different, this time.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] She's right, of course. They need to go. They need to get off the street because just look at them, pressed together so closely there's no question that they're lovers. That they're in love. That they're in lust, for fuck's sake, and as soon as they're off the street the male is going to mount the female and

fuck her. Until she's senseless. And can't remember her name. And, mysteriously, has room for science.

-- or possibly before they're off the street, from the way he's wrapped his arms around her now; the way she's holding onto his shirt. His heartbeat is strong under her knuckles, quickened. He kisses her neck, and he laughs a little, and he whispers, "That doesn't make any sense to me at all."

He is controlled, though. If nothing else, there is that. He nuzzles her neck for another moment, kisses her beneath the ear. And then he does let go. Not quite willingly, but mostly. Her hand is still in his. "Come on," he says. His tone, like his grasp, is gentle.

He turns and starts walking again. Quicker now.

[Danicka Musil] So they go. Lukas forces himself away and Danicka finds his hand again, walking with him towards her building, along the river. She trails behind for a step or two and then she's beside him, hugging their sides together, intertwining their arms as she lengthens her and he shortens his stride so they can walk with one another.

"I love you," she says, much later, which has nothing to do with the laugh she gave as he claimed that her logic was nonsensical. She kisses his cheek and is reaching into her purse for her keycard to get into the lobby, but Lukas gets his out first, drinks or no drinks, and she waits with him at the elevator. This isn't the nicest, most luxurious building in the city. There's no swiping of a card to get into the elevator or to get it to go to the twenty-third floor. She could live in one of those places but she's thinking after college, maybe. She won't have much debt. So: after college, maybe.

The elevator doors close after they step inside and punch the number 23. Danicka turns to him, arms around his neck, and presses back against him, kissing him the way she couldn't at the club, or on the street, or anywhere but alone. She moans when she does so, pulling his hands around her, urging him to caress her the way he couldn't anywhere else. Wouldn't let himself.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] They've never been the sort to feel compelled to speak of their love constantly. Every time they see each other. Every time they part. Every time one or the other says it first, as though it's some sort of competition, some sort of contest in which one must never allow the other to outmatch them.

So -- when she says it, Lukas doesn't feel like he has to say it back. His arm around her tightens for a moment, though. He squeezes her gently against his side, and bends to her, and kisses her temple warmly, his eyes closing, until he ends up straying from his path and she has to tell him to watch out, the curb for him to avoid walking right off of it.

He laughs, then, and they're going back to her place, which is not the nicest place in the city but still a good deal nicer than the Brotherhood, and anyway: Lukas is attached to it. Ridiculously so, so much so that he was sad that she wanted to leave it because some of the memories there were painful.

He would protest less now if she wanted to leave it, he thinks. Those painful memories are far away. He wouldn't feel so much like she was being chased away.


In the elevator, she wraps her arms around his neck. He loves it when she does that: loves how her slim body presses to his, loves how she asks him without asking to come down to her, to bend to her and wrap her in his arms and

kiss her, just like that. This is not a restrained, chaste kiss. This is open-mouthed, close-eyed, and she barely has to draw his hands to her body before he's tugging at her clothes, sliding his hands under, his palms warm on her back. He touches her, and caresses her, and when the elevator dings on the 23rd floor he's just about to reach around and put his hands on her breasts. It's an effort to stop. His eyes are dark when they open: black surrounded by blue.

"Já musím se s tebou vyspal vpravo hned," he breathes.

And then he pulls her out of the elevator. And they're tangled together all the way down the hall; his hands are on her, his mouth; halfway to her door he's leaning against the wall and pulling her against him, almost onto his body, growling into her mouth; at her door he's kissing her neck as she's trying to unlock it, standing behind her with his hands running all over her body, cupping over her breasts as his mouth nips at her neck. She gets it unlocked. He reaches past her to push it open. Kando comes to say hi, meowing, which only makes Lukas tear his mouth from Danicka long enough to say Ne teď, kočka before he's on her again, turning her around, putting her back to the wall and kicking the door shut and

putting his hands on her body. Filling his palms with her breasts, groaning at the feel of it, bending to her a second later to suck at her nipples right through her clothes like if they didn't magically disappear sometime in the next ten seconds he'll just rip them off of her. With his teeth.

[Danicka Musil] If she could think straight Danicka might chastise Lukas for being mean to the poor kitty. It's been two days of almost no attention, having to follow foodgiver around meowing til she remembers to fill those artistic glass dishes with kibble and water. No cuddling and petting and she's been locked out of the study, how rude.

Kandovany can sense him. He doesn't know that, he can't read the damn cat's thoughts, but she knows when he's nearby. Her whiskers twitch long before he gets to the door. That animal sense of Danicka's is nowhere near as developed as the feline's. The last time Lukas came by to crawl into bed with her, she knew he was coming partly because Kando perked up suddenly, tail up and motionless, ears pricked, eyes on the front door before she made herself scarce.

Another night Kandovany would probably run and hide. A full moon, perhaps, or near to it, and the cat would be nowhere to be seen with Lukas coming into the apartment like a storm. But the moon is new, or nearly, and foodgiver has been sorely remiss in her duties of late, and so when the door swings open and the two very large ones appear she comes trotting to the hall, meowing curiously, only to be told to scram. Essentially.

And he was right: Danicka must have learned that Look from the cat.


But she can't think straight. Even as his hands go up her shirt in the elevator she reaches back and grabs his wrist, pushes his hand firmly downward. Not for chastity. Not for propriety. Because his hands on her back feel nice but not as good as his hands on her ass, grabbing her and pulling her against his body while they kiss, her palms on his jawline, her hips rubbing against his.

Lukas pulls away to speak to her when the elevator stops, murmuring what he does, and she doesn't quite remember going from elevator to hallway, hallway to door, but she remembers standing at the door, one hand on it as she leans forward and tries to unlock it. Lukas is all over her, leaning into her, his hands chaotic and searching. She pushes back against him, laughing softly at his eagerness, at how thoughtlessly he touches her, like a teenager granted permission.

"Aww--" she half-says, truncated by the way he whips her around, pushing her to the wall to grind on her, hold her breasts. She catches his mouth with hers, forgetting about the cat. She's panting when he draws back, lowering his mouth to her, finding her through silk knit and whatever lacy thing she's wearing underneath, finds the hard bud of her nipple and all but gnaws on her, frenzied as an addict.

Which is one of the things about himself he took so long to let her see about him: that on the other side of his control, his restraint, his care not to go too far or too fast or scare her or abuse her or let her control him there was this. The way he perked up in the lounge at the mere mention of making love to her, fucking her. The way he couldn't wait to leave, would probably have thrown her over his shoulder and run to her apartment if he lost all dignity. The way he was on her constantly from elevator to door to now, pawing at her like some mad animal, heart-poundingly eager for her.

In the face of that it's easy for Danicka's own desire to seem lost. To seem flagging. It's easy for her to appear distant, like she's gotten bored with him, with this, like it's useful for getting her off. Truthfully the only struggle they ever had when it comes to their sex life is Lukas feeling -- right or wrong, but honestly -- like she was dictating to him, rejecting him, corraling him into only a few certain acceptable behaviors on particular timetables. So many times she's asked him to slow down, to calm down, when at the beginning she was telling him to let go. Stop holding back.

Lukas is no mousey personality. Nor is Danicka, anymore. But he's a full moon of Thunder and here is a woman who not only tolerates what he is but loves him as he is, who understands that more bestial side of him, who does not demand slick sophistication in every step, who knows how strong a presence he is and can be and chose him. Chooses him. Stays, and invites him in. To share her homes. Her life. Her days.

