AUTHOR'S NOTE:
If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com. And let me know where you want the story to go and who you want Jake to end up with. And if you have any ideas for the future, let me know, I might include them.
MARCH 16th
"Anything yet?"
"I'm reviewing the whole night's video now in fast forward. It will take me a while to get caught up to real time."
"Listen, I need to go off out of town for a couple days. You see, Günter is leaving the Carstvo for good this time, and I want to escort him to the border myself. See, isn't your boyfriend a good guy?"
"I suppose so, as long as he's not just trying to help excommunicate a potential romantic rival to his boyfriend."
"Like I always say, I may be frothing with emotions at time, but jealousy has never been one of them."
"I'll go with you," I said. "I want to share your bed every night."
"That sounds incredibly romantic, and a trip with you would be loads more preferable than to spending my time with Günter, but there's so many reasons why I absolutely refuse to let you tag along. Namely, it very well could be dangerous. In fact, that's my main reason for going, to protect Günter. After Kirill got word that the man was involved in his assassination attempt, I can't imagine he'll just smile and wave goodbye as the doctor leaves. If things get dicey, I want to be able to protect him."
"Oh great, now I'm going to be worried about the two of you. I should come along. Maybe there's something I can do to keep you two safe."
"Jake, do I need to remind you one more time? You are not a vampire. You are a human being. I don't want you anywhere near danger of any kind. Having you there would just make me constantly be worried about your safety and potentially lose sight of keeping Günter safe."
"I wouldn't want that. You're sure I should stay here?"
"I need you to monitor this video for me. That's the best way you can make yourself useful."
"Right, someone will need to stay here to do this. How long will you be gone?"
"Just a couple days. We're taking a train close to the edge of the Carstvo, but then we'll be on horseback. Once across, I need to make sure he meets his automobile ride as planned, and then I'll head back."
"Will you have your cell phone?"
"Yes, though I won't have enough battery to talk to you every second of the trip, as much as I would be tempted to. I'm sure it will be entirely boring without you. But I'll have it in case anything important should happen."
"We should have one more round in the sack before you go. That way you won't have to worry about feeding today."
"That's very sweet, but I'm supposed to be leaving in fifteen minutes, and you know I'm incapable of quickies. Oh my god, that marks a new record."
"What?"
"That's the first time I've ever turned down one of your offers for sex. What a sad sort of milestone this is."
"How, then, would you like to spend your last fifteen minutes with me?"
He smiled. "Doing this," he said, pulling me into his arms and starting to kiss me. With the passion I felt, I was all too happy to oblige.
I spent the day either nursing the still-sick Alik in his quarantine, or monitoring the video feed on Kirill. So far, he had been in his bedroom very infrequently, save for when he had been sleeping (with all new linen, of course).
Finally, he came into his room giving a series of orders to guards who were tailing him, talking about the state of his two vessels, and my heart started to race excitedly.
I swore he was just about to call his daughter by her name when he stopped talking mid-sentence and looked straight at me, giving me the chills.
"What is this?" he asked, leaning down to pick up the glasses, and then, moments later, the screen went black and the audio dead. He had just crushed our only hope of winning.
I pounded Maxim's number in my cell. "It's over," I said. "He found the glasses, he destroyed them."
"And he never said anything?"
"Nothing at all."
I heard him let out a huge scream of rage, and hoped his fire-dragon hadn't been accidentally let loose.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
"It's not your fault, my love. You did everything you could."
A few hours later, I called Maxim back. "Maxim?"
"I already miss you, my solnyshko. But you're about two hours too soon to give me an illicit conversation over the phone while I pleasure myself in hopes that it will keep my insomnia at bay. Can you call back later?"
"No, actually. I'm calling to ask permission to make-out with Alik."
"I always get your jokes, but this one has eluded me."
"That's because I'm not joking. I'm serious. Do you mind if I make out with Alik tonight?"
"Hmm. I suppose I can understand why you would be physically attracted to the man, he's enormous. Though I am just as large if not larger where it counts."
"I find you much more attractive, Maxim, even though he's at a higher weight class and has more muscle than you. I like your lean sprinter's muscle much more than his steroid, fatty muscles."
"I can understand why you'd be physically drawn to him, but I can't understand the same about the man's gruff personality. But I respect your preferences, whatever they are. You are free to explore sexually however you need to. My vow of fidelity doesn't come with the expectation it will be a two-way street."
"Believe me, kissing him will be highly undesirable to me, but it's a necessary thing. Because I've come up with a plan-B in taking down Kirill."
"I thought the camera thing was a plan-B?"
"Well, I guess it's more like a plan-D, if you're being strictly technical."
"Lovely, what did you think up?"
"After I kiss Alik, I'm going to hold his germs in my mouth and go get on Kirill's train, turn myself in to the man, and kiss him."
"What?!"
"Maxim, it's the perfect plan. I know he'll kiss me, because he always did before. And I'll infect him with the flu, and he'll be dead in a couple days."
"I think it's very sweet that you're planning ways to help me, but I don't want you to do anything until I get back. Why don't you write down all of these ideas on a sheet of paper, and when I'm back, we'll go over each one together?"
"I can't do that, Maxim. Because if I wait for you to get back, you won't agree to my idea. I'm worried you'll block me physically from proceeding."
"You're damn right I will!"
"And, as you remind me all the time, I'm just a human, no match for you physically. You'd put my plans to an end."
"That's because your plan is absolute rubbish! Sure, you'd kill Kirill, but as soon as he found out it was you who must have infected him, which will be all too obvious considering the timing of your return, he will kill you over it!"
"You can't be sure of that."
"Yes I can!"
"Look, I've been thinking this through for hours. Looking at every angle possibly available to us. This is the only way to stop him."
"Listen to me! If one of us has to die, it should be me! I should march in and just kill him with my fire, like he did to our mother."
"And they'll execute you for killing your father, and no one will know that your sister is the special woman vessel he has, and so she won't rule either. Someone strange will take over the throne. That won't solve anything. You need to be Tsar. So you can save all the senseless lives Kirill would have taken. That's why I'm doing this."
"No, you can't!"
"I'm going to."
"No! You cannot die for this cause, you stupid moron! We'll find another way!" I could hear his firebreath blow, and I knew I had made him so, so angry. I was grateful I couldn't see him. He would have completely terrified me.
"What is that crackling sound?"
"That's the sound of my dragon burning down all my surroundings!"
"You can't stop me," I said calmly.
"Yes, I can. I'm turning around right now, coming back for you. When I get my hands on you, I'm going to hold you down, never let you free again! Since your choices are complete martyr trash, I'll make every decision for you from now on, you hear me?!"
"You'll never get back here in time. I'm leaving now."
