A Heart So Transparent (2/2)
Jan. 5th, 2014 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dicta_contrionTitle: A Heart So Transparent (2/2)
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dicta_contrion
Pairing: Hermione/Greyback, Hermione/Ron
Word count/Medium: 14,280
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: menstrual bloodplay, comeplay, dubcon/noncon, Hermione doing her SPEW thing and getting in over her head
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Science and law have their limits. Werewolves do not.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
kink_n_squick’s Christmas 2013 Fest, for sksdwrld’s prompt: “He could smell her from far away and though she was hiding, easily tracked her down. He's going to savour the taste of her. Bonus for forced impregnation/breeding.” It was an intriguing prompt and really got the ideas, um, flowing. Shout outs due to Julia Kristeva and the Moon Cup. Concrit welcome. Also available over at Ao3.
Back to Part 1
I had thought it might take some time to get injured. But a werewolf and suspected former Death Eater was a prime target even a year and a half after the last battle. It took only two visits to Diagon Alley, less than a week, to collect a series of bruises and abrasions that looked far worse than they felt.
I had thought it might be difficult to find her, to pick her out of the crowd leaving the ministry without drawing attention. To elicit her care without attracting official notice. But she worked late – so diligent, my girl – and I’d know that smell anywhere. Even without blood flowing from her cunt, I could tell she was walking before I caught the scent of her sweat, her perfume, her saliva as she leaned in to talk to the rangy ginger who had once been so enraged at her good works. He seemed to have recovered. I doubted that he knew about our most recent visit.
As she turned the corner, failing to notice me in the shadow of a nearby entryway, I saw the reflection of light on her hand. A ring. He wanted to lay claim to her cunt. Exclusive claim.
That could not come to pass. Nor would he want it to, if he knew. She would never be his.
I followed them as they took a leisurely lover’s walk to a flat – Theirs? Hers? His? – on a mostly muggle block not twenty minutes from the ministry. I kept to the shadows, hidden in an alleyway across the road as she opened the front door and he followed her in to a well-lit vestibule and up the stairs. A moment later, lights clicked on in the front room of the second story.
She moved towards the window and then away again, and didn’t come back for some time. I was cold, standing behind somebody’s bins in early December with bruises blossoming across my torso. But I was hungrier still.
I could barely make out her voice over her neighbours’ televisions and conversations. Wolves hear everything, but I wanted only her breath, her voice. Her cries.
She became clearer as her neighbours began to retire, lights clicking out up and down the street. I heard his voice too, nasal and loud, rambling on about crime and quidditch and making crude jokes. She laughed. Unexpected from my dark, writhing, brilliant girl.
And then their voices became quieter, his and hers, and then disappeared altogether, though the light stayed on in the front room. I strained to hear, wondering if I had missed my opportunity. Their neighbours to either side were asleep or on their way to it, lights out and breathing evenly. But the two of them were not. A door opened and shut. Her breath quickened, and then his. A slow rhythmic banging began. Wood against plaster. It got faster. A headboard.
My vision swam. Shame may be unfamiliar to a wolf, but rage is home. He was fucking her. Claiming her. He was grunting in time to the headboard, likely covering her in his filthy sweat. I imagined her tiny frame, pushed into the mattress beneath him as he shoved into her. And then he was coming, swearing and panting before collapsing onto the creaky bedframe.
I howled. I had meant to all along. She had to know I was hurt, that I was a wounded Sentient Magical Beast in need of her care. But this cry was more than pain. It was fury, hunger, ownership.
But she had never known a real wolf. Only that vile, stringy traitor Lupin. She would not know the difference.
After a moment’s pause, the bedframe creaked again. Footsteps. She came to the window in a thin robe, craning her neck to look up and down the street.
I howled again, tightening my throat to produce a whimper that echoed down the alley, and forced my uninjured legs into an imitation limp that brought me out of the shadows.
I saw concern cross her face. Fear.
So clever, my girl. She knew. If she helped me he would object. If she didn’t, she undermined her own crusade. If she didn’t, I could ruin her.
