Scarlet Dusk

by Megan J. Parker

  Again and again he struggled to challenge one of the immortal creatures whose legends had motivated his unholy metamorphosis, but none were willing to offer him such satisfaction…

  Until night that the eight-fingered creature declaring itself a son of Sekhmet arrived at the palace gates…

  ~Present day~

  “Still no sign of them. Nothing!” Maledictus leered at Serena, “And you know why? Because your lover-boy is nothing without me! I was everything that made him who he was!”

  “That’s a bold line coming from the freak with a lizard-dick!” Serena scoffed.

  It was the sort of snarky response he’d come to expect from her, but, rather than letting it boil his blood and motivate some violent response—something she seemed to outright revel in despite the obvious torture—he let it slide. There was no point in letting her think that she could keep manipulating him, and he could already see that, despite all her forced boldness, hunger and weakness were beginning to take their toll on her. Her outbursts were less frequent, her fits were less violent and rarely grew strong enough to even awaken the dormant counter-spell, and, more and more, she was flinching at every move he made. She was scared, and, through that fear, he knew he would break her sooner or later.

  He squatted down to her level and offered a wide grin, smirking as she recoiled from the sight.

  It was true that, in the ongoing process of his metamorphosis, he had become something of a visually acquired taste. The majority of his body’s lizard teeth had fallen out—though a few of the more stubborn stragglers remained—and allowed the far-more enticing, needle-like replacements to come in. The bulk of his facial wounds had healed into a network of angry scars that bisected his shifting skin-tone, which had begun to take on the color of burnt flesh. He’d finally succeeded in digging out all seven of his horns, which had grown quickly since and now adorned his skull like an organic crown that stretched nearly half-a-foot above the top of his head, which had recently begun sprouting clumps of platinum-silver hair. His new, bright blue, catlike left eye, contrasted sharply with paling snakelike right, and he was certain that he’d be shedding it soon enough. In one of his prior visits to Serena, he’d remarked that, like Zane, he now sported a pair of mismatched eyes and asked if she felt any more attracted to him for this reason.

  Somehow, despite having not eaten in some time, her body had found something to vomit.

  The rest of his body was, for the most part, still covered in scales, though portions of his upper torso and shoulders—which had begun to sprout a series of bone-spike protrusions like those that adorned his head—had been stripped in moments of boredom. Though he’d done little to transform his reptilian lower-body—outright adoring his new tail far too much to even consider parting or modify it—he’d begun training himself to walk more upright than his body seemed initially willing. Because of the bulky mass of his tail and the otherwise weak upper-half, he felt naturally inclined to lean forward to accommodate; several times coming to walk on all fours without willing himself to do so, though the reaction he’d earned from Serena on these occasions had been worth it. Despite this, the arched figure—far too reminiscent to the lumbering form of a tyrannosaurus rex or other such relevantly extinct creature—was a major deterrent in his goals of reshaping himself into something far more regal. As an unexpected result of his posture regiment, his chest and shoulders had begun to broaden and his previously smooth, pale abdomen had taken on a more dense and rigid form. While it had not been his intention, the overall effect was not only the desired upright posture he’d strived to achieve, but also a far more muscled and intimidating appearance.

  The entire package proving to be, though an emotional deterrent to his advances, an effective way at drawing out the fear and uncertainty in his future wife.

  So while his appearances weren’t what he wanted them to be just yet, he was perfectly content with the fear they elicited. If nothing else, it was helping him to break Serena’s spirit; bringing her to lose hope in Zane and the others; the only thing that was keeping her resilient to his goals.

  He needed to strip her of that hope…

  And perhaps something else.

  “You seem quite fixated on the subject of my dick, my dear, hollow-headed harlot,” he chided, wetting his newly-grown lips with his forked tongue. “Is that all it takes then? A deep dicking; a sordid affair; a promiscuously casual romp in your loin-garden? Are you really such a simple trollop? Can you really be that much of a stupid slut-cunt? Is that why you’re so insistent that he’s something special? Because of that first night you met us—make no mistake, my air-headed princess, I was there—and you fucked us? Is that all the persuasion your feeble fucking mind needs to create the illusion of this thing you call love?” he chuckled and shook his head, “You stupid cow! Did it even occur to you—do you even remember—that it wasn’t either of us controlling his body when you were riding him? Your loser ex—that brain-fucked ghost you clung so pathetically to!—was controlling his body the entire time! Zane”—he couldn’t help but cackle then—“couldn’t remember that night if I personally tore into his skull and dug for the memory! So is that the moment you feel you felt something between the two of you? ‘Cause I got news for you, bitch: I remember that night all too well; I could send every sopping detail to Penthouse for their gaggle of retards to viciously jerk off to. Then you could feel some romantic sense of obligation to everyone!” He spotted tears welling in the she-vamp’s eyes and, as she tried to turn her head away to hide her face, he caught her by the throat and forced her to look at him. “You fucked me on that night too, you cheap, loose-cunted sack of shit! So, if sex is the only thing that defines romance for you, then you’d better be ready to love me just as fucking much as that loser!”

