‹ Prequel: It Started With a Song
Status: In progress... Like everything else

Interim

Dreaming

She slept. She dreamed. She remembered.

Sharp, cold pain rushed through the holes in her wrists as he lifted her. One arm wrapped around her bare waist while his other hand freed her wrists from the dripping steel of the meat hook. Her skin was almost as cold as his. She curled to him like a rag doll. The scarification symbols he had carved into her stood out in stark contrast to her pale flesh, as did the smears of blood. Lines of black formed symbols of her faith, edged in healing pink welts above the dark grain of the gunpowder.

Rivers of scarlet flowed to her shoulders down her ashen arms as he gently laid her out on the floor.
Her dark hair pooled beneath her head in a pile of tangled silk. Hazel eyes searched for him through the haze of pain and pleasure and blood loss. The bright white lights that hung from the ceiling made her squint, but she fought against it so that she could see him.

He moved slowly down her body, kneeling beside her. He lifted her right arm to his lips, eyes closed, an almost reverent expression on his face. Sharp ivory teeth glinted in the painful overhead lights, and her eyes closed in ecstasy as his lips met her skin.

She then heard a sound that would have been sickening to a saner individual. A lapping, smacking, sucking sound invoked images of oral sex instead of the reality of the situation. A velvet tongue traced the inside of her forearm. It tickled the crook of her elbow, erasing the smudges of crimson. She sighed and shivered, aware of the way the chill floor was sticky with her blood. Her aching muscles were soothed a bit as the cold seeped into her flesh.

Long, thin fingers wound their way into her hair and air sucked through the hole in her wrist. Lips were pressed to the gaping wound, and a tongue probed deeply into it in a bizarre mockery of sex. His teeth grazed her skin. She arched her back weakly and gasped for breath.

Some part of her still cried out that she should be terrified. She was lying on the floor of a walk-in freezer beneath one of the more popular clubs in the French Quarter, at the mercy of a sadist who drank her blood and devoured her impurities like fire. A familiar itch began in her wrist as the healing began. A moan crawled past her lips. He'd been keeping her here for over a week, over a month maybe? It was hard to tell. The days and nights blended together. But she was clean now, the drugs were out of her system. He had told her that after sampling her blood a time ago. Days, weeks? How long had the scarification process taken? She remembered it in vivid detail.

Slow, precise kiss of the scalpel. It didn't even tug at her skin.
Fingers smearing sharp grains of gunpowder into the gash.
Soft tongue tracing the searing pain, soothing it and setting her skin ablaze.
A pause.
“Again.” he'd made her say.
Another slow, precise kiss of the scalpel.


Then, she heard his voice, breaking into her reminiscing. It was rough and husky and soft, a violent whisper against her flesh in Russian. The itching in her wrist intensified and her fingers twitched. He pressed her hand against his face and looked at her. His eyes were as bright and clear as the Devil's, and every bit as seductive.

“What a good girl.” he purred in his thickly accented English. It was always rougher after a session, and she loved it. She loved that the things she allowed him to do to her affected him so strongly. It was a headier drug than her precious heroin, a deadlier one too. The heroin would just kill her. He'd promised so much more. The heroin only left marks on her body. His fingerprints were on her soul, like the trace of a sculptor on fresh clay.

Her arm was gently folded and placed on her stomach before he switched his attention to her other, still streaming wrist. He moved slowly, languidly. She had pleased him, and pleased him well. He was rewarding her with tenderness. He always saw to her injuries after a session, but this was special somehow. His fingers knotted themselves with hers as he continued kissing her wrist.

She loved him. Dear God in Heaven and Satan in his fiery Hell, she loved him. Everything about him. The way his nostrils flared when he was angry, the way he held the scalpel in his delicate fingers, the way he combed his hair from his face. She loved everything about him, and she was entirely helpless to stop it. He was her savior, her salvation, and her damnation all rolled into one and she wanted every part of him.

