Chapter 5
Kriss stood in front of the huge picture window of their penthouse with a bottle of Kat’s famous Heat in one hand and an oversized wineglass in the other. He wanted to get drunk but his annoyingly swift metabolism wouldn’t allow him to gain the release he craved for more than a few moments at a time.
Becoming frustrated, his hand tightened around the glass, accidently shattering it in his palm as he remembered seeing Vincent’s face for the first time in countless years. Granted, Vincent wouldn’t remember the encounter since Storm had turned time around… but Kriss would never forget that expression of hatred Vincent had directed at him.
In rejection of that hatred, he rebelliously looked back on memories of his childhood, to the time when Vincent had felt the exact opposite for him.
He hadn’t been in this world long when Dean had taken off to stop a horde of demons that were headed right in their direction. He’d waited, alone, hiding among the huge rocks at the base of a cliff, following Dean’s strict orders to stay hidden and quiet… that this place was safe.
Dean had been right for the most part though. For days, Kriss hadn’t seen any animals… much less humans or demons. It was the first time in his life that he had ever been left alone. The surrounding silence was only feeding the feeling of abandonment and fear as he waited… missing the love he’d received in his home world… missing the warmth and security that Dean had given him in this one.
It had been in the middle of the night when Kriss heard the sound of falling pebbles coming from somewhere above him. He’d leaned back against one of the rocks and looked up at the face of the cliff where the light of the crescent moon barely touched it… only to see shadowy figures of several demons crawling down the face of it towards him.
His attention was riveted on the way their blood red eyes glowed as they watched him watching them, and the way their almost human like bodies contorted in the creepiest of ways as they descended. His eyesight sharpened, allowing him to see that their unclothed flesh appeared to be burnt and deeply scarred, as if they had just emerged from some unseen fire. Kriss could even smell the rotting of roasted meat as they grew closer.
He had been so frightened that he’d crawled backwards over the high bolder and fell off the other side, landing hard on a cluster of small sharp rocks that jutted up from the ground much like spikes. Finding that he’d been stabbed in several places, he struggled to rise from the rocks without doing more damage to his already wounded body.
The moment the scent of his untainted Fallen blood caught the breeze, he could hear their sharp claws scraping the rocks quicker as their descent became frantic, and several hard thuds, indicating some of the demons had simply jumped from their height in order to reach him first.
The silence was gone now… their disturbing screams echoing off the rocks, making it sound like there was so many more than there really were.
Scrambling across the rocks to get away, he only succeeded in ripping his clothes and tearing his flesh in several more places before he could get to solid footing and finally stand up.
Turning full circle, Kriss realized it was too late to run or hide… he was surrounded by demons and they were so much bigger than his small child’s size. He stood, frozen to the spot, as long clawed fingers came from behind him to wrap around his face. The sharp claws sliced into the bridge of his nose and soft cheeks as the demon drug him backwards, then abruptly jerked him up into the air as if showing him off to the other demons.
He’d never had to fight in his world and Dean had never allowed him to fight in this one. There was a fleeting moment where he wondered if letting them gobble him up wouldn’t be better than being left alone in this scary place. That thought quickly vanished when pain suddenly penetrated his shock, causing his instinct for survival to kick in with a vengeance.
With tears blurring his vision, Kriss had barely won his first fight to the death. Silence once again reigned across the area and he glanced down at what was in his hand just in time to see the illuminated Fallen Blade vanish from his bloody grip.
Feeling something weighing down his other hand, he slowly turned his head to look and saw the demonic eyes staring blankly up at him. His hand was in the thing’s mouth… gripping its jaw... he didn’t know where the rest of its body had gone. He accidently scraped his knuckles on its pointed teeth when he quickly yanked his hand out of the demon’s mouth and dropped the head to the ground.
Kriss felt nothing as it rolled away from him then got hung up on a rock that had poked it right in its ugly eye. He thought he heard someone laughing but decided it must have come from inside him somewhere because everything else was dead.
Unable to handle the rancid smell or the sight of their mutilated bodies, he’d turned away and started numbly walking toward the streaks of light that were just appearing over the hills in the distance.
