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Father's Law by Delilah deSora [Reviews - 1] 
He knelt, eyes trailing over the intricate designs that some hand had carved into the native stone floor. They whirled and spun, making eternal loops that seemed to have no end. Much like the lives of those who walked atop them. “You’re late, Anrys.” He bowed his head in silent acknowledgement. “I was out in the other caverns. A fledgling went exploring and had gotten turned around and lost out there.” He heard the heavy sigh but whether it was for him or the fledgling now safely home, he did not know. “I don’t suppose you’ve found yourself a mate yet.” The speaker’s words sought more of an affirmation then asking a question. “No, sir, I have not.” “And children?” “I still have none.” Another sigh, this one he was sure for him. “You possess a great strength unseen in most of our people, Anrys. Both you and your brother would do well to share those attributes with our future generations. What do they call them now? . . . genes?” The elder paused, and Anrys could well imagine him mulling over the new age word. “When I find the one for me I will cease my wandering ways and do so . . . my lord.” Anrys promised. A chair creaked as the elder sat forward in it, crossing his arms over the desk. “And I will lose a useful man. Ah well, stop staring at the dust and come here, I would show you a thing.” He bowed his head in acknowledgement before standing. “As you like, my lord.” He murmured as he approached, seating himself in the delicately carved chair. Soft light glowed from the niches that rung the room, making the elder’s dark brown hair glow with reds and golds that highlighted the dark locks. The lights were a new human invention, one many of their people had initially feared for it took the sun, the one true fear of their existence, and used it to make glass with metal inside glow. He recalled the horror and protests that had rippled through their people when some of the young sires had come back and proposed to use them to replace the fires that normally lit the city. These enterprising sires had set up the black panels on the ground above and threaded the wires down to things they called “batteries” and from there the wires went to the glass tubes and as the panels collected sunlight the bulbs glowed. Many had feared that if the bulbs broke or the batteries exploded they’d die when the sunlight was released. But the sires had patiently proven that it wasn’t real sunlight at all stored. Still their idea to replace the always dangerous fire with this cleaner, safer light had almost been for naught. But Mardus had spoken up, overriding their people’s fears and ordering the lights installed. These lights that glowed in his office were some of the first installed and turned on, proving to their skiddish people that they were safe. Still some had argued but Mardus would not hear of it and before long the fires had been replaced. Now no one complained of the softly glowing lights overhead. Colored bulbs had even been brought back to replace white ones so now the main gardens glowed with a rainbow of colors. Their people loved color and now only a very few discontent individuals still grumbled about them. Mardus’s voice drew his attention away from the lights and back to the matter at hand. “My lord?” He asked, slightly embarrassed that he had not caught the words. The elder smiled faintly. “There is a problem I would have you look into. I have been receiving complaints that sires have been disappearing. Here.” He pointed to a spot on the carefully colored map that had been spread out across his desk. “I admit that at first I brushed off the complaints. After all, sires will be sires and many do not feel the need to check in with their parents or siblings. But then it was fathers who brought these reports to me, telling of how their mates went out to feed and never returned.” Anrys frowned. “No mated sire would go out and not return to his mate.” He murmured, staring at the map. “Hunters?” Mardus’s face pinched as he sat back, lapis colored eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Not that we can tell. Five sires have gone missing in that area in the last couple of centuries. If it was hunters there should be generations of them going after all night walkers, and yet none of the other velassi in the area report any humans killing breed, vampires, or our own kind. Also, none of the fathers report feeling their mates torn from them in death. I know it is not always the case but of the three who have come to me you would think at least one of them would have felt the death pull of their mate’s soul. Yet not one of them report it and, though they are distressed their mates are missing, none of them seem pushed to the killing edge by despair.” “So you do not think the missing sires are dead?” Mardus frowned, a long glassy nail tapping upon the map. “No, I don’t think they are.” “You would have me go look for them?” The elder sighed and nodded. “Yes. Generally I try to keep out of looking into anything that happens to our people in the human world because leaving here means leaving my protection but . . . this is troubling and I would know what is happening to our people’s children.” Anrys hide his smile behind a fall of copper hair. “As you wish, my lord.” He rose to go but Mardus’s voice stopped him again. “You will take Fenwyn with you.” He turned, glancing back at the elder. “My lord . . .” Mardus held up a hand, stalling his protest. “Sires are disappearing, Anrys. You are a sire. You will take Fenwyn with you. Besides, no one else knows how to navigate the human worlds right now better then he.” Unable to disobey he bowed his head again. “As you wish.” ** He hated planes. There were very few things he truly hated. Planes and automobiles were two of them. So when