Dominion

True to his word, Kinji had returned with the survivors of the raid on the village. He'd taken them to a barren chamber near the kitchen where food for the servants and slaves was prepared. There were pitifully few survivors. Four females, all of them dirty, stinking of filthy wolves and fear, naked as the day they'd been born into their world of pain and fear. They knelt on the bare stone of the floor, heads bowed, cringing.

For the most part, they were unremarkable specimens of their race, with only one notable exception. A delicately built beauty with skin pallid as moonlight and hair dark as Mother Night. She knelt, head lowered, arms wrapped around herself, shivering from the cold.

"I expected more alive than this," Lucien remarked as he studied the small beauty. Something about her drew him as few females did, and he decided he wanted her for his own.

"The others were already tainted with the blood of the wolves. They could not be saved. Many of them were already dead or dying when we caught up with the furfaces," Kinji informed him, his deep voice solemn, and his face twisted in an angry glare.

"So these are the only survivors from an entire village of one hundred humans?"

"Yes, my Liege."

"What a terrible waste." He frowned. "These three"—he motioned to the less attractive females—"should be taken to the nearest village and given a home together. See that it's taken care of, Kinji."

His second bowed. "As my Liege commands. What of the other female?"

"Have her cleaned up and add her to my bloodharem."

The girl looked up at him, her wide brown eyes full of terror, mouth open in an O of shock.

A knowing smile curled Kinji's mouth. "As my Prince orders, it shall be done." The look his liegeman turned on him smoldered with an unspoken invitation. "Does my Lord require anything else of me?"

"Yes. We need to form a strategy to make the wolves pay for their audacity in destroying the village. My village. I'll expect you to join me in my quarters when you've finished taking care of the females."

Kinji bowed low. Lucien saw his pleased smile before the fall of dark red hair hid his second's face. "As my Liege commands."

"I'll be waiting for you," he stated and left. Passing through the kitchen, he paused, selected a small, tart apple, and put it in his pocket for later. Kindness to his girls often overcame their fear and reluctance, and he wanted this new female of his to neither fear nor resist his desires.

After the terror she's gone through, I'll have to go gently with her or ruin any chance I have of making her mine.

Which led his mind to a new thought. He smiled. Yes, that's exactly it. Kindness rather than pain and fear. Perhaps that tactic would work with the furface too.

But that was an idea for later. Much later.

He left the kitchen, passed through the long halls and large gathering chambers, acknowledging the greetings of his people, lords, ladies, and some higher nobles who were dependent on his good grace. Some overly so, yet he had an obligation to protect and care for them as their prince.

He climbed a set of stairs and reached the central garden that grew on the rooftop of the Grand Audience chamber where he held his Grand Court twice a year. Lucien was thankful his own people were not quarrelling. If they had been, he would be forced to sit in judgment more often, as did some of the other princes and princesses whose Dominions were torn by internecine strife.

Reaching the Heart Tower, the very center of his entire Dominion, Lucien passed the first set of guards who stood outside the entrance. They knelt as he approached, showing respect to their Prince. Lucien passed through the Heart's foyer and went to the stairs at the rear. Walking past the barracks of his guards. He climbed the spiraling stairway up to the fourth floor and went through a room filled with guards who also knelt to him. He entered another set of twisting stairs, climbed to the next level, then onward up to his chambers at the top. Guards at the doorway sank gracefully to their knees at his approach. As with the others, he passed them without the slightest acknowledgment. They were a constant presence he'd known since childhood. Their duty lay in protecting him from hostile forces that might somehow make their way into his Fortress. Which was about as likely as swine gaining the power of flight.

No enemy had ever managed to gain entry to the Fortress. No spy could slip past his magical defenses. But precautions were taken, and the guards maintained a high level of vigilance.

Short of internal betrayal, Lucien didn't worry.

The guards were hardly needed. Not when Kinji so often remained at his side. Kinji of the stormy violet eyes and cool disposition. Cool until he lay writhing in the grip of passion beneath Lucien. Then his second became an insatiable creature of need, of unbound lust and wicked desires.

Desires Lucien quite happily indulged his Kinji in fulfilling.

His cock stiffened at the thought of taking Kinji, of sating his needs with the younger vampire. His Kinji, bound willingly to him by oaths, magic, and blood in an unbreakable bond so powerful Lucien's demise would bring about the end of Kinji.

He motioned, and the doors to his private chambers swung open at his gesture, the age-old magic working wherever vampirekind made their home. The open doors revealed a carpeted floor covered in the delicate petals of red and yellow wild roses. The black and red of his bed had been dusted with yellow and white petals. Antiquated candlelight filled the room, bathing it in soft pools of light and deep, concealing shadows.

