a day or two here.

[Danicka] The last time Danicka saw Lukas was at the Brotherhood of Thieves just a few days ago, after the Shadow Moot. They've both made more of a concerted, active effort to see each other more often than once every two weeks, once a month. They've told each other what's going on in their lives. She has watched him act as their tribal elder in the city twice now, which was new to her -- and yet bitterly familiar. Her mother was not the tribal elder in the Sept of the Green, but she was highly ranked enough that more than a few instances of leadership came to rest on her shoulders. The Shadow Moot was not Danicka's first.

Truth be told, the first Shadow Moot Danicka attended was in her infancy. She doesn't remember it. She's glad of it.

After Ingvar left, Danicka asked for Wyborowa -- or anything, really, that Lukas might have in a drawer -- to wash the taste of the Unicum out of her mouth. No, she explains, she doesn't also speak Hungarian. But she knew enough of them to learn a few phrases, which she recites brightly and dutifully, her voice far more pleasant than either Ingvar's or Istok's. Yes, no, thank you, please, hello, goodbye, I only speak a little Hungarian, sorry, do you speak English, take off your pants.

She taps her glass to his and admits that she knows how to say most of those things in a great many languages. She grew up in New York City. She spent her time around a melting pot of Slovaks, within her tribe. She knows how to say please and thank you in Yiddish. She can proposition someone for sex in French. But the only languages she knows by heart, knows from birth, calls her own, are the ones he has heard her speak at length in.

All she wanted, she says, as he takes her coat to hang it up and she smooths her skirt down -- she's wearing a dress of dark blue and silver accents, looking far different than she did at the Shadow Moot, looking as though she just came from going out drinking and dancing yet only smelling of herself and sweat rather than alcohol -- was to come by and see him for awhile. She changes into more casual clothes in his bedroom, putting her pumps under the bed, hanging up her dress. Her lingerie is actually rather sedate, for her, a set of soft pale blue cotton and lace.

Danicka removes her bra as she changes into a pair of pink and orange and violet-striped lounge pants, pulling on a longsleeved lavender t-shirt that's been washed so many times it's become soft as down. She has fuzzy socks to wear. In moments, she's changed from a woman he once looked at and idly considered the possibility she might be a high-priced whore into a girlfriend who is willing to put her hair up in a ponytail, curl up with cocoa, and grin at him from her chair.

But regardless of trappings: Danicka. And his mate.

Cocoa she doesn't get, but tea, when they go down to the kitchen to get some food. The rest of the evening passes rather comfortably, quietly: Danicka reads, lying atop his comforter. Lukas writes a few e-mails, composes a letter to his parents, checks on his finances, bounces a few things off of Danicka -- who reveals herself to be capable of doing incredibly complex mathematics in her head, while she's half-distracted. He's musing about the interest rate on something or other, and she idly chimes in with the sum he's looking for as she flips a page.

They leave their stew bowls on the desk when Lukas comes to bed. She leans over the edge and puts her textbook on the ground, her teacup empty on the windowsill. They sleep, once she's peeled off her pajamas and he's taken off his clothes and they've slid themselves under the covers to keep warm by way of body heat unhindered by cotton, covered by those ridiculously high thread count sheets she bought him and the thick comforter on top of it all. The room is cool, the window cracked just enough to keep it so.

She falls asleep before him, and he holds his hand over her heart, running the night backwards through his mind. No one would dare challenge him for her. He'd kill them. She's his. She's here, not to fuck or share some problem or fix the computer but just to see him, to lie in his bed with her reading and her tea and to have dinner with him, be close to him. His mate. His.

Lukas sleeps.

Twenty-four hours later, more or less, his jaws clamp down in Fons's throat, and the Silver Fang's light goes out.

--

It's not long after that. He's been at the caern, he's talked to his pack, he's communicated with their tribe. It's technically Sunday, though it's still dark. Pre-dawn. Danicka is at their den, though her car isn't in the driveway, and she's upstairs, milling around the bedroom.

[Lukas] Last night was a good night.

Even Ingvar's interruption -- though one might argue it was the main event, not the interruption -- was a good thing. Some part of Lukas was pleased, on a purely sensory, nostalgic level, to hear a Hungarian native's thick accent. It reminds him of earlier times; it reminds me of the gifting of mp3 players and writing implements and his first true weapon, which was his by birthright.

Lukas has to remind himself not to let his guard down out of sentiment. Just because Ingvar is Hungarian and a Philodox of Thunder does not automatically make him a friend or an ally.

After he leaves, they spend a night together, he and his mate. Not to fuck, not to share some problem, not to fix the computer. Just to see each other. Just to hang out, sharing the same space, eating and drinking together, reading, going about the motions of their lives.

The only point of tension came when Danicka tells Lukas, idly and perhaps thoughtlessly, of all the languages she can proposition someone in. It's when she gets to the fifth or sixth that he interjects, softly: I don't want to think about you propositioning anyone else. They look at each other; their eyes meet. I'm sorry.

They probably don't speak of it again. Lukas doesn't want to. It makes him feel absurd and possessive to be jealous of the imaginary past.

