Part 20: Stranded

Warning to the squeamish – adult themes, but not 'adult content,' in this chapter.

Voices sifted into his consciousness, vague and unintelligible like a blurry underwater warbling. The words seemed distant and meaningless, and it took some effort to register that this wasn't normal, that his mind was missing half the picture. All he had was a vague but persistent knowledge that something wasn't right. He explored outward with his mind, trying to feel the rest of his body, to make out sounds and shapes in whatever was going on around him. His efforts were effective only in that he now became aware of a pulsating ache in his head, like something bigger was trying to dig its way out of his skull.

This was at least enough to remind him that he still had a head, which could naturally be assumed to be attached to the remainder of his body. He followed the sensation, trying to let it lead him into the rest of him so he could regain his senses, and he felt a cold, sweeping nausea that circulated down through his arms and legs and fingers. It was enough to tell him that his arms were above his head, and there was a fierce pressure on his wrists.

The realizations came more quickly now as one sensation pushed him on faster and faster to the next. He was half-hanging, slouched against a cold vertical surface. His legs were beneath him and touching the ground, but offering little support. His wings were still like a distant memory, somewhere behind him. His head seemed to become worse. He dragged in a deep, slow breath.

"Prettyboy's wakin' up," a bored male voice commented to someone else somewhere in the room.

"I see that." A woman's voice, low, but still feminine.

A hard click indicated a door had been shut. The sound was like a boulder being dropped inside his head. The noise finally brought on what had been brooding just below the surface of his consciousness: alarm. He began to try to review what had happened, how he had gotten to wherever he was, and it spilled clumsily into his mind in isolated chunks, like a brick wall being laid out of order. His head swam as he brought back the earthquake, the fight at the tavern, the brunette standing over him before he passed out. The scenes pieced themselves back together until he truly remembered.

Unfortunately, if his completed recollection was true, that meant that right now, he was most probably… 'in the possession of some underground sex queen,' he thought to himself, 'Wonderful.' Even though he knew it was true, and could even remember now the smirking face of the woman they called "Midnight," and even though his head was pounding with the aftermath of whatever abuse had befallen it after he was knocked out, still, he could not seem to bring himself to believe it.

He prepared himself and opened his eyes. The blurring, spinning mess that filled his vision was enough to make him immediately close them again and fight the urge to gag. He knew the owner of the female voice was still in the room with him, but she said nothing to him while he slowly regained his senses. He waited a few seconds and tried again, opening his eyes more slowly this time. The spinning subsided after a moment, leaving him with a blurry view of the room he was in.

Light poured through the room from overhead fluorescents, bright enough to white out the angel's sensitive vision. As he'd suspected, he was hanging upright by his wrists against a wall. He was low enough to stand under his own weight, but at the moment his legs were bent numbly against the ground below him without providing much support. He was in a surprisingly large room, perhaps a basement. The walls bore no art and no windows, and a smooth white paint covered the texture of cinderblocks. Almost definitely a basement, he amended his analysis. The floor was a surprisingly attractive shade of dark green, and the texture beneath his bare feet supplied the knowledge that it was not bare cement, but plush carpet. There was barely any furniture here, but a large wooden table stood in the center of the room with no chairs around it. He could see a staircase rising in the middle of the room to whatever was upstairs. For a city home, it was a huge amount of space. Or maybe he was no longer inside the city.

Krad turned his blurry vision upward and analyzed the metal braces that were tightly clasped around his forearms. They each had a reinforced steel loop that was currently clipped onto a large bracket in the wall above his head. He saw no similar brackets elsewhere in the room, no chains or weapons of torture, no love slaves or sex toys lying about. None of the things he might have expected, but then, what experience did he have with such things?

He lowered his eyes slowly to the only person in the room with him, the same tall, dark-haired woman who had claimed him like some new toy just before he blacked out at the tavern. She was leaning against the side of the staircase and watching patiently, wearing a very short red cotton dress and heels. Her glossy brown hair fell in loose chestnut waves around her hips, framing a long, elegant face with stark cheekbones and a thin, alluring smile. Her eyes were large and intriguing and appeared to match the forest green of the carpet.

She was pretty, he acknowledged. But if she didn't untie him right now, he would happily kill her.

