Renegade [NSFW] (ThenThereWereNone & MoldaviteGreen)

[MoldaviteGreen]

(!!!) Trigger warning: this story may contain dark themes such as non-consent, manipulation, interracial abuse, sadism, addiction, and more, while abiding by site rules.

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Eishrin Wahd had never been a man for enclosed spaces. It brought out the worst in him, forcing long-since buried memories to shove to the surface. Yet, he'd found himself leaning against the far corner of a bar, an untouched whisky in hand, as bodies pressed in against him at all sides. It was suffocating, and not just because of the little space he was being afforded. He could smell them all—the heavy fumes of artificial fragrances, the ripples of masculine arousal and feminine desire, the salt of perspiration and the overbearing dull tones that denoted them all as human.

So very human, in fact, that Eishrin considered leaving the dark pit of the nightclub's lower basement. They were not why he was here, neither was the godforsaken deep bass thrumming through his broad chest. Being there was achieving nothing but a drilling headache, clawing at his sinuses from the assault upon his sensitive nose.

Worst of all, his presence was beginning to draw attention, for nothing about Eishrin was subtle. At six feet and eight inches, he stood well taller than the crowd; a giant among the rest. His skin was dark like ebony, warm-undertones seeming a deep shade of caramel when the fanning blue lights flashed across him. The only colour Eishrin bore was the soft pink at the seam of his lips, and the deep crimson of the silk shirt loose over his buff frame and open across the chest. Among the crowd of trap-music seekers, drug-snorting partiers, and sleazes, Eishrin was a dark enigma.

"Are you going to drink that?"

The feminine voice was half-flirtatious and half-slurred, barely carried over the electric-house music. A young woman had pushed herself between Eishrin and a fellow club-goer, now peering up at him with large, dilated pupils. He could smell the liquor on her, edged with something chemical that he knew to be MDMA.

"No." Eishrin's voice, low and even, was nearly deeper than the bass of the music. He didn't engage with the brunette and hoped she wouldn't push him further, instead looking out at the crowd over her head. Somehow, Eishrin doubted it would be that easy. Humans had a hard time accepting 'no' as a complete answer; always feeling like they were owed further reason.

"I can drink it for you," the brunette insisted, staggering a step forward and catching herself upon Eishrin's body. Her hand pressed against his abdomen, finding nothing but tense, sculpted muscle; something she seemingly approved of. "I can also swallow a lot more than just liquor, if you like."

Black eyes flickered down to the woman's flushed face, holding her gaze with an intensity different than the one she clearly hoped for. She was pretty, yes, but she was not Eishrin's type.

"I'm not interested." Thick, dark fingers encircled her fake-tanned wrist, drawing her hand away from the radiant heat of his body before letting it go. The muscle of Eishrin's jaw tensed, his teeth grit, as this woman's neediness struck his nose. "Go look for cock elsewhere."

He knew what she saw, and what she hoped for. The dark of his skin carried a certain kind of allure among humans, despite their own diversity, just as it came with a widespread belief that darker was synonymous with thicker, bigger, rougher. This woman was drawn to him in the hopes of being pinned down and fucked by a thick, black cock—something Eishrin wouldn't oblige to give her, because he wasn't there to fuck, he was there to hunt.

She didn't even feign offence at his bluntness. Instead, the brunette seemed to take it as an invitation for further banter. "I like your jacket," she preened, reaching forward to touch the studded lapels of Eishrin's leather jacket. "It's so punk."

Punk to her, perhaps. Punk to the others watching on with morbid curiosity and lustful fascination, maybe. To Eishrin, this jacket was everything. Worn almost everywhere, it held the truth of his life—each stud upon the lapel and seam of the sleeves being a life he'd taken. It was not punk to him, it was his tally of kills.

The fine bones of her wrist were caught again but, this time, Eishrin's grip wasn't gentle. He watched as she flinched, beginning to struggle against the large of his palm, but he didn't care. To touch him unsolicited once was rude. To touch him without invitation again was punishable.

"You should keep your hands to yourself, little girl," Eishrin growled, the white of his teeth bright against the rich ebony and pink of his lips. His grip tightened still, sure to leave a red mark in its wake, before he shoved her wrist back at her. "Others may not be so forgiving."

She fled then, holding her reddened wrist to her chest as she disappeared within the crowd. The noxious scent of chemicals, liquor and arousal lingered for only a few seconds more in her absence before fading. While Eishrin had been hopeful of some amount of relief from his headache, something sharper struck his nose.

He knew that scent anywhere—richer than the earth, sharper than anything metallic, and spiced like ginger. Yet, there was another layer, more subtle than the initial waft, that had Eishrin's dark brows pulling tightly together over a thick nose.

An unbonded Keeper.

The mixed metals of the few beads in his locks tinkled as Eishrin turned his head, subtly scenting the air with a deep inhale. He couldn't work out where it was coming from, the basement so packed with the stench of human pheromones that it was hard to decipher.

His dark eyes combed through the faces, meeting the gazes of a few but never lingering. It was difficult to spy any shift in features with the way the blue light was panning across the crowd. Each flash could have been a hint, but also a trick of the light.

The grip on his tumbler tightened, a bead of dew sliding down the glass to fall upon the bar, as Eishrin grew visibly more tense in anticipation.

Where are you, you sneaky fucker?​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

​

Bellamy was no stranger to the virtue of patience. He was well acquainted with the fickle nature of haste and that sometimes, the best action was inaction. Rather than fighting against the manic ebb and flow of bodies pressed too close, he took advantage of the cover it afforded him. Every swap of dance partners steered him closer to his quarry. A sense of urgency nipping at his heels. An urgency borne of anticipation, of weeks spent learning and studying his prey.

He was so close.

But then there were sweaty palms on his waist, pulling him back against a solid chest and an obvious tent of arousal poking at his lower back, while a petite bird of a woman, her breasts nearly spilling from the low V-cut of her shirt pressed against his front. Her smile coy, hungry. Unwittingly, he found himself the cream filling between two slices of human bread. An amusingly apt description, given his all black ensemble dramatically emphasised his alabaster complexion, and the strobing blue lights painted his hair silver. One might have mistaken him for an apparition.

Bellamy spared the woman a cursory glance. Her male companion he didn’t bother to acknowledge at all as his gaze darted back to make note of the bar’s occupants. To be sure his prey hadn’t slipped away in that brief second of inattention. But Eishrin Wahd was not someone who could be lost in a crowd. He stood with all the immovable force of a mountain, his presence as sharp and forbidding as it was alluring.

Two pairs of hands roamed over the sheer fabric of Bellamy’s shirt, groping the wiry muscles of his arms, and chest, the absent sway of his hips. Background chatter. It would have been easy to give himself over to the moment; To the bone-jarring music that made his teeth ache; To the cloying cloud of arousal that invaded his senses; To take what was so eagerly offered. But if easy and eager was what he wanted, he had the pick of the litter. Humans, the low hanging fruit. Guardians, well-bred, house-trained, and with a feverish desperation to please.

What he wanted was to attain the unattainable.

The woman, emboldened by Bellamy’s silence and lack of protest, looped her arms around his neck, her fingers reaching to tug his hair free of its topknot. But all her hand managed to grasp was empty air.

Perhaps not the most subtle or smart thing to do, but it was poorly lit, drugs and alcohol were free flowing, and his unbonded Guardian was much more focused on attempting to rid himself of an unwanted admirer. Ever the opportunist, Bellamy took advantage of the distraction. Slipping through the crowd with liquid ease as he edged along the perimeter where the dancefloor met the bar. It was unfortunate he couldn’t hear the words that were exchanged. His lips–a burnished pink–canted up towards the beginning of a smile as he watched the girl scurry away quicker than she’d appeared, cradling her arm like a wounded pup.

How curious.

As he approached the corner bar, the rush of anticipation, of his patience finally coming to fruition drew a light brush of colour to his pale skin. He slid onto a barstool, leaving the space of a body between them. A space that remained empty in spite of the boisterous crowd: human minds, already susceptible to suggestions, were even more so when under the influence. All it took was a simple impression that the space was occupied.

Bellamy dragged his tongue over the blunted tips of his very human teeth. His voice, when he spoke was smooth, lilting, with a touch of curiosity coated in accusation “You haven’t yet touched your drink.” He stared pointedly at Eishrin’s glass of whiskey, “And if you grip any tighter, I worry it might shatter. Are you perhaps waiting for someone?”

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

That scent drifted closer, the notes far sharper than those swirling through this den of debauchery. There was only one silver stud upon the other golds of his jacket he'd driven into the black leather with pride after such a rare kill; that of an unbonded Keeper. They were few and far between, for having a creature bound into servitude was far more lucrative than to not. The slow, double beat of Eishrin's heart sped up just a fraction at the thought of adding another silver stud.

Just as it grew nearer, there came a sudden change. Was it their direction? Had they changed their mind and decided to flee? Or was it simply the shift of air about this dark cesspool that forced their scent to sweep away?

Eishrin only grew more tense, the seconds seeming to grow longer. His black eyes still scanned, forever searching for the most subtle of hints of something other. Yet, he was met with only blank eyes, mundane faces, and an unquestionably human crowd.

So where…?

The stool before him was taken, and Eishrin stiffened; a surge of adrenaline pulsing through his bow-taut body. There was no need to question any longer. Eishrin had his answer. The unbonded Keeper had gracefully slid beneath Eishrin's gaze, taking the opportunity provided by wary, cursory glances to settle atop the stool beside Eishrin's hip. There was still space between them but, for all that mattered, the Keeper might as well have been sitting on Eishrin's chest.

This Keeper's scent penetrated far deeper into the viscera of his lungs than he liked, that dull headache suddenly becoming splitting. Eishrin's pupils would have narrowed, his nostrils flaring slightly as he scented the air again. Power. Unbridled, and unrestrained. Yet, it was laced with something darker still.

The tingle at the base of his skull was familiar, and all too unpleasant. Eishrin despised being so near to these creatures; those who claimed to be his makers, but were, truly, his jailer. Or, rather, they had been when he was little. They hadn't been for the last 36 years, and the only times he'd found himself close was when he was drawing his knife across their slender throats, carving out their hearts, or crushing their bones. He relished in the vengeance of it, but he didn't relish this.

The panning blue light of the club swept over them, catching the snowy white hair that almost shone metallic. It was silver and silken, the kind of long hair that one ached to comb their fingers through, but Eishrin's only balled into a fist by his side as the other gripped the glass tumbler tighter. But it was their eyes that held Eishrin's attention; a rich shade of blue that appeared somehow frosty, and like the depths of the ocean at once. ​

The brunette had not been Eishrin’s taste, but what sat perched upon the stool by him could have been. Could have, and not was, because the young man before him was both his prey and his only, true predator. A beautiful personification of death.

But these creatures were not beautiful. Like the magic they harboured, they were cruel and twisted and monstrous. Human nature is for violence, but the nature of Keepers was something far more sinister. The knife strapped to the inside of his waist felt hot against Eishrin's flank, his body's own reminder that it was supposed to be embedded deep within that pale, creamy flesh.

This was what Eishrin was here for, his prey having fallen into his lap. So why did he feel like he had been the one stalked, baited and now trapped? Because he had been, in a way, and while this Keeper was unbound, he was a threat to Eishrin all the same.

"Original," Eishrin seethed, the dark of his eyes focused sharply upon the features of the Keeper's face. The smooth lilt of their voice was like honey, but carried a masculine edge harboured also within the lean muscle of his frame. It wouldn't take Eishrin much effort to end him, but the watchful, curious eyes of the humans milling about them prevented such quick extermination.

"A woman used nearly the same line as you, hoping for a fuck," Eishrin spoke crudely, the sharper points of his thick canines flashing white against his dark lips. "But I have a feeling your wish is for something else."

His knuckles had paled with his tight grasp upon the tumbler, his untouched whiskey seemingly a popular point of conversation.

"Would you like that?" Eishrin's face was neutral, stone cold as it always was; the icy rage barely held back by the grit of his teeth. "For the glass to shatter, the shards to cut me, for me to bleed across the bar where you have to lap it up with your tongue?" Eishrin's canines flashed, as he spoke the derogatory term so toxically; "You critters are all the same."

For a moment, Eishrin seemed to apply more force to the already strained glass. A lightening bolt of a crack splintered through its clear surface. But it did not shatter, Eishrin's hand instead moving to lay flat over the polished fake marble of the bar.

"I was expecting someone else, I'll admit," Eishrin confessed, his eyes raking lowly over the sheer black of the Keeper's shirt, the bow farcical considering his truth. "But you'll do just fine. Perhaps you being unbound will mean you bleed sweeter."

The whiskey was pushed across the bar the little way between them, its rim cracked and ready to crumble. The amber within remained untainted, but it was still a test. To eat the same meal, to drink the same liquor, as a Guardian would be to debase himself. No Keeper would accept such an offer. He was asking this young man to drink liquor from someone he considered as a dog.

Eishrin's grin was wolfish. "Finish it, if my full glass is offending you." ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

This close, his Guardian was stunning to behold. His eyes obsidian dark and just as hard, displayed the depths of his hostility. It was written all over his body. Palpable in its intensity. Bellamy traced the lines of it, along sharp cheekbones, to lips that demanded his fangs sink into their fullness. Lower still, his eyes roamed over the column of a strong neck , down to where Eishrin's rich ebony skin disappeared beneath the crimson covering of his shirt. What a shame it was to have all of that strength and beauty hidden beneath clothes. Bellamy's pale gaze lingered on the man's exposed chest. The tips of his fingers tingled with a predatory hunger to feel the immense heat radiating from the expanse of all that silken skin. How vulnerable and easy it would split open at the prompting of his claws, beading drops of red.

Having lingered long enough undressing the man with his eyes, he finally acknowledged the leather jacket with its studs glittering beneath the strobing blue lights was a warning as much as it was an affront to every lost Keeper and Guardian. Vulgar, in its mockery. The thought of plucking them off, one by one, of making Eishrin watch–or perhaps he would make the Guardian remove them all himself–was a satisfying possibility. He sequestered away for later consideration. In the moment, the man's voice, deep and smooth, rippled through Bellamy's veins and he flicked his eyes up–away from the low hum of resentment that warmed his blood–studying the near glowing white threat of fangs peeking from between the other man's lips. The bloodlust in his flinty gaze.

