A Feral Interlude

Disclaimer: Explicit sex, adult situations, implied rape, graphic imagery, some serious hormones, and a pinch of angst. I do not own any aspect or character of the Marvel Universe nor elements of the X-Men Origins movieverse.
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A Feral Interlude: Sighing Ecstasy

He slowly began to stir awake, his drowsy grunt muffled against the pillow when he reached over and only caught a bundle of furs and a stray pillow in his grip instead of the warm curvaceous body he’d expected. Victor was instantly awake, sitting up in his bed with a surly growl. Running sharp claws through his cropped hair as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, he tried to quell the anger that rose in his chest.

She’s still here, jackass.

As a matter of fact, he could hear her moving in the kitchen. He could also smell the delectable scents of seared bacon and all sorts of other flavors wafting in the air. His momentary anxiety of not finding her in his bed was washed away, dismissed as a stupid flare of possessiveness as he stretched leisurely, popping the kinks out of his back and yawning despite himself.

Grabbing a pair of dark grey sweatpants, Victor pulled them on and padded barefoot towards the double doors, when he noticed the fire had gone out. He also noticed that the heaps of clothes were gone. Walking out to the living room, he found that the disaster zone it was the night before was gone. Every piece of furniture was righted and the lights were on. It was gloomily dreary outside, the snow still coming down in thick clusters that obscured even the trees that lined his property. The fire in the hearth was low, but it kept most of the room warm as he followed the delicious smells that wafted out of the kitchen.

He strode in quietly, catching her with her back to the doorway as she tended to the stove.

She was humming a jaunty tune under her breath, something that reminded him of the radio days. On the counter next to the sink was a huge beef sirloin roast that was defrosting on a baking sheet. The domesticity of the scene made him question whether he was still out of it or not.

His eyes honed in on her hourglass form, however. It wasn’t everyday Victor Creed woke up to find a frail in his kitchen, humming lightheartedly and cooking up a storm, let alone one so goddamned hot who was wearing one of his thermal sweaters. The rust-red sweater dwarfed her, hanging off her shoulders and clinging in all the right places. Her long hair was cascading down her back just a few inches short of the small of her back, the lusciousness of the dark mane gleaming when the kitchen light caught it. The oven dinged, and she seamlessly moved a pan over, turned the stove off, and opened the oven, bending over to reach for the casserole. The fact that she reached for the hot cast iron cookery without mittens didn’t seep into his thoughts, not with her gorgeous ass clad in her panties peeking at him before she straightened and shut the oven.

She placed the casserole on the back of the stove top before tending to a frying pan sizzling with thick strips of bacon. Humming, she fished the bacon out of the grease and onto a paper towel-covered plate. She knew he was there, standing at the door and watching her with veiled skepticism. He smelled warm and put off, unsure of what to do and not liking it one bit. She continued to sashay from the sink to the stove as if unaware he was there while she mixed the ingredients for the beef hash to simmer in a cast iron pan and reached for another frying pan.

Her hand brushed his instead of the pan’s handle. She snickered when he pressed in behind her, his hand caressing up her arm as he pressed his nose against her temple and nuzzled her. For a moment she didn’t know what he was going to do, until he dipped his head and bit the slope of her neck, worrying her skin between his teeth while his hands pawed up her waist to tease her nipples through the sweater. She arched back, sighing into his arms.

The top of her head was only level to his collarbones, even when she stood on the tips of her toes. It turned him on to still be physically imposing over her; to feel her pressed against him. She wasn’t built like most of the female mutants he’d met. They were often lean and athletically built; a consequence of high metabolisms and mediocre healing factors. Isabela was shaped like a nimble dancer, statuesque in frame as if she’d been sculpted out of corporeal marble. Her form was deceptively luscious, the perfect vessel for a predator like her. Disarmingly beautiful. Preternaturally lethal.

“This is the third time you take my things, viper” he husked against her jaw and let his nails lengthen to bite through the sweater at the supple mounds of her breasts. “Ever heard of asking for something?” he sardonically condescended, clutching her against him by dragging his palms down her body.

“Now isn’t that hypocritical, coming from the man who took me captive and whisked me away to his cabin? Not to mention the man who stole my panties” she mused humorously and tilted her head to glance provocatively at him with a raised brow.

He snorted and nudged his head against hers in a show of dominant affection. “What can I say? To the Victor go the spoils, viper. I figure I can take anything I want if it’s in my house” he derisively mused with a smirk.

His meaning was clear: she was his property. Amused, Isabela nuzzled his mutton-chopped cheek before going back to tend to the food cooking on the stove, even with him still pressed against her.

“Sit. I’m going to make eggs. You can have some casserole in the meanwhile” she remarked as she picked up the casserole and turned in his arms, purposely grazing against the bulge in his sweatpants and staring up into his stormy crystalline eyes.

He huffed cynically and smiled sharply, “Trying to butter me up with food and sex isn’t going to get you out of here, Izzie.”

Her features only betrayed a pinch of anger, but her eyes darkened with fury. “You think I cooked all of this just for you? I’m absolutely famished. So” she successfully maneuvered him to unconsciously step back towards the table before yanking the chair out for him and placing the casserole down, ordering crisply, “Sit and enjoy.”

He blinked down at the chair, then at the casserole before snickering at her back. “I like it when you get feisty. It’s going to be so much fun to push your buttons, sweetheart. Might as well drop the ice queen bit and get comfortable” he remarked with sinister affability and dropped into the chair, leaning back in it with his hands clasped behind his head to leer at her.

“Oh Victor, we both know you’re not patient enough to keep a plaything around for too long” she mused aloofly as she kept her back to him and cracked several eggs into a large bowl. “You don’t have the attention span” she baited before adding, “and I’m not some little Vietnamese girl that you can rape and toss away like a broken doll.”

The ire rose in him, scalding and brisk as it flared like a wildfire under his skin. He was on his feet and cornering her against the sink when she turned around to meet his rancorous glare. The skillet sizzled on the stove as he grabbed her slender throat and pinned her between him and the counter.

He squeezed her neck and her breath hitched, but she didn’t betray any discomfort as he shook her and barked, “I can tear you apart! Keep you in agony for the rest of eternity because you can’t brake like a fucking doll! All the suffering you’ve ever been through will pale in comparison to the absolute torture I can put you through. The next time you fucking talk to me like that there won’t be anything left for you to heal” he paused and dug his claws into her skin while she remained still and unflinching. His rage crackled inside him, ripping a snarl out of him as he slammed her back against the counter hard enough for the wood to sag and crack. “I’ll be such a fucking surgeon that even you won’t get off on the pain” he seethed through his teeth before letting go.

Victor loomed over her, daring her to say something. Her eyes remained on his as she reached her fingertips to his jaw. He didn’t expect the gesture, so he grabbed her hand before she could touch him, his jaw set and nostrils flaring angrily. He couldn’t read the stoic expression that arrested her fine features, and her scent grew heavy when she jerked her hand free and placed it palm flat over his bare chest, pressing soothingly over his thumping heart. The air was buzzing with energy when she suddenly tilted her head back and regarded him with a dazzling gaze.

“I have no doubt you could do all that and more, Victor” she stated serenely before smiling. “How do you like your eggs?”

His eyes intensified, anger crinkling his mouth from how disarming she was. When he hesitated, she sidled nimbly towards the stove and poured the eggs onto the skillet before he even knew what to say.

