Chapter 43

Dimitri pushed Nikola down and began to map his body with his hands.

“You might threaten me with being rough, but I know you won’t go through with it,” Nikola relaxed under the roaming hands. Dimitri’s eyes narrowed.

“I know you hate me, Dimitri,” spoke Nikola softly. “One lifetime of good feelings can’t wash what happened between us. So, you want to dominate me. But I am tired of that.”

Dimitri snarled and gripped Nikola’s arms and raised them above the Bulgarian’s head.

“I hate you? I despise you, you whore!” Yelled Dimitri and Nikola sighed.

“Would you like to tear out my eye again, Dimitri?” Came the soft reply and a hand shot up to Nikola’s eye. Before it could reach it, Nikola hooked a leg around Dimitri and flipped them. “Because I won’t let you. I want to tell you a secret. I don’t give a fuck about your happiness. Only about my own.”

Nikola crashed his lips against Dimitri’s and the vampire bitt them. Nikola dug his nails into his flesh, and they began to wrestle on the floor. Dimitri ended up on top again, and he backhanded Nikola. Nikola chuckled.

“I think you have always loved me. It must have been like Christmas day come early for you when I fell for you,” Dimitri was breathing heavily, and he reached out to backhand Nikola again, but the man caught his hand in the air.

“I am not a punching bag!” Screamed Nikola. Dimitri’s eyes widened at that. “And I will not be treated like that. You are playing games even now, and I refuse to play along, Dimitri!”

Dimitri was taken aback at the screaming, and he grew lax. Nikola was breathing heavily and Dimitri spoke quietly.

“So, is this it?” Dimitri sounded broken over it.

“I need you,” admitted Nikola. “Even if, at times, I only remember how your insides looked like as I brought them to the outside and the only thing I could do was smile. There are things I remember being able to do. Things I can’t — now. You are blocking my powers!”

Dimitri smirked at the accusation and patted his chest.

“They are mine now. You sold your soul to me, remember. You are my doll now,” Nikola snarled and knelled Dimitri in the groin. Dimitri groaned and twisted Nikola’s arm until it broke.

“That won’t heal anytime soon. Guess you won’t be training with Sadik now, will you?” Gloated, Dimitri and Nikola began to laugh.

“You are so fake that it is incredible, Dimitri! I know for a fact you don’t care with whom I sleep,” Dimitri’s nose drills flared at that.

“You should be sleeping with just me!” He snarled.

“But you are not enough. You have never been enough!” Nikola’s throat was suddenly being squeezed, and Nikola closed his eyes. Then, Dimitri let him go just as suddenly as he had begun strangling him.

“I can’t hurt you anymore,” whispered Dimitri, and he touched Nikola’s broken arm and snapped it back in place. Nikola felt it healing. “Why do you test me?”

The Nikola of before would have relished at the broken voice that Dimitri was giving him. But this Nikola, who loved Dimitri, was just as hurt. For different reasons.

“You don’t trust me. You don’t believe that I can look pass the hatred that I still feel for you and only choose the love. I’d rather we fight, and you beat me black and blue, than for you to still not believe in me,” said Nikola, eyes looked in Dimitri’s.

“But, you cheated,” reminded him Dimitri. “Twice.”

“And you cheated on me with Lucifer and then Baba Yaga, Dimitri. How is this different? You played with me. Disregarded my feelings and morals. Made me into this,” Dimitri began waving his finger at Nikola.

“You always had the potential to become like this, love. I merely nudged you in the direction. But you, you who likes to pretend to be a saint, could have resisted me,” Nikola chuckled.

“And how? Each and every time you slipped into my bed, for, according to your words, you were always my first, you raped me,” Dimitri leaned so that their noses were touching.

“I was always gentle,” he protested. Because not even he had been bastard enough to not be gentle with a virgin. Even when all his instincts had screamed at him to turn the play into rape.

“But, I was always tricked into laying with you. Can’t you be honest with me? And if not, then with yourself?”

“Do you want me to leave you?” whispered Dimitri.

“I want you to relinquish control over me. I want my freedom back. Give me my powers back, so I can stop Gehenna, and I promise you…”

Dimitri kissed Nikola before he could finish. When they broke apart, Dimitri hissed in his ear.

“I will never give you your powers back, morsel. They are mine, so are you and Malkav and Vasilisa, and I refuse to relinquish anything. And if you don’t like it, if you attempt to rebel against me, I will erase your memories and Malkav’s as well as Vasilisa’s and everyone who knows you, and then we will spend an eternity in Hell,” promised him Dimitri.

“Then, do it,” Nikola closed his eyes and waited but, when nothing changed, he opened them.

“You don’t want to remember?” Dimitri knew him best, as usual. Nikola had never doubted that.

“Remember what? That I am a monster? No, thanks,” Dimitri snapped his fingers, and they were in the bedroom in Hell.

“Eternity without you would be a lonely place,” Dimitri began to trail kissed down Nikola’s body as his fingers played with his nipple. “You can still rebuild.”

“I want Malkav and Vasilisa to know, truly. I know you can make it happen,” demanded Nikola as his hands found Dimitri’s back.

“No. That might include them in the time loop, if there is still one. I only have good memories with them,” Dimitri bitt Nikola’s abdomen gently. “And from now on, every time you get like this, I will bring you here. And we can have all the hate sex you want. But you are mine, Niki. That will never change, no matter how cursed we get.”