White Wedding: Part 2

    "Where are we going daddy?" Dante wailed, his little feet running to keep pace with his father.  

    "We are almost there," he was told.  Dante's hand was snatched into a bigger one and he felt himself nearly dragged off his feet by the quickened pace.

    "Daddy, slow down..."

    "We have to hurry," Sparda said, his eyes forward, staring at something Dante couldn't see.  "We are already late."

    Dante ran a little harder but he was still having trouble keeping up.

    "Late for what, daddy?"

    Still in motion, Dante felt himself being swept up into Sparda's arms.  

    "Shhh -- " Sparda said.  "You have be very quiet now."

    They had been walking through a quiet street in a neighborhood Dante barely remembered. It might have been the city where he was born but he had nothing more than familiar feelings about it.  The only light they had was from a full moon that was centered in the sky.

    Sparda made a sudden stop that startled him.

    "Daddy--"

    Dante felt Sparda's arm loosen until he felt himself tumbling out of the strengthless arms.  At the last possible moment before he felt he would make contact with the pavement, he was caught by two hands that were not his father's.  It was then that Dante felt the warm splash of his father's blood wetting his shirt.

    "Da...daddy....?"

    Sparda's body made little sound when it crumpled to the ground -- the chest had been driven through with a broad sword with most of its blood-coated blade stuck out through the back.  Dante started to scream, kicking and writhing in the arms that held him to go to his father.

    "Be good."

    "Daddy! Daddy! Please let me go to daddy!"

    "Daddy's dead, dear boy.  There's no one else in the world except for you and me..."

    Dante's scream died down.  He found himself staring wide-eyed at Remus.  Remus' smile broadened and held Dante like a doll in front of him.

    "If you like, you may call me daddy."

    Dante couldn't make himself move or speak.  The only sensation he could feel distinctly were the tears that continued to slide down his cheeks.

    "I have always wanted to have a baby boy."

    "Please..." Dante managed to wring out a whisper from his dry throat.

    "You are perfect," Remus said and held the boy against him, nuzzling Dante's face against the side of his neck.  "With your pretty face and beautiful eyes and silver hair... we will have a perfect life together."

    Dante shakily pressed his hands against Remus' chest and pushed.  Remus chuckled, patting Dante lightly at his backside.

    "And then someday, when you are grown up...we can create our own family.  Wouldn't that be nice?"

    The boy whimpered.

    "Please... I don't want..."

    "Of course you do," Remus said and kissed the boy on the cheek.  "I can be nice but in return, I expect you to behave."

    Dante cried harder as he was being carried away, his father's body became smaller and smaller until he could no longer see it.  

    "Daddy...please...I want to be with daddy."

    "Darling," Remus laughed softly.  "You are with daddy."

Remus

    He died quite suddenly on the altar, like a weak human.  His body was still warm when I sowed the seed inside him.  Although the baby could have survived inside a dead human, the baby often died shortly after its birth -- as that it had fed on fouled innards and spoiled blood.  The Elders had suggested that my bride to be disposed of -- limbs and head severed and the baby aborted.  The child would not form properly since he had died before the completion of the ceremony.  I refused.

    I took my beloved's body to the springs and washed the blood off.  Even dead, his demon blood was still alive and healing the wounds.  I was glad for it.  Although he looked good in blood, I didn't want him to stain the fresh white silk I had chosen for him.  He would be forever virgin white.

    I took great care to brush his lovely silver hair, combing through the soft strands until they were half-dried.  For a fierce killer, he had the most graceful neck I had ever seen.  More than once, I found myself wrapping one of my hands around it, wanting more than anything in the world to crush it just to feel the delicate bones snap in my grip.  Instead, I clasped a silver band with a single diamond in its center around his neck. A gesture of our union.  I didn't like rings.

    For the first night...our wedding night, I laid with him naked with my arms curled around his body.  His body had cooled but his demon blood was still pulsating, refusing to die.  The demon blood had kept his skin pale and soft, as if he had only gone into a deep sleep.  I pressed my hands over his belly.  Vaguely, I can feel the slightest movements in there.  It might be the baby. Or it could be his demon blood trying to heal human death. I didn't care.  I fell asleep holding him in my arms, content with the thought that he was not completely dead.

    The Elders did not want me to wait to find out if my seed had taken in Dante's body.  They urged for me to take another mate quickly -- preferably another one of my breed.  I refused.  I would accept no one else to bear my child. 

   "The human is dead! And your child will be dead! And you will be dead soon.  Do you not want to be reborn?"

   I cursed them and returned to see Dante.  Seeing him always calmed me.  Then I made love to him.  At least, it would start out with just a want to have a taste of his white skin.  A small kiss for my beloved just to let him know I missed him.  Then it would end with blood.  I fucked him so hard that he tore.  I wanted him to be alive again so much that I hurt him.  I wanted to hear him scream.  I wanted to feel his body bucking beneath mine, his fingers clawing at my chest to push me off.  Anything.  But there would be nothing.  At least, not for six days.

   I heard him scream.  It was a scream that came from terrible pains and it was the most beautiful sound.  I rushed to the room.  By the time I had unlocked it and pushed the door open, the scream had already died into a soft whimper.  It was still lovely to hear. 

   "Dante..." I said.  I looked at him from the doorway, staring. 

