.

.

.

Izsák calls in sick.

Bullshit, Derek thinks. Izsák doesn’t get sick. The handful of times Derek can even remember him looking under the weather, he still dragged his skinny ass into work and drooped against a table or sniffled around the house at his father’s beck and call. He’s never taken sick days. Probably can’t afford to. So this is some other shit, Derek’s sure of it, probably something blackmail-worthy. That’s why he takes it upon himself to swing by Izsák’s shitty apartment, only to find the door locked for once. No lights on inside, as far as he can tell, so either nobody’s home or Izsák really is lying there in the dark. Derek knocks and nobody answers. He calls, leaves some obnoxious voicemails. Nothing. Not even an exasperated text back.

There’s a prickling unease in the back of his brain all the way home and he’s not sure why. It’s fine, right? It’s definitely fine. Izsák’s not an idiot. If he were dying or some shit, he’d go to the hospital, or at least tell Derek’s father, and Derek would know about it. But being sick is so mundane, and this feels like something else. He’s pissed that Izsák has the audacity to just vanish for a day, and that he can’t stop thinking about it. It’s quiet at his father’s house. He keeps catching himself looking down hallways and over his shoulder, listening for a second set of footsteps shadowing his own.

And then, finally, in the dead of night, it happens. His phone dings on the nightstand; email notification. He’s swiping it open before he’s consciously aware of what he’s doing, knowing damn well it’s probably some business shit, investment opportunities in some poor fuck’s startup, but what if it’s not? Izsák doesn’t know his email, he tells himself belatedly.

The sender isn’t in his contact list. It’s nobody he recognizes. In fact, the string of letters and numbers looks more like spam or a burner account. That’s enough to delete it outright, but there’s a file attached that’s too big to be anything but a video. And then there’s the subject line; 

“Left him where we found him. Might not be so nice next time.”

Derek hesitates, thumb hovering over the attachment. This is so fucking stupid, he tells himself, but he knows it’s not random spam. Can’t be. He reads the subject line again and he swears he can hear Jack’s voice in his head. His vacation was just a couple days ago. That’s all this is. He’s worked up and agitated and making connections where there aren’t any. They got into it over something stupid. He remembers, with a sinking feeling, how quiet Jack got. How he didn’t say anything, just stood there silently while Derek snapped at him over whatever fucking bullshit seemed important at the time. But Jack doesn’t know his email, either. He doesn’t know that Izsák has anything to do with him. He doesn’t know Izsák’s address.

Right?

He taps the link. There’s a breathless pause as he watches it download, buffer, open in full screen. Then it starts.

The video quality is shit. Big, blocky pixels flicker across a dark room and it’s impossible to make out anything but vague shapes. Something, several somethings, move. “You should turn a light on,” someone says, the audio strangled and crackling, but he recognizes that self-satisfied snicker. It’s Komodo. “Probably can’t see shit. Don’t want him to miss anything.” There’s more noise, sharp and peaking the microphone. Fabric rustling, close to the camera. Then a shaky inhale, barely loud enough to get picked up.

A lamp flicks on and the light is blinding, all-encompassing, yellow-white distortion smoothing out as the camera adjusts. When it settles, Derek feels like his stomach plummets to his feet, the whole world tugged out from under him. He takes in the scene in a fraction of second, mind racing.

That’s Izsák’s apartment, cramped and sparsely decorated. That’s Izsák’s bedroom. That’s Izsák squirming in bed, shirtless, sweatpants gathered around his ankles. There are two people in bed with him. Touching him. Holding him down. Would it be better, less horrible, if they were strangers? If this was a random crime and not people Derek knew? They’re not even wearing masks. That’s Dragon sitting against the headboard. He’s got Izsák’s face pressed into his crotch and Derek can see, in upsetting detail as the camera gets closer, that his cock is thick and throbbing against his stomach and he’s trying to force Izsák’s mouth open. 

“He’s got such a pretty face,” Dragon murmurs. He squeezes Izsák's jaw and feeds his cock in nice and slow. Izsák splutters and chokes around it, but Dragon holds him in place, soothing him like a scared animal with soft coos and a hand through his hair. “Derek’s been holding out on us. How’d he get ahold of a cute thing like you, anyway? I know he’s rich, but he’s such a miserable jackass to deal with.”

“Doesn’t have a choice. He works for the family.” That’s Jack’s voice, louder and clearer than the others. He’s the one holding the camera. Derek can hear the rush of blood in his ears, his heart pounding. His fingers twitch. He wants to hit something. Break something. He wants to stop this, but he realizes, with helpless rage, that it already happened. 

“Aw, poor thing,” Komodo coos. The camera pulls back a little and Derek catches glimpses of him; bony knees through ripped jeans, straddling Izsák’s prone body. Long hair tickling Izsák’s pale, shivering back. “Bet he treats you like shit, doesn’t he? Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.” Derek hears the clink of a belt buckle and then a zipper descending. Izsák hears it, too. He whimpers, or tries to. It’s barely a croak with Dragon’s cock filling his mouth.

“Is he being good?” Jack asks. Derek doesn’t like how low and husky his voice is. That’s what he sounds like staring across their camp in the desert at a fresh pack of prey, sizing them up, picking out the one he wants. 

“Like an angel,” Dragon groans. Derek hears wet, shameless noises as Dragon starts thrusting. His breath hitches when Jack gets nice and close, shoving the camera into Dragon’s crotch to catch every pained twitch in Izsák’s expression. They drugged him, Derek’s sure of it. Izsák’s eyes are unfocused and glazed over. He stares past the camera vacantly, saliva and precum dribbling down his chin in foamy froth. A sick mix of arousal and disgust twists together in Derek's gut. He hates this. He doesn’t want to see another second. He can’t look away. Izsák makes a pitiful sound around the cock battering his throat and Komodo giggles, a slender hand reaching into frame to push Izsák’s bangs out of the way.

“These,” Dragon pants, “are cocksucking lips. The drugs probably help, too.” The camera lingers there, taking in the obscene bulge of his cock pounding Izsák’s throat. Komodo’s fingers reach around, pressing down on Izsák’s neck, strangling him and stroking Dragon’s cock through the skin at the same time. Izsák’s body tries to thrash but he only spasms weakly. 

“Poor thing’s probably pent up. There’s no way Derek fucks him right,” Komodo says. The camera pulls back and he’s draped himself over Izsák’s back, running his hands up and down his back in a sensual massage. He grinds leisurely against Izsák’s ass, cock nestled between his cheeks, pressing down on his shoulders to make him take Dragon deeper. “Fuck, he looks good choking on you. You sure we can’t keep him, Jack?” 

There’s a long pause. Dragon’s got Izsák’s nose buried in soft pubic curls as he holds him still and really starts thrusting, his balls slapping his chin, but Komodo isn’t moving. He’s staring at the camera. At Jack. He’s not joking, Derek realizes. “Please?” Komodo purrs, batting his lashes like a schoolgirl. “We’ll water him and everything, I promise.” 

