AN: If you have read my Kaname/Zero stories starting from "the Beast Within" all the way to "Scarlet Silken Spiderweb", you will familiar with my sadistic side…This is merely an experiment on a more violent, practically insane side of Kaname Kuran. After all, vampires aren't all for rainbows and roses, and a purebloods even less. The story will contain graphic torture and sexual violence. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Chapter 3

"What are you hiding from me?" Kaname murmured, and Zero felt his cool breath teasing the strands of hair at the back of his head, raising goosebumps down his neck. The pureblood knelt behind, and, putting his arms around Zero, stroked his chest, flicking one nipple hard enough to make the boy yelp.

He slid his hands around Zero's waist, meeting in the center and inching their way downwards.

Zero swallowed and closed his eyes. This couldn't be happening.

Kaname grasped his pants, rubbing intentionally on the hardness between his legs so Zero gasped. He pulled, and the pants ripped at the seam, coming away and baring the boy completely.

The sight amused Kaname very much.

"So you were enjoying yourself all the while!" Kaname sneered.

"No…" Zero groaned. "No…"

Derisive laughter stung his pride more than any rejection could.

He had lost so much blood, his back was a mangled mess, and he could still find it in him to get aroused?

What are his talents, indeed? Kaname wondered. There was such intense apprehension in Zero's eyes that he felt his own endorphins surging in response. He curled his fingers around the whip again, grinning a predator's steel fanged grin.

Zero had had enough of the whip. He crawled forward, awkwardly, on knees that were badly scraped and bleeding, until he was in front of Kaname.

Each individual breath wheezed loudly in the silence, and neither moved for awhile.

Then, Zero slow leaned forward and bit Kaname's belt buckle. He pulled the pureblood back, towards him.

Slowly, carefully, using his mouth, he teased the buckle open, unlocking the clasp with a quick tug and a few skilful manoevres.

He undid the button and did manage to pull the zipper down with his teeth. Pushing his mouth in, he found that Kaname was fully erect. Zero rubbed his teeth against him, earning a low moan hoarse and silty with lust. The ex-human nudged Kaname gently, trying to find a way though his undergarments, but his hands were bound securely behind, helping him none.

Kaname chuckled and slapped him playfully. Zero reeled slightly, but undeterred, he went for Kaname's hand and pressed his lips onto it, his breathing passionate and disjointed, kissing him almost desperately. He took each finger into his hot mouth, sucking and licking each digit, tasting grit and leather and the sweet woody hint of the whip handle.

He rubbed his head on Kaname's abdomen, keening softly, a whipped cur seeking forgiveness.

What is it, this despicable addiction that overcomes pride and love and loyalty, that drives us all to the stars on ecstacy, and brings us all back down in shreds and fragments?

Kaname gave a bark of laughter when he realized what Zero wanted.

Of course.

He fisted Zero's hair roughly and threw him to the ground.

"You have disobeyed my order, drawn fire on nobles – in public, shamed and disgraced yourself so pathetically…and you think that I, of all people, would want you?"

The word stabbed Zero like a fork in his heart, twisting vindictively, and he gave no answer but for the tormented desperation in his eyes.

Kaname knelt in front of him, put a knee between Zero's legs and rubbed against him where he was so hard and feverishly hot. Zero turned his head away, biting down his cries as spasms wracked his body.

"You truly do enjoy it…" Kaname smirked, almost in wonder.

"You insolent whore."

Without warning, Zero felt the sudden, vehement breach of privacy. But even as he let loose his lungs in a bawl, a sense of horror and realization pervaded his senses.

"No…" he mumbled, his breathing irregular from the sheer pain between his legs.

"No...no – no – no – please, no, stop it…"

"You asked for it," Kaname hissed maliciously, twisting the handle of the whip further up inside Zero.

Zero shrieked again.

Kaname dragged him back so that Zero was braced against his front, his bloodied back rubbing leaning on the pureblood's chest, his arms awkwardly between them.

