Between Night and Day
1x2xRelena
Warning:AU, vampires, were animals, het/gay/angsty, blood,magic,graphic
(multi chapter fic request with specific details)
"I don't understand why you want to cure me," Duo sighed as he fidgeted and waited for Wu Fei's latest potion to have an effect.
The man was simply staring at him, unblinkingly, as he sat on a high stool with a brass time piece held in one hand. His dark velvet robe and slippers were catching the evening sunset through the high window, a ripple of red tingeing a river of dark.
Duo hated inactivity. He twitched, wanting to at least pace the confines of the work room, but he knew better. The chill floor was making him shiver. The fireplace was banked, giving off little light or heat. The big lantern by Wu Fei's elbow, on his broad, round work table, seemed to cast a too bright unearthly light and Duo found himself passing the time staring at it, wondering if it was a normal flame or some captured spirit or demon.
"Change," Wu Fei said suddenly, the first word that he had spoken in over twenty minutes.
Duo started and stared, unprepared for the order, and then came back to himself and began undressing. He dropped his clothing in a pile at his feet, and then shivered in earnest as he stood, nude, in front of his Master. Attempting the change was as simple as taking a deep breath and thinking 'wolf'.
Duo was warmer, instantly and on four feet, tongue lolling from a muzzle full of sharp teeth. He knew that Wu Fei would want his other shape as well and thought, 'hawk'. He was colder in the next instant and ruffling feathers, his claws not liking the chill stone. He hopped over to where stone became carpeted floor and leapt up to perch on a chair arm. Brown wings that had hints of reddish bronze did not make him a drab hawk. His black beak, keen eyes, and russet tail feathers were impressive.
Wu Fei clicked off the watch timer and sighed. He leaned to make notes in a very large book opened on the table beside the lantern. "Perhaps more candomin root," Wu Fei muttered. "The wolf change took slightly longer, this time. I may be on the right track."
When Wu Fei stood and moved to his table of potions, burners, and materials, Duo knew that he was forgotten, his question, as always, unanswered. He supposed that Wu Fei never bothered with an answer, because Duo already surmised what it was. Wu Fei did not like unnatural creatures. The accident that had allowed Duo to change his form had made him one.
Wu Fei extinguished the big lantern, as if its job were done, and he didn't want to waste whatever energy powered it, and began lighting tall candles. Duo changed and put his clothes back on as the last of the sun dipped and all that was left was the warm flickering candle light. The lab took on a more welcoming glow, then, and it reminded him of his first nights in that place, huddled in his cubby hole and wondering what to make of the man who had taken him in out of the rain.
It had seemed like such a small thing, a meager show of gratitude, to help the man with the dragon shadow prove that his newest potion was effective on more than small animals. A small sip from a beaker of liquid, that had tasted like bitter berry with a fiery after taste, and he had successfully changed, not only into a wolf, but a hawk, as well. A reflection of his spirit, Wu Fei had told him angrily, when his 'gift' had been discovered. Impulsive, flighty, and thoughtless of consequences.
Wu Fei had striven to cure him after that, never accepting Duo's assurance that he didn't mind his alternate forms. Dire warnings of what was to come, a possible confusion of wolf/hawk/and man after puberty, had not dampened Duo's enthusiasm for what he considered a wonderful and useful power. He didn't dare voice his relief that yet another potion had failed to eliminate the permanent change that had been meant to only be temporary.
Duo slipped out of the room and went to the warmer kitchen. A stew was still hot in its cast iron pot over the hearth fire and a tin of bread was still crispy and golden just outside of the coals. Who made the meals, Duo couldn't guess. Like the lantern, and Wu Fei's true shape, it was a mystery. Sometimes, Duo felt a presence in the kitchen, but he never caught sight of any corporeal being. It never washed dishes, though, and that task always fell to Duo.
With that in mind, Duo dipped a spoon into the stew pot and began eating, instead of using a bowl. He felt a very distinct sense of displeasure around him that would have made him lay down his ears uncertainly if he had been in his wolf form.
"Master Wu Fei almost never eats what you cook.," Duo told the presence. "When he can pull himself away from his work long enough, he hunts."
