Okay guys, welcome back!
First things first, the rating has been changed from T to M because the story did not get lighter. There are major triggers I must address before you continue, there's strong mentions of violence, torture, and non-con it's not explicit but it is implied and made pretty clear that it happened.
So don't be surprised when you run into that. As always I own nothing and hope you enjoy!~
The foreigner–Thatch–continued his stay at the castle, and Izo avoided him as best as she could. He still spoke to her, and she remained ever silent playing her harp or attended to her duties as she was expected to do. But never again were they enclosed in the same room alone, and for that she was equal parts thankful and crestfallen about.
Izo enjoyed the wonderful stories that he had to share with her and the other slaves. Izo did not trust him, but a part of her was always warmed by the fact that he was different from all the other vampires she served.
Never once did Thatch bite her or any of the other servants that scurried around the castle, instead–rumor had it–he scavenged blood or fed from the local wildlife. Which was a highly improbable concept to Izo. She had, after all, always been told that the main food source for a vampire was human blood. Yes, they ate cooked food and drank water, tea, wines and the likes; but that never stood to the sound logic that they needed human blood in order to function.
And then there was the most bizarre rumor around. The servants whispered amongst themselves that Thatch was actually a noble. He had of course claimed to be a Newgate when he had introduced himself to Izo, but the slaves heard and saw things while they scurried in the shadows. For one, the man didn't rely on the slaves for anything, and when they tried to help Thatch; the man had the gall to insist that the servants not lift a finger for him. He denied them, laughing as he did his own bed, or set up his own food. The behavior puzzled the slaves as they shadowed the foreigner, whispering of his oddness, and his off-putting ways. For what sort of noble didn't command things of the slaves?
Perhaps it was due to his standing with the Newgate household. That was the most popular explanation amongst the slaves. Edward Newgate was the name of a noble whose legend had spread far and wide. Rumor also had it that Newgate–unlike the rest of his kind–didn't despise humans and he most certainly didn't keep any humans for the sake of entertainment, food, or pets.
Up until meeting Thatch, Izo had thought the mere idea of such a man existing was nothing more than a hopeless myth spread amongst the humans in order to help them sleep at night. But the arrival of this foreigner spoke of one of two things.
Edward Newgate was indeed real and there was a small fraction of hope that he would help in their liberation, or the most likely to Izo–who refused to believe there was anything to hope for–he was there using a fake name. He was using the name in order to achieve some sort of secret agenda, such as getting the luxurious treatment he was receiving, and was therefore playing pretend.
After all, what sort of noble entered the kitchens and actually prepared food?
Izo was skeptical and she remained as such as time went on. The other slaves took to him quickly enough, but she always shied away from him, and when she was able, she even took alternate routes to her destinations when she knew that their paths would meet. Unfortunately, such evasion tactics could only work for so long.
It wasn't until three months into his stay when another incident occurred.
Izo was tending to her duties as she always did, carrying the same ornate tray she had come to be highly acquainted with when delivering tea to the Count. Every single cup and dish on the tray was painstakingly cleaned to the point that they shined and reflected every miniscule detail they came to contact with it. The tea in the pot was boiled to perfection and the residue leaves were trapped at the bottom with no conceivable way of escaping when she poured the liquid. And the tea itself, was of course flavored with her blood, as the Count had demanded long ago.
Izo knocked thrice as she was expected and when given permission to enter, she did.
Izo managed two steps into the room before her eyes met a familiar pair of shoes at the entrance, placed neatly beside those of the Count. Her stride faltered for a second, but she immediately regained her posture and padded over to where the two men sat, face to face.
Izo placed the tray between them and bowed lowly, maintaining the pose until she was allowed to straighten. Izo then kneeled and began setting up the cups in their respected saucers and it was then that she began to pour the tea.
In the middle of her pouring the foreigners cup, however, a cold hand clamped upon hers and the tea spilled over the immaculately hand-carved table and trailed away from her, trickling onto the white cloth of the foreigners trousers.
Izo quickly righted the teapot but it was painstakingly clear that the damage had been done. Her heart stopped and she froze, eyes blown wide with sudden fear as dawning realization of her mistake seemed to crash down onto her shoulders.
"You incompetent little whore." the words were spoken with a menacingly low tone and Izo did not need them to be stressed out to know that there was fury within the spoken words. The threat behind them was palpable and nearly tangible within the room.
Izo also didn't need to see the hand that rose, she didn't need to be told that she would be reprimanded. She just knew.
The blow never came, however, or rather it never made it to its target because by the furious clap of contact, she knew it must have hit something; or rather someone. Izo didn't dare to peek over to the hand that was to put her back in her place so she glanced at the shadows they cast upon the table.
