thirteenth moon.

Lukas
Moot: an elder challenge, at least two moments of intense fury, a revel, and then the business that followed that. A battle, vicious and fast and utterly, ridiculously fair; a discussion with a rather conflicted Fang.

And then: brotherhood. Bed. Blessed fucking unconsciousness.

The sun has set when he awakens. His room is awash in blue shadows: the last light of twilight. He looks at the clock radio and is confused: 6am? 6pm? He closes his eyes again

and then opens them a moment later. No. 6pm.

Getting up: shuffling into the bathroom with his shower essentials in a mesh bucket. He washes his hair, soaps his body, stands beneath the steaming hot spray until he's flushed with heat. Then he lathers and shaves, carefully, standing before the mirrors with straight razor in hand.

It's nearly 7pm when he's dressed to go out. In the parking lot, walking toward his car, he texts Danicka:

Dinner?

Danicka
Love to.

Three minutes later, another text: this one has an address of a restaurant near the University of Chicago campus. It's nothing terribly upscale. The dress is casual. The clientele, not surprisingly, includes a lot of faculty and staff members. Not many of the students. It's still a bit more expensive than Taco Bell, after all. Lukas is on his way when he gets a third text.

I got us a table. See you soon. :)

So when Lukas arrives, and finds her, Danicka is sitting in the two-person booth with her left shoulder to the wall, and maybe he even sees her through the window. Or maybe he comes from the other direction. She's aching for warmer weather, sick and tired of winter already. She wears khakis, wears brown leather Skechers with some tan stripes on each side, wears a narrow-sleeved v-necked angora sweater in broad horizontal stripes of red and gray. Her hair is down, a brown canvas messenger bag tucked under her seat.

"I think," she says when he arrives, her eyes still on the menu though he can hear some traces of amusement or pleasure in her tone, "I'm going to end up getting the grilled margarita chicken. And possibly an actual margarita, too. I hear they're pretty strong, here."

She looks up. Smiles at him. "Hi."

Lukas
Mutely, Lukas returns the smile when Danicka looks up. He thinks she looks gold and green, sunlight and plant life; he thinks she looks like spring.

Jaro.

Which is a long time coming, still. The weather outside is dismal: another ice storm moving in. His face prickles with the suddenness of warmth after the absoluteness of cold. He tugs his gloves off and tosses them to the end of the table, then removes his coat and folds it, tosses that to the end of the booth.

Then Lukas sits. Under his overcoat he wears a dove-grey zip-up, knit, fitted, ribbed. When he pulls the zipper down to mid-chest, she can see that beneath that is a thermal shirt with a crew neck.

"How did you know it was me?" he asks, pleased. There's no getting used to that voice, though she at least knows to expect it. Though he speaks quietly, their neighbors two tables away whip their heads around, startled and alarmed.

He pays them no mind. He sits back in the booth, his longer legs and relaxed posture bringing his feet into her side of the table. On the tabletop, his hand opens, palm-up: extends for hers.

"Pick something for me," he adds. "Something with beef."

Danicka
Maybe he's deaf, they think. Or a cancer patient. Or victim of some kind of horrific throat injury. Their neighbors look away quickly, afraid of seeming like assholes, afraid of pissing him off by staring. They focus intently on their menus and talk about plans for spring break.

Danicka watches him as he sits, her smile still small and soft and in place. She reaches over and takes his hand, squeezing it once and then quite adroitly folding both menus and setting them on the edge of the table: waiter, please.

"I knew," she says, dancing her fingertips in his open palm as though playing a melody, "because I'm magic.."

She doesn't say: because everyone in here tensed when you got to the door. Because I know Rage.

She does: "I know your footsteps," she adds gently, sliding her hand around to the back of his and bringing it -- so much larger than both of her hands -- to her mouth to kiss the spot she was dancing on a moment ago. Danicka folds his fingers over, as though indicating he should hold onto that kiss, and gives him his hand back. Their waiter arrives: she orders what she said she was going to, including the margarita, and orders a steakburger for Lukas, no cheese, yes applewood bacon, fries. She's never seen Lukas drink a beer; doesn't order one for him.

When the waiter departs, with Lukas's drink order if he speaks up, Danicka just says: "If you don't like bacon on your burgers, I will totally eat it for you."

Lukas
His fingers stretch a little wider open beneath her dancing fingers. She can hear him draw a slow breath, as though even this idle caress has lit a path directly to the pleasure centers of his brain. There's a gleam in his eyes as she kisses his palm: there, and then fading again, slipped politely back beneath the surface.

Their waiter is here, anyway.

When they dine out, Danicka tends to place the orders even though the wait staff almost always looks toward her companion first. It's cultural norm. It's expected. It's also something they hate to do, their smiles wavering at they look at him, their faces tense.

They like looking at Danicka a lot more. Her smile, her voice, her polished and effortless courtesy.

Lukas speaks up only to order a strawberry milkshake. Because milkshakes and burgers go hand in hand, see. The waiter starts visibly at the voice; recovers; manages a smile and leaves.

The moon is very nearly full still. Lukas is sorely sick of his voice, his punishment, his utter inability to interact usefully with humanity. When he turns back to Danicka, his expression is faintly strained, but it relaxes as she speaks.

"I love bacon," Lukas says, the corner of his mouth turning up, "I'll share anyway."

He watches her a moment longer, his faceted clear eyes moving fondly and rememberingly over her face. Lukas is not human, ever, but this time of month he's more animal than man. More instinct than thought. It's with a sense of awakening, of shaking himself out of some reverie, that he looks away, out the window, then back.

"I did not fail twice," he tells her then, with soft but unmistakable pride; confidence. "I succeeded with great glory and honor."

And -- with something other than pride and confidence, too; something a little akin to tribute, too, and to display: as though he'd laid a spectacular kill at her feet; as though he'd laid a priceless ornament, a prize in her lap.

A beat; then he adds, "Which is to say, I really kicked ass, baby."

Danicka
She catches that flicker of hyperacute awareness, of intense interest, of... want. Danicka meets his eyes for a moment, smiling softly, knowing. She's warm towards the waitstaff, but it's a pretense, and Lukas knows it. She's a relief to the waiter, someone he can focus on who doesn't both terrify him and jar his ears with every word. When he orders his milkshake, the waiter tenses, and Danicka just adds an amused echo of Lukas: "And a strawberry milkshake."

As though Lukas's voice is normal, and she's used to it, and the waiter has no right or reason to be put off by it, after all. He looks shaken, all the same, as he walks away, leaving the couple to their pre-dinner conversation. Danicka sips at her water, and seeing something in her mate's eyes or manner, she moves her legs under the table and rests one against the inside of his, establishing unaltering contact. Her let is warm through his slacks, her slacks. Slender, like he always remembers.

When he says he didn't fail, she looks at him for a moment with total confusion, at a loss as to what he's talking about. He kicked ass. She frowns, blank. It's a challenge for eldership of her mother's auspice. He mentioned it just before they parted, the last time they saw each other. Danicka starts to shake her head in confusion, and midway, breaks into a grin.

"I'm kidding." She moves up from her seat, leaning over the table. "C'mere," she says with rich, drenching warmth, reaching over to cup his face with her hands, kissing him if he'll meet her halfway over the table. Just before it breaks, she nuzzles him, smiling in a restrained way, as though she will not let herself shine as brightly, not here. Not for the rest of the strangers looking on. She blesses him with touch, kissing him again -- more softly, and this time on his cheek -- and whispering: "Well done."

Lukas
There was a time when Lukas was deeply frightened, even paranoid, of the idea of letting her in somehow. Of lowering his defenses, opening his gates, letting the enemy into the innermost chambers of his mind and heart. He had some notion that she would use it against him, that she would play him

exactly the way Rosanna played Theron.

Later, he put that thought aside. He learned to trust, and to be trusted. They built their bridges so slowly and carefully: she who was once uncertain of her ability to trust, or even to love; he who was once religiously self-protective.

It's only recently, though, that Lukas is coming to understand what a relief and what a comfort it can be to be seen so clearly. That he can look at her with interest, with want, and see that knowledge reflected at him. That he doesn't have to say a word when a human waiter looks at him like he's a freak for her to know shame is flickering through him like wildfire, frustration on its heels.

That he doesn't have to ask her to help him somehow, not because he needs it, but because she can. And he would let her.

His eyes drop briefly as her leg touches his. When they rise back to hers, he's found his equilibrium again. They don't say a word about it. But their legs touch under the table, and the press of his back against hers is silent gratitude.

He tells her what he does, then, and she feigns incomprehension. He starts to explain, promptingly, and then simply patiently, and then she grins and he stops and says "Oh you -- "

They meet across the table. His eyes close when they kiss, smiling: hers restrained, his soft. The second kiss, this one to his cheek, doesn't close his eyes, but the lids lower, the lashes sweep.

"Děkujeme vám," he says.

Then they draw apart. He sits back, glances kitchenward idly, does not see their drinks approaching.

"How's your coalition going?" he asks.

Danicka
She could have. Played him, that is. Played him and Sam like cards, to test them against each other, to amuse herself, to destroy a pack out of some misguided or entirely understandable loathing for the Garou. If anyone could have done it, she could have. The fact that she did not: that his packmates distrusted her and that they did not actually fall apart... well. That just goes to show that she wasn't ever trying, because that wasn't ever her goal.

There's something viciously protective in the way Danicka is willing to humiliate or embarrass a human being just for daring to be appalled by her mate's voice. There's something ferocious in that smile she gave the waiter, buried beneath layers of This Is Normal and Just Go With It. Lukas doesn't know -- probably doesn't need to know -- that she would kill to protect their den, that nothing could send her into a shrieking rage faster than trespass against

her home.

her mate.

Gaia only knows what she would be like as a mother. She knows only an Ahroun filling that capacity; that is her only yardstick for how to behave. One shudders to imagine Danicka on the PTA.

So: her treatment of the waiter is protective. Her leg under the table touching Lukas's is protective. Her teasing is gentle, and carefully done under the full moon and so soon after she noticed a volatile lash of shame and aggravation in her lover's composed manner. No one else would likely see it. But she knows him. And she sees him.

"I can't believe you actually bought that I'd forgotten," Danicka scoffs, resettling into her seat. "Imagine." She unfolds her napkin over her lap, then shrugs with a faint, noncommittal hum. "We're holding a meeting to vote on a chairperson this Saturday. We voted on team leaders, so at least that much is settled. Those who truly want to be involved I think will be. Those who want to sit on the sidelines and snark will hopefully realize rather quickly that they're just going to be shut down."

Lukas
"You can't blame me for your own award-winning performance," Lukas retorts, sprawls a little in his side of the booth, cants his shoulder to the wall and lifts his foot, encroaching on the seat beside Danicka. "That was all you."

He listens, then, attentively. If Danicka ever thought he was just asking to be polite, that notion's now dispelled. "The reason I asked," he says, "is because there's a Hive up north, about an hour out of town. Once we get the city reasonably secure and the packs organized, we'll be moving against it.

"It's enemy territory. No one's really scouted up that way for years. The Sept has no real idea what's going on up there. No-moons will be sent ahead, of course, but their contact with the mortal world will be minimal. And considering they've managed to hide a Hive up in a pretty nice part of town, they've got to have a good number of strings to pull in human society.

"It could really help if your coalition can help sniff some of those ties out. Maybe even help shut them down." A pause. "Are you going to be chairing?"

Danicka
Not once has Danicka brought up: they elected me to a leadership position. She doesn't think it means much, a three-month term voted upon by such a small number. She doesn't think to brag, to gloat, to tell him so he'll be proud of her. Maybe she discounts its importance. Who knows. She hasn't mentioned it.

She listens, as he did, and they pause midway as his shake and her margarita arrive. She puts her straw in the glass and sips while Lukas goes on a moment later, tension in her spine, vague discomfort in her features.

But he ends on a relatively simple question: "No. If nominated I'll accept and we'll see what the outcome is, but I won't be seeking leadership of the coalition at large." If there's a 'yet' there, it isn't voiced. "I have no one in mind for a chairperson, either. I want to see what the others come up with, where they're leaning."

Lukas
When their drinks arrive, he stirs his milkshake with the straw for a while before setting it aside to melt and soften a little before he drinks it. He's in time to catch the look on her face; in time to study it, discern its cause.

She answers him, and he only nods mutely. After a moment, impulsively, he sits forward, leans across the table, touches her face. Puts his hand to her face, warmly, lingeringly, a touch heavy with affection and adoration.

And comfort. Something of that, too.

He thinks of telling her he's very careful. That he's thorough, and wary, and that he plans almost to a fault. That he won't overestimate his own abilities. That he won't take unnecessary risks.

Lukas thinks of saying this ... and ultimately, he doesn't. He doesn't verbally reassure her any more than she did. Let the contact be enough: his hand to her face, his eyes on hers. A moment or two, and then he draws away, bringing his milkshake over to sip.

"Well," he continues as though their conversation had never hitched, "just let me know who I should be in touch with if I need to coordinate something. And if you want to pass any information on to the Sept, let me know."

Danicka
One of the things Danicka said she liked, from the start, was simply that he didn't bullshit her. He didn't promise that she was safe with him, that he would never hurt her, when they both know: one day he might. And even if he doesn't, he can't always be there, and she won't always be safe. Danicka, he knows, doesn't really believe that deeply in 'safe'.

Which makes it all the more meaningful when she does relax, and feel safe, with him. In bed with him, in his arms, falling asleep more easily not in spite of his presence but because of it.

She looks up at him as he reaches, eyes flicking to his face suddenly, and looks at him in silence as he holds his hand to her cheek. "I will," she says, as he pulls away and speaks again. She lifts her margarita. Their food will be here soon. "Ethan Yates, a Gnawer -- he's in charge of the training team, so he'll likely be assigned to getting Kinfolk equipped and prepared to protect themselves if necessary. Moira Murray, I believe she's Get, is the support team leader. Medics, safehouses, cleanup, things like that. As for sniffing out the Hive's ties and influences and shutting them down, that sounds like it's more up my team's alley.

"Everything should be routed through the chairperson first, of course."

Lukas
Danicka lays it out for him -- this organization she's building literally ex nihilo, crafting it from nothing more than ideas and ambition and a desire to do more than wait at home for him to come home or not. Lukas listens. Almost without exception, this has been the truth: they listen to each other. Carefully, respectfully. Even at the very beginning, sitting in his car when he drove her home through a sunwashed winter morning:

he listened to her. So very carefully. He tried to read what was between her words, beneath her voice. He tried to understand why: too many whys to name.