the blue haired sire moved to flag down a yellow automobile he pounced on him and dragged him off to a nice dark corner where they could take to their air under their own power. Fenwyn, as usual, laughed at him and called him old fashioned. He just bared his fangs at the younger sire and that did much to shut him up. “Oh come now, it is perfectly safe. Even if the car should crash its not like we’d die.” Fenwyn stated. “You should trust me. I’ve spent all my life studying the human world and I know . . .” “Fenwyn, you have done much for our people. You have managed to combine the human world’s medicine and science to make our people healthier and give fathers a better chance of survival during their pregnancy. I have great respect for you for that. But I am not getting into a . . . car . . . when I can get to where we need to be faster under my own power.” The blue haired sire laughed and brushed the wind blow locks from his face. “As you like. You city bred people are always so stuffy.” Anrys spared the youngster a glare out of the corner of his eye but remained silent. “Actually . . . when this is through I don’t suppose you could help me get a few hours with your brother, could you?” Fenwyn suddenly asked. Anrys raised an eyebrow and glanced at his companion. “You have found a mate?” He asked, surprised. A very faint flush touched the pale cheeks. “Perhaps . . . if he’ll have me.” He frowned. “You should have told Mardus, then. He would not have sent you if he’d known you had someone.” Fenwyn shook his head. “No. I wanted to come. I . . . I need some time to think hard upon this. Already I can feel the change within me. The human world has held such allure for me. I love their inventions and their theories. I love to immerse myself in them. But . . . since I met Rayn I feel the need to be out exploring fading. He’s the one for me, I’m almost sure of it and I’ve spent enough time studying our own kind to know that when a sire finds the one he wants to mate with he changes. I want one last adventure out here in the real world as a carefree sire before I go back and try to win Rayn and become a good mate for him.” Anrys was silent a long time before he spoke again. “Do we change so much?” He asked. The young scientist of their people nodded. “Yes. Before we find out mates were are driven to travel, to explore. I think this is to drive us away from our families and find other velassi groups. Once we find our mates, however, the wanderlust disappears and we become fixated on the place where our mates are. These are powerful instincts at work. Ones we cannot control.” “What will you do if you cannot make Rayn your own?” Anrys asked, curious for in all his long years he’d never had the urge to take another as his mate. He watched in fascination as the normally jovial sire’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I do not know. But I don’t think it would be kind . . . or good.” He answered truthfully. Anrys sighed and shook his head. “Many sires have been killed because they would not accept no from their intended mates. We tried to exile them once but it doesn’t work. They go out into the human world but the need eats at them until finally they return and try to take their intended by force. It amazes me that we’ve managed to keep up our civilization as intact for as long as we have.” Fenwyn nodded. “I think death is a kinder fate then being alone in the world knowing the one you love is giving himself to another.” Anrys reached out to touch the youngling’s shoulder. “I hope your Rayn accepts you so that such is not your fate.” Fenwyn smiled at him but it was not his normal smile. “I will do all I can to win him,” finally the smile turned bright, “And surely a hair comb made by your brother will help!” Anrys laughed softly. “My brother makes all the hair combs. You do not need me to set up a meeting with him for you.” Fenwyn shook his head. “I want to talk to him about it, to tell him of Rayn and my love for him. He will surely make a more special comb if he hears it from myself rather then me leaving a note upon his door with a sad excuse for a sketch and scribbled instructions.” “It will be hard to peel him away from his forge.” Anrys warned. Fenwyn gave him giant pleading eyes and he scurried back away from him. “Please?” Fenwyn asked. Anrys couldn’t stop the laugh. “All right, I’ll try to drag him away for a few minutes so you can explain to him what’s so good and light in your world.” Fenwyn beamed. “Thanks!” ** “Still nothing?” Fenwyn asked. The black haired sire scowled and glared about. “Nothing. There are no vampires in the area and the breed claim to have seen nothing. It is the same as all the others.” Fenwyn frowned and Anrys imagined he could see thoughts flickering across the moss colored eyes. Finally he sighed. “There must be something. All five of the sires disappeared within fifty miles of here. Someone must be hunting them.” Anrys glanced out across the black waters of the nearby sea. “Perhaps its time to set up a trap.” Fenwyn nodded. “I am the more conspicuous of the two of us. They will notice me for my hair before they do you. I’ll play the bait.” Anrys shook his head. “No. I will be the bait.” He saw the sire’s eyes narrow in anger and he held up his hand, forestalling the words. “You’ve already given gifts to your Rayn, yes?” “Yes.” Fenwyn admitted. “And he’s accepted them?” The sire shrugged. “He took them but he has not worn them yet.” “It doesn’t matter. He has seen you, has accepted your gifts. If you are already planning on having a comb made for you then you know you will take him as your mate. You are not connected by blood yet but fathers are as sensitive to potential mates as we are. You told me that if you were not able to take Rayn as your mate you would do something unkind, not good. Do not fool yourself into thinking he