Progeny
By: Delilah deSora

Chapter 2

Cayle splashed out into the salty water, laughing as the sea-snake slipped away into the blackness. He swam out until he could no longer touch the sea floor just to feel the small waves lift him up and toss him this way and that. He twisted grinning at the dark figure that watched him from the shore.

“Come on!” He shouted, “You’ll never catch anything over there!”

His companion sniffed and Cayle didn’t need to see his pale face to know that a dark brow was lifted as Dorian crossed his arms across his chest. “And exactly why are we chasing snakes again?”

Cayle sighed dramatically and swam a bit closer to shore. “To put in drawers, of course.”

Dorian shook his head, absently brushing a stray lock of black hair from his face. “And have you forgotten what happened the last time you did something like that?”

Cayle shrugged and lay back, floating on the water even as his clothes tried to weigh him down.

Dorian laughed. “You are truly messed up, do you know that? What punishment do you think you’ll get this time?

Cayle stuck out his tongue. “After I broke nearly every paintbrush your sire owned I heard my father promise that next time he’d figure out something else to punish me with other than cleaning and I’m dying to know what it will be.”

Dorian snorted but before he could reply Cayle went under, his arms waving as he cried out in surprise. Stiffening the younger boy watched, frozen in place until Cayle’s golden head broke the surface. He gasped and struggled and went under again, one pale hand waving frantically before sinking down. With a growl Dorian ran out, the waves pulling at his pants as he struggled to reach his friend’s side. Cayle broke the surface again a short distance to his left before going under a third time and he hurried to the last place he’d seen him. There was nothing but darkness under his hands as he twisted this way and that, looking for some sign of his missing companion.

“Cayle?” He shouted.

There was no reply and he felt his heart begin to pound in fear. “Cayle!”

Something grabbed his leg and he shrieked as he was pulled under, water filling his lungs. He kicked and slashed, his sharp nails sinking into the thing about his ankle. It released him and he shot to the surface, coughing to expel the water from his lungs. Something broke through the water’s edge next to him and he shrank back hissing.

“Gotcha!” Cayle grinned, sharp fangs pressing into his bottom lip as he lunged for him, dunking him under. Spluttering Dorian came to the surface, glaring at the older boy’s retreating form.

“Adrian’s gonna kill you!” Cayle’s voice sang out, “You got your clothes wet!”

Snarling Dorian gave chase and the two boys tore through the dark forest. When Cayle stumbled on a half buried root Dorian rode him down, clawing at his clothes. Cayle easily flung him off, pouncing on him in turn. With a growl he managed to land a bite on Cayle’s arm and took a bite on his shoulder before they broke apart.

“Blech, you taste awful!” Cayle exclaimed, wiping his tongue on his muddy clothes.

Dorian sniffed disdainfully. “You don’t taste so good yourself you know.”

He got up and Cayle’s sparkling eyes informed him that it was his turn to play the hunted. Laughing Dorian obliged, fleeing through the trees, his not-so-deadly encounter in the dark waters forgotten.

When their chase lead them to the gardens that lay behind their home they banded together to stalk a more experienced prey. Huddling together in the underbrush they watched their prey, waiting for the perfect moment. With a final stroke of violet to the canvas the oblivious sire stood back, eyeing his creation for a moment before nodding to himself and turning to the silver bowl that sat at his side. Cleaning the brush with experienced fingers he carried the bowl to the tree line and dumped the water out.

Dorian’s muscles tensed and the moment his sire turned his back fully he attacked, Cayle on his heels. His hands caught the soft fabric of his sire’s shirt but Alexandru turned with the momentum and his grip loosened. As he tumbled to turn his attack he heard Cayle’s surprised yelp and the golden haired velassi struggled in the older sire’s hold, hinting that Alexandru hadn’t been as oblivious to their presence as they’d hoped. His sire, however, hadn’t expected wet cloths and with a grimace of distaste he dropped the struggling boy, staring down at his soaked and muddied side.

Grinning Dorian leapt, trying to take advantage of his sire’s distraction. Though he managed to get in a bite he still found himself on his back, a squirming Cayle pressed against his side as the older velassi stared down that them in amusement.

“You, young one,” he stated, staring down at Cayle, “are being searched for.”

Cayle scowled. “I didn’t do anything!” He stated then hesitated. “Well, not yet anyway.”

Alexandru laughed, rising to his feet and allowing them up. “Which is why it is your sire looking for you rather than your father, I suppose. Best go find him.”

With a growl of annoyance Cayle obeyed, leaving muddy footprints on the marble stairs. Dorian moved to follow but a hand caught the back of his shirt, pulling him back to his sire’s side.

“We must talk as well.” His sire said, burgundy eyes devoid of the mirth that had been there only a moment before.