She yelled over her shoulder, paused by the door, and opened it, appearing a moment later in the vestibule. The overhead light revealed everything. Her chest was flushed, her hair thoroughly dishevelled, her lips bitten. She must have stepped into the heels she’d worn home, and the white satin robe she’d tied at the waist would hardly protect her from the cold.
Then she was stepping onto the pavement, looking for cars, crossing the road, approaching me slowly.
“Mr. Greyback?”
I whimpered again.
“Mr. Greyback, what are you doing here?”
“Injured…”
She didn’t step any closer. “What happened?”
“Diagon…attacked.”
“Attacked by whom? We can call the aurors.”
“No…good people. But I am a wolf.”
Her features hardened. “They can’t be very good people if they would do this to a living thing.” I didn’t speak. She went on, “I’ll floo St. Mungo’s, just wait right there.”
“No….”
“Mr. Greyback, I know for a fact that St. Mungo’s has always provided you with excellent care.”
“Won’t help…need—”
She knew why I had come and, even on the empty street, she dropped her voice to a furious whisper. “I can’t help you like that.” I whimpered again. She took a step closer. Two more and I would have her. “Even if I could, it’s not that – It’s not the appropriate time of the month. I can’t help you.”
I muttered a few nonsense words under my breath. “Mr. Greyback?” She took another step closer.
“Need you.”
“I can’t help you. I only know basic first aid, and your injuries appear to be more extensive. There are no other options. We can floo to St. Mungo’s together, and they’ll tend to any injuries thoroughly and professionally.” She shivered against a cold gust.
Medicine would help the bruises, but not the need that had brought me here. I did not need their science. But she did. I could play along.
“Protein.”
“What?”
“Your proteins…linked to the blood. Will heal, still.”
“Proteins?”
“Please. I need…” I nodded towards her thighs.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I…” She straightened. “There’s no evidence of that. The Ministry requires that all medical protocols be thoroughly vetted by committees from St. Mungo’s, and the DMLE must review clinical findings before any treatment is administered to Sentient Magical Beasts”
“Not at the ministry.” She looked shocked at that, as though she hadn’t quite realized she was half naked on a street corner instead of hiding behind a Ministry crest. “Please. Help.”
She looked over her shoulder to where the light still glowed in the front room of the now-quiet flat. There was no movement. She turned back. “How do I know it will help?”
“Please. Trust me.”
I thought she might soften at that. Instead, she nodded tightly. Maybe she knew she couldn’t refuse without risking exposure, whether as deviant or intolerant. Maybe she even wanted to believe. “Quickly, then.”
I nodded and drew back into the alley. She followed, after a moment. “Here?”
“Please.”
“How?”
I dropped to my knees, facing the brick wall behind the bins. “Here. No one will see.” She nodded again, keeping her distance as she walked around me to reach the wall. She stood in front of it with her back straight and thighs clenched. I shuffled forward, still on my knees, until my mouth drew even with her waist.
I rubbed my face against the fabric of her robe, my beard catching the satin and pulling it open. She froze at the intimacy and pushed my head away. “No,” she said, “just tell me how to help.”
“Open your legs.”
“Robe?”
“Fine.”
She nodded, tightening her sash and spreading her feet to shoulder’s width.
Her smell was familiar. That same saltiness, deep and rich, even without the blood. But I could smell something more there. Him. Lingering there, like milk gone off, dirtying my girl. Rage, again. I would not let him have her.
I rested my haunches against my calves and bent forward, bracing my arms against the brick behind her and pushing into the space between her legs. She opened them a fraction further to permit an exploratory lick. I drew the tip of my tongue over the soft hair that had come in over her lips and felt her shudder against me. Again. Again. But her legs didn’t open any further.
I drew back and looked up at her. Her eyes were closed, head tilted back, her upper body held stiff against the wall. “I can’t quite…” I moved a hand up the inside of her thigh and cupped the back of it, pulling it towards me. Her arse lifted off the wall, her robe falling open around her hips. She followed my lead as I draped her leg over my shoulder. “Thank you.” She nodded, eyes still closed.