Here stood a reservoir of untapped potential.

One, that Bellamy would claim for himself. Eishrin's power was wasted on the Sect and their fanatical hatred. Too long they'd been left to run unchecked, spreading like the blight that they were. And now after decades of failure and dozens of deaths as a result, it was time their wayward Guardian came home.

While the other man was unable to take physical action given their current venue, he didn't hesitate to use his tongue to unleash all sorts of filth. Bellamy didn't rise to the bait of the barbed words flung at him. He arched a pale brow, "So that's what she wanted," a musing, absent response as he noted the man's white-knuckled grip on the glass. The corners of his mouth lifted, humouring and cruel. "And if you know what we critters are like, then you know I want so much more than just your blood."

Even with the bass of the music vibrating the floors of the nightclub, the unmistakable chink of the glass giving away beneath Einrish's hand reached Bellamy's ears and he noted the crack now marring the crystal. The man's rage was arctic. A lashing, living thing.

"I might've apologised for disappointing you, but your manners leave much to be desired. Perhaps it's true what they say about you Sect fanatics, feral, boorish folk. What's it that humans say?" He cast his gaze out over the multi-limbed creature made up of dozens of bodies gyrating and writhing on the dance-floor.

"Oh yes, that's right," he snapped his fingers, as if the answer finally came to him, "More brawn than brains. Though I do wonder–" he drawled, pressing a pale index finger against the cracked rim of the offered glass and dragging it closer, "if perhaps this was a flaw of your kind in particular, and why you're all that's left of a bygone breed."

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

The pound of his heartbeat drilled deeper inside his skull, driven with relentless intensity of the young man's scent. It smothered Eishrin, becoming suffocating, like water upon a cloth held over his face. There was no escaping this, and there would be no escaping him. This game of theirs had barely begun, but was already so very dangerous. Only one would walk away a victor, and Eishrin was wise enough to know that a cornered Keeper's power was unmatched.

Glinting obsidian met brilliant, pale blue; their gazes holding so intensely that the tingle at the base of Eishrin's skull intensified to a trill. "That's just the problem," Eishrin stated. "You want for so many things, but they'll never be enough. How am I to guess what it is you seek, when you lust for it all?"

Still, Eishrin's mind was alive. What does he want? What does he want, from me so specifically? Was this purely chance, or have I been distracted enough to have not realised I've been tailed? Was he sent here to kill me, like some? Sent to recruit or lure or drag me back, like most? Does he truly think that he, of all, would succeed where so many others have failed?

The questions were too much. Eishrin's eyes fluttered closed, dark against even the ebony skin of his high cheekbones. A hand rose between them, so suddenly, to pinch the bridge of his wide nose between the pad of his forefinger and thumb. And when he took his next deep breath, only this Keeper filled his lungs; staining them like tar.

"Forgive me," Eishrin growled as he shifted, the edge of the bar pressing into the curve of his lower back as he turned to face the throng. "For I find myself unable to believe that you would seek me out for polite conversation, and I've never been one for manners. Not with your kin, and not for you."

The sharp click of the young man's fingers was a dagger straight into his eye socket, and the muscle at the corner of Eishrin's jaw jumped. This dangerous game was becoming far more so with each passing minute; the assault upon his senses wearing his patience thin.

Eishrin took a breath, ready to quip back at the young Keeper; his mind so alive with deep-rooted venom. What are you here to say, because I have surely heard it all. That it is my sacred duty to swear fealty to you, to dedicate my life and body to your pleasure and safety. That, by remaining unbound, myself, that I am disgracing my ancestry. That I'd be better among people of my own. And yet, none of those words were spoken, for the Keeper had torn them right from his mouth just as he did the breath from his lungs.

"If that is what you believe, then even your history books have misled you."

Eishrin cast a glance sidelong at the Keeper, and he wished immediately that he hadn't. The sharp features of the young man were almost regal, bordering androgynous, timeless beauty. The blue strobe light swept over him again, revealing an expanse of cream flesh beneath the sheer organza of his shirt. Those cutting blue eyes were watching him with a flicker of something Eishrin couldn't place. Was it malice? Was it boredom? Was it merely because he was waiting for an innate response?

It came, granted to the Keeper by way of a low growl sired within the deep of his broad chest. It rumbled higher, resonating within the thick of his throat. "If it is such a flaw," Eishrin seethed, "then let it be known that at least I am free."

That carefully constructed space between them vanished. Thick, ebony fingers linged, jabbing beneath the edge of the stool seat to capture the metal supports. In the quick second of took to drag the stool closer, it grated across the floor. They were close now, the soft scent of the Keeper's shampoo now mingling into the perfume of him, with Eishrin's heat all but a barricade.

"Tell me what you want…" Eishrin's own fingers found the other side of the tumbler, so very close to brushing against the other man's digits. He pressed it further, though his eyes never left the shape of the Keeper's face. "…while you drink my whiskey."

Another taunt. Another dare.

Eishrin moved slowly, his feet shuffling just a step as he turned into the Keeper. There'd be nothing but pulsing, scorching heat and sheer rage radiating from him. Not even as his shoulders shrugged inwards some, his posture one a mirror to intimacy, as he looked over the Keeper in a casually slow perusal of his leaner form.

When he spoke again, Eishrin's eyes weren't just black, they were ringed with gold; a Guardian so very close to the edge of his sanity. "You want me to play nice? Start with being honest."
​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

For the most part, Bellamy had remained silent. Satisfied to watch the man warring with himself, no doubt to free himself from the misery of a Keepers company. He neither confirmed nor denied whether he possessed an insatiable wanting. A yearning to possess it all. He stifled his visible amusement in the wake of Eishrin’s ever growing ire.

But then the man continued on and Bellamy leaned forward slightly, amusement dancing in his eyes as his lips quivered, “Free.” His laugh drifted out low and incredulous. “Your naivety surprises me. And I am not easily surprised. .. Free.” He huffed out that final word, tone dripping with derision.

He didn’t lean back when Eishrin turned suddenly, dragging Bellamy towards him, stool and all. It all happened in the blink of a second and his chest expanded on a sharp inhale. His olfactory senses picking the warm scent of the taller man that now more or less loomed over him: Spiced, and warm, and tasting of a lightning storm. He licked his lips, and could almost feel the electric current flickering across his tongue.

Bellamy peered up at the man. The heat of him near stifling. Was his skin just as feverish to the touch? The blunt nail of his finger lightly tap-tapped the rim of the glass, resisting the temptation to tiptoe around its border and up the thick digits of Eshrin’s hand. “Not much for foreplay, are you?” Gaze locked on Eishrin’s, unwavering in its intensity–the sole of his boots sliding smoothly along the ringed footrest of his seat–Bellamy parted his legs as the bigger man shuffled closer. The nightclub, in all its frenzied din of noise and bodies and smells, lingered on his periphery: Outside of his immediate attention.

Did he want Eshrin to play nice? Bellamy lifted his shoulder in a contemplative shrug, as if he didn't care one way or the other. “I think I’m enjoying this lack of niceties, it's quite befitting of your feral nature.” He was pleasantly aware of the warning in Eshrin’s eyes. The bright ring of gold denoting the volatile and unstable state of his psyche; his control was impressive. Though the unpleasant thought that Eshrin could be pushed into exposing the both of them in front of dozens of humans did cross the Keeper's mind.

A whisper of caution.

Bellamy ignored it. “I am open to honesty, but let’s focus on one matter at a time, yes.” Eshrin simply needed to calm himself. The man was far too surly, as if he hadn’t a lick of humour in his body. “Seeing as you’re very keen on my drinking your whiskey. Let us make a trade.” Eshrin’s insistence that Bellamy have his drink was an obvious tell that the Guardian was aware of the implications. Of the uncouth nature of what he suggested. Made all the more offensive and unforgiving by the fact that they weren’t even a bonded pair. And this display was so very public. Some of the Keepers' customs and traditions were a strange and exhausting labyrinth of absurdity. Something Eshrin seemed smugly aware of.

But two could play this game.

“I will drink your whiskey and in exchange, you will let me have a taste of you.” Lifting his hand that wasn’t still lingering on the rim of the glass, Bellamy waved away any incoming protests, “Noo, I won’t bite you. Calm yourself. A simple kiss will do. A proper one of course, but I promise to keep my teeth to myself.” He smiled, brief and sharp, a full set of fangs–four in total–on display. "What say you?"

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Eishrin wasn't sure what was worse—the ever-present silence that hung between them, so heavy he felt he could cut it with a knife, or the creeping desire to prove this Keeper wrong.

Because there was a danger far worse than that of this verbal barrage. It was sewn into him so deeply, so intricately, that he'd never be able to tear it out. A construct of his genetics, the written code that linked him, even still, to this man's kind. A deep-rooted need to please. It had been something Eishrin had denied, though had never truly experienced. For his last lengthy conversation with a Keeper had been held within the Sect's lower bunker, the critter chained to a chair, as pieces of him were removed one by one. Eishrin was beginning to battle his own inner nature—something he'd never been forced to face.

And he hated this Keeper for it.

"I am more free now than I would ever have been, chained to one of yours," he grit out; the muscles of his square jaw pulsing as he tensed. It was a truth that he believed, knowing that freedom would always demand a price. It had only been a matter of what he was willing to sacrifice, what he deemed an appropriate payment in return for relative freedom. Because he, the last of his kind, would never truly be free. The truth of it, spoken in the silken honey of the young man's voice, stung worse than it should.

The grind of the stool's metal legs across the wet, dirty floor was high-pitched, ringing within Eishrin's already sensitive ears. The nearness of them was a careful dance, the dark man already walking a razor blade's edge. Self-control had always been something Eishrin had harboured. Had needed to harbour. A crazed Guardian was a dead Guardian, and the balance he walked every moment of every day between blood-lust and sanity was ever thin.

It was stretched thinner, still, as he watched the soft pink of the Keeper's tongue peek between the rosy seam of his lips; taking the air, tasting him. The dark coal of his eyes swept downwards, pinned unashamedly the the curve of the other man's mouth as it twitched with the beginnings of a cruel smirk.

So many things happened within the single space of a second—Eishrin drinking in all that was this man. The soft flare of his nose as he caught the scent of Eishrin, pulled closer into the radiant heat of him. The glimmering sheen upon his lips that lay left behind with the sweep of his tongue. The cream of his skin that seemed almost ghoulish in contrast against the sheer black of his shirt. The silver-white of his snowy hair that fell beyond the lean slope of his shoulders, begging to be wrapped around a tight fist. The tap of his nail against the cracked rim of the tumbler that shot heat through Eishrin's veins—bolting, pooling, primal.

The mention of foreplay, and Eishrin's lack thereof, wrenched his dark eyes back to the icy blue gems of the Keeper's gaze. It came paired with the parting of his legs, creating space between his knees that Eishrin had nearly forced himself into. That lashing of fire driven through him with each tap of the other man's nails began to pool lower than he'd care for. Lust and blood-thirst were so intricately interwoven that they so often blended into one. That's all that this was. That's all that this ever would be.

"Feral was how your kin made me," Eishrin breathed out, not having realised he'd held the hot air trapped within his lungs. "I'm a slave to instinct, as is everything else."

Right now, that instinct was misguiding him. Eishrin's blood felt hot, his skin feverish, as he forced his other hand deep into the back pocket of his dark trousers. Away from where it ached to touch, the thigh it yearned to squeeze and spread further apart. That very same yearning sank low in his hips, beginning to pool in a place so often left forgotten; a beginning swell pressing out against fabric.

Blood-thirst. That is all this is.

At the mention of a trade, Eishrin's thick brow rose. Was the Keeper seriously considering drinking from the very cup he'd held within his palm for longer than an hour? His lips had never touched the rim, the liquor within virgin, but it still held an uncouthness. For once, Eishrin didn't school his features into a look of cold distance, allowing the flash of surprise to linger for a second more before the corner of his mouth twitched in a satisfied grin.

It fell, however, when the Keeper named his price.

A kiss. Simple, really, and yet it carried a weight for Eishrin that it did not for most. He fucked, yes. He bedded, he’d come deep inside the warm body of another, sure. But what Eishrin did not do was kiss. He'd avoided all possible sentimentality, all things that could sink their claws in and change something from 'fun' to 'distraction'.

The pounding of his heart became uncomfortable, then. The thick-walled muscle beating hard against its cage as if it yearned to leap free. He felt the up-kick of his pulse at the sides of his throat, drilling hard against the overlying ebony of his skin. A taunting, he realised, to the man before him who'd fed many a time upon arteries of the same distinction. The flash of his fangs, the glamour of his human appearance now lifted, had Eishrin's shoulders bunching.

Fuck, he needed a drink.

Dark, thick fingers caught the narrow of a cream wrist, Eishrin's sudden grasp upon the Keeper's arm only firm enough to demand cooperation as he wrenched the tumbler free. Even as the cracked glass was taken, the splinter of its walls glinting like creviced ice within the flashing strobe light, Eishrin's hold upon the Keeper didn't loosen. Instead, his fingers tightened, wrapping around the fine-boned wrist to draw it an inch closer across the bar.

The seam of the tumbler settled upon the dark blush of his parted lips, before Eishrin tipped back his head and drank deeply. The liquor burned his throat as he swallowed, but he savoured it; gifted a fleeting distraction from the smouldering heat in his groin. Not once did those gold-rimmed eyes shift away, Eishrin holding the Keeper's gaze as he drank more than half of the whiskey; the notch of his throat bobbing with each swallow.

The tumbler knocked against the fake marble of the bar as it was set down harsher than he'd intended. It sat between them, a debased and degraded thing, now carrying a far nastier implication.

"Do you like whiskey?" Eishrin's voice was like thunder, deeper than before and coated like sweet syrup. His hand still clasped the Keeper's pale wrist, the rich contrast between deep ebony and pale milk not lost on him. It fuelled that fire, turning a smoulder into a lashing flame, a part of him beginning to stir.

