Three Years Later

It was rare that he permitted me to watch him while he slept. Sleep was a vulnerable time for him, and he trusted no one, not even me. Not completely. But he had been more than usually tired today, perhaps because he was about due to feed and renew his magical strength, and had fallen asleep in the middle of our lovemaking. And so I was enjoying this rare opportunity to watch my Kunzite-sama while he wasn't watching me.

I've heard people say that when a person is asleep, the way his face relaxes makes him look like the child he once was. But that wasn't true with Kunzite-sama. He only looked like himself-- less forceful, perhaps, with those intense silver-blue eyes closed, but not young. Merely ageless.

I checked under the pillow on my side of the bed to make sure that the dagger was still there. I didn't know whether or not Kunzite-sama had spell-locked the outer door when he'd entered this private suite, and I wasn't about to see him get hurt by a minion of some lesser king looking for a promotion.

Kunzite-sama had given me the dagger shortly after I'd finally met (if you could call it that) the remaining two Kings of the Dark Kingdom. Jadeite, the fourth King, wasn't as intensely beautiful as Kunzite-sama or Nephrite. Blonde and blue-eyed, he looked like he probably shared my European origins. And then there was Andradite-sama, the second King, who ranked between Nephrite and Kunzite-sama. He was striking, exotic even, with his golden skin, dark hair, and strange eyes. Kunzite-sama said that Andradite-sama had been from the far East, from the island nation whose language the Dark Kingdom's denizens traditionally spoke. But the dagger . . . Kunzite-sama had placed it in my hand privately, the night after he'd taken me to that meeting, and told me to "use my judgment". Just that. And then he'd kissed me and distracted me from asking any questions.

He never spoke of the trust that he placed in me. I think it came close to frightening him. He'd been here for so very long .. . . In his study, I'd seen papers written in a dozen languages--in two or three varieties of Latin, in languages of the Orient, in hieroglyphics, and in something that he'd identified as Babylonian, whose native speakers had vanished off the face of the Earth before the birth of Christ. And I had the feeling that he himself predated even the concept of writing.

There was a soft, tentative tap on the door, and Kunzite- sama instantly came awake, snapping me out of my reverie.

"Wait here, Little One," he ordered, brushing his lips against mine. Then he slid out of bed, wrapping a dark blue silk robe embroidered with gold and silver dragons around himself before striding over to the offending portal.

I remained on the bed, but closed my eyes in order to concentrate on the conversation taking place in the next room. I lost the first several sentences--I suspect that Kunzite-sama was standing with his back to me, between me and the servant, and so muffling the sound--but then I clearly heard something that rocked me back against the pillows.

"King Nephrite-sama has been attacked," the servant was saying. "I was asked to tell you that--" And then I lost the thread of the conversation again. But it didn't really matter. Nephrite, attacked . . .

It might mean absolutely nothing. It could mean that Jadeite, or even one of the lesser demons, was looking for a promotion. Or it could be the start of a plot against all of the Kings. And if that turned out to be the case, my beloved Kunzite-sama was at risk.

I pulled the dagger out from under my pillow. I'm not going to let them hurt him, I thought. It might have seen ludicrous on the surface--a human, nominally a slave, swearing to protect a demon king--but if there was one thing that I'd discovered over the past three years, it was that a slave could go places and do things that even Kunzite-sama could not.

When he returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, I was already hunting for my clothes. As usual, Kunzite-sama and I ignored each other while we dressed.

I smiled a bit as I smoothed the silk of my shirt. Normally, the uniform of a Dark Kingdom slave is a tunic and trousers of coarse, unbleached wool, but Kunzite-sama enjoyed looking at me and encouraged me to dress in clothing that flattered me. And so I wore silks and velvets in the colors that he felt suited me best. I'd gotten used to the soft, rich clothing remarkably quickly. It had been much the same with the food--I ate with Kunzite-sama, which meant that I got the best. The other slaves, and even the youma, scrambled to fulfill my requests. My only duties were to serve Kunzite-sama in bed, to grace the rare pseudo- social functions that he hosted here at his castle, and to spend a couple of hours a day working with a youma trainer, so that my lithely muscled body didn't become soft from all the good living.