does not feel the same way. If you were to die would you have him left alone? Always wondering what might have been?” Fenwyn’s lips pinched and he looked away. “No.” Anrys smiled. “Then I will be the bait.” ** He could not recall a time when his head hurt quite as much as it did now. It felt like someone had stuck a spoon in his head and had scrambled up all his brains. Or that every thought in his head had exploded, leaving him weak, disoriented, and a bit nauseous, which was a very new feeling to him. It took him hours to relearn how to open his eyes and when he did he immediately closed them for the spinning colors made his head hurt even more. He must have drifted off again for when he came back to himself the pain had lessened to an annoying buzz that left him feeling a bit like his mind was wrapped in cotton. It made him feel fuzzy and too warm. Cracking his eyes open again he stared at the wall, trying to make out the pattern of golden gilding that scrolled up the white marble. His eyes drifted down to study bright splashes of color that turned out to be pillows and a half finished painting propped up against the wall. The air smelled of incense but beneath it he could smell flowers and the sea. It was the scent of the sea that brought back his final memories. He’d been walking to the area where the last sire had disappeared to set up the trap. But then a searing pain had caused his mind to shut down. He snorted and pulled on his arms, feeling cold unyielding iron bite into his wrists. He’d been grabbed before he’d even had a chance to set himself up as bait. Voices and words reached him, making him frown for he recognized the words as coming from his people’s language. He listened, his frown deepening as he caught bits of conversation that were clearly everyday things. Certainly not something captured sires would be talking about in the den of whatever hunters had snatched them. The door opened and his head whipped around as he snarled at the one who came in. The human froze as he growled and quickly backpedaled out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. There was the sound of a latch snapping behind him. His lips slipped back over his fangs as he considered the fact that the human wore only the barest of garments. A few minutes later the door opened again but this time it was not the human. Anrys frowned at the father who slipped inside, studying him with narrowed pale green eyes. “Who are you?” He demanded. The father gave him a smile that was more then a little condescending but did not answer him. “Well?” Anrys asked, “Release me!” The father laughed and shook his head. “No. You’re not to be trusted. Not yet anyway.” “Trusted? Of course I’m to be trusted. I was sent here to find our missing people.” The father shrugged as though that mattered not at all. He moved around and Anrys tilted his head, trying to follow the father’s movement. He was beginning to not like the suspicion his muddled mind was slowly forming. “Why am I here?” He demanded. The father returned to his side and slipped something cold and metal about his neck, fastening it tightly as he smiled. “To serve us.” ** Anrys snapped at the fathers who shoved him along, yanking fiercely on the chains they held. He, like most sires he supposed, always forgot that fathers were just as strong as sires and he struggled uselessly against the pair as they dragged him down the halls and into a large garden. There he was shoved down and the chains latched to a ring set in the floor, trapping him down on his knees. He yanked at the chain but it would not budge. A second commotion caught his attention and he watched in resigned anger as another pair of fathers dragged the frantically struggling Fenwyn beside him, locking him down as well. Fenwyn snapped at the fathers but when they’d pulled out of reach he gave him an apologetic glance. The fathers left them and Anrys glanced about the garden. “Do you know where we are?” Fenwyn shook his head, making the chain from his own collar jangle. “No. I was coming to join you after feeding when something pierced my mind. When I woke up I was here and they wouldn’t tell me anything.” “Have you seen any other sires?” Anrys asked. Fenwyn shook his head negatively. “Neither have I.” ** It was hours before they were joined again. This time it was by a violet haired father who stared down at them with distaste. The old ones always had a feel about them and Fenwyn could feel it about this one. The same father who had come to him to put the collar on hovered at the violet haired one’s back and stared up at the old one as though he were his lord. “Who are you?” Anrys demanded. Black eyes widened slightly and Anrys’s cry of surprised pain was matched by Fenwyn’s. When the pain in his mind finally subsided he was left panting on the ground, staring at the father’s leather boots. “You ask no questions. You say no thoughts. We don’t care about what you want or how you feel. You simply do and serve. Nothing more.” Came the measured words. They were as cold as a winter’s chill and Anrys stared up at the father. “Why do you do this to your own people?” Fenwyn asked and they were both rewarded with more pain until they retched upon the grass. “We simply do to you as you have done to us,” The violet haired father said, moving around them, “It was made quite clear to us long ago that we are not the same people. You sires would have us be less then you, things in which to deposit your seed and watch it grow. We simply give you what you want here, just not how you demanded it of us back in that place.” Anrys stared up and frowned as the father stepped back. Two others came forward and Fenwyn cried out as they grabbed him, forcing him onto his back and tearing open the silver robe he wore, laying him bare before everyone. He struggled but the fathers held him easily, as