*Cut Up Angels pt3 -end-

     Atlanta struggled with that question herself. The way he held her had both of her arms pressed against her sides and immobile. If I can just get them free, I might be able to escape. But she knew her window of opportunity would be small. Velisian was rexinum, and powerful beyond—as she’d learned tonight—anything she’d ever seen.
     Velisian shifted her about in his arms so that his lips could rest against the lobe of her ear. “I could keep you as a pet, make you a collar of silver.” He traced his fingers over her neck slowly, as if marking the place where the cold metal would clamp tight around her. “It would burn so nicely,” he bit his lower lip, “when I kissed you there.”
     The world slid sideways, and a short whimper jerked from Atlanta’s throat. Velisian shuddered almost violently.
     “Mmmm.”
     He rose to his feet in one swift, fluid motion, holding Atlanta to him like a bride, or beloved pet. Panic roared through her, and she couldn’t breathe. Adrenaline was collecting in the back of her throat and low in her stomach desperate to spread warmth and energy out into her muscles. She thought about herself in a magic infused collar, curled about Velisian’s feet in Noir, feeding from him, being food for him, and every night…
     It was too much. She screamed and thrashed about wildly, catching him across the jaw with an elbow, on the hip with a foot, and because the connection of power was open between them, the vampire fell to his knees. Strength and magic raced like electricity through her veins, awakening every inch of her until the world came into hyper focus.
     Altanta leapt clear away from Velisian, landing by her weapons, but she didn’t bend over to pick them up. Her whole body shook from the almost overwhelming force of his magic within her. It felt like one after another, waves crashed against the walls of her skull, bringing with them the promise of power, of magic, and all the secrets to them. Velisian watched her with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance, and Atlanta could barely suppress the frantic tug at her lips. It would be a crazy smile, and so she fought it.
     His thoughts seemed to flow between them, half phrases and broken thoughts, but she gathered that he meant to hurt her again. The pain was quick, just a shallow knick to the left cheek as the air snapped against her skin splitting it open and spilling blood like water. Face wounds always bled like that, but the cut above her brow no longer seemed to be weeping crimson into her eye. She reached up and touched it, but the skin there was smooth. A crazed twitch caught up her cheek, but she fought it back down. So this was the power of a blood-bond.
     She could feel his energy, cold and slightly sharp, pool against her cheek and re-knit the cells in her cheek until it was whole again. Velisian watched with a sort of frightening fascination. His thoughts reeked of inflicting wounds that would always heal, of being able to cut into her delicate flesh without pausing for lack of room. He could carve his name along her spine every night, and she would be whole and perfect to do it again by the following sunset. She could be his ultimate plaything.
     “Back off,” Atlanta growled, finding her voice somewhere between her throat and stomach.
     Velisian shook his head and stalked slowly closer. “Now Atlanta, my little huntress, you belong to me. Fighting it is useless, though I don’t mind you trying.” His grin shone dangerously white in the muted darkness, and the rain continued to fall like tiny, heavy, fists against her head and shoulders.
     The wind snapped again, against her neck, and Atlanta grunted as the muscles around it spasmed in reaction to the violence. Velisian’s joy spilled over into her and the connection spread. She could hear almost all of his thoughts now, and had to make a conscious effort to think nothing herself. Metaphysical connections almost always went both ways.
     Very slowly, she knelt down and curled her fingers around the ivory hilt of her enchanted blade, Veradoku Exilt. The green metal sparked to life in her hand and developed only the faintest of glows, producing no more light than would have reflected from the moon. But there was no moon tonight.
     “We both know what will happen even if you lay that blade on me, Atlanta.” And she did. She’d have to get in close to use it, it wasn’t a throwing blade, and in Velisian’s mind pain braided with pleasure until there was no difference, and both brought him a certain satisfaction. She wouldn’t be able to kill him with that first strike, and then she’s be within his arm’s reach, and he would have her.
     But Atlanta wasn’t going to use the blade.
     She held it out in front of her horizontally, a challenge. “We’ll see.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own, and she could feel a rush of excitement thrill up her spine. She knew it was backwash from Velisian she felt, there was no joy left in her for excitement at that moment. Just survival. Velisian didn’t move. “I’m waiting,” Atlanta told him, the blade still out. She could feel his eyes focused on it, taking in each drop of rain as it pelted the metal, making it jerk just slightly in her hand.
     “Very well, Atlanta, if you’re so hungry for pain, then have it.” She closed her eyes and listened intently down the connection, feeling the way he pulled the power together like stretching out a rubber band, building tension, and let it snap.
     The pain seared through her right side, and that knee almost gave out, but Atlanta fought the urge to grasp at the wound. Her neck was already almost completely healed, and now she had a better weapon. The connection shivered almost hot, and very much alive between them. She pulled it deeper into herself, building the tension the exact same way Velisian had, until she couldn’t hold it any longer, and almost blindly she let it go.
     The flesh of Velisian’s chest split in several haphazard but ragged slashes, and the vampire shuddered to his knees. Atlanta could feel the pull of his magic to heal the wounds and with whatever metaphysical presence she had, she clamped down over it. It wasn’t enough to stop the flow of magic, but it slowed it some.
     Velisian knelt in the mud, running his hands over the wounds laughing painfully, and shaking his head. Atlanta held her ground, afraid that if she got too close he’d leap up and wrap those long pale fingers around her throat, asking, “So was it good for you too?”
     “Alright!” Velisian coughed, spitting blood into his hand and then lapped it up again. His voice was much quieter as he repeated, “Alright.” He looked up at her, a mixture of pain and desire doing battle in the cold blue of his eyes. “You’ve won tonight, Atlanta, I’ll let you go.” And just like that the flow of magic between them stopped, and Atlanta staggered, falling back onto her but in the mud.
     “Shit,” she grunted, forcing herself back to her feet. The wound in her side had not completely healed, and now that the connection was gone exhaustion was forcing its way into her brain.
     Velisian also shoved himself to his feet, slowly enough that Atlanta could tell he wasn’t entirely pleased with his injuries, but he managed to smile at her anyhow. “You’re still mine, as was your ancestor, as will be your descendants. So until we meet again keep well.”
    He turned and walked away then, and it was all Atlanta could do not to try and plant a blade between his shoulders. He looked so strange to her, as if at that moment he could have been anyone walking home in the rain. The back of his shirt was untouched, not the slightest hint of blood, and the shoulder length blond hair dangled in a human-like tangle down his neck. But he was ethereal at that moment too, a wounded soldier returning home to recover.
     Atlanta would have been lying if she said she didn’t admire that.
     She held her blade out once more, pointed towards the earth, the symbol of a truce, even if only for tonight. Then she collected her things and made her own way home.