Moonlit Surrender
Chapter Twenty-Six

Lucy spent the next few nights on her best behavior, scrubbing what Lerexus wanted scrubbed, washing what he wanted washed, serving whatever revolting pitcher of contents he demanded, hopping to his every whim and playing at being the good girl he wanted. He had not touched her again since the night in the dining hall and she found herself amused by the conflict that seemed to storm within him over his desire for her. He continued to dress her in revealing outfits and leer at her at every given chance, but seemed equally disgusted with himself. John watched all this too, forced to keep their captor company as he discussed his grandiose plans for the future of his coven and forced to watch Lucy's seemingly willing submission. His calm, collective demeanor soon soured to a deep, quiet brooding and this too gave Lucy a small amount of satisfaction as she held onto her anger for him letting her fall into the predicament to begin with. The more she gave into Lerexus' will, the more jealous Doris grew, and the more jealous she grew, the more incapable she became of holding back her snide comments and soiling her own good position with the master of Castle Sheol until Lerexus grew weary of her bitterness and began to assign her more and more tasks that kept her out of his presence.

A knock sounded on the suite doors, pulling Lucy from her thoughts where she sat silently, staring into the dying fire. She rose, feeling a small amount of her strength returning at being well fed and rested over the past days. She assumed this was to keep her strong enough to work, strong enough to tend to every menial and humiliating task her captor could think of to gloat his victory over her in front of his failed protégé.

She opened the door to replace the very devil that consumed her thoughts.

Royal purple cascaded around Lerexus' lithe body as he waited respectfully in the hallway, his snowy hair glowing orange in the torchlight around him and his eyes shimmering with a deep violet that glazed over her every exposed curve in the sheer black mesh he had her dressed in this evening.

"I was not expecting you so early, my Lord."

"You've been such a good little mouse lately, I thought I'd reward you with a special treat tonight. Follow me."

Cautiously, she tailed him through the winding halls and staircases of his castle, her bare feet slapping against the cold flagstones behind him until he halted at a heavy arched door with a rusted iron ring nailed into it. "Come," he invited as he pushed the great door open to a courtyard.

Lucy stepped out into the tepid night air curiously. A warm wind rustled through the overgrown garden, tickling through the naked branches of scattered dead trees and thorny shrubs climbing up the stone walls. A bright moon shone down, bathing the area in a cool light that revealed a faded walking path that wound through the lifeless bushes and empty places where flowers once grew. She could imagine how beautiful it must have been ages ago when some mortal lord occupied the fortress and had the place regularly tended. Now it was ugly, only a rotted corpse of its former glory, its life sucked dry by its current monstrous lord.

She looked behind her where Lerexus stood proudly in the doorway, watching her as if he had just offered her the world.

"It's certainly not much, but I thought you might enjoy a stroll through the garden and some fresh air. A reward for such good behavior." He crossed the courtyard to where she stood in the center of it by a crumbling statue of a woman, or perhaps what was once a goddess, holding a basket of flowers. He stepped close, his face a shadow against the backdrop of the moon behind him. His hand reached up and brushed her hair behind her shoulder and trailed a finger down the delicate wing of her collarbone exposed by the low scoop of her neckline. "The nights are warming now. The possibility of future trips here can be yours if you like."

Ugh I hate it when he's actually almost decent to me. It's easier to hate him when he's just a cruel asshole.

"It was a lovely gesture, thank you." She turned away and followed the overgrown trail to a cracked stone bench slowly losing a battle against moss attempting to claim it from the ground up. She sat down and tried to imagine the courtyard in sunlight, filled with an array of colorful flowers and lush greenery.

"I've always had a fascination with such places," he continued as he followed her.

She sighed inwardly.

What monologue about the great old days is in store for tonight?

"Palaces, castles and the like. I grew up very poor and always swore I would claim one for myself one day." He turned to view the garden with her. "I was not so fortunate in my mortal years, born a freak and discarded by my own mother. The village thought I carried a plague and cast me out, even the people in the larger cities, those supposed to be so learned and wise, still treated me as something subhuman. I made my friends among the other social pariahs, the deformed, the lepers."

"I'm sure people didn't understand albinism back then. A lot of harmless things used to scare them," she offered.

If people hadn't been so stupid, there would be no monster to deal with. Lerexus could've had real love in his heart, true kindness, and lived a normal, happy life, and I'd never know this dumb castle ever existed.

"Indeed. I lived a hapless existence before my sire found me." He turned back to her with stars in his eyes and a smile tugging at his lips. "He was one of the greatest vampire lords to ever exist. He found me, saw past my white hair and skin and saw the potential in me, offered me the same greatness. He gave me a real home among his small family." He shook his head thoughtfully as he stared at the bare tree hanging over where she listened on the bench. "Vampirism is a gift, little mouse. It elevates man into something better, something wider than the scope of mortality. A man can see things he just can't see in such a short lifespan. Vampires are the future of the human race." "What happens when everyone is a vampire? You'll have no one to feed from."

"Not everyone is worthy of ascension, sugar. There will always be prey, but they will not always run the world."