Duo recalled finding a gutted and well eaten deer carcass in the miden one day, claw and teeth marks on the hide attesting to Wu Fei's great size and dangerous nature. The man did enjoy finer, cooked foods and wines, on occasion, but they seemed to upset his stomach in the same way that a snake might find meat that isn't raw or fresh a bother to its digestion.
The displeasure didn't go away. Duo took a few slices of fresh bread and decided to eat them elsewhere. Discarding his clothing in the warmth near the fire, he left the main house.
A high wall at the back of the home, that protected herbs and vegetables planted in tight, neat rows also supported a thick stone shed for potting and storing root vegetables. Duo had long ago called it his own, a place to have some real privacy. He had strewn some bedding under the potting table and had made his own brazier for heat. Not that he needed it in his wolf form. It was here that he could use it at will away from the censure of a guardian who thought that he should never use it at all.
Duo finished his bread as he curled in his bedding, every scent and taste heightened and pleasurable in his wolf form. He could understand his guardian's concern. There was a definite urge to run into the darkness, to stretch muscles and check out the alluring scent of other canine's close by. Females in heat, males excited and musky. Wu Fei imagined him succumbing to animal rut and losing himself entirely. Duo had more control than that and a distaste for the females that had more to do with a lack of real interest than any aversion to taboo mating.
Instead, Duo imagined, sometimes, that he was lifting his tail for other pursuits, ones in which he believed might cause Wu Fei to disown him. He couldn't help a submissive tremble and whine when he took in a deep breath of male musk, though, especially when that male was excited. Canine's stirred primal urges, but it was the male humans and their musk that Duo was most interested in.
It was easy to take care of the need in wolf form, not so easy to quell the desire. When he smelled old roses, unexpectedly, that desire took on a new form. No musk here, no scent of dripping desire, or heated hormones. This was cool, steady, assured, yet just as powerful an attraction. Duo helplessly unsheathed his need again and couldn't help a deep throated noise as his desire found sudden focus.
In wolf form Duo slipped out of the shed and stood among the kale plants, moonlight catching on the points of his fur and giving him a silvery appearance. The Night Creature was balanced on the top of the wall, looking down at him, blue eyes steady and compelling.
Duo wanted him to speak, wanted to know his voice along with the allure of his scent, but the creature remained silent, letting his power ensnare Duo, if he would allow it.
Duo changed and his arousal became all too human. He stood, pale in the moonlight, and then took a step forward.
"I was told that you won't leave me alone until you drink my blood," Duo said and it sounded too loud in the silence. Naked, he was getting goose bumps from the cold, but it wasn't diminishing his desire.
The night creature made a small movement and he was suddenly before Duo, reaching out a hand to cup his cheek. His skin felt a little warmer than the night air, and softer than a dove's breast. His other hand encircled Duo's waist, tentative, gentle, and almost timid, as it pulled Duo into a position against the creature's chest. Those eyes never left Duo's, searching, compelling, yet entire attitude waiting.
The smell of old roses became stronger and Duo felt himself drifting. He was losing to the allure and he very much wanted to lose. Even if it was only once, he felt that he wanted those teeth at his neck, wanted those lips touching his warmth and connecting with him a passion as heady as sex.
Wu Fei's warning that they were not human, and that they didn't have human concerns and desires, was suddenly a forgotten thing. Duo found his hands on a strong chest, smoothing down powerful, tightly knit arms, and tangling in rich leather clothing. Off, he thought. It was all in the way. He struggled with a belt buckle and the creature appeared puzzled as Duo pushed down dark leather pants to reveal a very human anatomy underneath.
"Take me," Duo whispered desperately. "Take ALL of me."
Blue eyes widened and then those arms encircled Duo tightly. He felt himself losing cohesion, his body flying away and becoming one with the mist, one with the creature who had him in an inescapable grip.
There was a roar that was powerful enough to shake mountains. Half corporeal, Duo looked down and realized that the ground was flowing away quickly and that he was merging with the night sky. The creature that surged up from the ground to catch him was black as the night, scales like burnished dark metal, clashing together, and red wings opening like the sails of a great sailing vessel. The white claws, like scimitars, and the open mouth full of equally long, sharp teeth promised eminent destruction in a maw filling with fire. Larger than the house, it seemed impossible to escape.
