76. I Can Manipulate Like No One Else, but It Was All For You, Julian.

Dear Leah,

Did Julian read my last letter?

Why the hell not?!

Because it was straight porn and you didn’t even bother to finish reading it yourself?

What a baseless claim that is. You read every line. Don’t try to pretend, and if you for some reason skimmed... What a prudish third you are, you judgmental siren. But come on, you still want more details. I know you. You just don’t want it to be on email or text chain where Gracen might see it lighting up your phone screen, right?

You don’t want him judging you, but you are *dying* to know all the rest of what happened after Julian’s resurrection.

If you're pressed for time, I’ll keep it brief and simply tell you the important bits.

Six entire months spent almost entirely in the bedroom with my frisky, perfect painter. He’d cool down a bit every 24 hours or so, get hollow eyed and distant and most eerily still, until I read him some poetry, played him some music and got him painting, or sketching, or jumping my bones again in tantric explosions of craving. He missed his flight to Paris, of course. He never attended his last day of classes, and he never went back to that arts college the following year. He dropped out entirely to become my true and permanent partner, sucking me off in my office while I signed off on the club’s financials each week, and going down on my dinners to get them flush, and ripe and orgasming before I took my taste. He really was so good at that. Whether it was man or woman, that tongue was made to twist up people’s privates in the most delightful ways--

You can’t show him this part. It will make him upset, make him think I value him only for that tongue, and ass, and nothing else, and…

Yes, I hear you. I suppose I was exploiting him. We were having such great fun though. He enjoyed every hour of it.

Then Roman came to visit. He’d been growing more distant these past few decades, focusing on his human whores and now a newborn son and never visiting me more frequently than that expected, annual check-in every summer. But just before Christmas, he stopped by my coven, completely unannounced, and it was not on urgent business. He came just an hour before the opening of my club, and I had all of five minutes of warning to cut short my discussion with Jules and--

What were we discussing? I don’t remember any specifics. Something to do with me being inappropriate while he was trying to make a phone call to his parents I think. Anyway, I had bigger things to worry about. I strode upstairs all calm and composed. Roman beckoned me into my office without a word. I gave the usual greetings. “Stunned by the sight of you, sire. If I had known you were coming we would have prepared a much grander reception--”

“Silence.”

My jaw clicked shut. I really hated it when he would do that. I would have obeyed him regardless. He didn’t have to use compulsion. He would do it just to humiliate me and prove me utterly powerless.

“Undress. Faster.”

Those soulless eyes puppetted me like Pinocchio on speed and I was tossing aside my suit jacket, tie, and dress shirt with all the graceless haste of a desperate virgin.

Roman took off his belt, circling me slowly, eyeing me up and down and trailing his fingers along my shoulders and down my spine. “With my human whores I just check for new hickeys and fang marks,” he whispers. “On you of course, I can’t see anything.”

“We fuck as a matter of routine, to keep in shape,” I retort in genuine confusion. Ever since he turned me, I’ve had permission to go drilling others. He had to approve my choice of praels at first, but that control lifted centuries ago. It’s the privilege of being an immortal, especially one so ancient and high status as myself. “If you’re looking for details, I’ve had two vampires and three praels so far today--”

“Did I say you could speak yet?”

My jaw locks again, and I grind my teeth, but keep my smile as a principle of defiance.

“I don’t care to hear *everyone* you’ve been fucking, Luscious. I care that you’re distracted. Understand? Don’t deny it. Nod.”

I have to nod, because it’s a controlled command. Still, I do want to clarify… ‘Dulce?’ I mouth the name. Old Resa, the leader of that rival clan, does get most upset with tardiness and any perceived disrespect, but I settled that minor territory scuffle between us months ago, so I don’t know why Roman is just now--

He whips his belt down against my bare ass, then right up between my legs. I cannot help but flinch, shutting my eyes and trying to ignore the already healing welts. “I heard why you were late to that meeting. What whore could be so very engaging that they would take you away from your duties? No mortal, I hear. You turned someone recently.”

I nod. He whips me right between the legs again, right over the balls, but I can’t even howl because of that forced command of silence. I stare at him in brimming exasperation.

“You don’t need to speak. I know his name. Julian, is it?”

I give a slow and placid nod. Then I sink to my knees, spreading my hands in supplication, but keeping my eyes locked with his own, steady and calm.

