Title: Equal

Author: hautecoffey

Fandom: Highlander

Players: Kronos/Kate (from Highlander, End Game)/implied Kronos/Methos

Series/Sequel: nope!

E-Mail: hautecoffey@yahoo.com

Feedback: is not only proof that people do actually read this stuff but is greatly lusted after as well!

Rating: NC-17 all the way!!

Archive: Peja's archives

WARNINGS:

**Graphic sex
**Violence
**Same sex
**Non-consensual sex
**This is one of those fics that goes kinda over the top!

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rysher, et al. I don't own em - if I did, they'd be naked!

Summary: Kronos longs for the good ole days

Author's notes: The fic is dark, involves non-con sex and violence. Inspired by the fic challenge but I kinda strayed a little from the B&E theme.

Equal
by hautecoffey
******

Kate lay face down with her head on his stomach. It was her favourite position to sleep in, he had found. Angled to his body and their bed in a cheap motel. The position was strange and unique as she, Kronos had decided. He stroked her hair lazily; content to lie under the warmth of her body. He was blissfully, wonderfully tired: sex with Kate always left him sated. He could suggest nothing to shock her, nothing that she balked at. She was his match – in bed as well as in sport. It was as close to being in love as he had been in centuries. He was certain he could turn her appetites towards his other vices. It was only a matter of time before she loved him; then she would do anything to please him.

"Ah………," he thought, "for the really good things, one must have patience. He had not found an equal in 3000 years. Not since -

He shook the name and memory from his body. He had no need for the past when the present held for him a new toy to cultivate, to nurture; a companion. He smoothed her hair away from her tanned face, enjoying the way she curved to his pliant and warm.

Already she had allowed him to begin molding her. When she had come to him, her hair had been long and full, cut to frame her face but worn as women did several decades ago. He had enjoyed it then, thick and riotous but it hadn't suited her. It was the hair of a temptress, yes, but a but a porcelain temptress. One who would steal a man's soul with her beauty and seductive ways.

When he had first seen her, he thought her one of the most beautiful creatures he'd ever seen. As he had come to know her, he discovered a well of anger that tainted her soul like few he had ever known. He had decided then, her look was all wrong. It did not suit her or her insatiable desire to exact revenge on the human race for some evil she hadn't spoken of. She harboured a despise of men with an abhorrence for those in authority that not even he could match.

Kronos had tried many times to pry the tale from her but to no avail. When he pushed too hard she simply turned her back to him, figuratively and emotionally. As he liked her sharp wit and intelligence, he would back off till another time, plying her with little bribes of trips or taking her to bed for the nights of animated and lascivious lovemaking that she unashamedly enjoyed. She was much more the Cybele than the Aphrodite he'd first thought her.

Together they traveled most of Africa. At Kronos' insistence they robbed villas at will, stalking the residents of the expensively fashionable coast of Morocco. She had enjoyed taking the villas, participating gleefully in the ransacking of the houses and the treasures within. When he tied and tortured the occupants, she had taken specific delight in tormenting the husband, making him cry and beg for his life before driving a knife through his breast bone. Kronos had occasionally finished the job for her with a large hunting knife, angering her. She had insisted the sport was hers and the Ancient Immortal pointed out it was for his pleasure. He then announced his plans to build a funeral pyre to burn the female alive on it after he raped her and silently dared Kate to interfere. Kate put her gun to the woman's head. Kronos backhanded his companion.

As Kate staggered backwards, he wagged his finger slowly in her face.

"Never hinder my entertainment," he admonished.

He turned back to the terrified young woman and gripped her chin roughly, pulling her partially from the floor. She screamed behind her gag and pleaded mutely for mercy.

"Kate's being naughty; she's spoiling my fun. I'll just have to let you make it up to me. If you are very entertaining, I'll kill you quickly, agreed?"

The woman's sobs became whimpers as she stared into his cold eyes. She shook her head, pleading silently for mercy. Kronos pulled the gag roughly from her mouth and put the barrel of the gun between her lips, laughing. Abruptly, he turned and disappeared into the villa's kitchen, but not before delivering a savage kick to her stomach. The woman fell heavily to the floor and cowered there, crying wretchedly. Kate got to her feet and the other woman called out to her, seeing a kindred soul in the battered Kate.

"Help me!"

"No."

Kate turned her back and started to leave.

"He'll kill me," she whispered painfully. "I don't want to die!"

Kate turned back to her, her features cold and harsh.

"There are things so much worse than dying!" she hissed. "And what would you do to live your pathetic, normal life? What would you give?"

