Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

28. The Tiny Spider.

—?—

Kaleb’s back is pressed to the bed.

Above, a beautiful chandelier hangs, glass shards refracting across the walls in tiny rainbows and shimmers of light.

Markadian is on all fours over Kaleb, down at his waist, his tongue lapping up and down the length of Kaleb’s cock.

Kaleb’s fingers curl into the bed sheets.

He holds back from coming.

Markadian seems to prefer Kaleb never comes, desiring to make the moment last forever, as if their fun is always fleeting and if he dares let it end, it won’t come back. Kaleb is forced to endure. Hours. Gripping bed sheets. Gritting teeth. Staring up at chandeliers, or out at an empty auditorium, or straight ahead at a blank wall, thinking of anything to hold back his orgasm.

His heart is in a perpetual state of racing. Feeling heavy in his chest, yet charged at every hour of the day, anticipating a release that isn’t allowed to come.

It isn’t even about the music anymore.

Kaleb wonders if it ever was.

Markadian doesn’t even bother with an attempt at creating illusionary clothes for Kaleb anymore, either.

He wonders if everyone in this place is naked.

The violin was just a pretense for the two of them to unite. Playing in the banquet hall in front of the directors a few nights ago was the last time he touched a violin. Markadian only saw a handsome face, the violin being just an intriguing facet to the forbidden fruit he wanted desperately to bite.

It doesn’t matter to Kaleb. If this is the price for living longer, for living better, for the ease and comfort of privilege and luxury, he can bear it. Is it really such a punishment to be desired? To be the center of someone’s deepest craving? Someone as powerful and influential and admirable as Lord Markadian?

“Open your eyes.”

Kaleb opens them, realizes he might have looked too tense. “Markadian,” he greets him. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing at all.” Markadian smiles. “Your Lord is pleased. You taste perfect.”

“I did everything you asked,” says Kaleb. “Washed every inch of me, scrubbed my body in the shower, shaved in places. I want to make you happy.”

Markadian gives his cock another lick. “But are you?”

Kaleb props himself up with his elbows, looking down his body at Markadian. “Am I what?”

“Happy.”

Markadian does this often. He asks questions. Pointed ones. They feel like tests. Kaleb hasn’t forgotten Raya’s warnings. He wears them like an invisible armor of his own, never allowing himself to become complacent, to take any of this for granted.

He is also learning to play the game. He offers Markadian a sensitive smile, tilts his head, softens his voice. “What could I possibly not be happy about? You’ve been so generous with me.”

Markadian stares at him, for a moment appearing skeptical, eyes sharpening. Kaleb wonders if he’s laying it on a bit too thick.

The look is wiped away the next instant as Markadian slowly crawls up Kaleb’s body, putting a peck on his navel, then his belly, then his chest, and finally bringing his handsome face in front of Kaleb’s, eclipsing the shimmering lights from the chandelier.

“Tonight,” says Markadian, “you are going to be a star.”

Kaleb nearly forgot. The days blend together. “It is already tonight? The banquet?”

“Poor thing.” Markadian gently runs his fingertips up the side of Kaleb’s face, caressing him preciously. “Are you nervous about your big performance?”

Kaleb weighs the truth against how he wants to seem. “I … shouldn’t be,” he decides to say, playing the role of a confident musician. “I’ve rehearsed a lot. For years, technically.”

“But never for an audience so grand. Isn’t it meaningful to you? To showcase your talent to a room full of … gods?” He hesitates on that last word, choosing it with a note of humor.

Kaleb feels fingers around his slippery, wet cock.

Then those fingers move, stroking him.

“You are so strong, Kaleb. You are a strong man with deep resolve and magnificent … fortitude .” The stroking maintains an even pace. Kaleb’s lips can’t close as he fights yet another desire to come. “Do you enjoy when I say nice things to you?”

“Y-Yes,” Kaleb stammers, controlling his breath.

“This strength of yours, this fortitude, it is something that no one can take from you.” He brings his lips to Kaleb’s left ear and whispers, “No one.”

The words cause the tiny hairs at the back of Kaleb’s neck to stand, prickling pleasurably. Markadian never stops stroking him. Kaleb’s chest rises and falls as his breathing deepens.

