So it's coming down to the last few chapters of this case. Will Zass and Scott be reunited? Maybe... you'll have to wait and see. Read on Lovelies!
It seemed like the room was crowded for a second, but that might have been my imagination. I had the weirdest feeling that my real Father and Zass's were watching us. I shook my head in dismissal and concentrated on the man I was leaning over.
Mika stared up at me wide-eyed and unsure, looking every bit like Zass except for the black eyes. "I thought he was gone." Mika said, and then he said plaintively, "Why aren't you gone?"
"You can't get rid of me that easily." Zass answered.
I heard Zass and obviously so did Mika, but it was strange because that third voice didn't have a physical form. I was glad it wasn't like some possession movie where the person spoke both voices, because that would have freaked me out completely. Mika and I just heard Zass speaking to both of us.
"Hi Love." I said, smiling softly at Mika's startled face as we both heard Zass together.
"Hello Scotty." Zass replied.
"Why couldn't you have just stayed locked in your little bubble? What is it about this tall, blonde hot as anything... whatever he is, that gets you going?" Mika asked that other personality.
"What is it about him that gets you going?" Zass asked Mika.
"Well OK, I'll give you tall, sexy and totally built." Mika said. "Especially now he's one of us and can take a lot more punishment. But what makes him the one? The one you'll give up everyone else for? The one you'll stay true to?" Mika honestly looked puzzled. "You'd give up all the other flavours and stick to vanilla. Why?"
"Because he's not straight vanilla. Are you Scott?" Zass answered.
I considered my response carefully, before speaking.
"In the past, I was pretty sure I was never going to have sex at all, let alone everything I've experienced with you. Since we met I've enjoyed more things than I ever imagined myself participating in, let alone straight... well vanilla sex. You brought me with just a feather and those fangs I adore. I've had sex with more than one person at a time. We've been intimate in different locations, used toys, restraints and blindfolds, been gentle, rough and everything in between. I'm also sure there are so many things we haven't tried yet, that I wouldn't be able to count them. I definitely want to explore more of those things with you Zass. Because even though I've discovered a lot in the short time we've been together, I know we haven't found the one thing that just makes me come completely undone yet." Mika's eyes dilated as I continued. "The thing about my answer to that question that makes it interesting for Zass I guess, is that I'm willing, even eager to discover them. We haven't found my limits yet and even more so now that I'm harder to hurt physically, I guess we have even more to explore. So no, I don't suppose I'm straight anything, let alone vanilla." I said with a side smile.
With every word, my tone became softer, more seductive and I could tell I was having an impact on the Vampire I was straddling, because Mika's eyes became more agitated, so did his fingers which clenched and released against the cover of the bed. When I said the word 'undone' in a low, sultry tone, I felt his fingers weren't the only things stirring. My side smile turned into a smirk that had Mika frowning at his own reaction to me.
"OK, so you can talk dirty and he obviously likes having sex with you. But for forever? No fresh meat? I mean you're cute, you have nice eyes and you're supple and strong...mmmm. You have a nicely rounded ass, great shoulders..." He kept looking at me and assessing me and I let him. Because if he was thinking that way about me, maybe he'd see things he wanted not just what Zass wanted. I needed him to want to remain in Zass, in order for them to become whole. I needed him to want me just as much as Zass did. "The physical isn't the problem though is it?" Mika stated. "It's your reaction to what I need."
My turn.
I slid my hands down his arms and brought his fingers up to my hips, placing them at my waist and holding them there, spreading my knees further apart so I could get lower and look directly into his eyes without letting go of his hands. I needed to keep him there, at least until he began to hold onto me of his own volition, not because I was holding him in place. I spoke directly to Mika and said, "How did you feel the first time you caused pain, the first time you killed?"
His mouth opened to say something cavalier but then he frowned as I raised my eyebrows and my expression demanded a real answer. I could see him searching for the memory and I knew Mika wasn't the personality who could provide it. Zass was, or at least Mitchell was. "You don't remember do you?" I said, understanding. "I guess you came along after Morgan had 'inoculated' Mitchell to the murderous side of life as a Vampire."
He frowned again, gritting his teeth in frustration at the fact I was correct in my assumption. Then he rolled his eyes and said aloud, "Wanna help me out here Zass?" He asked.
"It was a complete stranger and he deserved every second of pain I caused him... but she didn't." Zass said sadly.
I waited for Zass to continue and from the expression on Mika's face even he waited with bated breath for Zass to tell the story.
"You remember I fell from my horse and broke my neck?" Zass asked. Mika and I both nodded then listened to the nebulous voice as he continued. "When I fell and broke my neck, Morgan's blood woke in me and she smelled me from miles away. She knew I would be rising as a Vampire, but only if she made sure I made it through the day. I would have been fully dead and would never have risen if my spinal cord had been completely severed, but it wasn't. So Morgan came back for me and carried me to a stable where we took shelter for the day. She buried me under the straw pile and left me to change while she took her rest."
