you and no other.

[Lukas] It was late evening when Danicka ran across Ivan in the streets, and solid, pitchblack night when she left his obscenely swanky penthouse. From there, the Brotherhood is only a few minutes' drive away. The cabbie that takes her there is mildly surprised. A woman who looks like her, who dresses like her, who walks out of one of the most exclusive buildings in the city like she owns it -- such women do not typically go to dockside restaurant/bakeries at twenty past ten p.m.

The Brotherhood is closed when she gets there; the lights dimmed in the dining room. Second-story lights are on here and there, though, and anyway, she has a key. It'll let her in the back door, which opens onto the alley where, a very long time ago, Samuel Modine once parked slantwise in a vertical space because he couldn't wait to get her into bed.

Her mate's window opens onto that alley. Fabulous alley view, he joked once. That window is dark. Perhaps he's out. Then again, she knows he keeps nocturnal hours.

There's someone in the common room -- one of the other residents, watching television. Likely Danicka is hardly noticed, and even if she is -- people probably know her around here. They know who she belongs to. They probably don't realize he belongs to her, too.

Him: the occupant of Room 2, which is closed and locked and quiet. Danicka lets herself in, and it's dark inside. The window's open a crack, letting in a thread of warm, humid air amidst the dry coolness of air conditioning. Lukas, asleep on his back with a sheet twisted haphazardly around his middle, comes awake as his territory is breached. His head comes up. He squints for a moment, recognizes her, and lies back.

"Ráno," he murmurs, eyes closing again. A moment or two, and then he shifts over a few inches, squeezing closer to the wall. "Pojď do postele."

[Danicka] When Danicka goes to dinner alone, it isn't often that she leaves the restaurant before it's closed, before servers have come over to chat, before eventually she has a nearly-full table of people who got off awhile ago and finished their parts of cleanup and are just 'hanging out' til the manager comes over to try and shoo them away and ends up, not surprisingly, drawn into the conversation. In the Nation, Danicka is more than a little reserved. She takes care with what she says and who she says it to. It will always come back to haunt her in ways she can't control.

Tonight, though, she wanted to go home. A longer day than usual, harder work at her trainer's gym, whatever it was, she left before closing and lit up a Dunhill not because she needed one but because it felt like the thing to do. Lukas knows she smokes occasionally -- he has to, when he can scent the perfume she wore three days ago when he steps into her closet because it is still lingering on a scarf she had on that day at the bottom of her hamper. But he also knows she picks it up and drops it like she used to pick up and drop people. Like she sometimes still does.

She could have walked. But a minute in a car is far, far longer on foot, and she's wearing four-inch heels and her feet are starting to hurt. So she takes a cab to the Brotherhood, pays the driver, and exits with her clutch hanging from her wrist and her shawl wrapped around her as the night gets colder and darker and the storm that was on the horizon as she drove to Ivan's is rolling across the sky, coming to cover them all.

Inside the back door, and through the kitchen, walking softly up the narrow stairs to the common room. Whoever is sitting there glances up, or was glancing up even as she ascended, waiting to see who it was. Or maybe they flicked their eyes over her, knowing her by her scent and footsteps. This is the Ahroun Elder's mate, the one who has been his fucktoy for over a year now and still hasn't given him a cub. Some Garou and Kin have opinions on that. Most keep them to themselves. Been a long time, either way, since she came here to be with him. For all most of the Nation knows, he summons her when he wants her, and she stays until he gives her leave to go. For all most of the Nation knows, that is the deepest sort of relationship any Shadow Lord could have with their mate.

Danicka walks right past Lukas's bedroom the first time. She goes to the bathroom and quickly, quietly washes up for bed. She brushes her teeth -- and she has a travel toothbrush in her clutch, that's the sort of woman she is some nights, throwing random things into her bag thinking maybe, maybe and occasionally being right -- and carefully, gently washes the makeup off her eyes and her face and her lips. She puts the towel in the laundry basket on her way out, and takes out another key to let herself into her mate's bedroom.

A sliver of light slices through the dark, but Danicka's slender. She slips inside and closes the door again, surprisingly good at entering a room almost silently. Lukas wakes for reasons beyond noise or light, though. And Danicka doesn't freeze in place, as she would have a long time ago, back when his door was still locked to her and she really only entered it when invited. She is draping her shawl over the back of his chair and putting her purse down on his desk, stepping out of her shoes, as his bones and his spirit recognize her in the darkness.

It isn't even close to morning, but though his greeting makes a ghost of a smile touch her lips, Danicka doesn't correct him. She reaches back and unzips her dress, slides it down her body to drape it on top of the shawl. "Už jdu, už jdu," she murmurs back to him, with gentle, mock exasperation. Lukas knows that usually when she sleeps at home she's in a t-shirt and panties, or pajamas. It's with him, after making love to him, that she sleeps in nothing at all. There's what she calls 'bumming around' clothes here for her, in the space he made for her, but Danicka doesn't go to the drawer or closet to get anything out.

