My not-so-fantastic Regulusfic

Title: The Price of Love

Rating: PG?

Warnings: sort of Blackcest

Pairings: none really, but implications of Bellatrix/Regulus and Bellatrix/Voldemort.

"What did your mother tell you, Regulus?" Bellatrix asked, her wine-colored lips begging to be tasted as she twisted them into a mockery of a sympathetic smile.

Cool and calm, every inch a Black, he gave her a suave smile of his own, giving no inkling of the unholy passion his cousin invoked in him. "She told me that a Black patriarch must learn to control his inferiors."

A laugh like the shattering of a crystal champagne flute. "She has sent you to me to learn control, then?"

Uncomfortable, but hiding it admirably, not a young boy, but a masculine figure carved from ice. "She has sent me to you for testing."

"And will I be testing you or will you be testing me?" Obsidian eyes flashing in the candlelight, teasing, playing with her prey.

Regulus straightened, his posture prep-school perfect. "I will not be your toy, Bella."

"Who says you have a choice?"

In the space of his blink his wand was in her long-nailed hand and his dignity- But a Black does not surrender his dignity, he told himself, repeating his childhood mantras, clinging to the traditions and catechisms drummed into the very fabric of his being from conception.

"You cannot take from me the power of free will, Cousin."

"Oh, but I can, sweet child, and so easily."

"If you mean to use Imperius on me, I can promise you that Mother will never stand for that-"

Shaking now, unnerved by her inhuman collectedness. He was ice, but she was marble. He might be melted in a single torrent of emotion, but she would take years to wear down...

"Not at all, my pretty little one. Such methods are imperfect... Distasteful. There is a subtlety to my ways, a certain panache." She smiled again, predatory, seductive. "Surely you didn't mistake me for one to use something so plebeian as a simple Unforgivable?"

She was closer now. She'd moved without his notice, still twirling his wand in a languid hand. Magnetic, those hands, hypnotic. He jumped as her other hand slinked around his waist, eliciting a sultry chuckle from her as she laid her head on his chest. He inhaled sharply, as on edge as he'd ever been in his life, and he waited for her to do... Something. Anything that would break this tension. Then she spoke, her voice as carefully modulated as the rest of her perfectly bewitching performance.

"I will teach you all I know, Regulus, and you will be my creature. I will own you, and you will do as I say."

He shuddered, dread building into a nauseating knot of bile in the back of his throat that choked off his protestations. She traced the outline of his jaw with her nimble fingers, whispering sweet words in his ear too softly to discern any meaning from them apart from that of gentle comfort. Slowly the dread faded and he leaned into her strokes eagerly. When she began to unbutton his robes, he didn't even notice, so transfixed was he by her voice and the spicy, musky smell of her skin.

"Such a beautiful man, Regulus, so beautiful... You'll do so well, my darling boy, so well..."

He nodded numbly, lost in a wonderland crafted by her deft manipulation of his senses. He shivered when cold air hit his stomach, but he didn't move. Suddenly his greatest fear was that she would stop whatever magic she was working on him and he would be just himself again, trapped in the hideousness of the real world. Vaguely he realized that this was Bella's gift. She was like a drug, addicting him with the sensory beauty of the fantasy she wove for him.

"You will be mine, beautiful boy, and I will make you into a great wizard... Do you believe me?"

"Oh yes, yes, Bella," he breathed, silently cursing himself for being unable to resist. After a lifetime of ever-present repression, this pleasure, this intimacy was too much to ignore. He needed it now like he needed air or magic. It was essential; it was a craving.

Bellatrix smiled beatifically, her mysterious eyes swallowing him, giving nothing back but his reflection. "Are you ready to meet your master?"

For an awful moment, Regulus was afraid she meant Lestrange, but then a handsome man with darkly curling hair and an aura of power stepped from the shadows in the far corner.

"Will you pay the price of this love, Regulus?" he asked quietly, the understated authority of his voice as compelling as Bella's sweet coercion.

Regulus looked at Bella, at her porcelain doll's face, at the wine-red lips, at the reassuringly familiar shape of her ears, just like every other Black's ears... She moved a fraction, but it changed everything it seemed, her body like an open invitation for sin. This was too much, far too much.

Regulus stood straight and looked from her fathomless eyes to his fathomless eyes. Master and servant they seemed, and so beautifully matched. He longed suddenly to belong, to buy this darkly flowering love with his soul if he had to. He nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and when he did, he could feel the Book of Life sealing shut his fate. It is finished.