Prince Charming

Note: Kay! Waiting to post until now has been torture (anyone who knows me at ALL knows how patient I am *cough *), but I did it! I’m making an effort to only post every Friday…but seeing as how I have five chapters saved up now (and building), I may not keep that promise to myself. Your feedback is absolutely lovely as always, (replies at bottom), and I hope to get more! You all encourage me tremendously. ^_^ So, without further a due…on with the story!


Chapter Two

Small town bar, some hours before sunset…

Crash! Shattering glass hit the uneven cement floor with a splintering sound that only added to the rest of the raucous filling the room already. Thick, grayish-brown smoke filled the air in dingy, putrid billows throughout the establishment, but none of its inhabitants seemed to mind, or even take notice. In fact, many of the rather shady creatures taking up residence in the area looked as though they preferred the gloom, blending in the shadows and carrying on low, whispered conversations with equally shady accomplices in odd corners of the room.

Sitting at the counter, with one hand firmly gripped around an overflowing mug of ale and a broad grin spanning his features, a tall, redheaded man laughed, the sound full and rich as his chocolate brown eyes danced with mischief, eyeing his companion’s. “You can’t be serious…what loon told you that, huh? Who even comes up with that stuff?” As he spoke, he brought the mug to his lips, his eyes moving to rest on a slimmer, dark-haired man cloaked mostly in brown peasant’s wear save for a huge black cloak that dwarfed him in comparison.

“Neh…I jus’ heard it round…but that’s what they say! Say the vampire’s keepin’ a boy now…hardly even a man, so he’s can sing like a woman and bring in the victims he wants…”

The larger man shook his head, obvious disbelief on his features as he did so. “Can’t believe it, Ralf…cause I’ve seen her…seen her watchin’ me…heard her voice….” Again, he shook his head, taking a rather large gulp of the ale in his grip. “That ain’t no man…”

“Boy, Drake. Is’a boy, not a man…barely seventeen years a’ most…maybe naught e’en tha’…” At this comment, several in their company laughed, one throwing a playful punch at the redhead.

“What’d’ya know, Dav…didn’t tell us you were takin’ a fancy ta boys now, did ya?”

Instead of laughing like the rest of them however, Davinoff only scowled, his previously friendly features turning rather clouded and unfriendly as he stood from the stool and raised a hand to pay the waiter, shrugging a thick cloak over his shoulders as he did so. “It’s a woman…and if you want to play so much fun…I’ll prove it.” When an attendant at the bar arrived, he tossed several coins at her blankly, his expression immune to her obvious flirtation as she tried to catch his eye.

“Whoa…” Several of the men still on stools leaned back to watch him, laughter and amusement in their tone as they spoke, most all of them drunk. “An’ how ‘r you gonna do that, eh? Ya gonna bring ‘er home for us tonight?”

“Sounds like Drakey here’s a little touchy on that last subject, eh, fellas?” Many laughed at that, unaware of the building threat growing in the standing man’s eyes. “You got somethin’ ya want ta tell us, Dav? Have you been secretly wanting to give us all kisses, hm?” Drunk to the point where several of them looked like they could fall of their chairs at any given moment, a couple of the men, including the one who’d last spoken, made dramatized kissy-faces at him, all laughing cruelly in the process.

Without another word, he stormed from the bar, a whirl of black cloth and anger that not a soul dared to get in the way of, leaving behind the raucous laughter and clamoring bar house in a few long strides. By the time he made it outside however, the curse words flew from his mouth like a brook, steady and unending, but mostly directed at himself. He should have gone along with their bantering, made it seem like no big deal and pass it off as the joke it was. By making it a big deal as he had, they might actually wonder in the future (if they remembered anything at all), and that would bring both he and his companions down a road he would prefer not travel at all.

Saddling his horse quickly with his dark scowl still in place, he tried not to think about it. He had never really found women of much interest, but had always argued that when a man spent as much time around other men as he did, and almost as much time with no company period, that this reaction likely made perfect sense. He simply never had the chance to develop an interest for them, and therefore shouldn’t worry about not having one. Recently however, with the vampire crisis and the story of the captured maiden, he had begun to wonder. For the first time his life, just listening to her voice and catching the barest glimpses of her fair form before some unknown force dragged her from sight, he had felt something, honestly felt something. Whether it was attraction, sympathy, or just plain pity, he couldn’t quite place, but he could only pray that Ralf hadn’t spoken true. How could explain that? That the great, fearsome, and undefeatable Davinoff had fallen for two-pint, vampire-bitten…male? No.

