Author's note:Sorry it's taken ages to update, but I've partied and travelled about 4 weeks in a row, being home less than a week in last month. And on top of that two days ago, I got a letter that tells that I have accidentally been accepted into some far off college. It' being accidental, 'cause I posted my papers there as a joke. But nevertheless I got in…somehow. And now I have 2 weeks time to find myself an apartment...well anyway
Thanks to all reviewers.
Elena Unduli: Thanks for your review! It's nice to see that someone likes to read about yaoi pairings ... I'm growing quite in fond of them too...and about Matsunoshin's future...you have to just wait and see...Muahah hah haa...(being evil)
Kill Caustic: Thank you for you review and advices! I'm trying to improve my writing in the future sex-scenes... hopefully I succeed. Sorry for the update delay...
Riki: To state the reasons for not updatingin short: 2400 km roadtrip, alcohol, birthday, rock festival and trip to denmark.
Seducing Reason:No worries mate... no need to apologise...good to have you back. :) Tell me if you want to continue as a beta-reader...and I'll start sending chapters to you again...and Thank you!
-The Blood lust-
Onikage lay wide awake between the sheets, studying the sleeping human beside him. She was truly peculiar creature, this human of his. Almost like a child in woman's body at times: a seducing mix of fiery passion and striking innocence that she tried to hide so hard.
A small askew smile played on his lips as the girl snuggled closer to him in her sleep.
It was rather amusing how easily she could fall asleep in his arms. He hadn't done anything to earn her trust, and he certainly hadn't planned it. He had planned to keep her in a state of constant fear, that way she would have been easy to manipulate into his schemes, but he had somehow accidentally gained her undisputable trust in the process. Well, it would make betraying her a lot more interesting in the end.
Onikage couldn't tell for sure weather it was her looks, her heat or her innocence that drove the remaining sanity out of his body few hours ago.
"Well, at least now that it's out schedule, I can get over her and continue my life." Onikage thought as he got out of the bed. That's how it worked for him: he saw, he fucked and he forgot. It kept his life simple.
"And she won't be in my way…" Onikage thought directing one last glance to Ayame, who slept in her bed peacefully. An unfamiliar sensation burned in his chest as he saw the content smile playing on her lips, but he suppressed it quickly. He would forget her soon enough.
Onikage gathered his clothes from the cold, stone floor, where he apparently had discarded them in the heat of the passion and sneaked out of the room to take a quick bath. He wanted to wash away her scent, find a way to break the curses, finish his task and kill the half-breed bastard that had humiliated him.
After the nice hot bath Onikage dressed to the clothes that belonged to one young soldier or other, and left the human's rooms quietly as a ghost.
Rikimaru wasn't in his best moods when Lady Kiku summoned him to her chambers, chambers that still few hours ago had belonged to Matsunoshin.
Rikimaru's angry mind refused to let the events of the night rest in peace as he stomped towards the gigantic pair of doors that had been redecorated to blooming moonflower's to match Kiku's taste. The futile questions were like fuel to the fiery anger that burned inside him.
"Why in the name of seven hells hadn't the kid told him about his situation? Hadn't Matsunoshin trusted him enough? Why hadn't Matsunoshin accepted his offer, when Rikimaru knew that Matsunoshin wanted to do so? Why the boy ordered him away? ... And why had Matsunoshin kissed him?" The thought make Rikimaru suddenly stop in the middle of his step all anger forgotten.
Matsunoshin had almost killed him into a pure surprise, when he had raised his head up and looked Rikimaru with an unknown expression written into his handsome face and then pressed his lips against Rikimaru's own.
The soft sensation of Matsunoshin's lips against his own had threatened to stop his poor heart completely and efficiently wiped away every thought in Rikimaru's head simultaneously.
Returning back to the present Rikimaru noted that he had brought his right hand over his mouth; his fingers were barely touching his lips. The unconscious act returned Rikimaru's anger.
He wasn't going to daydream in the middle of his duties like some cursed love-struck fool.
"Why was the whole fucking world trying to prevent him from being happy? Just when he had start to realize his own feelings the damned nobility inside Matsunoshin had kicked in, and destroyed the little hope Rikimaru had had left. He didn't care about some bloody war. He wanted Matsunoshin, and he wanted the man alive!" Rikimaru let the anger roam free inside his mind, it was much easier to handle than sadness and the piercing longing that was the option number two.
Rikimaru had tried to find Matsunoshin, but the man seemed to have disappeared overnight. Nobody was willing to tell him where the previous master had gone, but Rikimaru was sure that someone would talk to him, sooner or later. And then he would just have to save the man, whether Matsunoshin liked it or not.
Swinging open the gigantic pair of doors, Rikimaru stomped into the room, looking ready to slit some throats if agitated.
"Ah, Rikimaru we've been waiting for you… are you ready for my introduction ceremony?" Lady Kiku asked in a happy voice that hurt Rikimaru's ears.
"How could she be so happy in a moment like this?" Rikimaru thought, studying the beautiful, smiling face of hers. The heiress was dressed into an especially beautiful white silk robe, with pearl embroidery, and matching hair ornaments that hung in the both side of her head and chimed whenever she tilted her head.
But the piece of jewellery that had strongest impact on him was the plain silver ring with a small black stone in the middle. It hanged between her breasts in a silvery chain. The ring was Matsunoshin's, a mark of a ruler the man had once told him, something that he was supposed to keep safe for his sister.
There weren't many things that Rikimaru would have wanted to do more than rip the ring from his mistress's neck at that moment.
