When Blood Runs Cold - Chapter 246

“H-help,” I cry fearfully, feigning my terror so that the event that had whirled its way around us might not wholly be blamed on me. I make a show of reaching out to him with one hand, the other clutched over my chest where the markings across my skin glow and fade like the stars of the night when the dawn arises. Tears prick the inside of my eyes, but all of it, as always, is  fake.

Drawing himself out of his daze, Azrael’s eyes at last land on me, wide and darting, as if not entirely sure what had happened. Then he notices my hand stretching out towards him and pauses. At the gesture, Azrael’s face falls like mud off a stone, the whole room around him growing to a grinding halt.

Fear stricken screams grovel to a grinding halt, faeries stop flapping their wings anxiously as the whole atmosphere of the room once again shifts to one of heavy enchantment. Azrael has brought them back under control again, it would seem.

I wonder what that freedom tasted like for them.

Still, however, Azrael has said nothing. That is until at last he sees that strange, intense glow around me has amplified over my skin, and finds himself entirely confused.

“Serena?” he asks, but for the first time ever, his voice is no longer rigid with authority. Beneath the depths of that stony expression, a tremulous fear quivers.

“Help me,” I repeat once more, drawing myself to him.  But just for a little extra show, I force myself to topple into him, my body going limp against the white expanse of his chest and the cold hard marble of his skin.

“What is it?” Azrael whispers, clutching my arms around him- I have never seen him so frightened in his life. Never seen him so gentle even- for gentle is not a word in Azrael’s vocabulary. But hardly in the mood to play detective games after very almost being raped, I do not look into it.

My body trembles very purposefully against him as I hold him against me tight, clinging onto him like some sort of petty damsel in distress. I can feel his power weakly extending for answers in my mind, but the only thing I will want him to find there is terror, he would be hard pressed to find anything else.

Panic constricts him around me.

“What is it, Serena?” Azrael says once more, his voice rising in much as fear as it does anger. Bleakly, I look up at him, at last allowing the shield around me to crack and the feel of his calloused touch resume against my skin.

I know what I have to tell him- but only part of it is the truth. For to truly get him to trust me, he must fully believe that I have turned my back on Soren, that any part of him would be as detestable to me as Azrael is now. That way, Azrael’s will, and what he endeavours to tell me, will become far more… pliable. Besides, it would be no use lying after that display of power. Soren’s involvement in this is obvious, but fortunately, I might just be able to manipulate it into my weapon.

And so that is exactly what I do.

“S-Soren,” I gasp out, letting a loose tear fall down my cheek like a trickle of rain down the window. Crocodile tears, is what Ithuriel used to call them. Fake tears. In truth, I have no idea if the other offender of this room was Soren at all, but merely judging by the display of powers that bone chilling cold, I have a few other ideas.

That rush of cold that surpassed me as that strange apparition passed through my body… That is almost unexplainable. Almost.

But that doesn’t stop me from lying profusely about it.

“I-I think Soren was trying to take me b-back,” I lie, shivering against him. In response, Azrael holds me tighter, as though fearing this very moment I might be whisked from his hands. Inwardly, I laugh. For someone nearly about to rape me, he sure seems a whole lot less heartless now.

“My body, it felt so cold, I could feel him- oh Master!” I whimper cry, throwing my arms around his neck as I press my face against his chest. I hardly dare to breathe as I do- there is nothing I detest more than Azrael’s scent: blood, musk and arousal.

Gingerly, Azrael’s hand slips upwards to clutch my hair.

“You are shaking,” he whispers, softly, so softly that you can hear the stutter in his voice, the fear, the wet gulp. I have never heard him sound so… mortal. “It feels like you are going to collapse.”

I want to collapse, I think inwardly, but don’t voice those thoughts. I do not need to give myself a more tangible weaknesses. Part of the experience had shaken me, that is for certain. It had all felt so sudden and sharp that when the time of Soren’s promised protection came, I hardly expected it. But now here I am, left pining for the man I left like a soft mortal.

The less Azrael knows about my mortal insecurities, the better.

So I continue with my facade.

“I’m scared, Master,” I cry tearily, letting my voice become thick with tears, burying my face in his chest. It is only when I have peered over Azrael’s shoulder to the room around us that I realise the room surrounding us is entirely empty, devoid of the bawdy life it once held. No faeries, no butlers, no naked, moaning Folk. Nothing. Now it is deserted, the only memory of its inhabitants being the shattered shards of sparkling crystal lamps.

Azrael sent them away. He actually sent them away. I can’t believe it. Azrael ‘eyes’ have entirely disappeared.

I must be doing something right.

After one more heavy breath, Azrael adds:

“Is there anything else you saw?”

“Nothing else, Master,” I confirm, pushing away any further thoughts that might arise in Azrael’s mind back into the murky depths of submission. The less he suspects about the whole event, the better. It would be easier if he simply thought it was all down to Soren. A slight twinge of his lip alerts me to my senses.

“Please, don’t call me that anymore. Just call me Azrael,” he sniffs, to which I am almost taken aback.

Azrael? Asking to be called by his actual name? Now that is a rarity I thought I would never see. And here I thought he would be revelling in the power that is brought with having an entire palace under his mind control. It seems that it is taking more of a toll on his mental wellbeing then I presumed it would have. Not that that is a bad thing, in fact, it is entirely beneficial. It would seem that the great Master of Souls is finally cracking.

Sighing, he runs his fingers through his hair, his face gaunt as he collapses onto his knees beside me, the heated fervour of the night swiftly whisked away.

The more I look at him, the paler he seems to become, his skin ghostly, almost translucent under the flickering warm glow of the gas lit lamps. His bones seem to jut at the cheeks, his skin sallowed, eyes sunken with deep, swimming shadows. Even the delicate bones among his fingers look more prominent, as though his very life is being sapped away.

Then my vision flits back to that ghostly apparition behind Azrael, the way it drew at his body, drawing in fragments of little luminous fragments of matter.

Perhaps that has something to do with it after all.

And just as I am beginning to wonder if Azrael has any compassion in his thin, frail body at all, he grasps my hands, his eyes glazed as he rasps:

“I need to… drink, Serena. Let me taste you.”

Trying my very hardest not to express my unfathomable distaste for him and his brazen lack of consideration (for a submissive doll could never do such a thing), I give him a small, reassuring smile. But a funny feeling in my gut tells me he won’t have a good time taking my blood after today.

“Yes, Azrael,” I begin, exposing my neck for him, before he tsks furiously, grappling my hands into his.

“Not here, pet,” he scolds with an almost drunk slur to his voice. “But let me feel you.”

He wastes no time in doing that. Azrael leans over me, straddling my legs in a manner that is almost clumsy, his hands rough as he pulls me towards him. Realising I am still largely without the majority of my clothes, I suddenly understand what he is going for.

Watching a blood deprived vampire is very much like watching a drunkard walking in a straight line. I daren’t move as he runs his lips over my collar, the gentle tickle of his breath lapping over my skin in a manner that is as enchanting as it is grotesque. I have come to treat the experience like having a jab: unpleasant for the most part, but bearable in the knowledge that you serve to gain something greater from the experience. In this case, worming my way into Azrael’s bubble of trust, learning his plans. Manipulation.

From this, I serve to gain many things.