Gifting Night Ch. 05

Chapter 5: Failed Visions

This is chapter 5 of a series. Thank you to all the readers who inspired me to continue the series with their constant support. While it is not entirely necessary to read the each chapters in progression I highly recommend it. Please remember that the Dhase are a species of my own creation, and although they are based on vampires I have drastically changed the mythos. I hope you enjoy.

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Daphne knew something of Heaven and Hell.

In her long years, never once had she seen any proof of their existence. In millennia not a single person had ever been able to demonstrate they had known her in a past life, save those few who traveled the centuries with her. Never once had she met a true god or devil. Despite all of this she understood heaven and hell.

Hell was knowing that someone she loved dearly, her best friend and confidante for a brief five decades, was beyond reach. Never again would they discuss politics or art. Never would he marvel at her memory of times long past, or civilizations forgotten. Not only would she never get to see him again, but she knew his every waking moment was spent in agony.

Worse still, it was her fault. Not for the first time she wondered if apathy were not the better path. Better to fade into obscurity than endure this knowledge.

Before Daphne lay Heaven. At one end of the bed sprawled a pool of luxurious red hair, fanned out across the deep green, silk, pillowcases. Halfway down the woman's body sprouted the uncontrolled blond tuft that betrayed her true color. Daphne loved the inconsistency. Shortly after the two had become lovers, the young woman had offered to let her hair grow out, or begin dying the revealing patch. Daphne had refused. To her it represented the unusual nature of the delicious woman.

This was her reason to live. This was the reason Christoph Halley had sacrificed himself. For his love of both of the women, Daphne and Katherine, he consigned himself to a hell. His only escape would be death, and eventually it would come to that, before his theoretically limited term of service would be up.

"You've got that look again." Katherine's words startled Daphne out of her revery. She had propped herself on her elbows and looked at Daphne with concern. "What are you thinking about?"

Daphne smiled but knew it wouldn't take root in her eyes. She had never been good at deceit, and became even less so since her transformation into a Dhase; a vampire. Her entire race was incredibly empathic, it came with the territory. What use was lying when others already knew she was? She had never needed to lie to her 'prey' when they wanted exactly the same thing she did, if only for different reasons.

Daphne couldn't meet the youth's eyes. When her gaze dropped she found she stared, once again, at the white-blond hair. It glistened with Katherine's virtually insatiable lust. Finally the smile spread to Daphne's eyes as she laughed. The damp fuzz lifted as the fledgling tilted her hips forward, an obvious invitation.

Daphne wasn't sure she was in the mood for another round, especially since her thoughts had turned so dark so quickly. Her laughing eyes had been noticed as they watched the moist flesh. Katherine's desire was insidious. Daphne felt her own desire growing to match that of her unusual progeny. It took Dhase centuries to learn how to focus their projected emotions to a degree that they influenced others. Many never learned the skill. Katherine accomplished the feat, not only without conscious effort but strong enough that it could, and had, effect an entire building full of people.

She was different than any Dhase Daphne had met. Daphne could control not only the emotions of others but their very minds and bodies, if she chose. It had been an extension of the ability to control emotions, a trick that typically only the truly ancient could master, and there were less than a dozen worldwide. But all of their control was sudden and blatant ~to an outside observer. But Katherine's power was subtle, a transition from what was to what will be, along logical progressions. Daphne only knew it occurred because of her innate ability to see and taste emotions and her familiarity with the wonderful woman.

She didn't care that she knew why it happened. She gave herself over to the fabulous haze. She longed to dive forward and devour the delicate pink folds before her. Her lips reached out to pluck the delectable little bud straining towards her. Katherine collapsed back onto the pillow with a satisfied moan.

Daphne pulled her head back slightly. She ran her tongue across her lips and savored the sweet, thick nectar. She looked back down to witness another drop seeping from her consort. A manicured finger reached down to scoop the fresh bounty. Katherine twitched in delight even as Daphne brought the finger to her lips and proceeded to suggestively suck the moisture free.

