Chapter 15
The first snows caught Nikola unawares. It was so bloody cold that he parked himself right next to the fireplace, much to Vasilisa’s amusement. His dear angel didn’t mock him, rather he kept going outside to hunt for him and bring in more firewood, for which Nikola was grateful.
He drank from Vasilisa, and Vasilisa drank from him every day. The novelty of being able to go outside not wearing off for the blonde even though months past. Vasilisa had taken to teaching him Russian and rewarding him with kisses for every word he got right. Soon he was making sentences and his effort was all worth it, as Vasilisa kept calling his voice melodic when he spoke in the Nictuku’s language.
Nikola felt happy, for once. Oh, sure, he had to fight hunters send against Vasilisa every so often. Local vampire cannibals send by the prince of the region as he wanted to avoid sharing his power over this side of Siberia, but Vasilisa always tricked them with magic, and he was there to finish them off and do diablerie on them.
His shoulder was taped and his beautiful Vasilisa appeared to him in his grown up male form. Then he showed him a pretty baby blue ribbon and sat down right next to him, passing him a comb. Nikola smiled wistfully and began combing Vasilisa’s golden locks. Once they shone like the spun gold they were, he began to slowly braid them the way the vampire had taught him.
As he was finishing up and wrapping the ribbon on the length of the braid, Vasilisa spoke.
“My lovely fly, what are you planning for today? Surely, you won’t just stare in the flames all day?
“Vasilisa, my love. Have I told you how beautiful you are today, my golden spider? The sun pales in comparison. What do you wish of me for today? Do you want me to brave the snows for you and search for a white wolf, so I can fashion its pelt into a shall for you? Or perhaps you wish for me to wake a sleeping bear and bring you a new warm cover for our bed? Command me and I’ll go.”
Vasilisa turned just as the ribbon was done being tied to a bow, and he took Nikola’s face into his hands gently.
“The Chukchi are passing by on their migration. You took Igor and Katya from me, and I miss them. I want another child in my life. To ghoul and raise and teach it how to protect me. Will you catch me a child, fly?”
Nikola looked momentarily shocked at that. A child. He remembered Igor and Katya’s deformities and gulped. He wanted to avoid inflicting them on a child! But Vasilisa wanted it of him. And he preferred not to disappoint him.
He shook his head to clear his mind. He loved Vasilisa enough to forget about everything else, but he still had his principles! He wasn’t going to bring him a child. But he was fed up with eating animals. He will still bring him something from the Chukchi’s camps.
“Don’t ask me to trample on my heart for you, spider. It is yours, and you wouldn’t want it damaged beyond repair. I may turn into a monster and then do something I regret, my beauty. I will still bring you some Chukchi men, and we will have a blood feast. You don’t mind picking the herbs and mushrooms for it, do you?”
“So you don’t love me after all! If you loved me, you would have wanted for us to have a child of our own too!”
Vasilisa’s voice turned demonic again. Nikola forced himself to ignore it. It had the habit of doing so every time Vasilisa would get mad at him, and he had gotten used to it. So Vasilisa wanted to throw a tantrum? He didn’t care. He loved him, and he was obsessed with him, but it wasn’t a fluffy love. He didn’t know how to do kind and soft love.
Oh sure, he had seen it in action with Ivan and Matthew, but he didn’t know how they could be so selfless to one another. Dimitri had been his first love and he, together with Malkav, had kept hurting him until they twisted his feelings to be just as poisonous as their own.
“Vasilisa, don’t put my devotion to you in question. I will remain in your web even past the time your flame for my dies. It seems I am not a fly at all. Now, if you don’t want me to pin you down on the mattress and show you in just what bad mood your accusations put me in, apologize and make it up to me before I go out hunting for our feast.”
Vasilisa’s beauty nearly slipped, and his silky skin started to turn sickly as he snarled, but then he looked down and remembered himself. He smiled one of his soft smiles that made Nikola forget even his name, and leaned in to kiss the Bulgarian.
“I am sorry, fly. But that is what you are if you live in a spider’s web. But you are a strange and vicious fly. I have never caught anything like you before. So alive. With the agility and strength of an Assamite, while remaining true to the power of your clan. And you show remorse. My treasure, I will collect as many herbs as you want me to. Just bring our prey alive. I feel like feasting on warm blood.”
Nikola ran his thumb over Vasilisa’s check and gave out a sigh. So, he would have to force the Chukchi to follow him somehow. Steal their reindeer and let himself be seen? His Vasilisa had a healthy appetite and would pounce on the entire tribe if given the opportunity. But then he would tear out the throats of the women and children too. It appears that he would need to persuade the men to come with him willingly. It looked like he would still need to hunt animals to fuel his tank for the power needed to do that.
