AN: A few people have asked now if this is based on "Beauty and the Beast." My answer is, no, it isn't based on it or anything else really specifically. It's meant to have a fairytale type feel to it, from a darker view, I guess (Grimm-esque) but it's not based on any specific tale. I love to read and I've done a whole lot of reading, so familiar things might slip in subconsciously. I get a lot of inspiration from my adventures as a Gothic Lolita, too.

Ewonsama: To answer your question, Axel's blood does change Roxas a bit, it will become apparent and more important later, but as of now, nothing major is going to change, i.e. Roxas isn't going to have super strength comparable to a human adult or anything like that.

Warning! Just a heads up: there's a bit of smut in this chapter!

Disclaimer: Still don't own. Belongs to Squeenix. Blah Blah.

With preternatural grace, Axel slipped into the huge bed next to Roxas. Dawn was still a couple of hours away, but the night had been exhausting in every way. He wouldn't mind the extra sleep.

And then, just as he began to drift off into darkness for the day, he felt a distinct pressure at his side. Roxas was snuggling into him.

For the first time in centuries, Axel slept smiling.

Roxas woke up with a start. There was darkness all around him and he felt smothered, suffocated. His arms were constricted and his chest ached, and a cold, heavy bar was pressing him into a soft, squishy surface. He squirmed and fought against his bonds in the darkness. Tears began to form in his eyes with his fruitless efforts.

Suddenly there was light; a candelabra roared to life. Roxas was met with a single green eye beside him.

Vampire. Axel.

Unable to recall where he was or how he came to be there, Roxas continued to struggle. The iron bar thrown over his chest became heavier.

"Easy, easy, Roxy…you're alright…" Axel soothed the distraught boy, his voice husky and raw with sleep. He had felt the boy startle in his blood and woke.

Roxas began to calm and the weight—the arm—was lifted. Axel peeled back the blankets that had become entangled around the boy's limbs and Roxas relaxed into the freedom of movement he had been afforded, as much as his bandages allowed.

"See?" the king pushed himself into a sitting position. "Perfectly safe."

Roxas looked around the shadowy chamber, scrunching his nose in an effort to remember the place. It was familiar, like a memory he couldn't quite reach.

"Where…?"

"My private rooms. You're in my bed, Roxy," drawled the vampire with a lascivious wink.

"O-Oh…"

Axel chuckled softly to himself. The king's wandering eyes alerted Roxas to his own nudity and he made to cover himself by crossing his legs and curling inwards. The little blonde teen's ears were tipped the most wonderful shade of pink when he was embarrassed. Axel wondered about other things he could do to bring out that blush, perhaps in this very bed…

The red haired vampire shook himself out of his fantasies. Dusk was still a few hours away and he wanted to spend that time in much needed slumber. But first he had to see to his charge.

Roxas was looking sleepy himself, too tired to complain about being uncomfortable. His bandages had become partially unwrapped in sleep and strips had come to hang loose around him like ribbons. They had become partially soaked with blood during some point in the night or day, but the bedding underneath where the boy laid was mostly clean to Axel's relief; he wasn't bleeding as badly as such an injury may have warranted. It was good news to wake up to, very good.

Axel moved to get out of the bed, only to be stopped by a petite hand upon his own.

Roxas didn't know why he reached out to the vampire, and by his expression, said vampire was just as baffled. More surprisingly, perhaps, was that the blonde didn't immediately pull his had away.

Axel smiled beatifically at the child and crossed the short distance to the washroom where he fetched a spare roll of linen wrappings. He showed them to Roxas in a gesture of good faith as he returned.

The boy seemed to notice his own bandaged chest for the first time. Memories came rushing back from the previous night—the forest and its monsters—and he visibly cringed.

For the first time, Axel didn't know what to say. What happened had been a grave accident and it was only luck that Roxas hadn't been killed. Guilt was a foreign feeling for Axel to have, one he had become strangers with over the long years as the vampire monarch. It was difficult to shake once it took root.

But on the other hand, Roxas now had seen creatures to fear more than Axel. The vampire had saved him from terrifying forest ghouls. He didn't particularly like to pay for Roxas' trust with the boy's own blood, but he couldn't help but feel satisfied that he had become Roxas' rescuer. The blonde had curled at his side as they slept; it was progress.

The vampire pulled the reclining child into an upright position and propped his back with the overstuffed pillows. He removed the soiled linens with a little difficulty; dried blood had glued the fiber to the tender skin and Axel didn't want to cause the boy anymore pain. Despite the blood caked to the stitches, the vampire was quite pleased with his work; the swelling was minimal and already the flesh was showing signs of repair, thanks to the precious elixir he fed Roxas from his own veins.

