Bruises Prove Devotion

Bruises Prove Devotion
Kain/Raziel

Caution: NC17 for Yaoi, BDSM, bloodplay, bondage, toys, anal, violence, piercing, oral, domination, speculative consent. Also snuggling.

Beta: by the undeniably brilliant, incredibly gorgeous, elegantly-tongued and quick-witted delonariel. With purple pen upraised, grammatical armor gleaming, delon saved me from a multitude of grievous errors. Thank you. Remaining mistakes are, as ever, my own.

Notes: Please check with the author before reporting plagiarism violations. I know that this story is posted on other boards -- potentially under different author handles. This is because I posted the story there. ;) I still have a raft of beta notes, drafts, and other proofs that this story was authored by me. Thanks!

By the way, fanfic updates are going to be really slow, or nonexistant. I'm currently embroiled in a role-playing game, over at multiversehaven on livejournal. (Cast of characters includes a defiance-era Raziel and a BO1-era Kain... ;) The authors there are exquisite -- Raziel is authored by one of the best writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Oh, and the man!smex is really great. ;) Applications are open.

Disclaimer: I do not own Legacy of Kain nor any part of it, and I am making no money off this off this work. They're not my characters, but I'll bet they would've had more fulfilling familial relations if they'd been doing this....


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The new claws clacked softly as he touched the tips together.

They were like, and yet unlike, Kain’s. His Sire’s were surely harder and stronger, Raziel thought. But it was the lack of sensation that troubled Raziel the most. He pressed the back of a talon to his lips, feeling the alien texture of the new skin. The surface felt like shark’s hide, somewhat nubbly, unyielding. Beneath that, the digit felt like a single bundle of bone and locking tendon, sharply ridged. The tip came to a chitinous point. He knew better than to slip a claw into his mouth to explore the texture with his tongue; he’d cut himself twice already.

The gift was wondrous, of course. The claws were evidence of his ascending godhood. More to the point: they made him more like Kain.

That didn’t keep Raziel from wishing he could still feel. Or touch, without breaking whatever -- or whomever -- he lay hand on.

In deference to the newly broken and twisted doorknobs within Raziel’s citadel, Anani now placed his hand lightly upon the latch of the double doors of Kain’s council chambers. He trembled a little, looking at Raziel for permission. No one was comfortable this close to Kain. Every vampire, Lieutenant to newest fledgling, could feel him, the way Raziel could feel the approach of dawn or heavy rain.

Anani, Raziel’s own firstborn, still wore two parallel scars from that evening. Six hours and the blood of two slaves had turned bone-rending gashes into puckered pink lines. They ran from his left jaw, across his nose and right eye, to his temple. Anani, half-blinded, had waved off the injury, trying to aid his newly-awoken master. But Raziel would not soon forget.

He clenched his fists, suppressing a wince as his claws cut his palms, and nodded. Respectfully, Anani pulled the door open, quickly standing off to the side. None but the invited ever entered the throne room. As a fledgling, Anani had made that mistake once, just once. It was a lesson all fledglings had to learn. Anani would wait beside the door for his master, even if the waiting took many nights.

Torches had been freshly placed high upon the walls that circled the broken pillars. They illuminated the platform where Raziel and his brethren stood for formal gatherings, but the light seemed to shy away from the throne... and the shadowed form upon it.

It sometimes seemed to Raziel that his Sire did not move between these meetings, did not even shift position. For all he knew, that could be true. Kain had grown quieter over the centuries as the human menace waned and his sons found fewer excuses to request their Sire’s attention. In his solitude, Kain had begun to grow more introspective, more... unpredictable.

In the poor light, Kain’s eyes reflected the flames, flat and yellow, like a cat’s.

Raziel caught himself rubbing his claws together as he approached the dais, the sound like heavy scissors.

It had been many decades since the last time Raziel had developed new dark gifts to present to Kain. Those first few years, Raziel and his brothers had often entered the state of change within days of one another. It had been only natural, then, for all the brothers to seek out their Sire once they’d awakened and fed. They’d all needed reassurance, as well as practice to properly utilize their newfound abilities.

Later, as their evolutions diverged, the brothers had gone alone to Kain, though for the same reasons. Only once was Raziel unable to make the trek to the sanctuary of the clans. One dark gift had emerged as eidetic memory. Memories lost to time had emerged as flashbacks so real and tangible they’d consumed Raziel, enthralling him in the details of moments vanished centuries ago. His fists had broken fledglings’ bones as he fought the battles of ages past. For want of control, headaches left him writhing in agony. Naked and alone, insensate, too much in pain even to sleep, Raziel had curled shuddering around Kain’s signet ring.

His need had warmed the serpentine ring. And Kain had known. And he’d come, winging out of a yet-unpolluted bright noon sky, bringing sweetest oblivion and -- after Raziel’s mind and body had healed from the hours of self-inflicted strain -- long nights of patient instruction.

Raziel walked to the center of the dais and knelt, just briefly. As he stood he spread his hands by his sides, palms to his Sire for inspection. He couldn’t even tell if Kain’s eyes were tracking him.

The talons of Kain’s right hand tapped, very lightly, on the curved armrest of the throne, as if twenty centuries of stony sleep had been vexed to waking by Raziel’s presence. His Lord nodded, just once, perhaps an acknowledgement, perhaps coming to a decision. “Approach, Raziel,” he said.

The strength of the sound was welcomed, almost soothing, after such a long time spent in the company of lesser vampires and humans. Kain’s body had changed with the eons, but his voice... his voice had not. Raziel could not remember a time when it had been anything other than deep and dark, powerfully evocative.

Raziel walked to the first step of the platform upon which Kain’s throne crouched. He knelt there, and stayed kneeling, nearly close enough to touch Kain. From this distance the glare of the torchlight resolved itself into black pupils and golden irises.

Kain’s lips tightened. “Closer,” he said. Though his tone betrayed no impatience, Raziel obeyed promptly, rising and kneeling once more between Kain’s knees.

Kain extended his right hand, and with only the slightest trepidation, Raziel placed his own in it, palm up. Kain’s hands had always been so much larger than his. Raziel’s evolution changed nothing -- from the heel of his palm to the tip of his middle talon, his hand still nested easily inside Kain’s.