Dragon, Duo thought blearily. It was Wu Fei trying to rescue him. He didn't want rescue, though, Duo thought, and turned his face away, glad when they easily escaped and became nothing.
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"Interesting," a beautiful voice said.
Duo blinked open eyes and found himself surrounded by stone and the body of the blue eyed night creature. He stiffened, startled. The man was naked and warm, warmer than he had been last night. Eyes closed in sleep, he seemed too relaxed, too deeply asleep. Almost dead, Duo thought with a shiver, but saw the slight rise and fall of the man's chest.
"Why would he bring you here?" the beautiful voice mused.
Earth, leaves, and... salt? cushioned Duo as he raised himself slightly. Over the night creature's shoulder he could see a young man. Golden hair, eyes as clear as morning skies shot with light, and skin glowing as if touched by the sun and set alight like the pure golden reflection on a bar of gold. Even his simple wrap was caught with light.
"He hasn't even tasted your blood," the man continued to comment.
"Who...?" Duo swallowed in a dry throat. "What's happened?"
"You have been taken by a vampire," the man said. "You have slept in his nest, something only a mate may do for the count of days it takes to breed."
"Breed?" Duo tried to get out of the night creature's embrace but it was like stone.
"There is food and there is a mate," the man informed him. "Little else marks a male vampire's existence."
"I'm a male!" Duo protested.
The man smiled warmly as he looked Duo's nude body over. "Apparently. Which makes this situation extremely puzzling."
"You're not a night creature," Duo pointed out, "What are you? Can you get me out of here?"
The man's smile grew even more warm. "I could, but I might find my self control tested. I am an Ifrit and I would like nothing better than to take your essence. It's very bright and strong."
Duo had heard enough about Ifrits to be very afraid. He cowed behind the body of a sleeping man who promised to be just as dangerous, only his purple eyes peeking out. He changed into a wolf, hoping for some protection from teeth and a strength greater than his human form.
The Ifrit raised a golden brow. "He will not let you go until darkness falls and he wakes, again. If he did not feed last night he may suck you dry instead of simply sipping enough to live. If I were you, I would endeavor to free myself."
"And face you, instead?" Duo reminded him with a tremulous voice.
The Ifrit shrugged. "Few have the choice in how they will end. You do. Your choice will be as interesting as your presence."
The Ifrit took up a guarding stance and went motionless, one with the sunlight streaming through an arch of marble.
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He tasted like salt, musk, and a hard life;endless campfires, dirty backwoods trails, and skin that had rarely seen a wash. Heero drew in the blood, a throat willingly offered and his ravenous hunger given free rein. Take me, take all of me, was a mental mantra that was as strong as the beat of the heart under Heero's hands.
"I will take the rest," Quatre whispered in his ear and then the life force was gone, a candle flame sucked into the light of a brighter being.
Heero dropped a husk, sightless brown eyes staring in astonishment at nothing, flesh aroused, but cold in death, now, and never to know warmth, again. The Ifrit was a blinding light in the lowering sunlight coming through the balcony. The human like face was flushed, as if from an orgasm, languid and sated. It was at all odds with the agitated voice that said, "We are under attack."
It was hard for Heero to fight the torpid phase, to orient himself to his new standing position, when he knew that he had been curled in his sleeping place. Hunger had driven him from sleep. Hunger had cast the glamour on the intruder, a man who had dared touch him for reasons, a hacking blade cast aside on the marble floor, made clear. The jewels from Heero's fingers and clothing, held in a dead fist, attested to the man's unwise choice to rob his victim before committing murder.
A nervous whine alerted Heero to another intruder. He turned back to his sleeping place and saw the wolf crouched there, ears down, and clearly frightened. It leapt out, realizing it's discovery and scrambled for a doorway leading into the fortress proper, a fortress full of night creatures rousing against an enemy.
"No," Heero said simply and the Ifrit barred the way between one blink and the next. The wolf stopped and crouched, shaking.
Heero's skin absorbed the blood on his lips, on his chin, and on his hands. He took a deep breath, turning from the sunlight as it sizzled on his skin and stung his blue eyes. Stepping over the corpse, that was turning to salt, dust, and clothing, he approached the man that he had kidnapped the night before.