   He laid curled in the bed, quivering.  He was alive and at that time, it was all that mattered.

   "Dante," I said again and went to him.  He was breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed shut.  "The baby is feeding.  Don't fight it and the pain will pass soon."

   I reached over and brushed the damp locks from his forehead.  He was feverish.  His eyes snapped open and he cursed at me.  His pallid skin made his bright eyes especially bewitching.

   "That thing is inside of me?" He whispered.

   "Of course."

   He panted harder and with obvious difficulty, he rose up to his elbows then sat himself up.  Even in his disheveled state, he held to his modesty.  He grasped onto the silk and hid his body beneath it, before the sheets slipped off him and onto the floor.  I let him keep it.  For awhile.

   "You shit..." he said.  "I'll kill it and I'll kill you."

   I laughed.

   "I am glad to see that six days of death had not changed you."

   He looked confused but he didn't ask what I meant.

   "If you had been human, then you would have remained dead and the seed would not have taken root," I said.  "Your wonderful Sparda blood not only brought you back from the dead but it appeared to have been also feeding the baby its powers.  Dare I guess that you are completely powerless? Even your devil trigger's being drained as we speak."

   He said nothing.  He must have known I told him the truth.  He could not feel any trace of his demon powers.

   "Sometimes, the baby will have its usual cravings and feed on your human blood.  That must have been what you woke to.  Quite an inconsiderate child, isn't he?"

   A growl came out him then he lunged forward to hit me.  I caught his hands easily.  He was still weak and his reflexes were nearly gone.  I pressed both of his wrists into one of my hands and grounded them together hard.  I knew he was in pain but he didn't show it.  His ice blue eyes only showed hatred.

   "Get this thing out of me..."

   I slapped him.

   "If you call that baby a thing again, I will hurt you.  I will hurt you bad."

   He spat at me.  I didn't bother wiping the spittle from my cheek.

   "You sick fuck...I would rather die than carry this fucking monster inside-- "

   I didn't let him finish.  I pressed my free hand over his mouth.

   "Don't test me, darling," I said.  "I can make your fucking life a literal living hell, even long after I'm dead.  How would you like your arms and legs torn off? No need for them since your torso will be the only thing the other goatlings need to bury more seed in that belly of yours.  Wouldn't that be sweet? Wonder what would daddy think if he ever found out his little boy is making babies for the demons."

   He screamed.  He was trying to twist his hands out of my grip so hard that I think he might have dislocated at least one of them.  I didn't release him.

   "Let's not fight," I said and uncovered his mouth.  "Instead, we'll try to make up our wedding night since you died on me."

   He cursed at me again.  I chuckled, absolutely delighted at his foul language as I worked to bind his wrists together with a strip of silk I had torn from the sheet.  I tied his wrists to the center spoke of the bed frame.  

    "You psychotic sonuvabitch! Untie me!"

    He drew his knee up and tried to kick me.  He was frantic, trying to pull his wrists loose while he kicked.  I leaned back and watched him curse and exhaust himself -- straining every thick cord of his muscles as he twisted.  He was beautiful.  His foul language and all.  I watched him until his movements became languid and his voice reduced to a coarse whisper.  His wrists were rubbed raw with spots of blood that had bled through the white silk.  His left wrist looked broken.

    "Kill me..." he said finally.  His eyes were distant.  They looked at me but I don't think he saw me.  "Oh God...please kill me..."

    I shifted forward until I was only inches from him.  He was still asking for death, even as I bent down and kissed him.  Then he cried.  His body shuddered and he stared down at his lap as he cried.  I ran my fingers through his hair and kissed him on top of his head.  

    "You are not allowed to die..." I said.  "The choice has been taken from you since the day you were born."

    I don't think he heard me.  He was still crying and whispering his dark wish.  My pretty porcelain doll has been broken -- with his perfect stone façade shattering into many irrecoverable pieces.  My little angel with broken wings.

    I untied his wrists and reset his broken one, wrapping it with the same strip of cloth.  He let me, tears still running down his cheeks in rivulets.  He no longer made sense in his speech.  I lifted his chin up and told him not to cry anymore.  He only nodded numbly, although the droplets still came.  There was a sense of peace in him that I had never felt before -- in the way that I didn't think he would ever be capable of having it.  The surrender in his eyes were, for once, without hate or spite.  There were nothing.

    My hand slid over his thighs as I bent forward to kiss his mouth again.  It came as a surprised to me that his tongue moved against mine.  

    "I want to make love to you..." I said, my hands moved to separate his thighs.

    He nodded and wound his good arm around my neck.

    "Make me forget..." he said.  "Make me forget everything."

    And I did.  I would do anything for my broken little angel.

    Dante stared fixedly at the ceiling, studying the mosaic-like pattern.  He wasn't certain how long he had been looking at it, unmoved.  He measured time by the sensation in his body. Rather, the strength of the pain that was reverberating through him.  Most of the pain had numbed.  Now, he was left with the revolting awareness of feeling unclean with Remus' cum running down between his legs and staining the sheets he was lying on.

    At least, he was finally alone.  Remus fucked him and left him.  Dante covered his mouth and laughed, tears started to stream out from the corner of his eyes again.  He felt like screaming but he knew that might bring Remus back to the room.  Dante pressed his hands over his mouth harder and fought the urge until it passed.  When it did, he rolled over to his belly and tried to get up.  He couldn't.

