Private Tales Dancing Claws

[Fallon]

Fallon felt the tension coiling within Victoria like a tightly wound spring, and her concern deepened as she witnessed the strain etched into her wife's features. The usually composed and confident vampire queen seemed to falter under the weight of the evening's demands, her veneer of control fraying at the edges.

Victoria's strained words were another glimpse into the vulnerability she rarely allowed herself to show. Fallon's heart ached with empathy, understanding the toll the night had taken on Victoria's usually unshakeable resolve. It was everything not to tear open her own throat for her right then and there.

Settling into the plush seats, Fallon expected Victoria to take her place opposite her, to maintain a safe distance between them. But Victoria's actions defied logic, defied the very instincts that screamed for restraint. Instead, Fallon found herself pulled in her wife's lap fierce urgency that sent a shiver down her spine.

The predatory fierceness in Victoria's kiss ignited a primal response within Fallon, a surge of desire tempered only by the knowledge of Victoria's struggle. The whispered plea resonated in the air between them, and Fallon growled softly. "There's nothing I would deny you." she frowned, grazing her nose against that of the vampire.

Without hesitation, Fallon wrapped her arms around Victoria, holding her close with a gentleness born of love and understanding. "If it is restraint you want, I will try." she answered. The pair were well matched in strength, it would be no simple task if Victoria lost control.

The urgency of their situation hung heavy in the air as they journeyed forward toward their sanctuary. Fallon's heart raced with a mixture of desire and determination, a gentle hand pressed to Victoria's chest as she kissed her, ready to restrain the woman if necessary.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

"There's nothing I would deny you."

Those words loosed an ancient sound from Victoria's throat: a breathy, gutterral hiss that could almost be a growl. Her lips quivered as they received conflicting commands to stay closed versus open wide, and Victoria made a conscious effort to keep her glimmering eyes open. If she could see Fallon, look upon her face, then maybe that beauty would distract from the blood rushing through her veins. She clutched the hand at her chest, drawing it closer to communicate what her voice could not.

She was not being fair to her wife right now. How could she both pull Fallon in and ask her to step back? Foolish, selfish Victoria. She should have drunk at dinner, just a little, just enough to soften her thirst. Perhaps then she could have remained in control, and Fallon would be free to lose herself in the moment. Her thoughts swirled back to the last time she had tasted the wolf's blood and the pure, terrifying power of it. The memories were disjointed and hazy, but the euphoria had been crystal clear.

She did have a plan for this evening... if the pair could make it to their honeymoon. There was a smaller house in the countryside... well... smaller compared to a castle. A manor for summertime holidays where her father had taken them from time to time. Rather than the seaside cliffs Victoria had spent most of her childhood alongside, this place sat amongst rolling hills and fields. While her father hunted, she walked the meadows, or practiced her stitches in the solarium. She remembered the sunlight... though she could not recall how it felt. She also remembered the wine cellar, with thick, cool walls of stone where one may contain a creature of great strength, should the need arise.

Fallon's embrace was tender, but Victoria felt the strength that rested just beneath the surface. She knew what iron-hard cords rested in those arms. She had felt them, and she wanted to feel them again. "Tighter," she whispered, with a slight smirking curl of her lip, "You won't break me." Fallon could control her, surely she could. She would have to, if these damned horses didn't quicken their pace.

She nestled into the arms and inhaled deeply. And it was a mistake.

"Tighter." There was a break in her voice now. Urgency had replaced flirtation. "Don't let me breath. Don't let me smell you." Her heartbeat was spiking, pushing the pitiful dregs of blood that her body had left.

 

[Fallon]

Fallon understood the turmoil raging within her wife, the battle between instinct and restraint that threatened to consume her. But Fallon was determined to be the anchor that steadied Victoria amidst the storm.

'Tighter..'

With a gentle yet firm resolve, Fallon complied, tightening her grip, pressing harder, though not yet with all of her strength. Her silver gaze met Victoria's glimmering eyes, offering a steady presence amidst the chaos that threatened to overwhelm them both.

'Tighter..'

Victoria's whispered plea carried a hint of desperation, a challenge and an invitation all rolled into one. Fallon's grip tightened once more in response, pinning the desperate woman with a protective strength that belied her tender touch. She felt the tremors that coursed through Victoria's body, the rapid rhythm of her starving heartbeat, and it was everything not to let her wife loose upon her neck.

"Close your eyes, take your mind somewhere else..," Fallon's voice was a soothing murmur. "I've got you." she assured, prepared to do whatever it took to honor that request, to keep her wife grounded until they reached their sanctuary.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Victoria felt strong arms squeeze the air from her lungs. The was such a tenderness to what would otherwise be a violent act, a tenderness amidst unbreakable power that defined Fallon better than words ever could. The vampire obeyed, closing her eyes and trying to think of another place, somewhere without… without what?