Danicka does not tell him to slow down. She touches his hair and gently pulls his face from her breast, reaching up to pull down the neckline of her shirt, reaching into the rosecolored lace and satin of her bra to ease the cup out of the way. She doesn't tell him in words that he doesn't have to worry about wasted time, about rushing to her door or to her bed. She doesn't tell him in words that he doesn't have to try and touch all of her at once. She offers her breast to him again, the off-the-shoulder shirt she's wearing falling further from her body, and murmurs only, whispering the words in his ear:

"Touch my pussy, baby."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's not the first time he's all but overwhelmed her with his hunger, which comes upon him like a storm. It's not shocking, nor even surprising, that he can do that so easily. He's roughly twice her size, weight-wise. His rage is staggering. He's a goddamn werewolf. He's an Ahroun, at that.

And sometimes he seems to want her so badly, so suddenly, that he can't keep his hands off her. Or his mouth. He can't seem to stop himself -- will grasp at her and put his mouth on her and behave as though he wants to take all of her at once, do everything at once, rush everything, compress it all into one infinitesimally small amount of time.

And -- she gets overwhelmed. There have been times when she's all but smacked him to get him to stop. Told him to slow down. Take it easy. She doesn't, this time, but she gets her point across as eloquently as she had in the club when he suggested maybe she should just give up her class at the first sign of difficulty --

and as gently.

She shrugs half out of her shirt. She bares herself for him, and he draws back for a second, pressing his palms to the wall, bracing himself there as he pants a breath in, out, in again.

When he puts his mouth to her again, it's gentler. And slower. He closes his eyes and sucks at her with love, with adoration, with something like deep and abiding devotion. Or maybe just hunger. He reaches down, and his hands find their own way. He undoes the button of her jeans, and then the fly. He pulls them down, drags them down past her knees where she can step out of them herself if she wants to, if she has the presence of mind to do so,

because his hand follows her leg back up, and under her panties.

When he touches her, he's careful to be gentle now. And slow. And warm, his fingers sliding over her flesh, between her lips. He gasps against her breast -- words, something, maybe so wet, his tone wondering, as though he's still surprised by this, and amazed.

He has her up against the wall, now: his mouth on her breast, his hand on her pussy. He's holding her by the hip with his free hand, and he's touching her, touching her, playing with her slowly and gently as his mouth moves up her neck; finds hers.

[Danicka Musil] If the last time they see each other is an argument, if they go to bed exhausted and drained by fighting for resolution, it will be alright. If the last time they see each other it's two weeks before she hears what happened, that he's gone now, and not coming back, it will be alright. If the last time they see each other their lovemaking is rushed and manic and a little rough, that's okay, too.

It isn't sentiment that has Danicka offering her breast to him the way she does, as though to show him he doesn't have to tear at her clothes, he doesn't have to try and take all of her, all of this, everything they have, all at once. He'll choke on it. He'll drown in it and be unable to pick out these moments from the flood when it all comes to a crashing close. So will she. It isn't purple emotion, illusions of what love should look like, that has her leaning her head back and gasping softly as he sucks at her now, murmuring against her breast with wordless but vocal pleasure.

If this life was all they had, he said he wouldn't waste time lying to her, playing at sentiment. He wouldn't waste time. But this life isn't, as he said, all they have.

Danicka's jeans are so tight that it takes actual effort, even for Lukas, to tug them down her legs. They don't fall on their own and there's no chance in hell she's getting out of them with those heels on, but she doesn't try. She shivers as he runs his palm back up between her legs, back to that pretty thong in that rich, floral pink with the lace stitched to look like roses, hanging in a lazy arc below her navel, slung between her narrow hips.

So wet, he murmurs, nudging the band of fabric aside to touch her. And she is. The lust she'd banked so they could get home sanely, the lust that awakened again in the elevator, the lust that was startled like a doe when he rushed at her,

is melting now through her limbs, and slicking his fingers, turning her skin warm, relaxing her at the joints, flowing against him as she rolls her hips to that touch.

Danicka shudders, putting her hands on his face again as he comes back to her, moaning when they kiss. She catches his lips, one after the other, kissing them separately and together til it all dissolves into one wave of adoration. She starts to grind on his fingers, the heel of his hand, all but fucking his forearm. He knows full well it doesn't have to be gentle. It doesn't have to, necessarily, even be slow.

But they've let go of time now. It doesn't matter if they've been in this hallway for seconds or for years. It doesn't matter what they were doing before they were here, kissing each other. It doesn't matter if there's work to be done or a war to be fought or any of it, anything, so long as he keeps touching her. So long as he takes her soon, and gives her what she needs.

"Baby..." she whimpers, parting their mouths for a moment, pleading. She threads her fingers into his hair and kisses him again after that, shuddering when he strokes her clit again, spreading her wetness over it.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Since the night he told her about the Homelands, about the kin there and how their spirits weren't, in the end, any different from those of the Garou, they haven't talked about it at all. He hasn't pressed to see if she believes him now, if she thinks she'll go to the same place he'll go to after this life is done; if she'll see him there, waiting for her with those wisps of spirits that might have become her cubs, or their cubs, which he would have protected and nurtured and made strong,

until they can rejoin the cycle together.

He doesn't want to push. It's only been a few days, which is nothing compared to the twenty-some-odd years she's lived to come to this point. A small amount of time to ask her to realign her worldview in. And besides that, more importantly: he doesn't need to push. Or ask.

She knows he wouldn't lie to her. He knows sooner or later, she'll believe that they have more than this one life. More than this one, aching span of time, so much of which has already been spent apart.


Their mouths come together again and again. Her hands are soft on his jaw, threading into his hair. He wraps his arm around her and lifts her a little, not to move her about or position her as he likes or -- anything conscious, really. He does it because he wants her to be closer. Needs it. Can't think of any other way. Can barely think at all.

And then -- that kiss falling apart. He's gasping against her neck. Lifting his head, setting her back down, nudging her thighs a little wider apart. When he kisses her mouth again he's touching her steadily, with purpose now, rubbing her clit in tight little circles, fucking her with his hand as his mouth wanders over her neck, her chin, her cheek.

He remembers the first time he did this. In his bed, her back to his chest: bringing her off on his hand because, for the first time he could remember, what his lover felt was as important to him as what he felt. More important.

What he wants now is the same. He wants her pleasure. He wants her to feel good, to let go, to come. That's why he crowds her against the wall and holds her in his arms. That's why he holds her against his body, cradled, warm, close -- while he touches her like that, relentlessly and coaxingly, taking his cues from the way she breathes, the way her thighs close around his wrist, the way she twists against his body. That's it, he whispers to her, over and over. Give it up for me. That's it, láska.

[Danicka Musil] They haven't talked about a lot of things. And it isn't because there hasn't been opportunity. It isn't as though they haven't had time together, now that Lukas determinedly seeks out ways of fulfilling this desire of hers to live with him, even if it's a sort-of living-with. That came as a slight surprise to him, that she would ask for that. Neither of them mentioned, as they might have a long time ago, the risks inherent in Lukas letting himself live day in and day out with his mate,

who is so much stronger than she gets credit for, who is so much more fragile than she wants to seem.

She wanted him to stop talking about the cubs she would never have, the children he dreamt so deeply that they became spirits in the Underworld. She doesn't want to think about Lukas dying, and waiting for her in some strange afterlife in between incarnations, caring for and tending for the sparks of souls that would have been children of two different Fianna kinsmen, who never made it to their first breath. And they haven't talked about the fact that he frenzied, and he almost turned on her.

They made love some time after that. He didn't push her. He waited, and was glad to have her again, but hasn't asked her what exactly he did in the red haze he can't see through. And Lukas knows her well enough now to know that sometimes it isn't even about whether or not he asks her how she feels, it's about asking

at the right time

and in the right way

and precisely the right question.