Remnants of him were dried across her thighs, and when I pulled her to my face and slipped inside her hole, the bitter taste of him was waiting. It couldn’t be allowed to remain. It couldn’t be allowed at all. I scraped my tongue against her walls, drawing him out of her. I pulled back and spat through her legs, his spunk and my spit and her sweat steaming against the cold brick.
And then I cupped her arse and drew her to me, burying myself in her, licking her clit until she was shaking, until she let me lift her other leg so that she was pressed between my face and the wall, until her fingers tangled in my hair and she was moaning, shifting her weight against my shoulders to open herself further against my mouth, scraping my back with her heels.
I could not let her come. If she came, she’d run. And I was not finished.
I pressed her back into the wall, shifting her weight onto one shoulder and lowering the other leg to the ground. One of my hands held her steady as the other scraped up her inner thigh, pulling his spunk from the fine hairs that rested against her skin. I would replace it with my own. My cock jerked at the thought.
She stiffened when my fingers reached her, when I rested two fingertips at her entrance. I licked along the thigh that still rested on one shoulder, drawing ever closer to that glistening knot of nerves and tissue, until she sunk down onto my fingers, desperate for something more.
Eyes still closed, she began riding my hand in earnest, angling her hips towards my mouth in search of that final lick that might give her release.
It would not be forthcoming.
I added a third finger, and she moaned her approval. My breath ghosted her clit but I didn’t come any closer. I wanted enough distance to see my fingers pushing into her and pulling back out, slick and shining. I wanted to see her when she reached into her robe, cupping one breast, squeezing a hard nipple between her fingers as the other hand continued to pull at my head, his vile rock catching in my hair when she urged me closer.
I had known her desire from the first taste. Had known she sought pleasure. I had learned, as she rode my face, that she had the lust to be a wolf. That she, too, wanted for something.
So it was not surprising that she let out a disappointed whimper when I withdrew all but a finger. I worked the single digit into her and held it there. I could feel her muscles tightening in search of it. I crooked my finger towards the front of her abdomen, rubbing the spongy tissue that turned her thin cry into a gasping moan and then a whisper: “More.”
“More?” I looked up to catch the tiniest nod of her head. I withdrew my hand and dropped my shoulder, sending her leg back to the ground. “Turn around.”
She stiffened. I took hold of her waist and turned her, finding that her feet followed even if her body remained stiff. I stood, unbuttoned my trousers and pulled down the flies. Her shoulders tightened at the sound, but she didn’t close her legs.
I leaned forward to run two sticky fingers up the back of her leg, her robe beginning to pool around my wrist. I reached for the knot and dropped it to the ground, then stood directly behind her naked form, my cock pushing into her lower back, my mouth above her ear. “Bend over.” Nothing. “If you want more.”
She was slow to move until I dug my teeth into the flesh at the back of her neck, but then she braced her forearms against the brick, dropping her head into the crook of her elbow and stepping back to spread her legs. Her muscles were tight from ankle to arse, her heels just tall enough to bring her into line for my cock. I kept her there a moment, exposed, her body throbbing with a pounding heartbeat.
I put a hand to each hip and angled her towards me. Her pulse quickened. Her nails dug into the skin of her upper arms.
She almost howled when I shoved into her, a wolfish keening moan that echoed off the brick. I did not relent. I thrust into her like I would another wolf, until she was gasping for air, her forearms scratched, her fingers grappling for purchase in the brick. She raised her head, a wild look across her face as she cursed and begged.
I heard it before she did. Before she could. Her name shouted across a flat.
I fucked her harder still, feeling my bollocks tighten as she struggled to keep her footing against the onslaught.
A door opened and shut, heavy footsteps in the stairwell.
I turned her so we were both hidden by the bins, our sides to the wall. But I did not stop. Would not stop until I had made her my own. She tried to stand, to move away. I put a hand to the back of her neck to push her forward again, holding her down, bent out of view with her cunt in the air for me.
The creaking of a building’s front door, more footsteps. He called her name again, this time so she could hear.
