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Julien can’t get to the Golden Orchard fast enough. He needs to know that his mother and sister are safe, needs to tell them about what happened to at the Palazzo Davinos, and then, when that sorrowful business is done, needs to sleep for three days straight in his own bed. That last will not happen, he knows, but it remains a beautiful daydream as they step into yet another inn on the way to their destination.
“I will room with Occtis,” Julien hears himself say before they even get down to the business of inquiring about rooms, and the words are just as much a surprise to him as they seem to be to everyone else, Occtis included. The boy looks at him, eyes wide, hands fidgeting at his sleeves.
”If— if you’re sure,” Occtis says quietly.
Julien opens his mouth, intending to say no, he wasn’t sure what he had been thinking, but the words stick in his throat so hard that he coughs instead. By the time he straightens back up, he’s not quite sure why he’d been about to rescind his offer. It’s only one night, and Occtis is a considerate roommate, for all that he is dead. Yes, he mutters when he’s working on a new spell, and sometimes Julien has woken up in the morning to find the undead fox has snuggled up against him while he’s been sleeping, but that’s the worst of it. If he thinks about it, he has gotten some of his best nights of sleep when he rooms with Occtis.
“The arrangement suits me just fine,” Vaelus says, and Julien would have to be blind to see the look she gives Thaisha and Aranessa, or the looks the women give her in return. Julien should feel jealous, or at least be busy imagining just what they’re going to get up to tonight, but it’s like he doesn’t have the energy for it. Maybe it’s enough for him to know that his Lady will find pleasure in her company tonight, even if her company does not include him.
Time passes in a strange but familiar blur of paranoia and monotony. Thankfully, it seems no one in the inn is a disguised demon, and no Tachonis siblings come bursting through the doors, which means dinner passes without incident at least. Still, Julien feels strangely, uncharacteristically twitchy as he walks towards his room for the night, his muscles tense as he quickly walks down the hall, saying goodnight to the others over his shoulder. What is wrong with him? Why is he so eager to get to the room when all he is planning on doing is sleeping?
Julien is putting his pack down on the bed when he hears the door lock click. It’s the smallest of sounds, but something about it makes all the tension drain out of him in a dizzying rush that has him sitting on the mattress, his head bowed as he waits for— waits for what?
Occtis’s fingers, long and cold as tree branches in winter, tip Julien’s face up until Julien is looking into Occtis’s eyes. His hands may be cold, but the green glow of Occtis’s regard feels like a warm bath as it sweeps over him.
“I think I might have pushed you a little too hard when I suggested this last night,” Occtis muses, and his voice sounds different than it usually does. It’s deeper, smoother, with none of that hesitant quality to it. “I forget just how easily you go under. I wonder if that has anything to do with the shadow of your shadow.”
Part of Julien wonders just what Occtis is talking about, but it’s a small, quiet part. The rest of him listens patiently, waiting for Occtis to tell him what to do.
“Then again, maybe you just like being told what to do, deep down, and it’s the shadow clinging to you that makes your bond to me weaker than it should be,” Occtis says, frowning slightly. “I felt your resistance earlier. By now you should be well and truly bonded to me, obedient and receptive without question, like the others.” He runs a cold thumb over Julien’s lips. “I’ll just have to give you a little more tonight. Now stay quiet and get ready for bed.”
The words slide into Julien’s mind and down his spine, burning like whiskey as he does what he is bid, changing out his traveling clothes for the soft pants he sleeps in, his chest and feet bare as he climbs into bed. The mattress is stuffed with straw, which is far from Julien’s preference, but he feels strangely comfortable despite that, his whole body warm and leaden.
Get up! The voice in Julien’s head sounds like his own, just a little bit darker, a little bit colder. Julien feels himself shiver, the words dispelling some of the comforting warmth. Grab your rapier and strike him where his heart once was. Stuff his mouth with garlic and roses. He can’t have you! You’re mine! You’re mine! You’re—“
“Shhhh.” Occtis says, as if he can hear Julien’s thoughts. He sits on the edge of the bed, rolling up one of his shirt sleeves. “It’s all right. You’ll feel much better in a minute.” He raises his own wrist to his mouth, and Julien sees a glimpse of teeth that he could have sworn hadn’t been that sharp a moment ago before Occtis bites down. The blood that oozes from the bite mark when Occtis takes his wrist away is thick, looking black in the low light of the room’s single lantern. “Here you go,” he says softly, and then he’s pressing his wrist to Julien’s mouth.
Julien’s head twitches away, feeling the blood smear against his closed lips. He shouldn’t. This is wrong. His left arm is no longer warm, no longer heavy. It’s cold and covered in shadow, but it’s his and he raises it to try and push Occtis away—
The hand that grabs Julien’s wrist is gentle, but with a strength underneath that could crush bone. “Julien,” Occtis’s eyes are wide, his voice wounded. “You want to be good for me, don’t you?”
The word good is a hand that seems to stroke the inside of his skull and his cock at the same time. Julien gasps, his heart beating faster, his body flooding with warmth that chases away any thought of cold, of shadow, that muffles the voice in the back of his head. He tastes blood on his lips, thick as syrup and licks it away. It coats his tongue, heavy and strange. It should disgust him. Instead, when Occtis lets his hand go, he uses it to press Occtis’s wrist even harder against his mouth.