When she's finished, though, there's a look on his face -- raw appreciation seeded with a sudden, inexplicable tenderness. Lukas is quiet for a moment. Then:

"Jsi úžasná, lásko. Nikdy jsi mě zastavit úžasný."

They're interrupted: their food arriving, her chicken and his burger, heavy plates set clunkingly down on the tabletop. Lukas looks up and nods his thank-you, resuming only after the waiter has left.

"No one's ever done anything like this before. No one's ever tried, or even thought of it. And you're just ... pulling it together in a matter of weeks." He pushes his plate toward her, mutely offering his fries. "It just blows me away a little," he adds softly.

Danicka
The woman seated across the table from Wyrmbreaker has spent the better part of her childhood waiting for Garou to come home... or not. She waited on her mother. She waited on her brother. She waited even for Mr. Sokolov, staying up with the household staff to drink and smoke and play cards after the Mrs. and Yelizaveta had gone to sleep. She was never sure, with her mother or her brother, how she would feel if they didn't ever come back. She knew, when she worked as a governess, exactly what she would feel about her house's master never returning: very little, but for sympathy for Yelizaveta.

As they don't live together, Danicka does not wait every night. She does not know how often Lukas meets the Wyrm in battle, or how often he has to heal himself or seek healing from others. And the not knowing keeps her up more than the waiting would, if the mere thought that he might be out there raging back from death -- or slipping away into it -- comes to her mind just before sleep. Her eyes open, staring, and she tightens her hand on her pillow, fights for sleep and breath past the ache in her chest that threatens to crush her heart.

She does not want to sit at home, waiting. She does not want to lie in bed, not knowing. They aren't her only motivations. They're a part of it, though.

The sound of the language they share as a way to indicate home vs. world, private vs. public, is warped by his punishment. It is jarring, the soft slurs turned into jangles that grate on her nerves despite the meaning of the words themselves. Danicka is almost grateful when he moves back to English, but then: she is also somewhat grateful for what he said in Czech, harsh as it was to listen to.

A faint smile, after the waiter leaves. "Well," she says quietly when he's done, "maybe more than weeks. I'm hoping to move things along faster once leadership is in place, but... I'm still not sure who needs a carrot and who needs a stick, and how to apply either." She makes a brief weighing motion with her hands, then lowers them and reaches over to his plate, looking vaguely disconcerted. Her voice quiets. "I really am not sure what I'm doing, or whether it will amount to much in the end if nobody gets on board."

A pause, as she takes a french fry. There isn't much on her plate he'd want: chicken, rice, steamed vegetables. So she offers him nothing.

"If it doesn't work out as a group effort, though? I've thought it might be good to simply work with the handful of Kin who are proactive enough and cooperative enough to get something done. Even if that's just me and two or three others, we can still help each other out."

Another pause, as she eats her fry, then a soft laugh, looking down. "I don't really know how to deal with it when you say things like that to me," she confesses, very quietly, through a somewhat nervous smile.

Lukas
"Even if it doesn't work out the way you hoped," Lukas replies, "it'll likely still be much more than what we had before. So," a shrug, "there's really no way to 'fail' at this."

They're quiet for a moment. He gathers up his burger. She eats fries off his plate. He's never said it, but he likes it when she does this: shares his food, shares his space, shares what is his without so much as a word needing to pass between them. He likes that he knows that if he hadn't offered, she would've reached for his fries anyway.

Then his eyes flick up when she speaks again. A faint laugh escapes him, a little self-conscious.

"It's really weird," he confesses, "for me to talk to you about 'business'. I don't mind. I'm glad, and proud, that my mate is taking an active role in the war. But it's strange."

He thinks for a moment.

"When we're together, I don't feel like we're in the Garou Nation. I don't mean I feel like we're just humans. We are what we are. And that's important, that I never feel like we have to hide what we are when we're together. But ... it's different. The Garou Nation, and all the complexity and politics that entity seems to represent, feels less present. Less important."

Danicka
And he doesn't say -- often, at least -- that he likes that she goes to their den without him, inhabiting the space, filling it with her scent and changing it with her presence and the little alterations she makes. Doesn't say that he likes that she eats off his plate, now, when once she would never have dared put her fingers anywhere near his food. Too wary, too conscious of what he is and how territorial it makes him.

If one had to pin the change on a certain time, it would be when they were mated, but in truth it was probably more gradual than that. She had to trust him. He had to welcome her. And now it goes without saying that she should take food from him, that he should nudge it towards her. The truth is that even now, Danicka wouldn't actually have reached over for his french fries had he not pushed his plate in her direction. She doesn't eat them because she needs to. She doesn't even eat them because she's particularly craving fries right now.

She eats them because he is there with her, laying pride and food as well at her feet, and eating off his plate is just as great a comfort and closeness as their legs touching under the table, as her crawling physically into his lap to be near him.

No way to fail, he says, and she disagrees but doesn't bring it up.

Glad and proud that she's taking an active role in the war, he says, and Danicka hesitates with her hand on her fork, then starts to cut into the chicken breast on her plate.

He speaks of the Nation, and she looks over at him, thoughtful. Then back at her plate, cutting her meat into bite-sized chunks. "I know what you mean," she says, mild and quiet, "but where did that come from?"

A flick of her eyes up at his face, a quirk to one corner of her mouth. "Worn out from the moot?"

Lukas
Lukas lets out a quiet laugh. Midbite, he finishes chewing and swallows before he answers, "Mostly, just that it was strange talking business with you. I don't want us both to bring work home all the time. So to speak, anyway." He thinks for a moment. "I don't think we will.

"But to be perfectly honest: yeah." His smile is a little self-deprecating. "I'm a little worn out from the moot. And there's been a lot of crap flying lately. I don't mean this," he makes a vague gesture at his throat. "That's deserved and frankly not nearly as bad as it could have been. I mean -- "

He hesitates suddenly, looks across the table at her. "Do you want to hear it? It's a pretty long and boring litany of woes."

Danicka
Danicka cuts her meat, she takes small bites, and she half-smiles when he says that he doesn't think they'll bring 'work' home. There's a definite tension in Danicka throughout this conversation, growing more prevalent. It only seems an echo of what Lukas himself is saying: this is strange. And maybe a little uncomfortable.

Besides: he mentioned the Hive. And nothing now will make her forget that he's leading this, and leading them to the enemy rather than waiting for the enemy to keep coming at them. The coalition, an experiment so far, may actually be called on to do something. So there is the Nation and the war, right between them, laid out on the table just as openly as their dinner is, intruding on what they have where -- as he said -- the reality of the Nation and all the politics and the bullshit retreats. But it's before her now. And Danicka is the one withdrawing, recoiling from its invasion.

She watches him, though, going on with her dinner. Their dinner. She makes a small face, a brief pull of her features in concern, the slightest frown across her brow. "Tell me," she says, with the same tone as she might say: Go on.

Lukas
Lukas, burger in hand, takes another bite. Chewing, he studies his mate's face for a moment. The tension; the concern. His eyes move between hers, flick up to her brow, down to her mouth.

Then he swallows, sets his burger down, picks up his napkin and wipes his fingers. It's a small, idle, absent gesture.

"The pack has grown influential," he says. "In particular, Katherine and I. She's the elder of her auspice and the elder of her tribe. As the ranking Philodox in the Sept, nearly every judgment or mediation too minor to bring before the Grand Elder goes before her. Meanwhile I'm the elder of our tribe and the alpha of the pack. And now, the elder of my auspice as well.

"That sort of sway always draws challenges." He says this matter of factly; neither upset by this fact nor pleased by it. "This last moot, Katherine had to fend Ingvar off after he spoke up for Half Moon Elder. He hasn't even been in the city two months. Then I had to convince a Cliath Fenrir Modi to follow me even after he'd already submitted to me in the challenge -- because he needed his ass thoroughly kicked before he'd acknowledge who was the greater wolf. Right after he left, a Fang Ahroun came seeking ... I don't know, comfort, I suppose, and reassurance that what I did to Fons was not some sort of sign of things to come."

There's a baseline irritation that grows as Lukas speaks. Or at least, frustration. He recounts these events brusquely, his fingers toying with his fries. Then he pops on in his mouth, chews, goes on.

"The truth is, all this I'd -- if not expect, then at least understand. Shadow Lords are ambitious. Silver Fangs flock together. And Fenrir don't do anything until they're beaten into it. It's when the immaturity and envy and undermining seems to come from my own pack that it gets to be a bit much.

"Edward, for one. Since he returned he may as well not be there. Doesn't listen to anyone. Disobeys orders. Walks away moaning and griping when you try to talk sense into him. Does absolutely nothing of use. Then all of a sudden in the middle of the moot the dumbass stands up and challenges his own sister for eldership of the Fangs.

"And right after that Theron challenges for Theurge elder and fails. That in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad, except I don't think he has the least idea why he failed, nor how to win. Later on Zeke -- you remember him, the Ragabash that's always nosing his way up -- gets his panties in a bunch and challenges the Master of the Challenge. Totally ridiculous challenge. But as part of the terms, all the challengers of the night get to have their say. Theron: he uses his to complain that he didn't know how to win. Because obviously," Lukas snaps a fry up, "following directions is the very essence of leadership.

"And that's not even the half of it. Since he came to town in November, Theron's had no less than four loves of his life. My sister, Genevre, Lonna, and now Rosanna. Every single time it's the one. Every single time he moves on a week later. A few weeks ago he challenges for Rosanna -- after Ingvar already spoke for her. I bring them all in and ... Danička, it was clear to me inside of a minute that Rosanna was playing them against one another, and that she had absolutely no interest or respect for Theron. He let himself get played like a Stradivarius, and he refused to see this and step down graciously. Our Totem demands victory. He was willing to risk the whole pack's unity in order to chase a woman who didn't even want him. I ordered him to step back, and he went into a snit for days on end, complaining by turns that the pack wasn't cohesive enough, or that he wanted a mate too since I had one. Finally he worked up the nerve to challenge for Alphaship, then promptly backed down, which makes three futile challenges within a week.

"I don't know how much longer I can put up with them. Edward and Theron. One's reckless deadweight and the other's turning into Sam."

Lukas is finished. He's spoken longer than he intended, and more bitterly than he'd even rightly realized he felt. When he's done, he toys with the fries on his plate, frowns at his food. Looks out the window. Looks back at Danicka.

"Sorry," he says. "That was a lot all at once."

Danicka
Most of his problems, it sounds like, come back to the two things he is Alpha of: his pack, his tribe. It's Edward and Theron. It's Zeke and Rosanna. It's the stress and struggle that comes with being a leader of anything: people vying for your seat, people refusing to listen, people doing what they want without concern for the consequences. Submission that isn't. Support that isn't, really.

Truth be told, at times: Danicka's mind wanders. She can't help it; no one could. Lukas speaks at length, and so much of what he's telling her reminds her of her childhood. Not because her mother would come home and tell her father of sept business over dinner. Not because her brother would unload his trials and tribulations to her waiting ears. But because she would perch on the steps and listen as her mother spke to Vladislav about it all, in sparse tones, conveying little. And: because at the Sokolovs, she overheard a great deal as well. Gossip is a servant's bread and butter as well as nickel and dime. Danicka, when you get right down to it, was a servant.

This is different. This isn't overhearing or eavesdropping. Lukas is just telling her. Perhaps she doesn't recognize all the names and perhaps she doesn't care about all the issues, but she can sense Lukas's growing aggravation as he recounts what's been going on lately, the vast majority of which she hasn't been aware of. They try to tell each other things now, more than they did. But sometimes it's just...

a lot going on. At least for him. Danicka's life is, even with the coalition, far more sedate.

She has reactions as she listens -- which she does, far more attentively than most would, and with genuine, active interest. If she's impressed by the fact that he and Katherine are so influential, it doesn't show. She rolls her eyes slightly at the Cliath Fenrir -- she has no idea what a Modi is, but she knows what a Fenrir is, that's for damn sure -- who needed his ass kicked. She looks amused when he says Fangs flock together. She knows, apparently, their totem is a bird.

Edward. That furrows her brow. She remembers his adolescence only barely: in order, she saw Gabriella, then Kate, then Edward in terms of frequency. Gabbie played with Lizzie. Kate escorted Gabbie. Edward as he was in New York City is vague in her mind. Edward as he was when she came to Chicago is repellant, holding and nuzzling his sister with almost obscene affection. There's no judgement in her expression as he talks about his former Alpha. Just that slight crease in her forehead for a moment as he mentions it.

Theron. A faint curl to one corner of her mouth, faintly amused but not quite fond nor malicious, but that... fades. Perhaps because Lukas's irritation spikes then, and Danicka remembers the first time they fucked wasn't so long after she saw him at a pizza place, which wasn't so long after a moot where his packmates embarrassed themselves or made mistakes. And because of that lingering frustration, and because of the moon's phase, and because he wanted her so fucking badly, he had to throw her away from himself to keep from tearing her apart.

Or maybe the soft smirk just fades because she can see where Theron would fail, in all those ways, at all those things. Why he would do what Lukas claims, for the reasons Lukas intimates. If he stopped after discussing Theron's revolving door of would-be mates, she might ask

How is Genevre? I never heard back from her about joining the Coalition.

And he would tell her: Genevre committed suicide. Genevre's dead.

But he keeps going, and so Danicka just rolls her eyes, muttering a Good god, as Lukas goes on, jaw tensing when he mentions Rosanna doing what... well. What Lukas always thought Danicka was doing with him and Sam. The similarity is there: she had no interest in or respect for Sam. The difference is: she didn't want to play the two Ahrouns against one another. She just wanted Lukas, and the only reason she went out with and slept with Sam was because she didn't know it yet. Or couldn't face it. Or something.

Looks flat-out bewildered when he says Theron wants a mate just because Lukas has one.

Frowns like a storm descending when he says Theron challenged for Alphaship.

She seems unsurprised, after all this, that he says Theron is becoming another Sam. It does make her face twitch slightly, as though she wants to grimace but will not let her expression go that far. She's halfway through her dinner now, though she eats slowly and takes small bites, sips at her margarita as she goes. Which she does again now, finishing it off and sliding it to the edge of the table to be picked up. She puts her fork down as Lukas frowns at his burger and fries, toys with the latter, glances at the window, apologizes.

"Don't," she says gently, and smiles. Warmly. "It's only a lot all at once because... it's been a lot, all at once." She reaches over and puts her hand on his for a moment, rubbing her thumb over the back of it, then returns her hands to her own space and picks up a scoop of rice. Just before inserting it into her mouth, she looks across at him and asks: "Is there anything I can do?"