She curled her fingers against the sharp line of his jaw and moved to try and sit up. A gentle hand slid up her stomach, slick with blood, up the valley between her breasts, and pressed down, keeping her firmly on the floor. She didn't fight the soft caress, just shivered and relaxed in submission, a whimper of longing escaping her lips. She felt his chuckle reverberate against her skin and his slightly warmer breath caress the bared bones of her wrist. Then his tongue darted into the ragged tunnel and she gasped, the pain sending shivers down her spine and between her legs. His chuckle turned into a dark laugh.

“Such a good girl...” He leaned in and planted a bloody kiss on her lips, wrapping his arms around her. She was weak, so weak, from the loss of blood and the exertion of their play, and tried to kiss him back with a dry and leaden tongue. He smiled against her lips and pecked them softly. She felt him shift, moving to put her back on the floor and whimpered, her eyes going wide.
“You need to drink.” he said, crossing the room to grab a bottle of blood. She cursed her hazy vision because it robbed her of seeing the beauty of his nude and red-streaked form. That was her blood. She had marked him. He was hers.

And she loved him.

He returned to her side and pulled her into his lap, raising her head and pressing the now-opened bottle to her lips. She winced as the cold blood sluggishly made its way from the bottle and into her mouth. After a few sips, she was able to take the bottle from him and drink on her own. She could feel him smiling at her, and a blush would have colored her cheeks had she still been entirely human. He started petting her blood-matted hair as she curled to him, feeling more and more refreshed as the bottle was drained.

“Thank you, sir.” she said, finally able to find her voice. Her vocal cords were raw from screaming, and there was a blossoming bruise from where he'd gripped her throat as he took her. He didn't respond, just wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She cherished the moments like this, where he was silent and tender.

A shiver started, the chill from the freezer finally setting in. He brushed a kiss against her forehead.

“Come.” He stood. She scrambled to stand beside him, suddenly aware of the drying blood streaking her skin.

“It's time for you to leave the nest.” His eyes roved over her skin, stopping to admire his handiwork, the sharp lines of black and smears of scarlet. Then his eyes met hers.

“But first, how does a shower sound?”

“Amazing...” She blurted out.

He chuckled. She followed him after he gestured to her, and she was led to a corner of the concrete room. A shower head jutted from the smooth grey wall, a basket of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash hanging from its silver neck. A soft cloth was pressed into her hand and she turned to look at him. He smiled and reached around her to turn on the water, keeping her from the chill spray until it warmed up.

“I think,” he began, squirting shampoo into a broad, bloody palm, “Tomorrow night, I will introduce you to the rest of the kindred.”

She watched his face as he shampooed her hair, her own hands slowly reaching up to touch him. She ran her hands across his smooth skin, washing away her blood reluctantly. He had marked her permanently. He could wash her marks away so easily...

“Would you rather stay down here?” His expression became steely.

“No!” She gasped, looking back up into his eyes, “No, if you want me to meet them-”

His hands fisted in her hair suddenly, freezing her panic in her veins.

“What do you want?”

That tone terrified her. She knew what a loaded question this was.

“I want to make you happy.”

She hadn't even thought about the words before they flew from her mouth like frightened birds. He smiled, pulling her close by her hair and kissing her deeply, thoroughly, until she moaned into his kiss.

He pulled her away just as easily, smiling now.

“Good girl.”

The water ran rusty down their pale bodies and across the floor, disappearing down a drain. He kissed her wrists more under the warm spray, and she watched the gaping wounds heal under his ministrations.

She awoke alone, shivering and wiping away tears. Something in her head whispered that this would never go away. He would always be with her.

The steady stream of tears turned into choked sobs as she wailed into the pillow.
♠ ♠ ♠
Alright. That was a little gorier than I remembered. Managed to sneak a old tidbit of her time with him in after all. There will probably be a little more, but it's gonna be even worse, so this is an apology and a warning at the same time.

I love Nikki, and I love the things I've written for her, but I know it's not for everyone, and... well... I just need to get this shit out of my head.