His Sire leaned forward, sitting up a little straighter to examine the hand and wrist in his grasp. He trailed the tips of the claws on his left hand over the proffered palm, caressing lightly. He rubbed gently over the fleshier pads, the places where the skin stretched taut over joint and tendon, all the way to the tip where darkly opaque chitin covered the sharp point.

Raziel gritted his teeth to trap an unbecoming whimper. Every touch, every contact -- he felt all of it, as intensely as if his claws had become soft human hands once more. Even the ache, the deep itching as broken connections healed and reformed, was pure bliss. He couldn’t contain the gasp as Kain released his hand, spreading his claws to receive Raziel’s other.

His left hand received the same treatment. Sensation returned in shuddering waves, his flesh yielding gratefully to Kain’s will. Strange, Raziel realized, how he had not properly valued his sense of touch until it was gone. He wasn’t certain when he’d collapsed against the support of Kain’s strong thigh, but as his Sire made no move to discourage him, he stayed, petting the muscular calf beside him. The touch of pitted metal plating and coolly supple leather was ecstasy.

Kain’s talons continued to stroke, palm to tip, as his other hand slid to tighten around Raziel’s wrist.

“You no longer wear my signet ring,” stated Kain.

It took Raziel a moment to realize that he needed to reply. It took him a longer moment to realize that he could no longer retrieve his hand. Caught in the amber of Kain’s eyes, he never even saw the blow coming.

Kain’s backhand flung Raziel entirely off the dais, tumbling over unstoppably to crash hard against a pillar.

He thrashed silently on the flagstones, trying to stand. Too many things were broken. He watched one cloven hoof, then another, appear before his eyes.

“Arise, Raziel.”

Raziel scarcely even heard the command for the ringing in his ears, but if he’d been able to rise, he certainly would have. Kain granted him scant seconds of reprieve before assisting him, jerking him straight up in tightly-wrapped telekinetic bonds. Pinned twelve feet above the ground, Raziel forced his healing legs to respond.

He slipped free of Kain’s weave with a deft mental parry, and launched himself off the pillar, arrowing down at his Sire. Gravity and the momentum of his kick leant power to his wild swings as he brought his claws to bear.

Kain stepped back and caught him by his throat.

In the struggle, the tip of one talon scored Kain’s flesh before the older vampire thrust the thrashing lieutenant to arm’s length. The preternaturally dense hide resisted injury, only a droplet of black blood beaded where Raziel’s talon had slashed across Kain’s lips.

Kain touched the tip of his tongue to the blood. The scrape had already healed. He nodded. “Not bad,” he said, and pulled Raziel closer. The lieutenant’s toes didn’t even brush the ground. Raziel grasped Kain’s forearm and hand in a desperate bid to keep his throat from parting ways with his spine.

“Not bad at all,” Kain repeated. Then his eyes narrowed. “Did you suppose I wouldn’t notice?”

The next blow demolished Raziel to the ground at Kain’s feet. He was hauled up again, this time by a grip on the clasp of his ceremonial armor so strong the steel bent under the pressure. He was so close he could smell Kain’s expelled breath, sweet with blood, heavy as the ozone that filled the air after lightning.

“Where is the signet ring, Raziel?”

Raziel had woken from his evolution in agony. The ring Kain had gifted to him, mere days after his resurrection, had imbedded itself deep into his new talon. The burst and broken edges of the gold-gray ring sawed hard into the newly formed bones. Raziel’s shriek when he’d tried to wrench the metal free had brought Anani running.

Kain watched memory form in his eyes. “You do not have it.” Kain removed Raziel’s shoulder armor via the simple expediency of snapping the clasp off, rending the best steel in all Nosgoth with a twist. Free of the armor, Raziel crumpled to the ground, legs still unable to support his weight, landing on his own fallen clan banner.

Kain’s words weren’t... exactly true. Once the circlet of metal had been torn from his flesh, Raziel had done his best to lay it aside for repair. But his new talons, so strong and yet so clumsy, had gored deep into the stone around the serpentine ring as he’d tried to pick it up. And in the chaos -- the bestial awakened hunger, the screaming slaves chained to the wall, Anani’s injuries... he... didn’t know... what had happened to the ring.

“I do not have it,” he whispered, tranced by the flat yellow eyes like a mouse before a snake. "I..."

Kain crouched beside him, frighteningly fast, laying a talon across Raziel’s lips. Raziel could not have made a sound if he’d wanted to, his world swallowed by his Sire’s touch. Kain leaned in close. “You,” he said, speaking gently, softly, into Raziel’s ear, “had me worried.”

The claws slid from Raziel’s mouth to his throat, caressing. His other spread Raziel’s thighs, winging them wide around Kain’s heavily muscled frame. He stroked, knee to groin. Each muscle he passed seemed electric, touched by lightning. The hand sliding between his thighs seemed to paralyze all speech, all thought. Despite the pain, arousal sapped at his self-control. Kain’s claws came to rest at his groin, over the entrapped bulge. Raziel’s claws gored furrows in the flagstones. He groaned, turning his head.

Kain seized him by both arms, jerked him to his feet, and threw him. Again, Raziel struck a pillar, claws scrabbling to keep from falling. He pushed off the cracked gray stone, diving away from the attack he could feel coming. A mammoth weight clipped him and he fell, sliding across the floor, Kain’s arms coming down around him. He slashed and fought and writhed and struggled free -- enough to scramble for space, for time, for a chance to launch his counterattack. Edged and sharp, claws closed around his ankle and he crashed down on his back. A vicious kick to Kain’s chest, both boots and the power of all his body behind it, won him a bare instant of relief. Raziel twisted to his feet like a cat and ran.

Kain caught him from the side in a flying tackle, his body heavy like it had been falling for miles. They both tumbled over, rebounding off the stone, Raziel’s snarls filling the air. The younger vampire had no hope of matching his Sire for strength, and with broken bones still healing, ripped muscles aching, his agility failed him. Kain caught both his wrists and hauled him up again, dragging him painfully to the chamber’s walls. Keeping up with Kain’s stride was impossible; Raziel found his feet hardly even touched the ground. Then his face was smashed up against the rough stone of the wall, a knee planted hard in the small of his back to keep him pinned while his arms were wrenched overhead.

It took the click of heavy chains before he realized exactly what had happened. The cold iron restraints had once been used to hold humans, or traitorous or weak fledglings, for the judgment or amusement of Kain and council. Rarely did anything leave the council chamber’s manacles alive. The knee at his back released, leaving him suspended at his wrists, toes well above the ground. He kicked back, flailing, and accomplished nothing but driving the iron chains deeper into his wrists.