    His legs were absolutely strengthless.  He barely felt it, much less use it.  Dante cursed as he crawled off the bed, hands first.  He felt ridiculous as he dragged himself across the floor, crawling toward the bathroom that was connected to the room.  By the time he got there, his left hand was broken again from the pressure he had put on it.

    "Shit..."

    Dante sat up against the door and glanced around the bath.  A deep, in-ground tub was filled to the brim with fresh water.  From the slight scent waffling from it, it had been perfumed with something that smelled like lavender.  The floor was tiled with the same mosaic pattern in the ceiling.  The room dips in slightly toward the center where a small drain with a gold colored grate.  There was another room with a closed door that might be the toilet.  Dante's eyes panned over and looked fixedly at the sinks in center of the room.  There were a set of them -- framed in brass with delicate brass knobs.  Dante took in a deep breath and crawled toward it.

    Sitting on the floor, the sink looked far from him.  Dante used his right hand to grab onto the rim of the sink and pulled himself up.  Almost immediately, he nearly sank back down on the floor.  He leaned against the sink and held to it until his legs shakily accepted his weight and stood.  Dante looked up and saw himself in the mirror. 

    His eyes were bloodshot -- so much red in them that there's little blue left.  His skin was paler than usual and that made even the slightest scratches or bruises even more pronounced.  Asides from his disheveled hair, there's little change in his face. At least, not at the first look.  There was a change in him that Dante did finally see and it made him furious.  He let out a scream as he punched at the image of himself in the mirror.

    The mirror splintered with large pieces of it fallen away, twinkling noisily onto the tiled floor.  Pieces of the glass that shot outward cut his arm and chest.  The knuckles of his right hand were lacerated down to the bone, with blood splattering the wall and sink.  Dante sank down to his knees, not caring about the pieces of glass cutting into his leg.  

    That was the first time he noticed the scar.  It was a strange thing to behold, simply because someone like him could not have scars.  He ran his finger over it, smearing a thin trail of blood as he did so.  A little above and to the right of his belly button, a three-inch scar that was even paler than his already white skin.  He pressed the pad of his finger over the raised scar.  There was something there.  Something vague but he can feel it there.  Dante's eyes panned over the broken shards of the mirror and picked up the largest piece he could find.

    Without another thought, Dante plunged the sharp edge into his belly, slicing open the scar.  It wasn't easy for him to ignore the pain but he had somehow managed to remain conscious.  The blood had made his hand slick and he couldn't hold onto the glass piece after he made the second cut.  The glass slipped out of his hand like a sliver of ice.  Instead, Dante pushed two fingers into the open wound.  He felt something.  He was not certain what it was but he knew it was not part of his body.  Before he could hook his fingers around it, he felt his arm wrenched away.

    He blacked out for a moment.  When he came to, only seconds later, he felt himself being dragged toward the tub of water and thrown into it.  He screamed, the perfumed water stung his wounds -- burning him.  Dante struggled to find a leverage and get out of the water.  He couldn't.  It took him a few more seconds to realize the reason -- Remus had held him in there by his neck.  His blood had colored the water pink, with the overflow spilling out and running toward the drain in the center of the floor.  

    "You fucker...let go..."

    His voice was coarse and heavy.  Remus growled then pushed his head down into the water.  Dante could do well under water but in his frenzied state, he forgot how to breathe and took in lungful of water.  When Remus pulled him back up, Dante coughed violently.  

    "You little whore... you've been fucking with me all that time?"

    Remus pushed him back into the water.  Although Dante knew not to breathe in the water, his lungs were convulsing violently trying to expel the water that was still trapped there.  When he was pulled back up, he resumed his violent coughing that hurt his entire body. Badly.

    "Spread your legs to win a bit of my trust so you can do this?"

    Remus pulled Dante out of the water, dragging him out by his wrist.  Remus pulled one of the neatly folded towels from the bar by the sink and wrapped it around Dante's belly.  The cut was closing but slowly.  Blood had already risen from it and stained the towel red.  

    "Then I guess you will just have to apologize to me in the same way."

    Remus pulled Dante's thighs apart and knelt in between them as he undid his pants.  Dante shook his head, his right arm was the only thing he could move.  He clawed at Remus' leg weakly.  He also realized he was losing consciousness.  He was losing blood too fast.  When Remus shoved his way into him, he could only manage a small cry.

    "This is only the beginning of a very long pain-filled life you will have, my little angel."

    Dante's eyes lowered, half-lidded as he felt his body rock back and forth -- with Remus pounding in and out of him in relentless pace.  He didn't care.  He didn't want to care anymore.  He only want to close his eyes and never wake up again.

    "I will....kill....this...thing...." Dante said numbly and closed his eyes.  

    Remus slapped him hard with the back of his hand.  Dante barely felt it.

    "Why are you doing this...?"

    It was the last words Dante heard Remus say as his mind plummeted into the darkness.  "Do what?" Dante wanted to ask but he found the comfort of the oblivion much more enticing than having an answer to an absurd question.

