Blood Heresy

As the short winter days lengthened toward spring, the estate began to blossom with activity. The horses were already beginning to shed their winter coats and Anksha had chosen to send her blood-slaves to help in brushing them down and combing them out. Bodramet stood half in shadow, attempting to deal with the last animal they had assigned to him. The proud-cut gelding, a difficult beast with a stallion's instincts, kept shoving into Bodramet as he attempted to brush him. Bodramet snarled at the animal, baring his fangs. At least they had not put him to mucking out stalls like Gareth and Petros. Nor would they so long as he continued to do a superior job with the nasty creatures. This was a nibari's work or servant's — not a sa'necari's. He resented it.

Satisfied with his efforts, Bodramet stepped back from the horse, and saw Timon and Ephry enter the stables with Nevin. They headed for Isranon who was leading a fine chestnut mare towards the doors. Isranon. Isranon. Always Isranon. They were courting the lowborn half-a-mon, he was certain of it. Bodramet strained his ears to hear what they were saying. The horse crowded him again. Bodramet slapped it on the rump, and then exited the stall. He closed the door and slipped nearer to the four myn, pretending an interest in the tack hanging from some of the supports.

Timon had wooden practice blades under his arm. "Nevin tells me you are good with a blade."

Isranon paused and his expression brightened. "He trained me. My skills are good enough that they have kept me alive."

Ephry laughed. "Considering the world you have survived in, you must be good indeed. Ask him, lover," he told Timon.

Timon smiled, caressing Isranon with his eyes. "We thought you might go a few rounds with us in the salle."

Isranon shook his head. "I am not finished here. Anksha said—"

Ephry's lips spread in a sensuous expression of delight. "I have already asked her. She says if you wish to, you may."

Isranon glanced from one to the other. "I wish to."

Bodramet ground his teeth in frustration. If they had to pick a favorite, why pick the half-a-mon? And then, again, why not? He had been trying to get Isranon into his own bed for five years. Isranon, with his broad shoulders, narrow hips and handsome face, had always stirred Bodramet's appetites. Isranon had refused him even the smallest taste of his body or his blood. The single time he had come close to forcing Isranon, Mephistis had arrived and attacked him. Then, to add insult to injury, Anksha had disciplined him for breaking the estate's rules concerning non-consensual sex. He would never forget how badly she had torn him that day. Yet, his hate had not been enough to shield him from her power in Charas, to prevent her taking him as a blood-slave.

Bodramet started for the double-doors. He reeked of horses and sweat.

"Where are you going?" called the nibari hostler.

Bodramet's lips curled in a grimace of irritation. These nibari were always getting above themselves with him. "I am finished. I wish to eat."

"Go on, then. But if that last horse has not been done proper, I'll have you back out here."

Bodramet gave him a tiny bow. "I'm sure you will."

He strode briskly across the courtyard and down the broad cobblestone walk toward the mansion. Only one of his four companions had finished in the stable: Yoris glanced back at Bodramet before stepping into the foyer. Bodramet's tongue flicked across his fangs as they came down. He was hungry, but not for slop on a plate, he wanted blood and a body writhing beneath him. The nibari who fed him a small drink from their veins in the evenings refused him sex. They allowed the sa'necari blood only once a day. "Once a day is not enough," Bodramet growled.

Bodramet overtook Yoris at the far end of the foyer. The mon had paused to stare through the doorway into the Great Hall with longing eyes. Only the guests, vampires, and lycans fed there on the multitude of couches in all the little stylistic alcoves. Nibari, wearing soft, accessible garments that easily opened to facilitate sating their master's appetites, served food on the scattered tables for those who ate such things and knelt with wrists crossed behind them to serve the blood from their veins to the others. Standing there and watching the vampires feed, twisted a knife of bitter resentment in Bodramet's gut. He and his companions had been forbidden to do more than pass through the room without pausing on their way to the rear gardens — unless invited and they had not been. However, he had caught sight of Isranon there on more than one occasion, sitting with Haig and his exquisite nibari, Nainee, talking about philosophy.

He clamped his hand round Yoris' wrist, startling him. "Since I cannot have a nibari for my nibble games, I will have you."

Yoris whined for an instant at Bodramet's roughness, which earned him a shake.

"My rooms, Yoris. Don't make me unhappy."

Once upstairs in his rooms, Bodramet dragged Yoris through the sitting room and tumbled him onto the bed. "Undress."

