The darkest prince of hell
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
Credits: The stuff that Lucifer was both very powerful and beautiful is from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Book of Ezekiel 28:12-15.
A/N: As I've already mentioned before, there won't be a Porn Battle this year. Nonetheless, it was decided to run a 'Golden Oldies' challenge, meaning that authors can submit new stories written for the prompts of the previous battles. In this case, the prompts were Damien/Gerald; archangel, fire, knight, theology, bound, feeding (Porn Battle VII: The Seven Deadly Sins). This fic was also posted on AO3 and Dreamwidth (just a small excerpt because of the lack of space in the comment box).
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Barely capable of preventing himself from fidgeting restlessly, Damien watched as the Hunter was turning the pages of the large, leatherbound volume they had retrieved from Allesha Huyding's attic. Somewhat taken aback by the surprised gasp suddenly escaping his companion's throat, he craned his neck until his gaze fell on a pencil drawing which looked strangely familiar.
The tall, lean creature wearing flowing black robes and a crown of fire upon its proud head was a stunning sight to behold. Its features were so delicate and perfectly proportioned as if a master stone cutter had sculpted them from a piece of the most precious numarble available on the market, and a veritable water fall of dark hair framed the androgynous face like a halo. It was the most beautiful thing Damien had ever seen, but what gave him some food for thought were the huge black wings stretching from one side of the page to the other. Apart from the different hair colour, it could have been the Hunter during one of his shape-shifts, neither fully human anymore nor already bird of prey. "Gerald, who the heck is this? And what's he doing in there?" he blurted out.
"Honestly, Vryce, you had better brush up on your knowledge about the history of our faith. I don't have a clue why Mer Reese thought fit to portray him in his scrapbook, but this is Lucifer, the Bearer of Light in one of the long extincts languages on Earth. According to legend, he was the archangel who led the rebellion against his creator. Some theologians say that he merely strove for power, that he wanted to become God himself, but if such a being has ever existed, I deem it more likely that his intention to bring light in form of knowledge to mankind was his downfall in the most literal sense of the word. Who's easier to rule than the ignorant struggling in the darkness?"
"He's quite a sight, isn't he?"
"Oh yes, he is. Aside from being extremely powerful, it is reported that he was very likely the most beautiful of all of God's creations. The 'Son of the Morning Star' he was called. A fat lot of good it did him when his beauty was taken away from him and he was exiled from heaven, just to become the darkest prince of hell. A somewhat amusing analogy, eh?"
But the adept didn't sound amused. His voice was quiet and composed as usual, but there was an undertone of bitterness in it that belied the calm facade, and Damien didn't fail to notice that the pale, slender hand straying involuntarily to the scar the Unnamed had graced him with was trembling ever so slightly. "But we don't have time for discussions about theology now," Tarrant continued with a low sigh. "As I've some urgent business to attend to, I'd very much appreciate if you could set up shop elsewhere tonight."
"But Gerald, why the hell do you want me to leave? I could help you sorting Zen's notes. Four eyes see more than two," the warrior knight protested.
"Just so. But my business isn't solely with Mer Reese's notes. I need to feed, Vryce. Soon."
"But Karril gave you blood to keep you going!"
The Neocount shrugged. "So he did. But it's dangerous to reawaken the old hunger. Very dangerous. Once stirred up, it's powerful beyond mortal reckoning. You can't even begin to fathom what it's like to feel its pangs."
Damien's handsome features hardened. In the wake of the termination of the compact, he had somehow fooled himself into believing that everything would change, that redemption for the former Prophet of the Law was a mere step away. But now the vicious circle of Tarrant's demonic cravings and the murder of young women would go on turning, and there was nothing he could do against it.
Being drained of their life-blood, his victims might die an easier death than the poor souls he was wont to hunt for the small eternity of three nights filled with unbearable terror his Forest. A quicker death, at any rate. But this didn't change the fact that he as the man who had rescued the Hunter from his own personal hell and let him loose on mankind again consequently was responsible for each and every casualty which would be caused by him henceforward.
He couldn't let this happen. Over the last years, he had been forced to tolerate the torture and murder of innocents for the sake of the greater good on more occasions than he actually cared to count, but if he didn't act on his principles now, it would haunt him for the reminder of his days. And after all, there was something he could do, although it would cost him dearly. "You don't have to hunt for sustenance, Gerald," he muttered. "You've fed on me before; you can do it again. Send me the most fearsome nightmare you can come up with, and I won't complain. You can even drink my vulking blood if there's no way around it. I'm offering."
