The Demon Inside.
Chapter 4

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Sorry about the delay. I was writing on another story.
You know how it is . . .

Bit sadistic from here on in. Mild yaoi . . . fair warning . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------

* By the way . . . there was no one armed man in the shadows . . . just seeing if anyone was paying attention . . . Heh, heh, heh, heh . . . *

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The gardens behind the Dragon Palace were silent, save for the light crunching of the occasional twig under Thatz's shoes as he ran. Emerald eyes scanned the darkened forest, devoid of the silver light of the moon.

'Please be around here somewhere . . .' The Dragon Knight leapt over a small bush and continued pushing himself further into the gardens, 'Rath . . . what are you hiding?''

The Knight broke into a tiny clearing at full speed and almost hit a large white boulder the size of him. He skidded to a stop to avoid hitting it. "What the . . .?!"

Suddenly the putrid smell of blood hit him in an overpowering wave and he staggered to the ground. "Oh, God . . ." The smell was so strong it made the Knight dizzy. He dropped his head and took a deep gulp of breath; completely surprised he hadn't smelled the repulsive stench earlier. But there was something familiar underlying it . . . something almost, evil . . .

"Why did you follow me?"

That was Rath's voice!

Thatz's head shot up to look the fire Knight in the face but he only succeeded in making himself dizzier to the point of being nauseous. It took all of his will power not to wretch at the spinning sight of Rath. Instead he opted to put his head back down again and take a few more breaths despite the rancid smell.

"Worried, " Thatz choked out between breaths, "I was just going to make sure you were alright, and you weren't in you room." He glanced up at Rath, slower this time, with bleary green eyes. "Rath . . .?"

The Dragon Knight of Fire stood in front of his friend in clothes drenched in blood and dagger in hand. The Knight chucked lightly and his eyes shown an iridescent red, "The poor fighter really shouldn't have startled me so bad. He just stumbled here accidentally, but no matter . . ."

Thatz's eyes widened in horror. "You killed a Dragon Fighter?!" he shouted, "What in the seven Hells is wrong with you?!"

The sociopathic Knight turned cold, unfeeling eyes on his friend. "What's wrong with me? You mean you don't know?" Rath gave the ex-thief a fanged grin that quickly twisted sadistic, "you expect me to believe that?!"

He dropped to the ground in front of the other Knight in one fluid motion and stabbed the dagger deep into the dirt next to Thatz's hand. Startled, Thatz pushed violently away from Rath and fell backwards onto the soft grass, making it so that his knees were between him and the psychotic red head. Slowly he scooted back to get away but his back was soon against the stone in the clearing, "You've been killing people Rath?! Why?!"

Rath leaned forward, closer to the green haired Knight's face. "It's in my blood. You of all people should be able to tell what I truly am . . . almost all of those damned barriers that that Bastard, Lykouleon, trapped me in are disappearing."

Thatz couldn't believe his eyes. Rath had gone psycho. He watched out of the corners of his green eyes as Rath grasped the dagger by its ivory handle and slowly drew closer with it at his side.

"Rath . . .!" his voice sounded higher then he meant it to, as he begged Rath to snap out of it. "Rath . . . please, don't do this . . .!"

Rath leaned ever closer, deaf to his friend's cries. He was so close now that Thatz could smell Rath's scent, the one that had lulled him to sleep when the three Knights would go on missions together. The comforting scent had been drowned out by the putrid stench of Dragon blood. The ex-thief gasped when he realized, with a shock, what the other underlying scent had been earlier.

Demon.

Rath was a Demon. He wasn't sick, he was a demon. That's why the Rath he knew had looked ill, he wasn't satisfying the demon's bloodlust.

The green haired Knight clenched his eyes shut. 'No!' he screamed in his head, 'It can't be true!'

"Well it is. So deal with it!" Rath plunged the dagger through Thatz's hand and drove it deep into the ground. The earth Knight's scream of pain cut through the air and filled Rath's pointed ears, making the twisted grin on his face grow.

"Ooo, let's hear that again, shall we?" Rath grasped the dagger's handle and twisted it sharply, shattering the delicate bones in the Knight's hand. To his disappointment the other Knight only let out a pained hiss through clenched teeth. Rath sighed, "You frustrate me Thatz . . ."

"I'm frustrating . . .?" Thatz gave him the best sarcastic laugh he could under the painful circumstances, "You're . . . the frustrating . . . one . . ."

"Oh?" Rath raised a dark eyebrow, eyes attentive on Thatz's face as he played with the dagger handle, "Go on . . ."