Markadian’s lips are at Kaleb’s right ear now. “I like men like you. Strong men with opinions. Strong men with resolve. Strong men who don’t cower in the face of gods.”

These descriptive words are not any that Kaleb would ever have attributed to himself. He has spent so much of his life in fear. So much of it cowering. Was it just that he never had the opportunity to stand? The encouragement to be strong?

The belief that it was possible to be confident?

“Do I have your permission …”

Kaleb clenches up, fighting back the orgasm, waiting for the other half of Markadian’s question, to be asked to be bitten.

“… to kiss you?”

Kaleb opens his eyes to find Markadian’s face before him.

His commanding, yet sensitive and searching eyes.

Markadian is in no way repulsive. He is good-looking by any applicable standard Kaleb can think of. He may be a man, but he is a powerful man, and with no exaggeration, he holds the quality of Kaleb’s very life in his hand. And that isn’t a joke about what Markadian presently holds in his hand.

Kaleb would do this for a friend, wouldn’t he?

A friend who needs him. A friend who wants him. A friend with power and means, who could enrich his life. This is like a trade of goods. Kaleb’s cock, Kaleb’s blood, Kaleb’s body, and now his lips. All for a promise of a good life.

What’s a kiss when a god has already tasted his blood?

“Yes,” answers Kaleb, breathless.

Markadian appears to bask in that single-worded answer, in the soft yet self-assured tone of Kaleb’s voice, relishing in how it feels. His eyes search over Kaleb’s face, delighting in it, hints of pleasure flickering over his warming cheeks. “You’re such a precious little gift,” says Markadian, barely audible, before he brings his lips to Kaleb’s.

They are unexpectedly soft.

Lush and pillowy.

Perfectly between wet and dry, a precise balance of texture that marries perfectly to Kaleb’s parted lips.

Locking in place, key and door.

But what does it open?

Markadian doesn’t kiss with tongue. Kaleb notices this first and lets him lead, their lips locked in a gentle dance of give and take. Kaleb’s heart pounds uncomfortably, but it feels more like the fluttering of performance anxiety, not unlike what he might experience for his recital tonight. He wants to make sure he is kissing Markadian in just the right way. Satisfying enough. Soft and willing, yet strong and able to match him, in just the way he intuits Markadian wants.

Then the kiss deepens without warning.

Kaleb struggles to keep up as Markadian presses his lips firmer, his kisses turning into tiny attacks against his mouth, as the desire quickly takes him over, like a flame responding to a fresh tossing of wood. Bursting. Crackling.

Then Markadian bites.

Kaleb moans out in pain, tasting blood.

“You’re strong,” says Markadian, as if to remind him. “Oh, the taste … Can you taste what I taste? The joy in your blood? How it ripens with your excitement? How it smarts?”

Kaleb has no clue what Markadian’s talking about. He just keeps kissing Markadian between his words, though now, there is little way to ignore the metallic taste coating his tongue.

He’s now fighting back a gag response.

Fighting an instinct to back away, to push Markadian off of him, to spit the blood out.

As if in answer, Markadian’s feverish, rabid kissing turns into lapping at Kaleb’s mouth, alternating between licking up blood, kissing, moaning, then sucking up even more blood, as if Kaleb’s mouth has now become a fleshy chalice.

Markadian keeps stroking Kaleb’s cock.

The desire to come is no longer there.

But he’s still rock hard, Markadian pushing upon him, then whispering unintelligibly, licking his bleeding lip, kissing him, over and over, a dance that started beautiful, now descending into a madness of blood and passion.

The next second, it stops.

Kaleb’s eyes flap open.

Markadian hovers there, peering down at him, excitement in his eyes, as if the two of them were boys in their youth and just finished a game of tag in the playground, racing around and full of mud, out of breath.

Only it isn’t the playground mud spattered on Markadian’s mouth and cheeks. It’s blood—Kaleb’s.

Kaleb instinctively dabs his tongue at his bottom lip where he was bitten, realizes he’s no longer bleeding, already healed.

Markadian brushes his fingertips gently over Kaleb’s cheek again. “I’d better not wear you out,” he says. “You need all your strength for tonight.”

Again, is this a test? Is Markadian waiting for a right answer?