“I cannot!” Shido hissed, whirling upon his mate. “I cannot watch while you teach our son how to kill,” his voice hitched and he folded his arms about himself, “I cannot be a part of this.”

Cain sighed in disgust. “Even after what they have done you still cling to the humanity you never even had to begin with?”

Shido’s lips thinned. “I cannot stand by and watch you gleefully kill them. Those that harmed Alexandru and myself were only seeking to protect their own kind. I cannot fault them for that, though I wish they had chosen other methods. Do we ourselves not cause them such pain when we take one of their own and use them for our own needs?”

Cain snarled. “They are chattel! A plague of locusts destroying everything in their wake and caring for nothing but themselves! It is our duty to see their numbers diminished! Why else would our kind have evolved along with them?”

Shido sighed and shook his head. “I cannot do it, Cain. Take Cayle and teach him as you must but leave me out of it.”

Clawed fingers tugging at his hair in frustration Cain paced. “You must get over this! You will taint him with your misplaced guilt. You will make him think it is wrong to be what he is. Do you want out son as eaten alive as you every time his growing body demands to be fed?”

Shido shook his head, a frown pulling at his lips.

Cain took his mate by the shoulders, bending so that their faces were even. “Then give this guilt up. Forget the false memories you were given. If I had known they would cost you so much I would never have allowed Adrian to give them to you in the first place!”

Shaking his head Shido stepped back, breaking the contact between them. “It is not the false memories that plague me, Cain. It is the memory of the friends I made, of the towns and lives destroyed by both breed and vampire alike. This is not something I just set aside. I . . . I will do all I can to keep it from Cayle but I cannot help you in this.”

The sound of hurried steps in the hall silenced them. With a warning glance Shido slipped away, closing the door to their bedroom firmly behind him. Growling in irritation Cain scowled at the drenched and mud streaked figure that peered in, looking for him.

“What were you doing?” He snapped.

Cayle grinned. “Hunting.”

 Cain snorted. “If you must drag all the muck in the forest back with you, you are surely hunting the wrong prey.”

His son shrugged. “Dorian doesn’t go down as easy as he used to. But I still won.”

Cain glanced at the fading bite marks on his son’s arm and Cayle laughed. “Well, perhaps it was more of a stalemate than a definite victory.”

“Well get cleaned up and hurry back here, there is something we must discuss.”

As Cayle wandered off to the bathing room Cain tried to coax his mate from the bedroom but Shido, showing the stubborn streak that even he could not break, refused to speak with him and he returned to the living room to await his son’s return.

Shido pressed his forehead to the cool stone, trying to chase away the headache and fatigue he felt. The house was blissfully silent though he knew that Adrian was lurking around somewhere, probably resting. It had been half a century since Dorian’s birth but his strength still gave out on him on occasion. Adrian put up a strong front but, with Alexandru and everyone else gone, he would likely take the chance to wallow in the weakness Dorian’s birth still caused.

He wandered the dark halls, not bothering to light the way. He could easily make out his way through the dark, they all could, but, in a way, all nightwalkers enjoyed the false reality electric lights gave them. It allowed them, if only for a moment, to pretend that they had returned to the brightness of day.

He came across Adrian in the solar, eyes half lidded as he watched the rain pound against the glass ceiling. He offered a halfhearted smile for his new companion and Shido answered in kind. He seated himself by the wall where he could watch the fall of water wash away the dirt and dust of every night life that lingered on the thick panes. Reaching out he pressed a pale hand to the cool glass; the remnants of a far away lightening strike vibrating through the glass and into his body.

“I am surprised you didn’t go,” he murmured, “from what Cain has told me it is a proud moment to watch your child make his first . . . feeding.” He stumbled over the final word for he’d meant to say killing.

He heard the hiss of fabric on fabric as Adrian shrugged. “It doesn’t matter much. They are both too young yet to truly hunt. This venture is little more than to give them a chance to become acquainted with their prey. Cain and Alexandru will chose their victims and lure them back to their home where the little ones can feed. I can stand to be absent from that.

“Now in a few years when they actually begin to learn to associate with humans and chose their own prey, then I will go with them. The more of us keeping an eye on the children and on the humans around them the better. Until then, though, I would rather enjoy the chance to be alone without having to worry where my son has wandered off to or when Alexandru is going to come around and start fussing over me.”

Shido smiled, brushing a stray lock of hair away from his face. “I am glad to see him so active. It is better than waiting to see if anything would penetrate deep enough to get a reaction from him.”

Across the room Adrian nodded. “Yes. He is not completely free of it yet, though. Sometimes he will turn a corner or come into a room and stop. He shakes it off quickly but I have seen the look of confusion on his face as the past tries to resurface.”

Sighing Shido brushed a hand over his emerald vest. “I have noticed it as well, when he is at a loss for something to do. He reverts to staring silently until someone comes looking for him. It is just as it was when he was in the cell, as though he has simply stopped and is waiting for the next set of tests to come.”

