**Interlude 17- A star when dimmed by dawning light; the flicker of a candle blown.

When his master kissed him, his mouth tasted of his own blood - sharp and metallic as the blade of a knife.

The vampires’ enjoyment of his squirming excitement was evident in how they stroked him, teased him with their lips and fingers, their palms pressed firmly against his hot skin. Fakhir’s mouth was on him, his throat wet and dark. He could hear her heart, an animal made feral on the taste of his blood, beating fiercely against the cage of her ribs. Her soft moan buzzed through his skin. It was as much praise as it was an expression of fierce delight.

There was a shift of the skin against his skin and Tariq, a sleek, black snake in the dark, took his aroused flesh in his hand and took him hungrily in his mouth. He rolled his tongue along his cock, savoring the salt of his arousal. His mouth was hot and wet with his eagerness to devour him. His hands claimed his thighs, as though he had to be held down as the vampire greedily, thoroughly sucked him.

Fakhir’s tongue was burr-rough on his neck. She pulled away reluctantly, her mouth stained dark. Her eyes were hot embers in the shadow.

For a moment, she was still, though he could still feel how her blood-fed heart kept quick time in her chest. She gently turned his head aside, and he once more tasted his blood on another’s lips as she pressed them indulgently to his mouth. Her teeth were sharp.

“Merci beaucoup,” she murmured, her voice husky and rich in her throat.

Tariq, though rather preoccupied, found the boy’s hand and entwined his fingers with his as Fakhir bent to kiss the dark wound at his throat. The shiver that flickered through her at the taste of his blood seemed to pass also to her companion. There was a delicious, aching tremble as he drew Fabien once more into the heat of his mouth.

The golden haired youth did not turn away with squirming revulsion at the taste of his blood on their lips. He met his beautiful companions open mouthed, dangerously eager, his softly whined breath hot against their lips.

When he felt his master's mouth take him, his breath caught in his throat.

The sudden wet heat of him had the boy's toes curling upon his sheets. His spine lifted from Fakhir, and arched softly as his hand upon her thigh tightened, almost clawed. It was fast becoming firm enough to inflict pain upon a more fragile creature.

The boy forced his eyes closed as his mouth shaped words he could not quite find. It was a brief reprieve from the sight of him, hard and demanding against the vampire's lips.

Fabien was likely unaware how loud his moaning cries had grown. First soft and half suppressed, now sharp sometimes, then long and aching deep within his bloodied throat.
He almost could not bear to look at him. And every time he did so, he was unable to prevent the desperate thrusting of his hips. Any sense of decency had crumbled like chalk in the vampire's palm.

When he met Fakhir amber eyes, they appeared.like oil lamps burning through the river fog. His mouth was still so soft, so inviting and eager to please. But this time he met her kiss with the clumsiness of one intoxicated.

He groaned weakly in response, his limbs heavy as his energy finally began to wane. Even so, he was the inside his master's mouth again, and his breath was hissing between his teeth.

The boy's neck arched in pleasure. He flexed back  into her shoulder, and gasped and gasped, opened mouthed as though in prayer. His smooth pale skin streaked red, stretched like canvas over trembling muscles.

"Ah - n-non, I can't .. I c-can't anym-" he croaked, breaking his silence with a voice that cracked with distress.

His hand fingers tensed before they clenched tight around his master's fingers. The boy came in an exhausted rush of moaning, delicious relief. He was too far gone for courtesy, he came hard and heavy, unable to stifle his enthusiastic cries.

When it had ended, he all at once grew lax and panting. He slumped against Fakhir, twitching, bloodied, and insensible.

The boy’s aching cries whetted the vampires’ appetites, and Tariq took vicious pleasure in drawing them out on the point of his tongue.

He did not hurt him, not really; though there was something of teasing cruelty in how he sucked, swallowed him, and it was difficult to forget the dreadful sharpness of those curved teeth, the worst violence he enacted were in the pale bruises his grip encouraged to rise from the delicate skin of his thighs, the stinging red flesh as he dragged his nails along the inside of his wrist. He was - as much as it could be said of a creature such as he - surprisingly gentle in his wickedness.

Fabien’s hoarse warning did not dissuade the vampire from his work. There was nothing of decency in how he thrust the swollen head of his cock over the back of his tongue, naught but vulgarity how he swallowed and swallowed again, vibrating like a plucked string.

He lovingly licked his boy clean, and he did not stop until Fabien was whimpering and shaking against him.

It was only then that he reluctantly pulled away and turned his attention to Fakhir. Fabien was pressed between them, warm between skin and cloth as Tariq pressed his lips to her neck, the underside of her throat, her chest, leaving dark bursts of scarlet like unfurling roses that dripped, wet and red down her throat. Her teeth were clean ivory in the wine-red of her mouth as she panted, growled.

