80. The Dreadful Orders of Master and Submissive
I went racing right back to your side immediately after Roman left. I tried to pretend like nothing happened, only because I was under the impression that you would not at all remember it, not one second of what he did to you. You didn’t say anything at first. You just looked at me with that hollow, utter deadness to your gaze… I sidled right up to you and put a hand on your cheek. “Who do you want tonight, love? That new girl, Jessica, has been persistently begging an indulgence of us. No idea how good her blood will be though…”
“That’s all I am to you.”
“Excuse me?”
You never were good at making things clear with your words, Julian. It just comes off as a half-finished, unexplained thoughts, more often than not. Especially when your accompanying, contradictory action was to turn your back, strip off your shirt, and numbly state, “Call her in.”
You went down on her, as usual, and her blood was sublime, but you didn’t even take yourself a drink. You headed right for the door instead. I broke away from her neck in an instant. “Where are you going? If you want to add a fourth, just shout for Antonio to--”
“I did my job. You don’t need anything else from me tonight,” you whisper, and I sit up in unease, waving for Jessica to shut it.
“What exactly are you…?”
“I guess I disappointed your sire. I was a disappointment to both of you that night, from what I remember…”
“Stop talking. That’s an order.”
Your jaw clicks shut, and your eyes sparked with genuine rage, and dismay. That was the first time I ever controlled you, but the situation was serious.
I made some joking excuse to that prael about your insufferable mood swings to explain away why the evening was coming to such an abrupt and unsatisfying end. I ushered her back into her dress and out the door before you could share any more sensitive insights about the most powerful creature on the continent that would spread as gossip right throughout my coven and beyond.
“Alright. Go ahead.” I waved for you to resume speaking.
You just stared at me brokenly for an instant, before heading right for the door.
I caught your shoulder. “Stop. I thought you wanted to…” I sigh. “talk about this. You… remember last night?”
You shrug, refusing to meet my eyes. “Not all of it. I just… I didn’t know you turned me to gift someone else a new fuck boy as a negotiation tactic, so I guess I haven’t had enough practice. I haven’t been with anyone other than you and… a few of the enforcers. I thought you knew that. I haven’t worked my way through the entire coven yet--”
“I know,” I cut you off, holding your cheeks and forcing you to meet my eyes. “And what happened last night… I did not mean for that to happen,” I honestly confess. “I didn’t mean a single word, but it was either that or have Roman kill you, alright—?”
“No. Not alright. I would have rather died.” I stiffen. “Hell…. I’m already dead, Luc.”
I roll my eyes, hands dropping, because you had said that over a dozen times already, and it was overdramatic and ridiculous. “For the last time, Julian. You are not--”
You put my hand to your still, unbeating heart. We still get excellent circulation down between the legs, even without that pointless, human mechanism working for us, so I treat the gesture as what it is – irrelevant. You don’t react well to such a nonplussed expression.
Your hands drop, and you back away. “You didn’t give me life. You killed me. You needed a fuck-boy for some sick strategy and political gain, so you killed me--”
“Stop saying that.” Your jaw clicks shut again, eyes wide with horror, and I am quick to take it back. “That wasn’t an actual order, just a request. I will never command you anything in earnest as your sire. I will never control you, I do so solemnly swear, not unless it’s life or death--”
“I am dead!” you continued on, deranged. “You killed me, Luc. And I didn’t come back. Not fully. I can’t…” Your voice breaks. “I can’t feel for you, like I used to. I can’t feel anything. I just… I want you, but I don’t--”
“You don’t love me anymore?” I mock, but those words would have stung had I allowed you to dare speak them. “What a bald faced lie. You are upset about my sire exploiting you, and understandably so, but I have made it so it will not happen again, alright—?”
“Even if I believed you, it does not matter, Luc.” You didn’t shout a single accusation. You kept speaking them all soft, and monotone, in a way that made my shoulders tense in unnerved dread. “I am dead and trapped, forever, as a tool to feed your lust--”
“Look who’s talking, you horny bitch!” I finally snapped. “You want it day and night, and you keep your eyes on me alone, the entire time, because you are madly in love with every inch of my stunning self and always shall be, consumed by that suffocating flame! Now get down on your knees and apologize, or else just get out of here already!”
“That sounded like an order,” you hollowly observe.
“It is not--”
“So do you mean get out and stay in another bedroom? Or do you mean get out of the coven? It can’t be that. You never let me leave the--”
“And yet you keep bringing it up like a fucking nag, so just do it! Go! Depart! And find your own fucking praels while you’re at it, because you’ve been over-tapping mine for far too long, you greedy, ungrateful…”
You got dressed in an instant, and you left me. I was floored. Of course the compliments turned to pepperings of petty insults ever after that, Jules, because you full on **betrayed** me. You turned your back, and you left me alone, when *I* was in pain, when *I* had just undergone the worst torture of my long existence. You never even asked how I was feeling, but I was trying to explain it to you! I was trying to explain just what you meant and how afraid I was to lose you, the lengths I’d go to keep you safe, here, beside me… And you didn’t believe me. You refused to accept that turning you was a sign of my eternal devotion. You were convinced I saw you as nothing more than a tool, another fuck-boy, even after everything we’d been through. And then, for the third time in our few years together, you **left** **me**.
And I know if you ever read this letter, you’ll say “What does it matter, Luc?” My decision to let you finally leave the coven caused you far worse suffering that night, and that is what I aught to be remembering.
But I am done agonizing over the past. I need to be done with it. The present is what matters, and it cannot be allowed to be history repeating itself.
When I exiled you from the coven this time, when I made it an official order… Where did you run to, Jules? With no home and no parents to seek comfort with... Where are you now? I am heading out myself, and I am going to find you, because all I keep envisioning is you standing with that revolver to your head, applying steady pressure to the trigger…
I can’t stand to picture what would have happened to you that long ago night in the church if I had not reached you in time.
It is not just about how I need you for me… I will do whatever it takes to protect you, Julian. That is the whole point of this story. You’re just too blinded by suffering to see it.