“Don’t be mad, Victor. Spoils the appetite. I don’t want all this food to go to waste…and I’d like the company without you glaring daggers at me” she spoke casually, her tone soft and soothing without sounding like he was being cooed at.

He stared at her profile, taking in the soft curve of her cheekbone and the slope of her shoulder as she cooked before he yanked a drawer open, fished out some utensils, and stalked to the table.

“Scrambled’s fine.”

She dipped her head and betrayed a small smile, proceeding to scramble the eggs. In a few minutes, she was serving him a heaping plate loaded with eggs, bacon, and beef hash.

“All you have is beer to drink” she mused as she opened the fridge and got an icy bottle, popped the cap off with her thumbnail, and placed it in front of him.

“All I need” Victor answered broodingly as he eyed her and took a swig of the beer, washing down the delicious food.

She made a noncommittal noise as she filled a glass with tap water and served herself before sitting next to him at the table. He watched her eat daintily but with gusto before he took another bite of his own food. His sweater slipped off her shoulder, and Victor was unnerved by the sudden urge to touch her skin. Part of him wanted to dig into the flesh and peel it back, while another part of him wanted to lick her from cunt to mouth. Her scent wasn’t helping the dueling impulses.

“There’s more if you’re still hungry” she stirred him from his sadistic thoughts. His gaze intensified on her again before he shoved his plate across the table at her. She acquiescently took it and went to the stove, serving what was left before returning to sit next to him. She placed the plate in front of him. Victor grabbed her wrist before she withdrew it and pulled her closer, causing the chair to scrape audibly from the shift and surprise to light up her eyes. He brought her wrist to his mouth, watching her challengingly as he bit down on her pulse and suckled.

She sighed at the heat of his mouth, shutting her eyes as his tongue laved at her healing wound before it dragged into her palm to trace the lines of her hand, savoring the velvety texture of her skin and the electricity her taste left dancing on his tongue. Isabela sighed and shifted in her chair, brushing her knee against his thigh. He bit hard into the heel of her palm before sitting back, watching her with smoldering eyes as he dragged a claw up her forearm.

“I’m not letting you go, you know that” he suddenly growled, digging his claw into her skin and dragging a gash into her soft skin before it mended.

Her eyes intensified, but not with anger. He couldn’t read the heat that radiated in her frondy depths, even as the russet rings around her pupils seemed to glow at him. “Do you know what you’re referring to anymore?” she asked as a response, the question a soft murmur that raked her to even voice.

His brow furrowed. “The fuck you talking about” he growled, “I mean you’re stuck here. You’re not leaving here no matter what tricks you pull. Hell, I fucking like your tricks so far; keeps things spontaneous” he chuckled the last statement and flashed a leering fang at her.

He was emanating sheer heat, his body as hot as a stoked furnace. When he touched her, the heat of his pulse seeped into her skin, making her want to claw into his arms and cling to the fire that burned him from the inside out. His eyes twinkled mischievously at her even when his pearly whites weren’t flashing menacingly at her. Sometimes his smile was enough to disarm her. It was wolfish and malicious, but somehow still endearingly entrancing. He made her impulses rage with desire, something she hadn’t felt since she escaped into the rainforest.

She pursed her lips to soften her sneer. “Over a hundred years old and you still think with your dick” she muttered sarcastically with a smile, pulling her arm away and taking her dishes to the sink.

“I distinctly remember a sexy little viper telling me how I couldn’t rape the willing” he snickered as he pulled the casserole over and shoved a fork into it, “funny how my dick was appreciated then…and last night.”

When she turned to glare at him, he had a lopsided smirk as he chewed a mouthful of ground beef casserole. She puffed a gush of air and the amusement out of her tone as she leaned against the sink and remarked offhandedly, “I’ve had better.”

Victor stopped chewing and dropped his fork to clatter on the table. The chair protested when he shoved it back and looked over at her. “Oh, I doubt that” he tersely spat, not bothering to wipe the meaty juice that dripped from the corner of his mouth down to his chin.

Her lips slowly curled into a smirk, and it suddenly dawned on him that she was teasing him. Sometimes she had such a cool and fluid tone that it was hard to tell if she was serious or not. She had a serious poker face too, probably the best he’d ever come across. She was infuriating and arousing, sometimes at the same time.

She slinked over to him, leaning on the table before she dipped a finger into the casserole and brought it to her mouth, suckling on the digit and humming at the tastiness. “For someone that likes to tease so much, you really can’t take it, can you?” she purred playfully.

“No one’s usually stupid enough to tease me” he muttered cockily, lounging in the chair and giving her a cynical look.

“Ah” she spoke, picking up the casserole and setting it away on the counter just behind him. He resisted the urge to turn and track her movements. Arousal clung in the air, and it was a mutual desire no matter how much he wanted to deny it. She managed to turn him on with the simplest word or gesture, and it only compounded his resolve to keep her caged up in his cabin.

Her hands came to rest on his bare and broad shoulders before trailing over the planes of his chest. “I wasn’t completely teasing, though. I have had better…until you” she murmured against his temple as her fingers combed through the short fur on his chest. Victor growled a purr, exhaling through his nose as he fought the urge to grab her and take her on the table. He wanted to see what she was going to do; wanted to see the audacity she’d have to try and initiate sex with him. It was completely novel to him, and it was making him hot.

Her hands receded as she craned around him to lick up the sauce that dripped down his chin. He felt her long hair drag across the nape of his neck before dangling over his arm and chest. The sensations were sending currents of pleasure straight to his loins. Just as the tip of her tongue tickled the corner of his mouth, Victor grabbed the back of her neck and grunted approvingly into a hungry kiss. He was quickly on his feet and pressing her against the edge of the table, overpowered by animal desire as he swiped anything left on the surface off to crash and shatter to the floor before picking her up and slamming her down on the table top.

Gasping, Isabela hooked her knees around his hips and pulled until her pelvis was on the edge of the table and lined against his crotch. Victor took the moment of drunken levity to savor the image of her sprawled on the table, looking like a sinewy sprite with glowing eyes and sultry lips that were silently beckoning for him. The sweater was dragged taut over her chest and a tear singed the collar, exposing her defined collarbone and clavicle. Her glossy dark hair was pouring in rivulets around her head, flaring about when she tossed her head back and craned her throat up to him in an animalistic sign of approval.

He fisted the front of the oversized sweater and pulled her up as he settled between her thighs. “Say you want me” Victor suddenly husked roughly against her lips as his hands pawed down her sides to grip her against him. “Say it” he demanded with a quiet hunger in his harsh tone.

All the heat went out of her while her eyes glowed fiercely at him.

“No.”

The shocked anger that arrested his features quickly melted away by the flash of fury that lit his eyes. Victor abruptly reared back and backhanded her with all the rage her denial fueled inside of him. She gasped and wavered, catching herself before she fell sideways off the table. His blow had cut her lip, causing blood to drip down her mouth even though the cut healed instantly. She jerked back to face him and instead of retaliating like he expected, she swiped the blood off her lip with her tongue and laughed disparagingly at him. “Aren’t you sweet, cub” she mocked, “going to beat me into submission? Try and knock the surrender out of me?”

