Carrick thought of how it would have been to have shared this boy with his brothers - with other Vampires like him, their sinewy bodies and sharp teeth and silent tread. He imagined them feasting on the boy together, licking the blood from each others' lips as they took the slave with merciless hunger.
They were gone now. All those other vampires he had fought with and loved. All those creatures of shadow who had been chosen to become the secret ones, the hidden ones, the spies and assassins who were the most feared and secretive of Spartan military. To his knowledge, he was all that was left. If there were others, they had retreated back into the crypts that had come from their very name.
"Beautiful," Carrick whispered in Greek, as Samandriel sang. He squeezed the slave's cock harder, thumb circling the smooth head. He could feel the slave beginning to tremble under his touch. The fingers of the other hand pressed deeper, finding the tiny spot that would have brought the slave to release if his sex had not been bound.
"Beautiful, but not enough. You'll abase yourself, plead forgiveness for every time you've rejected me. You'll beg for punishment."