#465 - Flashback - We Three Kings - Lightning_skies - Blade/Underworld

[lightning-skies.livejournal.com]

Title: We Three Kings
Fandom: Blade/Underworld
Prompt: 465 - Flashback
Words: 1767
Warnings: None

His Hunter King had a look of desolate defeat upon his face when Drake entered with the child. He cast a sharp look to Asher, who merely shrugged and tilted his head towards where his sister was whispering cruel threats and promises into King’s ear. Drake’s eyes narrowed as the diseased tick threatened to turn and starve his hunter then offer up his ward as a meal. If Danica survived the night, Drake would end her with his own hands for making assumptions that she had any right to the life of the child or to any part of Hannibal King.

“Leave us.” Danica bristled up like an angry cat, but Asher thrust her into Jarko’s arms and the musclebound idiot was smart enough to drag her out of the room as he retreated from Drake’s irritation. Asher gently took custody of Zoe, briefly meeting his master’s eyes and conveying promises to keep the child from his insane sister.

Drake contemplated his captive hunter in silence as the door was closed and locked behind the Talos, giving them privacy together for the first time. King’s eyes were firmly focused on the door where the little girl had disappeared. He was bare chested and the chain between his wrists was laced through loops welded into the metal floor.

“Hannibal King.”

“Drake.” The response was immediate as golden brown eyes finally rolled away from the door to glance him up and down insolently in a manner perfectly calculated to irritate. It just served to remind Drake how young the mortal really was, hiding behind his own immaturity.

He was struck with a sudden desire to hear his true name from the bound man, “Draquila, actually. It was somewhat lost in translation over the years.”

“Wow, you must have been teased a LOT as a kid if you were stuck with that.”

“I have never been a child. I came into being fully formed.” The hunter scoffed at him, but his eyes focused to a shrewd glare at Drake’s next words. “Tell me. What do you know of your own origins?”

Those strong shoulders rolled in a artfully casual shrug. “Not much. I’m an orphan.”

Drake gave into the desire to trace his fingers over Hannibal’s shoulder, flicking out one claw to peel up the medical tape and slowly pull off the bandage covering the wound he had given the hunter barely a day earlier. Despite the blood soaked into the bandage, the wound appeared weeks old, shiny pink flesh filling in the impaled hole that should have been barely scabbed over. Drake could tell by the tense set of the tendons in his hunter’s neck that he knew how inappropriately advanced his healing was, even while rigidly refusing to look down at the evidence.

“Does anyone know that you aren’t truly a part of humanity?” At the caress of his fingers over the actual wound Hannibal wrenched his shoulder out of Drake’s grasp but the point was made. The demon allowed the retreat, licking the traces of blood off of his fingers.

Drake could feel Hannibal’s eyes on him as he made a show of his enjoyment, closing his eyes and revelling in the sparks of awareness that flowed through him at this second, fresher taste of his exquisite Hunter King. He very slowly licked each of his fingers clean, even those that hadn’t been bloodied. King’s enraptured eyes followed his tongue as Drake allowed it to lengthen to an inhuman degree and twine between his digits.

He pinned the hunter with his feral eyes, feeling the pupils split and flare with his excitement. “I can taste your need to submit in your blood. You are a beast begging to be chained and commanded.”

“Hate to break it to you but I’m the kind of beast that tends to bite anyone who tries to control it.”

“...and yet you continue giving opportunities for people to try. The military, Frost, the Talos, the Nightstalkers. All of them had you in hand, but let you slip away. You wish to be captured my pet, but more than that you wish to be kept.” Drake circled around behind Hannibal and ran a hand gently through his hair. He grinned at the angry wrench of the proud head, as the mortal refused to be coddled and condescended to. This was one beast that could not be considered lesser, he would be a proper hunting partner and would demand respect as an equal or he would turn on Drake the way he had on the Talos.

“I’m NO ONE’S pet.” Hannibal hissed and bared his flat omnivorous teeth at Drake in defiance. A completely predatory act that showed how very thin the veil of humanity was in his hunter.

