IX - But from the frontiers lost in the night, from the presence and the absence where we meet ourselves

Fabien had fled into the night air, out where the rain was falling in a thin, sheer veil. It was the kind rain that hovered in a delicate mist about the lanterns, absorbing their brilliance in shivering, luminous globes.
Fabien did not know where he meant to go, but he knew he must climb, high as he could until he stood stationary upon smooth slats of the Tether’s roof. He climbed with such hungry purpose, arms as strong and as limber as a wild cat, but his tail a sodden rag that slipped lifelessly behind him. Without the stripes that coiled about his torso, he was all sickly gleaming ashen skin which welcomed the soothing caress of the damp air.
When his fire had sufficiently died, the youth had no recollection of his reasoning for being here, of why he had sought this location so desperately. He stood with spine just a little bowed, his chest heaving despite his rejuvenated strength, and his palms frustrated fists that sought to gore holes into his hips. He remained there perhaps an hour or so, enough to let the air knit the angry sores about his throat. And then it was time to leave, to return home.

And so the omen slipped back into the vampire’s darkness, opening the door so its hinges swung as soft as a sigh. Once inside, he immediately forced his weight firm into the door, his palms flat against the tortured wood as though they were consumed with indecision. He silently scanned the thick blackness, the dull brilliance of his eyes casting a frail light desperate to locate shapes in the gloom. But he told himself hadn’t been gone long, not enough to warrant the bat’s displeasure should he already lurk there.

Sighting nothing immediately, Fabien launched forward in agitation. Eventually he found the wall farthest from the door, and fell against it as though he hoped it might morph into mirror glass and encase him. He turned sharply and ground his bare spine against the dark surface, interrupting the silence of the room with the erratic chatter of his teeth as upper and lower jaws vibrated violently against each other.

“Calmez-vous, calmez,” the boy whispered hoarsely, trying to quell the oncoming storm of trembling that threatened to overwhelm him.

The omen exhaled in a deep, shuddering breath, and arched his neck until the back of his skull met the wall. Damp spirals of rain drenched hair were stretched about his cheeks, and clung to the panting curve of his lips. Fragments of freshly formed memories threatened to interrupt his thoughts. Of tonight, of his hands strong and firm as they sought to extract fear and horror from eyes that felt so strangely familiar to him.

“Pas plus,” he hissed as he lifted one hand, and the dagger-like points of his fingers seared aggressively through his scalp.

His eyes burned through the black expanse of the room. They burned into the far wall, where he thought the door to be, even if he could not see it. And he kept them there, their smouldering brightness illuminating his features as he looked on, and waited.

Outside, the rain had faded to a drizzle that held the island captive in a ghostly fog. It would burn away with the first of the morning’s light to leave every leaf and stair kissed with dew. The air was saturated with the scent of it.

It would not be until the sun had risen gold and crimson over the horizon that the bat returned to his darkness. Long after the omen’s rise to the roof, long after he slid against the wall and waited with trembling ears for his master’s return would his patience be rewarded with the sudden rush of light as the door opened. The torch-light from the hall was apt to be blinding after his intense gaze in the gloom.

Tariq’s silhouette in the doorway cut a neat hole in the warm light. It was one of a storybook wolf, all sharp claw and bristling mane that vanished as though it had devoured itself when the door closed with a snap, drowning them in darkness. He seemed to unravel in the dark like a serpent shedding its hide, skin splitting and falling away to reveal the blackness that lived underneath. He stretched his terrible wings wide enough for them to tremble at their joints. They unfurled with a sound like tearing cloth to envelop the room. Shadows licked eagerly at side, stirring sluggishly about his heels.

He did not acknowledge the boy. Instead, his footsteps elicited soft creaks as he tread a path from memory. The sounds were doubtless familiar to the omen’s sharp fox ears; sharing such a confined space meant he was well intimated with the protest of the chest of drawers as it was opened, the rustle of fabric and metal as the bat shrugged out of apparel still stained with blood and damp with water. He smelled of rust and – faintly – Sive, the scent of her tears and skin and perfume flickering about him like the flick of a feline’s tail.

When he did break the silence, his voice was conversational, the words like snarled velvet on his serpent’s tongue. “Are there fewer hunger pangs carving up your stomach, beloved?” He did not approach the omen, his voice floating gently through the darkness from the other side of the room. It was punctuated by the sound of a drawer shutting. His voice grew clearer as though he had turned to face him. “Perhaps it will be small consolation – if memory serves, I had promised to bind your throat.” There was nothing of malice in the threat. Instead a barbed purr haunted the words, his satisfaction nearly oozing from the spaces between syllables. It was a lazy taunt that clearly expected an answer.