Remus

    I continued to fuck him, even after he passed out.  I want to hurt him.  I want to hurt him in the worse way.  And I want him to be awake to feel it.  But his human blood had made him weak to high levels of pain.  I wasn't even certain if he could die again but this time, never to be revived.  I came but it was not a spectacular climax I usually have when I fucked him.  I pulled out of him and  lifted the bloodied towel and studied the cut he had made.  

    The wound was still wide and gaping, but it had stopped bleeding.  Deep inside, there's a sliver of white that was the beginning of the baby.  I do not know if Dante had succeeded hurting it but exposed like this, it would certainly die.  I looked over my shoulder and picked up a piece of the mirror.  I cut a thin line along my arm and bled into Dante's wound.  As expected, Dante's eyes snapped open and he screamed.  I locked his hips tightly between my knees as he thrashed.  With my free hand, I held down his hands.  

    "You brought this on yourself," I said.  "But I am very glad to know you woke to feel it."

    My whole demon blood was burning his human blood.  It has been described to me as being immersed in a strong acid -- the burn intense but slow enough to keep the human alive.  My blood would join with his demon blood to accelerate the healing, but he would be in terrible pain from it for hours.  Perhaps days.  He screamed until his voice became hoarse, then his voice reduced to heavy panting.

    I leaned over and kissed his mouth.  

    "What should I do with you?" I said.  "Should I give you to the Elders? They would like nothing more than to punish you like a heretic.  A betrayer of your own blood.  Worse, someone born with half blood."

    His blue eyes were unfocused as they looked at me.  I wasn't sure if he even understood a word I said.  Half of his mind must have already been gone with the pain.

    "This palace used to be owned by a Count," I said and made a sweeping look with my eyes.  "A human count who seemed to have taken a liking to sadism.  In the dungeon, he had set a rather nice dining room table with the most elegant linen and silvers in the main torture chamber.  I think the Count liked his dinner entertainment to be live.  Quite brutal, even by our standards."

    I ran my thumb along his lower lip, just to feel the softness of it.

    "Is that what you've given your life for? For human trash like that?"

    "Fuck...you..."

    The words sounded beautiful, breathed from those pale lips.  There were life and fire again in his blue eyes.  In that instant, I felt a stirring in my groin but I ignored it.  For the time being.

    "Oh my poor sweet angel," I said and kissed him on the mouth again.  I gathered him into my arm and walked into the blood-tinted pool.  He was doll-like, strengthless in my arms.  I turned on the tap and ran the water, letting it run over -- pushing the pinkish water out toward the drain in the room.  I held him in my lap until the water ran clear.  I passed my hand over the wound over his belly -- they had closed.  

    "Why me...?" He said.  

    I kissed the side of his neck.

    "Why not you?"

    He had no answers nor did I expect him to have any.  Well, probably not the answers he wanted to hear. 

    "Let me get you off for once, sweets.  It's only fair," I said and hooked my arm around his waist -- half dragged and half carried him to the bed.

    I threw him on the bed and pinned him down before he could scamper off.  He was livid, suddenly alive with anger as he fought me while I tied his wrists to the frame of the bed.  His body felt wonderful, rearing wildly against mine.  I let him struggle until exhaustion took him again and his movements were once again slow and languid.

    "Most men loves to fuck," I said and spread open his legs.  "They are suppose to want this all the time."

    I gave his puckered hole a gentle slap with my fingers and it made him flinch.

    "I've not had you cum for me," I said, running my fingers along his flaccid cock.  "I'm such a selfish bastard, huh? Not to worry. I'll make you feel so good that you'll still cum long after you've emptied."

    A growl came out of him and he made another furtive lunge at me -- the movement only tightened the bond around his wrists and rose his body off the bed.

    "Be good..." I whispered and pressed in a finger inside carefully.  His body tightens as it always did at any invasion, as I pushed in up to my knuckle.  "This won't hurt a bit."

    "Don't -- "

    "Shhh -- "

    I worked the finger through the tight columns, massaging it with the pad of my finger to relax it.  I held his soft cock in my other hand, moving very little but kept it in the hollow of my hand.  In actuality, I knew little about how to pleasure a man.  In the hundreds of years I've been in the company of humans, Dante had been the only male I've fucked.  And I fucked him to hurt him.

    Dante grimaced, there were no pleasure in his expression.  I knew why -- I was dry finger-fucking him.  My finger nail was scraping painfully against the sensitive linings of the tract.  I pulled my finger out and kneaded his ass gently, stretching the mouth of his hole until they were wide enough for my tongue to slip in.  He protested as I pushed my tongue inside -- his thighs struggled to close.  

    He tasted nice -- with hints of blood and traces of my own cum that I had left in him earlier.  As my tongue probed deeper, his cock hardened a little in my hand.  I grasped it harder, rubbing the crown with my thumb.  My tongue was inside as far as it will go -- licking and stroking at his hot tunnel.  His breathing became harder and louder.  I tongued him long enough to wet his hole to take my fingers in easily.  He was sobbing by the time I was stabbing in sharply  -- with the tips of my fingers pressing against his spot right behind the prostate that made his erection complete.  

    "Good boy..." I said and started a slow stroke on his cock.  "Cum for me."

