Two Brothers: A Twin Stepbrother Ménage Romance

by Tia Wylder

  The vines portrayed on the table have the illusion of life, but they are not living. I, on the other hand, can feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I can feel my soul singing a song it had long forgotten. On the table is a pitcher filled with ice water. Droplets of condensation run down the sides of the glass like tears. I reach down and pick up the pitcher and the empty glass beside it. My parched mouth aches for water as I watch the liquid slosh into the cup.

  I bring it to my lips and drink as slowly as I can. The crisp and refreshing taste of water splashes against my tongue and for the first time in hundreds of years, I taste it. My stomach clenches as if reaching out to take more of the water. My body begs for more of it, but I put the pitcher down.

  I turn towards the door. My hands reach out, trembling as they touch the smooth metal of the elongated door handles. This is it, the moment that I reach every night, and every time I wonder if this is the only way it can end. My hands pull the handles down and the doors swing open. The morning sunlight rushes past me like a tidal wave. I feel the warmth spread across my skin. I close my eyes and smile as I bask in a light I had all but forgotten.

  There’s a moment here, in the apex of this dream that I have had every night for centuries, it’s a moment where everything is right and perfect. A moment of perfect serenity as I teeter over the edge of my fate. As the moment passes, the warmth on my skin intensifies. Every inch of my body starts to crackle and burn. My eyes shoot open as the pain overwhelms me. I lift my hands up and watch as the skin bubbles and blisters. My flesh peels back and blackens before falling off my bones.

  The sunlight evaporates my body like a puddle of morning dew. My bones turn to dust and my soul shatters in the burning light.

  My eyes shot open and I felt the warmth of a crimson tear sliding down my face. Another day, but the dream is still the same. I reached up and pushed against the metal ceiling directly above my face. The lid of a human-sized box lifted above me and followed the path of its hinges to the right. It clanged against itself and sent an echo through the underground chamber.

  I pressed my hands against the metal side as I climbed out. It should have been cold, wet, damp, or something, but I didn’t feel anything. I stood silently in the darkness and listened for my heartbeat, tried to feel it like I did in the dream, but there was nothing. My chest was silent and cold. Whatever heart once thundered there, beat its last long ago.

  When the lights were on, my vision was the same as any human, but when darkness came I saw things differently. My eyes could pierce the veil and gaze upon the very fabric of existence. I could see her heart beating in her chest. It appeared to me as a tiny sphere of light that pulsated in the center of her chest. Her veins ran outward from it, painting an intricate network of illuminated pathways.

  That stale white glow that appeared to me. It was the way blood looked in darkness. The light called to me like water called to a man stranded in the desert. I didn’t feel things like excitement or adrenaline anymore, but I still felt some kind of supernatural rush when I saw the way blood glowed in the darkness. I traced its path through her body, looking for the perfect point to drive my teeth into her flesh and drink that liquid light from her veins.

  I walked over to the light switch and flipped it on. The intricate network of light that made up her body faded as the fluorescent bulbs above illuminated the darkness. I no longer saw her as food, instead I saw the hair, skin, eyes, and lips that made her something more. I was once like her, human that is, and there was a time when I pitied them, but that time had passed long ago.

  She had dark caramel colored skin and jet black hair. When she first came to me, she was voluptuous and healthy, but now she was barely more than skin and bone. Without enough food and water, my daily feedings were slowly killing her. She wouldn’t eat or drink most days either. When I asked her why she would willingly hasten the arrival of her death, she would simply spew out words unknown to me.

  I preferred it when they didn’t speak my language. It was easier that way, but in cases like this one it could be problematic. My business connections allowed me to have a new “wife” whenever I wanted, but all the money in the world didn’t change the fact that it would take several days for her to get to me. I couldn’t wait that long, not at this stage in the cycle.

  I walked across the cold marble floor to the bars of her cell. It was built into the corner of the basement, with polished steel bars running from the ground to the ceiling. Barbaric, yes, but necessary. There were times when my wives would be excited by the concept of being fed on, but in most cases they acted like caged animals. This one used to have fight in her, but now her skin didn’t hold the same color. It was dull and clung to her body. Her eyes were sunken back into her skull, but they still held that same fire. I could taste the fight in her blood, it added a spice that I particularly enjoyed. Today, though, that fire would be snuffed out. I could tell by looking at her that she had no more fight left.

  I took no pleasure in this, not anymore. I had to feed, which meant that she had to die like all the others. If I felt compassion and freed her, I would suffer a fate worse than death. Besides, in her current state, death would be a mercy.

  “Get back,” I said.

  The woman stood on shaking legs in the center of the room. Her voice rattled as she spewed forth harsh and sharp words that held no meaning to me. She clutched her naked and frail body, as if covering herself would somehow shield her from my intentions. I had given her clothing when she first arrived like I did with all the others. I treated them all equal when they came to me. I gave them the finest clothes, fed them meals that many would only dream of having, and gave them a soft bed to call their own.

