Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He is the oldest of the brothers, and perhaps the most powerful. And, some would argue, the cruelest. His features are knife-sharp, his mouth unsmiling, his mismatched eyes cold. His touch is cold, too; perhaps that’s to be expected of a vampire, but you don’t know. You’ve only ever known his touch, and you know no other vampire would lay a finger on you.

Because you? You are his.

Some vampires coddle their pets, treat them like royalty, or at least a precious and cherished thing, doting upon them. You are certainly pampered in your way. A room of your own overlooking the elaborate grounds, and the flowers that bloom at night beneath the watery light of the moon. The furniture is rich and expensive. You haven’t felt the touch of polyester or rayon in years—nothing but the finest for Primo’s pet, after all.

You know the other pets pity you. Because his tone is seldom soft and kind and sweet with you. His words are not often wasted on you, anyway. You have the finest room and you are usually in it alone. And when he does come to you, he is not there for conversation. He is demanding.

You, on your knees for him with your mouth full.

Or sprawled over his lap, your skin stinging under his hand.

Or your body spread for him however he wants it, whenever he wants it, moving into you, filling you.

All night, sometimes, some of these, all of these, until you are left aching and trembling and crying. You become something you might describe as a mess, but he might describe as a work of art. You are a canvas upon which his knotted hands have painted an image of a body pushed to its limit.

In the midst of it some nights, when your heart is pumping and your mind is already cloudy from pleasure and pain in equal measure, that is when his teeth find your throat, tearing into the much-scarred but still-tender skin there. And your life’s blood spills into his mouth, and he drinks, as much as you can give and still be useful to him, leaving you groggy and weak and weeping softly. Ecstatic, for the moment he drinks from you, and then spent.

Those are the nights he tucks you into bed.

Those are the nights he strokes your hair.

Those are the nights you think you hear him praise you, tell you how much he needs you.

But then, on those nights, you aren’t entirely there. Perhaps that isn’t real, perhaps that’s nothing. And always when you wake, you are alone again, without so much as a note, nothing but a few drops of blood on the silk sheets and perhaps a long strand of silver hair like a forgotten spiderweb. After those nights, he leaves you alone for a while. You eat your fill for days, you take your iron supplements, you rest.

And then in a few days, or a week, he is back again, to take whatever else he wants from you. With tearing teeth, or aching cock, or grasping fingers, or a tongue sharper even than his fangs. Demanding, always demanding, leaving you sweaty and bruised and bleeding, one way or another, as often as not, until morning finds you sleeping as soundly in your expensive bed as he sleeps in his coffin down the hall. Unmoving, undisturbed, the sleep of the dead.

And so, the other pets pity you. Perhaps his brothers, too, for all you know. Because you are saddled with a master who is not gentle, or not often. A master who might give you every comfort, but only in exchange for your body and soul. Your blood gives him eternal life, and in exchange he gives you eternal torment. You are a human pet, infinitely weaker than him, and especially with all he takes from you.

Primo has never said he loves you.

But he has never needed to.

In a drawer of your room is a gift from him. The most valuable gift—more valuable than the jewelry he adorns you with, the clothing that graces your body. More valuable, perhaps, than the soft words you aren’t quite sure you’ve ever really heard from him.

In that drawer is a wooden box, which you keep closed. Within that box is a velvet cushion, on which sit four things.

First, a key to the room that holds his coffin. One key, of two; the other is on his person at all times.

Second, a rose, dried now. Its once-red petals are now nearly black, but fragrant as the memory of a thousand summers.

Third, a wooden mallet.

And fourth, a wooden stake.

You are Primo’s pet, and that is no easy task. He takes everything he can from you. But he will never take too much, and he will never demand more than you are willing to give. In that wooden box is that promise. He will push you to your limits, but never past them, because he knows what will happen if he does.

He is the oldest of his brothers, and the most powerful. He may well be one of the most powerful vampires in the world. His hands are cold, his eyes are cruel. He has killed more people than you can even imagine, and he has done it without remorse.

And you?

You hold his life in your hands.

