A masterful trick
Soren pulls back, laughing a little as he prizes my arms gently down from my face, pressing my wrists to my sides.
"Never been on top of a man before? Come now, let me see that pretty blush. There's a good girl," He purrs softly, the rich tones of his voice reverberating through me, coursing through my body. But he is no longer forceful with me, no longer pushing or touching or testing- no. Delicate, soft, his fingers move over the skin of my wrist, feeling the pulse of my blood, seeing what I will do. Toying. Yet it feels awful, to be straddled over his lap, to have him watching me as though I might be his lover and his next meal all at the same time. So classically vampire. Part of me considers running, seeing how far I will get before he hunts me down and has me as his next meal. I gulp, not liking my chances. Nervously I reach up an unsteady hand to cover my quickly warming face, but he pulls it back down.
"Tsk tsk, not so fast. If you want me to stop, you are going to have to ask," He grins, eyes glowing wickedly in the half light of the fire. Silently I curse him every name under the sun.
"I suppose you find this sort of thing amusing," I mutter bitterly, half thinking he wouldn't hear me. He chuckles with a warm, velvety laugh that makes my heart ache to hear once more as it disappears into the air.
"You are the most amusing creature I have seen in this dull place for a while now." I pause. Is that a compliment? When I go to protest against his judgement, my tongue slumps heavy in my mouth, so that all that comes out is an incoherent jumble. He shoots me an odd look.
"You know, you still haven't asked me to stop," he says, almost triumphantly, but his voice light, husky, as he presses his lips to my skin, more focused trying to get a reaction in the same way I did him when we were dancing. He's careful, so careful, like that of a lover. My heart thrums in my chest frantically. I hate him, hate his guts, hate that his tactics seem to be working. But it can't be me. Just some vampire magic designed to drug my senses. Yes, that's it. He smirks, prodding me in the chest.
"So bent on resisting, aren't we? Fine, so be it," he sighs smoothly, dropping my hands. My instincts kick in. I shift backwards off him until I am standing flat on the ground, my back to the fire, the couch creaking from the loss of my weight. Reaching a hand on my sword, my fingers rattling the solid silver, warning him- the very least I can do. He leans back into the couch coolly, his eyes beginning to smoulder again with a deep red, hungry, dangerous. "I'm well aware you are armed, no doubt capable too," he sighs, fingers tapping on the velvety cushions. The vampire's eyes stare into mine with such an intensity I wonder for a moment whether he might snap again. "But there are vampires in this castle who have far less restraint than I am showing you now, what are you going to do then, Serena?" I will kill them, I think but don't say, my mind too focused on why he is even bothering to show me restraint at all. Why he hasn't bitten me, stripped me bare of my clothes, taken me, or killed me, or all of them together, like he clearly wants to do- and if that should make me afraid.
"Well, those vampires have never dealt with me before, then," I say with surprising confidence, so much that the Scarlet Prince seems a little taken aback. He looks at me, really looks at me, curiosity ebbing into his features, as though he were trying to solve a puzzle that wouldn't quite fit. I wonder what he thinks of me, a misfit 'elf' with a sword at her hip, a dagger strapped to her shin, wild looking, and just as capable of drawing a sword to his throat as he knows I am. He brings a clawed finger to down the length of the couch, ripping a fresh seam down its length. It seems the prince has an awful habit of tearing into things. And then I gulp nervously, thinking that many of those things he has torn into have also probably spilled their blood and died before him. I freeze.
Blood.
Why hadn't I thought of it before?
My fingers tremble. Tearing my wrist away from my side, I press it to the blade of my sword. The metal bites into my flesh, digs in hard. Golden blood, quickly fading red, pools and trails down my wrist, coppery and thick. At the sight of it, his eyes widen, body tenses.
"Fool," he growls, fingers clenching beneath him, but it's too late for his honour speeches now. Within seconds, his eyes flash black. Despite myself, I smirk. So this is what it takes to get to the Scarlet Prince. The prince lifts himself off the couch with flawless ease, dancing over to me with his beautiful, fluid movements. His fingers close around my now bloody hand, cold, stiff. I wince, screwing my eyes shut in preparation for his fangs in my flesh. But the fangs don't come. Instead the fresh wound is met with something soft, unexpected. I open my eyes. The prince presses his lips lightly against my skin, his tongue smoothing over my wrist as he strains to lap up the rivulets of blood pouring out. My body tingles, and I moan a little at the movement of his lips, unsure how or what to feel. It feels blasphemous. It is blasphemous. And yet… He growls, a low feral growl, half satisfied at the sounds I am making, half angry at me cutting myself to get him worked up. And yet, he is so gentle. I must have given him an odd look because he groans inwardly.
"Stop looking so surprised. What did you expect, that I would tear right through your arm ? I am a vampire prince, not some feral dog," he mutters, and had it not been for the dizzy look in his eyes when he finally tears himself away, I might have been inclined to believe that he wouldn't. The vampire groans again.
"F***," he swears softly under his breath, distracted, and he puts a hand to his head, steadying himself. Blood trickles slowly down the corner of his mouth. With the back of his sleeve, he wipes it off. And then quietly, perhaps not intended for my ears, he murmurs. "I've never had such delicious blood." The way he says it almost makes it sound like a compliment, and perhaps I would have taken it so had he not been a heinous bloodsucking creature of the night. In that moment he seems like the perfect combination of a monster and a prince, like the ones we used to tell stories about, fanciful and charming, wicked and otherworldly. I revel in it. It is tempting to have him like this, out of control and wild, to know that I can, and might have, leverage over him. He could just as easily reach up and snap my neck, and take the blood for himself, drain me entirely. But I know he won't. Not now.
A rough knock comes from a door I hadn't even realised was there.
"Soren?" Comes a deep voice from behind the door, slightly muffled, and slightly confused sounding. I notice a long shadow stealing into the room from under the doorway, and although I can barely make out the shapes from the distortion of the light. It appears to be pacing back and forth. In response Soren swears heavily under his breath, the firelight burning lower as if in response, casting grim and feeble shafts of light round the room which glisten against the pooling blood on the wall. Biting his lip and closing his eyes, his brows furrow in a distinctly obvious frustration. His foot taps. The room gets darker still, and I am forced to draw my arms further around myself to stave off the chill. Whoever is behind the door, clearly Soren doesn't want them.