"Good morning," she smiled. "How do you feel?" she offered in a way that said she was more interested in hearing him speak than in knowing the answer to her question.

Krad managed to accomplish a glare. He tested air in his throat, which felt dry and swollen. "I am not staying here," he managed to say, very slowly to avoid slurring his words. His body was barely cooperating, which didn't make sense. He should be able to recover better than this from a little kick to the head. A hangover? No, he couldn't have been that drunk. Repeating that to himself, he leaned forward off the wall and gathered his legs under him, aiming to take the weight off his wrists. The room twisted and swayed, and he tipped back against the wall with a heavy thud.

"So hostile. Is that any way to speak to your rescuer?" Midnight asked, an amused smile coming to her face. She walked over to him calmly, and the motion was effortlessly seductive. Something about it said that this was the way she always moved, a seduction she no longer needed to think about. She stopped directly in front of him. Krad was a good half foot taller than she was, even when he was leaning against the wall. "Those men intended to kill you for your performance in the bar. How about showing me some gratitude?"

"I haven't killed you yet," Krad offered, a trace of a sadistic grin pulling at his lips. "That is my gratitude, but it will wear away quickly unless you unlock these," he rattled the bonds fiercely, "Now."

"Oh, I don't plan to do that," she purred, leaning very close to him. "I haven't even had the chance to play with you yet."

"You would be wasting your time. I have no interest in your hobbies."

"Now now, let's not jump to conclusions so early," she grinned and looked him pointedly up and down. His eyes reflexively followed her gaze, and he realized for the first time that he wasn't wearing the clothes he'd had on in the bar. His shirt and coat were gone, and he wore a pair of loose white cotton pants he'd never seen before. He must have looked surprised, because when he looked back at her, she seemed pleased with herself. "You don't remember, do you? Changing your clothes, or our little chat earlier? Perhaps I should reintroduce myself. I am Midnight. And you are Krad."

That caught him off guard. His eyes narrowed on her with open disbelief. She knew his name. That wasn't possible. He'd sooner swallow nails than tell this absurd woman his name. "Why do you know me?" he demanded. An uneasy feeling was settling in his gut.

She took a moment to enjoy the stunned expression on the angel's face. "I know quite a bit about you. We had a very informative chat."

Krad felt the blood draining from his face as he realized she wasn't lying. He'd told her his name – who else could have told her? And he couldn't remember doing it. He would never tell a worthless human his name, not in his right mind. Which meant… "You gave me drugs?" he asked in a chilled voice, but it wasn't really a question. It made sense now that his body felt like it was on another planet, that his mind seemed dull and uncooperative. These were side effects of something much stronger than a little blow to the head. What could they have given him earlier that was crashing him this hard now? What had he told her?

"Don't look so disappointed, tough guy," she said, a stern undertone entering her voice. "In your defense, I had to double the dose to get you talking at all, and you sent three of my staff to the ER by the time I had everything I wanted from you. Thanks to you, Ryuusuke has been holding the fort by himself," she said, rotating her body to the side to indicate something in the back of the room.

For the first time, Krad noticed a still figure standing at the far end of the basement, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and looking none too pleased to be there. The man was tall and slender, almost lanky, with short silver hair. He was clad in dark jeans and a white shirt that was only half buttoned. He seemed to be watching over them with a vaguely displeased frown, and it was difficult to tell what his role was there. Hired muscle? A jealous lover? At the moment, the angel was too distracted to care.

Krad stared at her like she had three heads. Was she bluffing? How was it possible for him to not remember any of this? Anger began to override his confusion. He curled his hand into a fist and summoned the energy for a spell. It tugged unnaturally at his veins, warning that his strength was limited, but a blaze of white fire came obediently to his fingertips. Whatever she knew, it didn't matter. He was far past the point of wanting to let her live.

Midnight glanced up at the light forming around his trapped fist and smirked. With surprising strength, she delivered a hard sidekick to his bare stomach with the heel of her foot. Krad's spell splintered and dissipated with the impact. His vision went red as he doubled over as far as his bonds would let him, wide-eyed. The wind was gone from his lungs. It was all he could do to glare up at her blurring form in furious silence.

"Oops, did I distract you from your spell? In case you were wondering, honey, you told me how to do that," she said pleasantly, crossing her arms while he caught his breath.

