[closed/narrative] Tempra la cetra e canta il inno di morte...
Characters: Thomas, Elaine
Time: The evening of Valentine’s Day
Location: Thomas’s apartment in the Gold Coast
Content: Inevitable disaster.
Warnings: Hoo-boy: nsfw, mindfuckery, thematic elements, TDF-style oh god, Thomas.
Format: Prose
There were a lot of reasons Thomas gave for avoiding his old apartment. His little brother lived there, for one. It was a reminder of an old life he’d turned away from. Something about respecting privacy. All those reasons, however, fled in the face of necessity. The need to hide from a little pixie woman hell bent on throwing a Valentine’s Day party. Which explained why Thomas had dug up his old emergency key, and broken into Harry’s apartment with a pizza and a six-pack, and was now comfortably ensconced on the couch with a book in one hand and a beer in the other.
Soon after Thomas’s arrival, there was an urgent knock on the door. “Harry? Open up - it’s me.”
The sudden knock made Thomas jump, the motion spilling beer across his front as he swore beneath his breath. He eyed the door, recognizing the voice. “Harry’s not here,” he shot back.
Silence from the other side of the door for a handful of moments.
Then, “Thomas, let me in.”
Thomas swore again. Last thing he needed was someone else realizing he’d broken into come back to his old place. Maybe he should’ve gone for the Murphy impression. “Going to have to wait a few minutes while I find my pants, sweetheart,” he drawled.
It wouldn’t have been hard to imagine her narrowing her eyes at the door, perhaps regretting her decision to ask to be let in. But rather than walk away, she coldly replied, “Fine.” Another pause, long enough to be a hesitation. “It’s important.”
Rolling his eyes, Thomas was in the middle of cursing his luck when he heard the hesitation in Elaine’s voice. He tried to quell the instinctive worry that rose up for his little brother’s safety and walked with deliberate, slow steps to the door. He opened it, knowing that between the beer spilled on him and the half-empty bottle in his hand, he looked every inch the debauched useless cad, and dared her to say otherwise. “Don’t tell me the holiday’s got you feeling lonely, Miss Mallory.”
She stood in the doorway, her arms crossed and gray eyes unamused. She gave him a quick assessing look, frowning at his appearance before brushing past him and entering into the apartment. “Not in so many words,” she replied quietly, seemingly unimpressed by his affront. “Have you seen Harry recently?”
The fact that Elaine was brushing him off was unsurprising, though Thomas had expected some sort of comment about either his parentage or the fact that he was a vampire. “Define recently,” he answered. “I remember him setting fire to a nightclub last week.” Well... that was an exaggeration. Sort of. A little one. “But since you’ve decided to waltz into my apartment, the least you can do is tell me what you’re so desperate to see him about.”
She sat on the couch, her back to him - almost rigid - as she turned her gaze towards the night that was quickly falling on Chicago. It didn’t seem like she was going to respond at first - maybe it was her constant exasperation with Thomas or...something else. Her dry replies to his antics were strangely absent.
Finally, she said, “It’s about the nightmares, if you must know.”
There was a barely perceptible pause, a half second when something uncertain flickered through Thomas’ eyes, as if he wasn’t certain how best to respond, whether to lie or tell the truth. “What nightmares?” he asked. Lying it was.
She shot him a suspicious look that quickly faded into something very neutral. “You know what I’m talking about.” There was a cold assurance in her voice - there was no way to get around what she said with a dance of lies. “The forest, the mirrors - I know you’ve seen them too.”
The fact that there wasn’t a way around Elaine’s cold certainty didn’t mean Thomas wasn’t going to try. It was what he did, after all, made words dance until the truth and the lie were indistinguishable, kept them going until anyone trying to pry threw up their hands in frustration or clocked him one. But a shadow fell over his face despite his light words. “So they’re dreams. Doesn’t make them anything to worry about.” Another lie, coupled with a smirking leer. “You say that like they’re the only dreams anyone ever has.”
She sighed, suddenly looking too tired to argue with him. “Just dreams. That must be it.” She ran a hand through her hair, the rigidity slipping away. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes, mouth pressed into a firm, thin line - her actions belied her words; surely they were more than “just” dreams. “And they’re ‘just’ nightmares.”
“My keen sense of deduction tells me you think they’re not.” Thomas sank into one of the chairs out of arm’s reach with loose-limbed grace. He shot Elaine a challenging grin, as if to provoke a reaction. “Or is this one of those wizard-only things you need to know the secret handshake to hear about?”