Kriss didn’t know how long he had walked… or even how many days it had been before he heard the strange sound of rhythmic stomping somewhere ahead of him. He’d stood there swaying, trying not to cry, and waiting to see if he would have to fight yet again. Demon blood… he could smell it.
It wasn’t long before he saw a human man riding an animal towards him. Parts of the man’s body was covered in some kind of woven metal and Kriss could see the long sword strapped to his back… the hilt of it sticking out within easy reach. Not seeing any blood on the man, he realized that he was the one covered in demon blood… had been wearing it this whole time.
That had been his first encounter with Vincent. They had stared at each other as the man approached and Kriss took several steps back when he quickly slid from the big animal. His frightened gaze went back to the dangerous looking sword.
“Don’t trust anyone except me.” The memory of Dean’s voice echoed inside his head in warning and Kriss turned around to flee.
“Wait… don’t run,” Vincent had called out.
The tone of his voice reminded Kriss of Dean, making him become confused in what he should do. He was so tired of trying to figure it all out. He glanced back to make sure that the man hadn’t drawn his sword while he wasn’t looking.
Vincent breathed a sigh of relief when the child paused and glanced back at him with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. The last couple villages he’d passed were a bloody mess and he hadn’t found any survivors until now. Even dirty and covered in blood… the boy seemed healthy and very scared, leading him to draw the conclusion that he was indeed a survivor of one of the villages.
“Where are your parents?” he asked, letting the concern lace his voice in hope of winning the child’s trust.
Where were his parents? The question had made Kriss feel so sad. His father wasn’t even in this dimension and had probably forgotten all about him by now… Dean had left him and never returned. Kriss felt the warmth of tears make new trails down his cheeks. The only answer he could give was a slow shake of his head as he turned around to face the man.
“Are you hurt,” Vincent had asked as he came and knelt down in front of Kriss so his height wouldn’t be as intimidating to the young boy… he couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. He slowly reached out and palmed the dirty cheek, rubbing with the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tears.
Kriss reminded himself of what this human man must be thinking when he looked at him… that he was covered in blood and wearing clothes that were barely more than tatters. Since almost all of his injuries had already healed and knowing better than to tell a human what had really happened, he answered with the only other thing that was the truth.
“I’m all alone now.” He’d started crying for real then… loud wails mixed with the sound of hick-ups, causing Vincent to pull him into his arms… whispering that it was alright now… that he would protect and care for him.
And Vincent had protected him… to the point of sacrificing his own life.
The pain of glass cutting into his palm brought Kriss back to the present. He opened his fist seeing the glass shard sticking out of it.
This was what Dean found when he stepped out of the bathroom from his shower. He frowned seeing Kriss standing there picking a glass shard out of his palm. Slamming the door behind him caused the other Fallen to flinch and their eyes locked in the window’s reflection. He wasn't in the mood to watch his lover morn his childhood crush all over again. Once had been more than enough.
Kriss took a deep breath trying to ease the ache in his chest. “I never thought I’d see him again Dean. Part of me actually hoped he would have forgiven me by now. I was just trying to save his life.”
“He was mortal Kriss. You did much more than simply save his life and you know it,” Dean said tonelessly. “Because of you, he can now experience the pain of death for eternity and revive to bitch about it. The human mind can only take so much. That’s why their lifespan is made to be short.”
“I know,” Kriss growled. “You’ve never hesitated in reminding me of that fact. I made a selfish decision but I was all alone in a world where demons roamed free, and I didn’t think you were coming back. You were gone so long that I was afraid the demons had killed you… I didn’t want to lose him too.”
Dean sighed and tried to keep his temper under control. “You would have known the moment something happened to me, so your fear was for nothing.”
“I was a child Dean,” Kriss snapped back. “All I wanted was someone to care for me and to let me care for them in return.”
“You’re such a bleeding heart,” Dean mocked, well aware that the adolescent prince had fallen in love with the Knight during his absence. That little fact had been a hard pill to swallow as he’d watched Kriss mourn the loss of his love. He gritted his teeth wondering if Kriss would once more become obsessed with his childhood crush.
