She left Belgium just as the rains fell, breaking the sweltering humidity of the day; wet kisses to revive the wilted petals of red poppies where they grow in window boxes and side yards; in swatches along the garden plots of the canal. A flower plucked and tucked into the first button hole of her sleek knee-length rain coat; another teased from its stem, and slipped through the band of the 20s style cloche hat she wears to match the sheath dress beneath the coat. One last flower, deliciously crimson, resplendently moist and this she slips at the belt snug about her narrow waist, lending curves to slender, lithesome frame; this last flower a talisman, though even she could not tell you what she wishes to ward or remember.
Rivulets of rain mar the view from the train window; she expects to travel alone. She packs light. Despite her work, she claims few worldly possessions. Oh, she has an apartment - seldom used. A business, of course. Artifacts and antiques. Art that spoke to her; books that felt solid and sure in her grasp. She owned clothing, oodles of clothing and trinkets, items from her past, childish things, forgotten things, tucked away. There is a locket in her clutch purse: She seldom wears it but often has it close by. One one side a picture of a much, much younger girl, with her older brother whom she idolized. On the other side her cousins, Lu-lu and Roland, her little birds; her fellow cuckoos. She opens it when no one is around. She doesn't wear it lest anyone know she may, in fact, have a heart. Hearts are difficult, breakable things.
Oh, she is not the winsome, sad young woman, off to face a fate unknown [bought for a rose; for a sword; for the promise of blood] -- not to look at, at least. She is personable and warm with strangers. Genevieve adores strangers: Strangers are her therapists. Not that she tells them anything specific, anything direct: but you can speak in broad terms to strangers with an air of jubilant confession, knowing you'll never see them again. With strangers eye contact is electric, one glimpse, one moment to touch someone else's life... then never again. Like her sexual liaisons in the past there was great ardor; great passion; great burning release.... and the parting of fond strangers, who will never break the other; will never force upon them the shackles of long-term intimacy. And if she thinks of Aurich - if she dreams of his eyes, the sound of his voice, the hold of her form, the way an primal earth song sang in her veins in her presence....
....she firmly keeps to mind every damned Garou/Kinfolk union she's ever witnessed.
And the dull ache subsides.
The blossom of desire wilts, just enough.
To keep her wits about herself.
And in the club car there are pleasant strangers with whom to speak; with whom to share a drink; in rocking corners a place to steal a kiss that leads nowhere, because she does not know how many years it will be before she can kiss someone, anyone, of her own volition, her own desire, her own pigheaded defiance.
There is a hotel - modern grandeur; sleek design - in Dresden. To spend a Thursday and a Friday, to explore a city she knows decently well; practicing, flexing, languidly coaxing her fluent German, with its traces of an accent that speak of her French tongue, her Dutch sensibilities, the cosmopolitan cohesion of Belgium. There is a balcony in her room and she spends long hours of the night there until her bold cheeks are wind blown, wind burned. And she drinks a touch too much; she dances in the nightclub down the street, because she can, because - for now - she is still clinging to the illusion that she is free. And somewhere in those sparse few days she researches possible lodgings for her work; someplace with a studio apartment atop it, perhaps, some place to escape to, some place her own. Somewhere in two sparse days her abundance of money pays for the personal attentions of a personal tailor, flown in from Paris for the finishing touches of a dress she already envisioned, weeks ago, when all this madness [normalcy; what is expected of her] began.
There is a car sent for her no doubt, on a Saturday. To take her from the city and into the countryside; the lakeside. She rolls down the window, lets the fresh air engulf her until her lungs ached with its fullness. She lets her hand ride the current of the wind the car creates, glove-less, feeling the nothingness of molecules that cajole and tease and tickle without vaulting her emotions; without slicing through her calloused sensibilities with some new insight into the darkness of man. And when they arrive she wanders away from the great home itself -- oh she drinks in the sight; she appreciates its old lines; she smiles warmly to any servant who might meet her.... she says, 'Yes, I know what time I am needed. I shan't be late.' and then wanders the grounds, slipping her heels from her feet in search of creeks and meadows and aspen coves. With impish delight she climbs a tree and hides herself but curling up tight amidst the moss and the vines and longs for nudity of body, spirit and mind. Not of heart. Hearts are overrated, achy things.
Spirit-touched, the servants murmur. And she looks it when she steps into the estate home, with grass stains and leaves in her hair; with a crown of plaited meadow flowers and a bracelet of loose woven thorns. "In what room shall I ready myself? Ah, yes... thank you, ever so much." Wind blown and heady with so much fresh oxygen she might even pass for the blushing bride-to-be. But her eyes don't dance with giddy happiness; they are alight with no more and no less that the knowledge that she is alive and she can [oh, see her raise her head, arch her back, howl to the moon; the headiest type of arrogance] survive anything.
She dresses herself.
Does her own hair, makeup, the myriad of things a woman thinks of before her wedding day.
There is no parent to weep for her; no guardian to kiss her cheek and tell her how beautiful she is today. There is no honour guard, as Aurich himself noted on their last - their first - meeting. She is not cherished, for all that she has made herself useful. There is nothing borrowed, nothing blue. Her dress is new. The locket is old. She kisses it and tucks it away and hides it someplace, some place where no one will steal it away from her and it is both game and paranoia; it is both laughter and sorrow.
A knock at the door: Perhaps it's Otto who comes for her as she has no kin of her own to take up this honour of escorting the bride. And perhaps Otto's eyes widen when she is revealed, transformed. Perhaps he stands a little straighter; blushes slightly despite his age as he escorts her past high arched halls with fresh-beaten tapestries lovingly brushed to a shimmering glow. Stained glass windows to catch the descent of the sun as evening comes and the moon begins to rise. Does Aurich plan to marry her under moonlight? Surely not his own moon or it might well be a Blood Wedding.
When they reach the great hall whoever escorts her leaves her side. Do they separate the sparse guests? Bride and Groom's side? Is her side empty? Do they cluster the small gathering to the front to spare her feelings? Is there music? Would the Lord Doenhoff think of such things? Would Jaan or his little sister?
No bouquet of flowers: In her finger-waved, golden hair a single, bold, snow orchid. She said she would not dress in white: She dresses in silver, a stunning gown, breathtaking in its finespun simplicity, the caress of silk and hints of shimmering lace; a sleeveless, bias gown, fitted from breast to hips, flowing gently about her long, long legs in the most subtle hint of a trumpet flower silhouette, bathed in starlight. The back is corsetted and amidst its straps is sheathed - yes, sheathed - a blade in its black leather hilt.
She comes armed to a wedding.
No necklace, no earrings to distract from her body; even the dress acts as no more than a frame. Her gloves rise to her elbows and at her left forearm a heavy armlet of think carved ivory, deliciously well seasoned, darker in tone than her alabaster skin.
Does he wait for her at the alter? One would presume as much. She is stately as she moves, the trace of a smile on her lips while her gaze is.... the banked fire of her own secrets to hold close, hold dear; clung to with her fingertips if necessary. Her step doesn't falter; her face betrays no hesitation, no joy, no mourning, no fear. Is she even here? Is she even real?
There is no veil to lift with sweet, sweet expectancy. She comes nude for him, in her own way.
Genevieve Giselle Breitenbach Beauchamp arrives as herself and nothing more and gives of herself in like manner.
[Aurich]
Genevieve is left quite alone for the next three days. She can do as she pleases; there are no hidden eyes to watch her, no chaperones appearing out of the blue to interrupt that stolen kiss, to shoo her home from the club, to pull her out of that tree that she, like some mad little scamp half her age or younger, has decided to climb on the day of her wedding.
She is left alone because her husband-to-be is not at the estate, not in the city, and not, in fact, in the country. When they parted on Wednesday morning, he went west, crossed the border into France on a train ride of his own. His beta accompanied him, and face to face the two wolves clanked their way to Paris. Aurich reads most of the way, meandering through a newspaper. In the middle he naps a little. Jaan seems to want to talk, makes an offhand comment or two about the morning's events, but Aurich is monosyllabic in response and soon enough the Philodox gets the point, falls silent.
They don't talk about it in Paris, either. They are there on a mission, sent by their house to "aid," which is a polite way of saying oversee, the activities of Unbreakable Hearth in rooting out some lingering trace of a warren of Dancers who have plagued the left bank for too long. They are quite busy. They sleep little. They hunt, they plan, they hunt again. If their cousins from the Hearth have heard of Aurich's impending match, they say nothing of it.
On Friday night they fly back to Dresden. Aurich spends the night in his townhouse, sleeping an hour after he arrives and waking very late on Saturday, long after Genevieve has been ferried to the estate.
He arrives there himself only a half-hour before the noon wedding. Ahroun he may be, but Aurich is firmly of the Sun Lodge, and the hour of the ceremony honors his patron. The trip north takes a half-hour, but it seems somewhat longer. He wonders if he's nervous. He decides he isn't. It isn't nerves; it's something else, something that seems to enhance his awareness of every moment, every minute detail. Dresden is lovely in the midmorning light, its bridges and cathedrals, the remnants of what history still remains after that brutal midcentury war. The colors seem brilliant as city fades to countryside; the yellowing of grain as summer lazes to an end, the dark glossy leaves of the apple trees in their orchards.
Farther out, the land becomes rolling, gentle. Dresden was founded by Slavs from the east. Aurich supposes his ancestors must have been amongst them -- Fangs from ancestral Russia. They found here a rich land, warmer than the snowy wastes of the north and the east, more fertile. Wars have been waged over and again for the bounty of this earth, but land watered in blood seems only to have yielded a richer crop. The first lords of Doenhoff built their stronghold by a lake and held that land in an iron grasp. These days, the farms are gone, receded back to fallow lands overrun with wildgrass, re-encroached by surrounding forest. Yet even after the dissolution of the empire, even after the rise of modern industry and the ebbing of an older agricultural age, the Garou of the family have always guarded their territory jealously.
Where Genevieve has somewhat scandalously dressed and prepared herself -- not that anyone in Aurich's male-dominated pack has complained or perhaps even raised an eyebrow -- Aurich most decidedly does not dress himself. He doesn't have to. He has servants to do this for him. Servants who shave him, servants who give his hair a last-minute trim, servants who weeks ago, when he first began his abbreviated search for a mate, commissioned his attire from inside to out. Servants who planned the event, sent out the notifications and invitations, called in the officiant, rearranged and redecorated that much-neglected great hall into some semblance of its former glory. All of this, Aurich has taken very nearly no part in. All he needs to do, really, is stand there while a small battalion roves around him, sliding his shirt on, fastening his cuffs, tying his tie, tucking in his pocket square. All he needs to do is stand there and get married.
As he is checking his reflection, straightening his tie and smoothing the front of his shirt, someone mentions to him that his lady was spotted bringing a blade into her dressing-room. Aurich snorts a laugh, which is not exactly the response expected. Nothing else is said of the matter.
The guests are gathered when he arrives in the hall. His pack has the front row -- all but Jaan, who takes his place beside Aurich. Someone has appointed Arabella the maid of honor. Aurich thinks she looks starry eyed and silly; he thinks she will have to grow up soon, and he wonders who will look after her when he is gone. Behind the pack gather the rest of their kin; farther back, the senior retainers. They have not separated the guests. There's no point. No one has come for the bride. No one thought to hire a string quartet, either, but at least a strip of rich carpeting cushions the aisle, and at least whoever hung up the tapestries thought to spare the bloodier ones, the ones that told of savagery and retribution.
The altar is draped in the colors of the House. The coat-of-arms hangs from the arch overhead. There is no sign of either Breitenbach or Beauchamp here; all is Doenhoff.
When the door opens, a hushed murmur runs through the small gathering of guests. This much seems a given at any wedding: everyone turns, everyone cranes for that first look at the bride. She is escorted by the majordomo of the house, which is perhaps as close to a father-ish figure as anyone could find. She is not led by him, though, and moves as though every step, every breath is always drawn of her own and complete volition.
Aurich turns to face her as she walks the length of the hall. Quite unconsciously, he draws himself straighter; takes a breath that expands his ribs. She is past the last row of onlookers now, and they have seen the blade at her back. There are whispers. She is past the third row, and Aurich finds he has forgotten to exhale; does so, evenly. She is past the first row,
and Jaan leans in to murmur what he will say again years from now, in another city altogether, at the tail end of their time together:
"She's breathtaking, brother."
He has no time to reply. She is there. He holds out his hand. She is still wearing gloves, he notes. He wonders if she intends to wear them when he places the ring on her finger. He wonders if she intends to wear them to bed, and on that note he cuts his thoughts off. His fingers close around hers; his hand is as large and warm as anyone may have expected. He draws her up to the altar, across from him, and he bows to kiss her knuckles. His breath is warm, too. His lips linger a second.
Then he straightens, turns to the kinsman; nods a signal to begin.
[Genevieve]
Another woman would blush. After all, it's all but expected in these circumstances. Blush prettily to be so admired. Blush self consciously to be so admired. Blush happily at the fine specimen of Garou Pure Blood awaiting her. Blush nervously at what each step brings her closer to; each prospect that much more sealed with each... sturdy... smooth... flowing... step. She does not blush. There is colour in her cheeks; she is not wan and pale; but she seems resolutely unaffected by the eyes of strangers; the eyes of his pack who know secrets she never wanted to reveal.
If the attention doesn't get to her, surely one would expect the rising murmur about the obvious blade at her back to cause her some discomfort: It doesn't. If anything her lips take on the first real trace of a smile, entertaining the private notion that half present may fear an attack on their Lord, while the other half would like nothing more than a bit of scandal to make an otherwise dull ceremony that much more palatable. Indeed, she's fairly certain one packmate - perhaps the bored seeming one that was in homid form and concerned about his cuff-links when a potential fight loomed [she is uneasy of him: Bored Garou make her uneasy and there is no need to explain why] - murmurs that perhaps the events wouldn't be nearly as dreary as he'd feared. It amuses her and saddens her: She's spent most of her adult life - and a good deal of her adolescence - studying old things, be they human or Garou related. The knife at her back is symbolic; is practical. It says she comes not to this marriage - this bonding - a weakling. Not an equal, no, but not a weakling. Can they see that? Can they feel it? It thrums in her veins this juxtaposition of nonchalance [I don't care what you think of me] and self-worth [I am more than what you think of me].
For a moment Aurich's sister captures her attention - yes, it must be she, the true Lady of the estate, Aurich's heir and likely to remain as such unless their union should be fruitful. So young. Starry eyed and bright; fresh and secure. A lesser woman might feel jealous: Genevieve's countenance softens, her smile free of the fetters of her sardonic humour, her jaded knowledge of life. In all the world there may be little more precious to her than a young woman who is genuinely happy; genuinely unharmed. But Arabella cannot hold her attention for long: It's the passage of wistfulness, no more... all along there was one thing - one person - and one person only drawing her across the long walk of the old hall with its whispers of days of feudal grandeur.
He finds he's forgotten to breathe; lets out a steady breath.
She is aware suddenly of the hammering of her heart; not the thready quickness of a rabbit, but the heavy, pulsing quicken of something far more primal. Color comes to her cheeks at last and for a moment - a second, just a second - she hesitates. His hand is outstretched.
She takes it: Strongly. Not the light fingered hold of a lady, for a moment it is a hard, heavy grasp - fingers sleek in silk, but thrumming with vitality beneath. Her breathing evens; the blush fades; she masters herself. Her mantra is simple.
I am not a princess. I am not a princess.
I do not need a prince.
And he is not Gaia's gift to you, you silly little girl.
The dress she wears sheaths her and she is a blade again, regal, detached - just-so. Self-preservation is a strong instinct, in some it makes them flee, in others the urge to submit, small and harmless. Still others fight.
My weapon is my spirit.
What can be said of the ceremony?
The words are customary; the Goddess is invoked but even she has her own trinity here of Falcon and Eagle. The sun is high, the rays through the high arched windows muted, in lieu of sparkling lights and song there is the dance of motes of dust in natural sunlight, bathing them mutely. He is swarthy. She is ivory. When it is required she speaks, she does so, hushed, husky: For him. When he proffers a ring, she does not remove her glove and for the first time in her gaze there is a request for his understanding: Please. Don't make me.
She promises things and her expression is somber while her eyes burn their smoldering sapphire. Each word deliberate. Careful. Enunciated.
It is a simple matter, quickly done.
Except when she reaches behind herself - slowly, obviously, least someone think she is going to attempt to murder her new mate right here and not [again the thought tickles her earthy sense of humour, it tugs at her lips and lights up her eyes] - unsheathes the dagger with ease... and holds it towards Aurich, hilt first, balanced atop her silken palm, her gaze steady. Questioning. Does he know the tradition? Will he honour it? Is he too cultured a beast for the blood rite? Her free hand rises, palm out [still, the glove remains, not removed even for this - especially for this], offering the lush swell of the Venus mound to be scored.
