**Interlude 14 - Oh, beloved; there is nothing but shadow where you accompany me

Fabien's grey eyes widened in surprise at the sudden press of the vampire's mouth. His breath shivered appreciatively past his teeth, and a soft sound of delight escaped his parted lips.

The boy possessively captured the fabric of the vampire's shirt, and bunched it in his clenched fists. He returned the kiss with fierce pleasure, groaning into his host's mouth as if it were his first taste of cool water after days burning on desert sand.

But he had not fully abandoned the full heat of his anger. When the vampire withdrew from him, the edge of the boy's teeth scraped almost viciously across his lower lip.

His words were greeted with a soft sob, which verged on a tearful scoff of disbelief. When he lifted his head, the urchin's eyes gleamed wet with tears.

"O-oui, Monsieur," he rasped into the darkness.

Once he was alone, the boy took a moment to collect himself. He raked a trembling hand through his tangled golden hair, his breath ragged in his throat. He stood somewhat unsteadily, two fingers pressed into the hollow of his temple as he attempted to soothe the storm of his thoughts.

When he was at last able to catch his breath, the youth proceeded towards his room, his mind too preoccupied to think on the finer points of the vampire's instruction.

The boy crept carefully through the inky darkness of the house. His bare feet had learned to instinctually recall the route, but he moved cautiously until he spied the familiar fan of candlelight that seeped from beneath his bedroom door.

Once inside his room, the boy hastily removed what remained of his clothing, and redressed himself appropriately. His fingers quivered as he fixed buttons into place, and straightened his collar around the lean stem of his scarred neck.

Fabien reappeared from the cosy warmth of his quarters, his sharp silhouette preceding him as he stepped back into the rich darkness of the hall. He turned, and prepared to make his way towards his host's bedroom door.

The glow of candlelight that bled from the boy’s room pooled hazily in the dark hall. He would not take more than a step from his door before spotting the figure it illuminated lurking just outside the vampire’s room.

Émile sagged against the wall, their arms crossed across their chest. They had not done up their trailing shirt and he glimpsed the bare skin of their torso. They were, more than anything, tired, as evidenced by the fatigue etched into the limp lines of their body and the heavy droop of their eyelids. The faded bruises that marred their neck and face were sallow in the dim light.

They stirred at his approach. Their movements were slow, cobwebbed with fatigue.

They had to look up through their dark lashes to meet his eyes, but still managed rather impressively to give the impression of looking down on him.

“I have been told,” they said impassively, their hoarse tone carefully controlled as though conscious of being overheard. “That you are to-” They licked their lips. “-advise where I am to spend the night.” They could not entirely quell the quiver of contempt in their tone.

They did not avert their gaze, but the mossy green of their eyes was hard as they silently awaited his answer. Their hands had formed tight fists at their side.

Fabien came to an abrupt halt when he noticed Émile slumped forlornly against the vampire's door. The boy swallowed stiffly, and his grey eyes carefully examined their exhausted body as he began to approach.

If there was concern in the boy's expression, it was too shrouded in darkness. His features were impassive, almost cold as he met their beautiful eyes.

He listened in silence, his attention rooted on the solid wood vampire's door as though he possessed the sudden ability to see clearly within. He nodded lightly.

"I thought I'd already made my feelings on this plain." The urchin replied, returning his gaze to Émile. For a brief moment, a flicker of irritation seemed to darken his eyes and tighten the line of his mouth.

"I don't care where you go, or what you do. I am not your keeper."

The boy sighed and rolled his shoulders before glancing back down the empty hall. If Émile were especially observant, it almost seemed like the youth was trying to draw their attention to the inviting pool of light behind him. The door left open, the candlelight still flickering cheerfully within.

"Go sleep on the kitchen floor for all it matters to me. Just so long as you are not here." He continued sourly, as his grey eyes returned to Émile.

Émile had perfected the art of the hard stare, and their flinty gaze did not waver as Fabien considered his response. Their eyes followed his down the hall but if they gleaned any meaning from the gesture, their countenance did not reveal it.

They rolled their shoulders and stifled a yawn.

“Quoi que vous disiez,” they answered with artificial honey dripping in their tone. They brushed against him as they passed, their body warm where it grazed his arm. Their voice was a hoarse whisper in his ear. “Enjoy your turn.”

They moved to step past him down the hall, their comment half-forgotten before it had died on their tongue.

Fabien visibly flinched at Émile's remark, but did not turn his head as they passed him.

He drew in a sharp breath, and lifted his hand slowly, his long fingers outstretched at his prepared to knock on the vampire's door. The boy's hand remained held aloft, the muscles of his arm quivering as he bade his body to follow through.

His finger began to curl slowly inwards, the long digits bunched together until they had formed a trembling fist.

There was no warning, aside from the prolonged silence, to indicate he had abandoned his position. Émile barely had time to take a few weary steps before the boy was upon them, the full force of his weight crushing into their body as he lunged like a feral hound scenting a wounded hare.

The thud of their bodies colliding resounded through the quiet halls, causing ornaments to rattled in their position and picture frames to skew.