I knew that mine was the life of a pampered pet. I'm not stupid. But I liked living that way. I'd never had it so good as a free man. Actually, when you got right down to it, I'd never been free in my life. As a child, I'd belonged to my noble father, may he rot in the lowest torture chamber in the hidden regions of Beryl's dungeons for the rest of eternity, and as soon as I had been old enough, he'd effectively sold me to the seminary. At least here, I had my captor's good will and indulgence.

I slid the dagger's sheath into place on my belt and buckled the latter, then tied my hair back. I'd discovered that I even liked that. The long hair, I mean. The bronze-gold curls dangling around my face softened the angular lines of my jaw and cheekbones, almost turning a face that I'd always considered thin and sharp into something exquisite. Almost. If all I'd had to compare myself with had been the youma and the other human slaves, I would have believed Kunzite-sama's claim that I was beautiful, but with him and the other true demons around . . .

"Are you ready?"

That question, asked in a soft, almost gentle tone of voice that I don't think anyone else ever heard from him, drew me back into the real world, and I realized that I'd just been standing there for the past several moments, staring into space.

I blushed. "Yes, of course."

The cold and blackness of the teleport took me by surprise, as it usually did. It was something that I doubted I would ever get used to. Although I did feel this little twinge of envy every time that he did it, wishing that I had such power. Lately, I'd even begun to have hopes that one day it might be so. Kunzite- sama wouldn't have arranged for me to be tutored in the written language of the Dark Kingdom (which was so complex that it couldn't be handled by a translation spell) if he hadn't wanted me to become more than his personal bed-toy. No, I was fairly certain that he had plans for me. I just wasn't quite sure what they were, yet.

We emerged in a chamber that I was beginning to know well: the private conference room of the Dark Kingdom's Kings. Much though they hated each other, these four men were the true powers in the Dark Kingdom--Beryl, as Kunzite-sama had once observed, couldn't rule her way across an empty courtyard, and the Empress Metallia was above all such merely mortal concerns--and they did have to talk to one another occasionally, if only to make certain that their private feuds didn't get in the way of their jobs.

I'd been attending these meetings for quite some time now. Nephrite had objected to my presence the first time, but had backed down when Kunzite-sama had glared at him. Jadeite had ignored me. Andradite-sama had accepted me with a kind of amused fatalism. I almost liked the second King, inasmuch as I could like someone who was a potential rival to my beloved Kunzite-sama. More importantly, I respected him. He wasn't a blusterer like Nephrite or a vacant loser like Jadeite. He had intelligence, skill . . . maybe even class, although not to the extent that Kunzite-sama did.

Kunzite-sama took the chair at the head of the table, sitting rigidly erect and trying to look alert when I knew that he was really still exhausted. My seat was a low stool at Kunzite-sama's left, which barely allowed me to see over the top of the table when I was perched on it. Andradite-sama sat on Kunzite-sama's other side, with Jadeite just beyond him and Nephrite at the foot of the table. Why my side of the table was left empty was a question that I'd never chosen to ask.

"Well, Nephrite?" Kunzite-sama said. "You were the one who called this meeting. I presume that you have something to say."

Nephrite raised an eyebrow. "All right, how about this-- someone wants us all dead, and is coming too close to succeeding for my comfort."

I glanced from face to face, trying to read the expressions that had resulted from that announcement. Nephrite looked self- satisfied, but that might only have been because he thought he had startled the others. Jadeite's face looked set, cold, and vacant, but then I'd always found him difficult to read. Andradite-sama looked vaguely amused, and Kunzite-sama, to my experienced eye, still looked tired and not much of anything else.

"This is supposed to be news?" Andradite-sama asked. "I can name a half-dozen lesser demons who would like to see themselves promoted at the expense of any or all of us. I can even name a couple of them who have caused one or the other of us to have close calls in the past. I don't think this is any different."

