Mature: Desert Moon

[Emora Deen]

Oded led Vlad to a stone wall and a wooden door very high in the complex. It opened out onto a stone veranda with a lattice roof. Vines and flowers twined around the posts that held up the roof. Gossamer curtains blue in the breeze. The floor was mossy between the gaps in the stones, and in the center of the room was a bed draped in mosquito netting. There were no railings to keep anyone from falling over the edge, and it looked like someone had taken a corner of a garden and decided to turn it into a bedroom. It also looked like a giant temptation. A room with no walls and no windows, an invitation to escape... Except that it was impossible to try.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad waited for Oded to leave and studied his surroundings. In any other circumstance, he'd have admired the setting he'd been placed in. Instead, he walked slowly around the perimeter of the 'room'. He could see no barriers to the outside. Maybe she wasn't crazy....maybe she was just really stupid? Did she think he could be kept here? He walked across the threshold.

Fire seared through him. His arms and legs convulsed into a knot, dropping him to the ground in a fetal position. He couldn't control his limbs; he had to worm his twitching body back across the line, where the fierce current of power finally stopped.

He couldn't work his lungs for five straight minutes after that. A human would have died. When he did, he used his first gulp of air to roar into the moss he was face-down in.

[Emora Deen]

Odeb came for Vlad sometime later as the sun set to take him to where he would be dining with Lelana. As with before, the guard was silent as he greeted the vampire. The dining room was located in the bowels of the castle, where it was dark and damp. While everything in the upper levels looked like the perfect place to vacation, everything blow it felt more like a dungeon.

The dining room was dimly lit by candles on a long table. Lelana sat at one end, dressed in sheer fabric that left nothing to the imagination. Across from her was a empty chair that Oded showed to Vlad.

"I hope you enjoy'd your room. I think it has just the nicest airy feel to it. Very relaxing. Not very private, but relaxing."

[Soran Nightblade]

"Very," Vlad said snidely, rolling his shoulder to remind himself his joints were still all connected. "Does your butler ever speak, or is he too afraid he'll vomit if he opens his mouth in your presence?"

[Emora Deen]

"I cut out his tongue," Lelana smiled. Odeb came to stand just behind her. "He's quite obedient now." She reached behind her and stroked her hand down his leg. "So, dinner. Yes. You must be hungry. Its been a few days since you've eaten. Sana, please come here."

A young girl, around twenty, stepped from the corner of the room to the Queen's side. Lelana curled her hand around the young girls neck and pulled her to be eye level. She leaned in and kissed the girl, slipping her tongue between her lips. As she did that her fingers released the clasp that held the young woman's dress around her neck. Bashfully the girl caught the fabric around her chest.

"Now, be a good girl and go to Lord Dracul," she mused, licking her lips.

Sana nodded, scurrying around the table until she stood next to Vlad. Her cheeks flushed red, her eyes downcast.

"As a reminder," Lelana sighed. "You promised to behave and obey. You wouldn't betray your wife, and for now I'll respect that." She motioned to Sana. "Your dinner. Every last drop. I want you to drain her dry and leave her body in a heap on the floor."

Sana whimpered, her hands trembling. She clasped them together tightly to keep him from seeing. "My lady..."

"Sana," Lelana hissed. "Be polite to our guest. Sit in his lap. Don't make him work so hard for his meal." Sana turned and sat slowly sideways in Vlad's lap.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad watched the young woman sit on his lap. "I'll need the strength. Sorry for this, my lady." He placed his hand under her chin and craned his neck. The bite was gentle, with just a buzz of euphoria slid in for her comfort. He drank more from her than he would every normally take from Tenele or even Atul, but he did not kill her. He pulled back and placed his hand over the wound. "Breathe deep. Don't move," he spoke steadily.

[Emora Deen]

Sana did as he instructed, taking deep, long, weary breaths. Her body felt heavy, and the only thing really holding her up was the strong grip he had around her neck. Her dark olive skin was paler.

"I told you to kill her," Lelana frowned at Vlad, stabbing her fork into the steak, and separating the piece with a knife. "Go on. You shouldn't care about her life. Focus on your goal, Vlad. You won't the cure for your wife's amnesia, right? You want to go back to her, don't you?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad's ruby eyes flashed at the woman. "You should be less concerned about me getting out, and more concerned about being trapped with me," he hissed. He didn't even jostle the woman in his lap as he telekinetically shoved Lelana, and her chair, twelve feet backwards until it thunked to a stop against the wall. "I'll set my own goals and my own rules."

[Emora Deen]

Lelana lifted a surprise gaze to him. "That's not how this works," she told him firmly. "You are not the only one with magic, Vlad. For every disobedient move you make I will keep you another day longer than I intended." She chuckled as she observed the young girl in Vlad's care. "How interesting that her life is more important to you than your wife's memories of you."

Lelana's chair glided back to the table with the held of faint black wisps of magic. She put her knife and fork to the meat again. "Sana," Lelana called. The young girl was to weak to really acknowledge the Queen, but she groaned to let her know that she heard. Lelana put down her fork and lifted her hand. She turned her wrist sharply, and Sana's head mimicked the movement until the bones in her neck snapped.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad made no move to catch the girl as she fell from his lap. He had no special fondness for the child, but it was a shame. "I'm going to try to kill you now," he announced as he rose from the table, as if they were simply retiring to the living room. "Show me what you can do."

In an instant, he teleported directly in front of her, eyes aglow, and drew his claws out as long and sharp as they could go before letting them seek out her chest.

[Emora Deen]

Lelana lifted her eyes in fear. Only... they weren't her eyes. They were Tenele's. And it was Tenele's scream as his claws drove into her chest. She grabbed desperately at his hand, confusion, fear, pain. Real, beyond anything. "V..." She choked, blood spilling out of her lips. Tears fell in rivers, and her lungs pulled in a very wet heaving breath.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad's pupils contracted into slits. His claws retracted, and so did his whole body as he stumbled backward. The blood smelled real. It felt real, warm and slick on his hand.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele clutched at her chest. The red spread over the dress, staining the fabric. She stumbled forward, reaching for him. At the last second, before her hands could connected with his body, black mist swirled around her wrist, and from her palm sprouted a long curved blade that looked very much like lace ribbon that hardened into knives.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad's peripheral vision just barely registered the blade, too late. He had been paralyzed looking into those eyes... his wife's eyes. Not just the way she'd looked at him lately...she had the same familiar longing that he'd known when they were happily married, before she'd forgotten about him. His muscles dragged him sideways, like they were trying to save him of their own accord, but the movement was sluggish. She had room to strike.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele sliced across his chest, once to the left, and once to the right. Her leg came up and she kicked him hard enough to send him back. But, the force pushed her back as well. She stumbled into the table, the blades receding as she sat there, a hand over her chest. She glowered at him, running a hand over her mouth to smear away the blood.