Later, before Danicka sleeps, he holds her and feels her heart beating and kisses her ear, gently. There's a sense of apology there, too. And there's a sense of claim and protection, an echo that resounds with her heartbeat:

mine. mine. my. mine.

--

A little over twenty-four hours later, Lukas is cold and bloody and his voice won't stop cracking and jumping. His throat feels coarse and constricted, as though he had something caught there that just won't go away. He coughs as he drives in the car, clears his throat again and again, not because he thinks it'll help but because he can't help it. It doesn't change a thing.

He doesn't call her to see where she is. He just drives out to Stickney. He wants to go there, and if she isn't there, he thinks he can call her then, find her.

Her car isn't in the garage when he gets there. He's disappointed, but he parks anyway. Perhaps she hears the garage door opening this time, too. After it closes behind him, he leaves his car behind and goes across the short snowy distance to the front door, walking swiftly with his head down so the neighbors don't see the blood on his face. He's quick with the lock now, used to it, opens it and shuts it behind him.

Dark. He walks up the short flight of stairs. It's warm in here, and he wonders dully if he left the heater on; doesn't really care. One by one, he flings his outer clothes off on the sofa, atop the TV, on the stairs. He's down to his underwear when he gets to the top, his face bloody, and stops stock still when he sees the light on in the bedroom; her framed through the bedroom door.

A short exhale, a pant almost, of surprise.

"You're here." He sounds terrible.

[Danicka] There's no sign, outwardly, that Danicka is there. Most of the lights aren't on. The door's locked. The garage and driveway are empty. Yet when he gets inside the heat is going, has been turned up though usually it's left low just to keep the pipes from freezing while they're not here. The temperature is and has been rising. She hasn't been here long, but she's been here long enough for it to be warm enough to take off his coat.

Or maybe, as he thinks to himself, they just forgot and left it on. That will be a lovely utility bill this month.

Maybe he just misses her shoes against the wall near the door. It's dark, after all, no reason for him to be looking for anything like that. Her coat is a shadow on the couch, just another shadow that his falls on top of, and not rich enough with her scent to tell him anything more than the house itself does: that she's been here, that this place will only smell like the two of them, ever. Of course her scent lingers. He isn't in lupus; he can't tell that it's recent.

He can tell, when he gets upstairs, that the bathroom is light is on, even if the bedroom itself is dark. And he can hear her moving around. She's turning on the water; he can hear her cough.

And then he comes in. And she comes out of the bathroom, and they meet in the bedroom. Danicka jumps when she sees him, because right now he's a huge, dark, hulking thing in the dark, bloodstained, and her eyes are glassy. She looks a bit pale, is wiping her mouth with a hand-towel. Danicka is wearing the same pajamas he last saw her in, the ones she wore for perhaps an hour or two before taking them off. Her hair is up in a ponytail.

He sounds like a teenager, his voice cracking on the two words, crumbling.

"Are you okay?" She sounds terrible, too. But it's thick congestion, a sore and rasping throat, a weariness in every part of her. There's blood on him. "Are you hurt?"

[Lukas] He thinks for a moment before he answers truthfully.

"No."

And

"No. It's a punishment."

He comes forward then, slowly, so he doesn't frighten her again. He moves past her. If she reaches for him he shies away. Goes around her to the sink, where he turns on the water and washes his face, actually bends his head and twists it under the tap to run water over his face until he's cleaned himself of every last drop of blood and his reflection in the mirror is wetfaced, stark-eyed, clean.

He reaches for a handtowel then, wipes his face dry. And his hands. And then he holds one out for hers.

"Are you sick?" Now he's hoarse, rasping, and his voice can't seem to decide which octave to stay on.

[Danicka] It isn't quite bad enough that she's dropping or warping letters. Danicka's congestion isn't so awful that she can't be intelligible. She just sounds awful, sounds exhausted, and though she's pale there are spots of bright color on her cheeks. The room is quickly warming, but she's dressed as though it's colder, in those thick fuzzy socks with bright hot pink flowers and green toes and heels.

She isn't frightened anymore, or at least she doesn't seem so. She's worried. Scared that he's hurt. She's looking at him thus, everything right on the surface, turning out of his way so he can get into the bathroom where she was just washing her face. There's a digital thermometer on the counter in its little plastic case. There's a bottle of Nyquil, unopened, the seal still in place.

Danicka does, in fact, reach for him as he passes. And he shies away, but she comes back again all the same.

So while he's washing his face, she's standing behind him, laying her head against his back. She moves away when he straightens and turns to get the towel, gives him her hand when he reaches for it, nods in answer to his question. "I have a cold," she says, not quite I hab a code, but still not perfectly clear.

Her eyes are limpid with fever and with worry. "What happened?"

[Lukas] "You're sick," he repeats; the statement now and not the question. He looks stricken, as though she had something worse than a cold, something life-endangering and incurable. Perhaps on a better night he wouldn't react like this. Perhaps on a better night, he'd simply hide it better.

But tonight is not a better night, or even a good night. So he steps into her orbit and puts his free hand to her brow, then to her cheek, then cups behind her head as he kisses her, close-mouthed, on the brow.