He moved to knock the exhausted creature off balance, and fell upon them with such force, until pinned chest first to the ground, beneath his sharp body. The urchin's easy strength could easily knock breath from their lungs, perhaps leave their ears ringing.

The grey-eyed boy claimed a fistful of dark hair and used it as leverage to pull and twist their skull on the elegant stem of their neck so that their eyes could meet.

“I do not understand,” he managed to snarl, “how you have managed to live this long.” He straddled their waist, one bony knee exerting pressure into small of their back. It was clear the boy wanted to inflict hurt, for his entire body was trembling with restraint. But he managed to keep his anger tethered, and the press of his body was sure to be more uncomfortable than a source of pain.

“Besides offering yourself like a bitch in a heat.”

His grip tightened in their hair, the gleaming stands curled like ink around his long fingers.

“If it were up to me, you'd be muzzled outside this house until you learn when to shut your whore mouth.”

Émile was ever unprepared for Fabien’s assaults and, intent on securing a place to rest, did not turn at the boy’s silence. His lunge took them by surprise.

They got one solid backward swing of their elbow at his ribs before hitting the ground hard, limbs weak with fatigue crumpling beneath them. Their breath left their lungs in a whoosh of air. It left them gasping.

They scrabbled at the floor for the leverage to wriggle free but Fabien was thorough and they could not find purchase. Their body shook with the strain as he wrenched their head back by their hair.

Their breath returned, shuddering hoarsely in their throat. Their inhale deteriorated into a cough.

“And if it were up to me,” they croaked. “You would act on your fixation on my whore mouth instead of prolonging this - ah - disagreeable foreplay.”

They squirmed as though to test his grip and, finding it solid, subsided. Their chest heaved under him. It was truly unfortunate how beautiful their neck was stretched taut at his command; how their open, panting mouth filled one’s head with debauched reveries.

“Blowing your load on me while he’s waiting for you is the mark of an amateur, mon ami,” they panted. A strand of hair that escaped the boy’s fist had fallen over their gaze and they shook their head to fix him with one sardonic eye.

Fabien released a sharply panted breath, and ground his knee deeper into the curve of Émile's spine.

The boy looped more dark hair around his palm and fingers, and he rose up hoisting Émile with him. They were granted little opportunity to find their feet, before the urchin began dragging them back in the direction of the vampire's door.

It seemed for a moment that the boy had had a sudden change of heart, and intended to drop them at the doorstep like a bedraggled foundling. Instead, he paused, and kicked open his bedroom door with the side of his foot.

The youth remained in a stony silence throughout, his eyes dark as he flung Émile unceremoniously across his bed.

There was conflict in the boy's expression for a moment, as his grey eyes trailed hungrily over their half undressed body. His fingers twitched at his sides, but with a shake of the head the thought was dismissed.

"You are staying here tonight." He stated simply, and snuffed the wick of his bedside candle with a pinch of the fingers.

With the room plunged into confounding darkness, the boy abandoned them to the soft comfort of his bed. The door was not so much closed but slammed shut behind him, and the last sound likely to be heard was the boy's irritable knock upon the vampire's door.

Émile heaved an appreciative breath of air when they were hoisted from the floor, though it was quickly coloured by a whimper of pain at the rough yank to their hair. They instinctively struggled against him in an ineffective flailing of limbs.

“Non, non,” they protested, digging their heels into the floor. “Il n'y a pas besoin-” Their objection subsided when he turned from the vampire’s door, and they were easy enough to fling into his room.

It was not difficult to imagine what gave the boy pause as they landed hard on their stomach in a jumble of disheveled half-dress across his bed, the Venusian dimples of their lower back exposed in a strip of soft skin. They, mercifully, were too occupied in righting themself to comment before they were lost in the dark, the solid door muffling any sign of their presence when it slammed closed.

Tariq’s soft voice, apparently unperturbed by the clamor outside his door, bade Fabien enter when he knocked on the heavy door, and the boy stepped into the bloodied heart of his night-dark chamber. The red and purple curtains shivered as though in greeting, the gentle breeze trickling in from the balcony as cool as the hand of a lover on his cheek. The room was doused with the rich, smoky fragrance of redolent resins.

The vampire was seated with his back to the door. He was wearing the serpent-scale green robe in which he had antagonized Fabien in the bath, but had slipped it from his shoulders and the boy was greeted by the unmarred skin of his back. He had gathered his hair over his shoulder and it spilled in a froth of cream down his side.

Muscle moved fluidly beneath the fawn skin of his back as he languidly turned his head. His profile was sharp in the shadow.

“Bonsoir, Fabien,” he said silkily. He turned away and offered the small jar in his hand over his shoulder. The creamy lotion inside smelled inexplicably but undeniably like having stumbled upon the ashes of a fire in an autumn-gold forest.

“If you are quite finished entertaining our guest, would you be so kind as to assist with my back, s'il vous plaît.” There was a husky purr in his voice.

Fabien's movements were strained and shadowed with weariness as he entered, his limbs sluggish as though weighed down by stones. He pressed his spine against the door and bowed his head, the curling strands of his golden hair tangled over his grey eyes.

"Avez vous entendu ça? What that fucking brat just said to me?" He croaked, fierce indignation  crackling upon his tongue.

