86. In the Serpents' Den

I come to just as I’m hurled into the back seat of the Ducle’s sedan – trussed head to foot with gag in my mouth and titanium cuffs around both wrists. They slam the door and rip off down the road, headed straight to the Dulce estate. I slam my forehead into the seat cushion and try to brainstorm what I can say to Resa to get her to kill me the instant I arrive. I may have a death wish, but I’m not a total masochist. I’ve have enough of pain and torture. I just want it to be done, and I at all costs want to avoid being used as a bargaining chip, ransomed back to Luc in exchange for some sick favor, with all my tortuous punishment being broadcast in full detail just to persuade him…

We drive far past the speed limit and reach Resa’s far out of town estate in under an hour. The enforcers haul me out of the car and we all rush beneath those shadowed awnings, right as the sun starts to crest the horizon. The enforcers are hissing and cursing; the backs of their hands and bare necks are smoking. We all took a bit of charring from that weak gray light before we got safely under the roof. I lift my head and strain to keep my eyes fixed on the horizon, right up until the doors boom shut. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the sunrise… That’s the way I would like to go, truth be told, watching the sun come up, just one last time.

Resa’s waiting for me in her bedroom, stretched out on her bed in powdered wig and fanciful, archaic undergarments, with face caked in makeup, and frilly fan in her hand. “So Luscious’ husband is now acting his executioner? Looking to start a war?” she dryly observes.

Her enforcers shove me to my knees and rip loose the gag, so I can answer her prompt. They pull so hard, they dislocate my jaw (probably on purpose), and I have to wait for it to pop back into place before I can get out anything more than a slurred mess of incoherent moans.

“Leave us,” Resa orders her men in the meantime, and they head out the doors, locking them soundly.

I stay hobbled on my knees and work my jaw to see if it’s properly hinged. “Luc… had nothing to do with this,” I am finally able to answer her.

“Why don’t I believe you?” she croons, sitting up on the end of the bed and smacking me on the cheek with her fan. The V of her legs is now flush with my face, and I fight the impulse to roll my eyes. She’s not nearly as good at seductive posturing as Luc is.

“**I** killed them. All three of your followers. I acted on my own, so just execute me for it. It is that cut and dry.”

“You’re not even going to try to argue your case?” she scoffs, seizing hold of my chin and titling my face up toward the light. “I am forced to consider this some tactic then, preceding a larger assault. You are the sacrificial lamb that callous, calculating Luscious sends out to the slaughter, before declaring your ‘rightful’ execution an outrage and having his armies attack us all out. Correct? Either that or some other trick--”

“This is not a ploy, and he will not take revenge,” I mutter. “You don’t even have to tell him you killed me. I’ll leave him a suicide note.”

“With no encrypted message in it surely.” Her paranoia continues to run rampant.

“This is not a game. I…” If I admit I want to die, I doubt she will accept that. She’ll just be all the more averse to killing me. “Your first follower… Kade was his name?” I distantly recall. “I happened across him when he grabbed that civilian, right out in the open, in our city, our territories, and started sucking her dry. He deserved to be executed for that, for breaking the peace. The rest of your men…” I hesitate. “I suppose they were just following orders to bring me in. I should have tried… explaining, before… shooting them. I fully accept the consequences for that… error. Just leave Luc out of it.”

“Why?” she laughs. “It would be so much more fun to start mailing him your body parts instead.” Exactly like I feared: a ransom. “They won’t turn to ash until we finish by cutting your head off. He’ll know you’re still alive, and he’ll come rushing to your rescue… Whatever will he have to trade though?”

“So you want to start a war?” I sigh.

“Not at all. I just find the current terms of the pact of peace between the Romane and Dulce to be most… exploitative. Not sure why I ever agreed to them in the first place. We simply must renegotiate.” She squeezes all the harder at my cheeks. “And you are just the ace I was looking for, gorgeous. So, either I torture you, on video, for however long it takes Luscious to rashly respond. Or...”

I search her eyes in weary resignation. “Or you undo these cuffs, I spend the rest of the day fucking you, and you send him that video instead?” I guess.

