by Aja James
A moment of clarity cut through the thick, mindless sexual haze.
No matter how much he wanted her, needed her, no matter that he was willing to die for her, it couldn’t happen now. He had a duty to his people to fulfill first.
And if he were successful, whatever she thought she felt now could very well transmute and ossify into hatred.
He had to distance himself from her. He couldn’t afford to lose himself inside her body.
Not now. Not yet.
“Don’t stop,” she begged without shame, “I want you so much Tal. Come inside of me. Make me yours. I want to make you mine.”
Through sheer force of will, he pushed a little away from her so that their bodies no longer touched.
“Then do it,” he rasped, his voice deep and husky with inner torment, “Claim me as your Blood Slave. Make me yours.”
She looked into his eyes with confusion.
“But…I don’t want you that way. This isn’t about that. I love—”
“It’s the only way you’ll have me,” he said roughly, and at the hurt that immediately washed over her face, he gentled his tone.
“It’s the only way I’ll be safe here. You know it must be done.”
As he intended, the mention of his wellbeing and security effectively distracted her.
Worriedly, she looked into his eyes, saddened by what she must do. That she should be the instrument of his loss of freedom, so totally and devastatingly.
“I will hurt you,” she whispered, holding his gaze, her own shimmering with tears.
“Very much.”
Clenching his jaw, he looked steadily back at her, and gave one curt nod of acceptance.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed and pressed a kiss against his lips.
And then she unsheathed the ceremonial dagger on the pedestal beside the bed and knelt on one knee before him.
Throughout it all, she held his gaze, as if she shared his pain.
As the agony of her Claiming engulfed him.
As the grief for what they could never have destroyed him.
*** *** *** ***
Ishtar made her way soundlessly to Tal’s bedside and almost collapsed on the floor beside it when she saw for the first time the countless wounds and scars covering every inch of his body, including those she’d given him:
Two deep lines that pulsed in his lower abdomen from millennia ago. And the recent tears in his throat and chest.
Dark Goddess! What had happened to him! How could she not have known? How could she have added to his suffering so savagely?
Though she tried to hold herself together, tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks as her eyes took in his tightly clenched jaw, eyes squeezed shut against the world around him, lips drawn into a colorless, thin line, his entire body clawed into a taut, throbbing coil. Shaking so hard he rattled the bed.
For all the agony he endured, he never uttered a sound. Perhaps because he needed every ounce of energy to fight for his life. But Ishtar knew that it was simply his way—holding every emotion inside, sharing none of his deepest pain.
Ava cleared her throat to catch Ishtar’s reddened, watery gaze.
“We think the venom from your fangs might help ease his pain,” she said quickly, not wanting to further delay.
“I’m told that only his Mistress’s venom could command his blood. If you want to help him and channel those emotions, maybe it could work. We can give you a bit of privacy if you’re willing to try it.”
Rain nodded in agreement and gave Ishtar a small encouraging smile. The healer seemed to trust her for some reason. Even sympathized.
The two women turned their backs slightly and gave her some space.
Ishtar reached for one of Tal’s icy cold hands, clawed into the bed sheets by his side.
When she transferred his grasp of the cotton to her palm, the strength with which he squeezed her hand almost made her whimper, the bones of her fingers all but snapping in his steely grip.
She ignored the pain and moved closer to him, so that her lips hovered just above his ear.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though she knew the words to be woefully inadequate.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she continued huskily, determined to tell him her heart.
“I didn’t mean it. I could never mean it. Remember what you told me so long ago—words deceive; I shouldn’t place too much value in them. But they have the power to hurt so keenly, more than any blade or spear.”
She squeezed his hand back as firmly as she dared, laying her cheek gently against his.
“I’m sorry I lied. I never want to hurt you again. I would do anything to bear this pain in your stead.”
The hand that held hers loosened a fraction, just enough to unlock her bones so that blood could flow once more to the numbed digits. His breath caught on a deep shudder that quaked throughout his body.
Blood-red tears leaked from his tightly shut eyes.
“Oh Tal,” she gasped, her heart breaking all over again, a surge of something undefinable flooding her veins, heating her blood.
With an open, aching heart, she tenderly nuzzled his throat and jaw the way she used to as a kitten, and then slowly, painstakingly, she sank the tips of her fangs into his jugular and closed her eyes.
Tal’s body jerked as the venom from her fangs filled his veins with a soothing heat, melting the icy poison in his blood, infusing him with a numbing pleasure that encapsulated the seething pain into a more manageable throbbing ache.
After a time, the quakes and shivers that racked him subsided, and he breathed deeply, evenly, his jaw finally unclenching.
Ishtar disengaged from his throat but continued to hold his hand, which now lay limply in hers, no longer cold, but not quite warm.
As if on cue, Ava and Rain turned back around and drew close to check on Tal’s condition.
“He seems to be sleeping peacefully,” Rain said, amazed.
“But his wounds are still not healing,” Ava said, frowning with worry.
