Stigmata

by L M Adams

  The one kneeling undoes Dem’s pants and has to roll them down his legs they’re so tight… and then the game is on. There is no warning as the larger vampire stuffs Dem’s mouth with the Jack-come soaked panties and surges forward into Dem’s ass… Dem’s scream is muffled but the sentiment is there – he’s being hurt, he’s being torn apart for my pleasure – he does know how to entertain me.

  The large vampire grinds into Dem’s ass as the other one sucks Dem off.

  As an additional boon I give him a taste of my magic and in return I drink down the power released by his orgasm, it comes fast and it is brutal – Dem loves being a bottom as much as a top. He loves girls and boys, and boys who were once girls or girls who were once boys – he likes them big and small and tall and short, skinny and thick and light and dark. He wants you if you’re hairy or smooth or man or beast – Dem likes variety.

  The room vibrates with the music and soon the air is filled with the smell of succubus and sin. I give him another power dump before I get up and leave him in my box screaming with a mouthful of lace and pure rapture across his features, I can’t help but smile – sometimes you just have to let people be who they are.

  Dani spots me as I come back downstairs and drags me to the bar to do shots. I was worried being back here would be bad for her, but mostly it seems people are happy to see her. Often someone will come over to hug her and tell her how much she’s missed… not just other human slaves, the vampires as well.

  Can a person be abused and loved all under the same roof? I live my entire life in these hues of gray, perhaps I’m not alone.

  The music is beating through me, my heart light – because for once I wasn’t a traitorous bitch. Jack really had it wrong, I don’t want Dem and Dem doesn’t really want me… he just wants filth and I don’t have to be the one that gives it to him.

  “Let’s party!” I yell and people I don’t really know, yell along with me – when you live on the edge of life and death you just party differently than those that know for a fact, tomorrow they’ll see another day.

  I head to the dance floor knowing a simple truth… that tomorrow is not promised to anyone, enjoy the life you have in the ways you can. I abandon everything as I let myself enjoy being me in all of the beautiful and ugly ways that I can exist. The very atoms of my body fill with the vibrations of the music and I move to it, I worship the beauty of sound, of math made into rhythm, of discourse dropping over a sick beat.

  I feel someone behind me, moving to grind on me, I turn my head and see that its some vampire, I don’t know who he is… I just know he’s the bravest man in the building… fool.

  I turn around, he’s about my height, eyes alight with swirling red, the scent of my power crawling over his flesh like it’s been dipped in oil. I grab the back of his head, my hands filled with his sweat slicked hair I drag him towards me, as if I’m about to kiss him, at the last moment I move to the side, snap down my fangs and strike; pushing into his artery – going right for the good stuff.

  He screams and I jump up wrapping my legs around him, riding him down to the floor as I bleed him… as a thank you, I grind my perfectly marked ass on his crotch.

  “Oh goddess,” he whimpers and grabs my ass with both of his hands… loving every bit of it.

  I feel his body relax under mine as he accepts that I’ll be taking what I want… right now it’s his blood. Vampire blood tastes different than human blood. I’m pulling power from him, power that he’s taken from some human… it filters it, giving it the flavor of cherry wine, the flavor of Vayrá with a metallic tinge.

  My power spills from me and I let it, the heat between my thighs makes him come in his pants – no one should ever say I’m not a benevolent queen.

  When I feel his heart slow, I break away, standing. The party around me not missing a beat. I go back to dancing as his body is dragged away and I laugh to the gods of old as his still warm blood runs down from the corners of my lips – main arteries are messy to drink from.

  “Fair trade is never a robbery!” The D.J. yells over the microphone and drops a new song. I feel my flesh and soul get swept away in the music again.

  I’m the evil in the dark

  Give me your heart

  I’ll murder you for free

  That life you live you don’t want anyway

  Let me be the evil in the dark

  Give me your soul

  I’ll destroy you for free

  That love you feel you don’t want anyway

  The brave ones approach me, I drink them in exchange for an orgasmic experience… there are more takers than I can handle and soon I have to stumble from the dance floor drunk on blood.

  “Vodka on ice!” I yell over the music. I need to wash the metallic taste from my tongue.

  The oiled and glitter covered half-naked barkeep, with a hardon held down only by a leather thong, hands me the drink quickly – fuck, my head is spinning.

  Némion finds her way over to me, “Are you well, my Queen?”

  I nod, “I may have overdone it with the blood,” I nod towards the dancefloor, “are they okay?”

  She shrugs, “they are all here to serve you, in whatever way you wish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every person here, outside of your guard, are bonded slaves for the night, human and vampire – have your fill in whatever way you wish.”

  My mouth drops open, “You bought all of these people?!”

  She shakes her head no.

  “Jack,” I whisper closing my eyes.

  “My Dark King takes care of you in all ways… sex, torture and blood, anything that you wish,” her voice drops, “if you wish something heavier, we can arrange that as well.”

  “What… what do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean, Jaevia,” she bows her head and turns away.

  Her spot is quickly taken by a pretty young woman, porcelain fleshed girl with wonderfully wild curly red hair – goddess be I love red heads, “my Queen.”