She drops her underwear and her bra less neatly as she crosses the room to his bed. They fall on the floor to be dealt with tomorrow, and she crawls onto his narrow mattress with him, sliding her legs down underneath the sheet he moves aside for her. And partly because there is no room and partly because they would sleep close to each other even in a King-sized bed -- and always have -- Danicka is against Lukas's side before he has settled the sheet back down over their bodies.

The summer bedding they bought together, which she helped him pick out, which wicks away heat in these hotter months when the humidity off the lake can get a trifle unbearable.

Danicka breathes in his scent, and the scent of his room with the window open, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his chest. "Ach, takové teplé muž, she mutters, with comingled relief and familiarity, kissing his right pectoral muscle. Then his left. And then she settles, sharing his body heat, his pillow, him.

[Lukas] In actuality, Lukas would have awoken on his own maybe an hour or two from now. He stayed up all night last night because it was storming and the temperature dropped hour by hour as thunder and rain poured out of the heavens. He and Sinclair, riding around in her El Camino with the windows down and raindrops bouncing in; ending up at the Caern somehow where they playfought in dirt that was churning into mud, and somewhere in the middle his drunk mate called but he couldn't make it because by then some of the guardians had gotten involved and it was one big chaotic melee.

Then it was daybreak, and the last of the storm was drifting away over the plains as the next one built over the lake. It was Lukas's turn on patrol, so he took it without sleep; stumbled back to Room 2 sometime in the late afternoon and crashed, thinking to himself that he'll wake up around 11pm or midnight and ... figure out what to do with himself then.


But then Danicka's here now. And she's taking all her clothes off, and he's opening his eyes to watch her, and she crawls onto the bed and he shifts to the other side instead, shifts so that she's on the inside, protected, because he's decided

fuckit. He's not getting up. His mate is here, and it's nighttime for her, early-bedtime for her, and that was just fine.

They settle together. He wraps his arm around her and kisses her forehead, nuzzles her a moment. They sleep.


He wakes sometime around two in the morning, and Danicka is deeply asleep then. So he turns toward her, wraps his arms around her, inhales-exhales, and lets sleep pull him under again slow and simple.


The next time his eyes open it's early morning; 7am. He's slept an obscene amount, fourteen or fifteen hours, so much that he feels boneless and warm, and there's his mate cradled now with her back to his body, and even with the light bedding and the air conditioning the warmth seeping through the window -- and the warmth generated between their bodies -- was enough for him to have thrown off the sheets again while he slept.

It's a little cold now in the hours just after daybreak, before the sun has had a chance to warm the sky. So carefully, he pulls the sheets over their bodies. This is what wakes her, stirring in his narrow bed, in his tiny room with its four solid walls and its one small window, where an old coffeepot sits on the desk and her things live in his closet.

He kisses her shoulder as she moves. "Hi," he murmurs softly, husky with sleep.

[Danicka] It takes moments, only, for Danicka to sleep. She makes some noise of protest when Lukas shifts around, the bedsprings joining the chorus of her whimpering as he settles back down around her. And so they sleep, and they sleep deeply and for a very, very long time.

Lukas wakes easily, slowly, and twice. The second time, Danicka blinks her eyes open and breathes in deeply as he's pulling the sheets back around them. She twists a bit, looking over her bare shoulder at him, and smiles.

"Hi," she murmurs back, and her eyes close. She stretches, turning her head back around, arms and legs going rigid and quivering as she works out the kinks in them. She makes a relieved noise when she relaxes again, licking her lips and swallowing. There's a light smacking noise. She is nowhere near cold, held between his body and the wall as she was. She's actually slightly sweaty, the moisture dwelling in the small of her back and below her breasts and behind her knees. She sounds content.

Even as she's asking: "Why... didn't you come see me at the club sooner?" Which was ages ago, it seems. "You had to have known I was there." She sounds drowsy, coming out of dreams, and this, for some reason, is the first thought to make it to words.

[Lukas] Lukas shifts at that, propping himself a little higher on his elbow. A faint frown touches his brow, and his arm -- the one slung over her side, his hand spread loosely under the curve of her breast -- shifts over her ribs.

"I didn't see you that long before I went to you," he says quietly. "By the time I saw you, you were already heading for the stairs."

A small pause. Then he leans down, kisses her upper arm gently. "Has that been bothering you?"

[Danicka] No frown on Danicka's face. She's still half-drowsing, away from emotions, away from thoughts that are dark and complicated. And this, truthfully, is neither. She was curious only, though a little bothered at the time before such things were eclipsed and burnt away by sheer, unadulterated lust for him.

She lifts one hand, lazily, and the backs of her knuckles graze his jawline. She smiles as her fingers pass his talking lips; it feels nice. Her eyes fall closed, open only reluctantly as she looks at him again. "No," she murmurs, honestly. And kisses him, softly, on his mouth, whose shape she knows so well she can see it even in her dreams.