Victor snarled viciously and lunged towards her, floored by her audacity and murderously livid. This time she anticipated him and struck him hard in the face before they tangled in a furious battle that resembled two lashing forces colliding and crashing against each other, striking at the other whenever one had an opportunity. Isabela thrashed against Victor when he grabbed both her wrists and slammed her against the closest wall. He choked on a grunt when she managed to elbow him in the sternum and knee him in the inner thigh before he could jerk her up and pin her against the wall.

“Just keep fucking fighting, bitch! No matter how stubborn you get I know you want me! You’re fucking wet for me. I have more than enough goddamned time to make you say it when I’m fucking you blind, so keep fucking fighting me!” Victor lividly seethed at her through bared fangs as he fought to absorb her every blow before he dug his nails into her arms and got head butted in the mouth for his efforts.

Isabela managed to wring one arm free and punched him in the nose, which made him roar in exasperation. He grabbed her throat and choked her as he fought the stinging and the watering of his eyes from her blow. She managed to knee him in the stomach when she fought for leverage against the vice-like grip around her neck, still lashing out with searing precision. When the heel of her foot connected with the tender spot just above his crotch, Victor grunted and faltered long enough to allow her to shove him away with intense force. She panted, her features flushed from the constriction of her throat while she lowered into a fighting stance, slightly winded.

“If you fucking know it then why are you so intent on me saying it?!” she shouted at him, her expression blazing with vexation and her hair whipping around her from her deft movements. When Victor stiffened as if burned, she snapped in a calculatingly scathing tone, “Do you want me, Victor?”

The air was crackling with their dueling anger, buzzing and heady like the atmosphere just after lighting strikes. Victor advanced in a furious motion before he stopped short and glared hostilely at her. His fists were bawled up, clenched so tight that the air was scented with his blood.

“Well? Do you want me?” Isabela fronted him, ignoring the warning hiss he snarled at her. “If you can say it, then that’s the day I can put a collar on you, Victor” she stated caustically. Victor was struck by her words, but didn’t lose the edge of his livid anger. He felt powerless, utterly thwarted but couldn’t decide what to do with his rage. “Like I said before” she spoke in a vehement murmur, “I’m not some frail you can play with until you break. I’m as permanent to this world as you are…I can’t be caged up in your lair like a canary because I’m a godforsaken animal. Just. Like. You.”

Victor grabbed her shoulders and pressed her back against the wall, looming over her with an undercurrent of fuming disdain. “What you fail to understand is how goddamned capable I am of keeping you locked up” he spat maliciously, his nostrils flaring as he exhaled and sneered bitingly, “I think you ache for me to break you down, cuz you’re too fucking stubborn to admit you’re mine, Izzie.”

Her hands flinched and snapped up to press firmly against his chest, gripping at his warm muscles as a storm of conflict glazed her angry stare. “Stop calling me that” her voice hissed with arduous acrimony, digging her nails into his chest and looking hauntingly into his cold blue eyes. Eyes that were the color of ice water, just like his. After almost half a millennia of living, she still felt devastated by loss. It left her shaken, fighting against a quivering rage that left her hollow and mindless.

“Say you want me and I’ll stop calling you that.”

Her eyes focused incredulously on him. His expression was serious, but triumph danced in his eyes, goading and scintillating. She was speechless, completely diffused as she leant back against the wall and broke eye contact with him.

The savage pride he felt at her defeat didn’t satisfy him. Instead, it left him simmering for the vitality he’d unintentionally staunched out. Goddammit viper! Even her elevated pulse wasn’t enough to make him gloat. He was suddenly so pissed he wanted to hit her—break something or just go out and butcher someone. The fact that butchering her wasn’t in his mind as an option had nothing to do with her imperviousness…and that pissed him off even more.

“Fine” he hissed and slammed a hand flat against the wall, just inches away from her face as he leaned in and venomously continued, “you can keep fighting me, and I can keep you here and show you how fucking much I own you. Sooner or later, I’ll fuck the stubborn streak right out of you—leave you begging like any other frail. After all…” we’re both permanent, “neither of us is going anywhere.”

He didn’t even engage her cold expression. Instead he stalked out of the kitchen, his fuming footfalls echoing throughout the cabin before they were muffled by the opening and slamming of an interior door.

Isabela remained against the wall, her features apathetic as she let the storm of sensations rage around her. Her senses were itching from the tension that clung in the air. It had taken every drop of her stoic ambivalence to refrain from asserting her autonomy; from bludgeoning the younger feral for even suggesting she was submissive to him. Her pulse hummed with suppressed savagery, with the primordial imperative to tear him apart for challenging her. He’d raked her insides with his triumphant boasts and plunged icy loathing into her very being by using the name they’d used. Izzie had died with him. Just like all the other names had been discarded with the course from one life to another, so had it.

It was a leash. Strangling her with emotions she’d hoped had turned to stone after so many years. Instead, it managed to galvanize dormant pain she’d tried to drown over the course of centuries. Along with the soul crushing loss of an immortally perishable man, she was seared through by the memories of the life she’d held in her hands… life already dead before she could wrap her heart around it.

Victor tore all of it up—tore it out of her like quicksilver that threatened to seep out of her and swallow her into madness. Isabela had barely fought off the anguish, clawed out of the sorrow that had threatened to engulf her in a state of perpetual savagery when they’d both died. The two deaths had proven to her she was a monster who couldn’t kill the humanity that lingered inside of her. It was like a burning ember, searing her from the inside. The first death had changed her very being, peeled it away like skin and left it bleeding before the salt of her hysteria had cauterized her back together into the hypersensitive creature that had wandered the earth for centuries before meeting a being just like her.

Her soul had been transformed that moonlit night over 400 years before, while part of her had died with Eirik. She’d managed to numb it all out.

She wanted to be unfeeling, but only time had proved that feelings don’t die; they sear into you like a brand—a permanent scar that will never heal.

Racked with the storm of emotions and memories she fought to quell, Isabela ambled stoically around the kitchen, cleaning up the mess they’d made.

Victor was just as obstinate as Eirik had been. Instead of stinging her, the similarity made her smile. But there was one profound difference between them. The words slithered out of her recollections, disembodied ghosts of their former owner’s steely hiss, thrusting Isabela into a torrent of icy musings.

For fuck’s sake, Izzie! Will I have to give you my balls in a glass case for you to get it?! You are my Valkyrie. My soul belongs to you and you damn well belong to me!

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Victor was teeming with pent up blood thirst, his hackles raised and his muscles bunched up from how hard he fought against the urge to throw a savage fit and annihilate whatever and whoever was around him. She got under his skin, stayed there and scorched him like a fever.

The anger she caused him was like splinters embedded under his thick flesh, making him want to lash out and go mindlessly wild with rage. Her goddamned irrevocable temerity turned him on and made him blind with fury, two emotions that left him in a cloudy fog of animosity and incredulity. Even now, pacing his spacious den, he couldn’t shake off the venomous spite that seethed out of him.

She refused to fucking submit to him no matter how much power he wielded over her with that simple brand of a nickname. It jarred him to be ineffectual in his dominance over her; made him want to peel her away to see what made her tick; body, mind, and soul.

Victor never gave a fuck about the soul. Breaking down the body was just as much fun as picking apart the mind, but the soul was something that never mattered to him before. Not until her.