  I smile, “What is your name?”

  “Nat,” she smiles, “Natalie.”

  She’s human, I lick my lips.

  “Whatever you wish, I am here to serve.”

  But there’s only thing I want to do… “dance with me?”

  She smiles and nods and I spend most of the night drinking men to the edge of death while making them come, dancing with Natalie, Dani and Dem at times… but most of all being happy… up to the point when the room spins and the sounds I’m hearing become distorted. Nothing is moving right, least of all… me.

  I stumble, almost falling to the blood slick floor. Fuck, had I done all of that?

  “Come this way, my Queen.”

  Dem wraps his arm in my own and steers me firmly away, belying a strength he usually keeps hidden and also leading me to believe he is not as inebriated as he pretends… nor anything close to my own sorry state.

  He guides me up the stairs back to my own private box. Faces and people all a blur. I spot one of the berserker boys standing at the top of the stairs and give him a sad little wave, he nods his head towards me, showing his reverence – even as his queen, high and drunk off her ass without an ounce of decorum – stumbles past him.

  Dem manages to keep me on my feet down the long hallway to the last box on the floor, close to the emergency exit, giving me a private entrance and a quick escape if necessary.

  The room has been tidied. New incense burning lightly on the air to cover the smell of sex. The candles are burning low and the soft glow radiates out gently in the room reminding me of Lucien.

  Dem, as gentle as ever, gets me seated on the settee and turns away quickly. He goes to the small table, filled with evil delights, and begins pouring something into a crystal glass.

  “They will have my head if you show up tomorrow blood drunk and stinking of sin.”

  I laugh, “I do believe you are truly afraid of them.”

  “Completely petrified, my darling Dark Queen.�
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  I slip off my pumps and tuck my feet under me, “they’re softer than you think.”

  “Perhaps with you, as they should be, but to all else – we would be clever to be cautious in our steps.”

  “If we’re so dangerous… why do you persist so with wanting to be in our company?”

  He turns back to me and brings over a glass of bubbling clear liquid, too clear to be champagne, “I am but a moth to the flame.”

  “What is this?” I ask as I take the glass from his outstretched hand.

  “A tonic, it will even out your high,” he bows his head.

  I honestly don’t think he’d poison me. When had Demetri made it onto my list of people I trust? I take a sip of the liquid, the bubbles run across my tongue, seeming to scrub a layer of sin from my very soul.

  “Witchwork,” I whisper, and he nods.

  “Very expensive witchwork,” he reaches into his jacket and pulls out two black clove cigarettes.

  I haven’t smoked in ages, but tonight is a night made for sinful delights, so I don’t protest as he lights them both and hands one to me. He takes the full sofa across from me and relaxes back with a low moan of pleasure.

  “Let there be truth and honesty between us. Why are you my friend? Why do you pretend to be anyway,” I take a deep inhale of the clove cigarette; the cloves in the black wrapping pop and crackle as they burn and my mouth fills with an intoxicating flavor of spice and tobacco – replacing the metallic taste of the blood I’ve consumed.

  He takes an inhale from his own cigarette and looks at me with a smile, “Survival my dear Vee-Vee. When change comes, which it always does, become useful to the powerful or become disposable.”

  I give him a look.

  “Ah, you are surprised I was actually truthful?”

  I smile, “To be honest? Yes.”

  He shrugs, “At times a truth is more entertaining than a lie.”

  “Is that all that you are? An entertainer?”

  He smiles again and shakes his head; he brushes his long hair over an ear as he looks at me. “I’m a survivalist.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Old enough.”

  “How… old?” I ask intently.

  “Perhaps I am young in the terms of the ancient vampires… but I remember when this land was new land and there were no cities of man. I remember when we trembled in the darkness… monster and man alike and prayed for the light of the sun to return; not remembering that he was a monster too and that the bringer of light fell from the grace of god – as all things do… I remember…” He stops suddenly and clears his throat, “I am old enough to know what it costs to survive and to have paid that price in blood tenfold.”

  I inhale the deep spice smoke of the clove cigarette, “If you are an ancient thing, survival must be easy to you by now.” I exhale the light white cloud… “You must be powerful.”

  He shakes his head no, “It is not that I am very powerful. In fact, I am both weak and aged. Not a thing often found in the world of vampire.”

  “Why is that?” I ask truly curious.

  “We are usually killed. In battles for land or power or just fucking because. A vampire lasting to my age and not becoming a Blood Master? Unable to make a commune with Vayrá? It is almost unheard of.”

  “So, if it’s not the power of age… how do you survive?”

  He smiles at me, a hint of fang showing, “I am entertaining, and in a world where everyone has seen everything, done everything – being entertaining is priceless.”

  “You keep powerful friends with your skill.”

  He nods, “I keep powerful friends. Some of the powerful vampires take to me, others despise me,” he shrugs, “such is the way of the world. A few may love you; most will hate you; all will want to be around you if you can keep their attention.”

  “Why do the vampires despise you? Because you aren’t a Blood Master but you act like one?”

