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CONSECRATED GROUND.
Clenched firmly between teeth, the end of a cigar glowed violently, the only visible sign the woman with moon kissed features, was not merely another stone statue among the stone effigies.
The air was heavy and the smell of moisture clung to the air foretelling the coming storm. The woman with elven hair, reflecting the moonlight like spun gold, stood in practiced patience. The moon was full and high in the sky, illuminating the dreadful expanse of land around her.
The night afforded very little breeze, a stifling heat was beginning to creep up the woman's neck. Suddenly she moved, bringing a gloved finger beneath the collar of her shirt and tugging it ever so slightly.
An ill suppressed groan of discomfort tumbled from lips taut in a deep and signature frown. The cigar blazed again, momentarily making her presence known to any who happened to pass by.
Of course, to the things that went bump in the night - the light of the cigar was not her identifier. But rather, the intoxicating ambrosia that was confined to flow beneath a thin and mortal flesh.
"Sir Integra?" a strong male voice broke the silence under moonlight, the woman turned, seemingly unsurprised at the sudden appearance of her butler. Although, she gave no indication she considered to respond to him, but simply waited for him to continue speaking.
"It would seem that the mission has been completed. Most of the men have returned to the trucks and are already loaded up and ready to return to the mansion."
The narrow blue eyes flicked from her butler and scanned the graveyard she stood in, with a comfort a kin to a child in a field of flowers. But Integra had never been that child surrounded in the warmth of the sun. Then again maybe she had, but her life before her father's passing seemed but a dream now. Her flowers were the gravestones of the dead and her light the illumination of a midnight moon.
"What of Seras?"
Her voice held no lilt or indication of her age, it was crisp, articulate, and firm – she spoke without a drop of femininity but with deadly certainty.
Walter smiled beneath glasses reflecting the glint of moonlight and distant headlights of the Hellsing paddy wagons and sweeping his right arm across his middle, as he began to bow ever so slightly while saying, "Seras Victoria has joined the rest of the men and is waiting for our departure, Sir Integra."
"And what of Alucard?"
Walter stood in perfect composure now, his master staring distantly, her voice betrayed nothing other than a bored inquire.
"Master Alucard has not yet returned, although I'm sure he can find his way home without our assistance."
"Very well, I will join you and the men at the vechiles shortly," full lips paused their speech as a cigar hung loosely from them, her eyes never loosing the intensity of a trained killer as she continued, "That is all Walter, you may go."
Walter gave another bow, which Integra did not see, and slipped silently away.
The moon's glow hung heavily over her sharp features extenuating her own natural and rather, ethereal beauty, which she worked so hard to diminish.
Minutes passed and finally her nub of a cigar was to its wick, she exhaled smoke as she brought gloved fingers to her cigar, tossing it into the dirt beneath her feet and rubbing it out half-heartedly.
Sighing she closed her eyes momentarily turning and saying,
"How much longer do you intend to hide in the shadows?"
A deep soul shuddering chuckle echoed from the shadows all around her, eyes narrowing in boredom, she stared at where only she could know its source, their blood contract would not allow the beast to hide from her.
"Master," it spoke, Integra's eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, though due to boredom or irritation it remained uncertain. The beast's voice was a bizarre mixture of a velvety sweetness and a guttural growl.
"Alucard," She said as the beast appeared before her clad in black and crimson, his blood red eyes glowing brightly down upon her. "Can everyone hear your voice as I do?"
His mirth split his face into a grotesque grin, barring sharp rows of teeth, "Oh no, Master. My deceptions fall on deaf ears when it comes to you."
The sharp featured ethereal women in a fitted black pants suit and grey trench coat gazed up at her beast and suddenly a cold smirk graced her own features, shattering any preconceived notion of humanity within her.
"Yes, you are nothing more than a beast, demon."
