To my reviewers (not sure if i'm allowed to do this cuz of an email I got recently, but I'll try anyway...they better not take my stories off the internet though...) thank you for all your lovely reviews! As a matter of fact, I was actually kind of surprised at all the attention this fic was getting. What with my computer Kyprioth having to be hauled to our new house and the internet being all crazy and stuff, I hardly managed to finish this chapter. The last chapter is already in progress, and tonight, the first night of internet on my beloved computer, (after that horrid crazy of summer school and stuff) I, the writer, have placed this chapter online. It couldn't wait any longer! You guys are all so great, your reviews literally bring tears to my eyes. I hope my writing is most enjoyable! But now, as I must always say, ON WITH THE STORY!
Oh yes, a small, though significant addition...(Really sorry to everyone for not thinking of this sooner.) The 100th reviewer is allowed to pick one of the stories on my profile, and have my actually get my butt moving to write it, and it'll be dedicated to them. But please, don't just press the review button a hundred or so times just to be the 100th reviewer. And I'm working on a really long multiparing Shaman King story...something I really, really must admit is a brainchild of mine, but for the sake of the 100th reviewer, I'll either get it out faster so the two stories don't conflict, or put the "brainchild" on hold for you. So good luck to whoever that 100th reviewer is. Please leave your email everyone, or have a signed review so I know who to email. Arigato minna-san! NOW! Finally, ON WITH THE STORY!
A Castle's Hospitality
A Portrait of Beauty
Beautiful… Until that moment, Lady Anna had been shrouded in more shadow than any of the others, but now, the light illuminated her face and caused his heart to stop. Her golden hair spilled down to her shoulders, demurely brushing their ivory paleness. But there was nothing demure about the rest of her. Her eyes, a mixture of mahogany and soft rose that glimmered almost amethyst in particular lights, were filled with a commanding, seductive fire that promised unimaginable delights. Her shoulders, temptingly displayed by the off-the-shoulder dress, seemed to be smoothed from the purest snow-white marble, and he tried vainly to keep his eyes from tracing her shoulders, the lovely column of her throat, the tantalizing ridges of her collarbones, and the point where her pale skin reached the edge of her ebony-dark dress with a hint of perfect cleavage. Don't think of that… Tearing his eyes away from her chest, he let them slide over her slim waist, and admired the way the dress parted in the front to display her legs in the most bewitching fashion.
It was only when he noticed that the dining hall was conspicuously empty that he realized he had been staring at her legs. "As flattered as I am Yoh-san, I thought you wanted to look at the portraits in the galleries, not my legs," Anna spoke, her voice drifting seductively to his ears. He vaguely wondered if she was using magic to do that, but pushed it out of his mind when she beckoned him and led him through the door he had come from. Her sandals made little noise as they walked across the carpeting and up a long set of stairs. Turning right from there, they entered the first gallery. Beautiful faces, beautiful in a cold way, looked down upon them from the walls. Bronze plaques engraved with the names of the subjects were fastened to the walls by their portraits.
For a quiet while the two wandered the hallway, Anna softly voicing the history of the portraits as Yoh observed how fine and well preserved they appeared. Still, not a single one caught his eye. There was one of two women, both of similar features but one wearing a priestess' robes, the other a plain blouse and green skirt. The robed one wore a smile that seemed icy and reserved, while the other had a warm, natural twist gracing her lips. To the right of that was a silver haired man with gleaming amber eyes in red robes.
Before he had a chance to see the names of the people featured in the masterful portraits, his companion laid cool fingers against his wrist and led him into the next room. "These portraits are different," he muttered as soon as they entered the next gallery.
Anna froze beside him and tilted her head in a questioning manner, strengthening her aura shield and hoping he didn't truly realize why.
"They look so familiar…and they seem so much more alive. You had a different artist paint these pictures didn't you," he commented as he looked up at the softly smiling face of a young girl of about 13. Her blonde hair was blown back, and cherry blossoms dotted her hair like snowflakes. She was beautifully innocent and the happiness in her eyes seemed so real that he felt the need to reach out and pat her on the head. He was surprised that there was no plaque to indicate who the subject was.