By the time his master had returned, Fabien had slid down the length of the wall, and was curled there like a forgotten orphan. His legs were pressed tight against his bare chest, and his thin arms curled protectively about them like the gnarled roots of a dead tree. He had been so determined to remain alert, but half dreams had claimed him with tender ease, and the bat’s arrival was violent and disruptive.  The youth’s neck snapped back with a displeasing crack of the joints, and he shied away from the uncomfortable brightness like a blighted demon.

Much too quickly, and without thought, the omen rose to his feet, though his spine remained pressed with unnatural firmness into the wall. His serpentine pupils stalked the vampire’s every move, until he could see him no longer, until there was only darkness again. And then he listened.

The boy did not provide an answer hastily. Instead, like the spark of a match his eyes were suddenly aflame with vibrant irritation. They cut through the thick blackness like dying stars.

“You...” he began hotly, accusatorily, before he caught himself and moved to control his tongue. This was no easy feat, his knuckles worked repetitively over the surface of the wall, and his weight moved restlessly from heel to heel as he fiercely swallowed the worst of his venom.

“...You... still think it is... necessary then, Monsieur?”

When he answered clearly, and in full, there was such caution in his rasping voice. The boy stepped over his words as if they were glass fragments, like fox snares he had been so often warned of. Yet for all his effort, it was impossible to completely cloak the hard edge of a frustrated protest. And yet as the omen spoke, he began to move closer, step by tentative step. The pace was confident enough at first, but it wavered.

The scent of despair which still emanated from his master caused the cursed youth’s breath to shudder, and he was briefly blinded by images of water, and struggling, and tears. A shiver coiled its way through his body, crackling down the length of a dignified silver tail.

The boy swallowed thickly, and he strove to move closer again. He carved this path without order or enticement, without the sound of his name ringing like a bell in his ears. He wanted to be close enough to stir the bat’s fur with his cool breath, only then would he halt.

“I thought... I was going to... “he rasped, his words burnished with something akin to youthful disappointment.

“To please you, I wanted...,” he murmered softly, suddenly unsure of his intentions.
The fingers of one hand rose, and the sharp points of his nails traced perplexed lines across his gleaming brow.

Tariq allowed the boy to struggle to rein in his feral tongue in silence. It was impossible to discern his expression in the inky dark that filled his quarters from wall to wall. It shrouded him in shadow like a funerary veil.

The omen would only be permitted to rake his nails across his own skin once before the bat took his hand in his own. He folded his fingers inward like the delicate wings of a bird in his palm. The pad of his thumb idly traced the raised scars that slashed across his thin wrist, the curve of his claw cold as stone against his skin.

He drew him in close, near enough for the omen to discover the bat had indeed unrobed but had failed to dress again and was starkly naked. His nudity did little to bother him. He pressed the boy close to his bare chest and ran his fingertips through his tangled rotted-wheat hair the way one did with a well-loved family cat – familiarly, possessively, as though with the intent to make him arch his back and purr for him.

“Would you make me a liar?” he asked softly. It slipped from his mouth like a tongue of fog.

The boy’s muddled whine prompted him to release his wrist and instead gently hold his head between his palms, the tips of his fingers just brushing the roots of his sharp fox ears. It forced the boy to meet his dark-water eyes in the gloom.

“Fabien,” he said. It trembled on his serpent’s tongue. “Listen to me.” The words burned in his throat. His dark eyes were like pools of blood. “You have pleased me.” He spoke each syllable deliberately as though to make them sink into the omen’s skin, become absorbed in his blood and take root in his hollow stomach. “You were good.”

His mouth found the boy’s mouth through easy instinct, the kiss as all his kisses were; dark and hungry and far, far too deep, the points of his dreadful teeth scraping dangerously on his lower lip. He still smelled of Sive. When he released him his eyes were glowing with animal satisfaction. “You were so good,” he breathed, his breath cool and eager and thrumming with contentment. “My prince du sang, my star-crossed fox, my good, good boy.”

He struggled to control his breathless pleasure. A fine shiver traced its way through his great wings, and they trembled like dry autumn leaves.