She watched him as he moved towards one of the chairs, her expression otherwise unreadable. In fact, the only reaction that Thomas received was a narrow-eyed frown, her eyes meeting his for only a brief moment before she slid her gaze back towards the windows, shaking her head. She seemed inclined to sit there in the silence until after a long drawn-out moment, she rose to her feet, her features carefully schooled into blankness, as if her momentary show of weakness was already forgotten.
“Harry’s not here and you’re as insufferable as always,” she answered. There was something different in the tone of her voice - it contained neither exasperation nor anger. It carried something else indescribable, something fleeting but dynamic, sublime.
Something in Elaine’s voice caught Thomas’ attention and whatever easy response he had on his tongue left him. Thomas wasn’t sure what it was, but there had been something there, something that called to him. His expression changed subtly as he studied Elaine, became more predatory, sharper and more inhuman, and minute flecks of metallic silver danced in his eyes like starlight. The same something that had caught his attention had caught his demon’s attention too, and its pull laid thick on his tongue. “Right on both counts, but you’re still here.”
She closed her eyes, as if swayed by the demonic lull of his voice. “I am,” she replied slowly, as if just realizing it herself. When she opened her eyes again, her gray eyes unfocused as she settled her gaze on Thomas, thought not looking him directly in the eye. “Is that a problem for you?”
Her response was not what he had expected and Thomas had to hide his blink of surprise. The Hunger still lurked just beneath his skin, as if it had been summoned by that moment of clarity, of ineffable something in her voice. The words came easily, the poisonous honey of his demon clinging to each syllable. “Not at all, but it does beg the question of why you haven’t offered a scathing retort and left in a cloud of righteous indignation.”
She did not smile, did not offer anything that Thomas was expecting. “Perhaps there’s no point in doing so.” The mystifying note was in her voice again, beckoning.
There it was again, and Thomas’ eyes faded from starlight-shot blue to silver-grey as the Hunger rose to the surface, like iron to a lodestone. Normally, that sort of pull on his demon, especially when he was well fed, would have had Thomas running, but whatever this was felt...right. Natural. “Finally deciding to give in and see what you’re missing?”
Now, just the barest hint of smile, hardly perceptible and brittle in its lack of humor. The allure was back, calling the demon within him, daring it to come closer. She closed the distance between the two of them in two flowing strides, and briefly gave him a look that was piercingly arctic before leaning down and kissing him.
The kiss was liquid lightning, the feel of soft lips giving away to energy, to life, as boundless and unending as the ocean. And that same compulsion was there, bracing and cold and utterly demanding, and the Hunger thrilled to it with an eagerness Thomas had never felt from the darkness. Some little part of him could feel that something was wrong, that Elaine Mallory would never take him at his word, but it was a voice that could barely be heard over the overwhelming tempest. He arched into her kiss with eager abandon, as if whatever had called his demon to the surface had possessed him completely.
There was a strange intensity in the kiss, not so much longing as a ferocious desire and power. She rested a hand on his shoulder, pressing him back further into the the chair, her touch electric but cool. Blond hair brushed against Thomas’s collarbone as her other hand trailed slowly, purposely down his chest, fingers bunching into the cloth of his shirt.
The cold fire of her touch seemed to burn straight through cloth and skin and made his nerves sing. He could feel her press him down into the chair, the overwhelming power he tasted keeping him there more than the too-human strength of the hand against his shoulder, and he did the only thing that he could: he rested his hands on her hips, pulling her to him. He felt her fingers clench in the material of his shirt like a silent promise of skin-on-skin, echoing the deliberately light touch of her hair against his collarbone, and a wordless sound left his throat, something between a whimper and a moan, needy and wanting.
She let him pull her towards him with a nearly careless abandon, leaning further into him so that she had nearly fallen into his lap. Her touch was light on the bare skin at his neck, brushing past his rapidly beating pulse point. She entangled her fingers through his dark hair with one hand while the other move to deftly undo the buttons at the front of his shirt.
The entire time, she didn’t say a single word.
Her every touch made him gasp, and he responded by sliding his hands over her hips and beneath Elaine’s shirt, seeking warm flesh. Some little part of Thomas realized something was wrong, that somehow his demon was not the one playing on desire, that Elaine had somehow managed to bend the Hunger to her will. But any terror or fear that could have come from that realization melted away like snow when her fingers twined in his hair. He could only moan at the touch and press himself against her, seeking to deepen the kiss as he pushed the fabric of her shirt up and away from cool, soft skin.