"Your caterwauling annoys me," Kaname whispered in his ear. "I want complete silence from you!"

So saying, he jammed the remainder of the handle up, feeling his flesh stretch and tear and blood trickling out and onto his hands.

Mindful of his last lesson, Zero cast his head back and arched desperately, baring his fangs, but no sound came out except for a ragged wheeze.

"Very good…"

And Kaname wrenched it out, ripping him from the inside.

Zero tried to keep quiet. He really had, for some foolish notion of pride and endurance. But the ululating wail that echoed in the night could not begin to convey his anguish.

Kaname sneered as Zero keeled over, panting. His face was drawn and pale as snow. He closed his eyes in abject humiliation.

Kaname cast the bloody whip down, inches from Zero's face.

"Clean it," he ordered.

My word is law.

"No." Zero forced it out through gritted teeth.

"Do it," Kaname said, "and I just might indulge in you for awhile…" his tongue flicked over Zero's ear, then moved down to his neck and shoulders. One hand danced tantalizingly over his groin.

It is said then when pushed beyond the limit of normal endurance, the human mind warps itself to preserve the human consciousness, and responds eagerly even to minute amounts of kindness and care.

Zero was strong and proud, but he was in no condition to draw any more damage to himself. Weakly, Zero moved his head forward and covered the leather cord with his mouth. Kaname drew it with one hand so that Zero sucked along its length, cleaning the blood that was from his own back; it was bitter with his own defeat and degradation. With his other hand, Kaname stroked Zero's sweat matted hair, crooning gentle encouragements to him.

When his lips touched the hard handle of the whip, he pulled away, shuddering convulsively at the memory of the brutal rape.

The soothing hand in his hair stopped.

"Zero? Why did you stop?"

Zero did not miss the icy menace beneath the façade of kindness.

"I – don't – "

"You don't?" Kaname prompted. Zero trembled as the fingers in his hair tightened threateningly.

Bile roiled in his gut; breathing harshly, Zero took the wooden handle up the hilt in his mouth, as if he would if it were Kaname, almost gagging reflexively.

When he had swallowed the last vestiges of his own flesh and viscera, Kaname tossed the whip to one side. Zero was glad to see it far away – at the very least, out of the pureblood's immediate reach.

"You poor boy," Kaname purred, bending over Zero. "You poor, poor, poor boy, bleeding so badly, hurting so much, suffering for my crime…shall I clean you up?"

Zero hissed his assent.

"Oh…but it looks so becoming on you…" Kaname traced the bleeding gashes on his back, his shoulder.

"I... need it..." Zero's breath was coming in shallow puffs. The pain threatened to overwhelm him; every speck of dust, every bit of straw seemed as salt on an open wound, digging into his raw flesh.

So Kaname kissed his wounds, letting his healing saliva close the leaking orifices, yet limiting his power so that the skin remained ugly and wrinkled. He could have let Zero healed completely, but he didn't – that back was once flawless, smooth and contoured as a vase. Now it was as though somebody had tossed the vase into fire, and in a fit of jealousy, raked its beauty with his finger nails, marring the perfect workmanship with hideous lacerations.

I put them there. I marked him and claimed him as my own.

Kaname's groin tightened. He cut Zero free, and the boy cried out in relief as he raised his sore wrists and flexed them to get the blood flowing again.

Zero wasted no time in putting his hands in Kaname's hair as the pureblood clambered over him.

"My beautiful, perfect, insolent little brat," Kaname breathed.

What damnation is this, that has us, vampire and human, crawling on our knees…

He thrust into Zero.

Groveling on our bellies…

Zero bent back in a perfect arch, hips and neck straining, flat abdomen taut and glistening. His eyes were open but seemed not to see, they were staring but not looking -

For a moment's flighty caress?

Kaname withdrew and slammed in again.