    He shook his head.  I bent forward and took the little pink nipples in my mouth, drawing on them until they both became hard little pebbles.  I envied him at that moment -- the kind of pleasures that must be overwhelming him then.  I bit down on the delicious morsel that was in my mouth, scraping it with my teeth as my hands continued to work on his ass and cock.  He was slowly being brought up to his climax.  His body was shaking badly to fight it.  

    "Stop...stop..."

    "I don't think you could stand it if I did," I said and kissed his lower lip.  "Feels good doesn't it?"

    "No - "

    I stroked his cock harder and faster and made him cry out.  

    "Liar. Your body tells me something else."

    I wanted to fuck him so bad then.  My own erection was pushed hard against my pants, straining to shove inside the tight warmth that my finger was fucking.  Not yet. 

    Then I felt it.  A hard tremor that went through his body that made him scream.  I caught the cum in my mouth as they spurted out then kissed him, feeding him his own seed.  He barely moved, with his eyes still wide as I ravaged his mouth.  He didn't seem to notice when I shoved my cock into him, desperate to release its tension.  It didn't take me long.  I shot my cum into his mouth, mixing it with his own. I sealed my hand over his mouth when he tried to spit it out.

    "Swallow."

    He refused.

    "My hand's not going to move until you do.  I don't think cum's going to taste any better if you held it over your tongue."

    He finally swallowed.  Pure hatred in those pretty blue eyes.  I laughed and kissed him on his forehead.

    "I'd like to play a little longer, my little angel...but we don't have much time left.  Someone will come and cut you loose so you can get cleaned up."

    I stood up and buttoned my pants.

    "Don't fight them.  They will hurt you."

    With that said, I turned and left.  

Dante

    They came soon after he left.  They wore hoods to hide their aged face but I could tell they were the ones that had raped me in the ceremony.  Somehow, I was too exhausted to care.  I couldn't even work a single word from my throat as they pried open my mouth and poured a clear fluid down my throat.  It was a drug. A nice drug that took all of the pains away and made everything around me dream-like.  

    The wrapped me hastily in the damp sheet I was lying on and carried me out of the room and into a different room.  Someone was already running water in the bath chamber.  I was like a broken doll to them, my limbs rubbery and useless, as they sat me against the tiled floor of the bath and rinsed the sweat and cum off me first.

    They spoke. I wasn't certain if they were speaking to me or each other, but I couldn't understand them.  They spoke in the dark tongue that I only knew to recognize the sound from the few words father had taught me.  Then one of them seized me by my hair and yelled.  I broke into a smile, although I didn't know why.  Another goatling caught the hand that raised to hit me.  I was left crumpled on the wet floor as I watched the goatlings argue.  They argued until all but one left.  The one remaining shrugged off the hooded robe he wore and carried me into the bath with him.

    As he washed me, I studied the curious features of my caretaker.  He was small by their clan standards but still a couple of feet taller than myself.  His body held strong human features although his face was of the blood goat.  Briefly, I wondered if he was a halfling.  I didn't think I would ask, even if I had my voice back.  

    The combination of the drug and the warm water made me sleepy. That, in itself was a new discomfort.  My caretaker seemed to have understood and finished washing my hair quickly.  I was fluttering in and out of consciousness by the time he was toweling me off.  He woke me after he laid me in the bed and told me to eat.  He had placed a tray of bread and some kind of meat along with a bottle of wine on the table next to the bed.  

    "Eat then sleep," he said and pet me with an unusual affection.  "You will need all of your strength."

    Then he left.  I laid awake with my eyes fixed on the wine bottle.  Eventually, I worked up enough strength to snatch it from the tray and drank it.  Alcohol had always been a vice I endeared.  Right now, more than ever.  It was a balm soothing the hurt and the shattered ego.  I fell asleep, blessfully half-drunk.

    I woke with a dull headache and Remus spooned against me.  He had shifted me before he slept, his arm wrapped snugly around my waist.  From the soft sound of the drawn out, steady breathing -- he was a sleep.  I entertained the thought of throwing his arm off and make a run toward the door.  But I didn't know where I was nor was I armed.  The thing inside me drained every bit of powers my body generated -- making me weaker than human most of the time.  Even if I manage to gouge out the creature inside me -- it would probably take a considerable amount of time for me to recover enough power to defend myself.  I concluded that I was fucked.  More than in the literal sense.

    Remus took in a deep breath and stirred.  A slight nudge and I realized he was also naked under the velvet coverlet.  A more startling revelation was that his skin was different.  It was no longer tough or ice cold.  His body felt like a human's -- firm but soft...and warm.  He was dying.  The metabolic in his body was no longer working and he probably had already lost most of his demon powers.  When the warmth in his body flickers out and the skin cools, he would be dead.  I wondered if my father had died this way.  

    "What are you thinking about?" He said suddenly and kissed me behind my neck.

    "What am I to you?" I said.

    "What?"

    "What am I to you?" I said again.  I stared fixedly at the empty bottle of wine I had tossed on the floor, wishing for a nice bottle of whiskey.  "You rape me, you beat me and -- "

    I didn't finish the sentence.  He laughed softly and stroked my hair.

    "It's not too bad to be loved sometimes."

    "I'd fucking kill you and the rest of your clan here the first opportunity I have."

    "I didn't say you love me."

    "I don't want you to even mention that fucking word.  You don't know the meaning of it."