His booted feet, not yet evolved into hooves like Kain’s, scrabbled against the stone, seeking purchase to relieve the terrible, cutting pressure. But others had been trapped here before, had kicked uselessly against the wall as well. The stone at his feet was worn, almost glassy smooth. There was no foothold.

A single claw began to trace the muscles of his back. Raziel snarled uselessly against the wall, gritting his teeth as the talon stroked. Taking his time, Kain at last reached the small of his back. He crooked his talon beneath the supple black leather of Raziel’s pants and, quite gently, slit the clothing open. Thick and deadly talons slid forward under his testicles, needle-sharp tips curling up around them.

Trepidation warred with Raziel’s lust. Thoughts dissolved as he spread his legs to the touch of his Sire even as he cringed. The brush of Kain’s chest against his back was pure and right. He shuddered as the talons slid away. Kain returned to slitting leather, slicing the tight clothing away in long strips, like skin.

The cold air of the council chamber felt like hands as Raziel’s flesh was exposed, one slow strip at a time.

Kain slid his talons up through Raziel’s hair, the deadly points pricking against his scalp. His other hand brushed loose the last few scraps of leather clinging to Raziel, freeing his erection to scrape against the rough stone. Arousal shuddered hard through the younger vampire.

Kain breathed electric words into Raziel's left ear. "You want this." The talons curled again around his balls, squeezing, discomfort brief before Kain reached further between his offering thighs. Delicately, his talons surrounded the shaft of his cock. Raziel could not understand who had voiced the softly whimpering cry.

The rumble of Kain’s amusement could be felt through the core of his bones. The ridges that adorned the sides of Kain’s face brushed his cheek and the side of his throat. "You want this. It will hurt, and you know you will beg me to stop, yet you still want it." The thick talons gripped his cock harder and pulled back, scraping the head over the rough stone, forcing his length painfully back between his legs.

Raziel could only writhe, abject, aroused, defiant. Rebelling without thought, he thrashed mindlessly against the bonds. Blood began to trickle down his arms. Maintaining his grip on the younger vampire’s cock, Kain released his hair and stroked instead along Raziel’s side, pressing soothingly over overstretched muscles and skin like cool silk. Raziel shuddered as his body calmed and accustomed itself to the pain, his erection growing harder with the rough treatment.

With Raziel’s movement stilled, the skin on his wrists reformed, stemming the slow seep of blood. Pain eased enough to bring full awareness, and Kain stepped back, leaving Raziel’s back cold and cock pressed down against the unyielding wall.

A soft sound, leather over stone, as Kain pulled something from a storage niche in the wall. The tips of dozens of leather strands hit the ground as Kain shook them out, the sound like the patter of hail on courtyard stones. “Thirty,” Kain said, stepping around behind Raziel once more. “Count them.”

And then lightning blossomed across his back. A fine mist of blood spattered up against the wall.

Raziel shrieked, in rage and in pain. He -- Kain had intended this, had planned this! Raziel’s body quivered with exertion, yet barely moved. Invisible bonds held him to the wall this time, encompassing telekinetic bands against which his strongest efforts were in vain. Though tight, the bonds took none of his weight -- his arms still ached with the strain.

Kain tapped the haft of the whip lightly against his armored forearm, untangling the long, bloodily barbed lashes. Raziel heard the hollow hiss of the strands in the air this time, and again the lashes scored his back, a neat finger’s-width below the last strip of marks. Raziel bit back the scream, jaws clamped tightly around the sound.

“The count, Raziel,” Kain reminded. The next stroke landed just a little lower. The thin strips of metal woven into the leather collected scraps of gore as they ripped free of his flesh.

“Th... Three!”

Again the dark rumble of amusement. “One,” Kain corrected gently.

Whatever Raziel might have said was swallowed by the next stroke. The sheer force of the blow shoved him hard against the wall, and the bonds around him tightened. He couldn’t draw a full breath, but it didn’t matter. His whispers would be heard by Kain just as clearly as his screams.

The rhythm of pain rose like the tide, consuming the bright edges that kept Raziel separate from the agony, the whip, the room. From Kain. Rising red surrounded him, subsumed him. His body bled into a long core of hot-crimson consciousness, unburdened by emotion or concern, a bar of raw metal molten in a furnace of relentless agony. His connections to self fell away, one by one, till the only tether remaining was the motion of his lips as he spoke the count.

His body rode the tempo of the strokes for minutes, for eons. He understood that the blows had stopped only when he realized he could no longer hear the wicked hiss of the lashes. But... he cast his mind back, searching. Had he only counted twenty?

Claws like sheet lightning ran lightly down his shoulders, back, buttocks, thighs. Places where the wounds had closed were still tender, bruised, and the newest wounds were slow to heal. Raziel jerked against his bonds, the motion of his own tensed muscles atop all the other pains enough to make him scream once more. The electric caresses pressed harder.

The telekinetic bonds loosened, unwrapping, peeling free. Kain’s claws at his hips pulled him out from the wall, turning Raziel to face the room. The chains on the manacles crossed, tangling Raziel’s claws.

Kain’s eyes were blank no longer. They glowed with emotions too vast for Raziel to fully comprehend, with a kind of maddening genius and with infinitely knowledgeable patience. The whip was slung carefully over one shoulder, the long strips of leather dangling down his back nearly to the ground. He reached behind Raziel to stroke with both hands, pulling their bodies close. Not yet trusting his voice, Raziel pleaded against Kain with his body, writhing, desperate agony and desire entwined.

Kain’s eyes slid shut, he drew deep and unnecessary breaths through parted lips, clasping Raziel’s hips tightly against his own. Raziel’s cock, long since gone soft, began to fill.

The feel of the swelling against him made Kain glance down, gold glinting in his eyes. With a snarl, he stepped back. The bonds tightened around Raziel once more, trapping the whole of his aching, deep-bruised back flat against the rough stonework.

Raziel’s vision fled, pain darkening his view, but he heard the vicious, roaring hum of the wet strands as the whip came around once more. Twenty-one scored deeply across his thighs. Twenty-two sunk electric fangs into his nipples, and forced a scream -- a single, sharply-choked cry of shock. Oblivion was denied to him this time, the pain too sharp, too immediate.

