Ch 26 Get What You Wanted
Akasha was not the first one out of Issa's room.
She had taken Issa's rejection hard. Not only had her mate responded coldly to her requests, but he had actually looked down on her for finding an interest with a seraph. In his eyes that relationship was even worse than being paired off with a human. Humans at least were wicked and selfish creatures who could, eventually, be turned into second borns. No, Seraphs were protectors of good and the weak, they reveled in their soft and giving natures. Vampires were hunters. Arrogance and pride, power and conceit, those were the things that filled them.
They took while Seraphs gave. Their very natures were opposite and contrary. It was the equivalent of watching a lion befriend a lamb.
Sighing to herself as she gave her hair a real quick brush, she placed the ivory handled item on the mahogany top of the vanity and noticed, without mirth, the different colored strands of hair in it's bristles other then hers.
There may be something said about his staff being expert in sex, but they knew nothing of keeping the discretion of a man who enjoyed too many women.
Akasha had never enforced her position of Dark Lord on anyone unless it was truly necessary. Those times were usually few and far between, however, after she checked herself over in the mirror with her gown and cloak properly in place and she was sure her face was clear of any residual tears, she had only to reach her hand out to the knob of the door to overhear the conversation between Issa's eldest daughter and himself.
"I can't believe what I heard this morning, my Lord," Ria conspiratorially kept her voice low. "An angel? Was there nothing better to seek solace in? Maybe a hobgoblin or a kobold to keep herself occupied? A Seraph...that's just simply disgusting."
"Ria," Lord Akashiya scolded heavily, "you will show her the proper courtesy and respect due to her station. I am sure her future mate and her will be happy whatever they choose to do. In the mean time, I expect to be separated from her castle and our fortunes. I am going to see if I can keep you and your sisters together when everything is cleared up, but-"
"I refuse, my Lord," Ria lifted her chin in boastful pride. "My place is by your side. Whether it be in a dumpster, on the battlefield, in the corporate office, or any place in this dimension or another. You are my Lord and I am here for only you," She lowered her eyes and head in supplication, "Father."
"And you have always made me proud, daughter," He placed an affectionate hand on her cheek, earning an adoring blush on her normally calm and cold facade. "However, I can take care of myself. As your Lord and Father, I need you to make sure that your sisters are well. I have a few enemies that would try to take advantage of my absence."
One of Ria's dark eyebrows raised at him, "If my sisters can't take care of themselves, then it is just nature thinning out the weak."
"Maybe so, Ria, but they are still my daughters. I love them all."
"It will be as you wish, My Lord," she bowed, but not with the glow she wore when she mentioned being by his side. There was no one more important to her then her Lord and Father.
He turned his shoulder to walk away, but stopped himself. "Could you also keep an especially close eye on Moka and Tsukune?"
Lord Akashiya did not miss Ria's hands clench into fists.
"I thought you loved us all equally, My Lord. Why should she receive special attention when she is the one causing most of the trouble?" The bitterness in her tone was barely kept at bay.
Her father was all too aware of it.
"Because she is so troublesome I believe she is the one in most need of your direction, Ria." Moka does takes after her mother after all. He waited for her to agree, which she did with a very slow nod of her head.
"And Tsukune? Why should he be my concern? He is just her mate and barely a few years into the family and only a second born at that."
"I like him," Issa answered simply. "His mind may not be of our kind nor his spirit, but he has courage and diligence. I see in him great potential, he just needs the proper… guidance"
"We have many servants and those already more powerful that would throw themselves fawning at our feet who have the same integrity to almost obsession, Father. Why is he better than any of them?"
"Because he beat us, Ria," He tugged on his sleeves and then shifted his belt on his waist. "Despite his shortcomings in raw power and fighting ability he defeated us. Or are you going to pretend otherwise?"
Ria's lips tightened at the memory. "No, I won't deny he won our little game, though not through his own strength."
Issa shrugged. "You know better than most that there are other ways to win a fight besides open battle. That he was able to succeed despite his disadvantage only makes me respect him more, not less. I claimed him as my son and he has earned his station through merit. I gave him my word and I will stand by it."
Ria shook her head just the tiniest bit. "I will never see him as my equal, My Lord."
"I didn't ask you to."
"His place is lower then Kokoa's." Ria spoke through clenched teeth.
Again Issa shrugged. He loved his eldest daughter and thought much of her, but she did have her own weaknesses. "He is Moka's mate. I acknowledge him as my son, he is family and I expect you to uphold my demands." Shuzen Issa put just the tiniest bit of steel in his words.
One of Ria's eyes twitched, but she nodded in affirmation. "I promise to protect Tsukune as I would Moka."
"Those words do not instill me with confidence, Ria-chan."
The door to Issa's room had opened, presenting an alluring red cloak and gowned figure of Akasha Bloodriver. With her entrance, there was no doubt in either of their minds that she had to have heard their conversation.