The boy combed his agitated fingers through his hair, and his storm cloud eyes swept angrily up towards the vampire. "Like ...like we are pieces of a game for you to swap out at-"  the ire melted from his voice like ice upon the tongue as he trailed the length of his bare spine, "-at ...y-your leisure."

Despite the accusatory tone, the vampire's request was met with an immediate quickening of the boy's pulse.

"Oh... oui, comme vous le souhaitez,” he mumbled, unable to suppress the trembling eagerness in his voice.

He stepped towards him to accept the jar from the vampire's hand, and his eyes moved admiringly over the strong slant of his shoulders. The familiar sensation of intimacy between them caused the muscles of his heart to tighten, and a soft sigh to part his youthful lips.

The boy quickly busied himself with his task, and lifted the jar to his nose so that he might inhale the smoky scent with feline curiosity. He awkwardly attempted to pour a delicately measured amount into his palm, the muscles of his jaw still tense with displeasure.

As his eyes roved over the vampire's back the boy grew hesitant, suddenly unsure where to begin. He reached out slowly, and smoothed his slick palm across the firm muscle of his shoulder. The sight of his pale fingers spread and glazing the vampire's skin to gleaming richness caused boy's breath to hitch in his throat. His hand grew still as he struggled to compose himself.

When his fingers had ceased to quiver, he began to apply the lotion with more purpose, moving in slow, adoring strokes between the firm planes of the vampire's shoulder blades.

“Je...je le fais correctement?” He managed to rasp, his breath warm against the glistening skin under his rough palm.

With aching gentleness he traced two fingers slowly down the ridges of his spine, stroking the soft curve of his back as though he were an exquisitely crafted masterpiece cast in gleaming bronze.

“Je déteste te partager,” the boy said quietly, as though it were merely a stray thought he had been unable to keep within his mind. He reluctantly withdrew his touch to pour more lotion into his cupped hand.

Fabien’s initial ire coaxed a faint smile to haunt the vampire’s lips.

“Oui, j'ai entendu,” he said simply. He did not lower his proffered hand until Fabien
acquiesced and accepted the jar, at which he settled expectantly in his seat.

Tariq was not timid in his appreciation of the touch of the boy’s hand on his skin. He leaned appreciatively into the gentle strokes, his shoulder blades flexing beneath the skin. The press of his fingers along the ridge of his spine coaxed an easy sigh.

“Mm,” he murmured, rolling his head to allow access to his other shoulder. “C'est très bien.” The praise was husky with warm affection.

When Fabien returned his hand, the vampire tilted his head back to rest his crown against the boy’s stomach. His eyes were half-lidded with pleasure, only a silvered crescent of pale eye exposed beneath the delicate hoarfrost of his lashes. Gently, he took the boy by the wrist and pressed his lotion-slick hand around the front of his throat.

“You are not sharing me.” His voice was soft and Fabien could feel the words vibrating through the cords of his neck.

He slowly guided the boy’s hand along his throat, stroking the bump of his Adam’s apple, down to the raised scars at the base of his neck. His palm was warm on the back of the boy’s hand. “It is just you, and it is just me.”

He paused. Fabien could feel the steady beat of his heart in the taut skin of his stretched throat. There was an unkind slither of mischievous insinuation in his voice when he spoke. “Voulez-vous que je les tue?”

Fabien shivered in delight at the gentle press of the vampire’s weight against him. His praise caused the boy's eyes to grow luminous and his expression to soften as a smile twitched at the corner of his lips.

He inclined forward, and lowered his mouth to the side of the vampire’s neck. His lips brushed lovingly against his skin as he allowed his host to guide his hand.

“I wish I could always be at your side,” he breathed warmly, “I cannot bear when we are apart.” 

As his hand slipped down his host's throat, the urchin kissed his way up towards the sharp line of his jaw. Hopeless to stop himself, his teeth and tongue grazed against the vampire's skin, desperate to taste him.
It was only his question that made the boy pause. The muscles of his arm stiffened, and his breath grew still in his throat as he turned his words over with intricate care. Finally, he responded.

"Non, Monsieur. That is not what I want." He replied in a voice crackling with displeasure.

“When they speak it... it reminds me, of...of that brothel. The way they would talk about me, the things they would say.” The boy continued nervously, as though this memory was a wound that he could press to soreness.

“I know they speak with intent to hurt me. But, I also know, some part of them believes it. Ils pensent que je suis en dessous d'eux.”

The boy's hand resumed its soft, stroking motions over the vampire's skin. Slick with lotion, his fingers slid lower, and the youth angled his body so that he could glide his palm, relishing the firm contours of his chest.

“Were things different, they would spit upon me from their carriage door. Jeer at me, hungry and shivering,” he continued softly, as his hand continued its slow, firm progress down toward the vampire's stomach.

“Killing them would not satisfy me,” his voice was soft against his host's ear. “I want you to give me complete control over Émile, in all things. I want them to serve one they think so lowly.”

The boy pressed an open mouthed kiss to the vampire's cheek, then another near to the corner of his lips, desperate to encourage his head to turn. His hand continued to slip lower, feeling over the taunt muscles of his stomach, then lower still, his fingertips brushing the smooth skin of his inner thigh as the boy pleaded against his skin.