[Aurich]
Words are said. Promises are made. Faith. Fidelity. Protection. The word love is not uttered. The word death is.
The rings are produced by Jaan when the time comes. Aurich's hands are steady as he reaches for Genevieve's. She doesn’t tug her gloves off. Somehow, he didn't expect that she would. He looks at her; there's a quirk to his mouth, a beginning of some rare quip, but the look in her eyes stops him. He says nothing. The expression fades. He is solemn as he slides two rings onto her finger at once: the engagement ring he never gave her, and then the ancient ring, a seal of her newfound position.
His ring is larger. He holds his hand relaxed as she pushes it to the base of his finger. Then he flexes his hand, as though testing a new set of gauntlets. He finds the fit true; clenches his fist, finds her looking at him, presses his fist to his breast in a silent salute.
There is a murmur when she draws the knife. He looks at it, and then he looks at her, and she sees the exact moment he understands. It's in his eyes, a flaring of the pupils. It's in his eyebrows flickering together, there and gone. He does not want to hurt her. She can see that, too, but it doesn't stop him from taking the knife; taking her hand. This time when he bends to her, he kisses her palm, and it is a burning thing that furrows his brow with its intensity. From her vantage point he is all stormy brow, proud nose, massive shoulders; a bold hand pressing hers to his mouth. There's something primal about it; something unscripted and raw, undeniably and unexpectedly erotic. Someone in the third row draws and releases a breath, nearly a gasp. He could devour her like this. Drink her in, eat her up. He could take her right here, mate before the pack the way wolves do; would she even try to stop him?
He did not bargain for her. Not for this.
When he straightens, he is resolved. He slashes her palm open. The cut is not shallow, and when he offers his hand he will be disappointed if his is. When they clasp hands again, he squeezes without mercy, pain a bright flare in his eyes. He holds as long as she does, which is not long enough.
She steps back, then. Now is the time to kiss the bride, but something about that feels false to him. Thin and paltry after the blood-rite, and the way his mouth touched her then. This: it would be something done purely for show, for the entertainment of the crowd. They anticipate it. They want to see it. They want to talk about it afterward; was it sweet? was it hungry? was it chaste? was it passionate? what secrets could they possibly glean about the pairing from that one single kiss? Let them be disappointed, he thinks, ruthless. His intimacy with his wife,
his mate,
will be something private, guarded jealously. "Declare it," he says to the kinsman behind the altar, roughly. And the kinsman does: man and wife, Lord and Lady of Doenhoff.
There are congratulations, of course, after the ceremony is concluded. In all the guests number a little less than two dozen, but even those two dozen must be wined and dined. Traditions of a decidedly carnivorous bent: red meat, red wine, and fuck the cake. They are seated next to each other, the bride and groom. They are a handsome pair: she is fair, dressed in silver; he is dark, dressed in black. His waistcoat is silver, though, as is his tie. His pocket-square bear the colors of his house; the only splash of true color on either of them.
They scarcely have time to talk. Perhaps they would have little to say, regardless. Their plates and their glasses are refilled endlessly. Arabella huffs about the lack of a kiss, complains yet again that he is the worst Silver Fang gentleman ever, and Genevieve sees for the first time the warmth and affection between the siblings. One by one and two by two their guests approach, congratulate, chitchat, drink to them. Gifts pile up, unopened. Aurich matches them drink for drink, glass for glass. Anything less would be a snub. He must be quite drunk by the time the last guest approaches, but one can hardly tell. Perhaps he sprawls a little more in his seat. Perhaps his eyes are a little more hooded. He still speaks well, though, eloquent in his simplicity. He thanks the guest; he shares a drink, drains the glass to the bottom.
It is well into the afternoon, halfway to evening, by the time Aurich rises from his seat. He does not sway. Waving his guests back into their places, he all but commands them to stay, eat, drink, enjoy themselves. As for him -- he turns to Genevieve, and he holds out his hand for hers.
They have exited the great hall when he speaks to her. They are surrounded by stones, centuries old, and they pass through oblongs of sunlight cast through the tall windows.
"Do you require time to prepare? Shall I come to you after dark?"
[Genevieve]
There were promises she made to herself, sitting at the vanity of her appointed room: I shall not blush. I shall not swoon. I shall not give an iota of myself that I do not wish to give. There were promises she made as she adjusted the garter straps to the silken stockings before the standing mirror: This is no different than any other relationship I've had. This will be no different. I'll give no more of myself than I need to, than is required. I never have before, I will not do so now.
There are promises she swore to herself, alone, where fear had a name in her core; where the mirror reflected back to her with the threat of anonymity: Who am I? Who will I be now?
When he holds her attention at the makeshift altar at the end of the hall, the promises are suddenly blurred; it becomes harder to tell between her own stubbourn pride [I am not your object; your property] and the drumming, the steady drumming that threatens to sear her veins.
It's in his eyes, a flaring of the pupils. It's in his eyebrows flickering together, there and gone.
Her own pupils reflect his; an eagerness there; unbidden, uncalled, but summoned right to the fore; delectably.
He does not want to hurt her. Yes, she can see that too, and the colour rises to her cheeks, unbidden, another false promise shorn away; her gaze softens, an intimacy she seldom betrays. Her eyes are a liquid azure; a gracious benediction; with but a gaze she blesses him for that look, that moment, that protective impulse... before her spine flexes and her gaze narrows. Not angry, but daring: Without words they communicate more to each other than letters of brief interludes have come close to accomplishing. I am not weak, her gaze demands his acknowledgement. Let me prove it.
The fraction of time for such looks is less than the breaths of shared air between them. The vows had meaning: She spoke them with a ring of veracity that could not be doubted by even his sharpest Half Moon: But the words pale compared to this. An act. A rite.
His mouth claims her silk gloved hand [for one sharp, almost painful moment she wishes her hand was bare] with a salacious, erotic appetite that leaves her lips parted, her eyes hooded, her neck... arches... just... so. The gasp from the spectators is ignored. Fuck them. Let them watch. She has eyes only for him: She watches not the blade, but him. Her hand trembles in his - does he know it is eager? He cuts her deeply and she exhales: the barest wince, then clear gazed and determined. And when it is her turn - bold, brazen thing that she is - she echoes his actions; her mouth is wide [like so many of her features, they are irregular, they are just slightly off, but come together into something breathtakingly pleasing]; her lips supple, soft, unfettered by the tackiness of lipstick or a barrier of gloss. Her mouth is as nude as her hands are covered. Her canines are sharper than most, they graze the fleshy swell below his thumb, smooth, gliding, a brief but sumptuous suck, tongue pressed there. It lasts but a moment: It seems an eternity.
If he took her there, she would not protest.
But he does not take her: And her eyes solid on his, she cuts, deeply, marks him. Visceral pride and unexpected, unquestioned tenderness both. Their hands press, the crimson of their fluids hot and slick together and her grasp as tight, as strong as she can manage. It is gentle compared to his; compared to the battles he's fought since his relative youth. But her intention is fierce.
Bonded.
Ever cell in her being aches to hold the touch: Which means her mind rejects the weakness [danger!] all the faster and she steps back. Perhaps to some amusement in the crowd. She's quite forgotten the modern sentiment where the groom typically kisses the bride. For a beat, a moment, she seems her age [young] she seems somewhat unsure [what now? what next? what more of this show?]
No one weeps at this wedding.
Least of all the bride herself.
There is no music, and her pulse races too loud again in her ears.
What the fuck do I do now!?
For once she had not planned this far ahead. Uncertain, suddenly, when the moment is broken; that pristine spell of unfathomed cohesion. With bated breath the guests watch, they wait for it; the kiss. To witness. To judge. He is no virgin; neither is she. The raw sensuality is electric between them; her blood sings for him, carnal, unapologetic even thought it ceases her like a whirlwind and... she can see the decision in his eyes. The decision to deny her mouth what she fairly pants for, moist and supine.
He decides against it.
Her head cants to one side, an animal gesture of wary confusion.... but understanding dawns when she keeps herself from over analyzing.
And her eyes flare with triumph; her face suffused with glorious rose. Another moment and the possessiveness behind his decision might have unraveled her completely to a purring satisfaction. But he growls for the formal announcement and the obligatory - if momentarily delayed - applause breaks the unbridled tension of the moment. It gives her mind full reign again and she is collecting herself; accepting a handkerchief from someone, binds it around her hand, her expression becoming once more gracefully reserved. A hint of a smile. Polite. A bride should smile.
She aches.
She did not bargain for this.
-----
Her upbringing does not allow her to become uncomfortable during dinner amidst strangers; no least of which is the Garou by her side. Arabella teases and moans; Genevieve laughs, a full, languid sound, breathy and low but pleased, to see their banter; her eagerness, this little sister, unafraid of her altogether intimidating brother... who is less so, near his sibling. Her laughter is pleased; her gaze is poignant. She had that once: that connection; that love. It is gone now...
...and Genevieve does not hold on to regret. Instead she genuinely enjoys their moment. Their love, for love it is. And right then she does indeed look the happy bride, if only because here and now things aren't fucked up. And what a relief... what a relief it is.
Her plate is kept full; her appetite is healthy, her joy of good food as unapologetic as her other forthright mannerisms. She doesn't keep up with the drinking: There are limits... until, that is, the time wears on. Need battles with apprehension in her gut; in her womb. The awareness that any number of Garou present here can no doubt scent her growing slickness is enough to make her reach for the glass and down whatever contents it so happens to hold; fortifying herself. Do they touch? Does he touch her as they wine and dine? Does she reach for him as they are congratulated and flattered?
The rings on her finger are unfamiliar. Heavy.
The light is fading: Candles are lit. Romantic. She doesn't feel romantic. She feels heavy. Feverish.
Like the Lord that he is, he rises - she follows suit without thought, all slinky grace; her countenance clear and pleasant; though she feels increasingly undone. With but a gesture, the lord of the estate commands his guest to continue without him. Without them.... for the first time in hours he holds out his hand to her; a gesture accepted without pretense of finesse, a natural grace that carries her through. Her pulse throbs at her neck.
"Do you require time to prepare? Shall I come to you after dark?"
The courtliness of his words is out of place in this modern world; but wholly at home here, amidst stone and old windows, heavier glass at the bottom, where gravity has laid claim to liquid sand only pretending to be solid. Quite unbidden she lets her head tilt back slightly, as a husky breath of laughter rolls over her tongue; slips from her lips. The action exposes her neck, slender and pale; not so pale perhaps... colour rises there soon enough, a healthy flush. The hushed susurration of her amusement is fleeting; her cat-slanted eyes soon open anew... her gloved hand slides in his, fingers curling to catch along his, a tugging motion.
"Show me the sunset, Aurich," she murmurs, his given name a promise on her tongue. "Show me where it is loveliest. Take me there."
She is not a coy creature.
The duality of her words is entirely, utterly intentional.
[Aurich]
Leaving the great hall, he took her hand as any lord would his lady: gently, delicately, with his thumb laid over her fingers and her fingers curling into his palm. She smiled so graciously at the guests as he led her from the room. They forgot that she was the stranger to them, and not the wolf at her side; they forgot that she shocked them during the ceremony proper with her knife, her response, the way she herself seemed to forget she was being watched.
She hadn't forgotten, though. She'd simply ceased to care.
And why not? A lifetime of being watched; surely that wears thin. For the both of them, but particularly for her: watched and judged, constantly, on whether or not she was beautiful enough. Useful enough, gracious enough, polite enough, well-trained enough, too -- but above all, evaluated on that first impression. Valued purely by how much a Garou may or may not give for her.
Well; this Garou gave quite a lot for her, if one is keeping count. Millions and millions and millions, the ultimate sum figured by some bizarre abstraction of what it cost to raise her, what it cost to keep her, what it cost to dress her and clothe her and feed her, what all those undiscovered discoveries she might yet make were worth. There was, in fact, haggling between the lawyers and the accountants. Ridiculous bits of hairsplitting over a cent here, a dime there, which was made all the more ridiculous by the enormity of that final sum. If she's a whore, if her cunt is for sale, then she's a high-priced one indeed.
And yet, for all that: the final amount was nothing but monetary. Not a moment of her time. Not a hair on her head. So, quite a lot. Or nothing at all, depending on how one figures it. Perhaps she should be insulted. Or flattered. Likely she doesn't, at the moment, care.
Show me the sunset, she says. He turns to look at her. Take me there.
There's a darkening in his eyes; a concentric heat clenching there. He takes a step toward her. He might push her against the wall and kiss her; he might fuck her right there, pulling her dress up, her panties down, and never mind what drunken guest might come stumbling out in search of a working toilet. He wants to. That's in his eyes, too. Everything is. Nothing shows on his face, so often, but everything shows in his eyes. There: that's a key to him, given to her without word, without question.
He doesn't kiss her, though. He takes a breath and then he takes her hand differently, gripping now, palm to palm. When he starts walking again his pace is faster. He's all but pulling her through the long dusty halls of the centuries-old keep. Memories strew the way; who knows how many other lords of Doenhoff have come this way with their brides, their wives, their mistresses, their women? Who knows how many other ladies of Doenhoff have stolen a kiss in this alcove, scheduled an assignation in that? Who knows what blood was spilled in this crossway, in that branching of the hall; who knows how many times this window was broken in some long-ago assault; who knows how many times these thick stone walls were climbed, battered, mortared, set afire, never once truly breached?
Up the stairs, then. He doesn't drag her up like some errant child; he ushers her ahead of him, following a pace or two behind. If Genevieve looks over her shoulder,
and what a sight she is, if she does,
he follows with his eyes on her, hunger on his face controlled nearly to grimness; he takes the stairs two by two. The modern-day suit and tie looks odd on him. Shouldn't he be in leather and mail? Second floor now. Rugs on the floor, leading down the wide hall; a discreet pointer toward where they're meant to spend the night. The lord's quarters or the lady's, no doubt, in some massive four-posted bed. Perhaps there'd even be a convenient window to hang the sheets out of in the morning; fuck that. He nods her toward the stairs again, a jerk of his head.
"Two more flights."
All the way up, then. He follows ever closer. She might feel pursued, hunted. These floors were built ages ago, before ten to fifteen feet became the standard height for a story. These flights feel much longer than that. Even Aurich breathes harder by the top. The stairs wind to an end before a heavy oaken door, which looks older than most north american countries. Aurich sets his shoulder to it and forces it open. The sudden creak of wood on stone is startlingly loud.
It is almost silent up here. The small feast is so far below that they can't hear it. Draftier, though; this level of the keep so rarely visited now that no one has really bothered with modernization or upkeep. Cobwebs in the corners. Dust on the floor. Poor insulation, no electricity, only cold water on this floor. The rooms here are smaller -- no honored guest would be given quarters so far from the proverbial action -- cluttered with the paraphernalia of the ages past. There's a chill in the air here, even in late summer, as evening begins to settle. Aurich's hand takes hers again, seems warmer for the contrast. He finds a room in the southwestern corner and pushes open the door, handing her in. Ladies first, and all. After he enters he turns, shoving the heavy door closed again.
Dropcloths cover what furniture there is, mismatched in age and era. Some sort of writing desk, or perhaps it's a vanity. A wardrobe. A small credenza or the like. A bed, but god only knows the last time it's seen use. There might be a skeleton in it for all he knew, Aurich thinks. Windows to the south and the west, though, the glass fogged with age or missing altogether. Aurich nods toward one of the glassless ones.
"Go and look," he says. For his part: he goes to the wardrobe, digs some blanket or rug out of it, hangs it out one of the southern windows and shakes it furiously until no more dust comes out of the fur.
The sun is closer to the horizon then. He lays the fur in front of the small, cold hearth. There's no firewood here, he realizes. He could easily go down for some. Or bellow into the stairwell until the servants heard. He doesn't want to leave the room; he doesn't want to be out of her presence, not for a moment. A dropcloth gets whisked aside. Then a terrific crash, as some three-hundred-year-old chair smashes to kindling against the wall. At least he has a lighter in his pocket. He doesn't smoke, but such things are useful for an Ahroun.
As fire starts the crackle in the hearth, Aurich rises to his feet. He watches the flames for a moment. Then he turns toward the other, living flame in the room. By the most generous of figurings, they've known each other a little less two weeks. They met in person three or four days ago. He only first took her hand today, when he married her. It is the twenty-first century, or near enough not to matter. He's never even put his arms around her.
It's quiet enough to hear birds outside, settling in the trees for the night. Quiet enough to hear the fire in the hearth. Quiet enough to hear him breathing as he comes to her. It's not quite hesitance, but it is a sort of -- carefulness, when he puts his hands on her waist.
