78. My Sire Returns, Seeking His Pound of Flesh

I didn’t expect Roman to make his return to my coven so quickly, only a couple of weeks after our last conversation regarding my new ‘tool’ of an unauthorized progeny.

“Saturnalia was always a fine week to break in a new whore,” Roman refers to the ancient holiday we used to celebrate this time of year back in his empire with month long debaucheries and gladiatorial games. “I trust you’ve finished ‘training’ your progeny to entertain me properly.”

“Do keep in mind, sire, I’ve been training him to deal with Resa,” I sweetly emphasize. “He’s an artist at stroking a woman’s clit. His face belongs mashed between thighs, but as for pleasuring you…” I shrug, leaning in closer and speaking right up against his ear. “You can give it a try, but you know he has no hope of competing on our level. I’m betting he’ll black out in a single thrust from this most godly piece.” I hover my palm right over his cock.

He gives a lurid smile. “I guess we’ll see.”

I was wracking my mind for some way to distract him and call this off, some crisis or urgent business that would require him to leave, this very minute. Any such ploy would have simply made Roman suspicious though, and he’d break Julian open with slow expertise until that beautiful body became crumbling ash and he was lost to me forever.

He was already far too suspicious, staring up at the portrait Julian had painted of me right before I turned him. I had hung it foolishly right in our reception hall, to showcase to all how impressed I was by it, how dear it was to me. Roman’s eyes were cold and hostile as he scanned that image, seeing none of the beauty in the piece. He was focusing only on the clear excited fixation sparking within the eyes of this perfectly depicted Luscious as he gazed through the canvas at the artist behind the easel.

“He should make you a portrait,” I whisper in his ear, trying to get him to turn and meet my gaze.

Roman just scoffs. “What an utterly useless gift. I have statues already, a far more impressive symbol of worship.”

“You have to admit, I look damn good here though.” I smile – a purely narcissistic smile that delivers the intended effect of zero praise for the artisan. My projected attitude of proudly preening propped up no one but the subject of this oil painting - moi.

Roman tilts up my chin. “You look better in the flesh, stripped naked, beneath me.”

My smile never dims. “Looking forward to it as always, sire. And you are so very generous, allowing others to share in the view on these nights.”

He smiles in return. “I am, but my banquet awaits.”

He loves striding into that hall packed with all my followers and servants. He loves that each of them drop to their knees and bow to him, staring at him with genuine craving and adoration, because they’ve never had a night in bed with him. They just see him as breathtakingly handsome and powerful, and each of these lemmings, whether human or vampire, would eagerly agree to be used to feed his lust. Then they would actually undergo the experience – find it nothing but painful and humiliating. Even complete psychopaths are usually too prideful to enjoy being fucked like that. Roman has never found a genuine masochist that suits his ridiculously high superficial standards, and for the average beautiful vampire or prael, even once Roman erases their memories of his ‘affections’, they’ll avoid eye contact forever after, never asking to be taken there again, not unless he uses his compulsion and controls them into it.

That’s why I’m his favorite. I can still manage to convincingly pretend, even without having my memory wiped. I snapped at him or tried to refuse his advances only a handful of times throughout the centuries – when he had just murdered those I loved, or on a single, other occasion when I had amassed so much influence that I had literal armies of devoted followers and was running an entire empire that could wreak havoc on his own territories. Roman could puppet away any such defiance in an instant though, and the torture to follow near drove me insane, even as an immortal with feelings numbed and flesh cold and unscarring. I always got him to hold off killing me though. I was a one of a kind tool, and he needed me. He always would. I made things up to him eventually and was placed back at his side rather than naked beneath his heel, shamed before his entire court. It took me near four hundred years to regain my dignity. Now I never say no. I just find a way to get what I want with distractions, subtle influence, and actions he believes to be his own brilliant ideas.