  Serena was shaking; her face a constricted mess of pent-up tears and pain that was growing beat-red around his clawed grip. Despite this—despite the growing agony that he could practically see welling within her—she resisted her own weaknesses and spit in his face. “You could arrange a fucking gangbang with the entire cast of ‘Magic Mike,’ and I’d still wait for him rather than settle with the likes of you!”

  Weakening or not, a lesson had to be taught.

  He couldn’t bring himself to grin in the face of her defiance when her mucus was trickling down his cheek.

  His fist landed with enough force to send her back, ricocheting off the padded walls of her cell and toppling back into him; the enchanted chains binding her jangling with the sudden movement.

  Maledictus rose to his full height as his grip on her shoulders tightened and he growled in her face. “At some point I’m going to have to make a note of correcting the wretched habit of your flapping tongue!” He threw her back into the corner with a meek sense of pride as she cowered in his shadow, reaching to the crotch of his body to work his genitals free of the accursed “pocket” they were nestled in as he took a step towards her “And, at the rate you’re going, that time will come sooner than you’d like!”

  Serena struggles to muster her strength, sensing a struggle coming up. “Take another step and I’ll be flapping my foot up your scaly ass!”

  Maledictus smirked at the threat. “Time to see if you can follow through with your chatter!”

  He came down upon her, dropping the full force of his weight against her to overpower any efforts she might’ve been planning. Serena’s left fist hooked around and slammed into his ribs—something snapping and shifting beneath his leathery hide—before she sacrificed her balled fists in an effort to push the impending force off of her. Muffled grunts and whimpers oozed into Maledictus’ shoulder, which he propped against the thrashing blonde’s throat to keep her pinned and still while he hooked one of his talons under one of the straps of her stained tank top. Serena growled against the restraint and lunged, trying to bite at the side of her attacker’s face; her teeth snapping as her fangs left a pair of ruby trails across Maledictus’ cheek. Hissing at her resistance, Maledictus cocked
his head towards her and slammed several of the solid-bone horns along the side of his head into her face.

  Serena’s attack faltered and her eyes went cloudy as they rolled about in her skull.

  “Good little sluts should learn to sit still!” Maledictus growled as he yanked his talon back, cutting the first strap—sagging half of her top over her chest—and reaching across to do the same with the second.

  “Then maybe you should stop squirming, bitch!” Serena’s words, though every bit as snarky as he’d come to expect, were muddy with her dizziness.

  He raised his opposite hand and pinned her head against the wall, keeping her from biting him as he worked to rid her of her clothes. “Ever the defiant little shit, aren’t you?”

  She grumbled something.

  Curiosity got the better of him and he paused to look up at her, sneering. “What was that, bitch?”

  Serena’s vampire speed caught him off guard then. He hadn’t seen her right arm move at all, yet, in the blink of an eye, her hand was wrapped around the horn just behind his left ear.

  “I said,” her eyes came to settle as the defiance returned to her tone, “that your punk-ass hasn’t even seen defiance yet!” She gave a sharp yank, an elongated cracking sounding both outside and inside Maledictus’ head as the horn was snapped from his skull. “But I guess you don’t hear so well without any ears, huh?” Serena mused, spinning the pointed hunk of bone in her palm and pulling it back, “Let’s fix that, SHALL WE?”

  Maledictus shrieked in agony as his horn was stabbed into the side of his head, raking against several of his new teeth as it breached the back of his jawline.

  “Aw shit! Missed your brain,” Serena offered him a fake pout as she worked to yank her makeshift weapon free. “Let’s try that one more time!”

  “LET’S NOT!”

  Maledictus pulled the horn from his face and jumped back, kicking down on Serena again and again until the blind fury at her attack subsided to a slow boil. Serena cried, her body quaking under the assault as the burden of her wasted burst of energy—that momentary flood of adrenaline—began to wear off.

  “Enough of this dumb brute business!” Maledictus growled, cupping his left hand over the gaping wound on the side of his head. Extending the fingers of his right hand, he willed his old magic to take hold of the she-vamp and, as he watched her body strain against the invisible force, slammed her against the wall; binding her body with the enchantment.

  Serena struggled, and, as the realization that she was magically pinned settled in, she narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth.

  “Uh uh! No more of your snark, missy!” Maledictus pinched his thumb and middle finger together and Serena’s jaw snapped shut and locked. He smirked, “Why in the fuck didn’t I think of that before?”

  Serena’s muffled whimpers went from angered by her forced silence to panicked as Maledictus once again closed in on her. The need for brash, full-body attacks was past him—his magic hold on her offering him the ability to go about his task with more flamboyancy than ever before—and he felt himself fall into a swagger as he approached and worked one of his claws behind the remaining tank top strap.

  “Do you ever just stop to appreciate the power of the naked body, buttercup-bitch?” he asked as he offered the strap a few teasing tugs, refraining from using enough force to sever it just yet. “You look at all the shit out there that people can appreciate the sight of—fucking art and nature and all that whimsical crap—and you realize that nothing else—fucking nothing!—has as much demand for repeat views as, say, a nice pair of tits.” He sliced through the strap and Serena’s top fell halfway down her breasts, teasing the moment; he smirked at this. “Or, even moreso”—he accentuated his rant by dragging the claw down her cleavage and over the top of the tortured garment, tearing the fabric in a few places but leaving it intact enough to remain intact as he worked ever downward—“a waiting cunt.”