A tolerable silence ensued as Axel worked to redress Roxas' chest. It wasn't quite companionable, but neither was it completely awkward.

When he finished, the vampire laid him down again. Naughty thoughts assaulted his mind once more.

He was finally getting somewhere with the boy, did he dare do anything that could destroy all that?

The temptation was just too strong. Roxas was too sweet, lying among the cushions with hooded eyes, a delicate flush painting his skin, radiating warmth. Axel let his lips kiss the boy's uncovered belly. He let his eyes fall closed as he began heading upwards, kissing and nipping a tingly trail that made Roxas shiver in nervous anticipation…and delight.

Axel stopped when his mouth reached cloth. He had told Roxas that he would stay out of the youth's mind, but decided at that moment that he would violate that trust and gauge the situation from the other side.

…feels good…What should I?...I don't…more?...yes…

That was fine enough for the green eyed blood drinker; he had waited enough as it was. It was just as well they were in the bed.

Roxas' fingers searched for purchase as a cool, white hand pulled down the blankets, exposing his most private of places to the air. Long fingers wrapped around hot, straining flesh and Roxas felt a current shoot up his spine. A sharp nail teased the tiny opening at the tip and Roxas cried out despite himself.

A wet suction at his throat had the blonde youth throwing his head back. Axel was using his blunt teeth on Roxas' neck and ears, licking at the places he pinched.

Roxas began to feel a now vaguely familiar pressure in his belly. He indulged a brief apprehension at the treatment, but pushed it aside in favor of simply feeling.

As Roxas relaxed into the intimate touches, Axel decided to raise the stakes. He stopped his ministrations and released the teen.

"Roxas…" the vampire purred, " do you want more?"

"Um…"

"Say it, Roxy. Tell me…"

"I-I—yes…"

The king smiled wickedly, all teeth and chiseled cheekbones. Roxas swallowed heavily as emerald eyes narrowed, wondering what it was he had agreed to.

The vampire disappeared for a fraction of a moment, so quickly that Roxas wasn't sure it had actually happened. And then he noticed the red head's hand, now covered in fragrant oil.

The vampire approached the boy like the predator he was. Even his fangs began to extend in desire. He couldn't drink from the blonde—the boy needed his blood to heal—but he could certainly satiate his hunger another way.

Axel bent the youth's legs at the knees, propping and separating them. Coltish legs twitched and shivered. Toes curled, tensing and relaxing like in spasm.

The vampire ran his hand between his legs, over the stiffened prick and its nest of downy gold curls, and lower, lower, lower, until he reached the tiny hidden opening. Roxas jumped at the foreign feeling; no one had ever touched him there.

An oiled finger slipped inside a ways and Roxas convulsed. A cool, dry hand on his belly steadied him. It wasn't quite painful, but it was tight, so very, very tight, and alien. The relative cold of it had him gasping. The bizarre feeling burst in all directions, up his spine and down his arms and legs, and he felt it as far as the tips of his fingernails. His hole pulsed around the appendage, uncertain whether to force it out or invite it deeper in. His breathing quickened and grew shallow.

After a pause, the finger probed deeper, wriggling up the blonde's passage. The boy writhed against it…onto it…helpless at the vampire's conquest. It felt so very good. The vampire twisted it this way and that, as if searching for something, and then he found it, the heart of lightning for the raw current it emitted into the youth's every tissue, and Roxas was left breathless.

His mouth was open in a silent scream, and Axel pushed the heel of his free hand into his abdomen and the feeling somehow intensified. Stars exploded in his eyelids and he saw the birth of the cosmos again. It went on forever and then was over, and suddenly everything went dark.

Axel watched his blonde charge recover from his pleasure, reclining as in sleep in the dark waves of fabric. His cheeks were pink and full, and with his bandages he looked like an angel cast from the heavens, his curls disheveled from his fall and his body battered bloody from where his wings were plucked.

The vampire wanted to take the boy right there, right at that very moment. He wanted so badly to bury his own need in the lithe little body before him, to thrust into the impossibly tight heat and drink the sweet blood until the two were one. Roxas would beg for it to never end, and Axel would oblige him.

But he would wait. He had come too far to throw it all away on a whim. Patience had never been his strong suit, but…it was enough for now.

The vampire extracted himself from the cherubic youth in favor of a cloth to clean up. He licked a strip of the pearly fluid from Roxas stomach. The rest, and what had covered his own hands, was wiped away. Casting the cloth away, he settled himself next to his human.