Shit, she was telling the truth. There was no other explanation. What else had he told her that he was going to regret? He managed to keep the shock out of his expression, but it was spreading through him nonetheless. This was a very bad sign. If she understood how to interrupt his spells, he wouldn't get far with magic, and brute force really wasn't his strong suit at the moment. All he could seem to think of was that the whole situation made no sense, and it couldn't possibly be real. It was too bizarre and irrational, like a bad joke. But the steel cutting into his wrists and the bruising ache in his chest were difficult to deny. This was happening, to him, and this was the part where he got angry.

"I am not your pet, you deluded whore," he seethed. His body was forcing itself awake now, every nerve tingling with adrenaline.

"No? What's to stop me from keeping you? Don't tell me you're a registered citizen or have some sort of established legal identity? From our chat, I was sure you didn't," she mused craftily. "Do you own property? Have some mortgage or debt that will attract attention if unpaid? Or by some chance, do you have living relatives flying around somewhere, or is there someone else who would think to report you missing? Do you live off energy from the sun or anything else I can't provide you? I was sure I asked all that already, but you wouldn't hold anything back from me, would you dear?" she smiled.

Krad's expression had gradually changed as she spoke, and now he was staring at her with an amalgam of fury and physical disgust. "I don't need to be rescued. Do not think for a second that you can succeed at what you're trying to do," he said icily. "When you drop your guard for even one second, you will come to regret your folly in keeping me here. I have no desire for you or your pathetic race, so you have absolutely nothing to gain."

"The flaw in your logic there," she smiled, stepping in closer to him, "is that you expect me to care what you want. If I'd thought you wanted me, I wouldn't have chosen you. It's not my taste to touch the willing, dear, or have you forgotten? Willing men are dull, like rocks, what you see is what you get," she murmured huskily.

In the corner of his eye, Krad noticed the man at the back of the room turn his head sideways.

"But you," she continued, "you're tight and closed and full of anger. In you, there is something fascinating to discover. My greatest pleasure is watching men like you crack apart and show me your insides. Like geodes. On top of that, you have a very….special body. And whatever you think you know about it, I believe I can find out exactly what it likes." She reached a slender hand out to caress his chest, and he subconsciously flattened himself to the wall.

Her hand stopped, poised just over his skin, and she grinned. "Aren't you a bit curious? You don't really know, do you? What you could be capable of…" she hinted.

Krad made a great effort not to look astonished. She'd asked him the other things. Given her interests, it only made sense that she'd have asked about that too. But to have a human stranger casually refer to his sexual history was really too outrageous to believe. "You appear to have quite a libido," he said flatly, "But even with your appetite, I'm sure you could understand this dilemma: If placed in a cage with an ape, would you be willing to mate with it?"

She smiled darkly at the insult. "I think you underestimate the potential of apes," she said, touching her hands lightly against the sides of his ribs and sliding them down to his waist.

Krad's muscles tensed up, and he didn't have to pretend to find the sensation nauseating. He stretched his fingers to form another spell, but no sooner had the power begun to gather in his hand than long fingernails dug hard into his hips, breaking skin, and disrupted his concentration again. He gave the restraints on his arms and legs a vindictive jerk and glared at her fiercely as she continued to run her hands over his body, probing and testing. She drifted her fingers across the skin of his collarbone.

"Stupid harlot," he cursed her while she attempted in vain to get him to respond to her touch. It didn't seem to bother her that he wasn't aroused. She was enjoying herself. He cursed her again and tested his bonds with all his strength, but it didn't make her wandering fingertips leave his skin. After several terrible minutes, suspecting she might be enjoying his protests, he stood stock still and nursed his hatred in silence. This human, this pathetic human was touching his body as if it belonged to her. It was far too great a violation to endure, except that he had no choice.

She was surprisingly patient and meticulous, gradually experimenting with her lithe fingers and talking to him in low tones. However, after nearly ten minutes, she'd only managed to make the angel look livid and extremely pale. The words were meaningless to him, and her touch inspired an incredulity that bordered on nausea. She finally withdrew a step and crossed her arms at him thoughtfully.

Satisfied that she'd gained nothing for her efforts, Krad afforded her an unpleasant grin. "Ape," he reminded her tersely.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," she said. "I have a few theories to try. I'd normally beat you silly for this kind of defiance, but tonight is your first night. You haven't eaten, and you must be tired. You can stay on your feet tonight. In the morning, we'll try this again."