Say no, Derek thinks uselessly. He’s holding his breath. Jack wouldn’t. He’s an asshole, but he wouldn’t. Izsák is, what, a diversion? An excuse to get back at Derek? He’s nothing to them. They wouldn’t keep him. They can’t. He doesn’t belong to them. They have no right.

Dragon cums with a long, moaned, “Fuuuuuuuck,” hips snapping against Izsák’s face. Komodo reaches out—Derek hears an excited murmur, “Don’t miss the cumshot!”—and Jack must be close enough to touch, because there’s a slight tug and the camera’s in Izsák’s face again. Derek can see everything in the dim glow of Izsák’s bedside lamp; the sheen of sweat on his forehead. The tears and snot dripping down his face. How he trembles and writhes trying to get space and air, but they won’t let him.

“Swallow, baby,” Komodo murmurs. Derek’s not sure Izsák can even hear him, much less take orders. His eyes are rolling back in his head and he’s making these awful gurgling noises, and it occurs to Derek with sudden, terrifying clarity that they might kill him. They might not even mean to. “Swallow,” Komodo repeats. “You can breathe after you swallow.”

Impossibly, the order gets through the haze of whatever they fucked him up with. He flinches, his back arches, and then Derek sees the muscles in his throat moving. His Adam’s apple bobs once, twice, quivering as he starts to convulse and choke, but he powers through. Dragon finally pulls his spent cock out of Izsák’s mouth and hardly anything drips out. Komodo’s hand comes into frame and he catches Izsák’s chin, turns him, pulls him into a sloppy kiss. Izsák doesn’t have any resistance left in him. He falls against Komodo, whining like a wounded animal into his mouth. Komodo just moans and sucks on his tongue. 

“We’re not keeping him,” Jack says. “This is just a warning.” Komodo holds up his middle finger to the camera. And just like that, the video stops, holding on that frame. Izsák, so drugged up and fucked out he doesn’t know which end is up, Komodo’s tongue in his mouth. Derek waits, but it’s over. That’s all they sent him. He hits play and it starts over, and he fumbles with his phone in his haste to back out of the video. 

He sits there for a minute, in silence, in the dark. He calls Izsák without being consciously aware of his movements. No answer. He calls again. Nothing. He calls again, and again, and again. Suddenly, there’s a pause in the drone of the call sound, a heavy silence. “...sir?” he hears. Hoarse, weary, sounding like death, but he hears it all the same. Izsák. Alive. Derek exhales shakily. He feels raw. He feels violated. He listens to the whisper of shifting bedsheets. Izsák’s soft breathing. Izsák clears his throat, or tries to. He doesn’t know, Derek realizes. He never would have answered if he did. Must have been too fucked up to remember it all. “Sir?” Izsák says, and does an admirable job sounding almost normal.

.

.

.

It takes less than a week for curiosity to eat through Derek’s resolve completely. Izsák speeds things along by bringing up weird shit every chance he gets and then waiting, perfectly poised, for a shift in Derek’s expression. It’s always some off-handed mention when it’s just the two of them. Izsák will help him prepare for another guest appearance at another dreadful party, presenting him with a fresh towel after a shower, tying his tie, and then he’ll sigh in a wistful way and say, “You never have liked these little soirees. It was much easier when Ferenc was here, wasn’t it? He bore the burden of public scrutiny with such ease.”

And what the fuck is Derek supposed to do? Not ask questions? Not think about why Izsák will stare, studying his face expectantly, and then suddenly laugh and mutter, “Pay me no mind, sir.” He tells himself it’s just Izsák being his usual freaky self, but has he always been so strangely in tune with Derek? Did he always stand so close and act so concerned over every little thing? Fussing over him when he bangs his knee on a table, or after a particularly public breakup? It’s fucking weird. Derek tells him it’s weird, and Izsák just smiles peaceably and goes about his business.

Three days after the museum, Izsák is drinking tea at the kitchen table while Derek eats lunch. His father is out with Clarice and the house is blissfully quiet. Derek is texting Emilia, who is hysterical and wants to break up with him again over some new bullshit that Derek can’t remember and doesn’t care to figure out from the vague hints she’s dropping. He’s sure he can talk her into a night out and a quick fuck with the right combination of sweet talking and apology gifts. He wouldn’t bother, but his father chewed him out about how it looks when he brings a new girl to every social function. People notice, his father claimed, and people talk. Derek rolls his eyes just thinking about it. His father keeps a girlfriend for a few months and now he thinks he’s some kind of fucking expert on monogamy.

And then, out of nowhere, Izsák breaks him out of his thoughts. “Are you feeling restless, sir? I had something in mind, if you are interested.”

“Unless it’s something to get Emilia to calm the fuck down, I’m not interested,” Derek says. He only looks up from his phone when he hears the scrape of Izsák’s chair across the table and sees him coming closer. He stands behind Derek, rests a hand on his shoulder, and leans in to peer at the phone screen. His touch, light, weightless, totally innocent, makes Derek burn with desire.

“I see. She’s upset that you have taken other partners.” 

Derek rolls his eyes. Of course it’s that. Nobody can keep a goddamn secret anymore. He wonders which one of them couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Regina? Francine? Couldn’t have been Laney, because Laney...

Derek swallows hard at the thought, the memory. Standing here in the kitchen when Emilia called him sobbing, saying her two-faced bitch of a friend was comatose in the hospital. Car accident. She never woke up. Izsák had looked up from organizing his father’s day and watched as Derek took in the news. There was something knowing in his eyes, and Derek remembered suddenly how Izsák had uncorked a vial of chicken blood and flicked it after Laney.

There’s no way. Derek repeated that in his head like a mantra whenever he caught himself starting to believe it. The blood of a black-feathered hen. No fucking way. He looks over his shoulder at Izsák, at the eyes gazing back at him and awaiting—something. 

“You got a spell for this?” Derek says. He’s perturbed when Izsák smiles, like he’s delighted to be asked.

“Of course, sir,” he says. He retrieves his tea and strides quickly to the kitchen sink, dumping the rest of it down the drain. Derek watches him pluck the damp bag of herbs out of the cup, shaking the rest of the water out, and setting it on a plate. “You may watch if you’d like,” Izsák says.

“I don’t care,” Derek says. And he shouldn’t. But his gaze is drawn back when he sees Izsák pull a lighter from his pocket and flick it until a little wavering flame appears. It looks like he’s trying to light the tea bag on fire, but it’s too damp to catch. Some foul-smelling smoke sizzles to the ceiling. Izsák whispers something, not in English, and Derek just stares.

That’s when Emilia messages him back after a solid ten minutes of the silent treatment. She says she can’t stay mad at him and asks to meet up later that night. Derek stares at the text in disbelief, then looks up and finds Izsák standing there, watching him. Smiling.

“You may ask me questions, if you have any,” Izsák says. “I wonder if you remember this one.”

“Where exactly am I supposed to remember it from? I’ve never seen that shit before.” 

