Saturday April 25th 2015

Cesare woke up on his back, Kali’s legs wrapped around his, fever hot sex pressed into his thigh, hard nipples digging into his shirt. Warmth engulfed him, sweat slicking his hair back. He could feel her eyes on him, knew she’d been awake for hours watching him.

“I know your awake.” She breathed the words into his neck, a low shiver running through him at the ghostly breath.

“I’m still getting my molecules in order,” Cesare said sleepily. No matter what happened, today would take everything he had.

“You must have lazy molecules.” Her hand smoothed over his shirt, tracing the grooves and bumps underneath the material. She never brought it up, and he never offered. That he came to bed with a shirt on was all that needed to be said.

Sensuously, Kali’s hand wandered lower down his chest. “There are a lot of ways to wake up .…”

Gently, Cesare caught her hand, moving it back to less dangerous territory. “You know how I feel about that.”

“As a famous president once argued, there’s a lot you can do that isn’t technically sex,” Kali said with a smirk in her voice.

Cesare cracked his eyes, meeting her mockingly innocent look. “If your touching me like that, its sex. I might allow it if I was feeding you, but we both know you fed before coming to my bed.”

A blank, painfully sterile wave, killed her smirk without conscience. “I don’t think you’d like what you’d see if you fed me. I appreciate the offer, more than you can know, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Laying her head on his chest, her words were soft and strangely vulnerable. “When we feed, they see our truth. You’ve seen it in my daughter?”

Cesare slowly nodded as he thought back to his feedings with Anastasia. He’d felt her ravening need to devour him, to take his life and make it her own. There was no love in that hunger, no good in that maelstrom of corruption. At their core, they were amoral things looking to satisfy a savage thirst. There was no doubt Anastasia would take everything he owned until his soul sputtered its last flicker of life. She’d shed no tears, feel no pity, her hunger existing beyond the touch of the civilized mask she wore. It was more than that, he could see the shape of her soul, the animalistic thing that dwelled at her deepest core. While it had never frightened him, he could see how others would react. Only the dwellers of darkness could look on unclean souls without recoiling in disgust.

Kali’s eyes were old with sorrow; feeding her would be different by a magnitude beyond his understanding from feeding Anastasia. Terrifying enough to be a religious experience, maybe that was how she chose her harem. Taking their prana would either make them worship her or shatter them in mind and soul. Those that weren't driven mad made the cut. It was an interesting thought for another day.

“When you want to try it, I'm ready,” Cesare said as he quietly disenged himself from her and got out of bed.

“You don’t know what you’re offering,” she said from behind him.

Turning, he faced Kali's hesitant eyes. “We’ll never know if I can be more than a pet until you show me the truth of your soul. I’m willing to take that step, to see if we break, or move on.”

Sitting up, the blanket fell off her shoulders, pooling around her waist. Her breasts were milky hills topped by hard, dusky nipples. “You don’t have as much to lose.” Her words were compressed, pushed down, and hardened by pressurized emotion. “You think I fucked him because I wanted to? I fucked him so I wouldn’t worry about feeding on you. You've no idea how much I want you, how hard it is to sleep next to you and not rip prana from your soul. To have you pressed against me and know I can’t have you.”

Standing, she moved at him, anger and sadness twisting in black eyes. “Do you think this means nothing to me? That sleeping beside a man that doesn’t want to fuck me isn’t a miracle I give thanks to the Darkness for? They get to spend day after day with you, feed from you to their hearts content, always there to be touched and to touch. I’m the one that walks back to my life of worship and sex while the thing I wants pawed at by others.” Cesare's arms came around her, pulling the hoary abomination into his chest.

“I’m the one that gets the reports of your injuries as every monster with a grudge takes a swipe at you. Don’t tell me what I have to lose Cesare, because you've no idea what you mean to me,” she whispered into his chest. “I break people, monsters, men, women, it doesn’t matter who they were before. I strip them of their past, form them into my creatures, pets, slaves, play things to gift to others. They shatter under my truth and become mine. A harem isn’t only for us, it is to protect the world from out hunger. Unchecked, my race would form armies in the thousands, butchered souls willing to die for them.”

“No one has stood against it?” Cesare whispered.

Kali nodded slowly. “My daughters, yes. Me, never. As the blood has diluted from the first ones I birthed, their power has lessened. It allows the weak to fed as they like without facing the death of my mandate. I like sex, but I don’t feed from everyone one I fuck.”

It made sense in a way and explained why Anastasia hadn’t rebuilt her harem. She didn’t need to, why collect a herd of cows when she had one butchered, ready to eat? From a predator’s perspective, it made sense to keep your food source handy.

His hand ran soothingly down Kali’s silky hair thoughts whirling around the new information. He'd always known Kali liked him. But it was twisted around her need to use him, the two braiding into a nose around his neck. He'd never known she craved his prana. It added a dimension to their relationship he wasn't sure he liked.

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While he supported Alexandra and Anastasia, he’d never given thought to doing the same for Kali. But if he wanted her to commit to him, how could he hold back? If they were ever to be more than this walking abortion, she'd need to feed. Was he setting her up for failure by demanding monogamy? Was he asking a wolf to swim like a dolphin? He didn’t know, and he wouldn't find the answers today.

Lifting her head, she met his eyes. “Now you know, it’s not a simple thing you’re asking for.”

He kissed her hot lips, flesh flinching away from their branding heat. Lingering over the kiss, Cesare caressed down her side, taking her naked hips in a firm grip. “That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Nothing worth a damn's easy.” At his words, something nebulous in her eyes firmed.