“However,” he said, the word creaking in his throat. “That does not cleanse you of your sin. It does not wipe your ledger clean. I promised to punish you, and if I do not, I will have lied. What would you have me do?” It was murmured with rich satisfaction into the crook of his torn throat where his eager lips nuzzled.

The omen flinched like a beaten dog when he felt the bat’s fingers curl around his wrist. He was still so desperately aware of his need to make amends, it haunted every movement he made. His luminous eyes shivered with uncertainty across the vampire’s inky gaze, and he searched deeply for some further insight, some guidance. But of all things, he had not anticipated the bat’s affection, his praise. Such soft gestures affected him deeply, and enticed a soft, unhappy gasp to slip from between his pointed teeth.  Fabien’s weight inclined inwards, his head bowed down towards his master’s furred chest. From there, he’d likely feel the weak tremors which still affected his limbs.

“Non, Monsieur.” He rasped, his words painted with pained confusion.

When the vampire forced his chin to rise up, tears had already been to trace glowing lines across the omen’s sharp cheeks. In the pulsating light of the cursed creature’s eyes, the small beads of sorrow were transformed into stars, falling sad and lonely down towards his throat. At the bat’s words, the boy closed his eyes and released a soft, shivering breath. His lips formed  silent words, whatever he had meant to say, whatever they had meant to be, they were lost entirely before he could conceive them. And even before he could attempt to speak again, his lips were sealed against the bat’s mouth. The comforting lull of his voice and scent of unhappiness which lingered between their bodies was a heady mix. He was receptive. He opened to him, did not bar his teeth or curl his lip with snarling disgust.

When he was released, the omen’s head lowered anew, and his ears fell low to rest upon their bed of tangled and rain-moist hair. It wasn’t enough, he knew this. “I understand. I understand Monsieur.” He managed to at last choke out, his voice a rattling murmur of discontent. And how terrible that was, to understand, to know and acknowledge.

The omen began to separate from the bat’s grasp, to untangle from him. Despite this, it was clear he had no intention of stalking away like a petulant child. Instead, were the vampire to permit him, it seemed he sought to lower slowly down, down to his knees.

There was a moment of hesitation. Of fraught, tortured uncertainty before he fully accepted his place. And then he did not cease until his eyes were level with his master’s thighs.

“I will not fight you.” He rasped softly.

The boy’s brow was suddenly pressed firmly into the furred flesh of his master’s thigh. He concealed his features against the bat’s dark fur as though he were deeply, unforgivably ashamed of his words, his actions.

“But can I ...?” He breathed into the vampire’s skin.

Soon his trembling, ashen fingers were awkwardly slipping their way through that dark fur. He nervously stretched his hand out until those fingers shone bone-white against the darkness. But then they curled in towards his palm, and his hand formed an anguished, trembling fist against the side of the bat’s leg. There was a violence somewhere within the gesture. But it remained chained down, forced back where it could no longer wound him. And it was painfully clear how much he was struggling, fighting for a way to best convey his meaning.

“Let me serve you. S'il vous plaít, Monsieur.”

Tariq had clearly expected familiar resistance to the press of his mouth against his omen’s; when it did not come, when the boy opened up to him, keen and receptive, he responded in kind, his tongue flicking into his wet mouth and the dangerous curve of his teeth scraping along his bottom lip. He pulled away with a soft shudder, his dark eyes glowing.

He seemed loathe to allow the boy to slip from his grasp. His touch lingered on his skin, possessive and cool, as though to draw him back, to hold his head and lick the glittering tears from his cheeks, to murmur more words of affection into the corner of his unhappy mouth. However, when it became clear he was not retreating back into the darkness but falling to his knees, the bat allowed it, wordlessly reigning in his greedy hands.

He remained silent as the omen struggled to articulate his desire. That silence stretched on long after he had finished, the boy shivering at his feet left unfulfilled by his master’s contemplations.

“I—“ he began but broke off with a hiss, the word splintering into nothing on his forked tongue. He wordlessly swallowed the remains. Instead, his hand slipped to the back of the omen’s head, tangling intimately in the wild curls at the base of his sharp ears.

His great wings shivered like the plucked strings of a violin. Their curled fingers rattled in the claw. His hair was ethereal in the trembling light of the omen’s poorly-wired eyes, tumbling pale down his shoulders; a bridal veil, a funerary shroud.