Danicka no longer lies to protect herself quite so often. Not to him. Sometimes she can trust that silence is enough with others. It's still hard. It's still a tempation to open her mouth and let the faithless words spill out of her, giving people whatever they want to hear. But it's nowhere near easy for her to disclose herself. To say: this is what happened to me. This is what I lived through. I don't know how I survived. I don't know how I'm sane. I still have a hard time trusting you.

Her mouth opens to his again and again. She touches his face in long, slow, pulling caresses, holding him near to her like his nearness staunches a wound. They press together against the wall, heedless of anything that's come before, thoughtless of what they've been through, what they forgive and what they pretend to forget in order to be together, to make it okay that she stays with him when she knows better. When she, better than so many, knows better than to need him like this. Love him like this. Want him with her, want him in her homes, want him fathering her children.

She knows better. So she tells herself it's okay. Doesn't tell him anything.

A sharp gasp leaves Danicka's mouth, tearing from his lips, his face, his neck, whatever stretch of flesh she could find to taste. She tips her head back as he starts fucking her with his hand, grabbing a hold of his arm now to keep herself upright. Lukas lets his kiss wander all over her, his own clothes still hanging on his body, the cat hiding under the couch most likely, and Danicka starts to rub against his touch.

She remembers the first time he did this, too. She remembers how she thought he didn't want to fuck her in the Brotherhood, ever, because he didn't want to 'flaunt' her. Not for her sake, not for her privacy, but for his pack. She remembers how when she told him she needed him inside her, he rolled under her and held her body and touched her while she rode him, springs creaking hard beneath them. She remembers how he held her down to his chest to stifle her moans. Her screams. She remembers not letting herself dig her fingernails in, or her teeth, not knowing then he was fighting the same urges.

Danicka's panting now, a thin sheen of sweat building on her skin. She leans back on the wall while he pleasures her, bucking her hips, encouraged by his murmuring. Panting gasps turn to thin cries. Her eyes are closed as though she's overcome, leaning into him now, holding tighter to his arms, opening her mouth against his bicep. Lukáš... she breathes, not quite a whimper but so close, she whispers, grinding down on his fingers. A hard shudder goes through her. It's that sign he knows, the way she trembles just before, how if he just pushes a little harder, if he strokes her short and fast and hard and then holds it will tip her over the edge,

so he does

and she tips.

An electric shiver rides up her body from where his fingers caress and press on her clit. As soon as it reaches her crown she bucks again, rides another shock out from where he touches her. Again and again, Danicka takes her orgasm's sharp waves from his fingers, til she's lifting her face and moaning softly for a kiss, moaning into his mouth when its given. The motions of her hips are faster for a few seconds, then gradually slow, til she's riding his hand in slow arcs that finally smooth out, and slide, and end in small rocking movements.

Her hands still clutch at his arms. Her slick is all over his hand, his fingers, his palm, his wrist. She's sweating, her eyes almost utterly lidded, her cheek resting on his bicep. Danicka says nothing. She just breathes.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] In the end, all of Danicka's lies to Lukas were self-preservation. She's never lied to him the way she lies to the casual friends she makes, the people she sees and meets and befriends and leaves behind, who think her name is Dani, or Danny, or Danika, or Danushka, or ... whatever else she tells them. Who think she's a D&D geek, or a nice Polish girl, or a second-generation Russian, or a Manhattan socialite, or ... whatever else they believe of her.

It was never like that with Lukas. She closed herself up to him to protect herself. She lied to him about being angry, about why she was angry, to protect her past, her family, her dignity -- her self. From his anger, whether it was directed at her or at her brother; and, perhaps, from his pity.

Whatever it is, whatever she's been through, whatever she knows she should or shouldn't have, Danicka has never been the sort of thrive on another's pity. Or sympathy. From the beginning, she hated it, hated it more than when he treated her badly or cruelly, when he looked at her like she was something broken and fragile

and weak.


Now she doesn't lie to him nearly so often. He can't remember the last time she lied to him, or the last time she lied and didn't tell him the truth moments later. There are still shadows between them, though. Things they don't talk about.

He has never asked her just what went on in that Fang household she worked at for so long. She has never told him. And they don't talk about the night on the street, what happened then, how close he came to her, how she survived.

What her only thought was, when death looked her in the face.

They leave these things in the shadows, because they're dangerous. Because they might endanger them, and what they have. And that, too, is a form of self-preservation.


And now they're silent, leaning together, leaning against the wall of her entryway. He brought her off on his hand and his arm is still around her; he's holding her up even as he's leaning against the cool wall himself.

He kissed her when she came, drank her cries out of her mouth as his hand worked so deftly, so heavily, so fucking well between her legs. As he made her come, drenching his hand in her slick, her cunt grasping at the fingers he slipped inside her to fill her and penetrate her and give her that sense of fullness, of being filled, while his thumb rubbed her clit until she melted and fell apart and exploded all at once. He's still kissing her now, though she's slid down a bit, boneless; though her cheek rests against his arm.

His mouth presses to her temple. To her brow, and to her hair. He pants softly into the air over her head, resting with her, hard behind what clothing he still wore, but...

patient. And satisfied, in his own way.


Moment go by. Eventually he stirs, drawing his fingers from her, rubbing his palm over her pussy once or twice before sliding his hand from between Danicka's thighs. "Should I take you to bed?" he murmurs.

[Danicka Musil] He's younger than she is. Not by much. Enough that when they were children it was a small, tolerant eternity between them. Doesn't matter, now. Danicka seems so much older, sometimes. She looks older than he does; this life ages people, and she cannot regenerate the way he can. He's younger, but she's almost never felt that they were anything but equals, at least in terms of maturity. Experience.

There was one time. He looked at her and sank to his knees before her, not quite sure exactly what he wanted to do or how he intended to do it but sure that he wanted her. He wanted her pleasure, he wanted to feel it, hear it, quite literally surround himself in it, without losing his senses to his own orgasm inside her. The only problem was that he didn't know how to give it to her. Even that day in his bed at the Brotherhood his hand was nowhere near as certain and sure as it is tonight.

And frankly, when she parted her thighs to him and he first kissed her cunt, gently, softly, he had no idea what he was doing.

They've been together over a year. They've been fucking each other every way they can come up with for a long time now. Lukas knows how to use his mouth to get her off, slides his fingers into her sometimes while he lays slow, sucking kisses on her clit. He can push her up against the wall with her clothes still half on, her pants down around her high heels and her shirt and bra yanked down to reveal one breast, and he can stroke her to orgasm in minutes. He knows her body. He knows how to tell when she's close. He kisses her when she is, and drinks her pleasure in, losing himself in it without being so lost he can't process what he's sensing.

She knows what it is to make your lover come and be satisfied. To feel full. To be happy, to feel like you're there with them, regardless of your own burning, untouched want. She knows she doesn't need to quickly get his pants down and reciprocate before this dissolves into some kind of ridiculous argument about Needs.

So Danicka just holds onto him, and sighing with a tightening of her grip when he pulls his fingers slowly from her, strokes her the way he does so... fondly. She rubs her face on his sleeve, still catching her breath. When she turns to look up at him her green eyes are half-lidded, and she just nods.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] For the most part, their age difference has been negligible; was more pronounced, perhaps, when he first came to this city. When he still had his head full of ideals and visions and ideas of How Things Should Be, and how Grown Werewolves Should Behave. These days he's gained a subtler, truer maturity. The War ages a Garou. Responsibility -- and he has so many of those -- ages a Garou.

Still. There are times when he's visibly younger. Or at least, less experienced. The first time he went to his knees for her, he was so utterly uncertain. He was certain of only what he wanted -- though that was never a doubt. This is Lukas. He means every word he says; every action he intends.

