, as if I belonged to them somehow. "Lily!" I turned, broken from a reverie, and my father was staring at me with a kind of terror. While I watched, he seemed to calm himself. "There are many dangerous types of magic. Anything in one of these cases is locked and sealed. I don't care how curious you are. You are never to touch these types, understood? If you do somehow open one and trespass, I will bar you out of these rooms for a long time. You have to be good, Lily."

I nodded, but my mind was on that terrible case. "Yes, Father. Show me more."

That was the night the dreams started.

————

I dreamed of a prince, a handsome prince, and he seemed a bit surprised to see me. Which struck me as odd. He was trespassing in my dream, right? Why should he be surprised? But then, as I watched, his brow smoothed and he smiled. "Hello, little one."

This had to be one of those storybook saviors. If I was the princess locked in a tower, then this was the man who would slay the dragon. My fantasies of him started that night and I had an instant obsession for the creature in my dreams. He had sharp teeth, like a wolf's, and his hair was almost as black as his swirling eyes and cut short. What was more, he was built like a savior would be. He was huge, like a tank. I don't know why, but I instantly trusted that man. As soon as I saw him, some magic took hold of me. "Are you here to save me?"

He chuckled. "I doubt that very much. Why, do you need saving?"

I hesitated. The answer would make me sound very spoiled because I knew that my life was charmed. And yet... I wanted to speak the truth. I frowned because my thoughts were these broken things. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me. I hear these voices and I'm so confused and I can't go anywhere to find any answers."

"Ah." Then he made a grimace and his voice was strange. "For Christ's sake, D, I heard you the first time." He rubbed his temple and then focused back on me, smiling gently. "You're not crazy, little one. You are merely torn at the moment. Let's see. How to explain best... You're different, little one, and that's true. You need to hide these differences from others because they will think you crazy, though I can attest that isn't the case. Do you know about butterflies?"

I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Everyone knows about butterflies."

He grinned. "Fair enough. So, let's liken your life to a butterfly's. You're in the cocoon and it's disorienting. You were given away and everything in you is changing to acclimate to the life that awaits you."

"I don't understand." He was making everything sound much more complicated, more terrifying.

"It's nothing to be scared of." His eyes turned concerned with my agitation and a soft purring sound escaped him. Strangely, it was soothing for me to hear. "There we go. There's nothing to fear. It's going to be confusing, but it will all make sense in the end, I promise."

Those words calmed me even more because I trusted that creature. Everything in me trusted him, even if I could have never said why. I nodded. "Okay. Okay, I'll be good."

He smiled in approval and I warmed to it. "Don't tell anyone about these dreams or the voices, alright?"

Again, I nodded, knowing his words to be true. I had to keep my secrets.

But after that, I started to sneak into the artifact room so I could sit in front of that special black case with its strange books and even stranger pentagrams. They whispered to me and it made me feel closer to that creature from my dreams. My shoulder started to itch as I sat in front of that case night after night, until one morning I looked in my mirror and blinked.

There was a mark on the back of my shoulder, a strange mark. It formed a star of a sort and looked almost like a scar. My father's paranoia turned even more pronounced when he discovered it and my mother started to fight with him. She told him he was crazy, begged him to let me have some freedoms, but all of these arguments were met with no give on his part. He kept me in my tower and I stayed quiet, kept my secrets to myself. I settled for the company of the man in my dreams, on those delightful nights when he appeared to me, and I kept my head down. I was allowed to order anything at all I wished, allowed to go for walks and swims as I pleased. I studied everything given to me and all the magics I was allowed access to in the library. I had nothing but time to learn these things and I used it all to my heart's content. I didn't know why I was drawn to some topics and not others, but I never forgot what my dream prince told me. I had been given to something and I didn't know what, but I was changing and growing to fit whatever end waited for me.

————

Lucius

After she pulled me into her dreams, it gave me cause to consider a lot of questions. I had never actually had a pact payment of my own before, not like this. People usually bargained on their own lives and then death was the answer, but I was forced to understand that this form of payment did not work like others. There was something more elaborate to this form. That being said, it was once a common pact to be made and there were still demons that had this.

I hunted one down. It took a few months of searching through cities and tracking down various demons that were free on the Earth. Speaking with them was often a lesson in frustration, as their minds didn’t work like a human’s or a vampire’s. Often, my direct questions, such as outright asking if they knew a demon who had a pact payment, were met with indiscernible and riddle like answers. But I was a vampire and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I kept my patience and spoke with these creatures for a time even if they didn’t give me any useful information. When they met me, they seemed able to sense Depravity in me, and they never had harmful intent. It was a strange thing, but demons didn’t seem overly inclined to hurting one another. They might feed on one another, if they had kindred names of sin, but this was always mutually and politely done. I was not bothered by their company at all and only casually searched for my end goal. Journeys could often be as enlightening or enjoyable as their destinations, after all, and this was one of those instances.

Eventually, with time and patient talks, I found a demon who could give me answers. He was an interesting creature, with a subtle name, and he had taken up his residency in the most hilarious place imaginable. It was a southern little rural town that was small, but well kept and well centered in their churches. And this demon’s name wasn’t actually a sin unto itself. He was called Doubt.

I couldn’t help but grin with Depravity when I found his home. It was in the middle of a street, all with two acre, neat little lots, and his two story home looked the same as every single one surrounding it. The only difference was varying shades of brick. I like this one. D seemed to be finding his voice again, now that Lott’s daughter had entered our lives, and it was a fun thing. I had to agree with him on the sense of humor this demon seemed to have.

Me, too. I rang the doorbell of the house and the answer was so immediate that I knew my presence had been anticipated and felt. The demon who opened the door had taken the appearance and form of an unremarkable man in his early thirties. He was just handsome enough to make himself charming and welcoming to any human who would fall prey to Doubt. “Hello.” He was even polite, very coherent, but then his name was a subtle thing, so I imagined he had to be good at feigning sanity in order to reap his seeds where he found fertile ground in human minds.

“Good evening. I have curiosities I think you might have answers for.”

His smile widened. “And you are host to a friend, little vampire. I invite you as a guest with full restrictions.”

Fair enough. I crossed the threshold when he stood back and felt the magic restrict me, but neither Depravity nor I minded. We followed Doubt as he led us into a living area and then around to a kitchen. Hysterically, he had an ornate bible laying on a table in the foyer, with a purple ribbon as a bookmark. Decorative snow globes were displayed in a curio cabinet in the living room, alongside bookshelves with all manner of conflicting theologies. “I like you,” I said. It was straightforward and strange, maybe, but I’d spent months speaking with mentally unstable demons, so I couldn’t really be blamed.

He grinned. “I have to be able to host things like scrabble parties for the Sunday School group I teach. The more exotic books are back in my bedroom in the closet. You have to hide the things that are too strange or you’ll scare them away and they won’t play.”

And there we were. Some of the insanity and drive I was used to. Alright, so it was there for him too. Good to know. “That’s fair enough. Can I ask you something private about your life? Depravity and I are having some interesting events.”

He tilted his head for a moment, his eyes twinkling, and then he laughed. “Oh, you’re no fun, little vampire.” It was teasing, playful. “Everyone who mentions interesting events is supposed to have doubts, didn’t you know? You don’t have a one. What if I said I didn’t want to answer?”

I shrugged. “Then I wouldn’t be so rude as to take up anymore of your playtime, especially since I’m terrible food for you.”

“Damn. I can’t ignore good manners. Okay, go ahead and ask. If I can answer, I will.”

I had learned early on that even the darker creatures of the world were appreciative to hear a kind word and basic propriety. “Please” and “thank you” really did go a long way in most cases. And if they didn’t, then they hadn’t cost anything to begin with, so there wasn’t a loss. “I earned a pact payment. She’s been born and I’m not entirely sure what to expect. She drew me into her dreamscape.”

His eyes lit up with excited pleasure. “Oh, did she? You’re a lucky one. Most of the time the pact magic is blocked on the payment’s end, so she must have been near something demonic to allow for a connection. Much like a phone call, I suppose. Most humans don’t have our kind of phones, if that makes sense.” He spoke of all this so easily, as if it were obvious, and it was an amazing fact to me that, for demons, these kinds of things were obvious. They couldn’t follow logic, but they had vast knowledge that leapt to them easily. “As for what to expect.” He shrugged. “The same as any pact payment.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what that is and, well, I heard you had a ward of your own.”

“Oh, right. You’re a vampire. It’s really easy to forget that you’re not a full demon. I just sense you and think that you understand.” Like any other demon would. “I can show you.” He got up from his chair happily. “It will be fun to show you.” I made to stand, but he waved me back down and only called out down the hallway instead. “Abigail, come here, please. Pretend like we’re alone. This person is a friend.”

There was a pause and then I inhaled sharply when the girl came around the corner to his call. She wasn’t wearing a thing and appeared to be 19, maybe 20, years of age. What was more, she was stunning. Her hair was a deep gold and long down her back, like something out a fairy tale. Her eyes were the color of warm chocolate and when she smiled, her teeth were perfect. Freckles decorated her nose. “Yes, Sir?” She looked up at Doubt with a smile that was real.

Depravity froze in my blood. It was like he was a hungry dog and Doubt had held out the most wonderful treat. Doubt turned her in his arms so that she was facing us while he held her from behind. While we watched, he took her hands and used them to cup her tits, showing them off. He was smiling behind her and she lifted to his sensual touch. “This is a new friend. He’s getting a pact payment too and wanted to see how we worked.” He used one of her hands to pinch her nipples and I hardened. There was something special about seeing him hold her, something deep. “I’m not sure how to explain to you, vampire, besides to say that they’re payments. They are whatever you like. They come to us, demons, as blank slates, untouched and obedient. I’m not sure how it will be for a vampire holding a demon because that’s not something I’ve known to happen yet. I would assume that her blood would be untainted, if I had to guess. Before they come of age for us, they seek knowledge that will be useful. Abigail, for instance, always enjoyed learning languages before I collected her.” He kissed her hair with loving affection even while he glided one of her hands down between her legs and pressed her own fingers inside of her sex.