"Beautiful boy," she whispers, and kisses him again, slower this time. "I want you more than anything," she adds, too sleepy to hold such things in, to restrain them to secrecy. It doesn't even seem immediate. Just: I want you. i choose you.

[Lukas] Something about the way her eyelids open and fall again so slowly, so drowsily, sets a warmth blooming through his chest. His eyes close as she kisses him; remain closed even after as he nuzzles her face, kisses her cheek blindly. A moment later her mouth finds his again, slower and deeper this time, his chest rising against her back as he draws a breath.

"Vím," he whispers, after.

His eyes open then. He strokes her hair back from her temple and her brow, the curve of his palm gentle over her face and scalp. Gold in the indirect sunlight of the morning: textured, resonant, spreading back over her shoulder and over his chest. He bends to kiss her again, leaning over her, his body curving warm and large over hers.

"I'll go to you next time," he murmurs. "I didn't like waiting anyway."

[Danicka] It's rare, even now, that they get to wake up like this. Warm, nuzzling, and together. He likes being left in her bed when she gets up to go to her classes when they're in session. He likes watching her get dressed and ready and going back to sleep as she leaves to go to training, or yoga, or whatever-it-is. Danicka, however, likes this: waking up to him, nuzzling him, kissing him, and feeling him still there. She could sleep like this, she thinks while she's still drowsy, forever. And ever, and ever.

And Lukas knows. He says as much, kissing her and breathing in that way that tells him he truly does know, and wants her back. Danicka is smiling a little when he pulls back. Her eyes drift open again to find his face in the half-light of rising morning, and she tracks them over his entire expression, reacquainting herself with his features while he does the same with hers by force of touch.

"Good," she answers, quiet as he is, as his body blocks some of the light and covers her in shadow and heat at the same time. She tilts her head up to kiss him again, or receive one from him, and adores him with her eyes a moment longer before she says: "Do you believe that I love you above all others, and would do anything for you that you asked of me?" she whispers, as though this matters. As though it is more than simplified, obvious poetry.

[Lukas] Now there's a quizzical touch to his brow again, faint, matched in equal part by a quirk to his mouth. He meets her, his lips closing softly on hers. "Yes," he replies; a quiet, simple honesty. "Of course I do."

A pause, and then he leans down to kiss her again, gentler. "Why?"

[Danicka] They kiss and kiss and kiss again, over and over, like they're having an entirely separate conversation in these warm touches of their mouths, the soft slides of their tongues in the morning. Danicka is losing her thoughts in it every time Lukas bends to kiss her, as warmth -- and yes, desire -- flush through her. Her body starts to turn, til she lies on her back looking up at him, hair spread over his pillow and face shaded by the presence of his body blocking the sun through the open window.

But her face, her expression, is troubled. Or becoming so, as he quirks and kisses her and asks her why she'd double-check to make sure he knows that he is the one, he is everything to her, he changed her life. He is her mate, and she would kill for him. Die for him. Die, even, on his own frenzied fangs, and forgive him as life left her, mourning for what would become of him afterwards. She knows, and knew, exactly what she was getting into when she made him her own, and gave herself over to him.

Open-eyed surrender.

"I met someone," Danicka whispers, watching his eyes. "And... felt something. Not even anything meaningful, just passing attraction. Chemistry. So I left and came here. I couldn't..."

And this means something, to him at least, who knew that at the beginning she'd risk him breaking her arm to lie, to keep herself safe, to make herself avoid conflict,

"I couldn't not tell you," she finishes, hesitant, her brows tugged together. "But I was also afraid to, because you might think it means I love you less. Not enough."

[Lukas] It's not often that Danicka says such things to him like that. Which is not to say they're a couple afraid of showing affection, or that they hide their love from one another; guard it jealously as though each were afraid the other would take advantage of weakness. Their relationship is warm and close. Ironic as it is, their relationship -- one between a Shadow Lord and his kin -- is healthier than many human relationships.

But they're not the type to speak empty platitudes. They're not the sort to constantly shower one another with vows of affection and devotion at all hours of the day, regardless of context and situation, until they mean nothing at all.

So it was faintly unusual for Danicka to wake and tell him: I want you more than anything. It was strange, and noteworthy, that she asked him if he believed her. If he believed she loved him above all others.

That she would do anything he asked of her.

-- which in and of itself frightens him faintly. The implication of absolute trust there, which he's not even certain he grants himself. He's not sure he can, after the night and the street and the frenzy.

He believes her, though. And that holds its own implication of trust.


Then; this. Why, he asks her. And she tells him:quietly, with watchful but unflinching honesty.