"It's a Sherry Oak, double malt. While I'm sure you have luxurious tastes…" Eishrin's eyes lowered to the cream body given to him in ghostly glimpses, hidden by the fine organza of the dark shirt, "…it may not be to your liking."

He grew bold. The rough pad of his thumb swept over creamy skin, over the notch of the Keeper's slender wrist as he drew it slowly towards him across the bar to lay by his flank. That was, perhaps, the most modest of his gestures. The air between them seemed to still as dark fingers curled under the sharp point of a pale chin. Only then did the dark of his eyes pull away, falling to the seam of the blushed lips he'd watched so closely before. His thumb was hot against the Keeper's cooler skin, rising to capture the pulp of flesh of his lower lip. Slowly, it was drawn downwards, exposing the sharp points of those four threatening fangs.

It should have repulsed him, the idea of bending to this Keeper's will and granting him his wish. But it was a trade, was it not? The simple act of a kiss in exchange for drinking the now-dirtied whiskey. In exchange for the Keeper to publicly sully himself.

The pink lower lip snapped back into place, released from under Eishrin's wide thumb, as those rich eyes flickered up to catch blue. A step was taken, the Keeper's knees pressed apart by Eishrin's own, the height difference between them expansive with the other man perched upon the stool. It didn't matter if the Keeper didn't spread for him, for Eishrin would knock them apart.

When Eishrin spoke again, it was in a hushed bedroom purr. "Perhaps you need a sample, a tester, before committing to such a malt." A statement, not a question. A deal taken, and not refused.

The fingers curled beneath the Keeper's chin unfurled, brushing over the high of his throat before sliding leftward over alabaster skin. They tracked higher, skimming over the sharp of the Keeper's cheekbone, smoothing over his temple, before running back through silver hair. Eishrin's touch was gentler than it ought to be, the heat of his palm settling against the side of the Keeper's face. But it shifted, his fingers drawing together over scalp to lock tendrils of snowy hair between his knuckles. Eishrin didn’t pull, but he held firmly.

"It's always best to be sure."

Blood-thirst, and nothing else. ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

Whether Eishrin chose to serve or not mattered little; to the Keepers, to the Sect, he was a resource. Valuable. One of a kind. Neither side willing to let him go. Eishrin could deceive himself into believing he’d had a choice, but a cage was still a cage. Freedom an illusion.

Being dragged closer, Bellamy studied the other man's reaction to that closeness. The way his dark eyes drank him in, lingered on his lips. There was more to the heat in the Guardian’s eyes; more than just hostility in that roving gaze. More than just blood-lust. He could smell it on him, beneath Eishrin’s own personal fragrance, the beginning smoky notes of arousal tickled Bellamy’s nose.

“You were never meant to be feral. You were bred to be exceptional. To be loved, admired, desired. Respected. You would have been trained, cultured, a finely honed weapon. The Sect have defiled you. Made you into… this. Wild. Unrefined.”

And as if proving his point, he raised both eyebrows as Eishrin jammed his hand in the pocket of his pants, as if fighting against himself. Resisting. Pale eyes lingered on the starting swell that tinted the front of the other man’s pants. He lifted his gaze. Considered the consequences of drinking from this Guardian’s cup. The personal and societal ramifications. But the end result far outweighed the blow to his pride.

So he proposed a trade.

Watching with a blooming warmth of vindication as Eishrin’s expression shifted. So the man could be surprised. What a thrilling prospect. And just as satisfying, was to watch the man’s smile fade away.

Was it the kiss the other was so averse to? Or was it that Bellamy was a Keeper and there was no love lost for his kind as far as it concerned Eishrin?

Either way, it lit the start of a low flame within him. This taking of something reluctantly given. A steady drum beat thundered in his ears, reverberating through his bones and his gums ached with the need to sink his teeth into flesh. To feel it give away beneath his bite, the sweet warmth of a creature's life force trickling over his tongue, flooding his mouth.

He needed a drink.

Eishrin’s searing touch closing around Bellamy’s wrist drew his hungered gaze away from the thrumming pulse in the other man’s neck. He blinked, glanced down at where Eishrin so boldly held him. He hadn't expected it, but he relaxed his fingers, his wrist, his entire arm. Deceptively pliant.

He watched with a dry ache in his throat, ire prickling through his chest in the face of Eishrin’s insolence as the man put the glass to his lips. Their gazes held. Neither blinked. Neither looked away.

The glass, sat down with all the grace of a beast, now holding a swallow left, taunted him. Daring him to drink from it now.

Did Bellamy like whiskey? “I can’t say I care for it one way or another.” But he did care to taste it on the other’s lips. To trace with his tongue, the blush pink seam of Eishrin’s mouth. To part dark lips glistening from the touch of whiskey. Would he taste sweet? Spiced? A smooth, fiery combination reminiscent of both?

Body still, a breath held, his head tipped back as Eishrin took hold of his chin. His lips parted, fangs on display beneath the prompting of Eishrin’s thumb. And had Bellamy not already given his word to keep his teeth to himself in this exchange, he would have nipped at the man’s thumb, at his boldness.

His display of dominance.

Because that is exactly what it was. Read clearly in the rich, gilded dark of the larger man’s gaze; in his push forward, stepping between Bellamy’s legs. Forceful. Unyielding. The Keeper parted for him, straightening, a slight arch to his back, loose and mellow, though there was a darkness swimming in those twin depths of pale blue. A curiosity, a thirst, an anticipation not unlike that of a predator observing their prey willingly step within striking distance.

Eishrin’s touch was a trail of fire along the side of Bellamy’s face and he turned ever so slightly into it. His pulse spiked a skip-beat as the man’s hand entangled in his hair. “... A sample," he murmured, a hitch to his voice that hadn't been there before, "How unexpectedly courteous of you.”

More of his glamour fell away as tips of pale fingers sharpened into claws. The hand not captured in Eishrin’s palm, rose to settle beneath the man’s leather jacket, pressing against his side. Claws sharp enough to rend through the delicate silk of the Guardian's shirt ever so delicately tiptoed higher, up across his abdomen, stopping just short of touching the man’s exposed chest. Instead, he bunched the fabric between his fingers, tugging the taller man down. Closer. "What is it you’re waiting for?” His voice purred a challenge. Taunting.

“Permission?”

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Eishrin wasn't sure what it was—be it the purr of the Keeper's voice as he taunted, the white fist that caught the silk of his shirt and yanked him closer, or the stab of the word permission—that evoked such a visceral reaction within him. Nor did he care. In his forty years of life, he'd learned that it was often easier to allow such a violent reaction to wash through him; allowing it to be like a wave, rather than a crashing torrent.

A wise man would have taken a moment to centre oneself. An observant man would have noticed the dozen sets of eyes watching them from the writhing, dark mass. A man with a sense of self-preservation would have denied the Keeper his wish, forgone the trade, no matter the amount of personal satisfaction gained from watching this critter debase himself so wholly. In that moment, Eishrin was none of these things, because the ever-thinning self-restraint he'd so carefully woven finally snapped.

The thick, ebony fingers within the silken strands of alabaster hair fisted tightly, raking dull nails over a taut scalp. The blue strobe light flashed over his face, but it was entirely swallowed by the depths of Eishrin's dark eyes—his pupils blown so wide that the gold was left only as a narrow ring, almost absent. And as the last tether of sanity was finally undone, Eishrin snarled; his upper lip curling back to reveal the thick of his canines, before he rushed forward.

Their kiss was anything but gentle. It was a collision of lips and fangs and will. Eishrin possessed the Keeper's mouth, the sharp points of his canines scraping over the soft of the young man's lower lip. He didn't take the moment to liken the softness of the man's mouth to anything. Nor did he relish in how sharply honeyed he tasted. Eishrin consumed, and he did so with the only intention of breaking.

The large of his other hand found the base of the Keeper's throat; his fingers growing bold as they wrapped over the gentle sweep of the man's collarbones to curl over his lean shoulder. The very same thick thumb that had toyed with the Keeper's lower lip, pressed firmly over the hollow of his throat and curled in against hard-beating artery. The hold wasn't possessive, it was dominating. A clear distinction drawn in the sand.

They couldn't fight here. Eishrin couldn't drive the blade of his knife between the Keeper's narrow ribs to puncture that cruel, blackened heart. But he could make the Keeper ache. Could make him break. Could make him regret.

Eishrin's eyes had fluttered closed, his dark lashes like charcoal against his skin. The flat width of his nose pressed tightly against the cream of the Keeper's cheek, his breath hot and heavy as that blood lust curdled louder within Eishrin's ears. The headache pounded harder, throbbing in beat with the pulsatile heat of his cock that pressed outward angrily against his trousers.

And when the sharp points of his canines snagged the supple flesh of the Keeper's lower lip, puncturing them shallowly, he couldn't help the long, languid sweep of his tongue; drawing the dark blood into his mouth to swallow. A piece of you, Eishrin thought, instead of a piece of me. How the tables have turned.

But it struck him harder than he thought it ought to have—the taste of it all-consuming. It warmed his gullet, sliding down into his belly, where it turned into hot lava and sank into his loins to pool and turn an already burning fire into an inferno.

Those eyes, dilated and golden, shot open as Eishrin pulled free of the kiss. His lips were coated with a fine sheen of their saliva, tainted by the blood he'd stolen from the Keeper. There, he lingered, their mouths still so torturously close, Eishrin's core pressed hard against the Keeper's stomach, his thighs between the other man's own, held wide, as Eishrin released the startling absence of that long-present headache.

Ninety-nine.

Ninety-eight.

Ninety-seven.

Get it together.

Ninety-six.

Eishrin's fingers slowly unravelled from the silken threads of the Keeper's silvery hair, pulling free with what seemed like a hesitancy. It wasn't, though, for Eishrin was moving so achingly slowly because he was trying so desperately to cling to what made him a man. Because that beast inside of him—ancient and feral—was clawing so furiously closely to the surface.

And the Keeper would have the wits to know it.

Eishrin shoved away, putting a little distance between them. The ebony hand at the base of the Keeper's throat was the last thing to pull away, tightening in a split second of a threat before receding.

"The next time I have your throat," Eishrin said lowly, the words growled deep to resonate within his chest, "I shall be taking your life from you, and I'll be sure to savour it."

A threat, perhaps. A promise, most certainly. One spoken with an edge of bitter resentment that coursed through him far more darkly now. Eishrin had no reason to despise this Keeper besides for what he was, and what his kin had done to Eishrin's own. But now he held a deeper fury, the hatred spurred from the way the Keeper had made him feel. Hatred, because the blood he'd stolen from his oppressor had given him relief from the drill within his skull. Hatred, because the inferno raging within Eishrin made his blood hot and his cock harder; a betrayal of his own body.

Ninety-five.

Ninety four.

Blood lust. Nothing more.

Eishrin's dark finger caught the cracked glass, drawing the tumbler across the bar to sit closer to the Keeper. "I gave you the kiss you yearned for," the poison dripped from his words. "Drink the whiskey." ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

Was it something he said? It happened in less time it took to blink, but Bellamy could sense the exact moment Eishrin splintered in two. His beast clawing, roaring to the surface. Trapped in its prison of skin and bone. The man’s eyes deep, impenetrable pools of black, the gold only a suggestion. Bellamy only had time to inhale sharply, a gasp trapped in his throat as Eishrin’s fingers twisted in his hair, evoking tingling sparks of pain along his scalp, before the man took his mouth. Punishing. Unrelenting. A single minded focus to consume.

Bellamy reveled in the heat of it. Gave himself to it. The violence. The soft plushness of Eishrin’s lips– the only soft thing about the man–, the nip of canines. He drank in the rage, the sharp tart that was beast and man all in one, with a lingering hint of sweetness. His breathing grew heavier, his pulse a rising drum beat as he bared the long, pale column of his neck to Eishrin’s grasping fingers, the threat and strength of them.

His body a living, thrumming wire, Bellamy ached. Splinters spider webbed through his self-control. A rising need to take, to consume, to ravish the man intent on dominating him. He craved Eishrin’s blood, his tears, his misery, his pleasure.

Bellamy stiffened against the sharp, sudden prick of canines in his bottom lip. The dampness of his blood beading to the surface which Eishrin–feral beast that he was–quickly lapped up. The rough wet drag of the man’s tongue across his lower lip drew forth a low moan that was more vibration than sound.

As Eishrin broke the kiss, Bellamy slid closer to the edge of his seat, his legs spread wide to accommodate the bulk of the larger man. Slowly, he released his hold on the other’s shirt, his fingers trailing a slow path–mirroring Eishrin’s gradual loosening fingers entangled in his hair–downwards, over the hardened defined lines of Eishrin’s abdomen to stop at the button of his pants.

Lifting his gaze away from the glistening temptation of Eishrin’s lips and meeting the man's eyes, Bellamy saw what only a few moments earlier he had tasted: The beast throwing itself against its cage. Rabid and lost to blood-lust. A promise of death.

And then Eishrin was shoving away–as if he weren’t the cause of them having been so close–his fingers dragging down and away from Bellamy’s throat with a parting squeeze. The man’s words, vitriolic in tone caused a ripple effect and Belleamy drew closer. Easing off his seat, stepping into the space Eishrin had abandoned, closing the gap. Standing at his full height, he came just a handful of inches past Eishrin’s shoulders. "Oh, the fun we could have.” He sighed, brushing the lapel of Eishrin's leather jacket, its cool to the touch studs between thumb and forefinger, "It's a shame you allow your hatred such control.”

Oh, the fun they would have. In future. If this night unfolded as planned. If Bellamy succeeded in avoiding the promise of violence, of his blood being shed, his life taken. Perhaps, because he already walked a tight-rope of life and death, he threw himself so whole-heartedly into the beast's maw. Turned on by the risk. The promise of what would follow.

The glass once again shoved towards him drew out a low chuckle. “Aren’t you persistent!” Shaking his head, a different sort of tension thrumming through his veins, he reached down to encircle the rim of the glass with the tips of his fingers. A cold, thick trickle of unease, of wrongness crept up his throat. Lodged itself there. Would he really be forced to degrade himself like this?

"As if this would be the first time." The cruel voice of memory cut deep. Poking and prodding at a wound never healed.