The source of her agony, of her desperate hunger, was the person she loved most. Any attempt to take her thoughts to a place of safety immediately went to Fallon. She could not, would not tear her thoughts away. She would rather feel these hunger pangs, like knives in her gut, than spend a moment apart from her beloved. Somehow she knew that would be worse.

She could no longer draw breath, so Fallon’s scent did not flood her airways, but the ever-tightening grip made Fallon’s heartbeat a palpable drum in Victoria’s side. Her mouth was open with the exertion of control, and she felt herself salivating. She was hanging by a thread that was rapidly fraying. She didn’t even have the energy to curse herself for being so foolish in starving herself. Chasing a high that could now endanger her wife.

The carriage thundered on, driven by Victoria’s pounding on the wall. She did not believe in gods, not for a long time, but it seemed like a cruel and deliberate act to place a stone upon her carriage’s direct path. A stone large enough to splinter a wheel and send the carriage lurching. The entwined women were jostled to the side, and Victoria’s hungry lips were thrown directly against Fallon’s satin-soft neck.

The shudder that wracked Victoria’s body was certainly felt by Fallon, just as clearly as her jugular pulse was felt by the vampire’s lips. It was her only warning as Victoria’s mental control completely broke, and she bit deep into the wolf’s neck.

 

[Fallon]

As the carriage jolted violently, Fallon's instinctive reaction was to tighten her grip around Victoria and pull her close, when it should have been to hold her back.
There was a flicker of realisation across her features, her eyes flaring as she felt her wife's mouth against her neck, but she was too late to prevent the inevitable.

The suddenness of the action left Fallon reeling, the pressure of cold fangs sinking into her flesh sending a surge of conflicting emotions flooding through her. Pain, yes, but also white hot heat.. She understood the depths of Victoria's struggle, the relentless hunger that gnawed at her insides, and she had wanted so badly to ease her suffering. To be devoured if it meant the woman was satisfied..

Fallon's breath hitched in her throat as she felt the tremors that wracked her wife's body. "Ff-Victoria," Fallon's voice wavered, choked with a mixture of pain and desire to give the woman everything that she wanted. She struggled to find the words, and struggled further still to find the will to try and stop her as she pulled the blood from her body.

She found herself instinctively holding Victoria closer, offering a silent reassurance in the midst of chaos, her body writhing as her heart pounded wildly in her chest until it started to stumble in attempt to keep up.
Her hand stroked tenderly through her hair, crimson strands pouring through her fingers as she whispered words of comfort.

"There..." she murmured, her muscles shifting and rippling under her skin at the wolf's instinct to fight for her life.

"Not too much.." she whispered.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Fresh blood rushed into Victoria’s mouth, and her starved body surged into action. Her jaw locked around Fallon’s throat, four sharp punctures surrounding a soft and desperate tongue that lapped up wave after wave. Her arms were bound by Fallon’s iron embrace, but her fingers reached out to grab whatever they could, tearing through fabric and upholstery alike. If skin found its way beneath her nails, it was torn too. Her body undulated and struggled against her restraints, writhing snakelike in a heady cocktail of euphoria and longing. She grew stronger as she drank. Her heart beat furiously to circulate this new meal and her paper-white cheeks began to flush with the faintest shade of pink.

Fallon’s blood burned her throat, burned her stomach, burned in her veins. The divinity of her wife’s being clawed at her, lashing out against the dark pit that had been her soul. It hurt, but not so badly as it had before.

The first time Victoria had tasted Fallon’s blood she had gone completely feral. The reaction of her body had been violent and dangerous to both of them. Was it her starvation that tempered the holy burn, or had she simply built a tolerance to it? Her stomach still screamed to reject the blood, but her instincts countered more powerfully as they drove to her feed on something, anything she could sink her fangs into. Her mind was hanging by a thread, barely conscious beneath the rush of blood and sensation.

Not too much…

The words came to her as a whisper, but they reverberated in the head until they grew loud enough to awaken Victoria from her beastial trance. Her eyes snapped open, inky black where white had been surrounding deep red irises. She detached herself from Fallon, an expression of horror warping her features until she saw that the Garou still breathed. The bleeding from Fallon’s neck would quickly still, but Victoria did not have time to give her apologies before the spasms wracked her body.