Both women's eyes locked on the other's.
Ria lowered herself respectfully to the pink haired Queen of Vampires. "Good morning, Mother Akasha."
Moka's mother said nothing.
Ria was about to recover, but one of Akasha's slender hands stopped her at the crook of Ria's neck. "If I remember correctly, it is practiced that one must be permitted to stand when bowing to their superior. Isn't it so?"
Issa said nothing as he watched this event about to play out before him. His mate was never one to care about decorum or custom. If she was pretending to now it was not without reason. Behind closed doors there was no need for such trivialities. However, in the hallway between just the three of them, it was obvious something of importance was about to be revealed.
"It is, Mother Akasha," Ria's lowered eyes turned up into the top of her lashes, a small smile of knowing what shouldn't be known danced.
Akasha nodded, gesturing with her finger tips to stand.
Ria did.
Akasha took several steps towards Ria, breaking well into her personal space and even going so far as to push Ria bodily against the far wall.
Breast to breast, cheek to cheek, Ria was startled to realize how completely different Moka's mother was to either of her personalities. Akasha had not scowled or frowned, sneered or grumbled, but she kept her half tranquil smile as she continued to force her to walk back or trip over her own heels. Sandwiched between the wall and her father's mate, Ria could do nothing more then match breath for breath, take in the scent of Akasha's simmering anger and stay silent.
Even with her Father and Lord just a few feet away, she knew without a doubt that she was alone and subject to whatever actions Akasha wished to dish out.
"You are your father greatest daughter, Ria-chan," Akasha turned her lips to Ria's ear lobe in a way that could almost seem motherly affectionate. A white glove reached up and stroked Ria's cheek and then combed her fingers through her dark tresses to her shoulder and back again in a calming motion. "You have every bit of his pride, his power, his ability and all of his mindset and quirks. I honestly believe that should you ever take his place as steward to a Hades Lord, you would do remarkable things. I like you, Ria-chan. I admire you."
Ria kept her hands to her side, turning her brown eyes to her far left to take in the back of Akasha's pink and mauve hair. "Thank you, Mother Akasha."
The fingers stroking the right side of Ria's head began to slow their soothing ministrations. With a controlled and very obvious twist of her wrist and grip, Issa's eldest daughter's eyes flared open when she felt a very real and unbreakable fist grip the back of her hair and torque her neck to near breaking.
Her hands reacted in reflex and knifed into Akasha's elbow and then her waist, intending to break her limb and then pierce her body into her organs. It had been pure instinct that made her respond as she had. Her flat hand cut into Akasha's body like a scalpel and stabbed in spilling out wet blood onto the carpet.
But nothing changed.
Even with her hand wrist deep into her attacker's body, Akasha still had that half smile and did not offer the gratification of showing pain or willingness to let go. The lifeblood that was falling from Ria's arm did the most amazing thing she had ever seen.
It started to flow back into her body. This was the legacy of Akasha's namesake: Bloodriver.
"As I said, I like you, however there are some actions you have taken that I disapprove of." Akasha gripped tighter onto the back of Ria's hair, forcing her to turn her neck till her cheek was pressed soundly against the thick, cold stone wall.
"M-Mother Akasha," Ria tried to speak, but the pressure on the side of her head was increasing to monstrous proportions. She had never felt anything like this before, of this magnitude, and with such unassuming ability.
Akasha wasn't even flaring youkai energy or fountaining any kind of measurable power. She was doing this without any special effort.
"For starters, I wish to speak of how you have been treating my daughter."
"Mmmmmmph!" Ria wasn't able to say a word. Her hands flailed in panic as the slow push of Akasha's grip continued to move forward. Between Ria's skull and the robust density and sheer girth of the castle's bones, something had to give.
Crack. Ca-Crack.
The thick wall was centuries old and at least several feet thick. It was hard to tell if the sounds were coming from the wall or from Ria.
"I am very displeased to hear you have been rather abusive to her and her mate. If you want to know how I found out about it, after talking with both Tsukune and Moka, their stories of you and what you have done to them sync perfectly. I sense no lies within their words so as a person of justice and mother to my daughter and mother in law to Tsukune, I see it only fitting that someone of authority teach you the ramifications of upsetting what was and should have been a very happy relationship that you willingly tainted."
Ria's arms clawed deep grooves in the wall, hammering it away to try and create some kind of alternate route to escape or at least get some leverage, but found none. Akasha torqued the dark haired beauty's head again, shifting her shoulders and spine, hips and limbs with the ease one might bend string.
"While I understand the need to keep one's station protected and the need for discipline to be executed, there are limits that need to be respected. Some of which are very simple to understand. For instance, what I am doing to you. This is not comfortable at all, is it?"
Ria's dark sleeved hand was gripping Akasha's shoulder to try to desperately claw her way through her flesh to let her go.