They separated and Nikola went back down the chicken leg and into the forest. Soon he neared the tribe and blend in the shadows of the trees to take his pick.
He ended up choosing the men at the front of the tribe. The leaders of the whole group. Vasilisa would love the irony of the tribe being left without guidance in the harsh winter, and it would make the feast all the sweeter for him.
He concentrated on his vocal cords and gave out a few baby’s wails, similar to how Vasilisa had taught him. Ever since he had started to drink from his love, he had started to develop some of his abilities. He had woken up with deep red hair one day. It took effort for him to maintain his original appearance. He didn’t want to change, least he forgot who he was.
Not that it would be too bad as long as he had Vasilisa with him. But if he became a changeling, he would lose his sense of self, that much he knew. And how would he love his dear spider then?
His wailing must have been successful because the men at the front of the group broke apart from it and began to walk near him. A couple more steps, and they were out of hearing range from the main group.
He knocked out the first man with a well-practiced hit to the back of the neck. The second one screamed angrily at him, but he did a flip, and he was suddenly right next to him and kicking him in the stomach so fast he could hear the man’s ribs cracking as he fell on the snow-covered forest floor.
The third and final one fell down on his knees and began to pray.
“Please don’t kill me, demon! Oh God, please save me!”
The poor wretch gave out soft whimpers but didn’t move as Nikola approached him. Then he reviewed him. The Chukchi was strong and could be useful for hard labor. Why should his delicate Vasilisa have to lug around firewood for him in this cold, harsh winter when he could have a ghoul do it?
Making up his mind, he picked up the first two men, and he tied them to his sleight. Then he forced the man to get up and put the rope of the sleight in his hand.
“Pull or you will join them on the sleight.”
He began walking and heard the man begin to huff and the sleight moving on the snow. Nikola would test this ghoul to see how much he could take before giving him his vitae. There was no point in having a ghoul that would require too much of his blood to do simple tasks. He was fed up with being a blood bank for everyone every time they wished for his blood.
They reached the house and the man fell down on his knees screaming about Baba Yaga. Nikola smiled at that.
“She is dead, but if you don’t shut your trap, I will feed you to her brother, Vasilisa the Beautiful.”
The Chukchi started praying to God to deliver him from demons as Nikola put one of the men over his shoulders and began the slow trek towards the house. He said the password and forced the leg to bend with another one, so he would just walk straight in without climbing. His Vasilisa must have been very panicked on the night they met, if he didn’t think of doing that to hide from him.
He dropped the man and returned for the other one. His ghoul to be was still on the ground, staring at the house in shock. Nikola sniffed the air and realized the man had soiled himself. He wrinkled his nose at that but ignored him.
Once he returned from leaving the second man on the floor, he exited the house and stared at the whimpering Chukchi.
“Take an axe and start cutting down a tree. Once you finish, I want you to chop it for firewood and bring the wood in the house. You are not to speak with your fellows while inside, or I will tear out your tongue. Just keep the fire burning in the fireplace. Simple enough, no? Now get to work.”
The Chukchi got up and went towards the axe to obediently begin doing as told. Nikola began his stretches, and soon he was running and doing flips, both backwards and forwards, in an imitation of dodging Sadik’s attacks.
He had tried to get Vasilisa to work out too, but the blonde had shown him his true form when he kept asking. His dear heart was a deformed child in truth. With legs bend at odd angles and boneless arms which hung limp at his sides like noodles. Vasilisa had cried and asked him if he still loved him, even in this form.
He remembered taking the child in his arms and twirling them around until lovely giggles replaced the tears. The answer was that there was no doubt. Vasilisa had turned back into his lovely naked form after that, and they made love under the stars as they fed from each other.
After they were finished and panting with the soft sounds of the surrounding swamp, Vasilisa had first asked him if he would die for him. And Nikola had remembered that he told him yes without hesitation. Then he asked him a question that melted him when he heard it. He asked him if he would live for him. He had given him his answer by going back inside him and telling him how much he loved him.
Vasilisa came back some time later with a basket full of herbs. He had flowers in his hair, and Nikola reached out to gently touch the petals of one. Suddenly, he very much wanted to have Dimitri’s talent with painting so that he could immortalize the vision before him.
Vasilisa gathered the skirts of his dress, as he dressed like a woman just like he had dressed as a girl when he had taken the form of a boy, and gave a quick twirl so that Nikola could take a look at his flower covered braid. Nikola smiled and bowed at him and reached out his hand at the beauty. Dinner could wait. For now, all he needed was to dance with his love.
