My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 13

If she'd been blushing life, she'd be blushing beet red.

"K well, I'm gonna go look for Eric, see if he's willing to give it a go."

Art rolled his eyes, and threw up his hands in small surrender. Yeah, there was no talking to Jessy.

"Ok, well," Matt said, "far be it from me to tell you how to live your life, or enjoy your sex life, but you're poking at a dangerous place, Jessy. Gauru is sacred, and... yeah, dangerous." Poor man couldn't find a better word for dangerous, and it wouldn't have mattered if he did. Jessy's mind was set.

"Good to know." Jessy hopped out of the booth, and went hunting for her target.

"That girl is peculiar," Art said.

"You're t-telling me."

"I mean, she really knows what she wants, doesn't she?"

"... I d-dunno." Tash shook her head, leaned forward, and set her elbows on the table, so she could rest her chin in her palms. "I think she... she m-might want something a little more romantic. Rough! She likes rough, b-but... I think maybe she's..." Maybe she's a little more like Tash than Jessy figured. Maybe she'd like a little romance too.

And of course, Tash was more like Jessy than she'd ever thought.

Her phone rang. Jack's ring. "Hello? Jack?"

"Hey Tash. We're having a bit of a get-together at the Bloodlust later this evening, talk about the hunters and stuff, you in?"

"Uh, s-sure. I'm already here."

"Sounds good. Triss and Jen and Damien will be there. Fiona too, but she's not answering her phone; probably underground. And Antoinette's coming."

"The P-Prince is coming? Um... that's... s-sure, ok." This was going to be a weird meeting.

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~~Eric~~

He didn't want to do this song and dance. He didn't want to hunt spirits. He didn't want to deal with any of this ridiculous crap.

Go home? No, Avery knew where he lived, and Clara and Carter were there already. He wanted to see his cat, but Kat would be safe there without him for a day. A day was all he needed, a day to clear his head. A day thinking about what Athalia told him.

Drifting through the dark streets of Dolareido, he let his wandering soul guide him between the grand buildings of sin. Once he was deep in an alley, he set his back to a wall, and looked up. Sun would be rising soon. Sleeping during the day was fucking weird, or at least it should have been, but wolves seemed perfectly capable of hunting at night; preferred it, even. He could feel that, sense it, feel the tips of every hair on his body tell him that night time was the better time to be up and doing things. Day time? Pointless. Prey hid during the day, slept, and other predators took the same queue.

Daytime was for the humans. For him and the other freaks, nighttime was the new life. It made visiting his dad a little problematic, but his new body seemed fine running on less sleep when he needed it to.

He smiled, and looked at the moon. His new body was fucking great. The new thorns in his side, not so much. But at least the thought of being forced to hunt things didn't make him want to gag, like driving a cab did.

Hunting. Hunting spirits. How the fuck did that work? What the fuck was a spirit? All he had were strange memories and knowledge that didn't belong to him, climbing up through the gravel of his brain, and showing him images of things. 'Things' was as good a descriptor as he could give, because it was everything and anything. Spirits? Hithim, his new memories told him. And the hithimu and hithisu. They were things he was supposed to deal with, and he had no fucking clue how to do that, other than to kill it. Kill it with fang and claw and strength.

The Meninna preferred to hunt shartha. That's what Avery was doing in Dolareido, finding a home for her pack, and dealing with the shartha. The word itself sent ice up his spine, and he looked down from the moon to the asphalt. Cigarette butts. Those he understood. Spirits and ancient host creatures, that he was supposed to somehow hunt? That he didn't understand. He wasn't sure he wanted to understand.

"Why me?"

"Why you indeed."

Eric jumped, and spun around. Someone had snuck up on him? He doubted anyone could sneak up on him, with his new senses to protect him.

"Who is this one?" the voice said.

"New. New Uratha."

"New. Weak."

"Weak and open."

"Open to us!"

Movement caught his eye, and yanked it to the wall. The shadow was billowing, as if it could catch a breeze. Curves, cresting against the light like collapsing waves, the black reached out across the asphalt around him, and licked at the space beneath his feet.

Slowly, with all the haste of the ocean tide, eyes began to form in the shadows around him. White eyes. They glowed, casting subtle whites around him and sending fresh shadows out into the blackness of the alleyway.