  Serena let out an enraged howl behind her locked lips, the impact coming off as a garbled growl with a few high-pitched moments where the air fueling the protest hiccupped in her no-doubt aching throat.

  She had been screaming and crying an awful lot.

  “See, a person can see a fine piece of art once and feel content with that; they could squat on their deathbed and say, ‘At least I got to finger my asshole to the Mona Lisa that one time,’ or whatever those dumb fucking meat-puppets think to themselves over such trivial nonsense. But you never—not even fucking once—will hear an old fart succumbing to that sweet, finalizing sleep utter the words, ‘I’ve seen enough tits in my life’ or ‘What I wouldn’t give to bury my face in one last—’” he sighed, realizing he was rambling. “Well, you get my point. Just look at you, for example: luscious golden hair,” he pulled his claw away from her lower belly and ran it through the strands that fell across her left shoulder—her right shoulder noticeably bare from the asymmetry he’d caused when he’d yanked the tuft out during his escape—and ignoring the stifled shiver that worked beneath his magic hold on her. “Then there’s these purple eyes of yours”—he teased the claw just in front of her terrified cornea—“and, of course, this body!” He finally ripped the tank top from her body, tossing it to the other corner of the room where she’d be unable to retrieve it, and freed her breasts from the confines of the black bra that waited beneath; opting to yank it off and letting the snapping material sting against his victim’s flesh.

  Then, just like that, there they were…

  He scoffed and shook his head, “It’s not like I haven’t seen them before, either. I mean—fuck!—I was nestled in Zaney-boy’s noggin since day numero uno; I have literally sat front-row-fucking-center for every lewd and depraved act. All the things you did to him—to us—and all the things you let him do to you; hell, begged him to do to you!” He smirked and leaned in, dragging his forked tongue across her right cheek; the open wound on the side of his face gliding across her jaw as he moved, “You know, most girls aren’t so fond of the back-door action, and your enthusiasm was certainly not going unnoticed.”

  Another stifled howl.

  Maledictus backhanded her, “Shut the fuck up, bitch! That was a compliment! All of this has been! You fucking think I’d go through all this trouble for just any piece of pussy? Huh?” He moved to hit her again and smirked when he saw her eyes twitch—the fear making itself known—and he chuckled, offering, instead of another strike, a few soft pats on her cheek. “There is something about you, Serena; something engaging; something compelling,” he narrowed his eyes at her, taking in the vision of her naked, heaving breasts, “Something… familiar.”

  His hand dropped to his side as his gaze wavered at a distant sight.

  Something…

  Familiar?

  Where had he seen her—

  Another of Serena’s muffled cries broke the swirling void of the ages in his mind, and, enraged by her interruption, he struck her again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “WHO IN THE FUCKING HELL ARE…” he paused, looking at the quivering, bloodied girl before him and spit out the last of his lingering rage on her naked chest. “Lesson over, bitch! Now it’s time for extra-credit!”

  He moved his hands—still shaky from the strange, ghostly shadows of whatever memories were calling to him—to separate Serena from her jeans. Again and again he fumbled with the task, growing evermore enraged by his own weakened resolve at—

  He paused.

  Weakened resolve?

  Then his magic would also be…

  Serena’s energy flared, and a wave of glowing purple strands—his body’s interpretation of the aura he’d seen her use so many times before—began to break free of his weakened magic hold on her.

  The hold on her mouth broke, and she took in a sharp inhale; the sight of her fully extended fangs offering a morbid mixture of arousal and concern in Maledictus.

  “Shit…”

  “‘Shit’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, you r
ape-happy smegma-stain!” she roared and threw herself from the wall, tackling Maledictus. As the two of them fell to the floor, she worked the enchanted chains that bound her around his throat. “Fucking disgusting, power-hungry, twisted freak!” Punch after punch was driven into the side of his head; the enraged blonde she-vamp targeting the wound she’d inflicted on him; each impact sending wave-upon-wave of searing hot pain coursing through his pinned body.

  Pinned…

  All around him, the purple strands held him to the floor—making him think of glowing thread that had him stitched to the padded surface—and forced him to endure the pummeling.

  Oh sweet irony…

  She was so the girl for him!

  The sheer perfection drew a series of cackles out of him as she continued her assault. Enraged by his reaction, she drove a knee into his groin; his laughter doubled. She drove her elbow in the broken rib she’d given him earlier; he howled in amusement.

  It was all too perfect!

  “Ruin everything”—Serena caught him across the face with a left hook and then—“Think you’re badass”—she jabbed her locked fingertips into his windpipe; stifling the laughter for a moment before it flared up again—“Think that lusting after death and destruction are power”—a wave of punches rained down on his chest; Serena’s fists moving too fast to see—“Show you! Once and for all, I’ll show you!” Eager to inflict pain on him, she moved to gouge his eyes…