A Visit: The Raven at the Gate
a quiet night becomes tumultuous due to unpleasant confrontations with the hatchlings and powers you neither fully understand nor control. the help you're offered is a double-edged sword.
->meanvamps. contains mind control, non-consensual touching, predator/prey dynamic. also on ao3.
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You wake three times that night. The first time, to pressure; hands on your hands, pinning them to the pillows. A body astride yours. Someone humming under their breath. The eyes of a beast glint in the dark.
“Calm,” the nightmare says, so you are calm. Screaming doesn’t even occur to you.
Someone inhales and exhales against your neck and noses along your jaw, nuzzling, taking in your scent. You feel a rumbling animal noise like a wolf growling, considering, and then a sharp huff. You sense acceptance. Primal and pragmatic approval. You are part of the flock now. Sharp teeth nip at your pulse with shallow bites, prodding but never breaking the skin.
Someone else’s fearful reluctance pricks your heart like a thorn. You are of the flock, yes, but you are still dangerous. The hands holding yours down push harder, growing sharp at the ends.
“Someone,” the nightmare hisses, “should clip your wings.”
You wake up the second time gasping and flailing, thrashing your body until you’ve kicked away the blankets and knocked everything off the bedside table. Scrunched up against the headboard, you scan the room once, twice, a third time before your panicked heartbeat slows and starts to settle. You’re alone. One of Athanasius’ ornate lamps has been reduced to colorful shrapnel, shards of stained glass scattered across the wood floor.
Someone knocks. The sound makes you flinch. “Sacrament?” you hear. Athanasius doesn’t wait for an answer. His silhouette fills your doorway, haloed by another lamp in the hall. “Oh dear,” he says. “Stay where you are. I will retrieve a dustpan.”
“I thought you told him to stay out of my room,” you say.
“I did. Another discussion is in order, it seems.”
“A discussion?” The sharpness in your tone takes him by surprise. Athanasius pauses, half-melded into shadows, and turns back towards you. “What if he hurts me next time?” you ask.
“He will not.”
“How do you know that?”
You hear a soft sigh but Athanasius is quiet a moment longer. He steps through the doorway and comes to kneel at your bedside. Glass crunches beneath his feet. He holds out his hand, palm up, waiting, silently asking for yours. You don’t move. “My apologies, sacrament. For you to be so fearful here, in my care, is unacceptable. Permit me another chance to prove my sincerity and the safety of my convenire.”
“You say that like I have a choice,” you mutter.
You can’t really see him. He’s just another shadow, a graceful outline drawn in the gold spilling in from the hall. But he’s smiling. You can sense it. There’s a subtle shift in the connection between you, blooming warmth and delight.
“I seem to recall offering you a lesson in self-defense,” he says.
You ignore the needling sensation of his satisfaction when you sit up straighter. “Yeah. You did.”
“I believe there will be an opportunity this evening, should you wish to take it.”
You don’t agree right away. He doesn’t push and he doesn’t leave, either. You find yourself studying him in the dark and feel scrutinized in return. This is no different than his plea for another chance. He presents the inevitable as something you can enjoy and hopes you mistake that for a choice.
The silence stretches on and your pulse hammers in your ears. You’re struck by the terrifying thought that he might be content to stay there, knelt at your side, for hours or days or however long it takes to get what he wants. Elders measure time differently. Their patience is unfathomable. Your plan has been to play along, wait him out, and seize your moment, whenever it comes. He has to get frustrated or bored eventually.
Athanasius tilts his head slightly, a smile stretching across his face like he’s listening along to your turbulent thoughts. Your moment, you realize, is never coming. The sun will die before he loses focus and lets you slip away.
“I really would like to let you roam beyond the convenire,” he says gently, like you need convincing. “And I know you would like more independence. The freedom to go where you please without a chaperone. It would put my mind at ease if I knew you could protect yourself.”
You search his face for a lie but you have no idea what to look for. For something as old as him, deception might be second-nature. “Don’t let Mihai come in here again,” you say.
“I will not allow him to disturb you. I give you my word,” he says. He holds his hand out again. This time, reluctantly, you take it. He doesn’t pull you out of bed. His fingers curl around yours and he brings your wrist to his mouth. He shuts his eyes and kisses your pulse three times, pausing between each with a soft inhale. The air in the room feels unbearably heavy when he opens his eyes again, gazing up at you through his dark lashes.