Izsák answers automatically, like he’s been waiting for this. “Csejte, 1578. I performed this spell for you for the first time.” 

Derek doesn’t know how to react, so he doesn’t. “You did not.” 

“I did,” Izsák insists.

“You fucking didn’t. That doesn’t make sense.” Izsák frowns, opening his mouth to disagree, but Derek gets up, leaves the table, and goes out to the pool to soak his feet and avoid whatever it is that’s happening. Izsák knows better than to pursue him and gives him space, but it’s too late. Derek is thinking about chicken blood. He’s thinking about headless girls encased in ice. Which is weird because he’s never seen that before, but something about the statue at the museum, about the things Izsák said, put a distinct image in his head. He’s hungry. He wants to taste somebody’s blood. He feels himself salivating when he remembers biting Izsák’s neck and he wants to feel skin give beneath his teeth.

“What the fuck,” he mutters to nobody. He kicks at the water until dusk, until his erection is gone and his father comes home with Clarice and Izsák is busy with other things so Derek can avoid his eyes and that look that knows too much.

*

Four days after the art museum, Derek wakes up and his dick is so hard it hurts. The dream snaps out of place and tries slipping away before he can remember it, but he holds tight to everything that’s left;

A castle. Stained glass windows. Stone archways. The snow-covered courtyard with its frozen women like grotesque, grasping trees. Long corridors and echoing screams. He stood eclipsed by flickering candlelight and writhing shadow, walking barefoot through puddles of blood. There were bodies dangling from the dungeon ceiling, hung from meathooks and impaled in iron cages. Slit throats. Dangling entrails. They wept and moaned above him, and their blood rained on his skin. These were his kills. He hunted them himself, hung them like trophies. He reveled in their pain. Silhouettes played across the walls, human and beastly shapes that grew and warped and twined together in obscene dance. Derek felt these shades watching, but he didn’t fear their gazes. There was no need to perform for them. 

And Izsák was there, smiling gently. He wore nothing. He was deathly pale, unmarked as though the blood couldn’t touch him. Derek was possessed by the need to dirty him. He reached desperately, his grasp leaving bruises, dragging Izsák through red rain and filth. He was tainted slowly, a splatter across his shoulder, a rivulet dripping down from his scalp. It fell in heavy clots in his lashes. Derek pressed him against the cold stone wall, his wandering hands smearing abstract shapes over Izsák’s skin, and then he licked it off of him with long, slow drags of his tongue.

It was so fucking stupid. He’d never do that in real life. But just thinking about it gets him even harder. Derek palms himself through silk pajama pants, shivering, leaning back against the headboard. He’d never be so tender and gentle. But in the dream, Izsák looked at him with this passion, this reverence, like Derek was God and that castle dungeon was their private, depraved heaven. It was so vivid. The musk of all that flesh and blood was heady and visceral. He slips his hand beneath the waistband of his clothes. It’s pathetic. Jacking off has never been so disappointing. He can see it when he closes his eyes, dreamlike and hazy; bodies and darkness. Izsák beneath him, his hands framing Derek’s face, his eyes glazed with wanting. He twists his palm around the head of his cock and imagines it’s Izsák doing it, Izsák between his legs and covered in blood.

It’s not the first time he’s fantasized about Izsák, but it was always different before. More impersonal. Izsák’s mouth around his cock. Izsák’s hips moving against his. The way Izsák’s back arches and his muscles all go taut while Derek fucks him raw over his father’s desk. But this is so much more heated and detailed. It’s not just the sensation or the view, it’s how Izsák looks at him, how he talks to him. It’s how he knows Derek in intimate and frightening ways, and doesn’t expect anything more of him.

In the dream, Izsák worshiped him. He got to his knees and the sight of Derek’s body, his apparent desire, the hard cock swollen against his abdomen, seemed to mesmerize him. He looked up at Derek as he pressed a kiss to the head of his cock, drool and precum on his lips. His tongue caressed Derek’s length from base to tip and his hands smoothed along his thighs. He moaned shamelessly, the sound vibrating against Derek’s flesh as he suckled on the sensitive underside. He mumbled something, unwilling to pull away and cease pleasuring Derek for even a moment, but Derek understood somehow. He knew what he was trying to say; I’m yours.

Derek bites his lip so hard it bleeds, desperately fucking his fist. It’s too hot. He has to throw off the sheets and pull his pants down around his thighs but he’s still sweating, his head pounding. He still feels the stagnant dungeon air, the blood drying to his skin. He remembers the way Izsák bobbed his head, the hot slide of his lips and his tongue at the base of Derek’s cock when he started to deepthroat him. Izsák gagged and squirmed but he didn’t pull off, didn’t even try. Derek wasn’t holding him still because he didn’t have to. They didn’t speak to each other, but he understood in that moment the depths of Izsák’s devotion to him. He knew Izsák would do anything for him. Would kill for him. Would give his own blood, his own body, if it would satisfy Derek.

“I’m gonna cum,” he says, panting. Izsák is too hot and wet and perfect around his cock. He thrusts deep, feels his balls slap Izsák’s chin and he grinds against the back of his throat, and Izsák chokes on a moan. His worship becomes even more fervent. His hands grip the back of Derek’s thighs, squeezing his ass, spurring him into more violent movements and keeping them locked together. He wants everything Derek has to give him. He accepts it all, the hunger and brutality, his every whim and desire. When Derek cums down his throat, Izsák gags on it, his hands tightening on Derek’s legs, but he stays. He looks up at Derek through hazy eyes and swallows obediently. He lets Derek soften in his throat, sucking gently as though to milk him of the last of his climax.

Derek lays there, dazed and confused, realizing he’s alone and his sheets are soiled. It takes time to catch his breath. He lies in his own mess, eyes closed. He’s still there, in the castle dungeon. The dreamfog begins to clear. He isn’t standing anymore. He’s reclining, encased in liquid warmth. When he moves his hands, red swirls around them. He licks it off his fingers. It’s hot, metallic, and sickly sweet. It’s so clear, so detailed and real, that Derek is startled to open his eyes to the dark ceiling of his own room again. 

Just a dream, he tells himself. His heart is still racing.

*

Five days after the art museum, Derek’s determination to ignore all the strangeness is shot. Pretending that everything is fine and he isn’t turning into a fucking vampire goes from a chore to a battle of epic proportions against his own body. He’s hungry all the time, his libido is out of control, and he has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep himself from sinking his teeth into anyone else. He takes Emilia out to see a movie and he can’t focus on anything but her neck. The way the light plays across it, the moving shadows, the outline of her muscles every time she swallows or laughs. He imagines himself biting her, his jaw clamping down on her throat like a wild animal. He tells her he has to use the bathroom halfway through and jacks off in a stall fantasizing about tasting her carotid artery.