Dinner that night was a strange affair. They drank from wooden cups as the two Chukchi were going in shock on the table from the blood loss. Nikola had ghouled the third one and had forced him to go and chop down another tree with a broken arm, a result of a sudden bravery on the ghoul’s part that consisted of him attempting to plunge the axe he was given in Nikola’s back.
Spring came and Nikola killed the ghoul and let Vasilisa drink him dry. Chukchi were too rebellious, it seemed. He would try getting a new one come next winter, and he would dispose of him once the weather gets better, just like he had done with this one.
One day, as he strolled hand in hand with Vasilisa, they heard soft crying. It was a woman’s. They approached and Vasilisa attempted to stop him from going further into the clearing once he saw her, but Nikola just kept walking. Curious to see what sort of tourist was dumb enough to come so deep in the tundra.
The woman was naked, and her leg looked broken. This was odd. Had she been raped? And by whom? The Chukchi weren’t the type, and there hadn’t been any vampires encroaching on their territory in weeks.
Then something deep blue coughed to his eye and he turned to stare at her back. There were butterfly wings there. He couldn’t believe his eyes, so he reached out and touched them. They were leathery despite their appearance and looked big enough to support the woman in a flight.
The being bared sharp fangs at him, and he showed her his in return. That replaced her anger with fear pretty fast. He turned towards Vasilisa and pointed at the naked woman.
“What is she, my love?”
“A fae, fly. Please don’t move her or antagonize her any further. Her whole community will descent on us. And don’t drink from her, either. You will be cursed. Let us just go home.”
A fae, huh? He sniffed her and found her scent alluring. He wondered what she would taste like. Cursed? He was a vampire, so he was cursed already. What would be the harm in taking just one sip to satisfy his curiosity? It was not like he would drink her dry.
He scooped out the woman in his arms as she whimpered but didn’t resist. Vasilisa tried to get his attention, but he bit down on the fae’s neck and gulped some of her blood.
The taste was better than candy. It was like the meals Dimitri would make for him while he was still alive! Happily, he drank more, savoring the long forgotten taste. The woman attempted to struggle, but he held her fast and forced a head splitting headache on her brain.
He ended up killing her with it but didn’t care. He gulped down every last drop as Vasilisa kept backing away from him. When he could no longer drink, he raised his head and stared in Vasilisa’s eyes. He saw raw fear in them but didn’t know where it came from.
“Where can I find more like her, my lovely spider?”
Vasilisa dropped the basket he was caring and stepped away from him. He reached out to hide his neck with his hands. Surely, his lovely didn’t think he would take vitae from him without permission?
“They have a village nearby. Stay here while her blood runs in your veins! Don’t come home, or I will make the house move, and you will never see me again!”
Nikola looked hurt as he dropped the corpse of the fae to the forest floor. Then his expression turned to anger and he snarled.
“HOW DARE YOU! I AM STRONGER THAN YOU! I DO DIABLERIE TO OTHER VAMPIRES FOR YOU! AND YOU THREATEN TO LEAVE ME? ON YOUR KNEES!”
Vasilisa backhanded him then, and he twisted his arm in return, forcing him down on his knees. He kept twisting and smiling as the vampire was whimpering from the pain. Then Nikola saw himself in the spring and stopped.
What was he doing? What the fuck was he doing to his love? He was turning into Dimitri! He didn’t want to, but it was the reality of it. He stepped back from Vasilisa and tripped on the corpse.
It had been so tasty, though. He felt almost alive with the taste of the blood on the inside of his mouth. He licked his lips and kicked the corpse into the spring. The water got disturbed, and he could no longer see himself in it. Good.
“You will lead me to the village, and then we are going home. Don’t argue and stop crying. I can’t stand to see your pretty face covered in snot and tears.”
Vasilisa stood up, and he griped the blonde’s hand in his. As he was led deeper into the forest by the defeated vampire, he realized that Dimitri had told him something, much in the same lines as his last sentence. Oh, fuck it, he thought to himself. He had sucked it up literally and fallen in love with Dimitri, hadn’t he? Vasilisa would do the same for him.
He feasted on fae as Vasilisa watched on with a dead look that night. He remembered this same look from his paintings with the corpses. The more Vasilisa reminded him of himself, the more he started to miss Dimitri.
Nikola still loved the Romanian. Although should they meet now, he doubted he would be the sap he was before. Maybe Dimitri would like it? Imagining Vasilisa between the two of them with Malkav’s cock in the delicate blonde’s mouth made him grin.
Now that was a dream. He could have it all. But would he be allowed to? Oh sure, maybe, just maybe, Dimitri will let being put horns on again be. But what of Malkav? His sire was possessive and jealous in nature. He wouldn’t let it just slide. He would kill Vasilisa and then force his mind to bend until things returned to what they once were.