She had pulled herself messily onto his lap, straddling him and pressing herself against him with the same unspoken urgency. She slipped his shirt from broad shoulders, nails lightly raking down his arms and chest - lower and lower to the waistband of his jeans. She didn’t stop there, returning Thomas’s fervent kiss just as strongly, her breath warm against his lips as she began slowly stroking him through the rough fabric of his jeans.
When she finally did speak, a deep and sensual magic wrapped around her voice, wrapping around the demon within him, coaxing gasps of pleasure from his lips and promising so much more if only he continued down that dizzying path.
“Thomas...”
The sound of his name falling from her lips, every syllable thrumming with a power that called to the very depths of him, made him whimper even as he hissed with pleasure at her touch. His eyes were pale silver, nearly white, as his hips bucked against her, his hands moving with urgency as he pulled the shirt over her shoulders. He had to break the kiss to pull the shirt over Elaine’s head and the momentary lack of contact was almost a physical pain.
He kissed her again, and the pain, the niggling doubt, receded, his mind once again filled with nothing but the intoxicating power that bent the Hunger into docile submission. His hands slid up her sides and traced the curve of her spine, savouring the feel of warm, soft flesh beneath him, but it wasn’t quite enough. He was drowning in an ocean of indescribable power and yet there was something more, something more that would eventually satisfy.
“Please...”
He wouldn’t have seen the cruel smile that spread across her face at that plead, but undoubtedly would hear the quiet laugh that bubbled from her throat at his eagerness. Her hands were moving with efficient grace, still pulling him towards her in a breathless kiss, still teasing him with those tortuously slow strokes. She worked quickly at the waistband of his jeans but stopped before cool fingers could touch heated skin, her own body arching towards his in that silent agreement of sheer want.
Instead of continuing that, she slid her hands around his shoulders, moving upwards to entangling her fingers in his hair again. She broke from the kiss then, as if to catch her breath - tilting her head back just slightly, her eyes closed and a ghost of a smile still on her face.
Normally, that sort of teasing would have sent the Hunger into a frenzy, and it would have demanded to take control, to take satisfaction. But her spell was too well woven around him to break, his demon too eager to please, for it to have much more effect than a whimper as his fingers clenched against Elaine’s bare back in a moment of frustration. When she pulled away from the kiss as well, it was too much and he moved with her, drawn to her. He nipped at the tender skin at her throat, feeling the steady pulse lurking beneath her skin as he trailed kisses along the curve of her neck, and his hands moved to the waistband of her pants, desire making practiced fingers fumble as he made to peel them away.
She took advantage of the sudden shift in balance, leaning further away so to draw him away from the chair and onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. She twisted slightly and sat up, still straddling him as she peered down, eyes hazy with that vague and compelling thirst. For a brief moment, something peculiar flickered through her eyes but it was gone the moment it appeared and she leaned down to meet his lips with hers, her skin almost feverish against his.
There was a shot of what almost could have been static between them when she kissed him again, luring his demon further out, tempting. She gently brushed her fingers across his cheek, trailing down his jawline with feather-light touches.
He followed her lead without resistance, falling to the carpet in a tangle of limbs even as his hands continued to touch and remove clothes, to seek skin and warmth as he peeled her pants away from her hips. Elaine’s kiss was electric, a spark that shot straight through him like a flare in the darkness, that illuminated the depths of desire her touch was calling up. He arched up against her again, body tense and all but quivering with unsatiated desire, and from the depths of the demonic darkness that corrupted his soul, he whimpered.
“Shhh,” she murmured, her voice almost tender. She broke away from the kiss then, the smile vanishing again as she gazed down at him, absently tracing the muscles of his chest and abdomen with a touch nearly as disquieting and glacial as the kiss. There was power here, power that was alien but breathtaking in its immensity, and it demanded something, something from Thomas that even he was unaware of. She shifted and then lowered her hips against him, her mouth parting slightly in a gasp as she took him and her body arched back, blond hair spilling over her shoulders and the soft curve of her breasts.
Then she was moving against him, hands at his waist for balance and nails digging into his skin, almost deep enough to draw blood.
Something ominous and powerful and sensual sparked through the air, as heavy as a lie itself.
Power hung so thick around Elaine that the single murmur was enough to silence his whimper, though it was not enough to keep him from leaning into that cold, electric touch. His body moved of its own volition against hers, seeking the familiar, age-old rhythm, his hands clenched to her hips, as if trying to pull her, and the power that almost crackled in the air, into himself. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, needing the feel of more skin, more touch even as he moved against her, his lips pressed to the curve of her throat almost as if in supplication.