And -- those times on the street. When he didn't know how to lead his girlfriend around without dragging her like an errant child. When he didn't even know to call her his girlfriend, preferring ... god knows what. My Kinswoman. The Kinswoman I'm fucking. The Kinswoman who is not my mate, who I do not love, really.

There was immaturity in him then. He did not see it himself, but it was there.


It's a little bit ironic, then, that now she's the one that's soft, and slow-moving, and trusting as a child. That he's the one to peel her out of what remains of her clothes and scoop her up in his arms. Lukas lifts his mate against his body, her thighs open to either side of his waist, his hands lacing under her thighs, under her rear, to hold her up. He carries her like this, like she's something precious to be cherished and protected and held as close as he possibly can. The lights are still off. That's all right: his eyes have adjusted, and he can see.

There is no moonlight tonight. When he lays her out on her bed, everything is shadows and blur. He lays her out and he lays her back and, straightening, his eyes are on her -- glimmers in darkness -- as he shrugs out of his own clothes. Leaves them at the foot of her bed

as he takes her by the hips and aligns her to him and, without word, without preamble, leans down to her. Wraps his arms around her, and puts his mouth to her breasts. To the beat of her heart. To her nipples, sucking at one and then the other with a sort of slow, endless patience now, as though somehow her first, drenching orgasm had sated his own hunger, and now he has all the time in the world.

It's moments on end before he finally goes to his knees at the foot of the bed. Before he pulls her to the edge and slides her legs over his shoulders. Before he nuzzles her, unashamedly and without a trace of reluctance or squeamishness rubbing his nose and his mouth and his cheeks against her cunt, against her thighs, covering himself in her scent like an animal.

His eyes are closed when he opens his mouth to her. He puts his tongue against her cunt, and that first touch is so delicate; so gentle. Take care of you, they've said to each other, and that's what this is. That's what this is, when he closes his lips around her clit; sucks at her in slow, long pulls. When he licks up her wetness, spreads it around, tongues her cunt and laps at her clit in slow, building strokes.

[Danicka Musil] At the club the words she used were a little on the rough side. Bend her over. Fuck her til she couldn't remember her name. Open her up. But none of this has been rough, none of it has been the efficient use of their time that she suggested. Lukas, who started out in such a rush to be with her, is taking his sweet time, and taking nothing for himself but the sound of her. The warmth of her. The knowledge that she's pleasured, intensely so, and that it has something to do with him. Everything to do with him.

That she's his, and she wants him like this. Not because he's the big, strong Ahroun with the long ...lineage. Not in spite of the fact that he's a rage-filled, slavering monster. But because she loves him. Him. And he could be anything in the world, Kin or Garou or out of her tribe, and she would adore him. He could lose everything he has, pack and tribe and position and renown and she would love him.

He has no idea how much, because he has no idea that one night he was her death and she chose him, still.


What he knows is that he used to lead her around by the elbow or drag her by the hand, and she chose him. He got in her face scowling when she laughed because the way he went poking hopefully around a pastry box of kolache endeared her, and he thought she was mocking him, but she chose him. He tried to treat her like a whore and he tried to make her the kinswoman he was fucking instead of his girlfriend and he tried not to love her and he wouldn't meet her eyes and he couldn't fucking tell her how he felt when she was so courageous about doing so, herself,

but she chose him, and chooses him, and has made so many overtures of her want over the past nearly-two-years it's a bit mindboggling. Danicka pursued him. Danicka led him into the woods to mate with him. Danicka told him to go to her brother as soon as he could honorably do so and challenge for her.

And some of that is because early on he realized he didn't want to force her. Didn't want to lead her. Didn't want to push her, and end up always wondering if she capitulated because she desired him or because she feared him, because she is so much weaker. They've only recently discussed that the only equality they have is what they create, but it's always been the truth. It's always been his responsibility, more than hers, to step back and wait. To watch her for signs of readiness before nudging. To give her the time, and room, she needs to grow.

To be patient with her. To be careful.


He undresses her patiently in the hallway, carefully, slowly. First her shirt, tugging it up over her head and letting it fall. Kandovany might sleep on it. He reaches behind her and unclasps her thin, floral, strapless bra, kissing her neck, her breasts, stroking his hands over her as he moves down to help her get her shoes off, lifting one foot and then the other, unstrapping each heel and setting them aside. He helps her peel out, step out of her jeans, and reaching up, drags her thong down her slender legs. She breathes in as she steps out of those, too, her breathing and her heart rate quickening again as he takes off her clothes.

When Lukas stands, still dressed, Danicka is stepping towards him, waiting for exactly what he does next, lifting her up. She moans when she opens her legs around him, a soft and murmuring sound nowhere near as firm as his hands on her ass. She shivers a little, though it isn't cold inside her apartment. Pleasantly cool. Viciously hot where their bodies meet. It balances, sort of.

Her arms wrap around his shoulders as she carries her to the bedroom, and she strokes his hair while he does so, nuzzling his face in the city lights through the windows. When they go into her hallway it's darker, and she kisses him a couple of times. He can tell her bed is unmade when he sets her down on it, easing her onto her back.

Danicka breathes in deep, letting him slip away, and watches him undress. It's no slow, teasing thing he does, but the simple motions of someone whose body is familiar to her, is anticipated more because she knows that just past that sheath of linen or denim or what-have-you is this curve of muscle, is that plane of skin, is

that scar.

She reaches for him as he comes down over her, wrapping her legs around him while he palms her breasts to his mouth and suckles her while his arms slide around her torso. Danicka groans quietly, arching her spine to press further into his mouth. She murmurs his name, moans it again, and

when he lowers his body to his knees to pleasure her, Danicka just shudders. She lets him go but touches his hair, rubbing her fingertips over his scalp. The nuzzling he gives her makes her jerk a couple of times, still sensitive, but that first lick of his tongue seems to soothe her more than stir her. At least at first. She starts to gasp then, starts to groan as he licks her, sucks her, laps up her wetness and devours her slow and steady and hungry, feeding off her moans.

She does something she's rarely done, so rarely it seems like never.

"Baby," she whispers, though she doesn't stop rubbing her cunt slowly over his mouth. "Baby, I want you inside me."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's the sound of her that drives him on. Those soft moans, the quiet shuddering sighs. The sound of his name from her lips, spoken the way almost no one else in this city does, or even can. He reaches his hand up after a while, covering her breast, playing with her nipple, riding the arch and fall of her body while he licks, laps, sucks at her pussy. Every moan that leaves her lips has its echo in her body. He feels that, too, vibrating under his palm.

"I love how you sound," he whispers, "when I love you like this."

And then his mouth is on her again. He nibbles at her lips with his own; licks her slow and luxurious. Explores her with his tongue. Tastes her. Returns to her clit again and again, sometimes lapping at it, sometimes flicking it with the tip of his tongue. Sometimes he sucks at her just a little harder, just hard enough to make her arch, make the sound from her throat something a little rawer, as though a silver wire ran between her cunt and her throat, pulled taut with pleasure.

It's seconds, moments, before he lifts his mouth from her when she whispers for him to come inside, be inside her. He goes at her for another few molten seconds, as though she was so fucking good he couldn't bear to pull away. When he does, it's a slow separation: kissing her cunt, kissing her clit, kissing her thighs and nipping at the inside of her knee

as he lets her legs slip from his shoulders. He pushes himself up, then. He moves her up the bed, moves over her, and he sinks down on her as her legs lift to fold around him.

When he kisses her this time, she can taste herself on his mouth. He makes a low, warm sound, recognition and want. He's hard and hot against her; has been since the hallway. Since the fucking elevator. The rolling, steady thrusts of his hips are instinctive, near-reflexive, sliding his cock over her until he's wet with her wetness, hard and slick and

entering her, then, slowly, rocking into her stroke by slow stroke as though this were the first time, or the first time in a long time; as though she needed time to adjust to his thickness and his hardness, his presence inside her.