Rotating the glass, he finally picked it up. Drawing it to his lips, he let it hover, his pale eyes inscrutable as he watched Eishrin.

A witness of one.

A small price in the grand scheme of it all.

"Santé," he tipped the glass, lips parting to gather the amber liquid in his mouth, its dry, spiced, leathery heat washing across his tongue, some slipping down his throat. Setting the glass down hard enough the cracked crystal finally gave way, crumbling in on itself in hundreds of glistening shards atop the bar, he grabbed hold of Eishrin, claws pressing into either side of the man's jaw as he hauled him forward, down to his level. Alabaster skin against ebony. He forced their mouths together, harsh and seeking, licking along the seam of Eishrin’s lips. True to his word, he kept his teeth to himself. Much as instinct demanded he have a proper taste. Much as his vindictive nature demanded, ‘it was his right’.

Slowly, he pulled away. His grip on Eishrin, unyielding, "It's a shame," he whispered, close enough their breaths mingled, lips grazing. He reached with his free hand between them, grasping the throbbing hardness of Eishrin’s cock through his pants, "I would have been most amenable to offer my assistance.”

With a final squeeze, he released the man completely. Stepped back.

"Now, let us see how capable of a hunter you really are." And with a parting wink, he melted into the crowd of dancing bodies. Once again riding the wave of motion. All the sounds and smells came rushing back in with a vengeance. His ears rang, his head throbbed. He slipped through the throng of masses, farther and farther away from the bar until he broke free of the madness of the dancefloor, and followed the glowing red letters that read 'EXIT' down a darkened hall vibrating with the thumping rise and fall of the music. Up a set of stairs and another turn led to a steel door and he pushed through it, the door squealing in protest as it deposited him into a side alley.

The night air was cool and stank of trash, piss, body odor and all other manner of filth. Sirens wailed in the distance, the nightclub's droning bass thrumming up through the asphalt and from the closed door behind him. Late night pedestrians, laughing, stumbling, lost in worlds of their own moved past the opening of the alleyway. Bellamy turned left, walking deeper into the alley and its winding pathways, taking the long way round. Away from the club. From the chance of witnesses. His skin prickled with anticipation, the thrill of the hunt back on.

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

There came the soft shake of a sound, rolling deep within the pale conforms of the Keeper's body. It snagged at Eishrin's heart, sinking invisible talons deep within already quick-beating musculature, to force a quicker up-kick. His pulse sped, the sound of his blood rushing through his ears near-deafening as his lips parted and a sigh escaped him; the Keeper's moan far more delicious than it should have been.

But this was all wrong. This was only his biology responding to that which it had been genetically instructed to crave. He was feral, perhaps, but there were still pieces inside of him that reacted to things predefined and written within his biological code. Instinct only went so far, genetic engineering went deeper.

Why, then, was there a lack of yearning to please? The heat Eishrin was feeling crawl up from beneath his jacket's collar should have been paired with this very coded desire—to please this Keeper before him, to worship him. The fire that lashed furiously within him was not driven by this, but Eishrin's incessant need to destroy. To take. To consume. To relish in the destruction of eradication.

What little space he had carved out for himself, stepping further along the bar as his knuckles turned pale in fists, was shorter lived than he'd hoped. He didn't doubt the Keeper could sense the reaction within him, for it was so plainly obvious in how it pressed against the dark of his trousers; thick, and swollen, achingly hard. That, in itself, was difficult to ignore. For any subtle shift in his movements had the right fabric smoothing over his groin, gifting delicious friction where it ought not to have. It elicited a shiver from Eishrin that he barely concealed, and ended quickly with a stiffen as the Keeper encroached closer.

"Nothing besides your death shall ever be fun," Eishrin grit out, staring down at the shallow whiskey. He couldn't look anywhere else, afraid of what the clawing, caged beast inside of him might do should he see those pale features twisted with cruel amusement.

The Keeper, however, was insistent. The touch of cream fingers came to the studs over Eishrin's lapel, smoothing and pinching over the cool pieces of metal that represented each of the man's own fallen kin. Eishrin wondered if the Keeper new, if that rumour and myth of him had circulated that widely—the Guardian who killed all whom crossed his path, who sent pieces back to their clans, who wore his tally of kills with pride, and who still remained free from the bond of a Keeper.

He hadn't realised, but Eishrin's gaze had swept down to where the Keeper was so casually touching him; lingering upon those slender, cream fingers. Perhaps he'd send one of these fine-boned digits back to this city's own clan, and then several more in the days to come. A persistent nightmare for them that came as a carrion of warning.

Yes. These greedy fingers will do so very nicely.

Eishrin watched them fall away, his prize already claimed within his mind, as the corner of his mouth twitched with a seditious grin. "Persistent. Feral. Courteous. Naive. I did not realise you carry a thesaurus."

Little by little, that ring of gold grew thicker; his pupils beginning to constrict ever-so-slowly. Within his head, Eishrin continued to count, his heart beat becoming more steady within his chest. Because what he ached for now was to watch the Keeper sully himself with a drink tainted by Eishrin. The whiskey now fused with the saliva of a creature this man considered less than a dog. Eishrin was beneath him. It made the Keeper's demand for a kiss all the more confusing, but Eishrin shoved that thought away.

"Drink," Eishrin insisted again. "Drink deeply."

This game between them had shifted—two men performing things so very taboo before an audience completely unaware. It had his cock throbbing, that raging inferno beginning to work its way lower into the heavy sack that hung below, and Eishrin to shift his weight from one foot to the other as he granted himself some friction. It did nothing to sate the hot need in him, something he hadn't felt for years, but it cleared his mind just enough for it to remain silent as he watched the Keeper clasp the tumbler and consider it.

Yes, Eishrin thought, his nose flaring a little as he inhaled deeply, holding the honeyed air within his lungs. Taint yourself. Sully yourself. Debase yourself by taking me.

The cracked rim of the glass settled upon those soft rose lips, the seam of them parting slowly. Eishrin watched it all, unable to look away, and the moment seemed to drag. The amber liquid crept along the tumbler's wall, the glass tilted, until it kissed those same lips still red with Eishrin's bite. The liquor spilt over, cascading across the pulp of the Keeper's lower lip to fall within the warm cavern of his mouth. Eishrin wondered if it burned. He wondered if the Keeper greedily accepted it like mouthwash after a bad meal; to rid the taste of Eishrin's own mouth from his tongue. The notch within the Keeper's slender neck rose and fell, bobbing with a single, deep swallow. Would it bob like that if he were on his knees?

Eishrin blinked, his upper lip curled back in a snarl. Such a feral thought, to imagine this Keeper on his knees before him, but one that came vividly nonetheless.

Where time had slowed, it now quickened; seeming to make up for its perceived delay. Eishrin's shirt was caught by two alabaster fists, his frame pulled forward with a strength that did not befit the man before him, and his own mouth claimed. Eishrin wanted to believe he tasted only whiskey, but he knew that to be a lie as his tongue swept out, catching the warm tip of the Keeper's own, tasting the sweet mulled honey of him.

And when the Keeper pushed away, a breath left Eishrin that was more shaky than he'd care to admit. This is fucked.

Not quite as fucked, however, as how brazenly the Keeper caught the hard length of him, trapping him against his pale palm. He squeezed, purring noxiously sugared words that had Eishrin tilting his face a little to the ceiling as he forced his eyes closed.

Eighty-four.

Eighty-three.

Eighty-two.

Eighty-one.

Eishrin's whole body tensed as the Keeper pulled away, his touch rescinding from where he so hungrily craved it. Abyssal eyes snapped open, that brilliant gold within entirely gone, the darkness within having conquered. He did not need to shout above the bass, nor snag the Keeper and pull him close to be heard.

As Eishrin watched the Keeper slip away into the crowd, the beast only whispered, knowing that he'll be heard; "Run, little rabbit."

The sheer size of him alone was enough for the writhing mass to part for him, splitting around him like a sea against a stone. They smoothed along against him, their hands wandering, but Eishrin didn't feel them. He felt only the sharp of his senses, so perfectly honed in on the flurry of a Keeper's heartbeat as it grew distant, than was swallowed by the closing of a metal door. Eishrin's toothy grin was malicious as he took two steps at a time, rising to meet the metal and shoving it open with such force the hinges cracked. A human might have said something, might have called after him and taken a couple of steps, but Eishrin had already turned left.

Everything else within the world about him reduced to almost nothing. The trash was no longer pungent, the sick as a woman knelt by the gutter did not assault his nose like it ought have. For Eishrin breathed only one scent in, letting it burn into his mind and stain the deep viscera of his lungs. He smelt it all—the tart of adrenaline, the rich musk of masculine arousal, and that cinnamon spice he knew only of this Keeper. It drew Eishrin along the twists of alleyways, the darkening streets, until his quiet footfalls brought him to the very end of the same cobble-stoned alleyway.

The moon was high above, a thick waxing gibbous that washed the city in light. It cast a glow about the Keeper, transforming once silvery hair to something near luminal, shining so brightly it stung Eishrin's sensitive eyes. The thick of his brow pulled down in a scowl, his upper lip twitching, as he considered the distance between them.

"Why delay the inevitable, little rabbit?" Eishrin called, the rich baritone of his voice edged with a deeper reverberation of something truly primal. An ebony hand swept backwards, dipping underneath the jacket, before revealing the glint of a silver knife. It's blade was curved, nearly as long as Eishrin's own forearm, and it sung within his palm for a feast. "This is what you came to me for, isn't it? Lured here by the idea that you could conquer something so many others have failed to. Why else would an unbound come all this way? Make all this fuss?"

A shard of glass crunched beneath the thick sole of Eishrin's boot, splintering across the cobblestones. The Wendigo approached closely, his steps heavy, as he scented the air again.

"The hope I smell on you," Eishrin grinned, his teeth radiant against the shadow of him, "will be delicious when I carve it out." ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

"Run, little rabbit."

The Guardian's words, whispered after him in the thick of the crowd, still lingered, having raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck. His body near vibrating in the wake of it. Was he being hunted? Was he the one hunting?

It was the most alive he'd felt since his brother's recent passing. This reckless act. Tempting death. Yvain would not approve.

He heard Eishrin before he saw him. Felt him before he smelt him. An encroaching presence that grew closer by degrees. Swiftly closing in. And then he was there and Bellamy found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place. The cool damp of the rough stone wall at his back, Eishrin’s bulk blocking the only exit.

His heart thumped in his chest, jack-rabbit quick, adrenaline roaring through him as the deep, rich bass of Eishrin’s voice reached his ears. An inhuman quality to it that promised all that the man had previously threatened. “Perhaps,” Bellamy started, scathing sarcasm colouring his tone, “I was in want of your titillating conversational prowess. Or to behold the legend with my own eyes.” He pressed himself against the wall as if he might melt through it. But he only inched along, moving sideways. Eishrin's blade glimmered beneath the moonlight, its wicked curvature a deadly promise. Its reach sobering, adding length to Eishrin’s already longer wingspan. How many Keeper’s lives had that blade tasted?

How many more would it take?

"A sadist after my own heart,” he purred, noting the distance between them, how many steps it would take to close it, “I quite enjoy the flavour of shattered hope, myself."

Eishrin was taller, bigger, and by all means stronger. This last part might've been indisputable fact if Bellamy wielded a human's strength and didn't have magic at his disposal. So long as Eishrin didn't shift into his beastly form and Bellamy stirred clear of being shredded to ribbons on the Guardian's blade, the odds of victory were more or less balanced. His greatest advantage was to get close. Granted that also opened up a gaping margin of error and intuitively he knew not to go for Eishrin’s throat and the throbbing pulse calling to him like a beacon. Instinct demanding he answer the call. His eyes incapable of looking elsewhere.

Foolish and woefully predictable.

“Will I be a silver or gold stud adorning your jacket?” His hands clasped loosely behind his back, thick, black, smoke-like tendrils writhing between his fingers, he pushed away the wall. The toe of his boot knocked an idling can across the cobblestone, where it bounced and clattered as it rolled away.

It was foolish to draw it out. To open himself to all the ways it could go wrong, up against an experienced killer driven by one goal, goaded and poked to the point of where all reason had scattered on the wind. But as he launched himself towards Eishrin, there was a thrill of wanting to draw it out. To throw himself headlong into the range of that blade. To feel death’s caress against his throat.

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Eishrin did not believe his name to be synonymous with ‘sadist’.

The world of man was cruel, but the hidden existence of another even more so. It demanded blood, the sacrifice of innocent life, while perpetuating the enslavement of an entirely brain-washed people. To define a cult was simple, but this world of theirs was far more reaching; stretching across the globe, its claws in governments, private organisations, research labs and criminal underworlds. There wasn't a place upon this Earth that was free from the degeneracy of the Keepers and Eishrin sought retribution.

Retribution for those already lost; their lives blindly given to creatures they believed they ought to worship, their Creators. Retribution for those still to come; the intricate planning of breeding bloodlines, creating the strongest of warriors through composition of genetics, yet to be born, but planned generations in advance. Retribution for those who suffered now under the Keeper's rule, the boot on their necks; crushed, but convinced otherwise.

Yet, Eishrin would be lying if he labelled himself as selfless, without his own personal search for vindication. For he sought retribution also for himself; the time spent within that cold, clinical environment, being pierced with needles, his blood stolen and spun and sampled, his tissue and temperament tortured. How could it be selfish if it was what he deserved? He deserved to make them pay. They owed him that. They owed them all that.

"Your blackened heart," Eishrin snarled, the dark leather of his boots carrying him quietly forward, advancing in on the ethereal vision of his prey, "will be the most enjoyable flavour of all."

He'd carve it right from the Keeper's chest, plucking it with a talon from behind its cage. Eishrin knew that a Keeper's heart held the truth of them; flavoured subtly but differently. What would this Keeper's heart tell him? Would it tell him of regret, or of malicious and entitled pride? Would it tell of an untapped power, or a weak magic? Would it tell Eishrin how dark this Keeper's soul was?

His heart beat came as a war drum, beating hard within his skull in time with his steady footfalls. Eishrin was a menacing man as he was, but he'd begun to shift. It was subtle at first, how he began to hold himself. No longer was he the straight-backed man with stiff posture and cold face.

