The Crimson Reckoning Pt. 02

Weeks of foggy darkness had passed within the chill, wet cavernous depths of Seraphina's lair, a well of despair where even time itself had lost all progress. Elena Vasquez hung by rusted chains, where she had spent all of the last month, her hard body surrounded by gashes that oozed blood with every pain-savored breath. Her belly howled with hunger, and scorching parching dryness consumed her throat.

The iron door creaked open, cutting the silence. Red gown swirling around her, Seraphina walked in. Torchlight reflected off deathly pale skin, highlighting cheekbones, mouth, and brown eyes that glowed with hunger. Slow reluctance weighted her steps as she moved, heels clicking out a sensual beat on stone, her mere presence heavy and sensual. She stood before Elena, eyes raking over shattered body with lover's hunger, mouth opening in a smile that mixed cruelty and desire.

"Ahh, now," Seraphina sneered, her voice a killing purr, "see you, Elena Vasquez. The city's best slayer, hung like an offering. How the great have fallen." She leaned forward, savoring each shiver, each drop of sweat. "Did you ever imagine this was how it would be? Totally mine, conquered by your arch-enemy? Your beloved family -Mamá, Tomás, Papá - remade in my image, you hung here, at my mercy?"

Elena raised her head, a struggle. Eyes red-tinged but unyielding. "Fuck. you," she whispered, voice dry and scraping with agony. "I'll never break."

Seraphina's smile spread, a glint of desire in her gaze. "Such fire," she breathed, moving in, her scent - blood and musk - enveloping Elena. "But it's time to submit, darling. Join your family - they need you. Stop resisting and let me take you."

Elena's chest heaved and fell, and she spat weakly onto Seraphina's floor, tossing her head from the effort. "I'll kill you," she rasped. "When I am free. I'll fucking kill you."

Seraphina laughed, a bitter shudder, eyes black with lust. "I hope you try it." She moved to a darkened corner, taking down a whip from its hook, the same whip Elena had become too well acquainted with. She ran her hand over it, and turned to Elena. "See how much more you can bear."

The first cut bit into the back of Elena, drawing an agonized shout from her parched throat. Her frame shook, metal slicing into wrists. Seraphina hesitated, letting the yell charge her for a moment before she struck again. "Surrender," she spat, the poison in her voice heavy. The lash tore flesh, ripped away, and Elena's knees buckled, blood running down the curve of her back.

Hours crawled on into an infinity of pain; the flogging had been leisurely and patient. Seraphina struck with precision - every blow measured, her breathing heavier as Elena shrieked in agony. She moved around in a circle, her voice a sneer. "Give in," she hissed after a strike that left Elena gasping air. "Let me have you." Another blow, and Elena's eyes blurred. "You are needlessly suffering. Give in, and it will be ecstasy."

Torchlight flashed, casting shadows across the stone as the torture wore on. Elena's cries eased to tears, her body broken - muscles quivering, flesh torn, blood spreading across the ground beneath her feet. Seraphina's passion grew stronger, her chest heaving and falling, her hand tracing over her hip as she luxuriated in Elena's pain.

"Beg me," she panted, whip cracking across Elena's ribs, a strangled cry escaping. "Confess I own you, my beauty." Another lash, and Elena collapsed, strength draining with her tears. "You belong to me - say so, or I'll strip all flesh from your bones," she hissed. The lash dug into her shoulder, another scream escaping, Elena's will disintegrating. "Surrender, or I'll devour you alive."

Elena's head snapped up, eyes shut but stubborn. "Never, you bitch," she breathed, voice faint but firm. "You might as well kill me." Seraphina sensed Elena's will weakening, but she was sick of this.

She let go of the whip, the crack ringing through the stillness. She moved towards the darkness and rasped, "Come forth." Elena's gaze tracked with her, her heart seizing as Tomás stepped forward, his young face strange and cruel. Elena's anguished cry came when she realized her erstwhile loving brother watched idly as she suffered for hours. Seraphina's eyes flashed with victory.

"Your sister resists me, Tomás," she stated, her voice filled with passion. "She thinks that she is superior to you. Punish her for it."

Tomás took the whip, his movements stiff, eyes empty. Elena cried hysterically, shook her head, and collapsed in a combination of sobs. "Tomás, no, please. I love you! Remember us - us fighting together, you with me. Remember me, please!"

He didn't, drawing the whip. The first lash bit into her chest, and Elena's scream was raw, her body contorting. "Why didn't you save us?" Tomás insisted, voice without sympathy. Another lash, and her shrieks grew louder, blood and tears combining. "You failed us - failed me, failed Mom and Dad." The whip cracked, and her grip cracked. "Are you too good for us? Too proud?"