Tonight, she means. Not about Theron or Edward or anyone else: Danicka, he likely knows by now, would never suggest she has any influence over any Garou. Not even Lukas. Perhaps especially him.

Lukas
Beneath her hand, Lukas's feels large and strong, broad-boned, hard. She knows her mate dresses with care, that he does this not out of vanity but because it's part of his rigid self-discipline, part of the image he projects: power and courtesy. Strength and etiquette. That hand beneath hers speaks very little of courtesy or etiquette, though, and much of strength, power, might, raw and brutal force. It's not a nobleman's fine, delicate hand.

She knows, too, from what she's seen and what's he's told her, that Lukas is nearly as adept as she is at adapting to the situation. At wearing the right mask. Before a mixed Sept of young Garou, he'll speak at length on his ideals and vision. Before a gathering of his tribesmen, he keeps as tight a grip on his authority and dominance as any Shadow Lord might be expected to.

She knows he doesn't shy from the pen or the sword. She knows he'll speak to a Garou who'll listen -- and that he'll beat them just as easily if they won't. The promise of violence in that hand beneath hers is not an idle one.

Still. She touches him. She runs her thumb over his knuckles. His hand turns over under hers, and his fingers open; he holds her hand in his palm for a second.

When they draw apart Danicka smiles. Lukas aches: because she smiles, because her smile is warm, because she's not the mountain but the meadow, not the winter but the spring.

He aches because he thinks: I don't know what I did to deserve this, when really there's nothing to deserve. She's not a gift, nor a prize. Before he chose her, she chose him. He knows that. That makes him ache, too: that of all others, she chose him.

And -- that he knew her when he was small. And again when he was grown. But not at all in between, not at all in those years that were hard for her. He could not protect her against that, but she protects him now ... all the time.

"It's enough that I can talk to you," he says quietly. "It's enough that I don't have to always win to keep you. Or always be infallibly strong to keep your respect and love.

"What I mean is, I can trust you completely. And that's a rare thing."

He picks his burger up again, cooling now.

"I'd like it if you came home with me, though."

Danicka
By now, Danicka knows a great deal about Lukas that even those who think they're privy to his weaknesses and his foibles do not know. She knows once upon a time, before he ever met her, he lived a life of privilege. Most of what he remembers is that their cook used to candy the oranges from the orchard and make them into kolace for him and his sister. She knows when he first realized what his being Garou really meant for his family...and perhaps for him. She knows how he likes his eggs and coffee. She didn't know til just now that he loves bacon, but now she knows that, too.

She, more than perhaps anyone, understands the importance of projecting a certain image regardless of reality. She knows the power it can have, and how vital it can be to one's survival to conceal -- or restrain, or discipline, or simply control -- certain things about oneself. Danicka is the one who never questions why he dresses how he does, why he drives the car he has, why he behaves the way he must. Danicka is the one with whom he can say Maybe I meant to kill him and she will simply touch his face and say,

Maybe.

Without sentimentality, without needless and saccharine reassurances. Without judgement or horror. She knows what he is, and some of why, and has intuited how badly he does not want to become a force like Night Warder was in his life. They both know he might, nonetheless, if the war demands it. But yes: still. She touches him as though he's a tender thing, when he's anything but. She touches him and smiles when he holds her hand, and with him, the tenderness in her eyes isn't feigned.

Lukas aches, his senses saturated in her breeding and her presence. He aches, thinking of what it really is that is between them, and how it came to be. Aches, because she takes care of him and he cannot go back and take care of her during all those times when he could have, when she might have needed it.

Nevermind the box full of talens she has, more even than he keeps on his person or in his room at the Brotherhood, every last one made to keep her safe when he's not there. Nevermind the night he tore a leech in half because it snapped its teeth at her, nevermind the times he's been the point of sanity for her when a Garou has shifted to warform in front of her and sent her into a reeling near-panic, unable to do anything but cower -- or run. Nevermind that if he had not believed in her and pushed her when he was kidnapped, she might have sat in that cell and just waited for them to come, nevermind that she overcame her fears and kept herself going that entire time because Lukas was trusting her, Lukas was relying on her.

And he underestimates, deeply, how much he saves her now when he tells her

I can talk to you

and

I can trust you.

Danicka looks at him, with a sort of reserved, resisted intensity in her eyes -- which, in this light, seem more gold-flecked than usual -- as he's speaking. She looks like she can't blink, or doesn't want to. She takes a breath when he's done, not realizing she'd been holding it, and blinks a few times against the moisture in her eyes. "Of course," she says softly, and sincerely: he didn't even need to ask, and if he hadn't, she would have.

They eat. She drinks. After awhile, noting that they're nearly finished, she signals to the waiter for the check. And meets Lukas's eyes. "Last night was the thirteenth full moon since the night you finally let me have you."

Not: the first time we had sex. Not: the night we mated. Not: the night when you challenged Vladislav. Not even: when we argued at the Brotherhood and I gave you a month. Just that: when he (finally) let Danicka have him, when she'd wanted him so badly, and beyond what she even understood.

She goes on, resting her forearms on the edge of the table: "I know I may have said this before... or maybe I've just thought it a hundred times... but I've never had anyone like you in my life before, or anything like this. I didn't think I was capable. I never thought I would fall in love, and I definitely didn't think with a Garou, and absolutely not with a Full Moon of our tribe."

Which might sting, to hear, or maybe not. It isn't hard to imagine Danicka ending up with a prejudice against Shadow Lord Ahrouns. It can't be that shocking.

There is still emotion thick in her voice as she continues, though it hasn't brought her near tears yet. "I've done so many things in my life just... because I felt like. Because I didn't care what happened, because none of it mattered, because I wanted what little freedoms and sins I could have before Vladislav gave me to someone. But now --"

There it is. Danicka looks like she's struggling, which makes the waiter's timing even better. He steps close and sets down the ticket, and Danicka turns her head, sniffs moisture out of her sinus cavities, and busies herself putting her card down on the slip before she turns back to Lukas, more composed. She even laughs a little, at the interruption or at her own emotion, or... maybe just from the surreal, delightful absurdity of what she's saying.

"I didn't see you coming," she says quietly. "And I didn't think I was going to love you, and I didn't think I could love anything as much as I love you. And now I... I care so much more," so much for her composure, "about... everything." There are tears in her eyes, thick and unshed, as she murmurs this. A half-shake of her head, a half-shrug, because she knows how what she's about to say sounds: "I feel like my life matters now. And it's not because I needed someone to come along and love me, it's just... I look at the world differently than I used to. I feel different when I wake up. And I really hope you understand what I mean because I can't describe it any better than that."

At least one fat drop rolls out of both eyes. The waiter rather subtly, quietly takes her card back to the register, and Danicka ignores him. She smiles at Lukas. "I just wanted you to know that... you mean the world to me. You've completely changed my life. And I'm really, really happy about it."

She sniffs again. And laughs.

Lukas
On some level, this is overwhelming. What she's telling him. The emotion in her voice and her eyes, finally spilling over into tears. It makes him ache; it twists in his chest and flays open his ribs, lays bare the raw muscle of his heart. It makes him lean over the table, almost hunching, as though in instinctive self protection

but what he actually does is reach across the table and take her face between his hands; his killing hands, so gentle on her skin.

And he sweeps his thumbs over her cheeks, the wetness of her tears cool on his hand. They're too far apart for him to easily rest his brow against hers, so he simply holds her like this for a moment, saying nothing, finding her eyes and holding them.

Even when she laughs, his brow furrows faintly, as though in ache. The corner of his mouth turns up

and the goddamn waiter is coming close again, and even a fucking human should know not to interrupt something like this; even a human would find it irritating. Lukas's head whips around; it's an effort of will not to bare his teeth, not to bark mine, mine, my, mine at the man. He settles for pinning the waiter with a stare as quick and ferocious as a lightning strike, sends him reeling back, turns back to Danicka.

Focuses. Firms his hands on her cheeks just so slightly, and tells her:

"I could never have seen you coming, either. I could have never planned for something like this. Never. But you've changed everything. And I can barely even remember how it was, before. I can't imagine ever going back to it. I can't imagine a life where every part isn't somehow touched and lit up by you."

His hands leave her face, find hers on the tabletop. He brings them to his mouth and kisses her knuckles, hard enough that his eyes blaze at her over their linked hands; hard enough that they close a moment later.

Then he's getting up, taking his coat and keys in one hand, holding her hand in the other. "Pojďme domů," he says. They'll pick up her card when they pass the podium.

Danicka
If he were to say that: this is overwhelming, Danicka would point to her teary eyes, laugh, and then rub them dry with the heels of her manicured hands, wiping them the way a child might. It is overwhelming. It's nigh unto more than either of them can bear, sometimes, which is why -- perhaps -- they strugggled so hard against it from the start, tried so hard not to love each other. Because now, this is as good as admitting:

if I lose you, it will break me.

Danicka just smiles, though, when he puts his hands on her face and holds her like that, dries her tears and watches her, stares at her like that. He cups his face in her hands like it's something precious, narrowing all his focus to the space between their eyes. And once upon a time, she would have cowed. Taken her eyes away, looked elsewhere, unable to stand the intensity of his gaze and his rage and everything he is, everything he might be able to see in her.

The difference now is not just that she, as a person, is stronger. The difference is that now, she wants him to see her. She wants him to know her. It isn't the same as wanting to be known. Fame holds no attraction to Danicka, who would be one of the finest actresses in Hollywood and yet would balk at the intrusion. Being looked at is one thing. Being stared at, probed, chased, followed, pursued... it unnerves her. She doesn't want to be known, but she does want Lukas to know her.

And when he looks at her, it's something completely new to her.

She reaches up and puts her hands on his hands, hangs her fingers on his wrists, and turns her face to kiss his palm as he's speaking. Her eyes close and her lashes brush the heel of his hand, the swell of muscle beneath his thumb. If he'd said all this a few months ago, she wouldn't have bought it. Not to doubt his love, but to doubt that she has that much effect: that he really does mean everything.

But they just finished discussing the Nation, sept business, what the Coalition could do for the Garou as they enter a state of war against the Hive and as they prepare their own defenses. That isn't all he means, though, and Danicka knows it: she guesses, though she doesn't know, that how he is with his pack is different, even if slightly, because of what has happened to him with her. She will think in a flash later that she should try again with Kate, have coffee or something, bring some added measure of peace to her life and his own in the effort

which will be necessary, more and more, as the war goes on. Some measure of peace. Some degree of calm. Stable, strong bonds, the essence of one of the laws of her life:

what's at home, counts.

Danicka laughs softly, almost soundlessly, as he kisses her knuckles. It would be chivalrous from another man. It's animal, from Lukas, the human-formed version of licking her fingers, sniffing her palm, nuzzling her as she strokes the curve of his skull. It's kissing her there, because he can't pull her up close in his arms, press her to his chest, and kiss her mouth as deeply as his emotion actually runs.

She feels cold when he lets go of her cheek, and she breathes in when he takes one of his hands away. She doesn't say anything, but twists around to grab her coat and her bag, squeezing his hand and stepping closer to his side as they all but rush out of the restaurant, so eager to be home that the abruptness of their departure will only seem strange to the waitstaff, the other diners. And they, frankly, could care less about the waitstaff and the diners.

Even if they are both, to some degree, invested in a war trying to save the planet those assholes all live on.

She takes her card, and she quickly scrawls out a rather robust tip, as though spreading some kind of celebration. Or apologizing, because her mate is beyond terrifying. Or, simply: he did a pretty good job. Kept their waters refilled, didn't hover, the food was hot and the margarita was strong and didn't slosh when he set it down. Didn't openly gape at Lukas.

But no: probably, it's just that she's happy, and it makes her generous.

She leaves with Lukas, taking her hand from his only to shrug into her coat and then returning it, stepping out into the frigid late February air with him. She breathes in, her breath steaming when she exhales, and her cheeks gradually turn pink. She turns to look up at him. "I don't really want to take separate cars," she says, a far cry from the night as they left the Shedd when she told him she usually prefers to drive herself.

Danicka never explained why: so I can get away. So I have control over my own comings and goings. So I don't have to take a smelly cab or a noisy train or a jostling bus. So I can drive my pretty, pretty car when I never had one til I was in my mid-twenties. So I can have some time away from you to bolster myself before I make love to you. So I can listen to whatever music I like. So I can feel like I'm safe.

So maybe Lukas doesn't realize what it means, that she doesn't want to take separate cars. "Mine or yours?" she asks, lacing her fingers between his.

Lukas
This is not the first time they've rushed from a restaurant together. Sometimes they leave laughing; once they left smashed; once they left tense because he was going to war, and sometimes --

they leave like this. Hands linked. Intense. Suddenly too full of feeling to stay any longer; overwhelmed, turned primal by emotion.

Lukas barely waits long enough for her to retrieve her card. When Danicka stops to sign for the tip, he's still moving ahead. Their linked hands pull taut. He turns swift and sure, comes back to her, as firm a grasp on his body and its motions as ever. Beside her, her mate stands silent and warm, hot, full of rage and fire, protective even now with absolutely nothing around to threaten her: breathing quietly and evenly as she writes out a generous amount and then puts her signature beneath it.

Then she's moving. He's following this time, though his longer strides quickly catch him up. He reaches out to push the door open. Two sets of portals and then the stinging cold outside, in which she says she doesn't want to take separate cars, and

he does know why she did, before. Or at least, he could intuit some of it. She didn't want to be beholden to him. She didn't want to be trapped, forced to wait downstairs for a taxi if something went wrong. She wanted that possibility of escape, even if it really was an illusion, even if she came so painfully close to death that very first night.

Sometimes it hurts Lukas to think of what they did to each other, early on. The things they said, the way they pretended not to care, the way they held each other at bay with vicious words, vicious glances, coldness, pretense. So: he couldn't really blame her for not wanting to share a ride. But it stung the first time she refused, which was the very first night: as though even though she would trust him to fuck her, to fuck her and not to kill her, she wouldn't trust him enough to let him drive her home. It stung because she wouldn't let Sam drive her home, either, and Lukas hated to think he was just another in a long line.

He learned quickly after that. Stopped offering rides. Expected her to drive herself. The first time he can remember her sharing his car, they had just left the Shedd; she told him to stop by her car and he was surprised when she came back.

He's not really surprised this time. But he's happy, suddenly, and intensity melts suddenly, or perhaps bursts into flames: he stops on the sidewalk and turns and leans into her and kisses her, his free hand coming up to cup her cheek.

"Yours," he says. They draw apart and his hand falls back to his side, and when he grins like that, sudden, wide, his dimples flash. It's possible the rest of this city doesn't even know he has them. "Wake me up and drop me off in the morning before school, okay?"