  I even laid with them if they wished. Anything to keep them happy and comfortable. Blood was flavored by emotion. Joy, sadness, pleasure and ecstasy, these were the spices that gave blood its unique taste. I tried to keep my wives happy and comfortable, if only to make their final months on this earth peaceful ones. I was not a monster, despite what many would think. I was merely a cursed soul seeking solace in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.

  These women came from strife and pain. I offered them a brief glimpse of paradise for as long as their bodies will allow them to feed me. They sustained me, and I in turn gave them something they never had.

  They did not see it that way. There came a time with every wife when she was faced with her own dwindling mortality. She would try to run, take her own life, or even foolishly try to take mine. That was when I took them underground and put them in the cell. They ate, slept, cried, and languished in their final days beside me as I slept each day and awoke each night.

  My current wife’s angry shouts quickly devolved into sobs as she backed towards the wall behind her. I didn’t need to speak her language to know she was pleading for her life. This always happened as well, sooner or later.

  “I’m sorry, truly I am. I tried to make this easier for you, but it wasn’t meant to be. Hush now, it will all be over soon,” I whispered.

  She flailed at me with her bony fingers and her nails that grew like claws from her fingertips. I grabbed her arms and pushed her up against the wall. Her defense crumbled and I felt the cold rush of hunger wash over me. A pair of fangs pushed outward from my upper gums. I opened my mouth and let them fill the space between my lips. I tiled my head and looked down at her neck. The bulging vein beneath her skin called out to me. I dove into her, my fangs parted her skin like a thin sheet of paper. Her blood gushed forward. I pulled air through my nose which caused air to flow up through tiny holes in the bottom of the fangs. The suction pulled her blood up through the hollow teeth and into my brain where the curse laid waiting. My wife struggled for only moments before I felt the beating heart in her chest go silent. The blood stopped flowing soon after. I had my fill, and she suffered no more. I slowly lowered her limp body to the cold ground.

  My fangs slid back into my gums, giving me full range of my mouth once more.

  �
��It’s over now, you can finally rest. I envy you and all those who have come before you. I have been awake for far too long.”

  I stood up and walked out of the cell. This was the apex of the cycle. In these final hours I always felt strong and powerful. I had the strength of a god, but it was fleeting. Soon the curse would call to me, and I would answer as I always did.

  I tried to enjoy those moments. It was the only time I felt closest to being alive. I turned off the light and walked up the concrete stairs to the main floor of my mansion. As I emerged from the trapdoor and stood in the hall from my dream, I saw pale white moonlight flowing in through the windows instead of the sunlight from my dream.

  The final moments of my latest wife’s life were enough to satiate me for the time being, but I would need another soon. This time I wanted someone younger, someone with spirit and drive. I walked down the hall to my massive bedroom and stepped inside. The door groaned as I pushed it closed behind me. To my right was a lavish bed with silk sheets that I hadn’t used in centuries.

  On the left side of the room was a large metal door large enough to accommodate another room. A digital panel was mounted on the front with nine numbered keys beneath the LED readout. I walked over to the door and heard hollow whispers coming from within. The voice spoke words from a language long forgotten. Even without understanding the voice, it had a seductive tone that always grabbed my attention while simultaneously making my stomach turn.

  I pressed in the code on the pad and heard the gargantuan lock turn within the steel door. I grabbed the side and pulled the massive doorway open. Inside was a large room lined with metal walls. In the center of it sat a statue made from a strange black stone. It depicted a goddess with a voluptuous form dressed in modest clothing. She held a long sword in one hand and gestured to me with the other.

  Her mouth was opened and a pair of stone fangs filled the open space between her lips. She was like me, but that was where the similarities ended. The whispers in my mind grew louder as I stood in the statue’s presence. Within days those whispers would turn to screams. My chiseled and healthy body would start breaking down and a pain beyond description would tear through me.

  I wouldn’t die, no matter how long I endured the pain, death would never come. I tried countless times to resist the statue’s call, but sooner or later I would give in to its call, if only to return to the numbness of my everyday life.

  “I have come to answer your call. You will have your pound of flesh, and the cycle will begin anew,” I said.

  The seductive voice in my mind cackled with laughter. It understood me, despite the fact that I did not know what it said. I approached the statue and held out my arm. The slender stone fingers of the goddess’ outstretched hand clamped down onto my forearm. I was pulled off the ground as she brought my wrist to her stone fangs.

  They slid into my flesh as if they were sharpened knives. My vision went dark, and for a brief moment I was taken back to the night when I first encountered this statue. I caught a quick glimpse of my fellow warriors after we collapsed into that underground chamber. I remembered the pain in my side from the spear that had cut into my stomach.

  Blood gushed from the wound as I laid on that sandy ground. I remembered the statue calling out to me in that same voice, that same rotten language. It offered an alternative to death, but I did not want any part of its black magic. Somehow, though, somehow I had given in and offered myself to it. How and why I did such a thing still escapes me. The statue finished draining me and I felt myself reduced to nothing.

  I emerged from those ashes as nothing more than flesh and blood. I had no bones, no eyes, nor ears. I was reduced to a basic and useless form of life with only a long sharp tube protruding from my disgusting and primordial form. I would need blood, life force that could help me rebuild my body until I was human again. Just when I achieved my human form, the statue would demand another sacrifice.

