Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chaste was not a word Eli would have ever thought to use when describing himself. His sex drive had always been high, and the idea that he would ever spend a night, naked in bed with an attractive, willing man, and not at least get a hand job out of it was alien to him. Yet, that was exactly what had happened. Lying on his back, with one arm holding Lucas to his chest, Eli woke to the songs of birds outside of his window, chattering away amongst themselves as dawn was busy breaking over the Eastern horizon. Though his eyes remained closed, he knew Lucas was a wake as well, his fingers tracing small, tight circles along Eli's abdomen, venturing near the upper edge of Eli's pubic hair but never going further. Sensing a warm, soft hand so close by, his cock was at full mast, cringing each time Lucas passed it by and sending harsh pulses of frustration through to the root that squeezed his balls tight against him. Usually, the solution was simple and, had he been alone, he would have wrapped his fist around his prick and pumped himself to creamy satisfaction. But he wasn't alone and, in spite of Lucas' assurance that he was not a sex slave, Eli could smell the Venom addiction on his breath. He didn't know what jerking off with Lucas right there beside him would do to the young man.

He thought of the thrall being punished during his time at the Rougelun House. Its master, feeling it had suffered enough, had forced it to watch him jack off, ending the punishment by letting it clean him up afterward. Eli could recall, in vivid detail, the hungry way it had slurped up every last spot of the vampire's venom laced spunk from his chest, stomach, and scrotum; the tears rolling down the thrall's face as it was allowed to take its owner's cock into its mouth and suckle it like a baby on its mother's tit. Eli had been disgusted by the abusive nature of the thrall's life, disturbed even more that any vampire could treat a human that way while smiling and joking, as though it was nothing. If vampires really were the superior species, then surely, Eli had thought, there was an obligation to act like it.

"Eli?" Lucas prompted, sliding along Eli's side and resting his head near Eli's ear. He placed a hand on Eli's cheek, turning his face.

Eli opened his eyes, smiled. "Good morning," he whispered in greeting. "Sleep well?"

"Once I got used to the snoring," Lucas replied with a grin.

"I don't snore. I breathe loudly."

"Once I got used to the loud breathing, then."

For a brief instant, Lucas looked like was going to say something else. Then, smiling, he turned in Eli's embrace and backed into him. Not all the way, and not the way that Eli had hoped for, impaling himself on Eli's turgid length. He pressed only his back to Eli's chest, curling his legs before him and removing the temptation altogether. Taking the hand that Eli had placed on his hip, Lucas pulled it around him like an extra blanket, tucking it beneath his arm.

Eli buried his nose in the young man's fluffy, messy hair, sighing against him. He felt the chill ripple down Lucas' back, smiling to himself that he had caused such a naked sensation in him. He dipped his head lower, pressing his lips to the back of Lucas' neck. The youth purred, flexed his long, sinewy body to bring the soles of his feet to rest on Eli's shins. Somehow, that contact made it feel more real, made the throbbing, tumescent flesh jutting out from him ache with a visceral hunger.

He wanted Lucas; wanted to feel the backs of his thighs held against his strong chest as Eli thrust into his silky warmth, squeezing Eli's dick with tight ass muscles that would never yield completely to him. He wanted to see the pain of first entry etched onto the youth's surprised face, hear the deep moans and gasps of pleasure, taste the words tumbling from his lips begging him to keep going...keep going...

The erotic nature of his thoughts caused his body to react on auto-pilot. His hips tensed, then flexed forward, and the tip of his cock made first contact, brushing against a round cheek. Lucas laughed and rolled onto his stomach, turning his face to Eli and grinning at him. It could have been an invitation, but Eli read it as an escape. He kissed the young man's shoulder in apology and took a tighter rein on his body's reactions, slipping a hand along Lucas' back and forcing himself to settle with only a simple touch.

Looking into the thralls eyes, he caught another whiff of venom from his exhalation. He had smelled it before, but it had been so light, barely noticeable among the other scents surrounding Eli, that he had not really paid attention to it. Now, it was stronger.