Blasts. Depravity was being taunted as all hell. And yet, for all of Doubt’s casual objectification of his ward, it was clear that he cherished her. “May I ask her some questions?”

Doubt kissed her hair and she nuzzled her cheek up against his. “Of course you can. Come and sit on our friend’s lap, Abbie.”

“No, wait, I-“ But he had already lifted the girl to his arms so that she laughed, and he settled her into my hold, where she wrapped her arms around my neck and nestled into my embrace. Oh. Oh, but it felt so nice to hold her. She smelled like her demon owner and there was something different about her, something that made holding her far different from holding another human. It was like she was made to fit against a demon, even one who was held in a vampire host. Depravity seemed to tremble in my bloodstream. Great honor. His voice was reverent in my mind and it was clear why. Holding her did feel like an honor. I wondered, very briefly, if demons had problems with another demon trying to take their payments from them. But Depravity quickly gave me the answer with a snarl in my head. Never. They belong to a rightful owner and it is unholy law. Never would one break it.

Doubt grinned at the way I looked at the girl and moved one of my arms so that I cradled her. He moved my other hand down between her legs and I let him slide my fingers inside of her channel, closing my eyes to the blissful feel. She was silky to my touch, and so very ready. She opened up for these touches too, without a blush, so that it was clear Doubt used her body often. Her body curved against mine and I opened my eyes to see her smiling up at me. “You had questions, sir.”

“I do,” I answered softly. Doubt had let me go and I was twisting my fingers on my own now, just to watch her body turn flush. She so readily opened to demonic pleasure, accepting it where every other human feared it. “Do you remember your human life?”

At that question, she glanced at Doubt, who sat across from us, watching me pleasure his ward. “Answer him truly, Abigail. It’s alright.”

“Yes, sir. I remember.” She said it softly, her breasts teasing against my shirt when she shivered with sexuality. “There was no change, really, not like a vampire goes through anyway. The clock just struck midnight on my birthday and Master was there. It felt right when he carried me from my home. It’s hard to explain. Okay, so, for an example, I would try to date boys like everyone else my age, but one time, the guy tried to kiss me. And I couldn’t let it happen. There wasn’t a thought of if I wanted to or not. There was only the reaction of backing away before I could think about it.” She blushed in my arms. “I gave up after that. But there were little things like that, all through my life, things that felt wrong or that didn’t add up. And then I was in his arms and those things fell into place. Sometimes I would feel sad when I remembered my life, my family, but it was only a temporary family. That was 70 years ago, though. Most of them are all dead now.”

70 years. She looked like he had just collected her. I scissored my fingers inside of her and she moaned. It was all I could do to turn my attention to Doubt. “Do they all stop aging?”

He leaned back, his hands behind his head, the picture of ease. “Most do. It depends on what the owner wants, really. I know a few demons who kill them in front of the pact violator when they get them. That always seemed like a waste to me, since they’re the perfect creatures for us. They travel with us, serve our needs, give us companionship and sex. They’re wonderfully adaptive, as well. Some of the names of violence prefer little torture toys and their wards always develop an extremely high pain tolerance along with an ability to heal. I prefer Abigail as a sexual creature.” He grinned and Depravity whimpered. “She craves it, burns for it continually. Her sex drive is unrivaled, leaving barely enough room in her mind for things like the different languages she loves so much. She never grows hair from the neck down and her little pussy is always wet. Like I said, little vampire, I don’t know how to explain. They are payments.” He shrugged. “Even now, your ward is wondering what is missing from her life. She’s seeing the pact brand appear in her flesh and wondering why it soothes her to see it there. They are what we make of them. I’m not sure what that means for you and yours. As I said, I haven’t seen a hybrid like you receive a payment. If it seems like too much trouble, you could just kill it.”

“No.” I said it instantly and Doubt smiled. He spoke of it so easily. He spoke of things like ownership as if they were second nature, but he looked at the girl in my arms with such affection that it didn’t feel like the thoughts that went with slavery. Yet I knew he was right. Not every demon would have the same desire for their ward. I was both disturbed and aroused by those thoughts, wondering how this would play out.

They were what we made them to be, he said, but what would D and I make ours to be when the two of us together were something strange and volatile as it was? Did my desires even matter in this case? He was the demon. What if his were the only ones that mattered? Depravity wasn’t a very coherent creature, so I worried infinitely about how his desires might manifest in a ward like that. And what if it did matter what my desires were? What did I want from a payment that could be absolutely anything?

A fledgling. The answer was instant in my mind and I knew it for the truth. I fingered the girl in my arms while she arched with desire. After a moment of quiet, Doubt knelt between her legs and licked over my fingers so that she cried out her pleasure. Together, we teased her and made her cum and each time only seemed to make her more needy, rather than help alleviate her desire.

————

Lily

On the eve of my 18th birthday, Mother had decided that she had had enough. She didn’t ask Father about anything to do with what she did next and she kept the secret so well that it was amazing. Our mansion had been locked down from any and all visitors since I had been born and my 18th birthday just so happened to fall on a Saturday, so that Friday evening, while Father was gone and working, decorators started to show up.

Mother directed them with such dominance and haste that it was kind of amazing to watch. She was normally such a gentle soul, but she turned into a mama bear that day. There were crews and florists who turned one of our party rooms into a ballroom, while I watched and laughed. Mother winked when she saw me and whispered, “He won’t be back until late and I’ll deal with the fallout, Lily bug. Mary is going to take you to get dressed, to do your makeup and hair before your party guests arrive. Go on.”

I went. I hadn’t fought my imprisonment for 18 years, it was true, but when faced with the concept of a party, a real life movie ball? Well... I didn’t mind a little bit of rebellion after all, as it turned out.

It was the perfect night and everything was designed to make me feel like a princess, everything. Mary had been my nanny all my life, but now she felt like a lady in waiting and even she was having so much fun. “Close your eyes,” she said with a grin, and I laughed when she fitted a blindfold over me, a silky one. At her commands I lifted my arms and she dressed me, fitted my shoes.

When she took the blindfold off, I almost cried. The dress was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, almost like a wedding dress. The sleeves were both off my shoulders and flower designs were laced up my torso. At my waist it flared out like a dancer’s outfit and my shoes were these delicate things. Mary started on my hair, laughing at my expression. “I can’t take credit for any of it, love. Your mother chose everything as she thought you would love it best.”

“She did amazing!” And she did. It was something I could have only dreamed of.

She tapped my hair with the comb she had, straightening my locks out and fixing my hair back in a simple style. One side was pulled back, but it was pulled back and held with a comb that had diamond butterflies. “Now you can do something tonight besides reading those trashy paranormal romance novels you hide under your bed.”

I blushed. “Thanks for not telling Father on me. He doesn’t pay much attention to things I order from bookstores.” Which was true. If I out and ordered something from a more questionable site, he would have totally noticed that though.

Mary shook her head. “Books never hurt anyone. Just, for heaven’s sake, tell me you are at least reading actually decent material every now and again, girl.”

I laughed. “Of course I am. You don’t think I’m always reading about vampires and werewolves fu-“

“Ah ah!” She swatted my mouth so that I laughed all the harder. “Watch your language when wearing a dress like that. You’re a lady at the end of the night.”

“But not yet!” She shook her head and did my makeup, tsking.

“If you were even slightly more rebellious, you would be a problem.”

But I wasn’t a problem because I wasn’t rebellious in the slightest. The prince in my dreams commanded me to obedience, calmed me with his reassurances, and as I grew older, I discovered that his words compelled me to obey him. When he commanded, I wasn’t necessarily forced to obedience, but it was extremely difficult to go against his desires. I simply very much wanted to do as he said. He had commanded me to obey the strictures of my life and whenever some new change took hold in my being, like the obedience to his orders, he commanded me to not fear those changes. I was supposed to enjoy them as they happened and to be calm in my cocoon until that phase ended.

But if one parent commanded me to a party that the other didn’t know about, that didn’t seem to go against the desire to follow his orders. I laughed along with Mary and followed her out of my rooms down to the party.

Where there were guests, for the first time. Mother waited for me at the foot of the stairs. “Come here, Lily bug. Let me introduce everyone to you.”

I grinned and pranced to her, talking with all of my party guests, who all seemed excited to meet me. There were work friends of my father, friends of my mother, family members, friends of friends, and their children. There were so many people and I got to talk to all of them.

————

Everything was perfect, magical. I got to dance in the ballroom and it was to my favorite classical songs and my favorite pop songs. I got to sip champagne, even, which I instantly put down because it tasted horrible. Father still hadn’t gotten home when the clock was nearing midnight, which was... Okay, I was a little scared for when he would come home, but the party was dying down anyway and nothing bad had happened. After introducing me to everyone, my mother hadn’t hovered and had let me mingle as I wished.

But then I heard the voice. It was his voice, except it sounded like the whispers that came from the forbidden glass case. The veil grows weak as the witching hour approaches.

I couldn’t resist that voice when I heard it in my waking hours. For so long, I had only heard him in dreams, and my heart thundered to the sound of him speaking in my head. I left the ballroom, quietly skirting my mother so she wouldn’t see me sneak out of my party, where I could speak back to that voice. The brand on my shoulder seemed to burn. “Who are you?”

There was a soft chuckle in my head. Go to your room and I will show you soon.