She held him close at first, fingers knotted in his hair, moving against him with the same demanding force, uneven gasps of pleasure gliding from her lips at the feel of him against her. But again, she pulled away from him, denying his attempts to continue kissing her, keeping a hand on his shoulder as she continued to rock her hips against his slowly.
The power from her single command still lingered, kept him silent, but the effects of her repeated denial were in every line of his body, in the way he immediately shifted to match her rhythm, in the way he trembled trying to hold himself back from demanding more. The spell that had caught him let no thought through but the Hunger’s desire, left Thomas too drowned in silence and pleasure to think of the utter wrongness of the situation, of the knowledge continued survival had taught him. He looked up at Elaine, the last echoes of colour leeching out of his eyes, the leashed demon begging with every artless motion.
Her mouth met his once more, pure blazing heat in that simple kiss. Her movements were coming faster as she pushed him back down to the floor, more erratic, her hands wandering through his hair and down his spine as she did so, trailing a line of fire in that touch. She had complete and utter control of him, drawing out his pleasure with her body, erasing all thought except for the want of that high desire created. That same carnal magic that had completely entrapped his mind lulled the demon into complete submission.
And as he writhed beneath her, mind oblivious to everything except this, her own body responded to that lust, her faint moan lost in the kiss as her body shuddered from that high and her grip now strong enough to draw pale blood from broken skin. Even still, as she brought him to that very edge, she finally opened her eyes, meeting his and staring deeply - too deeply - into his soul.
The second she opened her eyes, the spell that held him seemed to shatter and Thomas tried to pull away, tried to look anywhere else but her eyes, but the stomach-dropping sensation of the Soulgaze had already caught him and he fell.
Thomas wasn't sure what he expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't what he saw. Without a doubt, the woman into whose soul he was staring was not Elaine Mallory, though he had no idea whose soul he was staring into.
She was a great and terrible beauty, with features as mutable as the sea and a crown of starlight in her hair. Despite the knowledge that the Sight would stay with him until the end of his days, Thomas knew he would never be able to describe the woman he saw in words. She simply was. She was more than a force of nature. Even nature ebbed and faded with the seasons, but she had been since time began.
She stood in the midst of a dark lake, clothed in a gown of shimmering moonlight, holding an empty scabbard in her hands, the leather dried and cracked, its surface etched with tarnished silver sigils. As Thomas watched, the woman let go of the scabbard and it disappeared slowly, swallowed without a sound by the viscous surface of the dark lake. Only then did Thomas realize that it was not shadow or water that stained the hem of her dress. What he had first thought was a lake, so deep as to be dark and reflectionless, was in fact ground soaked in blood. Blood spilled in betrayal and vengeance, that still screamed to the heavens and demanded a price for its spilling. The woman, for there was no name he could give her, reached a hand out to him, pale and perfect and smooth, and the demonic Hunger ached for that touch, no longer the hunter but the pup yearning for its mistress.
But there was a part of him that even now fought against the Hunger, fought despite the fear that it was a battle he had already lost. That part of him refused to bend the knee to the dark goddess and, when he didn't submit, Thomas saw that her pale perfect skin was not mere flesh, but some alabaster armour, its surface brittle and webbed with tiny fractures. He recoiled then, despite the Hunger's desire for touch, and when he did, Thomas knew with cold certainty that if he touched her, if he reached for her with the Hunger, he'd have been lost. Because there was nothing there behind that alabaster shell, nothing beneath that beauty besides darkness, beside anger and blood that consumed the soul and demanded vengeance.
The Soulgaze broke, the perfect clarity of wizarding Sight fracturing into a thousand pieces, each perfectly clear and forever remembered, and the world came back into focus in all its fuzzy-edged imperfection. Thomas screamed as the weight of the Soulgaze slammed into him with too-real pain, and his eyes went wide, darkening rapidly from white to silver to storm grey to deep blue in seconds. Thin trickles of pale blood began to run from his nose and the corners of his eyes as he froze, unmoving, the scream dying to silence.
He fell back, still trapped in the silent scream, and did not move again.
She showed no reaction to the soulgaze herself, only watching with something akin to accomplishment as the color abruptly flooded back into Thomas’s eyes, the pain of everything he saw descending from its magical plane with a sickening physical pain. As he dropped back to the floor, blood streaming from his nose and blankly-staring eyes, she narrowed her eyes before leaning in and brushing a kiss against his still lips.
“Some rise by sin...” she murmured before rising with a swift grace, eyes now as dark as the storm that ravaged the Midwestern city. Lightning added flashes to the room once.