"When I get there, I'll kill you myself, and save Kirril the trouble, you hear me? That's how angry I am right now. Please, please, don't do this!" The anger in his voice was gone, and it cracked into a wet sob, as he began crying freely.
I too started to cry. "I've made up my mind. I'm sorry to hurt you like this, but it's the only way."
"No, no!"
"Listen, I've written four letters here for all my loved ones. If I die, I need you to make sure they get into the right hands. One for my mother, one for Jerry, one for Ahmad. And, of course, one for you."
"No, no, no!"
"No, you won't deliver them?"
"No, I refuse! You need to take back this decision, or you'll die and your family will never know!"
Clearly he was trying to manipulate me, but it wouldn't work.
"I don't believe that's really the choice you'll make, but I'll leave that in your hands. I don't have much time now before his train comes to the station, so I have to go now. I want you to know how much you mean to me."
"No, please don't hang up, you can't!"
"Sorry, I have to. I know you don't believe in any of this, but when you're time comes, many, many decades down the road, I'll be there in Heaven to welcome you."
I hung up and dried the tears from my eyes. He started to call back almost immediately, but I just let it ring in my pocket.
Alik was sleeping when I let myself into his quarantine. He looked hot, sweaty, and sick. I momentarily thought of asking him to kiss me, confide my plans in him, but I was worried he would try to sell me the kiss for Maxim's money, which was not mine to negotiate with. No, I would take what I needed without telling him why.
I figured Kirill would most likely have me stripped down when he had sex with me, so I took off all my clothes. Trying to convince myself not to think of how disgusted I was with his oozing sickness, I forced myself to jump on top of his naked body. I locked my lips to his and started to lick the inside of his mouth, which tasted rank and mucus-y.
He woke up, surprised. He kissed me back, holding my body and rubbing it with his hot, moist flesh. I figured, anything that would get more of his germs on my body, the better, even though I was repulsed.
He spun around so he was on top of me, pushing my front into the mattress, and he started to thrust into my crack. "I take it this means you've forgiven me? For screwing up your plans?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, I forgive you. But I don't have any money to pay you anymore, if that's what you're hoping."
He turned my head back, kissed me again, and thrust his hardness against my hole.
"Well well, so the consummate sexual professional CAN get aroused even when he's not being paid for it. But what was it you told me before, about me wasting your seed for nothing? I'm guessing you won't give me your precious semen, is that right?"
"That might normally be true, but I'm too sick to make any money off of my body right now. This is your one chance to get a freebie."
"And I'm such a frugal person, what a fine deal!"
I got out of his bed and started to get dressed.
"Where are you going? Look, if you come back, I may even let you have two sessions for the price of one."
"I don't want someone who doesn't want me."
"I can't afford to want anyone," he said.
"Have a good life, Alik."
I left him alone.
Luck smiled on me when I was spotted leaving boarding the closest train station by policemen, put under arrest, handcuffed, and brought to Kirill's train by force. It was a much better sell than just giving up and walking into the place on my own.
One of the guards had his hands over my mouth, keeping me from speaking of course, as they took me into Kirill's throne room, where I bowed politely.
"Ah, Mr. Groves, how absolutely lovely it is that you've returned to me, no worse for wear, I'm delighted to see."
As he hammered in the nail into my skull that would take away my communication, I tried to focus on Kirill's upcoming death instead of on the pain and sickening feeling it caused in me. Once it was all the way in, Kirill leaned down and sniffed me.
"I believe Mr. Groves has a bit of an odor this time," said Kirill. "Poor man must not have been around proper bathing facilities while he was gone."
It must have been Alik's sweat he smelled on me. I sniffed myself, but I couldn't really detect much odor. Did vampires have supernatural senses of smell?
"Goodly Officers, take Mr. Groves and get him cleaned up, please. Strip him of his nice suit and wash it in hot water."
The officers took me into a bathroom car of the train, stripped my clothes off me, and scrubbed my body with hot water and soap. It was amazingly frustrated to watch me Alik's germs slip down the drain. The one part of me they didn't touch was my mouth, and luckily, that had always been my greatest chance of infection.
They put me in my old room and gave me the things I had in my pockets while they washed my clothes. Maxim was still calling incessantly on the phone, but I wasn't going to negotiate with him any longer.
It didn't take long for Kirill to show up again, and as soon as we were alone behind closed doors, I went for him and embraced him.
"I know, it's been far too long since I've been able to bask in your purity, dearly loved Mr. Groves." He put his arms around me, hugging me dearly.
I tried to open my mouth to kiss him, but before I could, he pushed me onto my knees.
"It's been far too long since you tasted my phallus of goodness," he said, pulling his big, uncut dick out of his fly.
Clearly, he wanted me to give him oral, but I was worried about putting anything into my mouth that wasn't his tongue, as I didn't want to waste all Alik's germs on a part of his body that wouldn't get infected. I managed to stroke his soft dick to attention while just kissing him and giving him slight licks there, which he didn't seem to mind.
"Now, kind gentleman, I want to taste your purity." I thought he meant kissing me, and I stood up and opened my mouth in anticipation. But instead of that kind of tasting, he had another in mind entirely. He pushed me face down onto the bed and began licking my hole, lubing it up.
It was very plain to me that I would be the worst prostitute, whose job it was to pretend to be sexually into their johns, as unappealing as they were. I had something here that most prostitutes never got: the person I was trying to fool was physically extremely attractive to me. Yet still, I could not bring myself to be remotely interested in him due to his abhorrent personality. And yet, I had to pretend to be the man he desired.
And so, I reined in my instinct to scream in furious terror as he entered me, kept my desire to fight him off of me as he started to screw me at bay. Pain brought on visions of Jericho, of course, but even then I forced myself to do nothing more when he cooed about how heavenly it was to have his, "Giant phallus of purity all the way inside my inner goodness," but moan in imagined pleasure.
He took his time with me, pushing in and out, back and forth, my body pressed into the sheets of the bed. This position wasn't helping my goal of kissing him one bit. I decided to turn around, hoping he wouldn't see my soft unit.
Unable to communicate my desire to flip over, I just started twisting on my own accord as he continued. On a regularly endowed man, he might have slipped out in the process, but that wasn't a problem with him. When he finally laid on top of me, our fronts pressed together as he continued his excited thrusts, I grabbed the back of his head, looked into his bedroom eyes, and pulled his mouth down towards mine.
"Yes, let me taste you."
But once more, his kiss eluded me. Instead, his lips found my throat. He pierced my flesh with his fangs, which at least made me hard, covering up total lack of arousal up to that point, but instead of kissing me, his mouth was locked onto my throat after that point for what seemed like forever, only rising to moan about how perfect my non-Code-breaking blood tasted.