"Anything!" she promised.

"Careful what you wish for," Kate snarled and the woman was taken unaware by the sudden transformation of Kate's face to a mask of hatred and loathing. "Kronos!" she yelled.

Kronos appeared in the doorway with an assortment of kitchen knives.

He took in the picture of Kate standing over the bound woman, her features contorted by rage and revulsion.

"What have we here?"

"She wants to entertain you in exchange for her life; I told her you are a hard man to please."

Kate caught the woman's jaw in a punishing grip and savagely kissed her. Her intended whimpered a protest, trying desperately to break free of this new source of torture. Kate covered the woman's mouth with her own, roughly, showing far less mercy than even perhaps Kronos would have. She bit the tender lips savagely, drawing blood.

Kronos watched with undisguised interest. He had never seen Kate like this.

His equal indeed.

Kate tangled her hand in her captive's hair, forcing her backwards. Her tongue slid down the woman's neck and chest. Coming to the nipple, Kate bit hard. The woman cried out in pain and Kronos smiled approvingly. He settled himself in a comfortable chair and prepared to watch his consort rape the helpless woman. Kate ripped the nightgown from the woman's body. When the bound woman struggled, the Immortal backhanded her heavily, knocking her to the floor.

Kate picked up the gun she had dropped earlier when Kronos had struck her. She forced it now between the woman's legs and stroked her while bending down to take the abused nipple into her mouth again. Suckling ferociously, she fed upon the woman, only encouraged by the loud keening and protests her victim offered. She pushed away the woman's delicate panties with the muzzle of the gun and thrust the barrel into her without preamble.

"No," the captive begged, weaker now. "Oh, God, please no."

Kate withdrew her gun and stroked the wet metal across the hardened clit. When the woman tried to squirm away, Kate pressed the gun to her own lips and then slipped it into the other woman's mouth. She pushed her fingers between her victim's legs. Kate leaned forward over the woman and licked the gun, following it beneath the woman's lips. The woman tensed and tried to turn her head away.

"Relax," Kate whispered against her lips, "I can make you feel very good."

The woman pressed her eyes shut and shook her head, tears sliding from behind closed lids.

Kate's mouth reclaimed the taut nipple and feasted, drawing it into her mouth and raking in with her teeth.

A noise outside brought Kronos instantly to his feet. He peered out a window, slapping the curtain back in place.

"Well, well," he drawled, "looks as if the constable wants to join our little party."

He grabbed a handful of hair and yanked the bound woman to her knees.

"Sorry," he shrugged apologetically. "I don't share."

He thrust one of the knives into Kate's hand as she rose to her feet. Pulling back on the captive's hair, he exposed her throat.

"My dear," he gestured grandly.

"My liege," Kate acknowledged sarcastically..

"You bitch!" the woman screamed, suddenly finding her voice and anger.

Kate shrugged just as a violent pounding shook the front door. Kronos glanced away at the sound and Kate brought the knife down in a grand sweeping motion. The woman slumped as the hilt connected with her jaw. Kronos glanced down as the woman went limp and dropped the body. Kate stepped over her and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the back of the villa. He laughed ecstatically as they fled across the parapet, the local gendarmes close behind.

*****

The constable paused beside the bloody mess of the villa's occupants. He knelt, sure of the futility of searching for a pulse but pressing his fingers to her throat anyway. To his surprise the lifeblood pulsed strongly if too rapidly beneath his hand, belying the rapidly congealing mass that covered the woman and the floor.

The constable searched for wounds and found only bruises and scratches on the prone body. The blood must have come from the husband, but they had yet to find his body? He tried to pull the ruined nightclothes together to cover the figure at his feet while sending his last remaining man to call for an ambulance. He offered a quick prayer for his other men, chasing the monsters who had left this horrible carnage behind.

****

How are you feeling', Kate?" Kronos whispered as he led her through a particularly dark alley in the older part of the city.

"Frustrated!" she snapped back.

"Oh, pretty, pretty pet," he soothed. "Don't worry; I'll provide you with many opportunities to play the Goddess. You may have your pick and your fill of carcasses to blood in sacrifice; I'll lay them at your feet ~ "

He stroked her cheek with his callused palm. Kate bit deeply into his hand, drawing the same blood he had spoken of. Anger flared in him, masking his face into a terrible rage. His hand went about her throat and he tightened his grip unmercifully, stopping only when he realized she was smiling – wearing same expression as when he thrust his body into hers.

"That's not the frustration I was referring to," she rasped, her voice husky from beneath his fingers.