Anna let her tension leave her, glad that he had not noticed the likeness between the current residents of the castle, and the people depicted in this particular gallery. "You are correct, Yoh-san, these were painted by a different artist. A friend of the previous owners I believe," she said, confirming his words. She glanced down the hall to the large door at the very end. It was the one that led to the gallery that she and her coven treasured the most. It was filled with portraits of their parents and of themselves as mature vampires. No vampire ever looked older than 20, and no vampire ever reached the point of looking like 20 until they had met their mate and performed the ritualistic Mating Ceremony. As mature and unmated vampires, she and her coven appeared to be only 17 in human age. Looking up she felt her lips twist into a smile at the familiar portrait. It was herself in the gardens of the castle before her parents were murdered.
"Who are these people?" Yoh asked, curiosity tugging his voice. "They seem so familiar and yet, I know that I have never seen them before."
"I believe they are the family of those who lived here before my cousins and I occupied this place," she replied a trifle shortly. It was a gallery filled with portraits done when she and her cousins had been younger. She turned from a painting of Jeanne brushing out her long hair to the one of Pirika and Tamao sitting up in their favorite apple tree that Yoh was looking at. A guilty sort of jealousy stabbed at her, and she glared at Yoh's back. It wasn't like her to feel this way, no matter how attracted she was to another person. But it feels like it's more than just attraction… There was something about the way he acted, the way he smiled, the way he spoke to her, that pulled her in.
Turning away from him, she let her mind wander, reminiscing about the past life that she had led. Her mother had been an energy vampire like herself, taking another's energy away once a year on Halloween to keep her well during the rest of the year. Her father had been a blood vampire. Years ago…when the place had been much younger, the villages had been closer by. The villagers had surrounded the ancient castle and ransacked the place, murdering her parents before her. Anna tore her thoughts away from those memories, though old hurt rippled through her like waves off a beach. Looking up she realized she was staring at a portrait of her and Jeanne as vampires who looked to be about ten, reading in the room of the central tower with a much younger Pirika outside admiring the sunset and Tamao setting up tea on the table.
Glancing around, she noticed that a rather prominent feature of the room was missing.
Yoh was not in the hall with her, and the once closed door to the private gallery was now ajar.
Muttering that there would be hell to pay, Anna shot off down the length of the large gallery, using her inhuman speed to cover the five minute walking distance in a five second sprint. As she skidded to a halt and slipped through the door, she realized she was too late. Yoh was already there and halfway down the hall, admiring the skillful masterpieces placed in the private location. Anna suppressed the urge to curse him as he stared up at a portrait of her parents standing on the balcony and waving down to someone…someone that she knew to be herself, standing next to the artist as the portrait had been painted.
"Yoh-san, I really must protest, I did not realize this door was unlocked. My cousins and I are…very particular about this gallery." She could feel her blood heating up when Yoh paid her no mind and continued to amble down the hall, admiring each and every portrait. "Yoh-san, please," she insisted.
Yoh turned to her, and she stopped, words dying on her lips. There was something in his eyes that froze her body, making her feel as though a spell had been cast upon her. The dark chocolate of those depths emanated warmth, kindness, acceptance? There was no pity; pity would have made her hurt him…but there was none. In seconds he was beside her, a warm hand slight pressure against her arm. "Yoh, not Yoh-san," he told her quietly as he looked to the portrait beside them.
Anna looked up and found her own mahogany-rose eyes boring into her own, and her eyes drifted slowly over the pale curve of her cheek, to the stiff smile on her lips. She remembered the day so clearly… So soon after the death of her parents, before the artist had left, he painted the girls once more. All around her were portraits of herself, Tamao, Pirika, and Jeanne, in different poses, and at one end of the hall, a portrait of the four of them. Yoh's hand on her arm seemed to burn there, making her overly aware. "Yoh, please, let go of me." Her command came out softer than she had intended, but Yoh loosened his hold on her and she pulled away, ignoring the feeling that missed Yoh's touch.
"Anna-san, you…"
Anna shook her head and smiled, letting the fakery take its place. "Please do not harm the portraits or stay too long Yoh," was all she said as she walked towards the door.
Yoh nodded and turned back to what puzzled him the most. Half the portrait frames in the hall were empty. At a click behind him he turned, but Anna had already left. He turned back, still wondering. All the subjects in the portraits of this hall were familiar to him: he had dined with them over dinner. A quiet rustling reached his ears, and he turned just as a blur of pale cream and black silk crashed into him and pinned him effectively to the floor. A slim, though strong, clawed hand held his hands above his head, the other meticulously removing the silver chain around his neck and laying sharp nails against his blood pulse point. The brunette smiled calmly. "Hello Anna-san."