Spurring his horse into motion, he pulled quickly out of the dusty, run-down town, not glancing back once as he set his mind to focusing on the task ahead. He had heard the girl sing, had seen enough of her to know: Ralf had to be wrong. Tonight, he would prove it. Down the dusty paths, he rode with a purpose, his eyes set straight and firm ahead, barely blinking, though his mind lingered on anything but the winding roads. After having ridden the distance a number of times before, his horse almost knew the way without his guidance. Night and day, clear or storm he had traveled the path, familiarizing himself with the area, telling himself that he did it only to rid the peasants of the vampire threat, but in truth doing it for far more selfish reasons; he couldn’t get the beautiful woman from his mind.

From a distance, her poignant, heartfelt songs had reached out until he could almost feel the intimate physical touches. Every time caught a note, he couldn’t help but stop to listen, no matter when or where, and the voice would fill some part of his heart in a way he couldn’t explain even to himself, let alone others.

As dusk darkened into night and the sky spread out its navy blanket, he rode on with pristine confidence, so assured of himself, he never glanced back once, and even as he finally glimpsed the tall, ageless tower, so foreboding to most, he never considered once to turn back. He didn’t think of the upcoming battle, or even the vampire within, only of two, ocean-blue eyes drenched in sadness and a voice that could bend the heavens to lend a listening ear. Far up inside the dark structure, unbeknownst to him, that self same cobalt gaze watched him with imploring eyes, praying to the gods for his success.

~

Cyprien wasted no time in meeting his challenger, his hunger sharp and barely whetted by the small amount offered up by his mortal toy. Not only had the man now waiting interrupted his sport of playing with the fair boy now left locked again in his tower, but this particular human had disturbed him numerous times before on too many occasions to count, and, unfortunately for him, this left Davinoff to face a very agitated vampire to say the least.

Swinging back as if by some unspoken command, two huge, seemingly impenetrable oak and iron wrought doors flew open with a crash to reveal the irate immortal, his crimson eyes gleaming in the night and silver hair falling about in visible wisps the color of moonbeams about his shoulders.

“How dare you impeach upon my home at this hour?” For his size, though not irrationally small, not all that large either, his voice boomed with apparently no effort on his part, clearly heard from even the many stories above where Teige waited with anxious eyes. If the ferocity of the vampire’s challenge startled him, the horsed rider never flinched once, his face impassive as he evaluated the predator before him, trying to determine strengths and weaknesses, the best method of attack, as he always did before a battle.

“I believe you have something I want.”

The vampire quirked an eyebrow, whether in amusement or annoyance he couldn’t tell, though he suspected a small mixture of both. Finally, he spoke again, this time quieter, his voice turned almost soothing. “Do I?” This time, Drake definitely heard the amusement, the immortal’s eyes turning from red to ebony, so dark they looked black in the light. “And you expect to get it by confronting me?”

“I prefer to take care of matters efficiently.”

When the vampire laughed, the sound filled the air like music, his face inhumanly beautiful and his ebony dancing with unnatural light. “I think you will find me a more than formidable opponent…you will only meet death here, human.”

“I die hard.”

“There will be no glory for you when your remains are crushed beneath my palms…” The vampire bared his fangs with a lewd smile, his expression suddenly cruel and hungry, yet, somehow, as beautiful as before, just twisted slightly with an obscene characteristic the mortal couldn’t quite place.

“Glory is trivial and irrelevant, as is talking. Either take your glory somewhere else and hand over the woman or cease your incessant babble and arm yourself for combat.”

“There is no combat without competition…and I’m afraid no one of your pathetic species fits that description. This is what immortals call slaughter.”

Without another word, before he even had time to blink, the vampire had closed the distance between them, horse and all, and only years worth of training got Davinoff off his beast and two the ground in time, not an instant too soon. Because of his awkward escape, by the time Cyprien landed in a graceful crouch not three feet from him less than a moment later, Drake was still trying to gain proper footing. Sheer luck alone saved his life for the second time as a well placed cloud of dust, caused by his ungainly landing, distracted the immortal for the half a second it took him to draw a blade in defense.

Holding the blade alone gave him a certain measure of comfort, the glimmering silver weapon a steady and familiar weight in his grasp, but the momentary condolence didn’t last long. In under a second, the vampire’s impossible speed brought him again within inches of death as the fluid silvern body graced barely a hairs width distance from his neck, talons just missing him to the point where he could feel the rush of wind caused by the near miss. When he swung in another foolishly clumsy attempt to attack (which he cursed himself for even as he did so), his blade hit nothing but a wide patch of air and as he snapped his head up, red hair falling back like a lion’s mane, a flash of white teeth taunted him with cruel humor, and he knew then the vampire was only toying with him. For the first time in his life, he felt a minor twinge of doubt, insecurity, realizing, as he never had before, the true possibility of death. As if reading his mind, Cyprien laughed, the sound eerie in its corrupted beauty.