    "Probably not in the same way you understand it," he said.  "I've never had to explain my motives to anyone for the two thousand years I've been alive...and I don't plan on explaining myself to you now."

    He moved his hand over my belly and touched the scar.  I flinched reflexively when he did so.

    "I want you to live after the baby comes out."

    I said nothing.  I didn't understand the meaning of his words.

    "I want another chance to meet you again under a different circumstance."

    "Why? It's always going to be the same.  Even if you no longer hunt half-demons, I will never change. I will still hunt the likes of you."

    "Natural enemies, we are," he said absently.  He scraped his fingernail lightly across the scar back and forth.  "Tragic, isn't it?"

    I didn't have anything to say.

    "In each of us, demon or human or halflings -- there's always a life we wished for...and wishing for it would be the closest he would get to it.  The sum of my fear and my love and my hate -- it is in that seed inside you."

    We fell in silence for awhile.  I felt my strength return but I couldn't will myself to crawl away from the unwanted embrace.  As if he was making it known he knew what I was thinking, he twined one of his legs between mine.  

    "Why are you choosing to die in a human form?" I said.  "Dying in the embodiment of something you've hunted for most of your life."

    He laughed.  He was genuinely amused by my question.

    "Dear Dante," he said and gave the side of my neck a kiss.  "I don't think you would like lying with an Abyss Goat."

    He spent most of the next two days writing in a book in the bedroom.  As he wrote, he didn't seem to notice me.  I spent most of the time watching him.  The thing inside me had not only taken my demon powers, it had begun to eat away at what remained of my human strength.  Often, I was too weak to even move my legs or arms.  

    It might have been a dream I had woken out of.  Or perhaps I did hear it.  I heard the sea.  The crisp sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was clear, as if the ocean was right outside, just below.  The wonderful sound of the moving water, splashing violently against the shore was a temporary escape in this prison.  A sound that reminded me of the world I came from.  Of the freedom I once had.

    "You're crying..." Remus said and smeared droplet from the corner of my eye with his thumb.  I stared at him, feeling the tears well up again.

    "There's an ocean below the window," I said -- my voice was small and sounded nothing like my own.  

    He frowned.

    "There isn't," he said and bent over to kiss me on my forehead.  "Our room faces away from the sea."

    "I can hear it," I said.  And I could.  "I want to see it."

    "You're too weak to be moved."

    "I want to see it," I said again but it didn't sound any more forceful.

    "Listen to me," he said and cupped my face in his hands.  "Somehow, the baby inside you is growing faster than we thought -- it's taken more life energy in the rate that might kill you soon.  You shouldn't be moved or -- "

    "I want to see it."

    I sounded like an unruly child.  I certainly felt like one.  I didn't care.  I didn't want to die in an enclosed chamber with a small window that only looked out to the sky.  He bit down on his lower lip and chewed on it thoughtfully for a bit.

    "For only a little while," he said and wrapped the velvet blanket I was lying on around me.  "And for this one time."

    He carried me through a labyrinth of hallways and into a ballroom.  There were scatterings of goatlings there who left as soon as he told them to.  He crossed the span of the ballroom and out toward the double glass doors that led out to the garden.  Or what was left of a what was a glorious imperial garden.  We passed broken statues with shattered figures among the unattended greens and withered flowers.  Fallen branches and browned leaves covered the walkway.  The smell of mildew was strong. The garden was no longer beautiful or lively as it had intended to be.  It was dead and destroyed -- like me.

    As we neared the ocean -- I can smell it.  The scent of the salt was heavy in the air.  It was also becoming colder and the breeze had picked up.  He selected a spot near the edge of the cliff and sat down, cradling me against him.  He drew the blanket around me and held me tighter.  The cold had driven through the velvet and pierced into my bones.  It was the most sensational feeling I've had since I became a prisoner.  I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the waves crashing below -- it moved me so much that I cried.  Remus let me.

   We said nothing and for that few hours we sat out there, I think we came to an exact understanding. Not of each other -- but just in the lives we led.  The last time I had come to feel I comprehended what my life was since day mother and Vergil died -- that I was never meant to be happy.  I was never meant to be whole.  I will always be chasing illusions and shadows that will always be just out of reach nor will I know why I needed to chase them.  Remus -- in spite of what he was, he was the same.  

    "I have very little time left," he said suddenly.  "Perhaps one or two more days.  I can feel it."

    He looked down at me.  In the moonlight, I can only see half of his face.  I didn't need to see his entire face to know he was sad.  His eyes, the gold in them caught the light and it made me see someone else in him.  I saw a broken man who was about to lose his everything.

    "I want you to promise me you will let the baby be born."

    "I can't."

    "If you won't, the Elders will force you to carry the baby to term and cut it out of you."

    "I still can't."

    The corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smile.

    "Wicked little creature," he said and kissed me on the top of my head.  "There's no one to protect you from the Elders after I die.  No one here wants you to live.  All I can do is give them my last wish but my words would mean nothing, if it meant losing the baby."

    I said nothing.  I didn't want to talk anymore.  It was becoming an effort, just to form thoughts and words.  I was becoming tired again and wanted sleep.

    "I wish things are different," he said.  "I just want to start over again."

    Start over again, with the demon seed that was growing in my body.