His voice is low and rough: "You're not a virgin, are you?"
He doesn't think she is. He's almost certain she's not. It's the twenty-first century. She's twenty-five years old. He hopes she isn't, for god's sake; he doesn't want to have to be careful, hold back.
[Genevieve]
His response to her request [a request? a preference? a demand?] surprises her for only a moment: It surprises her modern sensibilities; surprises the mind of a Kinfolk raised in far different a household and atmosphere than he and his Arabella. He grants her a small but potent key: the raw nudity of his gaze that masks nothing, hides nothing. Hunger now; hungry for flesh to consume. The almond sweep of her eyes becomes more rounded, hooked. Like she's realized that what she once took for prurience was boxed wine as compared to ambrosia. He doesn't kiss her. She wants to be kissed: There is no greater invocation that a woman who caresses her own lower lip with the tip of her tongue; mouth just barely open, supple and wanting. She wants to be kissed thoroughly, provocatively, hard. It's a echo of what she wants to be done to other, even more sensitive parts of her anatomy. She wants barriers broken and utter invasion: She wants these things hard enough it aches in places so beautifully clothed; it shocks the living hell out of her: It makes complete and utter sense; she just doesn't know why...
...she doesn't stop to question it. Did he expect her to be pliant to his whims? Did he expect her to demure; to let her lashes sweep downward, to be coaxed and cajoled along the way? Did he anticipate a wanton, did he wait for her to throw herself at him? She does neither: Certainly not the sweet, shy approach. Not here; not now. Maybe never. Neither does she jump him, brazen and uncontrolled. Control is a precious thing, especially to those who exercise very little of it when relative to their Changing kin. She does not discard it for him. Not here; not now: Will she ever?
But her hand shifts even as his does and, yes - yes, there is urgency, reigned in but barely so, so that the essence of vitality thrums just beneath the surface, overflowing in the eyes.
She gives him that, in this: Her eyes, unshielded.
This is how...
...the long progression of steps. Uneven, more so the farther they ascend. Sweeping, staggering heights. Narrow, deep steps. Her footing is sure, but it isn't easy with heels and she is all too aware of him behind her and...
...discomfiture hunches her shoulders. She feels hunted - and finds herself as averse to the idea as she is seduced. Her breathing grows more laboured, naturally, but she keeps the pace: Her health is not a concern; her body was never left soft and useless; decadent and too-pampered as some Kin find themselves; drench themselves, indulge themselves morbidly. All the same by the time they pass the carpeted floor to the neigh treacherous steps beyond [two more flights, he says] she is too raw a bundle of nerves to trust the heels and her own sense of balance. Turning, slowly, carefully on a step...
...that's when she catches his eyes and he hers. She halts, momentarily frozen, one leg barely lifted, where she'd intended to carefully slip off designer shoes. Her breath: Hitches. She blinks: Slowly. Lasciviously. Her heels drags lightly against the edge of the step, the shoe slipping off.. tumbling, perhaps. One step up: then the other, set free to topple, to be forgotten. The silk that sheaths her feet is nude in colour, fine and sure to be full of runs by the time she makes it up these steps.
Her gaze is locked on his and there's a different kind of hunger within the lust: She isn't sure how long she'll be able to hold his gaze - how long before it's too much, even for her? So this hunger is more like the anticipation of thirst and she drinks... drinks him in, this unguarded visage of his eyes. She doesn't turn around, but proceeds up the steps, walking backward, keeping two steps ahead of him - he takes the steps two at a time... she hastens her own step slightly to keep that small distance; a smile tugs at her lips, not coy but intoxicated. It's easier this way, to watch him peruse and pursue her. Gloved hands span the stone walls on either side of them: such passages tend to narrow as they go upwards after all. Not the grandiose stairwell from below. Satin and lace shimmers as her muscles move, pulling her ever upwards; her increasingly obvious breathes giving even her slight cleavage the appearance of fullness as her breasts strain slightly against the corseted bodice.
Who is luring whom?
Does it matter?
To the room of his choosing then: Go and look. How many words spoken between them now? Not counting the vows and the negotiations [near debacle] in Brussels -- a paltry few. You can count them on two hands, no more than four.
Go and look...
..."But mind the one door this one key unlocks,” she murmurs “that door is forbidden."
Would he understand the reference?
And if he was Bluebeard: Who the hell would rescue her?
Deliberately she turns away from him and soaks in this forgotten room; this neglected place where old things, maybe broken things have been stashed away. It is unlikely that he calculated how this might call to her nature. More than finery; more than opulence. Gloved fingertips slide over draped contours of unknown things; a cats whiskers eager and curious; wanting to investigate; to search and find hidden, forgotten and maybe forbidden things. But her stride is purposeful; she asked for the loveliest view of the sunset and he's brought her here; to the window encasement she goes, moving only when he needs use of it to beat the hell out of a poor bit of forlorn rug: His actions behind her - preparing - draw a subdued, secretive smile across her lips; a curious tilt to her head. Did he look after little details with his other lovers? Did he think of adding a touch of softness to unyielding, cold stone? Did he stop to think that normal human body temperature might not easily shrug of uncomfortable extremes like his does? She cannot decide if this is out of the norm or not for him.
She does not, after all, truly know a damned thing about him.
Except that he wanted her. Wants her. Took her. Will...
...her eyes close, disturbing the exquisite view of encroaching evensong. There's a moment now to steady herself, if she wants to, a moment to question, to wonder and...
CRASH
An antique chair is turned into so much kindling and tinder. She jerks slightly, turns at the hip and for a flicker-flash affronted protest laces her features. Who knows how old the piece was? Who sat upon it? It's value, not just monetarily but... but.. but...
....she laughs. Not boisterously; it is more breath than sound, a hand rises, covering her mouth, an old gesture from days when she used to be achingly self conscious about everything that was utterly wrong with her. But her hand doesn't linger long and the smile beneath it is more mischievous than naught: "You've conquered the chair, Aurich. Shall I sing a ballad to mark the occasion?" The corners of her eyes crinkle: enough to show laugh lines there, not premature wrinkles -- it's simply a part of her physiology. Her eyes have deepened now from blue-grey clarity, to stoked steel.
He makes a fire: She does, indeed, sing, returned now to soaking int he view she named as the stipulation for her bridal night. Not of mighty ahrouns conquering rickety wood; not even, truly a song with lilting or teasing melody: Her voice is not stellar, she is no hidden songbird. But she can carry a tune and arousal lends the alto range a tantalizing fizz of breathlessness behind each haunting note, inexpertly but easily formed: “Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk.”
He is moving closer: She doesn't need to hear him or watch him to feel it. Close her eyes and she is sure she could find him, even in absolute darkness, it would be no more difficult than finding the source of her own heat. His hands on her waist steals away the last of the brief chant; given up to dwindling light and the last trill of songbirds in the forest beyond:
You're not a virgin, are you?
She steps back - just slightly, just barely - body seeking warmth; seeking carnal, dark, fuckable pleasures. Back and then turns, so she is close, so he must feel the movement; her wide, well-formed lips are curved; bemused; her gaze is darker, darker so for the dilation of her eyes.
"No."
A beat, an arched brow; a concern but more like a taunt, "Are you?"
She meant it sarcastically, but her eyes flare slightly as it dawns on her... no, surely a man - a Garou - of his age... wouldn't be...
...oh, fucking hell, if he's been celibate all this time I'll scream.
One hand rises - the hand still bound with a linen handkerchief over the silver gloves, the hand he cut in the blood rite - it moves to the Windsor knot of his tie; loosens it, expertly. Her fingers -- she meant for them to slip away, but instead she finds them tightening there and...
"Will it take the edge off when you've fucked me?”
Her teeth catch slightly at her tongue; her lips. She is pressed up close unless he doesn't allow it; her inhalation is strong, loud, deep, breathing him in; her words - she is uncaring of their raciness; she is surprised at the trace of a needy, impatient mue at the end.
"I've never been with a Garou. Men, yes... never a True Born... is it always like this? No one... I didn't..." she isn't stumbling, so much as restraining herself from panting. Her body is close: her head shifts, wanting the same nearness. She wants to nuzzle; to lave; to nip and suck. "Will it take the edge off?"
[Aurich]
On the steps his eyes flare when Genevieve turns to face him. There was sport in pursuing her, hunting her up that long winding stairwell, but this: this is better. He can see her like this, see her breathing ramping up with the height, the distance -- the arousal. Her hands trail along stone walls. Bits of detritus scatter and fall. She retreats with every step. She lures with every step. It makes him feel like a conqueror; it makes him feel hunted, himself, and that is so rare a sensation that it is intoxicating. It makes him want to climb after her on all fours, howl, chase after her like a beast, bear her down.
She stops. He stops. Alert, waiting. He doesn't notice the shoe until it drops from her foot. Then the noise makes his head snap down, make his eyes follow that single shoe as it tumbles softly down the steps, hits a wall, ricochets from sight. He looks up. He thinks she might be smiling. The other shoe falls -- this time he catches her by the heel; bends to kiss the top of her foot, the inside of her ankle, might have gone higher but she slips away.
In the room Aurich shatters a chair. He's quite forgotten she's an antiques dealer. He may have never read that line in her dossier, for that matter. He barely looked at it; something about fencing, he remembers that, remembered that when he chose the swords from his own armory. Something about her hands... gloves. He knows why she wears them. He's not the type to worry a riddle with his mind, but sometimes when his mind wanders across that tidbit, that little morsel of information, a pandoric curiosity overwhelms him. She wore them to the wedding; that answered that question. Will she wear them to bed?
She nearly gasps when he destroys that little bit of history, whips around, he stares at her with the broken back of the chair still in his hand; there's a snapping challenge in his eyes. If she said anything, he'd shatter another. Not to spite her, no, but to show her: it's just a thing. It's only material wealth, and he would throw away any amount of material wealth just to have her.
Might have started a war for her, too. Might have killed for her on that near-debacle of a morning in Brussels. Would that have shocked her? He wonders if it wouldn't have excited her, too, on some dark and half-buried level. They're all animals in the end. They respond to strength, to dominance, to instinct.
And then she laughs. He cocks his head at the sound. She mocks him; he bares his teeth in a half-grin. She turns to the window and he builds a fire. They've had so few words between them. She shares a few more: words borrowed from someone else, set to a tune of her own. He doesn't recognize them, but he recognizes that they fit the moment. They fit the place.
His hands on her body steal the last of the song. There's a boldness in the way she steps back against him. He likes that. He doesn't back away from her. His hands tighten at her waist; he doesn't wrap his arms around her, hold her, none of that. He is not feeling gentle at the moment. He does not feel gentle at all; he feels dark and warm at her back, very strong, a roar of rage that sears away all but the most primitive impulses. He nuzzles hard against the side of her face, his teeth catching the lobe of her ear. She turns and his hands loosen to allow it, skim a circle around her body; her hip brushes his groin and his upper lip lifts in a soundless snarl. He is aroused. He is not shy about this. When she faces him, his hands lock around her waist again, and he pulls her close, lets her feel it.
No, she says, amused. Are you?
The line of his jaw is briefly tense. But he's not ashamed of this, either:
"No. There were girls in my youth. Before the Change. But not after." He watches her undo his tie. She is good at this. She's had practice. Maybe that should inflame him. "These things matter," he tells her, low and hard, impressing the words into the air. "Maybe not to a man, but to a Garou. There is no such thing as casual. It matters."
Her hand tightens on the ends of the tie and she pulls him that much closer. He looks at her unflinchingly. She asks him a question that lights him up inside. She presses to him, she's wearing entirely too much clothing, she keeps asking him questions he doesn't know the answer to and his lust roars into something very like anger. He grasps her by the shoulders and pushes her against the wall, crowds her there, pins her with his body.
"I don't know." He's answering all her questions at once. "I don't think so." And then he's on her, his hands holding her head, his mouth on hers.
He thought this night would be about duty. These things matter, he said, and still he thought that. Perhaps they would undress with their backs to each other. Crawl under the covers in the darkness and couple in furtive twitches, thrusting being entirely too passionate for the occasion. She could lie there, cold as a starfish, and think of Gaia and Tribe. He could politely bite back all grunts, all groans, so as not to be mistaken for someone having a good time. They could keep their heads turned away from each other to avoid undue embarrassment. And then in the morning they could go on with their regularly scheduled lives.
But then he met her. Saw her across the room. Saw her taking the blade from his palm. Saw her at the altar. Felt her palm beneath the silk; felt her mouth on his hand. Saw her leading him and being led here, all the way here,
to this hurricane of a first kiss. His mouth on hers is not gentle, not soft, not polite. He wants her mouth open to his; his hand tangles in her hair, he pulls her head back, he kisses her until she opens to him, and then he hides a growl in her mouth as his hands go to her body. He grasps at her breast. He grasps her by the hips, lifts her suddenly and bodily, her back sliding against stone. Too many layers between, and still he puts her up against the wall, still he fights his way between her thighs and traps her there with the friction and the weight of his body against hers. The kiss shatters apart for a moment. He's not even trying to restrain himself from panting. He looks at her, up at her for once with her lifted above him like this, his eyes black with want, all pupil.
And then Aurich grasps her dress in both hands. That slinky, tailored, lovely silver dress of hers. He starts rucking it up, pulling it up, yanking it up, the hem rising above her ankles, her knees, the fabric a maddening and delicious friction between the insides of her thighs, the outsides of his hips, sliding and rushing and then suddenly gone. He bends to her throat, he bites her shoulder, steadies her with one hand on her hip as he pushes the other under her skirt and between her legs; he's never so much as touched her hand skin-to-skin, but his fingers brush aside whatever wisp of lingerie she's chosen for the occasion, brush past her lips, push into her cunt. He snarls against her skin, and no: this, at least, did nothing to take the edge off.
[Genevieve]
There's a music in her veins. It started... when? When did the first chords begin? Pianissimo at first: So low, so soft, so slight as to be easily ignored. The picture in his dossier. He was unlike most Silver Fang she knew in appearance alone. Not these too-pretty, svelte creatures [truly, tell me, what heterosexual woman wants to feel like they are possibly less sleekly attractive than their lover?], nor the debonair refinement of her uncle's ilk; nor the modern hipster, redneck, gangsta, curb stomping look of the American cousins with their strange ideas and dreams of revolution [never achievable without guillotine and blood on the streets but people forget that]. Then to the meeting; a business affair. Her womb, her blood, her cunt on auction. She went in expecting to hide her bitterness veneer a stilled tempest of brutal pragmatism: But the aria grew then, thrummed louder in her veins; the low basso clef; he called to her flesh and she'd responded, even then. The wedding, hours ago. It should have been a sad affair; she was alone among strangers; bereft of family, stranded ashore unknown shores to an unknown reception...
...but his mouth on her hand was a percussive addition, beating low where it felt best. The sting of the blade: brutal and claiming, a gesture returned in kind and...
Now here: Present.
...she's up against a wall. The cold stone stark and shocking against her overheated flesh where it is exposed at nape, shoulder blades, the high ridges of her spine. Coupled with the demands of his mouth [this matters; this matters all the more because they actually find they want it. each other. badly] and the shock of chill wall; the furnace of his body against the brand of hers: Her mouth opens eagerly. Not a placid yielding, this. Her tongue is lustful against his, tasting traces of rare meat and the heady intoxication of all the drink he downed. She arches to him: Heated, pressing. Her hands - the gloves remain and they will remain, his question answered - clench, one at the base of his skull, seeking a finger hold in hair too short to please her need to show him the depths of her own ferocity. Her other hand still at his tie, his loosened tie, tugging, clenching.... he bites her shoulder and she coos, a sultry sound, her face turns, finally allowed to let her tongue explore the line of his jaw, reveling in the roughness of the stubble there against the heat and soft of her. She doesn't nip his neck: She bites it; not with a vengeance but with an abrasive quality of raw need.
He doesn't know if this will take off the edge.
He doesn't think so.
Neither does she.
And that knowledge makes her writhe against him; the hand at his tie sliding down as he rucks up her skirts, all that fabric, that exquisite, expensive fabric. Her thigh hooks at his hip; pelvis angled up and in, demanding without shame. Frustration makes her groan and grind, a feminine off-stroke to his own sounds and movements, while her hand dips down to the hardest part of him, felt when she'd turned against him; felt thick and hot even through layers of clothing as he'd pressed her against him. She molds her hands there, exploring him through the fabric of his slacks but it isn't enough... it isn't enough...