Occtis chuckles. “I barely put any magic into that, you know,” he says conversationally. “Did you know that you’re the only one who reacts to my suggestions like this? Of course not, because I wipe your memory every time, but it’s true. The others just do as I ask. You’re the only one who enjoys it.”
The others. Occtis is doing this to the others. To his Lady. Overwhelming their thoughts with his will. That should make Julien feel— something. Anger? It’s so hard to feel anything but pleasure, so hard to think about anything but what Occtis wants him to think. It’s easier to let the blood pool into his mouth, to swallow and feel the blood enter him, become a part of him.
“Would it make you happy to know that I came back wrong, just as you thought? I can’t let you keep this memory of course, but I think it would. You asked me if I carried some thread of my family’s darkness within me, and for a moment I was sure that you remembered this. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, yes. And when that apple decayed, the seeds that sprouted from it grew strangely.”
The words wash over Julien, lulling, comfortable nonsense as he swallows another mouthful of blood. Occtis didn’t come back wrong. How could something that feels this good be wrong?
“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” Occtis says softly. “Any of this. But I want to survive, and I need you to help me, need you to want to help me. And it isn’t if my blood doesn’t help you in return. It makes you faster. Stronger. Sometimes I wonder if you notice.”
Thank you, Julien mouths against Occtis’s wrist.
“Once the bond settles fully, I won’t have to use magic to compel you nearly as much. You’ll just want to do as I say. That’ll be a pleasant change, won’t it?”
After Julien swallows a third mouthful of blood, Occtis pulls his wrist away. Julien wants to whine, to beg to have it back, but he’s been told to be quiet. He half rises from the bed, only for Occtis to pin him down with one hand while he licks the wound on his wrist closed.
“Be still,” Occtis tells him as he pulls his hand away. “Honestly, Julien. You’re the one I feel the least bad feeding from, but you are the most difficult. Thaisha and Aranessa don’t wake when when I come to them in the night, and they sleep all the better afterwards. All I have to do is whisper into Vaelus’s ear and she drops deeper into trance for me. But you— I know you don’t remember the first time I tried to feed on you, but there’s a reason I have to separate you out from the others. You nearly ruined everything.”
I’m sorry, Julien thinks as Occtis tilts Julien’s head to the side. He doesn’t remember what he did, but he believes what Occtis is saying, that he’s been difficult, maybe even willful. He’ll try to be better in the future, be obedient, be good.
Don’t, the dark voice in Julien’s head whispers, small and far away, easy to ignore as Occtis leans over Julien, teeth sinking into his neck as smoothly as a rapier through the heart.
For a second there is only pain, sharp and sudden enough that Julien gasps, only for that gasp to turn into a silent moan as the pain turns into pleasure, as if Julien’s body has suddenly remembered every orgasm he’s ever had and is trying to experience them again all at once. He feels his cock ache as it swells to full, straining hardness in his pants, feels his heart beat harder, faster, eager to drive the blood in his body into Occtis’s mouth.
Occtis moans against Julien’s throat, a sound of ecstasy that Julien would echo if he hadn’t been bade to be quiet. All he can do is thrill in Occtis’s pleasure and his own for minutes or eternity as he feels his blood being pulled from him, as his cock softens and his heart strains. It’s hard to keep his eyes open so he closes them. The thought comes to him that maybe Occtis is killing him, that this might be the last thing Julien ever feels, and the thought fills him with joy, for how can he live without feeling this always—
The pleasure begins to ebb away, ever so slowly as Occtis licks the wound closed, flesh knitting under his tongue. Julien feels tears slide past his closed eyelids to trail down his face when Occtis’s weight vanishes from the bed.
Don’t leave, Julien silently pleads, and then there’s something against his lips, the mouth of a bottle, the liquid bitter and medicinal tasting, washing away the taste of Occtis’s blood. He hates it for that, but keeps drinking when he hears Occtis’s voice encourage him to do so, saying something about it helping with the loss of blood.
“You’re going to forget everything that happened once you walked into the room.” Occtis’s words are a blanket covering Julien, heavy and warm. “You will sleep deeply and well, and when you wake up you’ll believe that you drank too much and then had a very pleasant dream, nothing more.”
I don’t want to forget, Julien thinks petulantly, but already the memory is slipping away, already he is—
Julien blinks his eyes open, wincing at the gray light of early morning coming in through the window at the same time he hears Occtis muttering about the vibrational frequency of quartz or some such nonsense. He groans, rubbing his forehead as if that would chase away the dull pain that seems to have roused him.
“Julien?” Occtis turns to regard him, a book in one hand. “Are you all right?”
“I think I drank too much last night,” Julien says, voice rough with sleep. There’s a strange taste in his mouth that seems to confirm that fact when paired with his headache. There’s also a familiar tacky feeling on his belly and thighs. That’s right, he had been having a very pleasant dream about— about— being good for someone— he can’t quite remember the details. No matter. He should go get cleaned up, find something to take for his headache, maybe a little hair of the dog that bit him will—
“You should go back to sleep,” Occtis says. “There’s still a few more hours until everyone else will be awake.”
Julien, halfway out of bed, finds himself burrowing back under the covers. Occtis is right. He should go back to sleep. There’s still a few more hours until everyone else will be awake.
Occtis’s pleased chuckle warms something deep in Julien as he closes his eyes.