  And so the cycle continued, on and on through the centuries without end.

  Chapter Two

  When we’re born, we’re told we can do anything, be anything. I grew up in the slums of Moscow, surrounded by gopniki, children of the slums who became Russian mobsters, but my parents told me I could be anything I wanted. I didn’t know anything better than the rundown streets and the iron fist of the mob until I was much, much older. Despite everything, I believed them for a long time.

  How stupid I was to think that. Happiness and privilege are something you’re born into. If you draw a bad hand, then you have to play the cards you’re dealt. I was sixteen when the mobsters killed my mother and father. No doubt it had something to do with money, it always does, but they didn’t kill me. No, they kidnapped me instead. I was dressed up, shown off, and idolized by powerful men with nothing but time and money on their hands.

  They wanted to sell me off to a scumbag who would abuse me and use me for his own personal pleasure. They dangled me like a carrot on a stick, taking orders that would go into effect when I was old enough to be sold to them. It disgusted me beyond words. The only thing that kept me going was hope that one day I would escape. One day, I would be free. Now that I was a fully grown woman, they would sell me off to the highest bidder again and again. I couldn’t wait any longer, that day was today.

  I was dressed in high heels with a tight leather dress that clung tightly to my body from head to toe. I had grown into an attractive woman. I knew this by the way men looked at me. They required me to stay in shape for potential investors, but I went above and beyond to become stronger and faster. They looked at me and saw a frail woman, but underneath the snowy white skin and womanly curves burned a fire that would reduce them to ash.

  It was night, the moon hung high in the Moscow sky. A large thug sat beside me in the backseat. I felt his eyes exploring my body. After years of moments like this, they still made me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t something I could ever get used to. The keys were still in the ignition and the engine was running. The driver said he would be back soon to get me. When he came back, I wouldn’t be here.

  More so than strength, what I needed most was courage. Any attempt to escape from the clutches of these men would most likely result in my death. I had only one shot at this, and I couldn’t afford to mess it up. I kept the upper half of my body still as I slowly slid one of the heels off my foot.

  I reached down to the shoe and felt the cool metal of a small knife across the surface of the heel, buried just beneath the fabric on the slope of the shoe.

  “What’re you doing?” the thug asked.

  I looked over and saw his eyes wandering down my backside where the dress revealed open skin in the center.

  “I have an itch. Don’t worry, just enjoy the view,” I said, trying not to let my disgust come through.

  The thug grunted and continued staring me down as I pried the hidden blade out of the shoe. When I had it in my hand I sat back up. My entire body pounded with each racing heartbeat as I clutched the knife beyond the thug’s view. It’s now or never.

  I looked over to him and felt my stomach turn as I saw his thick and scarred face. He had uneven stubble, numerous slashes of scarred tissue through his face, and a nose that had been broken more times than it healed itself. He was mesmerized, which meant his guard was down.

  “How long until the driver comes back?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer, why?” he replied.

  “Oh I don’t know, I was just thinking that maybe we could have some fun while we wait?”

  The thug’s beady eyes opened wide. I could see sweat building up on his brow as he eagerly licked his lips. Just wait for the right moment.

  “Come here, and let me show you what you’re missing,” I whispered.

  His grubby hands traced a line from my shoulders to my breasts as he leaned in closer. I smelled cigarettes and vodka on his breath as he awkwardly groped my body. I turned the knife around so the blade was facing outward just as his scraggly lips touched mine.

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sp; I gripped the handle and drove the blade deep into the left side of his neck until only the handle remained. The thug fell backward, choking on his own blood as he desperately reached for the knife. I dove out of the car door, kicked my heels away, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The engine was already running, so I put the car into drive and slammed the gas. I thought I could make out the horrified yelling of the driver behind us as we sped off.

  The thug in the backseat soon stopped his struggles. As I sped through the deserted streets, I stole a glance in the rearview mirror to make sure he was down for the count. My eyes met his just as he wrapped his hands around my throat. His strength was waning, but he gripped me tight enough to make my vision start to blur.

  The car swerved off the road and down into a ditch. We hit a tree during our descent and my head shot forward with the sudden stop. I slammed into the steering wheel and everything went black.

  When I woke up again, I was lying in a hospital bed. White sheets surrounded me as I took in the wires that ran into my veins and into devices that were affixed to my body. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor beside the bed told me I was still alive. I wasn’t sure if that was a miracle, or if I would have been better off dead in the wreck.

  I sat up and felt pain shoot through my head and down my side. It didn’t matter, if they found me here, I was done for. I had to get out and find a way out of this country. I grabbed the I.V. that they had running liquid into my arm and ripped it out. I pulled the clips off of my body and fingers, and threw the sheets over the side.

  The door to the room I was in swung open. I froze in panic for a brief moment and then laid back into the bed, hoping and praying that it was simply a doctor or a nurse. Instead, I saw a businessman enter. He had a perfectly manicured haircut, a fine business suit, and a solid red tie.