Adrian shuddered at that but said nothing. They sat together in silence, watching the thunderstorm move over their island, blinding them with the sharp bursts of light and making the entire room shake with the thunderclap. The weather remained turbulent for a time before the storm moved beyond them and the clouds began to break apart and the calm returned.

Finally Adrian shifted, a small smile playing over his face. “You are growing bored here, are you not?”

Shido blinked in surprise.

The older velassi laughed, stretching long limbs. “You are ill suited to just sitting around.”

Pushing himself to his feet Shido paced the length of the room. “It isn’t that. I’m just used to traveling, to figuring things out on my own. It’s hard to be stuck here while everyone else goes out to search for Miron. Even Este has gone this time.”

Adrian shook his head, running long fingers through his bound hair. “Yes, I imagine it must be rather frustrating for you. Personally I am content to let the others deal with it since I have another duty to perform but you are young yet and used to taking care of your own problems.”

Shido paced, unable to find a response.

Standing Adrian came towards him, catching his shoulders and forcing him to stop. “They will be gone for a week. Why don’t you go out and amuse yourself? There’s no need for you to lurk around here.”

Hesitating Shido glanced at the taller man. “Cain . . .”

Adrian cut off his protest with a sharp laugh. “When did you start listening to him? Go on, find some release for your frustration. You’ll probably be back before he is anyway. Besides,” he added, a sly grin crossing his face as he turned, “it’ll be good to remind him that you can take care of yourself, yes?”

Shido smiled, unable to disagree.

“Still you continue with this nonsense?”

Renzo spared the elder a withering glare. “I would not call tracking down a known danger to both our people and our children ‘nonsense’.”

The elder scowled, his fingers tapping on the granite podium. “We have already given you our decree on the matter. We will take care of the traitor Miron and see that he is sufficiently re-educated so that he no longer poses a threat to our kind. For fifty years have we told you this.”

“And for fifty years you have failed to find him! Forgive me if I doubt your competency in this matter.” Renzo stated, earning harsh stares from three of the five of elders seated before him. The two youngest of the council, velassi of the child-bearing preference, spared him apologetic looks. Of the group only these two seemed to take him seriously but, as the minority, there was little they could do.

In the doorway Este sighed and turned his back on the chamber. For all their lofty claims of protecting their race, their leaders had become one of their most dangerous enemies. Once they had been more forward thinking, willing to put aside ancient traditions to better their lives but they’d become so blind in their ambition that they had turned a deaf ear on the pain and protests of the very people they were supposed to have protected. When their great experiment of trying to mate sires with other sires had failed, killing a shocking number of sires and producing only sire progeny in turn, which threatened to upset the delicate balance between sires and fathers, they discovered their people had turned their backs to them.

In answer they’d reverted to the old ways of their forefathers, ways that ensured progeny by forcing velassi to take a mate before being considered an adult. It was those ways that allowed everything that belonged to a decease velassi, including the mate they’d left behind, to revert to those of their immediate family. It was those ways that allowed a brother to claim a deceased brother’s mate as his own.

Este shook his head, glancing at deserted rooms as he paced halls that had once been filled with voices. They had thought that, by returning to the old ways, their people would return to their city but it only served to drive the younger generations farther away. Only those velassi that had been alive when the elders had been the voice of authority or those whose families had never broken from the council came to their city in the icy lands of the north anymore. Even then, with every generation, fewer and fewer children agreed to cast their lot with the council. Most of them were sires looking for excuses to bind their mates to them in ways that fathers nowadays refused to be.

He paused at a common room, watching the velassi within silently. He’d been like them once. His family had not fled the council rule and he’d been born shortly before the council had put a stop to the indiscriminate mating they’d once endorsed. His parents had been brought together as mates after his father had become pregnant with him. It had been one of the few matches in which both mates had been satisfied with one another. So they had staid in the city while the rest of their kind had fled, leaving only when his father had become pregnant. He’d been raised with the old ways, though they had not affected his life until he had expressed his sexual preference with his parents.

Things had changed then.

His parents had returned to the city in the land of ice where the velassi made their home. The pressure to pick a mate had been overwhelming, though he suspected his parents had not realized the effect their efforts had on him. He had hated it but he’d been raised to respect them and to accept their authority over his life. So, night after night, he’d entertained those they demeaned as proper choices for him and, when one of the elders suggested he take a particular sire, as his mate he had agreed. 

Renzo had frightened him, he remembered, a small smile playing across his lips. His form mimicked that of the pale humans of the north, large, broad, and colored almost completely opposite of his smaller darker form. With a deep voice to match and broad hands that Este knew could be used to subdue him should he forget his place, Renzo had seemed the final end to what little remained of his childhood freedom.