Lukas is gasping softly against her mouth every time he presses a little deeper. When he's inside her at last, every inch buried in her tight cunt, he wraps his arms around her. Bends his brow to her body, kisses her breasts. It's adoration. It's worship. He's still for a moment, filling her, feeling it, and then he lifts his head and finds her mouth again.

The first time he thrusts into her is not, in fact, achingly slow. It's deep, and confident, and deliberate: giving it to her steady and warm, pressing her to the mattress. Danicka can feel the groan in his chest before he even lets it out against her lips. She can feel the way he smiles, too, invisible in the dark, and at this nearness -- an unexpected burst of ... joy, perhaps. Unnamed happiness.

He kisses her again. And now he's moving into her steadily, stroke after stroke, fucking her firmly as he holds her between his body and his arms and the bed.

[Danicka Musil] There's nothing Danicka can say to that. All she can do is shudder, lifting her legs a little higher, spreading them a little wider, pushing her fingers a little further into his hair as Lukas goes back to licking at her the way he does. Which is to say: like he loves more than just the sound of her, when he loves her like this.

His fingertips tug and tease her nipple and she writhes under his wrist, under his hand. She arches, she rubs herself against him, she clenches as he's sending that oversensitive pussy of hers towards the edge again, which only makes her whimper. The noises she makes that he thinks of as raw have her tossing her head to one side, panting, rolling her hips as though she's taking his cock, making sounds that are a little bit shattered, a little bit unstable.

"Baby, please..." she's moaning, quivering on his tongue.

He listens this time. He moves up and her legs slide down. He watches her as he crawls up over her and she opens her eyes to him, running her hands up his arms to his shoulders, caressing his chest long before he lowers himself down to her. "Baby," she calls him again, breathing the name, "my baby," because she is too far gone with pleasure now to care if it sounds cajoling, doesn't care if it sounds like anything other than what it really is, which is tender.

They kiss, slow and drenching, Danicka licking herself off his lips and tongue the way she always does, like her own taste is just as luxurious to her as it is to him. She wraps her legs high and tight around his waist, crossing her ankles behind his back, purring softly at the feel of him held between her thighs. "I love your body," she whispers to him in between kisses, and holds him even tighter, clutching at his sides, as he rubs his cock on her. "Oh, god."

The feel of him makes her arch her back again, ready to receive him, ready to fuck, but he takes his time. He makes that sound in his throat that is answered by a groan, and he finally starts to push his cock into her the way his body has been ready to do since she first started telling him how badly she wanted him to take her home and fuck her brains out. When he finally starts to enter her, Danicka's squirming for it, trying to relax and take him despite her eagerness, needing to be soothed, shh'd, quieted by his kisses, by his gasps of encouragement.

Her cunt is clenching at him, pulling at his cock when he's finally inside her, deep and hard and throbbing slightly. That first thrust makes her groan loudly, head tossing back and spine arching slightly, more gently than when she comes. "Oh god," she moans, again and again: "oh god, oh my god, oh god."

As he thrusts, again and again, each time a slow, hard stroke of his hips, a heavy push between her legs, rubbing himself against her clit with each grind. She's panting softly already, turning her head to look down between them even though their bodies are shadowy and indistinct in the dark, even though she can barely see the seam between their bellies, even though she can barely make out his cock withdrawing and sliding home again,

and again and again.

Lukas leans down to kiss her and catches her throat. Danicka turns her head and closes her eyes and the next time he reaches for her he kisses her mouth, finding it open for him, waiting for him.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] That Danicka loves him is no longer something he questions or distrusts. He knows it now, as absolutely as he knows that he loves her, belongs with her, belongs to her.

What's less certain is the ultimate survivability of such a thing. The ultimate wisdom of it; the price they might pay. Fear of loss, or suffering, or pain kept them from each other in the beginning. It was a long hard road to conquer that. Simply because they no longer fear love doesn't mean that this love can't hurt them, though. She knows that. She saw it every day, growing up: what her mother's devotion to her mate, to her family, did to them all.

The first time they fucked, Lukas very nearly killed Danicka. When he tried to protect her from skinless, eyeless things in the street,

he very nearly killed her.


And yet here he is now. Atop her, inside her, moving into her with heavy, deep thrusts of his hips, fucking her, making love to her, mating with her while she opens to him, and clutches at him, and cries for him. Here he is: spending so many nights with her now that they half live together. Here he is, and the inescapable truth, the instinctual, bone-marrow truth of it is

that every time he comes inside her, every time he fills her with his cum, some part of him wants to see her grow round with his child. Wants to see her bear his children, his cubs, birth them, raise them to be good and strong and brave and smart the way he knows -- he believes, fervently and silently and subconsciously -- she can.

Here they are, slowly, and without entirely meaning to, doing all the things that she saw her parents do. That left her father the worn-out, drifting, thinning phantom of a man he's becoming.

That she loves him: this is not a lie.

That she has no problem with any of this: this may be a lie.


Still. This is also the truth: they are good for each other.

They would neither of them be the people they are today, have grown from the people they were, if not for one another. And: it's so fucking good, too, when they come together like this. When he's surrounding her and filling her, moving into her again and again, braced over her with his shoulders and his arms and his chest tensed, his back and his abdomen flexing with every powerful thrust; when he's kissing her and she's receiving him like she knew he would; when her legs are wrapped so tight and secure around his waist, and she's moaning into his mouth, spilling god's name from her lips like it really just means

yes, good, more, please.

He's moving into her harder now, more forcefully. Her thighs are riding up his ribs. He's unwrapping one arm from around her to grasp a fistful of her sheets, to hold onto that so he doesn't grip on her too hard while his mouth slips from hers; while he puts his lips to her shoulder and kisses her, opens his mouth, grips her with his teeth the way he does, like they're animals, like he's her mate, mounting her; like they never did come back from that solstice morning and live now in the wild,

losing language, losing civilization, losing everything except

this.


Near the end his hand comes back to her body after all. He seeks that connection, the way he seeks her eyes for a moment, holds them as pleasure is flashing over his face, twisting into something so intense it wracks him, overwhelms him, makes him close his eyes and kiss her mouth blindly, blindly, before his eyes open again and hold hers.

He grasps at her side, her hip; he opens his hand over her ass and pulls her up against him, rides her up against his body as he thrusts into her. Hard, now. Fast, and deep: again and again, nailing her to the mattress as he's moaning against her mouth, saying her name, saying I'm gonna-- , saying nothing at all but just groaning, snarling, muffling shouts of pleasure against her skin as he pulls her onto his cock as though he wants her to feel this, feel it with him, be there with him and feel what it is she does to him when he pounds into her like that.

His eyes close at the last. He can't keep them open. He holds himself there, deep, and he comes inside her like he can't help himself.


She knows him now. She knows the electric stillness that overtakes him as he comes; that instant of silence before he's just -- lost. Her name is the only thing he has left at that point. Her name, and wordless vowels, raw noises, stripped down to the wire. She knows how he'll fuck her afterward, reflexively, in fast, hard bucks of his hips like he can't stop himself; like he has to fuck his cum into her as though to make sure, make certain, she was his; she was filled; she would take what he gives her, all of it, everything,

and give it back.


When he slows to a stop, Lukas is panting harshly. He's incoherent, beyond words. He tries to kiss her. Mostly, he just pants against her mouth, nuzzles her, tries to breathe. His cheek slides past hers eventually. He kisses her shoulder, too, and bites her there again, very gently now, as though to remind himself:

this is my mate. mine. my love. the only one.