The Ifrit was saying, "Wolf form saved you. The vampires do not enjoy feasting on animals. It is done, now. Use your true form to take the Master to safety in the vaults below. I will deal with these intruders."
"The others," Heero argued thickly, feeling sleep over taking him.
"Will not touch him as long as you lay claim," the Ifrit replied impatiently. "Do so, now, so that I may be free for an attack."
"He must be willing," Heero stressed and looked down at the cowering wolf.
The young man was mesmerized by the glamour. He had been Heero's since that first night in the forest. Free will, if he was strong minded, was possible. If not, asking was only perfunctory. Duo would give himself, all of himself, as willingly as the man who had just tried to murder Heero.
"Not much time," Heero told the wolf. "Come to me."
Heero could hear the intruders, sense them like a snake senses the heat of prey. They feared, but their purpose there was strong enough to overcome that, to risk lives and their very selves to take what they had come for.
An end to the night creatures? Heero didn't sense deaths. His people were retreating, almost powerless in the light of the sun, most of them full from their night's hunting, Heero would have woken and done the same, preservation instincts alerted him to danger, if not for his senses being confused by the man who had shared his bed.
The wolf changed into a man with long hair and purple eyes that gave off a subtle glow. He was, naked, filled with the need for Heero to take him, and was easily the most enticing creature that Heero had ever beheld. Food, his body should have acknowledged, and nothing else, but there was the strong sense of 'mate' overpowering that and making Heero hesitate.
"Hurry!" the Ifrit urged.
Duo tilted his head and exposed his neck, swallowing. His eyes were locked on Heero's. Sexual heat and pheromones were an invisible mist that Heero walked through as he clasped the man in his arms and lowered his mouth to that throbbing juggler.
Claim him. Mark him as personal prey that no one else would dare to touch. Lips touched his soft skin. Hands came up and clasped Heero in return. This wasn't simple supplication, or surrender. Heero's body released instead of drank when he pierced skin with his teeth. It was an orgasm of sorts, a powerful throb through his entire being. He tasted Duo and became a part of Duo at the same time.
The barest moment and then it was over. Heero was slumping and Duo was catching him in strong arms. He had claimed Duo for mating, not for prey, and as he felt Duo dragging him down to the lower floors, with the Ifrit urging him on, he wondered what the others would make of that.
Duo didn't feel weak. He felt stronger than he should have been after spending almost a day without food or rest, waiting for his companion to wake and decide whether he was prey or mate. The small sting of Heero's bite, and the euphoria that had followed, had felt like liquid fire, tingling pleasure, and a sudden infusion of energy. It had taken a bare second. Something he might have felt disappointment over if that one second hadn't been so overwhelming in its results.
The lower floors were almost as dark as pitch. They had massive, stone arches that led from one room to the next, with the barest flicker of a wall sconce to help keep someone from banging against walls, and stumbling down stairways. The lowest floor had only one wall sconce at the doorway. Those not completely torpid guarded it, challenging Duo until they sensed his claiming and saw their Prince in his arms.
The Ifrit hadn't followed after the first darkened room. Duo supposed that it had gone to destroy their attackers. As frightened as he was of the light creature, he missed it's heated, sun like presence now. The inner chamber was covered in salt, forest debris, and dirt, Bodies were curled so closely that Duo had to carefully step over them.
It was terrifying, smelling old roses and forest loam, hearing the sounds of movement, here and there, and feeling the inquisitive touches that withdrew each time in deference to someone else's mate. He didn't make the mistake of thinking that these creatures were defenseless. Unless completely torpid, they could still react to prey. Seeing Heero strike at the man who had begun stealing jewelry, and the precious stones on Heero's clothing, had been faster than Duo could follow.
Duo didn't want to sit among a floor covered in death, but he had as little choice as before. He arranged Heero in his lap as he sat down, the man's head on his chest, and wished for the strong comfort of his dragon ward. Wu Fei had always seemed omnipotent. It was hard to realize that he would not be coming to Duo's rescue, that he might even have washed his claws of an orphan who had had been disobedient enough to run away with a Night Creature.