“Yes.” It was little more than a heated breath, a warmed wisp of fog. The skin which was to be the object of the cursed youth’s attentions was already growing firm in anticipation. The hand that was not already gently cradling the back of his skull firmly guided the omen’s mouth until his nervous breath fluttered along it. There was little force in the gesture; only steady guidance.

“Yes,” he said again, soft as sin. “Do as you would.” The words shuddered but did not break in his mouth.

Pressed against his master’s legs, and still trembling into him in the dark, the omen awaited. His foxen ears were fiercely attentive, and at the brush of the bat’s fingers, the demonic points shivered like the wings of a trapped bird. The spell of quiet between them was broken only by boy’s harsh breath, the soft rattle of his corrupted lungs.

When his request was granted, the boy’s hand relaxed against the vampire’s thigh. But his touch continued to linger, and the lean fingers slid nervously into the dark fur. A surge of relief loosened his creaking joints, but it was fleeting. And only too easily replaced by the horror of what he had offered, what he had begged to give. The boy lifted his head, his sharp cheeks still soaked with tears. They did not cease to flow, tumbling in a soft stream over his cheekbones, before collecting along the sharp edge of his jaw. From there they fell like rainwater upon his thighs, and rolled in glittering droplets down the bare skin of his chest.

The omen was thankful for the bat’s gentle guidance. He did as he promised, he did not fight him. There was no resistance in the muscles of his neck. The only protest came from the whisper of a coarse crackling tail as it swept across the floor, hissing and sparking in displeasure.

It was a pity the bat would be denied the chance to see the rebellious lips and sneering mouth turn so soft, so inviting. But he would feel the growing heat of the impish tongue as it drew close. And he would feel it begin to slip and curl over tip of his skin, a single exploratory taste, before the boy drew back with a shudder of uncertainty.  It would cause him to pull gently against the bat’s hand, if it remained in place. But it soon became clear he did not intend to draw away, and the hesitant flush of his breath returned. Then, before he dared spare further time, he began to ease him fully into his mouth.

In this, the boy was compellingly awkward. He was full of struggle, tormented by youthful embarrassment. His pointed teeth gently scraped against the bat’s sensitive skin, and the muscles of his brow became pinched with effort.

“Je suis désolé...” he breathed into the bat’s firm skin, after releasing him with a soft gasp. It allowed him a short pause, before he moved to draw him back into the hot well of his mouth.

“Je suis désolé,” he repeated in a shuddery whisper, curling his tongue over and around the bat’s flesh. “Forgive me.”

The omen’s fingers slid free of the bat’s thigh, and moved to aid him, curling about the base of his master’s firm skin.

“S’il vous plaít, forgive me.”

Tariq’s wings had fallen to his sides in great heaps of black membrane and the lazy upturned curve of claw. In the blinding dark that drenched the room they were like the robes of a king, the omen kneeling at the foot of them an adoring supplicant. The shadows that crouched in the corners and tangled in dark fur seemed to draw close in their anticipation of what this hapless beggar would request of their sovereign.

The bat’s blighted eyes had grown dark and liquid. His thumb smeared the saltless tears that glistened on the omen’s cheeks. His breath was shallow in his chest. The tribute that the boy offered seemed to have robbed the words from his chest and he was silent as he held the trembling creature against him.

When that petulant mouth took him into it his inhale was a gentle gasp that shrank his stomach and rattled loosely at the back of his throat. The skin pressed to his lips like the holy communion twitched as the wash of his warm breath gave way to the heat of his wet tongue.

He did not remove his hand when the omen drew into it; nor did he force the boy along. It remained curled around the back of his neck as a steady pressure. There was greed and hunger in the tightness of those fingers and the prickling of claws against the delicate skin above his spine but the vampire reigned in his conquering instincts and breathed a quavering patience.

That fragile patience snapped when the sharp tooth scraped along tender skin and the bat’s muscles stiffened. A heavy wing instinctively flicked outward as though to cuff him roughly on the head. However, his pointed ears turned to the boy’s apology and the wing halted before it made contact, a sharp hiss on his forked tongue. The ivory claws that glinted in the dark membrane of his wings flashed in the erratic light of his eyes.

“Ah,” he breathed softly, as though to steady himself. He swallowed before continuing. “Mihi vulpe, like this.”

There was nothing awkward about the touch of his hand as he gently, gently corrected the angle of his omen’s neck, easing his chin up. The slight revision immediately had its desired effect and the boy was liable to choke if he did not widen his jaws to accommodate the sudden ease with which his master’s skin slid past his teeth.