Another strike, and Elena's voice broke. "No." she panted, a woeful breath. Tomás struck again, words cutting deep. "You left us to die. You're nothing." The whip fell, and her shrieks filled the air, her will breaking. "Stop struggling, you vain idiot. Just give up."

Tomás would not give up, and Seraphina smiled observing. The whip lashed down on Elena's thighs, arms, back - again and again, relentless pounding. "Look at you," Tomás sneered, voice becoming cruel, "hanging there, a dirty slut. Thought you were a hero?" Another strike, and Elena's cry was weak, body convulse. "You're pathetic - weak, useless." The whip lashed across her stomach, and she choked, head thrashing. "All that training, and you couldn't stop her."

The agony endured; the lash was merciless. "Scream louder," Tomás sneered, cutting her ribs, and ripped a raw scream from her lips. "Let mistress hear you break!"

Elena's crying became hysterical, her words a tangle of anguish. "Please. Tomás," she implored, but he laughed - loud, contemptuous. "Please what? You're not worth my pity." The lash bit across her shoulders, and she screamed, body shuddering. "You're filth - beneath us all." Another and her wails fell to a whine.

The whipping went on, every blow a shame, every curse a knife. "Thought you'd win?" Tomás spat, whip tearing her side. "A failure - a disgrace." Another lash, and her head fell, tears blending with blood. "Scream, useless cunt." The whip lashed her back, voice cut off, only a rasping moan.

Minutes crawled, the torture unyielding, Tomás's sadism more selective and intimate. "My hero once," he jeered, flaying her chest, "now a coward." Elena's body trembled. The lash struck her face, cutting her cheek, and she shrieked, will buckling. "Broken failure! Surrender!"

Elena's head spun, flesh a burning mass of pain, will shattered into a thousand pieces. She was too exhausted to resist, but there burned within her an ember of defiance. Tomás advanced, his gaze hard and without affection for his sister. "Surrender, stupid cunt," he snarled, his words a final slur. "There's no getting out of it. You're going to do what Mistress Seraphina wants, one way or another. I'll make sure of it!" The whip dropped once more across her back, and finally her mind snapped - her will broke, and her resistance fell.

Her cries dissolved to a hollow echo, limbs lifeless in the chains, spirit shattered. Seraphina looked wantonly, hand on her gown stroking as she savored it. The transformation of Elena's demeanor became readily apparent to her. She held up her hand finally. "Enough." Tomás hurried away.

Seraphina knelt before Elena, lifting her chin with a finger of ice. Their eyes locked, and Elena's tear-smudged eyes relaxed, drawn by Seraphina's dark loveliness - strange comfort in the pain. And in them, finally, Seraphina saw it - acceptance.

"Do you want it to stop?" Seraphina breathed, voice low and husky, fingers tracing Elena's cheek in a cruel parody of motherly love.

Elena nodded, the sobs lessening, the hunger smoldering beneath the exhaustion. "Yes," she whispered, voice shaking.

"Do you want your family together again?" Seraphina asked.

Elena hesitated before crumbling once more. "Yes," she sobbed, a quivering demand, eyes locked onto Seraphina's, begging to be pleased.

A sneer spread onto Seraphina's lips, lust tainting it. "Then you know what to do." She released the chains, and they clattered down to the floor. Elena staggered, battered wreckage, head reeling. Dazed, she suddenly remembered Seraphina's vow on the night she destroyed Elena's family: You'll beg to serve me, to worship me.

She looked up, broken on the floor at Seraphina's feet. She was willing to admit that it was over, finally. Her brother was already dead. Her mother and her father too. There was nothing left to fight for. Seraphina had already won, and to keep fighting would be pointless. She'd lose, and she'd never stop hurting.

"Please," she cried, crawled, shaking hands as she clutched Seraphina's boots. "Make me yours. Put an end to this agony. You're everything - I am nothing. Mercy - I only wish to please you." She kissed Seraphina's boots, lips aflame, her blood and tears a sacrifice, her new desire worth more than her shame.

Seraphina gasped, her hand slipping under her gown, fingers brushing her sex as she enjoyed Elena's defeat. "That's something you're going to find out about me in a hurry," she growled, her voice husky with satisfaction and victory. "I always win, and I always take what I want. You thought you were going to be the one to succeed where others failed, didn't you?" She kicked the back of Elena's head with her boot, slamming her onto the stone floor. "But like all fools who've ever had the temerity to cross me, you crawled at my feet and whimpered like a dog. The lucky ones, such as yourself, get to wait on me as their mistress."