This comment seemed to please him greatly as his grin grew every so slightly and a manic gleam made his red eyes darken considerably to a full-bodied wine. The thick tendrils of black hair flicked and flowed around his face, affected by a mysterious and supernatural wind that only touched him.
"Calm your familiars, Alucard." She spoke, her voice bored, as she turned away from him, seemingly unaffected by his blatantly monstrous and salacious arousal.
"Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, My master, you should know better than to turn your back on a monster."
He spoke his deep voice laced in potent and sadistic need, as if begging for the outburst that would come from such a coarse and defiant breach in his station.
Alucard discovered long ago that he could not deceive his Master but what he could not deceive he made up for heftily with manipulation.
"DON'T YOU DARE PRESUME TO ORDER ME, SOILDER!" Her once clam and distant blue eyes glowed brightly with superiority infused rage. Alucard's eyes widened in excitement, his malicious sharp-toothed grin and deep laughter followed his Master's angered response.
"Yes," hissed in a guttural growl as his eyes slipped shut and a shiver of pure pleasure ripped through his sadistic being, "You still know how to inspire my passion, Integra," his eyes opened, heavily lidded and waiting for a command, a punishment, a fight, or a death.
It all so thoroughly amused the monster that stood in anticipated defeat, submission, and pain at his Master's hand, his laugh now a haughty chuckle. Integra stepped closer to him, there noses touching. Integra's gaze did not falter from the half opened wine colored eyes above her, his grin was now lazy, and waiting in patience for the sweet submission she would force upon him.
"You have your orders, Alucard," her hot breath rushed over his lips and cheeks, and his eyes slipped closed, focusing on the sensation. "You are to obey the head of the Hellsing family for all of eternity. I have no need to fear you, to turn my back to you, is to turn it upon a kitten." Integra's sharp blue eyes regained their control and her demeanor enforced her words with absolute authority.
His chuckle turn into a guttural purr before responding, "Yes, My Master," he suddenly was upon one knee and his head bowed deeply. Integra looked down upon her beast and for a moment her eyes softened, as she stared at the dark haired monster kneeling before her, his face hidden by the mess of black hair. Slowly she squatted down, her coat settling around her feet like fluid cloth. She stared at the messy tendrils of black flowing slightly, he could feel her movement, and Integra's blue eyes watched the familiar's swirl slightly faster. She could see her servant's anticipation for the inevitable retribution for what she was certain, was his intentional indiscretion.
Alucard was a monster, bereft of love, sensibilities, or compassion. Deprived from the acceptance of others and forever cursed to the shadows, Integra knew this was but his punishment for crimes as the infamous count he committed those many years ago.
But here he knelt in before her, head bowed, and shoulders taut. She tilted her head; he craved the punishment he knew she would always give. He was a monster and this was the only connection with another her was allowed. He would give submit to the punishment of her palm against his cheek, for the bullet from her barrel to his chest, and to the end of her blade into his gut. She smiled; it was a pitiful smile at the pathetic beast before her as she raised her hand.
xxx.
Alucard kept his eyes trained on the top of his boot, he felt the air shift as she moved down to his level, heard her elbows rest on her knees as he felt her eyes upon him. It was many moments that they both stayed this way, his manic grin till remained on his face as his wine red eyes waited in desperate apprehension.
Then he heard it, the tell tale sign of the slap he would receive, he suppressed the urge to shiver and found it almost impossible.
He was ready for the strike, he was a monster ready and waiting for the punishment of his master that was his only requisite from his eternal damnation, and it was these moments with his Master that he craved with ferocity akin to bloodlust.
xxx.
She felt him jerk underneath her hand as it settled softly against the lush black hair at the top of his head. Slowly she rubbed her hand, soothingly, as she would a dog, running her fingers through silken black hair. She had become immersed in the feel of her demon's hair, she had never touched it before, and was surprised at its softness. She had always expected it to have no substance since it often moved as an extension of his familiars.