“It would please me, Monsieur. It would make me happy, to have that power over them. Give them to me, and allow me to attend to my Master in the manner he deserves. S'il vous plait.”

Tariq’s breath hissed through teeth sharp as the prick of a needle at the touch of the boy’s lips to his skin. He leaned his head to the side to press his neck to the worshipful heat of his eager mouth, relishing the hungry scrape of his teeth.

“Always?” he murmured with a prickle of satisfaction. “C'est beaucoup de temps.”

A gentle disappointment coloured his features when Fabien answered in the negative to his offer, and he rolled his shoulders as though to dismiss the notion. But as the boy continued to speak, his dissatisfaction melted away as passing smoke to be replaced by rapt interest.

He listened in silence. The pleading desire in his tone caused the vampire’s breath to hitch in his throat.

He did not remove his hand as the urchin’s fingers crept down his stomach. It took little prompting for him to turn his head and open his mouth to Fabien’s adoring kisses. His mouth was warm and hungry, and the taste of his boy coaxed a rough sigh from his chest.

Something in the boy’s words had lit a sulfurous spark in the vampire’s eyes and when he opened them, they were lit by a phosphorescent gleam

“They are an amusing diversion,” he said. “I would rather they were serving you than going to waste.”

He pressed the boy’s hand beneath his, gently encouraging it to slide between his legs under the silky softness of his robe.

“They would answer to you in all things,” he said, his tone contemplative as he mulled this over. “Where to sleep, what they eat, what to wear - or if they do at all.” The idea clearly had potential, as evinced by the stirring skin under Fabien’s palm.

“Have they told you why they stay here?” His pale eyes glinted like moonlight.

Fabien abandoned his grasp on the lotion jar when their mouths met, and his sharp arm curled around his vampire's shoulder. The boy moaned happily against his lips, his lean body trembling with joy.

"Pas assez long," he murmured, a smile blooming at the corner of his mouth.

The guidance of the vampire's hand caused heat to rise upon the boy's sharp features. His warm, slick fingers brushed across the stirring skin between his thighs, and the boy's breath grew ragged in his throat.

"S-so, you will allow it? You will let me have them, Monsieur? Keep them at my feet, and punish them when they speak out of turn?" The urchin asked eagerly, the pad of his thumb stroking across the sensitive tip of his master's cock.

"I don't want them back in here, unless they are on the floor." He stated with seething jealousy.

As the boy grew more confident, his caresses became more indulgent. His long fingers explored the contours of his master's aroused skin as his mouth returned to brush affectionately across his neck.

"Non, Maître. But I would like to know," he murmured, his words thick with desire as the boy breathed in his scent.

The youth's grip firmed, his hand trembling as he paused to see if the vampire would guide his touch. If not, his wrist flexed as he slowly stroked his way down to the base of his shaft.

Tariq clearly took a great deal of fiendish pleasure in the reverential touch of Fabien’s hand as it slid between his thighs. He settled with liquid grace low in his seat to spread his legs with the brazen want of a housecat. The press of the boy’s mouth on his throat coaxed a soft purr of a groan, and he savoured the heat that rose to his cheeks. However, even this was not enough to distract him from the delicious topic he had raised and the cant of his sightless eyes was wolfish with sly deliberation.

"You ought to know it,” he said, hoarse pleasure thick in his throat. “But it will be best from their mouth."

He gathered his hair with his unoccupied hand and idly swept it over his shoulder. The bare skin of his back was tawny and smooth, his shoulder blades firm beneath the skin.

"Tell them to say it to you as they said it to me. They will speak."

The vampire was certainly alluring, but not in a way that would attract attention on the street - his features were too strange for that, his mouth too cruel, the paleness of his starlit eyes and hair nothing like the soft beauty of youth - rather, he possessed the self-possessed beauty of wild things. The flex of his scarred throat beneath the boy’s lips had an unusual charm, like the gleam of a venomous serpent’s scales, the weave of strong bone and firm muscle moving beneath his skin like that of a predatory cat. As he turned his head to indulgently nuzzle against the boy’s cheek, there was no forgetting the terror of the fangs in his mouth, nor the hunger that hummed heady in the shadow of his stomach.

An electric shiver traced up his spine as Fabien thumbed the head of his stiffening cock, and his breath rattled loosely in his throat. The boy’s fierce desire to bar their guest from his room coaxed the shadow of a smile to his lips.

“After, if you want them, they are yours. To do with as you will. Else I will have them for the last time.”

His nails gently scored the boy’s forearm as he lifted his hand to cradle the back of his head, his fingers tangled in the waves of his hair as he applied soft pressure to press his mouth firm against his throat.

“And you, mon bien-aimé, may attend to me.” His breath hitched in his throat at the flex of the boy’s wrist.

“It rouses the blood to hear you speak so, of complete control and punishment,” he confessed throatily, moon-white eyes half-closed.

Fabien was swiftly becoming engrossed in extracting more soft sounds from the vampire's lips. His attention on the subject of their conversation weakened, until something in the his words caught the youth's interest. His hand grew still, and his feline-sharp eyes narrowed with curiosity.