I had no brilliant ideas coming to me that night however. There were zero solutions to keep Roman from Jules, not now. I still tried my best to prevent all jealousy and protect him. I didn’t even give Julian a seat at that banquet. I’d said to him that morning that I was sick of his whining begging to leave the coven, day after day, like an ungrateful brat. My sire was coming for dinner, Jules was expected to attend, but he was to stay far away from us so as not to annoy the man.

I should have just trusted him with the truth. He is the only partner I have ever had who will fully keep my trust, never scheme or manipulate, and keep secret whatever I need him to. This early on in our relationship though, I could never have risked sharing sensitive truths about my sire that would get us both killed should they spread. It was counter-intuitive to me to share any of my true feelings, let alone my fears. Usually, the gossip will spread like wildfire in this place. Even your lovers will betray you with loose lips and unconscious comments. Even someone so loyal as Antonio has gotten petty and upset at times and vented sensitive information to Emry and others. How could I know my Jules was any better?

He was completely crushed by my criticisms that day – which meant he was behaving himself exactly like I’d intended: arms crossed, eyes lowered, and stance aloof and unassuming. I was seated at the head of the feast with Roman, and my progeny was chairless in the distant corner, to prove just how insignificant he was. Roman still picked him out pretty quickly though. Depressed or not, Julian knew this to be an important event and so dressed appropriately. His chosen ensemble was just formal enough to be tasteful. He has a wonderful sense of style, and he looked unique and colorful and absolutely stunning. He didn’t have to peacock, his looks were doing it for him. William and two others started aggressively flirting with him the second they noticed he wouldn’t be at my side this evening and might embrace another bed to crash in for the night.

“He certainly is popular,” Roman observed. “And it seems to be with mostly men, our fellow lords of night.”

“The praels know they’ll get their chance without needing to be forward,” I excuse. “You know the appetite of newborns.”

Roman said little throughout that feast. Dinner for the blood-servants ended, the orgy started, and Julian turned to walk out alone without even being granted permission. I pretended not to see, but even around Ana’s most impressive bare breasts, Roman noticed. He curled his finger in commanding point. Julian met his gaze, and confusion gave way to blank eyed obedience. He walked right up to us. Roman ordered him to kneel, tilted his face up to the light, then called out dryly, “So this is Luscious’ newest creation. I hear he was crafted simply to fuck.”

Will and the crudest of my followers and praels all holler in vocal agreement.

Roman runs his tongue over his teeth. “Hmm. Should I fuck him right here at this table then?”

The chorus of cheers grows all the more vehement, though this was just an empty taunt. Roman never fucks outside the private venues of bedroom, office, or sex dungeon. He can’t control this many targets. If someone threw up or grimaced at the sight of what he finds arousing, he would lose it and start murdering people. That’s not good for his image. It makes him look unstable. It has caused literal uprisings and revolutions against him in antiquity, so in recent times he tailors a fairly limited, more intimate experience for those he ‘treats’.

He ordered Julian to strip right in front of them all anyway, and the hollers and crude taunts increased. He’d never ‘degrade my status’ like this, not these days, but he was studying closely my reaction to my progeny’s intentional humiliation, to see if I was upset, so of course I kept my smile and leered right along with him and the others.

“Disappointing,” he announced, clutching a hand to Julian’s penis. Jules flinches, but can’t move away. He can’t do anything to resist. “You like getting fucked by that, Luscious?”

“I only take it from you, sire,” I whisper. “You know that, but if you’re disappointed with this offering--”

“Not at all,” he much more loudly cuts me off, thumbing at Julian’s lips. “A bottom has little need of such tools, I suppose.”

My perverted acolytes scream their agreement.

“Still, there will be no public show, children,” Roman laughs. “I’ll be taking this to the bedroom.” His hands drop from Julian, and he snaps me into line at his back. “Luscious.” My followers all whine in disappointment, and Roman takes me, a completely nude, under compulsion Jules, and three of my praels back down the hallway to my bedroom.

That’s when the true horrors began.