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Callath

The Mihr hunters had been his responsibility.

Growling to himself as he stalked down the hall, Callath clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, bit his tongue until he tasted blood.

Dohmenic would blame himself, but the truth was, the security had been Callath's responsibility. Because he had allowed himself to get weakened and passed out like a weakling at the beach after letting his Mihrisa feed on his vein, this had happened. The Lady Kahtrina's blood was on his hands and there was nobody else to blame. He had failed his King and now he had failed his kingdom.

A promise he had made to the Dralan to never do again.

And now, here he was.

Callath stopped up for a moment and put a hand on the hallway wall, taking one moment to try and make the world stop shaking. It weighed down on him, the reality, the cruelty. The truth.

All his fault. All of it. He had caused it. Phlague may have started it, but it was his job to fight it and he hadn't. He had let himself get weakened and let the Dralan's potential candidate get captured. Lady Kahtrina.

He couldn't stand to think about what horrors she was currently facing... what torture she was suffering under... The thought was enough to make his usually strong stomach roll, but this was different. He knew the victim personally this time, that always changed the game. He could only imagine what Dohmenic was feeling right now - not to mention her parents. Sweet Miss.

Shaking his head to clear it, he took a deep breath to focus and then continued his path down the hall. He had to focus.

But a voice inside his head... a tiny, despicable voice inside him kept telling him... at least it wasn't his Mihrisa. But what a horrible thought that was. Logistically speaking, it would've been better if it had been her. If she had been taken, if she was facing the brutal future...

But Callath was also smart enough to know that sometimes, logistics didn't have any logic. He knew more than ever - especially after this morning - that the Mihrisa meant more to the Dralan than the Lady Kahtrina. Had she been taken, chaos would've broken loose and the whole of Drala would've been at war before noon. For some reason, that female had grown an impact on the Dralan - on his mind. He looked all the same, walked all the same, talked all the same... yet something inside him was changing.

- And it was the Mihrisa who was doing it.

Whether that 'something' was turning into a good thing or a bad thing was yet to be determined, but Callath knew that no matter what, the female meant a whole lot more to the Dralan than what he admitted. Had she been the one missing, the true power of his wrath would've exploded and maybe even grounded the whole fort. At least so far, he had been keeping it together - as much as a pureblooded vampire King could, anyway.

Callath was on his way back from having doled out the order Dohmenic had given him; Find the Lady Kahtrina and bring her back alive. The Lahras had marched out not half an hour later, having geared up and prepared themselves for the hunt. This wouldn't end until she was found.

For now, though, all that was left to do was wait and plan. The Dralan had asked him to meet up with him and lord Amasgohn in the library where all the land charts were, so they could begin on a strategy that would end the terror of Phlague.

Callath was more than ready to end it. This had gone on for long enough, it was time to put that male down.

- Provided they could fucking find the sick bastard.

Growling to himself, Callath almost missed the tiny sob that came from a small broom closet he was walking by. He stopped up abruptly when the pitch of the sob reached his ears, then traveled down to a part of his anatomy he thought he had lost a long time ago; his heart.

That's when it occurred to him the sob had to belong to Bhria. She was the only female he could imagine could have this sort of effect on him.

Sweet Miss, Bhria!

In all the madness, he had almost forgotten her. By now, the whole castle had heard what had happened, so of course the Kischmir had, too. It was that exact thought that had him turning and walking back to the broom closet.

He softly pried the door open and peered inside the cramped closet. There, amongst a few buckets and broomsticks sat Bhria, who now lifted her red-rimmed eyes from her wet hands and looked up at Callath. At the sight of him, she broke down into a harder sob, immediately burying her face in her hands again.

Callath stepped inside and closed the door firmly. "Shit, Bhria... dahna, come here."

When he reached a hand out for her to take, all she did was cower away from him and shake her head.

"It's all my fault," She cried, her voice barely intelligible from all her sobs. It was hoarse and crackled as her dry throat tried to formulate her shaky words. "It's m-my fault... if I h-hadn't asked you to j-jump in and f-feed the M-Mihrisa--"

Callath crouched and sat down besides her, instinctively wrapping his arm around her and bringing her into his body. She tried to flinch away, but this time, he was persistent. Determined. "No, Bhria. This is not your fault. It's mine, you hear me? You had nothing to do with this. I made my choices, so I am responsible. Not you."