“Finally, you know the taste of fear…now…enjoy your last breath.”

The next instant felt like a lifetime playing through in slow motion, except that he couldn’t react as he wanted to, his legs in quicksand and body drenched in mud, his sword a thousand times heavier and impossible to lift. Watching the immortal approach, helpless to do anything else, he felt suddenly felt oddly at peace, and in some far off place he vaguely registered hearing a voice, distant and unreal.

“Cyprien!!”

In a crash, everything fell back into place, and he felt as if he’d been slammed into a brick wall, his body gasping for breath and arm suddenly leaden with a foreign weight. As he became aware of it, he glanced down, only to stare in shock at the sight, his own blade entombed deeply in an otherwise perfect chest, silver hair fallen over the rest of his arm like a shroud. Blinking, he glanced up as the distant voice all of a sudden became distinct, and very, very real.

“Cyprien! Oh, God, Cyprien!” In that last moment of battle, when Davinoff’s conscience abandoned him to instinct, Teige’s call from the upper story of his tower had, in fact, given the human fighter that last chance he needed, distracting the vampire’s gaze for only an instant, but in that way bringing about his death.

Though it usually mattered little, he himself having killed thousands of times without qualm, for some reason, this particular killing left the experienced warrior with an odd sense of foreboding, and he withdrew his blade slightly quicker than he might have on a normal basis, standing directly afterwards and eyeing the still figure warily. Because of the vampire’s naturally pale complexion, he looked little different now, still as stone, as he had only moments before, and it gave off the impression of a charade, as if he might at any minute jump up and come back to life, ending the uneasy mortal’s short life once and for all before its due.

Thankfully, the self-same voice that had saved him originally distracted his focus from the grim effects of his most recent battle, and he looked up to find a slim figure, pale as a ghost moon, trembling in the wide, open archway with such ferocity that she looked about to fall apart. Suddenly, though he had never been a man of many words, he wanted to speak a million things to comfort her, say anything to ease the terror-stricken lines marring her delicate features, to cease the incessant trembling that had taken her over, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He had no words to say.

After a moment, she spilled forward from the doorway, tumbling out into the dusty, grit filled path even as a light drizzle began to fall from the sky, and she barely even spared a glance his way, instantly falling in a pile of cloth at the side of motionless vampire. It took him a moment to decipher her whispered words between the sobs and increasing wail of wind as it picked up with the rain, but eventually he made it out as the same name he’d heard before, spoken over and over as if in a chant or prayer.

“Cyprien…Cyprien, Cyprien…”

When the sky lit up for the first time in a white flash, followed a few seconds after by a rumbling crash of angry thunder, Drake gave into his uneasiness and spoke gruffly over the noise of the storm, trying to catch the bedraggled woman’s attention. “He’s dead.” He stated with blunt lack of emotion, as if the quivering female, in her state, might not have noticed that fact yet. “It’s best we make it at least to the safety of trees before the blunt of the storm.”

Another whip of white lightning ripped the sky, this time followed almost immediately by thunder’s drumbeat, but the raven-haired figure took no notice. Even when the thick, cold rain increased, coming down in sheets and hitting the rapidly muddying ground with loud splashing plops, she barely moved a muscle. Finally, Drake frowned in confusion, anxiety and anger taking him over as he reached for her shoulder.

“Get up! The man’s dead, and unless you want me to leave you here too-“

“Don’t touch me!” Her voice, likely thickened with fear and muffled by another crack of thunder, sounded somehow ‘off’ to the larger man watching, but he couldn’t place why. Upon contact of his hand on her shoulder, she had flung her body backwards instantly as if burned, recoiling from a poisonous snake and landing face-up with her elbows to the ground behind her and both hair and dress thoroughly coated with mud. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me…” Still trembling, her voice shook almost more than her body, salt tears staining her pale, slightly muddied features and making the otherwise brutal assassin’s heart twist with brief sympathy. Quickly, he discarded the emotion and frowned at his own vulnerability.

“Get up. I didn’t risk my life for an ungrateful wench, and I don’t have time for your pitiful female tears. I’m no white knight; I came here to kill the beast ravaging my city, and that job is done. If you want to live, I suggest you do as I say.”

Apparently startled silent by that abrupt explanation, the drenched maiden stood, though with some difficulty, as her wet garments surely weighed at least twice as much as they had before when dry. “Davinoff…”

Unprepared to hear his name on the other’s lips, the whispered sound caught him off-guard, and he turned abruptly, his expression perplexed as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard. “What?”

“I said Davinoff…that’s your name, isn’t it?”