“The Norse tradition told of a great wolf, destined to kill the king of their gods, Odin. The wolf, Fenrir, allowed the terrified gods to chain him down. He considered it great sport, sitting still for their careful bindings again and again, but breaking free each time. One day a golden chain was forged that finally held the beast. Perhaps I can forge your golden chain my wolf.”

“... or perhaps you'll be my Odin and someday I’ll kill you.”

Drake hummed in amusement, “Perhaps.”

“How do you know any of that anyways. Not many Vikings in the ancient desert.”

“I ate a professor of mythology. Unlike the weak vampires that you know, I am so much more. I can read memories, knowledge and thoughts through the blood I take.” Drake waved his clean hand in demonstration, “I know you, my hunter, I know what you fear and what you desire. You don’t want to give anyone your loyalty. You want them to take it from you.”

Hannibal just gaped at him in dismay, not sure how to take the news that the father of all vampires was fucking telepathic.

“You are wasted in this era of shallow politics and petty civility. In my day you would have been a commander of armies. A savage creature let loose upon the world to wreak what it willed.” Drake went to one leather clad knee in front of his hunter, the closest he had ever come to deference to another creature in his lifetime. He reached out to caress the side of Hannibal’s face, stroking his thumb firmly across the hunter’s split lip and making blood well up again. The hunter’s breath hitched and he swayed forward into Drake’s hand, feeling the call of his blood.

“They try to break you, to tame you. I would only have asked that you battle at my side.” Drake’s eyes burned into Hannibal’s as he brought a bead of blood up to his mouth, spreading it over his own lower lip in an indirect kiss. He sucked his lip clean, savoring the taste that burst across his palate and his mind. “.. and in my bed.”

Hannibal swallowed hard and flicked his tongue over his own lips, instinctively gathering the taste of blood and Drake’s touch, but regained his equilibrium enough for his smart mouth to kick in, “Sorry, the other side called dibs.”

“Does that make you a prize to be competed over and won, my Hunter King?” Drake sensed the moment was lost and regained his feet. Part of him mourned the hunter’s stubbornness, but he knew the chase would make victory all the sweeter in the end.

Hannibal snorted, “You’re obviously going senile in your old age, I’m no prize. Ask Asher and Danica, I’m more of a plague. A plague on you, a plague on your house and a plague on your cow.”

“I own no livestock and my house, as you call it, could use a good plague. My cause is not so different than yours. Your allies will come for you, and they will use their Daystar to cull the weak from my line. I welcome the cleansing.”

“You… want.. us to kill vampires?” Hannibal sagged in his chains, dumbfounded and confused again as his righteous anger was deflected. “Dude, what the hell?”

“Vampires are an aberration of evolution. I was the first. I knew nothing of creating more like me, there were no rules, no guidelines. I fed my loyal slaves bits of my blood and millennia after I passed into my rest the descendents of my servants mutated and spawned this ugly race. I can feel the traces of my blood within them.”

“Vampires are all descended from slaves?” Hannibal barked a laugh. “The most arrogant race in the world and they’re spawned from the same low class caste they try to shove humanity into?”

“They are not the only ones.” Drake said pointedly and Hannibal sobered immediately. “Why do you think you’re so different from the others. Vampirism is a disease arisen from my blood, able to infect those not of my descent, but you... You are pure blooded. You were born with me in your veins. It is why you alone were able to throw off the effects of the infection. It was already a part of you.”

“No.” Hannibal denied softly, eyes losing focus with the same distantly wounded expression he’d had when Danica was threatening him with infection. His quick mouth abandoned him in a clear show of emotional distress.

“You are already bound in golden chains, my hunter. They are a part of you. I am a part of you. You are mine.” Drake leaned down and took a fistfull of his Hunter King’s hair, leaning the unresponsive head back and claiming the lush mouth in a consuming kiss. He took his time and licked every trace of blood out of Hannibal’s mouth and soothed the sting of his split lip with his tongue.

He whispered fiercely in his little Hunter King’s ear, “After the battle, when the Talos are dead, I will claim you, my hunter, and then I will keep you, and nothing, not even you, will stop me.” He left the man there to think on his fate, stunned and slumped bonelessly against his chains.