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The mass had fallen, and with it the Hylden were disoriented if not yet destroyed. It seemed only fitting to return to the creature that had made this possible and moreover to ask it where the Hylden General could be reached; Kain had sworn to finish the bastard, and a promise to oneself was not easily broken.
It had been a week of strange events so any shock to the system was bound to be cushioned by the sheer volume of surprises he had endured thus far, but Kain still had to gather himself at the sight before him.
"Where is the beast?" He asked, suspecting he knew the answer but not quite believing his eyes.
"Your sense of smell does not lie, Kain." The accent was thick - thicker somehow for its use of fully human vocal chords, voice soft and unfathomably weary. Kain was used to complex characters having read the fatalism etched into Vorador's face, the pain sewn into Nupraptor's, but for all his familiarity it was still a struggle to define what the creature before him was feeling. Certainly he had known the beast's incarnation was deformed, but to see it restored as blue-skinned and humanoid seemed impossible.
The creature looked up, eyes blazing red even as it spoke with sense and reason. "Thank you."
"You pointed me towards the source of your freedom - it is yourself you should thank. What I desire is the Hylden General's whereabouts."
"I can lead you to him soon enough, but first I need rest." It pulled a wire slowly, carefully from its back, a weak spout of blood following the wire's exit. This and the other bloodstained implements scattered around the room explained the creature's weakened state; whoever he was, the Hylden must have hated him.
"Who are you?"
"I did not think my race would ever be so unrecognisable," Began the creature as it stood up, movements stiff and awkward like a recently bedridden man. Kain did his best to ignore the creature's nakedness as he handed it his cloak for coverage, realising only now that what he thought was black cloth bundled against its back was actually a set of wings.
"I am Janos Audron."
"Last of the living vampires? But he is dead!" Kain snapped, incredulous despite every detail ringing true of the stories Vorador sometimes told if intoxicated enough on blood or alcohol.
"Almost," Janos replied, a little wryly. "If not for you, a few more decades might have seen to that."
Kain could not be certain given he had never truly talked to a blue-skinned creature before, but he thought he saw Janos go a paler shade before the ancient fell to one knee, grazing himself against the rusted grille making up the floor. "I'm sorry Kain, two hundred years is a long time to go without blood."
Kain smirked a little before biting into his wrist, opening the cut so recently closed after his poisoning of the Mass, and offering it to Janos. "I hope it was you who taught Vorador to teleport."
Starving and unable to fight his basic nature when spilt blood was freely offered, Janos took Kain's hand and began to drink, though the younger vampire was amused when Janos used the telepathic bond between a feeder and his victim to ask, "Do you mind?"
Careful not to open a link back in case he betrayed his own thoughts or picked up Janos' by now ravenous hunger, Kain said aloud, "Be thankful so many of your captors made easy prey."
Janos smiled strangely against Kain's wrist and forced himself to pull back from the wound after another few moments, the bloodlust in his eyes calming down to reveal rich gold irises, a lack of metallic sheen the only visible proof they were not truly gilded.
"Vorador would not have returned to his mansion." Janos' voice seemed strained by more than weariness but Kain decided against prompting for a reason, simply offering,
"He hides in Meridian now. Humans are blinder to each other at home than in strange territories."
Janos nodded and closed his eyes, a slight frown of concentration creasing his forehead for a long moment until he breathed out and reopened them, putting his hands on Kain's shoulders. Blinding white-blue light surrounded them, before dissipating and revealing a darkened room of vampires all scrabbling for their weapons. All but one.
Kain had never seen Vorador lose his composure. It made another strange sight to add to the week's peculiarities.
"Put down your arms!" Snapped the green-skinned vampire, and Kain tried to fight his disappointment as there was one particular fledgling whose smug expression he'd been itching to rearrange.
"I was hoping to sleep before we see to Ezekiel." Kain could hazard a guess at who Ezekiel was given the eerily cold manner in which the name was delivered, though he was thankful for the confirmation when a puzzled fledgling asked 'Who?' and Vorador replied 'The Sarafan Lord'. Ezekiel seemed to be racking up more pseudonyms than Moebius ever managed.
