Unabashed Sinner

Author's Note: Why am I posting this? Just…why? Feel free to hate me, readers of my other unfinished drivel, and you as well, those interested in the idea of this, yet another work in danger of never finishing.

Warnings: Homosexual themes, don't like, don't read, don't bitch to me about it. And sticky gory violence.

Power, like lust, is just another one of those interminable qualities that will blind a man to both his own fallibility and his most basic sense of reasoning. They are two among many self-inflicted blights upon man—equally upon those who once were. So one can imagine that a lust for power results in repercussions ten times over what merely one or the other alone would bequeath. Such was his dilemma.

"Why should I listen to your lies…?"

Power had seemed so attainable once. It was a simple red fruit dangling in his garden, ripe with blood and ready to snap from its twigs into his opened hand. It had been something he assumed he could have, if he played his cards right. But somewhere along the way he had added his hand wrong.

"…when the journey to the truth…is so much sweeter…"

In the blink of an eye, he was transferring the memories of his existence to the hand that held the royal flush, his life force draining from him over his shoulder and mingling in already gushing wounds. When Marcus pulled back with a look of wild revelation in his sinister eyes, Kraven knew he had better find an ace. His lips were still curled in a snarl from the sting of his pierced shoulders as he spoke. "Please…I can be of use to you."

"You already have." Marcus decreed. He posed, ready to strike.

Kraven hissed in a frightened way and licked his fangs. "Please…my lord." He repeated.

Marcus seemed vastly uninterested, his thoughts already having left Kraven in favor of something far more pressing. He would hear no petty simpering from a creature whose betrayal was inevitable and had proven itself worthless time and time again. He did so hate it when they begged for their lives. He parted his lips to offer a nonchalant farewell, before his eyes suddenly landed on Kraven's submissive position and hesitated. His head was bowed down and his eyes meeting his master, making no attempt to move his limbs where they hung beneath him. If Kraven had any less dignity, he would be exposing his throat and urinating on himself, crawling to his knees to kiss the feet of whomever would spare him. It was sickeningly pathetic. And yet it drew up a fascinated glower across Marcus's face. "…Tell me more, Kraven. What are your uses?"

"Whatever you require." He answered obediently. His lips curled further up and his jaw trembled in an animalistic expression of pain as Marcus drove his talons deeper within the wounds. "I will do as it pleases you."

"Yes, you will." Marcus decided with a blank face. Hideously blue eyes drilled into his victim without forgiveness, though perplexed at the possibility of hearing his case.

"Please." Kraven said again. "I can find the hybrid."

"And with your blood, so can I." As Marcus watched him, his skin began to change, growing paler and more familiar. In a matter of moments, Marcus had readopted his old human visage, save for the stalks of his wings protruding to pin Kraven above him. "That isn't good enough."

"I…I can offer you aid. Meaning no disrespect, my lord, but there are two of them. The hybrid alone is powerful, and Selene..." Kraven attempted.

There was a ghost of a smirk in Marcus's eyes, though his lips remained flat against one another. "You couldn't even shoot me, Kraven. I place little faith in your skill as a fighter."

Kraven gnarled a bit more and thought quickly. He was running out of escape routes. "Please." He said yet again.

Marcus sneered in revulsion and shook his head before clucking his tongue once. "I never did understand why Viktor let you live. You make a very poor case for yourself. …But…" he enunciated the word sharply and let it linger with venom in Kraven's hopeful ears. "…You're a body nonetheless."

Kraven was motionless with confusion, still offering himself limply to show that he had no intention of struggle. Marcus ripped the blades of his wings out of Kraven's shoulders and allowed him to slide down the wall until he caught himself with bent knees. "Yes…" Kraven agreed, though he was clueless as to Marcus's implication.

"One that can be used despite its lack of spine…So many years in stasis can give one's body aches, Kraven. Nearly insatiable aches." He gripped the younger vampire by an already mutilated shoulder and threw him to his knees. "Do you understand my meaning?"

Kraven's eyes turned a hostile blue, but he remained crumpled down from where he sat staring up. "What?"

He was struck hard against the face. Another wound opened from his lip and spilled over.

"You truly are stupid."

Kraven held a hand to his bleeding lip for a moment before returning his gaze to Marcus dutifully. "I will do anything."

Marcus carelessly raised a hand to cuff him again, but stopped when he sensed not so much as a flinch. Kraven certainly was dedicated to self-preservation…This nauseated him almost as much as it interested him. "Have you lain with a man before, Kraven?"

The question was so scathingly embarrassing and seemingly impertinent that all Kraven could do was stare with glass eyes, utterly at a loss.

"Show me that mouth of yours is good for more than filth and lies." Marcus ordered with no small amount of smugness or amusement. This was backed by a contrasting indifference, however. Kraven had one chance, and Marcus didn't care either way as to which decision he would make—that was painfully clear.