Their courtship had done little to raise his hopes for a loving mate when Renzo had gone through them almost mechanically. He had danced the proper steps and left the proper presents but there had been no emotion in it, no fondness or love. It had been with a lonely heart that he’d left his parent’s rooms and gone to Renzo’s when the council had decided they’d courted long enough.

How surprised he’d been when, in the very early hours of twilight, Renzo had shaken him awake and practically dragged him through the empty halls and out across the frozen land. They had run for most of the day for, in the lands so far to the north, the sun shone only for a few hours each day at certain times of the year and they had been mated shortly after the longest night.

He’d been confused but he had remembered his sire’s lessons and kept silent, following his new mate’s lead as they fled from the city and down into the human’s world. When they had finally reached a human city Renzo had apologized and explained to him the reason for their flight. He admitted to being one of the few children born to parents who were both sires. Sires, he’d explained, could get pregnant but most could not carry a child to term. All children that had been born to these pairings had become sires as well, leading to a fear that such pairings would upset the equal numbers of sires and fathers in their race.

The reason the council had been so eager to bring them together, Renzo had told him, was that they wished to see what kind of children would be born to them. He respected the council and even somewhat agreed with the old ways but he would not allow himself or, as it turned out, his new mate to be studied and mated on the council’s whim.

So they had left, learning of each other even as they learned of the world south of the city Este had never been allowed to venture forth from except for in the early days of his childhood. They returned to the area where he’d been born and Renzo had been taken with the building styles. Later, when they had come upon the small island and made it their home, he reproduced the architecture and Este had discovered the rightness that came with being able to make his own decisions concerning his body and his life.

There were aspects of the old ways Renzo clung to and Este respected that but never had his mate tried to force him when he did not wish to do something unless he felt it put him in danger. They’d found an easy rhythm with each other and, after a proper courtship done at their own pace, they found the love that had been missing when others had been forcing them together.

Still, in some things, they clashed upon. When Adrian had been born they’d been in accord with their desire to raise him on the island rather than take him back to the city yet, when Adrian had come into the final change and his preference had made itself known, Renzo had fallen back onto the old ways and begun to chose potential mates for him right away rather than letting him find his own. He had not agreed with that and they’d fought but, in the end, he’d had no say.

It had worked out for the best in the end but, for the first time, he was able to see the wrongness of forcing a person to serve another when the only difference between them was their choice to either receive or give sexually. He saw it with clear eyes and had finally found enough anger over it to break completely with the council.

That Renzo continued to rely on them to give him permission to kill Miron once he was found irritated him.

He stood in silence for a long while, grateful that progeny from his line would not bear the blank or fearful looks he saw occasionally on the faces of the young adults before him. He smiled faintly at the thought of his grandchildren. He was probably the only velassi alive that considered Dorian a grandchild let alone Cayle as a great-grandchild.

With young children raised in solitude until they were adults their kind did not acknowledge extended family. This was also due to the fact that, unless two velassi were either parent and child or brother and brother, they could mate. With the human stigma against mating with relatives their kind did not like to think of close family connections for, in truth, all of them were related closely with one another thanks to thousands of years of breeding with very few of their own kind to chose from.

Este suddenly became aware of another watching him with more than a passing curiosity. He met the other’s gaze evenly, surprised when the young one gave him an unabashedly measuring look, one which lingered hungrily on his navel. Este tensed but a hand touched his shoulder the other looked away, as though nothing had caught his attention.

“I apologize,” The elder at his side murmured, his eyes fixed on the other, “The young sires that have returned to us proclaim allegiance to the old ways but have failed to learn the conducts that should define their behavior.”

Este snorted. “It is the flaw that destroyed the old ways to begin with,” he stated uncharitably, “Everyone watches to make sure the ones being subdued stay in line but no one bothers to tell the sires when they overstep their bounds.”

The elder sighed. “That is true.”

Este glanced at him in surprise, earning a short laugh.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the old ways,” the dark haired elder explained, “but it is because I understand them and follow them as they should be followed. They cater to a sires need to protect and keep the mate he has claimed while, in turn, they speak to the desires of all fathers to be protected and cared for when they are with child. However what was once akin to a pact between a guard to his king has now become a pact between possessive sires who want an excuse to force their mates to act differently from the way their predatory instinct demands. These sire nowadays are not looking for an equal to protect but rather a ‘wife’ to force to submit to them and cater to their pleasures. It is wrong and I do not blame your kind for fleeing from it.”

Este shook his head. “If you believe this then why do you do nothing? Why do you let it continue to be perverted? Why will you not allow us to put an end to a sire who has proven that not only will he take another mate but reveal us to humans, mindlessly harm a child, and kill his own brother to take what is rightfully his?”

The elder’s jaw tightened and his eyes turned hard. “That is a good question, is not it?”

Before Este could push him for more information the elder was gone and Renzo had turned the corner, gesturing impatiently for him to return to his side.