    He carried me back to the room after I fell asleep.  The warmth of his body slipping beneath the cover next to me woke me.  He said he wanted to make love to me.  I didn't answer.  I would not have had the energy to fight him, even if I didn't want to.  He curled his body behind me, pushing his hardened length inside.  Instead of his usual relentless pounding pace, he only held me to him with his cock fully seated inside me.  He didn't move.

    "You feel very nice..." he said into my ear.  He moved slowly, shifting only his hips without pulling his cock out.  I drew in sharp breaths -- the tip of his cock brushed against a sensitive spot inside and it made me feel heady with arousal.  I grasped at the sheets, trying to crawl away from the sensation.  Remus laughed softly and held to me.

    "Why do you do that?" he said and licked at the side of my neck.  "Why do you feel you must reject pleasure? Because I'm giving it to you."

    "Yes," I hissed.

    "It'll just be our little secret," he said.

    He ground his cock inside in a slow circle -- sending electric-like vibrations through me.  One of arms wrapped around my waist, holding me to him. The other held my legs apart.  His cock never left -- they remained inside, filling me completely.  

    "Your cock must be straining to be touched," he said.  "You want me to do it?"

    I shook my head.

    "Then put your hands down there and do it."

    I shook my head again.  

    "Stubborn," he said with a little laugh.  He pulled the length of his cock out, the thick head of the crown lingered at the dilated hole for a few seconds and pushed in again hard and up to its roots.  It felt disgustingly good and he knew it.  He did that several times then turned me over onto my back.  He bent my knees and pushed them toward my chest, folding me until my exposed hole was facing up.  He licked the rim of it, working his tongue outwards toward my thighs.  I was throbbing with the pain of being unfilled.  I was in pain with the need to cum.  The bastard knew it.

    I gasped out in relief when he pushed into me again.  He waited for a moment before he started to pound in and out in the pace I was familiar with -- the searing pain of being torn open, the insides felt like it was being shredded...somehow, it felt good.  I slipped my hands down and felt for the pistoning cock tearing into my ass.  His wet shaft was hot on touch.  The rim of my hole gripped hard as he pumped.  He slowed down only once, change the angle of his penetration by holding me by my ankles in one hand.  It was the precise angle to my spot and I nearly cummed when he started to fuck it in his hard pace.

    "Do you want to cum?" He said between his breath. 

    I wasn't certain if I answered him.  I might have, since he told me to touch myself again.  I wouldn't.  I refuse to put on a show for him.  He fucked me harder -- slowing down after a few minutes because I had started to bleed.  I couldn't feel the pain.  The pressure in my groin was the only thing I felt.

    He slowed to a stop, only to touch my straining cock.  He didn't have to stroke it to have it cum -- I did, just on a touch.

    "Good boy," he said, then worked my spent cock in the palm of his hand to milk out the last drops.

    We lied side by side -- with him behind me.  He pushed his cock inside again but left it in there as he rocked me gently against him.

    "Get a little sleep," he said and kissed the nape of my neck.  "We'll do it again when you have a little more energy."

    And I did.  I fell asleep with his cock embedded deep inside me.  For once, I didn't mind.    

    I woke when he unwrapped his arm from around my waist and rolled away and off the bed.  As he dressed, he spoke.  His voice was softer and only a little louder than a whisper.

    "Knives will be here to take care of you shortly.  Don't give him a hard time."

    "Knives...?"

    He shrugged, buttoning up his shirt half way up.

    "It's an honorary name given to him," he said.  "A master of the blades."

    He leaned down and gave me a kiss on my forehead.

    "He was the one who settled you in and gave you food."

    He gestured at the platter of untouched food on the nightstand.

    "Well, at least you drank the wine."

    I wanted to tell him to ask Knives to bring me another bottle, but somehow I think he wouldn't.  I said nothing as he stroked my hair and gave me another kiss before he left.  Knives was quite prompt.  He came in only minutes after Remus left.  He wore the same blank expression as he fetched a wash cloth and a pan of water from the bath.  The corner of his eye only flinched slightly as he pulled off the velvet blanket off me and discarded it onto the floor.

    "You didn't eat what I brought you," he said as he scrubbed at my right leg with the damp cloth.

    "I don't usually follow directions well when I am in captivity."

    He frowned and it made the age lines in his face even more pronounced.

    "After Remus dies, there would be no one to protect you.  You should learn to take orders."

    I laughed out loud even before I knew why I was.  Knives paused for a few moments and regarded me with the most mystified look.

    "You are in a dire situation," he said.  "The seed inside you is worth more than your life."

    "I think my life cheapened the moment I was brought here," I said.  "I am no more than a fucking vessel for a demon goat."

    He dropped the wash cloth into the pan and swirled it around, then wrung it dry again.  Gingerly, he began to wipe down on my left leg.

    "More than that," he said.  "You are carrying our next king."

    "Really," I said.  I couldn't contain my laughing fit that came then.  He waited patiently while I did and spoke again when my giggles died down.

    "Remus had given up his status to lay with you.  Right now, the Elders are waiting for him to die."

    "I didn't know I was that good of a fuck," I said.

    "Your battle with him two years ago shortened his life by nearly half.  Since the day you defeated him, he was convinced that he could only be reborn through your blood.  The Elders only approved because you are a Sparda and the baby would also absorb some of that power."