After he started to feast on my blood, his thrusts became more and more powerful. I had hoped he would stop feeding from me before he came, but that was not to be. He only took his mouth of my throat intermittingly in order to describe in unwanted detail how great it felt (apparently for both of us) to have his "white purity juice" totally flood every nook and cranny of my hole, putting his good essence inside me.
He licked my wound clean and pulled out of me, lying gently on top of me, telling me how much he loved me.
"I'm going to spend all night in your arms, our lips locked together."
Yes, it was just what I had been waiting for. He lips opened and moved towards mine, his eyes closing. I opened my mouth to receive him.
Before his lips touched mine, he pulled back, and I actually groaned in frustration.
He laughed. "I had told myself I would keep this going all night, but I just couldn't keep a straight face any longer. Dear Mr. Groves, I know what you hold in your mouth, and I'll be having none of it."
He got up off me and put his penis away, an "I've beaten you" smile on his face. Had he realized because I hadn't given him full on oral, was that when I cued him in?
"Now, don't think that I don't recognize you for being an absolutely brilliant tactician, because you absolutely are, my loved gentleman. Your plot would have ended in my death, surely. That is, if I hadn't been tipped off before you even were captured that you would be trying to infect me in that manner. You didn't have the least bit of a stench on you when you got here. I invented that as an excuse to have my Officers wash you off."
I moaned at him angrily.
"Do you even have to ask? Who else would be so deviant as to break his alliance with you in order to strike a deal with me? My Decency-Code-urinating-on son, Maxim. And as much as it pained me to be forced to make a deal with the deviant devil himself, I was left with little choice when he called me and told me it was either his terms, or the imminent end of my life, that I could choose."
My anger swelled. How could Maxim betray me like that? How could he throw away my one chance at killing this tyrant?
"Kindly, Officers of the law," shouted Kirill through the door. Well, as loud as a shout as Kirill's hushed, reserved tone could muster. "Open the door and clean this gentleman's mouth out with our special virus killing mouthwash."
The guards came in, and Kirill left them to me alone. The officers dragged me into the bathroom, forced me to wash my mouth out, and when it was good and cleaned out, they washed my body again, just to be sure I was sterile.
As soon as I was alone, I picked up my cell and dialed Maxim's number, ignoring the voicemails and texts I had from him and just going straight to the man.
"I'm sorry, my solnyshko."
I moaned in anger, all I could do.
"I take it by your distinct lack of consonants in that phrase that the bastard already has his nails into you. I'm sorry."
I moaned again.
"I know, you have a right to be angry, but you didn't leave me with any other choice. You purposely chose a time to sacrifice yourself when you knew I would have no way to intervene except through the telephone. I made a deal with the bastard in order to keep you safe. He's agreed to return Helina to me in three days, and after that, he'll never touch her again. Also, he's giving immunity to Dr. Herzog and even Alik. I got him to agree to go to the Vampire Council when it convenes and vote to keep you alive. Also, he's going to work on connecting you directly with the other four heads of Bloods that you still need to see. In return, I've agreed to leave the Carstvo after a month, and never return for as long as he is on the throne. I've sworn to never conspire to hurt him again or remove him from the throne, and promised the same for Helina, which means we won't ever be able to come forward with her true identity as long as he lives. I tried to negotiate for him to get rid of his idiotic Codes, to stop massacring his own people, but he refused to stop any of that."
I groaned angrily.
"I know you well enough to identity the truth of its meaning. That you would have rather sacrificed yourself to kill him in order to save the lives he'll take later on in his reign, and that you would have not made a deal such as this which only benefits you and my sister."
I moaned in agreement.
"But I just couldn't make the same choice myself, I had to be selfish in order to save the ones I love. And I haven't gotten to what was the worst concession I had to make. I tried so hard to get him to agree to giving you back to me immediately, but he would not have it. He wanted a year with you, but I was able to talk him down to a month. A whole month, locked away with the bastard. Just the thought of what he'll force on you makes me so mad I almost accidentally killed a train conductor with my fire, but a month of you going through hell is so much better than the idea of losing you forever. Promise me, my solnyshko, that the man I love will still be the man I love when you get out of there. Don't let him take your essence from you."
I groaned in agreement.
"Again, I'm so sorry, and again, I love you so much it hurts. Every second I spend without you, waiting for you, will be spent in an emotional hell that I will create for myself. I won't be able to function until I'm reunited with you."
I started to cry when I hung up, and I knew I had already forgiven him.
As I sat there alone to my thoughts, the first thing that came to my mind was how unthinkably awful a month spent with Kirill would be, and then I felt guilty worrying about my own suffering like that when he was murdering his citizens every day.
I told myself I was done pretending. If he was going to hold me hostage for a month and rape me over and over again, I wasn't going to be pleasant about the whole affair. He would have to hammer in a whole lot more nails into my head before I would ever submit to him willingly again, and he would lose any notion that I was not a Code Breaker. I was willing to break all of them in front of him just to spite his decision to hold onto me.
But the longer I sat there alone, the more I felt some gut feeling that continuing to play the gentlemen might be to my advantage. I knew that to do otherwise would likely end up with me tied up, like Helina or the nameless Valmor Blood vampire, chained up and available to rape multiple times a day, no better than a Logan slave.
And so, when Kirill came back that night, I quelled the instinct inside me that made me want to spit in his face and claw his eyes out, and instead showed him love and goodwill. I wasn't happy to have essentially become a prostitute, but I felt that was the right choice I was making.
Kirill kissed me finally, now that I was completely clean, and he clearly relished that kiss. "Being the Tsar comes with it certain demands of time, but when I'm not needed out there, I'm going to spend every second of my free time in here with you, making love with this wondrous beacon of truth and goodness in my arms until my decency phallus falls off. And at the end of this month, I promise you'll choose to stay here on your own accord, choose to be not only my vessel for life but to be the sheathe to my foil."
As if to prove his desire to make love to me constantly, he pulled his dick out, which was totally hard, and started to rub it against my hole.
I groaned at him.
"What is it you are trying to say, kind gentleman?"
I groaned again and pointed at the nail in my head.
"I suppose since I've already agreed to your terms, there's no longer any advantage for keeping this in you."
He used his hammer to remove the nail, bit his hand, and poured blood in my head, healing me so I could communicate again.
"Ah, much better, thank you, my beloved liege. I was trying to tell you that, when you make love to me like this, when you, um, join your divine phallus of purity to my goodness--"
"—it feels so right, it makes you want to weep?"
"Exactly, my liege. But I cannot handle such huge amounts of love and devotion multiple times a day, or all the pleasure. I think it's far better for us to limit our trysts to just once a day, and not spend every second together. Because nothing makes the heart grow fonder better than absence, as they say."
"Are you sure? Just once a day?"