Twenty-seven, and Kain paused to examine the trailing ends of his implement. The heavy leather was fraying badly, the barbs beginning to tear free. He watched Raziel struggle futilely as he delicately reknotted the leather ends. Waves of healing crawled over Raziel’s wounds, replacing pain with infuriating itching.

"Twenty-eight --" this time Kain took up the count, which was just as well. The force felt redoubled, the pain spread across his belly like poison. Twenty-nine landed lower and, with an awareness that seemed outside himself, Raziel understood where it would strike next. No-no-no-no-no.... Kain lunged a step closer. The barbs of the whip glinted in the torchlight like raindrops.

His world flared white, and everything within it burned. His body leaped like the whip, tearing free of the telekinetic bonds, jack-knifing, screams rising. The agony was everywhere, inescapable, up through his spine like acid. The crack of his skull against the wall brought no relief, each instant stretched to eternity in pure white torture. Blood pattered from his wrists like rain. Cold sweat beaded on his skin, his muscles seized with suffering, torn in useless struggle. And the pain screamed on.

Distantly, he felt Kain stand close before him. Heavy talons slid with great care beneath his twitching thighs, lifting him, taking his weight effortlessly. Little by little, healing crept from the center of his chest, eating away the pain, diminishing it one slow drop at a time.

He came to realize that Kain was standing between his spread knees, waiting patiently, touching nowhere but at the base of his thighs. The ground beneath his feet was dappled with blood. With a soft sob, every movement a river of fresh agony, Raziel reached out, wrapping his calves around his Sire’s waist. Kain let himself be drawn in, careful not to press against Raziel’s healing groin. The voice in Raziel’s ears was incandescent; he could taste the heat of it like ozone. “Was this what you needed?” Kain whispered.

Raziel could only cling, shaking, as his maker’s skin heated with intent. Blood surged closer to the surface, darkening Kain’s armored hide. Raziel could feel it, follow it, the surge sung to him as sweetly as a siren’s call. His legs tensed, pulling him closer to Kain. Back arched, he bent his head, teeth bared, licking and nibbling at the thick hide under Kain’s chin, down along his jawline.

Kain released his hip to guide him, a hand against the back of his neck, to the side of his throat where the blood ran shallower beneath a joint in the subdermal plates that had evolved to armor him. Less than half-cognizant, Raziel nuzzled into the curve of Kain’s throat. He found the thinner place and struck quickly, sinking fangs and flat incisors to the gumline.

Potent blood, thick as syrup, filled his mouth, and he choked in his haste to swallow. The heavy clawed hand remained at the nape of his neck, stroking gently, moving only a little ways and then stroking back again, and after a minute just resting there, human-warm. Raziel groaned, the sound muffled against Kain’s thick skin, and suckled convulsively, ripping the wound open again and again as it healed around his teeth.

Kain released Raziel’s leg, trusting him to maintain his grip around Kain’s waist, and ran his hand up along the smooth, soft skin. The naked buttocks, barely healed, flinched under his hand. He stroked around the outside of Raziel’s hip, the joint of his thigh, the curve of his calf, coming to a stop against the rim of his boot. Finding the laces, he slit through them and worked the leather free, tossing it aside. He switched hands with the one at the nape of Raziel’s neck and mirrored the action on the other boot. Raziel made no protest, his entire world focused upon feeding.

Kain stroked one long talon up the center of the sensitive sole of his foot, from the heel to the small, delicate toes, touching the tender places that would, someday soon, warp into hard chitin and solid bone. Raziel twitched, trying to cling closer, pulling up on his bound wrists. The sweep of Kain’s hand was now unimpeded -- he stroked slowly from the arch of Raziel’s foot up past his flank, buttocks, his bloodied back, to his taut and shaking shoulders. He crossed down -- so lightly! -- over the nipples, the flat stomach, to Raziel’s cock, finding the organ healed and erecting.

The sounds Raziel made now against his flesh were unwilled, as if Kain’s fingers strummed his vocal cords directly, sounds of wordless need filling his throat and mingling with the black-rich blood. He reached, arching for the fleeting touch. Gasping, he released Kain’s throat, the wound closing so fast it nearly trapped the tips of his fangs. His back bowed as he pleaded, shaking off the hand against the back of his neck, trying to thrust his cock against the retreating talons.
.
Wrists trapped high overhead, he couldn’t... couldn’t get close enough.

The tip of one broad talon, slick with the blood coating Raziel’s back, moved between his buttocks. Raziel hurried to spread his knees further, and groaned when his wrists took more of his weight. The talon stroked slowly across his opening, circling it maddeningly, then easing the sharp tip just inside. Raziel gasped, shuddering, gripping at Kain’s sides with the soles of his feet.

The talon withdrew and slid up, offering itself to his mouth. Raziel opened for it gladly, laving around the taste of his own blood. The talon was just as sharp as Raziel’s new claws, yet turned sideways just so, it did not cut his mouth as his own claws had.

The talon withdrew, slick with saliva, though Raziel tried to follow it with his tongue. Kain pressed it into him again, working it deeper into the opening. Again the thick talon withdrew and was slicked, then pushed in and took him once more. It twisted deep, to the base, stretching, spreading, careful of its sharp edges in the tight and delicate channel, but not gentle. It was simply assessing, readying the opening for more potent use.

Fore-claw buried deep, Kain ran his thumb over Raziel's testicles.

Sensation gripped him, made him tighten, transmuted lingering pain into a different kind of suffering. His cock jerked, silver-pink fluid gathering at the tip. Kain pressed him into the wall, fucking him deep, stroking hard over the soft sac.

And then withdrew.

Gnashing his teeth at the loss, Raziel heaved, thighs tensed with strain, trying to pull Kain closer. He might as well have been striving against one of the pillars for all the ground he gained.

Kain cupped the side of his face, stilling his protest. He ran his talons slowly across his own chest, clawtips scraping over the dense hide, to where Raziel had fed. Thick blood had smeared there, and Kain ran his fingers through it, gathering the fluid. Raziel followed the movement, fangs bared, pulling at his trapped wrists. Slowly, Kain brought his claws to his mouth and lapped at the dark maroon.

Raziel’s breath left him in a high whine.

Kain let his hand trail down his throat, down the heavy slabs of muscle, well-armored by ridged tan-green dermal plates, to the edge of his leather pants. He pulled loose the laces closing the front, where his arousal strained the leather. Kain freed himself from the tight constriction, the heavy engorgement dark-flushed, massive.