Everything Eishrin felt was now written upon his face—blood-thirsty rage, steady certainty, desirous violence, and an edge of psychopathy. His spine had began to curve, his posture brought forward ever-so-slightly; a beast beginning its crouch before the final lunge forth. The broad of Eishrin's shoulders were rotated inwards, the knife-wielding hand held out to the side as he twisted his wrist, making sure the bright moon glinted off its blade. There was a softness to his knees, absorbing the impact of each step, until they became perfectly silent.

Gold. This Keeper's death would be marked by a gold stud upon the jacket's untouched breast pocket—a place of absolute distinction.

Eishrin's answer never came, for the silver-haired apparition sprung forward, tearing away from the wall. He moved fluidly, with a grace humans might only recognise as feline, but Eishrin knew its truth. This Keeper ran, launching himself into the danger, with an other-worldly agility not befitting of this plane. The shimmer that ran at him, a darkness brought over his hands and snaking over his arms, had Eishrin's pulse up-kicking.

Yes. Yes, come to me.

And, so, their dance began.

Eishrin dug his heels into the crumbling cobblestones, a foot pressed forward into a brace. The lithe form of the Keeper would not strike him to misbalance, but Eishrin knew that magic could. He braced, his thick canines on show as his eyes glinted, reflecting the moon with wolfish hunger, before he launched himself sideways.

Spinning, Eishrin was quick, two steps closing the distance between them. At the last moment, that curved blade slashed through the night's air, running parallel with the ground and directed at the Keeper's lean belly. Spill blood, open guts, carve out the heart, take souvenirs to send as warnings. That was Eishrin's methodology. That was the nastiness forever tethered to his name.

Yet, that knife caught no flesh. No sinew or bone or gizzards. It caught only air, the Keeper nothing but a ghost, as Eishrin caught himself in a turn, his feet kicking up small pieces of gravel as he skidded.

His miss only made him see red.

The snarl that tore from him came from the belly of a beast; the monster inside him clawing to be free. To be let out. To feel the soft flesh of the Keeper's face inside his maw before the skull would shatter. To render this Keeper nameless, lifeless, meaningless.

Eishrin flipped the blade over in his hand, now held back towards his forearm as he lunged again, aiming higher at the Keeper's throat. This Keeper was going to take more effort than most, but Eishrin would make him submit all the same.

And then he'll stud his leather jacket; another unimportant number in his tally. ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

It was a known truth that a Keeper's heart was sacred. Some even believing a Keeper’s magic originated in the heart. But all understood that it was the essence of who a Keeper was. And many clans held the practice of consuming the hearts of their deceased. There was a long standing tradition where the newest head of a clan would consume the heart of their predecessor; becoming the bearer of their memories, fears, secrets, of all that they were, of who they had once been. The known and the hidden.

An honour and a curse.

An act so sacred that to have one's heart consumed by an enemy was an ultimate disgrace amongst the Keepers. The stigma of which had condemned many a bloodlines.

To be consumed by a Guardian–A slayer of Keepers, no less–drove Bellamy more than the thought of falling to this beast's blade, of being yet another glittering bauble upon the Guardian's jacket, of having drank from his glass.

He watched, calculated as Eishrin stalked forward, footfalls soft. Silent. Taking note of the weighted atmosphere that began to press in around them, the slight bow and shimmering edges of the larger man’s frame, he moved. Not giving the man the chance to shift and tip the balance in his favour, Bellamy lunged towards him. A thick rope of swimming darkness lashing out. Whistling past Eishrin’s face as the man pivoted. Stepping sideways and spinning with a speed and grace that belied the bulk of him.

The distance having suddenly disappeared from between them, Bellamy only had the chance to turn mid-run, rising up onto the tips of his toes as his body curved forward into an arch not dissimilar to the blade that whistled mere inches from his stomach.

Too close. Too fucking close.

He leapt backward, skidding to an abrupt halt, his back now facing the alley's opening. Before him, Eishrin was a man only in form and nothing else. His focused self-righteous fury glimmering in the depths of gilded eyes, canines near luminescent against his dark skin and the shroud of night that covered them. The snarl that reverberated off the walls was all beast.

And then the man was charging towards him, his blade flipped, his intent harrowingly clear.

Bellamy met him in the middle, dropping to his knees at the last second. His head tilted skyward, the blade whizzing over head, catching the tips of his hair as the silver-pale locks drifted down around his shoulders.

He lunged forward, up onto one knee, directly into Eishrin's body, pressing the palm of his hand against the man’s stomach. A shock-wave slamming through the tips of his fingers, knocking the larger man back. And in the same instant, he gathered the surrounding shadows into solid matter, flinging three needle-thin shards after Eishrin.

Launching to his feet, he was a blur of motion in the wake of his projectiles. Not allowing the other man the room or space to try and shift. Mind quiet, breaths shallow. Instinct guided his actions. Kept him light on his feet as he ducked and twirled just outside the reach of Eishrin's heavy, unrelenting assault. Though more than once, he felt the cold sting of the blade having nearly met its mark.

Whether it was sweat or blood, or both that trickled down his skin remained, for the moment, inconsequential.

Experience and punishing hours of being pushed to the point of collapse kept his volatile magic just within his control. A writhing, living extension of himself, it lashed out with a vengeance, after having been forced into dormancy for so long.

A harrowing thing of beauty, their dance of death defied Earth's natural order. Two inhuman forces married in a display of the most immemorial of rituals.

A war of wills.

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Darkness was an entity with which Eishrin knew well. It had been his only friend as a child, his only solace as a teen, and now darkness was his very mirror. But what shot past his face, grazing against his cheek to leave behind thinly carved flesh, was something so dark and so abyssal that it was not familiar. What power was this? What magic did this Keeper harbour? And how would it sweeten the flavours of his heart?

The Keeper had been the first to draw blood, but that cut began to knit itself as Eishrin rushed forward once more, his knife held high for the Keeper's throat. The droplet of blood upon his cheek remained, clinging like a ruby against the ebony of his skin. He'd make the Keeper pay for that, starting now.

The two became a blur, a dance of light and dark beneath the high of the moon. Eishrin, so quick and nimble despite the large size of him, was over the Keeper, his blade only catching the ends of a few silvery strands. The man had anticipated him, dropping and arching the delicate bones of his spine, exposing his throat to Eishrin. It would have been easy, to slice it from ear to ear and watch the cascade, but Eishrin had aimed higher.

The curved blade flashed over the Keeper's face, glinting with his own reflection. Yet, just as Eishrin used his momentum to twist his wrist and angle the blade down at the lean, alabaster of the Keeper's throat, that cream hand shoved into his stomach with a force that rippled through Eishrin's bones.

He was flung backwards, his feet lifted from the cobblestones of the alley, before his spine cracked against the far wall. There was distance between them now, but that mattered little. For the Keeper's unfamiliar magic shot forth from him in spikes, leaving Eishrin to curl his arms inwards, cover his belly, and grit his teeth. One pierced his abdomen, low and just over his hip bone, and it tore a snarl from Eishrin as he dropped his hands away from his face, fisted the dark spike, and tore it from his body.

A human might die from the blood loss, the dark narrow spear having pierced his innards, but Eishrin's was already beginning to reform. Tissue and sinew began to knit together, the entry point within his flesh almost fluidly rejoining; quicker, still, than that of any other Guardian bloodline. This was the biological advantage the Genetic Conservation Centre had afforded him, in full display for the Keeper, illuminated by the moonlight.

It mattered little, that show of difference, for the Keeper was already launching himself upon him. Eishrin met him, their bodies colliding with fists and slashing blades and clawing dark magic. They became indistinguishable, light blurring into dark, dark melting into light. Where one began, the other did not end, instead a web of violence that tore apart only to bring itself back together.

There was a gravity between them, the two men dancers about a central point that always yanked them back on a collision course. Where Eishrin spun and slashed and snarled, the Keeper mirrored him with a deadly, feline-like grace. That swirling darkness that clawed over cream skin, darker than the shade of the sheer, now-torn shirt, was what Eishrin thought to be the only thing keeping him at bay.

But as he stood for a moment, considering his need to shift, eyes narrowed upon the Keeper who seemed to be enjoying this dance of death, Eishrin realised it wasn't just the magic. It was the maniacal mind that Keeper possessed, a man relishing with the challenge and the very real threat of death. Where others had fought with a sense of duty or fear that had always failed them, this Keeper fought with a maddened type of enjoyment.

The adrenaline that flushed through Eishrin at the realisation was like a bucket of cold water over his surety. For this Keeper may, very well be his match.

This needed to end and it needed to end now.

Eishrin charged again, his footfalls coming heavier across the stones as he roared. But where he had always gone high, had come from above, Eishrin employed something else. He dropped to one knee, taking the brunt force of the stones as he slid forward, the other bent at a ninety degree angle. It was there, his face now level with the Keeper's heart, that Eishrin drove his blade up towards cream chest.

But it did not meet its mark.

For just as quick as he had been, the Keeper had been faster.

As Eishrin's momentum came to a stop, his knee snagging on a loose cobblestone that had his body lurching forward, the knife sent skittering and just out of arms reach, he caught himself with a wide palm and splayed fingers…just as he felt the stinging touch of a cool blade's edge against his throat. It lay over both arteries, beginning to press on the cartilage of his trachea, its blade crafted from the same abyssal darkness as those spikes. A quick end, a sure message, because of a lapse in Eishrin's judgement.

He seethed, those fingers over the cobblestones beginning to shift into claws that compressed the stones into powder beneath him. Nothing else shifted, but it was the only clue that Eishrin was struggling to comprehend, to accept, that this was over. The Keeper would deliver him unto death, for what else could the man seek from him?

"Take it," Eishrin snarled, his voice vibrating the edge of the blade that had already begun to split his skin. He moved slowly backwards, sitting back on his heel, to lift his chin to the sky and cast his eyes overhead. "Take my life like you were sent here to do."

His heart was beating wild within his chest, furious and vengeful. Death would come too early for Eishrin. He had more things he'd hoped to achieve, more people he'd wished to free, but he'd welcome the comforting nothingness still.

"Congratulations, ghost," Eishrin growled with venom. "You've succeeded where all others have failed. Be done with it, now, and go home to collect your reward."

That shifted hand fisted into the crushed cobblestone powder, claws raking through stones to create deep ravines. The breeze caught the thick dark fur that had risen along his forearms as Eishrin snarled; "Kill me."​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

There was a moment where Bellamy felt the first real trickle of ice down his spine. Feeling almost outside of himself as Eishrin went low, the sudden change in his approach swift and unexpected. The Keeper's heart skipped a slow, violent beat as if already anticipating the steel piercing through his chest.

He moved. Corporeal form losing substance, scattering into a mass of liquid shadow, partially passing through Eishrin before coming back together behind the man. The clatter of the other’s blade over the cobblestones rang out with a finality of their dance coming to its end.

And end it did, Bellamy pressing his own blade against the Guardian's throat, a shadowed replica of the man’s fallen weapon.

Chest rising and falling, heavy breaths passing through slightly parted lips, Bellamy gazed down upon his quarry. His body thrummed, elation and disbelief. A blooming warmth of triumph spread through his chest. The man was stillness personified, save for the flex of his arm, the sound of stone crumbling, grinding beneath his fingers. And as Eishrin slowly sat back on his heels, tilting his head skyward, Bellamy pressed close behind him, the heat of the man pressed against the front of him. All semblance of a human presence vacant from the Keeper’s eyes, now rings of a frigid blue, made all the more pronounced surrounded by a deep impenetrable black not dissimilar to the blade at Eishrin’s throat, or the tendrils of darkness that writhed from his back; a perverse imitation of wings.

Eishrin’s voice rolled out in a vicious snarl and Bellamy pressed a claw into the man's cheek, slicing a thin line, marvelling at how the flesh mended itself before his eyes, chasing after the wound he drew open. Leaving only pearlescent beads of blood on the surface of the Guardian’s now mended skin. He dropped his hand, clicking his tongue as he plucked at the shredded fabric of his shirt. “You’re awfully convinced you know anything of why I’m here.”

Ghost. Bellamy’s brow furrowed, a brief line of tension that smoothed out by degrees. “I have my reward.” Said with a bemused tilt of his head as he peered down at the man. The blade never wavering from Eishrin’s throat–pressed close enough to draw forth the crimson liquid thrumming through the man’s veins–Bellamy slipped his fingers through the man’s locks, gathering up the dark hair and sweeping it over Eishrin’s shoulder, exposing the strong, dark column of the man’s neck.

“...Kill you?” He laughed, a breathless and unfettered rush of ecstasy that came from gazing into the maw of death and having come away from it alive and whole. “Why,” he sighed on a chuckle, lowering himself and turning his face into Eishrin’s neck, tongue dragging along the man’s skin; tasting sweat and the heat of him, feeling the steady pulse of his blood rushing beneath his skin, “would I do that when I have you now?”

He bit into Eishrin. Fangs piercing skin, his venom spreading through the man’s veins, the man’s blood rushing into his mouth. The blade at the man’s throat wavered, flickered, blew away in wisps of darkness as Bellamy moaned, his arms slipping beneath Eishrin’s own, wrapping around the man’s chest.

The man was a storm and he found himself in the eye of it.

He felt nothing, saw nothing, tasted nothing that was not Eishrin. Lost to sensation. Tart, and sweet, and smoke, and lightening. His mind hurtled through a reel of emotions, images, disembodied voices, and he couldn’t wrench himself free of toppling headlong into an abyss with no end. Unable to discern where he started and Eishrin ended.

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

The moonlight didn't strike Eishrin's face as it should have. Instead, it became an eerie halo of glowing silver, caught in the diamond strands of the Keeper's hair. It seemed to pulse, the radiant light of the moon broken by the thick tendrils of abyssal darkness that tore outward from the Keeper's back—torn wings, like that of Lucifer's. A lesser man would have believed this creature to be an angel, to be a god, but Eishrin knew better.

Still, that hauntingly cold shade of blue burned into him with a fire that he shouldn't have felt. It cut deep into his bones, infusing through his marrow, until the chill of the Keeper's gaze froze him almost completely. That shifted hand, fingers stretched into monstrous talons, grew still over the crumbled cobblestones. He was unable to look away, his throat bared and pressed into the blade of shadow in a dare. A dare to kill him. A dare to end this. A dare to take what he'd come here for, and what all others had failed to do so before him. A dare to kill what had nearly bested him.