Kaleb’s lip stings. His cock is hard and exhausted and pent up from so much stimulation with no release. His muscles are starting to ache from being pinned to this bed for so long.

But Kaleb answers: “I’m strong.” He takes a breath. “I’m a man with deep resolve … and magnificent … fortitude.”

Markadian’s eyes spark with amazement. His own words served right back to him. Exactly what he wanted to hear.

“Then may I?” asks Markadian. “May I … kiss you again?”

The question feels quite different—now that Kaleb knows the precise way in which the Lord of Vegasyn likes to kiss.

There is only one right answer to that question.

“Yes,” says Kaleb.

The lips are upon his again. Soft and sweet at first. Caressing, like a lover. Explorative.

Then comes the tide of impatience.

Building as the kissing deepens, as the shark cuts through the water, rushing toward its victim, faster, faster.

Then the bite.

Kaleb suppresses a groan. It hurts worse the second time, biting in the same place. Blood filling his mouth—blood that Markadian eagerly laps up, drinking and kissing, kissing and lapping and drinking. It’s a frenzy of hunger and sexual desire.

When Kaleb braces for the third round, he wonders if he’s ever eaten anything that felt both like food and sex together.

Is that what this is like for Lord Markadian?

To somehow fetishize eating? To create sexual pleasure out of a meal? Can Kaleb possibly compare this to anything he can relate to? Maybe if he does, this won’t be so uncomfortable. He can understand Markadian’s needs. Satisfy him better.

Maybe even come to enjoy the pain. And pleasure.

It’s after the fourth kiss that Markadian stops, licks off his lips and teeth, and pulls his face back. “Would you like to stay here in my private bedroom with me today?”

Kaleb stares back at him, surprised by the question.

To be honest, he looked forward to returning to his cool, calm room at daybreak to relax before his big show tonight at the banquet. He could cuddle up with his book, too, the last chapter of which left him hanging. Maybe he’d also get a long-overdue visit from Raya, if she was awake.

He didn’t expect to stay here all day.

After already having stayed here all night, testing his sexual endurance and stamina.

And what will he do all day in here? Continue the torment? The biting? The endless, perpetual sexual edging?

Would Kaleb ever know rest again?

“Oh, my dear brother …”

Markadian rolls his eyes at the sound of Ashara’s voice. “I do seem to recall posting Miss May at guard outside …”

“Ever since the night before, yes, you have.”

“And?”

Ashara’s heels click along the floor as she saunters inside. “I have been waiting patiently to discuss a pressing matter with you—one you will want to hear before tonight’s engagement.”

Lord Markadian slides off of Kaleb and rises gracefully to his feet, standing by the bed. Kaleb quickly adjusts, sitting up and covering his privates with the bed sheets. Ashara is in a slim green gown, her lips colored a matching green as well. Strange, how she doesn’t once look at Kaleb, only at her brother.

There is tension in her face. Her eyes, glassy with emotion, a hardness Kaleb hasn’t seen before.

Kaleb notices.

“I’m all ears,” says Markadian with an impatient spread of his hands, his cheeks and lips still dotted with blood, some of it dried, some of it fresh. How long had they been kissing?

Ashara lifts her eyebrows, then begins to tell him.

In a different language.

Kaleb at once is confused—and mesmerized. Markadian’s eyes remain focused on his sister, appearing to understand each and every word. She speaks at length. She only looks at him.

Slowly, something loosens in Markadian’s face.

His jaw relaxes, lips part.

Eyebrows lift, as if cast into space, free of gravity, floating.

His eyes swim, not quite focused on her anymore, though she keeps speaking. Whatever it is she’s telling him, it is news that has him in an entirely dissociative state of mind.

Like he isn’t here. Complete detachment. Disbelief. Shock.

Kaleb stares at each of them, worried. Did someone die? A loved one of Markadian’s? Do gods even die? Or did something terrible happen? Does it involve one or more of the directors? Do they have to cancel all their plans tonight?

And then: “Are you sure?” comes Markadian’s voice, now in English, and it is low, paced, and crisp with significance. He lifts his eyes to his sister. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Ashara’s face is harsh and tense, yet her words are soft. “It’s confirmed to be true, my dear brother. Without a doubt.”