And then darkness completely descended.
Time: The evening of Valentine’s Day
Location: Thomas’s apartment in the Gold Coast
Content: Inevitable disaster.
Warnings: Hoo-boy: nsfw, mindfuckery, thematic elements, TDF-style oh god, Thomas.
Format: Prose
There were a lot of reasons Thomas gave for avoiding his old apartment. His little brother lived there, for one. It was a reminder of an old life he’d turned away from. Something about respecting privacy. All those reasons, however, fled in the face of necessity. The need to hide from a little pixie woman hell bent on throwing a Valentine’s Day party. Which explained why Thomas had dug up his old emergency key, and broken into Harry’s apartment with a pizza and a six-pack, and was now comfortably ensconced on the couch with a book in one hand and a beer in the other.
Soon after Thomas’s arrival, there was an urgent knock on the door. “Harry? Open up - it’s me.”
The sudden knock made Thomas jump, the motion spilling beer across his front as he swore beneath his breath. He eyed the door, recognizing the voice. “Harry’s not here,” he shot back.
Silence from the other side of the door for a handful of moments.
Then, “Thomas, let me in.”
Thomas swore again. Last thing he needed was someone else realizing he’d broken into come back to his old place. Maybe he should’ve gone for the Murphy impression. “Going to have to wait a few minutes while I find my pants, sweetheart,” he drawled.
It wouldn’t have been hard to imagine her narrowing her eyes at the door, perhaps regretting her decision to ask to be let in. But rather than walk away, she coldly replied, “Fine.” Another pause, long enough to be a hesitation. “It’s important.”
Rolling his eyes, Thomas was in the middle of cursing his luck when he heard the hesitation in Elaine’s voice. He tried to quell the instinctive worry that rose up for his little brother’s safety and walked with deliberate, slow steps to the door. He opened it, knowing that between the beer spilled on him and the half-empty bottle in his hand, he looked every inch the debauched useless cad, and dared her to say otherwise. “Don’t tell me the holiday’s got you feeling lonely, Miss Mallory.”
She stood in the doorway, her arms crossed and gray eyes unamused. She gave him a quick assessing look, frowning at his appearance before brushing past him and entering into the apartment. “Not in so many words,” she replied quietly, seemingly unimpressed by his affront. “Have you seen Harry recently?”
The fact that Elaine was brushing him off was unsurprising, though Thomas had expected some sort of comment about either his parentage or the fact that he was a vampire. “Define recently,” he answered. “I remember him setting fire to a nightclub last week.” Well... that was an exaggeration. Sort of. A little one. “But since you’ve decided to waltz into my apartment, the least you can do is tell me what you’re so desperate to see him about.”
She sat on the couch, her back to him - almost rigid - as she turned her gaze towards the night that was quickly falling on Chicago. It didn’t seem like she was going to respond at first - maybe it was her constant exasperation with Thomas or...something else. Her dry replies to his antics were strangely absent.
Finally, she said, “It’s about the nightmares, if you must know.”
There was a barely perceptible pause, a half second when something uncertain flickered through Thomas’ eyes, as if he wasn’t certain how best to respond, whether to lie or tell the truth. “What nightmares?” he asked. Lying it was.
She shot him a suspicious look that quickly faded into something very neutral. “You know what I’m talking about.” There was a cold assurance in her voice - there was no way to get around what she said with a dance of lies. “The forest, the mirrors - I know you’ve seen them too.”
The fact that there wasn’t a way around Elaine’s cold certainty didn’t mean Thomas wasn’t going to try. It was what he did, after all, made words dance until the truth and the lie were indistinguishable, kept them going until anyone trying to pry threw up their hands in frustration or clocked him one. But a shadow fell over his face despite his light words. “So they’re dreams. Doesn’t make them anything to worry about.” Another lie, coupled with a smirking leer. “You say that like they’re the only dreams anyone ever has.”
She sighed, suddenly looking too tired to argue with him. “Just dreams. That must be it.” She ran a hand through her hair, the rigidity slipping away. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes, mouth pressed into a firm, thin line - her actions belied her words; surely they were more than “just” dreams. “And they’re ‘just’ nightmares.”
“My keen sense of deduction tells me you think they’re not.” Thomas sank into one of the chairs out of arm’s reach with loose-limbed grace. He shot Elaine a challenging grin, as if to provoke a reaction. “Or is this one of those wizard-only things you need to know the secret handshake to hear about?”