A shiver moved through him at the touch of the boy’s hand. The palm at the back of his neck shifted to stroke appreciatively through the tangles of his rotted-wheat hair, a faint but unmistakable gesture of praise. Even in the dim light one could make out the trembling that had taken the folds of his great wings that shivered softly like the pinions of a bird.

Within the inky darkness of the vampire’s room, the thin, pulsing light of the omen’s eyes created a pool of brightness between their bodies. It was no stronger than match-light shielded by a palm, a soft and secret glow that aided the fox-featured boy’s work. At the vampire’s touch this light began to spread, slipping over dark fur and casting their strange silhouettes against the walls.  When the boy’s eyes rose, they were affixed attentively on his master as if he were the boy’s entire world.

Fabien was pressed so close to the vampire’s thighs, that he was sure to feel the erratic pulse of his old, tired heart. And the warmth which emanated from his grey, scarred skin.

The bat’s gentleness, his patience, made the boy so easy to instruct. There was only a flicker of doubt in his eyes, a skipping of the breath, before he continued. At the vampire’s guidance, he eased his master deep into the soft darkness of his slender throat. It was not easy, and soon the boy’s rattling breath had started to tug at his chest. But though the muscles of his throat flexed and strained in protest, Fabien continued accept him beyond the youthful curl of his lips. His efforts eventually left the poor creature softly choking.

It was only when this choking became too terrible, that he began to release the bat’s flesh from the hot tautness of his mouth. This defeat was followed by a wave of rasping apologies, unhappy whispers which spilled from his teeth and were gasped into the rigid tip of the vampire’s heated skin.  

He was relentless in his desire to please. As he spoke, the hand which had curled so tentatively about the thick base began to apply firm strokes to the skin it had incited.

The omen seemed so pitifully desperate to please, to entice pleasure, and receive further gestures of approval and praise. His silken, demonic tongue lapped with unrefined purpose along the delicate folds of the bat’s skin. Here he traced a path until his sharp nose was grazing the bat’s dark fur. The boy’s skeletal shoulders trembled still, and he paused with his forehead against the bat’s hip as though overcome with some emotion.

He did not allow his master time to recover before the hot pressure of his mouth returned. Before once again he griped and slid him past his sharp teeth, back into the slick channel of his throat. And as he attempted to swallow him, the hand still stroked over the skin it could not claim.

He broke from him again. It was a harsh Interruption which was sure to cause irritation, though it was clear the boy had no intention to do so. For he paused only to enquire softly, his voice was a nervous shudder in the dark.


“Better, Monsieur?”

The irregular light of the omen’s eyes sent sooty shadows skittering across the bat’s features like a flurry of wild bruises. In the murk of his darkened quarters he was a great beast of bristling coal fur and liquid black eyes, an animal of glinting claw that hissed steam of impatience from his parted jaws.

His breath panted quick between his sharp teeth. That breath stilled when the fox-like creature trembling against his thighs took him so deeply into his hot mouth. The muscles of his stomach grew strained and hard as the omen choked against the rigid skin that restrained his wicked tongue as surely as a steel bit.

The hand lost in the rotten flax of the boy’s hair tightened when he pulled away with gasped apologies. There was a lingering ghost of cautious restraint in his manner, as though the omen were a wild animal he feared to spook off from his delightful work. A shiver crackled up his ancient bones at the lapping of his omen’s tongue and it eased some of the impatience from the taut muscle of his shoulders. He tilted his head back and the ink-black of his blighted eyes became a sharp crescent beneath the rime of pale eyelashes.

When he pulled away a second time, the vampire released the breath he had not been aware of holding. This was too much and he could not be restrained any longer; the hand that had stroked the back of his head as though he were a well-loved hound tensed irritably at the interruption. Gently, but with a firmness that could not be denied, he put pressure at the back of his neck, once more easing his lips around the skin that throbbed for joy at the wet heat of his mouth.

“Better,” he said, the word an approving hiss on his forked tongue. The quiver that had taken his great wings had yet to infect the crispness of his words with a tremor. “Much better.”

The hand that was not occupied in sweetly forcing the boy’s head forward fastened over the uncertain grasp that stroked the eager skin slickened and wetted from his mouth. In this too, his coaxing was insistent as he guided the curled fingers with practiced ease over the shaft of his cock where his tongue did not reach. A diabolical rhythm began to develop in the space between his hand and his boy’s mouth.