Evolution had armored this part of him, too.

The chains above Raziel’s head creaked with the strain as his claws knotted in the links. He could be hurt very badly like this, Raziel knew full well. Even slicked with oils and stretched for hours, he’d never been able to take Kain’s cock without some pain, not even before Kain’s evolution.

Raziel shuddered, gripping tighter around Kain’s waist. Cupping the back of Raziel’s thighs, Kain leaned down, laving, nipping gently at the younger vampire’s belly, just a talon’s breadth above where Raziel so desperately needed his touch. Kain blew across the moisture he’d left, chilling the skin. And then he bit down, thick leonine fangs scraping over the satin skin then catching and sinking through to muscle. He didn’t stay long there, simply withdrew and ran his tongue, rough as a cat’s, over the seeping wounds. They closed quickly. Raziel’s cries were like a wounded fledgling’s -- he couldn’t force his throat to close over the needy sounds.

Kain lifted up beneath Raziel’s thighs with easy strength, the clasp of his talons hurtful and peremptory, repositioning the younger vampire’s hips, aligning the head of his erection. He followed the line of Raziel’s chest up, pausing frequently to bite, savage deep marks of possession that seeped thick blood. He worked his way to one flushed nipple, where he laved spattered blood away with broad sweeps of his tongue, taking his time. Then he bit and did not release, flat incisors delicately indenting the sensitized nipple, just at the point of cutting. Raziel screamed, clawing up on the chains that bound him. His hips jerked uselessly. Just one touch, that was all he needed –- just....

Kain let him ride out his passion. He released the nub of flesh and straightened, pressing harder at the tight opening. Without sufficient lubrication, it felt as if there was no entrance for him at all. He waited, talons pressing hard into the soft flesh of Raziel’s thighs.

The expectant pressure slowly brought Raziel to himself. He bit at his lips, fangs sinking deep, head turned on a soft whine. Chest shuddering with breath as long-suppressed reflexes of flight or fight reasserted, Raziel bent forward as far as his tethered arms would allow. A fine trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His voice had fled his throat; he had no language left with which to beg, save that of his body. He feathered kisses over Kain’s chin, the corner of his mouth, his lips, offering to his Sire the cool cavern of his mouth and the sweetness of his blood.

With a soft huff of expelled breath, Kain bared his fangs. The support of his talons beneath Raziel’s thighs waned.

Raziel groaned as he caught himself. His tensed shoulders trembled with exhaustion and his own weight; he could get no leverage to press up from his knees around Kain’s waist, only his declining strength kept him from impalement. He pressed his cheek against his Sire’s, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth pressed against the roughly textured skin, his lips forming words that had meant “please” in a language he’d known a millennium ago.

After a long few seconds, when Raziel had made no move to accept the inevitable, Kain simply forced the issue. His hands ran back, up the trembling thighs, to the soft, silky buttocks. He cupped with both hands the globes of muscle, squeezing a little. Raziel, teeth gritted, turned his head.

Without prelude, the tip of one of Kain’s talons found the clenched opening against which his cock pressed. Raziel cried out, jerking himself higher, pulling up on the chains a scant few inches. It was all the space Kain needed. He thrust the tip of his index talon against the tight ring of flesh, sliding past it, and then pressed his other talon hard alongside. A talon on the other hand followed. Raziel’s breath left him, a high sobbing whine of protest.

Without hesitation, Kain pulled, stretching the vulnerable opening wide on the narrow tips of three deadly claws. Blood slicked his hands.

Raziel shrieked, muscles wracked, epileptic and powerless with shock. Helplessly, he sunk down around the waiting girth. The smooth, broad head pressed into him firmly, parting the yielding tissues, sinking deep. The thicker swelling behind the head rasped against the soft flesh, keeled scales catching roughly. Kain guided him, sliding his claws out to grip Raziel around the hips as his thickness stretched the opening wider still.

The displacement was awful, unending, each evenly armored band increasing the intrusion, roughly veined flesh slipping reluctantly through the opening. The ridges sunk deeper, scraping past that singular point within him, driving savage paroxysms through him -- white hot pleasure intense as torment. Any movement, every movement, was pure ecstatic anguish.

The stretch lessened as the impaling flesh evened out, the pain moving deeper in his belly to places that had lain untouched for years. No other lover could press so deep, no artificial organ could spread him so. The ridged bands still stroked over that place of pleasure, but more deliberately now as Kain slowed, careful of the tender places within him.

And then Kain’s hand closed around his cock, forcing a hard twisting jerk that made him trebly aware of every impaling inch of flesh within him. Frozen, trapped between pleasure and relentless agony, Raziel could hardly move as Kain delicately toyed with his cock, dragging the tips of his claws so lightly around the rim, to the tip, rolling the length lazily against Raziel’s belly in a long upward stroke. He descended to circle around the base, up again to the head, never halting, never sufficient. The gently distracting exploration drove Raziel mad. He felt as if he were falling.

The damnable, damnable chains overhead creaked, groaned, as if voicing the emotions Raziel couldn’t.

Kain didn’t appear to even notice. He seemed enthralled by the textures, the dark rose blush, the quivering. He began caressing harder, digging the tips of his talons into the flesh to create whitened pinpricks that swiftly darkened to wine red and disappeared. Kain began to experiment with different patterns, drawing lines yet never quite breaking the skin.

Raziel began to pant shallowly as Kain dug his clawtips in hard and held them there, the tremor and jerk of the tortured organ like a live animal caught in his talons. He clenched tighter around Kain, and the sounds from his throat crescendoed, becoming whimpering cries and then, as Kain jerked his fist up, a fully-fledged scream.

Kain held him a moment longer, punishingly hard, then abruptly released him. The manacles groaned as Raziel’s body lifted in spasm, as he screamed without sound. His stretched muscles clenched around the impalement like a death-grip. The agony arrowed up him, bolt after bolt of lightning that left him demolished; somehow the release of his flesh hurt him worse than Kain’s grasp had.

And then the claws returned, wrapping around his cock still harder, over the bruises, grip slipping in the blood. Kain rolled up, dragging the roughness of his palm over the tip of the cock, forcing pain beyond the cusp of agony, into the white-hot blasted space of pure sensation. At the same time, Kain drove into him, fangs gritted against the pleasure, free arm locked under Raziel’s body, thrusting deep from the knees. Raziel’s entire body contracted once, and again, around him, driving flesh and soul into the absolution offered by the storm.