"Think about how passionate our lovemaking was the first time this evening, reconciling after such a long separation. That is the kind of passion I want us to have every day."
"I can muster that level of passion for you multiple times a day."
"But you are a vampire, and I'm really just a man. I don't have the endless reserves of passion that you do. Mine needs to build, and I promise you, if we can just make love once a day, you will not regret that choice. Not when you feel how wonderfully enrapt we become."
"Alright, it's worth trying out, at least. We'll do it your way."
As I went to sleep in his arms, I couldn't help but smile at my manipulations.
MARCH 17th
I got him to leave me again only when I reminded him that time spent completely away from each other every day was a necessary part of doing things `my way.' As soon as I was ready for the day, I pulled back the grate up on the wall that bordered Helina's room, but found, to my dismay, that someone had discovered my secret passageway, probably because they had found the Hispanic vampire in my bed the last time I escaped. Someone had installed bars in what used to be the hole between the rooms, meaning I could see into her room, but couldn't go inside.
She was sitting on the ground, sleeping.
"Wake up! It's me, Jake!"
She opened her eyes and looked back at me through the bars, then rolled her eyes. "Oh, just wonderful, you're back. Please don't tell me you came back on your own accord because you missed this place. I am truly sick to see you back here."
"I came back to try to kill Kirill, but obviously that didn't work out so well for me. And you sound less sick to see me and more sick with some virus. You're voice sounds awful."
"I am sick," she said. "So sick, so fast. Surely I have the flu, Jake. I don't know how I could have gotten it in here, but that's what I've gotten. And that means I'm finally going to die, which is what I've been hoping for for so long now."
I knew Alik must have given her the flu somehow, even though when Kirill had been using her body, she barely touched him. She might have been pleased to be dying of the flu, but I felt bad for her and her brother. And thinking of Maxim got me to comparing those two. I supposed I could see some similarity in the facial features of both of them, but her hair had been burned black, much darker than his shade.
Her personality was much darker than his as well. Where Maxim's big grin constantly disarmed me, Helina's smile was very slight and subdued. Her other emotions were much drier as well. Though they both could be sarcastic, Maxim's sarcasm was a part of his extroverted sense of humor, while hers was much more wry and biting. Even when she cried, her tears were much more subdued than Maxim's tendency towards bawling. I wondered if she had always been that dark, or if Kirril had transformed her into that state.
"Well Helina, and that's your name, I've discovered, does it sound familiar?"
"Helina? No, can't say that it does. But I like it. It makes me think of the word Hell. A woman born from hellfire. Though you could have told me my name was Tinkerbell, and I would have believed you."
"Well Helina, if you are sick, think that means you can infect Kirill?"
"Only if he comes to take my body from me. The chances of that happening are about one in infinity since, when he doesn't have some special need for my body, he only takes it out for spin every few months, and he just did that a couple days ago."
"What if I can get him to switch bodies with you?"
"You might be able to get him to come in here, but as soon as he looked at me, he would know I was sick. He wouldn't come near me. And if any of the upstanding policemen who guard the place see me like this, they'll quarantine me for sure. And I'm overdue for my birth control injection, and wouldn't be surprised if they gave that to me this morning."
"I just might be able to help with that problem," I said. "Wait here."
"Yeah, because I'm actually overflowing with other options right now, sure." Like I said, her humor was dry and biting, but mine could also be sarcastic, so I appreciated it.
I walked over to the other side of my room and pulled off the wall panel. Once again, I could see my former passageway into the other room had been barred up. The handsome Hispanic, Valmor Blood vampire certainly didn't look sick, luckily.
I saw a small pouch that I knew was filled with flu medication, but instead of being inside the naked vampire's cell, it was just outside of it.
"Hello, sir!" I called to guy, waving.
He saw me and made a grunt. He still had that nail in his head keeping him from talking.
"Look, I need that bag there," I said, pointing. "It's important. Think you can reach it?"
He looked at the bag, but pointed to the cell wall that was between him and the pouch. Unlike the other two walls of his cell, which were made of wide-spaced bars that one could easily stick an arm or leg through, the bag happened to be beyond the one wall that had bars so close together, it made this unlikely to work.
He could not fit his hands through any of the holes in the bars, so he tried to use his fingers, but they weren't quite long enough to do it.
"Do you have a stick or something you could use?"
He gestured to his cell as if to say, there's nothing here.
"If there's any way you can think of that I'm not, let me just explain the urgency of the matter. The contents of that pouch could help me kill Kirill, the Tsar. And his death would mean your freedom."
His eyes went wide with excitement. When his hands moved towards his own body, my first thought was that he was could to cut out one of his own bones and use it as a tool, just the thought of which was making me light headed. Luckily, his hands fell on his meaty, flaccid dick instead.
He looked at me through the bars, could he tell I was as naked as he was? And as he fixed his eyes on me, I saw his dick starting to fill out, which he further supported with his hands. Soon, it was completely at attention, and very beautiful to look at.
He stuck his dickhead through the hole in the bars, and it was so thick, he actually had to force his way through, scraping it painfully, I'm sure, as he winced. And because his vampiric powers were being subdued with the nails in his head, he wouldn't be able to heal quickly like normal fanged vampires.
He started to get partially soft again at that pain, but pushed all the way through anyway. As his balls hit the bars, he was just a half inch or so from hitting the bag, but he couldn't get there.
"Rats."
But he looked at me again, and he pointed to his own butt, giving me the motion to turn around.
"You want to see my butt? Well, I guess it couldn't hurt."
I spun around and put my naked rear against the bars into his room. I could hear him moaning appreciatively.
When I turned around to look again, his dick had gotten all the way hard once again in spite of the scrapes it had on it, and with the extra length, he was just able to reach the bag and drag it along the floor and into his cell.
"This time, wait for it to go soft before you try to pull it out of the bars again," I advised.
He did that, and came through without any further scratches.
"Thank you, thank you. Now, can you toss the bag to me through the bars?"
He nodded, picking up the bag, coming to the other side of the cell that was in my direction, and sticking his arm through his bars.
I stuck my arms through to catch. "Now, before you throw this to me, keep in mind that if you miss, or if I fail to catch it, it will fall down where we'll never be able to retrieve it. Are you a good thrower? Even without your vampire powers?"
He nodded.
"Then it's just not to me to blow the catch. Okay, go."
He threw it, and I nailed the catch. I had done so much catching of footballs in my life that it came easily to me, luckily. I would have killed myself if I had dropped it after the man ended up with a bloody penis because of this cause.
I thanked him profusely and put the panel back in the wall. I walked over to the other wall's bars and stuck my arm through. "Now's my chance to test out my skills as a QB," I said. "Are you a good catcher?"
"I don't know," said Helina.
"Well, didn't you ever play catch as a kid?"