Chapter Text

At last Primo thrusts in too hard, and hears you whine under him again. Seated in you, fingers digging into your hips to hold them up, keeping you at an angle you can’t quite find comfortable, he looks down at you for a long moment. The smooth expanse of your back—smooth except the livid scratches he’d left. He runs his fingers over them, making them sting, feeling each raised line, a map of where he’s been. One is bleeding a little, he realizes now. Perhaps it is a waste of blood, this careless wound, droplets that will spill uselessly and not fuel him further, but he cannot find it a waste, not when he sees how the blood glitters in the dim light like the tears on your face when you look over your shoulder at him.

“Eyes forward,” he says, shortly; he might waste your blood but never his words.

There was a time, centuries past, when Primo hunted his prey through fields and woods. Those days are over, vampiric laws have changed, but he is not one of these young vampires, doting on some human creature like a precious thing, smitten and adoring. He never will be. He never wants to be. You are his, and he takes care of what’s his, but he also takes what he wants. It is his right. And you know that well.

So you do as you’re told, dropping your head a little. You’re breathing hard, and he watches your shoulders rise and fall, watches you fight not to squirm in eager anticipation of his next movement.

Never let it be said he is an unfair master. He always gives you what you want—in his way, in his time.

And he begins to move, just as you want. But he is not gentle. Hard snaps of his hips, jerking your body forward with each movement. And he rakes his claws down your back again, crossing over those welts he’s already left, feeling the burning heat of your skin and, under it, the rush of your blood pulsing against the pads of his fingers. You cry out and he doesn’t stop, keeps going, fucking you, hurting you. Not just for the sake of your pain, though the smell of it makes his mouth water. But for the sounds you make. The way you clench on him, so tight it hurts, making him cry out and feel, if not alive, at least a close approximation of it.

He knows the moment you come. He feels you gripping him, he smells your blood surging, trickling from that scratch, but he does not slow down. He keeps going, keeps fucking your body like his own personal toy, forcing you to ride out your orgasm until you’re nearly screaming from overstimulation. He makes you come—not in the way one makes love, but in the way one makes someone hurt, forcing your body into heights of pleasure he knows no one else has given you and, Satan willing, no one ever will. You are begging now, whining and pleading, for him to stop or to keep going he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t think you do, either.

And that droplet of blood now rolling down your back is too much for him, too much even for the feeling of you on his cock and the heat of your body under him. He growls and thrusts into you once more, spilling deep into you. Buried in you, he grabs your hair, pulls your head back, and curls his body around you to sink fangs into your throat.

You let out a scream and blood flows onto his tongue, sweeter than his own release. He clamps his mouth down, wrapped around you in a way that might seem protective if he weren’t draining your blood from your veins. In a way that might seem affectionate from anyone else.

He drinks.

Slowly, he can feel you calming, his saliva soothing the pain, the blood loss soothing everything else. He can feel your whole body sagging under him, walls fluttering around his softening cock as everything within you starts to unwind.

Having had his fill, he pulls his mouth and cock away from you. You whimper at first, as if missing him. He closes his eyes a moment, then shakes his head and sets to his tasks. Cleaning the mess spilling out of you, without comment. Pulling the cool sheets up over your heated skin. His claws had scraped over your back, had left half-moon imprints on your hips, but now they just rasp lightly through your hair for a moment. He looks down at you, laying on your belly, eyes glassy from everything he’d put you through, watching him. And then, seeing his face, you close your eyes with a sigh of contentment.

He likes all of the noises you make. The screams of pain and the cries of pleasure, the begging, the gasping, the whining. You’re an instrument he can play; apply pressure here and you make music for his ears alone. He knows your body better than you do, by now. He has been within it, he has consumed it. You have given it to him and it is his. And all those sounds are his as well.

But that sound, that soft sigh, is the one.

The one that makes him freeze in place, sometimes.

The one that fills him with something that he might describe as fear, because any other description is unacceptable.

The one that would make his heart skip a beat, except his heart does not beat at all.

That soft, sweet, peaceful sigh is the thing that made him give you the greatest gift he could. His utmost trust, to prove he was worthy of yours.

