Chapter 57: Incite
Damien was so caught up in the rush of sensations he felt - the weight of a body over his own, the pull of lips on his throat, the low growl of an alpha claiming their omega - that for a moment, everything slowed, and seemed to come to a halt. He felt like he was floating, outside of himself, and his wolf was proud of how he had presented to his alpha.
Then, the weight of the body was gone, and there was a clattering sound, and a door slamming. By the time Damien could focus his eyes enough to look across the room, there was a key skittering in under a gap between the door and the frame. He blinked at the key in confusion for several long seconds, before realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Rejection.
Deep, piercing pain lanced through him at the realization that his alpha had run away. That he'd been rejected by the mate he'd imprinted on, that he was completely unwanted and without value to the one person who was meant to see him as more precious than anyone else.
For a moment, Damien could only lay on his back and breathe as the pain and anguish built up inside him. He wondered, briefly, if this was enough to kickstart a spiral from mate-sickness into a more permanent condition. He felt like he was dying, his breath coming in shallow gasps, pain like a knife buried in his chest, his whole body so weak he couldn't seem to move at all.
"Alpha," he cried, once, and no answer came. Tears followed the realization that he'd been abandoned here, escaping his eyes and trickling down the sides of his face. He was too exhausted to even lift his hand and attempt to wipe them away.
He'd been abandoned once before, as a child, and had thought it the worst experience he could possibly imagine. But he hadn't known, then, how much worse it was to lose a mate. To be rejected like this ached deep in the core of him. He didn't know what to do, and so resolved that the best solution was to lay there and just wait to die.
The misery continued like this for an indeterminate amount of time, and then, slowly, it faded from anguish to apathy. The apathy did very little for Damien, so he continued to lay on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling, and wait for death.
The anger came next. Rage, incandescent rage, filling his veins with fire. His mate had done this to him - had touched him, made him think that there was something there, and then, just when Damien had allowed himself to be vulnerable, the man had left him there. Just like he'd left Damien the first time they'd met - alone, helpless, afraid, and in agony.
It was the anger that finally drove Damien out of the bed and onto his feet. He rose on shaking limbs, the agony in his chest so deep that it made him feel like he was dying, a little bit. It took so much focus and effort to stay upright, even as he clutched at his heart, which felt like it was being wrung out like a cheap washcloth. Slowly, he crossed the room, leaning on furniture as he went, to keep from falling in a senseless heap. Upon reaching the door, he saw that the key on the floor wasn't needed to unlock it from inside the room. He merely turned the deadbolt, and pulled. He wasn't sure what he expected to see on the other side of the heavy wooden door, but the hallway was utterly empty.
He glanced up and down the hall, frowning. He didn't recognize the area. There was a good chance he'd accidentally stumble across Crowe again, if he just wandered around aimlessly. But what was the point of hiding from Crowe, anyway, if his mate didn't actually care about him or want him? Why bother hiding from pain, when the worst pain he could imagine was already tearing him apart?
Slowly, leaning one hand against the wall to keep from collapsing under the weight of the pain, Damien forced himself to move, one foot in front of the other. It took some time for him to reach the end of the hall, at which point he had to make a decision. After some contemplation, he went left, purely on instinct. He was panting with exertion, so much of his body preoccupied with not dying that even the simplest of motions felt like he was working himself to death. Sweat beaded his brow, and he was too tired to even try and wipe it away, even when one drop rolled down his forehead and into his left eye, burning and blurring his already weak vision.
He found a staircase, and stared at it like it was his most hated enemy. Finally, after some consideration, he sat down at the top of the stairs, and began scooting down, one step at a time. He felt like a child, crawling down the stairs that way, but better a child than a man who fell down an entire flight of stone steps because his knees were wobbly and his vision was beginning to spark from the pain he felt.
The only thing keeping him moving at this stage was pure, unadulterated spite. How dare his mate think he could just abandon Damien like that? He was going to find his mate, and he was going to convince him to mate Damien properly, and that was that. He would not accept another answer.
As he scooted down the stairs, he paused frequently to catch his breath, leaning his head against the cool stone wall of the staircase. On one such break, however, he heard a voice calling his name from behind, the direction he'd come from.
"Damien?"
He turned, blinking a few times to unsuccessfully try and focus his vision. The sparking lights of pain made it particularly challenging. "Yes?"
"Damien!" whoever it was scrambled down the steps to him. "Oh no, you look terrible," the voice said, and it sounded familiar.
"...Grace?" Damien said, squinting to try and make out her face in the dim torchlight, and failing.
"Yes," she said, "Damien, oh, I'm so sorry. I tried not to tell, I really did, I-"
"Don't apologize," Damien said, "It's fine." It wasn't fine, but he had far more important issues to deal with, namely chasing down his mate and insisting that they complete the bond, so that his rejection sickness would stop ripping his chest open like someone had plunged a pair of clawed hands in there and started pulling in opposite directions.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, which was a stupid question on many levels.
Rather than answer her stupid question, Damien said, "I need Cain." He was fairly certain that was the first time he'd admitted such a thing aloud, but it felt right and true to say it. He didn't like saying it, but he'd reached a point of no return, and his mate sickness would accept nothing less than a true bond at this point. He'd said he would rather die, and maybe the apathetic part of him still did.
But a much larger part of him wanted to spite the vampire that dared reject him. If he must bond, then he wasn't going to let himself feel trapped with Cain. Instead, he would make the vampire feel trapped with him.
"Okay," Grace said, clearly not aware of the fact that Cain had very recently rejected Damien. Or maybe not recently? He had no idea what day it was or how long he'd spent laying on the bed in agony.
