Two Hands that Fit Together Perfectly

“Sweet man. Holy bearer of such rapturous blood. Have you come to usher me into hell?”

I look up at a man, knitted in tattered flesh. A dark cloth tied about his waist that falls to his knees is his only clothing. In his hand he holds a weapon, one designed to flay his enemies, but has been instead used to carve himself. However, the most distracting and unsettling part of him isn’t his wounds, but the near cage-like structure that blooms from his neck to encompass much of his head. The jagged metal arms are bent asymmetrically, suggesting it is self-made.

I cannot see his eyes. Does he look at me? What does he see? The filthy sack covering his skull is split down the front, allowing unobstructed breath, and for me to clearly see the disdain weighing on the corners of his mouth.

My throat contracts in a desperate swallow, savoring the scent of his blood in the air that finely coats my tongue. The metal flail drips succulent rubies, more precious to me than anything: gold, land, power, even my own life.

“Surely,” I say timidly, as he hasn’t even answered my first question, “your kindness would not bear the favor of your blood upon my lips?” 

My chin extends a couple of inches closer to his form, standing a few feet from me. Each drop of his blood wasted on the dirt has me flinching. 

Still he does not speak. Perhaps, he’s confused me for one of his own? My cleverly crafted dress hides the segmented legs and wasp-like abdomen of my lower half, while hugging my thin torso to exaggerate the roundness of my breasts.

The flail drips again.

“Please,” I whine, looking at his weapon. “Waste no more, I beg of you.”

My fingers twitch and curl, itching to reach for salvation.

He lifts the weapon and I hold my breath, but he does not swing. With thick, calloused fingers he manipulates the blood soaked flails, as if testing the ripeness of fruit. Saliva builds in my mouth and I swirl it around with my tongue. Anticipation mounts as he offers his bloody hand to me. My eager voice slips into my breath, becoming a quiet moan.

Just as it comes within reach, I snatch him by the wrist, easily ignoring the biting pain of the spikes adorning his arms now cutting into my soft hands. I do not hesitate in taking the first of his two fingers into my mouth. 

My quiet moan evolves into a desperate sob. Tears sting my dry, tired eyes and my other hand joins the first in pulling him closer to me, nearly cradling his arm to my breast.

I’ve fed on blood countless times before— fresh from the still living flesh of men and women, then sometimes from wild beasts. My life seems to have culminated in this singular moment. Whereas seconds ago I was seeking the sweet release of death, I am now driven to bathe myself in this man.

His blood is rich. His blood is thick. His blood is radiant.

Swallowing the first mouthful of his heart’s sweet nectar, my body begins to hum. The agile tip of my tongue seeks each remnant between the cracks of his dirty fingers before moving on to the next. I clean his entire hand until it’s no longer sticky with blood, but with saliva.

Only after I’m sure there is no more for me to salvage do I look up at his half covered face. Breathing through my nose, refusing to allow even the aerated scent lingering in my mouth to escape, I memorize the few details I can see. Shattered and forced back together, much like the rest of him, his uneven lips show the most scarring. The misshapen nose has been broken to new shapes. Looking lower, silvery scars hide underneath the thick body hair on his chest and stomach, and beneath those, evidence of hardened muscle.

As I’ve narrowly escaped starvation, I begin to fantasize about his warmth, pressed against my small cold limbs, for I am still a woman, and it is not just his blood my body craves from him.

My savior disentangles his arm from me and rises. His metal weapon clinks to rest beside him, still stained red. When he turns and I see the savagery he’s inflicted upon himself— the sound of which drew me to this small clearing near the hamlet— I reach out.

“Without you I am lost!” I call after him. “Left to suffocate in endless darkness. If this is your wish for me, then why have you blessed my lips with the wonder of your Light?”

After a few strides away, he halts. “Were you not made in darkness? Does it not swaddle you so delicately?”

The roughness of his voice suggests disuse. It rumbles through the air like thunder, likely intending to instill fear, but his hesitance encourages me to persist. I wobble up on weak legs, careful not to trip on the many folds of my voluminous dress.

“No,” he growls, turning back around and I see his grip tighten on the hilt of his flail. “You will not tempt me.”

“I seek only to savor that which you cast aside so brazenly.”

“Foolish woman,” he nearly spits in my face after closing the distance between us. “The suffering brings guidance, not the blood. I study my scars and within them divine my path to the Light.”

I notice his teeth are broken. The front right incisor is missing entirely. How much abuse does he intend to endure before reaching his enlightenment? How can he so willingly embrace the torture that I was forced to flee from?

“I see no absolution in your perfect skin,” he continues.

"A beacon is first seen from afar, and its purpose not understood until finding what it's illuminating. You curse me for only now having eyes to see? Eyes that you yourself have granted me?"

The viscous breath whistling through his nose begins to falter. 

"I… fear," I continue, "my tolerance for cruelty has been tested every of my waking hours. I envy you for finding strength within it.” My hands wring together nervously, preparing the proper words to convince him to allow me to shadow his every step. “This blanket of darkness has choked me my whole life. Please, before I'm cast aside, let me savor some of your blessed Light."

The eyes are the most expressive part of the face, as his are hidden, I can’t tell if he’s livid that I’m even suggesting such a thing, or sympathetic to one as unfortunate as I. Seeking answers elsewhere upon his body, my attention lands on his hands, knuckled white and shaking.