"We have spare rooms, and I'll... I'll arrange for clothes to be brought in the morning." That was another first; Vorador searching for words. Both of the elder vampires wore expressions Kain couldn't quite decipher, and it was a frustration, but he let it lie. He was drained, tired, and in need of a meal. With a nod to the elders, he left.
.
Kain woke a little before sunset as was his habit, eyed the shadows of his room with mild trepidation. His gut instincts screamed at him, trying to deter him from his planned course of action, but fury overruled. The dark gods had been thinned and the herd flourished, his own kind persuaded to turn against each other by a creature that didn't even belong to this world. Sebastian turned traitor, and Magnus put through unspeakable torture. The Hylden had to fall.
The thoughts were fuel for his anger, but he knew his rage was impotent as long as he waited rather than acted. Umah might have been a pleasant distraction from the process were it not for the fact he had found her to be a late sleeper, so he turned his mind to conversation, decided it might be worth checking up on Janos. The ancient had been diurnal once so it seemed likely he might be awake at this hour.
It was no surprise to find Janos' room had been situated near Vorador's in the closest to lavishly furnished section of the Cabal headquarters. He heard quiet talking as he approached, did not express surprise at the second voice being Vorador's, but could not quite gather the details of the conversation having missed its beginning.
"… and I should have listened to you. All the waiting brought only this, I turned you away when you were right all along."
"Your faith sustained you, it sustains you even now." Getting closer to the room meant being able to hear the rustle of cloth and the wet sound of lips meeting and parting. Kain couldn't resist smirking and decided against turning back towards his room, against leaving them to their privacy. "Kain is the last balance guardian and plans on destroying the Hylden capital. It is not all lost."
"You were never one to hope," Janos said quietly, sadly, and Kain opened the door before the conversation could take a further turn for the worse.
"You certainly didn't take your time. I'd ask if I interrupted, but…" Kain had to hide his disappointment that opening the door revealed neither elder to be as dishevelled as the sounds outside would have suggested. Still, at least their being in bed with Janos on top meant they could not deny something more than conversation had been happening here.
Janos sat up, moving slowly as if something inside him ached at doing so, and Kain was suddenly captured by two thoughts - one, that Janos had spent the last few decades wired to a device that drained his life force so it would be stranger if he were moving easily, and two, that Vorador was Janos' fledgling.
Fledgling Vorador. Now there was a thought to amuse.
"Come here," Janos asked, extending an arm towards Kain.
"I'm quite certain Vorador can take care of you himself," Kain commented, not shifting from his place at the door thought he knew his obstinance could lead to any passing Cabalist getting an interesting view.
"Kain, please." Sincerity rarely proved useful when Kain was around, being as he normally only heard it from those declaring how they meant to kill him. Nonetheless, despite telling himself it was his own decision, Kain obeyed.
"Seeing you dishevelled is becoming a familiar event Janos, though I hope I'll never say the same of Vorador." The green-skinned vampire let out an unimpressed grunt but said nothing, as if tamed by Janos' presence. The ability to keep Vorador from speaking his mind seemed an invaluable talent.
"Whether you take the credit or not, you saved me. At the very least you should take back what I took from you," Janos offered, tilting his head to one side for easier access to his neck.
"You owe me nothing."
"Then consider it a gift," Continued the ancient, Vorador backing up the request by giving Kain a short, hard kick.
"I could be persuaded," Kain replied wryly before kneeling on the bed's edge, pulling Janos towards him to make biting easier. The thought of feeding on someone who submitted to it seemed bizarre, perhaps even more bizarre than having Vorador glare at him the whole time, but a pleasant order could only be overcome by stubbornness to the point of idiocy.
The moment he bit, Kain was assaulted by Vorador sending "Hurt him and I'll kill you", Kain realising only with the connection that Janos had slipped a claw into his fledgling's mouth.
Not one to back down at any threat, Kain sent back "When you're old enough to talk in your sire's place I'll listen", baiting the green-skinned vampire for fun since he had not planned on hurting Janos anyway.
