As She Fades

"You suffocate.
You cannot wait for this to just be over.
You wanna run and just be done
With what you can't control here.

Don't know what you're thinking.
This ship is sinking.

I'll meet you at the bottom.
The waves can't wash away all the scars you bare.
See you at the bottom.
You just hold on to the things that keep you there."
- Staind

Skylar lurched to his feet, his palms growing sticky with sweat to match his brow as panic lanced through him. Torryn lay on the floor only feet away, sprawled on her front with her cheek pressed into the ugly red area rug and her eyelids fluttering. He could already see the goosebumps rising along her arms, the sweat forming along her upward-facing temple, and his anxiety spiked higher. Already, she'd been completely overcome. In a matter of seconds, a heartbeat and a half, the Lord had dropped her.

No, he told himself, his chest tightening. Antony had dropped her. He could only imagine what she was seeing, the sensations she must be feeling, but he didn't want to, and as he stepped toward her, he pushed them from his mind.

But suddenly, his vision darkened, and the reek of sweat that permeated the room was replaced by the scent of Torryn's bare skin pressed to his nose. He sagged into the memory, letting it bombard him with the smells and sounds of an afternoon spent in her bedroom. He felt his teeth digging into her neck; he felt her fingers gripping his arms; he felt it clearly, overwhelmingly, as he thrust himself into her. When sight returned to him — the false sight of the past, but sight just the same — he found himself hovering over her, and he leaned down to kiss her hungrily as his rough rhythm shook her body and the bed beneath them.

"No," he heard himself gasp, but it was muffled, distant, far from the erotic imagery of the scene in his head. "No," he said again, and this time, he was able to drive his focus outward, to the present, to reality.

For the moment, he was blind to his surroundings, but he could feel the softness of the familiar armchair beneath him, and he could hear Torryn's erratic gasps for breath not too far away. He blinked rapidly, trying to drive the darkness from his vision, and he forced his focus to the slick sweat building up on his palms. He remembered that moment, only minutes ago, when he realized that he was building a tolerance, and that thought alone was what finally forced his vision back into him.

Wide-eyed, he looked at Torryn, squirming faintly on the floor but panting as if she was running a marathon, and though his resentment of Antony begged to be the center of his attention, he pushed past it. He slid from his chair to fall upon his hands and knees, and he was careful not to stare too lucidly at Torryn as he began to crawl slowly toward her. Look helpless, he told himself, pretending a pant only slightly gentler than hers. Don't let him know what you're up to.

He finally came to a stop beside her, his back to the Lord and his too-watchful eyes, and hunched his shoulders. "Torryn," he whispered pleadingly, resting his hand on her upper thigh under the pretense of shaking her. "Torryn, snap out of it. Get up." He found a square lump just where he thought he would, and, still shaking her gently, he guided it up and out of her pocket. He caught the scuffed and smudged cell phone just before it hit the floor, and he shook her even more violently with his free hand as he hid the phone away at his side. "Please, Torryn. Get up."

With a pathetic half-sob, he turned from her, careful to keep the phone hidden at his side, and made a big show of crawling back to his chair. He continued past it and made his way around to collapse on the floor behind it, and he opened the phone and found Antony's name in Torryn's contacts. He opened a text message and, with all the speed he could muster, clumsily typed With the lord help with trembling fingers. The instant he hit the button to send it, he felt the cool breath of a chuckle against his ear.

"I know what you're doing," the Lord murmured, his deep voice overflowing with dark amusement. "And I welcome your cavalry."

Before Skylar could even twist to look back at the vampire, he was overcome with the very feelings he'd escaped only moments ago — the scent of her, the taste of her, the sound of her voice raised in ecstasy. It hit him tenfold, and though he desperately fought to escape it, he found himself on top of her once more.

Helpless, he fell into a sea of Torryn, fully prepared to drown.

-?-

Antony made his way down the stairs at a leisurely pace. Technically, he should've been at the Arena half an hour ago, presiding over…whatever the hell it was he had to preside over today, but in reality, he had absolutely no desire to be there. He had no desire to watch two grown men beat the sense out of each other, he had no desire to talk wages with his staff, and, most of all, he had no desire to watch Torryn storm in as she always did to pulverize whoever had the misfortune of landing a fight with her, acting like nothing had changed even though everything had.

Aggravated at his own disgustingly tender attitude, he shoved the thought aside with unnecessary force and plunged into a topic altogether more palatable: his next meal. I'll do it with supervision this time, he told himself, reaching for the doorknob. I'll make sure to pick a girl who has more experience with this particular line of work than the…others. Just as his fingers closed around the handle, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and with his free hand, he pulled it out and brought the screen to life with the press of a button and a swipe of his finger.

For a split second, he wondered just how much technology would change during his foreseeably lengthy undeath, just how easily he would be able to keep up with it as it grew more advanced with each passing decade, but his contemplations shattered to nothingness as Torryn's name flashed across the screen. He knew before he opened it that nothing good could possibly come of this, but he had no idea just how far his stomach would drop.