....his hand finds its way to the centre of her heat, finds her cunt slick, wet for him, aching and swollen. Her body stiffens wonderfully, her breathy sound inarticulate at first before words form, "Tear it off," she pants, she growls. "It's just a fucking dress... tear it off... I want to feel you... I need to... to..." Her head presses back against the wall, hard, hard enough to ache, and somehow, somewhere along the way she's undone him; worked open his fly; slipped her own hand down, brazen and bold, silk gloved fingers curling around...
"Merde..." Only in French could such a base, common swear word come off as so intensely erotic. If it is possible for a woman to purr - victorious, intoxicated on pheromones - she certainly does so now while her hand, her insistent, clever, slippery hand explores him, slowly, languidly... In her native language she continues. Does he understand? His packmate had translated for him all that time before... she doesn't know if he speaks French. She doesn't care. She doesn't... fucking... care... "My god, your cock feels.... glorious...." The words are lipped in an unashamed, unfettered moan against his neck before her teeth sink in again, just for the pleasure of feeling him jerk and move: His heavy cock in her hand; his blunt fingers inside of her.
The hand at his back tugs and tears at his jacket; his collar... "Let me feel you, mate... let me... please...."
[Aurich]
He almost loses himself, loses his mind, loses his center, when that clever experienced hand of hers works open his fly and reaches in. Merde, she says, lapsing to the French of her birth, but frankly that's better than what he comes up with: a raw, rough vowel sound, not a word at all. His teeth release her shoulder. He presses his brow there, panting against the slope of her upper chest, the musculature of his flank bunching to thrust his cock into her hand, mindlessly.
It's not her cunt. He knows that. He can't help it; it's pure instinct now. It always was, from the moment he saw her in that pile of introductions on his desk.
There's a laugh in there somewhere. Just a fucking dress, she calls that miraculous, gorgeous assortment of fabric and lace and silk and thread. Just her fucking wedding dress; what do wolves and wolf-kin like them care about it? But the truth is it's hard for him to pull away from her right now. His fingers are in her. His palm grinds against her clit. It's been an absurdly long time since he'd last had a woman. Really had one, anyway -- there were lapses along the way, of course. He's only human. He's only a wolf. There was that woman three years ago who got down on her knees for him at some black-tie party. There were stolen kisses here and there, moments where his lust boiled through and couldn't be put back down without some satiation. A few instants, islands of respite amidst an endless sea of self-denial. Moments he regretted, ultimately. This sort of thing matters.
But this; utter possession, the permission of knowing she is utterly and wholly and forever his: something else, entirely.
He doesn't understand what the hell she's saying to him. He doesn't speak French; all those translations were not for show. He understands the tone, though. He understands the way her hand moves on him, the slow maddening exploration of those gloved fingers that has him bucking against her, pumping into her palm like his body isn't even a part of him, like he has no control of himself. He doesn't have any control of himself. He lost it a long time ago; else he wouldn't have risked so much, risked all, to have this woman
right here
open to him, waiting.
He understands the plea inherent in those sounds, and the way she starts tearing at his jacket, and he stops, stops fucking her with his fingers, he pulls his hand away from her suddenly enough to make her gasp. His fingers are slick from her, his palm hot with her heat. He lifts his head. He's shameless. He kisses her to steal her breath. He pulls back and he sucks her wetness off his hand, licks it all up; his eyes never leave her. Sweet, he whispers, and kisses her, and then
he grasps her dress in his hands. He wrenches at it, he rips, he tears those careful, clever seams, those hidden stitches, all the work that went into this packaging; this gift-wrap that lasted, in the end, for only a handful of hours. Shreds it. Scraps and strips fall around their ankles. There's a sleeve still on her. He whips it off, almost brutal. His jacket goes after it. Then his waistcoat. There's a growing pile of fabric on the floor. There's a rug there in front of the fire. He meant to fuck her there, but -- ah, well; the best-laid plans of mice and men.
The tie comes off. He manages not to strangle on it. A button goes pinging off the front of his shirt, and then that's on the floor too, brilliantly white atop the dark of his coat. There's an undershirt beneath it. He's a gentleman, after all, not a pig farmer. He lifts his arms; she helps him pull it off. Beneath, his body is a masterwork of musculature and bone, a symphony of flesh moving in time. His knuckles brush her between her legs. He undoes the clasp and the button of his slacks, lets them fall;
pushes his underwear down,
pulls hers aside.
He doesn't kiss her when he penetrates her. He doesn't bite her. Nothing that will detract from the moment; nothing that will distract from his eyes on her face. He watches her, every flicker, every minute expression. She can see him, too. The furrowing of his brow as he enters her. The wash of stark pleasure in his eyes, tautening his cheeks, parting his teeth, curling his lip. He gasps silently into the air between. His hands are gripping hard enough at her hips to leave white impressions. He holds her steady - slow - he lifts her back from the wall until her weight is wholly balanced on him. He can feel her thighs tensing, quivering. And the yielding of her body, the grip of her cunt,
singular, exquisite.
Aurich supposes he's always known she would be passionate. Some part of him must have seen it: there in the directness of her stare, even through a camera-lens. There in the parting of her lips when he threw that dagger, days ago. She is not the cold, dutiful wife he expected. The truth is, he never wanted that, anyway.
He finds her mouth again when she's taken him inside her as deep as she can. He kisses her, and this time there's something else there. Deeper and sweeter than the hunger that came before. A recognition of sorts. A validation. Mate, she called him in a language he could not understand. Mate, he calls her, in a language that does not encapsulate words. Her shoulderblades touch the wall again. She is nearly completely bare; all but the lingerie, her panties pulled aside. He pulls her bra down. He puts his mouth on her breasts, those sleek, small curves that fit her lithe body so well and, holding her in his mouth like that, sucking on her tits like that,
he starts fucking her. He didn't want to have to be careful, gentle. He isn't. He pounds her to that wall, slow and hard, and then faster by degrees -- his arms iron-hard around her, his hands grasping at her bare back. "Say it again," he mutters. " 'Fuck me.' Say it."
[Genevieve]
In another man this mindless abandon might turn her off: her lovers in the past have had a well honed balance between rough edged and provocative skill. Finesse. There is no finesse here; no courtship... but, then, when was there ever time for such? And would she want it at all? She is not given to lies or frivolities: She told him she wanted nothing of romance. And she meant it. And right now with his shaft hard in her sheathed hand, thrusting, an uncontrolled response that speak of his desires; his repressed needs. There is a power here she did not expect: In the steady synchronized rhythm of her hand, the silken ball of a thumb pressed there at the broad under swell of his swollen head, stroking, pressing, coaxing. She moves against his hand too, greedy: Greedy rolling hips; ready clenching cunt, tightening and releasing around his blunt, long fingers, again... again... again... she grunts softly, pelvis thrusting, urging deeper penetration; urging contact with burning, aching spots deep within her; seeking increased friction, her clit against his bare palm.
There is violence in how he undresses her -- no, he doesn't undress her. She told him to tear the fucking dress off and he does so; she becomes the sea then: A cresting wave, rising and edged stirred with the rough release of resplendent fabric now shredded to nothing; then limp for a moment; just a breathe; pleasure riddled; pleasure riding. She enjoys it: That he's lost the controlled mien of the wolf in human clothing. That much is clear. A wave rises again; not orgasm just heady sensation; carnal exhilaration. It breaks off when he pulls away enough to undress himself, less violent, still driven; intent on a singular goal - it forces her hand to slip from him... or would if she allowed it. She steps with him; utterly comfortable in her exposed flesh, the flimsiest bits of undergarments a woman of taste and means dresses herself in: the strapless bra; the garter belt and barely-there panties. Silk stockings full of runs now. She doesn't give him space... does he want it.... and if in his flurry to divest himself of these so-civilized clothing he jostles her, she adapts with the motion; she shifts with it; it's a dance, without music: She needs none. She never did.
Her hand is intent to stay upon him; the rings are there over the second-skin of her gloves and for a moment her breath is a shuddered thing... her free hand rises, like it might tear off the glove of the hand that holds him where he is rigid and pulsing; strokes his cock firm and insistent, rubs her palm around the girth of his head. For a second it seems she might pull the glove off, desperate for contact; wild enough now to want to forget the multitude of reasons that makes her cling to this svelte armor of hers...
...deeply ingrained caution [its own brand of self preservation; its own kind of loathing] stops her... and instead he's backing her up again, rough - she moans; another peak of arousal strong where she is wettest; hardening her nipples to the point where pleasure creeps to the boundary of pain.
Her hand lifts, a pearl of pre-come opalescent on a fingertip and with decadence she curls her tongue, lapping up the sweeter taste of it; sweeter than semen itself, lacking that bitter edge. Delicious: The finger is sucked; much as he feasted on her own juices; no doubt hoping to return the same sense of lewd, extravagant shudders that his own show stirred within her; rippled through her.
Penetration comes swiftly: She's no virgin, but it's been some time since her last liaison, and he is thick; slick and ready as she is the intrusion stretches her with a grinding soreness: Echoed in the shift and shimmy of her hips, her pelvis; her bare, clean, naked mound pressing, seeking. More. More.
"More," she gasps, the needs of her body taking shape on her lips. His hand is grabbed.. the one with the ring. Her eyes are open.
Watch me do this.
She takes the be-ringed finger into her mouth, sucking it in; pulling; sliding, swirling her tongue. In... out again, matching the first slow thrusts, her dark, dark gaze [molten; inflamed, sparks of clear blue, the heart of flame], taking that one finger deep again, tasting, feeling, coaxing that circlet of ancient metal. During the wedding it held symbolic meaning. It was heavy with ritual. It was necessary. But it hadn't felt like it was hers at all to give him. That aspect had felt hollow to her: Here and now she claims it.
She releases his finger with a sucking pop of her mouth, spine arching, lascivious sounds purling on her lips as he starts to move in earnest. She moves against him: Does he take it as struggling against him? Does he realize she's trying to take into herself every last possible inch of him, to the point where he can begin to feel the last edges within her. His mouth swallows the sounds; sweeter now; impassioned, less hard-edged the point of something closer to anger. She trembles against him, body keening; returns the kiss for what it is, for the recognition he gives her, and when his hungry mouth trails down to her slight, aching breasts she tangles a hand in his short hair once more: "Mine," she breathes. It's supposed to be the other way around. And it is. But it can go both ways...
...she's realizing that now.
And then he begins to fuck in earnest, hips pumping; deep, brutal thrusts; her ass clenches with the assault, arching her up further, trying for, searching for that best of angles where he'll rub ever sweet spot in her. Her cunt milks him of its own accord: Squeeze, release; squeeze, release. She is keyed up and on the edge, but not crossing over. This isn't a fairytale -- not every woman comes explosively on first contact, no matter the amount of arousal drenching her; coursing through her. Her face screws up slightly; fighting for a release that eludes her though the pleasure continues to mount; tighter, higher, more....
"Say it again," he mutters. " 'Fuck me.' Say it."
"Holy Mother!" the kinfolk cries out, her body pressing against him hard, demanding. "Yes.... Fuck me.... fuck me... don't. Fucking. Stop." the words dwindle, losing their form: Her body takes up her submission, her coaxing plea. She bites his shoulder, hard, feral in her own right; claims his mouth with hands fisted at his nape and the base of his skull; her tongue taking up a stroke along his to mirror his cock slamming into her.
[Aurich]
It's true; there's little finesse in this. Who knows where Genevieve found those previous lovers of hers, and how, but the truth is: a man willing to go to bed with a woman with no thought of consequence, no thought of eventuality, is likely to be one with a history in such things. Practiced. Finessed. Aurich is not. He told her himself. He's not a virgin, but for god's sake, the last time he was inside a girl was before he'd learned to shift. Twelve, fifteen years ago. An appetite like his -- one wonders how he survived, and the answer is, of course: he controlled himself.
And that's what he has in place of finesse. Raw strength; raw hunger. Perhaps for a woman like her - a kinswoman like her, who was taught all her life that she was an object, something to be coveted and fought over and desired and owned, but never to be fully embodied with her own spirit or self - perhaps for someone like, the sheer uncontrollable tide of his wanting is intoxicating in its own right. He wants her so badly. He wants her so badly that his control failed; that he pulled her from their guests, chased her up the stairs, locked them into a room, threw an ancient rug on the floor, turned a chair into firewood, and then
ignored all that preparation, ripped off her clothes, fucked her against the wall.
Mine, she says. Understanding, now: they are mated, and in the time before time, before the Silver Fangs were mad, before the Garou were vicious and perhaps corrupted by their own rage, this was understood without question. They are mates; that is a balance, an equality. She is not one of her antiques, one of her objets d'art. He cannot see her as such, not now. She is his, but by that same token, he is hers.
It's a two-sided thing. It always was, at least in the best of cases. It is now, and nowhere is that more apparent than in his response to her. He can't help but respond to her. She's so bold now. Her hands never leave him, even while he's tearing clothes off, baring them both - her hands, gloved, making him shudder from head to toe, as though every inch of that brutal body were wired to that incandescent bundle of nerves on the underside of his cock. At one point she lifts her hand, he thinks she's going to take those goddamn gloves off at last, he knows she is, but -- she doesn't. Her hands come back to him and his head falls back, he groans from the very pit of his stomach, equal parts arousal and disappointment.
Moments later he has her naked, or near enough not to matter. She's still wearing those stocking, torn from that delirious climb. She's still wearing that garter belt, those garters. Was he supposed to throw them to the crowd? One, at least? Traditions; fuck them. She's his. He's keeping every last part of her, he'll burn that fucking dress before they leave, no one else will get a scrap of her --
mine. That's when she says it. His head snaps up. He looks at her. His eyes are an animal's, a ring of barely-there color around an enormous black pupil. Something in his riles instinctively. He is an Alpha; no one lays claim to him. No one, but then
she moves on him, she rides him, she clenches him deep inside in a way that makes his mind run molten. He grabs her face. He kisses her. Now he's fucking her in earnest, he's slamming into her, and a lesser woman might not be able to handle this. The force, the ferocity. The raw rage. She, though: she is something else entirely, and her legs are tensed around him, she rides him, searches for that angle; he drops his hands to her hips and helps her, shifts her, lifts her, drops her against his thrust, tilts her hips, demands. Say it.
And she does. And he loses what little mind he has left. His hand comes up to grip her shoulder, his arm wrapped behind her back and under her arm. She won't stop moving on him and he loves it, he loves it but he wants to master her, too, make her be still, make her take it. There's a game of dominance and submission here. It has nothing to do with Garou and kin; everything to do with what's between them. He grasps her. He pins her. He hammers her -- she bites him. He snarls. She kisses him. Her hands clutch him to her mouth. Their rhythms match. He could find release like this. He could pound it out into her. The pleasure is there, flickering like wildfire at the base of his spine; it wouldn't take much, but
he tears his mouth away, turns his face away, pants. He never stops; the broad muscles of his back and his flank flex, bunch; he fills her and withdraws, fills her again, hits her deep, grinds, looks down, watches the joining of their bodies. Reaches behind his head, takes her hand in his, pulls it from behind his neck, cups her hand in his and kisses her palm the way he did hours ago, a lifetime ago, when they were sworn to each other.
Then --
oh, dangerous. He follows the gloves up to their ends. He curls his fingers under, his knuckles against bare skin. He starts to peel those gloves off. There are no words; no coaxing, no plea, no command. There's only the harsh rush of his breath, the half-swallowed groans when she takes him a certain way, the smooth whisper of silk turning inside-out.
[Genevieve]
He loses what little mind he has left: She glories in it. Not a gloating triumph; no smug smiles; no winners sneer. Because the truth is that her own mind is near to the breaking point as well. But in that brief moment between getting away with claiming him - Mine - and speaking with lusty earnestness the words he wanted to hear - the words she wanted to say anyway - Fuck Me - there is a goddess moment, to know she can cause such a response, break through such reserves in a Garou such as he with all his control; all his single-minded goals' his duty; his honour. She's high with it; randy with it; she slickens all the more around him, allowing him in just that much deeper as she creams against him, slippery and hot as thermal springs. Her expression a vicious grimace; without care to guard her face, to tone her countenance into something deemed appealing or sexy - this is too raw for that; too primal; too earthen and visceral...
...with each slamming thrust her body knows what he craves, that submission, that she take it. Take it all. Still and captured, ravaged. And, ah, "AH!" but she wants it; wants it to much to know to still and give it: He lifts her hips just so and her groan becomes a whimper, becomes a murmur, her panting hot in his ear. She bites him again, just to hear him snarl; and with that snarl he can feel her finally start to truly quicken around him, that delectable shiver-shudder that vibrates around his shaft, peaking higher and higher each time the swollen, broad head of his cock rubs a furious, long stroke over the bundle of nerves within her; each time their pelvises grind, stretching and rubbing the hood of her clit brilliantly over that ultra-sensitive nub. "So good," she moans, losing it... losing it; ah, so fucking wonderful to lose it like this. "So fucking... good... ah!" Higher now, the pitch until it becomes breathless, a noiseless vibrato, her back arches... that stillness he craves just to pound her harder, she's about to give it to him, her whole body keyed up trying to absorb every delicious, invasive, possessive, possessing morsel of this encounter...
