Dark Night of the Soul

by Kitty Thomas

  Despite his threats of ruining orgasms for me, I wanted more—just maybe not quite as much at once.

  Even the idea of touching myself without a direct order from him seemed offensive. Between the pain and the pleasure, a deep reverence had taken root inside me toward my master. The more isolated time we spent down here, the more difficult it became to imagine disrespecting him in even the smallest way.

  It was hard to remember I was doing this for Simone. Was that still true? Was that still why? It seemed like something more.

  Gabriel sat in the chair he’d dragged to the wall during our last session and observed me. It was as much distance as he could put between us without leaving the room. His eyes glowed orange-red every few seconds. His fangs peeked from between his lips, and a low growl emanated from his throat. His hands clenched the arm rests.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, Master.” Please put those hands on me.

  “You will crawl to me. Slowly.”

  I wasn’t sure I could have moved in any other way. I slipped out from between the sheets and crawled the few yards to his feet. He reached down and petted my hair.

  “Are you ready to accept my cock?”

  I arched my neck into his hand like a pet begging affection. “Yes, Master. Yes, please fuck me.”

  We’d spent hundreds of hours going through the darkest pain and only a few in pleasure, but I needed him inside me. I needed him to conquer me like an invaded land.

  Gabriel stood and removed his clothes, granting me the unparalleled thrill of seeing each perfectly sculpted line and muscle. He went to the mattress and laid back, spreading his legs, his erection hard and long and thick.

  He motioned for me, and I crawled to him.

  “I changed my mind. I’m not going to fuck you just yet. You’re going to fuck me. You’re going to use that sweet dripping cunt to make me come.”

  He guided me to straddle him. I was so excited and sensitive when I lowered myself over his cock, that I was sure even the barest stroke of him inside me would be enough to send me over the edge.

  “Use those muscles we worked, Helene. Grip me like you mean it.”

  I gripped and rode him, my hips rocking back and forth in a steady rhythm.

  “Tell me whose pleasure is more important. Mine or yours?”

  “Yours, Master.”

  “Good girl. You will not come this time. You’ve had enough.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Some fucked-up part of me was excited by his demand to reject my own arousal in service to his—to be used fully and completely for his gratification.

  When his pleasure reached its peak, he gripped my ass and pulled me flush against him, driving into me so hard from beneath that he fucked me, despite my being on top. I should have known I would never really be on top with him. His fangs descended, and he bit my breast and drank until we collapsed together back onto the mattress.

  Chapter Six: 54 hours until day

  My sexual servitude to Gabriel went on so long I lost track of time. I’d long given up with the markings on the wall. But even though there had been many meals and sleeps since we’d started, I was certain plenty of night remained.

  He shifted me in his arms and unlocked the gold collar. He often fed from my shoulder or wrist, sometimes from my thigh, but just as often he wanted my throat. It was the most intimate of all the feeding options, and the most dangerous. He always took great care unlocking and removing my collar when he wanted to feed from his favorite vein. It was as if the collar was locked around my throat not only as a symbol of protection to the others¸ but to keep my vein out of anyone else’s hungry reach.

  I stared at the shiny gold metal and let out a fluttering sigh as his fangs pierced my skin, and he started to feed.

  He fed more than usual, but he didn’t offer me his own blood this time. I’d grown used to the tiny sips he took here and there, small thefts of my blood that hardly made a difference. My energy and health remained the same. I suspected it would have even if he never gave me any of his blood in return. It was just too small an amount too infrequently to harm me. I marveled that this was enough to keep him so strong.

  But this time was different. This time he gorged on me. He’d been good on his diet and now he needed a reward—or else he’d lost the last bit of self-control keeping him from the cake. This was a binge.

  Without the access to his mind that I gained from his blood, I couldn’t be sure if he was with me or not, if he paid attention to how much of my life he siphoned out.

  Was this what he’d wanted all along?

  He gripped me harder and drank deeper still. The initial pinch of his bite had faded, replaced by a suctioning sensation that lulled me along for the first few minutes. But then another darker, more insistent pain started.

  This pain was a warning buzzer. It was my body awakening finally to the danger it was in even though my mind for once had been several steps ahead of it.

  I struggled, certain he’d kill me this time and that Simone would be forgotten and left to die now that he’d gotten everything he wanted from me. He never had to pay up. We’d both known that. And yet I’d succumbed to him because I’d known it was my only choice—hoping he had some honor that would compel him to hold up his end of the deal. And the truth in his blood had convinced me. But couldn’t it have been a carefully crafted lie? Couldn’t he have fed me the feelings and images he wanted me to have?

  “Please…” My voice came out so weak and soft that I’m not sure if he heard me. His hearing was many times better than mine, but I couldn’t even hear the thought of the word inside my own mind, so how could I hope that he heard it?

  A thick, heavy tear moved slowly down my cheek like oil. Of all the tears I’d shed in here, the last seemed the most tragic. Why bring me to life only to snuff it out the moment I might want to be here? Was that the pleasure he sought? To take something I didn’t want to give?