Unexpectedly, he ducks. His thick arms sweep out my legs and I fall, ready to suffer once again upon the cold ground. Instead, I’m caught by his other arm and almost panic as he pulls me tight against his chest, unsure as to what is happening.

My new chaperone carries me effortlessly through the sparse trees. I suppose there would be no other way for me to join, as weak as I am, and I'm relieved that I didn't need to ask. I’m unable to wrap my arms around his neck, blocked by his sinister collar, and instead lay my hands against his predictably warm chest.

Distracted by his heat in contrast to my own, I ask, “Are you well?”

He doesn’t answer me with words but his attention.

“You’ve not dressed your…” I think about how to acknowledge them. “Wounds. Might they fester?”

“They will be tended at the Abbey.”

A church. Seems we will be immediately forced apart. And when I’m exposed to be physically intolerant to his religion’s holy symbols, what will happen to me then?

Now that I’ve stabilized, after the meager meal of blood from his fingers, I start to question my choice of begging to follow him into the human’s hamlet. With the return of the descendent, more have come seeking to expunge all those malformed and tainting this land, including me.

A few minutes later, we exit the north edge of the wood and onto the dirt road. I hear his toes squish in the ground, freshly turned by the stage coach that endless have arrived on. 

People start to look. They hide their words with cupped hands but their eyes tell me enough. The rapturous man holding me tightly seems unaffected by their curious eyes though, and I begin to doubt that they are watching us only because of me. As I consider his reputation in this village, I realize it strange that he was a couple of miles out in the woods… alone.

“Damian,” a plummy voice coos, elongating the last vowel of the name.

I’d not have looked up from my fingers enjoying the tickle of his chest hair if not for my body being shook to a halt with him. Did he stop because Damian is his name? I don’t bother looking for the owner of the new voice as he pops up like a gopher right in front of us, giggling as I flinch.

“Who’s this?” he asks. 

Curling inward, hiding behind my shoulder and sagging hair, I curse these people and their guarded faces. The giggling man’s countenance is entirely covered by a white mask, black tears are painted below the slits cut to allow him sight. Bells jingle just as sinisterly as his laugh, hanging from various spots on his ratty, red, jester’s outfit.

I begin to panic as Damian’s arms slacken beneath me and I’m given no choice but to find my feet in the dirt beside him. Just as I straighten, the flayed man steps in front of me, shielding me with his tortured body. The scent of his recently dried blood snakes up my nose and I shudder.

“She’s mine,” Damian says.

“AH-HA HA HAAAAA!” the jester cackles. His limbs writhe as if the amusement has seized his body. “Consent cannot be taken!” In a twisting flourish, a half-moon sickle appears in his left hand and a dagger in his right. “Don’t worry Moonlady, I will free you from this monster.”

Moonlady? Me?

“Sir,” I interrupt meekly. “Damian—” I carve the name deeply in the meats of my brain, “speaks true.” I lay my hands delicately on the split skin of the back in front of me. “He fills my empty cup.”

The jester balks, nearly dropping the weapons at his feet.

“You jest,” he huffs a nervous laugh. “What threat is he holding above you?”

“Who are you terrorizing now, Sarmenti?” a second new person interjects. “Please don’t tell me it’s Boudica. She’s made it quite clear she doesn’t care for your love songs, or are you hoping she’ll break your other leg too?”

The first unmasked face seen so close. Patting her hands together to rid them of caked dirt, a blonde woman in a worn blue tailcoat approaches and stops beside the jester. 

“Damian, huh?” she says, her wide smile showing bright, straight teeth. “You are looking to get hurt.”

“He’s somehow seized this delectable new courtesan!” he yelps, gesturing to me peeking out from behind Damian’s shoulder. “Can she not see?” Sarmenti leans in close to the woman’s ear, knocking her pilgrim's hat askew. “There’s something going on here. She owes him money, or he’s threatening her life, or she's too stupid to—”

“Have you been drinking?” The woman corrects her hat. “Obviously she must be religious.”

“No!” Sarmenti squeaks, stomping a pajama’d foot. “No, no, no, no! Women and men of the Light share pillows with Reynauld!”

Damian growls, his body rumbling beneath my fingers.

“Aha!” Sarmenti laughs, flipping his hand. “Obviously not you! No one sleeps with you!”

As if realizing he need not withstand this conversation, Damian briskly walks away and I’m left exposed. Both Sarmenti and the woman beside him take in the full look of me. Luckily, my buxom dress seems to have shocked them long enough for me to at least attempt to catch up with Damian.

“Audrey!” Sarmenti yells. “Audrey! Stop her!”

“We’re leaving Sarmenti, before Damian crushes your skull and there’s no substitute for your crazed brain.”

Running is making me dizzy. I hold my dress up only enough to not trip, while keeping my legs hidden. His wide criss-crossed back blurs as tears fog my vision. I close my eyes and follow my nose. We haven’t even attempted the church and I’ve already been discarded. 

Despair buckles my legs to the ground. I catch my head in my hands and weep. 

Why didn’t he just free me from this torturous life in the woods? His gift of heavenly blood could have let me die with a smile. Instead, I chose to dream. Dream of a safe, luxurious life with a man come upon by fate. Have I not suffered enough from my mother’s sins? Can't I have this one small thing?

“My lady?” a sympathetic voice calls to me.

Something heavy is dropped near me. Shortly after, a chunking metal sound lowers to my left. I peek through my fingers to find another available face.

It’s old leather, soft and seasoned. A gray beard encircles a mouth heavy with concern and a similarly aged brow curtains a singular eye, the other covered by a patch. A shield and mace rest on the ground beside him, matching his metal armor.