...she blinks, vaugely dazed when he shifts his position: But he keeps fucking her and she sighs, as sweet a sound as he's heard from her; her breasts rubs against the hard planes of his broad chest; against sprigs of curly hair, rouch against satin-smooth ivory skin and tender, tender, breast tips; harp little nubbins of her nipples. She wants his mouth again and seeks it, ravenous; so... fucking... close...
....he starts to draw down a glove. And at first she is utterly compliant. Eager even. Her eyes are a little dazed, so concentrated is her body on reaching and vaulting into the apex of her release. Her lips curve in a smile of singular adoration; achingly beautiful; shockingly unguarded. He wants me to touch him. Really touch him. He wants me to.
He wants me to...
...touch...
Him.
She stiffens: Not in that stillness-before-wild-fire-explodes kind of way. In fear. Then, no... rage. Tries to jerk her arm away, snapping her teeth at him, a different kind of wildness all together.
"No! No, damn it," her words are supposed to be vehement; they are supposed to demand he stop: that is what her mind says. But she's too damned knotted up on the verge of orgasm; too fucking undone with finally getting every last goddamned inch of his cock into her; every last goddamned ounce of his attention. So the words are gasping; her thoughts awry; her response instinctive [or beaten into her]. "Don't ruin this... don't.... oh fuck I'm so close..."
[Aurich]
The danger of taking a wolf into her bed -- and the thrill of it, too -- is that Genevieve plays with fire, dances with danger. Control is all that divides Garou from monster, and sometimes not very well at that. Control, though, is anathema to this sort of coupling. It wouldn't be like this if their defenses weren't down. If their control weren't in tatters. If she hadn't lured him all this way, stripped him down to the bare bones of lust with her caresses, with her kisses, with the look in her eyes and the way she sounds.
He doesn't hear the birds outside now. He doesn't hear the fire. He doesn't even hear his body impacting hers, or the scuffle of his shoes on stone. All he hears is the pound of blood in his ears. And the sounds she makes, the cries, the sighs, the moans,
the no.
Control slips. Lust flares - underlain by rage. It comes perilously, jaggedly close to sudden fury. She barely knows him, knows more about his body and his build and the way he fucks than she does about ... anything else, really. But she knows this much already: a man like him, a wolf like him, is not accustomed to the word no. Not many would deny him. Fewer still survive the attempt unscathed. And when he wants something so elemental, so primal as her touch -- when she denies him -- his hand suddenly grips hard on her arm; he slams her wrist over her head; he pins her to the wall.
He's still inside her. His chest is tight against hers, crushing her with every harsh inhale. His rage is suddenly everywhere, a red wash, a second dark heartbeat in the air. He's as hard and hot as he ever was, his breath a livid wash against her throat. He sees the pulse there. Sees the blood course beneath her white skin. Wants to bite her, seize her in his teeth, strip every last scrap of armor from her --
There's a precipice here. There's a moment where this can all go very, very badly indeed; where he could prove himself every bit as much a monster as her uncle. Worse.
-- force her.
Aurich sees the edge then. She sees him see it. The moment his rage breaks. The moment his eyes clear. Don't ruin this, she said, and he hears it now, hears the subtext she hadn't even intended. He lets her wrist go; follows the arc of her arm down. His hand is heavy, but his touch is gentle. There's a respite, then. An eye in the storm. For a moment his big hand lays over her breast, warming her flesh, rubbing the hard bead of her nipple against his palm. Her heart hammers the heel of his hand. Then upward: cupping her neck, the callouses on the palm rough, the callouses on his thumb scratching over the line of her jaw.
He says nothing. The look in his eyes is complex, painful. A sort of bewilderment - the gloves she insists on wearing, yes, but also the violence that had flashed through him, which he was not prepared for. A sort of ache - that he could come so close to that dark edge. That she does not dare remove those damnable gloves. And above all that, still and always:
want.
"What are you afraid of?" Words, a bare murmur on a ragged breath. "What is there to fear?"
He asks the question, but he doesn't need an answer. Not right now. He won't ask her to justify herself. Not her. Not to him. He cups the nape of her neck, draws her mouth to his. The kiss begins gentle; it grows fierce. When it heats to fever pitch he follows the line of her spine down, rubs his palms over her ass; grips her, lifts her, follows and encourages the impetus of her body to bring her down in counterpoint to every thrust.
He's found that angle again. Remembers it, goes to it unerringly and mercilessly, drags the shaft of his cock over her clit every time he moves into her; stretches her on every thrust, hits her deep and sure. The way she reacts, the winding slithering tension in her body, the clench of her cunt -- it crumbles those last few dams of control, and now pleasure is a rising floodwave in him, inevitable. He wants so badly for her to strip those gloves off. Rake her nails over his back. Push her bare fingers through his hair. Press her palm to his heartbeat, feel him there, know him. He wants it, but he can be patient. For her, and for the sake of what they've so unexpectedly found in each other, he can wait.
His brow drops to hers. His back gleams with sweat. Eyes shut, he seeks her mouth, kisses her but can't hold it - it tears apart into a groan, and the raw sussurance of his panting. There's something desperate, hard-edged, reaching in the way he fucks her: chasing pleasure like prey, closing in.
[Genevieve]
Do they [the kinfolk matrons and patriarchs; the overseers; the long cast shadow behind figureheads of prominence and glory; the throne room, back room, boardroom power-wielders, deal-mongers, mini-dictators] teach their young about this? So much of it is instinctive. Children too pliant and pliable know not to push their Garou parents, siblings, relations with a blood-born knowledge. Adolescents push the limits but quell [or die] when an invisible boundary is met. Adult Kinfolk become as comfortable as they are able: Bonded to those closest to them; respectful and careful around unknown Wolf-Kind they may come across, interact with, serve, aid.
But did anyone teach her about the dangers of true mating? Did they whisper? Did they warn? Did she hear the hushed; dark murmurs of cautionary tales, the tsk-ing tongues, the mournful wail when passion becomes Rage and Rage becomes the blood-thrall and a Kin is taken from this world naked as they came into it? Did they warn her? Her mother was dead too soon: She had no mature maternal guidance. Her aunt pitied, feared and - later - started to hate her. The Bitch Queen would probably delight to gossip away with mock horror and sorrow; brimming full of dark-seed smugness, if some Garou were to tear this changeling-child, cuckoo-bitch, too-proud, too-much cousin of hers to little ragged, hematic bits.
Her wrist hits the stone wall: He slams it there. She'll bruise. She snaps at him, baleful, untamed, lupine. Rage radiates off of him, too close to the edge; too close: Her breath catches. Some part of her knows it needs to still, to submit, to soothe this beast before the monster runs rampant and the night become savage in manner charnel rather than carnal. But she is furious [desperate], she is clamorous, onerous, querulous [infatuated, captivated, possessed]. Headstrong with what she wants right here, now, already inside of her, but she wants and needs more and she knows [she fears], she knows [she dreads], that it will break away, fall away, ruin if she touches him....
...her hips grind: Pressing up, pressing down, pressing in, hard, insistent, her cunt a whetstone to polish and sharpen every last fraction of his shaft inside of her. He's a red wash: She is incandescent matchwood.
The polarity of the moment is inexorable: Either he'll push past the precipice and cleave her in twine, irreparable... or... or..
Yes.
He sees the edge: She's called him to it, her eyes are guileless and bold; yearning, a sylph's pleading. The darkness within her that could easily turn bacchanal want, outrageously, he force him over it. The feminine pyre within her is a deeper conflagration, though. It pulls stronger. It wants not destruction but completion and...
...she yields. Perhaps before, perhaps just as, perhaps just a beat after he pulls back from that hazardous abyss.
She nuzzles: His touch is gentle; her lips are tender. His hand warms her beast; piques sensation - she finds the hollow of his throat and softly lips there; strokes the bold line of her nose there. Her mouth trails down, her tongue presses to his jugular. She curls her spine: Her ear seeks his heart beat. Her gloves fingers splayed at the back of his neck; her gloved thumbs stroke, stroke, stroke at the tenderness just behind his ears and jaw; that juncture there.
"What are you afraid of?" Words, a bare murmur on a ragged breath. "What is there to fear?"
Head laid, just above his heart; hips rolling, languid, as much as she can while he confines her against the wall. How can she answer him? How can she explain it, here... in the midst of this erotic, sensuous fucking... what words might she form?
He doesn't need an answer; not right now. He finds that angle again, that succulent, luscious angle and she is pressed back again, head against the wall, mouth parted, spine arches from neck to base...
"Knowledge," she moans, "Secrets," she rasps "Hatred," she grunts, "Abandonment," she mues "Loneliness," she seethes "Love," she mewls.
The words cut off: He kisses her but can't hold it. He groans and her mouth finds his again, feasting on the sound, drinking it in. She is as slick with sweat now as she is with her own evocative fluids. Desperation in kind. He chases pleasure...
...she hunts in kind. Her back scrapes painfully against the wall, too tight, too confined. She wants to lure him; she wants to ensnare him she wants...
..."Je tiens à vous prendre," slipping back into French in heedless abandonment. But she needs him to understand. He must: She pulls her mouth away, finds his ear in darkness, knows his body with fierceness: "I need to move... please....down... rest against the wall; let me ride you...please... s'il vous plaît, mon amant."
And if he complies, if he so deigns to acquiesce to this whispered, heated, moaning need, she comes utterly alight for him: She ignites, scorching in unbridled passion. Does he go down to his knees with her? Are his legs beneath her; straight or drawn up? Her thighs encase him, girdle him; the garter straps flexing and shifting sinuous with the lift and roil of her legs: She is stronger than she looks, lean muscle and attuned sinew. And if he lets her she takes him deeper, one hand splayed on his chest, over his heart, the thin silk doing nothing to hide the heat of him, the throb there. Her other hand lifts the undone tumble of golden hair, away from the feverish dampness at her neck and back; her breasts rubbing, sliding with each slow, deep, hard gyration of her hips; pushing her cunt over him again... again... again. More - always more
[this will not take the edge off; oh god, not even close]
--she angels back, one hand supporting herself on his knee or the floor or whatever is available so she can take the whole of him.
The quickening begins anew; sharper now, even more intense.
"Fill me," keening; "Aurich," his name is sacred here; a hedonistic hallelujah, "...please!"
[Aurich]
She needs to move. She wants to move. She wants him to move - right now, in the middle of a perfect storm of sensation, she wants him to move.
Aurich could pull the walls down. He drops his forehead past her shoulder, against the wall. He sucks a breath in and bellows in wordless frustration. Then his arms wrap around her; she is lifted swiftly and smoothly off the wall, the world spins around, drops from under her. He goes to his knees on the stone floor, barely even seem to feel it; tumbles her down on her back, that's not what she meant, he can't help it, he pounds her like that, recklessly, a barrage of thrusts that would leave her back scraped raw if not for his arms still wrapped around her, under her.
There's something simultaneously so dominant and so protective about the way he holds her. He surrounds her; he's inside her; he possesses her. He shields her.
And a moment later he acquiesces to her demands. Let's say it again: he acquiesces to her demands. He rolls on his back, brings her atop him. The world stops spinning and she's riding him, she's rising up over him. The sun is setting outside, or it's already set. They've forgotten about the sunset. The only light in here is fire, and it warms the alabaster of her skin. She's perfect, he thinks. He puts his hands on her thighs, runs them up to her hips, runs them up to her sides to cover her breasts; feels the sleek strength in her.
She starts to move and his head falls back. His hands fall to her hips, following her motion. All his power, all his might laid out beneath her: a continent of muscle and bone, bunching and rolling, never still. He forgets himself. Her hand covers his heart, feels that heavy drumming. His hand covers hers a second later: a hand on hers, a hand on her hip, his feet planting on the ground to lift his hips, to meet her thrust for grind, beat for beat.
The quickening begins anew. The precipitous rise, the clamor in his nerves. He doesn't remember, or never knew, that it could be like this. So good, he wants to say, but the words are past him. Every movement of her body flashes an aftershock over his face, a tautening of the cheeks, a furrowing of the brow, a snarl on the lip. He watches her over him. He loves watching her; does she know that?
It won't take the edge off. It won't, but it's still something, this release she calls for. Aurich is, to the searing end, obliging of his new mate: she asks for it, he gives it to her. His hand wraps around hers as she's calling to him -- he grabs her arm and he hauls her down to him, seizes her in his arms, lifts her altogether on the rise of his body. He is not particularly gentle about this, either. He is nothing close to gentle. Savage, those last ferocious thrusts; every inch of his cock, every ounce of his strength. His teeth find her shoulder and he bites her hard enough to mark her, roars against her flesh as he pushes as deep as he can and releases into her.
There is no mistaking those heavy pulses; that sudden wet heat inside her. He draws back; he slams in again. Twice more, growls on each one, before he's finally satisfied, overcome, still.
His breath seems to have escaped him utterly then. He chases it, cannot catch it, he pulls breath out of harsh breath from the air. By degrees his body relaxes beneath her. He lowers his hips, lowers them both to the floor, squeezes her ass in his hands.
Only then does he remember to release her from his teeth. He kisses her where he bit her. Then his head falls back; a little space opens. The rise and fall of his chest is enough to lift her, settle her. He looks at her wordlessly. Words seem too paltry now.
[Genevieve]
His forehead drops to her shoulder: a bellow of wordless frustration and her face turns to his neck, nuzzling, nipping, sucking, licking; coaxing, cajoling, insisting, soothing, tormenting, insisting....
...the world shifts, a moments vertigo and she's on the floor, splayed there; driven back against hard, dusty stone, saved from being scraped, bruised and rubbed raw by arms that cradle her [protective] even while she is plowed, fucked, pounded, violently penetrated; wrapped up, the force of him enveloping her as much as it drives into her: She's consumed, unable to tell in these few delirious moments where he begins or ends within and without her. Tensing like a coil; heavy at her core, her blood pooling there, churning there, leaving her light headed as she makes sounds of erratic, breathless, submissive pleasure she never dreamed to utter for any man. Hips undulating upwards, ass lifted as far as his weight and strength might give her leave, one leg hooks over his, her ankle to the inside of his calf, her gloves damp with their sweat, nails pressing through thin silk as she scrapes them long and sweeping down the plains and slopes; ridges and flesh of his back, from shoulder blades down to his bottom, fingers clenching there, thumbs feeling out the grooves of muscle that flank each cheek...
...her orgasm begins without warning. Maybe it's the way he'd swallowed her up with dominance and protective guardianship both; the unexpected suddenness of it; the unanticipated combination; maybe it's just that she's been aroused for this man [more] for hours [days] now. Whatever the truth of the matter she is quivering, trembling, unraveling around him when he moves to his back, rolls her atop him and the sound of visceral satisfaction she makes is shamelessly triumphant; pure, unadulterated sex on her tongue, on her parted lips. Ecstasy is etched on her face, brows arched high, eyes slits... then her eyebrows furrow, her teeth seize her bottom lip, a shudder runs through her, the toned muscles of her stomach, her flanks, her thighs, trembling sumptuously with this marrow deep, almost-painfully slow, continuous release.
She wanted to move
Move she does, increasing and intensifying each throbbing peak of pleasure with a primitive, primal dance kept secret in her veins and now unleashed. His hand on her breast, at her heart; her hand over his, hammering with a vitality she echoes with each sweetly brutal gyrating crescendo and decrescendo of her pelvis until at last... at last...
"Ah....yesss," hissed, moaned, he pulls her, yanks her close, lifts her with each virile thrust; her voracious cunt tightening, clenching, milking each spurt and spasm of hot seed that fills her. Her shoulder is bitten and not released and she snarls-gasps-whimpers-moans, hands grasping at his biceps, his back, anywhere, everywhere. A fire nymph utterly unbound she writhes, pumps, comes... again...
...again...
He releases her shoulder
She gazes down at him, lost girl; ardent woman; flushed; hair wild; her breathing shallow and unsteady; firelight turns beads of sweat into glittering platinum and gold.
Her eyes are full of wonder.
"I never knew," she whispers, hoarse, husky.
You can get lost in a gaze like that.
She cannot begin to fathom how she can feel so completely undone and yet so perfectly completed all at once. And after a moment it's too much to bear, this breathtaking, terrifying, intoxicating intimacy...
...it's too much to lose.
Her eyes close.