Akasha didn't budge.
"No, I didn't think so. You see, I know you don't appreciate this and I'm sure Issa, your father, doesn't like for me to punish his favorite daughter. Do you, my love?" Akasha turned her chin to her mate just so.
Hands on his hips, he shook his head. "No, but I understand your need to enforce your will."
Akasha nodded her pink haired head.
"Actually, Issa, this is a lesson for you as well as for Ria-chan. You see, you LET her talk to my daughter and treat my daughter in ways that are highly disagreeable to me. I tried to find reasons as to why you have let her be so crass and belligerent to her. I know you love Moka and have been very kind to her, in your way. I found myself thinking over and over again why Ria, your daughter, with all her power and amazing potential would find it so necessary to take up some kind of vendetta against my Moka. I can only see that she wishes to be loved and treated as Moka is by you and, possibly, find a mate as worthy as the one she has found. You have known about this as well, have you not, Issa?"
Shuzen Issa nodded while looking on with cautious suspicion to his mate. This act was highly unusual for her. She never struck out unless to defend herself or protect others. For her to go this far and in front of Issa only proved two things. She was not ignorant to Moka's treatment by Ria and she was putting things in place for Issa and Ria to know their prospective standings in her eyes.
He also had no doubt she was enacting a good bit of wounded pride by subduing Ria in front of her father.
She was still the Queen of Vampires, after all.
Little puffs of dust was coming out of the wall where a deep imprint of her head had now become part of the wall. Ria's legs were kicking uselessly on the ground to get some kind of leverage to get away from her confinement, but the effort was wasted.
"Uuurk!...Uuurrrrck!" the loud muffle sound became sickly wet and incomprehensible.
With Ria's dark mess of hair wrapped around Akasha's wrist and more then three quarter's of her head embedded in the wall, Akasha shifted her grip and lifted Ria's head up, tearing a head sized gouge with slow, effortless ability like some kind of hydraulic machine in action. Large clumps of rock and debris fell around Akasha's red cloak, dusting the fine red fabric with speckled white.
Blood started to seep down Akasha's wrist and onto the floor. Where it had coated her sleeve, it only looked like chaotic stripes down an already crimson gown.
Ria's legs started to quiver in the most common way of someone being strangled in their last moment of their death throes in a gallows.
"Akasha," Lord Akashiya called out with just the slightest bit of warning. "Do you intend to kill her?"
Bloodriver tilted her head to the side to face her mate, speaking to him without much more then a sweet and calm reply, "I'm still thinking about it. Why? Would you attack me to try and save her?"
She did not miss the shift of his eyes towards the door to his study, where his weapon was sheathed.
"She is my daughter," he replied quietly, answering her with firm conviction.
"So is Moka mine."
"I am asking you not to. She is my child and I will protect her. Even from you." Issa's hands went from his hips to loosely rest at his sides. It was as much of a physical threat as he had ever offered to her.
Akasha smiled even grander at this, he knew he was no match for her but was still willing to challenge her for Ria's sake.
"I am glad to see you won't just stand on the sidelines for everything, my love. I did so enjoy my time with you and am glad to hear you are a much better father then you were a mate to me. I have shed my tears for you and will continue to do so even after I am gone. It was for reasons like this that I have treasured you in my heart. I applaud you."
With just a few simple motions of her hand holding Ria, she moved down and forward, the wall that had flattened Ria's face and stretched her neck to unhealthy proportions, was now shoved like a rocket through the many layers of field stone and brick that supported the Northern Wing like an explosion.
Ria lay panting about a dozen yards or so in the inner most garden. She was stopped by the foundation of a heavy white marble statue that shattered over her in a heap of chalk colored fragments.
Very few creatures could have survived such an assault.
Unable to move and gasping in wafts of air, Ria's hands went up to her face and neck, unable to do more then just try and comprehend what had just happened to her. She was Sekitan Ria, a powerful and fearsome vampire. How could she have been man handled like a doll in the grips of a grizzly?
Akasha had kept her jade green eyes on Issa the whole time, her still half smile on him with a touch of something close to sadness and conviction. "I will always love you, Issa, however just as you won't change who you are for me, I won't change who I am for you. I love my daughter. I have done wrong by her by putting your needs and my own before her's, but I won't anymore. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, Akasha-san." He bowed to her showing himself to be submissive and obedient.
While behind closed doors and the obvious master between her and him as mates, in the world of vampires and monsters he was her subordinate.
"Good." She turned to the slowly recovering Ria. One of her eyes was closed up and half of her face was smashed to near unrecognizable proportions. Blood and drool seeped from her fingers over her mouth as she tried to keep some of her teeth that had been rattled loose to stay in place.
Akasha stepped easily over the rubble of the opening through the wall she'd made and approached Ria's swaying half bent form.