My feet followed his command even before I stopped and thought on it. It was the strangest feeling and I was convinced there was some magic, one I didn’t know, being used on me. “Okay.” I said it when I was in my sprawling bedroom, with its rich and pampered decor. “Okay, I did.”

Lock the door.

I obeyed that as well and by the time I was finished, I felt the chill run up my spine. It was as if the lights in my room suddenly dimmed or as if all light was suddenly oppressed. It was as if the temperature got a little colder, as if my entire being turned cold. I turned slowly, fearfully, to face my balcony even while I felt the draft that came from the doors being opened.

There he stood. He looked exactly as I had seen him in my sleep, except now he wore a masquerade mask and a tux with a strange type of decorative sash around his waist. But he didn’t cross the balcony doors. He merely stood there and watched me.

My heart thundered and cold sweat broke across my body. I shivered in my dress and approached him slowly, warily. “You’re real,” I whispered. “But what are you? Why do I see you when I sleep?”

I stopped without crossing the balcony door and I don’t know why that was the case, only knew that something in me was afraid to cross the rest of the way to him. Something in me thought I was safe so long as I stayed in my princess’ tower. He smiled at me. “Your father made a deal before you were born and he gave you to me. I hope the outfit is to your liking. I didn’t have much time to choose something fitting for your party.”

“It’s beautiful, more perfect than anyone else’s here, even mine. But how did he give me to you? What does that mean?”

“You should not fear me,” he said softly, instead of answering. He held up his hand when I opened my mouth, shaking his head and cutting me off. “No harm will ever come to you, but listen. Do you hear it?” He touched his ear, smiling at me. “Can you sense the shiver in the air?” I obeyed him in the manner that magic seemed to make me obey him. And I listened.

The sound made me shake in fear and anticipation, made me both dread whatever was approaching and yearn for it to take me. “I can hear it.” My voice was breathless and I shook even while I wrapped my arms around myself.

His smile deepened. “The veil is about to fall.” He lifted a hand and pressed his fingertips against the air between us. It was almost as if something shimmered at his touch. It was fitting that he called it a veil, for the gossamer shadow that blocked his touch looked exactly like one. I stared up at him with my lips slightly parted, unable to look away, unable to run. He held me thrall with his eyes, black as coals stone cold in the hearth. The air became unbearable, almost as if there was the sound of a thundering heartbeat going faster and faster, or maybe that was just my own heart. Everything around us seemed to vibrate while we waited together, or maybe that was my own body shaking with such terror. My breath quickened to soft little pants and I took a single hesitant step back and the heartbeat sounded like it would burst and a bell tolled in the distance and-

The shimmering sheet appeared once more, then fell while he watched it with a smile. Slowly, he looked back up at me and inclined his head. “Happy 18th birthday, little one.”

And then he walked over the balcony line, with nothing to stop him.

————

Lucius

She whimpered when I took her to my arms, but was otherwise quite well behaved and still for me. My nightly commands had made her submissive and tame, although she shivered with a soft frightened sound when I lowered my head and stroked my fangs down the thin flesh of her throat. “Please. Please don’t hurt me.”

The sound tore at me. As much as she had been affected by the magic preparing her for me, I had been changed in strange ways as well. “Never,” I whispered automatically, letting my fangs elongate, but even as I said the word and readied for the bite to take a drink, I gasped.

Depravity awakened inside me. There was no other word for it and the sensation surged through my body like a white hot flame of pure desire. It was such desperate intensity as I had not felt since Mistress had died. I had to work to focus through it, stunned with whatever this was. The demon had been quiet for so long, excepting after those nights this girl had pulled us to her dreams, and yet now he spoke with clarity again. Take. Make!

Make. Oh yes, make. I had only been intending to feed, but that word was suddenly everything in that moment. It resounded through my head over and over while Depravity snarled it, thrashing in my veins. And that word told me what was finally happening as well. We wanted to procreate, both of us. I had just a second to wonder why he suddenly wanted to so badly that it was hurting us, and then I hissed and buried my fangs in her throat.

I just managed to cover her mouth with my hand to stifle her cry and it was a cry of bliss on her part. She lifted with evident ecstasy in my arms and I took the first drink, only to pull back with a moan of pain. “Can’t. Feed... On the innocent,” I whimpered. Every drop of her blood felt like acid down my throat and this was something I somehow hadn’t considered. Of course her blood would be poison to me. She had been locked up and sheltered all her life. She was what Doubt had said, an untouched sacrifice to demonic payment.

Depravity didn’t care. Drink, Lucius, or I’ll kill us both!

“It will kill me anyway.” Even as I said the words, white hot desire was pulsing through me, needing to make her my fledgling even when her blood was a toxin. I couldn’t drink it. This was a law I had heard and never encountered, but her blood was painful, murderous.

It won’t, damn you! Drink!

I choked and a single tear escaped my eye with the pain I was about to suffer, but the demon would not be denied and I bowed my head to that terrible fount and gulped in frantic draughts. Every swallow scorched like lava and every one seemed to make her hotter and wilder. She tilted her head to give me better access and cried out behind my palm. She rose and fell like a beautiful tide in my arms, in the way that a female dances for pleasure. The scent of cum made it easier for me to bear the acid I was being made to swallow and I groaned into her throat when I felt her orgasm from the feeling alone. It was something wondrous. The bite could be pleasure and feeding a fledgling was immense pleasure, but nothing had described this, nothing.

She moaned until she couldn’t anymore, until her heart stopped, and finally I drew the last drink of torture and together we fell to the ground. Depravity was true to his word, however. If not for him, her and I both would have died. Her and I both should have died. But he took over, knowing what to do and how to finish. He bit into my wrist and held it to her lips while he stroked her hair so lovingly that it stunned me. I had known him to be many things, but loving? I would have never thought him capable of it.

“Drink. From my blood to yours, from my life to yours. Drink and live anew.”

She shuddered and then reacted to the blood in her face, pulling from death with a soft whine of hunger. Her lips fastened around my wrist and she took a tentative sip. The fangs punctured me immediately after, the first things to wake in her new body, and she latched to me, drinking with a starvation I knew well, that mindless hunger that ruled all thought and emotion. To my amazement, Depravity seemed to nurse me in some way as well. He seemed to mentally feed me with a magic that healed my body, even while a newborn fed from my blood supply. But every moment seemed to cost him. You know the rest. Must... Recover...

I had never known my demon to sound so replete or to have a need to recover from anything. Even more baffling was the scent of the feeding creature in my arms. “What did you make?” I whispered.

Because it wasn’t a vampire, at least not entirely. His insane giggle was faint and he sounded far away when he answered with the most uselessly cryptic reply. Innocent virgin. Eternal punishment. Worst defilement. And then he fell silent and my blood went still while he slumbered.

Well, at least it told me why I hadn’t run into the horrid taste of innocent blood. I didn’t exactly keep virginal company and hadn’t ever had a desire to find one of those before. By nature, vampires were only drawn to feed on or Embrace the deserving. The only thing I could think of that made this different was the circumstances and the demon I was entwined with. But the effects were interesting.

The scent of the thing I held was one to make my blood burn, for a start. Every breath felt like desire and I didn’t know if that was a feeling of being a Sire, but I didn’t think so. This was painful, the way she smelled to a demon, and it was nothing like the scent of a ward. I lowered my teeth to her neck while she fed and stroked her with my fangs so that she purred mindlessly. That scent grew stronger, drew me in even while it smelled like the most delicious parts of hell. Even the banks of the Phlegathon did not smell as wonderful as she did.

My attention was abruptly jerked away from my tending to her when I heard footsteps and I hissed at the door like an animal over its young, growling at the sounds I heard. Her father had arrived home and he was yelling, screaming. “Where is she!” The doorknob rattled and I could smell his fear on the other side. It was something to make me grin with pleasure. I waited for him to kick through the door and burst the lock free, let him see me holding her, let him take in the view of her feeding at my vein.

“Your pact is fulfilled, Lott,” I said lightly. The shout of horrified despair was music to my ears when I willed her and I home together. There was nothing so sweet as his sorrow, nothing so pure.

Except for the creature in my arms. I had prepared a room for her in my house, one that I thought she would adore, one to make her feel at home and welcome in her new life as a demon’s ward. Yet, I did not use it after the turn of events that occurred so unexpectedly. I couldn’t. I stared down at the newborn in my arms and carried her to my bed instead, where I laid her on top of the black satin. In her white birthday dress, she looked as a bride gifted to me, a symbol of purity against the black of sin.

“What did you make, D?” I whispered it again, for I longed to lay beside her and nuzzle her throat, longed to take deep breaths of that wonderful scent that was only growing stronger. What was more, that scent aroused me in a pervasively sexual way, made me want her badly. I had to wrap myself in the same self control that my Mistress had once taught me, had to make myself sit in my chair beside the bed instead. I didn’t want to disturb my little fledgling because I well remembered the exhaustion after death and well remembered the cruelty of being made to travel when I was in that exhaustion. She needed her sleep for the moment.

But I didn’t leave her side either. I sat still instead, letting my head fall forward so I could close my eyes and listen and smell. Everything faded except for the sounds outside the house, like the wind rustling the salted earth outside and the creaks of an old house settling, the sounds of my newborn rustling the sheets in her sleep. Depravity snored like a sleeping dragon in my blood, a background to all the rest.

————

I snapped awake at the first change, the minuscule second where I heard her gasp on my bed, and raised my head right as she arched with a sob. “Hungry. I’m so hungry. Please.” Tears coursed from her eyes, of confusion and fear, and I felt the sight like a churn in my gut.