"The sun began to set and that's when I awoke as a Vampire. I had no memory in that moment of my death, nor did I understand that I was no longer human. All I knew was hunger. I felt rather than heard Morgan stir and leave me. She went outside and found the Crofter beating his daughter. His very pregnant daughter. From their argument it was apparent that she hadn't finished preparing their evening meal and he was taking his hunger out on her. Her husband was off in a field looking after their herd and had left her behind. He was a nasty piece of work from the looks, and had been taking advantage of her. Although she and her husband were providing food, shelter, and from the smell, a steady source of alcohol, the ungrateful wretch was demanding she do all the work with no help from him. From the words flying in the air it was obvious he was taking advantage of being cared for while she was left to do all the chores as her time to deliver gradually loomed. She was standing there looking pale and tired, and then the fool shoved her."
This time the silence was palpable as we waited for him to go on.
"Do you know the sound a backbone makes when it breaks?" He asked.
I nodded and Mika looked up at me with blue tinting the black in his eyes as his hands clutched at my sides.
"I saw she was dying. Her spine had completely severed. There was no hope for her, or her child. Back then surgery was unheard of and women died in childbirth all the time. Neither she nor the child would survive." He was begging me to understand with his eyes, the need for blood and the lack of any chance she ever had for survival. So I wouldn't judge or be disappointed in him. I could hear Zass's regret in his tone and he and Mika were frowning. I could see two distinct personalities begin to appear on Mika's face and I knew Zass was no longer trapped in that body. He was now as present as Mika.
"While I was standing there in shock, Morgan began whispering in my ear, telling me not to let the girl's blood go to waste. Up until that moment my fangs hadn't even descended. But the instant she mentioned the blood they budded in my gums and descended. I watched the pain and fear of dying on the girl's face change to one of terror at the unnatural sight. The father took one look at me and turned to run. He didn't get more than two paces. My new body did as I ordered it to, and I leaped across the gap between us and landed on his back. I reared back and sank my fangs into the flesh at his neck, riding his heavy body down to the ground as he fell. But before I even knew what I was doing, I was spitting out the blood that had filled my mouth while Morgan shrieked at me to stop. His blood was contaminated with disease, not just alcohol and she knew it."
Mika made a face as if he was remembering the taste, but he asked "What was it?"
"Does it matter?" Zass answered.
"I discovered my claws then and slashed at his pleading face." He said continuing. "I felt nothing but disgust for him and as his last breath gurgled in his throat, I turned back to his daughter. I saw the extreme fear on her face and my own soulless gaze reflected in her eyes. But by then the hunger was the only thing ruling me and I bent over her and used my fangs again. I gave her no words of comfort, I didn't even bury her body. All I did was take the final source of her life. I drank her dry and left her lying there in the dirt."
He closed his eyes and made a face before continuing.
"Morgan assured me then that I didn't have to do anything else. Since her spinal cord was severed, it meant she wouldn't rise. Even if by some chance I had nicked my own lip as my fangs descended, and my blood mixed with the remnants of her own, she still wouldn't change. My accident had left me with a broken neck but my spinal cord hadn't been severed completely, so I did become something else. That's when I knew I was a monster."
"So you weren't sorry you had taken the father's life, but you were saddened by her death and the fact that you considered yourself to be a monster?" I asked.
"Yes." He nodded.
"What about deliberate pain? I asked. "The first human you knowingly tortured?"
Black swirled and blue flashed, and I waited for Mika to answer.
"I wanted that zip of adrenaline in the blood." He said. "That spike, like a drug that tastes so good. It was a whipping boy and I brought him to the brink of pleasure before ripping his throat out. And I did it knowing I was going to kill him."
Blue fought for dominance in those eyes and I knew Zass was fighting for ascendancy because of the reaction he was expecting from me. Mika wanted to see disgust on my face, Zass was expecting sorrow and I gave them neither.
I simply said, "Go on."
Confusion flared and then his face went carefully blank again, before he told me about the boy. As he spoke, I began to understand that it wasn't just the act of torture and killing he hadn't wanted to tell me about. It was the fact that this type of experience had given him a taste for it. Then he'd discovered he had a taste for being the subject of torture too. During this time in his life, he was also discovering his taste for members of the same sex. For someone raised as he had been, this was all taboo.
In this modern world you could go to a club and get your freak on and no one would judge or condemn you. Back then you could be killed for it.
I murmured a word of encouragement and he went on. He described the boy in great detail. How he looked, the pale skin that was criss-crossed by red marks from the lash. His distaste in the beginning for his own actions, yet at the same time, his fascination. He described the sounds the boy had made as Morgan trained Mitchell to bring him closer to the tipping point. Then he described the boy's fear and terror as he had revealed his true nature and what that had done to the taste of his victim's blood.
"You liked it, but it went against everything you had been brought up to believe. Correct?" I asked. "You desired him and that would have been enough to cause you to loathe yourself. Let alone taking pleasure in causing him pain."
Zass nodded. "He wasn't the only one though."
I agreed, then said, "No, but you were mine."
I asked him, "How many did it take before you forgot to hate yourself? How many times did you kill before it became second nature?"
As he pondered those questions I asked the one I had been saving. "How long do you think it will take me to learn how much you need and be comfortable with giving it to you?"
His eyes flashed bright blue then. He saw I was serious in my desire to give him everything he needed, and the fact that I just didn't know yet what that was. I also saw Mika pondering my question. I could see the changes between blue and dark eyes as he contemplated my own education.
"You can't expect me to embrace everything in an instant." I said firmly. "You're not the only one who was raised to believe certain things are taboo. But like I said in the beginning, I'm willing to try, to explore. To find out what my own limits are. For you Zass, I'd do just about anything."
At that name, Mika growled.