Asking Izsák is out of the question. His pride won’t allow it. Izsák is already smug as fuck about all of this, sneaking up on Derek constantly and asking very pointed questions about how he’s feeling or whether he’s had enough to drink, all with that fucking smile on his face. He retreats to his room in his father’s house, blessed with a rare moment of privacy, and gets online. The tentative approach doesn’t get him far; a quick online diagnosis gives him two types of cancer. In desperation, he starts trying the things he’s heard Izsák casually mention, names he can’t remember right and places he can’t spell. 

Inevitably, he finds her. Frozen in time, she gazes back at him from her lofty position atop a webpage detailing her atrocities. One hand rests daintily upon a faded red tablecloth, the other holding an embroidered handkerchief. She isn’t smiling and there’s a weariness to her regality, a thinly veiled disdain in her eyes. Derek feels that he knows her, that he recognizes that quiet sneer. He’s seen it in the mirror before. A strange, twisting feeling knots up his stomach, and he doesn’t fully understand it, doesn’t know what all of this means, but he knows something has happened to him. Some change has taken root. 

He skims the page absently, the words washing over him both exhilarating and deeply familiar. Torture. Mutilation. Bloodbaths. The stories are fantastical, too incredible to be true, and yet there is no shortage of them. Derek searches further, needing to find her, needing to know exactly who she was. Elizabeth, Erzsébet, the Bloody Countess—no matter what she’s called, Derek finds kinship in the morbid details. Born into wealth and excess, thrust into the noble’s spotlight, and utterly disinterested in it all. She was on a quest for timelessness, to escape the mundane world. She performed as Derek does, marrying, attending to her courtly duties, wearing the mask of contented civility, but she also indulged and hunted, relishing in the viciousness of it all. Derek looks at her portrait with newfound emotion, something heavy yet freeing.

He almost isn’t surprised when Izsák speaks as though suddenly materialized behind his chair, “Your father sent me, sir. I am to prepare you for this evening.” Derek turns and examines Izsák, searching for things he hasn’t noticed before, or things he didn’t want to notice. His easy, eager submission. His smile. His eyes that know Derek, know what he wants, what he needs before Derek himself is even aware. Eyes that have seen centuries.

“Which one?” Derek asks. 

Izsák tilts his head, silently seeking clarification. He’s smiling very slightly. Did the Blood Countess see this same smile? Did it greet her before grand balls, assuring her of the safety of her secrets? Did it welcome her to the dungeon, her private sanctuary?

“She had accomplices,” Derek says. “Servants who helped her keep things quiet. Some of them were questioned at the trial.” He doesn’t clarify; doesn’t have to. Izsák listens patiently, his smile widening as though this is precisely what he’s been waiting for. How long has he waited? Derek wonders. How much longer was he willing to wait? “There was one man who helped her torture her victims, but the rest were women. One was her old wetnurse, and one was one of her personal servants. The other two were witches or something. Right?” Dorottya and Darvulia. He didn’t bother to learn the rest of the names, but he memorized those. One of them was important. One of them mattered more than all the rest.

Izsák hums thoughtfully. “That is what many people say, yes.” 

Derek stands up and hits him. It’s sudden, impulsive, happening so quickly that he doesn’t realize he’s done it until his hand starts to sting. Izsák touches his reddened cheek with soft, uncertain strokes, as though he’s just as surprised. The way he looks at Derek is wrong. Not disdain. Not disappointment. Elation. The joy of a long-awaited reunion.

“Which one are you?” Derek asks.

Just like in the dream, Izsák sinks to his knees before Derek. The movement is slow and graceful, as though he’s done it a thousand times before. He takes one of Derek’s hands in his and holds it as though it’s something precious. “I am the one who did not betray you,” he says, pressing his lips to the back of Derek’s hand. The gesture is gentle and intimate, stirring something violent within him. He wants to hurt Izsák. He wants to dirty him. He wants to thank him for coming back after all this time, saving him from suffocating in his own constant performance, but he only knows how to lie about gratitude, not show it for real.

The one who didn’t betray him. Derek turns the words over in his mind to admire like precious stones. He remembers—did he read it somewhere, or does the knowledge come from somewhere else?—that the countess’ servants were called to stand trial. Each one confessed to the atrocities, the beatings, the bloodletting. The man. The wetnurse. The servant. Even Dorottya broke her vow of silence and servitude to testify against her mistress. They all betrayed her.

All but loyal Darvulia, her devotion unending. She wasn’t there that day. Already dead, some stories say. It doesn’t matter. Derek knows what became of her now. He threads his fingers through Izsák’s hair.

“I don’t get it,” he admits. “I don’t get how it works. But I believe you. I see pictures of her, and I know we’re the same.” 

Izsák nuzzles against Derek’s palm like an animal, a pet seeking affection. It’s intoxicating, the power he holds, the total submission Izsák gives him, unchanged by the centuries. It feels right. It makes sense the way a dream does in the midst of it. “I couldn’t save you,” Izsák murmurs. “I was not strong enough then. This time will be different.” 

Derek is too caught up in the thick need in Izsák’s voice, the curve of his spine as he leans into Derek’s touch, to understand the words right away. “Save me from what?” he asks, but Izsák is already standing, stepping away from him. Derek isn’t done with him. He yanks him back by the forearm and bites him without warning, leaving the shape of his teeth in his earlobe. “Save. Me. From. What,” Derek growls, each word punctuated with a nip to Izsák’s delicate skin. He bruises so easily. 

“From your family,” Izsák gasps. He holds onto Derek, moves against him shamelessly. Derek feels how hard Izsák is and smirks against the fluttering flesh of his throat. He slides his thigh between Izsák’s legs, giving him the privilege of rutting against it. Izsák is so needy, so desperate to serve and explain as he chases his own pleasure, his words coming in breathless pants and whines. “Just as it was before, your own blood plots against you. Your father, he—oh, sir, please!” 

Derek can’t pay attention to whatever Izsák is trying to tell him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is more important right now than getting inside of Izsák and tasting him. “On the bed,” he demands, and Izsák obeys without question. They’re all over each other. Derek savors the roaming worship of Izsák’s hands down his biceps and across his chest. It feels good. It feels right. He can’t get undressed fast enough, still shedding clothes as he nips and licks at Izsák’s tempting neck, and Izsák is so good and obedient, turning his head to give Derek better access. “You really are mine,” Derek says.

“All yours, sir,” Izsák says. Derek has barely touched him and he looks blissed out already, eyes glazed, a delirious smile on his face as though just being in Derek’s presence is the greatest of pleasures. He unbuttons his shirt further, exposing a tantalizing flash of his collarbones and old, faded marks Derek left days ago. “Take me. Drink from me. Do with me whatever pleases you.” Izsák’s nails sink into his shoulders as he pulls himself up enough to whisper against Derek’s ear, “Please, master. I’ve waited for you.” 

