Luka stayed on her knees near the base of the bookshelf. She wiped the tears off her cheek and recomposed herself to her usual serene equanimity as Sebastian stepped towards her. His back was covered by a tattoo that ran the length and breadth of its muscled expanse. It was the depiction of a Scramasax Viking sword with rune markings running around the plain hilt and a Viking knot in the pommel. Curled around the blade of the sword was a black dragon with a silver tail, making it evident the sword and dragon went hand in hand.

I had seen a similar diagram in my studies of ancient mythical creatures but couldn't remember what it represented. The tattoo shimmered, in a way that even the most modern tattoos can't do, but of course, now I knew Sebastian's wasn't modern. Luka's eyes stared up at him. Despite the mask of confidence, her eyes belied her fear.

Sebastian breathed deeply but it barely expanded his defined v-pack. It wasn't the modern day, gym-created bulging v-pack. This was the natural definition and musculature caused by the heavy physical labor and activity of his human life. He was a glorious sight to behold. Even half-naked and despite everything that had just happened, I felt a flash of the usual desire for him drive through me.

Luka was totally composed, eyes locked on him. All signs of anything out of the ordinary having just happened had vanished. Sebastian walked forward and stood right in front of her. "Luka? Tsk, tsk." His tone was full of disappointment as he adopted a relaxed soldier's stance. I'd seen Sebastian calm, his hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed - this was not Sebastian at-ease.

Luka dropped her eyes to me; she seemed to be looking for a sign of life, but all I could offer her was a dying stare. The slightest look of regret crossed her eyes before she hardened her face into insolence, raised it to meet his gaze and spoke steadily. "You had no reason to harm her, no right to do that."

I didn't see Sebastian move but I heard Luka's shriek when his right hand whipped out and grabbed her hair, lifting her a centimetre. His anger exploded through the room like a scorching westerly during bushfire season. "Right? I don't have the right? You presume to tell me who I can take to my bed? You have no claim over her, she isn't yours!" he growled. As she tried to reply, Sebastian thrust his left hand around to grip her throat.

Luka's eyes popped with fear, her hands gripping his left wrist and trying to push him away. I could hear her gasping for air, her throat working hard against his grip as she tried to suck sustenance through the narrowed windpipe. He held her there for no more than a minute, staying still, and gaining gratification in her discomfort. Then he relaxed his hand just enough so she could take a breath, his back muscles tense. When he let her go she fell to the ground, gasping for breath and choking, her eyes glazed over, almost white.

Sebastian took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and walked over to where I was on the couch. He collected his tie from the floor before walking back to where Luka knelt wheezing. He reached down and grabbed her by the hair again, her hands clasping around his wrist trying to ease the hurt. He pulled her up to a standing position and moved the few steps to the desk before turning her to face me. He leant against the desk and pulled her back against his hard body. Releasing her hair, he ran his right hand down her neck, his thumb reaching around over her bottom lip. Luka's tongue wrapped around his thumb.

When he spoke, his voice was like the most beautiful song you had ever heard. "Do you know, until this day I have never been refused?" He was now glaring into my eyes. "It...angered me. It must be centuries since I have felt that emotion."

Luka opened her eyes wide to look at me. As a nymph, she could feel someone's desire if she was touching them when it burnt through them. She knew what Sebastian had always done to me.

He turned her head to hold her stare, seeking understanding. "You know me, Luka. When I want something I won't take no for an answer." His smile reached his eyes. "But she was enjoying herself despite her fear of what I am. I even thought she would succumb for a while."

"But why bleed her?"

Sebastian closed his eyes. "I admit her blood was more potent than I thought possible."

Luka smirked. "You lost control..."

She gasped as he captured her wrists in one of his hands, turned her, the movement putting Luka off balance, as he tied her wrists together with one end of the tie. Sebastian moved swiftly around the other side of the desk, leaving Luka on the door side, her body slumped against his desk. She would have fallen had he not held both her wrists still firmly in the grip of his hand. He forced her tied hands flat to the table.

His head lifted and tilted to appraise me where I still lay pale and exposed. His eyes moved from my head to my toes and back again. "I've been fighting doing this for years. I am drawn so intensely to her."