"Oh yes, do ask an amnesiac about their childhood memories, that always works terrifically."
I threw underhanded, trying to make it as soft and gentle as I could. And she caught the bag easily.
She pulled out the assortment of pills.
"If you take one of each kinds of those, you'll keep them from figuring out you're sick. You have nothing to drink them with, want me to see if I can toss you a water?"
"That's okay, I'll chew them and swallow them with my own tears if I have to, that medicine is going down."
"Before you take them, I must inform you. Well, first of all, I'm sort of dating your twin."
"You're sleeping with my identical sister?"
"No, your twin brother. Maxim. He's not identical."
"Well, obviously, thanks. I didn't know I had any siblings."
"He's been led to believe by Kirill that you've been dead this whole time. He loves you very much."
"Well, I wish I could say the same, but I have no memory of him. Honestly, I'm closer to loving you than him, at least I've had a couple conversations with you."
"And there's something else. Before you try to help me kill Kirill, you need to know something that will almost certainly change your mind."
"Yes? Get on with it, the suspense is killing me."
"Kirill is your father."
She said nothing, but her dry features broke ever so lightly, her eyes wetting and her lips trembling, but not actually crying.
"And he's Maxim's father too."
"Again, I hope you didn't really think I couldn't put that last fact together on my own."
"So do you want to call off this assassination attempt?" I asked.
"Just the opposite. After all he has done to me, his own daughter. My desire to rip his head off has been upped exponentially."
She threw the pills in her mouth, and started to chew.
A couple hours later, when Helina was sure the medication was working its magic, I grabbed my cellphone and pounded on the door until a guard came.
"Please, find the Tsar and tell him I need to see him, urgently. It's very important!"
Kirill appeared surprisingly quickly, coming in and shutting the door as I bowed to him.
"Oh, dearly loved Mr. Groves, did you change your mind about the one love-making a day idea?" he asked with a smile.
"I wish my beckoning you had a purpose as delightful as that, my beloved liege, but I'm afraid just the opposite is true." I held up my cell phone, trying to make my voice sound anxious. "I just got off the phone with Syd Logan, do you know who that is?"
"He's one of Jericho's son's, I believe. You shouldn't accept calls from any Logan as a rule."
"Normally I'd agree with you, but Syd's actually been excommunicated from the Territory by Jericho, who hates him. He's actually very much on our side, against that of his father. Anyway, what he told me scares me gravely. He's found word that Jericho has launched a military attack with his army on us, the Petrov's."
"He wouldn't! He's already tried that before, many years ago, and he was thwarted."
"He wants revenge for that loss, I'm afraid. Syd is certain he's coming for us. You and I, this whole place, all of your people are in grave danger. They mean to attack us in three hours."
"I'll alert the armies to secure the borders and be ready. You and I aren't in any real danger, I promise you."
"You haven't had the misfortune of being trapped in the Territory like I have," I said. "What I saw there still gives my nightmares. Jericho has under his control a special that can cut holes through the air, create teleportation portals."
"That's impossible!"
"I've seen it with my own eyes. That's how I got here, Jericho ordered his man to teleport me. He can teleport his whole army wherever he wants instantly."
I left out the drawbacks of Big Horn's powers, like that he couldn't teleport to anywhere he hadn't already been and created a portal at, or that he couldn't teleport from or to a moving target.
"Jericho won't know where to find us here, my loved Mr. Groves."
"Jericho is a special himself who can pinpoint the exact location of anyone he knows. And now that he has this teleporter, he's going to teleport his soldiers directly to the train, or wherever we happen to be at the time. They'll kill both of us! And before we barely began our special time together!"
"I won't let them hurt you, I won't let them hurt us. We still have three hours before the attack is launched, right?"
"Yes, three hours."
"He'll be expecting to be able to take us by surprise. When he shows up, the surprise will be on him when we are all ready to take him down."
He kissed me, then walked out the door.
"Gentle Officers, please prepare the train for full defensive stance. Tell the army that the city needs protecting from attack, tell everyone to be on guard. And get me my battle body."
Soon, I spied Kirill enter his daughter's room. I could see her face give him a despising look, and I worried briefly that she might lose her control and let on that she knew he was her father, but she remained a champ.
Of course the real test would be if he noticed she showed signs of being under the weather, but when he pulled his dick out and inserted her, I figured he must have not known. But his tendency to stay dressed in his military uniform while he screwed was resulting in very little contact between them, which worried me.
That is, until Kirill forced her to kiss him as he plowed her, and I could see a tiny trace of a smile at the corner of her lips. That's right, he needed to kiss her while he was switching bodies in order for his power to engage, didn't he?
Kirill bit her, came inside her, then switched bodies with her. I saw her grab the hammer from his pocket and pull out the nails from her scalp, then hammer the same nails into his head before locking him in the cage.
Kirill reappeared in my room soon after with a robe on and a rifle in her hands. "Any of them who want to hurt you will have to go through me first, and I know this vessel's special gifts as well as I know my own. They will not harm you."
"Actually, just got off the phone with Syd again. Seems the teleporter grew a conscience. He left Jericho, abandoning him. And without the teleporter, Jericho's whole plan is meaningless, so he's called the whole attack off."
"I knew he wouldn't have the courage. That's splendid. Let me switch bodies back, and then we'll celebrate like we should tonight."
Before long, Jericho reentered the room next to me. He made his daughter's flesh put on that huge strap-on, then raped his own mouth. Soon, I could tell by her moans that she was orgasming. They switched bodies.
I was tempted to drop the nice act then and there, but told myself that just because they had contact didn't guarantee he would get sick. If no symptoms arose, I would have to think of some other way to expose him. Even if that meant suffering through another night of him topping me and going on and on about our purity.
MARCH 18th
Kirill surprised me by showing up much sooner than expected the next day, in the early afternoon. I was in the middle of doing a workout I had devised that I could do locked inside a room, doing sit-ups, pushups, pull-ups, running in place, etc. Kirill came into the room, anxiety on his face.
"Dear Mr, Groves, listen to my voice," he said. He definitely had some strong congestion. Since I knew male vampires didn't get allergies, that only left one explanation.
"You don't sound well, poor thing," I said, trying to stifle my laugh. "Could you be getting a cold?"
"I went from feeling fine this morning to this much too quickly for this to be a cold."
There came a knock on the door. "My liege, are you there?"
"Yes, come on in, Dr. Firsov."
Dr. Firsov, the cold, old man who had designed the bacterial weapon under Kirill's orders, came into the room, a stethoscope around his neck. Apparently, the man was not only a chemist, but also a physician.
A quick medical exam followed, though not one in which Kirill was required to remove his clothes. "I'm sorry, my liege, I'm afraid your intuition was correct. You almost certainly have the flu."