Kriss flung the bottle of Heat across the room making Dean leaned slightly to the side so he didn’t get hit by it. “Go screw yourself Dean.”
Dean squared his shoulders, “There’s my bratty prince in all his spoiled glory.”
Without another word, Kriss flung himself at Dean with his fist pulled back ready to drive it right in the other Fallen’s face.
Dean was ready for the attack and took hold of Kriss’s closed fist with one hand and the front of his shirt with the other. With little effort, Dean used the momentum of Kriss’s rage against him and spun them around, slamming the Fallen prince to the floor. Several buttons skipped across the hardwood leaving Kriss’s shirt hanging open.
“Want another go at me,” Dean demanded with a hard look. “I can do this all night.”
Kriss sagged against the floor as if giving up then suddenly rammed his fist into Dean’s cheek, making the other Fallen’s head snap to the side.
“Of course you wouldn’t understand,” Kriss shouted as he kicked Dean in the stomach to get him off. “You’ve never cared whether you were alone or not. You proved that when you snuck off to commit suicide what… just yesterday? If the ambrosia worked on the Fallen, I would have shoved it down your selfish throat and felt no remorse in killing you.”
Dean landed on his feet and skidded backward from the force of the kick. So, Kriss was still angry with him was he? Or was he just throwing that in his face now that his ex-boyfriend was back in town? Jealousy quickly reared its head at the thought.
“Had I known that you possessed more than that one drop of the curse, I would have taken it from you after you damned Vincent to this earth for all eternity,” he warned as Kriss slowly pushed himself up off the floor.
Not falling for his pretend calm a second time, Dean was ready when Kriss slammed into him, almost causing them to crash through the huge window. He quickly spun Kriss around and pressed him face first against the thick glass. He kept one arm locked around his throat while the other was inside the open shirt and around his ribcage, making it hard for Kriss to do anything more than struggle.
“You’re still nothing but a selfish child and you proved that when you gave the curse to Chad what… just a couple weeks ago?” The sarcasm was high as Dean flung the taunt right back in his face. They once more locked angry gazes in the reflection of the glass right in front of them.
“I asked Chad first and he agreed… even if he doesn’t remember my asking. If I were to ask him again, his answer would be the same. It saves lives but you’ve always looked at the ambrosia as if it were a curse… why?” Kriss gritted out the question he had always wanted to ask Vincent… not Dean.
He blinked when Dean's hold changed from restraining to more of a desperate hug.
Dean had kept many things from Kriss because of his innocence. He had only been a child when the Fallen had almost destroyed Earth… but maybe it was time for one more dirty little secret to be shared just in case his prince was hiding more of the tainted liquid.
He pressed his lips against the shell of the other Fallen’s ear and kept his voice soft and husky, knowing he was about to break his lover’s heart.
“When the Fallen realized they were destroying Earth with their plague of demons, the royals and elite held a summit to decide the fate of the rift. Most were greedy and pointed out that there was still only one female to every hundred males in our world so the rift was to be left open for a while longer.”
Dean felt his chest tighten as he recalled his sins. “They ordered the highest ranking officers of the royal guard to break the sacred rule and bring a group of human females back through the rift so they could be handed over to the scientists to study.”
Kriss barely breathed as he listened to the confession. In the reflection, he could see that Dean's eyes were closed with a pained look and understood Dean must have been among them… if not the commanding officer.
“Because the experiments were done in the basement of the castle, I was often called on to guard the cells when the pregnant women started showing signs of pain. My duty was to kill any demons that the human captives gave birth to. I slaughtered countless demons during their experiments until the scientists accidently created an elixir from the blood of the demonic hybrids.”
“Their experiment had enabled one of the kidnapped girls to heal from any injury… even being ripped apart during childbirth.” He paused, wanting to stop but forced himself to continue.