He could feel the judder of her body as Tariq bent his head, felt the catch of her breath as he pulled the pale veil of his hair aside from his throat.

There was movement, the sharp, wolfish snap of teeth, trembling and low moaning half-concealed in the shadows of the room. Hands would find Fabien, fingers enclosed sweetly around his throat, thumbs lifting his chin to force him to meet the sharp gaze of a vampire as they kissed him or each other with mouths that left dark smudges on the skin. They made no demands of him as he lay tangled, limp and warm between the hungry press of their bodies. Tariq’s palm was firm on the smooth, soft skin of Fabien’s stomach as he thrust between his legs, into Fakhir who rose to meet him.

Slowly, the urgency of their snarls and groaning gasps faded, growing lazy until they dwindled to the pleased panting of hot, metallic breath. Satisfied, they lay still, their hair tousled and their chests rising and falling with their breath. There were black drops like the thoughtless spattering of ink dappling the tangled bedclothes, though neither of them seemed to mind.

Fakhir murmured something he could not understand and Tariq laughed softly. His voice was low and rough, husky with warm pleasure.

“Oui,” he agreed throatily, fingers stroking through the boy’s hair. “Il est très bon. Pour moi.”

He pulled his boy close to his bare chest. There was a dark smear of blood along his throat that did not quite conceal the black puncture marks curving along his neck. He was nearly radiant in his satisfied delight.

Bliss had woven into the corners of Fabien's lips. It smoothed the troubles from his youthful brow like wax over knotted oak, and in the afterglow he appeared younger somehow, more vulnerable. A feral child in a wolf's den, nestled among the bristling fur and sharp teeth. His pale skin was flushed with life, and still glistening  from the comforting heat of his companion’s skin.

The boy's panting breath had not quite settled when he felt his master's weight move across him. He stirred gently between his companions bodies. The welcoming pull of sleep had grown strong, her thumbs pressed firm against his eyelids to sweetly beckon him away. Appealing though this was, it was no match for even the dullest ember of the boy’s ravenous, burning curiosity.

Fabien fought against the heady blissful haze of spent pleasure to watch them. It was a rare sight to see his master in this way, offering his throat to another, and he intended to drink in as much as possible. His agile fingers were on the vampire’s chest, they caressed the exquisite curvature of his muscles as they tensed from Fakhir’s teeth. His palm flattened at the base of his throat, and remained there, feeling his groaned breath with fierce delight.

The movement of their bodies and sound of their sharp gasps was almost enough to reignite the boy’s arousal. His lips parted, his fingers bold in their affectionate caress as they stroked over his companion’s bare skin with a growing, privileged confidence. When they reached for him, he was no less responsive, made no less joyous at their attention. The press of their lip provoked soft sighs and weary murmurs, their hands at his throat enticed exhausted whines to part his teeth.

The boy’s senses were too dull to take in anything of what they said. He was swiftly losing his battle against rest, and was content to be pulled against his master’s chest as though he lacked the power to support himself otherwise. Sleep soft and heavy in his arms, his scrawny limbs were unstrung as he pressed adoring kisses to the vampire’s collarbone, his throat, near to where Fakhir’s teeth had broken his skin.

“Je suis... le garçon le plus chanceux de cette ville.” The boy somehow managed to utter thickly against his neck, while one toe tested the waters of dreams.

His tender affections did not cease, his fingers continued their caressing flit over his companion’s skin.

Would the sun-kissed urchin who not so long ago - or a lifetime ago, perhaps - reached so brazenly for a stranger’s pocketed coins been capable of imagining the joy that now thrummed through his exhausted body as he was pressed between two beasts that still licked his blood from their teeth?

Would that gamin have known how to name the delight in his mouth as he kissed the vampire’s teeth-torn skin, or the ecstasy that broke shivering across his bare skin as Tariq drew him into his arms and held him close as something cherished?

It was impossible to tell if the vampire pondered these questions as he savored the worshipful kisses pressed against his throat. But the boy’s blissful murmur pulled the corner of his lips into the shade of a smile.

Fakhir shifted in a rustle of blankets, drawing near enough he could feel the warm skin of her stomach against him. Tariq rested his head on her shoulder. His tousled hair fell in pale, tangled waves in the shadows. Fabien was pressed affectionately between them, comfortable, tired and wholly safe in the dark belly of the beast.

The sun rose, though they did not see it. Their den was dark and cool, insulated against the light by the stained fabric that stirred and murmured in the breeze from the balcony.

There were no words needed between them as they drifted towards the inviting black waters of sleep, tangled together in the scent of blood and flushed skin. Tariq fell asleep with his palm holding Fabien’s hand above the gentle tick of his ancient heart.