"Oh my goodness," I said, covering my face, trying to look shocked and upset. "That's not fatal for vampires, is it?"
"It usually is, yes," he said.
"Well that's just, that's just awful, I'm so sorry."
"How did this happen?" asked Kirill. "Where did I get this from?"
"Who have you come into contact with in the past couple days?"
"Well, there's Mr. Groves."
"Who obviously couldn't infect you."
"My female vessel. I traded bodies with her yesterday."
Kirill walked out of the room on a hunch, and the doctor followed him. I spied through the bars in the wall panel as the two of them entered Helina's room. She was sleeping on the ground, but just one look at her pale skin or one listen to her labored breathing and it was quite clear that she had the flu.
"Ah yes, here's your culprit, my liege."
"She must have picked it up from that sick boxer I had in here somehow. But how come yesterday when I traded bodies with her, she had no symptoms?"
"I suppose everyone's timing of symptoms can be different. This influenza strain is particularly bad, and in fanged vampires, it can move extremely quickly. I can already tell she's going to be dead in a couple days, tops."
"I wonder if my other vessel somehow got sick as well."
Kirill and the doctor left the room, and I moved across the room to look into the handsome Hispanic vampire's room.
Kirill and Dr. Firsov came into his room and looked him over.
"No, no sign of contamination. My liege, I recommend that you leave your body for good and move into this one. Given your gifts, no one will challenge you are who you say you are or challenge you as Tsar in a new body."
"I would take this body in a heartbeat, but you look at me, Dr. Firsov, and tell me, am I contagious?"
"Most certainly."
"Then I cannot switch bodies without infecting the vessel in the first place. It's not worth the effort."
"Well then, we can find you a human vessel to take over, someone who would survive the flu if infected."
"Absolutely not. I refuse to inhabit a human body. Humanity is a slave to age. I'd blink and be an old, dying man."
"Then you should take your other vessel's body, the One. He's immune to illness and aging."
"I know that makes logical sense, but I can't do that to him. My other three vessels started out clean, but have fought against me every chance I gave them, hence why they all need to be so closely confined. He's the first one to really come to care about me, to embrace me. I can't betray his kindness, purity, and loyalty with death."
The two of them left the Hispanic vampire's room, and I quickly realized they were coming back into my room. I put the panel back on the wall and jumped down to the ground just before they came in.
"Listen, if he's got the flu, he's got the flu," I said to the doctor. "We'll just have to take such good care of him that he survives it. That does happen sometimes."
"Quite right, kind gentleman," said Kirill, still staying his usual calm self.
"I'd be glad to help," I said. "I can be his nurse. Since I'm always the only one who can't get sick, I'm used to being the nurse, and I don't get the least bit grossed out by the sickly or anything. I'm a total professional."
"The Tsar will need to be quarantined," said Dr. Firsov. "Shall we set up your bedroom, my liege?"
"No, I'd rather just stay here, with Mr. Groves, full time."
"That would be perfect," I said. "Like I said, I'm the best at taking care of the sick."
And that's how I ended up caring for another quarantined sick person, though unlike with Syd or Alik, where I could at least leave the room, on that train I was locked up with him, making me feel stir crazy as well as grossed out. During that first day, at least Kirill was fully capable of taking care of himself. His virus progressed quickly, making him more and more mucus filled, giving him a bad cough, and a fever. He stayed in bed, only getting up to go to the bathroom, which he did on his own.
I tried, of course, to sit in the bedside chair and read my book, but he soon told me he absolutely needed me to lie down beside him in bed, where he could hold onto my naked body, so I did as he asked, grossed out by his hot germs as he touched me, but thankful at least he was still fully clothed.
We were interrupted once by Dr. Firsov, who rolled in an IV and attached it to the back of Kirill's hand.
"My liege, I may have just found a way to save your life."
"Yes? What is it?"
"We recently developed a new antiviral medication that is sort of an advanced version of Tamiflu, but targeted just for fanged vampires. It just moved past the trial phase with no serious consequences. I've just added it to your IV. It needs to be administered early or it won't be effective."
"So, too late for my female vessel to work on?"
"Oh yes, much too late for her. But for you, I think we just lowered when might have been a ten percent chance of survival to fifty percent perhaps even sixty."
"Much better odds, that is quite a relief, Doctor. I can't say how grateful I am."
"Or me, I'm grateful too," I forced myself to say, though I felt nothing but repulsed.
That night, Kirill had no problems topping me and taking his daily blood from me at the same time. I could tell that a new fear had crept into his "lovemaking," making him stretch it out longer, perhaps fearful that it might be the last time he ever did it. And of course, that's what I was praying for as I fell to sleep.
MARCH 19th
The next morning, he got up while I was still sleeping, using the toilet and taking a shower. He shut the bathroom door to give himself some privacy. Funny how he wanted me naked all the time, yet the most bare skin I had ever seen of his all belonged to his head, his hands, and his dick.
That shower turned out to be the last time he was able to get up and walk around on his own with that illness. I started bringing food and water to his bedside, and even brought him a jar to urinate in, though at least he had enough tact not to ask me to hold his dick for him at that time like Syd had made me do.
By that night, Kirill was slipping in and out of high-fever induced sleeps that were almost impossible to wake him from. But that wasn't enough to keep him from topping me again that night, finding some inner energy to do the task that he hadn't had all day.
As I fell asleep, I wondered what I would do in the likely even the flu didn't end up killing him. I couldn't let him unleash his biological warfare on his own people. I decided I'd need to stay with him until he trusted me enough to have free reign of the train, and then either find a way to kill him, or destroy the bacterial weapon myself. I sighed unhappily, wondering how long it would take to achieve that.
MARCH 20th
The next morning, when I woke up, Kirill was in such a deep slumber, nothing I said or did could arouse him to anything more than a few groans. His dick, which was still hanging out of his fly from last night's topping session, was hanging loose, and I got a bit of a devious idea.
I started to shake and rub the thing, getting it hard. And then I gave him a proper jerk off, moving my hands as fast as I could, trying to get it over with. I smiled as he started to shoot his large load, not because it was turning me on, but because I knew that sapping him of seed was much more likely to keep him from topping me that day, an act far more unpleasant to me than what I had just done.
After I had cleaned him up and put him away, my thoughts went somewhere else. If he was so out of it, perhaps he wouldn't even wake if I killed him.
I grabbed a pillow from the bed and put it to his face, just lightly laying it over at first. As he didn't wake, I started to tentatively push down, covering his nose and mouth.
"Mmm," he said, pushing the pillow away.
As he came to and opened his eyes, I dropped the pillow and hugged his body, pretending like I had been doing that the entire morning.