Seraphina was not yet satisfied, wanting more compliant submission from her latest victim. Elena's will was shattered, her weeping echoing as she lapped up Seraphina's boots more fervently, need consuming her. "Take me as your servant," she wept. "Put an end to the pain, please. You're stronger - I'm weak, pathetic. Let me serve as an example to any who dare to defy you, mistress!"

Seraphina touched her finger to her chin, playfully considering Elena's entreaty. "What use will you be to me, slayer?" Elena looked up more desperately. How did this happen? How did she end up justifying her life to her one time greatest enemy, the ruthless creature that had stolen her entire life from her?

"I'll do anything. I'll kill, I'll steal. I'll provide you with more victims. I'll do whatever you want! Please! I just want to be with them again!"

Seraphina's breathing was faster, a rush of exhilaration through her. It was always a thrill when they broke, but Elena was something different, even if Seraphina had been taunting her a moment before. She had always been a perpetual thorn in Seraphina's side, a disobedient spark that long irritated but enchanted her, and breaking her was the biggest thrill. As Seraphina's hand again dropped below her gown, her fingers brushed against the heat of her sex, which was moist with passion, a gentle dew that bloomed with the slayer's surrender.

"Hmm. very well, pet. But I will not take you myself." She turned to Tomás with a devilish smile. "Pet, give your sister the gift."

Elena was trapped, horror washing over her, but her body refused to move. Tomás approached her, his pace slow. He moved in, and Elena recalled their past - the love, the jokes, childhood fights, the war they had shared together - now forever tainted, just one more thing Seraphina had taken from her. And now Elena had to face the bitter reality that Seraphina would never have to answer for any of it. The cruel, wicked vampiress had won, completely and entirely, and Elena's story would be no more than a warning, an aside to Seraphina's. The proud slayer who fell to her knees and begged for mercy and domination from the vampire that killed her family.

For the last time, Elena looked into Tomás's eyes as a human, with only an emptiness where there had been her brother. But a weird feeling of comfort fell over her - the brother she loved still would be the one to end her suffering, to bring them together again, even if it was to damnation and eternal bondage to their shared torturer.

Elena surrendered, and tilted her head to the side, revealing her neck, one of the only places on her body untouched by Seraphina's lash. "Do it. Please."

Tomás didn't need to be told. He rammed his fangs into her neck, the bite hot and cold. Elena screamed, her life flowing from her as Seraphina waited guard, her moans rising, her hand speeding beneath the gown. Her body trembled with Tomás's turning of his sister, a shudder of fine release running through her as her hand fell onto the wet heat beneath, her climax a gentle, trembling crest in sync with the rush of Elena's blood over stone. Her gaze was trained on the siblings, mouth agape in gentle, rapturous breath, arousal surging in that final, triumphant instant.

"Nothing so sweet," Seraphina breathed, her voice sunk to a heavy, throaty moan of enjoyment as she basked in the glow of her triumph, "as the breaking of the righteous at my hands."

Elena fell back, gasping, her eyes lifting to Seraphina's as the last vestige of strength seeped from her body, a strange hunger coming to life within her. From the icy stone sidewalk, she gazed up at the vampire queen in awe of the woman's beauty. Seraphina's body was a dream of perfection - her white skin unmarred, glowing in the light of the torches, her gown clinging to each curve, delineating the sweet sweep of her hips, the stunning arch of her neck, and the bewitching swell of her breasts, lush and inviting beneath the tight fabric, their allure a siren's call that awakened Elena's dwindling senses.

Her black eyes smoldered with an irresistible draw, shaded by lashes that created delicate shadows, and her full, red lips offered danger and joy. How was she ever to be able to resist such a goddess, she thought, her head spinning, her heart shaking beneath the power of that beauty. Now suddenly, this defeat made absolutely perfect sense to her. Of course Seraphina had trampled and defeated her. Who was she to attempt to usurp such power, and why would she even want to? The goddess standing before her had been designed to rule, and Elena had been designed to be a sacrifice upon her altar.

Seraphina loomed over her, triumphant. "It was meant to happen this way. Congratulations, you're family now. Now do you have anything to say?"

Elena, clinging to the edge of consciousness, was fading under Seraphina's spell, the beauty before her beyond reach and irrepressible. "Thank you, mistress," she panted, fulfilling Seraphina's prophecy weeks ago, assuring her victory over the fallen slayer. Laughing, Seraphina smiled at Tomás, putting her wet finger upon his lips, which he widened to taste her, as Elena envied. With the other hand, Seraphina drew him toward her, repaying him for his role in Elena's destruction with a lingering, burning kiss - her mouth consuming his in hot, exultant hunger. Then she swept out, skirt swirling, Tomás beside her, as the door shut behind them, Elena's transformation beginning, now Seraphina's forever.