-- Tariq's dark fur prickled in sharp needles at the omen's unwise protest and his ankle twisted to grind the bony tip of his star-kissed tail further into the ground. The blood that trickled in serpentine streaks from the base of the boy's throat proved a temptation far too potent to resist. A single flick of the bat's split tongue revealed a stripe of grey skin amongst the streaked scarlet.
"You are nothing," he repeated into the silence following the boy's wheezed pant. The cold depths of his black eyes glinted as his skull shifted, cocking his head like a looming blackbird.
The cold curve of his claws prickled dangerously along the ashy flesh of the boy's sternum. With all the proficiency of a mad butcher slicing through tendon, he split the fabric binding his chest in a neat line accompanied by the painful sound of rending cloth. Scraps tinged an awful red still clung limply to bony limbs, miserably refusing to surrender entirely beneath the bat's claws.
"Killing you--" The words began with a throaty snarl as he forced the last few threads apart with a wrench, revealing an artist's canvas of pallid flesh marred with warped purple scars and smears of crimson blood. "--will be such a disappointment." Skeletal fingers crept soft as a sparrow's wing over skin that shivered beneath their touch. "Such a waste..."
The hissed word trailed off, swallowed by the thick blackness of the vampire's lair, as his hand crept up to the boy's bare throat. The hollow between his thumb and forefinger encircled his slender neck and the ball of his thumb pressed cruelly into the the taut cord of his stretched windpipe, severing his breath from asthmatic lungs with the pressure.
"Perhaps you don't deserve such a sweet ending, my prince du sang." The bat's long spine had curved to allow his black lips to whisper venomous words into a vulpine ear, easing the omen closer by the cruel grip around his throat as though he were a ragdoll. "Ripping out your throat, sucking the marrow from every miserable bone - it is a death befitting a martyr. Your dear songbird would shiver and weep for the bloody scraps of you left behind, your playthings would wonder at your absence. Sung to sleep with a belly full of sorrows... no, it is much more than you deserve."
His hand still pressed thoughtlessly into the boy's throat, apt to incite a flurry of black spots to swarm over his lamp-lit vision. The bat's ghostly hair shifted in a cascade of rustling white as he lifted his unoccupied fingertips to his lips. The point of a sharp fang, stained quicksilver in the pulsing light from the boy's eyes, sliced with bone-chilling ease through the pads of his first two fingers. Blood welled up reluctantly from starved veins.
"Do you remember the intimate night, Fabien?" Despite the blood that had already begun to slip over the crest of his fingers, ripe drops falling one, two to the floor, the bat's voice thrummed with a deeply animal satisfaction, each word spoken slowly, surely, relished with a flick of his forked tongue. He lifted the bleeding fingers to the omen's gaze, indifferent to any writhing attempts to allow air into aching lungs. "The sensory burden of my blood in your veins? Did every shadow have fangs, dearly beloved? Could you hear the stars screaming, the ocean moaning for a taste of your bubbling flesh?"
Abruptly, the side of his muzzle brushed against the omen's gaunt cheek, nuzzling with a tender cruelty into the dark stain of a spade. "Perhaps that is a more fitting end for a creature like you, snuffed out in the gnashing blackness. Starved you were born and starved you would die, mouthfuls of sizzling blood carving a trail of rot to your empty belly." He released his grip on the omen's throat, an action sure to draw a panicked gasp from a starving body reliant on that precious inhale. However, the bat was ready. The instant his thin lips parted, they were smeared in scarlet as the bat forced his bloody fingers past them, streaking his tongue with the mind-altering blood tainted by his long-dead veins. It certainly wasn't enough to still the panicked startle of his heart, nor affect the change the vampire had ominously hinted at. However, it was certainly effective enough to ensure that the pain of every cut intensified, the shriek of severed nerves resounding again and again in an electric crackle of intensified agony as his senses heightened against their will.
"You are nothing," he repeated into the silence following the boy's wheezed pant. The cold depths of his black eyes glinted as his skull shifted, cocking his head like a looming blackbird.
The cold curve of his claws prickled dangerously along the ashy flesh of the boy's sternum. With all the proficiency of a mad butcher slicing through tendon, he split the fabric binding his chest in a neat line accompanied by the painful sound of rending cloth. Scraps tinged an awful red still clung limply to bony limbs, miserably refusing to surrender entirely beneath the bat's claws.
"Killing you--" The words began with a throaty snarl as he forced the last few threads apart with a wrench, revealing an artist's canvas of pallid flesh marred with warped purple scars and smears of crimson blood. "--will be such a disappointment." Skeletal fingers crept soft as a sparrow's wing over skin that shivered beneath their touch. "Such a waste..."
The hissed word trailed off, swallowed by the thick blackness of the vampire's lair, as his hand crept up to the boy's bare throat. The hollow between his thumb and forefinger encircled his slender neck and the ball of his thumb pressed cruelly into the the taut cord of his stretched windpipe, severing his breath from asthmatic lungs with the pressure.
"Perhaps you don't deserve such a sweet ending, my prince du sang." The bat's long spine had curved to allow his black lips to whisper venomous words into a vulpine ear, easing the omen closer by the cruel grip around his throat as though he were a ragdoll. "Ripping out your throat, sucking the marrow from every miserable bone - it is a death befitting a martyr. Your dear songbird would shiver and weep for the bloody scraps of you left behind, your playthings would wonder at your absence. Sung to sleep with a belly full of sorrows... no, it is much more than you deserve."
His hand still pressed thoughtlessly into the boy's throat, apt to incite a flurry of black spots to swarm over his lamp-lit vision. The bat's ghostly hair shifted in a cascade of rustling white as he lifted his unoccupied fingertips to his lips. The point of a sharp fang, stained quicksilver in the pulsing light from the boy's eyes, sliced with bone-chilling ease through the pads of his first two fingers. Blood welled up reluctantly from starved veins.
"Do you remember the intimate night, Fabien?" Despite the blood that had already begun to slip over the crest of his fingers, ripe drops falling one, two to the floor, the bat's voice thrummed with a deeply animal satisfaction, each word spoken slowly, surely, relished with a flick of his forked tongue. He lifted the bleeding fingers to the omen's gaze, indifferent to any writhing attempts to allow air into aching lungs. "The sensory burden of my blood in your veins? Did every shadow have fangs, dearly beloved? Could you hear the stars screaming, the ocean moaning for a taste of your bubbling flesh?"
Abruptly, the side of his muzzle brushed against the omen's gaunt cheek, nuzzling with a tender cruelty into the dark stain of a spade. "Perhaps that is a more fitting end for a creature like you, snuffed out in the gnashing blackness. Starved you were born and starved you would die, mouthfuls of sizzling blood carving a trail of rot to your empty belly." He released his grip on the omen's throat, an action sure to draw a panicked gasp from a starving body reliant on that precious inhale. However, the bat was ready. The instant his thin lips parted, they were smeared in scarlet as the bat forced his bloody fingers past them, streaking his tongue with the mind-altering blood tainted by his long-dead veins. It certainly wasn't enough to still the panicked startle of his heart, nor affect the change the vampire had ominously hinted at. However, it was certainly effective enough to ensure that the pain of every cut intensified, the shriek of severed nerves resounding again and again in an electric crackle of intensified agony as his senses heightened against their will.