Daphne wanted more, as much as the woman beneath her did. Although not as insatiable as her young lover, she loved to devour the fledgling. She loved the feel and taste of the warm cream on her tongue. Even more she loved the taste of the power of Katherine's lust. Dhase did not feed off the blood of others, they fed from their vital energy. Humans and Dhase alike built tremendous energy during intimacy. Daphne enjoyed not only the taste of sexual energy but would have found bringing another woman to that level of passion rewarding even if she never fed again.

Two fingers slipped between those legs. Daphne carefully parted the soft flesh to reveal the weeping depths. Mindful of her nails, she slid her fingers easily into the well lubricated warmth. Kat moaned, her hands shifted to tangle in her hair as her hips shifted in response to the blissful intrusion. Daphne widened her fingers slightly, pushed against sensitive muscles, as she sought out the tender ridges and rough flesh of the most tender depths. Kat squeaked as her breath caught. Daphne grinned, she had found both.

The prone woman moaned loudly as Daphne's fingers began a slow retreat. She spread her fingers wider. Katherine growled in animalistic pleasure. Daphne gasped as the woman's aura responded to the first ministrations. She could barely breath through the primal joy the other woman projected. She had to fight to keep from losing herself to the aspect being thrust upon her. She wanted to control her lover's rapture. Daphne needed to remind both of them of the heaven they had discovered.

As fingers began to slide in once more, Daphne brought her thumb up. As fingers probed devastated nerves, her thumb began slow circles. She shifted aside the loose skin to torment the sensitive base of the hot pearl. Hips writhed back and forth seeking escape from the newest torture, but it was too late. She began to grin as her hand worked back and forth. She covered the same inch incessantly. She moved only enough to inflame the woman further and never left the overly sensitive flesh deep within. With every slight stroke she pressed against the engorged bud.

Katherine, too soon after their last love-making, was already on the verge of climax. Daphne smirked evilly. Her tempo slowed precisely. "Oh, God NO! FasterHarderANYTHING!!!" Frustration roared across the gap between their bodies to assault Daphne. The older Dhase ground her teeth and maintained the abuse. Katherine's voice began to alternate between whimpering and growling. Daphne knew her lover too well and kept her on the very edge of the abyss.

The agonized, enraptured, youth roared. Daphne's eyes widened in shock as one of the woman's hands flew faster than she could track. Shock turned to craving as the hand reappeared between her legs. Daphne could not tell how many fingers plunged into her own depths. Tendrils leapt out, beneath her skin, to create a lattice of pure sensation throughout her body.

The elder struggled to maintain her cruel rhythm. She felt herself slip and stopped a heartbeat before the explosion. Each time she did a fresh wave of frustration broke across her as Katherine screamed wordlessly.

Katherine was beyond skill, beyond thought. The prone woman Daphne knelt beside was pure beast. The fingers pressed between Daphne's legs were ungentle. The beast's palm flattened and aggravated her own flower while those harsh fingers stabbed and pierced. For all the lack of caress the rough aggression inflamed Daphne. Her body softened the impact by wept lust.

Daphne's muscles faltered. She shook nearly as much as the frustrated monster. They attacked each other in contest, each seeking to cause the other to falter and bring about their own release. Little remained of Daphne save determination. She would keep her love at the very precipice until after she had succumbed herself. Even still she desperately tried to keep herself from climax.

It was an odd battle. Fingers plunged and caressed. Both women screamed and growled as they tried to relieve tension through any other means. Daphne refused to pull herself from the treacherous fingers. To do so would be to concede defeat as surely as if she allowed the helpless beast to finish. She ground her hips against the delightful invasion, saught to force her lover into bringing her climax first. Katherine's frustration invaded Daphne which made it more and more difficult to fight the inevitable climax. Her body betrayed her gloriously.

The world froze as the inferno consumed her every pore. As time reformed around her, Daphne's hand crashed deep into Katherine. Her body was beyond her control. Her senses screamed with unexplored sensation. When the next wave attacked her soul she knew she was not alone in her euphoria. Bodies jerked and writhed out of control. Buried within each other, the convulsive movements only antagonized and caused a feedback loop of pure ecstasy.