The sharp of a nail touched to Eishrin's cheek, biting the ebony of his skin. It dimpled first, resisting the sharp pressure, before it was finally split and carved. Eishrin's inhale came as a hiss, drawn in between tightly grit teeth. The muscle at the corner of his jaw twitched, all fire and rage within him beginning to build now that it could not be unleashed. It heated his belly, warmed his skin, and made his body thrum almost visibly.

Why else would you be here? To take me back to them? They don't want me. They haven't wanted me for years. They seek only to destroy me because I will never be enough. I am never enough.

Those words remained unspoken, thought only within Eishrin's spiralling mind as he glared up at his executioner. The truth of this all hadn't sunken in, hadn't even been considered, until the Keeper spoke again.

Reward.

Eishrin was the reward, and it left him yearning for the death he'd thought he'd been promised. And Eishrin had only made it easier by so foolishly biting the Keeper's lip in that kiss. He'd tasted the Keeper's blood, and sealed his fate.

"No." The word was uttered, a prayer more than a defiance. Understanding shattered Eishrin's blissful ignorance, an even icier spear through him than the Keeper's own eyes.

The thick of his hair was caught, shoved over a broad shoulder to lay over the lapel that glimmered with those two golden studs. A mockery of what was to yet become of Eishrin—homage to what he'd soon only have been.

"You fucking bastard," Eishrin snarled. That thick, dark fur climbed higher, disappearing beneath the cuff of his leather jacket. The full bone-breaking shift of his forms would not transpire, held at bay only by Eishrin's understanding that it would secure his death. Maybe that's what I need. For death is better than what he plans—

The run of a warm, wet tongue along the side of his throat made Eishrin flinch, the blade twitching against his throat. It nicked him, the deep crimson of his blood weeping downward to pool within the sweep of his collarbone. It lay there like a ruby, a promise, an offering, even as that shallow graze disappeared.

"Fuck you," Eishrin cursed, the words spat. "Fuck you, and fuck all of your—"

His wish for death would never be granted, for the Keeper's fangs pierced deeply within sinew and muscle and vasculature. The blood that would rise would come in a torrent, pouring into the Keeper's mouth until he'd be forced to guzzle or let it spill down his chin. The pain was searing at first, Eishrin growing rigid. It worsened, running straight into Eishrin's skull to build with pressure until it felt like he might explode. As it continued to intensify and Eishrin's vision was stolen from him, Eishrin's large hand clapped down on the Keeper's forearm, sinking claws into the cream of his skin as he desperately tried to force the Keeper's blade across his own throat.

Kill me. Kill me. Kill me kill me killmekillmekillme

That glimpse of salvation, the promise of nothingness, disappeared the moment that very dark blade flickered and faded. As Eishrin's blood was stolen from him, so too was his opportunity for peace. For what the Keeper had forced upon him, was still forcing upon him, was worse than an eternity of limbo.

It began as something spearing; something sharper than the pressure that had built behind Eishrin's eyes worse than any migraine he'd suffered before. It settled into the base of his skull, clawed down through his spine, fanned out through his nerves and began to pulse. Every fibre, every capillary, every cell began to thrum, and Eishrin felt like he was being burned alive. He barely registered the wrap of the Keeper's arms about his chest, how he'd started to sink back as his vision turned dusky.

All he could sense was the Keeper's intrusion. His presence within Eishrin's mind.

Get out.

The thought would come loud, reverberating, snarled even though it wasn't spoken. Even as Eishrin's vision finally went black, his clawed hand limp against the ground, his body becoming slack, he still fought this sinful intrusion.

Get the fuck out of my head.

And then it began.

It started with a haze of white and grey; a colourless expanse with no real outline. It could have been anything, but this vision shared through blood and by venom began to sharpen. Eishrin knew that this memory, forced up from a dark place he'd hidden it, was being pried open by the Keeper, lived and experienced as if it were the Keeper's own.

A metal table lay in the centre of a sterile, tiled room; a floor to ceiling glass window by the far side. Brown leather cuffs were bolted in four points, open and unbuckled and waiting. A metal tray sat upon a bench, filled with syringes and unlabelled vials. They swirled with blue-hued liquid, menacing within their own right.

And then it shifted again. And again. And again.

A back-beach, where the tide was breaking high on the shoreline. Ebony feet struggling through the shallows, hands reaching down into the salt water, struggling to drag a limp body from the sea.

A dark room, the only light the yellow glow from beneath a locked door. The sudden skitter of a creature, small enough to be a mouse, before the light before it was snatched by a small, juvenile hand. A splatter of blood. The fall of gizzards. The small creature devoured, bones and all.

A woman's face. Her skin cream, her hair brunette, but her eyes a pale blue. Smiling, laughing, before it all twisted…

GET OUT.

"I can never love you."
​

"You will never be enough." ​

​

"You are a monster."​

​

"Get away from me!" ​

"Freak!"

This invasion had stolen all of Eishrin's senses, his face blank as he blindly looked up into the sky. There was nothing else that existed besides this torrent of memories—visions now granted to the Keeper that not only sought to steal his freedom, but also his past. Eishrin hated him more for this. More for digging into his head and making him relive these things he'd kept buried for so long on purpose.

It had a lone tear falling over his cheekbone to mix with the crimson of his blood.

Get out. Get out. GET OUT!

Those memories began to fade, a blackness settling in within Eishrin's mind once more. His peace did not last for long. Instead, that pressure within his skull began to ease, the eerie sensation of being violated still lingering as a weight within his head. But the pain twisted, turning into something far, far worse.

His blood warmed, his skin flushing, his lips parting as he gasped. Everything was suddenly too much and, yet, not enough. He felt the tight wrap of the Keeper's lean arms, the press of his chest against Eishrin's shoulder blades, how perfectly their bodies seemed to conform. He felt where the Keeper was sharp, where he was soft, where he was lean. He felt how the Keeper's fingers were tight over his pectoral, his breath now cool against his throat as those fangs bit deeper.

It all pooled low, a hot tincture of arousal and need beginning to flood Eishrin's core. Despite the pervasive intrusion, despite the pain of it all, Eishrin's cock began to harden. It was worse than the pain. This need, this itch, that clawed its way through Eishrin's body that had him pressing a palm into his lap, running the heel of his over the throbbing length of himself in utter desperation.

The slight shift in the Keeper's bite was barely enough to snap Eishrin's desirous wandering, but it did so; his vision creeping back in as he shoved his hand away from his length.

Get…get out of my head, you fucking sick bastard. ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

Bellamy watched as realisation sank its teeth into Eishrin, the despair, the sudden yearning towards death that clouded the man's handsome face. The near pleading 'No' that his passed his lips, before he spat venom. The air charged with the energy of the man's shift caught in limbo. So near to the surface Bellamy could taste the power of it. Now all his for the taking.

And take he did.

Eishrin's blood flooded his mouth, flooded his senses, lit fireworks behind his eyes. It gathered and gathered, dripping, spilling down his chin. He felt the invisible winding of billions of tendrils plunging into him, connecting him to the man who's blood he swallowed like a ravenous–to use Eishrin’s on phrasing–critter.

Never had Bellamy felt himself plunged into a darkness so deep, so endless; a freefall he couldn't stop. Eishrin was not his first Guardian, so he'd become quite familiar with the feeling of his mind binding with another. The invisible grappling fingers, the crackling discomfort that drew his whole body taut. The rush of euphoria, of the unfamiliarity of memories that were not his own flickering, blinking, hurtling past; of being able to pluck them at will, to experience them from a safe distance.

But this instance was different. This was a violent, painful rending of his mind. A pressure that took hold of his head, his muscle, bones and squeezed. Coiling tight, crushing him. Every nerve in his body erupted into blinding sparks of agony, the heavy presence pressing in around him. His mind lashed out, grappling, clinging, forcing a connection. Eishrin’s denial, desperation and rage warring against him.

He barely registered the claws digging into his arm, blood rising, pooling, dribbling over his pale skin, that worked to knit itself together, to push out the intrusion.

One moment he burned, and the next he froze.

Get out!

The roar slammed into him, throwing him back as his stomach swooped with the sensation of being shoved off a rooftop. He was dragged against his will into a blooming white light that blinded him as it grew and grew until it swallowed him completely. When he next blinked, he was strapped to a metal table, the chill of its cold, hard surface spreading through his back. He fought against the straps holding him fast, throwing his whole body forward, attempting to break free with brute strength alone; an effort in futility for the straps were built to hold him. And hold they did. The sterile room held an ominous promise and dozens of eyes burned into him, concealed behind the mirrored wall that only threw his reflection back at him.

And then he was being dragged backwards. Again and again.

These aren’t my memories!

He threw himself forward, away from the blackhole of Eishrin’s mind attempting to drown him.

Taking a moment to gather his bearings, he reached out with a cautious and perverse curiosity. This time, he stepped through the memories of his own accord. Laying bare the man’s vulnerabilities. Observing but not allowing them to drag him under. He rooted deeper, dragging forth the buried parts of Eishrin’s past the Guardian attempted to hide for him, from himself.

Eishrin battled him at every turn, his hatred and fury a blazing inferno that threatened to consume all it touched. Bellamy staying just barely ahead of it. The man’s rising insistence that he ‘Get out!’ only making him dig in deeper.

And then came that subtle but distinct shift, the Keeper's venom finally settling into the other man's bloodstream. Eishrin’s blood ran hotter, tasting darker, spiced with the musk of his arousal.

Bellamy slipped his fangs free of Eishrin's throat with a breathless gasp. He stared up unseeing at the sky, the moon's luminescence concealing the stars. Blood covered his mouth, dribbling down his chin and neck. The familiar electric wash of power hummed through his body, and his magic lay quiet and pulsing, not fighting him for control but docile and waiting to be moulded how ever he pleased. For the first time in a long time, he was not alone in his head.

But he’d never felt a Guardian’s presence nestled so distinctly against his own. A disconcerting suggestion of equals. He’d always kept his Guardians’ mental occupancy small and insignificant, barely acknowledged: A whisper on the periphery of his consciousness.

What did it mean that Eishrin was not so easily diminished? Was it because of his blood? His superior lineage? Would it always be like this? Or was it a temporary side effect?

These thoughts raced through Bellamy’s head as he found himself consciously refortifying the barriers in his mind. The risk of his thoughts, memories, emotions leaking out and being observed by his Guardian settled in his stomach as a nauseous sense of unease he’d never experienced before.

Pressing his forehead against the larger man's back, his breaths coming out in soft pants, he loosened his grip on the other’s chest. Pale, nimble fingers smoothing over the hard expanse of Eishrin’s chest, the firmness of his abdomen, sliding over the defined ridges there. And lower still until his fingers bumped into the cool button of the man's pants. The button which he eased free of its loop with expert ease.

Which of us is truly the sick bastard in this situation?

Bellamy’s words brushed against Eishrin's mind, never touching the night air.

Your loathing burns and yet…

He slipped his hand beneath the waistband of Eishrin’s pants, fingers wrapping around the throbbing length of him.

Your body doesn't feel the same.

Easing Eishrin free of the confine of his pants, he stroked from knotted base to slick tip. On nothing but touch alone, he noted the girth and heft of the man’s cock in his hand, the velvety smooth heat of him, the pulsing vein along the underside, the pearlescent drops of liquid leaking from the tip that he circled with his thumb.

Whatever shall we do?

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Eishrin shivered as the touch of the Keeper's forehead came between his shoulders; their bodies pressed so sinfully close. The wendigo's hands were shaking, his palms smoothing down over his thighs as his claws bit into the fabric confines. The fibres of his clothes was too much to bear, scraping against increasingly sensitive skin—not just the hard girth of him, or the subtle suggestion of his knot yet to swell, but every bit of ebony of him. Even his own skin was becoming too tight; layers needing to be shed.

The firm press of a hand came to his chest, a palm smaller than his own smoothing low over his breastbone. It was cool, the pressure of it grounding Eishrin in ways that should have revolted him. In ways that did revolt him, if the Keeper's venom hadn't infiltrated every cell of his body, leaving his head muddy and his thoughts even more so.

Lower, it descended. Bolder, that touch grew. For the web of their minds had coiled tightly that it now lay tethered like a bound fist; a conjoined, writhing being. Eishrin, for what would be the only time in his life, had been claimed. His body now believed to belong to another. His devotion, his loyalty, his unwavering love all expected to fall upon the Keeper. The man at Eishrin's back touched him now like a lover, but one demanding. Owning. Because that's what this was. Eishrin was now owned.

The button of his trousers was deftly undone and Eishrin half-thought how many times those slender, cream fingers had done something so nimbly. How many attempts did it take to perfect that? How many practices to become efficient?

What did it matter when the cool of the Keeper's hand found the burning, stiff rod of his cock; claiming it with the tight grasp of his fingers? Eishrin's tense spine relaxed a little, the weight of him pressing back against the chill that was the Keeper. The man felt so cold, so beautifully refreshing, like ice against an unbreakable fever. It came as relief, in the simplest of ways, that saw Eishrin's hips rolling forward, grinding the thick, velvet tip against the lines of the Keeper's palm.

Even the sudden lashing of the cold night air against his exposed flesh did little to sober Eishrin. That venom swirled deeply, plunged into his bloodstream the longer the Keeper had held the bite. It left Eishrin's breath coming ragged and uneven, a gasp catching in his throat as the Keeper pulled him so recklessly free.

This is wrong. This is the venom. This isn't me.

Eishrin's mind may have known that to be true, but his body was battling his own wit. It betrayed him, dragging his hips backwards, drawing the throbbing length of him through the Keeper's hold.

But something dark snagged within Eishrin. Something enough to have the ebony skinned man reaching backwards over his shoulder, his thick fingers snagging into the Keeper's hair and yanking the man's bloodied mouth back down to the crimson-smeared juncture of his throat. The bite, stained with venom, was taking longer to close—held open by the magic held within the Keeper's saliva and fangs. It would tempt him, Eishrin knew, to bite again when he could so deliciously pry deeper. Taunt him to do so again, when he'd feel the rush of the consumption.