The final, worn string of Derek’s self-control snaps. He bites into Izsák like he’s meat. He hears skin and tissue give beneath his teeth, splitting, squelching open, tastes the tangy burst of Izsák’s lifeblood on his tongue. He ruts against Izsák’s hard, twitching cock, trapped between their bodies, and Izsák’s head falls back in ecstasy. Derek sucks at the wound and tastes Izsák’s tenderness, the sharp sweetness of him. It’s so good, so right and familiar. Izsák was born for this, born for him. He would never belong to anyone the way he belonged to Derek, would never know anyone as deeply, would never want anyone as wholly. Somehow, arched and gasping, Izsák moves himself, grinds slowly against Derek’s achingly hard cock. He reaches between them and guides Derek to his twitching, anticipating hole. Derek slams inside of his welcoming, tight heat and his eyes roll back in his head. Nothing has ever felt so good.

“You’re mine. My loyal little toy. My cockslut,” Derek hisses, unclamping his jaws from Izsák’s neck just to find a new, fresh spot to taste. Izsák shudders around him, beneath him. His legs open wider. Derek hooks Izsák’s ankles over his shoulders and bends him in half. It’s new, doing it like this. He’s fucked Izsák while looking at him a couple times but never staring like this, never pressed chest to chest and sharing breath. Izsák’s lips are right there and he moves without thinking, swooping in, crushing their mouths together. So soft and tender. His teeth crunch through Izsák’s lower lip and blood gushes into his mouth, heady and intoxicating. “Can’t get enough of you,” he moans into Izsák’s mouth.

Izsák’s nails rake down his back hard enough to draw blood. Derek lets him. It’s better that way, more raw, more wonderful. He pulls back to admire the blood and saliva smeared across Izsák’s lips, dripping down his chin. It feels like the desert in his room, the heat, the intensity, a soft body surrendering beneath him. He slams his cock into Izsák’s helpless body over and over again, relishing the sensations, the sounds, the desperate raggedness of Izsák’s breathing. He crushes Izsák against the bed and this time he kisses him. He should’ve done it earlier. Izsák’s mouth is so hot, so soft and slutty and wanting him. He sucks on Izsák’s tongue as he fucks him into the mattress, hips pistoning, cock drilling into his pliant, shaking body.

Izsák has been wanton and shameless before, but this is more than that. This is devotion, Derek thinks. This is what he’s always deserved. Izsák’s thighs quiver as Derek pounds into him, so hard and fast his own legs are straining but he can’t bring himself to stop. The pleasure is blinding, a liquid heat in the pit of his stomach. He’s kissing Izsák in filthy, hungry ways that he’s never done with any of his girlfriends, licking into him, tangling their tongues together, sucking on the bite he left for every bead of blood that bubbles to the surface. He’s going to cum. He’s going to claim Izsák so thoroughly, so completely, that he’ll never be satisfied by anyone else ever again. He’ll worship Derek’s cock just like this with his whole body. He’ll beg for it. He’ll beg for a chance to suck his dick under the table at dinner parties. He’ll thank Derek when he cums down his throat and swallow every drop.

Izsák is his. He might be Derek’s father’s assistant on paper, he might spread his legs for him sometimes, but he’s Derek’s. He’s been Derek’s across centuries, across continents. He’s come all this way just to get on his knees before Derek, where he belongs. Derek squeezes Izsák’s ass, digs his nails in. This is mine, he thinks. This body, this mind, this entire being. He stops kissing Izsák to nose against the other side of his neck, licking and teasing the unbroken skin.

Derek smirks against Izsák’s hammering pulse. He’s close. He’s going to cum. He fucks Izsák deep, grinds against him, feels his balls roll over Izsák’s smooth skin. “Beg me to bite you,” he purrs. 

Izsák clings even more tightly, begs even more sweetly. “Please, give me your bite,” Izsák cries for him. “I need it. I was born to receive it. Please use me, make me yours. I should always belong to you, master.” 

Derek cums hard, buried deep inside of Izsák. Everything whites out, sight and sound and understanding consumed by orgasm. There’s a sharp stinging sensation somewhere on his body, a pain that crests with the pleasure, intermingled too tightly to process on its own. Izsák writhes and whimpers through his own orgasm, his own cum splattering across his chest and Derek fills him. It feels like the aftershocks last forever, heat rushing through him, waves and pulses.

Derek is trembling when he pulls out of Izsák, watching Izsák’s hole clench obscenely around emptiness as cum leaks out of him. Neither of them speaks for some time, basking in the completion of it all. Derek feels the world swaying as though he’s riding a metronome, the call of sleep smothering and irresistible. He can’t believe how hard he came. There’s still blood on his mouth and he licks his lips, humming at the taste. He feels someone touch him; Izsák, gentle and reverent. Tracing his muscles. Caressing his chest. He doesn’t cuddle, but when he’s this tired, teetering on the edge of oblivion, he can’t complain.

He wonders if they did this before. If Countess Bathory laid with sweet, loyal Darvulia, cuddled like lovers. Just this once, he thinks, he’ll let Izsák get away with it. For old times’ sake.

*

—murmurs. Someone calling him. Calling his name. Softly and distantly, then loud. Close. Not Izsák. Not respectful enough.

“Derek. Get up.” 

A rustling sound, the scrape of curtains rising. Blinding, burning light assaults Derek’s eyes and he groans, rolling over. God, what time is it? Sleep clings stubbornly to his mind, clouding his thoughts. He’s sore, mostly in his legs and back. Right, it’s coming back to him. He and Izsák fucked last night. Izsák, Darvulia, hundred year old Hungarian witch, whatever. It was some of the best sex of his life. But usually, it’d be Izsák who comes and gets him in the morning, so why is his father here, looming over Derek’s bed and refusing to leave? 

“What?” he says, groggy. His father is frowning in that tense, disappointed way that turns Derek’s stomach. He sees it directed at other people mostly, former business partners, overambitious rivals, people who really, really fuck up. Derek’s mouth goes dry. “What?” he says again, struggling to sit up straight. What happened? What did he do? He can’t be mad about Izsák, right, it’s not like they were being subtle. Did he forget something?

Derek looks at the window and fuck, it’s late,he must’ve slept through an event he was supposed to go to or some shit. He rubs his eyes, pushing himself to remember. He thinks, maybe, there was some kind of afternoon social he was supposed to make an appearance at, but the details are foggy. Why is his head pounding like that? It’s like having a hangover. He feels like he slept for decades.

His father paces halfway across the room. Derek follows the movement with his eyes and spots something at the foot of the bed. Is that blood? Dirt? Some kind of ugly stain on the sheets. They really got carried away last night, he thinks, but then he sees an arm.

Just an arm. 

Not Izsák’s. He’s not sure why his mind goes there immediately, but it’s not, he knows it isn’t. Izsák doesn’t wear flaking pink nail enamel with glitter. He just knows there’s a severed human arm on his bed and a bunch of stains around it. Definitely dried blood, but there’s dirt, too, like someone dug up a grave, and.

That’s cum. That’s definitely a cum stain. Derek’s eyes slowly trail up to meet his father’s. His father looks down at him and doesn’t say a word. Derek swallows hard and tries to think of something, anything, that he can say. Nothing comes to mind.