But a sexual favor? That was what Marcus desired?

…Kraven blinked and swallowed as he attempted to pull himself more upright with injured arms. Anything was better than death.

It was over quickly, and Kraven fell back, spluttering a few times on hands and knees before a thick, blood-based gather of vomit and semen wrenched from his stomach onto the floor. The vile taste of Marcus's seed seemed irremovable from his pallet, as it had refused to remain within his body despite the previous insistence to swallow. With a pronounced cough, the remaining drizzles of blood splattered against his face.

"Your work has always been…sloppy, Kraven." Marcus commented from above as he watched him, his breath elevated. He was carelessly fixing his pants back into order, erasing the evidence that tied him to the incident. "Once again, you've managed to make a mess of things."

Kraven lowered his head stiffly between his shoulders as he panted, licking at his lips and wiping his chin with a sleeve. There was still no promise that Marcus wouldn't kill him. That entire performance could have just been to ensure that Kraven's last act in this world was depraved and humiliating. But he was willing to take the chance. He wanted to live, no matter the cost. He froze as Marcus's boots suddenly appeared before his vision, and he stared at them for a long while in silence.

"I'm surprised, Kraven. Surprised that you haven't done that before. I had always just assumed that was part of the reason Viktor kept you around. What other purpose could you possibly serve?"

Kraven found the courage to raise his eyes, blinking heavily as though trying to decipher how many of Marcus he was looking at. He was dying from blood loss, which clouded his judgment a tad. "What will you do with me?"

Marcus said nothing for a moment as he reached down and gripped Kraven's chin, turning his head about as though he were studying an animal. "After watching you prance about with your nose in the air for so long, I enjoy the idea of your degradation. Far too much to allow that pleasantry to go to waste. I suppose this makes you very lucky. …Get up. If you can do that, you live another day."

Kraven's damaged arms were turning numb at rapid pace. His head was spinning terribly in unison, making it nearly impossible to find stability enough for such adventures as standing. But while he may die trying, he was sure to die not, so ignoring the spikes of agony, he pulled himself back to his knees and dragged one leg up jerkily so that the foot of it rested flatly upon the stone. Heaving himself to his feet was more arduous than he could ever remember it having been. He forced himself to bear the pain and the vertigo and, miraculously, found himself standing mostly straight before his master, having no idea how long it had taken to arrive there.

"If this were anyone but you, I wouldn't be impressed." Marcus imparted, stepping back.

Kraven watched with fading eyes as Marcus stepped over the body of one of his fallen allies. He had almost forgotten about them. But they were dead, and no longer mattered; why should he remember them?

"Come over here." Marcus demanded.

Kraven's steps were unsure and wobbly, drawn towards the call that beckoned him. He felt like a child taking its first steps, though they felt much closer to being his last. It only took one unbalanced moment to send him clattering back to the floor with a fruitless clunk.

"You're going to have to do better than that for your life. I don't have an abundance of time."

The words came across as fuzzy to Kraven as he rose up heavily and began again, desperate to prove his willingness to survive. He stumbled pitiably to the body lying between them and dropped down to his knees, ready to pass out but fighting like mad against the death that action would promise. As his head fell back between his shoulders, unable to be supported any longer by the scant reserves of his strength, his eyes fell onto the prostrate figure with mild wonder. This particular one of his brethren was still breathing.

"Kill him, Kraven." Marcus ordered, as though sensing his realization at the precise moment of its birth.

Kraven slowly looked up. Kill one of his own? Who had been aiding him only moments before? Not that he was above this sort of thing, but he needed a reason.

"I doubt you could make it to any other source of sustenance, and I know how atrociously selfish you are. Surely you value your own life above the brothers that were loyal enough to you to offer theirs. That is a loyalty you have never known. So either drink his blood, or die."

Kraven nodded, or rather half nodded, as his energy would allow. His attention went once more to his fellowman below him. It was either him or Kraven, and it was not going to be Kraven. He pitched forward and pricked his fangs into the immobilized vampire's broken neck, ignoring the way it jerked in the process and the muffled wail of pain and betrayal that followed as life slipped away, stolen. Kraven shuddered in relief as hot streams of blood skirted down his throat. The pain receded. The sense of sickness for having put his mouth on Marcus lessened. His own bleeding trickled to a halt. Life swelled up anew in his chest and returned his heart rate to normal, assuring him once and for all that at least in this moment, in this day, he would live. Once again his efforts had been rewarded, and he would live. A foot colliding into his ribs brought him out of his feeding, sending him rolling with a cough.

"Then get up and come along." Marcus said simply as he turned to leave, with no intention of waiting for his newfound servant.

Kraven pushed with his upper arms and blinked in shock, dazedly shaking away the black locks stuck in his face as he watched Marcus make his exit. In the next moment, he was scrambling up after him.