The Only Place I Still Rule
"Come with me," Neferet spoke, her voice sounding seductive and incredibly controlling. Her black dress fit tightly to her, leaving nothing for Xynox's imagination. Dipping low in a vaguely heart-like neckline, It allowed him to view her more than ample cleavage. He had to struggle to look up, but once he did, he was enthralled by her emerald eyes. Those would look better without the darkness flitting through them, he thought. She smirked and ushered him through the door, not speaking any more, rather, allowing him to drink in the appearance of her sumptuous ashen skin, and the way the dress hugged her curves. The Marks on her face were even beautiful to the eyes. The way the interlocking lines of blue fit together into Celtic knots was… mesmerising to Xynox.
Neferet knew this. She knew that this vessel was no less cracked that Aurox had been. She was counting on the way Xynox found her attractive, and she'd admit, the dress was definitely playing it up. Not to mention the heels she'd donned. They made her several inches taller and definitely enhanced her silhouette. Xynox was openly fixated on her as she drove (glad Dallas had bought her old car, finally so she could get this one), and she knew that all too well. His gaze on her was like heat, was like a sensation of hands running over her. She'd admit, it wasn't completely unwanted, despite everything. Her master, the white bull had forsaken her, and she needed someone, something in her life. She told herself Xynox was only a means of holding power, a means of self-validation. That was also why she was taking him to the club. It was her place. It made her feel empowered. She only brought him because she knew it wasn't wise for a beautiful, newly mortal woman to be alone in the streets after dark.
As Neferet pulled the car over near a dark alley, Xynox wondered where she was taking him. "Neferet?" he asked "Where exactly are you taking me?"
Neferet smirked "The only place I still rule," she replied ambiguously. Xynox ran his hands through his straight ebony hair, forcing his equally dark eyes to meet her emerald eyes. He stepped out of the car, his muscular form still a good three inches taller than Neferet, despite the heels she wore.
"Do not let the people here take you anywhere without me," she ordered, "you don't know what will happen, and that is for the best," she explained, her cool tone of voice not making him even remotely reassured. Xynox had seen what she was capable of before Darkness left her. He knew she was still that person; she just didn't have the powers anymore. He couldn't allow himself to forget that she couldn't feel love, nor true happiness, nor most things he took for granted. Though he should've been scared off by that, he found it sad. And he wanted to take her pain away. There had been times where she'd emanated anguish so strongly he'd felt sick, but those times were few and far between.
They arrived at what looked like an average door, on the side of a building with broken windows. There was a black rose painted on the door. A slit in the top of the door opened, and a pair of watery blue eyes fixed on Xynox.
"Password?" a gravelly voice demanded.
Neferet pushed Xynox out of the way "He's with me," she said sharply, willing the doorman to recognize her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Nightshade. I didn't see you there," he opened the door, chastising himself for not seeing Neferet.
"Nightshade?" Xynox asked, feeling confused.
Neferet met his eyes, willing him to understand, "I go by an alias here: Saraneth Nightshade, more often than not, just Nightshade. I cannot have people know me for who I am, or they would flee".
A tall, slender man, with black hair that had flame red highlights grabbed Neferet's hand, kissing it intimately "Where have you been, Shade?" he asked as Neferet and Xynox descended the stairs
"Not going to happen," Neferet replied coolly as the passed him and continued town the winding staircase. With the thrumming beat of one of her favourite songs pounding through the room, she entered. Xynox stayed near to her as he acquainted himself with the surroundings. There were lights flashing everywhere. People danced to the beat of the song on the dance floor, their writhing bodies glistening in the flashing lights from a sheen of sweat that broke out over their skin. Xynox noticed that the majority of them were dressed in revealing garments, corsets, leather, as little as they could get away with. Near the floor was a bar, where a tattooed man talked amicably with the patrons. There were also rooms, curtained off by lush red velvet curtains. The vaulted ceiling also revealed a balcony, which had another doorman guarding it.