Her head dips; searching lips find the dip above his collar bone, softly, tenderly, sensually she starts to lick him there, tasting him, laving him, her mouth moving slowly, trailing over collar, down to his pecs.. "Let me taste you.... everywhere... everything," another long, gluttonous lick, her words lazily, slowly punctuated by them, "every inch of you..."
[Aurich]
She's not human. She's a fire nymph. She's fae, she's godly, she's a goddess; he never knew. He never knew it could be like this. He never knew she was out there, somewhere out there, and he would praise Gaia and Falcon and all the demigods they believed in, had faith in, fought for, fought against, he would praise them all for bringing her to him
if he weren't so certain, so sure right now, that it had nothing to do with them at all. This sort of pull, this sort of magnetism: it cannot be denied. An attraction as pure and as primal as north to south, fire to oil, heat to cold. His mind is shattered to pieces and in this madness he believes: he would have found her, no matter what. He can find her again, no matter how short their time, no matter how far away his fate takes him. He will find her again.
She can find him again.
Oh, but that's madness. And he is not mad. Not him, not Aurich. That's not his fate. There's this much kindness: doomed as he is, he won't exit this world insane, raving, a thing to be pitied or feared. Or perhaps that's not kindness at all. Perhaps it would be kinder that way after all; to not know, to not even understand
this sort of loss.
That mighty heart beats hard. It wants to cave in on himself. He understands, suddenly and absolutely, how short this pairing will be. He has never thought of it before. Three years, or five. A thousand days. Fifteen hundred. Less days than he has hairs on his head. Less days than the sky has stars. So short; so much to lose. He wishes suddenly she never was at all. No, he can't wish that. He wishes she never found him. He wishes her image never crossed his mind.
But no -- he doesn't wish that, either. He wishes he could. He wishes he could be so noble, so honorable, so brave as to give up this last sliver of joy his life has given him. But he's not. He's glad for her, fiercely. He's sorry only for the brevity of their time together.
She is speaking to him, and his eyes open. He looks at her: his fire nymph, his Silver Fang, his mate. She never knew, she says. His mouth moves. It is humor and it is bitterness; it is no smile at all. He touches her cheek. She won't take her gloves off. Why does that come to mind now, if not to madden him? He lifts his head, the tendons in his neck standing out momentarily, the musculature of his chest tensing beneath her. He kisses her. There's nothing shy about this. She is his; he claims her.
And then he lays back, and her mouth explores his throat. He shouldn't allow that, he thinks. He should pin her beneath him, show her who is dominant here; whose mouth would be at whose throat. But he doesn't move. Laziness drenches him. He is still inside her, softening, slipping out of her as she moves. He sighs: he can't remember the last time he felt such perfection. She kisses his chest; he cups his hand behind her head, cradles her. Her hair is long and golden, and it brushes cool over his skin.
These moments: scintillating iota amidst an eternity. He wonders if he will be able to hold onto them, later. When his time as come. When forces beyond his control pull him from earth, from mate and home and hearth and family. Cast him out into the Deep Umbra, doomed to wander forever ... and for what? He cannot fathom Gaia's purpose for him. For once, he is furious: he cannot believe the unfairness of it. Why now; why her.
"We shouldn't," he says. That, too, takes more strength than he knew he had. He feels her mouth pause, wherever it is. Good, he thinks, ruthlessly, clamping down on disappointment, on want. He lifts her head with his hands, looks at her.
"You are ... more than I could have ever hoped for. I am well pleased, wife." That confession, at least. Then this, "But this cannot last, and will not. You know that. You've known since the start. And now we have consummated, and your duty is done. The less time we spend together now, the easier this will be for the both of us in the end."
His thumb brushes her cheek. Was she always so beautiful to him? He can't remember; he can't remember his life outside this room, beyond this moment.
"You must protect yourself, my lady," he adds; a sigh. "I will not be able to for long."
[Genevieve]
The tip of her tongue curls, a sweet hollow created, that slowly, savouringly captures and teases one negligible nipple, then laves along the underline of definition of the same sides pectoral. She's crouched over him as he slips free of her; a soft moan breathed hot and moist over his brawny skin and dark body hair. Supporting herself on hands and knees over him, the point where tongue and lips touch, taste, take him is a fiery singularity....
...it's perfect.
This. Is. Perfect.
And she doesn't care that she didn't want perfection.
She doesn't care that she agreed to this thinking she could not give a damn about him in any real, meaningful way.
Oh, no, she is no doe-eyed thing: She doesn't call this love [never, she says]. But the pull, the magnetism, the sheer polarity of him to her; her to him....
...was she born for this?
Was he?
And if so: Why? What cruel fucking joke is this.
But she isn't thinking about that: No, she's consuming him; taking her fill of him, lips, mouth, lower, dips into his navel... she reaches for his hand, all but purring in her heady, post-coital smoldering glow. To suck each finger, tease and nip each knuckle; lap slowly over where she cut him hours ago, though no doubt the wound is already healed for him. If he says nothing she will not allow herself to think beyond this room, this moment, him: In this manner she'll give herself to him, more completely than she ever imagine she could submit and claim anyone... anything...
...if only he does not speak.
If only...
"We shouldn't," he says.
Nonsense, she thinks and continues, still too bewitched for his words to process fully.
"You are ... more than I could have ever hoped for. I am well pleased, wife."
She purrs; she stretches over him, molten and achingly slow, feeling him against the long, lithe lines of her body, inhaling his scent... does he see it? Does he see the way her lips curve: subtle but so sweet, so satiated, so lusting, so full.
"But this cannot last, and will not. You know that. You've known since the start. And now we have consummated, and your duty is done. The less time we spend together now, the easier this will be for the both of us in the end."
...She stiffens against him. His words finally connect to a mind gone all undone. Her eyes close as he caresses her cheek. Her abdomen clenches as if she was just too late to guard herself from a blow. Reality settles its ponderous, cruel weight on her. His words... no, his actions, his tone: She should recognize and take some solace in the sad, pragmatic tenderness there. But he speaks of this - of what just passed - and duty.
Duty.
The burden; those shackles that have bound her since her birth.
And in that cutting moment she realizes she let herself - here, in this place, with him fucking her so raw, so fine - forget duty; forget that this was nothing more than her womb tossed to the highest bidder, to whomever could stand to abide she, the spirit-touched, brazen would-be Queen.
"Ah."
Slowly, slowly she sits back: Her knees, then back, almost with her bottom to her heels, still straddling him. And her gaze on his is: Unfathomable. She is alabaster again; living ivory. The flush of copulation leaves her. She is regal; burning cold.
She rises.
Finds... what... ah, yes, his shirt. That will do. And as she moves a warm trickle down her leg: a bit of spilled seed and her own wetness. With a swipe of pointer and middle finger along her sensitive inner thigh she takes up some of the fluid; licks it, tastes it. Her eyes narrowed.
If I'm a whore I might as well act the part.
"Good enough."
What buttons are left on the shirt are snapped through holes. She dips down, draws up a tie, pulls it around her neck, beneath the collar of his near wrecked shirt that falls, no doubt, a good way down mid thigh, covering her decently enough. Ties a loose Windsor knot with ease, as if to throw in his face that he is most certainly not the first man she's fucked; the first she's been intimate with. And she's tied their ties afterwards before going on her way. Free but never so.
"If you like I can send you a calendar that tracks my cycle so we can keep this as efficient as possible, yes?" So softly spoken, chin lifted, gaze still blisteringly narrowed on him. "Perhaps Otto can send you a reminder when next I ovulate, mmm?"
She's moving now, for the door at a steady pace, all long legs, all shifting shadow play of firelight and stark white shirt and what little it hides beneath. "Where do you expect me to stay?" Matter-of-fact.
[Aurich]
It takes more strength than Aurich could have imagined, and almost more strength than he has, to remain still and unmoved beneath the ministrations of her mouth. His eyes close when her lips find his nipple. His teeth part; a gasp escaped, so quiet as to nearly be silent, when she touches him with her tongue.
Opponents have cut him open, side to side. Spilled his guts on the floor like so much offal. Cracked his ribs, broken his back. He has suffered this, he has endured it, he has risen again from it,
angrier,
without so much as a grunt. And here, in the confines of this strange timeless little room, he's given her so much more than that. Gasps from his lips. Panting breath from his lungs. Groans from his throat; shouts, bellows, roars from the very core of his body. He does not know how she has undone him so.
He is glad, though, when his words finally cut through to her. He is glad when she sits up. Of course he is. What else would he be? It is not disappointment that clenches in the pit of his stomach. It is not a strange, unfathomable sort of pain in his breast as the heat fades from her skin, leaves her cold, cold.
Ah, yes, he thinks. Here is the wife he expected. Ice cold, regal, pure.
She rises. His eyes drop, lashes shading the dark for a moment. He looks down at himself -- like a goliath conquered, he thinks, sprawled naked on the floor, his fine slacks still tangled around one ankle, her wetness mingling with his on his groin. Perhaps he should be ashamed of the state she's put him in. Perhaps he should be ashamed of the state he's put her in: wedded to him, bedded to him, he who would not be on this earth for more than a handful of years.
Hush of cotton on stone; she lifts his shift. He rises silently, the muscles of his abdomen clenching to pull him upright. His strength is so utter that the movement is smooth and pure, the grace of sheer power. He draws his knees up and watches her don his shirt. The intimacy of that twists in his gut; and then the taunt, the ease with which she ties the tie. There's a terrible cruelty in that, to remind him now. He was not her first man, but she was his first woman. The ones that came before were mere girls. Not women. Not Silver Fangs. Not queens.
Not her. He never knew...
Aurich's jaw clenches, and he turns away. If her other lovers stood before him right now, this moment, he would cut them all down. From the corner of his eye he sees her wipe herself, taste it. It arouses him and sickens him at once; it sickens him because it arouses him. Her other lovers are not here. Only she is here, and he. She is speaking again; his eyes close for a moment, a pulse beating in his temple, a strap of muscle tight in his jaw. He wants her to be silent.
It is not the words, in the end, that stirs him. Its movement. Footsteps receding; her body and her scent moving for the door. He opens his eyes, he snaps his head around, he's on his feet before he can think twice. Across the room in a breath's time, seizing her by the wrist, turning her roughly about. All darkness and heat now, looming over her. She is a tall woman; he is taller.
"What would you like me to say, Genevieve?" His teeth flash, biting the words off. He crowded her like this before, too, pursuing her to that window; pushing her against the wall to take her. The last of the sunset still lingers in the west, a paling stain. It felt much longer ago than that. "Hm? What do you want me to say?
"That you were a remarkable fuck? That looking at you shreds me like a razor? That you were a fever in my blood from the moment I laid eyes on you; that being inside you was unlike anything else I've ever known; that you are singular, incomparable, that I recognized you in the very marrow of my bones? Would that make you feel better? Would that keep you from widow's blacks in three years' time? Would that change the outcome of our fate?
"Don't be a fool. You promised me you had no desire to play the princess. You promised me you cared nothing for romance, that you were content to be left to your own devices. Keep your promises, Genevieve, and don't forget what this is. A political marriage. A loveless match. A convenient arrangement to save me from the nagging of my house and you from the ravening of your uncle. If there's a heir then we shall be grateful. If there isn't then you should be doubly grateful, because then when I am gone you will be marriageable again, and I will see -- I will see to it that you are matched to a ... a kinsman who will at least treat you gently -- "
-- the words are falling apart, ashes in his mouth. He finds he can't bear the thought of it. Can't bear the cleverness of her fingers with a man's shirt, a man's tie. Can't bear her cavalier attitude, can't bear how easily and how well she fucks, can't bear how easily and how well she walks out. He turns away. Shoulder blades slide apart on the breadth of his back -- an enormous breath in, drawn and held and...
released, then. And that control coming back into place, then. His big hands dragging down his face, dropping to his sides. He wears his nudity like an animal, unashamed; not even noticing. There is a rug before the fire where he meant to make love to her. It had not happened like that. He wonders why he thinks of it now.
"Don't complicate this, Lady Doenhoff." Soft, now. And he answers her after all: "Sleep tonight in your chambers on the second floor. You'll find they have been prepared for you. In the morning the servants will take you to my townhouse in Dresden, where you are welcome to stay while you secure your own quarters."
[Genevieve]
She. Endures. Him.
He catches her wrist; spins her.
She looks up at him, but somehow manages to make it feel like she's looking down: Oh what sharp, cutting graces she has learned. She'd had to learn, to perfect. To kill with a gaze; to put someone in their place with but the barest tilts of chin, sweep of eyes, using the pronounced, strong lines of her nose to best effect. Her nostrils flare slightly: Her eyes -- ice melts to the inferno at the core of them; grey-blue heat.
A flex of her jaw.
The provocation of her gaze: Nothing you say matters.
Nothing. You. Say. Matters.
And fuck you.
She endures his direct blows: Keep your promises. A political marriage. A loveless match.
But she cannot... she cannot abide his last words, before his resolve breaks;
and I will see -- I will see to it that you are matched to a ... a kinsman who will at least treat you gently --
She slaps him.
Backhands him.
Unless he blocks the blow.
He could.
And if he does her hand - her gloved, armored hand - will flex and clench, she'll writhe with an urge for violence that overwhelms her. "I did not promise to be your whore!" She seethes, she snarls, she gasps. A tear - it is rage - slides down one resplendently angled cheekbone. "Your fucking heirloom piece. I just felt you in me for the first time and already you're selling me off?" Can he smell it? The razor edge of panic beneath her fury. The deeper welling of hurt. Garou sense such things more keenly: She knows this. She hates it. What use the show?
Her eyes are nude again.
For a moment.
They've seen too much; too little. Known too much; with too little context.
"He will treat me gently, yes? Who? A cousin? Who would you have fuck me in your stead, Aurich? You'll disappear and I'll forget you, yes? That is the curse, is it not? So what does it matter? What does it matter who uses me, who loves me, who fucks me, who kills me? Don't give me your pity, you shall have none of mine."
Spat out... and....
"Let me go."
Violence thrums in her. She'll do something stupid, something that pushes too far.
"I can't stand it. Let me go."
Does he turn away?
She doesn't run.
She stalks.... looks around the room almost wildly for a moment; then to the ancient bed, covered up, forgotten, forelorn. [I know what you feel like. I always have.] With one hand she janks back the coverlet. With her teeth she pulls the glove of the opposite hand; pulls it free viciously. Turns, watching him. "Nothing is ever truly forgotten. Nothing. No matter the curses, the power, the magic: Something always slips through the cracks."
With a vicious force she slams her hand on the moth-holed, decaying feather bed.
Jerks.
Her eyes squeezing shut.
It's too intense like this.
Her emotions are too raw.
The barriers are thin if present at all.
[can he see now? can he see why she fears to touch him?]
She pants what she feels, a low moan, her free, still-gloved hand going to her pelvis, pressing there. "Childbirth.... the birthing pangs are so strong.... fevers..." she flushes, trembles, staggers, catches herself. "Passion.... cold, cold fucking... sweet.... unbearably sweet ples--- augh!" With a force of will too often underestimated she yanks her hand away and glares at him.
"In my bones I would remember you. In the stone where you took me and I took you: I would remember you. And I will not. Be. Passed. Off. Fuck you."
[Aurich]
She slaps him. Backhands him. Unless he blocks the blow. He could.
He doesn't.
It lands, sharper than one might expect; snaps his face to the side, leaves a mark. Who knew she had such strength. She's just a kinswoman, after all. Chattel to be sold. An heirloom to be passed on. Perhaps it would be a cousin. Perhaps a packmate's brother. Perhaps a dear friend of the family. Someone ...
"No one," he snarls. It's an answer to her question: who would you have fuck me? "No one, if I had the choice."
But the sound is low, held in his throat, and she's going on, anyway. Let me go, she spits, and suddenly furious -- or perhaps suddenly afraid for her, afraid of what she might do, what he might do then, afraid even that she might simply wrench away, or break those fragile bones in her wrist in the trying -- he does. She seethes away from him. His eyes follow her. He doesn't turn away after all. There's no moment taken to collect himself. No cold orders given to her: where to sleep, where to live, it doesn't really matter, stay away from him.
She goes to the bed. Their eyes clash across the room. She tears that glove off with her teeth. An inordinate flash of temper goes through him. Now she sheds the gloves? He doesn't have time to process; she puts her hand to the ancient bed, and across the room, as though bound to her by wire, as though shocked, he starts as well, a quick sharp clench of every muscle in his body.
What she says makes no sense at all. He hardly listens; he doesn't need to. Sees the reaction in her, starkly physical. He closes the distance - she yanks her hand away - he would have for her if she hadn't. She tells him she will remember him. No you won't, he wants to tell her, but for once he isn't sure.