The blonde straddling his waist said nothing as she leaned over him, her face inches from his own. "I am hungry Yoh," she told him coldly, her voice biting like ice. "I do not wish to kill you just for food, but if that is what must happen, that is what must happen. You entered the portrait hall that was forbidden, and I cannot let you go now." Her eyes were dark, unreadable. "But first, why do you not kill?"
Yoh smiled. "It's always the same question," he murmured with a grin as she settled against his body more comfortably, and he started his tale.
"To be honest, part of the money we live on is from Ren's inheritance, the weapons we carry are made by Horohoro, and Lyserg tracks vampires for us. But a great deal of the money we spend is from the inheritance my parents left me," Yoh explained. "My family was greatly renowned as a family of vampire hunters…but we promised to kill with mercy and only when necessary. I lived as an only child, trained relentlessly by my grandparents, never wondering what had happened to my parents." Yoh's lips curved as he smiled, locking gazes with Anna as he continued. "When finally I was of the age where I could set out and begin vampire hunting on my own, my grandparents told me the secret of my parents."
Anna gritted her teeth silently against the sudden bitterness of Yoh's voice, unconsciously strengthening her warding spell as though his words would burn her like acid.
If Yoh noticed anything, he didn't mention it as he plunged onward. "By some cruel twist of fate, my mother had given birth to a vampire…my brother was the result of a vampire bite of my mother's that the healers managed to cure for her but not for him…who killed both my mother and my father. They kept only one picture of him…when we were young, before he killed our parents, and he looked so much like me even though we were a few years apart." He shook his head, ignoring the pricks of pain as his throat brushed against Anna's razor sharp claws. "I vowed to find him anyway, and if not seek revenge, at least learn why he did what he did. So of course, I traveled. For so long I followed fake leads until I was at the point of giving up…and then I found him. My brother, alone in a cave at the pinnacle of a mountain, stayed, so unlike anything I had imagined him to be. Even with my unpracticed skills then, I could tell he had not fed in months, and I admit I felt glad, because it would be easier to kill him, but just as I stepped inside, he turned listlessly…" Yoh's eyes darkened and Anna flinched as she felt his anger, his self-hatred, and something else…
Her fingers drifted to the base of his neck almost unconsciously, and she read his thoughts, holding back her fervent hunger, though tears pooled in her eyes from the amount of control she had to exert to keep her needs away from the one whose pain she felt a need to release.
"Hello Yoh…" The shadowy figure in darkness turned, and Anna, immaterial as a thought, watched quietly. Yoh stood by the cave entrance, nearly a silhouette, even against the cold moonlight that flooded the front of the cave.
"Hello…brother…" Neither made a motion towards the other for a long while.
"Well Yoh, you've found me at last. Will you kill me now?" The voice was soft, of a timbre only a little deeper than Yoh's, but it carried so much calm resolution that Yoh looked away. Anna frowned slightly. The voice was so familiar…even to her.
"No…not yet. There are things…I want to know first. Why did you…" he swallowed compulsively. It had been three years since he had been told and the reality of it still cut like the cold of winter. "Why did you kill them?"
A strange laugh, one that was almost a sigh, fluted around the earthen chamber. Strands of long brunette hair fell from the pale shoulder into the moonlight, and the person seated there in the darkness seemed to shudder. "I…am an Empath. I can feel emotions. It was all so clear around me, like glass shards falling from the sky Yoh. You wouldn't understand, you aren't an Empath…you're only human, like mother and father. Human." The voice broke at the word and he shifted more into the moonlight, so that the bitter smirk that played about his lips was visible to Yoh, and to Anna. "I, Yoh, am not a human, and I need to feed. Just because I am an energy vampire, sometimes people think it is easier for me…but living around so many humans, I got to the point where I could just walk past someone and feed upon their energy for a few moments. No one noticed for ever so long…"
Yoh took a heavy step towards the seated vampire, an unreadable look on his face. Anna did not recognize this emotion…deeper than pity, but not quite love. "But there were so many of us…you would never have had a problem…you would never be hungry and we were all powerful…"
Behind Yoh, Anna shivered. Empathy was not a common vampire talent, and empathy in an energy vampire often brought about madness…she wondered if this was such a case.
"You don't understand, any time someone was feeling tired and there seemed to be no reason, a slight cold, a low fever, or just a bad mood, I was blamed. For everything that I did and did not do, I was blamed. And it wasn't just in words, but I could feel their thoughts! Do you know what it's like Yoh, to have people think of you in that way, so that you can feel their thoughts pressing around you?" the voice asked fiercely, anger palpable in the air. Silence, chilly as the winter wind that blew by the cave mouth, fell around them. No one said a word. "Yoh, it doesn't matter though. I was so angry, so angry at such a young age, for vampires mature faster than humans, that I fed upon the energy of mother and father until there was nothing left…and I fled. I traveled about, doing the same to every human I met…killing vampires too…but no longer."