"Yes, it is, if I hadn't--"

"If you hadn't, then I still would've saved the Mihrisa," He truthfully told her. "My first duty is to the Dralan, and her survival means his. With or without your request, I would've saved her. I let her drink as much as she did and I carry the consequences of that choice. Understand me, female?"

Bhria stiffened up a little at the harshness of his voice, but Callath didn't care. She needed to understand that this wasn't any of her doing. In truth, all of this could be traced backwards like a falling rack of dominos, but in the end, what would it matter? The tiles had already fallen, the deed was done. Who had pushed the first tile didn't matter anymore, all that mattered was fixing the collateral damage.

- This female, for instance.

"Bhria..." Callath said after a moment when the Kischmir kept crying softly, trying to conceal it. He didn't know what he could say to soothe her. His touch would only scare her more, the way he was holding her now was barely manageable for her. The only reason she let him was because she was perhaps too upset to care. Her tears flowed freely and he had no clue how to stop them. Helplessly, he tried to just squeeze her a little and rub his thumb back and forth on her arm. But it did nothing.

After a moment though, the female swallowed heavily and he saw her squeeze her eyes shut. He saw how she carefully opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, she took a deep breath, waited a moment, and then tried again. This time, her voice cooperated, even if it was barely audible.

"I... I remember the night they took m-me," She whispered, gulping heavily again, as if the words hurt in the process of coming out. Or maybe it was just the difficulty of telling him, another male. "They... they were so merciless. Sweet Miss, I-I know... w-what they are doing to her right n-now..." Her voice cracked and now new tears spilled from her eyes.

Callath's heart both pumped with anger, yet broke from her words. The organ he thought didn't work anymore suddenly couldn't stop turning all of his attention to it; How it beat faster and faster when it heard her speak of what happened; how it skipped a beat when her voice broke; but mostly, how it just ached. It felt like led in his chest as he looked down at the female and couldn't find anything to say. Nothing at all.

They had broken her. They had ruined her. And now... they were doing the same to the Lady Kahtrina, more precisely, one particular person was. Him. Phlague. And this female... she could envision everything that was happening to the Lady Kahtrina. She had been there. She had done that.

She had survived, but died.

Heartbrokenly, Callath cupped the female's face and lifted her chin up, forced her eyes to meet his. The green orbs blinked up at him with pain and even shame, flickering as they tried to cover it. Even after everything, she was still ashamed to show herself to him. To anyone. Even though she had survived her brutal past, she cowered away like she wasn't a warrior, but simply just a spent-up vessel with nothing left to give.

... and maybe she didn't have anything to give. Maybe that was true. But it made her no less of a warrior, no less of a survivor. And even if she had nothing at all left to give, Callath realized it maybe wasn't too late for her to receive.

Before he could overthink it too much - before she could - he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. What little space there had been between them got consumed by their lips as they met for the first time, both so foreign, yet homely.

- She gasped and froze up; He held his breath and waited.

Had he taken it too far? Would she jerk away and run from him, screaming? When she didn't move at all, he tried to let his lips brush gently against hers, letting them part ever so slightly. He paused again to see if she would respond to that, but still she remained frozen.

At least she stopped crying.

Callath could barely contain his emotions. Her lips were that of a fruits flesh, so sweet, so soft and so plump. He wanted to taste the nectar thereof, wanted to suck on the core and feel as she moved against him; But her lips denied him access - remained still like stone and unmoving as he stayed there.

He wasn't a fool. Even though it pained him, he understood her way of saying no, even when she didn't speak it verbally.

Quietly, he pulled back and carefully watched the Kischmir for a reaction, hoped that he hadn't ruined what chance he had with her. He probably had. Bhria remained still with her eyes closed, her breath completely dead. It was as if she had truly turned into a statue, solidified by his invasive move.

And then suddenly, her eyelids fluttered open and she looked at him. Callath nearly reeled back in shock when she looked at him, eyes deep and unreadable. They just stared, looked at him, tortured him with pause.

Say something. Please, say something, he pleaded in his mind.

She didn't.

- Instead, she leaned forward and closed the space between their lips again, returning his kiss with a delicate one of her own.

Callath's whole world stopped, but then suddenly surged forward as if everything took a completely jumpstart; it happened so quickly.

And yet, quick had never felt so timeless.

Bhria

Bhria couldn't believe what she had done. Couldn't believe what she was currently doing. One moment, she was crying in a broom closet alone, the next he was there, soothing her sobs with the gentle power of his lips.