The bite on Janos' neck closed swiftly, flesh knitting together despite the anti-coagulant in Kain's spit, and Kain gave the wound a final lick before pulling back. Strangely, Janos seemed flushed rather than pale from the encounter and Kain was forced to wonder for a moment if the ancient was one of those rare creatures to enjoy the blood-giving process until he realised Vorador had gone very still and appeared to have lost a hand inside Janos' robes.
"If you planned on finishing without me, it wasn't very courteous." Kain allowed himself a touch of the sardonic, casting aside the impressed thought at Janos' ability to hide something as powerful as arousal during their telepathic link and sliding his own hands up Janos' thighs, further when the ancient didn't protest, before finding himself buffeted backwards and damn near off the bed by Janos' wings.
"'No' would have sufficed," Kain muttered, disgruntled though miraculously nothing more than his pride had been injured. A lesser vampire, and certainly a human, would have been badly hurt by the force with which the wings struck him. "Dare I ask what disturbed you?" The inquiry was a little belated given that as Kain said it he became aware of Vorador's hands moving beneath the ancient's wings, decidedly further up the ancient's body than they had been before. Some part of him marvelled at the physiology behind those wings, though it was overpowered by both anger at the self-satisfied smirk Vorador gave him and by lust at Janos' helplessly ecstatic expression. Whatever the reason, Janos clearly couldn't control his reaction to the powerful hands moving up the shafts of his wings into the downy feathers underneath. Only occasional hisses as a dead, blood-encrusted feather fell to the bedsheets served as a reminder of what the ancient had so recently been through, and Kain had to marvel when Janos gathered enough strength to push Vorador away long enough to shift onto hands and knees and let Kain get behind him safely.
"This is my decision," Janos told his somewhat errant fledgling as he brought Vorador's hands to his waist, letting the green-skinned vampire undo the clasps and lacing holding his robes together, slipping out of them with enviable grace. Vorador seemed to calm visibly as he twisted beneath Janos enough to retrieve a bottle from the bedside cabinet, emptying a little of the contents into his hand before passing it to Kain, a smile passing between himself and his sire that Kain could not interpret though he knew well enough what the bottle was to be used for.
Janos managed to stay remarkably calm as Kain slid oiled fingers inside him, wisely taking care not to move as a slip of Kain's claws could cause considerable damage. It seemed trite to offer a compliment or reassurance at this point, more so given Vorador seemed to have the full volume of Janos' attention, so Kain let the half-formed nothing die on his lips but allowed himself another lick across the now fully healed site of his earlier bite. Janos tensed and gasped near silently, but the tension was followed by a shiver that seemed to relax him fully and Kain took it as an excuse to finish preparing the ancient and withdraw his fingers. Vorador, it seemed, had used his share of the oil to make stroking his sire's erection easier, had also rubbed oil into Janos' left hand to let the touches be reciprocated, and Kain could not shake the feeling he was being allowed to set the pace by a silent agreement between the two older vampires despite no whispers or blood having been shared by the two. Their moments of synchronicity were strange, and would have been downright unsettling had it not been for Kain knowing they had lived together for decades on end at one point.
Kain was the initiator this time, unlacing his trousers and pushing them down enough to free his erection, thankful that in this regard he compared well to Janos though he hadn't yet had the opportunity to see Vorador's, given that the green skinned vampire's legs were now blocked from view. Truthfully he didn't care; Janos' dark beauty was undeniable, but Kain could not understand the ancient's attraction to Vorador. Janos allowed Kain to nudge his legs apart, balanced his weight carefully on knees and right hand, though Vorador assisted with support as Kain pushed into him.
Kain had managed thus far to keep his breathing under control, but no reasonable and few unreasonable men would fault him for groaning as Janos tightened around him. His taste in recent years had leant more towards women than men, but this he had missed - damn near burning, near unbearable heat and tightness that overpowered all sense. Distantly he noticed Vorador growling, and Janos was unable to still his fledgling this time, Vorador leaning up off the bed and taking his sire's lips possessively, then something close to sanity returned as Kain pulled out a little, trying to concentrate on what he was doing so as not to hurt Janos more than necessary for the act. Pushing in again seemed to let him a little deeper and Janos' hand gripped Vorador's shoulder hard for balance and support as he relaxed his lower body further, Kain slowly getting used to moving and then setting the pace as he had clearly been expected to do.