Raziel came like thunder, contractions so strong they moved even Kain. Thick silvery come jetted against Kain’s palm, up his belly, streaming spurts coagulant as mercury. Gasping, orgasmic, reft by passion, legs tight enough around his Sire’s waist to raise deep bruises beneath Kain’s hard-plated skin, Raziel convulsed.

The manacles pulled free of the wall.

Kain reacted as swiftly as if he’d foreseen the fall of chain and chunks of masonry. He lunged Raziel hard against the stonework, his arms coming up to protect the younger vampire’s shoulders, Raziel’s head wedged firmly under his chin, trapping him in a muscular, armored cage. Raziel cried out, finding breath enough for shuddering orgasmic sound as Kain’s shove forced the last thick inch of ridged cock into his clenched body. The presence seemed unending, immense within him, always unimaginably deeper than he’d remembered. His cock jerked, crushed against Kain’s hard belly, its spasms slicking the space between them in silver.

Raziel’s arms fell limp around Kain’s neck, descending in a small landslide of rubble and dust. The chains, still attached around his sore wrists, whipped down followed by the massive metal grapple that had anchored them within the wall. The pitted steel rebounded off the side of Kain’s face and shoulder to fall across his sheltering back. Granite pebbles and chunks the size of a man’s head tumbled down upon them. Kain absorbed the brunt of the impacts without a sound, absorbed Raziel’s abortive jerking shudders without response.

Dust filled the air. Minutes passed before Raziel calmed, before the pebbles stopped falling. Kain carefully took a few steps back, sliding his arms down around Raziel’s limp shoulders to support him. His hooves crushed through the rubble and, even with Raziel’s unbalancing weight, the heavy chain down his back, and his own continued state of arousal, he did not stumble.

Kain’s huffed breath, as if of amusement, blew dust from Raziel’s hair as he drew back to regard his fledgling. The upper part of the wall they’d been up against had partially collapsed -- four of the enormous facing stones had broken loose and chunks of jagged filler rock still threatened to tumble free.

Raziel’s legs around his waist relaxed, just a little. He swung his arms up and to the side, over Kain’s head, dragging his wrists around to where he could inspect them. The manacles were still intact, but the lower part of the chain was badly dented. Where he’d knotted his claws within the thick links the metal was pinched nearly half-through. Curious, constantly aware of the length still buried deep in him, Raziel grasped one of the most battered links in both hands. He locked his claws deeply into the steel for leverage and twisted. The link shattered with a high metal whine.

Quickly, he freed the other wrist in the same way and let the heavy chain and anchor fall. Before the claws, even Raziel’s vampiric strength could not have snapped a chain so thick. He understood. By the dark gods, he understood. All that, that damnable whip, the... the -- he could have ended all of it if only he’d known.... and Kain! How could Kain have -- he must have known.... Growling now, he tugged at the manacles still encasing his wrists. The metal there was thicker and too tight -- he couldn’t get his claws under....

Kain’s embrace loosened, he dragged his claws across Raziel’s back, to his shaking shoulders, down his arms, forcing him to grasp at Kain’s shoulders for balance. Quite gently, Kain pulled one of Raziel’s hands free and stroked along the encircled wrist. His grip tightened around the manacle. Raziel watched the tendons move just so as Kain’s claws ratcheted to incredible pressure, distending the metal enough for Kain to slip a clawtip between metal and untouched wrist. Then, rather than shattering directly through the metal and running the risk of crushing Raziel’s bones, Kain rolled his claw a little sideways. Using the chitinous edge near the tip of his talon and the remarkable range of motion of the joints underneath, Kain crimped through the metal at an angle.

The manacle snapped and fell away, leaving Raziel with nothing but a single long bruise to show for all the staggering strength Kain had just applied. Kain’s arms wrapped around the small of his back and eagerly, Raziel set to work on the other manacle. Unpracticed and still clumsy, Raziel’s claws scraped at his own flesh as he broke the metal loose. The pieces at last tore away and he wrapped his arms once more around his Sire’s neck, shoulders too sore to do much else.

The slight movement of his hips as he pressed close reminded him again that Kain hadn’t come -- as if Raziel could ever have forgotten. He fisted his claws in Kain’s long hair. Each strand felt like silk, soft as thistle-down. The tie that gathered the long hair had come loose and Raziel buried his face in a handful of the soft strands, the white length wicking away the treacherous moisture that had gathered in his eyes.

Kain waited with a patience that had watched ages pass like summer showers. After a time, he tilted his hips, thrusting a little, making certain he had Raziel’s full attention. He extended a hand to the side, talons fisted, waiting till Raziel sullenly turned his head to see. Raziel flinched against the split and sunder of physics, the fabric of space warping unnaturally around Kain’s free hand. Light lanced out from between Kain’s claws. When he opened his fist, Raziel’s signet ring -- bloodied and twisted, -- lay in his palm.

Without thinking, Raziel reached for it.

“Raziel,” Kain’s voice drew his attention inexorably, inescapably. Kain touched the scrap of metal to the tip of Raziel’s nose, just brushing. The light tap was infuriating -- Raziel had seen huntsmen instruct misbehaving dogs similarly. “You should not have lost this. It is... important.” The disapproval made Raziel start to squirm, though the rekindled pain deep in his belly quickly stilled him.

Kain rumbled softly, the sound emanating deep in his chest. It was soothing, hypnotic in tone; Raziel remembered falling asleep to this sound many times, and waking up to the same. He felt his eyes closing, his rebelliousness soothed away. He felt the light scrape as the ring was slowly traced up the bridge of his nose, across one delicately arched eyebrow. Kain’s voice felt like a caress. “Raziel... I wish you to place this... where it cannot be lost.”

And Raziel understood, knew with illuminating clarity. He reached to his left side of his face, hooking his dusty hair back from the delicately pointed shell of his ear.

Raziel could hear Kain smile -- could hear it in the modulated tone of the deep rumble. The ring was dragged down, past his lips, bumping lightly over his collar bone, then lower. “-- but not, I think, there.”