though his strength was nothing. The violet haired father stood over him, staring down at him for a long moment before kneeling at his side. The father’s pale hand slipped up the struggling sire’s leg and ghosted through the sapphire hair that framed the limp organ. The fathers tightened their hold until all Fenwyn could do was tremble in their grasp. “Leave him alone!” Anrys snarled, earning another blast of pain that made both him and Fenwyn cry out hoarsely. The father smiled darkly at him. “Come Faeryn. I think your new toy wants to play too.” The ruby haired father who had been hovering behind the other stepped forward, bowing his head slightly to the other. “Yes, Lord Galen.” Golden eyes fixed on him as Faeryn motioned and Anrys found himself dragged back and the robe he’d been dressed in as well was ripped open. He snarled and fought, managing to capture a forearm between his teeth before wave after wave of mental pain finally forced him to release it. The father he’d bitten struck him hard across the face in retaliation before holding him so tightly he could not move. The ruby haired father knelt and reached out, skimming long glassy nails up the inside of his thigh. Anrys gritted his teeth, trying and failing not to tremble at the sensual touch. Gently fingers skimmed through the copper hair that ringed his organ and he growled in anger. The father shifted and bent lower and Anrys forced himself to think of very unisexual thoughts as the red lips parted and the fingers ghosted up his sex. At his side he heard a choked sob and he turned towards Faeryn who had his eyes screwed closed as the violet haired father bent low over him, brushing his lips over the limp organ. Fingers pinched at his nipples and he arched and gasped before he could stop himself. “S. . . stop!” He hissed as the sharp nails of those who held him down scraped over his chest. His muscles tensed as he tried to free himself but he could not. A cold mouth touched his sex and he had to bite his lip to stop the groan as the ruby haired father kissed the head of his organ before slipping it into his mouth. “Please. . .” he whispered as he felt himself harden despite his disgust as a tongue danced about him. Through narrowed eyes he watched the father suck on him, coaxing his flesh to life. Beside him Fenwyn sobbed between moans as the violet haired father, Faeryn, did the same. Galen suddenly rose up, gripping Fenwyn’s swollen sex in his hand as he positioned himself over top of it and sank down. The sire arched and snarled. “Get off of me!” Fenwyn demanded, trying to thrown the father off, but those who held him down caught his legs, pinning them as Galen smirked down at him. A sharp pain directed his attention back to his own problems. Blood trickled down his sides where the father had clawed him. Golden eyes were narrowed in annoyance. “You will look at me while I do this to you.” The father hissed. Anrys bared his fangs. “I will do nothing you ask of me.” A dark smile curled the corners of the father’s lips. “You will.” Fingers skated up between his legs, stroking up his hard cock and making him groan despite his boiling anger. Faeryn smirked and nuzzled it, red tongue darting out to lap at the flesh that hang below it before his hand came down to gentle stroke them. “I will take what is here.” Faeryn purred, “I will take it from you and will cry out in pleasure every time.” “Fuck you.” Anrys snarled. “If you insist.” His seducer said, rising up over him. Anrys felt his eyes go wide as his sensitive head touched soft skin. There was a bit of pressure and then he cried out hoarsely as he was taken inside the cool body. Red hair brushed his thighs as the father’s back arched and his head fell back, baring a white throat. His fangs ached to be driven into that throat as the father sank down upon him, body trembling as it took his thick organ inside. A long fingered hand drifted down the side of the father’s face, past his neck, to the open collar of his robe as he lifted himself up and slid back down with a moan. Anrys tore his gaze away from the sight but the one beside him was no better. The violet haired father rode the growling Fenwyn ruthlessly, grinding and twisting upon him as the sire snarled and thrust back, unable to deny his body’s urges. They were both panting and Galen’s robes had loosened, allowing Anrys to catch glimpses of the father’s flushed sex as he rubbed it against the sire’s stomach. Faeryn came down hard upon him, grinding down in his lap and he cried out hungrily, staring at the father upon him. Faeryn growled and flashed fangs at him, bouncing down upon him harder and harder. Knowing there was no way for him to stop this Anrys decided upon a different punishment. He thrust up sharply as Faeryn came down, making the father cry out in surprise as their bodies crashed together. The father’s wide eyes stared down at him and he bared his fangs in challenge. To his surprise a smile curled over those lips and then the father riding him went wild. He snarled and met each downthrust with a sharper upthrust, bruising both of them as Faeryn squeeze him inside. He panted and twisted in the fathers’ hold, but somewhere along the line it stopped being fighting to escape and fighting to get a hold of the father tormenting him and drive into him until he screamed himself ragged. At his side he heard Fenwyn choke and the sire’s body arched, his skin flushing as the violet haired father moaned and came. And then Faeryn clawed his chest, sharp nails digging into his skin and he came with howl as red splattered across his stomach and he watched the ruby haired father shudder and slump against him. Golden eyes stared up at him as they slowly faded to a pale pale green. Then a hand came up and brushed over his face and he knew no more. |
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