Danicka
The weight of Lukas's presence is -- and has always been -- a bit difficult to bear. It is also -- and has been for a very long time now -- almost intolerable to do without. There was the time when she was so exhausted, so traumatized, that she could not stand his rage, and she could also not stand to have him out of her sight. He made her feel safe. He made her feel terrified. He was like a wild animal at the door: she didn't want to let him in, but she was simultaneously glad he was there, keeping everything else out.

And Lukas, loving her, endured what had to have been a painful night of watching her go rigid if he got too close, whimper if he got too far, until sleep overtook her and he could lie on the floor nearby, making sure he was there in case she woke, making sure she was safe in the only den he had at the time.

Danicka can't fathom sometimes what he's forgiven, what he's adjusted to, what he's changed himself for. She knows, but... it's so much, in her mind. It's more than anyone else has done to try and be with her. She thinks of her family and she thinks of everything she carries with her and how patient he is, and she holds his hand more tightly as they leave the restaurant.

The first time he offered to drive her anywhere, she said yes. And she'd fucked another male that night, and she didn't have her car so she needed either a ride or a cab anyway, and the night she first had sex with Lukas she just didn't want to leave her car in Cabrini-Green outside of Mr. C's so that was at least part practicality but...

strangely, one of her happiest memories is that very first drive, brief as it was, when Lukas grilled her on the way from the Brotherhood to Kingsbury Plaza, when she was wearing last night's green silk dress and thinking not of the sex she'd just had but drenching herself in the sometimes frightening, always powerful, infinitely comforting presence of

a fucking Shadow Lord Ahroun, of all things.

Danicka begins to smile at what he says, her lips twitching at the edges, and then she exhales -- suddenly, heavily, all in a rush. "Chci tě."

She breathes in again, taking his hand before he withdraws it and pulling it back towards her, not sure where she wants him to touch her, just knowing he must.

"Chci šukat ty hned jak se vrátíme domů."

Lukas
One of his most poignant memories is not that car ride, not the tense, jealous, self-conflicted duration of it, but the very end of it. After he had asked her over and over, in not so many words, if Sam had forced her --

because even then, he believed that possible of his brother

-- and if she thought she could love Sam. Or stay with Sam. Or somehow always be there, always be in Lukas's sight and in his presence drenching him with hers but never ever really his. And whether or not she'd actually wanted him, his boyish, silly brother,

to which she answered, yes. If I didn't, I would have called for you.

Which was like a knife in the gut and a slow bloom of warmth in one.
Which immediately preceded that memory, poignant as a bygone summer:

Dobré ráno, Lukáš, at her door, as though she were not saying goodbye but hello.

--

And one of his happiest: months later, when she said I don't really hate cabs. I just said that because...

--

He doesn't drop his hand away after all. Or: he begins, but she catches it, draws it back to herself, and this time his hand opens under her coat and over her side, curving high across her waist, along her ribs, just under her breast. She's smiling, he's grinning, she exhales like that and says that like that and he moves into her; her feet bracketed by his. His body is firm against hers; the trailing edges of his coat falling around her shins.

He kisses her again, slower this time, her hand in his and her body against his hand, against his body. It's an effort not to move his hand up a few inches and cup her breast right there in the street, feel the slam of her heartbeat against his hand right there in front of the university-side diner.

"Oh, my god, what do you do to me," he murmurs against her mouth. Seals it with another kiss, briefer than the last, but a little harder.

Then he really is pulling away. Pulling her by hand, looking for her car on the street.

Danicka
That was the vicious truth of it, in the end: if Sam had forced her, if she had said stop or no or wait and he hadn't listened, Danicka would have screamed Lukáš! Pomoz mi! instead, voice shattered with pleading, with terror,

and it's very likely he might have torn Sam apart. But she doesn't know, and though she considered it that night -- what she would do if the Modi she was going to bed with was violent, whether she thought Lukas would help her or not, what he might do if his packmate was assaulting his kinswoman -- she hasn't thought of it since that car ride. When she confirmed what had been a fleeting thought the night before:

I want him. Oh, I want him.

and realized as well:

He wants me. And he doesn't even know it yet.

And then all thoughts of Sam sort of floated out of her mind, stayed out of her mind as she went home, showered the Fenrir's scent off her skin, set her dress aside to be drycleaned, thinking of whether to sell it or simply give it away, and took herself to her bed, which she did not want to share with anyone until the first night she let Lukas into it.

Granted: what happened after that was devastating. Sam wouldn't let go and Lukas wouldn't help her. Lukas pissed her off, what she felt for him scared her, and she fucked Martin instead. He threatened her; she lied to him. She broke his heart when she told him she was falling in love with him; he broke hers when they said

Miluji tě.

for the first time just before he walked out the door and left her.

So no wonder, now, that she flows up against his body and -- her hand still on his wrist -- moves his hand to cup the breast his touch is lingering underneath. The margaritas are strong, but she only had one, and he's seen Danicka slam four shots of vodka down her throat and walk out without staggering. She is nowhere near drunk, not even tipsy, just... relaxed. And yet her heart is indeed slamming, and her breast is soft and warm beneath her sweater.

Danicka kisses him slowly, softer than he gives it, her lips lingering on his lower one, her tongue tasting of lime and of tequila and salt. His hand is mostly hidden by her coat, their behavior mostly hidden by the darkness, but this street is hardly abandoned. People pass them on their way down the sidewalk and on their way into the restaurant and can guess easily enough: that guy is fondling his girlfriend's breast right out in the middle of the city and she's encouraging him.

They assume the two of them are both drunk, and he looks and feels dangerous, so they don't stare and they keep walking.

She makes a small sound, not quite a gasp, when she pulls away this time. Danicka licks her lips as she looks up at him, her arm tensing thoughtlessly -- she never has much liked being tugged along, even when happy -- and pulls once on his hand. "This way," she says, nodding her head in the direction they need to go.

--

At her car, newly washed and still looking and smelling new -- she doesn't drive it that much, really -- Danicka immediately circles to the driver's side, margarita be damned. She unlocks it even as they're walking with the press of a button, doesn't open his door for him, which should be obvious. Her bag gets tossed gently behind her seat as she slides into it, starting the car before she buckles herself in. They're still moving quickly, still eager to get going, get home, get their goddamn clothes off.

"I was thinking," she says as the doors both shut and she clicks her seatbelt into place, "that it's probably for the best that I'm driving. Because," she goes on, checking her mirrors before staring to pull out of her place by the curb, twisting around to check her blind spot, "if we'd taken your car, I think I would've tried to suck your cock while you drove. And then --"

not: we might have crashed!

"-- you wouldn't have been able to enjoy it as much."

Lukas
Lukas doesn't moan into her mouth when she guides his hand to her breast. He probably wouldn't anyway -- street, public, etcetera -- but he definitely doesn't now, with his voice still so shattered.

He does, however, exhale abruptly. His hand is gentle, but there's nothing shy about it. His palm covers her breast; his fingers cradle her.

And they kiss. Slowly, and softly, but utterly and entrancedly, to the exclusion of all else. People walking by know what they're up to. They don't stare or mutter in distaste because they're afraid of him, and even a little of her: because sometimes Danicka is as wild as Lukas is; because sometimes there's no question at all that underneath all the lies she wears for the sheer sake of survival, she's as much an alpha as he is.

And: they don't stop, either, because they don't notice anything else.

--

In her car, then. He's buckling in, his coat still on, his body filling up so much of the space on the passenger's side of the car. Hard to remember how large he is, and how strong, when they're out in open air. When he's wearing his fine clothes and disguising his warforged body. When they aren't naked together, in bed, him covering her or her riding him or him wrapped around her while they sleep.

He tips his head back suddenly when she speaks. He whispers something: it might be ohmyfuckinggod.

And then he turns to look at her.

"Do you want me to get you off while you drive?" He's serious. We might crash! be damned.

Danicka
It makes her laugh, softly, when he says that. She's in the process of pulling out so she can get onto the street and take him home and then:

she sort of proves why she's in charge of a team focused on information gathering and disseminating. She proves why more and more she's finding herself drawn to the sciences, her brief interest in law and psychology shredded by the realization she would have to listen to people bitching nonstop about their lives and problems in both tracks. She considers for a moment, beginning to drive, and exhales.

"No," Danicka breathes. "It's nearly half an hour home as it is, and if I'm trying not to speed and trying not to crash and you're making me come on your hand I'm going to end up shifting wrong and completely fucking over my transmission, and that's if we don't plow into a tree."

Lukas
And that makes Lukas laugh -- a quiet huff of humor.

He's looking forward to being to laugh normally again. To not have to breathe his laughter to keep it from sounding like a goddamn hyena. To not have to whisper to his mate so he doesn't sound like a mutant. He's looking forward to having his voice back, the strength and beauty of it, the raw physical charisma of sound.

But -- he listens, regardless. His hands stay where there are, one on his lap, the other resting lazily on the center console. He leans his seat back a little, scoots it back to the farthest setting to accommodate his long legs, and settles in for the drive.

He talks idly as she drives. He does this to pass the time, and to keep his mind off her body, her scent, her breast soft in his hand. He mentions he likes the Shadow Lord Philodox named Park; wonders what the hell she's doing with a snake like Zeke. He says he met a batshit-insane-even-for-a-Fang named Asha, and that he might try to recruit her into the pack. He muses that it's almost spring; he says he'll pull up most of the concrete in the front yard and bring in some soil, till the ground, make it ready for Danicka if she wants to plant flowers when the thaw comes.

And an oak. Definitely an oak. Something they can give back to the earth, to his totem, to the memory of their briefly shared childhood, that will last long after they're both gone.

Maybe it's that thought that quiets him. Or maybe it's just that they're close now. He recognizes the streets and the byways, not just by sight but by instinct. Home near, den near. He sits a little straighter, quietly eager.

Danicka
They go home. Like they do this every night, like it's perfectly normal to go out to dinner after their respective days -- she to school and her workstudy job, he to the business of war -- and then drive back out to Stickney where their bed and their kitchen and their shoddy old couch and wonky little t.v. set wait for them, where they'll jostle over who gets the computer for the night: the WarCrack addict or the would-be Caesar.

And on the way, Lukas talks quietly to Danicka about potential packmates, enigmatic tribesmates she barely remembers even seeing at the shadowmoot, what they'll do around the house as winter turns truly into spring. She mentions that there's some space in the back yard that looks like it would be good for an oak and for herbs and for vegetables and maybe some berries; she says she'd like to put flowers in both front and back, but the ones in front will be just for show. The most fragrant ones will be in back, lending sweetness to the air, a private pleasure.

That isn't how she talks about it, really. Not those words. But she mentions breeds of flowers, and the richest ones she says she wants along the fence in the back. She wants to see if they can grow raspberries. They have more space at the den, she says, than they did even in her back yard back in Ridgewood. She wants to plant the oak so that they can see it perfectly from the window in the kitchen, the window in their bedroom.

She drives carefully, if only because she's only been driving semi-regularly for a year now. Danicka is no expert behind the wheel, and she's had alcohol, and her mate -- who could not only walk away from a car crash unscathed but would likely move at the instant of impact to cover her, to hold her, to try and keep her from being broken -- is sitting in the passenger seat, calm and quiet and precious. It takes them the full half hour (or so) to get to the den.

They turn onto their street and Danicka smiles quietly to herself, wordless, and a moment later, they're pulling into their driveway

and into their garage

and she's turning off the engine and the door is scrolling closed behind them, the light overhead coming on. She just sits for a moment after unbuckling her safety belt. In most garages in this neighborhood there's shelving, gardening supplies, car maintenance gear, tools, various and sundry items useful for any number of things. Necessary clutter. Their garage is empty of everything but her car, right now. Christmas items are in the basement. They don't have bicycles and they don't work on their own cars. They moved here in the winter and so there's no lawnmower. Leftover paint and things he used fixing up the house are in the basement, too.

Danicka sits there without talking for a few moments, breathing. The door rattles shut, and the garage goes silent. She turns and looks at him, her eyes shifting in color in the shadows, her hands still on the wheel, and just... looks at what she can see of his face, the velvet of darkness that clings to him here, recedes there, cannot touch the clarity of his eyes.

"I think you're beautiful," she whispers, out of nowhere.

Lukas
On the way over, Lukas has to stop her and ask a few times: what's this flower? What's that plant? He doesn't have her knowledge of plants and flowers; he never had a yard at all, growing up. By the time his parents moved to a house with a proper yard, he was already under Istok Promised-Rain's tutelage.

Only part of the money for that house came from his parents' savings and hard work over the past eight or so years. The rest came from the tribe -- from Istok's kin or from the established kin of Stark Falls. Like a consolation prize, or a dowry; like a reward for providing the tribe with yet another strong son. His parents didn't spend all of it. Didn't spend any on anything unnecessary, in fact, as though they thought they might betray their son by spending the money his blood bought. Some of it found its way into Lukas's investment accounts, and so the cycle turns on.

Sometimes Lukas wonders if he would do the same. If someday he met a cub with promise, with potential, with a future he wanted to help shape. Would he pay the parents? Ply them with gifts? Would it be manipulation, or sympathy? Would they see only blood-money?

Doesn't matter. He can't imagine taking a pupil. Not yet, anyway. And she's telling him about raspberries, and he's saying he can put up a trellis for the vines, and...

In their garage, dark now with only a single dim overlight light, dark in the confines of her car, she turns to him. He undoes his seatbelt and meets her eyes; his eyelashes flicker slightly out of surprise when she speaks.

He's solemn now. The proximity of their den and what they were going to do to each other in it makes him so. He breathes calmly, quietly, and he reaches out with his left hand to lift her hair off her shoulder, to slide his fingers over her cheek and behind her head.

"Jdeme dovnitř," he whispers.

Danicka
Perhaps she misunderstands why he's touching her. Or perhaps his own whys don't enter into her thinking; Danicka's eyelashes flutter downwards when Lukas moves her hair, and she leans into the touch. His fingers touch her neck, move into her hair on the back of her head, and she leans across the center of the car to find his mouth with her own.

The truth of the matter is: no cub of their own would ever want. Danicka is beyond solvent, financially. She's had life insurance since she was eighteen years old; the beneficiary was her father, until recently. She knows that should something happen to her, Lukas will feel a knife twist in him when he receives the monetary benefits. She doesn't worry about it.

The other brutal truth is that she expects to outlive him. Regardless: he owns a house, Danicka's affairs are well within order, and the nonexistent children that may never come from their union will want for very little in life, no matter what happens to their parents.