Kronos rewarded her with one of his rare warm smiles that he normally reserved for himself alone. It wasn't often that anyone else pleased him as much as he pleased himself. He forced her against the still warm stone of the building, damp from an earlier rain. Her back scraped painfully across the rough surface and she gasped, feeling alive with the sensation. He shoved her head back, his forearm pinning her to the wall.

"Please me," he ordered, abruptly letting her go.

Bereft of the support of his arm, she stumbled to the mud at his feet, going to all fours before she could regain her balance. He lodged his foot on the back of her neck and forced her face into the muck near her hands.

"I'm from the Old World," he pointed out, "I like my whores unclothed."

He drew his sword and prepared to cutaway her shirt. Using the motion against him, she rolled away while he was slightly off-balance, grabbing his foot and forcing him down beside her.

"Then you should get yourself one!" she spat.

With a small, exquisitely jeweled dagger she cut away his belt and the waistband of his pants. Mud covered half of her face from where he had held her down, giving her an eerie, familiar look. She yanked the ruined fabric away, exposing his considerable erection. She trailed a wet tongue across the papery skin of his balls and he groaned his encouragement aloud.

She nuzzled into his balls, inhaling; the smell of him here erotic and unlike any other she had encountered. He smelled of leather and sweat and musky arousal, but something else, too. He smelled of age and evil. She pushed under the heavy sac to the spot just below where thousands of nerves jumbled to the surface. She forced her tongue into the slit and felt rewarded by his instant shudder. She pressed her mouth to the skin where it joined his thigh and suckled, marking the skin with bright red prickles of blood brought to just below the surface. She laved the perineum again, her hands working the torn leather farther down his thighs. She splayed his legs, forcing his knees apart at an almost painful angle. She soothed the discomfort quickly, distracting him from the sensation by drawing part of the heavy sac into her mouth. She rolled the delicate skin over her tongue, sucking on it. He groaned, pushing his hips into the sensation. She suckled greedily, inhaling through her mouth and drawing air across the heated moist skin.

He shifted beneath her, trying to expose more of himself to her caress. She obliged by working the second testicle into her mouth, drawing on both now. The sensation pulled at his gut; he swore he could feel it against his spine. This trick he had not taught her himself but then she was snot the first to use it on him. And while she possessed the most talented of mouths, she could never erase the memory of the other hot, gifted mouth that had introduced him to this pleasure.

She seemed especially inspired tonight; the electricity seemed to radiate along his nerves outward from his groin He'd have to take her on killing sprees more often. She shifted her attention back to that wonderful patch of skin beneath his balls, letting his sac slide from her mouth and across her tongue. She licked a wet trail along the sensitive skin and around his balls to the base of his cock. It jerked heavily in response – enjoying the attention.

She returned to where she had started, pushing her tongue into the crease of skin that led to the puckered opening of his body. She worked down to the rosy skin, flicking her tongue across the small hole, wetting it. He enjoyed the attention she lavished on this part of his body but here she would never master the technique of the lover who had taught him. She was good, very good; but even she could not come close.

She rimmed his hole, forcing the tip of her tongue into the intimate place. He smiled; she had refused him this pleasure the first time he had instructed her to tongue-fuck him. Rather than force her, he'd simply shown her the pleasure to be given – and received. She had come, screaming loud enough to waken the thousands he'd killed as he fucked her ass with his tongue and her cunt with his fingers. She had returned the pleasure enthusiastically after that but even now failed to match his lover of old.

It was a pity, but then she did offer pleasures all her own.

Later he would bury his mouth between her legs, into that dark flesh and lap the sweet moisture that waited there. He would kiss her with her own cum on his mouth. He would tease her and listen to her scream his name in protest when he withheld his cock from that delicious wet hole. She would claw the blood from his back and leave the imprint of her teeth on his skin as he slid himself between her legs.

He actually liked pleasing her – she was generous in showing her appreciation. She licked a finger even now, pushing it carefully through the tight ring of muscle she had relaxed. Her mouth closed over his cock and she swirled her tongue around the weeping head, swallowing the bit of pre-cum that had collected there. She flicked her tongue into the slit at the head, lapping it clean, She pushed farther into his ass with her finger and took his cock into her throat, swallowing around it. He jerked clumsily into her mouth, gagging her as her finger brushed across the small prostrate gland buried deep within him. He decided that if she quit he would kill her then and there. But if she didn't, he was going to come down her throat then and there and tonight he wanted something else. All the thoughts of his old lover had stirred a need in him.