Roman flexes the belt between his hands. “Fine. Speak. Explain yourself.”

“Making Resa wait was but an intentional tactic for our negotiations,” I lie. “She was getting full of herself. She needed to know her pack of serpents is well below us. But yes, I turned someone recently, and I was indeed fucking him that day, as a way to pass the time--”

“You never asked permission.”

“Should I? I did not know this would offend you. For three hundred years you have trusted my judgment, sire, and given me autonomy to create new--”

“Soldier. Enforcers,” he cuts me off coldly. “Exactly what is the use of a scrawny, short artisan?”

He knows it’s my passion. He knows I can’t resist a creative, radiant talent. That’s why he murdered the last person I truly fell for and turned, Guillermo, a musician. Roman fucked him first, flayed off his skin, then roasted him with sunlight. I would never allow that to happen to Jules, but I could not let him see my panic. I had to play this completely controlled.

“You know from your own children that physical strength is not the end all be all for a tool,” I entice. “Powers of persuasion and sexual talent are invaluable in negotiations, especially with those like the Dulce, who will not fuck with praels, only fellow immortals.” I smile. “How is your newest progeny? I heard he was born a healthy, squalling half-breed. Congrat--”

He whips me hard across the face, and I drop right to the floor, blinking the spots from my eyes.

“His name is Gracen. Don’t insult him.”

I shove my way back up to my knees, wiping the blood from my mouth and cheek. “So this child has inherited your full giftings?” I fill in dully. There’s no other reason he’d feel protective of him. He jeered at Michael the day he was born. He hates all children. They are nothing but underdeveloped tools.

“Stop trying to change the subject or I will have you silenced again. I am not here to talk about my newest progeny, Luscious. I am here to talk about yours.”

I keep holding his eyes, unabashed. “What more is there to talk about? He was a prael. He is now a vampire--”

“And why is it I never even met this prael, not during either of my last two visits to your halls?” I keep my expression completely impassive. “Your man told me this ‘Julian’ is the same junkie you had coddled inside your personal rooms, for months, following the murder of my son.”

So now he’s calling Michael’s beheading a full on murder, no longer indulging my plea of self-defense. This was a very bad sign. “Michael died, because he broke the rules of my coven and tried to fuck with me.” Every syllable of that was true. “As for Michael’s little tool, Julian, I had to be sure he’d keep quiet before I turned him out into the world. If he wasn’t capable of that, I would have killed him, but no one likes another, unnecessary homicide case, and solid brain-washing does take time, my lord. When I was sure he’d keep quiet, I sent him home. I wasn’t interested in Michael’s sloppy seconds, and I never intended to see that child again, but that junkie came back to our coven shortly after your previous visit,” I fudge the truth. “He truly was a hit with the rest of my followers, so I gave him a chance and found he is in fact a fairly decent fuck, as I said, so I turned him before he could kill himself with an overdose. Now, as a vampire, he will never again hunger for dangerous, lip-loosening substances, only blood.”

“He had better be a damn good fuck, Luscious,” Roman retorts, sliding his belt back around his waist. “I will judge him myself, before I decide whether or not to forgive you this mistake.”

He puts his hand on the doorknob and I drift up behind him, running my hand up his chest and getting him to turn and face my adoring stare. “Let me train him just a *tiny* bit better first, sire.” Roman was so arrogant that he had never once realized that the gifting of compulsion he passed on when he turned me can work to cloud his own mind. I can manipulate him like no one else. I just have to make it reasonable and not push too hard.

He melts right into my stare and grabs rigid hold of my chin, giving a leering smile. “And just what tricks have you been showing this new fuck-boy, Luscious? Show me.”

Exactly the result I was pushing for, but I barely get the chance to start before he slams me face down on the desk and rams in his cock with zero restraint or lubricant. He thinks violence is arousing, and more than that, he simply likes to dominate. I take it however hard he gives and keep complicit, feigning enjoyment, until after ten hellish minutes, he finally cums. He’ll want another round of course, involving the belt again, and the sharp-tipped fountain pens from the desk, but I’m used to the pain, the dripping blood mixing in with his cum. I would just… float outside my body from time to time, and I would hardly even feel it.

You can see that entire last paragraph has been crossed out, Leah, so just… Don’t let Julian read this. Don’t let him remember what happened to him when Roman finally did take him for that test drive.

That night was truly the worst of my regrets.