She watched as he went through his yoga, eyes drinking in the sight of his body contorting into shapes that stretched muscles and warmed heart and soul. Dropping into the peace of familiar asana’s, her presence faded into the unreality of everything beyond his flesh. After practicing day after day, the serenity of the moment came to him with shocking ease. An easy happiness soothed the torn edges of his thoughts and worries. Sweat trickled down his face, slicking back his hair, shirt molding to his body, showcasing the hardened body underneath.

Coming up reluctantly from the depths, he flowed to his feet, taking up his towel with him. Looking at the bed, he faced the smoldering darkness that leapt and burned in Kali’s eyes. “You might never be handsome, but sometimes you're beautiful.” She slipped out of bed, coming to him with a sensuous, inviting walk. Hardened nipples tipped her small breasts, a flat stomach running wantonly down to her bald sex.

Caressing over the sweaty t-shirt, she traced the ropy scars and divots of flesh, lingering on his chest and the grooves of his abs, his breath catching as the felt him up. “No one calls a panther pretty. Predatory and dangerous, we love them for their lethalness as much as their looks.” Husky with a current of need, the words thrummed through the air.

Pulling away with a wrench, beast and man fought for an eternal second. “I need to clean up.”

She smiled, satisfaction shifting her stance subtly, drawing the eye to her sex and rounded hips. “Running away?”

Cesare devoured her with his eyes. “Absolutely.” Jerking back, he skittered out of the room, chased by her throaty laughter.

He got ready in the shower stall, unwilling to trust himself around a naked Kali. Stepping out of the stall, the stygian jacket flowed over his body like a live thing. The boys quieted, silence spreading like an ink stain through the room. From what he’d heard, the betting was fierce, not on if he'd die but on how long he'd last. He'd never depended on any of them, they were baby bunnies hopping around the feet of jackals, each a meal waiting for the taking. If he lived or died, it wouldn’t be because of them.

A realization had been crystalizing inside him. He wasn’t like them, when the fork had appeared in the forest, he’d chosen to walk into the woods. Disdaining trails, he traveled the deep woods, under its shadows and hungers, he’d found his home. There would never be a future for him in the world of humans, now he knew there was no place for him in the world of monsters either. He’d craft his own life, live and die by his own code and defy the gods to break him.

Stopping dead outside his door, Cesare took a deep breath before opening it. Kali looked at him from the window. She’d pulled her dress back on, while it was what he'd been hoping for, he couldn’t help the flare of disappointment.

Grinning, she quirked an eyebrow. “I can always take it off.” The offer was made with a lilting laugh hinting of sweaty sheets and lust that burned flesh.

Cesare swallowed with a lopsided grin. “I think this is fine.” The dress hugged her form, the slit up the side showing off Kali’s pale thigh while the open back left white skin bare. “Everyone's up early for the event.” Cesare warned, it was one thing for them to sneak out with only rumors to show for their night together and a different thing to prove the rumors true.

She looked at him for a shocked moment before breaking out in peals of laughter. Taking his arm, her eyes danced with amusement. “Trust me, being seen coming out of your room isn't even on the list of things I’m worried. Having children think I’m fucking you mean’s nothing. Especially since I wish I was fucking you.”

Shrugging, Cesare opened the door, his eyes following the slow sway of her firm ass under the dress as she passed past him. She smirked over her shoulder, not just knowing he was watching but encouraging it. For a creature that thrived on sex and devoured diseased desires, to be anything less than coveted questioned her ability to hunt and feed.

Stepping into the pregnant silence of the hallway, he held his arm out for the immortal. Her hand tightened on his arm. “We have our issues, but never think I’m ashamed to be with you.”

Kali’s fingers traced the lines of his brutal face, lifting up on her toes, she kissed him. Her tongue was as hot as an open flame, licking a pain filled trail across his lips. Kali pushed greedily into his open mouth. Heat rose in the air as her power saturated the hall. Pain and pleasure warped inside Cesare, a low, bass growl reverberating through the air as desire surged.

Uncaring of staring students, Cesare lost himself in the pain and animal need that set his heart pounding. Hands gliding down her sides, sliding over hips, dipping under the silky material of her dress to cup her naked ass, pulling her into his hardness. Soft and firm, Kali’s ass filled his hands, driving his growl lower, sharpening into something demanding. Groaning in pleasure, she pushed into his body, delighting in his touch.

Pulling back, her lips ghosted against his. “Unless you want to fuck, right here, right now, we need to get going.”

Darkness filled his veins. He wanted to lift Kali’s dress and press her against the wall as he sheathed himself into her wet heat. To hammer her into the stone as he took her body, broke her over his hardness, possessing and fouling her flesh. Cesare wanted to see her lost in passion, to have her look up at him with only raw need shining in her eyes, needed her to submit and beg for release.

It wasn’t a physical need; it was a barbed wire that tightened around his soul. To feel her wet heat as he pushed into her. Own her body, to see the proud immortal begging on her knees. Watch as she gave herself totally to him, if he took her, maybe he wouldn't be nothing.

Kali smiled into his cruel eyes. “I love the darkness that warps your soul. Don’t ever think I don’t see your exquisite brokenness.” Her eyes roved over his face, taking in every savage, shattered feeling, drinking them like a fine wine.

Cesare wasn’t some tortured, pitiful thing to her; she didn’t see a savage dog, scarred by the whips of man. She didn’t see a failure or what he could've been. No, she embraced every jagged edge of his soul and barbed turn of his heart. He cut those close to him, no matter his reasons, anyone that hugged him was sliced and bled. It was who he was, and for once, Cesare looked on a woman that liked it.

The need settled, thoughts evening out under her admiring eyes. Pulling back, his hands left her ass with a lingering caress. Cesare noted the shocked eyes of the boys they passed, whispered words flying before them. The two walked in a bubble of silent awe birthed in disgust. This wouldn't change anything; they might hold Kali as a goddess, but that made him the shit stain she’d stepped in.