“No, no, no tears. It’s okay, little one. It’s all okay now.” How had Astarte done what she did to me? How? It was astonishing, given the power of protective instincts I acted upon without thought. I was by her side on the bed in an instant, humming softly in my throat to soothe her. And her tears stopped due to Compulsion’s effects, but she still sniffled, so wide eyed and afraid that it wounded me. I bit into my wrist, thinking that I would have to feed more often to nourish both of us, remembering the terrible hunger that I was incapable of subjecting her to. Due to the circumstances of my own upbringing, I was unsure how much blood she would need for comfortable levels and that fact suddenly bothered me.

Should she need blood already, even? Bloody hell, I had no idea what I was doing. “Drink, if you’re hungry.”

Her nostrils flared when I lifted my wrist to her face and she sniffed before hesitantly licking, like a fawn at a stream. The flicks of her tongue were tentative, but to my dismay she didn’t bite into my offered vein and actually pulled away, something that stunned me. Now that action I knew was wrong. Even if she was full, she should be unable to pull away from an offer like mine. But she shook her head, whimpering as if the blood caused her pain. “It hurts so bad. So hungry. Please. Please...” Her eyes swirled black as night with lost desperation and her breath hissed between her teeth. Saliva glistened on her fangs and I rubbed my forehead.

I didn’t know what this was, but I recognized the madness of starvation. And dear Lucifer below, that scent of hers permeated everything, making it hard to breathe. It felt almost like Depravity had when he poured into my body in the form of smoke, choking me. My cock was rock hard and pure sexual need pulsed through me.

Goddamnit, what had he made? What was this? I had been expecting a ward, braced for that, but this wasn’t following any of what Doubt had shown me. Depravity, wake up now. I need help. I think she needs you and she’s hurting. Please.

It was nearing daytime hours so he had had a fair bit of recovery, but I could still feel him languidly resting in my blood. For a few seconds he didn’t answer and I was terrified, but the scent of his spawn suffering seemed to rouse him enough. She didn’t do anything except give me such a confused and pleading look that it hurt my chest. Your instincts are telling you what to do.

Oh, I’m pretty sure they’re not telling me shit. Because all of my instincts were saying to take her and claim her, to fuck her so hard I would never forget it.

That’s it. She needs your sex.

For a moment I was stunned and couldn’t even answer him, but then I managed. Great, D. I would, except, you know, someone - not naming names or anything, but some jackass - endowed me with the actual cock from hell, so how do you want me to do that?

He giggled insanely, sleepily. She can take it. Do it or I will.

I winced. Fuck, I didn’t want that. Okay, she was partially a vampire at least. Maybe I could do this in a gentle enough way that even when I tore her, she wouldn’t feel much pain, and then Depravity would see that it wouldn’t work. He truly seemed to care for the suffering of the girl laying on my bed, this poor creature who was bonded to me.

“Please,” she whispered again. “It’s like a hole that won’t close. It hurts so bad. I’m so empty.”

“Okay.” I whispered it, cooed it. “It’s okay. Just hold on and I’ll help you. We’ll figure this out together. Can you stand up?”

Her head fell weakly to the side and I took that as a no. My senses were reeling because, on the vampire side, she smelled sated with blood, but there was some other part that the demon sensed. It was almost like... if one could stop a vampire right in that moment before they turned, trap them there. It was a stasis of a kind, as if some part of her was trying to awaken, and couldn’t, because I was failing as a Sire. “Okay, love. It’s okay. Just relax and don’t be afraid.” I hated using Compulsion like that, but I didn’t want her to suffer. I lifted her dress gently, maneuvering her awkwardly to pull it over her head. She was so weak that it was terrifying, so I hurried and undressed her until she was naked before me.

She was beautiful. Pure and untouched, but with that sensual grace of my sinful race. It was the strangest, most surreal blend of two dualities that were never meant to exist together. Innocence, but with the swirling black eyes of a demon. Sweetness, but with a smile that salivated for blood and something else. I kissed up her body, both dying to see her in the throes of pleasure and unwilling to harm her. But another whimper from her made me continue.

I started with one nipple and closed my lips around the peak to suck and tease it. The response was instant and it made me groan. She arched beneath me, her body spasming with need so hot that it was unlike anything I’d ever felt. It was so... desperate. “Oh, yes! More, please, please! More.” She begged so sweetly too.

But I couldn’t focus on any of that because the scent of her suddenly jacked up into something impossible for me to ignore. It was like a magic that she controlled and it affected my desire, made me need, made me growl.

I stood only to impatiently take off my own clothes while she stared up into my eyes and made me suffer just from the raw desire she held in them, the hunger. She opened her mouth and lifted weakly on the bed while I watched, her hands trailing down her body, while she whimpered and bared her fangs. I snapped at the sight and dove for her pussy, burying my face between her thighs, so that she squealed with the sudden bliss from my lips meeting her nether ones.

I had eaten females out in many different ways for many different reasons. I had eaten my Mistress out of fear of pain and need for her blood. I had eaten others in response to Depravity’s attentions. I had eaten to give pleasure where I could not physically fuck my partner. But now, with her?

It was like a religion. I thrust my tongue inside of her and instantly made a raw sound against her. She was drenched and the lips of her sex quivered under my tongue. That heady scent was everything and I was free to inhale it with every breath I took in between flicks of my tongue, was free to let it rule me. And holy hell, it did. It ruled me like the blood hunger took hold in me, so that when I lifted my face, I could feel the smoky haze turning my eyes black as endless pits, could feel my fangs lengthening, though I didn’t thirst for blood. It was amazing, and the taste! Oh, like milk and honey after years of wandering in the desert... She opened around my tongue and when I fitted my fingers inside of her, she managed to give those weak little writhing motions and cried out so desperately that it was like a song. But what was more amazing was how her previously virginal pussy widened, quivering open, for the second finger and the third... and then the fourth. I scissored and spread and that hot channel adapted, as if it was a natural thing for whatever she was.

“Okay, this next part might hurt, but I’m going to try. Trust me, okay?” I whispered it up at her while I drew my hand away and met her eyes again, only to inhale sharply.

She didn’t answer because she couldn’t. She was a maddened thing above me, a starved animal that lifted her head and snapped her teeth, only to fall back again and hiss with weakness. There was no more thought left in those eyes, no light either. They were like mine, except the black smoke had overtaken all of hers, where my own eyes always had at least tiny flecks of white. “Christo.” I crawled up her body, terrified of losing her, of failing when I had never had the chance of having a fledgling.

It’s okay. She’s okay, but suffering. Just work slowly and she’ll take it.

It was strange to have Depravity calm me, but it made me take a breath, made me gently kiss her forehead. “Open up for me.” I made it a command, in the voice of Compulsion, and her body shuddered as if there was an effect. She was more than wet enough too, with cum staining my black bedding. I spread her thighs open and jacked myself a little, enjoying the touch when I didn’t give myself a lot of sexual attention anymore. But the look of it in my hand made me afraid again.

The self control that was so strong from my Mistress’ cruelty only barely stood up to her magical scent, but it did. In the end, the only thing that made me try was Depravity’s threat to do it himself. I didn’t think he would intentionally harm her because he had a twisted form of affection for his creations, but he played really rough. So, I took a deep breath and pressed myself to her entrance.

The growl that left me was guttural, demonic, because as soon as I pressed just a little, it was already the best sensation I had ever felt. The little creature beneath me shouted, cried, and squealed, endless sounds of hunger. She managed to grasp my wrists where I held myself over her, with my hands on either side of her head. And finally she could speak again. “Yes! More!”

I couldn’t have stopped even if I wanted to because whatever magic she was spinning gripped me and held me slave over her. I pressed inside of her slowly, so fucking slowly, but with every torturous bit she widened even farther, her pussy adjusting impossibly to take even me. “Holy fuck.” Depravity cackled with his sick glee and I groaned and she arched, trying to get more even while I held her back. I wasn’t sure how she was adjusting like this, but I didn’t want to go too fast and hurt her.

“No! More! I need it, please God, I need it... I’m so hungry, so empty...”

“Patience,” I answered in a growl, even while I didn’t want to follow my own command at fucking all. How long had it been since I’d had sex without blood as the lubricant, without ripping the tender flesh open and feeling the results on my cock? How long had it been since I’d gotten this basic pleasure of being able to fuck? I couldn’t think of a time since Astarte’s hell. It was heavenly, like silk sliding over such a sensitive area, like the softest touch stroking me, gripping me...

Slowly. I forced myself and it took everything I had, but I did it, staring down into her maddened black eyes and inhaling the smell of satanic lust that permeated from her pores. But finally, an age later, I could go no farther.

She squealed again, and this time it was satisfied. Her cunt tightened like a vice around me, so that I choked in shock. It held me in place, ensuring I wouldn’t leave that orifice that worked on me like a mouth. I couldn’t move inside of her and, even if I could find a way to reach orgasm, I knew her body wouldn’t let me finish until she was fed. Because oh, she was certainly feeding in the strangest way. That well of demonic magic inside of me was being pulled from and she closed her eyes as if in ecstasy, every breath leaving her as a gasp of need. She drank of it in the same way that a vampire would drink from the vein. And even while I watched her, there was a visible change. Strength flooded back into her body, her cheeks turned sensually flushed, her hair darkened until it was black as her eyes and then it grew into something unrivaled in beauty, her lips seemed to become fuller and they turned a glittering pale pink in color. What was more, her breasts became larger even while they seemed to tighten so that the result was two perfectly perky, round handfuls. I looked down because I could feel her thighs changing, but couldn’t see the end results. Every line disappeared from her face, every asymmetrical flaw that all creatures had was smoothed over into something so sexually perfect that it was terrifying, even while an ageless innocence seemed to pronounce itself in her features as well.

