Monday September 15th 2014

Anastasia waiting at the bottom of the stairs was becoming their thing. Her blazing hair danced in the wind as the black Thagirion coat twisted restlessly around her corpse pale thighs. Even if they’d danced this bloody song before, he couldn't stop the thrill that ran through him on sighting her.

Stepping forward, she took a seat on the cold stone. “Mind if we talk?” Every other time she’d waited for him to come to her, eager to carve pain across his flesh with cruel joy.

“I think I can pass on bruising your harem's knuckles with my face,” Cesare said with a smile.

An aura of dark sexuality savaged the air around Anastasia. Alive in the way of love, its sadistic whispers and promises wove chains of slavery in the ether between life and death. Calling to depraved needs and wanton hungers, it pulled the diseased fruit of the soul from their dens of darkness. Poisoned words caressed along the meat of the heart, summoning perversity from any who dared Anastasia's eyes. Even when she’d bled him out on the ground, face lit with greedy pleasure, his body had burned for her. It made her more lethal than any blade. What you wanted, enslaved you. Need was a hook pushed deep into meat, the collar you gleefully put on yourself. To want a person was to be their slave.

Memories of blood relaxed the wire tight tension along his shoulders. She’d seen him at his lowest: when you can’t speak through the pain, when your pride’s been ripped from you, when you’re only a whimpering thing of violated flesh. You can’t help but be at ease around someone who's seen you like that, even if they were the ones who'd put you there. They’ve seen your truth, stripped of all lies and masks.

“You want sex?” Cesare whipped his head around at the question.

“Umm, what?” Anastasia’s lips twitched at the strangled words.

“For helping me. I figured you’d want sex. I'm not blind.” That was news he could’ve gone longer without hearing like, oh … say … forever. That his lust was etched across his face wasn't a truth he wanted to know.

“Is that on the table?” Cesare asked.

Her voice was no louder than the warm breeze that ran over them. “She hugged me with tears running down her face. She told me she was proud of me, proud to have me as her daughter. All my life I've wanted that. Just for her to say those words … It meant ... everything ...” Her eyes shone wet with unshed tears. “I've held that dream close since I was young enough to dream. This weekend, I took the first step on that path, thanks to you. So yes, sex is on the table.”

She was the girl men dreamed of. The girl Cesare dreamed of. Dreams where she came to him and confessed her love, twisted around need and soft curves. He was a bastard, worthless in a world that cared only about what you owned, but he wasn’t that kind of bastard.

“No, I won't rape you.” Pausing, Cesare weighed his words. “I won't say I don't want to sleep with you, but I’d rather it be because you want to be with me, not out of debt.”

Anastasia's eyes skipped away from his. “You’re not my type.”

“You’d be surprised how often I get that.” It was due to years of work that only a shade of bitterness threaded the words. He was never good enough, it was the fact his life was built on.

“You want me to get them to stop the beatings? My credit's high ...” Anastasia asked.

“No,” Cesare said curtly, still stinging from her rejection. “But I do want your help. I need sparring partners. I was thinking I could take your toys on one at a time. You get your beatings, and I get experience.”

Anastasia nodded. “We can work with that. You'll bleed, and that's all I need to show.”

They were silent for a time. She wanted something, no one talked to him without a hustle working in the background. “I know I owe you … but I came to see if you’d help me with my other fights.”

He handed over a folded piece of paper, fingers briefly touching hers. “Here's a bill for the supplies I used. Miss Raven wants the money by the end of the week. Below that is a list of things I’ll need if you want my help.” Tubes, beakers, solutions and chemicals he couldn’t refine from other materials.

“I don't know what half this stuff is ...” Anastasia said wonderingly.

“There’s a website on the back. I still have to talk to Miss Raven about getting a place to set up.” That would be fun. The only place to do the work would be Miss Raven's cottage. Given how territorial Elizabeth was about her space, it was fifty-fifty on whether she’d allow it.

“Buying what you need to help me won't pay my debt,” Anastasia said.

“You won't be paying me back. Because you don't owe me. Friends don't owe friends.”

Bitter and caustic, Anastasia laughed. “Friends are the ones that demand the most. It's never just money with friends. No, it’s blood, pain and sacrifice.”

Cesare shrugged as he looked out across the dark campus. “Maybe they do. I don't know, I've never had a friend. But I know you don't owe me.”

“I only won because of you,” Anastasia said.

“You won because you took a chance. Because you kept your head and didn’t freak.” Cesare wouldn't take that from her.

“I thought Abraxas would want to start a training program after Pantagruel lost and Blaez was almost put down. Instead, he congratulated me and told Blaez and Pantagruel to train harder.” Her ambition drove her to hone her skills, and that’s what brought her begging for help from a nobody. Because if she had anywhere else to go, she wouldn’t be here with him.

“If you trained together, you’d see what he can really do. He won't give up that advantage for you or them. Having you train on your own isolates you from each other. It’s the way he controls the school, he pits you against each other to keep you weak and easily managed.”

The harem moved restlessly below them, hateful eyes drifting to the two of them. One stepped toward the steps, meeting Anastasia’s sharp eyes. Ducking his head, the boy scurried back to the security of his friends.

“Will you train me?” His laugh died stillborn in his throat at the raw vulnerability that shaded her dark eyes. Despite the insanity of the question, she was serious.

“Just hear me out,” she said quickly. “You’re clever. Maybe not smart ... wow, that didn’t come out right at all. I know you’re smart, just not book smart.”

For a sales pitch, it sucked. But she didn’t respect him. All she knew was that she kicked the shit out of him on the regular and he was crushing on Miss Raven. That he could take a punch and was a sucker for middle-aged women didn't inspire confidence.

Hoping to spare them both, Cesare cut in. “I’d have to see what you can really do, and I mean all of it. You don't trust me that far, and I don't know how to train an akatharton. Plus, you're already a better fighter than me.”

“I think you’d be surprised how much I trust you.” Throaty with silk smooth decadence, the words played down his spine, lust surging in their wake. It was a voice dark with hungers fed and gasping, sweat slick bodies.

Her shadowed eyes smoldered, promising pleasures forbidden to the civilized. Images of soft curves, and the wicked sacraments of fleshy gods flowed through him. Her lips curved slowly into a wanton smile, reading him with an ease born of unholy power. Leaning forward, she drew his eyes to her creamy cleavage. Lust twisted through him, dark desire given claws as it ravaged his heart. With a physical wrench, he broke the contact, something fey snapping between them. Steadying his breathing with effort, his hands trembled under the ruthless will that kept them on the stone steps.

“I won't serve you, Anastasia.”

“You would make a ... treasured addition. You can't blame me for trying. I trust you, at least as much as I trust my harem.” She shifted angles easily, looking far too casual for a girl who’d been rejected. “A good trainer doesn't have to be the strongest or fastest, he only has to help those he's training. Just give it a couple of weeks. Please?”

The benefit would be monumental. The friendship of a Thagirion would shield him from the school. And the intelligence he'd gain on the other monsters that ruled the killing fields was a prize worth more than the time she'd take. She was rich, connected, and already powerful enough to scare the hunters that skittered in the shadows. Having her in his corner would change everything.

“Okay.” Under the glare of her blinding smile, Cesare continued, “I'll need your boy toys to help set up. And I'll need equipment which you’ll be paying for. We can talk tomorrow about what I need.”

“Good, then let’s get you that beating you want so badly.” Grinning, she gave him a wink. “You know, you might just be a masochist. If so, I know some girls who might be your type.”