"Go to bed. I'm going to wash up. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

[Danicka] Her skin is hot to the touch. Not the gentle warmth he's held in his arms or felt at his back while sleeping, not the comfort of her hand sliding into his or touching his face. When he puts hand to brow and cheek, when he kisses her forehead especially, Lukas can tell that Danicka's 'cold' is bad enough that she's running a temperature, albeit not one so severe that she's swaying on her feet or hallucinating.

Danicka frowns, her brow furrowing under his lips. "I'm okay," she counters, a bit childishly, a bit insistently, and leans against his chest, laying her head down over his heart. His words are like cracking shrieks, like the cry of birds, like wheezes.

"I'm okay," she repeats. "Tell me in bed. It'll be okay."

[Lukas] He's reluctant; she can see that. Or feel it. Sense it. He wraps his arms around her suddenly, clasping her close. The truth is, he still smells faintly like blood.

"Go to bed," he says again. "I'm going to wash up first. Then I'll join you."

[Danicka] Of course he is. She's never been sick before, that he knows of. He knows she was a frail child, but this mostly only because she's told him. He knows she's busy, these days: she takes full-time classes, she works now, she studies like a maniac to maintain the 4.0 that she showed him she had so far. Danicka is, in some ways, quite driven these days, especially where school is concerned.

And where school is concerned, she's surrounded day in and day out with rooms of a hundred or more students who have to come and pass her pencils and cough on their desks and leave germs on doorknobs and water fountains. If she were in the dorms she'd have gotten sick much sooner than this. She doesn't have his rage, his constitution, his constant regeneration.

She can get viruses. She can fight them off better than most humans, but she's still going to get them occasionally, and she's still going to end up like this: congested. Feverish. Drained.

Danicka nuzzles his chest as he holds her, without attempting to hide her desire for comfort, for warmth, for rest. She can't smell the blood. She can't smell much of anything, right now. "Okay," she says, though, nodding, and goes towards the bed as though all she was waiting for was permission. Danicka doesn't undress. She crawls under the sheet and comforter with her socks and her pajamas on, laying her head on the pillow, resting her cheek on her palm.

--

Water runs and shuts off. When Lukas appears again, Danicka's still awake, looking at him from her pillow. "Could you get me the medicine?" she asks, half-croaking, sounding even worse for the break in speech. "And a glass of water?"

She sounds, and looks, apologetic for even asking. Especially given the state he's in: bloodied, punished, voice cracking. But she can't help being sick. They both know that.

[Lukas] It's a long shower. He doesn't mean it to be, but the water is hot and it feels good and it blanks his mind and he just doesn't. want. to move.

Eventually, though, when the bathroom is full of steam and it's escaping in tendrils out the open door into the bedroom, the water shuts off. Danicka can hear Lukas clearing his throat. Then his solid tread, stepping out of the tub. Through the door she can see him dripping wet and naked, winnowing water out of his hair with the arch of both hands, thumb to forefinger. He grabs his towel then, wraps it around his waist, and brushes his teeth for a long time, thoroughly.

When he comes into the bedroom, she asks for water. He frowns at her, heartsore. Then he backtracks to get medicine, runs downstairs for filtered water from the sink. Comes back upstairs, kills the bathroom lights, closes the door, comes to bed.

"Here." He hands her water first, then medicine. The mattress sinks under his weight. A few errant drops of water run down his back, soak into his towel.

[Danicka] To look at him coming out of the shower, one would never know he's been punished. One would never know his packmates who stood beside him were punished as well, that those who were not present or who did not come to speak up for him were spared. One would never know that he killed the nephew of a Silver Fang 'king' not so many hours ago. All she remembers is snuggling up to him under the covers last night, her current sickness no more than a tickle in her throat at the time that turned into a runny nose and an ache and a fever as the day went on. She remembers waking up and laughing, refusing to get up even though they both had to go, kissing his chest and wrapping her arms around him until she couldn't stay any longer.

Danicka looks at him and feels like it must be like this every night, because right now she's too worn out and too sick to help but fantasize a little that this is normal for them. His rage is scary to her right now, making her feel smaller and weaker than she even is. His voice makes her worry. His body makes her feel warm, not from fever but from tenderness and desire and affection.

He washes Fons's death out of his mouth, and Danicka asks for Nyquil, having no idea.

Soon enough, though, he's brought her a glass of cool water and she's ripped off the seal from the bottle of medicine while she waited, not wanting him to see her fumble with it. She doesn't pour herself a dose, though. She drinks some of her water, sitting up in bed as he joins her on top of it.

"What happened?" she asks again, and turns the tiny plastic cup over to fill it with bright red liquid.

[Lukas] The lamp is on. They have two, one on each nightstand, matched. One of the lampshades has a crack in it, so Lukas turned it around so that side faces the wall. Lamplight makes this room seem warmer and smaller, cozier; makes it seem like the home it is. The den it is.

This house has, in a matter of weeks -- and really, in a cumulative matter of days actually spent here -- become more of a home to both of them than anything they've had since leaving New York. She feels like this is normal. Like this is how it is every night, with him coming home to her, coming to bed with her. Some part of him feels the same.