[Danicka] When Danicka met Lukas -- no, when Danicka started to fear that she was falling in love with him, she asked her father the question she'd been asking him since she was a little girl. Did you love her?

Did he love that thing that had come so close to killing him time after time, even in front of his children? Did he love that woman who insisted on what she wanted and thought was best and damn the consequences, damn the flat reality of the situation that even the one who was destined to Change was scared of her? Did he love her mother, did he love the woman she looks so much like, did he love his second mate, as he had his first?

How could he?

And she asked herself a hundred times if she really thought Lukas could love her back. She asked herself if there was a chance, when she'd known for years that the damage done to her in childhood broke her in some ways as a kinswoman, made her that much less useful, that much more of a burden. She asked herself if he could love her when she wasn't sure she was something that could be loved, someone that was made for that sort of life. Love. Compassion. Committment. Honesty. Trust.

They're past all that now. She doesn't understand but she knows it's utterly possible that her father loved her mother as deeply as she loves Lukas, and as madly. That is more terrifying than the sad thought that he might have had no choice but to stay with Night Warder. She knows now that it is possible to fear someone, to know they will more than likely hurt you again and again, that they are a danger to you not because they don't love or don't know how to love but because the moon touched them the night they were born and said

you will Rage.

...and love them more than your own life.

Danicka knows he believes this. Trusts in it with everything he has. She knows he doesn't need to hear her tell him that even as bad as it could possibly get, she still loved him. She thought less of losing her life and more of what his would become, and how horrible it would be that she couldn't speak to him one last time and tell him not to hate himself, not to become dark, not to turn a blindly raging eye on the world and give in to his own pain.

One can imagine what the ghost of a woman who has been through everything Danicka has been through being a bit peevish if her chosen mate decided to turn into a true and hateful monster because of a little thing like grief. After all: look at what she endured. Survived. Look how she turned out.


With the optimism of immortal youth, Danicka clings to the belief that she won't end up like her father. She might raise fatherless children. She might struggle with a child born with burgeoning rage. She might outlive them, as she might outlive her mate. But she won't be broken like her father, drained of will and life and autonomy. She won't. She promises herself that even should Lukas become wild with fury and cold with restraint, she'd leave him if he started to act like her mother.

By doing things like frenzying, and turning on her.

But it's different. He didn't touch her. He didn't hurt her.

This time, whispers another voice in her mind, chanting it softly like it has since the first night they made love. Not this time. This time he didn't choke you as he fucked you. This time he was able to stop himself from frenzying. This time he chased you and slammed his hand on the door but he was angry, and he let you go a minute later. This time, he turned on one of the monsters instead of you. This time. This time. This time.

What about the next?


She looks at him sleeping when he comes to her, which is many more nights now but not every night, nowhere near. She pretends sleep now, which she's never done before. She wakes when he comes to bed and he stays awake for a long time until he feels that she's asleep and then he settles down. She sometimes watches him sleeping in her bed for awhile before she can close her eyes again. Danicka doesn't ask herself why.

She was a few days late last month and she took a test and scarcely moved until the timer went off, and she doesn't ask herself why she was so anxious that she might be pregnant that she took a test after just a few days of waiting. Maybe, she thinks, she was hopeful.

Because some part of her does want his children. She wants black haired, blue eyed little children and ha, the joke's on her, the Underworld gave them a mish-mash of complexions and colorations, not a single small one looking just like Lukas, or just like Danicka, as though they are so intertwined that even their children will take after their unity, and not their parts.

She wants Lukas to be a father, and she wants to think of him every time she nurses, every time she puts a child to sleep with her arms and her heartbeat and her whispering lullabies. She wants to be a mother, which shocks her every single time she realizes it, because she never thought she'd want to be with anyone, much less want children. She knew both would happen anyway but it startles her to desire it, and desire it so strongly.

Danicka's not ready. She told him so almost a year ago. She doesn't want to lose this, what they have now. Each other, solely and selfishly. She doesn't want to stop fucking him whenever she wants to, untired and voices unsuppressed. She doesn't want her life to change any more than it has, because it's finally worth living, bothering with, working to hold onto. She's happy. She has school and she has her apartment and her studies and she has her mate and her cat and her car and she doesn't want any more change. She's earned this. She deserves to be happy. She deserves to be happy with the man she loves, even if he is not a man at all.


Making love to Lukas is an athletic, energetic thing. Danicka opens her legs, wraps them high around his body, moaning because he's so fucking hard and he fills her so deeply. She holds onto him because he's so big and she mutters it against his mouth while they kiss, tells him what he knows, that his cock is so fucking hard and he's so big, he feels so good,

which sets sparks off, running down his spine to his groin, making him push harder into her, spread her open even wider, fucking her in faster, harder strokes. Danicka tears her mouth from his with a ragged gasp when he starts fucking her a little quicker, bouncing her ass against the bed, grabbing the sheets instead of her body. The noises they're making together have Danicka panting for it, giving those little ah, ah, ah, ah! cries he knows so well, telling him if he just keeps giving her his cock she'll come in shuddering waves under him, moaning and squirming like she's trying to take his entire body with her into orgasm.

Lukas looks at her for her eyes but Danicka's so far gone hers are closed, sweat making her hair cling to her temples, even her neck. His thrusts make her hair ripple across the pillowcase. She's close. She's so close that she's got her small hands wrapped around his large biceps, her grip slipping because of sweat and arousal, her legs loosening around him because she's losing the control necessary to keep them held around his body.

"Fuck," she whimpers, her breasts bouncing gently, then quickly, as Lukas's pounding builds steeply, his hands pulling her up to take it, which he's unable to growl, or mutter, at this point. He's just grunting, animal and erotic, snarling his lust into her ear as his own pleasure ratchets upward in ever-tightening spirals, coiling like a spring about to be released. Danicka grabs at his lower back, opening her eyes just long enough for him to see that she's there, she's there with him, she's counterthrusting back on his cock to take her pleasure in him, letting him see her eyes turn darker and darker green just before --

She arches her back when she comes, tipping her head and baring her throat, nails raking down his lower back before she grabs at his flank, holding onto his ass while he starts to groan that he's gonna, he's gonna, oh god, oh fuck, then nothing but holding her and flexing into her one last rough time, filling her with his cum while she groans and twists with her own orgasm.

When Danicka starts to be let go by her own body she's barely breathing, and what breaths there are are uneven and staggered. She's clutching at his skin anywhere, even though her palms slip and side off of him and come back with soft slaps. She tries to hold onto him. She lets out hard cries every time he thrusts afterward, pumping into her. Her cum slicks out of her every time he does that, covering his cock, getting onto his balls, and she clenches tight on him, too, aching for more pleasure.

She's limp afterward. She's given up on holding onto him and her hands are back on the mattress, loose and akimbo. She's so dizzy that she's closed her eyes again. Her panting seems to steady for a moment, then shakes apart again. Steady. Then shaken. Then steady. Gradually those shaky moments get fewer and farther between and her breathing starts to settle down but it takes such a long time and she's a wet, sweaty mess under him all the while, her entire lower half trembling.

"Oh god," she's breathing. "Oh god. Oh my fucking god."

[Lukas] Sometimes when they make love, it's gentle, or slow, or sweet, or playful. And then sometimes it's like this: a fucking cataclysm, walls shaking down, cities crumbling to dust. Sometimes afterward they're both incoherent. Blown to bits. Lost.

Sometimes -- rarely now -- she shakes like this. Like she's overcome. Like she can't put herself together again. And when she's like this, something in Lukas twists on itself with tenderness. With a certain instinctual worry, no matter how unnecessary or misplaced.

Worrywart, she calls him sometimes, fondly. It's not without reason.