And so he puts your body through everything he can think of, forces all manner of sounds from your throat for his own pleasure. And now and again, somehow, he earns his favorite sound of all.

He looks down at you, adjusts the blankets over you, the copper-sweet taste of your blood still on his tongue. When he bends to brush his lips against your hair, he tells himself it is only to hear your heartbeat and breathing better, to ensure that he didn’t take too much from you. And later, when he’s in his coffin to sleep off the day, he’ll pretend he believes it.

Chapter Text

Whenever Primo feeds from you, he leaves you alone for a few nights to recover. And on those nights, sometimes, you wander the Ministry, or visit other humans. Humans are social creatures, after all, and you know you cannot live your life tucked away in your room with nothing but the occasional rough-handed visit from your master to break things up.

There are a few pets in the Ministry, but there is also a decent population of other humans. Some are servants or employees. Most are food. All are here voluntarily, for a while or forever, and even here, people are people: they form friendships and enmities, have petty arguments, and throw parties sometimes for no reason except that it’s fun. There usually isn’t much alcohol—this particular crowd has a tendency towards frequent blood loss—but there’s music, and games, and laughter, and a room full of bodies that are all warm and breathing and maybe that’s what everyone’s really looking for, here in the unbeating heart of vampire society.

You are at one of these parties, trying to have a good time, the night after a feeding. You usually enjoy the parties. That would be a surprise if you ever thought of your old life, but you usually don’t. Sometimes you think life before Primo was a dream. Sometimes you think this is one, and you’ll wake up at any time.

But tonight you aren’t thinking of dreams or your old life. You’re just tired. You lean against a wall, vaguely watching two people compete on a second-hand Dance Dance Revolution machine. Getting their blood pumping, you think with vague amusement, for whoever might feed from them next. You take a sip of your soda, and wonder if you should have stayed home. You aren’t usually this tired after a feeding, but maybe Primo had taken too much. Or maybe, you think, glancing at the clock on the wall, maybe you’re getting too old for this stuff. You’ve been here for years, and time does not stop even for a vampire’s pet. And you’ve been tired more and more lately.

You wonder if Primo has ever noticed the passage of time. You are still young, by many standards, and very young by his, but gray hairs pop up more than they used to. Does he notice that you aren’t quite so young anymore? Does he care? Will there come a time that he looks at you, realizes he’s drained you of your looks and vitality as much as your blood, and send you away?

“You’re Primo’s, aren’t you?” says a voice to your left, and you look up, surprised out of your thoughts. But you understand quickly why you hadn’t heard the approach. Most of the party attendees are clumsy, noisy humans, but vampires move much more silently.

“I—yes,” you say, uncertainly. One of Primo’s brothers, this one. Copia. You have never spent much time with any of them save Primo, and you know to show them respect, but you don’t know much else. “I’m…surprised to see you here.” Sir? Should you call him sir? You can’t remember suddenly. The DDR machine’s music is pounding into your head, chasing away any thoughts except that you really are too worn out and headachey to be here.

He gives a short smile before you have time to decide. “My pet wanted to come,” he says, and lifts his eyes to the crowd. You follow his gaze, notice one particular human with a collar getting a drink across the room, and when you look at him again, you also notice his eyes softening.

Imagine, a vampire’s eyes softening for his pet.

“Well,” you say, uncertainly. “I hope she has a good time. I was just thinking of leaving.”

“Good,” says Copia then, and his jaw is set in satisfaction. “It is about time, eh? The way he has been, all these years.”

You take a moment to puzzle that out, and then you realize the misunderstanding. “The party,” you correct. “I was thinking of leaving the party, not the Ministry.”

“Oh,” he says, and to your surprise, he looks embarrassed for a moment. You didn’t know vampires could get embarrassed, let alone from anything a human might say or do. And then he frowns. “The way he is with you, the way he treats you…we all know, you know. Everyone knows. He is an old-fashioned vampire and he never learned to change with the times.” His eyes flicker again to his own pet, and the lines deepen around his mouth. “You do not have to put up with that. No one should.”