She froze at the sound of his voice, but I did not. I could feel blood rushing through my ears, filling my chest, keeping my cock hard inside her. And then I was coming, slamming into her stillness, stifling the cry that I knew would bring his unwanted attention, and filling her. Her chest heaved with silent sobs, her body sagged against the wall. Still I pumped into her until her cunt was overflowing, until each thrust displaced more of my seed than it delivered.
He broke into a jog, heading south and calling her name.
I began to soften, but did not stand. If I stood, so could she, and it would all fall away. I slid a hand from her hip, putting fingers to her clit without letting her straighten. She shuddered and hit my hand away. “Need,” I whispered to her. “Come for me.” She shook her head, eyes shut tight and leaking.
I got to my knees behind her then and laved a broad stroke from her entrance to her clit, focusing my attention there. I buried my face, my own taste mingling with hers. Still, she did not come. Tried to pull away, even though my grip was strong around her thighs.
I held her there for a moment longer, postponing gravity’s effects, resisting the desire to crawl under her skin. If all was successful, I already had.
My come poured out of her when I let her stand, splattering the pavement, leaving thick white streaks down her thighs. She didn’t turn to face me. She didn’t say anything.
I tucked my cock into my trousers and did up the flies. Took a step back.
She avoided my eyes when she picked up her robe. It was pilled from the brick, stained and damp from the pavement. Before she could wrap it around herself, I saw my future.
She had my seed. She was covered in me. Wet and dirty, naked, her face streaked, howling at the sky, hungry and clever and strong. She will be a small wolf, but formidable. We will run wild.
She left on shaky legs, her ankles trembling as her heels hit the pavement. I didn’t stop her. Didn’t need to. If she wanted like this, she was already mine.
His footsteps reached my ears before she could hear him. She was trying to turn the doorknob, trying to force it open without a key or a wand when he rounded the corner. He called her name again, and she sagged against the door.
He ran to her, and she collapsed into his arms. She told him everything. Almost everything.
Not that she had asked for more. Not that she had moaned against me. Not that she had let me lick her afterwards.
Not that it was the third time. Not that she had agreed. Not that I know what she looks like when she comes.
Not that I was still hidden in the alley. Not that he could have killed me then and there.
She apologized. Said she had been wrong about me, but couldn’t he see that the principle was still right?
He threaded his fingers through hers, kissing his ring, and promised to take her away. He had a key. He took her inside and drew a bath when she asked for one. He came to the window while she soaked and looked up and down the street before pulling the curtains shut.
When I returned the next night, the flat was dark. I couldn’t smell her amidst the crowd of ministry workers at the beginning of the next day, or the end. The lights stayed off all week.
At our next scheduled meeting, my liaison to Werewolf Support Services said she had taken a personal leave. Even when I tracked him home, even when I began to eat long strips of his skin, he swore he knew nothing more, just personal leave and something about a cabin in the north. I bit him, ate him, left him in a pool of his own fluids. Even his blood was tedious.
And then I headed north.
* * * * *
It took almost three weeks to find her here.
She’s well hidden, my girl, but her friends were not. The saviour was easy to find at this time of year, so many public events for the holidays. I caught his scent outside of a party for her house-elf protection scheme. He had agreed to speak in her absence, uncomfortable though he seemed in his dress robes. I could smell her perfume on him. He had seen her. Would lead me to her.
It was easy enough to guess where they’d go, once north. Somewhere near the school, near Hogsmeade. Harder to find an exact location. I waited, under a heavy cloak and disillusionment charm, outside of the Three Broomsticks every night until I picked up his scent, broom polishing oil and treacle. He stumbled out into the snow with a group of ginger-haired men, hers among them, barely escaping Rosmerta and her mistletoe. I followed at a distance until they disappeared into a hedge only a few minutes’ walk outside of the town. A cheap tactic, but the young always think highly of their own inventiveness.
Come morning, the saviour and all the gingers but hers left the same way they’d arrived, disapparating just beyond a ward. I marked their point of entry and waited. She would leave. He would leave. I would wait.
They did not move from their hiding place. Others have come and gone, and they have not moved. But this morning, I could smell it.