That creature felt precious in Duo's arms. His blue eyed vampire hadn't become his world, because of the glamour. There was something else, something indefinable that told Duo that here was the man that would complete his soul.
Duo stroked a hand over the soft skin of Heero's face and then held him tighter and more protectively as a collective moan rose from all around him.
"They have stolen it! We are doomed!"
They repeated those words for some time, and Duo tried to understand what they meant. When a hand closed on his arm as hot as the warmth of a fire, and red, glowing eyes blinked down at him, he almost imagined that it was the attackers. The voice that came out of the darkness though, was purest relief.
"Put him down. He will be all right among his own people," Wu Fei told him.
Hands forced Duo to comply, pulling the torpid body from his arms, even though Duo wanted, using all of his strength to accomplish it, to keep holding Heero. He was taken up from the floor, then, and everything tilted as his feet left solid ground.
Wind and motion, a rushing towards light after twisting at impossible angles to fly through arches, and then they were through a wide colonnade and arrowing into sunlight, dragon wings catching a thermal and taking them as high as the clouds.
Duo was screaming and struggling, not wanting a separation from the creature that had won his heart, and shocked to his core to be carried by a dragon so far above the Earth.
Braid whipping in the wind and naked body gleaming with sunlight, Duo hardly had time to wonder if the world could see him, before they were banking and arrowing downward towards the high tower of their home.
It was all too much, especially when the human figure of Wu Fei was suddenly before him, dressed in a thick red robe, and surrounded by his workroom. Duo was standing before him, unsure of how they had managed to end up there without taking down the domed roof.
"Explain," Wu Fei demanded, but Duo was already passing out towards soft carpet, his mind telling him that he had experienced far more than any normal man was mentally able to bear. He wondered if he would wake in his right mind.
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"Dragon?" Heero questioned and his fellow night creatures nodded. "Thieves?" they nodded again even as they began moving away from him, wanting to wake properly, feed, and shake off their torpid states. They needed moonlight and night air, not the catacombs under the earth.
Heero could scent his prey... no, his mate... however that had happened... all over himself. It was intoxicating, like fresh turned earth or the dew that settled on the forest right before sunrise. He tried to imagine the man wrapped about him even as he surveyed the arches of the catacomb and tried to puzzle out how a dragon could fit through them. Incorporeal transformation, perhaps, using something like the misting of form that night creatures could employ. It took great energy though, and was something only used sparingly.
His mate was safe and in a place that Heero knew. It was enough to calm his possessive reflexes, even though it didn't calm the part of him that didn't understand why his mate wasn't there with him for a proper coupling. It didn't consider that such a coupling might mean death for a human creature, especially a man. It was simple instinct and that instinct ruled a vampire's existence. There would be a reclaiming, he was certain, and soon, however he could manage it.
For now, though, Heero had other concerns. He ignored his hunger and went up into the fortress to discover what had been stolen. He could feel anxiety all around him, night creatures aware of a danger, even while compelled to go about their nightly business. He was able to fight that urge, though, possessing the ability to ignore hunger and instinct to manage a kingdom, to rule his people. It was a marker of his family. When he reached the heart of the fear, it was the treasure room, barred gates burst open and guards dead and dust at their posts. His close relations were there, waiting for his arrival, their blood speaking to blood and communicating their need without words. It's gone! Must find it!
Heero ran a hand over a dusty casket, its iron bonds, attaching it to the stone backbone of the mountain, shattered as if they were brittle glass. The velvet interior held the impression of a long object. Heero touched that impression and his hand trembled.
To control a thing, a man must first be able to destroy it. Long ago, someone had tried to do just that. They had created a weapon that could destroy a night creature, utterly, and then had demanded sovereignty over them in exchange for their forbearance. The base root of the fear that other races harbored against the night creatures was directly related to that time. They had been forced to kill, indiscriminately, against their nature, and against the will of those they had preyed on. Blood had flowed wastefully, until their enemy had been defeated and the weapon locked away.
They had been unable to destroy the weapon. They had imagined it kept safely at the heart of their people, reasoning that it was better protected among them rather than left hidden and in danger of discovery. Now it was taken, all of their confidence like so much debris blown on the wind. There would be demands. There would be war and killing. Heero wasn't of the mind to wait for it.