She curses him. Hisses it in his face. But he has her hand again; he doesn't give her the chance to protest. He slams her palm to his chest. Holds it there with both hands, pressed to the beat of his heart.
[Genevieve]
"No one," he snarls. It's an answer to her question: who would you have fuck me? "No one, if I had the choice."
"Oh but you do, My Lord," she spits back at him, just over her shoulder, enclosed in his shirt; striding with the smell and feel of sex between her legs; with fury a fever in her veins; with sorrow a dull ache in her wounded core. "I'm your property, easily enough detained, maintained, retained, disposed of."
And then the bed.
And what goes on there.
It's beautiful memories. It's horrible pains. An intimate connection with lives, emotions, memories, touches dead so long ago: It's a terrible thing, an awesome thing, this curse of hers, this blessing. In another tribe she might be praised. In the tribe of her birth she is viewed warily, if not with contempt. And why not? Silver Fangs cling to the intricacies of their hierarchies and hierarchies - power play - always involves secrets, always involves hidden, dark thing. A creature like her, this fae woman, this quicksilver nymph... a creature such as she can tell too much, reveal too much and that makes her dangerous and all her life she's been controlled - tightly reigned - for it. Suspected. At times ostracized.
She's reeling.
"Fuck you." She repeats, a seething whisper, when she realizes he's drawn close. Too close. Goddess, no, too close. Her eyes widen, stark fear at war with utter outrage. She's already moving, she's stepping back but...
...it's nowhere near fast enough.
By the time her brain sends the proper signals through her body he's already taken her bare wrist [her breath catches], slams her palm to his chest, his heart.
She sobs: Not crying, just the sound; the naked, raw sound.
He can feel her hand curl: Her nails - now free - dig into his flesh. She wants to close her hand.
She has to...
...she must...
She's gone.
Lost in him with a guttural, rasping groan of absolute surrender.
[Aurich]
What is an insect to the sun? What is a human to a Silver Fang?
Even far more ordinary folk than she would be swallowed by this sort of presence. Even creatures without her half-eldritch roots would not be able to withstand this force of personality without having something of themselves seared away, stripped away, blasted away. Like lettering in a sandstorm. Like air, like breath, like atmosphere in a solar wind.
She is not ordinary. She is something so much more; not merely kin but Silver Fang kin; not merely Silver Fang kin but uniquely cursed, uniquely blessed. Perhaps that wild thought crossing her mind earlier had value. Perhaps it held truth. Perhaps she was made for this, as he was: created for one another by a universal goddess's hands; created not merely for this mating, this match, but for this
exact
moment.
Now:
He is naked before her in every way that he can be naked. He is stripped utterly bare, and what is left beneath all the clothing and all the armor is unshielded, terrible glory. That is the beginning and the end of it; the alpha and the omega. He is the very soul of fire. He is the very essence of heat. His rage reaches out, hungry as a maelstrom; it pulls her in, sucks her down, drowns her in incandescence.
But in the midst of that there is more. Beneath the rage lies a will, honed like a blade; lies a mind of sharp, feral intelligence. It stirs to feel her. Wheels, bares teeth... subsides and opens.
Look, then.
And she sees:
a blizzard of memories, too many to grasp for long. A lifetime, thirty-three years, as many years as christ ever had on earth. Childhood in Dresden; play on the estate. His sister. Those brothers of his, met along the way. Jaan, before either of them were wolves, sent to his father to be fostered. His father, his mother: gentle creatures, not the changing type. His Change, bloody as any, bloody and full of terror and rage and pain, and
from that crucible he rose, tempered, hardened. That long stretch of years, endless missions, endless duty. He never lied to her; he had no other women, not the way he had her. A shuffle of dossiers on his desk one day. And then she herself, seen through his eyes; more beautiful and more fragile than she ever knew she was. He leaned to his brother. Those pretty words Jaan spoke were not his; what he said:
I want her. Find a way. Find out if she wills it. And ask her -- no; I'll ask.
Later he did ask. Twice. Such rage in him; she never knew, never saw it. Never felt that ragged red pulse of fury when he saw the burns; never felt what an effort it was, what a herculean task it was, to send that dagger into the door instead.
Stark now. Layer upon layer, like delving into skin. First the oldest layers, the dried dead things, pale and immaterial. Then newer and newer, fresher, more vulnerable. The newest memories are bloody and breathing. They are inextricably intertwined with his thoughts, his mind. Too raw, too recent to be sorted amidst the dust. Every image pulses with heat, with vividness. She backs up those steps again in his mind. Did she ever know she could look like that? Half-undone. Half-wild. Hunted and hunting. Shaken apart to the core, and never more herself. Her shoes tumbled down the steps... he tumbled her to the floor; she became incandescent beneath him.
It's too much to take; the memory of their coupling, doubled back on her, calling to those sensations still so fresh in her own mind. It's too much, overwhelming, but even that -- nothing, compared to the core that lies beneath. No memories now. No mind. Only the beating heart of him, the white-hot core where there is no logic, no reason, no control.
Only instinct. Only rage, which amplifies everything else. A great twisting filament of emotion: desire, which is more than lust, because lust is want of the body and desire is want of the all. Possessiveness, because she is his. Protectiveness, because she is his. Fury, unwillingness; the very thought of giving her up. A great roaring sense of injustice, the beating question: why? why now? More than that, though. Strength and resolve, too, which makes him who he is. Courage. An almost foolhardy, foolish sense of duty. Perhaps a less dutiful Garou might have found a way to dodge the bullet of his fate; not Aurich, though. He would never shy from something so preordained.
And: the fragile things. The tenderness in him, held so deep he could never show her, never tell her, except like this. An affection and an adoration wholly unexpected, too absolute and too unwavering to be called love; born out of a paltry collection of moments - the meeting of their eyes, the slash of her hand, the way she held him in her arms and in her body in those few, precious seconds
before he pushed her away, tore her away from him like a rib from his side. This is not duty. It never was. Already, he cannot bear to lose her.
No more, then. Silence in the heart of the hurricane. A white sky, pulsing like a heartbeat, fading to dark.
Genevieve finds herself wrapped in her mate's arms, clasped to his chest. It's the thunder of his heart she hears, or perhaps the pulse of his rage. Hard to tell. Her hand is still pressed to his breastbone, the nails leaving crescents. His breath comes in short, swift pulls. Perhaps she allows herself, just this once, to be held, possessed, protected.
He says nothing now. There is truly nothing left to say.
[Genevieve]
This blessing, this curse; it can be bad enough when she's reading an object, when she's touching the stone of a foundation or lesser living things, trees [do you know the memories trees hold? she does. it is, perhaps, her one steady joy, it marks her love of the sylvan places, what little remains of old forests: do you know the memories of trees?]... humans such as herself, they are difficult; troublesome, problemsome.
Every person deserves the right to that still-small place within themselves where no one touches, no one sees, no one knows. Every person deserves that core of protection, that oasis of their own secrets.
Sometimes...
...sometimes she can touch that spot.
Feel it.
It is a dark seduction.
It is a violation.
It is an unbearable intimacy.
And more often than not it's left her with nightmares not her own, scarring a soul that's already taken too many hits for far too long, from far too young.
"No," the moan is at the deepest pitch of her alto voice, guttural, plaintive, begging, soft. Exposed, stripped bare, stripped open even though she's the one feeling the core of him, not the other way around. "No, no no," she mewls: frightened child; lost fae; burned out fire nymph. She'll fall apart.
This will ruin her.
She told him, she warned him of ruin.
And maybe he's about to take pity on her, maybe he's about to rethink that impulsive move, forcing her hand on him...
...but it's too late then, it starts, peeling away layers of him. Oh he should feel naught of her power -- it is not an offensive thing, not a weapon as such. He feels no sapping drain of his vitality as others before him have feared from her. But to watch her he must certainly think he should feel something because she is lost in the throes of it.
And it's just as well he hold her; or she'd be on the ground, on her knees, touching him, unable to break away now, riding the sunlight of his childhood memories,
screaming - or her mouth opens for one, though no sound comes - at that brief, brutal memory of his first change.
Pressing hard against him as she drinks in the unknown energy of memories and emotions and the most vital, primal, basic understanding of one mans [Garous] psyche. A glimpse of who he is, what he is, what manner of mores and vices; truths and experiences make him who and what he is. Adoration is bright in her suddenly opened, unseeing eyes. Fierce, fierce pride. Possessive ferocity.
"Mien," she purrs, heady and intoxicated.
Confusion covers her face, shifts her countenance, almost comically so: Who is that creature who captivated him so? Who? Confusion shifts to jealousy [burning] and despair [smoldering] Who is that gorgeous, delicate, cherish-able bitch? I'll tear her apart... And then surprise so absolute, so unequivocal and guileless...
"...C'est moi?"
She's never seen herself like this, like that, through someone else's eyes, someone else's memories. It is uncanny, disturbing, bewitching, breathtaking.
She glows: The furnaces within fully stoked, an ego-boost like no other; she presses in an arch against him, utterly drunk with a whole new sense of power.
She stiffens; her teeth snap, her molars grind: How difficult it was for him to throw that dagger into the wall. How she longed to see her uncle dead -- no, no, how she longed to kill him herself, a patently dangerous desire that will never be fulfilled.
With unbridled lust she arches her hips to his, slow swivels them, caught up in the briefest, too potent, too erotic, too fucking intolerably hot memories of their recent tryst.
And then...
...too fast, too much, she is feeling faint in his grasp. He's losing her.
Rage.
She trembles.
Her head snaps back, neck exposed to him, without thought, without question.
Her hand on his chest digs deeper, harder, enough to draw blood with her nails; the impulse to submit to him colliding with the projection of his Rage into, onto, her own psyche. But she isn't born to handle it; she isn't made to feel it, not inside of her, not like that. The sense of his own unique connection to the spiritual side of all things - his Gnosis - is a sharp burn: She's felt that before. Sublime ecstasy too close to pain. But the white-hot core of Rage...
...ferocious she bites at his bicep.
...whimpering she trembles in his grasp.
Tenderness.
An affection, an adoration he could never speak of, never show... oh sweetest bliss and deepest sorrow. A hiccuped breath, her head shaking, pressed at his chest, face rubbing there back and forth, back and forth, brutal denial and heart wrenching longing.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
It wasn't supposed to be anything like this.
...in truth she loses all reckoning of space, time and self for a moment. Not a dead faint but for a few ragged breathes her mind simply: Blanks. Seeking self-preservation, a shelter from that most perfect of storms.
Yes, he holds her. Even as she comes back into herself she does not draw away. The heaviness in her is absolute a fatigue so deep that is entirely unlikely she could stand on her own two feet right now. Somnolent, shaken, languid, trembling, burning, burning, burning, forehead slick with sweat, bare hand releasing where her nails had dug in, her slick palm held and pressed, her lips finding that spot, kisses, where she's wounded him, with an unspeakable tenderness...
What is there to say?
What could possibly begin to surmise, quantify and settle this?
Is anything changed?
They still barely know each other.
He is still doomed...
...and now she is as well, she knows that now, more precisely than ever.
She speaks, her voice raw, ragged, breathy: "I need to sleep... I can't... I..." he's the only thing holding her up
...she's stubbourn until the end even if her words are a sussuration, a whispered echo... "I won't be passed on... I won't be handed over... fuck you... I'm yours now....."
Slipping away, her breathing deepening, slowly, taken by a plenary exhaustion: Her last words unbidden, unknown on her lips -- "Gaia help me... I think I've always been..."
Yours.
Blessed.
Cursed.
Saved.
Doomed.
[Aurich]
Here's one more brutal truth about Aurich. He hates to hurt Genevieve. To pain her in any way. But that has not, and will never, stop him from doing what he feels he must. She saw that at the ceremony, when she handed him the knife. She'll see it again years from now when she pursues him across an ocean in direct defiance of his commands.
She sees it now, surfacing unsteadily from the depths of his consciousness: his hand never loosened on hers. Not once, not for a second, not even when the barrage of his Self was almost too much for her to take. There was compassion. There was never pity, never mercy.
His hand gentles only when she comes back to him. Only when she kisses his skin. Only when words find their way back from the depths of her mind.
Won't be passed on, she says.
Yours, she says.
Fuck you, she says; a fighter to the bitter end.
Despite himself, Aurich laughs. It is soft, low in his chest. It's a little bit sad. "I know," he says. As her consciousness lifts she finds herself lifted -- scooped off the unsteady ground, cradled in her mate's arms.
Who knows what the servants think, seeing them in those stone halls: like some memory of an older, barbaric age come back to life. The male naked, the female unconscious. His bare feet steady and solid as they descend those winding, widening stairs. Her bare hand trailing with gravity, the gloves finally finally gone. Savage and unrefined, their finery reduced to nothing in his case, his shirt in hers - passing the maids and the valets in the halls without a glance, finding at last that honeymoon suite they'd ignored earlier in their pursuit of silence, of privacy, of the sunset.
Had they come here after the feast, servants would have attended all but the most intimate aspects of their time together. Servants would have prepared the chamber and the bed; lit the fire, shuttered the windows. Servants would have helped them undress. Servants would have brought them to one another and left them, throwing a handful of sacred herbs on the fire as they exited.
They hadn't come here. He hadn't really wanted to. He wanted her to himself, and all their time together has been leading up to that. Their retinue grew ever smaller, and the distance between them grew ever nearer, until that cataclysmic encounter in the tiny forgotten room above, where nothing but the stones will remember how she looked, and how he took her, and how vicious their satisfaction was, and how brutal the fight that came after.
Patiently Aurich waits by the bed as the servants scurry to ready it, turning down the covers, dimming the lights. When they're done and gone, he lays Genevieve down. It's unfamiliar to him, the sort of quiet intimacy and tenderness involved in this. He tries to remember the last time he tucked a woman into bed. Never, perhaps.
If she wakes in the night, she finds him there, a dark breathing warmth at her back, a heavy arm over her waist.
In the morning he's no longer there. Genevieve finds herself alone in bed. The sheets smell new. The comforters, too. Even the mattress feels new. She can hear men's voices in the adjoining room, drifting through the open door.
"Sign here please," says someone. "And here, and here. Here. Finally here."
"Is that all?" That's Aurich: the low rumble of his voice unmistakable.
"Yes, sir. I'll put these through immediately when I return to the office. It should take effect by afternoon."
"Excellent."
Footsteps; then Aurich appears in the doorway. He looks freshly bathed; half-dressed. His shoes clip the ground. His slacks are sharply pressed, the creases matching and symmetrical, but the suspenders are slung over bare shoulders, his shirt still on its hangar, hooked on two fingers and hung over his back. There are papers in his free hand, a keyring around his thumb. His eyebrows flick up as he sees Genevieve awake
"Ah. You've woken. Good." He crosses to the bed, leaning over to kiss her cheek. Behind him, his lawyer -- one of them, anyway, she recognizes him from Brussels -- casts a curious glance and then turns modestly away.
"This is a list of my various accounts and holdings, which you are now authorized to sign for. Passcodes and PINs are provided as appropriate. You should commit them to memory and destroy the document." Aurich lays the papers on the pillow beside hers. Then the keyring, held out to her, "These are the keys to your vehicle and my townhouse. I think you'll find it more livable. Otto will provide you the address.
"I'm leaving for St. Petersburg in an hour. I should be back in a fortnight's time. Is there anything else you require, wife?"
[Genevieve]
He gives her compassion, but not mercy, not pity: Can she tell? If she could, she would appreciate it. It would echo the dare in her eyes after they took and gave their vows, as she held a blade to him. How she was surprised and touched by that moments hesitancy, where he did not want to cut her. How her silver-blue eyes sharpened and hardened, a proclamation in them: I am not weak. Let me prove it.
False bravado? After all, she's left unable to stand on her own two feet after this emotionally, physically, mentally exhausting gauntlet he puts her through, this first true unshedding. It's she who felt and saw so much of him in one agonized touch and it's she is left feeling bared, raw, assaulted, bloodied. Can he feel some empathy for that? Liken it to a battle fatigue, though the only physical wound between them is the crescent marks where she gouged her nails in hard; the mark of his teeth on her shoulder. He'll be healed in mere hours. She'll be marked for some time to come and his teeth are just the least of it.
There is no protest, no resistance when he gathers her up, carries her. She is very vaguely aware of what goes on: She can hear other voices, movement. Some part of her registers the state she is in: In his shirt, thoroughly fucked, thoroughly disheveled, thoroughly undone. And she doesn't care. Not because she's too tired to care: Had that contact never happened, had she never taken off her damned glove, had he heeded her warnings and given her the kind of mercy she thought she never wanted.... she'd have strutted past any and all onlookers,
...she had no concept of a walk of shame in her personal dictionary.