“Oui, Monsieur,” he rasped thoughtfully. “Alors je vais demander.”

His hand resumed its work, gliding liquid and firm in its doting caress across his master's roused skin. The youth gladly offered up the smooth stretch of his scarred throat to the vampire's mouth, a soft gasp parting his lips as he angled his head to present him with more skin.

“Merci, Monsieur,” he replied with breathless pleasure, his arm trembling from shoulder to wrist. "Merci."

The boy began to untangle his thin limbs from around the vampire's waist and shoulder, and his hand loosened before it reluctantly slipped away.

"They are... pretty, when angry. It will be good to teach them some manners." He commented, a shard of displeasure in his voice like the ache of splintered wood under healed skin.

They grey-eyed youth stepped around the chair to confront the beauty of the vampire's sightless eyes, before he lowered to his knees like an awestruck courtier supplicating before royalty. He pressed himself between the vampire's thighs, his lean body stretched in a pleasing arch across his chest. His mouth found the glimmer of scars at the vampire's throat, and he brushed his lips across the silvered skin.

"Have... you thought of me, Monsieur? Have you missed me in your bed? Missed the feel of my skin against yours?" He asked softly, before following the line of scars with the pointed tip of his tongue like one might trace the pathways of a map with a fingertip.

Pressed this close, the vampire was sure to feel how the flesh between his legs had stiffened to frustrating firmness against the barrier of his clothing. 

The youth's oil slick palm slid across his chest, relishing the curve of firm muscle as thought he were discovering it for the first time. He swept down towards his waist, following the curve of his thigh before he reclaimed his firm skin. His grip was hard, quietly possessive, as he began to stroke him more firmly, more faster than he had before. His palm twisting in such a way to excite nerves, to pinch the breath from the vampire's lungs.

Tariq did not hesitate to take advantage of the skin the boy exposed as he tilted his head, and his body grew to a shivering taut line in his eagerness as he hungrily pressed his mouth to Fabien’s throat. His tongue was warm on his neck, his breath a shiver as his sharp teeth scraped so near the hot blood pumping beneath the thin skin.

This was a potent distraction, and it seemed a moment before the boy’s question hit its mark.

“In truth?” It was only reluctantly he allowed the boy to pull away. The creamy white of his hazy eyes did not follow Fabien’s movement as he knelt between his legs, though the crackling friction of his body made it clear he was intimately aware of every movement. His hands were restless and greedy and pounced on every excuse to touch him.

“Every moment you are not with me, I think of you.” His voice was husky and low, resonant as a cathedral organ. “My bed is empty when you are not in it, no matter who occupies it.”

He rolled into the touch of Fabien’s mouth on the scarred skin of his throat, his chest rising with a sharp breath. The press of his hand between his legs caused his back to arch against the boy’s chest, and the suggestion of a groan prickled at his words.

“The scent of your skin haunts every hall of this house and makes me half-mad when you are not near.”

The fingers of one hand tangled in the waves of his hair and pulled, wrenching his head back without the force to truly be painful. Their eyes met, the vampire’s hollow gaze glowing. The other hand found the firm flesh between Fabien’s thighs and cupped it, running his thumb teasingly along the length of his cock before releasing him. The tips of two fingers traced along the wet inner flesh of his lower lip, exposing his teeth.

“It will take a firm hand to teach them manners,” he said. There was a wicked glint in his moon-pale eyes. “How do you plan to bring them to heel?”

It was not an idle query - the vampire’s voice was charged with keen interest, the allure of this idea evident in the twitch of the flesh in the boy’s palm.

Fabien continued to relish the taste of the vampire’s skin as he listened to him speak.

When he grasped him by hair, the boy gasped softly, his heart throbbing in his throat. His grey eyes moved between his master’s mouth before returning his unseeing gaze.

The vampire’s answer clearly pleased the youth, as it caused the boy's expression to soften, and a warmth appeared in his eyes that had not been there before. His lips twitched into an ever deepening smile, which quickly burned to nothing as his hand moved between the urchin’s legs.

The boy shivered against the vampire’s bare chest, his firm skin responding keenly to the press of his hand.

“Ah... mais, oui. I do not think, Monsieur, that they fully understand their position here." He continued shakily, his breath panting against his master's fingertips.

"But, I... have some ideas, pour la pute indisciplinée." As he spoke, the boy’s oiled hand resumed stroking him with firm, luxurious care.

"I've watched what pleasure it gives them to stretch their venomous tongue. I plan to make sure they fully understand the only way their mouth is of any use to me."

At the press of his master’s fingers, the boy’s teeth parted, and the heat of his pointed tongue glazed slick across his fingertips.

"S'ils me font chier, they will spend time tethered and unclothed to the posts of my bed. Je déteste à quel point ils errent librement ici, like they have a right."

This appeared to stir something in the urchin, for the pace of his hand began to quicken. His conjurer's fingers grew bolder still, thumb and rough palm working the tip of his master's cock as he spoke.