Markadian lowers his gaze. He looks nowhere at all. It is difficult news for him, whatever she has said. Heavy news.

Kaleb fights every urge in him to ask what it is. He fears he would be overstepping. Meddling in the issues of gods. Putting his nose where it doesn’t belong. Forgetting his place.

Markadian’s head turns ever so slightly in Kaleb’s direction, yet still without looking at him. His eyes gleam with something disturbingly dark. “And … what about him?” he then asks. “Does he know?”

“No,” states Ashara.

Markadian shuts his eyes.

And then he laughs.

He laughs and he laughs and he laughs.

The walls begin to curl, as if made of soap, and a giant has started clawing at them with its big fingernails. The chandelier bursts apart, too, all the glass pieces floating in the air like teardrops. And Markadian keeps laughing and laughing.

Ashara says, “Brother, calm yourself. The House …”

At once, Markadian is silent, and the room snaps back into place like a puzzle.

His silence is twice as loud as his laughter.

Ashara comes close to her brother. “I’m telling you, it’s the right time, the perfect time,” she then urges him. “Let us turn this banquet into an opportunity. While we have the directors united under our roof. You and me, Lord and Lordess, to set a precedent for the history of our kind, a step toward true unity. Everyone is ready for it. Expecting it. Then once our region is settled, we meet with Lord Xiang of the east region, and finally unite our regions under one rule, as it should be.”

Markadian is slowly shaking his head. “Sister, one thing at a time, one bloody thing at a—”

“The event is tonight. The time is now.”

His movements are slow. The news still drags heavily upon him, as if it literally sits upon his shoulders, crushing his perfect posture. “Are these our first steps in a conquest to take over the world? Got the Asias and the European sects in your belt, too?”

“Don’t be silly. Those Romanians and Italians and so help us the Germans will never let go their iron-tight grip. But don’t for a second think it isn’t possible once other measures are first made.” She brings her face so close, lowers her voice to a near inaudible whisper. “I have friends all over the world. Vampire Emperors in Africa, north and south. Siberia. To the farthest wastes of Canada and the tip of Argentina. Australia. It is not so farfetched to think we can rule the world someday. Remember that story about the bat and the wolf and the bloody moon we made up every night during our dark days?” She cradles her brother’s face. “This news I brought you tonight, it’s nothing at all. Just a bump in the road we’ve paved over countless histories together. Rise with me. Take the next step. Everyone is ready.”

Markadian stares back at his sister, at first dead-eyed, with no joy in his face, no life, not even a breath.

Then he turns his face fully, lays his eyes upon Kaleb at last, still naked on the bed, sheets tucked around his waist. Kaleb, watching all of this, listening, feeling like he is ten steps behind.

Though Markadian looks at Kaleb, it’s as if he doesn’t see him, like he’s looking through him.

Then Markadian smiles. “How very less boring everything became in an instant.” He giggles, stifles it, then smiles wider. All the dots and smears of blood on his face spread farther apart when he smiles, making him appear demented. “An answer to every single one of my problems … in such a cute package.”

“Be easy on him. He is innocent.” Ashara leans in. “And … perhaps still useful.”

Those particular words twist Kaleb’s stomach. “U-Useful?” The word slips out before he can stop it, quickly presses fingers to his lips. “ Sorry ,” he breathes through them.

Markadian stares at Kaleb for far, far too long, unsettlingly long. Then he asks his sister, “What did you do with Tristan?”

Ashara smirks at the side of her brother’s face. “You’ll find this hilarious. It’s been so long since he’s seen me, he forgot my special talent. He tried to give me a dream … and thus gave himself a dream instead.”

Markadian’s smile cracks even worse, showing his bloodied teeth. “Funny,” he says.

“He’s asleep until we decide what we want to do with him.”

“So many options,” says Markadian, his ghoulish eyes still looking through Kaleb. “So many entertaining options. I think I already know what I want. What I would love. What would … make me so … so happy.” His smile has become a toothy grin. Another half laugh jumps from his throat. “Fucking perfect.”

“And what shall we do with our honored violinist?”

Markadian finally comes back, closes his mouth, his eyes on Kaleb fully. “My Blood, you are dismissed. Please see your way back to your chambers. Practice your music. You will be … the star of the show tonight, and a star must be prepared.”