Roxas woke briefly from his stupor to see that Axel had fallen asleep. He knew that the vampire had to sleep sometime, but seeing it was somehow…surprising. The great white blood drinker looked smaller in repose. His hair was wilder, spread over the pillows, but his face was relaxed, the picture of serenity. There was no smirk, no mischievous expression. His facial tattoos looked all the more like tears. Despite what Roxas knew, that there were fangs and even claws ready for defense should the vampire be threatened, Axel still looked harmless.

How strange life had become, Roxas mused. But every minute, the reality seemed to sink deeper in; this was his existence now, within this castle, by this vampire's side and whim, for better or worse. He would never return to his village; he had seen with his own eyes that no amount of running would take him back, even if he knew the way. He would never see his stoic brother again, nor his terrible father.

Could he really be alright here? Among vampires? Sora seemed happy enough…when he wasn't in some sort of trouble. But there had been rules at his old home, why would that be any different here? He could follow rule; he could stay out of trouble. Axel had promised to take care of him. Aside from the accident the previous night, he had been keeping his word: Roxas was clothed and fed, very well, too, and wasn't forced into anything that harmed him. Frightened, certainly, but not truly harmed.

Roxas looked up at the canopy and began to drift. The world fell away and he thought he saw the stars.

x.X.x

As the rosy tendrils of day faded into the arms of twilight, the towering castle awakened. Candles ignited and chandeliers sparkled to life, casting a warm glow throughout the many rooms. Vampires began emerging from their many rooms, all white and gleaming. Human servants followed close behind, some with armfuls of colorful cloth—outfits for the evening—others with glasses of deep red sustenance. The vampires greeted one another, gentlemen walking arm in arm, ladies chatting and giggling animatedly as human companions coiffed their hair and straightened their petticoats.

Axel woke to see Roxas still sleeping, understandable considering their early evening activities. The vampire smiled and kissed the sleeping boy's forehead chastely. Then he reached outside of the bed curtains and pulled on a heavy cord. A bell chimed somewhere within the castle, and soon the doors were thrown open as a gaggle of servants rushed inside.

Roxas opened his eyes a crack at the commotion. A strange sight greeted him. On the other side of the room, the set of double doors was open, flooding the room with light, and servants, male and female, were lining up in a formation to the sides of either door. Some were taken aback to see Roxas there in bed with the king, but no one broke stride.

They bowed low and greeted,

"Good evening, Master. Good evening, Young Lord. We are here to serve you."

Behind them crowded in splendidly dressed vampires, all ball gowns and jewels. There were dresses of all colors in a myriad of fabrics. The feel was lighter that that at the party a few nights back; many ladies wore organzas and pastels and light laced things, and many of the gentlemen were dressed to match. They smiled and bustled about in excitement, calling greetings apart and in unison:

"Good evening, Your Majesty!"

"Pleasant night, Majesty!"

"Majesty, you are radiant this dusk!"

"What a pleasure to see the young lord at your side, Majesty!"

The king allowed his subjects to fawn over him for a little while longer, giving Roxas time to rub the sleep from his eyes. Then he raised his hand and with a gesture, the servants scattered around the room, gathering clothing and brushes and various things to tend their master.

Amid the hustle, Roxas was escorted from the bed. No less than four attendants saw to him at once, brushing his hair, washing his face, scrubbing his fingernails. It was all so busy that Roxas didn't have time to worry about being naked in front of upwards of forty people. The servants were mindful of Roxas' bandaged upper body and he was quickly but carefully dressed (most likely Sora's clothing again).

On the other side of the room, Axel was receiving similar treatment. His hair was combed into its usual mane and soon he was dressed in his fine robes—greens and purples this time—with gallant help from the many vampiric subjects.

Roxas observed the crowd quietly. There seemed to be issues of rank, even in deciding who could pass the linens to dress the king. Slippers were passed overhead like relics before they reached the royal feet; slept in clothing was nearly fought over. Life in the vampires' world was lavish but confusing.

When the ritual was finished, the servants receded to the walls and the onlookers cleared a path for his Majesty and his young human. Axel lead the way out through the double doors with Roxas by his side; the entourage followed close behind.

The king navigated expertly through his castle's halls and once more they came to what Roxas remembered as the audience chamber. The grand doors opened to reveal even more expectant subjects on either side of the throne and dais. Axel continued with his head high down the central aisle and towards the ornate chair at the end. The only thing different this time was the smaller cushioned chair, gilded and delicate, next to the throne.

Roxas almost didn't believe when Axel motioned for him to sit there. The procession behind them joined the rest of the assembly as their king was seated, and the little blonde human wondered what was in store for him as the audience bowed before him and his vampire master as one.

AN: w00t! Three chapters in a single week! I'm on a role. I don't think I need to mention how much I like reading your reviews ^_~.