"If they do not learn quickly, they will find themselves alone, eating scraps from the floor in a barren room." He breathed, in a voice that seemed dripping with both fierce arousal and the whiplash crackle of feline irritation.

“And if they prove too troublesome, Monsieur,” he continued softly, “If they disturb the peace of your household, I will see they are collared and muzzled, like a dog.”

The boy pressed a soft, adoring kiss to the vampire’s fingers, before he encouraged him to slide them into the heat of his mouth. He sucked eagerly on his master’s skin, his body trembling with desire as he continued to stroke him with firm, hungry intent.

The vampire took fiendish pleasure in the flutter of Fabien’s heart as he took him by the golden thread of his tousled hair, his own breath catching in his throat at the gasp that left the boy’s trembling lips. He kissed him, deeply, roughly, the scrape of his sharp teeth prickling along his bottom lip and his pale eyes incandescent with the glowing pinpricks of silver stars when he pulled away. The press of his bare skin was warm. His mouth tasted faintly of copper and salt.

The wet heat of the boy’s mouth on his fingers sent a jolt through Tariq’s bare spine, and it was met with a hot pant of approval. His soft sound of pleasure was a low growl in his throat. He was nearly panting as he spoke, his voice hoarse as the rustle of dry autumn-gold leaves.

“They will be in capable hands, indeed.” The praise was warm as a streak of glowing crimson at twilight. “I have no doubt they will find their place at your feet.”

“However, je ne peux pas m'empêcher de me demander-”

He shifted in his seat, hand still firmly gripping the roots of the boy’s hair, to slide the scant covering of the robe from between his thighs. The firm muscle of his bare back flexed as he forced his boy to meet his eyes. This time, it was meant to hurt.

He was painfully hard, and he guided Fabien lower on his knees by the hand in his hair until the hot skin of his arousal pressed into the crook where his shoulder met his neck.

“How you will attend to me when they are yours, bound and shivering where it pleases you to leave them.”

The hand not holding him by the hair gently stroked the taut line of his scarred throat with the admiring press of two fingers. His touch slipped to his chin where he applied careful pressure to tilt the gleam of his mouth to the shaft of his roused skin.

Fabien released a sharp breath which twisted into a satisfied whimper. His lean body trembled, chest heaving as he was forced to confront the vampire's moon bright eyes.

"S'il vous plait. Harder." He pleaded softly, pulling against his grip to press his panting mouth to the underside of his jaw. "J'aime quand tu me donnes une bonne douleur."

His limbs were as pliable as candle-warmed wax, and there was little resistance in his body as he was eased back on his knees. The vampire's hand rough in his hair softened something in the boy, and he was momentarily subdued.

The muscles of youth's throat flexed against the press of vampire's fingers, and he swallowed

"In whatever way you want me, Monsieur." He managed to rasp, breath shivering as his mouth was brought against his master's aroused flesh.

At the vampire's prompting, his jaw widened, and he slowly enveloped him in the wet heat of his mouth. He swirled the point of his tongue over the sensitive contours of his skin.

His first taste of the vampire had the boy moaning around him. And soon his bony shoulders were shivering as he struggled to take him deeper.

There was no finesse, he was all softly scraping teeth and gasping desire. He pulled back to drag the flat of his tongue along the length of his shaft with the feral urgency of a creature who had only taken hurried scraps of rough pleasure on the streets.

His hand crept its way along the vampire's thigh, where it firmly claimed the bone of his hip.

Fabien’s soft pleas to be hurt appeared to loosen the frail restraint the vampire had maintained, and his self-possession snapped like the string of a violin held too taut.

His back arched as the boy took him into his mouth and an electric shiver stretched his legs out until his bare feet were flat on the floor. On impulse, he pressed his palm over the back of Fabien’s hand. He held it tight against the warm skin of his hip. His lips had parted and his breath was hoarse in his throat, only the barest sliver of silvered eye visible beneath his lids.

The vampire's other hand roughly held him by the roots of his autumn-gold hair, and it imposed a guiding hand to the boy's frantic movement - dominating his eager rhythm with one of his own that was deeper, more deliberate, and forced the boy to slow to take him all in. Gradually, together, they fell into a steady tempo molded by the vampire’s hand.

"Ah," His soft, short breath was a shivery moan as he thrust deep into the urchin’s eager mouth. "Juste comme ça." His hips rolled to pull him against the wet heat of his tongue.

His breath came quick, his chest rising and falling, until he could take it no longer, and he pulled away with a gasp that bled from between his teeth. He hoisted the boy to his feet by his hair and twisted his arm painfully behind his back, the bone protesting the wrenching of its joint. He slammed him hard enough against the side of his bed to take the air from his lungs.

The vampire was hot with want, wild with desire, and he was not delicate as he tugged the band of his clothing down to expose his slender thighs and the curve of his tight backside. His fingers around the wrist he pinned to the small of his back were tight enough to bruise, his knuckles digging painfully into the ridges of his spine.

"You were made for this." The words spilled out of his mouth like a hiss of hot steam.

He spread the boy’s legs apart with a nudge of his knees and bent low across his back to breath the words into the back of his neck, his hair falling in a pale stream over the boy’s shivering shoulders.