“Do not stop.” The command was not hard; it came as a slithering, seductive suggestion that was difficult to disregard. The hand held firm at the back of his neck was further poignant incentive to obey.

The effect the bat’s words had on the omen was palpable. A shudder sparked through the length of entire body, where it remained crackling at the tip of his cursed tail. The boy released a soft, whimpering sob that seemed caught somewhere between relief and sorrow. Something seemed to  sharpened through him anew, and could be felt in a flicker of uncertainty that coiled into the muscles of his arms and thighs. But he did not buckle, and instead pressed close and breathed in the scent of his master’s fur, of his hunger. So familar it was branded upon every part of his being.

The bat’s throbbing skin remained deeply encased within the narrow wetness of the omen’s throat, as he panted and gasped upon him. He groaned in pain, the bones of his jaw stretched so wide they ached. The gape of his teeth was already encouraging a steady stream of fluid to seep from the corners of once smirking mouth. Soon it began to slicken over his chin, to fall in glistening threads that beaded and rolled down to annoint his bare chest. This left his skin gleaming, still stained as it was from the tears that had not yet dried.

The omen closed his eyes, and extinguished the pale glow that burned between them. This seemed to alleviate some of his tension, and allowed the fox-featured boy to learn his master’s flesh in every detail.  His throat flexed as he swallowed, and took his skin between his demonic teeth to ease down the smooth plane of his sharply tipped tongue. He sucked firmly upon him, tasted him in mouthfuls until his strained breath passed through his pointed nose in a quivering huff of effort.  

This time he did not cease, nor disrupt his task. Not even when his throat objected, and the effort caused a soft whine to dislodge from between his jaws. The omen relaxed into the bat’s guidance, his grip firmed by the assurance of his master’s touch. The thin hand stroked the flesh it could not claim with his lips, and followed the steady glide of the bat’s clawed fingers.  His wrist turned supple, the yellow bones within crackling like kindling with the rolling motion, and the stain of a crimson heart glided to and fro in the blackness.  Soon the air around them grew obscene with sounds, the wet pressure of his lips and mouth, accompanied now by the relentless pace of his lean palm.

For any that had known this imp of ill luck, it would have surely been a miserable vision. His charcoal tail silent behind him, the pale tip curled warily around his filthy toes like a fallen star. The omen’s spine was softly bowed, his body still pressed into his master with such devotion. This creature of shadows, of despair and sorrows, knelt before the vampire in a vile corruption of what he was. The mockery of a decadent courtesan at the heels of his king, fallen at his feet in absolute surrender.  The youth’s scarred throat was stretched and arched as elegantly as a swan, showcasing the poetry of purpled lines and silvered bite marks the bat had inflicted. They shone upon his pale, ashen flesh, disrupting the smooth surface of his neck like a filigree collar.

As he continued, steadied and encouraged by the bat’s grasp, the omen’s foxen ears strained to listen for signs that he was still giving pleasure. The heat of his actions did not abate. He allowed the bat to guide him, to adjust him for his every purpose, until he was following every movement of his body, every harsh breath and tightening of muscle.  He was still imperfect in his affection, still rough and awkward in his approach- and attempting to match his master’s pace left the boy struggling. Despite this, and whether through the bat’s insistence, or his own resolve, he did not falter until the lack of air left his broken lungs in whistling anguish.

The bat was ravenous. His appetite was whetted, as his fingers were wetted in the silver shimmer of spit and saltless tears that made his boy’s sharp chin slick. He glorified in the mess he had made of the omen's scornful face, his touch smearing the ruin across ashen skin that glistened beneath his caress as though quickened.

His touch was, as always, possessive. He reveled in the cracks where this creature had been meticulously broken.

Tariq’s long body inclined forward, drawn toward the wet heat encircling the flesh that throbbed in sheer joy at the touch of his omen's sharp tongue. His heavy wings had been taken by a shivering that shook the curve of their gleaming claws together. Impatient breath hissed like scalding steam from between his parted jaws. His teeth were white even in the dark, sharp and perfect as the porcelain curve of the moon.

Fabien, kneeling at his feet like a penitent, would feel the firm skin in his mouth convulse in response to his stifled swallow.

"Good," the bat panted. It was nearly a gasp. His breath shuddered past his teeth.