“Why do you weep?” he asks.

“I’ve lost him,” I sputter.

A sigh whistles out of his nose.

“I came here to die, but found a reason to live. And now—”

“Barristan,” a cold tone interjects. “We have no time for this.”

The familiar impatience of the rich. I don’t bother to look at this man and instead search the crowds for the easily recognizable wounds, proudly worn by Damian.

“But, my lord, she suffers,” the old knight next to me insists.

“We all suffer.”

The knight stands. “I must go, but if you tell me who it is you are looking for, I may be able to point you in the right direction.”

“Damian,” I say, still looking amongst the filthy bodies milling about.

After a short silence, I shift my sight to Barristan, who hasn’t yet moved on as instructed. The same worried, but disgusted, face the woman Audrey wore emerges from his features.

“Yes,” I confirm. “Him.”

The knight looks over his shoulder, likely to the one waiting for him. He nods, then turns back. “If he’s present in the Hamlet, he would be at the Abbey.”

I follow his pointed finger up the hill.

“Past the tavern and the hospital. It’s the tallest building, it shouldn’t be difficult to find.” He holds a hand out to me. With his assistance, I’m back on my feet. “I won’t inquire as to your transgressions with him, but,” he bites his lip, chewing on words, “the man is volatile. I hope you’ll be cautious.”

I curtsy— perfectly. “Thank you, sir.”

Despite insisting upon haste, the knight and his unknown companion do not leave as I move towards my goal, rising high at the top of the sodden village. What I will do upon reaching the holy building, I’m not sure.

When I arrive, I’m beginning to believe we actually are tied by fate, because I find Damian has yet to enter. Blocked by two people, he fidgets, clearly frustrated by whatever it is they’re trying to tell him. A tall knight, engraved by the holy symbol of the Light, and a woman, cloaked in the robes of prayer, stand closer to him than Sarmenti and Audrey did.

As fearful as I am to approach, interrupting the conversation is easier than the impossibility of entering the Abbey. Even now its open door shines painfully.

“...a level of restraint,” the woman says. “That’s why it is done in a controlled, clean environment. I can’t keep making exceptions for you.”

The knight notices me first. Even in the shrouded darkness of his helmet I can see his bright blue eyes— antithesis to my own. He nudges the woman and she too looks at me, but I’m not here for them.

Boldly, I insert myself between him and the others.

“You,” Damian says, surprisingly holding his ground while the other two step back. “Come to mock me more?”

The air freezes in my lungs.

Still a bit dizzy, I think back on our interaction with the crazed jester. After a couple of nervous breaths, I find I cannot piece together how I may have offended him. Would he listen if I tried to explain? But what would I even be explaining?

This close in proximity to him has me less than a foot from his barely parted lips. I’m taking a risky bet assuming that intimacy will convince him better than an empty apology. The cage of his collar leaves me with only just enough space to reach his mouth.

My brash kiss paralyzes him. Every muscle flexing to painful rigidity. The woman behind me gasps.

Encouraged, I lift my left hand to weave into his hood and pull his neck closer. His rough lips are almost twice the size of my own but remain as stagnant as the rest of him.

"Open," I command. Finally I see his eyes, sunk deep in his skull, lined red from stress or lack of sleep, and a brown as warm as spring wood. They're wide with shock, but he obeys, granting me the heat of his open mouth.

I'm disappointed that his hands don't hold me as I explore his broken teeth and tongue, but am pleased that his sex is already hardening against me.

"They. Are. Vermin," I say, breathing in his hot breath. "All of them. Your wounds show me that you bear the burden of a thousand lifetimes, what are they compared to that?"

His body begins to relax, beginning with his hands frozen in place beside him.

“Damian,” the woman warns from behind me. “Honied words so sweet can only be used to mask poison.”

“I’ve never seen this woman before,” the knight’s timbre echoes through his helmet. “Do you know her, Damian?”

Their interruption has not drawn Damian’s gaze from mine. He knows what I am, or at least guesses at it. I didn’t bother hiding my monstrous ecstasy when licking up his blood. 

My lips no longer move, but rest close enough to his to maintain sparks while his wide eyes search my face for… something.

“Damian!” The woman insists.

“You know, Junia,” Damian sighs. “I think I’ve sacrificed enough for you. I chased you, even as you chased Reynauld, to this… malevolent place. You’ve shown me that not all kinds of pain can make you stronger.”

The pads of his fingers begin at the base of my spine, and as they travel up, more of his hand makes contact, until it lays flat on my exposed neck.

“You seem eager to balance out my pain with pleasure.” His eyes narrow just as his cheeks pull his face into a morbid, near maniacal smile. “Can’t say I understand why.”

“I’ve learned that the presence of one exaggerates the other,” I say through my tightened throat. 

Eager to prove I’m the ideal partner to teach him about give and take, I run my sharpened thumb nail down the middle of his bottom lip, splitting it. Luscious red blood swells at the wound and I suck at it tenderly.

Damian hums gutterally. He ducks in a familiar fashion and this time I’m ready for his arms to sweep me up against him. With my fingers combing through his chest hair, I sigh contentedly. As Damian turns to bring us back down the hill— thankfully away from the Abbey— I glance over his shoulder at his fellow agents of the Light. 