“You were made for me.” His teeth came together with a sharp snap close enough to the boy’s ear to set the hairs of his neck to rise.

"You said something to me, when I found you with their blood on your hands." His voice was deep and low, rough with aroused affection and sincere pleasure.

He forcefully jerked him by the arm to adjust his placement along the side of the bed and ran his hand along the delicate skin of his quivering thighs. His cock, hard and wet from the boy’s mouth, stroked along the cleft of his ass in delicious temptation.

"I want to hear it again."

Fabien strove to coax more electric shivers and groaned breaths from the vampire with fierce enthusiasm. His soft encouragement had the boy's hand quivering beneath the warmth of his palm.

The urchin responded with a gentle moan of satisfaction, that was almost purred into his skin as he sucked him deep into his throat.

His storm dark eyes lifted to drink in the beauty of his master's expression. He tongued the slit of his cock, before resuming with the slow bobbing of his head.

The youth began to breathe a reluctant sigh as the vampire pulled away from him. His lips parted to question him, but the sudden twisting of bone and muscle stole the air from his lungs and buckled his knees.

This slow, grinding pain and his master's hissed praise coloured the urchin's cheeks and neck a vivid scarlet. At once, he had the boy whining impatiently for him, his stretched thighs trembling with nervous anticipation.

Wherever the vampire placed his hand, the urchin's bare flesh pebbled expressively beneath his touch. It wasn't long before the boy was pressing insensible murmurs of want into his sheets.

Fabien offered little but a choked reply to the vampire's command. His body writhed tortuously beneath him, the muscles of his lower back flexing serpentine with animal hunger. His chest heaved with shallow breath as he considered his reply.

"I -" he gasped, gathering and bunching the vampire's bedding into his trembling fist. "-I do n-not...I do not think I fully remember, Monsieur."

He arched his lean neck as the slick heat of the vampire's roused skin slid against him.

"I remember how they-" he swallowed thickly, his eyes clouded with desire  "-cried out in pain, ... the sound of them… choking under my palm."

"Ah,  but y-you may need to... to remind me of the rest." He whimpered softly, the wild throb of his heart suggesting he would not need much reminding.

The weight of Tariq’s body forced Fabien to the bed as he bent across him, the firm line of his stomach pressed against his spine as he kissed the back of his flushed neck in a hot agitation of hunger. There was a flicker of danger in the press of his sharp mouth and the scrape of sharp teeth on his skin.

The urchin’s answer brought him pause, and he twisted the arm he held tightly to his back enough to coax a whimper of pain from his shoulder, though whether it was in frustration at his thwarted answer or sheer, animal arousal at the description of his cruelty was impossible to say.

The impatient squirming of the thighs beneath him was too much to bear and the vampire spread him with his palm, straightening to rock back on his heels.

"D'accord," he said hoarsely. "I will remind you."

He moved as one helpless to resist sinking himself deep into the soft, quivering flesh of his eager body. He grasped the head of his aroused skin without freeing the boy from the crushing grip pinning him to the bed, and eased himself between his legs.

The vampire thrust deep and hard, the hand that held his arm behind his back tightening painfully and a sharp, ecstatic gasp of breath slipping from his lips. He did not intend to hurt him but as he stretched him, split him, the pain came anyway, zealous and demanding as the vampire’s own hand.

His way of love was brutal and frightening in its intensity, but it was hard to deny - glimpsed in the genuine affection in the hand that held him, bound him - that it was achingly real. His fingers sought to find purchase along the warm skin of his ribs, and they thoughtlessly traced the dark line of the fox’s fur inked along his side as he rocked into him as though in recollection it wasn’t just any body hot with pounding blood whimpering for him but his boy, his Fabien with the meticulously polite tongue now panting with his face in the sheets beneath him. The vampire, wild in the bloodied light of the windows that stained his tousled hair, fucked him as though to coax the dark resentment that had coloured his tone to bleed away like a wispy tendril of ink in water.

"I want,” he breathed in a voice dark and rough with desire. “To hear it, Fabien." It was as reverential as any throaty prayer, though accompanied by a deep grinding of his hips that was distinctly profane.

With his brow pressed so low on the sheets, the lean stretch of boy's neck remained temptingly exposed. At the brush of his sharp mouth, the boy instinctively tilted his head, ever eager to invite his teeth against his skin.

The twist to his bound and aching arm caused the youth's fingers to flex against his spine, reaching for nothingness. Soon the vampire had the youth rutting his sharp hips against the bed, desperate to soothe the tension in the hard skin that ached beneath his stomach.

Fabien let the vampire take him with no squirming resistance or flinching struggle. He did not fight him, nor ask first for gentleness or a reprieve. His wet, gasping mouth was wide as he entered him, his still eyes glazed from the delicious throb of pain.

When the vampire's thrusts deepened, tears sprung to the boy's feline-sharp eyes. His lean body arched where it could beneath his master's weight, and his sharp, aching cries lengthened until they coloured the air around them.

Slowly, the vampire reduced the boy to little but sharply gasped breath and moaning enjoyment as his body was rocked into over and over. And when asked, this time he did not delay in answering him.