Janos' cries were for the most part swallowed by Vorador's mouth but there were shifts visible in the muscles of his back and twitches in his wings he couldn't suppress. It was a pleasant change to have a bedmate who was so expressive of their enjoyment, be it voluntary expression or not, when so many seemed damn near scared to do so. The frequency with which Vorador's lips couldn't quite seal in a moan or cry from their blue skinned lover was deeply satisfying, and Kain shifted his angle slightly to see if Janos was a screamer. One brush across the ancient's prostate later, Janos had to pull back from Vorador's lips to let out a cry that would have brought anyone on the corridor who didn't know better running, and Kain briefly allowed himself a smug smile before returning to the matter of his own satisfaction and thrusting harder into Janos as deep as the position would let him. Janos shivered again, a spasm running deep through all his muscles that accompanied a groan from the until now largely quiet Vorador, and Kain realised with some amusement the green skinned vampire was still periodically glaring at him, a reminder of the earlier threat to spill blood if Janos should be harmed. It wasn't a friendly warning, but it was neutral as long as Kain paid attention to Janos - not that there was any difficulty in doing so. Even if Janos hadn't felt so damn good around his erection, or hadn't been so entertainingly vocal, he would still have been beautiful.
Climax neared and Kain knew it, had no plans on prolonging the tryst beyond what it was due. The urge to feed, bloodlust and carnality so intertwined, preyed on his mind as he gripped the back of Janos' neck and pulled the ancient up and away from Vorador, both elders' lips bloodstained as he moved to take Janos' mouth with his own. Mingled blood coated the elder vampire's lips, more crimson welling on the tongue within, and while Kain indulged Vorador shifted so he could bite into Janos' neck.
Neither Janos or Kain had time to control the telepathic link between them and for Janos it was too much, the surge of his fledgling's lust coupled with Kain's and the sharp pain of the bite overcoming him so he shuddered, bucking violently into Vorador's hands and crying out with every breath as he came. It wouldn't have mattered thereafter how well any of them had prepared; orgasm through a link was as irresistible as blood from a fresh wound, more so even, and Kain allowed his lips to leave Janos' and travel down to the ancient's ear, sucking hard on the lobe as he thrusted hard a last time and came.
Tired and yet rejuvenated by the experience, Kain pulled back from Janos carefully and settled back on his haunches, watched the ancient half-fall bonelessly into place at his fledgling's side. It was a motion that afforded Kain a brief view of Vorador's length and spent or not, it explained readily how the older vampire had once acquired so many brides. There seemed little room on the bed for a third sleeper with Janos' wings taking up most of the space so Kain went to climb off but found himself held back by an insistent hand - Vorador's of all things. The green skinned vampire tilted Janos onto his side gently so the ancient's wings were not crushed but hung off the opposite side of the bed before sliding closer to his sire, slipping a protective arm around the half asleep vampire. "There should be room to nap."
Kain eyed the space at Vorador's side with some concern but took it anyway, propping himself up on one elbow so his view of the ancient was not obscured. "Your sire tastes better than most humans," Kain said, curious as to what exactly made Janos so damned different from everything else in this world, physical traits aside.
"He's still alive," Vorador replied with a touch of thoughtfulness bordering on wistful but just avoiding the sentiment. "He has our taste without the rot, and stays warm without feeding."
Kain fell silent, reached across for a brief moment to flick a loose feather from Janos' shoulder. Steady but still quiet breathing gave away that the ancient was awake, but his stillness of expression showed he was on the cusp of sleep. The Hylden would fall tonight. Kain would have revenge, and if other vampires slept easier on account, so be it; claiming Nosgoth might be even easier with that on his record. "I will make sure he suffers," Kain promised before turning to lie on his other side, uninterested in joining the embrace Vorador shared with Janos and letting his own musings guide his sleep. He would rest, briefly, and wake to his next endeavour. He would conquer. And he would rule.
.
The End