She pushes her hand through my hair, circling slowly around behind me. “However insane you may me… You mean quite a lot to him. He’s been horridly ineffective at hiding it. And there is word of your skill,” she most tactfully phrases it. “It has spread far beyond your coven, and I have to admit, I am curious to put rumor to the test.” She starts toying with my hands, still cuffed behind my back. “I notice you’re no longer wearing your wedding band,” she whispers in my ear.

“Call it a divorce,” I mutter, trying to block out the pain of that memory – throwing the ring at his head just to be informed it meant nothing to him anyhow. “Luc exiled me. He won’t care what you do with this discarded tool,” I lie. “So, here’s my offer.”

“Oh?”

“You undo these cuffs, I pay penance for each of your followers I put down. You kill me once it’s finished, and Luc never has to hear about it.”

“You actually want to die, now don’t you?” she fills in, searching my hollow gaze. “How incredible. Why not just roast yourself with sunlight, instead of picking fights with my clan? Why not turn that special revolver of yours on yourself?”

I give no answer, but she fills it in anyhow. “The orders of a sire are the damnedest thing. If Luscious truly has *forbidden* you from offing yourself... My, he does care for you. He cares for you obsessively, protectively, jealously…” She trails her nail along my jawline. “Exile or not… It might very well start a war, if I torture you as my men all expect. I am not confident we could emerge victorious from such a conflict, so...” She thumbs at my lips. “I accept your proposal, Julian.” She unlocks the cuffs, then the shackles on my feet. “Try your best, and I’ll see if it can make up for the other tools you’ve stripped me of these past two nights.”

I climb to my feet and strip off my clothes with zero complaints, acting as I’ve been trained, as I undo her garters, and lay her down on the bed. I kiss my way around her mouth and neck, down her sagging breasts, until I reach the expected climax site between her parted legs - just a robot, dutifully executing his programming.

She gasps and writhes, and clutches at my body, seeming to delight in every stage. I’m in no way attracted to the snake-eyed, over-perfumed hag, but I don’t need to get hard. I can dissociate and act on autopilot, and it will still get her off. I have done this with most of our coven – delivered whatever the request like a dutiful slut, a ‘golden haired deviant’ as Luc once called me. I have no scrap of soul left to destroy, and once she’s finished with me, I will finally get my freedom – the sweet release of death.

She screams so loud as she orgasms that it brings her enforcers bursting into the room. “Get… o-out,” she pants, fist knotting in my hair, as I keep my tongue working deep inside her slit, then back out and against her clit. “Unless… you plan… to join.”

“I’d rather cut his head off, mistress,” her captain coldly asserts, and I pull back my head, wiping the discharge from my face and turning to meet his eyes.

“Do it.” I glance to Resa. “We’re done here anyway, right?”

She slumps back, exhausted, rubbing her hand over my back. “Mmm. We are done. For tonight.” My stare hardens. “Zanac dear, cuff him.”

I lunge for her throat, but she catches my hand, holding me back with scarcely an effort. “We had a deal,” I growl.

“We do have a deal.” She gives me a peck on the lips. “I swear I will one day kill you, the second I am bored, but never if you *try* to disappoint me. If you do that, I’ll just torture you a bit, until you make it up to me. You are to pay penance for *each* of my men you have murdered, just as you promised, but the life of an immortal… What a high price that carries. No gigolo could work off that debt in a single night of fucking, no matter his...” She smooths her hand down my back, squeezing at my ass. “...assets. But I tell you what, you did *so* well with this first trial run... I will pardon the murder of Kade, because like you said: he broke the rules. That leaves just two lives to pay back now, but it is going to take something even more impressive, obedient and valuable as those other vampires were to me. So, go stay in the dungeon like a proper little criminal while you brainstorm how to please me best, and I’ll call you up to pleasure me whenever I next feel like it.”

Her men cuff my hands and haul me off naked, down to the deepest, dankest corner of the compound. They chain me up against the bricks and take their leave without a word. I told Luc he should just chain me up like a slave and come fuck me whenever he feels like it. It seems someone else beat him to implementing that idea.