A Simple Shadow Pt. 08

The eldest among them looked shaken, but he stepped forward trying to act bold to protect the other boys and speaking softly, "My lord?"

He understood their fear of him. "I can teleport any of you home," he offered. The one who had spoken shook his head before he could even try it. "Just think of your homes, or loved ones...whatever you remember most," he advised. They did, but very few of them disappeared, he noticed. He turned back to the one who had protested. "You knew it wouldn't work. Why?"

"You can only return us if our homes still exist...if our loved ones still live, my lord," he answered sadly. "It has to be close to what we remember, but our homes were destroyed...maybe rebuilt, but different. Our people were attacked, like mine...they no longer exist at all...I have no other home, except here," he stated softly.

"Outside," he ordered him. The many torch lights and colors were upsetting his sensitive eyesight. The boy gasped and swallowed in fear. The others turned to him wide-eyed in disbelief and pleading. The boy smiled at all of them, but it was strained. One-by-one, he shook off their worried hands and left the room ahead of the vampire.

As he walked past, he softly whispered, "As you wish..."

Shade closed the door against the light. The hall was instantaneously dimmer. "Stop right there." The boy did as he asked and turned to face him. "Oh, hell," he swore tired already and unwilling to deal with anymore! The boy was exquisite! Tarkin'ton had fine tastes, as usual. Shadow laughed bitterly. A wave of jealousy hit him hard; he nearly took his throat out just for standing there so angelically! His narrow eyes tilted down at the inside edges towards a birdlike nose, but it was delicate and symmetrical with dark lines to display his utterly, perfect features. His hair was black; his eyes golden. His skin the snowy white of an owl speckled with a golden undertone. The skin looked strange where his eyes turned down. They were damp and fearful, desperate for his approval. The agony in them sent a sharp pain through him. He closed his eyes, gritting out a muffled curse as he felt himself fall.

"Sir," the boy's voice was soft above him and sounded distant in his ears, "Sir!"

He managed to open his eyes. The ground met his gaze. The kid leaned over him with one fragile arm extended to press against his lips. He smelled the blood in that thin skin. His teeth reacted and he bit pushing them between the delicate bones of his arm. The boy was an Avien. The fragile bone structure was clearly an avien from the wind planes of Dom'eir. Where were his wings? They couldn't retract them, he knew. The boy shivered. He couldn't take any more with out risking his death. The little creatures were not worth more than a taste, or two, before they died. Yet this one had offered without thought. Shadow drew away sealing the wound. The kid burst into tears! It confused him. Lately, everything confused him, he thought sourly.

"Don't throw me out. I have nowhere to go! Kill me..." The arm was offered again. "Please," he begged hesitantly. The lines on his face moved. They were not painted as he had originally thought. He moved to touch them and found feathers...tiny feathers...all over his body, but it wasn't obvious unless you were close or touching him. His face was so earnest and insistent that Shadow almost fed again without considering the consequences. "You need to eat, my lord."

"Why..." He had to close his eyes again to clear his head close to passing out again. "Why would you want to die?"

"I won't be able to survive on my own. I cannot go home. If you throw us out, we will be forced to sell ourselves to slavers to survive." His watery smile turned grotesque. "I can do that, but I will die! You need to eat," he repeated, "and I am only prey."

"Who told you that?" Even Tarkin'ton could not have sunk low enough to say such a thing, Shadow thought. He enjoyed beautiful things despite the species. Even spindly and insubstantial, this avien boy was beauty!

"The hunters," the boy whispered. "They killed everyone they could. Burned the homes, and took me...I was...crippled, my lord." His tears were mottling the feathers on his face. "A bird that cannot fly," he stated angrily, "must be a pet, or food!"

"What happened to your wings," he asked softly in compassion.

The boy sat curled into a little ball. "I flew too close to the fires," he stated monotonously. There was confusion and cold misery in his eyes. "I fell among them."

"They burned," he said trying to understand what he was saying. How could he have flown that near to a fire and lived?

"Singed only," the boy hissed. "They would have healed!" He peeked up out of his arms looking at him like a wounded dove. "They tore them off," he whispered slowly remembering it, "and said they would fatten me up to eat later...when the others were gone," he added in a low, hollow tone eyes horrified by it.

"Cannibals," he growled in disgust. It was forbidden for their kind to eat the flesh of others among their many races.

"Hunters," the kid corrected. "We are but birds."

"Shape changers do not eat other shape changers!"

"Don't they, my lord? They told me...hunters eat prey. Fiends eat any creature they can catch...and vampires." He tacked the last one on so casually as if afraid to mention it. "You have never once fed upon a creature that died from the blood loss?"

Shadow was stunned. He could not argue the point. It was sickening! It was also...true. "What is your name?"