"Can I ask you something?"

Lucas nodded and turned his body to face Eli fully, lacing his fingers with Eli's beneath the covers. It was such an incredibly affectionate, loving gesture that it sent a ripple of sensation along Eli's arm that deposited itself in his heart, almost distracting him from asking the question that had been on his mind since before their shared shower the previous night.

"If you're not just a sex slave," he began, his cheeks warming a little, "why are you addicted to Venom?"

The smile slipped from Lucas' face. "Do you really want to know?"

Eli considered that. By asking about Lucas' Venom addiction, wasn't he also pointing out that he wasn't a regular human? Of course, he knew thralls weren't regular humans even when they were not addicted to venom. In ancient times, long before vampires had organized themselves into courts and civil societies, when they still thought of themselves as gods among men, the Thralls had been their priests--intermediaries between vampires and the humans they were ruling over.

"I guess," Eli replied slowly, thinking the words through, "what I want to know is why, if you're addicted to venom, you aren't a sex slave. Make sense?"

"You sure do have sex on the brain this morning," Lucas joked. He scooted forward, close enough to graze Eli's erection with his own morning wood.

"I've always got sex on the brain," Eli countered.

"Truthfully, so do I," Lucas said. "But, I'm not a sex slave because I'm your thrall. That's not what you need from me right now."

"So what do I need?"

"A boyfriend," Lucas answered plainly. "An equal."

Eli laughed. Even if that was true, and part of him believed it was, Lucas could never be his real equal. He was a human, and though there were similarities between vampires and humans, there were enough differences between their races to make true equality nothing more than a pipe dream, not in the least because humans were a type of food.

"Don't get me wrong," Eli said, stifling his laughter. "I'm flattered, but you can't be my boyfriend. I'd snap you in half if I weren't careful."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Try me." Beneath the covers, he forced their hands to the bed. "Try lifting your arm."

Lucas flexed his muscles. Nothing. He added more force. Still nothing. He put the full weight of his vampiric strength behind the action, strength that had knocked a man unconscious and shattered his jaw bone; strength that could turn a heavy car over like it was a sheet of paper. Nothing.

It didn't make sense. Eli stopped trying to lift his arm, instead tried releasing his fingers from Lucas' grip. He pulled and shook, but the young man had a hold on him unlike any Eli had ever known. It didn't hurt, but neither was it fully comfortable.

"You know you've always wanted this," Lucas said. "Someone that you couldn't hurt. Someone that might even dominate you a little. It's okay to admit it, Eli. Tell me all of your secrets. I promise, they're safe with me."

Eli froze, ceased struggling. "I--I don't want..."

"Sure you do." Lucas released him and then sat up, stretching his legs before him and pressing his back to the headboard. The movement partially exposed his nakedness, but continued to obscure what Eli really wanted to see.

"I watched a Thrall get punished once," Eli said, folding his legs as he sat up. "That's not a threat," he added quickly, "I just--I just don't want to do that. To anyone."

"So don't," Lucas countered.

"But the venom..."

"I'm taken care of in that department. I'm not going to shrivel up and die if I don't suck your dick. Just treat me like you would any other boyfriend."

Eli chuckled. "All my other boyfriends were bottoms."

"Then you'll get a chance to see the world from the other side. It's okay, you know," he added. "I saw the way you were looking at me. You want me to fuck you." He pushed the blanket aside, revealing his full body. His cock drooled with excitement, the sight making Eli want to reach out. He hesitated.

"Can this really work out, though?"

"Do you think you're the only gay vampire in history? Eli, there are plenty of your people who wanted to get fucked by my people. We're bred to be your companions. So, a vampire might want to get tied up every now and then. That's what we're here for. A vampire wants to get his ass pounded, and we oblige. You want a boyfriend. Here I am."

"What--what if I just wanted to cuddle?"