Depravity sang happily through my blood and he cooed, deranged and loving. Finally, her drinking of my magic ceased and the velvet vice locking my cock in place relaxed and she opened her eyes, ones that were filled with black smoke. Her lips curved upwards and her fangs were still elongated, still glistening in a sight that sensually teased.

She giggled and it sounded so much like the demon inside of me, with the exact same insane cadence, that it made me moan. What have you created?

Depravity didn’t answer because he was too gleeful, more so than I had ever seen him, and that was scary in itself. But then I couldn’t think about it anymore because she wrapped her arms around my neck and every movement was designed to tease me, to call to my lust. She lifted, begging me. “More, please.”

I couldn’t resist. Whatever magic she possessed swept me in its tide and I pulled out of her only to thrust back inside her. She gasped in satisfaction, a delighted bell like sound, and lifted to meet my rhythm. “More!”

————

More. Such a terrible word for the underworld. For the vampire, the word went with the endless thirst for blood. We could glut ourselves, drain hundreds of corpses, and still the thirst would beg “more”. The demons were even worse. They were more emotion than sentient beings, as I had learned well, and they were driven by specific natures that ruled them. Whatever that nature may be, it was always accompanied by the thought of “more”.

Too much was never enough. The oceans could turn to blood and it would never satisfy a single vampire. I knew this, had lived with that fact for millennia and come to accept it as all damned souls must. And yet, when she demanded, I could not stop, even knowing that she was likely no different. Her magic was powerful in the way that any abomination was strong, by the sheer horror that it was something that shouldn’t exist. It consumed me and I felt that yearning for “more” to my darkest depths.

“Yes.” I growled it, working her, still amazed that I was able to. “More. Always.” And I did, wondering how I had ever thought my sex with Astarte was the most I had in me.

Because it wasn’t. I lowered my mouth to feed at her lips, on her cries, and she gave them to me willingly, scoring my back with nails that were nothing like Astarte’s claws. These drew my blood like Mistress, but it was like they were coated in a drug to fuel me with more pleasure. The bite of pain only intensified the bliss of her pussy milking me. She met me stroke for stroke, lifting like she had been reborn to take me, to feed from me. When her body tightened around mine and she shouted in ecstasy, I trembled with the effort of holding back, hissing with it. But I refused to let it end that fast, not when I had waited for this for so long, not when I had never thought to have it again.

“Roll over. Get on your hands and knees and put your face down.” I bit the words out when I pulled away, fisting my cock. At first she scrambled to obey, but then she got distracted with the sight of me stroking myself, her eyes glowing with mad lust and her lips parting. It was the Compulsion that ended up forcing her to obey, so that she turned anyway, still looking over her shoulder to see what she evidently liked very much. “Trust me, you’ll like this better than watching me masturbate, lovely demoness.” Depravity sang through my body and I slapped her ass, one quick strike that made her squeal with glee.

“Oh, yes, yes! Harder, please!”

I obliged, my eyes filling with the blackness while the demon in me thrilled to hear the begging. “Have you noticed that you’re forced to obey me?” It left my lips when I pressed back inside of her, the words pulled from me in the throes of silky pleasure. “I could command you to anything at all, little fledgling.”

Her moans and pleas rose back to cries and increased in volume. “Oh, yes, sir. I like it, sir.”

Bloody hell. So did I. I loved the thought of using the Compulsion to command her in the bedroom, though not at all in the way Astarte did it. No, I craved it in far more erotic ways, a blend of the demon in my blood and the nurturing of being a vampire Sire. I didn’t know how it all worked yet, didn’t even know what creature I was fucking with such fervor and feeling. But already, I imagined commanding her back against my bed with her legs spread wide, pictured myself kneeling above her while she looked up with such hunger, imagined telling her to open up for me so I could see her gaping. Would I be able to see that previously virgin cunt widen to take me? Would she moan in hot need with every spasm as she yawned wide?

“Fuck.” The thought threw me over the edge and I realized I had one hand in her hair, controlling her, and the other gripped her waist, with my claws pierced into her flesh, and she was keening like an animal to my roughness. I snarled above her and hissed with the orgasm that shot through me, pumping her full of hot seed while she cried with bliss.

“Thank you, sir.” She whimpered even while she still twitched around me from her own orgasm. She collapsed under me and I pulled away to lay beside her, stunned with everything that had just changed in one night. Almost automatically, I stroked her hair where she lay with her face in my pillows.

“That was...” I couldn’t think of a word. “Are you still hungry, love?”

She turned her head to look at me and her eyes were settled to a vampire’s yellow instead of the mad swirl of black. “No. No, thank you.”

She looked exhausted again, actually, and I had to consider that whatever awakening had just happened might work like a vampire’s. “Thirsty?” Her eyes fluttered closed and she shook her head. “Alright. You don’t have to stay like that anymore, sweetheart. Come here and cuddle.”

Sleepily, she obeyed me, nestling into my arms. I covered us up and held her safe while she fell back to exhaustion. But there was one thought bothering me. I knew what happened to the pets Depravity created. They were never again mentally stable, never whole. He shattered them and replaced their sanity with his sin. Had he done the same thing to his creation, to my creation? When she woke again, what mentality would she be capable of displaying anymore? What personality would I be raising?

I worried, but for the time being, I stroked her lovingly and hummed until I slept beside her, protecting her through the terrible daylight. I only left when it was safely night again. She was still sound asleep and I was loathe to be away, but I needed answers on what creature I was to raise, ones better than the insane demon in my blood was giving me, so I went to invite some help from some old friends.

————

Lucius’ Offspring

When I opened my eyes, I was still in the bed where my creator had fed me. It was a delightful thing too, covered in the smell of sex and him. I wanted to bathe in that scent, so I nuzzled my face in it, marking myself with him, my dark god.

Listen. You need to think clearly. It’ll hurt to do it, but you need to make yourself.

I frowned at that voice, wondering what it was talking about. It seemed like the response to a riddle and if I thought in the right way, I could think of the answer.

But then I got distracted with the sight of the little black fairies that seemed to dance around me. They guarded me and protected me, I knew, and they spun through the air like little pinwheels. On the walls, there were symbols painted. Well, they were kind of painted, but they looked like symbols of smoke hanging in the air, powerful symbols and those protected me, too, I knew. They had a smell, like the scent of heaven and when I inhaled deeper, it made me smile even more happily.

No! Don’t disappear. Think. You can do this. Remember.

Remember what? Remember the way my Master and creator had fed me in such a wonderful way? I nuzzled the blankets again, giggling, happy. I wanted to kneel at his feet and beg him for more of those slaps against my flesh that had made my skin feel like it was singing. I wanted to watch him give me more commands because when he did, I could see the words leave his lips like black tendrils that wrapped around me and made me obey him.

Goddamnit, if you can break through, you would understand how powerful you are. But you have to focus.

What was that voice and why wouldn’t it leave me alone? Why wouldn’t it let me just happily remember the way he had felt with such a huge cock stuffing me so full that it was heavenly? What did it want me to focus on? I frowned because I thought there was something it wanted me to think of, something that would cause me pain and make me scared again.

Yes! Yes, fear is your friend and it will help you! It will bring you back!

Back? I giggled. Back from what? Where did the voice think I had gone? I’d been right here since I was born and all I cared about was that scent and its owner.

No! No, don’t! You weren’t just born! You have memories and a past and you need to remember it!

A past? I frowned, thinking, trying to push through an oppressive blackness. It was like trying to swim through molasses but little by little, I could see that there was a surface and something behind it and I just had to break through-

“You’re awake.”

The vision shattered and I looked up to see him and then sat up in his bed, naked and excited. My maker and Master and god. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and stood in the doorway, relaxed with one hand in his pocket. Beneath the flesh of his arms, I could see the appearance of that other black creature that swirled inside my Master, that wonderful thing that had helped make me. I giggled up at him, adoringly, and he shifted at the sound of it. “I could feel the moon and she told me to wake up,” I answered with a grin. “Will you always feed me when I’m hungry?”

I couldn’t help but ask, a little afraid. I still remembered that terrible emptiness, so complete it felt like I would die from it. It had been so hungry until he filled me up, made me whole. “Yes, love, anything you need at all is yours. Anything you want is yours.”

He said it with such fervor and conviction that I smiled and felt myself reassured of that fear. I crawled towards the end of the bed, closer to him, and inhaled his scent delightedly.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

I grinned up at him, flexing my teeth so that those razors in my mouth grew longer. “Silly Master. I don’t have one. You made me and you haven’t given me one yet.”

He grimaced. “Right. Are you like Vika? Do you- Ah. Damn it. Okay, let’s try asking this way. What do you remember, love?”

I tilted my head and curled up on the end of the bed. “I remember waking up in your arms and there were swirling mists and I appeared here. And then I remember the hunger and you feeding me and so much pleasure. I love how you feed me.”

No! No, there’s more! Years of more if you’d just listen! I frowned and shook my head and tried to refocus. It helped when I looked back on my Master and I smiled again, while he watched with a tilt to his head. “You’re still in there,” he said softly. “I can see the struggle. Is there a little voice in your head fighting with you? Does it feel like a puzzle tickling at the back of your mind, like if you think hard enough you can remember something else?”

Yes! Tell him yes!

I didn’t really want to, but I also didn’t want to lie to my Master. “Yes, sir.”

He beamed and I smiled with him, delighted that my answer pleased him. “I’m glad. Whatever he did didn’t manage to destroy you like the others. Alright, I can bring you back and I think I know how, but we can’t right now. Whenever the little voice bothers you, I want you to tell it that we’ll remember soon, but right now we have other problems, okay?”

“Okay,” I said it and nodded, while that small voice said it with me and fell quiet.

