“What makes Will happy makes you happy. And you killed Bert and Ernie which made me very happy. So, you’re welcome.”
Still with the assumption that Maddox was behind the brutal, cruel execution of the ancients.
“You think a two-dollar box of toaster strudel makes us even?”
Lorien smirked and shrugged. “It’s a start, right?”
“Barely. I do have a use for you, however.”
Lorien’s brows rose in surprise. “What’s that? I’ve never been useful before. It would be a novel experience to be useful.”
“Wouldn’t it,” Maddox agreed. “I want to use you as a training target. Will froze the first time he approached a feral. I don’t want that to happen again.”
“So tell him…”
“No. There will be no telling. You can take some damage.”
“True, but he doesn’t fight like a typical human. He fights like a beast.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
Lorien cocked his head and smiled at Maddox in a way that was rather like looking in a mirror for Maddox. “I’m not going to be dragged into being your brat test dummy.”
“We will see.”
“What are you talking about?” Will asked the question after demolishing the entire box of toaster strudel. It was the best food he’d tasted in a long time. In prison, toaster strudel often had to be eaten cold. It was the toaster that really made the strudel what it was.
Maddox turned toward him with one of those smooth, elegant movements that made Will feel like a clunky hunk of flesh.
“You are injured, but that doesn't mean you can’t learn, and it doesn’t mean you can’t work.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Maddox beckoned him over. Will went, glancing briefly at Lorien. Lorien was easier to read than Maddox. He saw amusement in the younger vampire’s eyes, as if whatever was about to happen was going to entertain him immensely.
“Look at me,” Maddox intoned, capturing Will’s attention entirely. Will looked at Maddox and saw his beginning and his end in those dark eyes. There were shades and shadows, horrors and terrors lying within.
Will found himself relaxing throughout his body, losing tension he didn’t even know he had stored up in his muscles. It was an involuntary response, as so many of his responses to Maddox were. When he was around this creature, he felt like an animal himself. Something rose inside him, something powerful and dark, something that answered the call of Mad’s gaze.
“I want you to kneel.”
Will swallowed, though all the food in his mouth was long gone.
“What?”
“Kneel.”
The word was repeated in a tone which brooked no disobedience.
“I can't kneel. My leg is broken and in a cast. It's not physically possible.”
“Get. On. The Ground.”
Will did as he was told, his legs compliantly buckling. He was not sure if he was acting out of true obedience or vampire influence, and it didn't really matter. He was obeying and that was all Maddox seemed to care about. He couldn’t kneel, but he could lie face down on the floor like a particularly loyal subject prostrating himself before a king.
“So good,” Maddox purred, looking down at Will with hooded eyes, his own gaze containing reflections of many horrors. He crouched down and let his fingers toy around the collar at Will’s neck. “This is where you belong. This is where you will always return. No matter what happens outside in the hunt, or anywhere else for that matter, this is where you will find yourself at home. Understand?”
Will thought he might understand. It was an unfamiliar sensation of being grounded and safe. When Maddox ran his fingers through Will’s hair, he felt an incredible tingling running through his scalp and down his spine. He felt a tail he did not have tucking itself between his legs, and a whimper rose to his lips.
“You will kill the next feral you encounter. Of that, I am certain. It is in your blood, Will. The need to end life is part of your flesh, and it has been far, far too long, hasn’t it?”
Will nodded slowly, licking his lips. He was hungry for blood. There was a rising darkness inside him, though that darkness didn’t feel as out of place as it once had.
“Give in to those desires and impulses. You no longer have to fear them now you have me to guide and moderate you. You don’t have to try to be something you’re not. You’re free to become exactly who you already were. Do you understand?”
Will nodded, slowly, half in trance, half basking in the glow of Maddox’s attention. He made Will feel like the only living thing in the world, the only one who mattered. It was a powerful feeling, one he sensed he would crave when it faded.
But it didn’t fade. It stayed. Maddox kept him there in that position and in that trance-like space for what felt like a small eternity. When Will regained awareness, it was dark outside and he was hungry.