Nephrite reached up and unfastened the front of his jacket. Opening it, he pulled down on the collar of the shirt that he wore underneath, revealing a livid green line that bisected the upper part of his chest and disappeared under his clothing.

"If I were a human, that would have spilled my guts out all over the place," the auburn-haired King said bluntly. "A finger's width deeper, and it would have made hash out of my lungs and killed me anyway. That isn't exactly routine."

"Your clumsiness is of no concern to the rest of us," Kunzite-sama said. Unless Nephrite manages to get himself killed, I corrected, in which case the two of us will celebrate, in private. I smiled as that very attractive thought formed.

Nephrite glared at me, but it was Jadeite that spoke. "Kunzite-san, I was attacked recently as well. I thought that it was an isolated incident, but in view of what happened to Nephrite-san, I am beginning to wonder if that was indeed the case."

Kunzite-sama frowned. "Am I to assume that both of your attackers are no longer able to answer questions?"

Jadeite nodded. Nephrite shrugged. And Kunzite- sama's frown deepened. I remembered suddenly that Nephrite and Jadeite were sometimes allies. But that cut on Nephrite's chest is real. Would he do that to himself just to create a prop for a setup? Stupid question. Of course he would. The question is, what is it a setup for?

I felt a cold, hard little knot form in the pit of my stomach. He's trying to cover for an assassination attempt of his own, on Kunzite-sama or Andradite-sama. It's the only thing that makes sense. I fingered the hilt of my dagger. Well, if he wants to kill Kunzite-sama, it's going to be over my dead body!

The meeting didn't last very long after that, since Nephrite didn't seem to have come up with a scapegoat in advance. It was only a few minutes later that Kunzite-sama and I were able to depart together.

He teleported us straight to his bedroom, and immediately began stripping off his uniform and tossing it onto a chair. He had to been even more tired than I had thought.

"So, little one," he said as he removed his jacket, "what did you learn from that?"

"That Nephrite and Jadeite are still in bed together," I replied promptly, choosing that phrasing because I knew exactly how much it would have irritated Nephrite if he had been there.

Kunzite-sama nodded his approval. "You're learning. But what exactly is it that they're trying to do?"

"Kill you, or maybe Andradite-sama."

He sat down to remove his boots. "And when do you think they're going to make their move?"

I took up a position behind him, and began to gently massage his shoulders. I'd never seen Kunzite-sama completely relax, not even when he was asleep, but right now he seemed to be even more tense than usual.

"If they're after you . . . within the next few hours, before you've fed?" I suggested.

"Almost." Which meant that I wasn't quite right, either. But at least his muscles were beginning to soften up and relax a bit.

"If not then, when?" I asked.

Kunzite-sama sighed. "Little one, I am going to tell you something that you must never repeat. If any other demon ever finds out that you know this, they'll tear you into bloody little pieces. Do you understand?"

"Of course," I said.

I was still massaging his shoulders, or trying to. He'd tensed up again as he'd spoken, until I felt like I was rubbing rocks. Now he reached up and captured one of my hands in his, drawing it inexorably forward until he could plant a kiss on the palm. I didn't try to resist. There wouldn't have been any point--he was much, much stronger than I was, stronger even than a human of his size and build would have been. But then, he wasn't human. He was a demon, and his body had been redesigned and . . . improved. In a number of ways.

"This is serious, little one," he said as he released me. "Come here."

I moved obediently to stand in front of him, then, as he beckoned me closer, perched myself in his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and began to nibble on my ear.

"You see, little one," he whispered, his breath tickling my face, "the most vulnerable moment in a demon's life is not just before he feeds, when his energies are at a low ebb. He's in much more danger while he's feeding, because he's completely oblivious to anything but himself and his victim. That's why we normally feed in locked rooms without anyone else present."

Without anyone else present?

"Yes, little one, the trust I've been showing in you is almost unprecedented in Dark Kingdom history. Obviously, it has been well-placed." And he kissed me.

Not for the first time, I wondered if Kunzite knew how I felt about him. I'd never used the word "love" in his presence--or at all, since I'd arrived in the Dark Kingdom--but he wouldn't have risen to the top of the Dark Kingdom's hierarchy without being a very perceptive man. Demon. Whatever.