He’s not smiling. His breath comes quick and shallow, his gaze somehow both intently focused and distant, looking through and beyond you. His hand wraps tightly around yours and squeezes until it starts to hurt. Your wince and the small, discomforted noise you make snaps him out of it, whatever it is. He lets you go and smiles easily like nothing happened. He says something about tidying the floor and taking your time getting ready, and then he’s gone, dissipating as shadows.
That was important, you understand. Meaningful to him somehow. Your wrist still tingles.
Athanasius comes and goes with a dustpan and garbage bag, sweeping up what remains of the lamp. You dress for a workout and slip out of your room, but you don’t make it halfway down the hall before someone pulls you to a stop and corners you against the wall.
You’re expecting Mihai. You’re absolutely not expecting Orion, his chest heaving under a clinging tank top and his smile terse. “Hey there,” he says. He sounds winded. When you try to slip around him, he cages you in, resting his hand on the wall beside you. “Hey, so, I’m just wondering. Where were you the other night?”
You try going the other way and he stops you with a hand on your shoulder. “Athanasius made Renaud take me to work,” you say, hoping he’ll back off if he gets an answer.
He doesn’t. You see his jaw clench, a slow swallow working down his throat. “Oh, yeah? So that tattoo place, right? What’d you do there?”
“Can you back off a little?” you ask, pushing his chest. He doesn’t budge.
“You let him fuck you,” Orion says. It sounds like an accusation. You sputter an excuse, a casual deflection, but his thumb brushes back and forth on your shoulder and you feel him slip into your mind like a stone thrown into a lake, disrupting your conscious thoughts with a ripple of sudden intrusion. Shock flickers across his face but then he plasters on his usual easy grin and leans in closer. “Hey, hey, no worries. I don’t judge. It’s just, y’know, I hope you’re not too attached. He sleeps around a lot and, like, between you and me, he only fucks people he hates.” He slides his fingers along the side of your neck. “Messy bite, too,” he murmurs. “You liked mine better. Right?”
You try to say no but the word won’t come out. You’re lightheaded and the hallway starts to look hazy, the light dimmer, the colors all running together the way they do when you’re slipping under someone’s mesmerism. You make a quiet, frightened noise in your throat because your mouth won’t open.
“Don’t be embarrassed. That’s normal, y’know.” He strokes your arm from your shoulder to your wrist and back up again, caressing your neck. It’s getting harder to stand up straight. You have to lean back against the wall and that just makes Orion press even closer, his breath warming your lips. “You’ve been thinking about it, too, yeah? You want me to bite you again. Right?”
You want it. You shake your head frantically and you make a muted, miserable sound, but you’re turning your head and craning your neck, giving him everything he wants. It feels like a nightmare. He keeps you from bolting with a slow, steady stroke up and down your arm, but you’re still conscious, too aware for his mesmerism to dull the terror you feel at losing control. Your body obeys and your mind riots.
Something crackles like small branches snapping. The subtle wintry scent of magic fills the air.
Orion lurches back from your neck and takes you by the shoulders, squeezing. He’s trying to talk to you. His mouth moves but you can’t hear him over the ringing in your ears, and the voice of his mesmerism is like a meaningless murmur coming from another room. He turns, still gripping your shoulders, and yells something down the hall. You’ve never seen him so afraid.
The shadows around him stir. Renaud slips from the dark on his right and then he freezes, wide-eyed and shrinking back like a frightened animal at the sight of you. Athanasius surges out of the dark already reaching for you, curling his hand beneath your chin and wrenching your gaze upwards, away from the hatchlings. It happens too quickly for you to see him clearly but you feel flickering embers in your connection, pinpricks of surprise that flare into a conflagration of conflicted emotion. Excitement and wariness, hope and dread, eagerness and resignation; it all comes at once, all inextricably tangled together. Before you can make sense of it, the full force of his mesmerism comes in a drowning wave and you are gone again.
*
The third time, you wake in slow motion. Coming back to yourself is a gentle process under Athanasius’ precise control. He releases your senses one at a time, keeping everything foggy and dreamlike as long as he can. You smell the rust and spices of hot, fragrant blood-tea. You feel the plush warmth of a heavy blanket stretched over your body. You’re woozy and sore, feeling like one big bruise. The room is a blur at first but it sharpens, the shapes and shadows within becoming recognizable silhouettes.