One hand was outstretched, poised to deliver the punishment, that was of course the one thing she had expected to see. The unseen factor, however, was the other arm that was casting a second shadow, holding the wrist at bay.
Izo's gaze was fixated on the scene playing out in the shadows, she was enraptured by the sight of the melding appendages. Never before had someone outright defied the Count. No one had ever dared to question him, much less get in his way. And here was this stranger-a man that she had spent less than a day with in the past three months-standing against the Count. Thatch was outright challenging him and for what? Certainly it wasn't for Izo?
"What are you doing, boy." the words were slow, demanding and brought a cold chill to the back of Izo's neck along with unpleasant memories from years long past.
Izo tried to push back the images that rushed to the forefront of her mind, but she was unable to reign them in. The memories pushed and shoved until they flooded her vision, filling her mind's eye with hardened glares and disapproving frowns. Hateful words rang in her ears and Izo was five again, facing the wrath of the man who had been called father.
Oblivious to her inner turmoil, however, the two men continued their standoff.
"I am doing what I think someone should have done long ago, isn't it bad enough that you are keeping these people against their will and forcing them to worship your every step? Why add violence into the mix?" Thatch's voice was smooth, but it gave nothing away to whether or not he was fazed by the older man before him. And even in her tormented state, Izo could sense that there was more to the voice, something warm and new that she had never had the pleasure to encounter again after her mother's passing.
"They have no will, their entire purpose in life is to serve us, we allow their continued existence for this exact purpose. They are nothing more than cattle, a source of food. Tell me boy, do you stop to consider the feelings of the deer or elk you hunt? The bear whose neck you tear when you feed from it?" the man boomed and Izo flinched back into reality, snapping her head up for a fraction of a second before lowering it once more.
That small action was enough for their attention to be brought back to her though, as the cold eyes of the Count were on her once more. "And you, you know what you must do, I expect you to be prepared by the time I get there."
Izo's stomach plummeted, but she gave a solemn nod and escaped the room. She fled before she could hear any more of the conversation between the foreigner and the Count, knowing very well that if she did not do as her master had commanded, then her previous action would no longer be so easily dismissed.
Hours later, Izo was still in her room, her simple yet elegant-for a slave-attire discarded in favor of a single article of clothing. The only thing she wore was a pair of tattered and blood stained burlap trousers.
And though the rough cloth offered some sort of twisted comfort, Izo could still not shake the horrid sensation of feeling terribly exposed. She loathed the feeling of being bare, not because of the scars and healing bruises that marred her skin, but because it was simply another reminder.
Izo loathed her own body when she was unclothed. She despised the feeling of being nude and letting anyone who saw her in such a state define her gender based entirely upon what they saw.
With clothes she was safe, with her clothing she could guide any man, woman, or child in the right direction.
Izo's head was lowered, tucked into the safety of her arms as she pressed herself against the unforgiving cold of the stone wall before her. Her knees burned with the protest of having to bear her weight upon the rough floor, and though she would much rather endure that unpleasant pain for the rest of the night; Izo knew that she would not be relieved of her punishment so easily.
Another hour crawled by, and the cramps that had taken a vise grip on the muscles of her thighs and arms remained very much there and demanded her undivided attention. The ravaging hunger was also present and just as insistent; the hunger twisted her stomach until it gnawed upon itself as time went on.
Izo stopped counting after the fourth hour, uncertainty bringing forth a feeling she had long ago abandoned. Doubt lead the way for a small glimmer of rising hope that her punishment was no longer on the foremind of her tormenter. That somehow someway the Count had been swayed from his decision of punishing her. Was it Thatch's doing? Or was it a new form of torture, where she was to wait anxiously for the inevitable before the reveal came and her punishment was simply postponed.
Izo didn't know.
And as such she remained, stuck in a state of cautious hope and coiling dread. Still, she didn't move from the spot she was in, her forehead was still pressed to the stone wall as were her knees to the floor, cold sweat dripping onto the ground below her.
Izo didn't know when she fell asleep against the wall.
One moment she was hidden away from the terrors of her life, and the next she was wrenched back into the nightmare that was reality. Her mouth opened into a silent cry as tears brimmed in her eyes while fire licked across her bare back where the unforgiving metal bit at her skin.
"I see you have deemed me worthy of your attention now." The voice rose from behind Izo, and along with the voice came the chilling sound of clinking metal.
"Getting pretty cocky aren't we, you filthy beast. You escape punishment one time due to the erratic whim of a guest and now you deem yourself exempt of the rules?" the Count growled and again the pain flared across her back.
'No!' The word echoed in Izo's head as she answered the man in her mind.