As it had each time before, Victoria’s very being recoiled from Fallon’s divine blood. She coughed, spattering the opposite wall of the carriage in crimson, before doubling over in numbing, euphoric pain. Though something was different this time. The burning sensation had faded from acid to a hot tingling, the sort of pain that felt as good as it did bad. That burn, that power, she could feel it rushing down arteries from her shoulders to her fingers, felt it creeping up veins along the insides of her thighs like scalding, wandering fingers.

Another spasm took her, this one arching her back so powerfully that she felt her spine snap. Almost as soon as it had, however, it knit back together. The same happened for her foot, which had kicked clear through the side of the carriage, shattering a toe or two, with near-instant repair.

Focus. She needed to focus. Somehow she knew she had not taken a lethal amount of blood from Fallon, but that didn’t mean her new wife was free of harm. It was difficult to make sense of where she was, every scent and sound was so terribly amplified. She wanted to run, wanted to rush screaming from this splintered carriage, but she held fast to whatever spiritual chain kept her grounded to Fallon.

She managed to reopen her eyes, letting a few bloody tears roll down her face before reaching for Fallon. She clutched at her wife’s shoulder too tightly, with an arm that held much more defined muscle than it had moments prior. Victoria noticed only now that much of her beautiful wedding gown had been shredded.

“Fffallon…!” She managed to rasp out, her words slurring and her lips still slick with the wolf’s blood. “I’m sorr… Fallon!”

Again something inside told her that her wife was alive, but her mind was fraying while her body told her to run, hunt, kill.

 

[Fallon]

Fallon's body writhed, her brow furrowing as claw like nails tore desperately through bodice and skin, and her own sharp canines were bared in a snarl, her knuckles white as she gripped at her wife's shoulders in attempt to push her back. How quickly She drank. How strong She became..

"Victoria.."

Fallon's pulse thundered, as though it wanted nothing more than to feed the woman currently feasting on her neck. Muscles shifted, slowly rippling beneath her skin. Too weak, too fast. Her silver eyes were wide with panic as the carriage started to spin around her, as her vision darkened at the edges.

She was aware of Victoria tearing herself away, and how her heart stumbled slowly over itself. Her body felt too heavy to move, her consciousness drifting in and out and so she was only vaguely aware of the fact that something was wrong.

Her name, she heard that, but it was not until she heard the apology that she forced her eyes open and turned her head to look at Her. "Why?.." she asked, her voice lazy with confusion. "I.." she sighed and frowned at the pounding in head. "I'm fine..." she assured.

"I'm sorry.." she murmured and let her eyes flutter close again, a tear slipping free. This was her fault, not Victoria's. So desperate was she to nourish her wife, so jealous was she of any other who did so that she was happy to let her starve. She had hoped this time would be different, that her blood would be good enough.

"Are you.. alright?"

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

"Fallon!" Victoria shouted, as though that would rouse her love from her weariness. In any other circumstance it may have worked, for her cry was loud enough to shake the windows of their carriage and carried a deep timbre it had not borne before. Her vision was both blurred and impossibly sharp, her thoughts hyper intense and yet unfocused. Her world was shaking, but that may have been the dangerous pace their coachman had set despite a broken wheel. Thralls were nothing if not loyal; his queen had said to hurry, so he hurried.

Victoria's heart beat like a beast, every sinew and fiber in her body was taught and glaring in the shifting light. Her graceful form had hardened, with coils of muscle that Fallon herself could compare to. She was still unsteady, and hated herself for how tightly she gripped her wife's shoulder, how violently she pressed her opposite palm to her neck to try to stem the last trickles of blood.

The hunger had left her. In fact, never before had she been so sated. She wished she could spit the blood back into Fallon's body, to return what she had taken... but what was lost was lost. If she were to give Fallon blood... no. That thought did not bear mentioning.

She brought her face close to her lover, so newly her bride. Her eyes, dark as night, bored into the garou's. "Stay awake, ok?" she tried to smile, though a more terrifying snarl would be difficult to imagine. "You took care of me. Now I will take care of you. Just stay with me."

She felt another shudder creep its way up her spine, but she crushed it with her will, biting back the sanguine bile in her throat. She would not break while she held Fallon.

 

[Fallon]

"Hmm.." Fallon answered drowsily, dreamily, as though she was being roused from the most tranquil of slumbers. Some part of her was quite aware of her Wife's worry, and so she mustered the strength to lift a clammy hand and settle it atop Victoria's, her pale lips softening into the hint of a smile. "I'm here.." she murmured.

She tried, but failed to open her eyes - her heart slowing as her body was being forced into a regenerative sleep. The wound on her neck was slowly closing under Victoria's palm, and the tension in her body slackened as her mind was pulled beyond the veil and into the Umbra, far from the carriage and a little closer to the dead she had not spoken with in some time.