"And right now, I think I'm going to stop teasing you and go back to bed," he added, pushing me off his lap.

I pouted at him. "Why can't we . . . ?" I reached out to stroke his chest suggestively, pinching a nipple between my thumb and forefinger. But he grabbed my wrist and forced my hand away.

"Because I'm not in the mood. Remember your place, little one."

Suddenly, the golden collar, which I even now wore, felt like ice against my throat. "I didn't mean . . ." Kunzite-sama was almost never cross with me, but every time he was, I felt a sort of sickening lurch inside me. He was the one who had chosen to make my life here the closest thing to heaven that I'd ever experienced. He could just as easily turn it into the hell that I'd once thought the Dark Kingdom was. I was still a slave, and he was still my master, even if I sometimes let myself forget that.

"I know you didn't." He rose from the chair and drew me into a close embrace. "I'm . . . hungry . . . that's all, and I'm not about to abandon my self-discipline and feed early."

I nodded. Kunzite-sama was big on discipline. He set only the highest standards for both himself and the demon soldiers under his command. Some of it even rubbed off onto the youma, although they, with their fractional souls, weren't really bright enough to benefit from it. And those high standards had given Kunzite-sama the best troops in the Dark Kingdom.

When he released me, I seated myself in the chair he had just vacated. And as he tumbled into bed and seemed to fall asleep the moment his head touched the pillow, I drew the dagger he had given me and laid it, bare, across my knees. I would watch over him for the next few hours. Just in case.

I woke him four hours later, as I knew he wanted, and followed him down to the room where his victim waited. It was a recently captured human this time--a woman, dark-haired and undistinguished. I think that she'd been through so much that she was blocking out reality, because her eyes never even focused on us. She just hung from her chained wrists, swinging a bit when Kunzite-sama reached out to turn her face towards him. He muttered something that I couldn't make out from where I was rechecking the lock on the door, but it sounded disgusted.

"Do you want me to go and tell them to bring you another one?" I asked. The woman still wasn't reacting. Weak, I thought in disgust. Just as well she was about to become dead, then. I'd thrown off my weakness and done everything I could to become strong. If she wasn't capable of that . . .

"No, I don't think so," Kunzite-sama said. "Although I may have a youma for dessert . . ."

"I was hoping that you had other ideas for dessert," I said, pouting again.

"I'll take it under consideration." Then he turned back to the main course. He stretched out an arm and flattened his left hand against her chest, between her breasts. We hadn't brought the knife this time. Normally, Kunzite-sama didn't do anything so crude as drinking his victims' blood, anyway. He just drew the energy out through the unfortunate being's skin. And I must admit that it's a good thing that I hadn't known that when I'd first met him.

I drew my dagger, but it was just a formality. The door was locked, and there was no one in here except myself, Kunzite- sama, and the woman . . .

The woman!

Kunzite's face had taken on that vaguely abstracted look that he wore every time he fed. He couldn't have noticed that the woman's left side was rippling and turning greenish.But even if she's a demon or a youma, the spells on the manacles should prevent her from changing her form . . .

Then the skin burst, sending blood and bits of flesh flying everywhere, and something green and sinuous poked out. If I'd had time, I would have gagged. The green thing wasn't part of the woman--it was something that had been planted inside her, and now it had eaten its way out. But I didn't have time to think about that. I was too busy throwing myself at Kunzite-sama, knocking him out of the way, and feeling the tremendous gnawing pain in my side and back as the green thing bit into me instead, and tried to burrow its way deeper inside my body. Then Kunzite-sama had rolled to his feet and was pulling the thing away from me. I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, and heard a breathy sound that wasn't quite a scream. Then Kunzite-sama was lifting me into his arms.

"I'm glad to have known you, even if it was only for a little while," I said. I wanted to touch his face, to take that sensation with me into death--and I knew that I was dying, I'd lost all feeling below mid-back, where the green creature had bitten into me, and I didn't want to live on those terms--but I was too weak to raise my hand.