The woman, Junia, is glowingly livid. I now see that she is not simply a priestess but a warrior. Like the knight, she wears chest armor, and where he carries a claymore, she wields a mace. Her thumb swirls around the weapon’s pommel as she glares at me. I lift my head up just high enough to smile at her, showing all my teeth, elongated canines included.

“Do not provoke her,” Damian says. “She’ll plot your execution, no matter how close I hold you.”

“How can you tell?” I ask.

“Known her long enough to tell,” he says simply.

"How long is that?"

"Long enough."

Dismissive. She’s still an open wound on him.

I dig my nose into the edge of his chest, close enough to his armpit for me to inhale his male scent. It’s masked with blood, which would deter most of his kind, but instead pulls me in closer. Underneath the iron, there’s warmth— not unlike burning wood. More subtly, I smell fear. Something I’m all too familiar with, and it too, synonymizes my cold beating heart with his.

Distracted by my mute conversation with his natural scent, I look up when he stops walking. We're tucked next to the edge of an unmarked building. The one adjacent to us is loud and I recognize it as the Tavern. Just as I’m wondering where our destination is, he puts me down.

The metal flail clinks softly as he wrestles around with the fabric at his waist. I suppose he’s looking for something, but I cannot tell where his skirt ends and the supposed pocket begins. Apparently neither does he because this goes on for much too long.

It’s early evening. The sun begins to cast shadows as it lowers behind the woods high on the mountains to the west. Amongst the trees, the light haloes all too recognizable shapes.

Translucent wings. Thin tickly bodies.

My ears pick up a low hum, making my hair stand on end and I squint to try to validate my suspicions of being followed.

“What does this say?” Damian’s question draws my attention.

“Hm?” I look down.

An old brass key rests in his open palm. It’s heavier than I thought and my fingers stumble with it.

“Ninteen,” I say, once I lift it up in the dimming sunlight.

“And this?” He points to the door to our left.

“Eleven.” I follow him to the next door and say, “Twelve.”

At door nineteen he holds out his hand and I return the key. I’m eager to get inside, both for the privacy of a closed room with Damian and to avoid further conflict, which is determined to chase us.

Inside, the room is smaller even than my mother’s closet. In the ten by eight foot space, there’s a bed for one and a small chest at its end. I notice Damian examining the space just as curiously as I am.

“What is this place?” I ask.

He opens the chest, finding it empty. “Lodgings provided by the descendent.” Before I can ask, he continues, “I sleep in the Abbey. Ideally alone.”

Chewing my lip, I ask, “Have you ever been with a woman before?”

Damian drops the thin blanket he’d been testing between his fingers. A mirthless laugh huffs through his nose. “Never without payment.” He turns and sits on the bed not big enough for the two of us. Leaning back on his arms rounds his shoulders and his legs fall open, naturally drawing my gaze to his pelvis. “And not for a few years.”

He’s actually quite stunning. A raw geode, hardened by the brutal earth, but beautiful in its rarity and value. I am the opposite. Like the feather of a beautiful bird found in the road, completely ornamental, sometimes considered disgusting.

I didn’t expect myself to be this timid. Or become so attached to a man I’d very recently considered only as prey.

Shifting his weight to one arm, he beckons me.

"I'm not normal," I say, hugging my arms close.

"Oh? Can't say I've ever thought a woman could believe herself scarier than me."

“You think you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but you don’t.”

“Could say the same to you.”

I walk up between his legs. 

“Does your collar come off?” I ask.

He shakes his head slowly.

“Then…” My hand follows a repeated path into the gap of his hood, just below his chin. I feel his hair tickle my fingers against his nape. I won’t ask why he wears this filthy hood over his head, but I cannot suffer the absence of his eyes if we couple.

The old fabric gets caught on the metal around his neck, but with some manipulation, I’m able to remove it entirely.

As much as I wish his eyes were the first thing to draw my attention, I’m ashamed to say they aren’t. Of all the scars splitting his body, none make me so uncomfortable as the one beginning above his right eyebrow and continuing over his scalp. An inch across and nearly eight inches long, I choose not to wonder how he survived such an injury.

The curly, dark brown hair covering the rest of his head allows my smile to return naturally. I let one curl encase my finger before cupping his square face in my hands.

“I’m afraid I’m still scarier than you,” I admit.

Damian leans into me, his mouth ending in front of mine.

“I don’t believe you,” he says.

Emboldened by his complacence, I reach behind my back for the string holding my corseted dress together. The garment melts off of me. Impatient with gravity, he grips the front of my bodice and pulls. Carefully watching his eyes, I step out of the dark blue dress.

Thin, shiny wings wrap around my small ribcage to cover my petite breasts. A segmented torso leads to pleasingly swollen hips, but joins my armored legs in an alien sort of way. My ankles and feet are so thin, truly not designed for walking, and completely lack toes. At least the wasp-like abdomen that stems from my tailbone is out of sight for his primary judgments.

Unfortunately, his eyes remain guarded and I’m unable to make any guesses about how he feels about me, sexually or otherwise.

Damian must not be too apprehensive though, because he begins an exploration of me: feeling the wings pressed tight over my breasts, down my waist to my hips, pausing to venture curiously between my legs, then around to grip my buttocks. When he reaches my second abdomen, I wince. 

“I’m sorry,” I apologize as he pulls me closer to look behind me. “I know, it’s kind of gross.”

“Not gross,” he says absently. “Just big.”

I scratch the side of my cheek. “Actually, it’s rather small right now.”

“Really?” He tests its pliancy with his calloused hand.

“I’ve been on the run from my mother for a couple of weeks and really been too nervous to feed.”