And that's such a rare thing, too. Not merely amongst Shadow Lords and their kin, but amongst any relationship anywhere. Chemistry is all but instinctual. Eyes strange; connections are made whether or not one wills them. But for a woman -- or a man -- to recognize it; to not only recognize it but remove herself from the situation immediately; to not only remove herself, but tell her mate with absolute, immediate honesty --

that's vanishingly rare. And Lukas recognizes this even as the inevitable, instinctive flare of tension and --

what? jealousy? possessiveness? It's not quite either, nor even a sense of betrayal. Something more like rejection: rejection of that idea, of the notion that she could have felt passing attraction. Rejection, and, yes, outrage,

-- rises in him. He draws a short, sharp breath, his head turning blindly away. He frowns at the closet door. His thoughts are his own for a moment, his body still, his arm beneath her and his hand stroking back her hair -- both still.

Then he turns back, brow furrowed.

"I'm glad you left," he says; quiet, but with a certain firmness beneath the surface. "I'm glad you told me. And I believe everything you just told me. That I'm the one you chose and choose."

It means something that his hand moves again now, combs gently through her hair before laying over her side again to draw her a touch closer. He sinks down behind her, holding her the way he so often does when they sleep: his arms around her, his calf over her shins. He kisses the back of her neck gently, contemplatively, his eyes open and -- let's admit it -- troubled.

"But it's still hard for me to hear," he admits. "Especially so soon after ... we didn't make love for so long. So soon after I gave you every reason to leave me."

That's the first time either of them has acknowledged that aloud. It's a truth they both know.

[Danicka] Not so very long ago -- a year, perhaps -- she would have flinched away from that outrage. Sensed it and curled away from it. A little longer, and she would have flinched inside, and not shown it. She would have believed, at the start, that nothing would stop him from beating her, and that showing him fear and vulnerability would only make him angrier. That was how she was raised. That is what she knew. Honesty was a way to ask for punishment. Fear and weakness was a way to invite brutality.

Lukas is allowed to see where Danicka is truly vulnerable. Not her image of frailty, her carefully cultivated fragility that looks so lovely, that makes her submission seem so perfect, so willing, so complete. He is permitted to know where her limits are. What makes her angry. What hurts her, and how deeply. He is given so much power over her, and even now that is how she sees it. He could break her in an instant with the right words. With the right look in his eyes.

So: he is as careful as she is, sometimes.


No, not usual that she tells him so plainly, and so openly, what it is she feels for him. It is there, they both know it's there, and trust that it does not change though they mess up, though they are imperfect. And that is healthier, too, than most human relationships. It is one thing to love; it is another thing to feel loved, and trust it so entirely. Sometimes Lukas wonders if he could lose her: by frenzying, by this, by that. Danicka does, too; she wonders if she could lose him because she has done wrong, because she has said something hurtful, done something thoughtless.

The bittersweet irony of it is how little they each feel, at times, that they could deserve what the other offers. What a weight that places on them, how it rides their thoughts even as it liberates them. I am loved. Whatever I do, however far I go, I am loved. And I must honor that.

So Danicka honors it. With her trust, and with this honesty, and with her knowledge that he is not about to snap and grab her throat when he hears this. She does not flinch as emotion clouds him so darkly; she watches him, even as he looks away for a moment and -- this is meaningful, too -- she doesn't try to read him. She lets the thoughts that are his alone remain so, and waits for him to return.

Which he does. Which he always does.

Her brows are still together when he looks back at her, and remain that way as he speaks. She wants to touch him, so much, so badly, and yet she holds herself back a little, knowing that touching him has always dissolved anger between them, has always taken away the edges of harsh emotion. Sometimes, though, she knows that they both need those moments of hard stone and ragged feeling. They are Shadow Lords, and their lineage lies in the mountains, in the lightning, and in the sickles of the fields. They are not soft creatures.

Lukas touches her hair, and Danicka's expression smooths. It does, in fact, soften. She exhales softly, in relief, as he comes nearer to her again, and she lets herself touch him. Puts her hands lightly on his chest, and then slips her arms around him loosely. She can feel his forearms against her back, following the line of her spine, and his ridged abdominals against the tender flat of her stomach. He touches his lips to the side of her throat, which makes her eyes fall closed -- almost closed -- for half a second. She opens them again, to meet his.

Troubled as that crystalline blue gaze is. A moment later her own expression is tightening again with ache, with concern, because of what he says.

"Lukáš..." she says, almost plaintive, trailing off. She exhales, a little harder than before, not quite a sigh. And her arms move up, and one wraps around his shoulder and her hand comes to the back of his neck, the back of his head, drawing him closer to nuzzle him. What she has to say has words, but she can't find them yet. This contact, facial and primitive, contains some of it, before she manage to speak again, resting brow to brow on his pillow.

"Pokud bychom nikdy miloval jsem znovu, tak bych ještě být váš lodní důstojník. A já dělal nechtěl odejít. Ani na okamžik," she whispers, and promises, urging herself into his arms, the motion of her body asking him

hold me. hold me tighter.

