The devils court yard was hellishly blackened beneath the piercing, frightful gaze of Sin. The knower, ever the quiet beast, occasionally moved its pale milky eye from one corner of Attahelm to the other. Rose still could not shake the horrible, cold feeling that Sin was watching her and always had been. She wondered if the knower was true to its name.
In the dark, over the charred trees, the courtyard lay. Stealthily in the dark haunts, Rhazien and Rose snuck around the perimeter and trudged up a mound to give themselves a better view. They lay in the dirty on their bellies, obscuring themselves with the dead bramble.
All while the winds blew.
Rose coughed quietly.
"The wind is—"
"Poisonous I know." She squinted up the brown-tinged fog. "I'm going to die anyway."
Rhazien's face set. "You speak so lightly of death as though he were a friend."
Just then, she caught a glimpse of a sea of shadows and inclined her head towards them. "I speak lightly of him because I have met him."
Oh death had made himself a fine throne in a dead city made from old vines and thorns. King of death and bone, Rose thought as the Flesh eater king himself stepped out of the swath of shadows like a new found God. The dark seemed to grow darker, the trees seemed to bend in the pendulous, pungent air.
He stood—
"Why is he naked." Rose whispered, shocked and flushed.
"Vampyrs don't train in full battle armor, we don't actually need it. Mortal weapons can't kill us."
Rose glanced at the double-bladed battle axe he held in his hand, the weapon so large she wondered how he could manage to hold it. He can hold it, stupid, he's a Vampyr.
The Flesh eater king had the build of a god. Pounds of raw muscle, blue black veins pulsing from his arms and neck. The wax shells of his gleaming, slick chest and stomach seemed to contract with each powerful step. He was carved from beings not of this world, he was a portrait of sin. He was sin. He was a force of lust and pleasure, born to seduce and destroy. That pulsing ache to feel him beckoned along with the chilling desire to gut him with a grin. How can you want to fuck and kill someone at the same time, literally.
Dean stopped abruptly in the middle of the courtyard, the predatory shift of his head as it angled to the side made Rose's stomach water.
And the slow flare of his nostrils, the wet curl of his lip.
"We need to go," Rhazien said, startled. His gaze fixed on Dean.
"Why?"
"He's going to scent you."
Dean let his head twist back towards the ring with a hard role of his shoulders. "It's fine, see. He turned around."
Rhazien still didn't let his muscles relax.
From the sodden earth, the mounds around Dean churned and lifted from the ground, morphing into Vampyrs with no armor either. Their skin was brown from the soil, rich and textured like mahogany statues. They were huge, standing at ten feet tall.
"Gladiatei giants," Rhazien said softly. "They're an extremely rare breed of monsters that are made from the soil. Hel is a living organism, you see. You must have noticed the castle play tricks on you."
"One time I came out of the bath and my room was upside down."
Rhazien breathed a laugh. "The castle is quite fond of you. But yes, Hel isn't just a place, it's a thing. The Gladiatei giants are like its children. They die and return to the soil to be remade."
The Gladiatei giants drew massive, gladius swords and unleashed a cry that made even the death tremble. Rose might have felt her heart lodge in her throat at the sheer size of them and the ridiculous smallness of Dean. He'll be crushed, they'll kill him, and Rose found herself worried.
"Is he...good?" Rose asked her friend.
"Dean?" Rhazien grinned viciously, the gleam of sadist cruelty in his eye was unnerving. "God help anyone who comes for Dean. It will be him who will walk away unscathed, always. He isn't the Flesh eater king purely because of his bloodline no. He's the Flesh eater king because he's a monster."
Silence fell along the courtyard, a long, cut blade that swipe through the entirety of Ardian castle. And then leaped, coiled his legs around the neck of one of them and took his battle axe to its throat and dragged its long wide blade over the soft flesh along its column. A splurge of wet, green blood sprayed as the giant collapse onto its feet. Dean took the serpentine tongue of the giant and severed it clean off, tossing it across the yard like it was a piece of meat. Another giant barreled towards him from behind. But Dean had already moved and severed its gentiles.
Putting the same giant onto its front, he took its back leg and ripped it off before getting its jaws between its hands and prying its mouth open. Rose heard the giants cry of pain, heard broke crack and fill the air. It was not a quick process or pleasant, the bone was cracking for seconds—minutes. Blood was spewing from its mouth like a waterfall.