“Ambrosia was the name of the girl that had been lucky enough to survive the experiments. I could only watch as she screamed in pain from her constant torture of dying and reviving. Her children were all demons… never once a Fallen. I could see her hatred grow stronger every time she was murdered by her own children... and she had long since gone insane from the monsters that were eating their way out of her body.”
Dean couldn’t keep the pained expression from crossing his face as the memory of her became so clear that he could even hear her screams. “She hated us for what we had done to her… and she hated me because I was the one that had stolen her from her family and world.”
“She’s still alive over there,” Kriss whispered when Dean paused in his story.
“No.” Dean opened his eyes to stare at his lover. “Because the scientists were unable to replicate the accident that had caused the mutation and she was only giving birth to demons, they found a way to condense and liquefy Ambrosia’s body into one single batch of the elixir.”
He watched as Kriss closed his eyes and cringed. Good… he was listening.
“No more than a palm full of drops ever existed. Each drop contains her immortal essence and its unending struggle to revive. The Fallen’s greed for the small number of newly born females was so out of control that they were even sending mass amounts of our male children through the rift. Lying to those boys... telling them that they were heroes being sent to kill the demons that had been left behind.”
He could feel his anger rise again as he added, “They never had any intentions of allowing the survivors to come back home through the rift and compete for the female Fallen.”
“When they sent me back through the rift to collect more human girls for them, I had already decided to stay on this side and help eradicate the demons instead of returning. That’s when I noticed that you, a child of royalty, were among the exiled soldiers.”
Dean let his voice trail off as he silently recalled seeing Kriss many times before crossing the rift… innocently playing within the inner sanctuary of the palace grounds. He’d often haunted those grounds just to catch sight of the beautiful child he’d found himself drawn to. He would not allow anyone to take away what Fate had mercifully given him.
Kriss sagged back against Dean. It felt like he’d been punched in the gut… hard.
He barely remembered their world and Dean had always avoided the topic so he’d stopped asking questions after a while. Now he understood why. He understood a lot more than he wanted to. Oh god… it was making sense to him now… horrible sense as the few memories of their home world he still retained came back to him in a rush.
Dean nuzzled his cheek against the prince’s silky hair seeing the sad faraway look in his eyes. Christ, he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d accused Kriss of having a bleeding heart and it was cruel of him to have stroked the wound.
“I shouldn’t have told you the truth… but I’m also sorry for not telling you sooner. What I don’t understand is how such a coveted elixir came to be in the hands of a mere child... prince or not, and where have you been hiding it all this time. I searched you after you gave it to Vincent but I never found it and thought maybe you’d only had one drop. But you’ve used a drop of her since then,” Dean added then noticed Kriss had quit breathing and was deathly still.
Kriss finally sucked in a sharp breath feeling his knees go weak. He wrapped his arms around Dean's not wanting him to let go, making Dean follow him down to the floor. He didn’t fight it as Dean maneuvered them until he was sitting between his legs. That was fine. Kriss leaned back, savoring the way Dean tightened around him protectively.
“Father spoke about the ambrosia all the time, but he said it was a miracle… the most precious thing in our world,” Kriss murmured as he watched Dean in the reflection.
Needing a distraction from the unwanted flashes of memory, Dean placed one of his hands on his prince’s thigh and felt the muscle under his palm flex in reaction. He would admit that there was something about touching Kriss right after a fight that was addicting.
He only had a couple fond memories of his father and Kriss wanted to keep them, no matter what. “Father told me that humans were fragile creatures, but if given one single drop of the ambrosia... that we could save their lives. That’s the watered down version you would tell your child… I guess.”
“I guess so,” Dean agreed, once more running his other hand through the open shirt until he was palming the area of his heart. His heartbeat was steadily raising but Dean wasn't in a hurry… he wanted to hear the rest of the story Kriss had started first.
Kriss leaned his head back on Dean's shoulder, still amazed at how strong the other Fallen’s shoulders were and how solid the body behind him felt. Being near Dean like this always left him feeling weaker and more exposed… like a child. If you took their age difference into consideration, then that’s exactly what he was to Dean, even though they appeared to be the same age.