"Find it," he ordered. "Find them."
Shadows fled the room, hunting instincts leading them along a trail that led through mountains.
So swift, Heero thought, puzzled. It wasn't humans, not this time. They left no corpses or blood behind, and they had managed to drive the vampires into their catacombs, attacking when they were most vulnerable. Someone knew their ways intimately. Someone, had been watching for the right moment.
Heero went to a balcony and looked out over the moonlit mountains and the lights of the village far below. He imagined being forced to attack, to slaughter those people wholesale. The imagined bitter taste of it was already on his tongue, even while hunger prodded at him to go down and find his willing prey among them.
A young, brunette woman was out late, having dallied with a blacksmith among the trees near the village. Full of wine and happiness, she walked with tipsy steps for home. Heero was there in moments, a dark mist coalescing out of the white mist rising from the undergrowth all around them. She blinked and then smiled, smelling of sex, need, and acceptance as she easily came into Heero's arms. Denied too long, it was hard to stop drinking before he drained her life away completely. When he sent her on her way, again, her steps were staggering, but the smile was still on her face.
Heero curled up in the ferns under a massive oak tree, as the stupor over took him. Warm, sated, and bereft of worry, for the moment, he was still feeling the need to claim his mate, to drink that blood and couple as instinct demanded.Logic told him that wasn't possible with a male, especially a human male, but that reasoning was a faint echo against the power of a vampire's urges.
A dragon lived for ages, growing fierce, wise, and very large. This one had grown fond of humans and had even taken one to protect. That softness was his undoing. He was powerless, Heero knew, against a human that was determined to do as he pleased, when the option of eating or injuring that human was out of the question. Duo would come to him, again, eventually, Heero decided. His allure, and the humans own desires, would allow him to do nothing less.
A faint feeling of a presence came to Heero. The Ifrit, he guessed, almost powerless in the darkness and unable to make a form that wasn't more than bits of moonlight. Silvery edges outlined part of a face. "I should have sucked your human dry, when I had the chance," came the faint voice. "He's dangerous. A distraction. Your race is threatened. Pursuing a male human, might have been interesting theatre for me, but I cannot allow you to continue to pursue him. Come morning light, I will find a way to take him."
No! Heero thought, but he couldn't rouse himself until hours later. The moon stilled ruled the sky, then, and would do so for hours yet, until dawn. He stood guard in the garden of the dragon and waited to thwart the Ifrit. He wasn't certain what he would do when the sun rose and burned his skin, but for Duo, his mate, he was willing to endure it. Protect, every instinct said, but there was another feeling beside that, one that he wasn't certain any night creature had ever felt. He couldn't name it, not yet, but he knew that it was even stronger than instinct, even stronger than his need to survive.
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Did he fear for his life? It was hard to remember that Wu Fei loved him when the dragon was breathing fire and smoke, in his anger, eyes red as the flames. When he lived past his first few moments of waking, and a long tirade on the topic of his stupidity, Duo's belief, that he might keep on breathing, found firmer ground.
Slumped in a chair, facing the window that his mentor had somehow carried him through, Duo's eyes could only trace the gouge marks of claws in the stone, and the stone casing, burned black. The slim, ageless, man pacing angrily before him seemed an impossibility. How did he manage it? How did he reduce the dragon into human dimensions? Duo's respect for the man, as a great sorcerer, went hand in hand with a fear that wouldn't go away completely. There were so many ways that he could die at Wu Fei's hands.
"You're right," Duo finally said, throat hoarse from earlier screaming and weariness. "I was stupid. I was irresponsible. I didn't have a care for my life. I think, though, that it isn't just the glamour of a night creature that moves me."
Wu Fei stood before him now, looking down at him as if he were poised for violence. "Enlighten me," he demanded softly. "If you are so wise."
Duo licked dry lips, gathering his senses, trying to make sense out of something that he hardly understood himself. "I don't think that you will believe me, but... I feel as if... fate... destiny... God... whatever power is out there, brought me and the night creature together. When I look at him, I feel like I've found something, that's gone missing from my life. It's powerful. I can't ignore it. You can't save me from it."
"You love him?" Wu Fei asked.