She watched him as he moved towards one of the chairs, her expression otherwise unreadable. In fact, the only reaction that Thomas received was a narrow-eyed frown, her eyes meeting his for only a brief moment before she slid her gaze back towards the windows, shaking her head. She seemed inclined to sit there in the silence until after a long drawn-out moment, she rose to her feet, her features carefully schooled into blankness, as if her momentary show of weakness was already forgotten.
“Harry’s not here and you’re as insufferable as always,” she answered. There was something different in the tone of her voice - it contained neither exasperation nor anger. It carried something else indescribable, something fleeting but dynamic, sublime.
Something in Elaine’s voice caught Thomas’ attention and whatever easy response he had on his tongue left him. Thomas wasn’t sure what it was, but there had been something there, something that called to him. His expression changed subtly as he studied Elaine, became more predatory, sharper and more inhuman, and minute flecks of metallic silver danced in his eyes like starlight. The same something that had caught his attention had caught his demon’s attention too, and its pull laid thick on his tongue. “Right on both counts, but you’re still here.”
She closed her eyes, as if swayed by the demonic lull of his voice. “I am,” she replied slowly, as if just realizing it herself. When she opened her eyes again, her gray eyes unfocused as she settled her gaze on Thomas, thought not looking him directly in the eye. “Is that a problem for you?”
Her response was not what he had expected and Thomas had to hide his blink of surprise. The Hunger still lurked just beneath his skin, as if it had been summoned by that moment of clarity, of ineffable something in her voice. The words came easily, the poisonous honey of his demon clinging to each syllable. “Not at all, but it does beg the question of why you haven’t offered a scathing retort and left in a cloud of righteous indignation.”
She did not smile, did not offer anything that Thomas was expecting. “Perhaps there’s no point in doing so.” The mystifying note was in her voice again, beckoning.
There it was again, and Thomas’ eyes faded from starlight-shot blue to silver-grey as the Hunger rose to the surface, like iron to a lodestone. Normally, that sort of pull on his demon, especially when he was well fed, would have had Thomas running, but whatever this was felt...right. Natural. “Finally deciding to give in and see what you’re missing?”
Now, just the barest hint of smile, hardly perceptible and brittle in its lack of humor. The allure was back, calling the demon within him, daring it to come closer. She closed the distance between the two of them in two flowing strides, and briefly gave him a look that was piercingly arctic before leaning down and kissing him.
The kiss was liquid lightning, the feel of soft lips giving away to energy, to life, as boundless and unending as the ocean. And that same compulsion was there, bracing and cold and utterly demanding, and the Hunger thrilled to it with an eagerness Thomas had never felt from the darkness. Some little part of him could feel that something was wrong, that Elaine Mallory would never take him at his word, but it was a voice that could barely be heard over the overwhelming tempest. He arched into her kiss with eager abandon, as if whatever had called his demon to the surface had possessed him completely.
There was a strange intensity in the kiss, not so much longing as a ferocious desire and power. She rested a hand on his shoulder, pressing him back further into the the chair, her touch electric but cool. Blond hair brushed against Thomas’s collarbone as her other hand trailed slowly, purposely down his chest, fingers bunching into the cloth of his shirt.
The cold fire of her touch seemed to burn straight through cloth and skin and made his nerves sing. He could feel her press him down into the chair, the overwhelming power he tasted keeping him there more than the too-human strength of the hand against his shoulder, and he did the only thing that he could: he rested his hands on her hips, pulling her to him. He felt her fingers clench in the material of his shirt like a silent promise of skin-on-skin, echoing the deliberately light touch of her hair against his collarbone, and a wordless sound left his throat, something between a whimper and a moan, needy and wanting.
She let him pull her towards him with a nearly careless abandon, leaning further into him so that she had nearly fallen into his lap. Her touch was light on the bare skin at his neck, brushing past his rapidly beating pulse point. She entangled her fingers through his dark hair with one hand while the other move to deftly undo the buttons at the front of his shirt.
The entire time, she didn’t say a single word.
Her every touch made him gasp, and he responded by sliding his hands over her hips and beneath Elaine’s shirt, seeking warm flesh. Some little part of Thomas realized something was wrong, that somehow his demon was not the one playing on desire, that Elaine had somehow managed to bend the Hunger to her will. But any terror or fear that could have come from that realization melted away like snow when her fingers twined in his hair. He could only moan at the touch and press himself against her, seeking to deepen the kiss as he pushed the fabric of her shirt up and away from cool, soft skin.