"What…made you change your mind?"
"Her," whispered so softly that even Anna's sharp, vampire ears barely heard it. "Her," said happily, the sweet caress of a lover. "Her," the voice said a third time, so lost and forlorn that the hopelessness radiated to Anna in suffocating waves. Though she was impervious to the cold, the emotions made her shiver; she knew only one person who could be like this.
Sunlight, new and cutting as honed steel, sliced through the cave mouth, and just before she was blinded and the dying vampire disappeared into dust motes, she realized who it was.
"Hao!"
Underneath her, Yoh stiffened; shocked that she knew his brother. He felt her fingers brush the aura-tapping point as they withdrew, but he ignored them for the salt water that splashed onto his cheeks from above.
Anna was crying.
"Anna…how do you know Hao?"
Anna just shook her head, pulling away from him. Yoh sat up, puzzled as he massaged his wrists. "Anna…"
The blonde vampire flinched and began pulling up her dress until she exposed a band of gold encircling her left thigh. Yoh was admittedly hard pressed to keep his mind on the gold band instead of on the pale cream of her thighs, but when she unclasped the strip of metal from her skin, his mind instantly snapped onto what was underneath. It was something he had seen only in textbooks and drawings, never in real life.
"A contract mark!"
Anna nodded. "Hao and I made a contract. I stopped him from killing, but in return, he cast a spell on me. I cannot leave this castle until he, or one of his kin, takes me as a mate. He knew his family was all vampire hunters…and to save my cousins from death…I promised him." She caressed black markings almost lovingly. "Go Yoh, I don't feel like feeding off of you…"
"No."
She looked up, surprised. That was not the answer she would have expected. "…what?"
"No Anna, I won't go. Energy draining is something I've been through before and it won't hurt me. Please Anna, it's the least I can do…for what Hao did to you," Yoh told her softly, one hand reaching out to touch the vampire maiden. He took one of her hands in his, and pulled her to him as he placed her fingers lightly against the aura-tapping point.
With a helpless shudder, Anna felt herself begin to pull his aura into her own, but a streak of white-hot pain made her cry out and pull away, fingernails drawing blood as she dug them deep into her palm. As soon as she lost contact with Yoh the pain stopped, and she gingerly opened her fist, watching dumbly as the crescent moon shapes embedded into her hand healed before her eyes.
Strong arms swept her into Yoh's lap, and she clung to him, nails tearing the fabric of his button-up shirt. "I was told once…long ago by one of my teachers, that a contract maker's emotions can hurt the person who has the contract mark on them… Hao is hurting you, even dead…but my teacher also taught me how to break a contract and be killed," Yoh whispered before his grip tightened slightly around Anna's body, and his lips met hers.
Anna's body froze, and all she could hear was her heartbeat, thudding loudly in her ears. The softness of Yoh's lips was all she could think of, until he parted them and his tongue darted through their joined lips to her own. In moments she was moaning, Yoh's aura filling her. Her arms snaked around his neck to pull him closer, and her tongue danced against his in abandon. In all her life Anna had never felt anything as sensual or tender as the kiss she was sharing with Yoh. His hands rested lightly on her waist as she straddled his lap, but when she teasingly flicked the tip of her tongue against Yoh's, they pulled her closer still, until they unbalanced and she was on top of the vampire hunter, their kiss yet unbroken.
Yoh could feel himself weakening, the beginnings of a headache taking root, but the greater part of himself was lost in the feel of Anna's body as she pressed herself to him in pleasure as she drank of his aura. He could feel his control weakening, and yet, he refused to let himself be totally lost in her touch, because he knew that once he let himself go, there was no telling what he would do. As it was, he could feel the strain of keeping his hands from straying to less neutral locations on her body. His fingers caressed Anna's back, straying from time to time onto the exposed flesh the low cut of her dress provided, and each time, Anna's gratifying moans drove him a little more out of control. He could feel himself slipping…and for once he didn't care. Darkness, and even pain, seemed to wrap around him, like silk ribbons, but he was lost in the feel of Anna…Anna's lips against his own, Anna's hands at the energy-tapping point at the base of his neck, Anna's body against his own, Anna's moans in his mouth.