You stare at him, feeling almost wide-eyed in wonder. Is this one of the Emeritus brothers, giving you life advice? You have hardly exchanged two sentences with him in the past, and now he’s staging an intervention? At a loud party, while your head hurts?

“You know you can leave him, yes?” he says then, looking to you again. “You know that you do not have to live like this. I know he seems powerful, and he is, but it is your choice. It’s always your choice. Even he knows that.”

You gape at him a moment. You want to say something, to reassure Copia that you’re very well aware that it’s your choice, and in fact, far more aware than he realized. But instead, you start to giggle.

You don’t mean to. But the image of the stake you keep in your drawer flashes through your mind, vividly. It occurs to you that with that particular possession, you are really in charge of Primo, and that makes you one of the most powerful people here, and that thought is so absurd that you can’t fight back laughter. And then it gets worse because he looks genuinely shocked, and the expression is so strange to see on a vampire’s face that you start laughing harder.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

You draw in a breath to try to answer, but you choke on your laugh and start to cough instead, and that almost puts you further into a giggle loop.

But instead you keep coughing.

And coughing.

Your throat seizes up suddenly, and your lungs. You drop your soda, which spills across the carpet, splashing your shoes and Copia’s. You should apologize, but the only reason you stop coughing is that you can’t seem to breathe in enough, fighting to suck down a sweet trickle of air. You gag once, loudly, as if that might help, but all it does is make everyone look at you as your vision tunnels brown at the edges, and you sink down into the sticky puddle of soda still fizzing on the floor.

There’s some kind of commotion, and you hear someone call for a doctor. Someone else says to call Primo, and you almost laugh again. If you could catch your breath, you might. If you could catch your breath, you’d tell them not to. Primo is a busy vampire, and you’re nothing but his pet, his plaything. Hardly worth bothering him about. You raise your hand to your face, but you’re shaking, and fighting for every aching breath, fighting against the darkness narrowing your vision, oblivion encroaching.

Your hand is cold, you think absently. Like his. And the last time he touched you comes to mind, gentle as he always is after a feeding.

The abandoned DDR machine is still blasting music, and your jeans are cold from the puddle of soda, and your lungs are burning, burning. You think you hear Copia’s voice again, and another voice that shouldn’t be here. No one should have bothered him, you think as you finally sink out of consciousness.

Chapter Text

The doctor has some kind of diagnosis for you, after tests and discussion. Primo neither understands it, nor cares. It doesn’t matter what it is. He knows what it means.

It sticks in his mind, that image of you on the floor, face waxen and pale.

This whole thing is a mistake. This foolish newfangled nonsense of vampires keeping humans as pets. Of growing attached to them, as some younger vampires seem to. Humans are food. The vampiric possessive instinct is nothing more than the desire to keep prey away from competition. It’s a ridiculous notion to think it could be anything else.

Primo does not pace around the infirmary. He is not there the moment you regain consciousness, hooked up to something to help you breathe. He offers no comfort. He is in his own room, in his lidded coffin, trying to sleep as the sun rises, trying to forget that vision that won’t leave his mind.

The sun always rises, and falls again. The sun that could destroy him, set him aflame until there is nothing left of him. The sun will continue well past any concerns this Earth might have. A vampire’s life is nothing compared to the sun’s, and the sun does not care about anything that happens on the surface of its planets. And a human’s life is nothing compared to a vampire’s, so why should he care what happens to any of them?

That’s why it’s so foolish to grow attached to a pet. Humans are frail, humans are weak, humans are terribly mortal. Humans grow sick and die.

Better to stay apart, separate, to remember that humans are nothing.

Should Primo have tasted it on you before? But how could he? With him, you always taste of pain and adrenaline. That’s how he likes it. That’s how you like it.

He closes his eyes in his coffin, and tries not to think of your face, looking at him like you didn’t understand why he was there. He shouldn’t have been. He knows that now, and wonders why he had gone to see when someone told him about you. He should not have done that.