Which is not what Danicka is thinking about right now. She's thinking about how he looks when it's dark and when there's almost no light, and she's thinking about how the lines of his mouth flow so naturally into smiles that are, nonetheless, rare. She's thinking that his mouth is shockingly, decadently soft whenever they kiss, and she's thinking

about how good it feels when his cock is hard and ready for her, pressing against his slacks when she slips her hand down between his legs and caresses him, which she does now, stroking him again and again through whatever layers of fabric cover him and separate them. She's thinking about how he tips his head back and struggles for control when she wraps her hand around it and starts jerking him off, and thinking about how he gasps and steels himself when she's sucking it, trying desperately not to just let go and fuck her mouth.

Danicka's breath shudders against his mouth after just a few moments of kissing him in the car, her hand warm and soft between his thighs, her other hand wrapped around the lapel of his coat.

Lukas
It would take a matter of moments for them to be out of the car, across the short walk, in the front door, up one and a half flights of stairs, and in their bed. It's not so very far, and it's not so much trouble.

But: she kisses him, though that wasn't his intent, but that doesn't matter because she does kiss him and he leans into it, suddenly, ravenously, with a sharp inhale through flaring nostrils like he'd just now picked up the scent of his mate

in heat.

They kiss each other, then. Hungrily, but slowly, their mouths exploring and delving, deepening, and then her hand finds him through his jeans and his mouth opens and he gasps, silently, his head tipping back almost involuntarily to break the kiss and offer up his throat. It's been sufficiently long since his last shave that his stubble scratches her smooth skin, her soft lips. His eyes are closed and he's just

trying to hold on

while she touches him, finds him aching and hard already, strokes the length of him through his pants while her free hand clings to his lapel as though she were the one falling out into pleasure.

After a time his head lowers. He catches her mouth again, harder now, and he leans across the center console to scoop her up. It's a little awkward -- she's in a coat herself, she'll have to watch her feet, her knees, the hem of her coat over the gearshift -- but his brute strength makes things easier, or at least possible, and he pulls her across into his seat, onto his lap, half-sideways and half-straddling him.

"Nemohu čekat déle," he mutters. It doesn't matter that they've driven half an hour and eaten for an hour and their den is literally 30 seconds away. His hands pull at her coat, get it off her shoulders, push it to the floor or to the driver's seat. He's turning her to sit on his lap, back to his chest, and he's reaching under her sweater to touch her breasts, reaching under her sweater and under her camisole and under her bra if she's wearing one to cup her flesh with his bare hand, nipping at her neck out of sheer want as he does. Her khakis, too: unbuttoned, his hand pushing them down her legs, slipping into her panties to caress her.

Whispering now, his voice harsh with need: "Ach, bože, potřebuji být v tobě."

Danicka
She wasn't kidding when she told him that if he'd driven them here, she would have found some way to fuck him. He wasn't kidding when he offered to get her off as she drove. They're never just kidding around.

Which is why they couldn't make it through appetizers at Spring before he had her propping one foot against the bathroom stall wall so he could get down and eat her pussy. Which is why when he told her that he needed to fuck her as soon as possible at a rooftop restaurant in late summer, Danicka left her card with their waiter and took him downstairs to his car where he pushed her skirt up and tugged her panties aside and swore at her when she made him fuck her slowly... at first.

Danicka laughs when he picks her up and it falls into a moan when he pulls her down on his lap. She can feel his cock pressing up against her through their clothing, and she rubs back against him, still half-twisted on him. The car isn't that big, and the passenger seat is awkward, but Danicka moves with ease. It's due to practice, which doesn't bear thinking about. Her shoes clunk quietly as they get kicked to the floorboards.

He's shoving her coat away from her and she's wriggling her arms out of it, reaching for the hem instead of for him as he's murmuring that he can't wait. Danicka pulls the striped thing off her upper half and static crackles in her hair for a moment. She wrestles it off her wrists and there's her bra, her lovely, expensive cotton lingerie with little blue flowers embroidered along the edges of the white cups and there are her hands on his face, cupping his bristly jaw to bring his mouth closer and kiss him again.

"Baby," she says plaintively, when he starts to turn her on his lap so her back is to his chest. Danicka resists -- and they argued about this, rather painfully, not nearly long enough ago, the way she resists what he wants, the way he feels like it's so frequent an occurrence -- and wraps her arms around him, all but clings to him, kissing his face and his neck and his mouth.

If she could explain why this in particular -- sitting on his lap with her back to him, pants or shorts pushed down her legs and working him into her like that -- is something she always rebels against, Danicka would. He may not know it, might not believe it, but she'd try to tell him if she could work it out for herself. Maybe it's because the first time he picked her up and turned her around like that, she was drunk off her ass and he told her to shut up and she went away. Maybe she finds the position uncomfortable. Maybe she's seen too much porn. God only knows what her issue is, because she has no problem bending over and fucking him like that. She has no problem grabbing the back of the couch, knees spread on the cushions. She has no problem lying on her side with his arm around her and his cock inside of her, writhing together as she grasps at the sheets.

Whatever it is, if it is anything at all, there's been one time she sat on his lap facing away from him and fucked him. They were at the Omni. She kept her boots on. Her hair smelled like rain.

In any case: Danicka doesn't let him turn her around. She holds onto him, dragging his hand to the fastenings of her khakis, and yes it turns his wrist at an odd angle, and if his hand simply doesn't fit that well between their bodies she undoes her slacks herself. "Push the seat back," she breathes when he tells her he needs to be in her, lifting her hips from his lap not only so he can reach the lever but so she can lean against the interior of the door and yank and kick her khakis off.

Lukas
So he does. He pulls the lever and drops the seat back and then he's sitting up again to help her get her khakis off, whipping them off her legs and into the back seat, and then she's all but bare and he's still in all his clothes and for a moment, just a moment, Lukas slows down.

Puts his hands over her body. Looks at her, her breasts rising and falling as she breathes. Covers her stomach, then her back, then her shoulders, silently. He doesn't need to say anything. She can tell: he's worried that she'll be cold in the unheated car, the unheated garage, with nothing but what heat they'll generate to keep her warm.

Then he's leaning back, laying back, stretching out almost flat in the passenger's seat. Her Infiniti is a coupe, all long low lines: long low roof, too, not a whole lot of room. They make do. It doesn't seem to bother him at all that he wanted to turn her around and she resisted. He doesn't care. This is better: he can see her face.

"Come here," he whispers. Her hair falls around his face if she leans down. Their tongues touch almost gingerly at the first; then the kiss deepens. He reaches down and touches her as they kiss, and this too is so gentle at first, his fingertips searching out her clit, sliding between her pussy lips and up again.

No such patience in his other hand. He wrests and wrenches at his belt, his button and his zipper. When he gets his fly open and his cock out of his boxer briefs, Lukas pants shallowly against her mouth: something like relief.

"Here." Fragmentary whispers now, scratchy with his punishment. "Up a little. Yeah. Oh."

His head falls back against the seat. His hand going to hold her by the hip, to draw her onto him as he slides the head of his cock over her, again and again, through her panties and then pulling them aside. No words at all left. There's just enough light to see her eyes. His look dazed, lost. He finds her cunt and holds himself steady, presses against her, takes his hand from her hip to pillow behind his head as he waits, lets her set the pace, lets her take him into her.

Danicka
Not every woman matches her bra to her panties on a regular basis. Buys in sets. Color coordinates. Considers effect as well as fitt. Danicka does: her lingerie is soft white cotton, forget-me-nots stitched on the cups and below the dip of the 'waist'line of the panties. It's comfortable, as far as underwire anything can be. It's unexpected, underneath khakis and a striped sweater, schoolwear. It's wintry and pale and promises that spring really is coming, just be patient. It's delicate and innocent and self-contained, and at odds with the thick, fuzzy gray socks she's still wearing.

She curls forward into Lukas's covering, roaming hands, seeking his heat like a plant turning towards sunlight. She runs her own hands into his hair, tips his head back, kisses his throat softly over and over while they stroke each other. Where touches her, she's warm, and when she moves, one strap of her bra falls down her shoulder. Naturally, she doesn't reach to pull it back up. Her shoulderblades draw together for few seconds when Lukas's fingers tug, twist, and unsnap the fasteners of the bra, and a moment later Danicka draws back that that they can pull it down her arms and off of her.

It ends up in the driver's seat. It may very well be staying there til Danicka leaves the den next. Doesn't really matter, in the end.

When he lies back, she comes to cover him, still kissing him softly here and there. She makes small, pleasured noises as she crawls on top of his body, squirms her much smaller one against his rather ridiculous height and rather impressive musculature. If they wanted to, they could draw her coat up over them like a blanket, and she could fuck him underneath its lining. But Danicka is coming here to touch her tongue to his, experimentally. She's bending over him to seal her mouth against his, and so her hips lift

and so he puts his hand between her legs and strokes her there, fingertips hot even through the cotton. Lukas's touch finds moisture on the fabric after a few moments, and Danicka -- kissing him, being touched, gasping, starting to sweat -- is only peripherally aware of what his other hand is doing. At this point all the motions mean is that he's going to fuck her. He's going to give it to her, and when that thought enters her mind, Danicka moans into his mouth and starts rubbing herself against his hand. She reaches down, searching for his cock, and -- finding it -- immediately wraps her hand around it and starts to stroke him.

Yeah. Oh.

Her head ducks, her hair sliding over his neck, and she looks down between them, at their arms crossed and their hands both pleasuring the other. Danicka moans softly and lets go of his cock, spreading her legs a little wider in the narrow space of the passenger seat, inviting him to ...well. Do exactly what he does, which is take his cock back and rub it against her.

"Tear them off," she whimpers, sudden and plaintive, as his fingers are hooking in the cotton to pull it aside. Her hips are starting to roll in vague imitation of sex when she gasps: "Baby, just get them off me."

Lukas
Danicka does this sometimes. Asks Lukas to do something he doesn't expect. She can see it: the flash of his eyes to her face, the question there that he doesn't voice.

He never voices it. He never asks her in confirmation: are you sure, baby? They're Shadow Lords. She's Danicka Musil, who does a damn fine job of pretending to be a pliable, meek, submissive little caregiver of a kin, but he knows better. She wouldn't say it if she didn't mean it. He can't think of her ever saying anything to him that she didn't mean.

So he puts his hands on her panties. His fingers search for the seam, but of course her panties don't have seams --

because: this is Danicka. And she dresses herself with care, even when she's in a sweater and khakis, even when she's casual and her hair's in a ponytail and she's his geek of a girlfriend who sometimes yells at the computer screen while wtfpwning alliance toons.

-- her panties are nothing but uninterrupted, soft cotton. So he just grabs a section, applies all the pressure between his hands to keep from chafing her skin, yanks, tears it, brute force, rips it to pieces that he tosses over to the driver's seat.

Then he's wrapping his arms around her, arching up off the seat to nuzzle and bite at her neck, her shoulder, as he guides his cock to her again and slides it against her cunt, slicks himself up with her wetness, strokes it down the shaft of his cock.

Lukas's hands leave traceries of her slick as they follow the contours of her back down to her waist. He holds her by the hips, gently, guiding her onto his cock, and down. When she starts taking him in his teeth fasten on her shoulder briefly: a firm grip but a gentle one while he pants against her skin, shuddering. She's wet and he's hard and they're both so very hot.

He lays his head back as she sinks down on his lap. His hands hold her there a moment, holding her motionless where she is. His cock fills her, pulsing gently with his heartbeat, which she can feel in his chest as well, and in his neck. The light, involuntary clenches of her pussy make him gasp audibly.

Eventually his hands loosen on her hips. He urges her to move, slowly, gently, while his palms slide up her back, cover her shoulderblades for a moment, then cross over her back. He holds her close to his chest, kissing her, holding back the low groans that threaten at the edges of his breath.

And his hands find hers after a while. He guides her fingers to the zipper on his sweater, which hisses softly as it's undone. Nothing but a thermal undershirt under that. Her hands are warm but his body is hot, flexing under her palms as he pulls her hands under his shirt.

Danicka
His girlfriend, who once screamed obscenities at the top of her lungs in three languages when her internet suddenly shut down in the middle of a raid. He wasn't there for that. But he was there one morning, waking up in a hotel bed and finding the woman he'd fucked the night before sitting in a silk robe at the desk, chuckling quietly and wickedly under her breath before she noticed that he was watching her.

That was long before he knew that Danicka was more than 'okay' with computers, long before he knew that she could figure out the complicated and esoteric workings of Wyrmish systems, long before he watched her flick her hands over an object she'd never seen before and turn it into the ferocious little weapon it was meant to be. Long, long before he even knew that Danicka played World of Warcraft.

All he knew then was how she felt doing what she's doing now: sliding down onto his cock, her slender thighs parted over his lap, her breasts brushing against him with every roll of her hips working him into her. Deeper.

Danicka, naked now -- well, except for her socks -- can't remember her underwear anymore. It's gone, and shredded, and anyway it's just a piece of fabric. If Lukas were ever to get a look at her finances he would not only stagger at the mere concept that Danicka thinks she needs to hold down this workstudy job to remain solvent, he might tear his hair out because if she put even a little more of her liquid funds into some better investments, she would never need to work again. Her grandchildren would likely never need to work.

The Sokolovs did one thing right. For everything they asked of her, did to her, demanded of her -- for overseeing the upbringing and protection of their only, well-bred, mentally warped child -- they paid her extraordinarily well.

They're a long way from New York City, or any family of Fangs, and Danicka is a long way from ensuring the financial stability of her family line. Her only thought right now is what Lukas feels like moving into her, filling her, panting into her shoulder where he bites her. It's a delicate, gentle expression of lupine affection, a version suitable for what she is, what they have, what they're doing. It isn't dominant. It isn't a way to wrestle her down and exert his superiority. If anything, it's a way to hold onto himself, a way to submit himself

if not to her, than to this,

begging and pleading with his control for silence, for restraint.

Danicka's back is arching as she settles down onto his lap, gasping and working her hips in winding circles again and again. He strokes inside of her with her movements, and she makes soft noises of pleasure every time her clit rubs against his cock. She squirms, leaning into his chest, letting him guide her hands to get his sweater's zipper down, pushing her hands up under his thermal without encouragement.

Her hands run up his chest, fingertips parting the flash of dark hair she can feel but not see. She purrs in his ear, the motion of her lower body moving from circular to rocking, smooth and luxurious. "Mmmm," she murmurs, caressing him under his clothes, panting softly along his jawline, "muscles."