"I...The master of this house named me Hawk, my lord. My avien name was too complex." Hawk, he thought, smiling as he touched his flexible little nose. It was incredibly hawk like in shape. The boy's head ducked, but raised back up. It seemed to be a gesture warning to 'be gentle, but please do pet.' Shadow could not resist the temptation. He blew upon his cheeks to dry the feathers, stroking them back into place. They moved down finding the feathers didn't grow larger as he moved down his body. Just over the line of his low-cut shorts, Hawk jumped like a guilty criminal when his fingers brushed over a patch of bare skin. The lovely, dark brown leather laced up both sides complementing his coloring and leaving patches of skin open to his gaze; it was the same color as the feathers. "My lord," he asked sounding slightly ashamed.

"Is this natural," he asked numbly.

"No, my lord, it is not."

"I don't suppose the hunters plucked your feathers in a very, suggestive location before Tarkin'ton found you," he suggested doubtfully.

"No," he stated nervously. "They would have eaten me, no more..."

Shade closed his eyes. He could still hear the amused chuckle of his companion in his ear...laughing...laughing at his pain! He took a deep breath. It was causing his resentment to burst out uncontrollably! He picked up the boy and carried him upstairs suddenly too angry to care if he was weak. The boy screamed in fear sounding like a frightened bird in his ear. He took him to the kitchen. Rather rudely setting him to his feet, he looked at the dragons congregated there. The boy's fear made his scent fill the room making the hungry predators perk up at the scent. "You wanted to die," he told him coldly, "put him on the menu." The indigo girl's eyes widened as she came to stand behind the trembling avien. She stroked his hair looking at the vampire in disbelief! Shade turned to leave the room, but Hawk flung himself at his legs latching on. Once he pulled him to the door, the spell picked him off neatly. He just lay there at the entranceway staring up at him hopelessly.

When the girl came for him, he let her lift him gently to his feet. He allowed her to draw him back near the table eyes never leaving Shade's own in pleading as his tears fell silently. His breathing escalated and only when the girl's hands fell upon his neck did he look away losing hope at last. "Just make it quick," he asked her softly. He didn't see the girl look back at the vampire for one last confirmation that this was what he wanted her to do, or that vampire's face tighten. He knew he was being cruel. He liked the avien, but he could 'feel' Tarkin's disapproval and denial that he would allow such a thing! Ghosts did not stay attached to their companions after death, did they? A small sound snapped his wavering attention back up! Hawk had turned pale. More than likely, the girl's fingers had tightened for the jerk that would break his neck, but Shade had accidentally entranced her instead. The avien's breathing was frantic, but he didn't move. It broke a piece of his heart when he turned to look at him. There was no anger, or fear; he was miserable! Strangely, this time he knew who's pain he was feeling...Tarkin'ton must have loved this kid, and just as obviously realized he was about to die because of it. He wasn't laughing anymore. Thank the Gods for that! Tarkin had used a great deal of what energy he had remaining to entrance the female dragon. It was all he could do! Tarkin'ton was dead...He could not protect his little whores any longer, he thought to his weakened, old lover. Who was laughing now? He had left them to die.

A brush of energy along his neck lifted a lock of hair gently. Shadow felt a whisper of lips against his collar trailing up lazily, lovingly to his ear ending in a soft whisper of words, "No, love. I left them to you..." His voice sounded sad. "I would not have believed you could still care, Sha'da Limn...but you are clearly angry with me." Shade shivered at the voice. It was the same! Nothing had changed between then except the body upstairs and the fact that Shadow had come home. "Take him out of there...please. He doesn't deserve this." Angry, Shade did as he asked. He threw the boy over his shoulder ignoring his protesting shriek. He hauled his kicking, screaming, crying, little ass outside and threw him onto the ground! "Shade!" He walked back inside and slammed the door shut leaning back against it and covering his face with his hands shaking in anger and humiliation that he was even doing this!

The boy didn't try to come back inside. He limped painfully out into the forest. How did he know this? Because Tarkin'ton was out there watching him, he thought bitterly in disgust; he could see it through his eyes. There was blood on one leg and his arm that he held tucked up against his stomach. He must have hurt him; he had known better than that. Aviens couldn't be pitched about with rocks and expected to remain uninjured. Shadow could feel Tarkin's growing helplessness as he followed the boy away. Tarkin was nearly begging without words for him to help Hawk. Shadow had to fight his own instinct to help the bleeding, helpless boy. Yet his emotions held him still defiantly! Could he really sit here and watch the beautiful boy get eaten, he asked himself feeling ashamed when it didn't automatically make him run outside. He knew how deadly this place could be for a weak, injured creature out alone in the woods!

"I will watch every second! You will see it, Shade! I promise you!" There were tears in Tarkin's angry voice! Tears...He grew angrier just thinking about it!