She drinks her water, and he pours her medicine for her. When she sets the glass down, he holds the little cup of medicine out to her. She's beautiful in the lamplight, even sick: her hair soft, her skin goldened by the glow. Truth be told, so is he; well-proportioned and strong, the play of his musculature beneath his skin evident and self-harmonious.

"I want you to go to sleep," he says softly. His voice cracks on the last word; he clears his throat. "I'll tell you now if you really want me to, but I want you to rest."

[Danicka] Medicine poured, Danicka sets it on the nightstand. She doesn't drink it yet, perhaps because it will knock her out and she doesn't want to sleep yet. Her clothes are in a pile on the bathroom floor; he saw them. There's a hamper in their closet, now, tucked out of the way but ready at all times to take the clothes they discard so they can be shuffled down to the basement for washing. Danicka's never done more than a single load of towels here. She's never needed to. But they have a hamper, nonetheless.

And lamps, and bookshelves, and a little rug and some bean bag chairs over by the window, and drapes that complement the bedcovers. They have little things like mugs on a rack and dishes in the cabinets and towels and a mat to stand on while rinsing dishes and leftovers in the fridge and trappings, here and there, of an actual home.

So that when they come here, they can pretend.

"I'm not going to sleep til you tell me," she says, rather petulantly, openly manipulative, openly lying. She can't stop herself from sleeping, eventually. She sips at her water, and leans back, which only makes it more obvious that she's going to drop off as soon as she drinks her medicine and lays down. She does look at him, though, fixing him with as firm a stare as she can.

It isn't that firm.

[Lukas] Lukas studies Danicka for a time; intent at first, then softening. In spite of himself, his mouth curves. He smiles. There's ache in it. His hand is large and warm on her face, gentle; one would almost never believe him for a monster

if one didn't know so starkly that he is.

He strokes her hair back. Slowly at first, then with greater resolve, he shakes his head. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Let's just sleep tonight. Okay?"

[Danicka] And her cheek is hot, though she's evidently controlling shivers. She's got her hands folded in her lap on top of the covers to hide their shaking, and she's looking at him with rather defiant concern, and shakes her head.

"No. Not okay. You said you're not okay. Just... tell me what happened."

Her brow furrows. It's not far from his own expression: ache, adoration, a desire to protect. "Please, baby."

[Lukas] And in return, his brow furrows too; the curve of his mouth dwindles and dies. There's a silence. His hand stays on her face, though, warm and loving, the thumb gently stroking an arc along her cheek.

"I killed Fons van der Noot," he says then. No more prevarication. No more attempts to put it off. No attempt whatsoever to hide it, or cushion it, or paint it for something other than what it is. "He was the Silver Fang I told you about."

He draws his hand from her face. It's only to turn, though, and draw his legs up into bed. Lukas doesn't both to get up and walk around to his side of the bed. He crowds in beside her on hers, if she'll let him still.

Which she does, moving over a little on the mattress, folding the covers back for him. Lukas sheds his towel and climbs into bed, takes the comforters over from her, draws them up. It's warm in their room; quite frankly, it's warmer than it usually is, and warm enough that if this keeps up they'll wake up with dry noses and sore throats.

He won't let that happen, though. After the Nyquil's kicked in and she's fallen asleep, he'll sneak out of bed. He'll go out in the hall and dial down the thermostat, and then go downstairs and refill her water. When he comes back up, he'll crawl back in bed with her and wrap himself around her to keep her fevered body warm and safe until morning.

Lukas is thinking that now as he lies down, reaches up to turn the lamp off. Darkness shrouds the room, the drapes keeping out the ambient neighborhood lights. She can hear him drawing a deep breath, and then turning to face her, reaching out to draw her against his body.

"I'll tell you the rest tomorrow," he says quietly. "I'm okay now. Jen nech mě držet ty a já budu v pořádku."

[Danicka] Under different circumstances, hearing the actual name of the Silver Fang he told her about, Danicka would absolutely have commented on the ridiculousness of it. It would have been vicious. Cutting. Derisive in a way that proves just how much she learned from the Fangs she all but grew up around, serving them through her formative years. For all that she loathes members of that tribe as if by prejudice, there's good reason why Danicka is so often mistake for one of them. Such is the nature of hatred. The irony of it.

These are not other circumstances. He is not sitting down to eat with her and telling her what's going on in his life right now, not the way they've been trying to lately. He's not venting his frustration by telling his mate. He's not seeking her advice, though she has more wisdom than plenty of Cliaths. He's telling her whose blood that was on his face and on his clothes. He's telling her that he didn't kill a what but a whom.

Danicka just looks at him, as he draws his hand away from her cheek -- which is flushed, and overly warm, and always so soft -- and moves to get in beside her. The towel drops quietly to the floor, as Danicka scoots over and pulls the covers back the way he has so many times for her. The gesture is inherently welcoming, inviting, telling him

you belong here.