The Moon offered bright light and heavy shadow to the sad scene beneath it. A damned beast, once man, whose soul would never find peace and even long after his body disappeared he was cursed to remain in soul among the mortal plane. And a woman bound by blood and expectation to the darkness along with him destiny was not kind to either of them.
After what seemed like an eternity, as Integra continued to let her fingers run affectionately through Alucard's hair, she began to realize the beast was trembling. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, her hand stilled and after a moment she feel gracefully to her knees. Her ankles no longer able to stand the pressure of squatting before him, and slowly she slid her hand beneath the hair to the side of a face that felt cold as marbled stone. With almost no effort, she titled his face toward her own, expecting the devious cackling and that depraved grin to meet her. What she saw made her eyes widen and for once Sir Integra was thrown into radio silence within her own mind and her perfected mask of superior dominance cracked.
Her other hand slowly reach up to mirror the other, holding his face in her hands as he took in the sight of her beast. Alucard's face was slack, but his eyes, oh, his eyes…were so sad. His were eyebrows tilted upwards above his aquiline nose and his mouth was slightly open in a tortured frown. But those eyes, though there were no tears, vampires did not cry. Integra wondered fleetingly, if he could have, would he? She felt her eyebrows flex out of confusion and awkwardness, but she could not break away from his desperate gaze.
"You poor beast…" She whispered, her mask returned as she looked down upon the great count, who was reduced to nothing more than a vulnerable creature at the most simplest and kindest gestures of humanity.
Perhaps I am not as heartless as I previously considered… She thought, abjectly as she let her right thumb rub slowly against the vampire's cheek, a soft contented sigh slipped from his lips before she moved her hands back to his hair and let him hide his weakness once more.
xxx.
Alucard wanted to slump to the ground at her feet, his body suddenly felt so heavy and he felt so…tired. Her long thin fingers rubbed soothing circles in his scalp and innocently ruffled his tousled black locks. He then became alarmingly aware of her scent, that sweet ambrosia, the pure blood flowing through the hand on his head. He stifled a groan, his hunger overwhelming him momentarily, fighting with blissful contentment at her unpredictable choice of punishment.
This was the cruelest punishment, giving him a taste of warmth and compassion, this moment with his Master felt an eternity, but he knew in hindsight it would be fleeting. A flicker of a candle in the eternity of his existence and he longed, much to his own monstrous distaste, for this moment to extend forever. So, when her hand slid to his cheek and forced him to show his own lingering humanity and his shameful weakness at her most minimal of touches he could only stare in admiration at his beautiful Master and wait until she would allow him to cower in his shadows once more.
And when her thumb affectionately caressed his cheek, Alucard knew if he'd had a heart, it would've fluttered. And a foreign throb of a distant feeling he'd not felt in many years, since Mina and Lucy, it surged within the beast.
Thankfully, his Master allowed him to hide beneath his hair once more. His face would betray nothing, but he knew how powerless he would've been to hide this newly formed response to his master in his eyes.
Beneath the shadowy mess of his tousled black once more, he hid a response not born of sadism or monstrous intent, but out of that drop of humanity left in him.
xxx.
She'd seen it, right when she had begun to tilt his head back down. Integra knew lust when she saw it, virgin she may be, but naive and unobservant she was not.
She played with his mess of hair for a few moments longer and finally rose, glancing around the cemetery, the moon was now considerably lower in the sky.
How long had they stood here?
Alucard was still kneeled before her, head bowed, she said nothing, knowing that once he stood his shame would become even more apparent.
She pulled a lighter from her coat pocket and flicked, lighting a new cigar hanging from her lips, loosely clenched between her teeth.
"Come Alucard, we are returning to the manor."
She had turned letting him stand without her gaze and began her trek across the graveyard back towards her men and butler. And when she was many feet away, she heard Alucard's deep voice whisper, in a foreign tone of longing, that she chose to ignore,
"Yes, My Master."