He didn’t believe in souls, not in the conventional sense anyway. He believed in life as a biological imperative—a vitality that existed in the bone, tissue and blood of every living thing. To him, the soul wasn’t some whimsical ethereal plane that lives on and frolics in the afterlife, nor was it the judge of a person’s eternal value. The soul was an animating principle, something that got lost in the shuffle of actually living. Victor didn’t see the soul as anything more than a spark that animated life; it was just part of the fire that was living, nothing more…until he saw it clawing sorrowfully inside the russet rings of Isabela’s eyes.

He couldn’t take her body. He couldn’t pick apart her mind…but he could see her soul. Victor wanted it—sought to posses its secrets, because it was the only thing that Isabela couldn’t control. So much of her essence wanted to pour out of her, but she held it all back, sealed within the corporeal marble of her stoic features and the hardness of her resolve.

Victor wanted to posses her, but he couldn’t mark her body, couldn’t claim her or force her into submission. It drove him nuts.

Simmering with aggravation now, Victor rubbed the back of his neck tensely, trying to shake his head free of the rancorous rage from before to focus his thoughts. Then he noticed the formidable stack of faxed notes sitting in the tray of his fax machine. Snorting, he walked over ad fanned through it, having completely forgotten about it. Dan must’ve spent the whole night feeding his fax machine so Victor would get the notes. He smiled at the image of the tacto-empath sifting paper after paper into the machine out of fear that Victor would unleash hell on him.

Picking the stack up, he sat in his armchair across from the window. Dan had translated everything verbatim for him, even being thorough enough as to insert details that were empathically linked, such as a stray thought this Mischa Krause had while he wrote. The first page was some sort of foreword, but with all the extra details Dan inserted, it turned out to be more like a prologue. Huffing, Victor skipped it and went to the first dated journal.

20 March, 1929

The subject has given me permission to document our conversations… She is otherworldly in her demeanor… I’m often disarmed by her mannerisms, especially when she looks intently at me, as if she can read me…The subject has also allowed me to call upon any scientific requirement I must have in order to study, analyze, and document for the purposes of evolutionary theory. As it will become cumbersome to refer to the subject as simply that, they have allowed me to use their full name—saying it was one of many anyway—and to include their biography as it was told to me—Since I don’t have the income or pull to get a voice recorder for this I have to act as a damned stenographer—

What is your name and how old are you?

“My name is Countess Isabela de Winter. No, I’m not a real countess; not born one, anyway. I…acquired the status. As of January 10th of this year, I am 404 years old.”

The countess was able to verify the validity of her claim by providing a portrait painted by the Spanish artist Guillermo de la Barca, dated in 1540, when she would’ve been 15 years old. I have been assured by a colleague that the portrait was indeed authentic and I am more than scientifically sure that the countess is the woman in the portrait—her eyes and luscious dark hair are uncanny—so once validated, I met with the countess a second time at the enclosed botanical atrium at a home I knew for certain wasn’t her residence.

I brought my cameras and everything else I could’ve ever needed, too incredulous with myself to realize how bumbling I must’ve looked. I had found an immortal, and she was a radiant woman from the New World, ironically enough. I was led into the foyer, through several lavish parlors, out to the tinted-glassed atrium. The plants, ferns, and roses were fragrant and beautiful—the sound of birds everywhere! They called and chirped and sang in different pitches—I thought of the Garden of Eden. Sitting on a stone bench, the countess greeted me and waved me into the sprawling space, her green eyes standing out more than usual in the surrounding greenery.

Where were you born?

“I was born on the main island of Puerto Rico in 1525, just a few years after the island and the capital exchanged names. My father was a wealthy Spaniard…a merchant. My mother was a Taino princess…my grandfathers were the caciques Urayoán and Agüeybaná II. My father was one of the first rich Spanish settlers to take a native as his wife. I was born in Hato de los Reyes; my mother died giving birth to me…”

When did you realize you weren’t human?

“The day my half brother died…I know now that I killed him” –She didn’t elaborate so I thought I had made her angry—“…Alejandro was human. My Tia told me we only shared our father’s blood…that because Taino blood mixed with the blood of the white man, that I was one of the new children. I was going to transcend the mortal realm and punish the Spaniards, once the gods realized I was special and gave me the power. The Spaniards had lied to the Taino—had passed themselves off as gods when they were just white devils. My Tia told me these things when she was supposed to be telling me fairy tales. My father never knew; if he had, he’d have whipped her, maybe even killed her.”

The countess was poised but faraway, succinct in her musings—I was shocked into silence, a silence she broke by smiling darkly at me and asking if I really wanted to know it all—

Victor broke off, pensive.

Skimming back to the foreword, he read it, eyes sharp and expression coolly etched.

I must forewarn that as a doctor and a scientist, even I cannot detach myself from the subject. My study is scientific. I meant to keep objective, but she means so much to me and to the world. She is a discovery that has been looming in the shadows for us to notice. It’s happens chance that I be the one she approached—The Countess de Winter approached me at a salon party where intellectuals of all walks of life were in attendance—to share her secrets with. She was not my test subject—more like I was her plaything—but she is a figure of ample importance for my studies into human evolution. Darwin himself would’ve been humbled by her—but she didn’t choose to talk to Darwin. She chose a nobody like me!—, by the living marvel and example of her kind. My research will prove that yes, there is human evolution. It is still a process that continues without homo sapiens, and instead plateaus into another form of life—Preternatural, disarming, and arresting; life that can be the answer to mortality as well as the solution for longevity—We humans can gain answers from her, as we did when Darwin did his study of primates. Evolution is beyond god’s creation—because even god can’t care what happens to humans when he creates someone like her—while still being a divine marvel of evolutionary achievement. She is the only one of her kind to exist as far as history has shown, and she is the first to give herself over to science for the behest of knowledge for its very sake.

Victor returned to the journal.

“—I didn’t avenge the Tainos, let alone punish the Spaniards. How could I punish something that I was part of? It never made sense to me. I just wanted…wanted to know what I was. I haven’t met another like me, not in all of this time. I’ve been stabbed and shot—been burned…and nothing. I’m still here. I just want to know what I am. I’m tired of wondering, of traveling the world and finding nothing—no one else. In all my wanderings, all I’ve come to know of myself is that I’m a predator. You laugh? Well isn’t that adorable…Mischa”—she always said my name like it was something scandalous, smiling maliciously every time I underestimated her—“I have killed hundreds of men. Most of them were in the heat of the moment, unpremeditated…but others were delicious fun. I’ve bathed in blood before, boy. Even made snacks out of men when the fancy struck me…so if you’re going to laugh, don’t. I like a man with a sense of humor, usually like him enough to eat”

The countess had the most macabre humor at times, but there were always points when I was fairly certain she was warning me. This particular session progressed into different topics, one of which was over the residence itself. She explained that she had certain gifts—truth was she was an enigma in the social circles of Paris. She seemed to know everyone but no one knew anything about her. They assumed she was an exotic bedfellow of some rich socialite or other, but nothing concrete until she told me: “I ensnare men. I could do it to you, if I wanted to, Mischa”—, gifts that she would show me when I wanted to observe her doing so. She explained that the residence was a ‘friends’, nothing more.