A hum, so satisfying to hear that I place my fingers on his throat, resonates with understanding. “You’re hungry?”

I’ve been trying to ignore my salivating mouth for the past hour with some success, but now that he mentions it, I begin to feel malnourished exhaustion again.

“You feed on blood,” he says, when I don’t answer. “And you planned on taking it from me while I slept.”

Suddenly his grip on me between his legs is shackling.

“N-No,” I stammer, confused by his sudden aggression.

“I’ve encountered much darkness in my life, but never has it called so convincingly. Why? Why am I being tested now?”

Thick eyebrows exaggerate the rage burning in his tender eyes. Why is he so unpredictably erratic? It’s as if he hears words I do not speak.

“It’s not a test!” I scream in his face as he grips my wrist too tightly. “I’m scared and alone and starving! How could I possibly be a threat to you?” Despite the danger, I collapse against his chest and weep. “When you found me I thought you’d grant me peaceful death, but then,” and I realize I’m rambling quite embarrassingly but, “you took me with you and claimed me as your own. If anyone has been tricked, it would be me. You pretended to give me that which I’ve desired most, and for what? Am I an example to be made?”

His heat is intoxicating, even now. I’m a monster to him, and yet, I want him to want me. So terribly. So absolutely. I’ve never been so close to being treated as anything but a horribly disappointing, yet special, daughter.

I wait for him to push me off, to banish the darkness clinging to him so desperately. To pass his test.

“Forgive me,” he whispers, almost inaudibly through my pathetic wailing. I quiet, stifling a hiccup, with hopes that he’ll speak more. “I had assumed… and—”

After a few moments of silence, I push up from my place buried against his chest. His eyes no longer hold threats and instead bleed pity, bordering on affection.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” I ask, pushing the tears up and off my cheeks with the base of my palm. 

“I’m marveling at the irony.”

“Hm?” I blink to clear my vision and am shocked to see a smile on his face. This time it’s not fanatical like it was in front of the Abbey, but gentle with wonder.

“Darkness has granted me something that the Light has struggled to provide.” When his thick fingers grip my chin, I allow him to pull my mouth to his. “A kindred spirit. Mayhaps we are two sides of a coin. Two hands that fit together perfectly.”

“Yes,” I beg, speaking directly into his still open mouth. “Please, fill my broken spaces.”

He grants my request, beginning with his tongue sharing space with mine. His hands hold me like I’ll vanish at any moment. They touch me like I’m the first being he’s been allowed to embrace since he left his mother’s arms. And as I press my body into his, he almost begins to sing. He’s the most vocal partner I’ve ever been with. Each breath hums with pleasure and I swallow them greedily when they enter my mouth.

At first, he’s terribly sloppy. Too eager to slow down and much too out of practice to take the parts of me he really wants. When I dig my fingers past the edge of his waist cloth, he breaks apart from me.

“Delay that,” he sighs and snatches my wrists.

“Oh?” I perk. “I was merely attempting to keep pace with you.”

“This encounter relies heavily on a balance.”

Breathing heavily, he pulls the flail at his side and grips it purposefully. Just before he can swing it over his shoulder, I catch his forearm.

“May I?” I ask.

Damian blinks. “You want to flog me?”

“I want to please you,” I correct him. “But if it is pain you desire, allow me to grant it to you. In my own way."

“Your way?” he questions doubtfully.

“There’s two of us here.”

It’s a huge risk, I know, but I’m a bit worried that further flagellation upon him, with his back so recently whipped, will cause him to faint. Again, he searches my face. I’m not quite sure what for, but I maintain eye contact as I delicately relieve him of his weapon and place it upon the chest at the bed’s end.

Suspicion dominates his expression as I slowly kneel down between his open legs.

“Allow me credence?” I ask. “Please?”

Although I’m not granted a nod, he at least doesn’t seek to reclaim his weapon. When I place my hands on either side of his knee to push up the skirt around his legs, he straightens.

“It’s too much,” he argues, making an assumption as to what my open mouth seeks to do.

“It’s too much because you move too fast,” I say. “I listened to you flagellate for almost two hours, counting only four strikes. Tell me, what if you chose to enact all four hits in the span of only thirty seconds?”

“You were present the whole time?”

“Yes.”

I keep my hands still upon his leg, waiting for his answer.

“Four lashes from a metal flail in half a minute?” His bottom lip rolls into his mouth as he considers the effect. “It would be difficult to meditate on the pain in so short a period.”

I grin. “Precisely. Pleasure is pain’s contrary, but follows the same laws. Slow, methodical. I will show you.”

“But you said—”

“Yes,” I interrupt him. “I will be hurting you. Lay down.”

He doesn’t hide his skepticism. Pleasure has betrayed him in the past, clearly. His understanding of pain is complex and he’s used it as a substitute. It’s much more common that people do the opposite, escaping the fear of pain by means of overwhelming pleasure. I’m by no means an expert at harmonizing the two into complete bliss, but I’m more experienced than him. With luck we’ll be able to discover the balance together.

After a deep breath, Damian leans back on his arms, allowing me to further reveal his lower half. I bypass his erection to untie the knot at his waist, then lower myself back down next to his knee. My lips trace up the inside of his leg. The voice, raspy with pleasure, sneaks back into his rapid breath.

Just past halfway up his thigh, I open my mouth. My sharp teeth press into his skin, but don’t break the surface yet. I glance up to his eyes— wide, not with fear, but with anticipation.