“Good girl.” I purred when he said that and he smiled. “For right now, what kind of name would you like, little one?”

“I want you to give me a name, Master.”

He considered that, nodding. “I suppose you would want that, wouldn’t you?” Slowly, he seemed to grin as he considered it. “And I do too, actually. The thought makes me happier than I would have ever expected it to. Let’s see. What to call you, little atrocity.” He said it playfully and I thrilled to the sound in his voice, smiling up at him. “Something playful, even pet like, though not in a degrading way. Oh, and with a face like that, it has to be something beautiful, for sure.” He watched me as he spoke, flirting with me, and I grinned, grabbing one of the pillows to cuddle it and watch while he spoke and paced. “Let me think.”

“And it has to be something he likes too,” I interrupted.

He turned. “Oh? And who do you mean?”

I pointed at the blackness swirling beneath his skin, under his bare arm. “Him.”

His brow furrowed and he looked at his arm before shock lit up his eyes. “You can see him?”

“Of course I can. He’s like me and he helped you make me, too. Does he talk to you?” I asked it abruptly, unsure where the knowledge came from that the other creature might have a voice and might be able to speak, but suddenly certain of it.

For a long while my maker stared at me and then he seemed to change. I leaned forward with eager excitement, watching the creature beneath his flesh roil and rise as if active. He seemed to glow with its black power, like an angel, and when he opened his mouth, black smoke poured from his lips, smoke that made me salivate at the thought of kissing him and swallowing it. “Yes, he does speak.” It even sounded different, like a soft snarl that made my pussy open up for him to feed me, made me want to bow to my Master. And then he giggled and it sounded just like mine.

But then he seemed to exhale, letting loose one last breath full of smoke, before that darkness beneath the surface settled back to its calmer shifting. But I had seen the god he could become now and I knew that god could be powerful, so much so that it took my breath away. That god could level a city if it was allowed to waken to full potential. I stared up at him, adoring and filled with awe. “That was magnificent.”

He smiled shyly and almost seemed embarrassed. “Thank you, love. And we like the name Mira. What do you think?”

I leapt up to his arms and buried my nose in his chest where the scent would cover me, so that he laughed. “I love it!” And then I grinned up at him. “Master, will you give me a command? It makes smoke when you do.”

————

Lucius

I had learned a long time ago how to speak varying levels of crazy, thanks to Depravity and other demons, and Mira was actually probably the most sane of them, besides the fact that she couldn’t remember anything before being turned. Oh, to any other vampire, she would sound volatile, as I fast learned, but that gave me relief.

If they suspected the truth, I knew they would fear her and that worried me.

But it helped that there was still something broken or missing from her. It set the stage to make her sound vulnerable, which would protect her. I only wished I knew what, exactly, had been taken from her. What was more, she seemed conflicted in her sanity, as if it was an unstable thing, and I couldn’t initially figure out what helped her have clarity. I had hopes that in a few more days when Sadra, Levi, and Vika arrived, they could help me find some answers. They had turned out easy enough to get hold of and they’d arrive at my home within a few nights. Which gave me time to get to know little Mira for myself, get to know what all she could see and how often each of her two hungers needed feeding, especially since one of them required a bit more private tending than the other. I ceased thinking of her in terms of a payment and started to think in terms of a strange offspring, instead, so that I could better logic out what Depravity had created.

What I didn’t expect about these days was how much joy she would give me, how much basic pleasure it would give me to have her by my side and talking with me. At first, each conversation was a riddle. Since she couldn’t remember anything before waking, she couldn’t remember what all was unusual in her sight. I started to unravel pieces of it right from the beginning, right after I realized she could see Depravity inside of me.

“Alright, I’ll give you a command.” I gently eased her away from me, staring down at her still naked form. I had clothes for her, but I didn’t bring it up just yet because she didn’t even seem to be aware of the fact that they were missing. “Let’s see.” I opened my mouth to tell her to kneel, remembering how she had seemed to like my dominance before, but then immediately flinched from it. Now that I was outside the throes of her magic and such desperate arousal, I couldn’t give that command, I suddenly realized. Even though I knew she would probably enjoy it, I couldn’t make the words come because they sounded too close to another voice from my past. Kneel, little lion. “Give me a kiss, Mira,” I commanded instead.

She laughed and lifted in my arms, pressing her lips up to meet mine, and I gasped when she did. Her magic rose up with her desire, apparently tethered to it, if I had to take a guess. Because she moaned and that tug of lust rushed through my body, made me grasp the back of her head in a rough hold so that I could deepen it. I thrust my tongue between her lips, remembering the feeling of thrusting it between her nether lips as well. It took my breath away with how sinful her kiss was, even while she so innocently ignored her own state of undress.

As soon as I escaped her hold enough to draw breath, I said, “Stop.” And she did, pulling back down to stare up at me with those eyes that adored me. “Christo.” She smiled wickedly up at me and I tapped her nose. “Naughty thing.”

Your past is going to cause you problems, you know. She was born from me. She’ll crave the kinds of things Astarte said, but Astarte didn’t speak them the right way. It will help her think if you give it to her, help her be more clear.

The thought made my stomach churn, but I ignored Depravity for the moment. “Now, what did you see when I gave you a command? Describe it to me.”

She answered instantly, easily. “It’s smoke that comes out of your mouth and it makes tendrils to make me obey.”

This type of shit was going to be dead useful. “We call that the Compulsion. You see, vampires have a thirst for blood, and when we’re newly born that thirst can obliterate our thoughts, make us kill too much. We’d lose our food supply. So the Compulsion makes sure a little newborn like you obeys an older Sire like me.”

She laughed. “Or you could make me get down on my knees like you were playing with me before and-“

Bloody hell. I tapped her mouth and shook my head playfully. “Alright, it can be used for fun times and we’ll try it sometime, but not right now.” Fun times. They had been torturous times for me. Her entire appearance wanted to play and play so rough. She had arched to my light little spanks, loving them. Even her eyes swirled black with sinful desires and I was the only creature who knew she was something different, the only creature who had a chance of figuring her out. “For right now, I would like to get to know each other. Let’s go for a walk together.”

Please, Lucius. Please, you’re not listening to me. You have to play with her.

I ignored Depravity’s plea again, though it gave me pause to hear him begging like that. He seemed concerned, but it was a silly thing. Maybe later. I’ll try, okay, but that’s hard for me.

She followed me when I guided her from my room, seeming delighted to do so, and it was actually kind of nice to have her memory loss. I had heard other vampires speak of changing a newborn and oftentimes this was a thing of abduction like Mira. There were questions that came with those, where the newborn would feel the ties of their mortal life and wonder about their human families. Eventually a sorrow would sink in, from my understanding, a sadness where the vampire would realize the punishment of immortality and thirsts. And finally, like any creature suffering the stages of loss, they would accept. Even Doubt’s payment had spoken of sadness, too.

Mira laughed in the face of that punishment and ignored all of it. She asked none of those questions, instead looking around herself in wonder when I led her through my house. “Will you show me more of this later, too?”

“Of course I will. Come on. I’d like to show you ‘The Garden’.”

When I led her outside, she looked at the ground curiously, ignoring the fact that she was still naked. Interesting, that. There seemed a type of innocence to her that made me more curious by the second. It was sweet how easily she could look at me with sexual insinuation, with not a single blush on her ageless cheeks, but I wondered how she would fare with company. Especially vampire company. “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered softly.

“This... isn’t the garden. This is just some dead ground.” I watched her curiously, wishing I had access to a spell equivalent of a mind meld just so I could see whatever it was that she saw. Because it was clear that whatever she saw was not land where nothing grew. “Mira,” I said thoughtfully. “Can you tell me where it stops being pretty for you? Can you tell me where it doesn’t look like magic anymore?”

“Yeah, it’s easy. It’s that line way down there, where the gate is. The fairies dance and protect us even a little past the iron bars and then they stop. And there’s all kinds of symbols that dance over the ground, like the blackest smoke with fiery red in the center.”

I’ll. Be. Damned. She could see the Compulsion and the desecration of demonic magic. This was insanely fun. “I’m glad you like it. This wasn’t what I wanted to show you though. Come to the back.”

She grinned when I took her around the house and she ran forward with a happy yelp while I smiled. True, my land wasn’t exactly exciting, unless you were Mira, but fortunately I had entered a day and age where humans created synthetic substitutes for everything. There wasn’t anything else to do when I lived forever and had been waiting for a pact payment to come of age, so I had taken to the hobby of creating a garden where one wouldn’t grow. Seamless astro turf made something even softer than grass to walk on and there were flower beds with black rocks instead of dirt. Large artificial flowers were planted in those secure beds, blacks and whites and reds and grays in their colors. A gargoyle fountain even stood in the center. It was all very theatrically vampire, something straight out of a movie, as a running joke that made Depravity and I both giggle together. Humans had already made such an entertaining stereotype for our kind so who was I to wreck that?

“It’s amazing! It’s like a princess garden and with all the fairy lights here too.” I tilted my head when she suddenly opened her mouth in an odd motion, and worked to swallow a little. She made a clacking sound with her teeth and shook her head with a frown.

Bad little vampire for being thirsty and not saying anything to you. Play with her. Please, Lucius, I mean it. It won’t give her her memories back, but she needs it. It will help her. Depravity’s sudden speak up made me want to groan.

He wasn’t going to shut the fuck up until I did play, until I satisfied both of them. I suddenly realized that I had been so focused on what she seemed to crave for that I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the demon inside of me. And now that I noticed it... God, it was lucky I had made it this long without him trying to possess me for playtime with her. However her scent affected me, it was affecting him far worse.

Fine. I’ll do it, but only a little and only gently.