There's a moment's pause, and her eyes open, and she tells him the truth again, still in a whisper, like secrecy. "Myslel jsem, že o tom." Her green eyes are darker than usual, and up close he can see the flecks of gold in them, the flickers that catch the sunlight and turn them blue. "Ale moje srdce vyli při pomyšlení na opuštění vás."

Not mere poetry, this. The truth. From her lips, this is unvarnished. He better than anyone knows that feeling. That internal screaming, that wail of oneself that threatens to break bones from the inside, rend one apart. He knows. She knows he understands.

"Já jsem tvůj. Budu tvoje til den umřu."

Not the day he dies. Not even til the day she leaves, because when one gets right down to it, they have fought before. They have fought horribly, and it may one day happen that they cannot live together, they cannot be together. But she says it anyway, because it will not change this:

Já jsem tvůj.

[Lukas] Danicka is gaining a reputation in the Nation. She has kills to her name; not merely the occasional scavenging fomor, but some truly alien and vicious creatures. Yet it's not her combat prowess she's most known for. Somewhere, somehow, the woman that so many think of as a barbie doll, a chewtoy, a submissive little plaything, has also gained for herself a reputation for intelligence, for wit, and -- yes -- for wisdom.

There's a deep wisdom in her that's a seldom revealed as her true vulnerabilities. It's wisdom -- and courage, and honesty -- that not many twenty-something women are capable of that allows her to tell her mate what she did. It's wisdom that allows her to allow him his space, his time to react; that allows her to allow him his anger.

That understands there's a time and a place for comfort, and a time and a place for anger. That has the patience and courage to wait for Lukas to come back to her, when so many other women would rush to explanations and excuses and pleas and promises.

And he does come back to her. And she allows herself to touch him then, winding her slender arms around him, pulling him close as he pulls her close.

More truths, then. And in honesty, it hurts to know her eye wandered, however briefly. It hurts more to know she thought of leaving him, however justified. Yet what makes Lukas draw an unsteady breath, what makes his hands close on her back and his arms pull her tight against his body, are the things she tells him after all that.

That no matter what, she would love him. That no matter what, whether he were alive or dead, whether they were together or not -- she would still be his.

His forehead presses to hers. His nose alongside hers, his mouth brushing hers when he speaks,

"Vy a žádné další."

He's known this for months already. He's known since the night it flew out of his mouth, berating Theron for his infantile views on love. He's known since the last summer's solstice; before. He's known this longer than he can remember, but this is the first time he's even tried, however imperfectly, to say it aloud.

"Ty nad všemi ostatními."

[Danicka] It was no small, passing thing they did when they went into the woods that night more than a year ago. No meaningless gesture, what he did when he told Vladik he wanted her for himself, and was prepared to perform some feat, embark on some quest, fight and kill or argue and offer proofs, in order to get her. In the end, though it had almost nothing to do with concern for his sister's happiness, Vladik gave Danicka to Lukas for no other reason than that she wanted him. The result, regardless of cost, was the same: she's his now, irrevocably and utterly.

And no small thing, either, that he turned around and gave her himself, which is exceedingly rare in the nation and all but unthinkable in their tribe.

Little things like arguments, fleeting hurts, frenzies, death: they can't touch the pact made between female and male. They mustn't.

It was never Lukas's anger that she feared, though she expected it. He doesn't even like to hear Ilari Martin's name. She doesn't like to think about Sam Modine whatsoever if she can help it. Danicka knew he would be angry, even if he didn't assign blame to her or reject her. She understands, at least, the blurry but very real lines between emotion and reason. Her fear was always exactly what she said it was: that he would doubt her love for him then. That it would put cracks in a foundation they both recognize is only as solid as they make it and can always be as fragile as they let it become.

Lukas doesn't look like he's filled with doubt right now. He looks hurt, though not necessarily wounded, and there's a difference there, too. Her honestly has been unflinching, and for a reason: he has to know she thought about it. He has to know she is not with him because she has to be, or because she is losing her reason and her mind gradually to the placation of knowing your destiny. He has to know she chose him. Chooses him.

They're so close now, and so she whispers. There's no need to do otherwise. Her fingertips twirl with hypnotic slowness in the hair above the back of his neck, twisting it into the curls it falls into when it's longer.

A long, long time ago, when he challenged Milo for her, he told the other Lord that he would protect this kinswoman above all others. It was never clear if he meant the other Lord kin. Or all kin. Or everyone, even his own packmates. Though perhaps now, after all this time, he knows.

She kisses him softly as he speaks. "Ano," is all she says. And all she needs to say.

[Lukas] A while longer he stays just like that, turned on his side, limbs entangled with hers, brow resting against hers. Close enough to kiss with the slightest tilt of the chin. Close.

Then he draws a slow breath; lets it out. Shifts onto his back, and the bed is so narrow that they can only fit like this if she rests half across his body. Which he doesn't mind, and never did.

