Page 69 of Captive
Sebastian focused on the blade with startling intensity. "You can't be serious—"
"I am." Boarstaff made a clean cut across his wrist, deeper than during their previous feedings. Blood welled immediately, the scent filling the chamber's enclosed space. "You need healing. I can provide it."
Boarstaff watched Sebastian's eyes dilate in response, pupilsexpanding until only a thin ring of color remained. "Not here," Sebastian protested, though his voice had roughened noticeably. "Not in your most revered place."
"Especially here," Boarstaff countered. "Where change is seen and acknowledged. Where true nature is revealed, not hidden."
He knelt at the pool's edge, extending his arm over the water. Blood dripped from his wrist, creating crimson patterns that spiraled through the currents before dissolving. Sebastian watched each drop with fierce concentration, his breathing quickening visibly. The hunger in his gaze hit Boarstaff low in the gut - not fear, but something else entirely. Something he shouldn't be feeling.
"Choose," Boarstaff said quietly. "Like you've been choosing since Ocrehand's magic disabled you."
The moment hung between them, weighted with unspoken implications. Then Sebastian moved through the water with fluid grace, approaching with visible restraint despite the hunger evident in his expression.
When he reached Boarstaff, he took the offered wrist with unexpected gentleness. His hands cradled Boarstaff's arm as if it might break, though Boarstaff could see how his fingers trembled slightly. The touch sent heat spreading up Boarstaff's arm. Sebastian's skin was warm now, not the cold metal of their first encounters, and the contrast of that warmth against the cool air made Boarstaff too aware of every point of contact between them.
"I won't take more than I need," Sebastian promised, his voice barely audible over the gentle lapping of water against stone.
The first contact of Sebastian's mouth against his skin made Boarstaff tense involuntarily, but the sensation that followed was unlike anything he'd expected. A jolt of something like pleasure shot up his arm, making his breath catch. Without thinking, his free hand moved to Sebastian's wet hair, fingers threading through the dark strands as if to anchor himself against the rush of sensation.
Sebastian's body visibly relaxed as he fed, a soft sound escaping him that Boarstaff felt more than heard. Boarstaff's hand slid from Sebastian's hair to the nape of his neck, tracing the line where brass flowed beneath skin. The metal warmed beneath his touch, almost like it responded to him specifically. Sebastian shuddered at the contact,pressing closer.
Boarstaff bit his lip to keep from letting out a sound that would've been embarrassingly close to a moan. Each swallow was accompanied by what looked like waves of relief washing through Sebastian, his throat working in a rhythm that Boarstaff couldn't look away from. His hand tightened on Sebastian's neck, then slid to his bare shoulder, feeling the strange, beautiful fusion of metal and muscle beneath his palm.
The feed wasn't like the sterile, clinical exchanges of before. This was intimate, bordering on sensual. Boarstaff could feel his own pulse quickening, and not just from blood loss. The way Sebastian's lips moved against his skin, the occasional brush of tongue against the wound, the almost imperceptible sounds of satisfaction – all of it combined into something that crossed boundaries Boarstaff hadn't even known existed.
Light pulsed around them, the chamber responding to their connection with waves that traveled up the living walls. Something older than their peoples' conflict seemed to recognize their exchange.
As Sebastian fed, Boarstaff watched the wound in his side begin to change. The dark fluid stopped seeping, the poisoned edges drawing together with visible speed. Color returned to Sebastian's face, the hollow exhaustion in his cheeks filling out as strength flowed back into him.
Unlike their previous feedings, this felt different to Boarstaff - more intimate somehow. In the sacred space, with grief raw and defenses lowered, each pull of Sebastian's mouth sent awareness coursing through Boarstaff's body. A heat built low in his belly, inappropriate and unwelcome, but impossible to ignore. The careful reverence in Sebastian's touch, the way his transformed hands cradled Boarstaff's arm - all of it combined into something that transcended mere necessity.
His body's reaction was immediate and embarrassing. Thank the ancestors for the loose ceremonial pants he wore. Boarstaff shifted his stance, trying to hide his response, but Sebastian's heightened senses likely detected the change in his heartbeat, the subtle shift in his scent.
When Sebastian finally withdrew, his tongue sealed the wound with careful attention. The sensation sent an unexpected wave of heatthrough Boarstaff that he struggled to control. Sebastian's face remained close to his wrist, his breath warm against Boarstaff's skin. When he finally looked up, his eyes were dark with something beyond hunger - recognition, understanding, desire. He'd noticed Boarstaff's response but chose not to acknowledge it. Sebastian licked his lips clean, then sank lower in the water.
"You've crossed a line," Boarstaff said, withdrawing his arm, though the words felt more like acknowledgment than accusation. "There's no going back now."
Sebastian met his gaze across the mist-filled cavern. "I know. The choice was made when I warned your rescue party. Fighting my brother sealed it." He studied his hands beneath the water's surface. "There was never really a place for me there anyway."
Boarstaff considered what Sebastian had given up: position, family, identity itself - first for the human child, then for warriors he had no obligation to protect. The magnitude of those choices wasn't lost on him. In a strange way, they mirrored Oakspear's final sacrifice - choosing something beyond self-preservation.
"What will you do?" Boarstaff asked, genuinely curious about what paths might exist for someone caught between worlds.
"I don't know." Sebastian moved deeper into the pool, letting water cover his shoulders. "Cornelius's scouts will hunt me. Zarek most of all, after our fight. I can't stay in one place for long."
"You could." The words emerged before Boarstaff had fully considered their implications, surprising him with their certainty. "Here."
Sebastian went still, his body tensing as if faced with an unexpected threat. "Your people would never accept that."
"Some wouldn't. Not at first," Boarstaff agreed, thinking of Thornmaker's lingering suspicion, of elders who would never trust vampire presence regardless of change. "But some might, given time and proof of your continued choices."
"Why offer this?" Sebastian's voice carried genuine confusion beneath careful control. "After everything my kind has done to yours for generations?"
The question struck at the heart of what Boarstaff had been avoiding. Why was he drawn to this transformed enemy? Why did hecare what happened to Sebastian beyond simple strategic advantage? Why, on the day he'd lost Oakspear, was he contemplating offering sanctuary to a vampire?
For a moment, Oakspear's face flashed in his mind, the way he'd looked that last night before the mission, concern in his eyes as he'd questioned Boarstaff's judgment about Sebastian. A tightness formed in Boarstaff's chest. Was he betraying Oakspear's memory by feeling this pull toward Sebastian? Three summers they'd shared, not just physical comfort, but understanding that went bone-deep. The grief was still raw, the pyre's embers barely cool.
But Sebastian wasn't just a vampire noble anymore. He'd fought his own brother to save them. Had carried Oakspear's body home when he could have simply fled to safety. Had chosen something beyond the hatred that had defined both their peoples for generations.