You aren’t dead yet. But if he were the type to get attached, that would almost make it worse. Maybe the human doctor can prolong the inevitable. Certainly they can give you some comfort. But they were very clear, speaking to him, that anything they did was a treatment, not a cure. Unless science should suddenly advance, then in a few months, a few years at most…

(Had he tasted a difference, and ignored it? Would the outcome have changed if he’d noticed sooner?)

But then, you’re a human. He should not expect that many years out of you even at peak health. A pity, he thinks to himself, the same wording he’s spare for a lost gemstone or a broken heirloom, nothing more. But he can spare that thought. You are, you were, such a good pet, and it would be difficult to break in another one.

He doesn’t want to break in another one.

His eyes snap open, staring in the velvet-dark interior of his coffin. The thought clutches his silent heart like vines growing over a tombstone, obscuring all but its shape. Realization grows from it, until it’s surrounding him in the darkness. The truth wraps around him, its thorns biting into his skin.

He does not want another pet.

He wants those sounds he knows so well, and the way you match his roughness and violence with eagerness.

He wants the feel of your hair under his fingers, the softness of your body tangled with his.

He wants the one person he’s trusted with his life, the one person who has never once tried to take it even though they had every right to.

He wants those sweet, contented sighs and the knowledge that, somehow, he has earned them.

He wants you. And a thousand years could pass and he will not stop wanting you.

And you are across the Ministry in the infirmary, alone, with a diagnosis he can’t remember because he had tried not to care. You, with your frail human body that can take so much from him. Maybe you can fight this, he thinks. You’re stronger than you seem, stronger than anyone realizes except him. Perhaps…

Perhaps this is his fault. Not just that he hadn’t noticed, but that he’d done this somehow. Perhaps he had pushed you too far, the entire time you’ve been with him. Perhaps you’re failing now because of him.

Or perhaps your body, so strong for him, is simply not strong enough against itself.

It doesn’t matter. Primo won’t let it matter.

Humans are weak and horribly, wretchedly ephemeral. To grow to care for one is an exercise in masochism, and not suited to a sadist like himself.

But as the day creeps on, an idea begins to replace despair. And when night falls again, Primo emerges from his coffin, unrested but certain of his next move.

Chapter Text

Primo does not go to the infirmary. He speaks to a servant in the hall, then makes his way to your room, a path he knows like a prayer, knowing you are not in it. You have long since granted him permission to enter your room at will, just like you’ve granted him access to your body whenever he likes. Trusting him, for all you should not.

He opens one of the drawers and the box within. He’s never asked where you keep his gift; he knows from the aroma. The rose is black, its petals threatening to crumble like old paper, but it is fragrant and especially to someone with senses as strong as a vampire’s. But it is not the rose he looks at, nor the key, its patina smelling like old blood.

He takes out the other two things in the box, leaving the faintest dents on the silken cushion. You have never handled them, he knows immediately. Your scent is not on their polished wood, not even faded. Only the smell of rose and blood are there, pervasive. For a moment, he is overwhelmed by the competing scents, the rose that he had given, the blood he had taken, sweetness and rust.

His hand brushes the flower, but it does not shatter as he had feared, just leaves its perfume behind on his fingers.

As he breathes it in, the door opens, and you enter, accompanied by the human doctor.

You look better than when he had seen you last. Conscious, for one thing, and on your own two legs. Your breathing rattles a little, now that he’s listening, though at least you are breathing.

For now.

“Leave us,” he says to the doctor, not looking at them. His eyes are on you.

The doctor looks from you to him, and does as they are told. Humans do that. They know where they fall in the order of things, and an ancient vampire, born rather than made, towers above them in hierarchy. He does not tolerate those who forget that.

Except when he does.

“Sit,” he tells you then, and you, too, do as you’re told. He comes to sit beside you, and takes a moment to breathe you in. You smell like medicine of some sort, but mostly you just smell like yourself. Sick or well, you smell…familiar. He knows your scent without thinking, just as he knows the feel of your skin, the sound of your voice, the way he knows his own name. You are something he has had so long that he has forgotten what it was like to be without, and has no desire to learn.