“His pain has been controlled but his body is still unraveling,” Rain agreed. “But look, the more recent wounds in his throat and chest are no longer bleeding. Surely that’s a good sign.”
Ava nodded. “We might have bought a bit more time, but given the rate of cellular degradation, we’re still talking about mere days, not weeks or months.”
“What? What will happen in mere days?” Ishtar interjected, not following the conversation.
“He has what we believe to be an accelerated version of the Decline,” Ava answered, “triggered by—well—I guess what it’s usually triggered by.”
Ishtar fell still, her fingers going slack, Tal’s hand slipping out of her grasp.
Do you know who I am?
You’re Mommy’s friend from the treasure store. You’re Uncle Tal’s lost love.
“But it can’t be,” she said out loud to herself, shaking her head. “I saw him with her. The one he loves.”
“You’ve seen her?” Rain asked, taking a cautious step towards her, as if not wanting to scare away the thought or memory that held Ishtar in its thrall, just in case it could be the clue they were looking for to help heal Tal.
Ishtar nodded as if in a trance, a soul-deep sadness descending like a fog over her eyes.
“Dark-haired. Dark-eyed. Not as tall as me. They were t-together…Tal…and the female who would become the first Pure Queen.”
*** *** *** ***
Third millennium BC. Capital City of Akkad. The Ivory Palace.
Three nights after his capture, Ishtar licked the puncture wounds in Tal’s throat closed and nuzzled her face into the satiny skin covering his thick pectorals, a loud purr vibrating through her body.
He almost smiled at her boundless affection, which she gave him so freely and unconditionally. As if she simply couldn’t help herself. As if expressing her…feelings…for him gave her joy.
He always shied away, even in his mind, from calling it “love.”
Because when one day his actions turned it into hate, perhaps he would be slightly less devastated by the loss of it.
But he knew that he was deluding himself.
It didn’t matter what she felt for him. Nothing could lessen the desolation he’d feel at the loss of her. Because of what he felt. For her.
“I have something for you,” she said almost shyly, though bashfulness was one adjective he’d never think to use around her.
She sprang up in her glorious nakedness from her gigantic bed, which they’d shared since the night she Claimed him.
He closed his eyes against the vision of her lithe, feminine form and willed his penis to stand down.
But it was no use, no matter whether she was dressed or not. Since she made him her Blood Slave, at even the slightest hint of her scent, the distant sound of her voice, his body would harden and swell to Serve her.
That was not entirely true either.
His body’s response had been thus since the moment he looked upon her when she entered her chamber that night.
“Here,” she said, bouncing back onto the bed like a playful kitten, holding her gift across two palms and straddling his lap so that her sex pressed deliciously against his, as if he were her favorite seat.
Distracted by the friction of her hot, wet core against his tortured cock, Tal could barely pay attention to the strip of ribbon in her hands.
And then she pulled him into a sitting position, sliding his erection along the notch of her cunny from root to tip in one, mind-numbing glide.
He hissed out a breath, his body clenching in pain with long-thwarted release.
A corner of her lips tipped up with impish amusement at his self-inflicted suffering.
“You could let go and give me your seed any time you want,” she reminded him reasonably, the ribbon temporarily forgotten.
“I am voracious for it, Tal, starving for it,” she murmured, looping her arms around his neck and kissing his face in small, moist sips.
“If you would only release your cream into me, you wouldn’t feel like a giant muscle cramp from head to toe. Orgasms are most relaxing for the body, I do assure you.”
And she would know, since she’d used his undying erection thoroughly and well to give herself endless orgasms for the past three days. She’d only stopped to eat and sleep, avoiding all royal engagements and any requests that necessitated the leaving of her chamber.
The rest of the time she feasted on his body, anywhere and everywhere she could find a vein. Mostly while he was hard and deep inside of her, triggering one climax after another in which her vagina clutched and squeezed his cock like a relentless, merciless velvet fist.
His back molars were probably ground into nubs by now, the way he fought to keep from releasing into her.
At this rate, he wouldn’t last another day.
Before he could reply, or perhaps she didn’t require it, she picked up the ribbon again and began to braid it into his hair.
“A linen seller gave this to me the very first night I met you,” she said, her fingers deftly sifting through his tresses.
“It caught my eye because of the vibrant color, both blue and green and an indefinable in-between. It reminded me of the sea beyond the cliffs where we used to meet. But that was even before we met. The beauty of it mesmerized me.”
She gazed deeply into his eyes.
“Just as you do now, Tal. Always.”
As usual, he didn’t respond. He didn’t want to encourage these feelings she had, even as his heart eagerly consumed her every word.
“See,” she said, pulling the loose braid of his hair forward so that he could behold the fine turquoise ribbon intertwining with pale gold.
“This will be my public Claim on you,” she murmured, shy again.
“I hope you don’t mind it very much. Think of it as a token of my affection instead, for that is what it truly is.”
A public Claim on a Blood Slave was usually a collar, such as the kind a domesticated cat or dog would wear around the neck. The slaves of the most powerful Dark nobles wore collars of gold, encrusted with precious jewels, that looked more like necklaces than bands of enslavement.