Neferet was in her element, the voice of the singer relaxed her. "My voice just echoes off these walls…" she sang along, walking in, feeling the bluish lights hit her. This was home. The only thing she wasn't comfortable with was the way people were staring at Xynox. She didn't like that the women were already sizing him up. The song ended, and the DJ announced "Nightshade! Good to see you here! We were starting to miss your presence! This song goes out to you!" He turned on a song that started out with a low whirring, and then a mechanized- sounding drumbeat. Then guitar came in with high pitched, staccato rhythms. Neferet knew this song all too well.
Xynox found it just too loud and kind of odd, like it was on a minor chord, or something similar. Twins with long, dark hair, one with blue eyes, one wearing red contacts, approached. They were shorter and slimmer than Neferet, and looked little older than twenty. The one with red eyes also wore a red tube top, and a black skirt. The one with blue eyes wore a pair of ripped black jeans with chains and a slashed up concert shirt. The one with the eerie red eyes grabbed his arm, and Neferet glared down at her disapprovingly. "Now, now, Bait. We mustn't touch what isn't ours," she gave Bait a look that showed her displeasure.
Reluctantly, Bait let go. "Come on, Switch," she flipped her hair and left.
"Bait and Switch," Neferet explained "once you get sucked in, they'll never let you free".
Xynox turned around to see the red-eyed one, Bait still staring at him, looking voracious. He shivered "Do you want to dance?" he asked, timidly.
"I don't dance," Neferet said carefully. Then, she saw a familiar face. "Ah, Dividos. How nice to see you," her face lit up as she greeted the god. Dividos was the god of anarchy, and he was only here when he knew Neferet would be. Neferet knew he wanted to give her the power of Anarchy and all that, but she wasn't fond of the thought of subjugating herself to a very sociopathic (and very male) god.
The man made his way over, taller even than Xynox. Dividos as she had called him, was lithe and had purple eyes that looked like they knew something. He had hair much like Xynox's, except that he'd smoothed it down, and cut it so it hung jaggedly in front of his face. He also had a tattoo on his bicep; it was basically a huge circle, black with red edges. Inside it were slashes of white that formed two half circles that only barely intersected at their peaks. Above that was a red "t" like thing, with one arm pointing down and one arm pointing up. There was a slash below the 'arms', and a line of red fog coming off both the top and the bottom. Xynox wondered what it symbolised.
Dividos responded after taking a slow, thorough look at her. "My offer still stands, Saraneth. We could be great. Legendary even," I wondered what he had offered her.
Neferet had a stare down with him, which ended in her letting out a peal of laughter "You haven't changed" she said dryly, frustrated that he refused to give her time to think "This is Xynox, Xynox, this is Dividos," she made introductions, quickly, not telling either who the other was to her.
"It's impossible to wait until the light,
Cause, I'm already gone,
If you bet on me, you've won," Neferet stopped to sing along with the end of the song that had been played in her honor, ending any conversation.
"With a voice like yours, it is truly a shame," Dividos mused, "What is this Xynox to you?" his eyes pierced into hers.
Neferet didn't have a response to the man's question. Xynox is my warrior made her sound vulnerable, He is my consort would not put her in Dividos' favor, and she needed him to help her. Calling him a friend may cause trouble with Xynox, however.
"He is who he is," Neferet replied ambiguously.
Xynox felt uncomfortable. Why didn't Neferet want her friend to know who he was? He wondered if it wasn't so much him as Dividos being shifty… Maybe the tattoo was a sign of his gang involvement. He hoped it was only for that. Neferet then escorted him up to the balcony, again, getting past the doorman simply because she was Neferet. There was a girl with hair so white it practically glowed and blue eyes so dark they looked ominous.
"How does it feel to be second?" the girl demanded, smirking as she said it, in a slightly nasal voice.
"How does it feel knowing you're only a pawn to such a fickle master?" Neferet retorted, refusing to back down so easily.