Zero closed his eyes and exhaled, lost in bliss, mindless of the dizzying pain.

There can only be one answer, the same answer that comes with mortality.

Kaname entered him the third time, buried himself to the hilt in Zero's bloody warmth.

He sank his fangs into Zero's shoulder, indulging his wanton lust, re-establishing the bloodbond; claiming, once again, complete possession of this part vampire, part boy, part beast.

Zero had lost a lot of blood, was losing even more, and was dangerously close to unconciousness. His soul seemed to have left him; it hovering from above, and he looked with another pair of eyes down onto his own body, below Kaname, his eyes half lidded in elation, his hands holding Kaname needily, staining the pureblood with blood from his bleeding wrists.

From above he saw that Kaname's body changed, it was no longer recognizable, not even remotely humanoid – his hair fanned over his shoulders and became the hood of a cobra, his body, strong and sinuous and ridden with silver scales, twisted around Zero's in a serpentine grasp; his fangs spilled his blood greedily, and his eyes were a deep, scorching scarlet, burning with bestial avarice –

He was dangerously close to the brink of sanity, teetering like a car on the edge of a cliff…one step, and he would be gone forever…

The scene shifted, or was it just that his eyes watched from a different view? The cobra's scales deepened and flattened and morphed into molten metal; hard muscle hardened further and shaped into a linked rope, and Kaname was a snake no longer, but a long steel chain, binding Zero mercilessly, irreversibly…and Zero arched longingly into it, yielding to its deadly embrace…

They exploded simultaneously, bodies awash in ice and fire and unadulterated ecstasy.

The same answer that caused Adam and Eve to be banished from the Garden of Eden.

"Kaname…one more time…"

The temptation of forbidden pleasure…

The fabled curse of the viper's pit.

Great galloping gargoyles. This was one mammoth of a story - I intended it as a one shot but 6000 words seems a tad too long, so I split it as best as I could. I can only hope the flow wasn't too badly affected because of the split up, because I imagined it as one long on going...session.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, they were the first man and first woman created by God and lived in Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat from any fruit they wanted save fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. This law they abided by until one day, the Devil came to them in the form of a serpent and brooked the idea of eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Unable to resist, Adam and Eve gave in to their temptations and hence were banished from the Garden of Eden by God for lusting after what was forbidden. I just ... twisted the ideas a little to suit this story...and yes. I had to make Kaname quite - very? - different from in the manga/anime...hopefully not too far fetched?

I really, really, really owe all the readers, commenters and reviewers a tremendous thank you. It gives one no greater pleasure to know that others have enjoyed his/her work - especially since don't update that fast!

The story of "The Viper's Pit" ends at chapter three. I apologize to those (like Yen girl) who were looking for a kinder and more loving conclusion to the mindless torture, and I did toy awhile with that notion – however, I decided to return to my original idea of a bloody, violent story between Kaname and Zero. I mean, to have Kaname turn around and be gentle after all this would make him schizoprenic, or so I feel.

So no, I resolved to leave it at this, at the point where Zero makes the decision to "enter the pit" and is trapped within irreversibly.

I had loads of fun writing this arc of cruel, lust-minded Kaname/Zero stories, beginning all the way from "The Beast Within", and it ends with "The Viper's Pit." I have yet to finish "Scarlet Silken Spiderweb", but when I do, I will probably have moved on to other fandoms/pairings. Unless I get any other inspiration concerning K/Z, my plots are drying up…I'm thinking of an AU for K/Z, but it's not well thought out enough yet…plus I'm into my last year of high school, so it's gonna be a busy year ahead.

Hence, yes. The K/Z stories end here, although I won't say there aren't more to come! I'll be seeing you guys soon, hopefully! Thank you all for the support you have given me. I owe all of you eternal gratitude and happiness, seriously!

By the way, out of curiosity, what do you guys think of a story like this? Was it too violent and gory? Should I have toned it down a little?

- Talking Cockeral