After a moment of uncertainty, Kaleb slips out of the bed. He glances at the floor, at the bed, realizes he has no clothes. “I …” He peers at Ashara, at Lord Markadian. “I think my outfit seems to have … um, to have …”

“A performance to be had in front of all the court of gods,” Markadian goes on, ignoring his obvious plea, “the biggest stage you have known or will ever know again. Go, Kaleb.”

Kaleb hesitates once more as Markadian and Ashara stare at him in silence. He realizes he can’t very well strip the bed of its sheets, so he surrenders them, then awkwardly pads his way out of the room naked.

Outside the doors, the female twins called Miss May stand guard. Kaleb continues on, hands covering his privates, as he makes his way down the unfamiliar hallway.

Eight or nine random turns later, Kaleb is no closer to finding his room or anywhere familiar to help him there. He’s passed many faces, and many faces have turned to watch him go. One stifled a laugh. Kaleb’s face red, hands covering himself as best as he can, he continues walking, over and over telling himself in his mind: “ I am strong, I have resolve and fortitude .”

Ashara was speaking Hindi.

At least he’s ninety percent sure she was.

Kaleb finds his thoughts racing in the absence of having the dignity of even an illusion of clothes on his body. He worries over Ashara’s words, how they so quickly turned Markadian’s mood dark. Kaleb couldn’t help feeling like the news somehow directly related to him. Ashara’s body language. The fact that she spoke another language, hiding whatever it was she told her brother in front of Kaleb.

What Ashara may not have realized is that Kaleb has read a lot of books over the past two and a half decades, living in the cells beneath the House of Vegasyn. He’s picked up so many random pieces of information, none of which have ever proven useful even in idle conversation.

But there is one word Ashara said, just one word, that stuck out to him instantly. A Hindi word he picked up from a book.

The word is bhai .

It means “brother”.

It must be an hour later before Kaleb finds the Velvet Row at long last. He starts to hurry, knowing his room is just around the corner, tucked away into the wall, his safe space. He will get to do the things he wanted—bathe, relax, read his book.

But how will he be able to enjoy any of those things with this ominous feeling hovering over him?

Maybe Markadian was mocking him the whole time.

He isn’t strong. He has no resolve. No fortitude.

He’s a tiny man. A tiny, broken man who stutters, who has the emotional aptitude of a child, whose special musical talent has been twisted into a sexual game of power and exploitation.

Kaleb opens his bedroom door, slips inside, shuts it.

Then: “Goodness, where have you been?”

Kaleb turns, startled. On the edge of the bed sits Raya in an oversized, flowing black gown. Both her arms are swallowed in lace and fabric.

Relief washes over Kaleb. She is exactly who he wanted to see. “Raya. I was with Mark—Sorry, with Lord Markadian. He keeps summoning me to his room. To, um …” Suddenly he’s ashamed. “To practice. My music.”

“Your lip,” she says, rising from the bed and crossing the room. Without pause, she grips him by the chin, turns his face left, right. “Did you injure it?”

“Um … yeah,” he decides to say. “I tripped on the carpet in the hall, fell and bit my lip. I’m okay, I think.”

“You’re lying.” Raya lets go of his face. “And are you aware you’re entirely naked?”

“Yes,” he answers. “I … seem to be naked a lot lately.”

“That’s because Lord Markadian finds you adorable. And I guess that comes with both rewards and …” Raya moves back to the bed, seeming distressed, then sits on the edge. “… and with consequences.”

A flicker of Markadian’s maddened, hungry eyes.

The gentle kiss. The sudden bite. The taste of blood.

The unwelcome hand stroking up and down his cock.

Kaleb doesn’t need elaboration on what she means with the word “consequences”. With his hands still covering himself, he quickly goes to his armoire and carefully pulls out some clothes. “I-I’m going to change really quick … if you don’t … um … if you don’t mind.”

“I would like you to be comfortable, yes,” she agrees.

Kaleb slips into the bright bathroom, presses the door shut with his back, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t get dressed. He doesn’t move. He just stays there with his back against the door and breathes in the silent air.

When Raya’s voice comes, it’s right by the door, soft and slightly muffled. “Are you okay, Kaleb?”