When I bite him, Damian collapses, grunting with his lungs just as he had when withstanding the impact of his flail back at the lake in the mountains. The sound evolves arousingly when I bring my tongue up to coax out my meal from the fresh wound.

My pointed nails dig into his leg to hold it in place as he jerks.

I look up his body, over his twitching cock, to see him covering his face with both hands. His chest heaves as I drink my fill.

Most people know that the most direct route to blood is within the neck. I’ve been cursed to desire one whose jugular has been caged from my wanting mouth but the inner thigh might make for the perfect substitute.

The thick fluid coats my mouth and my eyes roll back into my skull. I’d imagine that it’s similar to a severely dehydrated man drinking water after days under the sun without it. Even if I wasn’t so malnourished and thirsty, his blood would still be the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Could it be that my desire to live in the Light is the cause for his holy body tasting so sweet? Or perhaps it is that it is so incredibly fresh, due to how often he bleeds himself out.

After three mouthfuls, I regain enough stamina to progress the sexual encounter. Beginning at the base of his sex, just above the testicles, I run my nail slowly up the shaft to the head.

He kicks, likely overstimulated and yearning, but I maintain my hold upon his right leg. After he settles down a bit, I pop my mouth off and lick my wet lips.

“Equitable?” I ask.

His thick, scarred hands run roughly down the length of his face. “Almost.”

I spy his Adam's apple bob with a tense swallow.

“Where is the deficiency?” I ask as my hand curls slowly around his shaft, tightening my grip with every passing second.

“Bite me. More cruelly.”

I slither up his body, leaving my hand to do some slow, methodical work. “Where?”

“Everywhere.”

So I bite him. Everywhere.

Shoulders, chest, waist, back, hands, legs, ass, ears— all but his safely guarded neck. My hold on him just borders the possibility of taking a chunk out of his flesh.

Half an hour later, I’m heavy with a stomach full of his blood and my secondary abdomen is swelling turgidly.

“Can I show you the points where the pain sings most sweetly?” he whispers as I nibble his split lip.

“You…” I shrink away from him. “You want to hurt me?”

I was hoping that eventually he would be so overcome by sexual desire that he’d lay me out to fuck, but in these last thirty minutes he hasn’t let me get any further than gentle strokes. Always begging for more teeth.

“It’s not so much a yearning to hurt you, but to participate.” 

“If you want to interact with my body,” I say, “I’d happily open my legs for you.”

Damian shakes his head slowly. “I’m so tender, there’s no possibility that I would last long enough to please you.”

“You can please me by touching me,” I persist.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

His determination is sobering me.

“I’m aware that people’s tolerance for pain is vastly lower than my own,” he says. “Allow me to lead you into it, as you’ve done for me. I won’t even break your perfect skin.”

I try to imagine what he will actually do to me. If he isn’t planning on bleeding me, I can rule out the use of his weapon, but imagining the other times that pain has been inflicted upon me by another causes me to shudder.

“I trusted you when you asked it of me. Are you unable to do the same?”

I lay my small hand on one of the larger scars upon his chest. It won’t kill me, I assure myself. When I look into his soft eyes, he moves them towards me.

“The balance?” I ask.

“The balance,” he affirms.

I pinch the edge of my wings pressed close to my chest and peel them up. “Okay, but don’t touch my wings.”

He follows their movement to an erect position behind my back. The sun has set by now and the moonlight coming in from the window doesn’t quite make them sparkle. I place my hands in my lap and look up to him, signaling my readiness.

Damian begins by cupping my ribcage in his two hands. His thumbs sweep up and over my breasts, catching a bit on my nipples. 

I exhale loudly.

His left hand rises to rest at the base of my neck. Carefully avoiding the sharp points of his collar, he kisses me slowly, methodically. I lead him into a comfortable rhythm. The wound on his lower lip reopens and introduces iron into our mouths.

My body jumps, nearly taking flight, when he pinches my nipple— almost brutally. The pain follows the roots in my breast and collides with the hot, insistent pressure radiating from between my legs, impacting the surface like a stone thrown into water, disturbing the fish. 

A breathy laugh of his fills my now immobile mouth and he coaxes me into resuming the kiss. The villainous hand smoothes down to my waist. 

Just as the fish have calmed, the hand lifts and smacks me hard across the side of my ass. The fish jump out of the surface and his hand on my neck tightens to keep me close as I excite.

“You’re easily distracted,” he teases. I can see the edges of his wide smile just past our two noses hugging.

“The balance!” I remind him. “If you’re not going to put your cock in me, at least use a finger.”

The square eyebrows curtaining his shadowed eyes shoot up to his forehead. 

“My hands are not clean,” he warns after recovering from my outburst.

“I don’t care.”

Traveling from my throbbing left buttcheek, he slides down the curve of my thigh. “I told you I don’t know how to do this. My courtesans never allowed me to touch them.”

Shadowing my hand over his between my legs, I draw a map for him. We explore each element of me and I even demonstrate a bit.

“And here,” I say as I push our two fingers up into me, “is where I’m waiting impatiently.” With my free hand I grip his still tenacious erection.

As Damin chuckles with amusement, I find I’m becoming addicted to his laugh. It’s so honest and he’s always a bit shocked when the sensation comes upon him.

The balance in the next few minutes tips from light sensation and abrupt pain, into hot pleasure. I’m surprised by his gentleness with his fingers. There’s a definite doubt in his movements but when I move with him, it’s dizzyingly satisfying. But as time passes, I can see dissatisfaction begin to alter his face.