He gives her the dip of his shoulder to rest her head on, between the apex of the acromion and the rise of the pectoral. His arm wraps loosely around her. He looks at his ceiling and the indirect, reflected light there -- sneaking in between the Brotherhood and its neighboring warehouse of a building, warmed by summer and reflection off brick.

"Thank you for telling me," he says; which is similar to but not quite the same as what he's already said: I'm glad you told me. "I hope you tell me again, if it happens again."

Another few seconds. His eyebrows wrinkle together again, but he says it anyway:

"I hope you tell me, too, if you don't think you can resist temptation. It would hurt me," he admits that, too, openly though not easily, "but I'd rather know."

A faint, thin attempt at a laugh, "But I hope this doesn't happen too often."

[Danicka] She does, in fact, move half on top of him as he rolls to his back. They've been at this since she came to bed. Him moving, her finding a place beside him, him crawling and turning above her to put her next to the wall. Sleeping her back to his front, their shins crossing, only to have waking eyes see Danicka turning on her back, turning to face him, and now

Lukas lying back, and Danicka covering him, nestling her head down on his chest exactly where it belongs, where she should be, where she wishes she could be every night. And that's the truth, too. No longer does she wish she had some kind of 'freedom', the emptiness and solitude of her own bed. It is not as though neither of them have lives and would have nothing to face day after day but each other. Once upon a time the last thing she wanted was

well, this. A Garou mate, much less one living with her, but when she thinks about it now, she would not mind this every night. She would not simply grow used to it or accustomed to it but a part of her wants it, and does not care if they keep three residences or one but she would still, all the same, love to sleep with him every night.


What he says makes her ache. It stabs inward as he gives that impression of a laugh at something that is hardly funny. Danicka's eyes open, looking at his desk and her dress laid over his chair the way he looks at the ceiling. She shifts, slowly, pulling herself up so she can lean on him and look at him.

In the end, she doesn't have any words. Just the look on her face, her brows tugged together and her lips slightly parted, and though there's worlds of impressions to be read in the way she stares at him, the most obvious and unhidden is hurt.

[Lukas] There's an irony, though it's hard for Lukas to put his finger on the how and the why, that he sees into her so clearly right now. That a moment after he speaks of the possibility of her infidelity, her disloyalty, things that,

in the marrow of his bones and the bottom of his heart,

he knows are patently impossible -- a moment after he speaks of these things, and laughs though there's no humor to it -- he can read her face with such perfect clarity.

His hand comes to her face. He sees that he's hurt her, which hurts him. His brow furrows and he says -- low, almost reflexive, "Oh Danička. Baby, I didn't mean -- "

A short pause. His eyes flicker in thought. He touches her cheek, and then he leans up to kiss her brow if she lets him, the center of it, the third eye.

And lies back, and admits it as much to himself as to her, "I was protecting myself. I was ... trying to mitigate pain I haven't felt yet by setting myself up to expect it."

[Danicka] With a single intent look, Lukas can tell what he did to her. That a moment ago the feeling of shame was not there, and now it's flashing through her, an extremely rare thing in the young woman with the surprisingly wise spirit. He begins to tell her what he didn't mean, calls her baby, and from any other man she would jerk away. It would mean nothing. It would be empty placation.

Lukas saying it just makes her eyes fall closed, her brow still puckered. He kisses it, touching her face, and she doesn't pull away, or move, or open her eyes, even as he leans back again.

Most men -- and most people in general -- don't have the ability to name their own emotions, much less their own kneejerk defense mechanisms. Most people would not, even in the best circumstances, vocalize it even if they realized what they were doing. Lukas, seeing what he's done, asks himself why, and knows. Touching her face, he tells her, and her eyes open. She's still hurt, and still drowsy and soft and warm in his arms, more open than she usually is even with him.

"That's exactly what I was afraid of," she confirms for him, quietly. "Please don't... go back to expecting the worst from me."

[Lukas] Now it's both his hands on her face, warm on her cheeks, gentle on her skin.

He is frighteningly strong, this Ahroun that is her mate. He can crush things in his bare hands; twist them, destroy them, break them. The things her brother did to her -- the physical things, anyway, the raw tactile pain he inflicted -- are nothing compared to what Lukas could do. He could throw her against a wall and break every bone in her back. He could dislocate joints with a hard jerk. He could break her just by taking her in his hands and applying pressure; bearing down.

He could do these things even if he does not mean to, or want to. And that's why he's so careful with her sometimes. Why when they're making love, sometimes he won't even, can't even put his hands on her. Has to twist his fists into the inanimate cloth and fabric beneath their writhing bodies,

just to spare her from his strength.

Shocking, then, how soft his touch can be sometimes. How soft it is now, and how tender and careful, the pads of his fingers stroking gently over her cheeks, the bones of her face. Her mother's face is there in hers; the surprising strength of it in the chin and the jaw and the cheekbones, angular and clean. Her father's face, too. And her brother's. And her own.