Kunzite-sama's mouth had set into a flat, uncompromising line, and his eyes were snapping sparks. "Have a little faith."

The shock of the teleport's cold blackness came close to killing me in and of itself. But then we emerged into quite a different place.

The vague shapes on either side of us confused me for a moment. Then I realized where we were--deep under Beryl's palace. In the lab where lesser demons worked at constructing the bodies for the youma. Kunzite-sama was carrying me down an aisle that ran between two rows of transparent columns filled with red fluid. Inside the cylinders, vague, misshapen bodies floated. I whimpered and buried my face in Kunzite-sama's jacket. He managed to free one hand, and reached up to stroke my hair.

"Not this," I whispered. "Please, Kunzite-sama, I've never asked you for anything before, but I don't want to be broken up to animate a bunch of youma. Just let me die."

Kunzite-sama's whisper was unexpectedly fierce. "Do you think that I'd waste you on that? Trust me just a little longer."

In any case, I was too weak to protest any longer. I relaxed against my lover's body and just sort of floated. I vaguely felt it when he shifted me so that he could reach out an arm to manipulate the lock on the door that suddenly loomed in front of us, but I didn't much care.

Then he was lowering me onto a slab of stone, and the cold roused me enough that I began to take some interest in my surroundings again. We were alone in a small room. Kunzite-sama was re-locking the door that appeared to be the only entrance. To my left, a single one of the red-filled cylinders stood, and inside it floated a single figure. It was humanoid and slim, almost fragile- looking, with long hair that billowed out in a cloud around it, stirred by some current in the liquid inside the cylinder. I blinked as one of those locks drifted against the transparent surface of the cylinder, revealing it to be a familiar shade of bronze-gold. And the face, visible in profile, looked oddly familiar . . .

Then Kunzite-sama was bending over me again.

"You're going to feel very strange for a few moments while the transfer takes place. Try not to fight me, or I might yet lose you. You're a lot weaker than I'd like."

I managed a nod.

Kunzite-sama arranged his hands just above my chest, in such a way that it looked like he was cupping something roughly the size of a human head between them. His eyes flared white. And then . . .

Well, he was right. It did feel very strange. I seemed to be floating, bodiless, in that little space between his hands. Something very powerful was pulling me up and away from him, toward a light that shone in the distance, but every time I began to move in that direction, a jet of white light shot from Kunzite- sama's fingertips, stinging me and driving me back to the position he wanted me in. And then we were at the cylinder, and he pushed me through the curved, transparent wall, his mind and his power guiding me toward the vaguely-seen shape floating inside. Then I blacked out for a moment.

When my awareness returned, I still felt strange, but not quite in the same way. I could feel the solidity of a body enclosing my consciousness again, but I felt oddly cold and hollow. And I wasn't breathing, although I could hear my sluggish heartbeat throbbing in my ears. I was floating in red liquid--growth medium, laced with the blood of Metallia--and there were tubes protruding from various parts of my body. It didn't hurt, but I was getting claustrophobic pretty fast.

I pounded on the curving wall in front of me, outside of which I could vaguely see a moving form that could only be Kunzite-sama. But I wasn't strong enough to shatter the cylinder. Beginning to be truly frightened, I pounded again, flailing wildly at the transparent surface.

A white-gloved hand, then another, pressed themselves against the outside of the cylinder. The transparent substance seemed to ripple outwards. Then it shattered, tumbling me out onto the floor in a flood of crimson liquid. I whimpered as a sharp-edged shard cut into my knee.

Kunzite-sama helped me to my feet and half-carried me over to the stone platform where my original body still lay, breathing shallowly and leaking blood from the wounds in its back and side. My nostrils twitched as I sensed the life-force in the body in front of me.

My lover pressed a knife into my hand. I immediately slashed it downwards, cutting my human body's throat just above the familiar metal collar, bending over to drink as the rich, red arterial blood spurted out. It tasted terrible, but I stopped noticing that after the first few seconds, because as I drank it, a tingling energy began to fill me, warming and filling the cold emptiness inside me. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Even sex with Kunzite paled in comparison. And so I fed off my old body's blood and life force until its shuddering heart stopped and I felt completely recovered. And more than recovered. I felt so light that I had to look down to make sure that I wasn't floating a handsbreadth up off the floor.