“I’ve had concerns,” his father says. Derek can barely hold his gaze. That judgment, that cold scrutiny—he works tirelessly to escape it, to put on the most convincing performance he can. “You don’t know the first thing about discretion. That’s one thing. It’s another that you think I’ll clean up all of your messes for you.” 

Derek glances at the arm, sprawled grotesquely over his sheets. “I don’t know what that is,” he says hoarsely. Obviously he knows what it is, but he doesn’t know how it got there.

“I’ve been lenient,” his father goes on, as if Derek never spoke. “Too lenient. I’ve turned a blind eye to most of your deviancy. But this? This crosses the line. I should have listened to Izsák sooner.”

Derek’s blood goes cold in his veins. “What does that mean?” he demands. His father turns his back on him. Derek throws himself out of bed, rushing after him. “What the fuck does that mean?” 

“It means you’re cut off,” his father says. He doesn’t even look at him when he speaks. “I want your things out of here by tonight, but don’t go too far. The police want to speak with you. Something about graverobbing and desecration of a corpse.” 

Derek stands there numbly, watching his father walk out and the door slam shut behind him. No. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do any of this. He looks back at the arm hatefully. What the fuck is it doing there, ruining his life? Heat rises to his face, shame, humiliation. Maybe he was getting a little arrogant, brazenly packing his bags for his desert outings, leaving things lying around in plain sight, but it was always so easy to explain away. He’s good at his performance. No one suspected anything. If he’s going to get caught, it’s not going to be for some bullshit he didn’t even do. He wipes angry, helpless tears out of his eyes and storms downstairs. Izsák. He needs to find Izsák.

He runs into other housekeepers who pale and dart out of his way. Derek ignores them. He doesn’t care about any of them, his gaze lingering only if they’re the right height, wearing the right uniform. No sign of Izsák in any of the usual places. No one in the kitchen. Not a soul out by the pool. He scares a gardener when he comes storming through but finds nobody else. His father has retreated elsewhere in the house and Derek finds his office abandoned, paperwork strewn across his desk. Derek sees several financial forms and summaries, land deeds, company assets, stocks and bonds. A copy of his father’s will sits in the corner and Derek’s heart stops.

Under the section for inheritors, his name isn’t listed. Neither are any of his siblings or cousins. Not even Clarice shows up anywhere. But one name does appear, getting absolutely everything his father could possibly leave behind.

Izsák Varga.

There is one moment of silence. A lack of comprehension. Derek reads the name several times before it makes sense. Then comes the storm building, the fire and venom churning inside of him, a tight, clenching pain in his chest. Disbelief. Bitter humor. A hatred so powerful it makes him lightheaded and hot in the face. He goes through the stages of grief in the span of a millisecond, mourning something he didn’t realize he even wanted, and a crazed smile stretches across his face.

Calmly and quietly, he goes upstairs and begins going through his things. He shoves his dresser out of the way and pushes aside a false wall panel concealing a large, musty-smelling duffel bag. He unzips it, checks the contents. Grains of sand trickle from an open compartment. Good. Everything he needs. He’s angry. He can’t remember the last time he was this angry, his hands shaking, his whole body seeming to vibrate with the need to stab and strangle. But there’s an excited edge to it, the sort of anticipation that comes with his vacations.

I’m going to fucking kill him, he thinks. I’m going to make him beg for death.

.

.

.

The change takes hold quietly, all under the skin. Nobody but Derek knows.

It’s the neck. He catches himself staring. It was all tits and ass and pouty, painted lips before but now the first thing he looks at, the first thing his eye is drawn to, is the neck. The women he seeks out are always wearing low-cut and mesh and off-the-shoulder ensembles, and yet it’s the neck that he zeroes in on, the neck that makes his pulse pick up. That stalk of warm flesh quivers when they laugh, when they talk, when they pull off his cock to swallow or spit, and he doesn’t even care which because he’s too busy looking at their neck and how it spasms.

He’s running a constant game of “what ifs” in his head. What if he wraps his fingers around someone’s soft, tender throat and lays his thumb right there, front and center, and squeezes just a bit, a bit harder, a bit harder still? What if he leans in for a kiss, a taste? What if he bites down, hard enough to break the skin, to sink into muscle wrapped around muscle? The thought of an artery snagging on his teeth makes his cock twitch. 

“Derek, are you alright? You look ill,” his father’s girlfriend, Clarice, says from across the patio table. She wears a choker, black velvet with gaudy red stones hanging off of it. It follows the curve of her throat and bulges slightly when she lifts a glass of champagne to her lips. Derek swallows hard and tries not to think about the gummy string of muscle and tendon stretched taut from head to body, how it would feel pinched between his fingers, how it would taste. 

“I’m fine,” he says. He tries to look at something, anything else. The bar on the gardened roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an appropriately painterly view of the staggered New York City skyline. Derek’s father is here to treat his crisis management team for a successful merger, and Derek is like a prehistoric-seeming deep sea beast dredged up against his will and paraded around while he suffocates in the open air. Nothing new. 

And yet there’s something different, a change in him that makes this miserable in a different way than usual. Each flash of exposed skin, of flesh rising from a plunging neckline or between spaghetti straps, gives Derek an itch he can’t scratch.

Izsák returns from the bar with slow, precise steps that barely stir the drinks in his hands. “Your Manhattan, sir,” he says, depositing a thin cocktail glass in front of Derek’s father. He comes around the table and Derek makes eye contact when he tilts his head, catching a strange look on Izsák’s face. Knowing, somehow. Like he sees right through him. “And your pomegranate and gin, sir.” 

The “I didn’t order anything” dies in Derek’s throat, because the drink is bloody, pulpy, insides and organs red. He mistakes it for something else entirely at a glance, something gruesome in a salt-rimmed glass. Izsák flashes a briefest of smiles and it’s sharp, triumphant; a cunning coyote smirk like his father’s. Derek nearly knocks his chair over in his haste to stand and excuses himself from the table, muttering an excuse about needing the bathroom.

He feels like a teenager, all hormones and mood swings. Every sensation is raw, red like hunger, like danger signs and split tongues. He doesn’t know what the fuck is happening to him. Down on the first floor, the frozen figures of the sculpture hall pass silent judgment as he walks in their midst. He’s been feeling that lately, more than ever; eyes, watching his every move. Waiting for something. 

Three women carved from ancient marble stand in a line, mid-motion. They have no heads. Derek stops in his tracks to stare and yes, it’s because they’re nude, yes, it’s because there is something suggestive about their caress of one another’s shoulders, but it’s also because of the stumps at their shoulders. Vacant bodies. Objects. Torsos and legs without a mind.

Derek’s mind is reeling. What kind of pretentious fuck gets hard at an art museum?

“Sir?” 

He turns around and Izsák is right fucking there. “You know,” he hisses, grabbing a fistful of Izsák’s shirt. “You know exactly what the fuck this is and why it’s happening. Don’t you?”