Raziel’s eyes flew open. Kain’s eyes were slitted, the dancing torchlight picked out flecks and streaks of gold but left his expression momentarily unreadable. The ring slid down, further, through the wet splashes across Raziel’s belly, and came to touch -- so lightly! -- the tip of his traitorously rising cock.

Raziel could not help himself. He snarled at Kain.

The support at the small of his back vanished, and Kain had him by the throat almost before the sound could escape him, pulling the younger vampire close. Kain spoke very softly into Raziel’s mouth, lips brushing his. “I will aid you.”

Kain’s voice was fond, gentle. Raziel froze, terror tearing at him, muscles paralytic with awakened fear: he read indulgence -- mercy -- in his Sire’s features. And he knew Kain’s mercy.

Raziel twisted his head right, then left. Inexplicably, Kain released him and for a single long moment, he was unsupported, save by the grip of his thighs and that unflagging impalement. Balance lost, his hips shifted, and agony blossomed like a ball of lightning deep behind his navel, dried blood sticking as the length within him restretched nearly-healed tissues. If he... if he fell...! Half-blind with panic, Raziel found himself clinging tight to Kain once more, clenched claws scrabbling harmlessly against his Sire’s naturally armored hide.

If the brief struggle discomforted Kain at all, he did not show it. He pulled his hand from between their bodies, dragging the ring, cool and hard, against Raziel’s skin. The deeply soothing rumble in his chest never faded, and now he stroked down Raziel’s back, slowly, from the nape of his neck down to his buttocks and the tight-stretched place where they joined. One stroke, considering, then another.

“You fear,” Kain said thoughtfully. “You are deeply afraid. You have faced final death in battle beside me a thousand times, yet this....” Another long stroke. “Is it because the outcome is inevitable? Because there is no escape?”

He hooked a talon under Raziel’s chin to raise his face. “Certain events, Raziel, remain inexorable,” he paused, searching for any hint of understanding or acceptance, finding only pain in Raziel’s golden eyes.

Raziel had to try twice to find enough moisture in his mouth to speak. “Please no...”

Kain didn’t bother replying. He loosed Raziel’s hands from where they gripped his shoulders, moved both Raziel’s forearms to one talon’s encompassing grasp, traced the other down behind his trembling hips. Taking advantage of Raziel’s immobility, he began to ease the fledgling backwards. Easy strength kept Raziel’s hips in place even as Kain forced his chest back, arching him, his belly going concave with the impossible stretch.

Bent so sharply, escape was unthinkable. His belly muscles gave way, stretching to their fullest extension, the maximum flex of his vampiric spine taking his full weight, leaving him arched so far his hair nearly brushed the ground. Kain let his arms go, allowing Raziel to support what weight he could on his shaking forearms, pressed flat against the ground.

Kain let his claws touch near Raziel’s sternum. With his knuckles, talons undercurved, he began to stroke, pressing firm in a long line from the ribs, up the hard arch of stretched flesh, the rock-hard upper belly, -- the skin still velveteen but the muscles beneath humming taut as wires with the strain, -- until Kain reached the place he could feel himself outlined, the length of his cock forced hard up against the rippled bands of muscle.

Raziel reared half-up, an involuntary spasm, as Kain pressed the heel of his palm along his own buried cock. Pulled too tight for breath, Raziel couldn’t even gasp. Kain lingered there, stroking along the helpless expanse of skin, first lightly, then hard enough to feel every ridge of himself outlined, then lightly once more.

Raziel’s claws scrabbled along the flagstones, abrupt despair like a flood through his brain. His pain was nothing but a measure of his servitude; he existed as a sheath and receptacle, an object of some fascination, no longer a sovereign of the earth. No pleading had worked, not with Kain. He couldn’t even see his Sire as the elder vampire, both hands now clenched cuttingly into his hips, gave a little jarring thrust, settling himself still deeper. Raziel was accustomed to fear, and pain he could tolerate, but the isolation of this coupling seemed more horrible than either.

The tips of Kain’s claws found his sex half-flaccid. He stroked thoughtfully, root to tip, and Raziel found his organ responding, as if remote from himself and the suffering that consumed the rest of his body. Kain’s fist closed around the hardening cock, running a talon up the underside, to where the head emerged from its skin cowl.

A few simple movements of Kain’s hand and Raziel realized, as if from a great distance, that he was coming. There was neither real pleasure nor release in the spasmodic jerking of his flesh, the seep of pinkish silver from the tip. His belly muscles did their best to clench around the impalement, but managed only abortive rippling twitches. And Raziel understood the depth of his submission -- that no part of him could ultimately deny Kain anything.

Raziel realized that he was crying out, tiny descending gasps as his spasms allowed his lungs to suck in just the tiniest draughts of air. Kain released his cock and once more pressed the heel of his hand into Raziel’s lower belly, where the muscles themselves seemed to scream and where Kain lay buried, unflagging, unmoved. Raziel’s cock went fully limp; the pain seemed impossibly deeper now.

“Quiet, Raziel.” Kain’s words felt like a damnation as his hand left his belly. The pain didn’t seem to grow any less. Raziel felt the head of his cock touched again, cupped in a big, rough palm, and could have cried. Please... please not again! Hadn’t he given everything already? Surely he wasn’t even capable, he couldn’t respond the way Kain wanted. Not like this; please....

The very tip of Kain’s talon, vanishingly lightly, touched against the delicate slit.

And then his world sheeted white. Nothing left but pain. No room for anything in his consciousness but the unending blast of agony, white-hot fire, horrible. There was no sound. The brilliance of pain had overcome Raziel, and pain took the place of time. He lay in a universe without contact, without comfort, without Kain, nothing to cradle him but liquid lightning waves of suffering.

He did not feel the jostle as Kain knelt, pulling him to press against his Sire’s broad chest. Nor did he feel the shift and rustle as his fallen clan banner was caught up and draped over his shoulders, falling close against his still-bruised back. For minutes, Kain just let Raziel tremble, arms supporting him, rocking just a little, so carefully.

It was taking him a very long time to heal. Kain eased his insensate body back onto the ground, taking care to spread the banner out beneath his shaking form. Kain pressed his lips to his fledgling’s collar bone, the pulse at his throat, tasting the unusually chill skin and the salt of shock-sweat. He dragged his lips up to the delicately-pointed shell of one ear.

