Heirot

Lelana frowned at the tattered garment around his waist. There was so much mud she didn’t even notice it at first. “What happened to your pants?” she sighed. She crouched down in front of him, holding his shoulders in her hands. “Okay, so… I’m not as strong as Atul when it comes to being super human, but I’m stronger than a mortal woman.”

Lelana lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulders and then pushed up with ease. She started walking, not waiting on the vampire to get his footing. She dragged his feet across the ground, taking a step, and dragging him, then taking another step and dragging him, until they inched carefully across the rugged terrain.

“Your wife and my brother are searching for you,” Lelana told him. “Why did you call out to me, and not for her?” Lelana glanced to his dirty face. “Why would you want the help of your tormentor?”

Vlad held tight to her, like someone was sawing his leg off and he needed to focus on her instead. "The snake bites...my mind's not right," he muttered. "I can't tell what's real... I don't usually let these things happen," he gestured hopelessly at their surroundings, his crippled body, the golems all around them. "I'm not this pathetic." He held onto her. "Could you take a look in here...can you do something?" he whispered.

Lelana hesitated, looking him over. He was in no shape to have her in his head, and the way he was at the moment meant he would have no control over his own thoughts. The connection could go both ways. If he decided to follow it over, he could open doors she didn’t want opened, and find a darkness that would ruin them both. There were things in Lelana’s head that she locked away to spare herself, memories better left forgotten. “It’s not wise,” she breathed, taking another step. “It’s the poison. You’re running a fever. Your brain is too hot. Once we’ve gotten you away from the gollems you should cool down and your thoughts return to normal.”

But, he seemed in desperate need of reassurance that his brain was intact. The Queen shimmied to the rim of the cave and over to the wall, where the gollems power diffusing ability was faint. She pressed against him to hold him upright. Under any other circumstances she might have found the position very pleasing. “Okay, I’ll look, but only for a second. Stay on your side of the fence.”

Lelana reached up to his head and touched him gingerly. The fog closed around Vlad as Lelana entered his mind.

Vlad's body went limp in her arms. His head was splitting with effort not to fall apart. Too many things were happening, and to him, it was all real. He was trapped in a cave with golems. He couldn't feel his legs. He was horny as hell. He was raping his wife. He'd raped his wife. He would always be raping his wife. He didn't deserve a wife. He was dying and he didn't deserve to live. He couldn't feel his legs. He was tied to a steel table, and he'd been there for two hundred years, and there was poison boiling away his flesh, and he couldn't feel his legs.

Lelana stepped in amongst the memories and destroyed the table he was lying on. "You are not strapped down," she told him firmly. "Stand up. Snap out of it. Hold on just a bit longer. We are almost to the edge of the golem's power. You will heal, Vlad. You will be fine."

"These aren't your memories," she told him, hovering over the version of him that was raping his wife. "This is not real. This is a lie. You have never harmed her. Stop punishing yourself for an act you did not commit."

She went to each incarnation of his mind and dispelled the visions, breaking the chains, and fixing the unfixable.

Vlad followed her through his chaotic thoughts, letting her firm guidance show her what was real and what wasn't. When she was done, he was not a rapist, or a slave, or a test subject, or an abomination. He was a vampire in a cave with some poison in his veins, being protected by his future sister in law. He could even think clearly enough to peek over the flimsy gate between their minds and vaguely make out what was essentially her on the other side. But she'd asked him not to go near her mind. He held himself back carefully. Somehow he had the sense that if he wanted to know badly enough, he would suddenly be over there, in her hideaway, smashing her secrets.

He was so grateful he couldn't speak. He opened his eyes slowly and stared over her shoulder with blurry eyes, content to be pinned against the wall. He felt absurdly safe, given his surroundings.

Lelana breathed a sigh of relief and kept her weight pressed against him to hold him up now that his knees had buckled. "Okay," she sighed, releasing his head. "Let's get out of this cave so you can heal."

Lelana gathered his weight over her shoulder, tugging on his arm to hold him there, and she started out of the cave. She made it several yards away before she leaned him against a tree and allowed him to sit there. She knelt down between his legs. "How are you feeling? Any change?"

Vlad sat limp against the tree for a minute, and then his muscles slowly began to tighten up and respond again. His body stitched itself slowly together again, his head clearing.

"How are you feeling? Any change?" Lelana's voice was asking him.

He blinked her into focus, and smiled. "Starving," he admitted. "But so much better." He experimented with sitting up under his own weight, and succeeded. He stared at her. "You came looking for me," he observed, wondering why she'd ever been in a position to run across him. She'd said something about Atul....or hadn't she? He wasn't remembering the last few hours all that well.

"My brother can be persuasive," the queen muttered. Lelana reached up to the fabric of her dress that was tied around her neck and loosened it, paying little mind to the nudity of her breasts as she moved forward and straddled his waist, offering him her neck. "Take the blood of my father, and heal," she sighed softly. "I know its like a drug to a demon."

Vlad hesitated a moment. "Thank you," he purred, his arms wrapping around behind her. He bit down painlessly and sent slow waves of pleasure through the bite.

Lelana moaned before she could get a handle on herself. She wasn't expecting pleasure. She thought he might have been too far gone to even attempt his vampiric arts... and to be honest she didn't think her presence warranted any sort of kindness. It wasn't overwhelming pleasure, but it was enough to ignite fire through her affection starved nerves. She ground her body low against him as he took her blood.

Vlad stopped just shy of really pushing her boundaries. He drew out quietly as he felt her body stir against him. But he didn't push her away. He just held her in a secure hug, the way he had two nights before on the floor of her palace. His body was pulsing with fresh life, thanks to her offering of blood. He squeezed her tight and fell back with her across the tree roots with a helpless laugh. "That was amazing, Lelana. All of it. Thank you."

Lelana wiggled free of his grasp to sit up over him. "Don't get used to my generosity," she whispered, brushing her black hair from her face. She gathered the fabric of her dress and retied the knot behind her neck. She felt bitter disappointment that he didn't take the touch any further, but at the same time she'd expected as much.

"I can signal for your wife and my brother so the three of you can get out of my jungle," Lelana told him. She didn't want to move from where she straddled him, but seducing him wasn't going to happen. She'd figured that out, at least. And in the end... it didn't really matter to her. It wasn't his body she wanted anymore, that would just be a perk.

Vlad focused on her, still lying rather casually under her weight. "How did it go? With him?"

Lelana scowled. "I beat him up," she replied. "Exactly how I expected it would go... except he didn't fight back. I didn't want to see him, and I still don't want to see him. So, when I return you to him, I expect you both to leave." She frowned down at him. "I blame you for this. Why couldn't you be weak? Why couldn't you give in like the others and just obeyed me?"