She had pulled herself messily onto his lap, straddling him and pressing herself against him with the same unspoken urgency. She slipped his shirt from broad shoulders, nails lightly raking down his arms and chest - lower and lower to the waistband of his jeans. She didn’t stop there, returning Thomas’s fervent kiss just as strongly, her breath warm against his lips as she began slowly stroking him through the rough fabric of his jeans.
When she finally did speak, a deep and sensual magic wrapped around her voice, wrapping around the demon within him, coaxing gasps of pleasure from his lips and promising so much more if only he continued down that dizzying path.
“Thomas...”
The sound of his name falling from her lips, every syllable thrumming with a power that called to the very depths of him, made him whimper even as he hissed with pleasure at her touch. His eyes were pale silver, nearly white, as his hips bucked against her, his hands moving with urgency as he pulled the shirt over her shoulders. He had to break the kiss to pull the shirt over Elaine’s head and the momentary lack of contact was almost a physical pain.
He kissed her again, and the pain, the niggling doubt, receded, his mind once again filled with nothing but the intoxicating power that bent the Hunger into docile submission. His hands slid up her sides and traced the curve of her spine, savouring the feel of warm, soft flesh beneath him, but it wasn’t quite enough. He was drowning in an ocean of indescribable power and yet there was something more, something more that would eventually satisfy.
“Please...”
He wouldn’t have seen the cruel smile that spread across her face at that plead, but undoubtedly would hear the quiet laugh that bubbled from her throat at his eagerness. Her hands were moving with efficient grace, still pulling him towards her in a breathless kiss, still teasing him with those tortuously slow strokes. She worked quickly at the waistband of his jeans but stopped before cool fingers could touch heated skin, her own body arching towards his in that silent agreement of sheer want.
Instead of continuing that, she slid her hands around his shoulders, moving upwards to entangling her fingers in his hair again. She broke from the kiss then, as if to catch her breath - tilting her head back just slightly, her eyes closed and a ghost of a smile still on her face.
Normally, that sort of teasing would have sent the Hunger into a frenzy, and it would have demanded to take control, to take satisfaction. But her spell was too well woven around him to break, his demon too eager to please, for it to have much more effect than a whimper as his fingers clenched against Elaine’s bare back in a moment of frustration. When she pulled away from the kiss as well, it was too much and he moved with her, drawn to her. He nipped at the tender skin at her throat, feeling the steady pulse lurking beneath her skin as he trailed kisses along the curve of her neck, and his hands moved to the waistband of her pants, desire making practiced fingers fumble as he made to peel them away.
She took advantage of the sudden shift in balance, leaning further away so to draw him away from the chair and onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. She twisted slightly and sat up, still straddling him as she peered down, eyes hazy with that vague and compelling thirst. For a brief moment, something peculiar flickered through her eyes but it was gone the moment it appeared and she leaned down to meet his lips with hers, her skin almost feverish against his.
There was a shot of what almost could have been static between them when she kissed him again, luring his demon further out, tempting. She gently brushed her fingers across his cheek, trailing down his jawline with feather-light touches.
He followed her lead without resistance, falling to the carpet in a tangle of limbs even as his hands continued to touch and remove clothes, to seek skin and warmth as he peeled her pants away from her hips. Elaine’s kiss was electric, a spark that shot straight through him like a flare in the darkness, that illuminated the depths of desire her touch was calling up. He arched up against her again, body tense and all but quivering with unsatiated desire, and from the depths of the demonic darkness that corrupted his soul, he whimpered.
“Shhh,” she murmured, her voice almost tender. She broke away from the kiss then, the smile vanishing again as she gazed down at him, absently tracing the muscles of his chest and abdomen with a touch nearly as disquieting and glacial as the kiss. There was power here, power that was alien but breathtaking in its immensity, and it demanded something, something from Thomas that even he was unaware of. She shifted and then lowered her hips against him, her mouth parting slightly in a gasp as she took him and her body arched back, blond hair spilling over her shoulders and the soft curve of her breasts.
Then she was moving against him, hands at his waist for balance and nails digging into his skin, almost deep enough to draw blood.
Something ominous and powerful and sensual sparked through the air, as heavy as a lie itself.
Power hung so thick around Elaine that the single murmur was enough to silence his whimper, though it was not enough to keep him from leaning into that cold, electric touch. His body moved of its own volition against hers, seeking the familiar, age-old rhythm, his hands clenched to her hips, as if trying to pull her, and the power that almost crackled in the air, into himself. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, needing the feel of more skin, more touch even as he moved against her, his lips pressed to the curve of her throat almost as if in supplication.
