Bellatrix was in the middle of eating dinner with Rodolphus when her Mark started burning like mad. She set down her fork, and Rodolphus worriedly watched her squeeze at her left arm.

"Again?" he fretted. "I know you can't share everything you do for him with me, Bellatrix, but are you… all right?"

"I'm fine, but I should go." Bellatrix's skin prickled, thinking that perhaps she was being called again because he wanted her, because he wanted her body. But she was bleeding; she had her period. Would he care? Would he mind the mess? She was achy, bloated, uncomfortable. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't much in the mood for sex with anyone, not even with her master. She gulped, wondering how disappointed he'd be with her, and she stood slowly from her chair. She Disapparated, coming to in the gardens outside Malfoy Manor. She walked up to the great double doors and knocked on the heavy knocker, and when the door opened, the little House-Elf, Dobby, was there.

"The Dark Lord has called me," Bellatrix said simply, and Dobby nodded.

"He is waiting for you in the dining room, Miss," Dobby said, and Bellatrix frowned. The dining room? She followed Dobby up the main stairs and down the corridor toward the dining room they used for meetings. Was this a meeting, then?

When she walked into the dining room, it was empty except for the Dark Lord sitting at the head of the table. The House-Elf shut the door and skittered away, and Bellatrix bowed as she murmured,

"My Lord. How may I serve you?"

"Ah. You are… indisposed." Voldemort's voice had realisation threaded through it, and when Bellatrix raised her eyes, she felt a twinge in her mind. He was a Legilimens. She knew that. Had he read her discomfort? Had he felt her sense of bloating, her cramping, the bleeding she was staunching with a special device? She stared at him, feeling her cheeks go very hot, and she promised him,

"I'll do whatever you'd like."

"Not tonight." He dragged his fingers over the table and shook his head. "You would derive no pleasure from any of it tonight, I don't think. My goal is not to torture you in the way you torture my enemies. You are not my enemy. I have many; you are not one of them."

He was rambling a little. Bellatrix stepped a bit closer to him, and he sighed as he informed her,

"Hamish Nott is dead. The father of a Death Eater, uncle to another. In the middle of a war, I have my Death Eaters distracted by mundane deaths. Dragon Pox."

"Sorry to hear that." Bellatrix shrugged a little, and he smirked up at her as he laughed a bit.

"You care just about as much as I do that Hamish Nott is dead, which is to say, not very much at all," he pronounced, "but Nott and Avery care, and the rest of the Sacred Twenty-Eight care. But I can not attend the funeral, obviously. I don't even like the idea of so many of my Death Eaters being there at once. It's asking for trouble. I've had a long day."

"Well, I really am sorry to hear that," Bellatrix said more sincerely, and Voldemort licked his bottom lip as he informed her,

"I had meant to make you lie on your back on this table and spank your cunny until you came, then fuck you until I did."

"Oh." Bellatrix was utterly bereft of breath then. That sounded wondrous. She cursed her womanly affliction, her monthly disease of sorts, and she scowled. "I… there would be a mess."

He curled up half his mouth and drummed his fingers on the table as he promised her,

"I still mean to do it to you. In a few days' time. When you're feeling yourself again, I'll spank you between your legs until you can't breathe, Bella, and I'll drill you until I pump you full of -"

"Master." She buckled over a little then, gripping the edge of the table, and he let out a low, rumbling laugh at the way she was so overcome by his talk. He sighed through his nose and noted,

"I interrupted your dinner. I see… you were in the middle of your first course. I do apologise."

"You should never apologise for anything in all the world," Bellatrix whispered, shutting her eyes, "Master."

"You may go home and finish eating," he said crisply, and Bellatrix nodded as she bowed her head and turned to go. But then she heard his voice say, "Or you may stay and eat with me. I was just about to have some dinner myself."

Bellatrix whirled around, confused, but Voldemort seemed supremely confident in his invitation. He folded his hands and shrugged.

"I'm planning on having apples and brie, ham with duck egg on toast, and hazelnut cream puff. I've already told the Elf. Easy enough to double it all."

"That sounds…" Bellatrix's head spun then, and she leaned onto the table as she shook her head and mumbled, "I couldn't impose."