He had pulled back way too soon. She had been in shock. She hadn't been able to process it. Her whole body had been flooded with old fears and traumas, but then when he pulled away, she instantly felt much more scared. His lips belonged on hers. They comforted her. Maybe that made what she did next selfish as she broke every safety precaution inside her and leaned in to kiss him again. To find her shelter.

- If the male was in shock, she couldn't tell. She was too caught in her own to detect his if it existed; All she could think about was the way his warm mouth molded against hers as she returned his kiss, tried to find whatever it was that made her feel safe.

And there it was.

As the male opened his mouth and pried her lips open as well, a shudder of both fear and comfort ran through her as he carefully dipped his tongue into her mouth, finding hers. He slowly skated across it, before tangling it with his own. He moved unhurriedly. Gently. Bhria still couldn't keep up. Her heart raced in her chest as she slowly felt him turn more her way, his hand now softly cupping her face. Like a feather, he traced her jawline with his fingers while their tongues and lips danced in a slow rhythm to the beats of their hearts that appeared to have synchronized.

She heard a small sound. It took her a full second to realize it came from herself. The tiniest of moans crept up her throat and came out on a small exhale.

And then a blast of heat shot out from Callath's body. Bhria felt it through his lips, felt how they hardened for a second, then boiled. Bhria then felt how her own body began heating, how her pulse began racing.

Fire. In her heart. In her fingertips. Buzzing in her brain. All she felt was fire and it was spreading exactly like a wildfire throughout her body. It even seemed to rub off on the Kathmir in front of her.

Something low and primal rumbled deep inside his chest. Bhria felt as his lips began moving harder against hers, more determined. The whole thing had been foreplay until now, a simple tease of what she knew he was capable of. He had reined himself in on purpose for her benefit, but this fire was spurring him on, making it harder for him to fight it. Bhria could barely control herself either. All sorts of thoughts ran through her head, thoughts that scared her, yet made her body burn more. Crave more...

She felt herself move. Not away like she should have. She moved closer. Too close. She was suddenly on his lap. He let her. Callath's legs then bended ever so slightly and made her dip forward, had her bracing herself against the wall behind him, but had her crashing onto his lips hard.

With hungry, angled movements, the male moved his lips stronger against hers, his lips almost brutal. Bhria didn't know why, but she wasn't scared. She should be. Her heart was racing with a hundred miles an hour and her blood was rushing through her body, but all she felt was... heat. Fire. Burning. Need. Thrumming through her system, something wild had taken a hold of her. And she never wanted it to let go.

Feeling the male below her grunt and then shift, she felt his hand suddenly come to her bonnet, grabbing her bun beneath it. He then lowered his hand to the back of her neck and pressed her closer, his lips insatiable. He needed more, wanted more, craved more - like her.

Bhria leaned closer and felt her front meet his. Pressed against him, she felt his hard chest squish her own, felt his heart beat against hers.

Madness. She was going mad. Their lips were glued together, their tongues were tied. Every swipe of him, every raw, earthly taste of him made her whole body throb. Something was happening again now... something was blazing through her, knotting in her stomach...

Temptation... promises of what could be if they didn't stop... the aura of sex...

Bhria broke apart from Callath's lips faster than a thunderbolt and reeled back, shuffling away and gasping loudly. One moment they were locked, the next, it all came back.

With a shaking body, she saw the male before her snap out of whatever daze he had been caught in as well, blinking fast. He turned his head to her and then widened his eyes, staring at her in shock. And then, his jaw locked.

"Shit," He whispered, tearing his eyes away from her. He ran a hand down his face, his expression hard. Dark. "I'm sorry, shit, I..."

Too scared to speak, Bhria stayed mute, but it seemed it didn't matter anyway. Callath stood up abruptly and leaped for the door and rushed out in a hurry, not glancing back. The door slammed shut behind him and caused Bhria to cringe.

What had happened in here? She panicked, shivering as she traced her fingers over her swollen lips. What had she done?

Her eyes shut. Something had happened in this little closet... and Bhria had no idea what.

She hadn't been scared... but then all of a sudden she had been. In a split second, it all changed. Why? Would she ever find out?

All she was left with now was the memory of the male's passionate lips against hers and the feel of something hard pressing against her inner thigh... and the memory of him storming away from her.

Bhria whimpered away into the corner.

What had she done?