Which he does. She doesn't quite feel the heat, kept tapping up the thermostat until she realized it was over seventy and she was shivering, which is why the thermometer was out on the bathroom counter, because she realized what was actually wrong with her. Danicka doesn't think to mention that they should turn it down; she just waits for Luks to get into bed with her. He passes her first a tiny medicine cup and then her glass of water, both of which she drinks from dutifully now that he has done his part and told her what happened.

Part of what happened, anyway.

Cup and glass go back to the nighstand, and she wiggles down under the sheets beside him. Her defiance and her amenability come in equal measures when she's sick, it seems, and are both more honest than just about any other time. So she lays on her side, putting her back to him not to shut him out but to be held. It takes a matter of minutes for Danicka to go under, her hand covering his wherever it's fallen, patting it gently as though this is adequate substitute for anything she could find to say.

Her hand goes still after awhile. And her breathing becomes steady. Her mouth parts to breathe because she can't breathe through her nose, and she doesn't so much as twitch when Lukas gets out of bed, though she sinks against him when he gets back in. The air cools off. Danicka begins sweating some time in the night, and heavily. Lukas's body heat suffuses her under the covers until she wakes randomly a few hours later, pulling at her clothes and struggling with them until he helps her, whimpering slightly in half-sleep til she's coaxed to drink some water and lie back down.

Her fever's broken by morning, the water glass empty and the sheets damp. Danicka looks exhausted when she wakes permanently, a bit confused by the fact that her clothes are gone, very thirsty, and hair disheveled. Her color has evened out, and though she's warm, she's no longer burning up to the touch.

Lukas's arm is still over her, holding her against his chest. She can feel his heartbeat behind her. Danicka waits until she feels a slight stirring, until his breathing changes, and then she murmurs:

"Did I dream that?"

When he tells her no -- because he doesn't lie to her, because even last night when all he wanted to do was hold her, he didn't try to pretend something wasn't wrong -- Danicka exhales and turns in bed, naked now, pushing her hair away from her face so she can see him clearly. She blinks a few times and pulls his arms around her more tightly, if he isn't already drawing her near again on his own.

"You killed a Fang?" she asks quietly, her hand on his chest over his heart. It's something of a prompt, though a gentle one.

[Lukas] Most the night, Lukas sleeps lightly. He holds Danicka close against him, waking when she stirs. Even when she starts to sweat, he keeps her close and warm; even when clear fever-sweat pours off her and soaks her pajamas, her sheets. When she stops shivering and starts tugging at her nightclothes he helps them off her, tosses hem to the floor atop his towel, coaxes her to drink something so she doesn't dehydrate.

She lies down again. He wraps his arms around her, protective, and holds her in the curve of his larger, stronger body; thinks to himself that he will not let harm befall her, he won't, he will not...

The grey light of dawn is what he knows next. She's no longer sweating, though she's sleeping deeply. He realizes he woke because she made some small noise, some tiny whimper or moan in her fever dream. Shhh, he whispers. He rearranges the bedclothes, tugs them even when they've wrinkled beneath her or against her, covers them both securely. He puts his hand over her heart. Já jsem tady.

When he's awake again it's midmorning, and he'd made up in sheer length what his sleep lacked in quality. He's refreshed, and this seems wrong because she's exhausted, and a little pale still, though without the hectic flush of fever

and because he killed someone last night. Shouldn't his sleep be troubled?

She's turning in his arms. He loosens their circle to let her, and then draws her near again. Under the covers, their feet brush; their legs tangle.

His eyes are the color of dawn, a luminous clear blue in the indirect sunlight. He nods silently, touches her face, strokes back her hair tenderly.

"His name was Fons van der Noot," he whispers, because like this his voice is merely hoarse, not hideous. "Dirge of the Covenant. He was a Cliath when he came to Chicago, and a cub when he died."

Quietly, he tells her the whole of it, from the start: the moot; their verbal clash; Fons's insubordination that led to a challenge that led to utter refusal to submit honorably that led to the first time Lukas killed Fons.

He came back that time, then, and went on to tell stories about Theron, about Lukas, about the pack. Those tales that eventually got back around to Lukas by way of Marrick and the Fang kin Genevre -- the latter weeping for forgiveness, swearing friendship. There was a Council meeting, in which the kinswoman went out of her way to smear her cousin. She quivered with fear. She wept. She lied. In retrospect, Lukas muses -- a touch of bitterness there -- that it ran in the goddamn family.

Later on the Council laid down punishment. Fons was to receive Voice of the Jackal, which is, he explains, what he's been afflicted with. Fons was also to join his pack as Omega for four turns of the moon, starting with the February full. And finally, Fons was not to see Genevre again.

There's a pause here. Lukas shifts under the covers, tucks one arm under the pillow under his head, draws Danicka a little closer.

"Last night," he begins again, "I went to the cafe down on Elksworth. Sinclair was with me. Fons and Genevre were in there. The woman was weeping. She didn't look the least bit frightened. I was ... so angry. She had some story about having a letter from her father, but I'd seen it before, that exact tableau, only she was weeping at me.