He looked up at the ceiling before closing his eyes in remembrance... the more he thought about his forgotten childhood, the clearer the memories became.
“When I asked father if I could see this miracle, he took me to it. It was encased within a hollowed out crystal and sitting on a pedestal deep inside the palace vault. From a distance, it looked like there was nothing inside the crystal, but the closer I got, the more it glowed until it was almost blinding.” He paused and bowed his back when Dean caught his nipple between his fingers and tortured it.
“Continue,” Dean demanded, enjoying the domination. He watched as Kriss lowered thick long eyelashes to hide the brightness of his eyes.
“I asked father if it was a piece of the sun and he frowned at me as if he didn’t understand… as if he couldn’t see what I was seeing. My uncle chose that moment to call for him from outside the vault. Father told me not to touch it… that he would be right back.”
Dean frowned in light of just how careless the conceited king was with something he’d killed for... all the while ignoring the danger he’d put his own child in. “Let me guess… you touched it?” As he said the words, Dean's hand moved from Kriss’s thigh to lightly graze across the bulge of his loose pants.
“Yes,” Kriss said in a pained voice when Dean's hand moved past his erection to rest on his lower abs, making him harden even more at the absence.
At times, he hated this power Dean had over his body, but other times… like now… he just wanted to drown in the scorching heat of it so he could get through this confession without the memory causing him so much pain. Dean was a master of taking his pain away… yet he was also a master at causing it if the mood suited him. He fought the sudden urge to moan and was glad when Dean's voice broke him out of his heated daze.
“Continue,” Dean repeated the command.
Kriss did, although his breathing had quickened, making his voice a bit breathless. “When I was alone with it… the crystal dimmed and changed colors… I swear it looked like small singular stars bursting inside making the soft light reflect and dance across all the flat surfaces of the crystal. I was so enthralled that I didn’t think twice before reaching out to touch it… it was so alluring.”
Dean could concur with the not thinking twice about touching things. He proved that little fact by stroking his hand downward in a caress over Kriss’s hard length before wrapping his fingers around the thick size of him and pausing.
“And,” he prompted.
“And the second my finger came in contact with the crystal... it entered me the same way my Fallen Blade does, and the room was suddenly dark. I tried to make it come back out, but nothing happened. I was so scared that I turned and ran. Knowing my father would hate me if he knew what I had done… I put on the clothing of a soldier and hid among the group of boys that were leaving the kingdom. I hadn’t known they were coming to this world.”
“That would explain a great many things about you,” Dean hissed against his ear knowing the prince’s exile could have been prevented, but he was thankful that it wasn’t.
Kriss gasped loudly but fought to control it. “Like what?”
“For one, what Fate was thinking when it handed you to me like forbidden fruit,” Dean answered with a nip to his earlobe. “I can only imagine what other Fallen would think if they could see their prince now. It makes me jealous to even think about them looking,” he finished just barely above a whisper.
This time the groan did escape and Kriss hardened when Dean’s nimble fingers unbuttoned his jeans and lowered the zipper.
“Why,” Kriss swallowed, lifting his hips when Dean’s hand worked its way inside the denim. “They would hate me for taking what was theirs,” he managed to say in a strained voice.
Dean smirked against his ear as he stroked him. “You underestimate your highborn status and your charm. Even Ambrosia chose you above all others.”
“Damn it,” Kriss pressed back against Dean and trembled, letting his heated gaze fall back on their reflection in the penthouse window. Once again he cursed the power Dean had over him but damn if they didn’t look hot as hell together.
Dean’s train of thought was running along the same lines. He was having difficulty controlling his breathing as he brought Kriss closer to completion. The Fallen prince was indeed a being of pure beauty as he was pleasured by his confident touch. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said many of their kind would have killed for the prince’s attentions… but Dean was selfish in this regard.
What Kriss would never know was how many of their kind he’d caught stalking the young prince when he’d first come through the portal… or how many he’d killed because of that very reason.
“Mine,” Dean growled in Kriss’ ear and felt his own satisfaction when that very word was enough to send Kriss over the edge.