Duo didn't need to struggle, but he was amazed as Wu Fei when he admitted, "Yes." The man had given a name to that over powering feeling inside of him, the one that he had never before felt. Duo couldn't deny it.
Wu Fei let out a puff of gray smoke in a sigh. "Your lives are so short. Candle flames, flickering in the darkness and so easily put out. A man puts a pretty flower on his table, and he has only days to admire it, before it droops and fades. I knew this when I took you in, but it is no less painful to me. I cannot chain you as my heart demands. Instead..." He took off a ring and placed it into Duo's hand. He closed Duo's fingers over it and patted them.
Duo looked down at the ring. It was heavy gold and set with a red jewel that seemed to have a heart of fire.
"I breathed my flame into the making," Wu Fei told him. "Call on me, through the ring, only when you are in the direst danger. Even my powers have limits. You will need to know my true name."
When he bent and whispered it into Duo's ear, Duo felt the intense heat of his breath. He flinched, even as Wu Fei was straightening again, and rubbed at tightened skin that felt as if it had been in the sun too long.
Duo understood the power that gave him and how much Wu Fei loved him to risk giving it to a human, a creature full of flighty emotion and often conflicted in loyalties. "I won't fail your trust," Duo promised and couldn't understand why Wu Fei looked sad as he turned away.
"You have chosen to love a creature who cannot love you in return," Wu Fei told him. "Vampires are creatures of instinct and need. They may look human, but they are not. He will kill you. It is that simple. I'm giving you the ring, but I have no true hope that you will use it . I have long understood this about humans. They will often seek their own destruction because of the emotions within them that they feel so strongly."
"He won't kill me," Duo insisted.
"So you believe, because you don't truly see him for what he is," Wu Fei argued.
"I know that you're wrong," Duo argued. "Maybe that isn't logical, because I can't support it with facts, but I feel it."
Another puff of smoke as Wu Fei sighed and then he was waving a hand dismissively. "Go to your rest. I can't help but mourn you, already, and arguments only sadden me further."
Duo obeyed, but he was already trying to formulate a plan where he might meet the night creature, again. He needed to see that he was safe. He needed to hold him in his arms again and smell old roses. Perhaps Wu fei was right, that humans and Vampires were unable to become mates, and that they couldn't know love, but Duo was determined to be whatever it was possible to be to this vampire. Even if he could only be prey, and give his blood, he felt willing as long as he could hold the creature in his arms and love him.
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Heero saw the wolf lope out of the house and into the garden, nose questing the wind. On his perch above the garden wall, cloak wrapped tightly around him to hide him with its color of the night, the wolf still sensed him, still felt the bond that pulled them together.
A whimper of need escaped canine lips, and then the wolf was heading towards a back gate, perhaps to hunt Heero out, just as light broke into the city and bathed Heero in it's painful light. it saw him in an instant and froze, losing form and becoming a naked man in his surprise.
"I am Prince Heero," Heero told him as he came down from the wall and confronted Duo. Duo's eyes were sparkling purple and his skin was almost glowing, as the sun tipped over the garden wall and illuminated him. Fire seemed to catch in his brown hair, his haphazard, long braid, a rope of glittering color as it snaked down his front.
"Duo," Duo replied after a hard swallow. "I'm the ward of a dragon."
"My mate," Heero told him, feeling the bond keenly, the need to reach out and claim this human. That could be deadly, though, everyone had always said, and the Ifrit had seemed certain that death was more likely when the mate was a male. It made Heero clench his hands and hold himself still. "You are in danger."
Duo blinked and then seemed to gather his wits. "I was told...." He looked Heero over. "But you're human in form, yes? Even... there? You mate as we do."
Heero showed sharp teeth as he battled the desire to crush Duo to him. Mount and drink. Mingle hormones, blood, and life giving seed. The desire pounded through every sense that Heero owned. Humans were delicate . Humans could not drink blood in return and sustain themselves. He would drink Duo dry and take his husk while he did it. Hunting instinct didn't see the error in that desire. The prey was willing.
"Not like you," Heero corrected softly. "I am death for you and death follows me."
Duo puzzled that out and then looked around nervously. "Death follows you? Are your enemies coming here, after you? The ones who invaded your home?"