In the center of the room stood his beautiful Kinji. Kinji of the pale flesh and twilight eyes. His lover wore nothing but a veil of black lace that covered him from head to foot. The delicate ornamentation gave Lucien enticing glimpses of the pale skin beneath. The lace flickered as Kinji knelt, smoky black diamonds glittering in the glow of the candles placed around the room. Beneath the veil, Kinji had freed his hair of the tight braid he wore it in at all times. The beauty of his hair, which he shared with no one but Lucien, his prince and master, served as another aspect of Kinji's sexual appeal.

Lucien motioned the doors closed, crossed the room to where Kinji knelt in supplication. The lacy veil covering him added to his exotic beauty and lent an added mysterious aura to the other vampire.

"I see you wasted no time arriving here and making me welcome."

"I wish to please my Prince."

Lucien chuckled. "You always do, Kinji."

"Do I, Master?"

Lucien gently moved the veil aside, the pins holding it in place in Kinji's hair keeping it draped over his back, acting as a frame to an exquisite work of living art. He recognized the veil as a costume from the closets of his bloodharem.

"You are breathtaking, Kinji." He took Kinji's hand and led him toward the bed as a prince might lead his consort to their first night of pleasure, the younger vampire gliding along soundlessly at his side. They reached the bed, the scent of roses, the heady spice fragrance of Kinji himself filling Lucien's nostrils, making his blood pound through his veins. He turned Kinji to face him, taking the smaller male's biceps in his hands and holding him still as he bent to kiss the lips he craved.

Honey and the flavor of spices unknown to Lucien filled his mouth, the taste of Kinji never palling, never losing its allure. He sucked on the sweet treat of Kinji's tongue, let his fangs graze the delicate, petal-soft surface, tasting blood, swallowing. Brazen as a conqueror, Lucien's tongue invaded Kinji's mouth, claiming the other vampire.

Kinji moaned and leaned closer, his tongue flicking and sparring with Lucien's, not for supremacy, but in suppliant accord.

Lucien broke the kiss. "My Kinji."

"Yes, my Master, Kinji is yours. Always yours. Ai shiteru," he murmured at the last, lapsing into the Old Earth language spoken only by those of his bloodline. He'd explained to Lucien that the words meant love forever, without end. And Lucien believed it of his bonded man, because nothing could break the magic that tied them together. Nothing except Lucien's death, for the bond had such power should Kinji die, he would be resurrected as a full demonic entity that no one but Lucien could dismiss.

"Do you love me, Kinji?"

"Kinji loves his master. Kinji belongs to Prince Lucien," his lover murmured and pressed his lips to Lucien's chest directly over his heart. He called it sealing his promise to his master's heart, that kiss. It brought a smile to Lucien's lips.

"Does Kinji truly love me?" he asked because he liked hearing the answer. Loved everything about his graceful beauty, his lover.

"Yes, Kinji loves his Master. His Prince."

Lucien laughed. "I made you a duke; you should love me," he teased, knowing the answer he'd get to that comment.

Stormy violet eyes lifted to gaze at his face. "If you took that word from before my name, stripped me of everything and made me part of your bloodharem, I would love you no less than I do now, Lucien. Nothing could make me stop loving you."

Lucien smiled. "Nothing?"

"Nothing, my Prince," Kinji replied. He pulled free of Lucien's grip to abase himself at Lucien's feet, head bowed to the floor, spine bent into an arch hidden artfully by the lace. He knew his master's sexual triggers well enough to know the reaction the display would elicit, the lust it would arouse.

"You are my Master, and I am your bondsman, your samurai, your dutiful guard and servant. Your eternal slave. I belong to you, my Prince."

His master bent down, gripped his arms, and pulled him to his feet. "You make me crazy with the need to taste your blood and have your body. You make me want to throw you down on my bed and drive my cock into you until the entire Fortress can hear your screams for merciful release."

Kinji gave Lucien a cool smile, his gaze hooded by partly closed eyelids, the expression one he'd practiced until it perfectly conveyed submission with a touch of defiance. He met Lucien's gaze, giving him a small challenge, urging him to exercise desires they both had: Lucien's to dominate, his to submit.

"Master may do anything he wishes with Kinji. Master knows this."

Lucien gave him a hard-edged smile. "Yes, I suppose Master does know that."

Prince Lucien picked him up and threw him bodily on the bed, rose petals flying into the air to shower him. He lay where he fell, motionless, dusted with rose petals. He knew what he looked like, sprawled there, his lower body exposed, cock rising from his body hard and needy, the veil trapping his left arm, hair across his face so that he watched Lucien stalk toward him through the curtain of his hair. The Prince's eyes were alight with an inner flame. Lust burned in their depths.

Power beat at him with the force of tall ocean waves battering the rocky coastline of his own power. The vampire's presence washed over him, made his mouth go dry, sent a tremor of lust through him. His hard cock twitched with the desire to be subjugated by the vampire he'd chosen as his master.