He whimpered, actually whimpered, with his desire at the thought. “Come here, Mira.” I went and sat on the garden bench while she obeyed, clearly enjoying the sight of Compulsion weaving around her. She stood before me and watched me with a wicked, flirtatious little smirk.

“Yes, Master?”

In answer, I pulled her onto my lap and positioned her over my knee so that her ass was lifted up. “Your mouth is dry.” I let Depravity curl through my veins and unleashed him, just a little. My palm struck her ass, lightly, just enough to cause the slightest pain.

Her reaction was instant and beautiful. She arched on my lap with a sexual cry, her hands grasping my leg so that I flexed and chuckled, stroking the flesh I had struck. Depravity moaned with pleasure, a sound that made my eyes go wide with just how much delight he could give when he felt affection for his playmate. “Yes, my mouth is dry!” And she didn’t fight, didn’t resist me. She curved for more of it.

Please! Please, let me play!

He had never begged me and yet now he had done it thrice in one night. Holy hell. I slapped her ass again and both of them gave twin cries of ecstasy. “Bad girl. You tell your Sire when you’re thirsty.” Easy, D. She’s not a creature for you to punish. She was innocent.

I know! I swear I do, please! She needs me, I promise!

Strangely, I believed him. “I’m sorry!” Mira whined and lifted, her whole body contorting in the most tantalizing way possible.

I let Depravity loose, just a little more, let him curl up to the surface so that his smoke poured from my lips and his guttural voice spoke from my tongue. “Are you? Daddy wants to help you and feed you, but he can’t always tell when you need it if you don’t let him know.” He struck slightly harder than I had, but she jolted with even more pleasure. “You have to be good and ask for it, understood?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, I understand.” She was writhing, lifting her hips in a dance.

He laughed above her, his voice dark and playful. But not violent. No, he wasn’t the deranged version that I knew from before that would kill and torture. He was something far softer, far more pleasurable.

Loving Depravity. Oh, this was new and delightful. We groaned together when he thrust his fingers inside of her pussy and she squealed in bliss, her silky folds drenched and ready, so ready. “I don’t know if I believe you, but you do seem to enjoy some discipline. What if I just keep spanking you a little while, just to make sure?” I could feel my palm slap gently against her flesh to fuel her with more pleasure and now I couldn’t tell if it was him or me who wanted this more.

Say one thing for him, the creature he created was beautiful and insane, yes, but there was still something left of her and it was the first romantic chance I’d ever had. “Oh, yes, Master. You should do that.” Her voice was a purr and her toes lifted, this previously innocent girl.

“I’m glad you think so.” Guttural demon and calm vampire fought in my breath and she lifted to both. I spanked her again, loving it, and then did it again. There were no horrors of the past in my thoughts, no sickening feelings of doing something cruel. No, this was beautiful in a way. It was a game with a lesson of reassurance in it. It was a way to sate the erotic desire, the strange need that both creatures with me seemed to crave, even while I could nurture her undeserved thirst. I moaned and slapped her again to feel the way her flesh heated.

“Oh, yes! Harder, please.” I growled and did it, and she only gave me happier cries. “It’s so good... it’s so good...” And her voice was changing too, turning both calmer and more controlled. “Please!”

“Please, what? Please, you want me to stop?” I slapped her lower thigh, where it would hurt just a little more, just a delicious bit more.

“No! No, please keep going! Please, tell me what to do, so I can see more of the magic! Please, spank me more!” Depravity whimpered again, as if her cries hurt him with the pleasure they gave him.

“I would love to, baby, but you waited and didn’t tell me how thirsty you were, so now you need to feed and we just can’t keep going for the moment.” The demon in me begged and pleaded, as if he were on his knees for me to give him more.

And she sobbed miserably. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you from now on, I really will!”

“Oh, I’m sure you will. Stand up.” She whimpered and obeyed, her legs shaking, but not with pain. I smiled down at her while I stood and stripped, so that we would be naked together in the garden, and her eyes snapped to that impossible length between my legs. It made my smile broaden with warmth because it was nice to have someone look at that part of me with pleasurable intent in their eyes, for a change. I had to force myself to ignore that for the moment, however, and sat back down instead, fisting my cock while she watched and whimpered. “Come here and kneel between my legs.”

Hope lit her eyes when I pointed at the ground in front of me and she whined while she obeyed, looking up to watch where I stroked myself. But I gave her a different command, instead of the one she so clearly hoped for. I cradled the back of her head and gently guided her lips to my inner thigh, instead of the cock she gazed at with such arousal. “Do you feel it, the blood pulsing just beneath the surface there?”

In response, she lifted her head and sighed, with her eyes closed and her fangs lengthened. “Yes. I can smell it and taste it on your skin.”

I watched her flick her tongue over that vein and stroked her head. “Good. Drink, little one. Slake your thirsts.”

She moaned and then obeyed, her teeth puncturing the flesh to find that erotic vein beneath. I shuddered to the feel, delighting in the way my blood flowed to give my creation sustenance. Her throat worked with great pulls and I growled at the hot pleasure it gave me, stroking my cock above her head. “Gently, Mira, gently. Take your time and enjoy the taste of blood filling your mouth. You’re not a starving little street vampire. You’re a highborn with a powerful Sire. Control yourself and sip at your leisure. We’re in no hurry and there is always enough blood for you.” I moaned when her next draw was a teasing pull, my eyes fluttering closed with the pleasure. “Good girl. Take care to not spill any, to not let droplets fall. We’re not messy vampires, either. We’re civilized and we don’t drool blood like savage animals.” She wrapped her arm up around my thigh to pull me closer and I smiled to the caress, enjoying the feel of her sipping, nice and easy as if she had all the time in the world. In world of the Dark Court she did, actually. My name and power had earned me enough of a status that their politics left me the fuck alone to my own devices. Every so often, I made an appearance out of respects to vampires even older that me and that was it.

She didn’t realize it yet, but she was something along the lines of a minor princess.

I growled to the thoughts that gave me, stroking myself harder while she fed, and I could feel the exact moment when she was satisfied. “That’s enough for now. I know the thirst feels like it’s never quite satisfied, but you’ve been filled as much as you’ll be able to. Lick the marks neatly closed.” She did, her tongue a light flutter against the twin puncture marks, and then she looked up at me from her knees, her eyes... calmer. Depravity had been telling me the truth. She needed him. “Open your mouth.” Again, she obeyed and watched me, desire in her gaze as I jacked myself off above her.

When the pleasure became too much, I pulled her to my tip and tilted her head back. “Open wider and stick your tongue out.” The command made her arch and the sight undid me, so that I grunted, pumping myself while cum spritzed into her mouth. She couldn’t nearly fit me inside, but she took what I gave her with a whine and lifted as if she wished she could. “Good girl,” I gasped out.

She swallowed in answer and sighed in a form of satisfaction even while Depravity went still in an interestingly subdued state. “Thank you. So much. I can think more clearly now, and focus.” She shivered.

Fuck me, but of course she could. I could feed her hungers, but she had been born of a demon with a specific nature. Of course she would need his attentions as well. “I owe you an apology, little one. It was arrogant for me to think you wouldn’t need what the second Sire could give you.”

She looked up at me and her eyes were still not completely sane, but they were much more calm, much more stable. “Will you explain what you mean to me? What is he, exactly? I can see him and he’s not you, although I know you’re a vampire.”

I nodded and stood to dress before I beckoned her and took her hand in mine, thinking my answer through even while I thought of other possibilities. It made a twisted sense that she turned less human and less coherent if she didn’t have Depravity’s attentions or feel his sin. It made her vulnerable and open, made her seek that sin out until she couldn’t think of anything else. It seemed much the same way that anyone might become consumed with painful desire when they’ve been edged and had no relief for a long time, except I thought, perhaps, for her case she might never calm down unless she had relief.

The more I talked, the more it seemed exactly the case. I told her of demons, told her what I knew and how they were different from vampires. And she asked questions, her mind seeming clearer now that she wasn’t insane for that other attention. Even so, she would still look away every now and again and get this wicked little grin, telling me, “The fairies dance far more prettily over there where more blood was shed.”

And she still didn’t notice that she was naked.

————

Mira

I quickly started to understand a few things about my existence. I learned that there was a large difference between the sensation of hunger and the sensation of thirst. I thought that maybe I could live without satisfying the thirst longer, of the two. The hunger had felt so painful, so horribly unending, while the thirst only left my mouth dry, so that I had to work my lips and tongue just to speak.

I also learned that my mind wouldn’t work on anything if Master didn’t hurt me somehow or tell me what to do or scold me or... Oh, God. I didn’t know what criteria the need followed, but just thinking about those things made me go weak in the knees, and the way the demon in his blood rose to the surface to say, “Daddy wants to take care of you”? Delicious. But if I had those moments, then I wasn’t lost in a shattered world. It was like my mind became trapped in a terrible mirror maze and I couldn’t see anything except dark fairy lights. It was like I was lost to one incredibly vast desire and that emotion was all that fueled me. It turned me into nothing until he shattered the mirrors and satisfied that craving. And I wasn’t sure, but I thought he was the only who could do that.

We spoke of all these things during the daytime hours where he would sit in a chair by the fire and I took to sitting at his feet and staring up at him. He considered all of my theories thoughtfully, attentive to every word I said while we both tried to figure out my existence. “I do not think it is necessarily I who has to calm that desire. I think it is Depravity who does, so if anything were to happen to him, you would be lost forever in that insanity. You would become what he is. From what I’ve seen of darker creatures and their evolutionary tendencies, it would be a way to ensure he has procreated, so that his kind and form is always a force in the world, should anything happen to him.”

I shivered at that. “I don’t want to be lost like that.”