    "You assume I would let it live."

    "No," he said.  "I know you would not.  But given the circumstances you are in now, you would have no choice but to give birth to it."

    He grasped me by my chin and made me look at him.

    "Remus had asked for your life to be spared after the birth.  The Elders might grant this out of respect for their former king but they will quickly dismiss it, if you fight them in any way or present yourself as a danger to the baby.  You must obey the rules given to you, understand? Even as I am one of the Elders, I am not enough to protect you from them.  They want you tried and punished as a halfling who had killed our kind.  They would, if you give them any reason to."

    I pull away from his grip.

    "You are either too optimistic or simply an old fool to believe that."

    He said nothing for awhile, then let out a long sigh before he dipped his hand back into the pan for the wash cloth again.

    "If I can, I will give you a quick death as soon as the baby is born," he said softly.  "If the Elders would not honor Remus' last wish."

    I would have thanked him for the suggestion but somehow, I didn't think it was appropriate.  I didn't need him to promise me death.  I did not intend to die.

    Remus returned with a full bottle of vintage red wine and let me drink it while he wrote in the book again.  He looked especially somber.  Almost sad, as he wrote.  Whatever he was writing, it took him hours.  He wrote until he looked visibly worn out and finally closed the book with the pen stuck between the pages he had not finished.  By then, I had long finished the aged wine and was in a considerably more amicable mood.

    "Do you want to see the sea again?" He asked and sat down on the bed facing me.  

    "What happened to "only this one time"?"

    He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek and smiled.  His hand was cold.

    "I break rules all the time," he said and kissed me on my mouth.  "Even my own."

    He wrapped the blanket around me again and carried me out, like last time.  This time, flanking behind us were three hooded men.  Remus knew they were following and didn't seem to care.  That was when the final realization came to me.  Remus was on his last hours.  The hooded men were there to be witnesses to his death, when it comes.  

    We said nothing as we passed through the ballroom and out of the neglected court yard.  The only light that lit the path was from the crescent moon that loomed closely above.  There's no breeze but it was still cold.  He sat down on the spot where we were -- close enough to see the waters washing up ashore beneath.  The three hooded figures remained in the shadows a distance away.  I could not see them but I knew they were there.

    "What were you writing in that book?"

    He glanced down at me and half smiled.  

    "Just my thoughts to the child I will not see.  More like, a long letter to myself."

    "Did you include the parts on how he was begotten through rape?"

    He laughed.

    "If you call it that, yes -- I wrote that.  In fact, I had a painting done of our wedding night."

    "What?"

    "In the ceremony, there was a human.  He's an artist I had sponsored when he was only a boy.  I admired his work so much that I gave him all the money he needed to fund his career.  He is quite famous in New York, you might have seen some of his works in passing.  I brought him here to capture the very moment of the child's conception."

    "You are fucking crazy..."

    "A little gift to the child, when he is old enough to understand it," he said.  "And maybe the picture will bring him to you someday."

    "I don't think your clan would let the precious little darling out of their sight."

    "Seemed that Knives had said more than he should," he said.  "Yes, the child will succeed me.  More of a reason why he must find you someday.  Without the reunion, there would be no closure."

    "I am not understanding your logic."

    "You don't need to," he said.  "The child will.  He is me.  I am him."

    He gathered me to him closer.  The cold had seeped through the blanket and into me.  Remus himself felt as icy as the night chill itself.  

    "I have never failed in my duty in my lifetime...until you.  I paid for it with my life.  If I cannot kill you with my own hands, on an equal term, then my life would have meant nothing."

    "So you are doing this only to kill me in a fight."

    "As a hunter yourself, you should understand this completely."

    "No I don't," I said.  "I hunt for a different reason."

    "You think so?" He said with an amused smile.  "You hunt because you hate.  How are you different from me?"

    "I will never be anything like you."

    "Perhaps not in the way you think," he said.  "I want a chance to kill you with my own hands...and start my life over at that point."

    "You would stop hunting halflings after my death."

    "Most likely, yes," he said and stroked my hair.  "I don't think I would ever find another game as lovely or as interesting as you.  I think I would like to be an artist.  Like that human artist whom I had admired.  I would like to spend my days putting my idealized world into form on canvass.  Creating beauty that will live forever -- never growing old and never die."

    He pressed his mouth against the side of my neck.

    "Create a world that I've always longed to be and never having to wake up again.  Wouldn't that be wonderful? To have a life like that?"

    "You have...but you chose to wake up through the seed you've sewn inside me."

    "I've given up everything for this one chance to know what it is like..."

    He didn't finish his sentence.  We said nothing for awhile.  It was too dark to see the sea below but it can heard.  The waves that washed ashore was gentle and soothing.  It might have been only hours when he spoke again.

    "I only have one thing to ask of you," he said.  I couldn't see his face.  I did feel the tears splash on my cheek.  "That you don't forget me."

    He bent down and kissed me on my mouth.  

    "I don't care if you hate me...but I think it will hurt me the most, if you forget me."

    I didn't answer him.  Another droplet fell onto my lips as he closed his eyes.  He had died.  I knew it then although he looked serene and still held to me.  I returned his last kiss.

    "See you in a few years, you bastard."