I took dozens of photographs, realizing they were pointless considering they wouldn’t capture the color of her eyes or the intensity of her exotic features. She seemed to read my mind, telling me I could keep the portrait if it would help my study—“I want to know more” I told her desperately, and she’d smiled, “That’s why I approached you, Mischa. You have this passion to know and understand. I’ll tell you all you want; all you need do is ask…but I warn you, if you’re afraid of me, which I’m sure you will be soon, don’t badger me with questions that you can’t comprehend yourself. Make sure you’re invested, because if I feel that you aren’t…” her threat was veiled, and even when I wasn’t sure she was capable of anything malicious, something inside of my brain would scream and panic…this woman WAS a predator, and if I patronized her—and allowed me to call on her whenever I wanted to.

I plan on pursuing this study, no matter what limitations arise—I want to know…

---------------

Before he knew it, the scant winter light had darkened outside. He dropped the papers he still had to read onto his table and stood, stretching his back like a cat. Victor was pensive, his thoughts heavy with wonder and an insatiable desire to know more. But it’d been hours since he locked himself in his den, and curiosity got the better of him. Going out to the living room, he noticed how chilly it was in the spacious room. The fires had burned out a while ago, and there weren’t any logs in the cabin.

He could hear her in the kitchen, moving around and shuffling things on the stove and in the sink. Stalking quietly to his bedroom, which was on the opposite side of the living room at the back of the cabin, he got dressed and tugged a pair of boots on before striding to the front door and going out into the shin-deep snow. The slam of the door was loud and purposeful. He wanted to make her sweat, to wonder where he could’ve gone while he took out his frustrations from earlier on some lumber he was going to make kindling out of.

Going into his shed behind the cabin, he got his axe and felt the edge. It was blunt, but he didn’t care, propping it on his shoulder as he stalked through the tree line. He went to work chopping down tree trunks and making compact chunks of timber. It was a monotonous task that didn’t even break a sweat for him, but it helped clear his thoughts. Plus he liked to practice how precise he could be with the axe, goofing off by baring the blade down in a one-handed grip to splinter thick lumber right down the middle without much effort. He remembered when it used to be sport between him and Jimmy; to see who could chop the most wood during that first summer after Jimmy had gone through the change. It was never a contest; Victor smoked Jimmy and the runt would shove him playfully, roughhousing until they were laughing hard or wrestling for real.

Huffing, Victor brought the axe down so hard that it tore through the wood and keened loudly into the base of the tree stump the log had once been on. Growling, he yanked it out and started gathering enough kindling to keep the fires going for a few days before heading back through the trees. It started snowing again as soon as he got back to the cabin, the wind howling down the mountain and through the trees, promising another bitter cold night.

Stomping up his porch, he kicked at the snow that clung to his boots before balancing his filled arms to allow him to open the door. He braced himself, half expecting the viper to careen into him and try to escape while another part of him wondered if she’d have dinner set on the table for him. His snicker sounded more like grunt as he walked through the doorway and kicked the door shut behind him.

No delicious smells and no viper charging at him. Victor inwardly frowned, stalking into the living room and setting a load of kindling down by the fireplace before he got the hearth blazing again. Moving onto the fireplace in his room, he kept his ears sharp, but didn’t hear her in the kitchen anymore. Then he sniffed the air. Hot water, his soap, and warm skin was wafting thick in the air that came from his bathroom. The door was closed, but he could see the steam that tried to snake out from under the door.

His mouth was watering from the scents, hyperaware that the viper was naked, soapy, and hot in his bathroom. He got the fire going in the hearth and pulled off his coat, kicking out of his boots as he adjusted his jeans at the crotch, trying to relieve some of the pressure there before loping to the bathroom door.

When he opened the door, it took him a minute to make out her silhouette through the steam. The heated vapor hit him and dragged over his bare skin. He leaned his shoulder into the doorframe, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, and took her in. She was soaking in the tub, her arms resting along the edges while her head was lulled back in such a way that the top swell of her cleavage were above surface of the hot water. Her eyes glanced over at him before she shifted in the water to acknowledge him.

The sultry look in her eyes made him hot, but he ignored the impulses itching in his belly and grunted derisively at her. “The accommodations to your liking?” he snickered, the cynical edge of his tone masked in his gruff cadence.

Shifting to sit up, Isabela smiled as she folded her arms over the rim of the tub and answered, “The service could be better…” with a teasing glint in her eyes.

The tension was still crackling between them, but the animosity of before dissipated, for the time being. Victor had the upper hand now, and she knew it too, but he wasn’t kidding himself; she was biding her time, waiting for the right opportunity to spring whatever contingency she could to get what she wanted. Right now, however, Victor didn’t give a fuck what machinations she had about escaping. He wanted to test the waters, so to speak, and see just how riled he could get her—wanted to find that perfect middle ground where she was feisty and enticed so she’d be generous with her tight pussy while not pushing her into ice queen mode.

“Born with a silver spoon in that pretty little mouth, eh” he remarked sardonically. When she noncommittally went back to soaping herself up, Victor leered, “You could get used to being my…guest. I’ve got the means. I’d keep you more than well kept, better than any stupid fuck you could seduce.”

Isabela paused before resting back against the tub. “I highly doubt that, cub” she murmured aloofly, soaking in the tub and rubbing a washcloth over her throat and down the valley of her breasts submerged under the warm water. Her eyes locked onto his, and he sensed she was skeptical, put out by his change of tactic. “And besides, the one who’d be well kept in this arrangement is you” she mused suddenly, her expression warming with humor.

“Really” he grunted, trying to ignore the effect her heady scent was having on him in the confined and heated room.

Sitting up with her knees brushing the surface, Isabela replied, “Since I’ve been here I have cooked, cleaned, done your laundry, and fucked the smirks right off your face. Seems to me I’d be the one keeping you well off.”

“…when the fuck did you do my laundry?” Victor asked in an accusatory tone, shifting to lean on the opposite side of the doorframe and crossing his arms over his broad chest.

She giggled under her breath at the haughty expression he was sporting. “When you stormed out” she replied with amusement in her tone, “I got the caked gore off your coat. It’s hanging up to dry in the laundry room.”

He hummed gruffly, his stare implacably fixed on her, watching her bathe luxuriously in his tub. She was a tantalizing sight, and her scent was flooding his senses; warm and spicy with arousal. He knew his scent was probably dripping with how horny he was for her, but it really didn’t matter when he had his prey soaking and wet, in more ways than one.

“Why don’t you come in? The water’s still hot” she broke through his brooding musings. Victor eyed her, sensing the air for any hint she was up to something. “Join me. I’ll wash your back for you” she propositioned alluringly, shuffling up against the back of the tub and tossing the drenched tendrils of her hair off her shoulders. The water sloshed with her movements, her skin glistening, revealing tanned flesh and nothing else under the bright ceiling light and rippling soapy water.

Snorting, Victor snidely mocked, “Keep catering after me like this and I might scrap my arrangement and go with yours, viper” and went to work pulling off his layers of clothes before working his jeans undone.

She could smell him ruminating. The cub had a lot on his obstinate mind, and Isabela sensed it had nothing to do with keeping her under him. Her own suspicions were shoved away once he started stripping, his scent thick and musky, spiced with lust. She’d been craving his smell, wanting to taste his salty skin. Even after their tiff. Truth was she couldn’t stay mad at him. He was still so young compared to her. The ravages of time had been different to them both, and he didn’t recognize her as his elder…as the antithesis of how a feral goes about taking from the world. He’d clearly been lashing out and taking what he wanted since he was old enough to know he didn’t have a place in the world…just like she had. She’d been covert her whole life, choosing to make people give so she could take to her heart’s content. Of course this didn’t mean she wasn’t as savage as Victor. Just that he did it with a flare for rampant violence, relishing the terror of others and getting high off the power. Still, he had an effect on her. His gallant chauvinism was too appealing for her to ignore—his sense of power over her vexed and turned her on. It was invigorating not having to play coy. They were animals, and like animals, their attraction to each other was almost hardwired, primordial. But Isabela knew there was a difference from mating and the little dance Victor and she’d been doing—were probably destined to do for as long as he kept her cooped up.