…wasn't the full moon coming soon? Damn. He'd better get mated before the full moonrise, or he'd definitely die. Or if he did somehow live long enough to transform, he'd get put down for daring to become a wild animal in a castle full of humans and undead blood-suckers. "I need him," Damien said, because there really wasn't another option at this point. The mate bond was pulling at him insistently, the rejection was ripping him apart, and he'd be damned if he let that self-important vampire run away from all this unscathed!
"Up you go," Grace said, slinging one of Damien's arms over her shoulder and standing, bringing him with her. It was probably a bad sign that someone as slight as her was able to lift Damien with relative ease.
"Where is he?" Damien asked. "I need-"
"I heard you, Damien," Grace said, looking worried. "But you need to prepare yourself for the real possibility that he won't -"
"I don't care if he doesn't want me," Damien said, the conviction of the statement clearing his head for a moment. "I'm his. He needs to take responsibility."
Grace sighed, but took the first step down. "Fine," she said. "Come on, then."
Damien followed her lead, gingerly stepping down one step, clutching at Grace's shoulder when his knee almost buckled under his weight. This was going to be a long staircase.
* . * . *
It took awhile for Damien to recognize where Grace was taking him. "This is the place where thralls live," he protested. Why would Cain be here, of all places?
"Yes," Grace said, "Cain left you in his bedroom, so where else was he supposed to sleep?"
With one of those thralls who love him so much? Damien thought, a surge of jealousy running through him. It didn't even make sense, because he highly doubted that Cain, who seemed to hate the idea of any human getting too close to him, would have dared spend the night in a thrall's room. But he still felt irrationally angry at the thought that it was possible for him to have done it. "Fine," was all he said aloud, though, because Grace hero-worshipped Cain and she wouldn't have appreciated or tolerated Damien's ire.
"It's not as bad as you think," Grace said quietly, as if sensing his jealousy. Maybe he was doing a bad job of hiding it. "He took one of the spare rooms."
Everything was worse than Damien thought, because he couldn't think at all. He was in too much pain to even try. "Okay," is all he said, though, because explaining that he felt like he was worse than dying was too much effort. He would have just laid down on the ground and died at this point, if Grace hadn't been basically carrying him. It would have hurt a lot less, at least.
"Wait here," Grace said a moment later, helping Damien sit down on the cold, stone floor. He wasn't sure where he was, exactly, and didn't have the wherewithal to focus enough to find out.
Damien clenched his jaw to hold in the agonized groans building up in him. Everything hurt, but especially that place deep in the center of his chest that belonged to his mate. That felt like it was being flayed by tiny knives, peeling away one layer of flesh at a time. It was a ripping, tearing kind of pain, one that did not ebb or ease as he breathed. It went deeper than a physical pain, an agony rooted firmly in his soul, the hurt he felt a physical manifestation of a more serious wound to his very spirit.
"Damien," he heard a voice say, and the simple word was enough to soothe the worst of the pain in an instant. Moments later, a firm hand gripped his shoulder, and with a few blinks, he was able to get his eyes to focus enough to make out the face of his mate.
"Cain," Damien breathed. He still hurt, but less now that his mate was here. For a moment, the vampire said nothing, merely curling an arm around him, lifting him from the floor like he weighed no more than a puppy. He started walking before Damien had the chance to protest, and moments later, they were sequestered in a much smaller, barely furnished room, and Damien was once more seated on the edge of a bed, while Cain locked the door.
The vampire turned, and leaned against the door, sighing heavily before walking over to look down at Damien. "Why did you leave my room?" he asked.
He was so damn stupid, it was pissing Damien off. "Because you rejected me," he snapped, reaching up and grabbing Cain's shoulder, gripping it as tightly as the vampire had held his own. "And I needed you." Still do, he couldn't bring himself to say. Funny how easy it had been, to admit it to Grace. And yet now, with his mate right here in front of him, he couldn't bring himself to beg. Even though he was already as good as prostrating himself before the vampire.
Cain's expression clouded a little. "You need me?"
"I need the bond," Damien clarified. "I can't…" live without it. He couldn't say it.
From the look in Cain's eyes, he didn't have to.
"I thought," Cain said, haltingly, "that you didn't want the bond."
"I don't," Damien said, "At all. Not even a little."
"Then-" Cain began.
"But," Damien interrupted him, feeling a bit of perverse pleasure in the impoliteness, "I don't have a choice. And neither do you."
Cain's eyes flashed at that, his expression twitching ever-so-slightly. He was clearly furious about something, but he buried it well, if Damien hadn't been staring him in the face it wouldn't have been noticeable at all. "There are always choices."
"Do you choose to die?" Damien asked. "Because that's my only other option."
"That can't be the only alternative," Cain said, but he sounded resigned. He knew, as well as Damien, that this was the only real solution.
"How long can you live without blood?" Damien asked, because he knew he wasn't the only one the bond had thoroughly cornered. "Can you drink mine, when I'm dead?"
From the despairing look in the vampire's gaze, he knew the answer. But he wanted to hear the man say it, to admit he was every bit as trapped by circumstance as Damien was.
"If I'm not bonded," Damien said - slowly, firmly - "I will die. How long will you last after I'm gone?"
A muscle in Cain's jaw twitched, like he was clenching his teeth. "I don't know. Maybe it won't be a concern."
Damien tightened his grip on the vampire's shoulder. "You willing to take that risk?"
Cain stared into his eyes for an agonizing moment before dropping his gaze to the floor. "No."
"Then," Damien said, lifting his head, tilting it slowly, baring his throat, "you need to bite me. Now."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
VHBlood
VHBlood hehehehehe and Cain thought he could get away from me? No! Me and Damien are going to make this happen whether he wants it to or not!
I didn't expect it to take this long to force the issue, but I really should have expected Cain to make things complicated, he always does. Anyway, next chapter is going to be very fun.... thanks again for reading!!!
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