"Anna…"
Her name left his lips as they parted, both breathless from the passion. Anna felt sated, more gratified, than she ever had in years, but still she felt sluggish, almost weak, as she leaned against Yoh as he sat up and held her to him. Vaguely in her mind, her thoughts spiraled, wondering if this was what mating was like, or why it hadn't felt this way every time she fed off of another person. "Yoh…"
The 18-year-old grasped her wrist as he got up, pulling her up with him, and swept her into his arms before depositing her into a nearby bench of delicately wrought metal and eider down stuffed cushions. As Anna sat, feeling speechless, he knelt before her, his fingers softly caressing the black contract mark that marred Anna's pristine skin. "When did you meet Hao?" he asked curiously, getting his breathing rate and pounding heart back under control.
"When Hao was nearly 10…he already looked as the rest of unmated vampires looked: the age of 17. He had spent five years killing and feeding…and then he got here…" Anna smiled slightly, though the expression held no true delight. "I've been under this contract for a decade now."
In an instant she was in Yoh's arms as he pulled her close. Her eyes widened in shock and her body felt not her own as the brother of the one who had kept her captive in her own castle for the last decade held her, murmuring soft apologies. For long moments she held completely still, then let her arms slowly hold Yoh, not knowing who was the comforter or the comforted. She could feel one of his hands, stroking her cheek affectionately, drifting down to barely graze her neck and collarbones, before pulling away. Warm fingertips traced the pattern of the mark on her thigh, and Anna shuddered, from the heat that came, not from Yoh's touches, but from within her. Yoh slowly pulled away, and her whole being seemed to ache with longing for the one who knelt before her on one knee, deep mahogany eyes filled with something unreadable.
"Anna…let me be your mate."
The world shattered around her, ears filled with throbbing heartbeats as her mind attempted to encompass what Yoh had just said. Her pulse drummed in her mind as the very blood in her veins, which made them so different, heated up as though it boiled. She no longer felt the caresses Yoh made as his fingers stroked the mark on her thigh. For a long moment Anna knew she couldn't speak. Her throat felt constricted, and she was certain she must be choking…though on what she couldn't have said. "You don't mean that." She told him quietly, her voice even, monotonous, dead.
"Yes Anna, I do mean it." Yoh's eyes were filled with an emotion that Anna, even in her decades of life, was too afraid to contemplate.
Anna felt like a doll, china and porcelain, cold from the shock, so when Yoh pulled her down into his lap, she went unresistingly. Hot lips seared her lips, her cheeks, even the shell of her ears, and her eyelids, melting away the chill that seemed to surround her. It was as though Yoh had given nearly free rein to something he had been holding back in their last kiss. White fire blazed upon her thigh for a moment, a pain so sharp it nearly shredded her; more intense than anything she had felt. When her eyes were free of the sudden tears, they focused on Yoh's face, carefree, kind, and happy.
"Anna, your mark is gone."
She looked down, but there was no black, nothing that remained of the contract that Hao had bound her to. "But…we never…there was no Mating Ceremony…" Disbelieving, she let her fingers caress the spot it used to be…but there was nothing left. For the first time in a long time…since she closed the contract with Hao, since her parents had passed away, Anna smiled, lips curved in pure joy. And as those same lips were once more captured by the brunette who had freed her, she felt no doubt that Yoh was not offering to become her mate out of guilt at his brother's crime, or any other reason. Yoh loved her, and she loved him back. It was a warming revelation that made her smile against Yoh's lips as her hands tangled themselves in the soft locks of his chocolate hair, but she knew that she spoke with complete truth and honesty when Yoh's lips released her own and migrated to her throat…before pure pleasurable ecstasy made her completely incoherent, her vocabulary degenerated into moans.
"My mate…"
I thank everyone for their reviews...and you all know what's coming right? REVIEW PLEASE! I beg you all so shamelessly...I ought to give myself a smack or something. But I love you all and I love your reviews!
Tenri Kage
P.S. If you've liked my stories and want to learn a bit more about me and my friends' stories, visit the xanga site! Just type in MagomagoShi. Please be respectful of what you say though? We like criticism, but we don't have any critics yet, so whatever you say counts!
P.P.S. If you didn't read what was at the top, 100TH REVIEWER GETS TO PICK ONE STORY ON MY PROFILE FOR ME TO WRITE AND DEDICATE TO THEM! Ok? Ok. Thanks for all your reviews everyone!