He's gentle with her now, though, as much as he can be with his own mind flung to shreds. He moves over her, his hands touching her thighs, holding her hips, holding her, trying to convey the same thing he keeps whispering to her, over and over, as though they'd both just survived some world-ending catastrophe:

"To je v pořádku. Já jsem tady. Já jsem tady."

And her breathing steadies. And it shakes apart. And he kisses her neck, kisses her mouth, soft, drawing, searching little kisses with his eyes closed; kisses her breasts and kisses her hammering heartbeat. His arms wrap around her, holding her against him, holding himself up so he doesn't crush her. All the while his thoughts are amorphous and indistinct, pure reptile brain. He thinks of protecting her. He thinks of keeping her safe. Keeping his mate safe while she recovers; keeping her warm and covered and protected

until she can protect herself again.


He's like that. Left to himself, without the touch of Rage, Lukas might have grown up a gentle soul. His childhood wildness might have tamed to playfulness; he might have been good with small children and small animals; might have been the sort of man, the sort of kinsman, who tries to take care of those around him. His family. His offspring. his friends.

He's like that.

And it's not that he stays awake until he thinks she's asleep consciously. It's not that he tries, or that he needs to see that she feels Safe and Well Protected. It's not that he even thinks about it, only -- that is how it works out, most times. Some nights he comes in so exhausted from a hunt that he falls into bed, rage spent, will spent, wraps himself around his mate and sleeps like the dead. Most nights, he steals in quietly, smiles to himself when he feels her reach out to stroke his back as he's undressing; wraps himself around his mate

and breathes quietly, drifting, until he feels her sink away. Then something raw and instinctive in him loosens its grip. Tells him: all right. okay.

And he sleeps.

It would hurt him if he knew she stays awake sometimes now. It would break his heart if he knew she can't sleep until he does; pretends to, sometimes, until he sleeps. He wouldn't understand it, most likely. Isn't this what she wanted? Isn't this what she asked for? He never pushes; is so very wary of that because he knows, he knows, that the only safeties there are left between them are the ones the makes. He never asked to live with her, though he wanted to. She said it first, and now here he is.

Or maybe -- he would understand. He saw it in the phantom-children in the Underworld; that painful struggle between needing to be near and needing to be far. He sees it in her every time her will is worn down or his rage is burning high. She can't bear to be near him. She can't bear to be far away.


Still, there's a difference. She talks about that.

She has never told him about this, just like they've never spoken about the frenzy. It's quite possible Lukas has no idea these things are on her mind. It's quite possible she intends it that way. Danicka protects what they have here, this, because she protects herself, and she protects them. What they've worked

so very hard for.


He's quiet now beneath her. Calmed, quieted, breathing slow and steady. It's quite possible he'll fall asleep if she leaves him here. His arms are looped loosely over her waist, the dip of her back. He raises his head to kiss her temple lazily, warmly, indistinctly.

"I don't think," he murmurs, "you should go back to work."

And he kisses her again, this time in the center of her brow, the mythical seat of the mind.

"Stay."

[Danicka Musil] While they're in the midst of it, when he's grabbing her with his teeth and pounding her, it barely occurs to Lukas not to bite down, to grab the sheets instead of her body so he doesn't hurt her. When they're in the middle of fucking and Danicka's moaning for him the way she does, groaning in the sort of utter enjoyment those women lured toward him in nightclubs were never capable of because they couldn't even fathom why they were letting this strange, terrifying man do this to them or why they liked it,

the thought of worrying for Danicka because she's trembling is far, far away.

Immediately afterward, though, he's tender. He touches her gently, kissing her softly, caressing her legs and her hips as though the help soothe away those shakes. She used to tremble after sex because she couldn't cope with how she felt with him, how fast and how hard she was falling in love with him. Now when it happens it's almost always pure exertion. Release. Pleasure so overwhelming it leaves her more than a little bit wrecked.

Her lips curve gently into smiles while he kisses her, wrapping himself around her. She brings her own arms back around him and holds him, too, the way she used to think he'd never let her. She smiles and holds him to her neck, her shoulder, her breast, nuzzling his cheek blindly, guided by instinct and warmth and his scent and, simply,

love,

as sentimental as that sounds. She's sentimental. Not with physical things: pictures, books, belongings. She doesn't have any mementos that he knows of, no little knick-knacks hanging around her apartment. Most of her jewelry means nothing to her, but for the one piece he gave her. In fact, the only things Lukas sees Danicka a little bit protective of have something to with him. She doesn't use the repaired mug he gave her. She keeps it in her bedroom, on her nightstand, where she can see Lukas in childhood standing with his family. It's the closest thing to a portrait of her lover that she keeps within sight.

And sometimes when she's at the den and she's alone, she puts the desktop fountain on the stand by their bed there, lulled to sleep by the sound and by the memory of Lukas trying whatever he knew to help her. To make her well. To get her better. Holding her from behind while she slept, the heat of his body helping soothe the discomfort in her chest, relaxing her body so she could breathe a little easier, helping her sweat out her fever.

She's a sentimental woman, but not about mere things, unless what they represent is so strong it's impossible to see them without association. She's sentimental about him. About her cat. About the little glove he showed her, the one with the sparklies, daddy, you know the one with the sparklies, daddy,

you're not listening.


Danicka holds him and knows what sort of man he might have been if he had not been born to change. He's so happy with little things: when he comes home to her and she's baked his favorite kolache. The smile he was wearing when he met her cat, and how pleased he was that said cat was not scared of him, how amused he was that the cat wanted their attention. Lukas is adorable to her, and there's not many people in the world -- if any -- who would agree that yes, he's really like that. He's sweet.

He's so warm and happy when he sees her eating the way she does when she's content, filling her belly and eating dessert and taking food right off his plate. Danicka can almost imagine him wriggling in pleasure when he crawls into bed with her and wraps his arms around her, holding her close. Closer. She can see him being the sort of kinsman he might have been,

but isn't.

Danicka doesn't wish he were a man, a human, a kinfolk like herself. She's glad he is what he is, or so she believes, so she tells herself, so very well may be the truth, but sometimes she doesn't know, and she runs from that not-knowing.

She smiles to herself as she lies there under his shielding body, kissing his shoulder. He kises her and tells her she shouldn't go. She should stay. It's possible he can't imagine her saying no. She seems so relaxed now, drowsy and pleasured. He knows she's perfectly bright enough and hardworking enough to get this project done, surely she can rest for a few extra hours with him.

"I have to," she murmurs back, stirring, her legs starting to slide down his sides, unlocked from each other. Danicka smiles gently at him from her pillow, touching his face. "You stay in bed. So you're here when I come to sleep. I'll just work a few hours and then come back to you."

She lifts her head, kissing his mouth, whispering: "Please, baby?" against his lips.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is a little disappointed, and perhaps she knew he would be. As her legs unwrap from around him, he shifts against her, pressing briefly deeper, lowering his head to kiss her mouth

even as she's raising hers, so they meet somewhere in the middle, and his hand comes behind her head to cradle her to his lips as they share that moment. That kiss.

He doesn't try to persuade her to stay. He doesn't wheedle, or coax, or whine, or sulk. She knew he wouldn't. He smiles a little when they draw apart. Lukas kisses his mate again, this time on the tip of the nose, gently playful. He's still a little reluctant when he shifts and draws their bodies apart, rolls off of her to let her up.

"Okay," he agrees quietly. As she's rising he reaches for her, touches her face, brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "I might shower," he adds, almost an afterthought.

[Danicka Musil] Their unfolding from one another is gradual, as though Lukas is loathe to let her go and as though Danicka understands this.

Not: as though Danicka is just as reluctant. Sometimes she is. Sometimes she reaches out, half-awake at best, and holds onto him because he's sitting at the edge of the bed to put back on the clothes he just took off, someone needs something, he agreed to talk to someone, Christian has to be Talked To, he promised to spar with Sinclair and the time got away from him, Kate genuinely need some support on the seemingly nonstop shit her tribemates and Kinfolk keep dumping on her table, and he belongs to his pack and to his sept, too.