Muscles clenched and grasped at arrogant fingers. Fingers dug at and dragged against misfired nerves. Nerves raced false signals to all parts of the body. Both bodies convulsed which, in turn, caused hands to grope errant muscles. All the while, two minds lay trapped within unheeding shell of bliss. Two souls entwined in the cocoon of euphoric power, feeding off and feeding each other.

Someone screamed and caused their unyielding tempo to break for an instant. It was long enough to break the perpetual circuit. At first Daphne thought she had, then she realized that she had been all along. The screams of both woman had been the orchestra to which their dance regaled. The scream had been elsewhere.

Free from the vengeful grip of her own instinct, Katherine curled into a protective ball as her body rode out the crash of aftershocks. Trained through too many lifetimes of superstitious mortals hunting the 'dangerous vampires,' Daphne leapt to her feet and bolted out the door in search of the scream. It was easy to follow, and she did, as it repeated. Her steps slowed as reason began to return and compliment instinctive action.

It didn't quite sound right. They were not screams of terror or fear. Neither were they remotely similar to the passion that had driven Daphne and Katherine only moments before. There was pain mixed with the pleasure. She couldn't sense any pain in the house, though Katherine's energy still pervaded the building too heavily to be entirely sure.

Daphne rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and froze in horror. She knew the position and was far from naive enough to think only deviants would enjoy it, it was just that she never had been witness to it. She recognized her distraction came from a general discomfort of male penetration. She'd done it willingly with Chris, once, in order to bequeath the Gift to Katherine. Since then, Kat's projected desire to be filled had forced her to seek relief herself. Aside from those times it had been millennia since she'd even contemplated it.

Julia's face pressed to the floor on the threshold to the kitchen. Her hands extended along the tile floor to grip the near corners of the island and she knelt with her back high. Tony knelt behind her, his legs positioned to prevent her motion and his hands held her hips firmly in place. She was a captive as he thrust himself into her tighter hole.

The scream's were Julia's. Daphne watched in fascinated horror as threads of pain and passion entwined almost indistinguishably in their auras. She had known the gorgeous blond woman for nearly half a year but never once suspected that she would derive the slightest pleasure from pain. It was another reaction foreign to the elder.

She left the two to return upstairs. It was clear enough what had occurred. Daphne had known Tony was over, in fact she had insisted on it. Ever since her first night with Katherine she tried to make sure there was a man in the house to fulfill the youth's other needs when they made love. Her own misadventure with Kat's projected desires, after Chris' departure, only confirmed her conviction. He had been over in case the need struck Katherine, Daphne could deflect the projection and 'invite' Tony to their love-making. She smiled at the thought. Unlike Chris, Tony was never aware the concept was anything but his own. It had happened twice now and both times he felt himself quite courageous when he joined in with the couple.

Tonight Katherine had once again projected. This time, instead of projecting an additional need she was sending out her passion and drive. That desire filled the house. Julia and Tony were taken unaware by lust so great they naturally fell into each other's arms. More likely, Daphne reconsidered, Kat's primal nature brought them into their own. Tony was clearly a dominant and Julia a submissive. She had known of the woman's tastes but the man's didn't surprise her overly much.

Katherine sat half sideways at the head of the bed. In the position, even with her legs together, Daphne could still see the moist pink flesh. Her lips dried in anticipation of more of the succulent dew. One look at the trouble eyes, hidden behind red bangs, disabused the notion. For the second time in so many minutes Daphne froze in shock. The fledgling's sexual energy still permeated the house but her currently her aura barely showed. She had withdrawn as Daphne had never seen in her lover.

"Julia and Tony?" Daphne smiled and nodded. "Anal?" Surprised she nodded again. Kat nodded but the concern still filled her aura. "Tony is over in case I got horny as we made love isn't he?" Daphne had never felt such speechlessness. "He's here to replace Chris."

It hadn't been a question. Daphne was almost relieved she didn't have to answer, until Kat spoke again. "Did he leave us because of you?" Daphne felt her heart drop. Her mouth continued to hang open as she stared in mute horror at her truest love. In all those years she had never felt for another what she felt for this woman. "DID he!?" Anger roiled through Kat's aura like a pestilence.