Thatz continued, "You . . . first we're both . . . buddies . . . and now, you . . . you've . . ."

"Now I've what?! Gone insane? Or finally have realized what I really am?!" Rath snarled in Thatz's face. "For once in a long time, I can finally think clearly," he leaned further forward, so that the two Knight's faces were practically touching," And it feels good . . ."

Thatz stared up at the sadistic demon knight. Fear plainly written across his face. "Rath . . . "

"Thatz . . . " Rath purred as he leaned forward. Slowly he grasped the dagger's handle and pulled it out of the ex-thief's hand, making Thatz clench his eyes shut and bit his lower lip, "Ahhh . . . ! " Rath pulled the blade up and ran his tongue across it, lapping up the warm blood to Thatz's disgust.

"What's the matter Thatz?" Rath asked innocently, eyes glowing with a mix of ferocity and lust that the new blood had spawned in him, "Why aren't you fighting me?"

Thatz panicked and tried to push Rath off of him, but after a few moments of futile trying he stopped. Rath had always been strong, and being a demon hadn't changed that. He tilted his head to the side and avoided looking at his deranged friend.

'Thisisnothappening . . .thisisnothappening . . . thisisnothappening . . . '

"Why won't you fight me, Thatz?" Rath pressed his forehead to Thatz's temple, his breath ghosted the scared Knight's face, "You're disgusted with me . . . ," he sniffed the air, "I can smell it on you . . . your fear . . . you can't hide it . . ."

"I'm not disgusted at you . . . only what you've become," Thatz stated under his breath, loud enough for Rath to hear.

Thatz slapped himself inwardly when he realized what he had said. He was being pinned up against an immovable stone, out of hearing range of the castle, by an insanely strong bloodthirsty demon with a knife, and he probably just pissed him off with those words.

'Thatz, you're an idiot,' he chided himself, 'Let's give him motivation to kill you while we're at it.'

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" Rath demanded of the Knight below him, accentuating every word. Threateningly he flashed the dagger into Thatz's line of sight, and the ex-thief just silently closed his eyes from the inevitable.

Rath snarled at the lack of an answer. He wanted his 'former comrade' to either beg, or scream before he killed him, whichever came first. In blind rage he reared back, blade in hand, and in one swift and precise motion he slashed the scar that ran down Thatz's face, reopening it for the first time in decades.

Thatz cried out and contorted his face in pain.

Rath eyed the blood streaming from the wound hungrily and dropped the knife. Quickly he snagged Thatz's wrists and pinned them above the Knight's head. The demonic Dragon Knight moved his body forward to straddle Thatz's slim hips as he lapped up the blood slowly.

Thatz winced every time Rath's small tongue ran up the wound, his breath coming in short panicked gasps. He didn't want to think this was happening, but it was. He cursed himself inwardly for following the young fire Knight. 'I shouldn't have followed him! That was so stupid! I should have told Tetheus that I was worried, he would have come with me, and we could have stopped him, helped him . . . damn it! '

Rath stopped after a minute or two, as the blood flow slowed and thickened. He sat back, still straddling the other Knight, and smiled wide. His voice sounded almost as if he were drunk when he spoke, "You taste soooo good . . . did you know that . . . ?"

"Rath," Thatz had to get the Knight above him to come to his senses or he was going to die, and Rath would loose himself to the demon inside. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? How wrong it is?!" He stared Rath directly in the face.

"Like I care about what's wrong anymore . . ." Rath's eyes darkened dangerously as one of the hands pinning Thatz's wrists left to trail down the earth Knight's chest slowly. Thatz tried to ignore the tingle of pleasure that danced down his spine as Rath's slender hand slid under his shirt and nails scraped tightened skin.

"Stop it, Rath." He hissed as Rath ran his nails harder down his chest and stomach, hard enough for a slight amount of blood to well in the scratches. "You don't want to do this . . ."

Rath glanced down before he stared his victim directly in the face. "Yes, I do." He stated blatantly, "And by the looks of it, so do you . . ." To make his point Rath rolled his hips forward grinding himself against Thatz who tried to bite back a gasp of pleasure. "Don't . . . please . . . !"

The fire Knight shrugged casually. "Then fight me . . . kill me," Rath sneered, "If you want me to stop so bad . . ."

"I . . . can't," Thatz turned his head in shame and looked at the ground.

"Why?!" Rath snarled in Thatz's face, making the Knight below him flinch.

"Because . . .," he glanced at Rath from the corner of his eyes, " I . . . love you . . . "

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Heh, heh, heh, heh . . . I know, I'm evil incarnate . . .