"I had intended to let this wait for a few more years, until you had matured a bit more," Kunzite-sama observed, "but perhaps this is for the best. I think you'll make a good demon, Zoisite- chan."

"You never called me anything but 'little one' before," I observed. My new voice sounded a little hoarse, maybe just a shade deeper than the original. Experimentally, I raised my hands to my face, trying to figure out if my features had changed.

Kunzite-sama made a small gesture and conjured a mirror for me, holding it so that I could look into it. And there were changes--not large ones, just a smoothing out of all the little roughnesses that had marked my old body as belonging to a human and not a demon. My eyes were maybe just a bit larger and my chin maybe just a bit more pointed, but I was immediately recognizable as myself. Impossibly perfect, but myself.

"It's traditional for a new demon's mentor to rename him," Kunzite-sama was saying.

"Zoisite." I repeated it to myself. I think I like it. Good-bye forever, John. "Thank you, Kunzite-sama."

There was a faint flicker of light deep inside those blue- grey eyes as he bent down. "Oh, I expect to be well-rewarded for this."

I returned his kiss hungrily as it caused an arousal so powerful that it was almost painful.

"Now you understand . . . why I don't feed . . . off the blood . . . all that often," Kunzite-sama murmured between kisses and nips. "It creates . . . a hunger . . . that's difficult . . . to assuage."

But as I reached up under his jacket to pull his trousers down, he captured my hands in his and stopped me.

"You first this time," he said, and, to my surprise, knelt down in front of me. The sensation as his mouth closed over me was as exquisite as it was strange. Normally, I had to be satisfied with the touch of his hands or his body, and he rarely went to any great lengths to see that I achieved my release. Not that he needed to. I'd always taken great pleasure just in touching him.

"Yes," I whispered as my back arched. I found myself repeating the word over and over again, louder and louder, virtually screaming it at the moment when I finally came.

I remained hard even after I had spent myself, although I wasn't nearly as urgently in need of release. That surprised me at first, but as Kunzite-sama's mouth covered mine again, I remembered something that he had once told me.

"Humans use sex to reproduce," he'd told me in bed late one night, after we'd finished making love and were settling in to sleep. "Given that you human males lose a lot of fertility after the first time that you come and it takes a day or two for you to return to full potency, it makes sense that it would take you a little while to get it back up again." At that point, he'd traced a delicate line from my throat down to my groin with a fingertip, sending a shiver running through my body even though my male parts remained flaccid. "Demons, on the other hand, are sterile. We have sex only for pleasure, so it doesn't matter how often we do it, or what the intervals between encounters are . . ."

I returned to the real world as Kunzite-sama pushed gently at my shoulder, turning me so that I faced the slab of stone on which my original body still lay, and then making me bend forward slightly. I was a bit apprehensive as I realized what he was meaning to do, and braced myself for pain. We hadn't joined in this way since that first night, but I hadn't forgotten how it had felt.

But instead of the expected tearing sensation as he entered me, I felt a delicious little ripple of pleasure course up my spine, a sensation only reinforced as he thrust.

"You think of everything," I murmured as I lowered a hand to shield vulnerable portions of my anatomy from the cold stone of the bier.

Kunzite-sama didn't reply, although I knew that his demonic-acute hearing couldn't have helped but pick up my words. Still, I wasn't surprised. He always preferred to take his pleasure in silence.

My hair was dangling down onto my cooling corpse by the time I heard that familiar, soft sigh and felt Kunzite-sama pull himself out of me. I sighed myself, and wiggled my buttocks a little before turning around, unexpectedly missing the feeling of having him in there.

"We'd better do that more often from now on," I said.

He chuckled and traced the line of my jaw in a familiar gesture.

"Certainly," he murmured, stopping any attempt I might have made to reply with another deep kiss.

I love you. But this time I only thought it, and barely dared to do that.