Victor wanted to fuck the hell out of her. The air was thick with his lust and with her arousal, which both of them silently appreciated as he got out of his jeans and stalked to the tub. Isabela wanted to touch his half-hard cock—to suck and taste him. She kept the impulse in check while he stepped into the tub and kneeled down, facing her.

“Ah-ah” Isabela tisked and stopped him when he prowled down to settle between her thighs. “I’m nice and clean” she purred at him and gestured with her finger for him to turn around and sit in front of her.

Victor growled under his breath as he raised a suspicious eyebrow at her. He didn’t like the idea of acquiescing to her, let alone having the vicious minx behind him. It was the animal in him that seethed at the image of him folded in the arms of another predator, but Victor shoved the anxiety away and complied, wanting to see what would happen.

The water sloshed dangerously close to brimming over the rim when he sat with his back to her and sidled her back against the tub. He huffed at how ridiculous the scene probably looked; big-ass guy like him in a bath with a nimble woman clinging to his muscled back. Then she slipped her arms under his and caressed his pecs while her legs sidled over his under the water. He was happy he’d gotten the big tub, especially since it just accommodated them enough in their present configuration for it not to be an awkward fit.

Her hand came up to cup the side of his neck, her black nails scratching lightly at the dried blood from their gory night before and skimming down to his clavicle before she nudged her head against his. Victor exhaled through his nose and sat up to lounged in the tub, allowing her to soap up his back and drag the washcloth over the planes of muscle that contoured him. He closed his eyes and focused on the sensation of her skin gliding over his; on the gushing suds that ran down his shoulders and dripped down his chest. Her hand combed up the back of his scalp and worked up to the crown of his head before massaging leisurely back down to the nape of his neck, getting a pleased growl from him and sending a shudder of pleasure down Victor’s spine.

She ran the washcloth down his spine before moving around the curb of his ribcage and washing up his side. Victor dipped his head and hummed at the sensations, his shoulders rolling frontwards when she leant against his back and brushed the washcloth from his chest slowly down his abdomen. Her free hand raked lightly over a pectoral before cupping the contour of his ribcage as her other hand caressed lower, dipping into the water.

Fuck…I could get used to this.

Isabela tangled her fingers around the chain of his dog tags, toying with them absently as she washed his belly and rested her cheek against the side of his jaw.

“Afraid to forget who you are?” she mused, turning one tag around to see both engraved sides. Both sides had the same serial number, but different names; one side engraved CREED, the other SABERTOOTH.

Victor grunted, pulling the chain and tags out of her curious fingers. “S’been a habit wearing ‘em. If I don’t got ‘em on, I forget—keep feeling for ‘em until I remember” he murmured, his tone gruff but relaxed. “It’s easier just to keep ‘em on” he stated aloofly, taking her hand in his and comparing them. Her talons were deceptive, just like the rest of her. They were ink black and looked harmless from almost every angle, until you turned her fingers tip up and saw the nasty hook that curved sharply like a lizard’s nail. Good for cutting through skin and muscle like butter.

His were overtly vicious even when they were retracted. Tips were wickedly sharp and stained with blood. He lengthened his claws and let them prick the back of her hand as he examined her palm. Her hand wasn’t wrinkled by the water like his, and the water ran off her skin; no absorption of moisture.

“My skin has a lot of beta-keratin. It can’t absorb water or emanate much body heat” she murmured, answering his silent question when she noticed how he was comparing the palm of her hand to his.

Victor knew that, remembered reading about it in those journals. She didn’t emanate a lot of heat, but she absorbed it, which left her vulnerable in cold weather. Her skin had no pores, and the reason it was silky smooth was because her scales were layered over by a thin sheet of epidermis. It muted her shimmers in skin tone and better camouflaged her. Compared to his, her skin was as cool as satin and felt just as exquisite.

Feeling puckish, he lent back, pressing her between him and the back of the tub so he could feel her round breasts against his back. She grunted with amusement and splashed him before nuzzling the back of his neck and licking the shell of his ear. He shifted with a growl and reached his hand to tangle in her wet hair, tilting his head so he could pull her mouth to his. Their kiss was all tongues, teasing and caressing, sloppy and slick but incredibly stimulating.

He turned deftly around in the tub, sending water to splash all over as he adjusted their positions, sitting with his back against the opposite end of the tub and with her pinned back against him.

“Think it’s your turn for a scrub down, Izzie” Victor purred as he cupped his hands over her breasts under the water. He felt her stiffen with anger at the name, so he brushed her wet hair away from her neck before nuzzling her and smiling against her skin. It sent a jolt of nostalgia through her. “Only fair” he husked into her ear, running his clawed fingers down her stomach before gripping the soap and lathering her skin up in slow circles.

The double reference raised her ire, but she leant into him, trying to quell the bubble of anger that swelled in the pit of her stomach. After all, it had been ages since she’d lounged in a bath with a man. No, not a man, but a masculine predator made of sinewy brawn, hot blooded and savage. His calloused hands soaped her up, rubbing across her chest and up her throat before wrapping his fingers around her slim neck. He squeezed possessively, tipping her head to the side so he could lick the line of her jaw before rubbing his furred cheek against hers. The friction sent a shiver to her core and made her unconsciously clutch her hands over his muscled thighs.

When he roughly pawed his hands down her torso, Isabela’s breath hitched. His nails bit into skin just enough to sting while he nipped at the tender spot under her jaw, worrying flesh between his teeth and suckling.

“Pre-regenerative?” he grunted in her ear as he rubbed up and down her scar.

She recoiled slightly, but checked the reaction by placing her hand over his and stilling its motion. “Yes” she breathed through tight lips, turning her head into the side of his throat. “Getting that wound must’ve kicked my healing factor in—it had manifested young, but it wasn’t anything like what it became after I got stabbed…”

He expected her to say more, but she didn’t. Victor had only asked because she still hadn’t explained how she’d gotten the scar in the journal. The fact she even confirmed it was from being stabbed was saying a lot, since he’d figured it was a wound made by a knife. It was clean, as if the knife hand gone in with the blade vertical; plunged in and slashed up before being torn out. Jimmy had been stabbed like that once, when they were runaways. It was a nasty and excruciating wound to get.

“Did you get yours young?”

Shifting against her, Victor remarked, “Yeah. I’ve had it since I could remember. It got better after I went through the change.”

“Ah. The change” she mused pensively, her thoughts tangled in the past. “Was it the same for your brother?”

Victor jerked against her, startling her to whirl around and face him with anticipation. His eyes were blazing with anger, but something quelled his rage long enough for him to sneer at her before settling back with stiff shoulders and tension still clinging over him. When she stayed on guard, he snickered and yanked her back against him, his grip tight on her upper arm while the fingertips of his other hand dug into her hip.