His love's face.

He leans up again, and he kisses her again. Softer still this time. Mouth to mouth, lips barely touching. A moment or two, and then his arms wrap around her; he holds her close against his body as he lays himself back once more.

"Je mi to líto," he murmurs. "Nebudu."

Lukas thinks for another moment. He thinks about this not because he has to, but because he wants to: he wants to give it thought, think it through, take his sharp and attentive mind and walk through all the paces until he was sure, absolutely certain, that he was telling her the truth.

"Já důvěřovat ty." This is so quiet, so low in his chest that it's more a vibration than a sound. "Vím, že jsi moje lodní důstojník."

[Danicka] The first time she told him that the one who beat her -- he didn't know if was her brother then, didn't know it was the Lord who was supposed to be her protector -- was a Theurge, and so did not have to worry about leaving marks, Lukas completely misunderstood what he meant. Maybe it was the hubris of a full moon, to think simpy that the strength of a Theurge would be so slight that it wouldn't really be that bad of a beating. He never fought Vladislav. He doesn't know the force with which he could throw a punch even in his teenage years. He was fostered, for all intents and purposes, by a goddamn Ahroun.

Much later, when Evan healed her from a gunshot blast and the first words out of her mouth were the start of her brother's name, Lukas started to put it together. Mother's Touch. Theurge. Her brother. And it sickened him, horrified him.

Now he knows how far Vladik took it sometimes, even when she was a teenager. Now he knows that no matter how bad the Sokolovs were -- and he has no idea, no idea, what it was like for her in that house at times -- working for them was an escape from the constant scrutiny and Rage of her elder sibling. Her protector. Her guardian in all the nation, who could hit her

and break her

and did.


This is the bed where she once had him tie her wrists down. Where she was spread out for him, arching for him, writhing, and where he moved over her put himself in her mouth, and in her cunt, and all the while was trying so goddamn hard, so much more even than usual, not to hurt her. Not to abuse her. It placed her relative fragility in such sharp relief. And her trust.

Above all, her trust in him, that she would gently teach him how to tie knots that would not dig into her wrists, that she would reassure him that a little bit of a friction burn was alright, that she was not only okay but pleased and pleasured by this accentuated playacting of the shift between dominant and submissive, powerful and vulnerable, weak and strong.

This is the bed where he first gave himself over to touching her, and took his own enjoyment in the way she moved and the way she came, apart from his own orgasm, apart from his own pleasure. This is the bed where he saw her sitting and reading once and his heart moved in his chest as though waking from sleep, aching to keep her.

The way he keeps her now.


They ease back to his pillow again. And it's a soft pillow, though not his favorite one. His favorite one is at her place now, and she sleeps with her arms around it sometimes when he isn't there, though he doesn't know that. His sheets are soft, though not as thick as the ones folded up and put into a nice container on the closet shelf, waiting for autumn and winter. His thinner, summerweight comforter is folded down to the foot of the bed, for cooler or stormy summer nights. This morning is warm, and Lukas is warm, and they don't need it.

She sighs softly as she settles down against him, arms around him, not expecting any other words past that quiet apology. But then he speaks again, and she can feel the words even before she hears him. Danicka's arms, gentle by default as well as intent, close in around him further. "Vy a žádné další," she echoes, like a vow.

[Lukas] Lukas doesn't know that earlier, moments ago, it crossed Danicka's mind that she would like to have this every night. That she would like to end each day -- no matter how hectic, no matter how far and wide their lives take them -- by retiring to the same bed. By wrapping their arms around each other and sinking into sleep to the beat of one another's hearts. He doesn't know that at least for a moment, she doesn't care about the independence of their individual residences. That it didn't frighten her to consider him in her house, in her home, there.

He doesn't know any of that. But what he does know is that well over a year ago, he saw her on his college-twin bed with her iPhone earbuds in, more plainly dressed in t-shirt and tiny panties than he'd ever seen her before. Saw her like that and thought to himself that he could get used to this. Thought to himself that he didn't want for this to end.

And ached, then, because it seemed so sure that it would end.

And he knows he wanted a den with her. They wouldn't always be there. Perhaps they wouldn't even often be there. But it would be theirs, and that was enough for him.

Enough that he shopped for weeks. Enough that he considered the location, the neighborhood, whether or not it would be safe at night for a lone woman; whether there were grocery stores nearby, and parks; whether it was so close to the city that it would not truly be a retreat and a refuge; whether it was so far that it would be a hassle every time to drive there.

And though when he found it finally, it was filthy inside with the wallpaper peeling and the carpet torn; though the front yard was concrete and the back was so neglected even the weeds had died, he bought it and scrubbed it down and pulled all the old paint and paper and carpet and tile up or off; replaced it all; made it clean and safe; filled it with the rudimentaries of a life together,

and all of it with an eye toward what she would want. What she would feel comfortable and at home with. All of it with an eye toward her, his mate, who would make it warm.