  Before, I would have happily laid my life at his feet just to make the infinite grind end, to find the freedom I felt sure was tucked inside oblivion. And now I’d grown so attached to him, so desperate to feel his hands on me, that I no longer wanted to go.

  Finally, he pulled away, and his wrist was in front of my mouth.

  “Drink. I took more than normal. I had to be sure we were done here.”

  I drank while he sealed the mark he’d made on my throat, but his words sent a flurry of panic through me. What did he mean we were done here? Did he mean just the cell? Or that he was done with me, period? Would he throw me out or pass me on to someone else? What about Simone’s medicine?

  An intensely mad part of me didn’t want us to leave the cell. Ever. These contained four walls created just enough space to exist in without becoming overwhelmed. Here I could cope with what life had to offer, but how would I confront what lay beyond this door? Maybe he intended to leave me and go about his business up on the main level.

  The gold band clicked around my throat, and Gabriel pocketed the key. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and crossed to the door. I heard him speak to Santo, but couldn’t determine what was said. He turned back to me after a moment.

  “You will take your dinner upstairs in the kitchen. Santo is bringing something for you to wear. You will wear that and only that and come find me on the main level.” His face held expectation, waiting for my acquiescence to his demand.

  “Yes, Master.” My heart inexplicably leapt at the idea of meeting him upstairs. I couldn’t say I was prepared to rejoin the rest of the living quite yet, but it was better to be with him up there than alone down here. And surely that was progress of the kind he’d sought.

  I was alone for only a few minutes before Santo returned with a black silk robe. I clutched the sheets around me when he entered. He dropped the robe and the small gold countdown clock on the bed and left without a word.

  I panicked when I saw it was only fifty-four hours until daylight. I couldn’t believe so much time had passed
. Had he forgotten Simone? I nearly had. God, I was such a terrible person. Would he still fulfill our bargain? There was so little time left. We had to go now!

  I slipped the robe on as Gabriel had ordered. I couldn’t afford the slightest disobedience with the deadline looming so close.

  The fine fabric hugged and clung to every curve, leaving nothing to the imagination save for the opaque covering it provided. The outline of my nipples showed through the sheen of black fabric. The apex between my thighs was clearly outlined, leaving not even a mystery as to whether there was any hair there. The robe reached the ground, and the sleeves were long as well, flaring slightly at the bottom and covering most of my hands. Only my fingernails peeked out.

  I still wondered if Gabriel had truly kept the queen, whoever she was, waiting this long. Or had he slipped away during one of my sleeps and spoken to her? Perhaps something more carnal? I couldn’t imagine he’d left her to her own devices on his property for so long.

  Didn’t he worry she’d try to run things in his absence? How could any ruler abandon his kingdom for the time Gabriel had been underground with me? Either his people were absolutely loyal to him or it would be chaos upstairs.

  I didn’t go to the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry, and I was too curious about the queen and too worried about my sister. I wouldn’t be able to eat until she was safe.

  On the main level, I was greeted with incredulous stares. I doubt it was what I wore, since the amount of cover I’d been given was merciful considering the level of nudity I’d seen in the short time before I’d been cloistered below ground.

  I was sure the stares heralded some fundamental change from the last time they’d seen me. As I moved, I felt my back held straighter, my awareness sharper, my sense of self more firmly attached to me where, before, it had seemed like a balloon that could slip from my grasp and fly away at any time. I floated to the main room I’d met Gabriel in.

  I stayed outside the door. I felt compelled to know who he was when I wasn’t there.

  The hallway was crowded with other immortals, most of them looking human at the moment. No one dared enter.

  A woman stood in the center of the emptied room. A diamond-encrusted crown sat on her head above perfectly coiffed blonde hair. But even without it, the way she moved was so regal and sure I would never have assumed she was anything other than what she was.

  She wore an emerald gown that covered her feet. There were jewels at her throat and her wrists. She moved silently across the floor. Either she could fly, or she hadn’t escaped Gabriel’s strict shoe rules.

  “A thousand years ago, we were betrothed. We were meant to rule together,” she said. Even the way she articulated her words was regal.

  I wasn’t familiar with her expression of the passage of time. What was a year? Was it a longer period than night? And day? And all the hours and all the sleeps? Our measurement of time never projected far into the future. We only spoke of how many night and day cycles since this or that thing occurred. Every night felt like the last one anyway.

  It was hard to see beyond that, or to look into the past at all the nights that had happened before. It was better to stay in the current one and try to survive it…get to day and try to enjoy it and forget about the darkness that always came fast on our heels, never giving us enough peace before light was snatched away again.

  “Things change,” Gabriel said. He reclined beside the fireplace in what I’d decided must be his favorite chair.

  I was relieved he looked bored. There were a million ways this woman could mean my sister’s demise. If Gabriel found her more interesting than me or got sucked into her drama…well… keeping a promise to someone lower than you on the food chain hardly seemed like it would remain a high priority, no matter how well I adhered to my side of the bargain, no matter how many pieces of myself I’d sacrificed and left on the ground at his feet.

  I wanted to fall to my knees and beg him to save Simone. Didn’t he realize there were only four hours left until she needed those drugs to be in her hands?

  “It was very rude to leave me waiting like this when you know my city is in ruins.”