She held him close at first, fingers knotted in his hair, moving against him with the same demanding force, uneven gasps of pleasure gliding from her lips at the feel of him against her. But again, she pulled away from him, denying his attempts to continue kissing her, keeping a hand on his shoulder as she continued to rock her hips against his slowly.
The power from her single command still lingered, kept him silent, but the effects of her repeated denial were in every line of his body, in the way he immediately shifted to match her rhythm, in the way he trembled trying to hold himself back from demanding more. The spell that had caught him let no thought through but the Hunger’s desire, left Thomas too drowned in silence and pleasure to think of the utter wrongness of the situation, of the knowledge continued survival had taught him. He looked up at Elaine, the last echoes of colour leeching out of his eyes, the leashed demon begging with every artless motion.
Her mouth met his once more, pure blazing heat in that simple kiss. Her movements were coming faster as she pushed him back down to the floor, more erratic, her hands wandering through his hair and down his spine as she did so, trailing a line of fire in that touch. She had complete and utter control of him, drawing out his pleasure with her body, erasing all thought except for the want of that high desire created. That same carnal magic that had completely entrapped his mind lulled the demon into complete submission.
And as he writhed beneath her, mind oblivious to everything except this, her own body responded to that lust, her faint moan lost in the kiss as her body shuddered from that high and her grip now strong enough to draw pale blood from broken skin. Even still, as she brought him to that very edge, she finally opened her eyes, meeting his and staring deeply - too deeply - into his soul.
The second she opened her eyes, the spell that held him seemed to shatter and Thomas tried to pull away, tried to look anywhere else but her eyes, but the stomach-dropping sensation of the Soulgaze had already caught him and he fell.
Thomas wasn't sure what he expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't what he saw. Without a doubt, the woman into whose soul he was staring was not Elaine Mallory, though he had no idea whose soul he was staring into.
She was a great and terrible beauty, with features as mutable as the sea and a crown of starlight in her hair. Despite the knowledge that the Sight would stay with him until the end of his days, Thomas knew he would never be able to describe the woman he saw in words. She simply was. She was more than a force of nature. Even nature ebbed and faded with the seasons, but she had been since time began.
She stood in the midst of a dark lake, clothed in a gown of shimmering moonlight, holding an empty scabbard in her hands, the leather dried and cracked, its surface etched with tarnished silver sigils. As Thomas watched, the woman let go of the scabbard and it disappeared slowly, swallowed without a sound by the viscous surface of the dark lake. Only then did Thomas realize that it was not shadow or water that stained the hem of her dress. What he had first thought was a lake, so deep as to be dark and reflectionless, was in fact ground soaked in blood. Blood spilled in betrayal and vengeance, that still screamed to the heavens and demanded a price for its spilling. The woman, for there was no name he could give her, reached a hand out to him, pale and perfect and smooth, and the demonic Hunger ached for that touch, no longer the hunter but the pup yearning for its mistress.
But there was a part of him that even now fought against the Hunger, fought despite the fear that it was a battle he had already lost. That part of him refused to bend the knee to the dark goddess and, when he didn't submit, Thomas saw that her pale perfect skin was not mere flesh, but some alabaster armour, its surface brittle and webbed with tiny fractures. He recoiled then, despite the Hunger's desire for touch, and when he did, Thomas knew with cold certainty that if he touched her, if he reached for her with the Hunger, he'd have been lost. Because there was nothing there behind that alabaster shell, nothing beneath that beauty besides darkness, beside anger and blood that consumed the soul and demanded vengeance.
The Soulgaze broke, the perfect clarity of wizarding Sight fracturing into a thousand pieces, each perfectly clear and forever remembered, and the world came back into focus in all its fuzzy-edged imperfection. Thomas screamed as the weight of the Soulgaze slammed into him with too-real pain, and his eyes went wide, darkening rapidly from white to silver to storm grey to deep blue in seconds. Thin trickles of pale blood began to run from his nose and the corners of his eyes as he froze, unmoving, the scream dying to silence.
He fell back, still trapped in the silent scream, and did not move again.
She showed no reaction to the soulgaze herself, only watching with something akin to accomplishment as the color abruptly flooded back into Thomas’s eyes, the pain of everything he saw descending from its magical plane with a sickening physical pain. As he dropped back to the floor, blood streaming from his nose and blankly-staring eyes, she narrowed her eyes before leaning in and brushing a kiss against his still lips.
“Some rise by sin...” she murmured before rising with a swift grace, eyes now as dark as the storm that ravaged the Midwestern city. Lightning added flashes to the room once.
And then darkness completely descended.