The adept raised an elegantly arched eyebrow. "I won't deny that I'm grateful for your proposal. But you still don't understand. You can't possibly understand, but I'll try to keep it simple. My diet has been somewhat wanting lately, and the trip to hell has weakened me further. As I've pointed out once before, my chosen fare might have changed, but the necessity to eat after doing strenuous work remains just the same. Accepting stale alms in small, measured doses is just a drop in the ocean that doesn't satisfy my hunger. There's nothing like drinking your fill straight from the source."
"But..."
"Kindly spare me your 'buts'. The topic is not up for discussion," the Hunter cut him off, his voice as icy as a midwinter night. "You knew what I was when you chose to ally with me, and hypocrisy doesn't suit you. Take this gold, rent a hotel room and meet me here tomorrow night. That's my last word on the matter. And Vryce..."
Looking over his shoulder, Damien cringed at the red sparks smouldering in the depths of those molten pools of silver. "However you might feel about this, don't come back tonight. It wouldn't be safe for you to keep me company."
Just an inch short of telling Tarrant to shove his gold where the sun didn't shine, the priest ignored the offered purse and slammed the door shut behind him. Whatever the arrogant bastard was thinking of him, he wasn't a beggar, and he could very well pay for his lodgings himself. At least for a day or two unless he cashed in the Patriarch's draft.
Stepping out into the moonlight, he draw a deep breath in order to calm himself. It was a balmy early summer night, and in spite of the relatively late hour, the streets were still crowded with groups of laughing, chatting people, apparently on their way home from one of the manifold taverns in the area. Damien sighed. The mere thought of joining the hustle and bustle was enough to make his toenails curl, but his parched insides were demanding the supply of fluids with rising insistence, let alone that his stomach was growling like a starving beast. Maybe it would be best to grab a quick bite and a drink or two before checking into a boarding house.
As if on their own account, his feet started to move in the direction of the Coach & Horses just around the corner, but he hadn't come very far when a sudden intuitive realization made him stop dead in his tracks. Outwardly, Tarrant had appeared his usual well-groomed, fastidious self. Other than the ugly scar marring his otherwise flawless features, nothing had been evocative of the ordeal he had just been through at the hands of his tormentor. But for an observant spectator, the aura of despair hovering over him had been almost palpable.
With regard to the fact that he was facing certain death and consequent damnation as soon as his reprieve of a measly month would run out, it wasn't altogether surprising that his spirits were flagging. Maybe it was normal, if anything connected to his feeding habits could be called thus at all, that his instincts were urging him to fall back on the first kind of sustenance he had very likely ever ingested after his transformation. But knowing him so well, he doubted that this was the only reason for the bizarre regression of the very man who had called his previous existence as a vampire a 'pitiful half-life' (BSR, p. 378), doubted it very much. Whether their archfiend Calesta was having his dirty finger in the pie or there was an entirely different reason for his sudden lust for blood remained to be seen, but he'd be damned if he looked away while Gerald was about rushing headlong into just another disaster.
Making his choice without thinking twice, Damien turned on his heels and headed back to their room, a strange sense of urgency speeding him up to a fast trot. Light was still flickering through their window, and he heaved a sigh of relief. Up the stairs he went two steps at a time and down the corridor until he came to the last door on the right. His heart hammering, he flung it open and dashed over the threshold in full career, just to bump head-on into a very familiar lithe frame. The impact carried them both back into the chamber, and at the very next moment they were down on the floor in a tangle of limbs and silken robes.
"I'm sorry, Gerald, but I..." he commenced, but registering the adept's mien, any further words froze on his lips. When Tarrant had buried his teeth into his wounded arm back in the rakhlands, the experience hadn't been pleasant, to put it mildly, and the prospect of reliving this crap for months on end on board of the Golden Glory - or, even worse, the Lord of the Forest going straight for his jugular vein as in the old tales from their mother planet Earth - had threatened to freeze the marrow in his bones.
But his undead companion had kept matters amazingly civil. In stark contrast to everything he had expected, there had never been any direct physical contact between them whatsoever other than cold fingers steadying his wrist while Tarrant had opened his veins with a swift cut of his silver dagger. Waiting for the vessel he was holding under the cut to fill, the man had even politely conversed with him on varying topics ranging from their current mission to the history of the Church of Unification without the slightest sign of impatience. As if it had been yesterday, Damien could still see him standing regally in his moonlit cabin like one of the fairy tale princes from Earth, sipping daintily at his cup just once or twice at most after the bleeding had been stilled, just to place it on the sea chest standing in for a table with the air of utter contempt only he could muster. Ever so calm, ever so controlled in spite of all the long months of near starvation at sea.