The liquid dark of his ruined eyes had long since disappeared. His eyelashes trembled as his eyes moved beneath the lid. There was tension in the clean lines of his body - a strain that had settled in the long fingers at the back of the boy's neck, a tautness that demanded reckoning.

It was easy to remember now, when he was laid bare to yellowed bones and dangerous appetites, that the bat was a predator. The points of his crooked claws were cutting painfully into the back of the boy’s neck. His breaths were coloured by a rasp. They were a snarl in the back of his throat. In anyone else's mouth it might have been the first seeds of a breathy moan. For the vampire it was the coarse sound of a wolf's lungs as it neared prey betrayed by its blood-splattered trail.

"Fabien." It came abruptly, the bat's mouth holding the word as though by this obscene ritual he was luring the truth of the omen out, making him flesh and bone in place of smoke and soot. He said it as though it were a summoning. The hand at his neck tightened, curled as though itching to constrict his throat. "Do not stop."

This time it was a command, and it was quickly followed by the adamant push of his hand as he forced the mouth already strained taut by the skin to take him deeper. It was a cruel gesture, the swift snap of it almost teasing, and it was clear the omen's master wished him to choke once more, for his wet tongue to push back against the intrusion. When it came he released his breath, and this time it could not be mistaken for anything less than a heated moan.

His chest was rising and falling quickly. The muscles of his stomach were strained and hard. If the omen did as he was told and did not stop, the exquisite surrender of the collarless creature on his knees before him would surely push the vampire to his limits soon.

The eyes of the fox-featured boy slowly opened, and the light which bled from them was fragmented and strange, as if passed through a kaleidoscope. It sparked in the dark well between their bodies, splintering against the walls and ceiling.

The omen’s impish, serpentine pupils drifted upwards, seeking the bat’s mouth and the familiar gleam of his terrible teeth in the darkness. Tear-stained and miserable though he was, for a moment something almost joyous seemed to pass across his sharp features. Oddly suited to such a wilful and defiant being, it looked horribly like a newly formed eagerness to please.

Perhaps this could be felt too, in the omen’s grip upon his master’s flesh. In the way his hand, once uncertain and stiff in its mimicry of pleasure, became almost liquid-soft and certain of its purpose. And in the way his bony wrist flexed with almost sultry precision, how his palm slid across the sensitive flesh with a deep desire to entice more snarled breaths of pleasure from the vampire.

When the boy eased back to create a slither of space between them, the tip of his pointed tongue flicked carefully over the ridged skin of his master’s cock.

But at the the sound of his name on the bat’s lips, the omen seemed to waken as though from a daze. Fear pulsed within his luminous eyes like the skipping of a heart-beat, and his ash coloured ears flinched, as though the boy expected violence and scorn. When he heard the vampire’s encouragement, a choked sob caught at the back of his throat, and the youth’s laboured breaths deepened as he struggled to dutifully follow the bat’s command.

He may have remained just so, were it not the intensity of the vampire’ cruel affections, which threatened to stifle his breath and energy like the snuffing of a candle. The omen whimpered against his master’s firm flesh as was forced to take him ever deeper into the slick well of his throat. This proved a feat almost beyond the omen’s power, and he at once became all hard muscle and stiffening terror, his eternally ravaged lungs whistling sorrowfully for air.

Then the room was filled not just with the sounds of the bat’s rasping pleasure, but with the omen’s pained breaths, and his miserable, violent choking. His other hand, the one not desperately trying to please, began to slither its way up the bat’s thigh. It paused at his hip bone, his soot-stained fingertips embedding and curling themselves into the inky fur there, until he was anxiously clutching and pulling at him. There was a miserable, pleading desperation in the boy’s hand. Like a pauper, with filthy fist entangled in the robes of a king, begging for even the smallest amount of charity, a single dirty coin. It was clear the omen had not much left in him to give.

A dull whine of pain, like that of a wounded animal, ached at the back of the boy’s scarred throat. His bony spine grew taught, and his neck stiffened as though he might pull away with a gasp. Perhaps he would have dared disobey then, were it not for the bat’s clawed hand which held him in place. Trapped at he was in his task, the youth had little option but to offer his swiftly depleting energy.

His conjurers hand, his bright eyes, and his throat, all were given as tribute to the vampire who kept him collared and bound at his feet. And so he waited, with limbs quivering, to swallow him hungrily.