"Good morning, dearly loved Mr. Groves," he said to me without the slightest bit of anger, and I knew I had played off my failed plan successfully.
Pretty soon, Kirill wanted to shower, but since he still wasn't able to walk by himself, I helped him off the bed and walked him into the shower. He asked me to turn on the water and leave him alone, but when he fell down as soon as I let him go, I insisted on holding supporting him, keeping him upright as he turned on the shower. Warm water soaked his military uniform.
"Please tell me you intend to actually undress, my liege," I said. "Not going to do much good taking a shower with your clothes on."
"I don't want to offend you with my nudity, Mr. Groves."
"I'm naked right now, my liege."
"But you're not the Tsar. I'm sure you expect me to uphold a certain royal standard."
"I'm totally okay with seeing you without your uniform. I won't think of you as anything less than the Tsar you are, my liege, I swear."
"Yes, alright then, I'll allow you to remove it."
I began stripping him of his wet clothes, seeing him naked for the first time. He certainly had nothing to hide, he looked incredible hot, even sick as he was. I started to wash off his muscles with soap.
After I had finished cleaning him, he put a wet hand on my forehead. "You are the first person I've ever let see me like this." His eyes started to mist over with sentiment.
I dried him off and walked him back to the bed, and then went in the bathroom myself to get ready.
When I came out of the bathroom, toweling off, he said, "Come back to bed, kind gentleman."
It was only when I slid into bed beside him that I picked up on some subtle change in his body. He'd gone from relaxed and loose to oddly tense, though nothing on his face showed any reason for it.
"Tell me again, Mr. Groves, how you were notified that the Logan army would be attacking me?"
"I told you, my liege, I got a phone call from Syd Logan about it."
He pulled his hand up from under the covers and showed me an object which I quickly identified as my cell phone. "You may not know this, but I actually know how to use one of these, Mr. Groves. I was just going to play games on it while you were in the shower, but stumbled upon the incoming and outgoing calls. There's nothing here but calls from Maxim and your mother for days. On the day you informed me of this attack, your only incoming call was from Maxim. Do you have an explanation for this?"
"Um, well..."
"No, you don't. Don't lie to me!"
"Fine, alright? You caught me. I made that up to get you to take Helina's body so that you would catch the flu from her. And I gave her cold medicine beforehand so you wouldn't be able to tell she was sick. That's the truth. I hate lying, I despise it, but sometimes it's the only weapon I have."
"You had me fooled into thinking you cared for me."
"I despise you, Kirill. You deserve death for what you've done to your own daughter alone. And I hope you end up dying from your illness."
I started to jump out of bed, but he grabbed me and pulled me back.
"I was keeping you safe out of some delusion that you felt something for me besides cold hatred. Now that I see your true colors, I'm going to kill you."
"You've sworn to keep me alive."
"You betrayed those vows when you tried to kill me!"
"I never agreed to anything, that was Maxim alone!"
"I don't care what you say, you're nothing but an empty Code Breaker who deserves death! But before I kill you, I'm going to take your body. A major downgrade from the one I'm losing, but it can't get sick, won't get old, I can still use my abilities over the brain in your body. Sure, I won't be able to trade bodies anymore, but perhaps with enough time, I'll figure out how to get that ability to work as well. A bright future ahead, while you get to die in my old, dying body."
"I'm not going out without a fight."
Our physical struggle intensified, with me trying to get free of him and get out of bed, when I knew he would not be able to follow, since he wasn't able to walk. With him being as sick as he was, my struggling actually had purpose. If he hadn't been sick, he would have physically dominated me immediately; his strength was so much greater. Instead, I felt like I was wrestling the world's strongest man, not someone of supernatural origins.
But the world's strongest man is still much stronger than I am, and no matter what dirty ploy I tried, like trying to poke his eyes, he eventually got the better of me, forcing me face down into the mattress and putting his weight on top of me, immobilizing me.
I knew he wasn't hard, but then I felt his fangs on the side of my neck, and both of us became hard at that in an instant. Again, I did everything to fight him off, but he soon penetrated me.
"Get off me, you Russian, raping, disgusting man!"
He didn't respond, just kept his mouth on my wound as he started to screw me. I could tell by his slow movements how tired his flu was making him, but that wouldn't keep him from achieving his goal.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled off my wound and asked, "Why have I not spilled my seed by now? What have you done to me?"
"I may have just given you a little handjob while you were sleeping this morning in order to keep you from getting horny."
"Well, it won't matter. I can still reach my orgasm."
He resumed sucking my throat, this time pounding me harder and harder, trying to get something going.
Ten minutes later, I could feel it in his body, he was approaching his climax. Struggling against him still wasn't helping, so I decided to do the opposite, shutting my eyes and feigning dizziness.
"Kirill, I'm about to pass out from blood loss. Either you stem my wound now, or you'll end up stuck in a body too weak to hammer in the nails into your old brain while I'm incapacitated from the switch."
He didn't stop feeding.
"Fine, perhaps you want to end up killing this body from bloodloss, that's brilliant. You go right ahead, goodnight."
That finally stopped him, right before I could tell he was about to hit climax, he licked my wound healed, but then instead of entering it, his libido seemed to cool down as soon as he wasn't tasting my blood.
He continued to plow me, faster and faster, harder and harder, trying to get himself off. I could hear his labored breathing, thick with mucus, get more and more wheezy.
Time kept dragging on and on, and then, amazingly, he was the one to pass out, right in the middle of two thrusts.
I flipped us around in bed, so he was on his back and I was on top. Without even blinking, I grabbed a pillow and slammed his face with it, willing him to die.
Twenty seconds later, he woke up, scaring me, and he struggled against me. But this time, he was so much weaker from exhausting himself than before, that I was able to keep on top of him, keep my pillow on his face.
His hands found my throat then, and there was no way to get him to stop strangling me, at least not without dropping my pillow and letting him go. Instead of doing that, I pushed on, wondering which one of us would kill the other first.
I thought it would be my will that beat his, but started to feel that telltale sign of things slowly going black, my ears ringing, and I knew it was over for me.
I passed out, letting go of the pillow, knowing I had given it my all.
What I didn't realize is that instead of falling back or to the side, I fell forward, landing right on the pillow, my limp body crushing it against his mouth.
When the life came back to me, he was completely dead underneath me, his eyes shut, looking much more peaceful than his death had really been. As soon as I pulled his disgusting dead dick out of me, I inspected his body to make sure he was really gone.
And then I started to cry out of a mixture of desperate satisfaction and disgust.
I cleaned myself off and got dressed.
I waited for his dick to go down, and then I yelled for the guards to get Dr. Firsov. The man came rushing in and inspected him.
"I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do now, he's gone."
I forced myself to look upset. "He WAS really, really sick today. Barely able to stay awake."