There is silence for a long moment, except the sound of your breathing. But finally, you break it.

“There are treatments, but not a cure. And they’re expensive,” you start to say, but he holds up a hand, silencing you. You have not yet noticed what he holds in his other hand, or if you have you do not pay attention to it.

“You will get the finest care you want,” says Primo. “Whether it’s to prolong your life or whatever else you may choose. You are entitled to that much.”

He hears you swallow, and you look down.

“I was negligent,” he says finally, shortly. He is not a man of many words, but these must be said. “I should have caught it sooner. I did not.”

“Maybe there wasn’t anything to catch,” you say. “It’s not your fault.”

It does not escape him that you are offering him comfort. If he were not himself he would smile, but he is, and always will be, on and on into eternity.

He sits beside you for a moment. You are so warm; you have always been so warm. But unlike him, you do not have an eternity. And one way or another, your warmth will not last forever.

“Anyway,” you say, “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it. I appreciate you coming to see me. I didn’t really expect you to, but I’m…I’m glad you did.”

He studies you for a moment. The curve of your cheek, the way you hold your mouth. He knows how those lips taste, he knows how they feel against his, how they feel on his body, how they look when you’re crying out in pain and pleasure. And in this moment, he learns how they tremble when you’re trying to smile at him, when you are trying to be strong.

He has always demanded so much strength from you, but never more than you can bear. That has always been the agreement. And now he will ask for one strength more.

“I have a gift for you,” he says. “But it is also a demand. Because I do not think I can take no for an answer if you do not accept it.” He holds out the hammer and stake then, in his cold and gnarled hand. You take it, but you’re frowning, puzzled.

“Primo?” you ask. Uncertain, looking to him for answers, even as you do as he says. Trusting him, always.

He does not answer, not yet. Instead he reaches up to unbutton his collar. His claws are sharp, but his hands are nimble, and he flicks open each button in turn. And then he opens the shirt, baring his chest, his ribs jutting against his skin. He reaches for your hands, raises them, and brings the point of the stake to his chest. He can hear you draw a sharp breath.

“You know what to do if I take more than you are willing to give,” he says, and one hand rests on your thigh, like he might touch you. He can hear your heart pounding a little faster. Always so ready for him, always so responsive.

And then he raises his other hand, brings his wrist to his mouth. His eyes meet yours as  he tears his teeth into his own flesh. His own blood begins to flow.

Without a word, he raises his wrist to your lips. Rivulets of blood trickle down the sinews of his wrist. An offering.

A choice.

You could refuse, and live a few more months as yourself, frail but human, living and breathing, heart beating, still able to feel the touch of sun on your skin. For a short time, as it stands, but perhaps a cure could be found, and if not, you could finish the rest of your days as you are, warm and beautiful and everything. Whatever else, you could live as yourself, as your own.

Or you could drink, and you could change. Exist forever, but not truly alive. Exist forever, but his, always. Even if you are away from him, even if you kill him, his blood will be in your veins, he will have given you eternity and you will never truly escape him. A gift. A curse.

He can feel the press of the stake against his chest. You can refuse him, if you choose. But that was always your choice.

His hand before you still smells of rose petals, and the thick-sweet scent of vampire blood, so seldom shed for anyone and certainly not for a mere pet. But you are more than a mere pet, and he knows that even if he dare not say it. He has seldom said a kind word to you, really. Even now, even like this, all he can do is give you a command.

“Stay,” he says, a command, a hope, tasting his own blood on his lips as he has so often tasted yours. “Stay with me. Always.”

You look at him for a moment, and then at his wrist. And you drop the stake into his lap, grasp his arm, and begin tentatively at first, licking at the wound.

And then as you taste it, without even realizing it, you latch on, drinking him down in greedy gulps. He grits his sharp teeth against the pain, feeling your lips now grow cold, feeling your body demanding from him, taking all that he can give.

Until you pull away with a gasp, and you arch your back, pain and pleasure, as he has always drawn from you, over and over, on and on, and now again. And there, before his eyes, you begin to change.