She was silent a long moment, horrified by the bleak picture he painted of a world run by vampires. "What happened to your master?" she asked softly. Was he someone she had to worry about as well?

"Those damn Venatores forced him into the sun, but his power courses through me still as well as my own children. They fear us because they do not understand us, and people always seek to kill what they do not understand." Her blue eyes flicked from the ground where they had stared in contemplation. "I'm not afraid of you," she declared boldly.

He chuckled low and took three steps closer. "An admirable sentiment, sugar, but you should be. You've no idea the power I possess."

She rolled her eyes dismissively. "So quit bragging and show me."

"This was to be a pleasant evening. There's no need to frighten you tonight." He took a seat beside her and stared forward as he spoke. "Think of a bloodline as a river flowing through each descendant, each person it passes through filtering and diluting it a little more as it is passed forward. The closer you get to the source, the more potent the river is. My sire was very powerful, as am I for being closer to that source than my children. I can do things they cannot despite their own powerful blood."

"Like what?" she asked intrigued.

"Shapeshift."

"Into what?"

"My master could shift into any beastly form he desired, but I am constrained to the noble wolf. I also possess the ability to charm prey into submission, to lure them into a quiet, willing state. It is useful in a pinch, though rarely necessary with my station. I can also summon a mist that can teleport me wherever I wish within so far of a distance, among other talents. No need to spoil it all. One never knows when the element of surprise may come in handy." "And what about John?"

"And Doris?" he narrowed his eyes with poorly veiled jealousy.

"Yes. What can they do?"

"I'm surprised your lover did not discuss this with you."

Wrists raised while he claims me.

Pressed against the cold whiteboard while he thrusts into me.

Bruising my knees to show him I'd wait forever to please him.

His mouth latched to my neck, drinking my lifeblood while he grinds inside of me, unhinged and beautiful.

She shook the sordid thoughts from her head, chasing away the keen memories of the heat they had shared. "It didn't come up." She looked away to hide her inflamed cheeks.

"Wright is watered down but holds a certain power of his own. Doris has shown no great talent."

"So he can shape shift too?" she inquired again.

"I did not bring you here to talk about your old paramour," he replied curtly, taking her jaw in his hand and forcing her to look at him. He grimaced when he saw her flushed face. "When I make you my queen, he'll be tending to my brood's business very far away from this place. I suggest you forget all about Johnathan Wright."

Now it's when?

"I was just curious," she recovered clumsily. "Even I can tell there's nothing exceptional about Doris. Getting fangs doesn't give you a personality."

Lerexus laughed openly in a way she had never heard from him as of yet. "Quite, but she'll do well tending to ceremonial matters. I told her I'd make her a priestess."

"Yes, she already bragged about that. I guess she didn't know the position of queen was open."

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His pink eyes bored into her. "It never was." His gaze dropped to her mouth and then moved in to kiss her.

"Just some silly little girl falling for stories about how special she was..."

Lucy heard Doris' hateful words echoing in her mind as if the bitter woman were speaking it in her ear now. Lerexus' lips moved roughly over hers, then forced them open to plunder the depths of her mouth with his tongue. Though she did not kiss him back, she surrendered to it and let him do as he pleased.

"You're prey, Lucy. You'll always be prey..."

She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think of anything else while her captor's hands groped her breasts through her dress, but the words kept skipping on repeat.

"That's all Lerexus sees in you."

"Silly little girl."

"Prey."

His hands moved to her hips, clawing at her with a dark need, then pulled her onto his lap to lean back against his chest while his fingers tickled up her skirt. "You're an exceptional little creature,” he whispered huskily in her ear. "I haven't lain with a mortal in thousands of years and have not even been tempted in almost as long. Now," he trailed off, licking up the side of her neck over the weak pulse fluttering beneath the washed-out skin. "Gods, I can't seem to help myself." He spread her legs to hang off either side of his knees and pressed his erection against her ass as he slid his fingers into her warm opening. "Do you like me inside of you, little mouse?"

She sighed, furious with her body for responding to his touch.

He slipped his fingers out of her and caressed her inner thigh. "Do you think me a monster, sugar? I see it when you look at me. It is a look I've known since I was a child. People have always looked on me with disgust." His other hand pulled the neck of her dress down to expose one of her breasts to the warm wind stirring in the courtyard. His cool fingers tweaked her nipple to life. "Would it shock you to know I feel? I am not without a heart or my own morbid fears." Another sigh exited her as he pinched the rosy bud of her nipple and tugged it harder, then slipped under her dress to pinch the other. She felt heat gather in her pussy and her thighs tremble as she fought the urge to squeeze them together for relief.

"Wright stole my family from me, betrayed my trust, allowed the slaughter of my children by fire and the silver blades of the Venatores. He turned on his own kind, his own blood, and left me once more an orphan." He gently bit her bare shoulder then kissed along its slope before continuing, "Do you understand, Lucy?"

She was shocked to hear her name on his lips. Her mind felt foggy, her thoughts clouded by an unwilling lust. All she could feel was the pulsing in her clit and the ache to be filled.

"I'm lonely. All my centuries of life have been spent in staving off the torture of the isolation I suffered as a youth."

John's words came to her from the night he had confessed his undead state to her, that all he wanted was to be with her.