Izsák says nothing. Does nothing. Just stares back with half-lidded eyes and parted lips. Waiting for something. Derek’s temper flares and the only reason he doesn’t do something violent is because he’s still half-anchored in his performative shell, one foot stuck in his father’s world as he straddles the line that has always separated who he is in front of a camera and who he is when the lights go off. 

“What did you do to me?” is the wrong question. It puts the power in Izsák’s hands, gives him control over Derek’s turmoil. So he bites it back, swallows bile and rage and asks instead, “You wanna say something, right? Then fucking say it.”

Izsák is infuriatingly calm and collected. His eyes are cold gray-green; an ivy growing on a tombstone, frost killing an unopened flower. He very gently peels Derek’s fingers off of his shirt, and Derek lets him without knowing why. Izsák asks, “Do you know the name Erzsebet Báthory?” Derek doesn’t. He has no idea what that has to do with anything. Izsák nods down the hall, towards the grand staircase. “I want to show you something.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Derek says.

Izsák glances back over his shoulder and the threat Derek was preparing shrivels up on his tongue. He’s loosening his tie, unbuttoning just the very top of his shirt. The flash of skin is tantalizing. There, on the side of his neck; a mark Derek left just recently, a dotted quarter moon of scabs in the shape of Derek’s teeth. Derek can’t tear his eyes away from it. His mouth is watering. “You are not ill, sir,” Izsák says. “You feel unwell because you are overwhelmed. Seeing the world with new clarity. Is that right?” 

It’s impossible to think clearly. He’s been drugged, that has to be it. Izsák and his chicken blood and bullshit just has his mind all mixed up. Why else would his head be pounding like this, his pulse racing, his dick throbbing just thinking about shoving Izsák against the wall and fitting his teeth in those perfect indents again where they’re meant to be? “Cover your fucking neck,” he says. 

Izsák wordlessly does as he’s ordered, tightening his tie and smoothing out the collar of his shirt. “Countess Báthory is a noble from Hungary,” he says, speaking in a slow, subdued monotone, holding Derek’s gaze captive. “She lived long, long ago. If you were to investigate what sort of life she lived, you would find only rumors and legends. A popular one is that she subjected peasant girls to all manner of creative brutalities and bathed in their blood.” 

His gaze wanders past Derek, to the sculpture of three women intertwined. Derek can’t figure out what emotion is on his face, but it’s something disquieting in its tranquility. “In the winter, she would order servants who displeased her to strip in the castle courtyard. In the frigid wind and snow, she would have ice water poured over their heads. They made such gruesome statues, these women. If you touched a lock of their hair, it would snap like a twig.”

“Get to the fucking point.”

“This is not the proper place. Will you allow me to show you something?” Izsák says.

Derek agrees, not because he’s capitulating, not because he cares about whatever bullshit Izsák’s about to say, but because he needs to get out of the sculpture gallery. He can’t stop looking at the headless women, where their necks should be. Izsák’s words are echoing in his head and he’s thinking about a shivering body, a beautiful body, frozen solid in a blizzard. He’s thinking about blood and ice.

“What did you think of the spell I cast for you?” Izsák says casually on their way up the museum staircase, like it’s not the weirdest fucking string of words he’s ever spoken. “You remember, don’t you? The blood of a black-feathered hen—”

“To kill my enemies or whatever, right,” Derek cuts him off. “I can’t figure out which one of us is on a bad trip right now.” 

Izsák ignores the latter comment. “It is not to kill your enemies, merely to prevent them from harming you. Such a spell is mentioned in a letter penned by the countess. A legend you may find claims that she had witches in her employ, chiefly because she was preoccupied with finding a method to cheat death.” 

“Do you fucking hear yourself?” Derek says. “Witches and shit? Can you just tell me why I feel like…” Like what? Like his head’s on fire and his heart is going to explode out of his chest? Like an oversensitive teen boy for whom the whole world is pornographic? He’s hungry, he keeps licking his lips whenever someone passes them on the stairs and his gaze is drawn upwards, to the nape, the throat, the bob of an Adam’s apple. He’s so fucking hungry he can’t take it.

There’s an exhibition in a second floor gallery. Plexiglass stands announce the arrival of “Faceless Kings: Lost Paintings and Mistaken Identities in Royal Portrait Art” to the museum and Derek finds himself in a room full of cold eyes and knowing sneers preserved in ornate frames. Embossed plates beside each painting tell him these are dukes and generals and little princes in fur coats and velvet so carefully painted he feels he could reach out and touch them. 

He’s never had any interest in art, but he feels frozen here, pinned in place by every set of eyes. That feeling, that sensation of being seen, being scrutinized while he’s so off-balance, so unprepared, comes back with dizzying force.

“You don’t have to believe a word I say,” Izsák tells him. “I will be content, so long as you permit me do what I can for you, sir. Seeing that your needs are met, that you are satisfied; that is what matters most.”

“Believe what?” Derek asks. “What are you even trying to say?” 

Izsák nods to an informational panel on the wall beside him, and when Derek turns, he sees her. Austere, regal, a deep red curtain pulled back to reveal the sort of smile Derek knows intimately, one that is made by someone who is snarling inside. Her throat is circled with gemstones and a wide, lace-bordered collar, hidden from his prying eyes as though she knew to conceal it. “Elizabeth Bathory,” proclaims small text beneath her, “original portrait on display at Nadasladany Castle.”

“What do you see when you look at her?” Izsák murmurs. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps I am moving too quickly…”

Derek grabs his arm and pulls hard, ignores the pained sound Izsák makes, ignores the stares they get as he makes a beeline for the nearest restroom. He shoves Izsák into a stall and locks the door behind them both, cornering him. 

“Sir?” Izsák questions lightly, his gaze dropping when Derek wordlessly unbuckles his belt and tugs his pants down around his hips. Izsák falls to his knees as though mesmerized and then his mouth is around Derek’s cock, lips sliding down his shaft smooth and slick. Derek mutters obscenities, grasps Izsák’s head with both hands and thrusts deep, listening to Izsák choke and sputter, savoring the way his throat spasms. 

“You fucking win, alright?” Derek says, cackling, delirious. “You win. All that shit you say about pleasing me being all you want? Well, that’s what you’re gonna do. Hope you’re happy.”

Izsák moans around his length like it’s all he’s ever wanted and Derek’s hips stutter, sticky precum dribbling down Izsák’s chin. It’s shameless and obscene, and it’s not like it ever isn’t, but something is different now. Something’s changed. It’s escaped Derek somehow, slipped out from beneath his skin and gotten into the world, infected the both of them. 

He watches his cock disappear down Izsák’s throat over and over again, pulling out to the tip, letting Izsák tongue his slit before ramming it back into his mouth. Izsák is drooling and his face is red all the way to his ears. But it’s not enough. It’s not scratching the itch, and Derek is pulling him off by the hair and attacking, vicious and brutal and biting. 