  He nods, “But the longer I faked being one of them the easier it became to be them. It was then I realized how easy and small of a margin exists between being a thing and becoming anything.”

  I think upon his words and know that there is truth. Even now, even knowing that I am truly just another mark to him, another thing to be used… I know that if he was in trouble, I would take up his cause. I would be his friend. The simple fact is, he is precious to me, much like a rare artifact – he is something the world does not have in abundance and so this makes him… important.

  “What happened between you and Jack?”

  “You know that tale, Vee-Vee.”

  “Némion said you were at least friendly before the torture happened.”

  He sighs and nods.

  “Because you saw Jack as someone powerful you befriended him?”

  “No,” he whispers.

  My heart almost stops, “You mean you actually cared?”

  He raises his glass to me, “Believe it or not,” he takes a drink.

  “So why in the fuck did you help Némion torture him?!”

  “Because I cared more about keeping Valentine pleased.”

  “You wanted to entertain her…”

  “It is how I survive Vee-Vee…” he sighs, “I believed that Jack would understand my motives, come around in time. Instead, he has hated me ever since, believed my initial kindness was nothing but a long con so that I would be able to hurt him deeper with a betrayal… it was a miscalculation on my part.”

  I sigh, “He has a point; how do I know when the next thing doesn’t come along you won’t betray me for the entertainment of someone else more powerful?”

  “You do not, Vee-Vee… so make sure you are always the most powerful. The most important thing to me will always be my own survival.”

  Perhaps I should be shocked, or angry… but I’m not. Dem has never hidden exactly what he was… I’ll make sure to never forget it. I’ll be sure to not make the same mistake Jack did. I’ll be sure to not make the same mistake as I did with Valentine… once upon a time I thought she cared too.

  I take another sip of the tonic water, my head leveling out. This stuff really is a marvel.

  “Feeling better?”

  I hum and nod.

  “Good, Némion will take you to your hotel,” he stands, “I hope…”

  “One more question,” I cut him off.

  He bows his head.

  “Have you ever truly loved a thing? Selflessly and in truth?”

  He looks up at me, and I see his eyes swim with blood, with remembrance and regret. “Yes,” he whispers, “… and I swore never again,” he blinks, pulling himself from memory with a force of will… “and now I am lesser for it.”

  Demetri doesn’t really say if he’s lesser for loving in the first place, or for swearing never to again. He is oddly still an enigma, and although most see him as frivolous, I know there is a hidden depth within him. He did not become what he is by chance, no – he carved this version of himself with a wet stone made of bone and blood and made a brittle heart hard… because I do believe there is a version of Dem, a sensitive man, a man that wants to love and be loved that he hides very well… a man I will never know because he is he and I am me.

  I pause, thinking I could read his heart’s desire – find out in truth what he really wants… but that feels like a line that shouldn’t be crossed between friends. If he wants to tell me, he will.

  “Have no fear Demetri my dear, you will always be entertaining to me… even without your love.”

  I leave Astraea wondering if my men have had an equally… entertaining evening.

  35

  Jack – Bachelor party

  I sit in what is now our downstairs living room, set up in what was to be our waiting area. Franklin really did a great job of making the place seem actually nice, I glance at the no-nonsense soldier and decide it was more than likely Dani who saw to the arranging of the furniture, the small touches to make it feel like home. Our large sectional has been separated i
nto the two halves and sit across from one another; the large coffee table ottoman is pushed to one side along with the oversized stuffed chair. The large flat screen is still upstairs because, and I quote, ‘I don’t know how to get the screws out from behind the T.V. and I don’t want anyone to help me.’ – I bet she ends up stabbing the flat screen before it’s all said and done with. I smile thinking of the ways I’ll tease her over it.

  The air is filled with the smell of cigar smoke and alcohol. This is unexpectedly a nice evening, a bonding of men and mayhem… with beautiful men and women to serve us. I know all of the faces of our servers for this night, usually they would be serving at Kiss, crows each of them… acting as both a temptation and a warning against giving in to those temptations.

  Gorgeous flesh that moves around the room, serving us drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Two males, two females, scantily dressed and making it clear they’re available for any pleasures we’d like to partake in. Yet none of us grab for anything more than a fresh glass of alcohol or a morsel of food to try and keep something on our stomach… helping to maintain a level head.

  The only woman any of us want is Jaevia, because even if she isn’t here, we’re all together because of her… all of us love her, in some fashion or another. All of us have lusted for her, craved to possess her, or at least desired to protect her – it is what she is and none of us can escape it – I have found a modicum of peace by giving into it.

  Frank, Tabari, Harper, Lucien, and I… we have all loved her in our own special ways.

  “You cannot stop a bullet with a shield of power,” our usually dour Captain of the Guard proclaims loudly.

  Tabari nods drunkenly, “The fuck I can’t!” He stands up, stumbles, straightens up, inhales, exhales and manages to stay on his feet… impressive.

  The daemon magi is very deep in his cups… if I had to guess, he’s trying to numb the pain. He won’t admit it, but he’s still hurting from the loss of Peterus and now Tala, he’s still hurting because everyone else in the room has found someone to love and to love them back and he’s still so fucking alone.