  He shrugged. “And whose problem is that? Your inability to manage your affairs is not my concern. In coming here, you’ve broken every rule we set out when we divided the kingdoms. And you’d already defied half of them when you tried to communicate by letter. Helene,” he said.

  Had he sensed my fear? Or smelled me? His eyes met mine, and he waved me in with a flick of his finger.

  The queen sent a look my way that could have made me to bleed to death from its sharpness. “You always did like the weak and vulnerable ones. Never your own kind—someone who might have a chance against you. I wonder what that says about you.” She looked away from me as if I were a mere bird flying overhead—a passing curiosity, but nothing of importance. “I wonder if perhaps I might interest you more now that I’m somewhat pathetic. Maybe not so pathetic as your human, but…I’m sure it’s enough given our history.”

  “You’ve never understood the first thing about me,” he said.

  Gabriel’s subjects crowded the hallway, no longer attempting to hide how they fought to watch. I wasn’t sure why the goings on of this room should be of interest to them until he spoke.

  “Helene, please remove the robe.”

  I froze.

  My hands involuntarily moved to hold the wisp of clothing closed as if he could remove it himself with the powers of his mind from across the room. And he probably could.

  Things were different up here. I wasn’t in the same mental place as before…I couldn’t just…but I had to...whatever he wanted... Simone’s time was running out.

  The queen seemed amused.

  Gabriel rose and crossed the floor to me. He lowered his mouth to my ear and whispered so quietly I could hardly hear him. He had to, to keep the queen and those crowding at the door from hearing what he only intended for my ears.

  “I’ve been kind to you, Helene. Don’t make me change that now.”

  The tears started to gather. Down in the private dungeon, it was different. It was intimate and special. I wanted these things to be between only us. I couldn’t…

  “Think of your sister,” he whispered. “Perhaps she would be more compliant.”

  The threat had the intended effect. I resented him for it, but at least he hadn’t forgotten her. That had to mean something. Right?

  He returned to his chair, an expectant expression on his face.

  The robe slipped from my shoulders onto the ground. Murmurs rose from the hallway—various assessments of my attributes and charms or lack thereof. It was probably better to let those things flow over me and through me, never allowing anything to attach itself too strongly.

  Gabriel turned to the queen. “Now, you. Strip. Give me your vulnerabilities. Submit to me. Stand naked next to Helene and let me decide which of you interests me enough to bother helping.”

  The queen laughed. “Only in your most audacious dreams, Gabriel.”

  “Helene is not weak. But you are.” He turned back to me. “You may cover up.”

  I pulled the robe back on, and he motioned me forward.

  When I reached him, he pulled me onto his lap. He shoved one side of the robe out of the way, and I watched as the outline of his hand crawled under the silk and up between my thighs. He was using me to fuck with her. It hurt in a way I hadn’t been prepared to feel. Why should I care? It wasn’t as if I’d thought he was developing feelings for me, or as if I’d developed any for him.

  Right?

  But I had. The things in the cell felt real. I wanted them back. I wanted a world that was only us, where we were consumed with each other, where I was his only sustenance, and he protected me in the way such a truth would warrant.

  He spread my legs lewdly, the robe gaping open now as he fingered me in earnest. I leaned back against him, my arm hooking around his neck for support as my head dropped onto his shoulder. He tweaked my nipple wi
th his free hand until he wrung a pitiful mewl from me.

  “Please…” I gasped. My awareness of the queen’s presence in the room began to dim.

  “I can’t hear you,” Gabriel said. I knew what he wanted to hear, the word he pulled from me over and over, holding it possessively in his mind until the next time it fell from my lips.

  “Master, please.” I didn’t know what I was begging for. A return to modesty? An orgasm? The pressure/pain at my breast to stop? Maybe I just wanted to go back down into the darkness with him.

  “Last chance,” Gabriel said to the queen. “Take off your dress, lie down in the middle of the floor, spread your legs, and finger your cunt until you come. I’ll lower myself to help the loudest screamer.”

  She laughed, but when I glanced at her, I saw her discomfort. He unnerved her. He scared her.

  He took his hand from between my legs. I started to protest until he pressed a wet finger into my mouth.

  “Suck. Suck it like it’s my cock. You know the way I taught you. Show the queen why you have my favor and why her theatrics bore the shit out of me.”

  I tasted myself on him, sucked his fingers into my mouth, swirling my tongue around each digit as if I were fellating him.

  A few moments later, he took his hand from between my lips and bit into my arm. At first I thought he planned to feed, but he only held it up and let the blood flow freely.

  The queen’s nostril’s flared.

  “Undress and crawl to me like the good whore I want you to be, and I’ll let you taste her. She’s had my blood. You know how much better they can taste when we feed them our essence.”

  The queen’s lip curled. “Don’t be vulgar, Gabriel.”

  “Well, you cannot say I didn’t offer you my hospitality.”

  He healed the wound his bite had inflicted and licked up the remaining trailing blood.

  “This is Amari, the queen of the second city,” he said, finally deciding to introduce us. “Amari, this is Helene. She is mine in ways you could only dream of.”