Table and armchair. Ornate picture frames. The gray stone of the fireplace and the sleek black screen of a TV above it. You’re in the parlor, on the couch. Someone is nearby, next to you, petting your head. Someone is in the armchair. A conversation is happening without you.
“…would not be opposed to an official inquiry?”
“Your travels have taken you through Envred before. I need not tell you how they are likely to respond to such accusations.”
“Pride is for the bird whose nest is well-tended. What right do they have to refuse?”
“We must do this quietly.”
A long pause. A soft sigh. Athanasius speaks with a quiet viciousness you’ve never heard from him before. “You show restraint when it vexes me most. They do not deserve our respect or our discretion. They deserve nothing. Do you know how many witches a single compound murders in the span of a month? A year? When I think of that filth trespassing into other territories—”
“Athanasius.”
The hand on your head stops for a moment and then resumes its ministrations, even more gently than before. “Good evening, sacrament,” Athanasius says, honey-sweet once again. You squirm out of his lap and curl up on the far end of the couch, and he smiles patiently. The only light in the room flickers in a faint glow from tealights on the coffee table, glinting in the eyes of the nightbound watching you.
You don’t recognize the one in the armchair. It’s not one of the hatchlings. Half-lit, you only see part of a stern, solemn face and pensive frown. His hair is long and dark like Athanasius’, falling over one shoulder in glossy waves. You can just make out a black vest and a pinstriped shirt underneath. Legs crossed, stiff and upright posture like he’s posing for a portrait. He leans forward to set a saucer and teacup on the table and as he nears the light, the shadows peeling back from the rest of his face, you realize it’s not a stranger after all.
It’s Lord Regent Avudim.
“My, you look surprised,” he says, chuckling at the unabashed horror on your face.
“What are you doing here?” you say.
“I am visiting an old friend and confidant whose opinion I hold in high regard.” He shares a look with Athanasius that you can’t even begin to interpret. They’re smiling, but it doesn’t reach their eyes. Athanasius exhales wearily but he brightens again when he turns back to you.
“How are you feeling, sacrament?” he asks. He looks you over briefly. His gaze lingers somewhere below your face. “I apologize if there is any lingering discomfort.”
The question isn’t fully formed in your mouth before you realize what he’s looking at. Everything hurts, but your arm is the worst. The pain is deep and dull, an ache buried in your muscles that throbs when they flex or move in particular ways. You find a bandage plastered to your shoulder when you push up your sleeve. You look to Athanasius for answers and find him staring back at you with uncomfortably intense curiosity.
“Do you recall the incident at the Council meeting when you were sentenced to sacramental service?” he asks. He’s watching you carefully as he speaks, paying attention to your defensive posture, the way your hands clutch at the blanket and your shoulders draw further inward. “You attempted to use your magic in a haphazard manner and lost control of it.”
“I never really had control of it. Since, you know, I never had the chance to learn,” you remind him.
He continues calmly like you never spoke. “You had a similar incident once again this evening. I was unable to completely subdue your magic even after rendering you unconscious, and saw fit to administer antiarcanic injections.” He pauses. It doesn’t matter how well you maintain a stoic facade. You know he’s catching the scent of sweat and hearing your pulse pick up from a saunter to a nervous gallop. “You received three times the recommended dose. I was reluctant to continue but your magic would not respond to anything less. Any witch in your position would be incapacitated for some time and feel quite unwell upon waking. Unless…”
He trails off and tilts his head, as if inviting you to finish the thought. The silence stretches on uncomfortably. Is there any point in stalling or trying to lie? You know how nightbound interrogations work. You wonder what they’re even fishing for. They probably know already. You know Edmund found every little sentimental trinket you had stashed away back home because they’ve all quietly appeared in bags and boxes, delivered to your room by Athanasius with a coy smile. He must’ve found your stash of antiarcanics stuffed under the mattress, too. You’d kept them in an innocuous plastic case, packed them between sheets of painkillers and stacks of bandages so it looked like a first aid kit, but you’re sure that didn’t stop him from rifling through it anyway.
“No, it did not. We teach our agents to be thorough,” Avudim says. He chuckles at your withering expression. You shouldn’t be surprised. You feel him in the same place you feel Athanasius, a gentle, squeezing pressure on your mind. Maybe fledglings like Edmund need to put you under completely, but elders only need connection to get a foothold in your thoughts. He hums in approval and smiles condescendingly. You remember, as vividly as you can, the night you climbed onto the Council meeting stage. You imagine the Lord Regent dead beneath you with a dagger through the heart.