Weaving my fingers through his short brown curls, I pull hard.

A gasp chokes him.

“Bite me,” I command.

His head dives for my chest, just as his hand tightens on my neck. The lack of blood flow to my head, his broken teeth torturing my breast and his slippery fingers swirling around in me breeds the most convulsive climax I’ve ever experienced. My shaking body confuses him at first, but I think the sounds coming from me convince him of what has transpired.

“Damian,” I moan. “Please.” I pull his face up to mine. “Please have sex with me.”

I twist around him, from the edge of the bed to the middle of it— pulling him along with me. Although he allows the movement, with him ending up on top of me, his erection remains stalwart against my thigh.

I cannot believe he’s still apprehensive.

“Why?” I ask, looking for the answer in his face. “Is it because…” I look down at my body next to his. Different. 

“I haven’t had sex, or even pleasured myself, in almost three years,” he answers, lifting my face away from our disparities. “I’m afraid of what it might do to me.”

“You’ve deliberately planned to be celibate? Because of your religion?” 

First humming, then exhaling a laugh, he shakes his head. “My sexual desires have always led me to make the wrong decisions.”

Bypassing his collar, I comb my fingers through his scalp until he hums appreciatively. “Even now?”

He swallows and I watch predatorily as his neck muscles contract. “No.”

My red eyes almost reflect in his, with how glassy they are.

Damian shifts his weight to one arm and uses his hand to decisively guide himself into me.

He buckles, and I oof as his heavy body collapses onto me. Luckily, the jagged edges of his collar narrowly miss my face. The wound striped back swells in my view over his shoulder as he breathes slowly and deeply. The pressure inside me is so incredibly satisfying after almost an hour of foreplay and it’s taking every ounce of my willpower to not rock my hips against him.

“It’s…” he pants a hot breath on my shoulder. “Too much.”

I feel him begin to recoil and I panic.

“Wait!” I wrap my arms around his shoulders.

The balance, my intuition whispers.

Just before he can leave me entirely, I extend my arm down his back and drag my sharpened nails up and over the freshly clotted flail wounds. Damian yelps, falls against me again, trembling, but remains blissfully inside me. 

I hum contentedly.

Listening to his breathing, I duck my head low enough to get a look at his face. His half closed eyes and open mouth give him the appearance of a drunkard.

“Better?” I ask, hopefully.

“Yes,” he sighs, then winces as I swirl my hips to move him around within me. “Can you—”

I dig my nails into his back before he can ask for it, the warm blood painting my fingertips. Sweat builds on his forehead and rolls over his brow.

“Mmm,” I murmur and take his mouth. It’s clear he won’t last long, as he’d predicted, so I don’t bother with delicacy. 

I move serpentine against him, moving him in and out of me with no assistance from his own pelvis, all while maintaining the brutal grip on his back. The blood rolls down over his lats and drips onto my stomach.

I muffle the scream accompanying his orgasm with my tongue. One of his hands grips my thigh hard enough to break fingers, while the other nearly tears the fabric of the bed beside us.  

First I release his bloody mouth, then pull my nails out from his flesh, but I’m not ready to let his sex leave me just yet. I wrap my thin legs around his, relishing the wisps of his leg hair tickling me.

I take a few moments to lick his precious blood off my fingers, never satisfied despite being sickeningly full of him already. 

Damian breathes irregularly and remains rigid upon me.

I weave between the spikes of his collar to take his ear between my teeth. 

“Go ahead,” I beckon. “Allow the blanket of contentment to lull you to sleep. I’ll be more than pleased to spend the night beneath you.”

“Hmph,” he scoffs and pushes up to sit erect above me. “You couldn’t possibly be comfortable with my entire weight upon you.”

I pout when he pulls himself out of me, soon after swinging his legs over the mattress’s edge.

“Don’t worry Damian,” I say playfully. “I’m difficult to squish.”

Damian turns to look me over again.

In an attempt to appear both seductive and benign, I tuck my legs up and suck one of my fingers languidly. A smile tugs my mouth when his eyes betray thirst.

“I think it unfair that you’ve been allowed my name without introductions,” he says.

“Is that a backdoor way of asking me for mine?” I ask.

“I suppose it is.”

I sigh and look out the small window. “Looks like you're about to leave. Why would you need it?”

The silence between us is only interrupted by our shallow breathing. Fledgling hope hatches in my chest when he doesn’t immediately dress but refuses to grow large enough to take flight.

“Why would I leave?” Damian asks, a shadow of humor in his voice. “If I only desired sex, I could have easily paid for it from someone less risky.”

I look at him to see amusement squinting his face. As my body unfolds from disbelief, he reaches out and snatches my ankle, pulling me to the edge.

“Remember the balance?” he asks. “I left the bed because your body against mine is making me weak. Now tell me your name.”

It takes considerable effort to relax my tense jaw.

“I-It’s Lottie.”

“Lottie,” he says. “I will be sleeping on the floor.”

“Please don’t,” I beg.

He snatches my wrists before my hands can reach his face.

“My strength comes from pain and suffering. I can already feel your affections acting as a solvent. I cannot be thinking of you when I am at death's door.”

I squirm. "You don't think coming back to me would motivate you to live?"

"My evasion of death has not been from defiance. It is my embrace of it. Death does not like to give only to take." I feel him look past my eyes. "You seem to understand this."