Sebastian turned his attention back to Luka and tugged her arms forward across the desk so that her torso was stretched across it. She let herself drape across the desk and rubbed her cheek against the leather desk mat as if its scent and feel was comforting. Sebastian attached the other end of the tie to something on the far side of the desk.

"Maybe, if she had been approached the right way." Luka gritted, grasping hold of the tie where it passed between her captured wrists.

Sebastian lifted her chin to look into her eyes. "I didn't intend this, but I know now and will have better control when I try to bring her to me again." Luka's head snapped up. "I haven't killed her yet, my little nymph. Her heart still beats, barely, but enough to hold her at the edge of death."

Luka's eyes widened in both surprise and intrigue. She looked over her shoulder at me, and then back to Sebastian. He laughed. "Don't seem so surprised, nymph. I have developed some self-control over the last millennia. She was potent, and I lost my control, but I gave her enough of my blood to hold her here."

"How long will she stay like this?" Luka asked. Sebastian released her wrists, with what almost seemed to be tenderness. He rubbed his hand up Luka's face, walked back around the desk to stand behind Luka and lifted the skirt of her dress to expose her naked rump. Luka always preferring commando over a showing pantie line, and the dress she wore definitely would have shown even the flimsiest of knickers underneath.

"Long enough." He said, and giving Luka no time to protest, swung his arm and slapped her rump hard enough to leave a handprint.

Luka grunted, her toes pressing up onto point, wriggling further across the desk in an attempt to escape him as she gripped the tie. Sebastian placed a restraining hand on the base of her spine and swung again and again, too quick for my eyes, the sound of his spanking cracking through the air. Within a minute, Luka's entire backside was bright red. Sebastian paused and crouched behind Luka, spreading her thighs wider.

Luka laughed. "You know, I don't think you've left the best impression on her."

Sebastian licked her labia, his tongue circling her already swollen clitoris. Then he moved to the right and placed a chaste kiss on the skin that covered the femoral artery in her leg. He turned his head and stared into my eyes with a cheeky grin. "Then we just have to show her I'm not all bad," his voice lilted. He turned back and bit into her thigh gently.

Luka sighed, her back arched high away from the desk's ebony timber; she strained against her restraints. Sebastian only drank from her for a short time. Then he stood, removed his belt and returned his attention to her bottom. He strapped her harder than any human could have borne, till her back was arching back down into the desk and her hands were gripping the tie so hard her knuckles were white. Blood blisters bloomed in harsh lines across the pale skin of her rump and upper thighs.

"Oh God... Sebastian.... please...no more..." Luka's breathing was harsh.

Sebastian laughed at her, but stepped away as he slipped the end of his belt through the buckle to make a large loop. Luka squirmed and he lifted her. One minute she was tied to his desk; the next he ripped the tie, lifted her by her hair to face him and pushed her sore buttocks to the black timber desk, making her wince and whimper. In a flash of movement, he slipped the belt over her head to her throat and pulled on the end-hard, so the buckle was digging into her larynx. My sight started to go grey around the edges.

"As you like, nymph," he snarled into her ear while she scratched at the belt to try and loosen it. "But if you ever attack me again, even if it is to save a friend of yours, I will not be so restrained in your punishment."

"I was just trying to stop you from killing her! I wasn't attacking you, I promise!" Luka appealed breathlessly, tears stinging her suddenly terrified eyes.

Sebastian lowered his face to her neck and took a deep breath, giving the belt another tug. I knew he had the strength to cinch the belt tight enough to crush her throat, if not decapitate her. "That's why you're still breathing," he murmured then let go of the belt.

Luka collapsed over herself, fingers quickly loosening and removing the belt from her throat as she gulped in much-needed oxygen.

The grey around the edges of my vision increased; it was like looking down a tunnel. I was barely able to see when Sebastian's head snapped around, his eyes flashing. My vision went dark; I sensed him crossing the room towards me, and suddenly I felt Sebastian's hand at my face, his thumb parting my lips gently and then the hot dripping of liquid into my mouth. The salty cinnamon tang over my tongue didn't bother me now.

"What happened?" Luka was so close I thought I felt her hand in my hair, caressing it.

"I took more than I thought."