"I've always been more of a queen, a Tsi Sgili queen," the girl retorted, "Not that you'd know what that's like, Neferet," she drawled out her name, angering Neferet, making her reconsider Dividos' deal. Anything to destroy that girl's smug sense of superiority.
Neferet pushed the taller girl against the wall "I've always been stronger than you, Cyrce," she snapped.
Cyrce pushed Neferet back like an errant child and rounded on Xynox. She pulled up her white dress, looking like the polar opposite of Neferet, and radiating a frigid sensation. She pushed Xynox against the wall and kissed him. Xynox could only describe the sensation as frigid. Like she was made of ice as she tore at his mouth with her own, holding him there with strength that wasn't proportionate to her willowy body.
Neferet felt enraged. There was no more suitable word. She had no Darkness to throw at Cyrce (As she was rationing the little she had left after making Xynox), and she would've sold her blackened soul then and there to be able to hurt her. A possessive feeling swept through Neferet, Cyrce had taken away her calling, taken away her immortality and now she was trying to take away her vessel. Neferet signaled to the DJ to play something new, because the song that was playing now wasn't doing anything for her. The intoxicating voice of Jonathan Davis singing about being alone didn't soothe her but it gave Neferet something decent to listen to.
"I will make it go away
Can't be here no more
Seems this is the only way?
I will soon be gone
these feelings will be gone," she sang along. Finally, Cyrce disentangled herself from Xynox. His lip was bleeding. The smell hit Neferet, adding insult to injury. She had not known how attractive the blood of a vessel could smell. She reached for him. Cyrce tutted and waved her finger at Neferet and dragged Xynox to the dance floor.
Neferet told herself she didn't care. She knew she didn't care. She sang along to the song, refusing to watch Cyrce manhandle her warrior. Neferet had to find Dividos. Dividos could give her Anarchy, he could empower her so she could show Cyrce who she was messing with. The song ended.
A loud, alarm-like riff came on, and Neferet sat back to collect her thoughts. She would let five songs pass, so she didn't appear desperate. Surely, Xynox couldn't get into too much trouble in fifteen minutes.
Xynox wasn't sure why Neferet had let Cyrce pull him off, but she sure as hell was not enjoying this. For one thing, Cyrce was cold. She exuded a chill that cut deep to the bone. Not to mention the way she had octopus hands. Xynox looked up at Neferet, and he saw that the look in her eyes burned. Neferet fixed her eyes on Cyrce and never let them leave her. Xynox had never seen hatred this strong in her eyes… not since she left Tulsa six months ago. Her voice also carried from the balcony "I don't want you, I don't need you;
With Blind eyes I see right through you
I was crawling, always falling,
You don't know what I have been through!" It was enchanting, but the words stung him. Was she trying to tell him something? Cyrce pulled him closer, stifling him as she pulled him to the dance floor. A new song started, and Xynox got into this one. It started with an electronic sound, and then the drums and guitar cut in, sounding sinister. Then, He caught the lyrics "For the beast is coming to life. Taking form in the glimmer in this tainted moonlight" He didn't know what came over him, but he had to sing.
"Death approaches on this night
For the animal's soul is mine
We will be completed right before your eyes
I have no control this time
And now we both shall dine in Hell tonight!" he continued to sing along, as the singer sang about his inner demons, and Xynox sang of the creature he turned into as a side effect of being a vessel.
Xynox stared up at Neferet as he sang the last line of the song "And now we both shall dine in Hell tonight!" She was now looking down at her phone or her hands or something, feigning disinterest.
"Damn you can sing," Cyrce declared, "that voice is something else. I can see why Nefer-ious wanted to keep you all to herself". Cyrce didn't let on that the fact that he looked human was enough to nauseate her.
Xynox wasn't sure what to make of the praise, so he simply said, "Thank you". He didn't think Cyrce would care whether he could sing. She was surely only in it to mess with Neferet… surely.
A/N: the second half of this chapter is in the next chapter. damn word restrictions.
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