In answer, he chuckled wryly. “I can assure you, little one, that it will be a minute or two before something will hurt the demon I hold. Even if I died, I think he would just return to his own realm and your body would eventually try to reach hell with him.”

“That’s not any better!” I stared up at him from his cozy hearth, panic rising in me at the thought. “I don’t want-!”

“Peace.” He was by my side with the speed of our kind and I looked up at him with wide eyes while he reached down and stroked my hair. His palm was cool on my forehead and some sense of vast serenity opened to me. “That’s it. Borrow some of my security.”

I did, my breaths coming calmer while I took from that vast river with wonder. It felt like an endless well for my newly born vampire wildness, a pit that came from all of his experiences and his age. “You are much older than I,” I finally whispered.

He laughed. “You could say that. I’m older than Christianity, actually.”

I smiled, a little bit of dark insanity covering my mind again, so that my look turned sensuous and adoring. “You’re a god, a deity all your own, and you were kind enough to make me.” I nuzzled his thigh at that place where he had let me drink from.

His touch was gentle when he pushed me away and his voice was patient, a guiding light in the midst of the mirrors inside my mind. “Think, Mira. Focus and come back to me.”

I learned those words, too, and how to obey them. I would breathe and focus my attention back on our conversation so that the maze of mirrors fell away, at least for a time. “Thank you, Master. It feels like it gets harder each time and it makes me scared for when I won’t be able to come back like that.”

He inclined his head. “Don’t be afraid. When that happens, then we take care of you until you’re sated again. It’s just like when you’re hungry, how I’ll fuck you again.” He touched my nose, with amusement in his gaze, while I grinned. “I can promise that I won’t complain too much with either occurrence. Also, my name is Lucius, baby. You’re allowed to use it when you wish.”

“The name of a god,” I whispered, mind wandering before I could get it in check, but then I made myself say it, where I still gazed up at him. “Lucius.”

He nodded and stroked my hair. “Are you ready to talk some more?” At my nod, he went on, pacing to the fireplace. “The symbols you see on the wall interest me quite a bit. Will you do me a favor, little one? Take this sketchbook for me and start to draw them?”

I took the book and pencil he gave me and smiled. “I wouldn’t deny you anything, Master, but it will take a while. There’s all kinds and they all glitter and shimmer in and out sometimes.”

“That’s alright. Just do what you can for me and start in this room. We’ll work our way together. I want to see if I can find matches for any of them and what they do.”

I took the book and went to the wall obediently, while he started music in the background, a soothing kind that made me smile to hear the lyrics. Rape, Murder, yeah. It’s just a shot away. It’s just a shot away. While I drew, he waited for a bit and then took the first few drawings as I finished them. When I turned around, he had gotten books from the huge library room he had and he had them spread across the table while he held my drawings up to them thoughtfully, trying to compare images. I kept drawing, happy and content to be working with him while the music played and I found I loved his music.

I set out running, but I’ll take my time. A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.

“Well, blasts. This one looks dead on this symbol, but this is for demon containment and what the bloody hell would that be doing here as protection in unhallowed ground?”

I turned without even thinking of the answer because I just knew it. I didn’t know how or why, but I did. “Well, with the amount of bloodshed in certain places, it would have attracted demonic presences and once they figured out how to encase the presence in a body, without killing themselves in the process, they’d want it to stay there, so they’d protect and ward for it.”

He blinked at me while the song changed again. “Right, yeah, why wouldn’t I think of that? It’s only a demon presence that rapidly increases a human’s mortality rate. Of course they want that trapped in them.” Catch the wind, see us spin, sail away, leave today, way up high in the sky. I giggled at his matter-of-fact tones. My Master, I quickly realized, had an amazing wisdom that came with his age. Even though he had never seen a creature like me before, he had logical thoughts on how my hungers might act, on how I might work as a species. He guessed things that I didn’t even know about myself.

These moments only served to make me adore him all the more. I had known him for a short time compared to his life, but I was infatuated with him, loved listening to every word he spoke. In the quiet of the daytime hours, he sometimes spoke to me softly and told me of his life, holding me in his bed while he pet my hair. He had this lilt to his voice that was something exotic, something that I thought was uniquely him. I didn’t know anything about other creatures or people or vampires for comparison, but the cadence in his speech struck me as something created from 2,500 years’ worth of experiences.

It was when we were speaking one day that I suddenly took a shocked breath. The feeling that crossed me was not nearly as terrible as the feeling of endless hunger from before, but it was stunning. It demanded my attention, although it was tolerable too. I could survive it if it came over me when I was busy walking with him or doing something else.

But the other problem was that the walls of mirrors quite suddenly shot up before I could fight or anticipate them and I felt lost, swept in a whirlwind of that madness. Master turned me over to face him with a speculative look and I tilted my head with a wicked little smile. He chuckled. “So I receive warning and you don’t seem to. Your scent grows more intense until it’s impossible to ignore, little one.”

“I should hate to be ignored by my god and Master.” Smoke left my lips, a visible spark of it in the air and behind his face danced those black pinwheels of fairy protection. They loved him, like they should, and danced around his short hair like a crown fitting a deity.

“Your worship of me might go to my head and annoy other vampires one day, little one. Let’s see. First, let’s make sure you mind your manners, even in this state.” He stood while he talked and I extended my fangs just to feel them, liking how they made me feel like a kitten baring its claws. “Ask me for what you need. Be polite and civil about it.”

Civil? That was no fun of him. I pouted my lips, but obeyed. “Will you please feed me, Master?”

“Good girl.” He cooed it, a smile turning his lips upwards while he undressed. “Now, roll over with your face down and your ass up.” I grinned when the smoke left his mouth and formed chains around my arms and legs. It was wondrous to watch because I felt no substance against my limbs and yet, they moved at his command until I was on my hands and knees with my ass to him, lifted up in offering while my pussy turned wetter by the second. “Such an obedient little succubus. Open up for me.”

My body followed that command in two ways while I moaned with ecstasy. My legs spread wide for him, but so did my sex. I tilted my head so I could watch as the smoke of Compulsion filled me between my legs. I could feel my pussy quiver, then widen, expanding to take him until it gaped open, and I moaned with the sensation. I felt his hands grip my waist, his thumbs on my ass, and I turned my gaze to his face to see him staring down at whatever it looked like, his eyes dark with fiery excitement. That other creature inside of him swirled hungrily and I shivered, dying for the magic they both held.

He slapped my ass and I soared into a dark place. “Oh, yes, Master!” He slapped again at the sound of my cry and stroked his fingers up my pussy, pulling them away drenched. His smile was satisfied and I curved my body to let him see more, knowing it would entice him to fill me and feed me. He growled in response and fell on me, though like last time he went slowly, torturously so. He pressed inside while breathing deep, even breaths of control and I felt myself widened even more, felt him have to fight to press his way inside of me. “Please! Oh, please!” I struggled for more but he held me still, cooing over me again.

His words came out thick with the other creature inside of him, made him into even more of the god I loved. “Nice and easy, little girl. Daddy knows what you need and you were a good girl to tell him.” I arched with a cry, with that feeling from when he spanked me before. It was a strange sensation of being lashed with a flogger or a whip of sharp pleasure. My pussy pulsed around him and I shook all over, as if falling into an abyss where the madness dissipated just a little.

“Yes, Master! Please more, Master, please.”

But there was no more to take. He was finally as far as he could go and I let out an endless cry when my body contracted around him, holding us together while he leaned forward to hold me down with a hand on the back of my neck. The hunger went away almost instantly and the sensation of being flooded with energy and power filled me as full as he did. It was wonderful, so intense that I merely existed on a wave of delight for a moment while he hummed above me, and I was grateful to him. And then there was the exact moment when I could take no more magic and my body relaxed, soothed around him. I took shaky breaths of his scent with my face to his blankets, whimpering with satisfaction.

“Good girl.” He pumped into me and I gasped, loving the sensation of being used, of taking him when he was so big that it was cruel. “Such a good girl and with such polite submission. But you need something else too, don’t you?” I moaned helplessly and he chuckled, that black creature rolling through his voice. “You need a little bit of something... depraved, don’t you?” He drew the word out while his nails scored down my back, leaving the most delicious trails as they opened my flesh, and it healed back instantly. “Maybe you would like this.” I opened my eyes and tilted my head to watch him suck two fingers into his mouth, lubricating them, and then he lowered them back-

And I shouted in bliss when he pressed them to my asshole. My back stiffened with the shock when he speared into me, laughing darkly behind me. “Oh, please! Oh, yes, more!”

“More? Oh, but can’t you tell, baby? I can’t give you more. You’re all stuffed full with my thick cock inside you and a couple of fingers in your asshole. There’s no room left.”

Every profane word satisfied some need in me and it felt like the madness was being beaten into submission. I clawed at the blankets like a wild thing.

“The only place with room left is that mouth of yours. Maybe you should fill it with your own fingers, since you’re so desperate. Daddy shouldn’t have to do all the work.”

Oh, yes! Mindlessly, I obeyed, sucking three fingers between my lips and moaning when he thrust his cock inside of me, working his fingers out of my asshole only to drive them back in. He growled with heat while he watched and I answered in the language of animals, with a submissive whine around my fingers. I lifted and fucked myself back on him in need even though I couldn’t make him go harder. His other hand wrapped around me and he stroked a finger across my clit and I screamed around my fingers, going off with hot bliss.

He moaned and rode out his own climax, pumping me full of his seed with soft pants of pleasure.

When he fell away beside me, he rolled me into his arms to meet my gaze, studying it. “There we are. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the fun little crazy antics, but I rather like the coherent conversations more. There’s more of your personality in them.”

I grinned and nuzzled close. I was rather glad he seemed to like my personality, whatever it was becoming.

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