Again, he noticed the oddly thick quality to her voice. He couldn’t explain it any other way. Hearing her speak, he recognized the same quality in the songs he’d listened to, and yet, somehow, he’d expected her voice to be more, tenor? Delicate? It had an erotic, smooth property to it that made it undeniably beautiful, mesmerizing almost, but he had come to expect a more \'bell-like\' quality from a woman, instead of the trickling rush of clear water over pebbles that he heard in this maiden’s voice.

He didn’t know why, but as he turned away again, preparing to saddle his horse suitably for a second passenger, the words came out of their own accord. “Call me Drake.”


To be continued...


Review Replies

Jukebox: A very good start - it was intense right from the beginning. The details are exquisite and I look forward to reading more of this

Thanks! First review! *dances* Thanks for commenting. I know the first chapter is key to setting off a good story and getting people\'s attention, so I’m glad it kept your interest. ^^

Corenn: Wonderful ! I love this story... Don\'t kill the vampire, please, please T_T. I lurve him ! So... threesome ? XD .... OK, hit me.

:gonk: Forgive me!! I’m glad you liked him…^^; Honestly…if I hadn’t had five chapters piled up already…I might have considered your idea…because I liked Cyprien too…(actually, this might end up BECOMING a vampire story regardless…but ya know…I’m not totally sure yet…^^; And I’m revealing details. *gonks self again * xP) But thank you for the comment anyway! Threesome…..*evil laughter in distance * I’ve never actually written……….well…unless rape counts…but that was more than three….^^;; ehh….

Falcon Bertille: Moonstar! I\'ve missed your writing SO MUCH! It\'s wonderful to have you back with us. This new story is absolutely fantastic. I adore your gorgeous, evocative language. When you describe Teige -- his long dark hair, pale skin, and \"feathery black eyelashes\" -- it paints such a beautiful picture inside my head. Very sexy stuff. And I love the idea of him being dressed up like a princess and used as bait to lure knights to their doom. I can almost hear his tragic siren songs echoing through the chill night air. I\'m definitely glad to know that you have more of this written, because I can\'t wait for the update.

And I look forward to reading more of \"Black Panther\", too.

Love,
Falcon

Falcon! My favoritest (who cares if it’s not a real word) writer in the whole wide world! You’ve no idea how happy it makes me to see you returning to read my work…and posting a second lovely story of your own! Gracious…sometimes…I swear your comments are better than my writing…‘tragic siren songs’ ^^ Thank you, thank you for stopping by, it means the world to me.

As for ‘Black Panther’, I’m not sure when I’ll update. I have nine chapters of that written…but I kinda came to a standstill (about which time I began writing this to cure the writer’s block). Since I’ve got nine chapters, I obviously can’t abandon it (not to mention people have already read the chapter…and even if you were the ONLY person reading it…I think I’d write it anyway…), so I’ll probably update either after I finish this…or at least when Aff’s back to normal (surely not before that). I don’t know what it would be like trying to post two stories at once…and seeing as how I get myself confused with just ONE…people probably won’t hear much from Lan and Tray until ‘Prince Charming’ is at least nearing a close…

midnighteyes: Really like the story... I do hope you update it soon.. Can\'t wait for more!!!

Thanks! And thank you for commenting! I hope you continue to enjoy it. ^_^

MakaiKitty: Sorry it took me so long to review, RL keeps getting in the way.

I like your new fic, it\'s an old story with some interesting new twists. Vampires and crossdressers? You know I love a boy in a dress *LOL* Please post more soon, because you left me wanting more and I can\'t wait to see what happens next.

S’okay. At least you got to it! (And thank you for that. ^_^) Yes, I think I have some idea of how much you like boys in dresses…xD Just a trouble figuring out how to make it happen with at least a LITTLE logical reason. o_O *chuckle * ANYway…thanks for reviewing! (Regardless of how long it took…) And I hope you keep liking what you read. ^_^

rachel80: oh, please update soon, soon! :D this story is so compelling and addictive, i really can\'t wait to see what happens next. the intensity between these two characters is amazing. flat out magnificent writing!

High praise! Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it. ^_^ And I hope this chapter didn’t disappoint… Thanks for commenting!

Sjonna: Well, Daninoff (forgive spelling please) is going to get a surprise about the vampire-guarded \"maiden\" if he lives long enough. Nice beginning. Can\'t wait to read more.

xD Oh yes…and we’ll get to that part reasonably soon. ^^ I’ll probably post more by next Friday, if not earlier…(often a lot of comments tempt me to post soon…but then again I like to have back-up chapters, as I do now, so that I won’t lag behind if writer’s block strikes unexpectedly. o_O ^^). Thank you for commenting!