He felt like an idiot asking the question at all, but after having his strength tested like that, and the lecture Lucas had given him, he needed a hug more than he needed to be fucked.

Lucas smiled, opening his arms in invitation. "Then we'll cuddle. But, you're going to owe me a blowjob later."

Eli crawled toward him, laughing. "Deal."

He snuggled up beside Lucas, sheltering beneath the curve of his arm, soaking in the young man's warmth, strength. The smile he wore was genuine, reflecting an inner happiness he had never known. Last night, he had thought of Lucas as a Thrall, and maybe even a friend on some level. Now, he could not imagine him as anything less than a companion. Sexy, beautiful, just as willful as he was, Lucas was perfect for him.

He pressed his palm to Eli's stomach, detecting the roll of his abdominal muscles beneath the flat skin. The back of his hand brushed against the tip of Lucas' prick, dragging a hiss of lascivious pleasure from between the youth's lips and carrying away a long thread of clear juice that arced along his body. Lucas squeezed him closer, strong hands gripping Eli's upper arm and testing the musculature beneath his fingertips.

Maybe Eli wanted to do more than just cuddle, he thought silently, slipping his hand lower, fitting it between Lucas' tummy and cock. The youth's pubic hair was soft and sparse, extending at most a quarter of an inch away from the base of his dick. It looked youthful, immature. The rest of the area was smooth, supple skin. It reminded Eli of the way his classmates in high school had looked, when he dared a peek in the showers, or at the urinals.

"Lucas?"

"Yeah babe?"

Eli's cheeks burned at the moniker. No one had called him that in a long time.

"How old are you?"

"I can't tell you that." Lucas urged Eli to sit up under his own power. "I can tell you that we're not the same age, though."

Eli's stomach turned. "I'm eighteen," he said. "If you're younger than me..."

"Maybe you're younger than me," Lucas countered. "Does it matter?"

"If I get arrested for being a pedo, yeah, it matters."

Lucas laughed. "You're not a pedo, babe. I promise."

"So why can't you tell me how old you are?"

"One should never trust a thrall who tells one his real age. A thrall who would tell one that, would tell one anything." He smiled, adding, "Oscar Wilde. Well, mostly. I changed it a little. The point is, thralls--Primes especially--don't reveal their true age to anyone, not even to each other."

Eli narrowed his eyes, thinking up a roundabout way to get him to admit his age.

"Can you vote?"

"Nope," Lucas replied. "But I'm not officially a citizen, either."

"What about drinking?"

Lucas gave him a doubtful look. "How old were you when you had your first drink? Just trust me, okay?"

***

The Theta Pi house was old, dark, and creepy. It looked like the sort of place vampires would live, full of history and archaic sigils. Eli had hated it the first time he laid eyes on the place and his opinion of it had not changed now that he was moving in. If anything, it had worsened, not in the least because of the other residents, all young vampire men, all locking at Lucas with more than a passing interest. Of the five gathered at the front porch to greet him, Zane Drake was the most immediately recognized, the four remaining trying, and failing, to be clones of him.

Zane was tall, blonde and pale. His clothes were dark, his hair spiked, and he wore sun glasses even though it was still a cloudy morning following the thunderstorm of the night before. Eli could smell his aftershave from the sidewalk crossing the front of the house, a high citrus spike followed by mellower tones of bergamot and amber. His face was smoothly shaved, and free of any blemish. He smiled with the same sort of menacing gleam that was common to aristocratic vampires; the kind of grin that put humans at ease and made other vampires raise their hackles.

"Stay close to me," Eli said to Lucas, stepping in front of him. Lucas followed the suggestion without question. He was, he had explained to Eli, assuming a more submissive role so that the vampires living in the Theta Pi fraternity would not mistake him for a regular human; not mistake him as food. While Eli was hesitant at first, having grown comfortable with thinking of Lucas as an equal and treating him like that, he was glad that Lucas had been given the foresight to follow his instincts in this manner. Even so, as Lucas took up a position behind him, hooking a finger into one of Eli's belt loops, Eli felt his protective instincts taking a stronger role.