"The ifrit takes issue with your existence," Heero explained as the heat and the light of the sun danced pain over his body. He raised his hood and tucked arms under the folds of his cloak.
"I do," Quatre said as he coalesced out of the morning light, a creature of air and sunbeams that flickered and then began to gain strength as the sun began it's slow rise above the city, "and his existence hangs by a thread if you answer me wrongly, my Prince of Vampires."
Heero placed himself between the Ifrit and Duo. Duo had the good sense to be still, knowing instinctively that neither hawk not wolf form would help him escape the power of an Ifrit. Heero knew that he certainly possessed nothing as powerful as sunlight itself and that his act of shielding his mate was futile.
"Name your terms," Heero asked.
"Not terms," Quatre corrected, "but a task to save all of your people. I have discovered where the thieves have gone. You must pursue them and bring back what they have stolen. It is only a matter of time before they make their demands, before your people begin to slaughter the unwilling to survive."
The urge to stay and mate was strong, but the need to survive was also strong. It was difficult to say the words, to know that he was choosing to severe himself from Duo, but he was prince because he could. "Tell me where they have gone. I will go there at once."
"You must have stealth," Quatre warned. "You must travel as a human or they will sense you and destroy you with the weapon. It will be weeks of travel, in harsh lands."
Weeks. Duo's scent, his very being, sang to Heero. He turned to him, dark blue eyes searching his. He leaned and nuzzled Duo's neck the pulse of his artery, the heat of his flesh, and was almost lost when Duo bared that pulse with perfect submission. The man groaned in need and was obviously aroused.
"Please," Duo begged. "Let me follow you. Let me feed you. I don't want you to take anyone else."
Heero tasted warm skin with a tongue, shaking with his own desire and the knowledge that it wasn't his glamour that was affecting Duo, but something much more powerful, something he hardly understood as he felt it himself.
"You will come with me," Heero agreed as he gathered Duo into his strong embrace and pierced the skin. Careful, he warned himself, and used all of his control to only drink lightly, to only take what he needed to quell the need to pierce deep with his fangs and drain Duo as he would a true mate. His erection rubbed between them and Duo's hand cupped it, rubbed it, as if he couldn't help himself, despite the watching Ifrit.
It was a distraction, only, not the seat of Heero's passion. It entered and seeded life, and it was capable of some pleasure, but Heero's complete orgasm rested in the bond of teeth to throat, in tasting and filling himself with Duo's life blood. That ecstasy he had to deny himself as he pulled back and licked lips, as Duo kissed his stained lips, and started at the taste of his own blood there.
The Ifrit was telling him where the thieves had gone. The beautiful voice was a background to the suspended moment that Heero was sharing with Duo. it was hard to think when the blood was dribbling and then ceasing from the bite on Duo's neck, when the purple eyes were begging him to continue, and when the sunlight and the blood was threatening to make Heero torpid.
"Here. In here," Duo was saying and taking Heero, unresisting into the potting shed. He helped Heero to curl up on something that smelled like a wolf's bed and was grateful when Duo sprinkled earth and leaves over him.
"Salt," Duo said anxiously. "Does he need the salt?"
"Hold him against you," the Ifrit told him as it stood in the doorway becoming one with the sunlight. "He needs salt from his prey."
Heero felt himself pulled into strong arms and then his skin was soothed by the salt and heat of Duo's skin.
"He may try to mate you, yet," the Ifrit was warning Duo.
"I'm not afraid," Duo said in firm acceptance.
"If you live, you must leave by nightfall. You must travel, tirelessly, when humans most wish to sleep."
"I can do that," Duo replied irritably. "I am not weak or without power of my own."
"I hope that is true," Quatre told him. "He will need your strength. He has never traveled as a human would."
"That's why you didn't kill me?" Duo asked bluntly. "I'm food and strength for your prince?"
"If you expect any other answer, but, yes, then you do not know the Ifrit. We are not human, and neither is Heero. "
"He's different," Duo countered.
Was he? Heero wondered as he drifted into the stupor, trusting Duo to care for him. He hoped that was true. He didn't want to wake and find Duo an emptied husk.
TBC
On to Chapter three
Back to chapter one