"Fuck you." Ok, spirits. Spirits were coming for him, like Avery said they might. The fuck sort of spirits were hanging out in shadows?

Shadow spirits. Literal spirits of darkness, probably with no other desire than to turn off lights.

No, it was more specific than that. A simple shadow spirit wouldn't do this, behave like this. These things reached out for him from the walls, from the cracks of black around dumpsters and building corners, from around old crates, from around broken bottles where the light was cast aside by the curving glass. They weren't simply shadow spirits, they were spirits of dark alleys, of hiding places, of the cracks in a city where the filth and sin welled up like pus around the scabs of a wound.

He knew that. Why did he know that? How? Memories, understanding, kernels of knowledge swimming in the gray matter of his brain, and rising to the surface. And cravings along with it. He wanted to sink his teeth into these spirits, tear them apart, rip them open and devour their essence. They needed to be thinned, before their rampant desires turned this whole district into nothing more than a shadowy corner where people could get lost in the worst humanity had to offer.

He ran. The eyes stayed in the dark, and they called out to him. Open to them. Let them in. He belonged in the dark.

He supposed, if it wasn't for all the other shit being dumped on him, white eyes in the darkness would have scared him; they did a little. But compared to all the other shit he'd seen in the past month, some white eyes looking at him from shadows was rather tame. Didn't change that he didn't want to be near that, anywhere near that. Stay the fuck away from him. Just leave him alone and let him do his own thing.

Breathe, just breathe. Luna's advice? He didn't understand. How the fuck was he supposed to understand that?

He adjusted his suit jacket, and made off toward nowhere.

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~~Antoinette~~

Antoinette sighed as she watched the squabbles of her Primogen. Garry's choice of childe was going to cause problems, but she knew the man had been speaking with Jeremy Long on several occasions, and more besides, over the past few months before the embrace. There had undoubtedly been months before that, where the man was meeting with Long as well. Either way, his request was reasonable, despite her knowing full well it would lead to issues with the Xnomina.

The Invictus council did not agree. They leaned over her beautiful glass table, and barked at the Carthian leader. He returned their barks with his own. Bark. Bark bark. Woof. If she did not know better, she would have assumed she was in a room filled with Uratha, howling their complaints.

Why did she pursue this life, this role as Prince? Perhaps she had a martyr complex, and felt it her duty to bear the sins of her race. She did want to fix her species, prevent their self destruction. Truly, she did. But sometimes, only sometimes, she wondered what it would be like to abandon all responsibilities, and simply exist. Would it be so bad? No one was strong enough to challenge her, harm her. There was nothing and no one who could threaten her if she wanted to abandon this foolish crusade, and simply enjoy her second life.

She leaned back in her chair, and combed her hair over her shoulder as she let her mind wander. A terrible sin, not paying attention in her own meetings. But, at the moment, she was overpowered with the need to fantasize.

She could take Jack, and disappear into another city. Fresh people, fresh faces. There would be dangers, but she was confident she could handle them all. She and her lover would hide deep beneath the earth during the day, and come nightfall, they would do whatever whim came upon the gentle night breeze. Enslave several kine, and enjoy an orgy? A regular indulgence, to be sure. Ashley and Julee would come, of course; she was Daeva, and no self-respecting Daeva feasted upon random kine when they had devoted ghouls, whose blood they were already familiar with.

But then, perhaps she could embrace Ashley and Julee, turn them, welcome them as Kindred, and release them from her bind. They would be free to find men and women to seduce and devour to their heart's content. Other Kindred were not to touch her little Ventrue, but that did not mean they would not be welcome to visit. It would be fun, for Ashley and Julee, Kindred in their own right, to engage in their own sexual hedonism, with Antoinette and Jack watching. She could hold her Ventrue in her lap, facing the orgy before them, and softly massage his cock in her hands as his head rested between her breasts. And before them, Ashley and Julee could be surrounded by a dozen kine, all men, and each could bury her in white fluid, after pounding them into a slew of wet orgasms.