Lukas
The interior of the car is warming up with their body heat. The windows are steaming faintly, and everything's close, and quiet, and dark, and slow. He's holding her hips as she's undoing his sweater, reaching under his shirt, and it takes nearly all his will to not make a sound when she works her hips like that; when she rides down on him as he flexes up into her

over and over like that.

And then -- she's leaning down to mmm in his ear. He's turning his head to nip at her earlobe, her earring catching gently against the inside of his teeth, and she says

muscles

and Lukas abruptly bursts into a silent, huffing laugh.

"Baby," he whispers, a little breathless, "baby, don't make me laugh. You don't want to hear it. I sound like -- "

he loses track of his thoughts here for a moment. His eyes fall closed and his mouth opens and his brow furrows and she's moving so achingly slowly, rising up the shaft of his cock and when she stops he's just holding his breath until

she starts sinking down on him again.

" -- I sound like the villain from roger rabbit," he finishes, and huffs again.

Danicka
This isn't the first time they've made love since his punishment was laid on him. It probably won't be the last. Another week, thereabouts, and it will be over. Lukas will be able to speak freely, smoothly. Danicka will get to hear him laugh again. They've spent very little time together since he killed Fons, but then: they've always spent very little time together. They could see each other every day and it probably wouldn't be enough for either of them.

Danicka understands why he whispers, why he huffs his laughter, why he's biting back moans again the way he did for so, so long in the beginning. It doesn't stop her from licking his neck or touching his body, or fucking him with that... tight, wet fucking cunt of hers. She gasps against him as he flexes up into her, falling against his chest, feeling his heart beat through her palm.

He makes her laugh, though she too is quiet -- less needfully -- with what he says. And she moans afterward, bouncing gently a couple of times before settling back into those smooth, controlled strokes. "I'm not trying to make you laugh," she breathes, bowing her head to his shoulder so she can look down and watch the shadows where their bodies join, where his cock keeps sliding into her.

"I just --" and she sinks down, shudders, squeezes him inside, "I just really love your body. I love how fucking big you are," and she grinds onto his lap, bucks gently against him. Her back arches, her head tipping back and to one side, eyes closed and mouth open as pleasure opens up inside of her. "Oh... oh fuck, baby...I love fucking you."

Lukas
They share a laugh somewhere in there. Silently on his part. Quietly on hers. Their heads are close together, her brow to his shoulder, his cheek to her temple. She looks down to watch herself fucking him, and he tips his head back.

His chest rises against her hands with every breath. His heartbeat fills her palms. His hands can't stop roaming her body as she rides him: from hip to waist to breasts to shoulders; from there to cradle her head for a moment, stroke through her hair, push it back over her head and back, only to let it fall again. He finds her hands and holds her forearms gently, carefully, while she explores his body under his clothes.

There's something decadent about that. That she's nearly naked. That he's nearly clothed. That they're fucking just like this, mating in the confines of her car, which reflects their sighs and shudders back at them. That she's riding him and touching him and enjoying him like this. That he's sprawled and relaxed and losing his mind to the pleasure.

She talks to him. She murmurs to him about what she loves about him and he can't answer; wouldn't be able to even if he tried. He gasps beneath her. When she grinds, he bucks against her, drives deeper, throws his head back and thumps it against the seat.

Once. Twice.

So fucking good.

"Don't stop." A stripped whisper, choked with the voice of the jackal, hoarse. "Baby don't stop. To mě poser."

Danicka
There's something simultaneously tender and something wanton about the way they're fucking now. He holds her close, no matter where his hands roam on her body. She curls against him, for his warmth and his protection and simply to be close to him. But also: he fucks up into her to see that overcome look on her face, to hear her make that noise she makes when she likes it. And also: she bounces on him, rides him, tells him she loves his body, loves his cock, even as she's squirming onto it like she's the cat in heat he once compared her to.

Lukas couldn't wait any longer, and Danicka couldn't care less if they fuck here or fuck inside as long as she's with him. Her body curves over his, knees wedged uncomfortably and tightly on either side of him, toes kept warm by her socks, the rest of her kept warm by his body heat and the energy she's starting to put into fucking him. Oh, for awhile it goes on like it's never going to end, with Lukas gasping and with their bodies slapping softly and slowly together every time they thrust closer.

But after awhile, Danicka just starts fucking him, rather delightedly, her face curled towards the side of his neck and her mouth open to release helpless little whimpers, bright little gasps of enjoyment. She pushes and rucks up his shirt, exposing his torso, and leans down to lick his nipples, to draw one into her mouth to suck on it as her hips grind down. She's all over him in the passenger seat, hands everywhere, wriggling near-naked and eager, sweat starting to turn her slippery and filling his nostrils with her scent.

She's his mate. Irreplaceable, though she has no idea what he roared at Theron about what that is, what that means: never any before. Never any after, no matter what happens to her. For life. For everything he can give her, because they have something precious

and rare.

Danicka clings to him as she rides his cock, her whimpers turning to moans, wet between her legs from sex and from sweat, bucking against him over and over. "I want it," she pleads, pressing harder to his chest, burying her moans in his shoulder. "Fuck, Lukáš, you're gonna make me come --!" And, as though set off by the words themselves, she starts fucking him faster, finding a spot of skin where his collar is pushed down, yanked out of the way by her teeth. She bites his flesh then, the strength of her jaws equal to the strength of the rest of her, but the richness of the groan she lets out thick and heavy with pleasure. Faster, harder her fucking says, though she's just holding onto him now, writhing on top of him, digging her teeth into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

"Oh," she moans then, letting go, her lips red from bloodflow, his skin red from the bite, saliva on her lips, her cunt clenching around his cock. "Fuck... fuck, fuck... oh, fuck, Lukáš!"

And she goes electric, spine arching, body pulling away from his at the shoulders, head thrown back as her orgasm builds steep and hard and then hits her, lights her up from the inside, makes her lose all ability to think of how he feels or how he's reacting, turning her mindless in her use of his body, fucking him til she comes. She lets out a long, loud moan at the end, grinding down onto him and falling forward again. Her mouth opens to his sweater; she moans again, just as loudly but this time muffled, bucking her hips a few more times, riding out her orgasm for seemingly endless, unfurling seconds.

When it's over -- for her, at least -- Danicka just lies on his chest, panting, her hands still under his shirt, palm still covering his heartbeat, sweat still covering her skin.

She just whimpers.

Lukas
They don't always come together. They rarely do. Far more often, he watches her hit her peak or she watches him; or perhaps the orgasm of one sets off the other, like one explosive lighting the next.

Not this time.

This time, he's right there with her. She's riding him, slowly at first, lazy and warm and hedonistic; and then faster, harder, until she's pounding herself on him and clutching at his shirt, his body, clinging to him and baring his skin to her mouth

(which makes him gasp)

and her teeth

(which makes him growl once, low in his throat, before he silences himself again.)

And he's holding onto her, too. His hands are all over their. Their hands are all over each other; they are, in a sense completely divorced from degradation or objectification, using each other. Using one another's bodies, every inch, every iota, taking it all and giving it all back.

Near the end, she bites him as savagely as he's ever bitten her. Near the end, his hands grab at her hips, clutch at her ass, bring her down on him with a ferocity that he wouldn't think to use if he weren't so fucking close to losing his mind that he can't

think straight.

She goes electric on him. The last word out of her is his name. He arches beneath her, comes straight off the seat, is a single rigid arc of tension. Head thrown back, teeth bared, breath caught -- and then he's coming into her, pulsing and jerking inside her, slamming his hips against hers as he gasps for breath, gasps because he can't catch his breath when they're still moving together like that.

If he let himself voice the pleasure ripping through him, it's possible their goddamn neighbors would hear. But he doesn't. He channels all that into his body instead. He fucks her as she grinds on him; they come together again and again, riding out their orgasm together, shipwrecking each other until everything in his body is a single, white-hot overload.

Then they're still. Then they've collapsed into the seat, and her skin is slick with sweat, and his coat and his sweater and his rucked-up thermal feel too damn hot. His chest is still half-bared. Her hand covers his heartbeat, only now beginning to slow. Quivers of reaction go through him now and then, shivering his abdomen against her arm; rocking his cock inside her.

His eyes are closed. She whimpers. He wraps his arms around her instinctively, thoughtlessly, gathers her close to him. Keeps her warm and safe. Right there. Close.

He never wants to draw apart, afterward. He thinks he could probably sleep like this. Right here in the car, which smells like them now, which is wet inside from their panting, their fucking, their heat -- but will cool later. Will turn freezing cold; too cold for his mate.

His eyes open. His pupils are huge in the darkness. He stirs gently, sitting up a little, nuzzling against her wordlessly to rouse her. Lukas is never so animal, never so instinctive and thoughtless, as in these moments during and after their lovemaking.

Danicka
His clothes are stuck to him with sweat, damp with it. Danicka has no such problem. Her problem is that their garage isn't really attached to their house, and she has to at least find her coat and shoes before hurrying inside. They've not been there for a long time: the heat is at the lowest setting possible to keep the pipes from freezing, so the air inside is chilly. Danicka knows this. Right now, though, she's overheated and her cheeks are pink and she's panting against her lover, rubbing herself on him every few seconds to tug a few lasts bursts of enjoyment out of their joining.

She isn't thinking about how cold it is, or how cold it will become, or how soon the interior of the car will cool off and wick away heat from her skin. She isn't thinking about how she can't stay here, because she'll freeze. But Lukas is. Lukas is holding her and thinking: too cold. Thinking: mate. Thinking: I can keep her safe. I can keep her. I can.

Her arms wind around him, slip between his back and the passenger seat. Danicka sighs, melting onto his chest, his cock still held deep inside of her. He nuzzles her and she resists, moaning softly in reluctance. This is something they share, this lack of coherence, this animal openness. When they could not be frank with each other in any other capacity, they could also not avoid the breaking down of all walls between them during sex. Afterward.

Even the first time, even though she left him, she couldn't leave right away. She stayed for a bit, drowsing in his arms without letting herself fall asleep, breathing with him in the shoddy bed he'd rented for the night just to fuck her in. And apparently: to hold her in, to lay behind her and keep her against his chest with one arm laid over her.

He kept her warm then, a year ago according to the thirteen moons of Garou astronomy. He keeps her warm now.

Danicka lifts her head to nuzzle back, hard, all but butting her head against his cheek, wiggling it under his jaw, making a sound in her throat not unlike a growl. But soft. But small. But tender, and quiet, and only momentary. And then she's stretching, bowing her back, then arching it, rolling her head back as she puts her hands on his chest and pushes away, snarling softly in relief. She relaxes again, breathing, looking down at him, still straddling, still holding him inside her.

She bounces gently once or twice. "I want more," she says, insistent.

Lukas
His exhale is ragged when she moves on him again. Then Lukas's eyes open in the darkness, find hers as she asks for more.

He sits up, sudden and sure. His arms come around her, the wool of his sleeves soft and rich against her back. He kisses her slowly, savoringly, and when his mouth leaves hers it trails down her neck; presses against her collarbone and the pulse there.

Then he reaches sideways and opens the door. A sudden gust of chill: he wraps his free arm around her even tighter, holding her to his rumpled shirt, his open sweater.

"Let's go to bed," he whispers. His breathing hitches when he lifts her gently from his lap. He follows her out of the car, shrugging out of his coat and laying it over her shoulders. It's one of his longer, thicker overcoats, dropping to mid-shin on his much larger frame. On hers, it trails the floor.

The warmth of his body still lingers in it. It keeps her warm.

Meanwhile, he's tucking himself away, zipping his fly, zipping his sweater. He reaches into the car briefly to grab what items of loose clothing he can easily see and reach, tucking them under his arm before leaving the rest. When Lukas straightens and shuts the car door, he reaches for her hand.

She's in her socks. He scoops her off the ground at the side door of the garage, carries her the few snowy steps to their door. There, he lets her stand on his feet while he unlocks the door, their breaths white in the air. It's nearly as cold inside as it is outside. He shuts the door behind them and shuffles his shoes off in the small, dark foyer; takes her hand again and jogs up the stairs to the living room.

There, he cranks the thermostat up before leading her up the stairs. Quickly. Hurrying. Because she wants more. And so does he.

Danicka
He holds her, and she holds him. He kisses her mouth and her neck and she kisses his lips and his temple. Wool brushes her breasts, slides over her back. And she keeps him close, for a few moments longer, before he starts to twist in her arms so he can open the car door. Danicka breathes in as cold air rushes in, but it isn't a sharp inhale and it isn't a gasp. She just smiles as he holds her tighter, smiles because she knows why, and because it's sweet, and because all sweetness to her seems unnecessary, and therefore that much more appreciated.

Her fingertips toy with a curl above his ear, which she then lets go of and kisses. Her hands go to his shoulders as his hands go to her hips and they separate, separate by holding onto one another -- though in different spots, for different reasons. They are both seeking equilibrium after that, and Danicka is loathe to get out of the nice warm interior of the car that heated up so nicely on the drive over and heated up so much more since the moment he put his hand on the back of her neck.

"Nope!" she says, refusing to climb out ahead of him. She laughs, wriggling away from the door, nudging him to get out first while she crawls over the center console and grabs her shoes, searches for her bra.

The next thing she knows is his coat settling over her back, laying on top of her like a blanket. Danicka twists her head around and peers past the collar, her hair askew and static-ridden, and smiles at him as his warmth and his scent literally engulf her. She breathes in deeply and -- holding a piece of lingerie and a pair of shoes -- crawls backward and gets out of the car, standing on the garage floor. Lukas, looking rumpled but decent enough to go walking down the street if necessary, is a stark contrast to Danicka, who is wearing socks and a man's overcoat and hasn't bothered to pull it around herself. It hangs like a cloak, baring one long strip of naked flesh down her midline, and she simply waits and watches as he digs around to gather: sweater, khakis, shredded panties.

The sight of which makes her huff a soft laugh, remembering the sound they made when they tore, and the sound he made when his cock first slid across her cunt.

She reaches up and wiggles her arms into his overcoat's sleeves, but still doesn't bother to close the coat around her body. She has her arms up when he comes near, and all but climbs into his embrace when he moves to pick her up, because she's no more interested in walking through snow in socks than he is in seeing her do it. Outside she shivers, but not badly. It isn't late enough at night for any of their neighbors to be in bed asleep -- except for the children -- but it isn't warm enough tonight for any of them to be outside or even checking windows.

They leave the outdoor light off. Danicka leans against his chest while he unlocks the door, her arms around his waist, her toes on top of his shoes, and breathes in his scent, which surrounds her completely, which holds the smell of snow and winter at bay.