"I s-said that-" he began, gasping between his thrusts. "t-that I l-love you, Monsieur."

The ache of his muscles and feeling of his master buried inside him was suddenly too much, and the urchin dissolved once more into loud, whining want.

"Ah, oui- I l-love you. I love you." He sobbed softly, his body quivering beneath the vampire's skin. "J-je te veux. Je t'appartiens. S'il vous plaît, M-maître. Je t'aime."

The youth buried his tear stained face in the crook of his arm, muffling the sounds of whimpering joy and thick, desperate moans.

Fabien’s sobbed confession unraveled the last of the vampire’s shiver-thin discretion, and the pant of his breath was hot as the hinges of hell as he punctuated each whimpered phrase of tender adoration with a sharp thrust into the body of the beautiful boy that unfurled unto him. There was a wild sheen to his pale eyes. The hair that fell about his bare torso in a fierce tangle lent him the air of some frightful fiend, which the wicked gleam of his bared teeth did little to alleviate.

Tariq was past speaking. He was insensible to all but the shuddering sobs he pulled pitilessly from the boy’s wet lips. The vampire slapped him hard on the flank - and though it was not kind, this too bloomed dark with the rich black bruise of his merciless love as the sincerity of stinging pain cried out through him. The skin blushed becomingly under his palm.

He crushed the thin wrist in his grip, pressing hard upon the small of his back to force his back to arch and his ass to lift against him. His sharp nails gouged what would surely leave the mark of welted half-moons into his arm.

The fingers of his other hand dug with bruising force into the meat of his slim thigh, gripping tight as he drove into the trembling heat of him. He rocked into him again and again, with such exertion skin struck skin, until the boy's whimpers were ragged and he had reduced him to a mewling mess of steamy skin.

His thrusts grew purposeful, each roll of his hips deep and precise. His body trembled like a taut wire with the tension that pooled low in his stomach. And then, with a shudder and a low groan growled between his teeth, he came, wet heat filling his boy like a gush of blood. His grip tightened as though to clutch him close through the tremors of his spent efforts.

The vampire was panting, and he teasingly slid his cock into the wet-slick mess he had made of the boy’s innards as he leaned across Fabien’s back. The tangles of his bedraggled hair trailed over his bare ribs.

"Je t'aime aussi, Fabien," he murmured thickly into the skin of the back of his neck. The words were husky and cat-tongue rough. His parted lips brushed the vertebrae at the crown of his spine, his breath hot and his tongue flicking to taste the salt of him. Fabien could still feel him moving deep inside. “Toi, et seulement toi.”

With a delicacy he had not seemed capable of moments prior, his fingers slipped gently away from the wrist he had bound. He was trembling as he carefully slid himself from between his thighs, the severing of their contact met with a soft hiss of breath.

Fabien took what the vampire gave him with a trembling delight that was almost beyond the confines of human reason. At the strike of his palm, the boy's head rose from the cushion of his arm, fingers tangled in his hair as he responded with deep throated, groaning relish.

He was scarce able to draw breath, his mouth agape, lips and chin wet from his panting exertion. The exquisite burn of his skin was nearly enough to finish him, but he held fast, lost in the insatiable flex and push of the vampire inside him.

This soon proved too much for the boy's crumbling endurance. His master was sure to feel it, the sudden tightening inside of him as he veered dangerously close to the precipice.

“ha- f-fuck, I c-cannot-” he croaked urgently, his voice hoarse and half broken.

Whatever he had meant to say, whatever words he had tried to form on his quivering lips, were swallowed down as the youth edged too close to the limits of what he could stand. His neck arched back he came, gushing hot against his stomach with a shuddering, violent force that had his hips jerking and spine writhing and contorting like a wild animal beneath his master's weight.  

The boy cried out for him, because of him, as though in the throes of agony. His lockpicker's fingers clawed across the vampire's bed as he rode the surge, toes curling and knees rubbed to rawness as he ground his lower body into the side of his bed.

The urchin was left almost delirious by the time the vampire had finished with him. He continued to whimper softly for him, to want more of him, his eyes wet and the flesh of his cheeks salt burnt from his tears. When he eased back into the boy, Fabien squirmed wearily against him, his raw nerves singing so sweetly it was almost unbearable.  

Still the vampire's words managed to cut into the youth like a shard of glass, and he gathered the last of strength to greet his murmured declaration with an affectionate sob of blissful contentment.  

Like a wounded stag twitching in shock, the urchin attempted to turn, to lift his head and look upon the vampire's eyes and reach for the heat of his skin. His body, immediately protesting this, caused him to slump back onto the sheets with shuddering breath and limbs heavy.

Fabien's movements ceased as he lay there, breath rattling softly in his throat as his thigh muscles  twitched. He slowly, carefully attempted to untangle his limbs, releasing a softly wincing breath as the twisted muscle and aching bone began groaning in its joint.

Robbed of his final breath of strength, Fabien started to slip from him, to fall into the exhaustion that drifted storm-cloud dark to engulf him. His grey eyes rolled back into his skull and the boy fell still, content to remain sprawled on his stomach where the vampire had left him, chest heaving and his back and thighs slick and glistening with their spent pleasure.