She’d jolted the shit out of him. He hadn’t been sure of how much she knew about him, about his past. No one who knew about him and Jimmy was fucking stupid enough to bring him up, unless they were doing so to purposely provoke him. That’s not the vibe he got from her. If anything, she’d genuinely asked, the softness of which had cooled his irate anger once her tone had sunken in.

…Alejandro was human.

“No. It was different for Jimmy.”

The gruff reply was tight jawed, his whiskers brushing against her temple when he spoke. The tension was still wrought in his frame, but Isabela knew it wasn’t from aggression. Victor would never admit it, but she knew it pained him. She’d known the basics about the notorious feral brothers; heard most of it through the grapevine from people who knew Victor by his codename only. Of course she’d been curious about the stories, so she’d done some research. James Logan had fallen off the radar, but Victor had been active and rumors ran wild, speculations about his motives legendary in themselves.

She wondered how anything could get between two siblings who’d lived, fought, and protected each other for over a century.

His hand tilted her face up to his, thumb deftly pressing into her chin so that the nail skimmed her bottom lip. “Why haven’t you used rapture on me?” Victor asked abruptly, his eyes intense and irrefutably curious.

“Well…it wouldn’t do much good for me in this situation, now would it” she snickered and traced the length of his nail with the tip of her tongue.

He jerked her chin up, gripping her jaw firmly as he tersely snapped, “You could get me to do what you wanted—have me so lust-struck that I’d let you escape. Why haven’t you?”

She grabbed his wrist and wrenched his hand away. “I don’t have any clothes or chances of getting far in this snowstorm, now do I. Secondly, if it was that easy I’d have done so” she snapped back at him and went to stand.

Victor hauled her back down against him, sending water splashing to the floor. “Why ain’t it that simple?” he asked with a sly leer to his tone. “You seduced that fucker with rapture; why not use it on me? And don’t give me that bullshit from before” he challenged, laughing outright when she tried to shove away from him and stand.

“Fuck you, Creed!” she shouted into his face and shoved away from him.

Victor snarled and grabbed her, slamming her back against the opposite end of the tub and forcing himself between her thighs in order to keep her pinned. “Oh I’d like that, viper! C’mon, you could make me do whatever. I’m very good with my tongue. Hell, I can do very bad things with my tongue if you wanted—What if I made you, huh Izzie?!” he antagonized, his voice a hiss of lasciviousness.

Isabela seethed at him and tried to ignore the firm press of his erection against her. “As much as I like your brand of foreplay, your juvenile threats aren’t going to work” she said and lashed out, managing to push him back and lunge for his mouth.

They crashed against each other before slamming against the side of the tub in a tangle of limbs and voraciousness, lips smacking together and claws digging in for leverage while the water sloshed violently everywhere. Isabela scrambled onto his lap and sank her lengthened teeth into his neck, tearing a strangled growl out of Victor before he yanked her back by the hair and wrapped his forearm around the small of her back, picking her up against him as he stood out of the tub. She bucked against him, digging her talons into his shoulder as he made the trip from the bathroom into his bedroom. They kissed and nipped at each other until he tossed her onto his bed. Before she could scramble away, he grabbed her by the backs of her knees and yanked her to the edge of the mattress.

She was panting harshly, anticipation swelling in her core as Victor forced his hand over her womb while yanking her thighs apart with the other. He was so drunk with her scent that he took the moment to gaze hungrily at her pink flesh, mouth watering with desire. It’d been ages since he’d ate a frail out. He hadn’t bothered in a long time, considering that many of his conquests were unwilling and terrified of him; he usually just got to the good stuff and tore into their soft bellies after he was done, the rush of dominating and breaking a frail leaving him high on adrenalin. But now he wanted to taste her, to feel her legs clenched tight over his shoulders as he devoured her.

So he did, starting off by licking the water that beaded over her womb and plunging his tongue into her navel before kissing downward. Isabela sighed at the sensations he was searing into her, her breath shallow as he shoved her higher on the mattress so he could get on the bed and get a better mouthful of her sweet flesh. She gripped the hand that had rested over her womb while she arched against him and cried out from the twirl of his tongue around her pulsing clit. He growled against her, his mouth suckling and nipping at her heated core, plunging her into a fire of pleasure that scorched her from the inside out.

Gasping, Isabela squirmed against him once her orgasm grew eminent, wanting him to fill her, to sheath her with his heat. Gripping her thighs, Victor tilted his head so he could tongue her entrance before licking a long swipe from her tight heat up to her hypersensitive bundle of pleasure. She bowed in his grip and cried out, her body growing taut as she climaxed heartily. Victor groaned against her quivering flesh, lapping at her essence and nuzzling her warmth before licking up her hairless apex and crawling on top of her.

She was still buzzing from her orgasm, eyes shut and lips parted. Victor grabbed her neck and squeezed, forcing her to look up at him. When she did, he licked his lips and tongued one of his sharp canines. “I think you like things as they are, sweetheart. Otherwise, you’d have tried something—!”

Victor’s arrogant sneer was cut off when she growled and flipped him onto his back and rolled on top of him. “Shut up Victor, or I’ll use stillness on you and fuck you belly up again” she hissed, prowling down to bare her elongated teeth at him. “And so you know, I’d use poison on you before rapture. You’re just not worth it” she smiled condescendingly and slammed Victor back down when he tried to rear up. “Now, I’ve allowed you to play” she purred against his mouth before burying her nose in the spot just under his jaw and licking down his throat, her body gliding sensually down his. When he watched her trail nips and kisses down his chest and abdomen, she gave him a smoldering glance and flirted, “Only fair”, playfully quoting him before placing an open mouth kiss on his belly.

His jaw clenching with tension, Victor watched her with hooded eyes as she nuzzled his hip and palmed his erection. “Just watch the teeth” he ground out, his tone husky as he watched her stroke him before she pursed her mouth over his tip.

Her mouth was fucking amazing, actually making him moan from her oral ministrations. All he could do was fist his hands in the bedding and let her suck him off since she pinned his hips down with her hands, so he couldn’t buck into her mouth or set the pace. She hummed around his shaft and stroked her tongue along the underside, savoring the salty taste of his skin and the throb of his flesh.

The sounds he was biting back were even better than when he moaned outright, because they spoke of how he was reluctantly relinquishing control. She buzzed with pleasure, and so she gave it back in spades, working Victor into a frenzy by cupping his pair and twirling her tongue around his tip. When she tongued his slit and put just enough pressure around him, Victor gasped, his growl catching in his throat as he stiffened and came. He dug his powerful fingers in the back of her hair and held her head as he groaned hoarsely and filled her mouth.

“Fuck!” he called out as he collapsed back onto the bed, feeling awash with savage afterglow. He stared up at his ceiling, the blood still roaring in his ears as he tried to concentrate on the sensation of her gliding up his body and the heat of her breath caressing his skin as she climbed to sidle at his side. Victor licked his lips, her taste still dancing on his tongue and making him hot all over again.

“I’ve never used it on another feral…I don’t know what it’d be like” she spoke serenely, head tilting against his shoulder so she could burrow her nose against his jaw.

It took Victor a few seconds to realize she was talking about rapture. Incredibly curious, he shifted so he could look down at her. Her eyes were dazzling and warm, as if the heat of their coupling was keeping her sated and pliant against him. Isabela caressed his cheek, by far the kindest touch he’d received since he could remember. The fire crackled and popped, but the sound they were both listening to were their heartbeats. Their pulses were synched, and they wondered if the other could hear the pulsing beat.