The house was set back from the road quite a ways, with a front yard consisting of thick green grass, shrubs and autumn painted trees already beginning to take on the skeletal shapes of the approaching winter months. Like the other fraternities and sororities nearby, the house was decorated with Halloween in mind. Cobwebs arced between tree branches, clung to bushes. Styrofoam tombstones had been raised in rows along the yard. A fake coffin with what looked like a medical student's practice skeleton hanging out of it stood upright against the porch railing. Orange and purple lights had been strung all along the front of the house, and on the balcony overhanging the front, Eli saw two sarcophagi with animatronic mummies that, when turned on, would open and close again. It was festive, and the atmosphere was playful, but even so, Eli felt none of the same joy that the Theta Pi fraternity did. He was here against his will, whereas they were all there by choice, claiming their birthright to a higher education while under the auspices of the vampire fraternity.

Radiating outward behind Zane were the other fraternity members, all of whom Eli had met at one point or another over the course of his lifetime. Zane, he knew, was a relative somewhere along the bloodline, though he could not be certain exactly how distant a cousin he was. Immediately behind Zane and to his left, stood Milo Greenstone, long sable hair shimmering even in the poor lighting of the day, feminine features easily shielding the monster that lurked within. Then, there was Damien Monreaux, shorter than his fraternity brothers, though his compact frame and sculpted musculature made him an excellent wrestler. Beside Damien stood Aaron Blackguard, certainly the nicest member of Theta Pi that Eli had met, and also a distant relative, near enough in blood to look like he was related to Eli. Finally, Aaron's twin, Ace, practically clinging to Aaron in an almost incestuous way.

Ace had always been the quiet one of the pair, filled with so much silence that it had made Eli's hair stand on end the first time he met the twins as a child. Even at a distance, he felt it seeping out from him, like a bloodgift that didn't have an off switch. It was just as unnerving as he remembered, and it made him want to shelter Lucas even more. Aaron, however, smiled and waved enthusiastically, though he did not dismount the porch at once to greet Eli, waiting until Zane had made official introductions.

"If it isn't the preeminent Eli Rose," Zane said, strutting forward. "And you brought a pet, I see," he added, leaning slightly to one side to spy Lucas.

Eli forced a smile onto his face. Pretending niceties when he felt anything but nice was a practice he had learned from his Mother. He was a little out of practice, but he figured it would come back to him in time. Especially if he was being forced to live with this crew. While he may like Aaron, and could handle Ace, the rest of the vampires living there were insufferable snobs who had only ever liked Eli because his family outranked theirs and by being friendly with Eli, their own social statuses were elevated.

"Good morning, Zane," Eli said through his smile. "Thank you for letting me join on such short notice."

Zane waved the thanks away with a casual flick of the wrist. "Not at all," he said in a voice full of false grace. "In fact, we had expected you to see reason sooner. After all, the general population is no place for someone of your...stature."

There it was again, Eli thought. His family's place in the vampire world was brought up often enough by other vampires that Eli could repeat, almost word for word, every syllable of courting done to bring the House of Rose over to the side of another, less prominent family. The Drakes had tried, on many occasions, and failed. Now, in addition to Zane vying for his family's attentions, he would also have to deal with the Houses of Greenstone, Monreaux and Blackguard. Of course, the Blackguards were already allied with the House of Rose, but like all lesser families, their place in the world depended on staying in the Rose's good graces. At some point, Eli knew, he would have to have individual meetings with them all and offer them all assurances that, while he was a member of the House of Rose, he was a junior son at best, voiceless and without power at worst. None of them would believe it fully, of course, but it would be enough, he hoped, to get them off his back.