Kaleb puts a hand on his mouth suddenly, tries not to cry.

“It’s okay if you’re not okay.” Raya sighs.

Kaleb shuts his eyes tightly.

Tears let loose, but no sound.

“I … I want to tell you something. But I don’t know if I can just yet,” she murmurs quietly. “I just hope you see someday … someday very soon … I hope you see how this House is full of so many little deceptions, more than its décor. The people in it, too. The gods you may have once trusted with your life … and your future … our futures …” Her voice trails off. “Even I have to remember sometimes that no one is who they seem.”

Kaleb drops his hand and parts his lips, struggles to control his breathing, tries to not gasp for air between his silent sobs, to not sniffle or make a sound.

“Do you see me as a goddess?” she then asks.

He can’t answer. If he speaks, his voice will crack, the tears will spill, he’ll fall apart. He can’t let her know he’s crying.

“I’d … I’d prefer you not to,” she goes on. “Honestly. I just want to be … hmm …” She thinks about it. “I want to be a girl. Just a girl you know. Maybe like another tenant. A neighbor. I would like to be just your neighbor girl, a normal girl. It can be our own deception. But … But since we know about it, it isn’t a bad deception, is it? It’s a nice one. I’ll just be a girl you know.”

Kaleb would like that very much.

A girl who lives next door to him, whom he can visit, talk to about the weather, laugh over coffee, have lunch with.

“And you don’t have to be a Blood,” she goes on.

The words at once cause Kaleb’s tears to stop. He listens.

“You don’t even have to be a violinist if you don’t want.” He hears her weight shift on the other side of the door. Perhaps she’s leaning against it, too. “You can just be a boy. A boy who lives next to a girl. You can be the sweet, sensitive guy I’ve kept my eye on. Would you … Would you like that?”

Kaleb swallows. He tries to say, “Yes,” but chokes. Instead, he finds himself saying, “I … I think my friends are dead.”

Raya pauses. “Friends?”

“The ones who tried to escape. With me. Ashara said they were fine, but … but I don’t think …” Kaleb chokes again, tries not to cry. “I don’t think she let them live.”

A long moment passes. There’s a dreamy note in her voice when she says, “I don’t know the fate of your friends. What I do know is you deserve better. Better than this. Than all of this. It’s not too late to have a life outside of this deceptive place … a real life, an honest life. Hey, do you remember our game? … That one we played in the cells where we pretended to be other people?”

Kaleb finds himself smiling, remembering it.

“I want us to become people,” she says. Then she laughs. “That sounds so stupid. Doesn’t that sound stupid?”

“It doesn’t,” answers Kaleb.

There is a tender silence. “You need to stay strong. You are going to have to fight for that dream, Kaleb. Both of us are. We may not find our dream for another year, maybe many years … or it could be tomorrow. But we have to fight anyway.”

Kaleb is seduced at once by that dream. He can nearly taste it. Smell it. Feel it like fresh air on his skin. His parents at the kitchen table, making a fuss over his grades. His overprotective brother who kept walking him to school even when he hated it.

And a girl next door. A totally normal girl named Raya.

“I don’t know if it’s … p-possible,” says Kaleb.

“When I was mortal, just a child, so many ages ago … there was a great big spider that hunted me.”

Kaleb frowns. “S-Spider …?”

“In the dead of night. It was the size of my room, this giant spider monster. I was going to be eaten alive. I screamed, but my parents didn’t come. The spider … it kept approaching … I braced for death.” She pauses. “Then I noticed the candle on my table. And … I realized … it was merely a giant shadow … on the wall, a shadow of a teeny tiny spider passing by the flame.”

Kaleb lifts his eyebrows. “A tiny spider …?”

“The point is that your enemy seems enormous right now. A monster can appear insurmountable. But if you look at it the right way, approach it from the right angle … you might find that it is so small, you can squish it beneath your thumb.”

Kaleb glances down at his hand.

At his thumb.

“It was a real illusion,” says Raya. “Not one of Markadian’s. They’re all around us here, too … real illusions … deceptions. And monsters. You have to be strong, Kaleb, just like I’ve been strong, but maybe not in the way you think. You have to know your enemy … but more importantly, the shadows they cast.”