"Like hell we will," Krad snapped, summoning balls of white light in each hand. Midnight's heel kicked hard into his chest. The energy dispersed, wasted. Krad didn't care anymore. He ignored his ribs and tried again. This time the blow came to his knee. Outraged, he lost all composure and dedicated himself to attempting the spell as many times as it took to get a hit through. However, with every new flicker of energy came a new bruising, distracting hit. The next blow fell on his chest again. The next, a sharp explosion in his shin. The only areas she seemed to be sparing were his face, wings, and groin, and thinking about why she was preserving them made him increasingly determined to kill her. Each strike made him angrier, and all his energy focused purely on the fact that one spell, just one spell would be enough to destroy this woman.

Their battle lasted a matter of seconds, but was overwhelmingly exhausting. Krad began to feel the empty throb in his skull that meant he was running out of power. He realized through the rush of adrenaline that even if she let her guard down now, in this state, it would be impossible for him to attack her in time. He glared at Midnight wildly, looking feral and out of breath. His handsome face shone with sweat. She had stopped reciprocating blows and was watching his exhaustion with amusement. His limbs ached furiously.

"That was impressive," she said. "You have a lot of potential. It's been a long time since anyone's kept me on my toes." She gave him a fearless stare. "Ryuusuke will clean you up. I'll see you in the morning," she promised before walking to the stairs and climbing up, out of the room. If anything was exchanged between her and the platinum-haired man, Krad didn't notice it through the roar of blood in his ears. He was too angry to think. Too angry, it seemed, to even breathe. When the stranger turned his way and began crossing the room toward him, the angel literally seemed to coil back, like a snake preparing for a strike.

A flicker of energy faltered to life in his bound right hand. It felt like someone was sucking with a giant straw against something that was nearly dry inside him.

"Don't," the man spoke for the first time. He stopped in place a yard from the angel, looking neither interested in nor afraid of him. "Attacking me will gain you nothing. Preserve your strength." His voice was earthy and cool, as if there was very little in the world that could concern him. It was a pleasant enough voice, casually attractive, much like his physical appearance. His expression seemed to have a similar way of looking both serious and careless. His dark grey eyes appeared to harbor no reaction to the angel at all.

"No closer," Krad warned fiercely. He retained the half-formed spell in his palm threateningly. His anger was bleeding off into a dense well of exhaustion, or else he'd probably have fired on the man regardless of his logic. The fool would have deserved it, too, he thought.

The man who had been introduced as Ryuusuke stopped his advance and put his arms out to his sides, a flicker of what might have been worry passing through his expression like a phantom before he agreed, calmly, "No closer."

Krad didn't feel the slightest bit more comfortable for this promise, but the ball of energy in his hand was too much strain to maintain his threat. He let the spell short itself out and sagged backward against the wall, feeling like a wrung-out cloth. His whole body was throbbing with the exertion of the magic he'd used, so much that he barely registered any other sensation. He stared at the stranger in front of him, but his mind was elsewhere as an unsettling string of logic struck him for the first time. He'd used his magic without restraint before. How was it possible that this was the first time he'd experienced this crippling recoil?

He didn't want to take the thought further, but as if put there by force, the memory came of Satoshi's retreats to his room, sometimes for days at a time, following the angel's brief but extravagant escapes. The boy had always been sullen after containing his escaped counterpart, enforcing the mental equivalent of radio silence over their subtle empathic link. It had never occurred to Krad as anything more than a display of obstinate self-pity. Had the boy endured this agony without his knowledge? How could the wing host have hidden it from him so well? Why hide it at all, when he could have easily made him share in the agony?

"…ad. Krad!"

The angel's chin jerked up to find Ryuusuke directly in front of him, calling him. When had he gotten so close? Trudging through his swimming head for a decision on what to react to first, he met the other man's grey eyes bitterly. "Do not call me Krad," he hissed with a look that could freeze lava.

"What do you expect to be called, then?" Ryuusuke replied flatly, neither impatient nor amused.

"Don't call me anything, twit, just keep your distance," Krad spat.