"When Fons saw me he tried to leave. I held him back. Shoved him, actually. He called his body his territory and blustered about challenges. I told him to shut his mouth before I broke him in half and called Genevre over. We left the cafe together; all Genevre did was whine that her coat was still in the cafe and she was cold. I told her to go ahead and freeze to death; called her stupid, careless, spoiled.

"Dirge of the Covenant came at me in a frenzy, then. I put him down. Two quick bites. He didn't get back up."

There's this much to be said: he looks his mate in the eye when he tells her that, and when he tells her the rest of it. He keeps her close; looks at her; reveals all of it.

"Afterward I took his body to the Caern. The Grand Elder and Kemp received me. Sinclair and Kate were there as well. They heard me out. There were some questions. The Grand Elder seemed to think maybe I'd goaded him to frenzy on purpose. I didn't. In the end they gave me what they gave Fons, a month of this voice. They charged Kate with bearing his body home, and Sinclair with telling a tale of what worth he may have had."

A pause.

"I'm not ... I don't think he had much worth." Its chronology played out, his account meanders now. It skips from point to point without apparent logic. "I meant to bring him to the Caern last night, inform the elders of his continued misconduct, bind him into the pack immediately, and thereafter give him whatever consequence his actions deserved. I meant to treat him fairly. Not kindly; perhaps harshly, but fairly. I meant to do right by him, or at least, by the decree of the elders.

"But to tell you the truth, Danička, I don't know if it would have done any good at all. I saw his flaws; wrath and vengeance. I think everything that ever happened to Fons only fanned the flames. I think everything I might have done would've only fanned the flames, and maybe this was ... inevitable.

"The Grand Elder asked me if I meant to kill him last night. I couldn't answer for certain. I told what truth I had. I didn't go into battle thinking I would kill him. By the same token, I didn't even think to hold back. I keep going over it in my head, and I can't say for certain that I didn't mean to kill him. Maybe not consciously, but ...

"Here are the facts. I've faced him in battle before. I knew he would never submit to me, never relent against me. I'd seen his vengeful nature; literally saw it with a gift. And when he backtalked the elders and then ignored their decree, I knew he wouldn't submit even to Adrens of the Nation. Then here he comes. Frenzying. A clear and indisputable intent to kill. I had the excuse of anger, of protecting the veil, of self-defense.

"The only better opportunity I would ever have of killing him without blame would be if I frenzied myself, or if he refused to follow orders in combat. And in both cases, there would be far greater danger to myself and my pack.

"So what bothers me now," it's less than a whisper now; a bare insinuation of sound, "is that maybe I did make some calculation in that instant between biting and biting down. Maybe I just ... decided."

[Danicka] Not surprisingly, Danicka is mostly quiet the entire time that Lukas speaks. She has to ask him to pause a couple of times just to clarify something that's gotten tangled in his words or in her sleep-addled, sickness-stretched mind.

Wait, go back, did you mean...

or did you mean...

Okay.

And that's all. She tucks herself close to his chest as though the fact that he came to their home with someone's lifeblood all over his mouth does not make a difference to her. (This is a lie.) Danicka intuits as she wakes up that her clothes are off because she pulled them off in drowsing half-sleep; she intuits from the fact that they are on top of his clothes and not kicked under the covers that Lukas helped her, that he dropped them over the side of the bed as she got untangled from them. She guesses from the fact that the once-reddened medicine cup was rinsed out that he got out of bed at some point; she guesses from how much water is in her glass that he refilled it, probably rinsed out the Nyquil cup around the same time.

It doesn't occur to her to wonder if they had sex; another man, it might not be so preposterous an idea. He's not another man. He's her mate.

Danicka figures out, from miniscule details, all the things she does not remember. She sees things, tiny things, that tell her everything she might want to know about how Lukas spent the night. Stirring often, and taking care of her. She can't guess at what he fell asleep thing, refusing the inevitabilities of the universe causing her some kind of harm or pain. She doesn't need to know that. She's tender towards him as he talks, stroking his hair over his temple once or twice.

She goes more still as he goes on telling his story. Danicka doesn't once pull away, or flinch. Lukas gets to the end, tells her all about last night. And admits his anger. And notes that Fons frenzied because Lukas insulted Genevre. Their eyes stay on each other, and hers are as murky as ever, as difficult to read as always, their color deep and their shine a bit glassy, still, one more hint that though her fever's broken she's unwell.

Not as unwell as she was in the middle of the night, or back at Kingsbury Plaza when she decided to call that cab.

Danicka licks her lips when Lukas is done. She always listens. He sometimes speaks at great length, unexpectedly spewing every word in his heart, every thought in his head, and Danicka never interrupts to interject or cut him off. She has a sharp mind, attentive, able to remember small details without much difficulty. She breathes in deeply, exhales, and wraps her arm around his waist, laying her hand over the small of his back.

"Maybe you did."

She says it quietly, but simply. There's not a whole lot of gentleness in it, but neither is there any judgement, any assumption. It is just that: maybe. The door opening to considering that, seriously, when not under questioning by other Garou. The invitation to think out loud, or maybe even permission to confess -- to himself, first and above all -- that maybe what is possible is also true. Maybe he just decided.

