LORE: End Game (MATURE)

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:32 am

Vlad didn't seem to have a comeback for her teasing, which was somewhat suspicious in itself. He began kissing down her neck, which put his upper back in her line of sight. There was one thing that didn't make sense. The scar from the axe that had lodged in his shoulder was gone. Not faded or covered, simply gone. That thick, jagged stretch of darkened flesh was very prominent; it didn't make sense for it not to be there.

At about that time, Vlad reappeared in the bedroom, only to find it empty. "Damn it, woman, I said to lie still till the wound closes," he muttered, glancing at the closed bathroom door. He could hear the shower running. Rolling his eyes, he paced the room slowly, bored.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:20 pm

Tenele narrowed her eyes on the place where she knew Vlad should have had a scar. She had seen him naked enough to know that it should be there. It was there last night, why wasn't it there now. Then it hit her... It hit her like a rock in the stomach. Her heart dropped to her stomach, stopping. This wasn't Vlad. This man who had his naked form pressed against her, kissing and fondling her was not Vlad. Panic now filled her on how to get him away without making him think she knew. Her elbow stretched out and knocked the soap from the shelf on the wall. It slid across the floor and our from under the curtain.

"Oh," she said softly, her heart thudding in her chest now. "I... I should get the soap. Can't have a shower without soap." She gently pushed against him, still trying to uphold the game... If she could get him to release her from the wall she could run for it. What happened if he didn't let her go?

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:32 pm

"Oh that's alright," Lothos breathed against her neck, his grip finding her arm and pulling her back against the wall with it. "I don't believe in lubricant," he sneered into her ear. "Let's just enjoy ourselves, naturally, shall we?"

Vlad's head jerked toward the bathroom as he caught the distinct sound of a male voice behind the door. She was there with someone? An odd, sinking confusion filled his gut. Why would she take another man to her bath? Suddenly annoyed, he threw open the bathroom door and walked sternly to the shower. He hesitated for just a second before ripping the curtain aside, so hard that the pole came down with it, clanging on the tile behind him. He blinked at the two figures in the shower. "Oh, I have nothing to worry about, it's just me," he sighed in mock relief. However, a fierce red glow had flooded into his eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:40 pm

"No..." she breathed, pressing her hands against him, trying to ignore his painfully tight grip on her arm. "Let go!" Then the curtain came clashing down and she screamed. She didn't know what was going on and the quick movement startled her.

Pinned against the cold tile wall with this man's fleshed pressed up against her naked body was enough to make her nauseated. Her eyes found Vlad and by the terrorfied expression on her face it was easy to tell she hadn't chosen to be stuck like this.

"Vlad..." she whispered in releif, continuing now with even more motivation to push the man off her.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:07 pm

"Oh, Vladimir," the imposter smiled back at him, muscling Tenele back against the tile. "Your lady friend just couldn't keep her hands off me."

"Who could? I'm irresistable," Vlad smirked, but there was real anger behind his eyes now. His voice crept down to a deep growl. "Now off of her."

"Are you offering to take her place?" the man grinned, and it was Vlad's grin.

"Now that's getting a little weird," Vlad said, stepping forward to grab the stranger's arm. His hand wrapped around the imposter and he moved to drag him out of the tub, but suddenly the imposter wasn't there. In a burst of movement, he reappeared behind Vlad and threw a powerful thrust into Vlad's back, throwing him forward with enough force that Vlad's head cracked the marble tile next to Tenele's shoulder. Having been thrown over the tub, he definitely didn't have his legs under him, and he tumbled in at Tenele's feet. "Found the soap," Vlad groaned, sitting up in the still-running shower spray, and he chucked the soap bar fiercely at the imposter's laughing mouth.

The imposter stopped laughing and spat suds onto the bathroom floor while Vlad found his way back to his feet, moving in front of Tenele protectively. "Are you hurt?" he whispered to her.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:22 pm

Tenele pressed behind Vlad, trying to get a good look at his head. "No," she said softly. She wasn't hurt, thanks to him. She eyed the vampire who had now recovered from his soapy ordeal and was facing them. Naked, and still looking very much like Vlad. Tenele tried to hide her form behind Vlad and peer over his shoulder. She could still feel that bastards body against her and it made her sick. "Vlad, be careful please?"

She still didn't understand why this vampire was attacking her like this? She didn't know him, did she? Not another one of her old enemies back from the dead. She didn't think her brain could take it being Adrian or...

Lothos.

Her eyes went wide suddenly with realization. It was Lothos... It had to be. It just... "Vlad, lets get out of here. Please. Lets teleport away. Now."

"Why is it you always interupt us, Vladimir?" His form melded and shaped and moved until Lothos stood before them naked. "Especially when its getting to the fun part." He laughed darkly.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:28 pm

Vlad's lips parted in an expression of unspoken bafflement as he recognized the man standing in front of them. His face seemed drained of emotion. It could be another illusion, but by his own rules, it was impossible to take two alternate forms in a row without returning to your true shape in between. But how could this be Lothos? He was killed. "You burned him, Tenele...right? You scattered his ashes," he murmured, too stunned to get his voice past a whisper.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:35 pm

"They told me they would burn him," she breathed. "I told them to burn him and leave his body under the sun!" Lothos just laughed at her.