Ryuusuke frowned, but didn't retreat. "You blacked out," he said, pulling a bottle of water from the back pocket of his jeans.

"What are you supposed to be? A 'new pet' babysitter?" the angel said skeptically, deliberately ignoring the bottle although his throat suddenly burned for water.

The man leaned toward Krad, irritation creeping into his expression. "I'm the 'pet' that doesn't need a leash, and I'm no one's babysitter," he said coldly, dropping the capped bottle to the ground pointedly. It rolled across the carpet and came to rest next to one of the angel's bare feet.

Krad focused on counting the loops of silver that lined the edge of the man's ear, to avoid looking to see where the bottle had fallen. There were a lot of piercings, even in the sensitive upper cartilage. Ryuusuke's words began to come together then. He was here with Midnight by his own will. "You enjoy pain?" Krad asked, distaste lining his voice.

Ryuusuke looked angry for a moment, the first flash of real emotion Krad thought he'd noticed in the man. It caused his silver eyebrows to knit low over his narrowed eyes, but unlike Krad's fierce gold orbs that achieved loathing so easily, their warm grey never quite gave the impression of real hatred. "Nobody enjoys pain," he said evenly, "That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of reasons to put up with it. If you view it as part of a pleasurable process, there are ways to appreciate it, if not enjoy it."

Krad rolled his eyes up at the shackles binding his wrists. He didn't understand him, and he didn't want to. He did his best to collapse his hands in a way that would let him slip through the clasps, but his efforts only deepened the purpling bruises that ringed the bases of his wrists. When that didn't work, he gave the bottle at his feet a skeptical glance.

Ryuusuke crossed his arms, apparently waiting for the angel to admit he needed help. He'd be waiting for a while. There wasn't a cold chance in hell Krad would ask this human's help. His signified his sentiment by turning a cold glare on the man. His amber hair was loose and hung wildly around his shoulders and waist, which seemed to add to his untamable appearance.

Ryuusuke seemed to take the hint. "Enjoy your night, then," he said indifferently, turning his back on Krad and his predicament and ascending the stairs. He even flipped off the lights, leaving the angel to hang in the dark.

Then, slowly, the real horror of his situation gradually sank in for the angel. He was trapped. All these years fighting and waiting to be free, finally, truly free. And he was here, locked up again. Always locked up. This body he'd been willing to do anything for, and had done anything for, afforded him nothing but a steady, relentless ache. And he knew that Midnight's words had been true. No one would seek him out or deliver him from this hell. It was startling to consider that he could die here. What meaning would there be to it all, if he died here? If he never achieved his revenge?

And, unsettlingly, he found himself wondering if Satoshi had thought the exact same things during those days of empty silence years before. The angel found it strangely difficult to imagine the boy in such a state of hopeless solitude, working out his options in his own personal hell. Had Satoshi really been able to hide that from him? Then again, Krad hadn't been paying attention. He had simply waited for his next chance to blast apart the Hiwatari's carefully forged defenses. It had felt good to destroy them, good to leave his captor drained and helpless as he finally returned control. But he hadn't thought it would feel like this.

Had that driven the boy to betray and seal him in a colorless world for a would-be eternity? Had he known what it would mean for the angel? Had he regretted it for even a moment?

He tried to stop thinking. He didn't feel like himself. He wanted to be angry. Instead, he felt isolated and desperate. The angel's thoughts eventually dropped him into an exhausted and mercifully dreamless sleep.

--oOoOo—

TBC

Oh boy, I bit the bullet here. See, I promised I would use the dominatrix scenario for character development and not smut! (Although admittedly, the worst is yet to come (but it's still not as bad as you are thinking)).

I am so sorry I took so long to write this chapter! Long story short, a lot of crazy things are going on in real life, but I am ready to get around them and focus again on writing and catching up on my reading here on FF net. Please let me know your comments/complaints/requests for therapy after this chapter : )

Also, I did a fan art of Dark cooking from an earlier chapter, just for fun. He has an apron. Hee. I'll put the link up with the others on my profile for anyone interested.

I hope you guys don't mind, in the interest of getting this (very overdue) chapter out as quickly as possible, I'm going to hold off on shout outs this time, but I love you all so much for your encouraging words that have inspired me to peck away at this thing even when life is completely over my head. Thank you!!! You guys are awesome!