And if, or when, the Keeper bit down again, Eishrin snarled silently back;

We do this.

Something feral, primal and violent, tore at the Keeper's mind with talon and rage. What had become carefully constructed walls about his own conscience, his own memory, were pulled apart; the bricks of each thrown meaninglessly to the side. For Eishrin assaulted the Keeper's mind with a torrent of hatred and spite—stabbing, spearing, slashing to see how deep he could carve into the Keeper's own ethos.

He caught a glimpse of a memory and sank his talons into it, tearing it out from behind that cracked wall to illuminate it before the both of them so starkly. What it was, Eishrin couldn't recognise, his own mind so fragmented, but the invasion remained the same. Remained cruel and worming, just like how the Keeper had forced himself inside Eishrin's own mind.

I see you.

His fingers dug deeper into the back of the Keeper's skull.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

If the Keeper would not grant him the sweet release of death by his blade, Eishrin hoped the man's self-control would waiver long enough for him to drink too deeply. Maybe then, Eishrin would be free of this newly forged, vile bond.

Still, the fat-rooted length of his shaft pulsed in time with their hearts; their beats now matched to one another. Eishrin swelled, growing ever-harder beneath the near-gentle ministrations of the Keeper's soft thumb. But it did not consume him, not in the same way this vivid flash of a stolen memory eclipsed his vision.

I see you, and you'll never be free of me.

Eishrin shoved harder, clawing still at those once iron-clad defences until he tore free another memory. It ran before him like a movie on four-speed, a quick blur of motion, but Eishrin stole it all the same; letting it imprint inside his own mind, if only to understand later. He wanted this Keeper angry. He wanted this Keeper to feel violated, to become so consumed by his own rage that he'd drink Eishrin dry.

His plea from earlier sung in his blood; Kill me. ​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

The tremor that shook his Guardian’s solid form reverberated through Bellamy and he sighed. The brush of their minds still a feeling he wouldn’t not readily grow used to. But for the moment, he revelled in the moment. In the uneven drag of Eishrin’s breaths, the way Eishrin’s mind snarled and sputtered even as his body yielded to his touches.

Confident in his abilities, in the security of his mind, the danger didn’t present itself until it was too late.

Instinct guided Bellamy's actions, a hiss escaping through his clenched teeth as Eishrin yanked at his hair, rough and unforgiving. He didn't think twice when presented with the weeping wound of where his teeth had left their mark against the man's skin, he simply bit down.

It didn’t cross his mind that Eishrin might tear into his mind.

It simply wasn't fucking possible.

So to feel the sudden, violent rending of his mental barriers came as a sick jolt of surprise. Confusion. Disbelief. Almost impressed if not for the lash of panic that locked up his body.

And then he was being ripped apart, from the inside out. Unable to draw a breath before he was plunged beneath the frigid dark waters of the worst moments of his past.

He’s sitting in his fathers office, a severe setting of dark crimson atop darker wood. The only glint of colour comes from the wall-mounted blades, each more deadly than the last. Even the settee he’s perched on the edge of is hard and uninviting. Voices drift in from beneath the closed door.

“Well! Can he be fixed?”

“He isn’t… broken, Monsieur.

“Isn’t broken. What is a Keeper with no magic!?”

“Perhaps he takes after his mothe–

“His mother was an exile and a whore!”

The door crashes open then, one of its hinges flying across the room and lodging itself in the far wall.

You see fuck all!

Bellamy clawed his way out of the memory, the tendrils of it clinging to him. Dragging him back under.

A dimly lit room, a bed that’s not his own. The taste of blood in his mouth: Keeper’s blood. So sweet and so wrong that he’s sick with it. He wants to spit it out. But he can’t. He wants his own bed. He wants to make it stop. He wants Yvain to come home. Why does he always leave? Yvain could make it stop. But it’s a secret.

His secret.

Their secret.

Get OUT!

And now he’s drowning, his body immobilised, his mind imprisoned in a rush of memories. And they crash over him, around him, through him.

Again, and again, and again.

“Without magic, what use are you to me?”

“Weak. Defective.”​

“The spare.”​

“You wouldn’t want to disappoint me, would you?”

“Get up!”​

“You’re nothing but a warm mouth to me.”​

“A pretty face.”

Desired, but never loved.

Not true.

A forest clearing. His arms twisted to the point of pain between his shoulder blades; a knee pressing into his back, pinning him to the ground. He spits dirt and blood.

Terror acrid. Grief immobilising.

He isn’t worried for himself. It’s the man kneeling ahead of him, tanned skin bruised and bloodied, his once warm brown eyes, so bright and full of life, now stare at him dull with resignation.

He knows what’s coming and he’s just as helpless to stop it now as he was then.

“He did nothing wrong! Tell them.” He bucks against his captor, desperation stings his eyes, claws at his insides. “Tell them!”

Fear, desperation, rage, borne of a helplessness, the likes of which he’s never felt before.

Not here. Not here. Not here!

Get out! Get OutGETOUT!

The memory collapsed around him. The living, pulsing entity of his rage rising, lashing out, tearing into Eishrin, dark. Oozing tendrils sinking into his mind, crushing. Suffocating his consciousness.

Kill me.

The plea, felt, more than heard landed with all the shock of being dunked head first into an ice bath. Bellamy gasped. Slammed back into his body as thorned tendrils of darkness whipped around him. The shadows wrapped themselves around Eishrin’s midsection, forcing his arms down at his sides, before winding around his chest, constricting.

His rage recoiled. Revulsion rolling off of him as he lifted his head, and withdrew his hand from Eishrin's cock.

All of you so pathetically eager to die.

Retracting his teeth, Bellamy licked at the bleeding wound with a shudder, before his body stilled and he pressed his forehead to the larger man’s shoulder.

I will kill you when I damn well please, and not a fucking moment sooner.

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a small innocuous gold ring.

The shadows pinning Eishrin's arms forced his hand forward, palm up. With the claw of his middle finger, Bellamy cut into his own palm, blood beading to the surface. Eishrin's own palm was treated to the same deep cut.

Ring in bleeding palm, Bellamy clasped the man’s larger hand in his own, muttering under his breath. Their bloods mixing, the ring grew warmer in the closed confine of their joined hands. The metal heated to the point of searing, expanding as it did.

And just as the heat became almost too much to bear, it receded and Bellamy fell silent. Withdrawing his hand, the ring continued to expand in circumference, nearly as big as his own hand. Molten letters now etched into the ring's surface glowed and pulsed.

He slipped the ring over the head of Eishrin’s cock, sliding it down his shaft. The ring slowly contracted to size. The etchings faded and Bellamy hummed low in his throat, peering over Eishrin’s shoulder, “A perfect fit.” The gold stood out against the deep, rich ebony of his Guardian’s complexion, complementing the other perfectly.

"How does it feel?”

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

Those flashes of memories were swallowed down deeply, Eishrin a man starved. He pressed deeper, his own consciousness buried within the Keeper like a twisting, jagged knife. With each insistence, and each determined application of pressure, more memories bled free from the wound within the Keeper's carefully crafted mental blockade. A blockade that had begun to crumble, divulging more to Eishrin than he'd hoped for. Even, than he cared to know.

What images belied him were cast into the back of his mind, his own a muddled mess and unable to truly understand them. Instead, it was the lashings of the Keeper within his skull, the torrent of horror that echoed Eishrin's own, that brought the man a sick sense of glee.

I see it all, and I see you.
Just as you have carved your way inside my mind, I am now within yours.

The final memory sent an icy chill through Eishrin's bones. He tried hard to focus, to see the details of the kneeling figure's face, but his mind warped and the image blurred. Eishrin saw, but only in blending colours, a suggestion of a man. The emotions he felt flood through him were not his own, instead and extension from the Keeper who now screamed at him to get out. How ironic, since Eishrin had done the same. How perfect, since now this Keeper suffered in the same way he'd made Eishrin.

I will never leave.

It came as a promise and a curse; one born of vile vengeance. If Eishrin would not die at this Keeper's hands, then he'd do his best to make the man's existence a living hell. He'd begin by recounting these memories when he was sober. Learning them. Memorising them. Teaching himself the words spoken with venom at, what he could only assume, was this Keeper's failures. He'd begin by denying this bond for what it was.

Eishrin was drawn free of the cascading memories by the sudden snatch of those inky tendrils. They wove over his body, ever-constricting pythons, that crushed the air from his lungs, pressed blood up into his face, and made that aching pound return to his temple. Eishrin tried to struggle, to claw at the nothingness that had taken impossible physical form, but his arm was stolen from him; brought forward and held with his palm to the moonlight.

"Fuck…" Eishrin snarled, the word almost breathless, "…you."

To shift now would be easy, to tear the magic restraining his limbs free of his body, to end this Keeper and, by extension, himself. It would be easy, if he hadn't already tried while the Keeper's fangs were in his throat, drawn down into the other man's memory. But something had snagged him, caught his own innate magic and held it imprisoned. The shift did not come when it had been called, and the fur that had lined his half-shifted arm had, instead, receded. Was this how it was going to be? The Keeper able to control even the most intimate part of himself? That had been the song for his death, Eishrin unable to consider a life where the shift did not come with his own call, but the call of another.

The sticky, waterfall of his blood coated the slope of his shoulder, weeping still in the absence of fangs. Yet, as if he had not spilt enough blood, the Keeper slipped his arm around Eishrin's body and pressed a dark claw to Eishrin's ebony flesh, drawing it across the lines of his palm. With grit teeth, Eishrin hissed, his fingers flexing before trying to curl inwards. A tendril snagged at his fingers, denying him that fist, and Eishrin roared.

"Vermin." Eishrin growled, the word punctuated by a sudden tightening upon his chest that stole his next breath. His next insult came only mouthed, no sound spoken in the absence of air. Critter.

As much as he fought, as much as he strained, his eyes were drawn to that blade upon the knife—how gracefully it slid over the Keeper's alabaster skin, drawing thick blood to the surface to well within the lines of his hand, before the gold ring was caught between their palms. He watched with a narrowed, morbidly curious scowl before he felt the sudden beginning of a burn. Eishrin tried to wrench his hand free, but the Keeper's magic held him firm. It held him defenceless, captured within its snaking tendrils, in an uncomfortable state of half-rage and half-arousal.

Because, despite it all, the Keeper's venom and the aftermath of the hunt had pooled hotly in Eishrin's loins, his cock jutting from his body, swollen and twitching with the subtle brush of the night's cool air. It ached, just as much as it throbbed, and his unwanted desire had Eishrin's spine stiffly straight.

The dark of his eyes slid up to the moon, that gold beginning to fade. The silver of the moonlight washed over his face, a gentle touch against his skin that Eishrin drank in, allowing his eyes to close. Trapped, Eishrin resigned to the sting at his palm, the bleed of his wounds, the burn of the ring caught between their hands. To gather his strength was the wisest thing to do, even if it meant remaining kneeling idly still against the ever-tightening bonds of this Keeper's darkness.

But a touch came to his cock, making the thick girth of it twitch in response. Eishrin's eyes snapped open, the thick of his canines bared in a snarl at the invasion. The hot of the ring smoothed over his pink-toned tip, dragging over swollen length to settle and tighten against the thick root of him. It made him ache, his cock beginning to throb in time with the pound of his heart.

Eishrin knew a little of the Keeper's ways, enough to have expected a collar to have been snapped around his throat. A public display of ownership, something Keeper's found both endearing and amusing to force on their pets. But this?

"What is this?" Eishrin snarled, his defiance all but renewed as he strained and tried to buck against the Keeper's hold. "A measuring tool to see how far you can take my cock?" He spat the vileness with a venom he hadn't been sure he harboured. "Because I assure you, little ghoul…"

…that I will force it all inside you when I am free. I will stretch you until you break, but will you moan for it?

Again, Eishrin tried to shift. Again, the magic inside of him fizzled and died. There was nothing there to summon, to call, to alter. It rose as bile within his throat, a panic washing over him with an ice so cold it left him shuddering. The hard flesh, decorated now with a ring of stunning gold, began to lay heavy, lowering as it softened in Eishrin's newfound terror.

"No."

Horror. Panic. Disbelief.

How could a Keeper do this? How could he have the power over Eishrin to such intimate depths that he could snuff out even this?

No, no, no, no.

"No!" Eishrin cried out, bucking against the obsidian tendrils. "Not this."

To lose this part of himself, to have it caged against his will, was worse than all torture he'd suffered and bared through. It was worse than the methodical slicing of his flesh while awake. It was worse than the samples taken from his brain, skull cracked and stopped from regenerating with a serum that felt like acid in his veins. It was worse than the pleasure others stole from his lanky, young body while his voice remained gagged and his limbs chained.

A word left him, one that Eishrin had never imagined he'd speak. Yet, as he spoke it over his shoulder to the Keeper now bonded with his soul, Eishrin begged; "Please."​

Then again, "Please, not this. Not always."

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

Bellamy ignored Eishrin's scathing growls and sputtering. It would not change the outcome, and the man's words, vicious as they were, didn't hold a torch to the brazen violation he'd inflicted upon his mind. It left him shaken to his core. His insides still trembling even as his body remained a rigid block of ice. His emotions, for the moment, blissfully numbed. Distant.

He also ignored Eishrin's snarled demand for an answer, ignored the goading vitriol of the man’s words. They were becoming ever more creative. Drawing in a breath, his lips twitching with a stifled laugh he exhaled slow and unhurried. A vision of a glowing length of gold chain lit up behind his eyes; the roar of a beast subdued, echoed, ricocheting through the vast plane of their connected consciousness, before it all faded away.

And then the cold rush of panic. Disbelief. The oh so sweet taste of horror; emotions that were not his own that barreled into him all the same.

Yes." He murmured, his hands falling away from Eishrin’s body.

Rising to his feet, his tendrils the Guardian bound even as he thrashed about in his panic. He circled the man, coming to stand before him, black eyes–save for the ice blue of the irises–drank in the raw display of emotion flickering across the other's face. The weight of realisation. The sweet agony of it.