My lips roll into my mouth. "One night with me could never be so life changing. Allow me to share your warmth under the moon at least this once."

Damian grumbles and takes a step back. "Either you underestimate my wounds or overestimate my tolerance."

"Please?” I stand from the bed to press myself against him. “Life is so tumultuous here, I have doubts I'll ever be given another opportunity to experience desire like this again in my short life."

"Lottie…"

I take his hand and guide him back into the bed with me. He resists but with little effort. After a slight wince laying on his back, I slot myself up against his chest and in between his legs. Running my fingers through his hair and inhaling his thick, complex scent has me dozing in seconds.

“Thank you,” I moan.

A series of banging on the room’s door launches me off the bed, while only barely rousing Damian.

I whimper, peeking over the mattress to the rattling door.

Propping himself up on one arm, my partner pinches sand from the corners of his eyes before assessing his environment. When his eyes eventually land on me, the visitor beyond the room knocks again.

“I hear you,” Damian yells.

As he reaches for me, the door chunks and opens.

“Damian,” a familiar voice interrupts. “Ah, cover up, will you?”

Damian growls, turning back towards the entrance and I retreat below the anterior edge of the bed.

“Why would I, when you—”

His speech cuts off and as curious as I am, intuition keeps me in hiding. I hear the movement of fabric and then the sound of fine shoes on the wood floor.

“Vacate the room,” a different male voice commands.

When I hear the sound of Damian’s flail jingle, I peek.

The doorway is mostly consumed by Barristan, the man who guided me to the Abbey yesterday. Close beside him is a finely dressed man, his lovely face shadowed with impatience.

“Vacate the room,” he warns again, “or I will have you extinguished, as is my right, through your binding oath.”

“What will you do with her?”

“I’m afraid that is none of your concern.”

“She belongs to me.”

“And you belong to me. Everything in this land is mine by inheritance, including you as you’ve agreed to residence within it, and by extension, her.”

“The contract I signed stated that my life and possessions would be forfeited to you at the time of conscription, but nothing of what I come to possess afterwards.”

So he can read. Then why—

“My land,” the man reiterates.

“I didn’t take her from your land.”

It’s become quite clear to me that this man is whom they refer to as the descendent. Antiquated as he is, his impatience and inability to empathize is costing him true loyalty— at least from Damian, that is.

“What proof do you have that she isn’t from my lands?”

“What proof do you have that she is? Have you ever seen her like before? She’s no misshapen mermaid, nor a reanimated skeleton. She speaks, possesses reason, has a concept of morality seemingly no different from our own.”

I dare not correct either man. Both because I do not know how far the descendent’s claim on land is and because, as my mother would say, his claim may not be the rightful one. The ancestor was an adulterous man. Why he’d chosen this particular relative to inherit his corrupt manor, me and Mother have yet to discover.

“It matters not,” the old knight weighs in. “She is unmistakably upon the descendant's land now. He has authority to question her motives, and if necessary, remove her from the Hamlet.”

The party stills and my eyes sweep between each man nervously until the knight takes a careful step towards Damian.

“Damian,” Barristan sighs with sympathy. “Did you honestly believe she would go unnoticed? Even if she came in upon the stage coach these questions would be forced upon her.”

Damian sheathes the flail in his waist wrap, crossing his arms shortly after. “Why must I leave?”

“Her sudden, devoted relationship with you is suspicious,” the descendant says. “And your response to her is even more worrying. Now, vacate the room. I will not tell you a fourth time.”

The man’s shoes click twice as he steps aside to show Damian the open mouth of the doorway.

Before I can decide whether to speak before Damian’s forced out, he strides from the room, trembling with rage, and slams the door behind him.

“Lovely,” the descendant groans. “Come out, now. The longer you hide, the more confident I will become of your devious nature.”

He’s like Mother, I remind myself— all rich people with power are. Respect that they sit in chairs above you, but do not cower. Speak only when spoken to and give answers only to the questions asked. Come when summoned and appear presentable.

Can I be presentable, naked and shaking?

I swallow the thick spit in my mouth and rise on my small feet, pretending that I’m approaching Damian and not a sovereign.

Neither man gasps at the sight of me, but I know eyes well enough to tell that they do not care for what they see. I step lightly around the edge of the bed and fold my hands politely before me. If I was dressed, I would curtsy, but I’m a bit off balance on my feet with an abdomen full of blood.

“Charlotte,” the descendant addresses me.

My eyes narrow as my teeth grind sickeningly.

From within one of his sleeves, he holds up an off white sheet of paper, folded three times, and stamped with the courtyard’s seal.

“Your mother,” he explains, unfolding the letter and rereading its letters, “the Countess, has requested I return you to her loving care.”

He did not ask a question, I remind myself— do not speak.

“You’ve run from her?” he inquires, tucking the letter away.

“Yes,” I say.

“Why?”

“She is cruel.”

“She is cruel,” he repeats skeptically. “Are you claiming that her desire to repossess you is a falsehood?”

“No.”

“Why would she go to such lengths to seek you out if she treats you so poorly at your home?”

“Because I am her only means to contest you.”

His composure shatters. Posture slackening, the letter falls from his sleeve to crimp against the ground, and his mouth drops open.

“Excuse me?”

I’m shocked to hear fear in his voice and not outrage.

“I am the bastard child of my mother, the Countess of the Crimson Court, and that of the recently deceased Ancestor of the Estate. I suppose… that would make you my nephew?” I attempt a curtsey despite my previous resignations. “A pleasure to meet you.”