Zane led the way into the house once he had finished pointing everyone out; everyone that Eli already knew, and had been introduced to a long time before ever coming to college. Zane was doing it because he wanted to make himself seem more impressive to Eli. The Drakes had dominated this particular chapter of Theta Pi for quite some time, and it was obvious that he did not want Eli to take over the leadership of it. That, Eli thought, would never be a problem. He no more wanted to rule over Theta Pi than he wanted to rule over Lucas. Unlike Lucas, though, these people would never be satisfied with that. The House of Rose had, at one time, been one of the most prominent in the Hemophage Court, close enough to the throne to be a threat. Time had moved them a little more into the shadows, but everyone in the vampire world knew that nothing happened without the Rose approval. It was part of Eli's heritage that people would naturally demure to his authority and for that, he was always thankful that his Father and Mother had sent him to school among the humans, where the vampire court structure was absent. His childhood had been mostly normal because of that, except for the little trips to Europe, and the weeklong visits to other families that owed fealty or loyalty to the Rose family.

The first room he came into was a mixture of parlor, living room and great hall, though the size of the house did not really allow for a great hall. A set of stairs directly ahead led to the second level. The floor was dark wood, covered by oriental rugs and, he saw, an occasional item of clothing. He avoided stepping on a tee shirt, a pair of boxers and several pairs of jeans as Zane took him on a brief tour. The House had been built for more than the five vampires currently occupying it, and so the rooms had been assigned based on family ranking. Zane lived in one of the larger rooms upstairs. The four remaining vampires lived on the main floor which, Eli thought, explained the presence of so many clothes lying around and the occasional notebook, text and several red solo cups emptied of strong smelling brew. Each room was equipped with a private bathroom, making the need for communal showers absent. A guest bathroom had been built beneath the stairs, with a door on either side that allowed one to walk through it to emerge into the kitchen or the study area on each side.

Eli would be taking one of the larger rooms on the second floor, with a more direct access to the balcony than Zane, whose room was in the back of the house. When the tour at last ended, Zane and the rest of his crew disappeared down the stairs into the study, letting Eli and Lucas claim their room as their own.

It was larger than any room Eli had ever stayed in before, and was set up more like a suite or apartment, than a bedroom. The only area it seemed to be missing was an independent kitchen. The door swung open into a reception area, with sitting room furniture already present, and an individual television, expensive and large, hanging on the wall. The bedroom was enclosed behind a wall with an open arch as a door. On the other side of the suite was the bathroom, also behind an open arch, with a large jetted tub and a separate shower cubicle. The tub was easy to make out, leaving Eli with the impression that the architects had built these rooms for the explicit purpose of letting one person watch another bathe. He had an idea that it had probably been meant for the Thrall, while being punished, to watch his Master complete tasks without aide, especially those of a sexual nature.

The bedroom area was filled with one large, king size bed, and a smaller twin pushed off to the side that was barely more than a mattress on the floor. Eli eyed it with some reticence, his intuition apparently correct that these larger rooms had been designed to be occupied by a vampire and his thralls. Lucas at once squealed with delight at the sight of the smaller bed, falling onto it with practiced grace and a sigh of comfort. Both bed were already dressed, though the main bed was covered in finer array and the smaller with barely more than a blanket and one lumpy pillow without a case.

"Why would you sleep on that when there's this huge bed in the middle of the room?" Eli asked him.

"I grew up sleeping on a bed like this," Lucas replied. "In fact," he added, sniffing the pillow, "I think this is actually my old bed. Hold on..."

He scrambled from the surface and lifted the mattress up. On the underside, there was one long gash out of which he pulled a series of drawings.

"Yup," he said with a grin. "This is definitely my old bed. I wonder how it got here."

Lucas did not need to wonder, he could guess with fair accuracy. "My father probably had it brought here," he said. "If he was going to spring you on me over the holiday, I still would have had to move in. Anything else you see that used to belong to you?"

Lucas took a quick look around. "No, but there wouldn't be. I gave most of my stuff away when I found out I was moving in...when your Father came to get me."