It isn't the same as the way he belongs to Danicka. To this. It's different, but it's still true. And sometimes even though she understands that he has to go she doesn't want to let him. She doesn't want to share him. She doesn't want to have a few scant hours with him, making love to him, falling asleep with him, and know that he might not make it back home before she has to get up and go to class, so she'll wake up alone and won't see him again for days.

Sometimes Danicka is loathe to let go of Lukas. But right now isn't one of those times. She moves slowly this time because she genuinely does want to get up and get her project done or at least far enough along that she doesn't have to panic inwardly over it. She moves slowly because she knows there's every chance he might not be able to stay all night. But most of all, she moves slowly as she slides her legs away from him and starts to push herself up on her elbows because she knows he aches at separating from her right now.

Danicka breathes out shallowly and near-silently as he withdraws from her, the spirit but not the body of a gasp. She's smiling as he lays kisses on her, pecking on on her nose, and she huffs out a soft breath, shaking her head at him. "Pošetilý," she murmurs, sitting up.

When he reaches up his fingertips barely catch her cheek, just before she's out of reach even for his long grasp. Danicka is reaching down to the floor to pick up the short silk robe she dropped there last time she was in the room, pulling it into her lap as he's saying he might shower. She looks back at him, half-smiling in the dark. "Okay," she says, and pulls the robe around her shoulders, slips her arms through the sleeves.

Danicka has barely pulled it across her chest when she leans over to kiss him on the cheek, her hand resting on his shoulder for a moment. "Miluju tě, Lukáš," she whispers. "Vrátím se k vám, jakmile budu moci."

She rises then, the robe falling across her back and down over her ass. She's still wet between her legs, she'll have to stop and wash up, find something to wear while she works on her studies, this challenge he won't ever suggest again that she back down from. She looks over her shoulder at him stretched out naked and languid and uncovered on her bed, smiling as she loosely ties the robe around her waist:

"A možná budu vás budím, takže můžeme kurva zase."

Her smile quirks into one of those grins he knows, a little uneven and almost shy. She walks out of the room then, his bracelet still around her wrist, where it's been all night. Her earrings still in her ears, where they've been all night. The light flicks on in the bathroom and he hears her in there while he's recovering his own senses and his own will to get up and move.

The light dies, and he hears her grab a couple things from the open closet. She doesn't come back to the bedroom, but he can hear her, he can watch her if he turns his head just so, but then Lukas hears the door to her little hallway and that is the last he hears of her without straining for some time.


Outside the bedroom, Danicka pours herself some iced green tea. She reaches down and strokes Kandovany, who emerges from whatever hiding place she was in this time to see if those sweaty two-legged types are done yet. She mumurs to the cat: "You be nice to Lukášek if he comes out, you skinny thing." And the cat purrs in response, but is otherwise quite noncommital about this being-nice-to-the-insignificant-mortal concept.

The door to the north room, the study, the laboratory, is cracked but not wide open for several hours thereafter. Danicka is inside, in a pair of some of her older, looser jeans that one might think a woman like her wouldn't even keep around. She's got a snug cerulean blue shirt on as well, her hair back and up in a tight but somewhat messy knot held in place with a few bobbypins rather than a clip or chopsticks or the like. Most of her work involves calculations. Pages upon pages spread over the desk in there, which is near the window while the long table where the microscope and safe and so forth are housed.

Danicka likes this work. She's good at math. She's better at math than she ever thought, and she's starting to realize that it's easier for her than anyone else. For once, something is easy for her. And she drenches herself in it, loses herself in it, because it is so very nice to not have to think of anything else.


The project isn't done when she comes back to bed. It's possible Lukas has come to peek in on her and gotten little more than a smile. It's possible he's in her bed asleep, it's possible that no matter what he did it changed nothing about how she spent her night, working herself to the point that she can barely keep her eyes open anymore. It's possible that the next thing he knows of her is Danicka's return to her bedroom, closing the door gently behind her and working her hair out of its pins as she comes down the little hallway.

Those pins settle quietly on her nightstand's top, a faint metallic skittering that is gone as soon as it's noticeable. Her clothing comes off in rustles; she didn't bother with undergarments.

When Danicka lifts the covers and slides back into bed alongside Lukas, he feels her hands on her even as he's waking, or as he's reaching for her, too, because instinct and scent tells him what no more organized thoughts or sensory imput will: his mate is coming back to him. His mate is warm and she's relaxed and sleepy, but there's a buzzing, vibratory energy she brings with her into her bed, that transfers through his skin like little electric currents when she runs her hands under the sheets, up his sides, over his chest.

She doesn't say a word when she lowers her head to kiss his mouth, her hair falling in a curtain to either side of their faces. She doesn't say anything when his hands cover her breasts, just gasping, shifting her hips so she can press her cunt down against his waking cock, sliding herself across it to say any number of things she isn't saying with her voice.

Things like: I want you.

Yes, that's it.

There you are.

Make love to me.

Which are all very simple, in the end, and obvious, but there it is, and that is all she or he need sometimes. He thought once, only once, that if he could just hear her say the words, if he knew whether or not she wanted him back, he could deal with it one way or another. Get over it, let it go. He thought knowing wouldn't drive him mad with longing, and he was wrong, and he learned a great deal about what he can and can't deal with back then. It's easier these days for them to confess their desire for each other.

To confess that when they're parted they miss each other. That they yearn. That going to the underworld was his duty and was a very great adventure but that he thought of her constantly, from the first gate that awakened his desire to the fourth that demanded his love to the seventh that wanted him to risk everything, even the war, to live his life.

It's easier now for Danicka, too. But it will never be 'easy' for her. It may never come without at least a split-second of hesitation, of long-ingrained fear. There's a chance, but it's so slim. She only hopes he doesn't doubt her. For no reason she's willing to name right now, she hopes fervently as she starts to rock against him, the sheets gathered around his thighs and her hips, that he doesn't doubt how much she loves him, and how much she wants him, and how sometimes all she can think of is this:

folding over him like she is, wrapping her arms around him, feeling her breasts settle onto his warm chest, feeling his hands slide down her back and open over her ass, lifting her a little so he can stroke his cock across her pussy, muttering filth and adoration into her ear. Sometimes all she can think of is what she does now, reaching down to guide him into her, burying the moan that leaves her as she sinks down so

fucking

slowly

into his shoulder, where his heat and his rage and his strength absorb her voice. Sometimes this is all she wants. All she can imagine. All she can think about, and it isn't how hard his cock is or how hot his skin or how beautiful his eyes but that he's here and he's inside her and he's with her,

and she's with him.


They make love again, Danicka's mouth close to him all the while, either gasping to his lips or moaning kisses into his neck and his shoulder, his chest. Her hands clutch at his sides, his biceps. It isn't often she rides him like this, keeping their bodies close. It limits their movement, almost forces them to rock each other slowly and firmly to orgasm, but sometimes it is exactly what she wants, what she seems to need.

When she does come she holds him tighter, opening her mouth and setting her teeth into his chest, groaning loudly because she can. This place is entirely hers. She's waited her whole life for a place that's hers, a car, an education, the hope of fulfilling work, her own strength, her own life, everything that she has or is getting. She even has things she never thought she wanted, or could have: love, for one. For everything, really.

So she holds onto him with her thighs and her arms and her teeth when she goes over the edge, biting down into happiness and warmth and vitality. She arches her back and takes him a little deeper when he comes in her, rocking her hips as though to work his cum into her cunt, to take it, to take him, to hold on. To hold onto this, as long as she can.

No matter what.