And once the sexual delights were done, Jack and Antoinette could move on, and worry for nothing but tomorrow night. Perhaps they could move to a different city? Dangerous for Kindred to go anywhere without protection from the sun, but she was strong enough to dig deep holes in the earth in an emergency. But holes could be found, and the two of them would be helpless if caught in torpor.

Reality shattered her dreams with a hammer of cold steel. Yes, there were realities that elder Kindred could not ignore. Risk-taking was how you died, and elders became elders by digging into whatever locale they chose. Drifting was not an option. If she moved to another city, it would be to live, not drift. But then, that did not mean she would have to become Prince once more. She could simply exist, live her unlife, and do nothing but engage in carnal delights with Jack until they were sore from the effort. Until they would be inevitably dragged into the squabbles of the local Kindred, or perhaps other paranormals, or even accursed mages and their insane pursuits.

And for all her fantasizing, she could not abandon the Ordo Dracul. The need to find truth and prepare for the future, were deep-seeded needs in her soul, and no amount of running would silence those inner demands.

"You can't expect us to let this pass," Michael MacDonald said. Such a loud man, with none of Viktor's control.

Hell must have frozen over, for her to miss Viktor Honors.

"You have no say in who I sire." Garry leaned forward, set his elbows and hands on the table, and offered something between a grin and sneer at the opposing Gangrel. Bark bark. "Only the Prince can deny me that right."

"Did she know it was Mister Long you were grooming?" Maria said.

Spoken about in third person. Antoinette did not appreciate that. She sat up straighter in her chair, and glared at the rotting Nosferatu.

"I did."

"I can't believe this." Julias stirred in his seat, as if sitting upon fire. "This timing could not be worse, Tones. We don't need to be squabbling, when we have hunters in the city." If this were an Invictus meeting, he would be pacing about, she was sure, and bestowing commandments from on high, as Ventrue were prone to do. But this was her meeting, her domain, and he was forced to temper his reflexes. Good.

"I do not need to justify my allowance for his choice," she said. "But, in the pursuit of peace, know that Garry has been grooming Long for months. Have you not, Mister Tones?"

"Yeah. Known him for a while, and we've been working together on things for some time. He did me a solid, so I did him one and turned him into a ghoul. Things progressed smoothly, and he earned the right to be Kindred." The subtle grin tainted his words. He knew Xnomina and Terra Den did not cooperate, and Long's economic power in contesting Xnomina was icing for Garry's choice. Of course, once the man was a ghoul, Garry's manipulation of Long was complete; ghouls followed the orders of their masters with the utmost loyalty, after all. Embracing the man was a defensive maneuver, so the Invictus could not challenge Long directly without challenging the Carthians indirectly.

Killing another covenant's ghoul was a terrible thing, but would not warrant war. Killing a member of a covenant, on the other hand, did. Bitter memories.

"Garry's strange choice of friends," Jacob said, finally joining the conversation, "is irrelevant. What matters more, is the unusual circumstance his game has brought to life. Eric Tanverson is Uratha." The eyeless monster leaned back in his chair, and ground his teeth until Antoinette could hear the enamel tear away. "Another fucking wolf in our city."

"That is a strange circumstance," Garry said. "Long's games against Xnomina were only in the typical kine context. He had no idea about Eric."

Julias nodded. "None of us did. Except for Fiona, probably."

"Yes," Maria said. "Begotten can see far more than we expected, if they can tell an Uratha is Uratha before even they do."

Fiona. If Jack's request to the others went as planned, Antoinette would spend a couple hours at Bloodlust with her lover, and his friends, Fiona included. And perhaps Eric would be working tonight as well. The silly drama and interactions of the masses were not her concern, and yet, such silliness was where much of life's joys were to be found. It might be good for her, to take a step back from her role for a couple hours, and simply watch others talk. Jack had said they were to talk of the hunters as well; a conversation worth hearing.

"Mister Tones," she said, "see that Mister Long does not cause chaos for the Invictus. Terra Den and Xnomina are, of course, up to the management of their respective leaders, but any struggle between the Carthians and Invictus is to be done without the death of Kindred. The hunters are the primary concern. Do I make myself clear?" She met the Gangrel's eyes, and stared into his depths, like slicing open his ribcage with a scalpel to expose his heart.