Danicka drops her shoes as soon as the front door is closed. She hop-steps quickly up the stairs behind him, shivering a little, and moves gratefully ahead into the living room, but as Lukas is turning to the thermostat, she shrugs her shoulders and lets his overcoat slip down her arms and fall in a heap on the floor.

They don't make it to the interior stairs. Not yet, anyway. Danicka is cold, her nipples erect, her arms lifting so she can push her fingers into her hair and draw it back off her face. She watches him, and when he turns towards her she holds his eyes. With a flicker of a smile, she takes a few steps backwards. Towards the couch.

"C'mon," she says, barely a whisper.

Lukas
Lukas doesn't turn on the lights. There's no ceiling light anyway; they'd have to turn on the floor lamp by the sofa. There's no need anyway. He can see well enough in the dark after so long in the dim garage. He can see enough to turn up the thermostat and hear the furnace rumbling beneath the floorboards; enough to see her smile so faintly as she lets his coat slipslide to the floor

and lift her hands to her hair

and step backward toward the couch.

Lukas, hand still on the thermostat, head turned, smiles back. It grows as he turns to face her; grows sharp, grows hungry. He comes across the room stripping his sweater from his shoulders and flinging it to the floor. His shirt after, tugged off his head, his hair mussed when it pulls free. That goes on the floor too, a dark puddle of stretchable cotton.

His jeans dropped by the coffee table.

His socks two steps after.

Then his boxer briefs, pushed down to the floor at the couch, and he's reaching out to lift her by the waist, silent and graceful as gymnasts; lifts her onto his body and turns his face up to hers and

the smile is a grin now, fierce, all teeth, and

it fades sharply away as he pulls her hips against his stomach, rubs her cunt against the hard muscles of his body, as his face pulls with want; as he kisses her.

They topple onto the couch, kissing. It's old but it's clean, the cushions firm enough not to sag. Something ferocious and hungry about the way they're all but tearing at each other now, their breathing audible and harsh in the dark. The curtains are open and the moon is full, glowing brilliant silver in the windowframe, washing marble-pale over their skin. He supports himself on his hands and knees, bent over her like an animal to a pond, to a meal; his mouth is all over her, kissing, sucking, biting gently at her flesh.

At one point his mouth finds her breast. He envelopes it, sucks her hardened nipple onto his tongue, adores her for some time, focused and absolute, before letting her go.

His hands are in her hair. Then one is reaching down her body to tilt her hips, to scoop her lower body off the couch and against his, to grind her against his cock

as he gasps against her neck.

Danicka
Danicka is already all but naked; Lukas is quickly so, as the heat starts to blast through the vents and she shivers a little in anticipation as well as cold. He crosses the room, stripping down, and a moment later they're falling onto the couch cushions, her legs wrapping around him and the heels of her socks rubbing his flank. Her hands touch first his chest, run over his shoulders and arms, stroke down his sides and belly.

No talking, this time, no filthy words in dark languages, not even any growls or snarls of want. Danicka arches her back against the couch cushions, rubbing herself back against him, tipping her head away and baring her throat to her mate. It's invitation more than submission; welcome more than supplication. She pants softly, near-silently, while he's running his mouth all over her: throat. Shoulders. Breasts.

She moans for the first time since they left the car, since they came together inside her slick little Infiniti, while Lukas is drenching her nipple with saliva, with warmth, suckling and stroking with his tongue. There's no need for words, really: he knows what she likes, he knows that if he toys with her like this, touches her like that, she'll make that noise and she'll suddenly buck her hips and squirm under his body

which she does, now, as his hand runs down the small of her back and covers her ass and moves her against him.

No words, because: he knows she wants more. That she wants him inside of her, that she wants to fuck him, that she wants to feel him hold her and cover her and come inside of her cunt, gasping as he fills her. Gasping the way he does now, because he wants more, too, because he wants her to fuck him, too, because he wants to fuck his mate and feel her cling to him as she comes and he wants to come in her, mount her, mate with her, lock his teeth in her shoulder and give himself over to

her. Or to what they have. Or everything, all of it, just...

Danicka slides her leg up his side, and then hooks it over his shoulder, and whimpers in his ear, her soft lips parting to release hitched breath after hitched breath close to his jawline.

Words, then, finally: "Baby, don't make me wait."

Lukas
Sometimes it's like this. A dark, close space; something like a trance where words fall away of their own accord. Even if he were not afraid of jarring her from this with his voice, he wouldn't speak now. It's simply not necessary.

They move together and he grinds against her, slow and heavy, moves against her in the intimation of sex while he licks and sucks at her, covers her with his mouth the way he didn't when they were in the car and he was beneath her and space was close and everything was hot.

It's different now. Room to move. Room for her to wind herself around him. Room for her leg over his shoulder, and his head turning as she speaks. He'll cut his hair soon, but right now it's grown long enough to show waves, silky-soft, dense as fur, black as coal.

He kisses the corner of her mouth. Her lips are parted and she's whimpering softly every time their bodies slide together. He kisses her mouth, full and deep now, and then

he kisses the inside of her leg where it crosses over his shoulder. He reaches down their bodies and touches her, touches himself, guides his cock to her pussy and

fills her, slowly, slowly, one long gradual slide into her. His eyes close. He bites he inside of her knee, gently, fastening his teeth to her flesh.

Stillness for a moment when they're joined. His chest moving agianst hers, his breath panting from parted lips. The first thing he does is thrust into her, deeper, a press of his hips flush against hers. An exhale -- short and sharp. Then he's pressing himself up on his hands, his body over hers limned at the edges by the moonlight spilling through the window, which is the only light in the room.

It's cool, which makes him look cool, as though his skin were stone. But he's not. He's hot and breathing and alive, in motion, and that motion rolls through his entire body, down his spine and into his flank, as he moves into her again.

And again.

And faster now, his head bowing, his arms tensed, looking down her body to watch her pussy take his cock. Shifting his weight to one hand briefly, just long enough to find her hand. He brings it to his chest, spreads her hand over his pectoral muscle, guides her fingers to his nipple.

When she touches him there, he pants a breath out. And fucks her harder.

Danicka
They know one another, which is a verb of multiple meanings, especially in this situation. Danicka does not hesitate to lift her leg higher on his body, to arch her back and roll her hips up in counterthrust. She runs her hands over him, strokes her fingertips over his nipple not to tease him but to pleasure him, and does so knowing how hard it pushes him, how badly he wants not to moan aloud right now.

Not while his voice is a scraping, jangling, shrieking thing in his throat, destroying every word out of his mouth and making him sound like a hyena, a jackal, a braying donkey or pubescent male in homid. Danicka knows. And she's that much more tender, though it can't quite be said that she holds back.

Her fingers move through the hair on his chest, cover his heartbeat, play with small spots of flesh where even the lightest touch makes him gasp. She moans into his mouth, because she can, even though it's soft when she does, and muffled by his kiss. She bucks her hips when he touches her. She squirms almost violently when he enters her, whimpering

"Více... Více, Lukáš, prosím..."

And he listens. He obeys, if one can call it a command. He gives in, if one can call it a plea. He bites at her, holds still while she groans for relief, a groan that hitches when he finally flexes into her, fucks her, as though they haven't done this all day, haven't done it in weeks, didn't just make love in her car down in the garage. The way Danicka looks now, sounds now, you'd think he hadn't ever made love to her before.

He starts to fuck her harder, watching her body writhing under his, and Danicka throws her head back, gasping. Her hands move to his back, holding onto him, her hips meeting his on every

single

thrust.

Lukas
What's between them builds quickly, steeply, into a sort of madness. The way they fucked in the car wasn't exactly gentle either, but the confines of space and position kept them from -- well; this.

Now they're sprawled out on the couch. He's braced over her, and she's opened to him, and her leg rides over his shoulder and her hands clutch at his back. The muscles in his arms and chest are iron-hard, weight-bearing, as he moves into her

solidly, every thrust deep and firm, holding a beat before withdrawing for the next.

He's watching her now. Not her cunt, and not their joining, but her face. Her head thrown back, her hair loose over the throw pillows on the couch, her parted lips and the sighs and gasps that surround him. The muscles of his face are taut too, tight with strain and restraint both, and his eyes are ferocious.

The way they fuck: that's ferocious too. Slow, but heavy; ferocious; unrelenting. When their bodies collide the impact ripples her hair. Bounces her breasts. He turns his head to kiss and nip at her leg, and she can see his intent to kiss her before he comes down over her, looping his arm over her leg to swing it around his side instead.

Now they're closer together. A bare inch of space between their bodies. Mouths meeting hard, tangling, a kiss like an electric shock propelling a gasp in him that wants to be a moan, but is strangled before it ever reaches his throat. He channels that into his body instead, into his hands grasping the fabric cover of the couch, and his hips thrusting faster, accelerating, staying deep, hammering at her as his mouth slips from hers and goes to her neck, gasps against her throat.

He wants to tell her to put her hands in his hair. And to run them down his back. To grab at his shoulderblades and his sides; to grab him by the hips and pull him into her. He wants to tell her that he'll come like this if they keep it up; this tempo, this intensity, this sort of fucking.

He doesn't tell her any of this. He simply grasps her shoulder in his teeth as though this might help him stay silent, or hold on, or keep sane

and he fucks his mate.

Danicka
It surprises her -- on some dim level of consciousness so far away she sees it like fish see the sun -- that Lukas moves her leg down, pulls it around his waist. She thought of wrapping him up in her arms, in both her legs, in holding him tight and close and tilting her body to take him deeper, to urge him to fuck her harder. She thought of the way he looked kissing the inside of her knee, the way it makes her think of the times when his shoulders are under her thighs and his mouth is on her pussy and his hair is in her fingers.

Danicka moans on the slide, gasps when he holds himself in her, her back bent gradually over the pillows they fell on top of. The couch is old enough to creak under them as they fuck, clean enough that no dust rises on impact, the cushions soft and the throw pillows picked out as Danicka perused whatever discount store she bought them at because -- while she buys so much of what she owns at the highest end possible -- it's just a goddamn pillow and all it really has to do is be soft and welcoming. Which it is.

Both of her legs fold around Lukas's body now, ankles crossing, keeping him so fucking close to her he can barely withdraw to grind back into her again. It keeps him deep, and it keeps her moaning, whether into the air or muffled by his mouth descending onto hers. Danicka is gone, coherent enough to tell him More, but otherwise she is made of nothing more now than urge and desire being satisfied. She winds her hips up against him, then just ...rides, bucking in the rhythm she wants him to take, a nonverbal

Faster... faster... fuck me, baby, give it to me

while all her mouth does is open with little, gasping sounds that tell him how close she is, like a timer counting down cries out louder and more rapidly the nearer it gets to zero.

His mouth moves off of hers, and Danicka's moaning gets freedom past his head. She grasps him and holds him where he is, one hand on the back of his head, cradling him even as her other hand struggles to hold onto his back even as the muscles under his skin are shifting, flexing, driving him as he fucks her. She lets out a soft shriek which tatters apart into a gasp when Lukas slides into her cunt and pleasure shudders through her. Her hand curls, her nails digging, grasping, clinging.

There's a change in the way she sounds then, suddenly arhythmic and shattered, suddenly piercing, her hand all but slapping him as she tries to hold on. This is one of their more energetic fucks, and her body is trembling as it approaches her peak. Danicka yells, throwing her head back and tightening her legs, holding him where he is. A few words try to make a run for it out of her mouth, like

Fuck! Oh, fuck, L-- oh... ah, ah, ah, baby, I'm fucking co--

And then she is, tight and hard and mounting into a series of aching clenches of her cunt around him, til finally Danicka simply goes momentarily rigid, squeezing him in her arms and her legs and her pussy. Her groans whimper and die in her throat as she rides her orgasm out on his cock, squirming helplessly til the quivering, gasping end.

Lukas
Though they've never openly discussed it, and though Lukas has never once simply come out and said it plainly, he can't stand thinking of her with other men. Not merely the thought of her leaving him for another, but even the thought of her with her lovers before him.

The truth is, it's not that he's really so insanely jealous or possessive that he can't even stand the thought of sharing her in some oblique, retroactive way. That he can't stand the thought that his girl is far from a virgin, has fucked -- by her own count -- something like two hundred, three hundred others. If he were really like that, he'd never let her out of the goddamn house. He'd keep her far, far away from other men, and particularly other Garou; those who could see her and smell her and know her to be not merely a pretty, put-together blond but

pure the way she is.

If he were really like that, he'd be exactly the sort of monstrous mate she was afraid of when she first met him.

But he's not. So it's not really that. It's not insane jealousy. They've never talked about this, either, and perhaps Lukas himself doesn't even understand it perfectly, but --

what he really can't stand is the thought of her being like this with anyone else. Not merely fucking but making love. Mating. Being someone else's mate like this: taking them so deeply into her, opening herself so wholly to them. Taking everything, and giving up everything.

He can't stand the thought of that. And if Lukas could be certain, absolutely sure, that it was never like this before for her the way it was never like this before for him, then -- well. He might not mind so much. He might not mind at all.

None of this is in his mind now. These are things he might muse upon in idle moments in his own room, late at night. He might even say some of this to his iPhone, recording those little mpeg blurbs of himself for her, mailing them to her in a .rar file every month or so. But not now:

not when they're together like this. Because when they're like this, he has no doubt. He doesn't wonder. He knows:

this is unique. Never before or after. And it's -- unbelievable.

Her hands are clutching at his back as she comes. Sliding off the churning, sweat-slick planes of his back, coming back, glancing off his hard flesh, digging in with her nails. She's moaning and he's silent and they're both panting and she's holding him so close and tight that there's almost no room to move; there's room enough just to grind against each other like this, to stay close and tangled up and flexing and rolling against each other

while she screams past his ear

and he fastens his teeth into her shoulder.

Her orgasm lights his off. She's going rigid as he's literally shivering for control, and the second she begins to squirm again, begins to ride it out on his cock, he clamps his hand down on a fistful of couch fabric and starts hammering into her; or rather, starts hammering her against the cushions, fucking her across what little distance they've allowed each other, nailing her down with his cock until some switch flips, some circuit closes; his mind blows away.

She's still quivering when he comes into her. Goes motionless, hard and flexed from head to toe, arching into her as he bites back groans and growls. A second, perhaps two, of this electric stillness, and then he's fucking her the way he does in the immediate aftermath of his orgasm; hammering into her with short, mindless strokes as if to fill her more utterly with his cum, to mark her and claim her more indelibly.

It's almost ruthless, the way he fucks her afterward, too far gone to consider that she might be sensitive, too far gone to hold back. It goes on for some time, his breath panting harsh and ragged into her shoulder, and it's only when sheer, wracked moans are threatening the edges of each breath that he slows

and slows

and stops.