But a few seconds later, long enough for him to at least begin that train of thought, Danicka goes on: "You were angry," she says, without emphasizing right back to him the pause, the intensity of that so. angry.. "You don't think he had much worth. You didn't have faith that even being under your leadership would change his behavior, that it would have probably just continued to make matters worse -- that everything with him would make matters worse."

He's hearing himself from her now, repeated back softer, and in the voice of trusted mate, unexpectedly tender Lord female, daughter of brutality and manipulation, of a bloodline that seems to have given her understanding beyond her years.

"You weren't looking for an excuse, Lukášek," she murmurs, her brows drawing together gently. "At least, I don't believe that of you." There's a long pause as she looks at him. "I know what I think only matters to you, in this. I also did not ever meet him, I don't know anything you haven't told me. I know whether or not he was worth anything alive is a matter of pure opinion, no matter who is talking. But..."

what's bothering him now

"...maybe you decided, in that split second, to kill him. Not because you lose control. Not because you frenzied. Not because you weighed every possible option and made a decision that could be easily and instantly justifiable to your elders." A beat. A long one. "You're an Ahroun, moje láska. Vaše instinkty jsou hrazeny z úplňku a války."

She hesitates then, as though aware she is telling him what he is, who he is. Then again: she has known Garou her whole life, seen them from as close as one can get since her first memories. She has an observer's expertise and clarity, if not the intimacy of experience.

"Not all things that are according to nature are glorious, honorable, or wise. So maybe... you took his life, and perhaps that was wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with guesses at his worth. Perhaps that was right for reasons that have to do with necessity and instinct."

She shrugs. She's hoarse, now. And quiets, mostly becuse of that.

[Lukas] Somehow, Lukas is glad that Danicka does not immediately exonerate him of all blame. Does not take him in her arms and say shhh, you would never do such a thing or anything like that, anything that would ignore his potential for utter savagery and insult her own intelligence, both.

When Lukas went before the elders, they expressed disappointment. Beneath that, and between the lines, he could sense their surprise. Shock, perhaps. Lukas knows the rumor; he knows also that most intelligent garou know they are not true. And he knows that most intelligent garou don't even believe him possible of such atrocities; such cold brutality.

But the truth is, he is. He is a werewolf. He's an ahroun. He's a shadow lord. None of these things are particularly geared toward mercy, toward congeniality, toward kindness.

Violence is in his blood. As is domination, and ruthlessness, and the ability and willingness to do

(almost)

anything to win. Every shadow lord walks a fine line between darkness and light; Lukas responds to this challenge with rigid control and such near-unfailing courtesy that most believe that's all there is of him.

Danicka knows something about flawless lies, though; more than Lukas ever will. And on some deep, intrinsic level, Lukas is glad she sees right through him. Right to the bottom.

"Thank you," he says quietly.

And after a moment, "I'm sorry I brought this into our den. I didn't... Want to be anywhere else."

[Danicka] In the beginning, it was her honesty he wanted. More than that, though, Lukas wanted to know Danicka, to be allowed to see her as clearly as she always seemed to see him. He wanted in. And as it turns out, he wanted it not because she was hard to get, not because her manipulations made it a challenge worthy of his attention, but because there was someone behind the talented lies and masks that he could sense instinctively was someone he wanted to know.

Needed, perhaps, to be close to.

Now it's her unflinching honesty about her knowledge of what he is -- rather than who he is, really -- that makes him grateful. That relieves him. Because she doesn't coddle him. She wouldn't. She doesn't assure him that she believes he could never do something as awful as premeditated murder.

Once upon a time, he said he couldn't imagine her ever being cruel. Danicka corrected him, and did not explain. It's obvious enough by now that the second pregnancy in her life ended clinically, even if she does not dwell on it overmuch and he tries not to ever think about what he's intuited about her allusions to that time in her life. So he has no idea how she thinks of it, what she believes about that deed. It was not, however, what she was talking about when she spoke of cruelty.

Which is in her blood, as violence is in his. It does not make them who they are, though.

She drowses, then, a little. Her eyes blink closed slowly and open again. He apologizes and she breathes deeply -- or as deeply as she can -- before rasping: "When I started feeling really sick, all I wanted was to be here. Even if you weren't, I just wanted to be home. So I called a cab and came."

There's a pause. "This is not something you have to try and keep our of den, baby," she whispers. "You can always come here, whatever's happened."

Whatever you've done.

[Lukas] "You should call me next time," he says quietly. "Even if I can't be with you, I want to know."

It's not really recrimination. It's closer to a statement of fact; a truth.

And: "Vím." Because he does know that, as easily as he intuited why she was here when her car was not. They're linked, these two phenomena: that she came to the den when she was so sick. That he came here, too, when he was punished, shamed; when he'd dishonored himself; when he doubted himself.

They found each other here. Said little more than the necessity. Curled up together, safe in bed, warm in their den. Slept, and sleeping, somehow healed the worst of it.

He puts his hand on her face, then. He feels her brow, her cheek. Strokes her hair. She looks weak, he thinks, but not with scorn or disgust. Any other woman and he'd suspect her of trying to manipulate him; of trying to turn her sickness into a ploy to win his attention. Not Danicka. Not his mate. On some level, this too fills him with a sort of quiet gratitude: that she would let him see her like this. That she wanted to be where his presence lingers in the air, even if he does not.