"And here I am..." He glanced down and then grinned. "In need of a beautiful woman and something to drink." He winked at Tenele, then flashed his eyes in Vlad's direction. "I won't kill you if you step out of the way." He was toying with Vlad, wanting to push buttons to drive the vampire over the edge. "Hell, we could share her if you like." He laughed again and Tenele shrank further back behind Vlad. He moved foreward then, disappearing and reappearing. He was at Vlad's side and with one hand lifted Vlad from the ground by the neck and through him towards the marble tiled wall. Tenele's worried scream filled the air and she moved to help Vlad. He held her back against the wall to make sure she didn't go anywhere with one hand pressed against her abdomen. His strength was far to great and it seemed as if he wasn't even concentrating on holding her there. She still couldn't force herself off the wall.

His attention was direct to Vlad though, watching and waiting for him to attack. "Offer is still open."

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:44 pm

Vlad's head was reeling as he regained his feet, and it wasn't just because of the shattered tile wall his crash had created. He'd told her to burn him, and she hadn't? It was too much to think about right now. "So you came to be beaten bloody again, you dog?" Vlad hissed, bits of tile sliding off his body to clink on the floor as he walked back toward his enemy. "I don't see your little hatchet with you, did you come hoping I'd feel sorry for you?"

He wanted to attack, but Tenele was too close. Tenele....didn't burn him. No, he couldn't think about that now.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:49 pm

Lothos's face twitched at the mention of his hatchet. Vlad was right. He didn't have it. So where was it? That night was such a blur that she barely remembered anything. She knew that she had asked two men to burn his body. Told them it was an order and important and they hadn't.

He tilted his head slightly downward looking at the woman he still held pressed against the wall. With a fluent potion he brought he around and dipped her form, pressing his lips firmly to hers and staring Vlad right in they eye as he kissed her rather aggressively. She was beating at him with her hands and when he was satisfied he tossed her to land hard on the fallen shower curtain.

"Stay there, we'll finish this later," he said and headed towards Vlad, claws extending.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:58 pm

Vlad was beginning to finally recover from his shock, and what was replacing it in his chest was sheer horror, anger, fury. His claws danced out from his own fingertips as he ran to meet the monster, and they flew at each other like raging beasts. Their claws flew, and they were too tightly entwined for either to attempt their dance of teleportation. For several long, violent seconds, it was just tooth and claw against throat and bone, finding purchase on any flesh soft enough to cut. Blood splattered around the white-tiled room as they tumbled across the floor.

Then Vlad grabbed hard onto both of Lothos's wrists, and drew his focus together. Somehow, he teleported them both up to the roof, where the brightness of the afternoon sun still caught against the pale stone of the castle. Lothos screamed as his skin burned, and reversed their portal back into the bathroom, where the two scuttled away from each other, both gasping and bloodied.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:05 pm

Tenele wrapped herself in a large white towel that almost resembled a fluffy sheet. She held in her hand the katana and when they reappeared and Lothos had backed away from Vlad to lean against the wall she pushed the blade through his gut. He roared with agonizing fury, the one weapon that could still leave damage. That wound wouldn't heal for a while. He back handed her away, striking her face so hard that one of his claws cut into her cheek. Then he pulled the Katana from his gut and with a growl, eyes focused on Vlad, he was gone.

Tenele was motionless on the floor for a moment, but slowly moved to sit up, trembling.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:22 pm

Vlad stared at where Lothos had been sitting, his wounds closing slowly to leave him there half-crouched beside the bathtub, looking ready to pounce on a shadow. His tunic and pants were soggy and bloodstained. It occurred to him for an oddly domestic moment that they couldn't have picked a tidier place for a bloodbath; the tiles would come clean easily.

He straightened up to his feet and stood there in silence, the blaze in his eyes refusing to fade although Lothos had been gone for some time now. "He's going to come back," he said flatly, like he was speaking about the weather. "He'll be back with more than his fists. He'll bring something better than last time. You understand what that means, right?" He turned his hard expression on her, his tone growing harsher the more he spoke. His temper was climbing too fast for him to hide.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:26 pm

Tenele picked herself up off the floor, still rattled from earlier. Still sick from his hands on her, his body against hers. She hugged the towel to her while Vlad spoke harshly, her green eyes lowered on the floor. Then, she stared defiantly at him. "I told them to burn the body. I told them to burn his body! I told them it was an order." Blood trickled down her cheek from the gash, the cut on her side and the cut on her arm had reopened and blood was running down her bare leg.

"We'll just have to prepare..." she said, turning her head away. She was terrorfied for Vlad, afraid he'd be hurt again. Or worst, that he'd be killed.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:26 pm

Vlad listened to Tenele's argument with an intemperate ear. She ordered them? She ordered them?

"I ordered you to burn him," he said with a dangerous quietness to his voice. "You swore, and it gave me rest. I was certain of you." That last didn't seem particularly impressive, until one considered that Vlad had rarely, if ever, trusted humans at his side in all the time he'd been undead. He worked alone. His partnership with Tenele was an anomaly, something forged from affection and confidence he normally showed no one.

Tenele wasn't truly to blame for what had happened, but in Vlad's mind, she was meant to be perfect. He thought that anyone he so entrusted would behave exactly according to his expectations, and that was a rather selfish and naive thought. Vlad didn't have enough experience with such close relationships to know how to deal with what had happened, and it was blinding him to everything else. Forgiveness and forbearance were not among the skills he'd learned.

Or maybe he was taking out on Tenele something he would never admit he felt toward Lothos: Fear. Fear that he would lose, that he would lose her, his queen, or worse. Lose the last things that meant anything to his jaded mind.

He looked away from Tenele, his fists knotting at his sides.