Chapter Text

You hear the moment your heart stops, and fear floods your ears instead of your pulse. You take in a breath, and it hurts, a lungful of ice shards to tear into you, and you let it out again in a piercing scream so primal you do not recognize it as your own. 

That is the last thing you remember for a long, long time. 

Darkness falls, and not just darkness. Nothingness. No stars in the sky, no maroon behind your eyelids, no thoughts piercing your mind. No time, no space. This is the place before Genesis, empty of everything except absence. 

And then suddenly you are back to yourself. You do not hurt. You are not tired, not even the grogginess of waking, and certainly not that deep tiredness you’ve felt for longer than you care to admit. 

You breathe in, and it is not a struggle now, but it feels strange. The scent of blood hangs humidity-thick in the room, but the breath itself gives you neither pleasure or relief. You breathe to smell the air, to speak, to make a confused little sound that escapes your lips without your full awareness. But the air that had, a few nights ago, been such a precious resource now does nothing for you. There is no life in your body to need it.  

You open your eyes, and Primo is there. 

He is holding you, against the agony of death and rebirth. He is holding you, and he is the first thing you see. 

You do not know how long you were out of it, minutes or days, until you realize he still has blood on his lips, and when you lick your own you taste it. It must not have been long, then. You open your mouth as if to ask a question. 

And then his mouth is on yours, and his blood on his lips and on yours mingles. His tongue thrusts into your mouth, and perhaps you don’t need to breathe but you still moan into his. His teeth nip against your bottom lip and he pulls away with a sharp sound of his own. He swallows hard, closes his eyes a moment, then opens them to look at you. 

“Nothing has changed,” he says then. 

You stare at him. Everything has changed. You are no longer dying, for one thing. You’ve done that already. But more than that. You can feel new strength in your arms and legs. Your nose detects a thousand scents, your ears a thousand sounds. You can sense things you never could before, things you can’t even name. 

“I will not be any gentler with you,” he continues. “I am still me.” 

Is that all he meant? You look up at him for a moment, then smile at him, and shake your head. “When have I ever asked for something else?” 

“You are still mine,” he says, confidently, but there is a question in his eyes. 

“More than ever,” you say, and touch his wrist. It’s no longer bleeding, though it’s drying on his skin, brown and flaking like dried flowers.

“I will still…I will still push you to your limits,” he says, and despite his words, his hand comes up to cup your cheek. “But you know that I will never go too far, even now.” 

“I know,” you say. “But I might have some new limits.” Because you feel different. So different. 

A made vampire is never going to be as powerful as one born, physically or socially or by any other metric. But compared to what you were…

What you were. And that’s when you start to pull away. “But what about…” You look up at him, and now you are unsure. 

He does not ask you to continue, but he watches you, silent, and you know that is his way of inviting more words anyway. He does not say much, but what he doesn’t say so often speaks volumes. 

“You can’t feed from me anymore,” you say. And with those words comes a strange sense of loss. The one thing you had to give to him, the one thing he really needed you for, and now it’s gone. 

He takes your chin in his hand, and tilts your face up so you cannot look away. His claws are sharp in your skin, and you think he is pressing them harder than he ever had before. You are stronger now; you can take more, and he doesn’t need to hold back quite as much as he had. 

“I would rather drink cold blood for centuries with you by my side than have one more hot meal in your absence,” he says. “Do you understand?” 

You don’t, but really you do. You look up at him, his features and eyes both sharper than his claws, piercing you.

But his hand no longer feels as cold as it used to. And perhaps his eyes are not, either. Never warm or gentle, but different. Matching you.

“I won’t…feel the same,” you say, uncertainly. “I’m not hot to the touch anymore, I’m not…” 

“That was never what I wanted from you,” he says, and then he kisses you again, mouth too hard, and pushes you down onto the bed, and you let him. You welcome him. He cannot tell you what he feels; maybe he doesn’t have the words, maybe he doesn’t want the words. As he said, he is himself and nothing more, and as you said, you expected nothing else.

But he can show you.