When Akasha reached out to touch the obviously fractured eye socket, Ria flinched unconsciously. She was not used to this sort of one sided punishment from anyone.
Ever.
Even that time at Youkai had not been this bad.
"I will offer you this boon of telling you only this once how I want you both to behave, especially around Moka. You will not touch her, actively pursue ways to make her life miserable or try and seek some kind of invisible vengeance because of some silly displacement of your father's affection for her or for what you believe Tsukune has done to you through your own selfish wants. Do you understand, Ria-chan?"
She merely nodded.
"Good girl." Akasha patted her shoulder and stood up, still looking down at her victim with very controlled anger. "I accept there are things about me that you don't care for, Ria-chan. Speak ill of me, but do not speak so about my future mate who will replace your father. I take it as one of the highest forms of disrespect a lady can offer another of our standing. As far as how you are to treat Moka and Tsukune in the future, it is the simplest you could possibly imagine."
The Sekitan daughter was already rolling her jaw as if to set it herself. Precious vampire blood coated the sides of her lips to her chin. She waited in trembling pain and restrained retribution to her attacker.
"You are the eldest out of all your sisters. Be so. Show that you can be a good big sister to your siblings and I will consider your insults, your abuse, and your complete disdain to Moka, Tsukune, and myself forgiven. Agreed?"
"Ythhh," The words came out slurred and garbled, but clear enough to be understood. "Motttttthr Akathhha."
Akasha nodded, then turned back around to see Issa standing inside the hallow of the wall she had used his daughter to make. "Know your place and all will be well. Know too that if you should ever harm Moka or her mate again. I. Will. End. You."
The words were spoken without any apparent anger, but they were enough push of promise to make Ria all to aware of its integrity. They were still nothing but a statement of fact.
"Now then, let us see how Moka and Kahlua are doing. Shall we?"
She offered her arm bloodied with rock chips and mortar that belonged to her castle and his daughter to Issa to properly escort her to his daughter's room, however noticed that her once mate had yet to take it.
"Maybe a change of clothes will be prudent, Akasha."
Fanning her fingers in front of her face and then looking at the wet dark lines darkening her gloves to her sleeve, she nodded. "Very well. Please see that your daughter is presentable. I will be ready in ten minutes."
In a very rare display of affection Issa leaned down and placed a kiss on Ria's battered and bloodied cheek. "It is all right my daughter, she is the strongest of our kind. There is no shame in being defeated by her or in obeying her will."
"Ythh," she mumbled and a tooth fell from her mouth with a small trail of blood.
Issa reached out and gently took his child up into his arms. Holding her close bridal style he carried her back inside the castle. "I will take you back to your room and give you some of my blood to help you heal."
Ria shut her eyes and nodded. She pressed her face against her father's chest as a small child might have. Normally she would never behave so even in private but given the circumstances she knew he would allow it.
There had been little left of her pride or her self after having just been completely, utterly crushed and humiliated by Moka's mother. She could not even pretend otherwise. There had never been any doubt as to her place being far below Akasha's, but until today she had never realized just how far. Akasha had beaten her as easily as she would a goblin, in front of her Father who was, until now, the most powerful person in her eyes.
Despite the pain and shame she was feeling there was also a sense of sweet satisfaction. Her beloved father had been ready to fight to save her, possibly die for her. For her sake he had been ready to challenge the leader of the Dark Lords. He was going to give her his blood to speed her recovery. After all these years she finally realized…
Her daddy really did loved her.
Hot tears of joy ran down her one functioning eye as she pressed her face harder against him. Her father loved her...loved her...loved her...That thought, that joy, made the pain in her body seem like nothing.
It also made the hatred burn hotter than the sun. Akasha had humiliated both of them. She had forced her beloved father to abandon his castle! She had taken everything that was rightfully his and was going to give it to some wretched angel then Moka! That was an insult that could never be forgiven.
It was too obvious that she could not hope to defeat her in battle. Even if she managed to ambush her the difference in power was simply too great.
But there were other ways to fight.
In her mind Ria saw herself seated across the chess board from the deceitful pink haired wench. On the board Akasha had all her pieces while Ria had only the Queen. To win against such heavy odds would require not just immense skill but unlimited patience as well.. She would have to remove one opposing piece at a time without ever leaving herself vulnerable. If Akasha caught her even once…
She understood immediately that she would have to sacrifice her pride and appear to be obeying Akasha's commands of her own free will. She would have to win over both Moka and Tsukune and even, wretched as it sounded, Akasha'a new mate. If she wanted revenge she would have to play the dutiful and loving daughter and sister. She would have to make Akasha not just trust her, but truly love her.
I will destroy you Akasha Bloodriver, I swear it by all the dark powers. Even if it takes a thousand years, even if I must sacrifice myself, I will destroy you and all that you love. I swear it!