Never had he witnessed such an adverse reaction from a Guardian. Naturally, there was a pang of loss, of being suddenly cut off from such an intrinsic part of oneself. But it was the way of things. A small price for the honour of being bonded to a Keeper.

But for Eishrin—an outsider, unaccustomed to their ways, stubborn, prideful, full of hatred and self-righteous rage—to suddenly find himself collared and shackled against his will, it must have felt a fate worse than death.

Of course the man wanted to die.

And of course, Bellamy would not give him the pleasure.

Not even when Eishrin begged so sweetly. Please. The tormented caress of that single uttered word licked a path of fire across the Keeper's skin, a gut punch of arousal pooling, spreading low in his gut. To see the man brought to heel, stirred him, giving rise to a vicious hunger.

"Oh," his voice a cruel pout, he reached out, brushing the pad of his thumb beneath Eishrin's eye and over the rise of his cheekbone, "It knows how to beg. How delightful."

He released the man from the constricting grip of his magic, the shadowy tendrils fading out of existence.

Always is such a long time. But what do you suppose we do?

"You've proven to be a threat, not only to me but to yourself." He trailed the back of his hand down the side of Eishrin's face, a mockery of a lover's gentle touch. "Tell me what was I to do, if not… this?"

 

[MoldaviteGreen]

What had flooded through Eishrin with his realisation had been colder than the glaciers of the north. Colder, harsher, even, than the winters in the Antarctic. It lashed at him, fighting against the intrinsic warmth that was ever-present within him, and bleached his heart. The taste of it was acrid, the frost clawing its way up into his throat; the beginnings of a scream. This Keeper had no just bound him to service and to his will. This Keeper had not just admitted Eishrin into a lifetime of slavery. He'd done all of those things, but they seemed like nothing in comparison to what Eishrin realised the Keeper had truly done.

With the weave of their souls and the tether of their lifeblood, the gold placed upon his softening flesh that should have been worn on his throat, the Keeper had stolen Eishrin's very spirit from him. It remained dormant despite the call, despite how fiercely Eishrin urged it to wake and, suddenly, he felt trapped within a form that was not truly his own. For the Wendigo part of him now chained, controlled, had always been his true apparition.

This Keeper had stolen his soul, and there was nothing more devastating than this.

Yet, Eishrin felt the beginning lick of fire in his loins, a building pressure of honeyed arousal that built inside of his chest. It confused him, this feeling, since his own rush of violence-induced desire had been quelled at the realisation of his loss. So, why now was he feeling this? Why was it pooling lower, heating his near-frozen blood and almost, almost, chasing away his terror?

Because it was not his, Eishrin realised. It carried with it an unfamiliar flavour, an aftertaste of sweetness that Eishrin had never, could never possess. Just as this Keeper's scent was edged with something a mix between spices, cinnamon and clove, soo too was his awoken arousal. And it flooded through Eishrin, unable to be filtered away by the chasm torn open and left bare between their souls. This was the bond. This was the curse.

"You sick fucking bastard," Eishrin snarled; his anger now lashing with a renewed hatred. This Keeper held no pity, did not care to understand. He saw it only amusing that Eishrin had pleaded, down on his knees. "You like it when I say 'please'? Or does it turn you on to hear me begging? Tell me what it is, so I never do it again."

The touch to his cheekbone, almost gentle, made Eishrin's stomach churn. Bile rose, lashing at the back of his throat, but swallowed down. This was all too much, too wrong. Maybe if Eishrin closed his eyes, and awoke again, this would all be a nightmare long-gone. How could any of this be real? But those dark, soulless eyes bearing down into Eishrin's eyes were real, as was the arousal coiling low between his hips. They were just as real as the gold right nestled at the root of Eishrin's cock, twitching once with each sudden rush that slipped through their bond.

"Kill me," Eishrin all but spat. "Kill me. Maim me. Torture and sedate me. All would have been better than this."

The run of pale fingers along his cheek had Eishrin seeing red. Quick as ever, he turned his face, his thick canines bare and aiming for alabaster flesh. He didn't care if he tore off his thumb, grazed his skin or missed. He didn't care because this was all a show anyway; the least he could do while he remained wrapped tightly in this dark, smoky tendrils.

"I swear to you…" Eishrin began, a chill running the length of his spine.

This Keeper's arousal was noxious, making him light-headed as the moonlight began to ripple and the alley beginning to spin. Was this just the arousal? Or was this the venom?

Oh my god, Eishrin thought, beginning to panic as his vision blurred. What has he done? What has he done to me?

His tongue grew heavy in his mouth, thick against his teeth, and his words began to stumble over each other until they couldn't be spoken at all. His heart struggled to beat, to keep time with the crescendoing terror that had flooded him so intensely with stress. The blood he'd lost, swallowed by the Keeper and staining the cobblestones, left the venom to settle more concentrated within what was left.

I swear…to you, Spare…that I will learn how to tear the magic from you…so that you may understand what it feels like to be without your soul…and I will make it the last thing you ever know…

Darkness constricted. Breath was stifled. Limbs grew heavy, even glued to rigid flanks.

I will never belong to you.

And then, with his oath spoken, Eishrin passed out.​

 

[ThenThereWereNone]

The sharp texture of Eishrin's despair only served to add fuel to the flame of Bellamy's arousal and he breathed it in. Near giddy with it. Clicking his tongue, chiding, he smiled down at the other man, "Where would be the fun if I were to simply give you the answer."

Eishrin's skin was feverish beneath his fingers.

And there it was. Again. Those fucking words. Kill me. It burrowed beneath his skin, dragging forth deep rooted thorns of contempt. He jerked his hand just beyond the reach of the Guardian's snapping jaws. Even tethered as he was, the man was a wild animal, fueled with a hatred that only grew.

A trickle of unease, but not his own. Eishrin's dark eyes began to lose focus, to cloud over. Panic spiked, sharp and acrid. And when he spoke, his words were thick and slurred.

Before they came through loud and clear across their mental link. Spare: the word conjured a fleeting image, a room with vaulted ceilings, lilacs and magnolia tickling the olfactory senses, the wary diligence of navigating a viper's pit, the simpering tone in which the word was spoken. Bellamy curled his fingers into a fist as the memory faded, but he remained still, watching as Eishrin's eyes fluttered and strength drained from his body.

I will enjoy watching you try.

And then Bellamy was alone in the alley. Alone in his head. Eishrin's oath a slowly fading echo. Such asinine words. Whether or not the man was a willing participant, his soul was bound to Bellamy's; his transformation Bellamy's to control; his life at the mercy of his Keeper. And so it would be until he died.

Of course there were legends, blasphemous whisperings of banned and long lost rituals that could sever a bond; of Guardians who survived their Keepers' deaths. But he had yet to see or hear of it, and he never would.

They were just stories.

Bellamy tilted his head, gazing down at his Guardian's unconscious form as the tendrils still wrapped around the man slowly lowered his body to the cobblestone before thinning and fading away.

Drawing in a deep breath, he tipped his head skyward, The moon stared down at him, a silent witness to what had transpired in the dark of the alley. A victory and a defeat.

A night well spent.

Save a few unfortunate moments he hadn't anticipated, it had concluded in his favour. Dropping his gaze, Bellamy turned his back to Eishrin as he moved further down the alley to retrieve the man's abandoned blade. Tilting it just so, the light of the moon glinted off the curved steel. One misstep, one moment of hesitation, of losing control of his magic and he would be the one lying there in the dank alley, his blood pooling around him. Reduced to a bauble on a fucking jacket.

Bellamy placed the blade next to the fallen form of his Guardian before stepping over the man and leaving the alley without a backwards glance.

~~*~~

~~*~~​

"Looks like someone had a good time." The low rasp of his brother's voice was the first thing to greet him as Bellamy stepped off the mirrored lift that opened up into a short foyer, its arched entrance leading into the open floor plan space ahead. Max was sprawled on the long L-shaped couch that faced the floor to ceiling windows. Beyond which, The Elysium Bridge Towers loomed over the city-scape below; the thousands of lights beyond lit up the night like artificial stars, a mockery of the true stars rendered invisible in the sky.

Max peered over the back of the couch, black eyebrows rising as he took in the state of Bellamy: his shredded shirt, the blood drying on his mouth, chin, neck, chest, the tautness in his limbs. He flicked his attention past his brother to the closed door. "Well, where is he?"

"Why are you here?" Lifting one foot then the other, Bellamy tugged off his boots.

"So we're answering questions with questions, are we?" With no response forthcoming, Max huffed. "I stopped in to get a look at the boogeyman Guardian you stupidly ran off to claim. Alone." He flopped back down, "Seems you failed. Miserably."

"He'll come home when he's ready."

And Max was sitting up again, his eyes wide, glittering with excitement, disbelief, "See, I knew you'd be fine! Isa was worried we'd have to send out a search party to retrieve your body. But why isn't he with you now? What happens when his heat… " A slowly dawning realisation, "Oh! Ohhh." Max cackled, "What a shit you are."

Bellamy's lips twitched, too tired for anything more. He climbed the circular staircase to the second floor, Max's amused laughter fading away as he shut the bedroom door.

It crashed over him then. The delayed response to gazing into the eyes of death; of feeling the permanence of it reaching for him; of his mind being violated, long buried memories forcefully dragged to the surface. A tremble started in his hands and travelled up his arms, spreading. Teeth chattering, he clenched his jaw and pushed away from the door, one leaden foot in front of the other. Shedding his shirt and pants, he collapsed face first into the welcoming embrace of his bed.

Darkness gathered. Dragged at him.

He didn't fight it.

~~*~~

~~*~~​

One day passed.

Bellamy was not pleasant company. His emotions wrapped like a noose around his neck, choking the patience out of him; strangling the once effortless control that kept his intrusive thoughts from manifesting into action.He sulked and snapped at the slightest of irritants. He acted out of character. His skin felt too tight, his head like cotton.

A gnawing hunger drove him to drink like a man parched. More and more and more. But it never lessened. Never faded. Only grew into an insatiable, ravenous beast that no amount of blood–Guardian or human–satisfied.

He did not feel in control of himself.

Three days.

What the fuck was this?

Discomfort stalked his nights, haunted his days. He oscillated between a constant state of arousal and irritability. He tried fucking the mounting frustration away. A fleeting escape. Blink and it was gone.

A week passed.

Bellamy stood before the windows with its waterfront view, his back facing the room as he stared at the sky's vibrant swatch of lavender, reds and oranges that reflected off the water's surface as the sun began its slow descent below the horizon. A breathtaking view and this too annoyed him to the point of wanting to punch through the glass. His emotions roiled thick and dark as storm clouds, amplified by the torrent of feelings that weren't his own. He could taste the difference now, could point out the sharp textures and pungent spice of where Eishrin's emotions began and where his ended. But awareness did not lessen the effect. And helpless to the onslaught, his anger steadily mounted.

He would make Eishrin hurt for this. For making him wait. For the oppressive discomfort he suffered through because of the man's stubbornness. He would make him beg. Beg until his dark eyes—burning with hatred and yet incapable of doing anything about it—brimmed with tears.

Please. The horror and desperation. The utter devastation in Eishrin's voice as he'd knelt in that alley, finally realising the full weight of his rapidly fading freedom.

A delicious shiver travelled up Bellamy's spine.

And he was hard again. Just like that.

Hysteria gathered in his chest and for a moment the world turned red.

Someone touched his arm and Bellamy inhaled sharply. The chatter of voices behind him rushed back into focus, ricocheting off the high ceilings of the tenth floor gathering hall. Max had dragged him down from his apartments, claiming he would feel better with a change of scenery.

Max who grinned at him now. Max who had lied, because Bellamy felt no better, only worse, now with the added disruption of an intimate crowd. More than one person had tried to speak to him. More than one person arrived at the swift conclusion that it was in their best interest to leave him be.

Bellamy glanced sidelong at his brother. Envisioned carving that stupid smile into a permanent grin.

"Don't look at me like that," spoken with a petulant pout, Max dropped his hand. "I'm bringing you a peace offering."

"Maxime."His tone flat. There was a warning there.

One that his brother promptly ignored. "Oh, don't be like that. You've been a real downer and quite frankly we all are getting pretty tired of it."

"We all."

"Okay, mostly me. Isa may or may not have hinted but that's besides the point. You're being stubborn and I don't know why you just don't drag the little shit back here kicking and screaming and get it over wi– I bet he isn't little is he?" The thought seemed to capture Max for a moment. He trailed into a silence before he shook his head. "I'm sure you have your reasons, spiteful as they are. But anyway I brought you something." He snapped his fingers and a beautiful, fiery haired youth appeared at his side. Eyes downcast, a nervousness to him. Fair skinned–easy to bruise–and freckled, he was a handful of inches taller than Bellamy, almost Max's height. His arms, bare in the sleeveless crimson of his high collared blazer, were thickly corded with muscle. No collar. An unbonded Guardian.

Bellamy narrowed his eyes. He'd drank himself drunk on Guardians. Used their bodies to suffer the brunt of his frustrations. It didn't fucking work.

"You need a distraction, until whatever happens, happens. It's been a week already. How much longer can he last, really." Max shoved the red-head forward, the hand at the small of his back an impatient urging, "Just try not to permanently damage this one, he's good stock."

The hysteria rose again, tickling through his chest and up his throat. The laughter bubbled up. He didn't dare open his mouth.

How much longer?

He didn't know.

And what he did know was Eishrin's loathing was a malicious, bloodthirsty entity, and the man would no doubt draw out the inevitable simply because he could.

Until he couldn't any longer.

What Bellamy wanted, he refused to go in search of. He would wait, bide his time, endure this minor inconvenience.

He would not break first.

Though every day that passed, he'd found himself weak to temptation. He'd come perilously close to seeking out Eishrin. The fifth day following their fight in the alley he'd found himself wavering just outside the towers. An aching urgency to find the man, to claim him completely. To bleed him to the brink of death. The autumn wind had been a balm to his feverish skin. He'd stood there a long time, grinding his teeth, warring with himself.

He hadn't gone farther.

And now, as Bellamy considered the Guardian before him, as he considered the beautiful red marks he would paint upon his body, he shoved Eishrin from his thoughts.

What was another day? Or two?