Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“I will make you care,” Gideon said. “And I will enjoy it. Remember, Madis, as powerful as you are, you will always be weaker than me. I made you. You are of my flesh, and you are to obey me in all things.”
Madis bristled. Gideon had made him, but his power was his own. He did not intend on yielding to his maker for all eternity. He planned to make his own way in this dark world, growing ever stronger. Gideon would not always have sway over him. He would become his own creation, make his own choices, and rule over mortals of the kind who had crossed and killed him.
“What will you do to me, Master?” Madis asked. “Pain does nothing to me. They wanted to punish me, and look what I did to them.”
Gideon threw his head back and laughed with delight. “Oh, my fledgling, blood of my blood, your spirit is strong, but you are not as I am. You are subject to my will and my law.”
“I will not be subject to the law of another ever again,” Madis growled. “If death brings nothing else, it should at least bring freedom.”
“Should, perhaps. But doesn’t. I have given you life, and you will obey me.”
Madis said nothing, but he had no intention of obeying Gideon any longer than he had to. Before his death, he had been a man of power. He intended to be one again.
“The sun will soon rise, and you will sleep, my fledgling. When you wake, it will be with an apology, or it will go all the worse for you. Every cruelty you inflicted here will be visited upon you, and you will survive them all, yet feel the pain of each and every one of them.”
“You would do that to me? You would become the very same torturer you rescued me from?”
“Why not?” Gideon said. “You became the very same torturer I rescued you from.”
Madis felt shame for the first time. True shame. Deep shame. He was no better than a torturer. He was perhaps worse, for torturers picked their victims one at a time, and he had chosen dozens all at once.
“You will not have to wait until morning for my apology,” he said. “I am sorry now.”
“Good boy,” Gideon praised, drawing Madis into a bloody hug. “Such a good boy.”
Their embrace was tight. Madis sank into it, feeling immense relief at his maker’s forgiveness. Then the mood shifted. The hot pressing of two bodies. Madis had been absolutely obsessed with revenge on those who deserved to die, but now he found himself redirected, one type of lust satisfied, and another rising in its place.
Gideon’s clawed fingers caressed Madis’ face, then clasped his head, one on either side. He drew his bloody fledgling toward him, lowering his own head until his lips met those of the creature he had made.
Their dark kiss flowered. Maker and fledgling, a cursed union. An improper perversion. A deep wrong. Gideon knew that, but Madis could never have known that what was about to happen between them was so intensely perverse, how it would take the already dark bond and deepen it for all eternity.
Gideon looked deep into the eyes of the one he had made. He knew he should not do this, but he was a creature spawned from original sin, birthed intact and whole from the dark womb of the realms below. What should be done was an irrelevance.
“You’ve always been the giver, haven’t you? With me, you will receive.”
Madis was already hard enough not to care. Gideon knew that feeling, the brilliant satiety that could only follow a glut of innocent blood. His brutalized boy was now more than a man, more than a fledgling. He was a mate.
Gideon laid Madis down in the rocks and dirt and proceeded to lick him clean, like a mother cat dealing with a wayward kitten, all the way from his neck to his chest, to his stomach, to the thick, throbbing member that rose with desperation. He had not mated since he was made. He was like a virgin again, a twisted innocent begging to be made filthy.
Madis moaned and groaned, writhing beneath Gideon’s clawed hands. It took some effort to keep Madis in place. He was so responsive, so full of rough desire. He was not naturally inclined to be on the bottom. He wanted to rise, to kiss passionately, to touch intimately, to take control. Gideon would not allow Madis to take control for even a second. His boy, his fledgling, the most beautiful thing in the world to Gideon in that moment. He was as proud of Madis as he was trapped in desire for him.
The rippling naked body of the man he loved emerged one lick at a time. He was so beautiful, so naturally regal. Claiming him would be one of Gideon’s greatest triumphs. For days, he had watched from the shadows as those who now lay dead tormented this man who had become so precious to him.