His back is wet beneath her hands. His hair is damp, and they're all liquid heat where they're joined: his cum or hers, or sweat; something. He doesn't want to move. He's heavy atop her, panting, and after some time he regains the presence of mind to run his hand down her body; to follow her thigh over his waist.

His palm is warm as a brand against the outside of her thigh. He holds her like that as if to hold her on his body; to keep her right there, holding him inside her.

Danicka
They haven't discussed, and they don't need to. Danicka has see the way his eyes look almost liquid with ashamed discomfort when the fact that she has been with an obscene number of men and women over the past ten years is even alluded to. She knows that bringing up something about their sex life that frustrated and saddened him took monumental struggle, simply because he was embarrassed to be 'complaining' at all. She understands, in a way it's possible absolutely no one else in the fucking world understands, that Lukas has a side that actually

wonder of wonders

needs protection and nurturing.

Oh, he'd live if she didn't. He'd survive, do well, lead his pack and the war and so on and so forth, if Danicka did not stroke his hair after making love to him. He'd be fine, if she never held him. He'd go on, and rise in renown and rage and control, if Danicka never considered the possibility that he might need to be sympathized with, cared for, tended to, treated as something precious... even on those occasions when he himself doesn't realize it, and even if he would balk at the mere idea of asking for it.

It pains her to think of him having to ask. That she might not give him enough, that she might not show him enough how deeply she cares. She's told him that this is a first for her, that from the beginning he was different in so many ways that it terrified her what could happen with him. She's told him she's never felt this. She's never loved before, never thought she could, until she met him and understood him and realized she did not want to use that understanding for her own sake, but for his.

Danicka's never feared that Lukas would lock her away in a house and throw away the key, keep her in a tower away from sniffing
Garou and furtive Kinfolk and eager humans. She's feared often, though, that he'll never really trust her. She is still, sometimes, scared that Lukas will one day tell her he can't love someone like her. That fades every day, every week, every season that turns and she discovers that while her own adoration only grows, his matches pace with it, keeps time with it, twines together with it til the cord is nigh unbreakable.

The idea that she could be like this with anyone else would break her heart. He's said -- shouted -- that if anything happened to her he would never, never take another mate. He doesn't know the same is true in reverse, that when he dies -- and she knows full well she will outlive him, likely by decades -- that will be it for her. There will be no others, no true mate, no matter what the tribe decides to do with her.

Danicka is certain, and she does not doubt Lukas's devotion, and yet she can't stand the thought of him moving away right now. So when he touches her leg, holds it around himself, she shivers all over with relief, holds him more tightly in her arms. She turns her head against his shoulder, burying her face in his neck, and breathes out shakily as she regains herself after orgasm. If she's tender after fucking him twice in quick succession, her flesh sensitive and maybe even pained, it doesn't show. She whimpers softly as she -- as they -- come back down.

Their skins are wet and hot, and melt together. She can't tell where she ends, where he begins, where her body heat flows into his heartbeat and back again. Danicka doesn't want to be able to tell, to know where the divisions can be marked. Not right now. Later, she'll be glad she can exist in her own skin without him. Right now: she doesn't want to believe in such things as separateness.

They hold one another, melded, and Danicka closes her eyes, breathing deeply of his scent, of cool but heating air, of love.

"My god," she breathes, after a very long time, whispering the word into his skin.

Lukas
My god, she says.

He agrees. And in response he nuzzles her ear, her neck, gently. Draws a breath and releases it.

Before Danicka, Lukas would've never believed there was a part of him that needed protection and nurturing, either. He would've never thought it possible that some part of him would not only not balk from showing vulnerability, showing softness -- but not be afraid of it at all. To trust completely. To knows that whatever he is, whatever he's done, whatever he feels or fears could be confided to his mate without fear of humiliation or betrayal.

It's not something most Shadow Lords would believe possible. It's not something most people would believe possible, period.

Afterward, his breathing is quieter. Comes easier. He settles against her, relaxing by degrees, his chest to hers; his stomach to hers; his hips to hers. He knows he can't put his weight on her like this. Not for long. He knows he'll have to move sooner or later, but when he does -- moments, minutes later -- it's slow. It's lazy, exhausted, gradual.

He rolls to his side, rolls her with him. And again, until she's atop him now, and he's laying back against the cushions, covering her back with his hands.

Their furnace is still roaring in the basement. Slowly, little by little, warm air is filling their den. He nuzzles her still, slower now, with a sleepy warmth: his nose nudging against her ear, her hairline. His mouth laying soft little kisses against her cheek and her temple.

"Třináct měsíců," he muses, whispering. "Jaro přichází brzy."

Danicka
She makes a sound of protest when he starts to roll, nuzzling into his neck, withdrawing her arms from around his body to tuck them in against his chest. He's warm. And the couch is warm from their body heat. And the air is still cool, her lean back now exposed to it. Danicka curls close to his chest when they move, legs unwinding from him to tangle with his against the cushions. There's a blanket across the back, but she doesn't reach for it. It's possible that, in these moments, she's still inhuman enough to not remember such things.

Or else: she can't bear to take her body from his. Her arm, to reach up and cover them. She doesn't want to move. She doesn't want anything but this. Her mate on top of her, her mate near her, holding her, safe and warm together in their den as they wait for winter to loosen its stranglehold on the land. This is all she wants, beyond food, beyond things, beyond anything that can come to mind.

"Ano," she murmurs back, just as musing, her eyes drifting closed as she presses her face to his chest, the hairs there tickling her nose and cheek. She smiles. "Miluji tě. Měli bychom tu zůstat."

The smile grows, her hair spread over them. A soft, happy noise resonates from her. "Make the den warm again."

Lukas
Stay here, she says. He thinks she means the couch at first, and when she burrows against him, seeking his warmth, seeking his presence, he reaches up for the throw blanket. Which he unfolds, mostly by touch. Which he lays over her, and tucks around them.

But; no. That's perhaps not what she meant. And there's a pause in him, an aching second of silence. Then he wraps his arms around her atop the blanket, holding warmth in against her skin.

"Jak dlouho?" he whispers.

Danicka
"Mmm," she hums, still happily, replete and content -- especially as he covers her, as he draws down the blanket that will now come away smelling like their sweat and their sex. It make her happy to think about it. It makes her happy to have fucked in this den in some room other than theirs, some structure other than their bed. She is all smiles and languid limbs, nuzzling him every so often out of nothing more than absent pleasureseeking.

"Tonight at least," Danicka murmurs, stroking his side, stroking his chest under the blanket, kissing his breastbone. "Some of the morning and afternoon, if you can. I'd like to feed you."

Lukas
Lukas laughs quietly -- not because anything she's said was funny or humorous, but out of something far more primitive and primal than that. Pure happiness. Sheer joy at being here with here, and at seeing her happy.

He loves how animal she is immediately after they make love. He loves how all her complexities and subtleties, all her obliquenesses, reduce to simple, animal pleasures and demands: cold. hot. stay. move. hungry. satisfied. sleepy.

He loves her. Period.

And he tells her so, quietly: "Miluji tě." His lips press against her temple like a seal, a promise. His chest rises and falls beneath her cheek. Against her hands. Goosebumps flicker across his skin -- involuntary response to her caress, to the warmth of her kiss over his beating heart.

"I can," he adds a moment later. His arms fold around her: a little closer. "Nechci odejít."

Danicka
It is safe to be what she is with him. Animal. Happy. Vulnerable. Vicious. She can say or show him: cold, and he warms her. She can tell him or show him: hungry and he will find food for her, make it, help her with it, somehow find a way to feed her. She can let him know: sleepy and he quiets, stroking her hair, holding her close, waiting for her to fall asleep before he does. And there is nothing weak there, like she once thought, like they once both believed so strongly that they hurt and abandoned one another over it.

No more of that, now. He loves her and she loves him, and she believes it, and that is something extraordinary in and of itself.

Danicka drowses, smiling, and sighs against his chest. Her entire torso moves gently with it. "Good," she breathes out. "That's good." A long pause, then, his cock softening inside of her cunt slowly and their bodies cooling to a tolerable temperature even while they warm to a stable one, as everything returns to equilibrium. She seems so quiet and so steady that maybe she's fallen asleep, until she murmurs:

"If I take you to bed," she begins, all but whispering, "and roll onto my stomach, will you fuck me again like that?"

Lukas
Lukas quiets, too. His eyes are closed. His breathing is soft and slow, and after a while -- a little rougher. He isn't merely drowsing -- he is asleep, dosing with his lover in the aftermath of their love.

Then she speaks again. His eyes open immediately; clear, they scan the ceiling, look at the moon. He breathes in, a short, swift sip. She can feel his heart thump a little faster, though his voice is the same soft whisper it was:

"Ano."

He thinks for a minute. His hand traces her back through the throw. Then he adds, "A ještě jednou, když mi dovolíte. Na našich strana. Tváří v tvář."

Danicka
She can hear his heartbeat. Feel his breathing. He slept, briefly and quickly, dropping off after spending himself twice inside of her. Dozing easily because they're in their den, and he knows his made is fed and fucked and satisfied, safe and warm where she belongs, and he's close enough to protect her. All is as it should be. They are as they should be.

It makes her happy, that he sleeps so easily now, when once he forced himself to stay awake until she left because he did not trust that she'd be there when he woke up, if he let himself drift off while she was in bed with him. Then he speaks.

And Danicka shivers. Laughs softly and kisses his chest again. "Oukej," she breathes. "Ale budu potřebovat odpočinout na chvíli." He can feel her lips spread, feel her smile against him. "Let's shower before we get in bed."

Lukas
"I love it when you do that," Lukas murmurs. "When you kiss my chest like that. It makes me feel..."

A quiet. He searches for the right word. In the end what he comes up with is the most obvious one:

"Miloval." Lukas smiles, then. He sits up, raising himself on his elbows, nuzzling his face suddenly, heavily, affectionately against hers. "You make me feel loved."

They get up off the sofa. They leave their clothes where they are. Lukas dials the thermostat down to a reasonable 70, 72 degrees. Then they go upstairs, their bare feet soft on the still-new carpet.

There are more windows up here. More pale blue light spills in from the moon, illuminating the burbling desk fountain, the silent computer. Later, tomorrow, Danicka will see Lukas tending their spirits, trailing his fingers into the fountain, caressing the panes of glass. Dusting the lamps and the light fixtures their electricity spirits reside in. Perhaps she'll help him: help him polish the windows, help him sing to the fountain. But that's later.

For now, he simply looks in on them. Moves on, into the bathroom, where the sudden light makes him blink, and then laugh at his tousled, rumpled, sweat-sticky reflection.

The bath runs. Then the shower. He steps in after his mate. He washes his hair and then helps her wash hers, massaging shampoo into suds on her scalp. He washes her back, too, and then stands under the blast of water as she washes his, eyes closed, hands loose at his sides, limp with relaxation and animal enjoyment.

Later, when they're both clean, they lean against the shower wall together, his chest to her back, his arms around her. Eyes closed; water beating down on their skin. They rest like that for a while, almost-drowsing on their feet, until his hand begins to caress her; begins to fondle her breasts, and then rub between her legs.

They're still faintly wet when they tumble onto their bed. The comforter cover wicks up the last of the moisture on their skin. His mouth is all over her, hungry again, wanting again. The lights are off but the windows are large enough; the skies are clear, and that luminous deep blue so characteristic of a full moon night. His teeth scrape gently at her shoulderblades as she turns on her stomach. He kisses his way down her back, and then they're pulling a pillow from under the blankets to fit under her hips and his hands are rubbing down her sleek back, his thumbs finding the dimples flanking the base of her spine. She can hear his breath hiss between his teeth as he kneels behind her and guides himself into her.

A slow, firm fuck, then: not quite gentle, but slow. His body behind hers, first; then coming down over hers. His chest against her upper back; his stomach flexing against her lower. His cock inside her, driving into her as he pants past her ear, as she moans into the covers or the pillow or the sheets: oh, oh, oh.

He doesn't bite her this time when he comes. He bites the comforter instead, much, much harder than he would ever bite her, holding back groans, trying not to moan.

They're spent and limp in bed afterward. He moves to the side so he doesn't crush her. They sprawl. He stays inside her, his hand tracing her back, rubbing her shoulders gently.

He tells her: I love coming inside you. I love that you're mine.

His mouth to the center of her back, over her heart.

I love being yours.

--

They sleep. The moon moves. It's full, and his blood is charged with rage, with energy, with a restlessness that keeps him from sleeping deeply while his moon is in the sky. Before long he's awake again, but she's still asleep, and he remembers her saying Let me rest, so he doesn't wake her. He covers her with the comforters from his half of the bed and he closes his eyes, thinking thirteen moons, thinking how the first time she let him have her he didn't dare sleep, didn't dare close his eyes, didn't dare let himself quite hold her

though he couldn't help covering her shoulder, and her feet, and asking her what he did.

To which she replied: no. And moved closer to him anyway. And let him hold her, if only briefly.

He turns toward her now, his sleeping mate. He wraps his naked body around her and holds her through the comforters. He's not cold. His rage keeps him warm tonight. He'll keep her warm.

--

Nearly dawn when he wakes again. Nearly dawn when they move into each other's arms, facing. Her thigh over his hip. His mouth close to hers, kissing her on every other thrust, gently this time, slow and soft, careful of her sensitive flesh, her tender cunt that he's fucked over and over and over tonight. Their arms wrap around each other before they come. They hold each other as they gasp and grind against one another. He pushes her hair off her face as he kisses her, deeply, swallowing what soft moans she might loose as her pussy clenches and quivers around him.

The moon is down, after. He sleeps deeply.

--

Much later, after the spirits are tended, after she's cooked and he's helped, even if it's something so slight as mashing a potato, boiling a pot of water, pouring the coffee or the milk -- after they've peered out their kitchen window and he's mused about where best to plant their tree; after the sun has risen to its apex and descended into the west again, and afternoon is on the verge of becoming evening:

they go back. They drove here in one car, and they drive back in one. The sun sets as they go. Lukas is quieter; he's a little sad. He's always a little when they part, because it reminds him that when she's not here he misses her. It's somehow a little worse when they ride in the same vehicle for half an hour, knowing that every passing mile brings him closer to a goodbye.

It's somehow a little worse when the skies are turning colors, then turning dark.

They part in front of the diner near UChicago. He stands with her outside her car for a while. He kisses her before he goes, and then he hugs her, holds her for a long time, envelopes her in an embrace that bends him to her, crushes her to him, brings them together for an interminable moment before he steps back.

"Call me," he says. And, "Už teď mi chybíš."