In retaliation, Avudim imagines you at his mercy instead. Not as it truly happened; worse. He thinks of you stretched sensually across that table, your arms above your head, your neck bared, chest heaving with quick breaths and heart racing in both fear and desire. You are dressed in nothing but a translucent robe that drapes heavily like silk, so thin and sheer that your skin shows wherever it settles against your body. It is white for now, but you know it’ll bloom scarlet wherever they feed. Avudim’s fingers curl beneath your chin, tilting your face to look up at his sharp, hungry smile as the Council descends like wolves upon a trembling deer—
And then it’s gone, the vision wiped from your mind. You’re still trembling. You feel hot and tingling as though still shaking off the euphoria of being fed upon. Avudim sips his blood-tea with his eyes shut as though nothing happened.
“Enough,” Athanasius says. “Do not test the Lord Regent, sacrament. It concerns me greatly that you have used antiarcanics so recklessly in the past.” He raises his hand just as you open your mouth, anticipating an argument. “Yes, I know, you did so out of necessity, and so we must ensure it is no longer necessary. It is clear to me now that what I considered ‘rewards’ are, in fact, rather urgent matters that must be attended to sooner rather than later. Your magic lessons will begin once I have finished developing a lesson plan and will continue until you are no longer a danger to yourself or others. The Lord Regent has generously offered to teach you self-defense—”
“No,” you say.
Avudim doesn’t even look surprised. He does a poor job disguising his smile behind his hand, feigning a thoughtful expression. Athanasius tilts his head and looks at you patiently, as though waiting for you to explain yourself.
“I don’t want to learn from him,” you say, watching the Lord Regent out of the corner of your eye. “I’m already sore.”
“It will not be like last time. He will teach you, not simply seek to exhaust and humiliate you,” Athanasius insists.
You look at Avudim again. He looks at you, smiling innocently. “Then you have to stay,” you tell Athanasius.
“Of course. I will escort him from the premises myself if he does not conduct himself appropriately.”
They look at each other again and this time you notice subtle movements. Narrowed eyes. The twitch of an almost-smile. They must be talking telepathically. The conversation moves even faster than the ones you’ve seen between the hatchlings and they’re better at hiding it. You wonder how long they’ve known each other and how much power Athanasius truly holds in Skelveross.
“We will begin with a lesson on predation,” the Lord Regent announces.
He stands gracefully and Athanasius follows, the two of them pushing the furniture towards the walls and making a wide open space in the middle of the parlor. The light leaves with the candles and you find yourself swarmed by shadows. The nightbound are just outlines and glinting eyes again, swift shapes that make you flinch whenever they move. You can’t tell them apart anymore. You can only assume that the one that comes closer is Avudim and the other, drifting over to the fireplace, is Athanasius.
“Let us pretend that you are alone in the night, somewhere beyond the convenire,” Avudim says. “It is dark. You cannot see well. But you know you are being followed. And then…” He starts pacing around you in a slow circle. It doesn’t matter that this is just a lesson, that he’s in Athanasius’ convenire and you know he won’t hurt you. Your heart is in your throat. “You should always keep an eye on that which preys upon you,” he chides. You find his eyes in the dark and hear a chuckle. “Good. Maintain eye contact. We are ambush predators by nature. A traditionalist will always prefer to take you by surprise. Now, you will move towards safety.”
“What does that mean?” you ask. You glance away for just a moment, searching for Athanasius, and the air stirs around you. You feel breath warming the back of your neck and a hand clutching your shoulder.
“Do not lose sight of me,” Avudim murmurs, so close you can feel his words against your skin. “But yes, your instincts are correct. Go where you are protected. Try again.”
He vanishes, his touch and his breath suddenly absent. You turn back and forth, spinning in place trying to find him again, but he never reappears. Athanasius watches, unmoving. Should you go to him? Is it safe? You take a step closer but it doesn’t feel right. Wasn’t Athanasius next to the fireplace? That’s the other side of the room. At least, you think it is. You’ve stumbled around too much to know for sure. A wall. That’s what you need. A way to get your bearings. You move with your hands outstretched, searching for something familiar.
“Very good,” you hear. “If you are denied one sense, use another.”