"How dared she?" Her brother was still alive, but she already wore the ring like it wouldn't be nothing more than a piece of jewellery. Rikimaru needed few deep breaths to calm him down.
"Yes, my Lady." Rikimaru answered bowing politely after a moment.
"When my introduction ceremony is over, I wish that you'd choose two female bodyguards for me, and start their training with Tatsumaru. It's less complicated for me to have female bodyguards; they can follow me everywhere much more easily than men." Lady Kiku stated and directed a rather playful smile over Rikimaru's shoulder.
"I tried to tell her that it isn't so easy to train new bodyguards… but she won't listen to me." Tatsumaru sighed walking to Rikimaru's side. He was dressed into similar uniform, but where Rikimaru's uniform was wrinkly and looked like he had slept last night in it, like he had. Tatsumaru's uniform looked as good as new.
"I'll try my best, my lady." Rikimaru answered, studying his half-brother. Something was off in Tatsumaru's expression; Rikimaru just didn't know what exactly. It just didn't fit in the image Rikimaru had from his half-brother.
"Good, I was hoping that you'd say that." Kiku said softly, smiling a little relieved smile and interrupting Rikimaru's thoughts. "Now, that it's settled… let's go and introduce me to my people." She said and the nervousness of her voice betrayed the otherwise calm appearance.
Onikage wandered to the front yard stopping in front of the stone mausoleum that hid the dungeon where he had been trapped for centuries. Letting out an unnecessarily deep breath Onikage stepped inside. He needed a place to think, and could anything be more private place to think than a hidden dungeon.
The simple stone structure was equally plain from the inside that it was in the outside. Just like the man that lay inside the stone coffin in the middle of the structure. Only even remotely personal object in the grave was the full body mirror that led to the dungeon he had left only few short weeks ago.
"It's fucking ironic… isn't it Mitsuomi?" Onikage said to the simple grey, stone coffin. "You needed a small army of people to chain me into that room, and then 200 year's later I return down there voluntarily."
The coffin and it's user remained silent, and so Onikage jumped trough the silvery surface of the mirror into the small, dark, cold and moist stone room below.
The smell of blood told Onikage that he wasn't alone in the room. The scent made him hungry. He hadn't had got a decent meal in ages, and besides this blood smelled different. He couldn't quite place it, but the scent was vaguely familiar. It took a moment, before his eyes adapted to pitch black darkness and Onikage could see a figure of a man in the opposite wall.
The young man hang from the wall, his bare feet barely touching the cold, stone floor. As Onikage approached the youth quietly, he could see the sturdy chains that trapped the man's wrists and ankles against the stone wall. The youth's head hung limply, hiding his face behind the messy black hair suggesting that the he was asleep, dead or unconscious. The fresh blood stains in the ragged grey kimono implied the latter. The man was still bleeding under the cloth.
The thought of the taste of fresh blood in his mouth made Onikage lick his lips in anticipation.
He didn't remember moving closer to his helpless victim, but suddenly he was so close his victim that Onikage could hear his faint breathing. The victim was a half a head shorter than Onikage, even as he hanged good ten inches above the ground, and he looked strangely familiar, but the hunger suppressed all the other thoughts from Onikage's head as he yanked open the filthy kimono to get better access to the blood that called to him.
Series of cuts ran from the youth's pale chest over his flat stomach to disappear somewhere in his muscular back. Some of the wounds were longer than others but they were all deep enough to bleed.
Onikage's hunger knew no boundaries as he bent closer to press his lips to the boy's torso to suck the blood from the wounds. The salty, slightly coppery taste of the liquid filled his mouth as he greedily moved his lips from one wound to another. It was different from any blood he had ever tasted; it was not as delicious as Ayame's but close.
Too soon he found that the flow of the blood was slowing down, he needed to pierce the big veins in the youth's neck.
Taking a fistful of the victim's messy black hair Onikage yanked the youth's head up to see his latest victim's face. He almost let go, as he recognized the victim to the same half-breed bastard that had chained him. The bastards clothes had changed from the uniform of a high rank officer to kimono of a beggar, and he looked like he was badly beaten, but he was still clearly recognizable to the same cocky kid that had humiliated him in the underground hallways. No wonder the taste was peculiar. Onikage doubted that he had ever dined on half-breed's blood before.
Onikage could barely believe his own good luck. He would get his meal and his revenge in the same package and the best thing was that the cursed families of Gohda and Azuma had done all the hard work for him.
As Onikage gleamed in his own glory, the master of the house let out a muffled wail. He was gaining back his consciousness. Onikage smiled to himself, all the better, the cursed offspring of Mitsuomi would be awake to witness his moment of triumph.
To prevent the bastard from uttering out any harmful spells Onikage pressed his other hand to the half-breeds mouth and bent the boy's head to right so that he could get better access to the base of his neck.
Just when he was about to pierce the boy's veins with his sharp fangs, Onikage heard a muffled voice behind him. Turning around he caught a glimpse of his human fleeing from the dungeons trough the hidden door way.
"How long had she been in there?" Onikage wondered absentminded and paid for that as a sharp pain pierced his hand. The half-breed human had bitten him deep enough to make him bleed.
Cursing colourfully to himself Onikage yanked his hand free from the half-human and turned to look at the bastard and his bloody mouth.
"Well congratulations kid… you've saved me from a lot of trouble. If the blood-poison, which runs in my veins won't kill you, then the starvation or the madness will." He spat to the black eyes little monster, before rushing after the girl. The meal would have to wait until later; right now it was important to keep the human from doing anything stupid.
-The end of chapter fourteen-
A really short chapter once again…but I promise to write longer one next time……Thanks for the patience…