"Let's stay here a few days," he adds then, an impulse. "Until you're better."

[Danicka] It makes her smile, a bit sadly, when he suggests that they stay here.

She doesn't argue that she should call him next time: perhaps she will. When she comes here just to study, when she comes here for the quiet, most especially when she comes here because she misses him. Then again, maybe she won't. Danicka did not, this time, because she knew he might not be able to come and she couldn't bear hearing it, not with her fever rising and her body miserable all around her. And now she knows with dire certainty that he could not have come.

He was killing Dirge of the Covenant.

"I have class," she says quietly, as he's touching her face and smoothing away sweat-dampened hair, "and work. I can't miss more than a couple of days." The way she says it implies she doesn't want to miss even one day of either.

But Lukas doesn't get a chance to reply to her. There's a pause, and then she sighs, tipping her head forward and laying her head on him. There's an ache in that exhale of air, in that curl of her body towards his. "Can you stay a few days?"

[Lukas] There's ache in the way he envelopes her with his arm too, holding her against him. She can't see his face, but she can all but imagine his expression; a faint wince, a twist at the corner of his mouth, a flinch in the eyes.

"Maybe one or two," he replies quietly. "Anything more than that, after would just happened and the punishment laid upon me, would look ... weak. As though I were hiding my face in shame, or as though I were keeping out of sight out of fear.

"Even if that were not a concern, I shouldn't leave my pack alone right now, either. Not when two of them are being punished for what I did."

A moment's thought.

"Maybe I can come find you at night. Wherever you are. Until you're better."

[Danicka] So: she has classes and work and can't miss more than a day or two. He has responsibilities, a pack, his reputation and honor ...and he can't step back from that for more than a day. Maybe two.

"I won't be sick very long," Danicka murmurs against his chest, holding him to her. They're naked under the covers and any other time, under any other circumstances, it would be a matter of moments before this quiet, sleepy comfort became something else entirely. But his voice makes him sound like a freak. She's miserable with illness. And last night,

well,

last night he took the life of another Garou, one weaker than him, one who had nothing he wanted or needed, one who had not become a true enemy. Right not he might think of not taking advantage of Danicka, not pushing her while she's sick, and has no idea that she's thinking along the same lines. She won't push him. She won't distract him. She'll just be there, cold or no cold, and make sure he knows that this is his den no matter what.

"I understand, though," she whispers, too, after a little while. "All of it." There's a briefer pause, when she nuzzles him a little, seeming worn out again though she's only been awake a matter of minutes. "I'd like that. If we spent a day or two together here."

A flicker of a smile against him. "You should play your computer games while I sleep."

[Lukas] "I was going to awaken some spirits," Lukas replies quietly, and then the corner of his mouth lifts gently. "But after that, I suppose I could conquer Rome."

He shifts closer, then, sliding his arm back under the covers to wrap around Danicka. He holds her against him for a few moments, quiet.

Then a thought occurs. "Do you want me to make chicken soup?"

[Danicka] Well. She wasn't hungry until he mentioned it. Her stomach speaks before she does, and quite vocally, and Danicka glances down between them at their bellies, separated by mere inches. For a few moments, even after the gurgle subsides, she just looks at them in the shadows of the blankets: his flat, hard abdomen ridged with muscle. Her softer skin, paler, more like a smooth plane dipping gently towards her navel, her waist, rising again towards her ribs.

She kisses his chest, then, over his heart. Lightly, and lovingly, as though she has remembered something important. They shift closer, and she holds herself to him until their navels match up, their torsos pressed gently together.

Danicka knows that she's got to fall asleep again soon. She'll eat something -- anything, whether he makes soup or heats up leftovers -- and it will put her back into a mild coma, the sort of deep sleep of a body working as hard as it can to fight off intrusion. She knows that while she sleeps in their bed, he'll be nearby: performing a rite on the glass of their den's windows, awakening the water that flows in the little fountain on her desk, maybe others. Then, more mundanely, he'll be on the computer next door, idling away the time with his Christmas and Birthday gifts, which are addictive as hell if you have the time.

He doesn't ever have the time. They're making it. Because last night he was smacked in the face with a punishment meant for the Garou he killed, the sort of thing that the Nation considers a slap on the wrist but that is still humiliating. Because this morning he's acknowledged with her the possibility that he might have flatly made a decision, though one instinctive rather than conscious. Maybe. He still doesn't know. But the possibility, it seems, is forgivable here. By her, at least.

Today, maybe tomorrow, they have a little bit of time to hide. To recover. To breathe deeply and take stock before going out and facing the world again, the world with all its ironclad rules and strictures and judgements and schedules. To be wild, and lazy, and instinctive. To be home, caring for each other.

Something about knowing he'll be close makes her hold him more tightly, not because she is loathe to let go but because gratitude to some universal power without name -- god, gaia, fate, luck -- is all but overwhelming her.

"That would be nice," she whispers.