There are two sets of eyes in the room again and you watch them both, backing away slowly. Which way is safety? Neither one moves. Your shoulder knocks into the wall and a rush of dread pulls your gaze away for barely a second, not even a blink, but that’s all a nightbound needs. All you see is more darkness, the lights in front of you vanishing, but you feel movement, sense the sudden oppressive presence of something standing too close and caging you in. An arm rests against the wall beside your head. A hand cups your jaw. You jolt in surprise but there’s nowhere to go, and he tightens his grip to keep you there.
“Fear leads you astray. Look at me. Look carefully.”
You move purely on instinct when he leans in, trying to push him away. He’s too close. You feel his hand gripping your shoulder to keep you still and his breath warming your neck. There’s nothing to see. You don’t know what he wants from you. He’s just another shadow in a room full of them but there, in the far corner--points of light. Athanasius. His eyes shift slightly as though he’s raised his head in pride.
“You are accustomed to fleeing at the first sign of danger. But you must know where a predator lurks before you choose which way to run.” Avudim grazes his thumb over your pulse and then he tugs you away from the wall by the shoulder. “Once more. Find what hunts you first. Find safety second.”
Movement churns in the dark, shadows rearranging. You steady yourself and scan the room carefully. The first set of eyes you find is distant and closing in, pacing just as he did the first time. You follow with your eyes, never letting him see your back. You move when he does, a step back for each he takes forward. Suddenly, you feel warmth. Fondness. The connection between you floods with cloying affection, the same sensation you always get when the Lord Regent smiles at you like a cute, mischievous animal. Angry and flustered, you almost look away.
You can’t see it, but you can tell by feel that he’s grinning. “Good. Very good,” he says.
“That’s not fair,” you mutter, your face burning.
“We are never fair when we hunt.”
Another slow turn around the room and you finally spot a second pair of eyes. The relief you feel is almost embarrassing. You resist the urge to bolt. Patience. That’s what he’s trying to teach you. Don’t rush and don’t give yourself away. You mirror his movements, pacing the room again, until you know Athanasius is behind you. You step backward without looking until you run into something.
A hand gently clasps your shoulder. You nearly collapse in relief. Their touch is different. You know even before you hear a pleased hum over your head and a soft, “Well done, sacrament.”
“Yes, well done. You are very trainable,” Avudim says, sounding far too happy about it for your liking. “My apologies, but the rest of your lessons must occur another night. There is an urgent matter that requires my attention. I recommend the exercise we practiced this evening in the meantime. I have no doubt the hatchlings would be eager to assist you.”
“I bet they would,” you mutter. You’d rather not get within reach of Orion or Mihai right now. Maybe you could talk Renaud into it. Athanasius rubs your shoulder in reassurance and then brushes past you. “Hey, wait, uh…”
“Yes, sacrament?” He stands beneath the archway where the parlor ends and a meandering hallway begins, the Lord Regent just beyond it.
The cold light of their eyes fixed upon you makes your heart race all over again. It was just a game, you think. That lesson just now, stumbling around in the dark, was never going to hurt you. But the danger felt so real. Even now, knowing it’s over, you want to bolt. It’s only Athanasius’ presence that gives you the strength to stand still. That’s safety, after all. Him and the convenire--that’s where you run.
“Where, um. Where are you going?” you ask. The dread is back. Not the same immediate sense of danger as when Avudim hunted you. A subtler, creeping thing. A bad feeling.
“I always see guests to the door. It is polite,” he says simply. You nod. The lights shift; he’s tilted his head. He doesn’t say anything when you follow them both down the hall, staying close to Athanasius’ side. He doesn’t have to. Through the connection, he can feel your nerves and your wariness, your unwillingness to be alone in the dark and something else. Something bitter and disappointed.
Athanasius’ hand settles on your lower back. He means to be reassuring but it just makes everything worse. Tonight’s lesson was not about self-defense the way you hoped but the way they understand it. They’re nightbound. You’ll never have the upper hand, and why would they want you to? The best thing they can do is train you to seek protection from the proper places. To love and rely upon the bars of your cage.At the front of the manor, Athanasius and Avudim exchange shallow bowing gestures. The Lord Regent bids you goodnight and Athanasius locks the door behind him.
The heavy click of the metal bolt sliding into place doesn’t scare you, but the sense of safety and peace it brings does.