Nothing was left of the Neocount's adamant self-control now. Shivering with the force of his need, he was staring down on him as if he had never seen him before, his pitch-black eyes a no less fathomless emptiness than the vast expanses of space their forefathers had crossed on their way to their new home. But this wasn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot. The changes to the deathly pale features hovering over him were subtle, all but invisible at a casual glance, but nobody in his or her right mind could have mistaken him for a normal human being under closer scrutiny any longer. Although he was still as breathtakingly beautiful as the numarble statues framing the main entrance of Jaggonath's great cathedral, the way the delicate bones stood out under the almost translucent skin and the angles of his high cheekbones and jaw-line seemed to have sharpened had transformed his face into something utterly alien to the mortal plane.
Vryce couldn't help but shuddering, and his anxiety increased tenfold as the Hunter slashed the collar of his shirt with a long, curved claw. Its tip nicked his skin, deep enough to draw blood, and the delicate nostrils flared at the scent of the rivulet of life slowly trickling down the side of his neck. His eyes glued to the object of his desire, Gerald growled at him like the predator he truly was beneath the lovely veneer. The sound bearing no semblance whatsoever to anything human vocal chords should produce sent a cold shiver down the warrior knight's spine, but even this paled against the blood-curdling sight of pearl white canines lengthening into something straight out of a nightmare.
His survival instincts flaring up with a vengeance, he struggled to free himself, but it was to no avail. Considering that Tarrant was a slender man without a superfluous ounce of fat on his body, he shouldn't have been a match for Damien's still considerable bulk albeit his imposing height, but he could as well have tried to move a mountain. As helplessly as if he had been bound to a sacrificial altar, a somewhat unsettling comparison, as far as he was concerned, he could only watch in wide-eyed horror when the fanged creature atop him was lowering his head ever so slowly. "Gerald, don't," he cried out in his panic. "For heaven's sake, stop this madness! You aren't yourself!"
The adept paid no attention whatsoever to his protests but licked at the shallow scratch with a low, wistful sigh. A violent jolt passed through him as the blood touched his tongue, the convulsive motion causing his hips to press tighter against his victim's abdomen, and Vryce forgot how to breathe.
On board of the Golden Glory, the Neocount of Merentha had informed him one of those nights which seemed to go on forever that any acts of procreation or even mimicking its forms would be as deadly to him as the rising dawn. At that time, his sleep disturbed by terrible nightmares confronting him with his worst fears and his waking hours fraught with worries about what would await them at their destination, the matter had seemed purely academical. And much later, when those wet dreams had started he'd rather not think too closely about, he had resigned himself to the fact that he and the man he had once sworn to kill could never be anything but brothers-in-arms. Reluctant friends at the very most.
Anyway, up to now he hadn't deemed it possible that a creature of the night could become sexually aroused just like any other ordinary fellow, at least not in the traditional fashion, but evidently he had been wrong. If Tarrant hadn't taken to carrying a gun in his trouser pockets lately, there couldn't be a doubt that he was feeling quite inspired by what was going on.
Somewhat taken aback by the unexpected turn of events, the priest furrowed his brow, but then it suddenly dawned on him. Due to the breaking of the compact, Gerald was a free agent again after nigh to a millennium of being answerable to the forces of the dark. He was still what the Unnamed had made of him, had to shun the light of the sun and to satisfy his unholy cravings under the cover of night in order to survive, but it appeared to have escaped his notice so far that some of the other rules imposed on him had been suspended. If he wasn't completely mistaken, his companion's new found freedom had triggered certain natural appetites which had been out of bounds for him since his abysmal fall from grace. No wonder that a man with his history of sublimating his needs into finding sadistic pleasure in his victims' suffering had mistaken simple arousal for an altogether different kind of hunger.
If the dire circumstances had left him with a modicum of humour, Vryce might have laughed at the utter absurdity of it all. But then the Hunter's chill mouth moved to the spot where the large blood vessels were covered by merely a paper-thin layer of skin, and he realized that he was rapidly running out of time. "Gerald, listen to me," he once again tried to get through to his assaulter. "It isn't my blood that you want. You might not remember the feeling anymore, but you're just horny as a vulking bitch in heat. Get a grip, damn it, and we'll sort things out. I'm still offering."