His hands on your shoulders, pinning you, and then tearing at your clothes. The clothes you had put onto your weak and failing human body open like wrapping paper to reveal you now, whatever you have become. And maybe he doesn’t need to feed from you, but his teeth find your throat. He bites down, familiar and yet new, because now it is just for his pleasure and not for his thirst. His claws nick your skin as he shreds the fabric from your skin, and you moan again at the cold pain, at the faint growl in his throat that no human could make. 

You are new, reborn, and your body feels strange and unfamiliar. But this is what you know, what you have always craved. His claws in your skin, his teeth. The way he shoves down his trousers, the way he fits his hips between your thighs. There is a wooden clatter as he spreads your thighs apart, and you realize you’d knocked the mallet and stake onto the floor, forgotten.

When he is ready he slides into you, one quick movement, body fitting into yours as if you are made for him, and for a moment you are sure that you were. You roll your hips against him, a sound in your throat, wanting more, wanting everything. Your mouth still tastes of him, and you remember that moment as he slides into you. His blood filling your mouth the way his cock now fills you. Spreading into you, everywhere, everywhere, flooding your veins until you are nothing but desire and his.

And now he moves, rough and sure, taking what he wants, taking what he needs, and what he needs is not your blood and not your obedience but you, just you. He is hard and forceful as ever, pushing your body to pleasure as he takes his own from it. The smooth slide of his cock, hard and fast at first, and then slower and deeper, delving into you until you can’t stand it anymore, almost shattering under him, against him, around him. 

When you come you grip the sheets and, in your newfound strength, tear them. The sound of fabric ripping makes you gasp. He keeps going, keeps fucking you, pounding into you, and he makes you come again, again, his sharp face over yours and his chest against yours, still heart to still heart. You are crying out, whining, pleading, mad with pleasure and need, mad with the feeling of being his, his, as you have always been, and now forever. 

And when he comes you let out another whine, and to your own surprise you wrap your legs and arms around him, making your own demands of him, keeping him there and with you for the moment. And he lets you. He stays, his body against yours, his body in yours, his blood in your mouth and veins, and yours in his. 

Slowly, clinging to him, you spiral down from the high like a fallen leaf coming to rest, and you collapse back on the bed. You might have greater strength, but a rough fuck after a long couple of days is going to take it out of you. 

He pulls out at last, but he does not leave like he usually does. He looks down at you again, unsmiling, stern-faced. But present. 

“Aren’t you going to go?” you ask, not really thinking about it. 

“No,” he says. Nothing more. No explanations, no niceties, no elaborations. He does not waste words. 

“Oh,” you say. Because he might not explain, but he doesn’t need to. You understand, the things he doesn’t say that hang heavily between you, surrounding you. If you were still human, your eyes might fill with tears, but you are not. You are something else, something that does not cry, but you feel it all the way to your spine. 

He lays down next to you, stiffly but without hesitation. You’ll have to get a coffin instead of a bed, you know, as is tradition. Or perhaps you’ll move into his. It’s a strange thought, but not an unwelcome one, and you let out a contented little sigh. He shifts beside you, and you look up to find him watching you again. 

“What?” you say, self-conscious for a moment, out of habit perhaps. 

His fingers come up to grace your cheek a moment. And he says, “I like the sounds you make.” He lets his hand drop again. 

He is never going to say more than that.

You are no longer his pet, but you are still his, body and soul. He will teach you how to drink blood, how to function as a vampire; he will help you learn new limits, reaching them together, but never beyond them.

But he has also given you whatever he can. First the gift of his death, a box with a stake and a promise. And then the gift of his life, blood and forever. 

You are his. But in his strange, ancient, taciturn, cruel way, he is yours. 

Later, he fucks you again, and hurts you, and makes you make all those sounds he knows like a favorite song. The same thing he has always done, but different. Now you can take more, and you want more, you want everything, and with him perhaps you have it. 

Later still, he opens the window to the night air, the only air you will ever know, now, for the rest of eternity. Moonlight spills weakly on the floor, dulled by clouds. When he comes back to bed you rest your hand on his arm, and he does not curl into it, but he doesn’t push it away.

On the breeze comes the distant scent of rain.