"Yes." She wanted to explain but words failed her. The complex experiences and connections forged before Kat had joined them eluded her ability to explain. Where is this all coming from? How could I not have seen it coming?

The other woman's whispered voice was ice. "He loved you. You know that don't you?" Daphne nodded meekly. "He loved me though, and I love him. That was the problem wasn't it?"

"Yes. No! It's more complicated than that." With every word she felt the rage as it flared off her lover. She recoiled instinctively from the painful lash of the power. The wretched energy that began to fill her only reminded her of the poor man's fate.

"Yes, it is." Katherine stood and stormed over to the dresser. She pulled out a pair of pants and a t-shirt. Both were black, the only things Chris had left the two to remember him by. She quickly tossed on the clothes, holding the pants up with her own belt. She pushed by Daphne who was still to horrified to react.

As she slipped by, Katherine's voice and aura alike were devoid of emotion. "You sent him away because I loved him and you didn't want to share. My body but not my love." Then she left.

Daphne's mind drew inward. She knew she needed to pursue, but her world had crumbled too quickly to rebound. She found the quiet solitude within. She surrounded her heart with memory.

Mythology often became confused, even when there was a foundation in truth. Daphne was once the unwilling youth of an elder Dhase. He had taken her to live in his warren of caves, a veritable underground city with hundreds of people in his employ, never seeing the light of day. The woman who had bequeathed the Gift to Daphne raged for nearly a year at the surrounding elders, who finally proposed a compromise. Daphne would spend half of each year with each elder.

The mortals told this story of Persephone. Ironically, Persephone's misadventures, only a few decades prior to that event, had also become legend. Another of the elders had become infatuated with her. He chased her on the Gifting Night, sought to transform her the very same night Daphne was granted the Gift. Persephone ended up spending the night hidden in a laurel tree. From there came the story of 'Daphne and Apollo.'

The two became great friends over the next two decades, resulting in the mythological confusion of names, until Gifting Night came again. This time it was Persephone, seeking out Daphne to grant the Gift. Shortly after this, 'Hades' took Daphne. His preferences for pain and suffering were well known, but her elder was the weaker. It was only the influence garnered that allowed her to broker a deal that saved Daphne from endless decades of unending pain.

Persephone lived a good life, surviving well into the fifteen hundreds, when she finally succumbed.

That had been the reason she had tried to rescue Christoph from Bridget. She had witnessed the woman's cruelty and could ill stomach it. Although a millennia younger, Bridget had gained in power making of herself a terror throughout the ages. No myths had formed around her name, given in honor of a benevolent deity and kept in irony, because mortals who fell to her care never returned. She was 'the Dark Mistress', 'the Lady Death' and even, in some cultures, 'the Bogeyman' when victims had never seen her form clearly.

Daphne had hoped to gain enough strength to challenge her. Most Dhase remained beneath her notice but Daphne had courted attention, hoping the owed boon would protect her long enough. It had, and now Christoph's sacrifice would protect her for a few years more. Bridget could not use his failed body as an excuse this quickly or the excuse would appear as vacant as its reality. Bridget only feared a coordinated effort on the part of the elders. Enough elder Dhase could drain her before she could kill.

Now hope was lost. Katherine fled. She, the only who could have given Daphne's life meaning enough to revitalize her.

Daphne looked into the mirror. Where once sat glorious blue eyes, turned dead as apathy encroached, now tears ran. Soon enough those eyes would be dry and dead once more, but first she would help them along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The smell should make him hungry. His sleep deprived brain couldn't understand why the smell of roasting meat wasn't making him hungry. Then came the pain. He tried to move. He needed to escape the overwhelming pain eating inward from his groin. He could not escape. His hands remained securely above him and his legs spread beneath him.

He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. He didn't even know where 'here' was. All he knew was pain. And he knew pain intimately. He couldn't remember sleep, but he knew it remained with him even there. It stayed with him always. The Dark One made sure of that.

"You don't need those. You don't use those." The form before him was shrouded in black. The dim, fluttering, light and haze covering his eyes were keeping the form so indistinct he couldn't figure out any details. "I'll just remove them for you shall I?" He should have been able to discern something from the voice.