Talking to a wall would have achieved roughly the same result. Mantling over him like the angel of death preparing to carry off his prey, Tarrant parted his lips so that the razor-sharp points of ivory were denting his epidermis without actually piercing it yet, and Damien decided that the time for desperate measures had finally come. "If you can't beat your opponent outright, try to divert his attention," his old weapon master had taught him, and he verily intended to make use of his advice now.
His fingers were shaking so badly that he was barely able to unlace the grey worsted pants, but at long last they closed around their goal. He had never masturbated another man before, not even in the hormone-addled days of his youth, but it couldn't be much different from pleasuring himself.
Slowly, he let his digits glide up and down the rigid shaft he had been sure he would never touch other than in his dreams which had often left him in a state of feverish arousal. It was a strangely erotic sensation, and very much to his surprise, he could feel his own genitals reacting to it notwithstanding that he was teetering on the brink of dying a gruesome death.
For a while, the Hunter stayed perfectly motionless, neither releasing his hold on him nor sinking his teeth into his flesh, and Damien allowed himself a small glimmer of hope. But just when he was starting to believe that his plan might work out, that he would be able to still the gnawing hunger he could feel lapping at the fringes of his mind with a few quick strokes of his hand and everything would be alright, Gerald suddenly came to life. Metaphorically speaking.
Growling again deep down in his throat, he tore the warrior knight's clothes to shreds as if they were made of not paper instead of rather durable material. Long legs forced themselves between his thighs with might and main, spread them apart, and at the very next moment Tarrant entered him without bothering about the lamentable absence of a lubricant.
Although the icy cold of his privates somewhat numbed the pain caused by the sudden penetration, it still hurt like blazes, and a low groan escaped Damien's lips. The midnight eyes fixed on him, and he thought he could see a faint spark of awareness stirring beneath the surface of raw need before they narrowed in a way he had learned to recognize as a sure sign of an impending Working.
All at once, his muscles relaxed around the intruder without any effort on his part. The pain instantly lessened to a slight burning, and when Gerald started to screw him at a leisurely pace instead of mindlessly pounding into him as he had half expected, a certain slippery sensation told him that the moisture problem had been remedied, as well. How precisely the adept had accomplished the feat, he couldn't even begin to fathom.
After getting used to the unwonted sensation of being filled to the brim, the slow in and out motions were rather agreeable, but he soon realized that even if this went on for another hour, the stimulation wouldn't suffice to stir his passion. As matters stood, he didn't really mind. Getting off definitely was ranking nowhere near as high on his current agenda as getting out of this mess alive and in one piece.
But then the Neocount of Merentha twisted his hips, changed the angle of his thrusts ever so slightly, and his entire perception changed. As a healer, he naturally wasn't ignorant of the peculiarities of the male anatomy, but reading about them in a textbook and shuddering with pleasure each and every time Tarrant was brushing a certain spot inside him was an altogether different kettle of fish.
Gerald was speeding up now, riding him harder and faster with each passing second. As the fire in his loins was flaring up to a nigh to intolerable intensity, he closed fingers around his throbbing erection and began to stroke in the very same rhythm the adept was currently giving him bliss far beyond anything his subconscious mind had ever dreamed up. Drowning in the lustful feelings deep down in his abdomen, he was only marginally aware of white fangs piercing his skin, of the sharp pain followed by an eerie pulling sensation and the Hunter convulsing on top of him with a hoarse moan. All that mattered was the rhythmic pulse inside him, causing him to jerk and scream like a man suffering agonies until the lights finally went out for him.
When Damien came to again, he was laying on the bed, tucked in up to his chin. For a moment, he couldn't make head nor tail of the situation. The last thing he remembered was that he had returned to their lodgings despite his ally's warnings just to run the man down like a blithering idiot, but as for the further events, his mind was completely blank.
Letting his gaze wander around the room, he saw that Tarrant was sitting at the desk, one of his hands resting on the ink-stained cover of Zen's scrapbook. From the look on his face, the result of his search for the vital piece of information which would enable them to put an end to the threat against mankind couldn't be pleasant. "Gerald, what's happened? And where on Earth and Erna are my clothes?" the warrior knight added after having a look under the blanket.
"Gone. Good riddance, I dare say."
"Gone?" Damien blinked. "What the hell are you talking about? I suppose they didn't grow feet all at once and walked out of the door."