"This virus, plain and simple, is a killer."
The guards let me walk out of my cell on my own for once, no one even suspecting I had any part in his death. I wanted not to tempt fate and run straight off the train at the next stop.
Instead, I thought of what Dr. Firsov had said about the flu, and I went into Helina's room. I saw her there, crumpled on the ground, looking just as emaciated as Syd had become with his AIDS.
"She's dead?" I asked the guards.
"We assume so."
"No one ever checked on her?"
"What's the point?"
"Unlock this cell right now. RIGHT NOW!"
He did as I asked, and I went to inspect her body. She was cold as wood, and just before I was about to leave, I amazingly heard her exhale. She was in some kind of coma, but still alive.
I pulled the nails out of her skull, hoping that would help her, but it did nothing.
"Someone has to help her!" I shouted. "She's not dead!"
"Dr. Firsov won't come," the guard told me. "He wants us to let nature take its course."
I would not listen. I lifted her into my arms and started towards the door.
"Hey, you can't just do that!" said the guards.
"Anyone who comes near me WILL contract her virus and die of it too, I promise you. So you'd better all stay away!"
The train stopped, and I ran to the exit door, jumping off with her just before the train left again. I knew where we were, in the city. I hurried as fast as I could straight to the city hospital.
I marched her into the emergency room. "This woman is dying of the flu! She needs all you can give her, right this second!"
"Is that a fanged vampire?" asked one of the nurses.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry, all fanged vampires seeking treatment for transmittable viruses must be quarantined but not given treatment until we receive the permission of the Tsar."
"Well, the Tsar is dead, and this is his only daughter, named Helina Petrov, who very well may be his heir, and if so, I'd say she's pretty much giving her own permission to forget Kirill's idiotic rules and do everything you can to save her life."
With that, they rushed her off to try to save her life behind the closed doors of the hospital.
"We'll treat her right away, sir, but I wouldn't hold out much hope for her survival if I were you," said the obstinate nurse.
"If she dies," said a familiar, loud voice behind me, "then I will for certain be Tsar. And the first thing I'll do is tear this godforsaken hospital to the ground, and fire every one of you, you HEAR ME?!" Looking over at Maxim, he was barely able to hold his fire inside, I could see, as he turned his scary fury on the nurse.
"Yes, yes sir," said the nurse, much more impressed than when I had tried to argue.
"How did you know to come?" I asked him.
"The Decency Police called to let me know Kirill died of the flu, and that you carried my sister out, who was near to death as well. I rushed here as soon as I heard." He turned back to the nurse. "Oh, and I want to see her."
"That we just cannot allow. Fanged vampires are strictly permitted from entering, due to quarantine laws. If she becomes conscious, we'll call you right away and have you speak to her."
"Fine, but you'd better call me as soon as you think she's slipping away."
"Oh, we will, my liege."
"And the two of us will need some sort of room here to stay in."
"Our hospital rooms are only for the sick. That's not permissible."
"Either you give us a room right now, or I'm going to break about a dozen Decency Codes right here, right now, starting with ripping both of our clothes off. Because I simply cannot go another second to have sex with the man I love. Is that what you want all the staff and patients here to see?"
"Alright, alright, we'll put you in a room."
As soon as the two of us were given a very nice guest room, as Maxim made calls to important Petrov Blood people to tell him of Kirill's death, I stripped out of my clothes, which I considered to be contaminated, and showered, cleaning myself off of any of Kirill's or Helina's germs. I dressed in a hospital gown.
The gown didn't stay on long, however, because as soon as I let Maxim come near me, he did what he had wanted to do as soon as he had seen me, ripping off my gown and his suit as well, pressing his hard nakedness against me.
"You don't know how good it feels to be in your arms," I said to him.
He looked at me fiercely, and then bright fire escaped his lips.
"Before you get angry with me, remember that everything worked out for the best. Well, besides your sister getting sick, which I had no control over."
"Tell me how you did it."
"Once I realized your sister had the flu, I got her to take all of Alik's medication, and then I made up a lie to him in order to manipulate him into switching bodies with her and back again, infecting him."
"I don't believe that he just died of the flu without a fight. What are these marks on your throat?"
"No, in the end, I had to smother him to death to keep him from stealing my body and letting me die in it. He nearly strangled me in the process, but I just barely prevailed."
"You would have never escaped alive if he had been one little bit healthier."
"No, I wouldn't have."
He put his hands on my neck. "Part of me wants to continue what Kirill started and wring your neck. I am so fuming angry at you! How could you almost throw away your life like that?!? No, even though I've never felt hotter, I don't want to hurt you. I know you've seen my fire demons get out of control, but I'd never burn you with my anger, never. No, what I want to do right now is squeeze you tight, just like this. Hold your naked body against mine, like I'm finally able to now, and never let go. No matter how much you fight me, just hold you for all eternity, the two of us together like me should."
"I'm sorry I hurt you. You know I didn't want to hurt you, but some things are just worth dying for."
"That's the scary part of all of this. If some similar situation were to present itself in the future in which sacrificing your life meant saving the lives of innocents, you'd make that choice without a thought of me or anyone else who loved you."
"I didn't do this without a thought of you or my other loved ones, Maxim."
"Don't try to evade the issue."
"No, you're right," I said. "If sacrificing myself helped the greater good, then I'd do it again."
"See, right there, that's what scares me so much. I cannot lose you again, I just can't."
"I really can understand that, I can. I'm not planning on sacrificing myself, but I would if I needed to. Now that I see that through your eyes, that's not really much of a boyfriend. It's like dating a soldier that could die any given day protecting their county. If you can't handle that, I totally understand. We should end our relationship, go back to just being friends."
He started to sob. "No, that's an awful idea, terrible idea. Even if you had told me you were positive you would die in a few weeks, I still couldn't leave you. Just am not built like that. No you can't just flick me aside so easily. Which means you need to think about all the suffering you'd cause me if you'd ever sacrifice yourself."
"I will, of course I will."
"And I'm never going to leave town without you again. Never let you get more than a couple miles from me, ever. That way I can personally keep you safe."
"I can't exactly complain about that, you know how much I love being around you."
He kissed me. "Even though I've been melting myself with my rage for you, I want you to know that comes because I love you so much. And I only love you more after you showed how noble you were by taking out my father in a way that would never implicate me, as well as being the only one who tried to save my sister."
"Everything I did I did in part to try and better your life. I was thinking about you every second."
"That's why I just can't stay mad at you. And you'd better be ready for love, because even if an earthquake caused this whole building to collapse right now, not even that could keep me from taking your body this very second."
He threw me on the bed, and started to have sex with me. He was so urgent, so needy, that I wouldn't have ever been able to keep my body from being swept away by him even if I had wanted to.