“When I shimmer, it doesn’t only affect my prey. Something like rapture goes both ways” she explained, her hand caressing down his throat and chest to idly toy with his dangling dog tags. “It’s a sensory exchange. Of course it has different intensities depending on a lot of biological factors…but the aftereffect is always the same. It’s like every nerve ending is tingling, starving for more sensations. That’s just with humans” she trailed off, her eyes roving the metallic tags and following the chain up until her eyes met his.

I’d use poison on you before rapture. You’re just not worth it.

“Sounds like you’re scared to have mind melting sex to me.”

Isabela looked quizzically at him. His smirk broadened into a perverse grin, his fangs gleaming from the firelight as he shifted to lay on top of her. She scoffed and adjusted to accommodate him, caressing her hands down his neck to drape over his shoulders. “I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been sex starved, or if I’ve just spoiled you” she ribbed provocatively, her eyes dancing with mischief as he settled between her thighs.

When he pressed into her tight sheath, Isabela sighed and clung to him, watching him out of the corners of her eyes as he chuckled and breathed her scent in before nuzzling her cheek. His lips were setting her skin on fire, her body still hypersensitive from before. She started writhing under him, grunting for him to move against her. He chuckled against her throat, dragging his fangs sharply over her pulse before biting down. She tossed her head to the side and tensed against him, focusing on his hot mouth and on his length throbbing inside of her.

Victor wanted to take his time fucking her. Every other time it had been a whirlwind of bestial ferocity, coupling like they would burn out if they didn’t drive against each other. He pressed his hips with brute firmness against her, refusing to thrust and work her over just yet. She protested and he laughed, tearing his fangs into her skin and humming from the buzz of her blood flooding his mouth. He’d never had the opportunity to savor a body as luscious and willing as hers.

When he loomed over her and pinned her hands on either side of her head, Isabela arched against him, her hiss of protest also laced with lust. Victor’s eyes blazed like ice at her from the glow of the fire, his lips parted as he swiped his tongue to lick at the blood that stained his mouth and teeth.

“Who’s starved now?” he purred down at her, his smile malicious but roguish, his eyes glinting with zest.

It reminded her of Eirik.

The russet rings around her pupils dilated, her irises becoming stormy with an almost emerald glow compared to the usual frond green they were.

Victor knew he’d hit a nerve again, but was surprised when instead of incurring her wrath, she wrapped her legs around his waist and bucked against him, clenching around him with explicit need. Her hands relaxed in his grip, and she arched against him, pressing her breasts to his chest and craving his hot skin.

To Victor, it was enough of a sight to get drunk off of.

He lunged down and kissed her, hungry for her sweet and warm mouth that reveled in his. For long moments they simply kissed and clutched at each other, their bodies rocking with their ravenous desires. Before long they were panting for breath, gasping and frantically moving against each other to find excruciating bliss.

Victor drove her to climax first so he could watch her face light up with the pleasure, hear her cry out and feel her cling to him in a succession of sensations. Her sighing ecstasy was like music to his ears, but nothing like hearing her murmur for him, saying his name over and over again in a beckoning whisper, wanting all of him and luring him into his own orgasm.

Completely spent, Victor rolled off of her and pulled her to his side. She nimbly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and curled onto her side against him, lulling him to lay up against her after he’d pulled a fur pelt over her, unconscious to the gesture until she pressed into him and tucked her head under his chin. His nose buried into the top of her mussed hair, inhaling her scent and purring as she shifted and sighed softly against his throat before cuddling into his warmth.

They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s heartbeats.

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The news said it was one of the worst cases of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. No survivors and no list of victims either. Armand was pleased and exasperated at the same time. Basset still hadn’t called to confirm, nor had any information about Nagaraja or Khomeini been leaked yet. Talks in Tehran were tense, but not cutthroat, so Armand de Lioncourt figured he could afford to wait for Basset to get in contact. He didn’t want to risk involving anyone else until he was absolutely sure the other man had overlooked something.

All in all, Armand was in a very good mood.

He chalked his good mood up to the fact that he had a handful of investors chomping at the opportunity to finance the tele-computer. They were still prototyping the first copy of the technology, but things looked promising. His technicians assured him that they’d have a working model for show to the investors before the New Year, which guaranteed Armand more bargaining chips in his other international endeavors.

Little did he know that almost at the exact same time, Khomeini was on his way out of France en route to Tehran—in preparation for a political coup that would blindside the nation and the world.

Ignorant that he’d been double crossed, Armand went to hold a conference call with one of the biggest investors interested in sinking money into his telecommunications empire.

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He was done with Basset. It’d served him pretty well for the past few years, but things were getting too messy for his tastes. Sure he’d arranged hits for the Frenchman, but nothing as dangerous as fucking with other mutants.

Once he’d heard about the unit, Bezu had decided it was time to cut out and take everything he’d amassed under his tenure. He’d talked to a competent money launderer, and was promised to have his money before his deadline. He couldn’t wait to be cruising to Brazil, making stops at Nassau and Antigua so he could deposit his secrets and money, most of it collateral he could sell to the Frenchman’s competitors and live the highlife for the rest of his days.

Tipping Khomeini off had been his biggest payday, cementing his decision to cut the Frenchman loose and leave him with his dick in his hand when it came to Tehran and his hostile takeovers. Thanks to the mess the Vipress made, he figured the government would be tangled in red tape and cover ups long enough for him to skip out before the Frenchman found out about his betrayal.

Bezu stared at the new man in the mirror. A handsome Greek man with short platinum wavy hair and hazel eyes stared back at him, smirking as he did. He looked like a Dino, or a Xander—Xander Konstandinos sounded good.

Completely unaware of neither Khomeini’s progress towards Tehran nor that the Vipress was alive and very well elsewhere, Bezu packed his things and headed to New York City, deciding to relax while his money went to the laundry.
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THANKS FOR READING! PLEASE REVIEW!!

Okay, this chapter did NOT go as I had planned lol Victor and Isabela got away from me, so there aren't as many plotty elements as I'd wanted. I figured you guys wouldn't mind having these two interact without much interruption; also figured developing Isabela and getting some of the mystique about her out to the light of day would help, since many have been commenting about her. Yes I know I used some really tired plot devices, but really, if they work, they work *shrugs* The journals were written as a stream of consciousness, so I hope you guys picked up the rhythm; a lot reading between the lines, literally lol Oh and I hope you guys understand the dynamic I'm creating between these two. I like to think of it as a dance between two prowling animals. Sometimes they clash, other times they mate, and other times they are satisfied with sharing each other's company. I hope you guys weren't thrown off by the shifts between them, or unnerved by my take on Victor. I'm trying to balance him out; yes he's a big bad sexy motherfucker, but he does ruminate, think, and ponder over things; it's not always jump in and tear shit to pieces, especially when he wants something he hasn't really figured out yet. At least that's how I'd like to think.

Hope you guys are enjoying the ride so far! And please, don't hesitate to critique or give feedback. Thanks to all of you who have taken an interest and who shoot the breeze with me about Victor lol it's a lot of fun talking about my obsessions with others! lol

And Liev? "Thou nature art my goddess, to thy law my services are bound." Yes, I learned this quote from Shakespeare simply because Liev said it. If that isn't love, WHAT IS?--Lots of love and admiration to him for being my muse and the great man he is.

-ROGUEFURY