No, he was never going to become a weakling again! He would remain here in Russia with Vasilisa and protect him and love him and remain free. Nikola took a good look at Vasilisa as the last fae was sucked dry. He was calm, but a scan of his mind showed fear there. He wanted to taste that fear in the man’s blood tonight.
After the fae massacre, he had begun demanding that they move the house from the swamp and into fae territory. Vasilisa complied but started to act up. He now had to force his mouth open for him to drink from him, so the blood bond would remain. He himself had stopped drinking from the blonde’s vitae altogether.
A year passed and just like it was for Caine and the crone, the haze he had on his mind lifted. But he was changed by then. He no longer cared that he didn’t love the Methuselah. He liked to look at his pretty face and have him serve him as if he was his ghoul. He didn’t bother ghouling any humans to do the hard work at home this winter, either.
Vasilisa had brought this on himself, and now he just needed to pay the price for making him fall in love with him by force. Did he want a protector and a lover? He had one. Although the fact that there was no one to protect the blonde from his protector remained.
Nikola soon tired of Vasilisa’s glares. He began to think more and more about Dimitri and Malkav and wanted to get out of the fucking tundra. Surely, there were fae back in the states too? Maybe not as many as here in desolate Siberia, but still.
He was bored with the blonde. He didn’t like the sex, so he stopped giving it to the vampire altogether, no matter how much he begged. He starved him for blood when he attempted to warn the fae. He yelled at him for the slightest thing. He understood now why Dimitri had lashed out on him when he had offered him his love game the time he lost his virginity. Fake love was worse than no love at all.
And he had real love waiting for him back home. Furthermore, a mission to do. One day, he was fed up with it all and sharpened his knives one by one while Vasilisa was out gathering herbs.
He would force the Methuselah to crush the herbs for him as usual, as he didn’t feel like doing any manual labor. And then he would do the diablerie on him like he was asked so long ago.
Finishing his job, he packed his belongings and arranged Vasilisa’s dresses near the fireplace so that he could burn them. What sort of man wore dresses anyway? Why was it so important for Vasilisa to lie about his gender? Even his fucking name sounded female.
Night fell, but Vasilisa didn’t return. He waited in Baba Yaga’s hut for his boy toy, but the blonde didn’t show up. So Vasilisa had found out about his desire to be rid of him and ran off instead of fighting? Cowardly child.
He punched the fireplace and embers flew all over. Some of them fell into the folded dresses on the floor, and they caught fire. He took his backpack and exited the hut. Then he took an axe and brought it down on the chicken leg. After a couple of hits and repeating the password, so it would stand in place and not run, the bone was finally cut through, and the house collapsed into the swamp.
The fire spread and it burned the house as it sunken into the swamp water. There will be no running using dead Baba Yaga’s tricks for Vasilisa. Now he would really see what the blonde could do.
As he whistled and touched Vasilisa’s footsteps, he felt a slight nagging in his brain. So Malkav had run out of blood and was slipping into madness. He was surprised his sire had lasted as much as he had. He himself didn’t feel any madder than what Vasilisa had molded him into, but insane people didn’t know they were insane, did they?
He shook his head at these thoughts and continued to follow the footsteps. Then they suddenly changed to hooves. Vasilisa could take animal forms too. He had forgotten. Now what?
He couldn’t go back to Flavius after so much time empty-handed! He followed the hoof prints, and they turned to bird feet before disappearing altogether. That little bitch had taken to the skies.
He scanned his surroundings and gave everything with a heartbeat, a migraine so strong that suddenly birds were dropping from the tree’s branches and the forest was filled with animal screams.
He roared when he didn’t hear Vasilisa’s screaming. It was a foolish hope to expect him to have remained close by. He gave a few shaky breaths and began walking again. His blood will soon be exhausted in Vasilisa’s system, but the love there will remain for a year. The fool will not withstand approaching him in his state. And now that he needed to actually hide during the day, he could search for traces of him in the light and chase after the blonde during the dark, not giving him any chance to hunt for himself.
He breathed in a large gulp of air before speaking in English for the first time in almost two years.
“Vasilisa, do you hear me, darling? I burned your house and your pretty dresses with it. Soon I will start finding ribbons of your lovely blue one that you wore this morning. You are no longer a spider, sweetheart. You are now prey. So, you better run, haha, haha.”
He moved with a skip in his step and found the stream where he had found his first fae. There was indeed a blue dress draped over a rock. He picked it up and inhaled the sweet scent of fear from it. The hunt was on.