"Of course." He met her gaze for a few seconds before looking away. Like with a dog, holding eye contact was a sign of aggression, and to hold it longer, a sign of dominance. She won, as she always did.

"Azamel," Julias said, "gave us some info that we've been looking into, as you know. The old woman that might have performed the ritual. We'll be investigating a possible sighting and location, in Devil's Corner."

"Get Avery under your thumb yet?" Garry said. "She might help if you ask."

Julias sneered at the man. To see the Primogen meetings damage his patience was sad, but Antoinette said nothing. Not the time.

The meeting continued. Garry complained about the Mirrden district takeover by Xnomina. The Invictus council complained about Long and his sudden inclusion in the Danse Macabre. Jacob complained about another Uratha, though at least Jacob's complaints were half in jest, as if to mock the others for their petty annoyances. Julias pushed for more awareness and aggression in dealing with the hunters, while the others cautioned patience, and to let Azamel handle her own problems.

A tug of war of topics, that led nowhere. Such was unlife. She looked forward to, what would hopefully be, a more enjoyable conversation later tonight.

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Bloodlust. In the past, she would come here with Ashley and Julee, and watch the world unfold. Her frequent visits to the night lounge were a part of her game to pit Viktor and Tony against each other, oh so long ago. Without such a reason, she rarely came here; that was more due to her need to deal with present circumstances, however. A friendly, innocent visit would be a welcome change.

Jack should already be here, waiting for her, with Beatrice, Jennifer, and Fiona. Others were likely to come, she was sure, such as Athalia, or perhaps Jessy. She had also messaged sweet Natasha about the meeting, only to discover she was already there, waiting.

What was the Prince doing, wasting her precious time on as pointless an endeavor as 'hanging out'? It was not pointless, as she knew. Despite the overwhelming need to work, work, and continue working, it was a road to self destruction. One had to take time to enjoy the simple things in life, such as a conversation with acquaintances, or there was little point in living.

And, the visit was not without other merits. Assessing the situation of those involved, and what they knew of the hunters, was valuable. Was Beatrice making progress with Jacob. Was Fiona a sweet, innocent little creature, or a master manipulator. Was Jennifer pursuing sexuality with the same intellectual standpoint as Antoinette; a potential ally, that one, if Jacob had not recruited her first.

She stepped into the night lounge masquerading as a club, and smiled at the kine that looked her way. Oh yes, she was a beautiful woman, she knew it, they knew it, and there was a game to be played when people made eye contact, under such a circumstance. Flirting with the eyes, saying things without saying them. 'If you served me, I would make your nights filled with bliss beyond imagining. Too bad.' Things of that sort.

She was a very tall woman, and that was intimidating for many, especially when combined with her long white hair. Kindred, Uratha, and Begotten cared little for the shape of the body when assessing threat, but kine were dominated by such measurements. She was a tower, and a deadly looking one at that, to the simple, living creatures indulging in her city. If only they knew she owned their lives. The thought put a smile on her lips, and she shared it with the kine as she walked past them, toward one of the stairways on the side of the dance floor.

She had decided to wear one of her dresses meant for a nightclub. It left little to the imagination, with its long, black curves covering only one of her legs, down to the ankle, while leaving the other leg exposed up to the high hip. No underwear of course, and anyone fortuitous enough for a convenient viewing angle would see her sex; fashion, in the new world. The dress's chest was barely more than a sliver of fabric for each breast, wide enough to cover her nipples, and rise to hook behind her neck. It left much of her bust exposed, especially as the chest straps reached down to her stomach, with plenty of room for her breasts to sway with her movements against the small slivers of fabric. And, of course, the dress was open back, to complete the illusion of nudity.

People stared as she walked past. They knew her, here, despite many months between visits. It was a blessing and a curse, having distinct features. If she continued visiting for years yet, she would eventually have to stop, for decades, before the story of the white haired woman passed. It had happened before, and it would happen again; unusually tall with white hair made her hard to forget, and dark amber, almost red eyes, made it impossible. And if the story included the 'unaging' descriptor, it would attract unwanted attention.

But it would be many years before she would have to take such actions with Bloodlust. Perhaps she should visit more often, and enjoy its carefree, sinful nature with Jack and her ghouls.