"If it were an imposition of any kind, I would never have extended the invitation," Voldemort snapped, and Bellatrix swallowed hard. She nodded, and a few moments later, Voldemort had barked at Dobby to double the food. Within a few minutes, Bellatrix was drinking Elf-Made wine with Voldemort, eating apples and brie at the table, and he was complaining to her some more about Hamish Nott.

"Filthy bastard, the man was. Absolutely no sense of personal hygiene or decency. I vividly remember being in school with Nott and going to King's Cross. Hamish was there, smelling like a pile of rubbish. It's no wonder he caught ill and died at sixty-five."

"Well, not everyone can live to be very old," Bellatrix said carefully. "I predict, Master, that you will be live to be the oldest man in the entire world."

He set down his fork and knife as their plates switched out the food to duck egg and ham on toast. He raised his jagged brows and demanded,

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you're so powerful," Bellatrix informed him. "I think you'll find a way to outlive us all. You'll find some way, because you're so immensely powerful."

Voldemort's nostrils flared a little, and he nodded vigorously.

"You're right," he whispered. "I could live forever, if I wanted. I am the most powerful man in the entire world. Did you know that?"

"Yes, Master," Bellatrix hummed, and she studied his face as he stared back at her. He was ignoring his food. He let out a small little noise and finally stared down at his plate, and he tucked into his duck egg and ham. He ate for a while, and so did Bellatrix, until he asked her,

"Are things much improved with you and your husband?"

"I am able to function better with him, Master," Bellatrix informed him, "because I… I think of you when he…"

"He's still taking you?" Voldemort's eyes snapped up, and he looked angry for a long moment. Then his face softened a little, and he thought aloud, "I suppose I can't insist that he doesn't."

Bellatrix was shocked by that, by the idea that he would even suggest such a thing. She set down her cutlery and promised Voldemort,

"I think only of you, Master."

"Do you." It wasn't a question. He just curled up half his mouth and raised his eyes again, and he whispered, "Do you imagine my hideous face?"

"Hideous." Bellatrix shook her head in confusion. She stood slowly and approached Voldemort, her head still shaking. "Anything but hideous."

"I am warped by Dark Magic. You couldn't begin to understand," Voldemort scoffed. "I was once very, very handsome."

Bellatrix stood beside his chair and chewed her lip. "To me, you are the most handsome man in all the -"

"Do not lie," hissed Voldemort. "You see a man with blurred features, with a nose broken one too many times, with uneven brows and jagged cheekbones. You do not see the preternaturally handsome Tom Riddle that made the witches swoon in his youth."

"I see my lord and master who makes me wet between my legs and weak at my knees," Bellatrix informed him. "My lord and master who commands me in every conceivable way, whom I would follow unto a thousand deaths, to whom I devote my entire existence. I -"

He reached up and grasped her face, and Bellatrix gasped in pain at the tightness of his grip. He stood, rising from his chair as their main courses gave way to desserts. He stared down at the hazelnut cream puff and used his right hand to pull off the pastry, and then he used his spoon to carve out some cream. He brought it to Bellatrix's mouth and put the spoon between her lips, still holding her too tightly, and she moaned in pleasure at the taste of the cream.

"Now… don't swallow it," he whispered, and he fed her some more. This time, she held the cream near her lips, and then he crushed her mouth with his. They shared the bite, the sweet cream mingling between their mouths, shared between their tongues. Voldemort repeated the process a few times, bite after bite tasting sweeter and sweeter. Bellatrix reached on instinct for his crotch and found him rock solid there, but he shook his head and insisted,

"I have no interest in coming in my trousers tonight. Stop."

"Yes, Master." She pulled away from him, rubbing at her lips with her wrist, and she decided that those sweetened kisses had been the most magnificent taste in all the world. She shut her eyes, very dizzy, and she heard Voldemort instruct her tightly,

"Go home to Rodolphus, Bellatrix, and lie beside him in your bed, and when you shut your eyes and start to drift off to sleep, think of your master."

Author's Note: In true "me" style, I managed to get one more chapter up today. As I mentioned, I have surgery tomorrow. It's nothing serious (just getting tubes tied), but I'll be way too out of it tomorrow to write and then it will just depend on pain over the weekend to see how writing goes. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, PLEASE do review if you get a chance. Thank you so much.