Strut, glide, stalk of victory, more like it.
In fact, it is that she is being carried; that she is too tired to open her eyes, to speak, to do more than give it up, give in...
...that will bother her.
It tickles her mind now...
...it will play shadows in her dreams; dreams of memories not her own and supernatural capabilities she is not built for. She's dream of blood in her mouth and Rage in her veins; she'll dream of a connection to a spirit world she cannot visit. She's dream of the way she looks through his eyes. And the way he felt between her thighs...
...she does awaken at one point in the night, briefly. Restless. Feels him against her back and stiffens, unsure of herself and her surroundings.
If he notices he may wonder if she's ever woken up with another man before.
She wouldn’t answer him if he asked.
And she tells herself his arm is too confining. He's too warm against her; his breathing too alien for her mind to seek any solace and return to slumber.
And she tells that voice in her head to shut the fuck up when it scolds her for not moving away, putting some distance between them. When she turns over, facing him, carefully, sylvan and slow, her hands balled fists pressed between her breasts, safe from a stray touch. Her nose finding the dip at the crux of his clavicle and one leg slipping carefully, hesitantly [if he woke up she'd force herself to be bold; force herself to that ever important mien of brazen force of will] slips and hooks one leg over his...
....and finds sleep again, exhausted.
And dreams no more.
----
Daylight then, light plays along her eyelids, renders them a thin veil, steals under her lashes as they flutter open. There's the smell of newness around her: New sheets, new comforter, new mattress. There's a marked absence of his body heat; a lingering presence of his scent. There are voices, muffled, but not too far away, close enough, clear enough that she can make out some of it, some transaction underway. Sign here... sign here... sign here...
...she snorts slightly, a half-awake smirk playing over her lips: Even the Doenhoff himself is directed and guided in such things.
The smirk turns into a slight grimace as she stretches her length and limbs beneath covers and his shirt, feeling a soreness she has not felt in some time; a grimace becomes less surprised and more pleasurable: It is not a bad soreness. It is not something she minds.
They enter then and she opens one eye, tracking him -- her husband, her mate -- as he makes his way close, then both eyes are open: He's carrying papers. She supports herself on her elbows, lifted up, quite modestly enough covered thanks to his shirt and the covers about her hips. Her hair is a mess of gold and bronzed wheat, her skin still a touch wan from whatever it was that drained her so; whatever price that 'gift' of hers. He kisses her cheek...
...and hands her the papers.
And she is careful not to touch him as she takes them.
And she listens, ah yes, most attentively.
And there is that triangle above and between her eyebrows as they flex downward.
For a moment her grasp shifts...
....but she isn't feeling the dramatic air required to rip the papers apart.
Instead she sits up and swings her legs out and over the side of the bed, uncaring of just how much leg she might be showing off. Tidy's the papers in her hands without sparring them a glance. Not. A Glance.
And regards him evenly, her voice low and easy: "Thank you, but no. You said you would allow me to keep my own assets, free of any strings to your finances." The gaze that slips to the attorney is harder than that which she gave Aurich, "Couldn't build up the nerve to mention as much when he told you to put this all together?"
Up she gets. She doesn't know if she has clothes here. She's not about to rummage about looking. So instead she holds the papers out to the attorney, passing them back off, looking over her shoulder to Aurich, "I have no need of funds. And I have business in Glasgow, myself, so I've no need for lodgings... which I can afford on my own. I could use a lift to the city, though I'm sure the trek to the village isn't so bad."
And if the lawyer doesn't take the papers she drops them on the nearest convenient surface before turning and making her way to the bedroom door.
"I should be back by a fortnight. I'll let Otto know where I am." yes, she has every intention, apparently, of making her way through the estate in nothing but his damned shirt -- which is rather billowous on her lithe frame, but she is tall and it does not fall much below her mid thighs.
The slightest hesitancy; the slightest softening of her tone, "Safe travels, husband."
[Aurich]
In the night she wakes, and stiffens, and so he wakes. It's like she's never woken with anyone else in her bed before. He doesn't comment on it, though. His arm, gone lax with sleep, tightens minutely around her. He nuzzles the back of her neck.
Murmurs, "It is only I. Sleep, wife."
She turns in his arms. Perhaps she forces that mask of ever-unyielding strength into place: slides that thigh ever-so-boldly over his. His shirt is twisted and rumpled now. He tugs it lazily back into place; smooths it over her hip. His hand opens over her back;
they sleep.
Morning then. A discussion over papers. Or rather: he hands her papers. She discusses. He strolls away from the bed to shrug his suspenders off his shoulders, put the shirt on. No valet to dress him this morning; not his wedding day, after all. Nor his 'first date', such as it were. As he's buttoning he looks out the window, his estate green and gold with summer.
"Geert did mention your preferences," he interrupts evenly, "and I myself remembered our discussion in Brussels. However, you are my wife and you are entitled to certain things; amongst them, access to my assets and funds. It is not even a privilege but a right; even a duty. Whether or not you choose to avail yourself of those assets and funds is, of course, entirely up to you. If you don't want to spend a penny of it, then don't.
"But I suggest you keep the information in your mind." He turns back, doing up his buttons now, bottom to top. "If only so that you may transfer the accounts on as you see fit, when the time comes."
She is moving about as well. She speaks of business in Glasgow; no need for lodgings. He takes a rolled-up tie from his pocket and begins to do it up by touch, his hands practiced at the art. She looks about to exit the room, and so he calls her back:
"Genevieve. It is apparent we will have little time in one another's company regardless. Perhaps when you return from Glasgow, and I from St. Petersburg, you will consider 'lodging' yourself in your husband's home rather than finding separate apartments."
[Genevieve]
He responds coolly, calmly. The control in him is firmly back in place - was it ever shaken at all? - as firmly and easily as he smoothed and tucked his shirt around her when she turned to him, draped a leg over his hip and thigh [brazen, bold - hesitance? never.]
It reminds her of Heinrich.
She does not tell him this.
All her foibles aside, she is not, at her core, a vicious woman.
Her hand lingers at the gilt handle of the bedroom chambers and she does not turn his way, does not watch him as he goes about so calmly and efficiently and speaks of his fate and speaks of her fate and speaks of their fate.
As if she is as good as a widow already.
In the great green room there is a telephone...
In the great lords room there is an attorney...
Doesn't have quite the same soothing, dreamy comfort to it.
But it's the same cage.
She lets loose the handle [her hands tingle with freedom; they itch and ache for the thin armor of her gloves] and turns about: Wordlessly but smoothly [no angry stalk, no tizzy fit; she is ice in her fury; she is winter's deepest heart as opalescent and pale as dawn on ice and snow] she takes back the damned papers, "A pen?" she asks of, well, he must be Geert. And no doubt he has one at the ready: Solicitors always do. "Merci," she is unerringly polite.
She signs.
Each stroke svelte and sure.
"I trust that will suffice? Thank you, Monsieur Geert -- if you please?" An arched eyebrow, a graceful tilt of her head; she indicates that she would like for him to leave with softness of voice and a quiet smile that only barely touches her eyes; acting for all the world as if she was dressed to perfection, not disheveled and half dressed in a strangers shirt [no matter what legality and vows say he is her husband, her mate: he's still a stranger] with, no doubt, the scent of him and her and sex still heavy on alabaster skin.
And when they are alone...
...she moves to a wall. Any wall will do, so long as it is quite a good deal away from him.
She turns her back to it and leans there, one bare foot propped up on, what? Stone? Tapestry? Silk wallpaper? Heavy, glossy wood paneling? Whatever it is, one foot presses there, the other supports her, her balance easy. Her hand rise, fingers and palms together, fingers curling and linking together, all but each index, the tips of which instead touch her lips.
"If I give you an heir," as if they never stopped having this discussion; as if she is discussing something of no more importance than renovations to a guestroom. [she is very still; very pale; very still] "I will act in whatever capacity I must until they are of age to take over such concerns. If I do not produce an heir, then whoever is currently the benefactor of your estates - Arabella, I presume? - will keep it all and I want nothing to do with it. I am nothing if not dutiful: If I fail to give you children then I've served my time and I'll move on however you or someone else just like you chooses to barter me off or leave me in peace. It's all decided, is it not? So what difference does it make, Aurich?"
Pushing from the wall, her hands now clasped before her abdomen [that will never ripen, never quicken, never grow full and heavy with his child -- will she bear some other mans legacy when he's gone?] "And I would rather not cling desperately to some illusion of happy domestic life when to you we are both dead already."
[Aurich]
Some strain makes the corners of his jaw harden, his lips compress. A beat. Then Aurich abruptly gives up tying his half-tied tie, tucking his shirt in instead, shrugging his braces over his shoulders as he approaches her.
"Have you forgotten already? Do you need to touch me again to remind yourself what difference it makes to me?"
The room is large; the walls are bare stone. The ceilings soar. In the winters they would need every inch of that massive hearth in the far wall. There is glass in these windows, though - lovely, expensive panes accented here and there by stained-glass designed. The room is large, but he crosses it in a few steps and is suddenly before her. Arm's reach, but he feels closer: his rage, his heat, his big hands restlessly doing up his shirt-cuffs.
"I will not bury my head in the sand and ignore the inevitable. I will not leave my affairs unsorted; I will not leave my loved ones trouble to top their sorrows when the day comes. I am not that man. I will plan, I will speak of it, I will prepare for it. I will not pretend.
"But I am not lost yet. I'm alive. I'm here. We're married. I don't want an illusion; I want my wife. Living under my roof. Sleeping in my bed. Need I spell it out further, Genevieve?"
[Genevieve]
He approaches: Frustration, strain, agitation, muted things beneath the heat of his Rage; restless and her fingers twitch, unbidden urges foreign to her, to touch; to finish tying the tie for him, smooth his collar just so, button his shirt cuffs deftly, dressing him with all the slow burning languor of things she'd like to do with him in the nude. In the past her approach to relationships was rather stereotypically masculine: She took what she wanted, if she wanted it, when she wanted it and then left it at that, moved on. No romance; no impulses of affection or tenderness, no desire to be coddled, cuddled, tethered, held, claimed. She used the men she wanted for that which she wanted them and then preferred to forget them, outside of one long standing affair that turned to the comfort of friendship and business some time ago. But she'd never touched him. He'd never made her.
He speaks and she listens. He's close - arms reach. She doesn't move away; she doesn't move closer.
Do you need to touch me again...
At that her eyes narrow, dangerous slants, feral warning, primal desire; then relax, hidden away so quickly, surely it never existed. Never at all.
When he's done, when the last query [threat] fades, though the conversation continues between them in the frisson of the air between them; the tidal push and pull. A man [beast] and a woman [elemental] with forthright eyes and controlled facades.
"I'm aching to touch you."
In another place, from another woman, in another tone, the words could be so sweet, so longing. She says them with a sultry hiss, an instinctive, visceral need and no small amount of ire, "I promised myself I wouldn't," she continues, her murmured words spoken in the lower registers of her alto voice. "Since Wednesday, I've broken many impetuous promises I made myself."
Stepping forward then; not to throw herself at him; the movement is sensual but restrained. With careful hands and deft fingers she reaches up and carefully, carefully finishes tying the tie he's left half undone. Hypersensitive: To the feel of texture and weave of cloth; to the nearness of flesh hidden away but thin layers of easily torn linen, cotton, silk, whatever it is he deigns to cover his human form in. Even here there is a fine tension: Is his clothing dedicated? She'd feel the whisper of power laced through it, the ethereal kiss that allows material things to fade between worlds during the violence of the Shift. Is his clothing old, belonged to him for some time? New? How much whispers through her he and who and what he is. Her eyes are half lidded; her lips softly parted.
"I'm reeling, Aurich," she whispers, her expression becoming one of frustration, consternation. "I'd thought to give you a small quarter of my life: A fraction. You're invading much more than that. It is not what I expected. So I find myself wanting ridiculous, troublesome things. I want you to want to stay with me, though you won't. I want to ask to come with you, though I don't think you would allow it. I don't want either... but I want the longing to exist beyond my own flesh and marrow."
The tie is done... and carefully, carefully she steps closer if he allows it, lets her, rests the backs of her arms - just above the elbow - atop his shoulders; carefully, softly, traces the very backs of her knuckles a breath away from his short clipped hair; even close cropped she can see the natural disarray that tells her his hair would wave, perhaps even curl if he grew it out. Her hips find a balancing point against him, her back arched slightly back to meet his gaze, drink him in, watch him. She the ice of her fury has melted; she feels of hot springs and steam. "I want to boldly leave you behind; I want to return to you only when I can't stand the ache anymore, when I can't move in any direction but yours," her eyes searched his and they are... stubbourn. Blunt. Kindled. Smoking. "I want to know I can walk away. I want to return because I need to, for myself, not for tradition or duty."
[Aurich]
Aurich is unused to this sort of gentle intimacy; it shows when she comes close to her, reaches to complete that last morning ritual for him. He looks down at her hands on the silk of his tie. Very gently, carefully, he wraps his hands around her wrists. Warms her forearms a moment.
Then his palms come to rest on the crest of her hip instead. She comes nearer still. She is so careful with her hands, as though her very nerves were raw and naked. They are raw and naked -- exposed in a way unlike any other's.
On impulse he leans down to her, his shoulders rounding under her arms. He kisses her, a quick but lasting encounter, thorough, drenching. When it parts, though, he begins to step back. Another woman, another man, and he should take her hand to kiss her knuckles. Aurich cannot do that. He turns his head instead, lays that courtly kiss on the inside of her elbow.
"I know what you want, my lady," he says, low. "It is what I want, too. You, and to be with you. But courage, too, in the face of catastrophe. Solitude and strength, to be able to walk away when I must. And that is no easy balance to keep."
They have parted now. His skin feels cool where she used to be. He considers her a moment at arm's reach.
"I will not command you, wife," he decides. "I will summon you if I require your presence. Otherwise, you may choose for yourself where you will live, where you will sleep, whether to follow or to avoid. I fear there are no rules for our situation, and no precedent to follow. So we must make do the best we can, and trust our instincts and our wits."
[Genevieve]
She responds to his touch with an easy grace, a warmth that surprises her, that aches in pleasant ways, in sad ways. For the first time in a long time she wants to return the gestures he gives her, facilitated so easily with his bare hands on her pale, warm skin: Had she her gloves she would be bold with her hands; bereft of them she is so-careful, so-aware. But her lips are not cursed and he finds her mouth eager and willing when he kisses her, brief but consummate; a moment where nothing else matters beyond this small but potent claim. He kisses the inside of her elbow, courtly and he can feel the resulting shiver that runs through her: You've found a sweet spot. More could come of such intimacies, such affections...
...but Silver Fangs are born to duty.
And she does not tempt him to linger; does not seek to destroy the last vestiges of tension from moments ago with physical abandon.
She does, however; nuzzle her hold nose along his neck, inhale deeply of his scent and let her lips touch there, brush there as she speaks.
"You were right, husband -- it didn't take the edge off."
Ah, well: Perhaps she does, indeed, tempt him. And hers smile as he slips away, pulls away, is unapologetic, is fond, is almost a teasing smirk and mirth takes the edge off of the heat in her cool blue eyes.
Parted then: He considers her and she is not squeamish under his gaze; her chin lifts the barest fraction, her knuckles brush beneath her jawline, her lower lip, one eyebrow rising upwards, waiting for him to speak. When he does - bluntly, plainly, his decision made and thus carried through - she tilts her head to one side, taking in the measure of him. He makes her feel delicate - the sheer size of him. It is not a sensation to which she is accustomed as is true of most women of her height. And her gaze is searching: Her past is not a sob story; the tragedies and insults and judgement she's endured are not the worst a human can suffer. All the same it has marked her as anyone's upbringing is want to do. Part of her is waiting for the other shoe to fall. The catch. The crack.
She cannot find it: So her gaze softens as much as her kind of steely, knowing look is capable of and she is.... released. Invigorated. Pleased.
Wry humour does little - nothing - to quash this moment of new-found contentment, "Avoid you, Aurich? No. I doubt if I could, even if I wanted to." Humor slips and fades; joy is tempered; her countenance becomes something softer, somber. "Go then, husband, go hale, be hale and return hale. For White Eagle, for Falcon, for your kin and wife who wishes you honour and glory in battle." She kisses her fingertips - fingertips she stretches out and touches lightly to his shirt clad chest, just where his heart beats.
Then turns and moves for the door, one hand tousling her already disheveled, tumbled hair, her step easy, lithe, proud, a burden lifted... never mind she's still about to walk around the estate in naught but his shirt on. Then gone, though she is just the sort of woman whose presence lingers.
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