With the lord help.

"You have got to be shitting me," he whispered to himself, numb for the span of a rabbit's heartbeat, but he pushed himself from the door and fought to keep the panic from his voice as he began shouting orders in a way that would make his father proud. "You," he crowed, pointing to the living room where a crowd of undead vampires lazed about, "get up and get ready. We're facing the Lord. Now." He turned next to the small squad of vampires that had gathered in the doorway to the kitchen at the sound of his voice, and he said, "Stay here. Watch for us, just in case."

Footsteps on the stairs brought his attention to Becca, who frowned down at him in concern. "What's going on?" she asked, and he stepped away from the door as the vampires from the living room filed quickly past him, out into the night.

"You're with me, too," he told her as she came to stand before him. "We're going to see the Lord."

"Why?" she asked uneasily.

"Torryn's there, and she needs our help."

She was already shaking her head by the time he'd finished his sentence. "I'm sorry, Antony," she began solemnly, "but I will not help her out of this."

Heat rushed through him, setting his blood boiling in his veins, and he growled, "Why the hell not?"

"I warned her that she didn't understand vampires, Antony," she explained darkly. "She didn't listen to me. She put herself in danger, and I won't risk my ass to get her out of it if she was too stupid to avoid it to begin with."

"Pack your shit," he said, his voice tight and low, though he wanted nothing more than to knock her on her ass and tear her limb from limb. "I want you gone by the time we get back, or you won't be walking out of here ever again." Her eyes grew wide, but he turned from her without another word and jerked the door open.

"Antony, come on," she said with an exasperated sort of laugh. "Think about what you're —"

He crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut behind him, anger still raging red-hot through him. He became aware, as he stormed down the pathway toward the collection of cars in the curving driveway, that something was stabbing painfully into his palm, and it wasn't until he looked down that he realized that he was gripping his phone so tightly that the screen had cracked.

He held it before his face as he threw himself into the driver's seat of his own car, and beneath the branching rifts of the glass, he could still see Torryn's name glowing up at him. "You'd better be okay," he said softly as he started the car. "I'm not ready to let you go just yet."

-?-

"I came…to make…a deal," Torryn gasped from where she still lay face-down on the floor. She could still feel Antony all around her, his hands all over her, his saliva coursing through her veins from where his fangs still pierced her throat, and she could vaguely feel the sweat pouring from her like a Goddamn faucet as she fought to shake the Lord's hold.

"Ah," he murmured giddily, and his influence lifted just enough that she could see him standing over her, though it was still Antony she felt upon her. "Just what did you have in mind, my dear?" Delight danced in his eyes, and she hated to be the cause of it.

"I came to free the Progeny," she rasped, just barely able to lift her head from the floor to look more pointedly up at him, "but now, I need Skylar, too."

"The human is here of his own free will," he pointed out, perfectly matter-of-fact, "but I'm more than willing to listen to what you have to offer in return for my Progeny, though I seriously doubt that I'll be interested."

"If you promise not to kill me or keep me, I'll come whenever you call me," she said, but he was already chuckling in amusement.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," he began pleasantly, "but I could take you and keep you as my own right now and get to retain control of my other pets. What's keeping me from utilizing that alternative?"

"I think you'll enjoy me more the way I'm proposing." Her head lolled against the hardwood, her neck growing too tired to hold her up any longer. "Wouldn't it be more to your taste to have a willing slave, one who came to you without any exertion on your part?"

"As intriguing as that would be, one half-Progeny isn't nearly enough to supply me, let alone the entirety of my coven." He smiled cruelly, and she cringed involuntarily as his fangs peeked out once more. "I've expanded, you see, after your initial visit — because of your initial visit, actually. I've had to increase my defenses, and my forces require quite a bit of sustenance — much more than your small body would be able to offer."

"Free just some of them, then," she all but begged, desperation gnawing at her. "Just the young ones, the ones that are small, like me. Let at least some of them have a future."

"Mm," he murmured, and she watched his stockinged feet as he began to circle her. "Perhaps that would be an acceptable offer — if it weren't so likely that you would attempt to kill me during one of your proposed sessions together and free the remaining Progeny through violent means."

She opened her mouth to speak, her mind working hard against the gentle feeling of Antony's fingers trailing through her hair, featherlight along her spine, but nothing came to her. He was right. "But you…" She trailed off, struggling harder, but the Lord forced a dead man's sigh and sank into the armchair only a foot or so away from her, his feet still perfectly in view.

"I've grown bored of your deal-making," he said absently. "Perhaps I'll let the human go when you've been properly sedated, but you belong to me now. Enjoy your final moments of freedom."

"Wait!" she cried, but she was suddenly enveloped in Antony all over again. His arms snaked around her, his skin cool to the touch but wholly inviting, and as his lips tenderly met hers, she sank into him.

She was lost…again.