Bodramet regarded Yoris' effeminate, flabby body with distaste made worse by the spreading signs of withering, the red splotches marring the skin. Yoris' blood had begun to taste more acrid and sharp, less of copper; but it was still blood. This was not what he wanted at all. A firm young female or a hard muscled young male would be more to his preference, someone whose blood had a full-bodied flavor like fine wine.

He missed his father's estates in Waejontor, and his privileges: the table set with everything he could possibly wish for; the sycophants and nubile youths so willing to warm his bed and his veins with their flesh and blood. But the estates were laid waste by the Sharani; his father and brothers either slain or fled during the months that Bodramet had followed Mephistis south to conquer new lands. Now here he was a blood-slave with nothing to his name, watching a lowborn half-a-mon stealing all the favors.

"Isranon," he growled softly to himself. "I'd like to put a blade in your ribs and my cock up your ass."

Stretched out on Bodramet's bed, Yoris glanced up at him. "What did you say?"

"If you didn't hear, I'm not going to repeat it," Bodramet growled as he shrugged out of his dirty robes and dropped them on the floor before joining Yoris on the bed.

Yoris levered himself onto his side. "I want to help you. I have always been willing to help you. What did you say?"

Bodramet shoved Yoris' face into the coarse black thatch between his legs. "Shut up and suck me. I will tell you when I'm ready. Otherwise you'll be tattling to someone." He allowed his thoughts to drift enough to imagine it was Isranon's lips around his cock.

Soon after Bodramet finished with him, Yoris fell asleep, exhausted by the rough handling.

The Presence Pain roared up in Bodramet and he could sense Anksha's nearness as she walked down the hallway despite the walls between them. Part of him wanted to go to her and beg her to feed and relieve it. He stifled that.

"I hate you," Bodramet groaned. He needed more freedom, less watching. He examined Yoris' wither marks without waking him.

Then he stroked his side with a tiny touch of his power, too subtle to be detected. Red welts and streaks appeared. Bodramet grazed the surface with his fingers and they disappeared. Then he brought them back again and left them.

Nibari still did the household chores in his chamber, changing linens, sweeping, dusting, and filling his bath. Bodramet left Yoris drowsing in his bed and went off to select the nibari he wished to discover his "condition." He chose those in charge of bathing supplies and requested that a bath be drawn. When he returned to his suite, he settled on the window seat and considered his performance. Two nibari appeared with buckets of steaming water and he stood observing them, waiting for the right moment.

One of them turned toward him. Bodramet grabbed his side, swayed, and crumpled to the floor. A nibari's eyes saucered and she dropped to her knees beside him. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Dizzy," Bodramet gasped. "I hurt." He indicated the place along his ribs where he had placed the false marks.

The nibari opened his robe and checked. "You're withering. It looks advanced."

"No. Nooooooo!" Bodramet screamed, doubling over and clutching at his ribs and stomach. "I'm not ready… I'm too strong. This can't be happening now."

"Anksha can quicken the withering if she wishes. No one is too strong," said the second one as he joined the first.

Yoris, awakened by Bodramet's scream, stood blinking in the doorway. He stepped aside as the second nibari helped Bodramet to rise, and with Bodramet staggering hunched over, got him into his bedroom and laid him down. Yoris followed, his eyes narrow and considering. Bodramet lay with his robe open and the covers folded away from the marks on his body. It looked worse and more progressed than Yoris' own.

The first nibari went for help. Pippa, the elderly nibari who had diagnosed the withering in Yoris, arrived and did the same for Bodramet. "I am surprised it came on this fast and sudden, unless Anksha did it deliberately. But I have seen several go this way. I will ask Timon to give you a few days rest before putting you to work again."

"I am sick," Bodramet protested. "I cannot work."

"Timon will work you till you die," Pippa said. "I'll buy you a few days to get used to it, but only because of the severity and speed with which it came on you."

Pippa poured him a cup of tea and left him a small steaming pot of it on the nightstand, then departed the rooms.

"Bodramet…" Yoris started to speak.

"Go away," Bodramet growled, his voice strained like rage drained through a sieve of anguish. "I want to sleep."

Once Yoris had gone, Bodramet folded his hands behind his head and smiled. Yoris believed it every bit as much as the nibari; hence he would spread it around, probably starting with Gareth, maybe a message to Hoon, and possibly one of Isranon's people. Yoris would play all the angles to see what he could gain from this, and he would gain far less than he expected when Bodramet made his next moves.

If the foolish Lemyari here thought they were all half-dead from the withering, they would let their guards down further. He would talk to the others.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Blood Heresy