The Neocount snorted. "Don't be an idiot, Vryce. It goes without saying that the rags you mistake for a decent attire haven't developed a life on their own. I'm afraid this miracle would be beyond even one of my kind. But instead of wasting precious time on discussing the already obvious, I'd rather focus on the more pressing matters at hand. How do you feel?"
"I'm fine. A bit tired, maybe. Thirsty. My throat feels raw. Why do you ask?"
"Any other... health issues?" Tarrant dug deeper, his clear grey eyes watching him with more than a faint trace of wariness.
"Well, talking about it, my vulking ass hurts. I can't imagine why... oh my God!" As if a veil had been drawn away from the part of his brain responsible for his powers of recollection, he suddenly remembered very clearly what had come to pass after they had tumbled down onto the floor, and the cold sweat broke out on his brow.
"I very much doubt that God had a hand in this," the Hunter whispered. "If I'm wrong, He certainly possesses a somewhat wicked sense of humour. Not that this would come as quite a surprise."
"Gerald, it doesn't occur very often, but right know, I don't know what to say."
Tarrant averted his eyes and stared fixedly into the distance. "Then you and I have something in common," he replied, his light tenor trembling ever so slightly. "No words of mine can possibly unmake what I've done to you tonight, anyway, but there are topics that need to be addressed. First of all, let me assure you that you haven't suffered any permanent damage. Visiting the privy could be uncomfortable for a day or two, but considering that you won't be eager to repeat the experience, the superficial fissures in the mucous membranes of your rectum soon shouldn't bother you anymore. As an alternative, you could of course remedy the problem by means of a simple Working. The same goes for the bite on your neck. I didn't dare a true Healing, but I sealed the wound at the best of my abilities and accelerated the production of your blood cells. After a good meal and a few hours of rest, you should be alright."
"Thank you."
"It's utterly absurd to express your gratitude under the given circumstances, Vryce. Realizing the real reason behind my loss of control, you tried to save me from making a horrible mistake in the only way left for you. The fact that your own life was at stake doesn't diminish your readiness of mind and courage in the least. As a reward for your efforts, I forced myself upon you. Raped you. The very man who went to hell and back for my sake. To top it all off, I drank your blood, took so much of it that I very nearly killed you. There's no excuse for my behaviour, and I won't hold it against you if you decide to cut your own path henceforward."
Registering the abject misery in the adept's low voice, Damien struggled to his feet and crossed the distance to him without giving a damn for the wobbliness in his legs. "Don't cry over spilled milk," he muttered, resting a hand on a silk clad shoulder. "I can't deny that you scared the living daylights out of me, not to mention that I could have done with a little more preparation, if you know what I mean. But you just couldn't help it in the state you were in. So let's forget about it and focus on our task again."
The Hunter shook his head. "Try as I might, I can't understand you. If I were in your stead, I would make my molester beg for his death on his knees. You can't imagine what I did to my siblings until I finally allowed them to die. Or how I savoured every single second of it. The only thing I regret concerning the incident is that their agony didn't last longer."
"Gerald, I... I'm sorry to hear that they hurt you so badly. Saying this doesn't exactly befit a priest, but may those vulking bastards roast in hell for their evil deeds. As for your own... lapse: it wasn't rape. Not really. As a matter of fact, I found jerking you off a hell of a turn on, and I wouldn't have said 'no' if you had suggested going all the way. This hasn't changed, although I have to admit that I wouldn't mind trying it the other way round next time."
For about a minute Tarrant just stared at him as if he were trying to weigh his soul, but eventually, the corners of his mouth curled into a faint smile. "Neither do I, Vryce," he breathed. "But not tonight. The dawn is near, and I have to take shelter soon. Before I'll take my leave, I'd like to tell you what I found in Mer Reese's notes while you were out cold. You might find it rather interesting."
At hearing the adept's confession that he wasn't altogether adverse to swapping roles, Damien grinned inwardly. They had truly come a long way since their first meeting in the dae in Briand, and not just in terms of testing the deep waters of their sexuality. Tainted' by his human influence, Gerald was capable of feeling compassion now, even deep caring. His regrets over his attack left no doubt about it. The man was well on the way to reclaiming the humanity which had been taken from him nigh to a millennium ago, and if they both lived through battling a sadistic Iezu and his friend found an alternate means of survival before the Unnamed dissolved the compact sustaining him for good, he would do everything in his power to help him through the process. Everything else was in God's hands.