They’re not naked; they don’t have time to be. Derek just gets undressed enough to pump his cock while Izsák stands with his legs apart over the toilet and his palms on the wall, shirt hanging loose and unbuttoned, pants around his ankles. He looks back with that slutty bedroom-eyed look.

Derek licks his lips and orders him, “Beg for it.” 

“Please, sir,” Izsák says, and Derek has never heard him so pathetic and mewling before, has never seen him tremble with need quite like this. “Please let me feel you inside me. Fuck me as hard as you like. Use my body. Break me, if it pleases you. Mark me so I know I am yours.” He arches his back, presenting like a bitch in heat. He whispers so quietly that Derek can barely hear him over the blood pumping in his ears, “Taste me. Drink from me. Don’t let the mark of your teeth fade from my skin ever again.”

Derek grabs his hips and he’s inside in a few rough, sloppy thrusts, pounding into Izsák and watching his whole body jolt with every movement. It’s nothing like their usual discreet bathroom trysts. Izsák is loud and nearly sobbing, a litany of “yes, yes, yes,” spilling from his lips as he rocks back against Derek and surrenders completely. Derek is close already and feels himself right on the edge before he’s even found a rhythm. It’s unbearable, all this heat and fever. Derek closes his eyes and sees red, red like the inside of Izsák’s apartment, like the basin of a motel bathtub after a trip to the desert, red and red and red. 

He drags Izsák upright, pulls him flush against his body and doesn’t stop fucking him. Izsák smells sweet, herbal, like spices he can’t name, and his neck is warm and soft when Derek runs his tongue along the side. “Please,” Izsák whimpers. “Bite me, sir. Leave your mark. Claim me. Make me yours again.” Derek isn’t listening. It’s pure instinct that makes him clamp down on the tender meat of Izsák’s neck and bite down, some primal urge that takes over just as he fucks into Izsák frantically and feels all that heat and hunger and terrible burning ignite at once in the pit of his stomach and he cums harder than he ever has in his life.

It never seems to end. Long after he empties his balls into Izsák and his hips stop their little, involuntary thrusts, his cock is still twitching and he still has Izsák in a suffocating grip against his chest. His teeth are still in Izsák’s neck and he’s still sucking at the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted, bubbling from the wound and flooding his mouth in a warm gush. The world tilts, fractures, rights itself again in some strange way. Derek comes crashing back down to himself and realizes Izsák is shaking. 

“Holy fuck,” he mutters. He lets go of Izsák. Drops him, honestly. He’s surprised to be holding him, surprised to have lost so much control in the span of a few minutes. Izsák catches himself on the bathroom wall and catches his breath, hunched over, cum dribbling down his thighs. Derek watches and it’s enough to get a little jolt of arousal in his gut again but he ignores it, trying to put himself back together. He licks his lips and tastes blood. It tastes good. He scrapes shreds of Izsák’s skin off of his teeth with his tongue.

“Sir?” Izsák says hoarsely. Not moving. Waiting for something. Orders, Derek realizes. 

“We need to get back upstairs,” he says, tucking himself back into his pants. “Clarice is gonna bitch at us both for being gone this long.” 

“Yes. Of course.” 

Derek steps out of the stall first, checking his reflection in the mirror. He washes his hands, smooths stray hair back into place. A few flecks of blood come out from under his nails and he vaguely remembers holding onto Izsák’s hips just a little too tight. Izsák finally saunters out of the stall, looking remarkably presentable for just having his brains fucked out. Derek watches as he adjusts his tie a final time before turning to leave. 

“Listen,” Derek says, “I don’t wanna hear about this shit anymore. Alright? I don’t care about some old dead bitch. I don’t care what you think she has to do with me. Stop bringing it up.” 

Izsák regards him with a thoughtful expression, silent for several moments. “Yes, sir,” he says, without argument, without even a hint of the usual resentment or resignation. Derek looks at him and he’s pissed for some reason. He doesn’t know why. 

“What was all that even about, anyway?” he asks, hands in his pockets as they walk back out onto the gallery floor. “If you just wanted to fuck, ask next time. Don’t drag me through a whole fucking exhibit.”

“Apologies, sir,” Izsák says. 

“God, whatever.” They have to pass through the portraits again on their way to the elevator and Derek sees her out of the corner of his eye again. It’s nothing special. He doesn’t get any grand revelations, doesn’t feel some deep, primal connection. She has a look he knows, but that’s it. So do most of the paintings on this floor.

Derek looks one more time at the small image. Morbid curiosity, maybe. The red curtain makes him pause, dragging back a memory. “Is this the same picture you have in your room?” he asks. The only time he saw it, it was dark and he was a little tipsy and trying to fuck a girl in Izsák’s bed, but it jumps back into his mind all the same. He thinks it’s the same stiff pose, one hand on a table or something. 

“Ah, not quite,” Izsák says, smiling a bit. “This image is of the portrait in Nadasladany Castle, which is not of the Countess. Rather, it is meant to be her, but it’s not an accurate depiction. Her grandson commissioned portraits of his family, though Countess Báthory had passed several decades earlier, and so there was a bit of guesswork done in the portrayal.”

“So nobody even knows what she looked like,” Derek says, frown deepening. Something’s not adding up here. 

“That is unfortunately the case. A portrait had been made during her life, but it was tragically lost. I don’t know the word in English, but she was condemned in a particular way. The very utterance of her name was unlawful.”

Derek calls the elevator, waiting with his hands in his pockets. Izsák stands there, looking back at him. Is he waiting for an order, or waiting for Derek to ask the question he knows is perched on the tip of his tongue? Derek doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but he wants to know. He needs to know, somehow.

“So are you saying your portrait’s accurate?” he says. “Even though that’s impossible?” 

And then, Izsák smiles. Like a coyote. Like Derek’s father. Like the Countess, immortalized in oil on wooden panel. Like Derek himself, if he’s being honest. “Far from impossible,” he says. “Francis Nádasdy did not know his grandmother’s face because he had never met her. That’s all.”

Derek scoffs at that. Izsák’s got a fucked up sense of humor and this is the dumbest, longest-running joke anyone’s ever tried to pull on him. The ride up to the roof is short but it feels like an eternity, trapped with himself and his hunger inside a metal box. He sneaks a look at Izsák out of the corner of his eye and swallows hard, staring at the pale flesh peeking out over Izsák’s shirt collar. He wants more. He’s salivating just thinking about the taste.

Izsák glances over, meets his gaze. Derek is expecting a smug smile at how easily Izsák got under his skin, but he only looks away demurely. Silent. Awaiting orders. Derek feels powerful, riding the kind of high usually barred from him when he’s stuffed into a suit and put under the spotlight of his father’s scrutiny. 

On the roof, he steps back into the role of charming, cultured son effortlessly, and Izsák resumes his post at his father’s side. But they’re stealing glances all night, catching each other’s eyes, and something, Derek knows, has changed. He thinks about chicken blood and headless women and a living, breathing ice sculpture with frightened eyes and blue lips.