He pulled her away from him, really looking at her, realizing that even the mud on her face reminded him of his long ago lover.

"You know what I want," he commanded, pushing away the leather britches and climbing to his feet.

"Oh, I know exactly what you want," she agreed, pulling herself up after him.

He would expect some resistance, a bit of fight – he enjoyed it more that way she knew. He pushed her around roughly, turning her in to the uneven wall. He held her in place with his shoulder while he ripped away her slacks. Without preamble, he plunged a finger into her, wetting it before pushing into her ass, forgoing her pleasure for the sake of his own. He worked at the small opening, pushing a second finger in too quickly, not letting the muscle relax naturally, perversely pleased when she pushed herself away from his hand. He was rushing, not seeing to her pleasure and she wasn't pleased -

"Kronos – "

"I'm too close," he interrupted hastily.

She half turned to him.

"Then fuck me now! Fuck my ass. Ride me hard while you close your eyes; but no matter how tightly you shut them, you'll know I'm not him!"

He backhanded her and Kate staggered under the heavy blow. Kronos closed a hand around the back of her neck and forced her face-first against the wall. The stone cut into her cheek and the blood dripped onto his hand, warm and rich; erotic. He kicked her legs apart and placed the head of his cock to the opening of her ass. He pushed into her; even stretched her delicate skin was sorely abused by his entry – his thick cock engorged with blood and impossibly hard but he heard no complaint form her.

He thrust into her, lost in his internal fantasizing and knowing he wouldn't last long. He came inside of her quickly, his semen warm and soothing to the entrance of her body. He continued thrusting into her body, his cock spent but not the bloodlust that had fired through his veins. Finally he withdrew for fear of causing more damage to her body than he already had. He pressed himself along her back, caressing her and whispering quiet praise against her skin. He could feel his semen mixed with her blood leaking slowly out of her ass against his stomach but she'd heal. They all did. His legs trembled, the orgasm as intense as any he'd ever known.

But he knew Kate was right. She would never be the lover he had loved. None of them would. The lover that he had given his trust and his heart to; the lover who had taught him, betrayed him, locked him in a prison for a thousand years. The lover he loved still.

They would never be Methos.

He pulled his britches back up to his waist, the fabric rent and unredeemable. Kate abandoned hers entirely, tightening her long cloak about her. Kronos did likewise, fastening his own coat about his waist. Kate pushed past him, making for the end of the alley.

"Kate!" he called, his voice a plea in the dark.

She didn't turn and he caught her arm, bringing her around to look at him. He stroked the hair away from her face and kissed her; a slow, savouring caress. When he looked down at her, her eyes remained shaded and distant.

"Katie-girl, I love you," he began –

"You think so?" she interrupted, trying to sound sarcastic, hard; she didn't. She sounded like Kate.

"Yes, I do," he answered, surprising himself with the validity of his reply. "In my way."

He held to her, watching her.

"Love me back, Katie?" he asked softly

"I can't," she said, not willing to look at him.

His expression didn't change; he didn't rage at her as she expected, or strike her. When he answered her, his tone was resigned, defeated.

"I've killed bitches for less than that."

She stared back at him with eyes that were long dead. "I've no reason to lie to you and no reason to fear for my life, if you ended it, you'd be doing me a favour. And most of all, I have no heart to love you with. I've only ever loved one man and he killed all the love inside me when he murdered me in our wedding bed! And if you end my immortal life for daring to tell you the truth, you'll be left to find another body to warm your bed."

Kronos let her go then, having no words to fight the truth of hers and no desire to protest them. He saw her now as truly his equal – having only a well of hatred that overflowed into the emptiness of her soul. He had spoken the truth to her; he loved her as much as he was capable of loving. But then he wasn't capable of loving and he suspected she knew that.

Their return to the hotel Kronos had selected was marked only by a few curious stares. It wasn't a fancy place and most people there had better things to do than indulge in idle curiosity over two muddy foreigners. In their room, Kronos stood with Kate under the shower for a long while, meticulously washing away the mud from her hair and body. He carried her to their bed and made love to her with all the consummate skill he had earned through the thousands of years of his life. He truly liked her, he would miss her dreadfully if she weren't around. Having her with him was preferable to not having her.

But he knew as he fell asleep that his time with Kate was over. He made the decision to let her leave. She had entertained him and for that she earned her life. But now she was just another disappointment, not at all the equal he'd thought he'd found again. If he challenge her now, she wouldn't resist him and an easy kill held no appeal for Kronos the Madman.

He'd wait, until she had something to live for.

END