As Rose watched Dean decapitated and tear the giant in half, she realised only a monster can deal with a monster. Dean had decimated all three giants, there were only meaty and fleshy pieces left on the ground. Intestines and hearts, heads and severed tongues. Eyes laying in the dirt.
Long, loud claps began streaming through to Rose's ears. She hadn't noticed the pockets of guests hanging on the outskirts of the courtyard, male and female Vampyrs alike. Some of the men were in suits and others were naked and bloody indicating they had just been in the ring too. The women wore dark dresses and sat on the backs of Servitors and mortals alike. Rose spied Alke kneeling on the floor like an animal with a Volri lady sat comfortably on her back, using her as a stool. Alke shifted slightly as one would when they were knelt in a degrading position like a dog on a leash and the woman cracked a whip to her side.
"Stop moving you pathetic Servitor." The Volri lady hissed.
"My apologies Ma'am," Alke said quietly.
"Kaffi," the lady rolled her eyes. Grateful for Meredith's lessons, the word translated easily in Rose's head and the translation made her blood boil. Whore, the lady called her a Whore.
Alke pursed her lips and kept her gaze forward, but Rose could see the torture and pain in her eyes, emotionally and physically. She may not have felt it but Rose knew what pain did to someone, she knew its colours and knew them well.
Rose's face scrunched in disgusted as she moved to get up, but Rhazien clamped down on her arm. "Where the hell are you going."
"That woman is treating Alke like a dog."
"She's a Servitor, it's her job."
"She's a person."
Rhazien looked at her sadly. "Rose, she's a servant. She may be a person to you, but she is a thing to the other bloodlines."
A thing? Alke wasn't a thing, biologically, yes but surely she was not just a thing. And even if she didn't feel anything, Rose felt and Rose wanted to stop the abuse. It was a weakness to feel so much and be so powerless at the same time and in this place, Rose had no power at all.
"What in Ra's name are you doing here."
The devils voice was sweet and cold, tickling her spine like a wash of icy water. Rhazien and Rose shot to their feet, the former clearing his throat while Dean's fiery gaze felt like a physical blow. "I thought I told you to keep her out of the west wing."
Rhazien shrugged innocently. "She's very stubborn and very persistent"
"First and foremost," Rose put a hand on Rhazien, silently telling him to step back. "I thought I told you not to own me. You said I can go anywhere in the castle with exceptions of course. If I want to go somewhere, I will go so lose the tone."
Rhazien whistled low.
Dean nostrils flared, his jaw locking. But Rose merely stared at him, not backing down, not moving an inch. Donning the same silver tongue she had always had and same spikey armor.
Without breaking eye contact, Dean said in a gravely tone, "Rhazien would you give us a minute."
"Gladly!"
The Vampyr retreated a good couple feet away until the pair were out of earshot, and he made himself very busy, pretending to actually inspect the grounds.
"Don't talk to me like that," Dean bit.
"Or what?"
A smiled graced his lips. Fresh as snow, the smile of a devil and the laugh of a wicked, wild, and reckless thing. "Or you will be very, very sorry."
Her toes tingled at his voice. The tension between them was almost palpable, the intensity of his gaze made her knees a little weak and she'd only just realised he was stark naked. So she saw the opportunity and took a chance.
Slowly, as if savouring the way his nostrils flared and his body tensed, Rose raked his entire god-like body from head to toe. Taking in the strong lines of his shoulders, the shells of his abdominals, the v cut on his lower abs and his—
She blushed when she saw his penis had hardened to its full length. The flesh around his had turned a pink colour and its veins were pulsing. Fuck it was massive, she didn't expect it to be so big. Cato's was...too much for her to handle but his, fucking hell.
Suddenly his finger were under her chin, tilting her head to meet his eyes even though every cell in her body told her to defy. "Eyes up here," Dean said hoarsely. A twang of magic bloomed in her mouth, but it wasn't just the magic it was him. He was a king, and she was half Vampyr, and the command alone sent her entire body rigid. The Vampiric instinct to obey him made her body act apart from her own will.
The soft stroke of his invisible hands along the halls of her mind were soft and teasing.
I bet you like being on your knees.
Her insides churned, the warmth between her legs became unbearable. I do, actually.
He smiled, and Rose, unconsciously, reached up to claim his hand.
"Your hurt," she gasped, turning his wounded hands around in her own. She hadn't noticed the damage. The green blood was still warm and fresh.
"I'll heal."
"Can I—am I able to do that too?"
"Heal?"
She nodded and then laughed lightly. "Sorry, I don't know why I even asked. If I could heal, my school wouldn't have had to call the police every time I came into school with bruises."