People weren't meant to live forever. It's not a gift like he says. Even he is tormented by it.

"I'm going to rebuild. I will make more children of the night. My brood will grow, and we will take control of this world. The mortals will serve us, build temples for our everlasting glory, sacrifice themselves willingly to our thirst for the honor of being chosen. And you," he moaned into her hair, "will be right there by my side." He lightly grazed her spread pussy lips with his fingertips, chuckling as she squirmed in his lap. "We will spend every night slaking our thirst on the sweetest morsels and devouring each other's bodies under the moon. Would you like that, sugar?"

She groaned, her thighs shaking and squeezing against his immovable knees.

No! No, you don't want that! Blood and death, imprisonment, always answering to his every whim! It's just another form of imprisonment!

Kneeling on a table and waiting all night, anticipating unspeakable pleasure.

Open. Surrender. Smoky voice in my ear. His commanding presence.

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She moaned loudly, but it was not at the thought of spending the rest of an immortal life living as some goddess of the night next to Lerexus. She saw one long night of playtime with John, obeying his softly spoken orders in and out of his bed, bending to his seductive will, giving him all the pleasures her body and mind had to offer. She saw pain and delight, submission and the tender, reciprocated worship he poured on her after and sighed longingly. Dammit. I still love him.

Fuck.

Lerexus misunderstood her sweet agony as a desire for the dream he had just painted and plunged his fingers back into her, curling into her walls firmly. "Such a needy little thing," he cooed in her ear. "Such a dirty girl. Make another mess for me, dirty girl. Scream for me so everyone in the castle can hear what I do to you."

She closed her eyes and fell into the rhythm of his fingers inside her and his thumb pressing over her clit. The nails of his other hand irreverently tugged her dress down so her other breast spilled out into the open for him to squeeze and pinch.

Pressed against his apartment window with nowhere to hide from the sleepy town below.

His fingers spreading my pussy.

She moaned again, louder, lost in her own thoughts far away from Lerexus or his taunting in her ear. Like recalling scenes from her favorite movies, she could see clearly the intimate moments she had shared with John. She could feel him on her skin, remember the sensation of him stretching her and filling her, hear his grunts if she focused hard enough. He was ingrained in her body like a unique muscle memory, burned forever into her flesh like a tattoo. She could not escape him or the burning desire she felt for him, and now she knew she didn't want to.

She ground down into the quickening pace of Lerexus' fingers and her eyes opened lazily towards the moon glowing behind a haze of drifting clouds. Her hands gripped the velvet draped over his thighs and lifted and dropped herself onto his palm desperately, twisting and gyrating her hips with his pace. Her eye was caught by a dim light high above them. Through the gothic arched window built into the crumbling wall in front of her, behind thin curtains draped in front of it, flickered the gentle glow of a candle behind the silhouette of a man. The figure stood firmly planted, the breeze gently rustling the curtains in front of him now and again.

Her heart jumped.

A warm gust rustled through the courtyard and up into that dim window, blowing the curtains just enough that through the gap between them she saw clearly half of a square jaw sprinkled in white speckled stubble and one crisp gray eye peering down directly at her. She knew the sight well, having committed it to memory the night John had made her wait. There in the darkness of his living room, pressed into the couch beneath him by the weight of his thrusting, she had watched his face half-illuminated by a stray beam of moonlight and felt his kiss in her palm. She could feel his cool lips now as she watched him not so surreptitiously spying on her. It also occurred to her that the whole moment was carefully curated. This stroll had been artfully thought out. John had been placed in that specific room for a reason and she was meant to go for a harmless stroll at this very time. Lerexus had intended from the start to lure her back into his lusty paws with a specific audience.

She had to wonder if any of the things he had said to humanize himself had been true. Perhaps, at least, a few partial truths, but maybe the loneliness had just been a line. Someone who treated human life so cavalierly could not have been capable of any great depth of emotion.

Evil bastard is mimicking John. He knows I fell for him and thinks he can recreate it.

I don't want to be here with him touching me.

I want to be in that window.

She felt a heaviness settle in her chest, a poignant longing to fall into the arms she knew, instead of the forceful ones that held her pinned now. Lerexus' body demanded response, touched her with expectation of reciprocation, whereas John's touch had always been an invitation or assertive request for more.

More.

Passion. Rough. Games. Orders. Surrender.

She shuddered against her captor's lap and cried out with an agonized whine of longing.

Rules. Punishment. Hands tenderly washing my hair.

Being a vampire queen could never be enough for her now, not when she had experienced what it was like to be John Wright's princess. As she quaked and moaned alongside her echoes bouncing off the stone around her, she knew there could be no escape unless it was with John by her side. She did not care that it was brokenness that made him what he was or that there had been others before her. She did not care anymore that he had failed to protect her from his past. All she cared about as she came loudly, staring up into that window, was that he was present in her future. He had asked her to trust him, and just as she had let him guide her through the pitch black of his apartment in a different sort of exercise, it was really all the same. Would she trust him?

"Yes!" she moaned into the night air.

She knew it was just the wind, but she could've sworn she heard a 'good girl' floating down to her.