Not that anyone would ever mistake their significance.
Tal knew that Ishtar did everything she could to salvage his pride, dull the humiliation and pain of what he was. What he would always be, unless one of them died. He didn’t even know if a Mistress could release her Blood Slave once he was bound to her.
All at once, he couldn’t bear it any more.
The pain and anguish and self-derision. Which were only made worse by her understanding and tenderness.
Wordlessly, he grasped her waist and set her apart from him, pulling the coverlet up to hide his nakedness, the deep cuts in his lower abdomen that branded him a Blood Slave.
Wounds that would never heal. Scars that would never stop hurting.
Taking a deep breath, he struggled to get a hold of himself, to compress his overwhelming emotions into a manageable block of ice.
Not meeting her eyes, his head bowed, he uttered gruffly his first words since she made him a Blood Slave, “Is it done? The Claiming. Is it…fully done?”
She knelt on the bed beside him, worrying at his shift in mood.
Though he hadn’t said anything until now, she felt through his actions that he was glad to be with her again.
He’d kissed her back when she kissed him. Held her close when she slept. Eased painstakingly into her virgin body when she’d first mounted him, though she’d wanted to ride him hard and fast despite the burning pain.
He’d always held her gaze when their bodies joined, as if he were claiming her just as much as she was Claiming him.
She loved every moment of it. She loved every moment with Tal.
She’d exhausted his body with her voracious demands the past few nights, marking and taking all of him for her own. There was not a vein she hadn’t used, not an inch of skin she hadn’t kissed and touched and licked and sucked.
Only his seed he still withheld, and a part of her was deeply hurt that he purposely kept his Nourishment from her.
An uncaring Mistress would have demanded it of him, called it forth from his body as if he had no right to it.
A cunning Mistress might have seduced it from him, using powerful sexual arts Ishtar had never bothered to learn.
But she, a Mistress who loved her Blood Slave, felt grateful for everything he did share of himself, even though the Claiming required it of him—the joining of their bodies for the duration of three days, her marking of every inch of him, her taking of every single vein.
She would never ask of him what he wasn’t prepared to give, though she couldn’t help but throw herself at him, full to bursting with love and affection, every single chance she had.
“Yes, it’s done,” she finally answered, afraid of what he might say and do, feeling him withdraw even though he hadn’t moved.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to hers until they entrapped her in their turquoise brilliance, shimmering with a sadness and torment that stole her breath.
Ishtar’s heart began to panic as it thumped erratically in her chest.
And then, before her very eyes, a shutter came crashing down.
She couldn’t read any more what he was feeling in those hypnotizing orbs. For the first time she felt isolated and cold within his gaze.
“I—” He began but hesitated, swallowing thickly before continuing.
“I would ask you to refrain from…using my body. My blood is yours to take whenever you desire. But…”
He swallowed again and clenched his jaw, no longer able to hold her gaze.
Head bowed and eyes lowered, he rasped in that deep, husky timbre:
“Please. If you care for me. Don’t make me your whore.”
Ishtar’s head went back as if he’d struck her.
And perhaps he had. For the pain of his words was so much worse than any physical blow.
> Was that how he felt about their joining? Was that what she’d been doing to him for the past three nights?
But of course it was how he felt.
The Claiming of a Blood Slave was exactly that: making a flesh and blood Pure One with a beating heart and untarnished soul into an object whose only purpose for existing was to satisfy a vampire’s base urges—to feed and to fuck.
It didn’t matter that she loved him, that everything she did was an expression of that love. It was what he felt that mattered more.
And after all the years she’d known him, all the confessions of love she’d made to him, he’d never given his reply.
Except that last day they’d been together on the beach. When he’d told her she’d always be his first. And the time she’d been a kitten of ten, when he’d teased that she could keep him.
Indeed. He was hers now. She would always keep him.
But it was all wrong. It was as if the Dark Goddess had played a cruel joke on her, granting her selfish wish but exacting her payment in the loss of his freedom and dignity—and making Ishtar be the one to take them from him.
Ishtar felt a vortex of despair pulling her inexorably into its jaws.
But she was a fighter, so she dug her heels in, focusing on the thoughts that brought her strength: He was hers now. She would always keep him.
She shouldn’t be too greedy and expect his love as well. They had the rest of eternity together. She would do everything in her power to deserve him.
Her hurt soothed by her intrinsic, buoyant optimism for the time being, she left the bed and pulled on a light sleeping tunic, letting it fall loosely to her ankles.
She came back shortly and dove under the coverlet, burrowing into the heat of his body, curling her torso and limbs against his side, one arm flung haphazardly across his chest.
“As you wish, ninigiku of my heart,” she murmured sleepily, calling him “Lord Bright-Eyed.”
“But I want to hug you fiercely like a pillow and nuzzle my face in your heavenly-smelling skin.”
She yawned and arched her back liked a lazy cat.
“Will you permit me such liberties, Tal? I would do it in my leopard form, but I fear those hugs might crush you.”