That was an unnecessary thought though. Even if she had answered vocally, the denial would have gone unheard and dismissed. "Did you think that because you caught the fancy of that pathetic excuse of a vampire that you are better than the trash you are?"
The metal beads rang through the air again as the Qilinbian struck again and again, the lashes becoming harder with every flick of his wrist. The fall of the lash whistled through the air singing its song of pain and torment as the Count continued to rage.
But Izo was no longer listening to his words, they became nothing more than cruel noises that acted as a backup tune to the harmony of the chained Qilinbian and it's awful symphony. Each steel bead dug deeper into Izo's tender flesh, and after a few lashes, blood was spilling.
Izo never spoke, but that did not mean that she never cried out.
She did.
When the pain became too much for her to bear, Izo screamed and whimpered as she convulsed with the pain elicited by her master. Those sounds were accepted, encouraged even. Words were for people, not beasts. Noises on the other hand were meant for her kind, and more often than not those noises of pain were rewarded with a shorter punishment, so Izo never held back.
She had nothing to lose at that point. Whatever shred of pride and dignity she might have had at some point in her life was snuffed out long ago. There were instances in her life, when Izo wondered why she continued to live out her wretched existence when it was painfully clear that the world cared nothing about her. She mulled over the thought of just stopping, letting go and releasing herself of the world around her, but she never went through with anything and it always came down to two things. Her irrational will to survive, and pure cowardness. Izo knew she could never take her own life, she wasn't capable of it.
So she bore what life threw at her, every insult, slap, kick, bite, blade, whip, and violation to her person. She endured it all.
Her punishment was endless, the Qilinbian was discarded when the Count took measures into his own hands and took Izo's body for his own. Blood never ceased to arouse these monsters, they became primal and almost insatiable.
Unable to endure any more, Izo released herself to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness and let go of the world around her.
When Izo came back to she was surprisingly numb. She was not assaulted with the pain and aches that usually followed the Count's sessions. Instead she felt at ease and light, as if nothing at all had happened. And the cold stone wall that had scraped against her face was no longer there, had she been moved? Izo took a moment to take in her surroundings as best as she could. The first thing she noticed was that she was not slumped against a wall, or on her back instead she was on her stomach, which relieved the pain in her back, and she was somewhere warm.
Izo distantly wondered if she had been placed back in her cot after the ordeal, but no the soft surface she was on was not her cot, and it certainly wasn't the dirty old pile of straws in the medical ward.
Izo meant to shoot up from the bed she found herself in, but the action was cut short by the searing pain in her back. Izo made a choked sound in the back of her throat as she fell back into the lush surface and all of that night's memories and pain came flooding to the front of her mind.
"Oi, hey watch it." a hushed voice called out and laid a hand gingerly on her shoulder. "You're safe here, he's gone for the time being…"
Izo shut her eyes as tears obscured her vision and threatened to spill from behind her lids. The pain had returned to her with newfound vengeance, every stroke the Qilinbian had painted on her skin was on fire while the rest of her throbbed with aches and forming bruises. The softness of the bed she found herself in did nothing to lessen the hurt, in fact it only scared Izo more.
Izo wrenched herself away from the gentle hand that was on her person, she tried again to get up and do something. Terror filled her actions as she scrambled blindly away from Thatch and his approaching arms. Izo could feel her wounds opening as she struggled out of his grip on her arm and when she fell off of the bed tangled in the sheets, she could smell it.
Blood.
She had opened her wounds again, and they were once again weeping freely into the bandages and the covers she was caught in. Izo's heart plummeted as she stilled and waited for the inevitable.
Whatever she thought was coming though, never came as she was gently lifted from the floor cover and all.
"Please don't be afraid." he whispered above Izo, and though she desperately wanted to believe his words were genuine and his heart was in the right place, she couldn't.
Izo struggled again, all of her strength and cries went into a last futile attempt to free herself, and unsurprisingly, Thatch was able to keep his hold on her. When her hands and feel stilled again, Thatch moved again and set her on the bed once again. Izo was left to catch her breath through the body shuddering sobs as she coiled in on herself and released her grief.
Thatch said nothing after that, and after some coaxing he was able to clean and redress her wounds again. Izo calmed down after several hours and when she finally got the slightest bit of courage to look up, she saw remorseful and apologetic eyes looking back at her.
Izo quickly looked away and not for the first time was she left confused by Thatch.
I'd like to tell you guys that the sun will come out soon, but really things are always gonna get darker before it gets lighter.
Ah and in case you were wondering, a Qilinbian is a sort of whip with metal or glass woven into the whip itself.
Let me know what you think yeah? Donate to the 'Give Fic Writer's hope' foundation with a review?
Till next time!~