The memory was bitter, but she swallowed it like she was taking a swig of whisky. But when she looked back up at him, she found him staring at her with lethal intensity. The look on his face was murderous, his jaw was locked entirely.
"I can kill them for you." Gods, his voice was...carnal. Feral.
"What? Fucking hell Dean!" she shoved his hand away.
"Vampiric law states if a member of a bloodline is in danger, I as the King can eliminate said danger."
She laughed and it was perhaps the most innocent thing Dean had ever heard.
"That's a joke," she giggled but then her smile faded. "Please tell me you're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" he arched a brow.
She folded her arms and frowned. "No, Dean you don't need to kill them. The only danger I'm in right now is being around you because clearly you can decimate three ten-foot-tall monsters in the space of three minutes. And besides, we don't know which line I'm from so the Vampyr laws don't really apply to me. So...d worry about me."
Dean stepped forward or as close as he dared. His scent enveloped her, she didn't smell blood or sweat, she smelt honey and earth. How strange, he smelt of earth. Of the surface, of the sodden dirt that she and Ryan would plant flowers in.
"I don't know why but I find myself constantly worrying about you," he said quietly. "Is that normal? Is that a human emotion?"
Worry. Only Ryan and Josh worried about her, but it was more comforting hearing it from a creature who could not fathom comfort yet was displaying it in his own strange way.
"Worry is a human thing, well done. I'll tell you what, help me with the reading list Meredith gave me and I'll give you a lesson on humans. Deal?" she reached out her hand.
Dean stared at her fingers for a moment, and it made Rose smile. "You shake it, stupid."
He didn't shake it, he took her fingers and kissed them. "Vampyrs don't shake," he grinned.
"Demetre!" A lilting female voice trilled. Both of them turned to find a beautiful blonde haired lady breezing towards them wearing a pink spill of a silk dress. She walked as though her feet didn't touch the ground and wore a smile that was as hideous and radiant at Sin. She embraced Dean with a deep kiss right on his lips and Rose looked away.
Looked away to find Rhazien with his mouth flung open. The pair of them gave each other a horrified look before Rose felt it was safe enough to turn her head again.
"Kara, I thought you went into the city." Dean said, a shade tighter than Rose expected to. Kara looked radiant with her peaked breasts and lovely frame, she smiled with dazzling teeth. Her beauty was too astonishing, she must be a Wite, only Wites had that level of magnetics. They were seducers after all, they gained their power from sex and numerous orgies. The last Vampyr to even bed Dean was found incinerated. She did have a streak of psycho in her blood red eyes.
"You know I can't leave you unattended in this castle, who knows what you'd get up to and who—" She cast an arrogant glance over to Rose. "You might associate yourself with." Oh.
Dean put a gentle hand on Kara's lower back and the Wite angled into his naked side, drawing her freshly plump lips into a proud smile. "Kara, this is Rosalie."
"Rosalie, such a pleasure. I've heard a lot about you," Kara grinned as she extended out her hand for Rose to kiss. Rose spied a large diamond ring on one of her fingers, so big it was the size of her thumb nail. An engagement ring, interesting. It took all her will power not to throw a glance at Dean. They were to be married after all, Kara was his...whatever the fuck she was to him.
But Rose only stared at her outstretched fingers with a cold, calculating gaze. Unflinchingly, she brushed her hand away in one cold fluid movement. Shock rippled over Kara's face at the crude dismissal, the defiance, the insolence. "And I have heard much about you."
Kara's smile faltered but she tried to bring it back. "I do hope we can be the best of friends during my stay."
When Rose smiled, it was the most hateful, vicious thing Dean had ever seen and he loved it. She was not a maiden to be saved from the dragon, she was the dragon, and she would eat anyone raw. "I cannot say I hope for the same."
"I beg your pardon?"
Rose shrugged and dismissed herself, giving Dean a wink. Oh she will royally enjoy pissing Kara off. "I'll see you later, lover." She caught the pang of shock on Kara's face and the roll of Dean's tongue as it swiped his bottom lips, as his eyes watched her retreat with intense satisfaction. She hooked her arm around Rhazien as the general gave Dean a curt nod and offered no goodbye to Kara.
"Oh shit!" he squealed, unleashing a laugh. "Did you see her face? Fuck, she looked pissed. Operation make Kara hate her stay is underway."
Rose gave Rhazien a wink. "Let's do it."
~*~
Ya'll please look at this height difference between Rose and Dean!