Chapter Text
Sasha hugged the frightened child tightly, pressing the cooling, trembling body onto hers, "Hush, love, there will be no more pain," and mercifully snapped her neck in one swift movement. The girl sank to the floor. A motionless, cold heap.
Ludmil looked at her with shallow pity and pressed his fingers, still wet from the girl's earlier arousal, to his bloodied lips, "Weren't you a feast, my dear,". He licked the fingers in one slow, deliberate motion and hummed approvingly as the salty wetness mixed with metallic bitterness on his lips.
...
She came upon him like a shadow.
Ludmil never had a chance. He barely had time to put his besmirched hand down from his lips as a thin leather strip twisted around his neck, inevitable like death. Even a vampire couldn't mock Her forever.
"That was not very kind. You should have let her die with dignity," the strap was wringing into his neck, forcing him to tilt his head back and look up through his dark lashes at Sasha. The black robe and the stern face made her the perfect image of a rightful judge. He sure was ready to plead guilty to feel her sweet punishment. Still, for the sake of argument, he retorted, "My dear, it was a mercy," tinged with lust as it was, this time his hoarseness came not from arousal but mostly from the choking sensation around his throat.
There was a hand in his hair, and for a moment, one could hope Sasha would be as merciful as he was. Silly. She grabbed a fistful of dark curls and pulled it hard, forcing him to tilt his head even lower, almost resting on her shoulder now. "Don't lie to me", a cold whisper, full of not disappointment but contempt.
Ludmil swallowed, his throat visibly fighting against the confinement, almost suffocating. But the accompanying grin was still bright if visibly strained, "Seeing as I am entirely at your mercy, you may deal with me as you please. Torture though it may be." Lust dripping from his words belied this confession most outrageously.
But being unable to bring the true justice upon all their heads, hers included, Sasha leapt at the idea of excising at least some of it. She pushed Ludmil from her with so much force he almost stumbled, "Strip. Keep the Holy symbol on", the order was delivered with a low, dry voice. In her days as the burgomaster of Barovia, she might have used the very same tone to instruct a young page to deliver a letter or to fetch her a glass of wine or any other mundane tasks one did not really care about except that they were executed. Ludmil still took the chance to deliver a show and slowly pulled the black robes over the head. Naked except for the holy regalia gleaming on his dark chest, his long hair tousled, he already looked debauched. Yet Sasha turned away. Bored with the display of bare flesh, she examined the whip and replaced it with a more suitable one, not even looking back to throw another order over her shoulder. "On your hands and knees." Ludmil did not lose any of his elegance as he obeyed, willing to pretend at being helpless in this exquisite game.
The pretence slipped, as the whip left its first bite on the soft skin of his buttocks. There was no blood, but the angry scar did not smooth after a few seconds as it normally would. Ludmil yelped. High and undignified. Fresh blood pulsed in his temples. Sudden sweat burned along the thin mark curling along the skin. Etching the skin away. Sasha looked down at the whimpering mess of a mighty vampire then back at her hand holding the blessed snake whip. Her palm was already turning red and starting to blister. The Blessing did not distinguish between the hangman and the convicted. They were all guilty. Sasha gripped the whip even harder, ignoring the nausea. She pressed the cleansing leather deeper into her skin until the pain threatened to overwhelm her. Another blow cut through the air and landed with a wet sound. This time it sliced through his back, and Ludmil tried to crawl away, not even pretending to salvage his dignity. Yet another whiplash caught him on the side before he could hide beneath the benches, and now he was howling, a disturbing sound, drawn-out, almost lewd in its raw intensity, "Mercy!"
Sasha was in a cold frenzy of her own, the smooth hair in disarray, the pulsating throb in her hand crawling up her body, clutching her chest and making her almost dizzy with pain. Lightheaded. Or maybe it was the satisfaction of delivering the long-deserved justice on all the guilty ones that made her head swimming and spinning in such a delicious way.
Another bite fell on the caramel-coloured buttocks. His skin was so creamy and soft and pliable for the holy carvings. And yet, as he arched his back, covered in sweat and shivering from the pain creeping up his body like a fever, his eyes were hooded with a unique kind of delight. He placed his forehead on his elbow, panting against the floor, roughly palming himself to the beat of the pulsing agony radiating from the sore wounds on his backside and all the way down to his groin. "Mercy," he sighed and arched and whined, every bit as desperate as he claimed, as his skin turned red and ugly and open. As blood trickled between his buttocks and down the inner side of his tights. "Mercy," he whispered as he drowned in the truest sensation he felt in decades burning through his skin where the Blessed lash scratched him raw. In one last moan of a wrung-out relief until the darkness redeemed him. "Mercy..." choked out from a half-unconscious body was the only time it felt honest falling from a vampire's tongue.