He knew then, and knows now, that he wanted it to be their den. Only theirs. He knew then, knows now, that if she asked him to sleep in the den every night -- or with her in her tower of glass -- he would in a heartbeat. Without a second thought. He would keep this small room here only as a sort of facade; an office, a business-place where he could meet his septmates and plan his wars without bringing that into the sanctity of their home.


And he knows this, too:

You and no other.

He would not have done that, thought that, felt this way for anyone else.


They're quiet a while, then. Their arms close around each other. They hold on to each other, and it's early still, and the air coming in is cool, still. So after a while he turns again, puts her between his body and the wall, covers her with his warmth.

And a little after that, he kisses her. Perhaps there's some mutual forgiveness to be given or received here, but it's behind them now. The kiss does not taste of forgiveness or the necessity of it. It feels like what it is: recognition, and want.

She draws him over her. He moves to cover her, and her legs fold around him. They go slow. Her hands pull at his back, tightening when he enters her, grasping when he strokes deep. His arms wrap under her shoulders; his hands cradle the back of her head, her hair molten gold in his cupped palms.

Such an undeniable connection there when they fuck like this, face to face, bodies aligned, distance next to nil. Every movement he makes echoed along his body and into hers. Her eyes holding his, his face changing with every flash of sensation, his shoulders shifting over her as he moves; his back flexing under her hands. They stay close because it's morning and it's quiet and it's cool outside; they stay close because they were hurting a little while ago, but not anymore.

He gasps and pants when she comes, and the hard arch of her body and the shuddering clenches of her cunt set his own climax off. Even the last involuntary thrusts of his body into hers are slower; firm and felt. He kisses her mouth before he even remembers what kissing is. Swallows the sounds she makes. Keeps it quiet, keeps it secret, keeps it between them where it belongs this morning, because --

they belong to each other. And no one else.


"I love it when you call me your boy," he tells her afterward, soft, sleepy. "Have I told you that?"

He thinks he might have. He can't remember. The world is so far away.


He dozes a little longer after that. He's slept so much he's languid with it; lazy and loosejointed with it. They sprawl drowsy and warm and replete while the day heats up around them. He stays inside her as long as he can; stays inside her until the feel of her, the heat and the closeness of her, hardens him again.

When his eyes open they're dark already with desire. He pulls her leg higher over his side and he fucks her again like that, their bodies rolling against one another's, side by side, facing, a little harder this time. He groans quietly when he comes into her a second time; fills her a second time; makes her his, and himself hers, a second time.


Quiet, then. Spent and lazier than ever now, sprawling about until hunger suddenly spurs them out of bed. While she showers he finds food from the kitchen, not caring now if everyone can see what he's been up to in his tousled hair, his flushed skin, his mouth raw from kissing.

When he comes back up she's still in the shower. He leaves the food on his nightstand and joins her for the tail end of her shower, affectionate and quiet now, wrapping his arms around her in the water, nuzzling her, raising his head to open his mouth to the spray.

If she lets him, he touches her in the shower; brings her again on his hand, turning her mouth to the juncture of his shoulder and neck to muffle what sounds she might make at the end.


When they're washed and dressed and quiet and warm, it turns out she doesn't have anything to do until later that afternoon. He doesn't have anything to do until the evening. They debate a while, then settle on the park. Grant Park. By day, for once, without lurking monsters and slavering foes.

It's a clear day, the last of this series of summer storms gone from the sky. The sun is bright and there are children and tourists playing in Crown Fountain. There are families flying kites, and kitesellers hawking their wares near the cotton candy man, and Lukas buys the biggest one on a whim and runs it into the sky for Danicka. It's a windy day. All he needed to do was let it go and the lake wind would have caught it aloft,

but he takes it and runs with it anyway, because this pleases him on some basic, silly level.

When the kite is so high and distant that it's a small colorful dot in the sky, Lukas tilting his head back smiling to watch it soar, he tells her about a distant uncle who came to visit one year between the time he knew her and the time he left for Stark Falls.

He tells her he was a cousin of his mother's, and he brought them gifts, and the one thing Lukas remembers are the kites. He can't remember what was painted on his, but he remembers his father running it into the sky for him, and his uncle, this distant uncle of his who he hasn't heard from since and isn't even altogether sure still lives, much less where he might live, taught him how to navigate the kite in the sky, how to pull it higher and how to steer it into or with the wind. How to feed the kite like a pet, like a living thing in the sky, stringing circular bits of paper onto the kite-string that the wind would catch and buoy up.

It's not an important story, in the end. Just a piece of himself; something she didn't know before, and does now.


Later on, as the afternoon wears toward its end, they lie in the grass together, the kite drawn back down out of the sky, folded beside them. They don't say much. In another hour, a half-an-hour, one or both of them will have to go.


At her car, parting:

"I'll come by tonight," he says, quiet. "I like waking up to you."