“Raziel,” the deep rumbling vibration penetrated the lightning-shot haze. Pain -- and obedience. Had he forgotten that? How could he have forgotten the simple, obsessive reverence that once ruled his world? Kain’s dark eyes, lambent deep gold and gray like inwardly-lit storm clouds, were fixed on his. Raziel was a prince; his Sire was God. There was no other truth.

“Press against me.” Kain’s command was his compulsion. His adoration was measured in obedience; there was nothing he would not do for his maker. It was a thousand times simpler than trying to think, to struggle, to control his own destiny. Kain’s will aligned the heavens, and set him free.

The confusion was fading, one slow gasp at a time, and now Raziel found that his belly muscles ached fiercely, badly overstrained. His pain mattered not at all -- Kain had the right to his agony. Pressing out against the impalement was like clenching around a blade. Blood had dried and sealed their bodies together.

Kain’s length pulled free of him implacably, the flared crest behind the head parting Raziel impossibly and shedding fresh blood. The void of the absence left behind Kain’s presence felt like a wound, and Raziel ached to be filled again. Kain moved down the beautiful, blood-smeared body, laving, tasting, and bent his head to Raziel’s cock.

The ring’s rough edges had been smoothed, the circle once more whole, wrapped around in the image of a serpent consuming its own tail. Very gently, Kain took the tip of Raziel’s cock into his mouth, tonguing the smooth curve of metal, spreading thick, cool saliva into the raw wounds. Raziel’s entire body seized. The bolts of blind pain ignited no struggle, for the pain was Kain’s will, but his hips moved in convulsive little jerks. His cock remained entirely soft. The raging agony consumed all thought of pleasure.

Without Kain lodged so deeply in him, Raziel’s overstretched opening and the torn muscles in his belly began to heal. Kain’s saliva quickly stemmed the flow from his bleeding piercing, allowing healing to commence there, too. Kain pulled off him, leaning up over him, watching Raziel closely as the trembling slowly calmed, as his skin regained the faint blush of recent feeding.

It took time, but at last Raziel’s tightened muscles went lax, his head slumped to the side, eyes half-lidded. The younger vampire sighed, able at last to draw a calming breath. His body was sheltered from the dying torchlight by Kain’s massive frame, and in the shadows, splayed out, exhausted, he seemed like nothing so much as a winged thing fallen, one of the ancient angels depicted in the oldest of forgotten texts.

With a rumble of satisfaction, Kain bent his head and lapped across his collar bone.

And, abruptly aware and responsive, Raziel’s body answered in core-deep reply. His back arced, rising up from the hips, spine suddenly live as a crackling wire, pressing him up into his Sire’s tough hide. He brought his knees up around Kain’s waist once more, tilting his hips in eager invitation. Kain cupped his hip, aligning him, pressing something slick into his retightened opening. Raziel jerked against him, trying to accept the joint of the claw deeper, but it was withdrawn and Raziel knew only loss.

A thicker, blunter organ replaced the talon, the width sliding beneath his testicles, slowly to the rim, slipping to the center. Kain positioned perfectly, and pressed. The vocalization of pain rose sharp and thin from Raziel’s lips, a sacrifice of adoration. Like a God pleased by the scent of the pyre, Kain rewarded the surrender, thrusting deep.

Instead of the halting catch where his ridges impacted the tight channel, the head of his cock slickly parted Raziel wide. The stretch beyond was just as excruciating, just as terrible, but the keeled scales along his length glided past Raziel’s prostate smoothly, raising ecstasy with every rhythmic plunge. Awareness of the depth of his penetration came with Raziel’s groan, with the heady clasp of Raziel’s flesh tight around his base.

Raziel’s cries were pathetic now, sobbing, shuddering, delicious little sounds muffled against Kain’s tensed biceps. Overpowering, ruthless, he remained there for a moment, an eternity. And then withdrew, so slowly, ridges harder now from this angle, each dragging waves of sweet anguish behind. The next thrust left Raziel weakened with the ecstasy, clenched with the ache.

Heavy slabs of muscle beneath Kain’s stony hide tensed in rhythm. He strove impossibly deeper with each rolling incursion, forcing forth each sobbing cry to rise in the air like a benediction. The bones of his pelvic girdle bruised Raziel’s flesh, the thick flare of his cock stroked and caressed and tormented so deep Raziel felt it in his throat.

Kain held him down, at arm’s length, and rammed into him, one hard motion.

And then, like holiest redemption, Kain’s hand closed around Raziel’s cock. And for a single long moment, an endless heartbeat of time, something in Raziel lifted free. Up through deep pockets of brilliant sweetness, falling through realms of torture, the universe contained by an electric whisper, a breath of sound, the panting of the name of his Lord.

Kain never quit moving. Every inch of Raziel’s skin tingled, awake with the charge between their bodies, photovoltaic with desire. Kain growled deep, a low rumble heavy as distant thunder, and thrust once more, to the hilt, buried as deeply as physically possible. Surge upon thunderbolt surge swept through Raziel, no boundaries between pain and pleasure. Lips bitten deep red, head tilted in unconscious offer of his throat, Raziel bucked up into his Sire, clawing at his side, his flanks. Kain’s free hand found his wrist and pinned it, palm-up on the flagstones, their talons entwined.

“Come, Raziel.” In the midst of it all, the electrical storm that consumed his reality, Kain’s words came like exultant deliverance. The discharge caught him all but unaware, his body responding without understanding.

Kain’s roar shook the pillars. New cascades of stones tumbled from the broken wall. His hips jerked, muscles taut as steel cables beneath his thick plated hide, as at last he allowed the culmination to overtake him. He pumped hard into the tight channel, tremoring to the crown of his skull.

And came.

<><><>

Kain lay on the ground beside his fledgling. Raziel slept like one dead, his heartbeat, nearly as languid as Kain’s, could barely be felt through his skin.

The torches had burned themselves away hours ago. There was a sliver of moon in the sky, but Kain could hardly see it for the thickly assembled clouds, heavy and dark with soot. The taste of gathering charge was in the air. It whispered of the rub of wind and moisture against the earth and the overwhelming pressures that drove all movement in the skies.

Did the lightning know its path? Did the clouds choose their destinies, the places they visited, driven by the wind and the tyrannous dominion of the wheeling stars? He gathered Raziel tighter against his cooling side. The younger vampire hardly stirred. He would need to move Raziel to shelter soon.

Kain could smell it on the horizon. There would be rain before dawn.

But not... just yet.

There was still time.


<><><>
End.