Blood. Fresh. Flowing from her again, as it has every month. Every month that she is not with my child.
Snow started falling on the village two days ago. The moon is almost here for me. When I turn, my prints will be enough evidence to force me away from here. From her. Which leaves me one night before she is turned. This night.
The air is crisp. The wind carries a hint of frost. Everything is white, down to the fairies lighting Madame Puddifoot’s window. I am alone with my footsteps.
I slip through the hedges, expecting more resistance than I find. I knew to expect these spells, had to test them while in human form. Even considered bringing my own wand, though I’d lose it in the transformation. I cut through her wards with my Werewolf Support Services liaison’s instead.
The ground floor is just a kitchen and living room, both with large windows that open on to a small garden. They’re on the sofa together, holding mugs and chatting while the fire blazes. There’s a tree by the hearth, and a small stack of gifts. Christmas is still a few days away, but most are unwrapped.
The flames jump and crackle, and I can hear them talking in low tones. He makes a joke. She laughs and switches sides so she’s curled into him.
The redness of the light makes him look like a child’s stuffed toy, a long-limbed bright red doll.
It makes her look alive. It glances over her pulse point, flickers over the white skin of her chest where her jumper makes a deep vee. It catches in her hair. When she smiles, her teeth catch the light. This is the how she will look when she feeds, blood taking the place of flame.
He slips an arm around her and I can see a ring on his finger. They’ve done it, then. The gifts. A Yule wedding. He thinks she will only be his.
Even through glass I can smell her now, now that I know her so well. Rich wet earth. Iron. Salt.
He goes to put on the kettle and comes back with a chessboard. They play on the floor in front of the hearth. She toys with fallen pine needles. I see her eye strategies she won’t use. He takes her mug when the kettle whistles and returns with two steaming cups of tea. She lets him win.
He packs up the pieces and goes to put the game away. She glances over her shoulder when he leaves the room, quickly and then again for longer, and I wonder if she can see me against the hedges, lit by the moon. If she’ll come to me.
She turns back towards the fire when he approaches the threshold and comes to stand behind her, circling his arms around her waist, folding his hands across her pelvis. Her emptying womb.
He kisses her head.
He won’t fuck her tonight. Not this kind of man. If she comes tonight it will be by her own hand. I wonder how she will do it. If she’ll sneak away for a bath, if she’ll slip a hand into her pants over the sink, if she’ll try to stay still in their bed, touching herself as he snores beside her. If she’ll open the door and spread for me, the snow soaking up her blood as I slam into her again.
This kind of man is too scared of blood. He’ll claim custom or disgust. But we wolves. We love blood.
There is no substitute for it. No amount of magic or meat or will that can replicate the power of human blood in our veins. There is no potion that can create life as she can, no salve that can replicate the pure pleasure of that viscous, metallic liquid. Humans have never understood that. But we wolves have seen them. Tasted their muscles, drunk of their ventricles, cleaned our teeth with their bones. We are not afraid of their bodies.
Some of us will even admit it. Admit to revelling in the fearlessness that comes with stripping skin off the kind of bodies we used to inhabit. Admit to finding that blood from the thigh, or the neck, or the womb tastes better than blood from the kidney or liver or brain. Admit that even when we assume human form we crave it, that we want to see what’s underneath. That we thrive on it. On them.
I have always been among that group. Reviled not just for loving the blood, but for refusing to deny it. For seeking it out without the wolf for an excuse. For glorying in the strength of my limbs, my nails, my jaw.
She will too. She will not let them hide her away, my girl. She will speak with ligaments in her belly, with blood under her fingernails, with my children in her womb.
She will see this when she is with the blood and he is without it, when he is pale and shrivelled in the early morning light. When she is full and warm and stronger than she has ever known.
I will return here tomorrow. I will call to her at moonrise. I will break down the doors. I will set my wolf’s tongue to her blood, will have her legs around my muzzle. I will fuck her as a wolf, will show her why she needs a wolf’s strength to withstand what we share. I will bite her when I come. We will feast on him together.
The fire is almost dead in the hearth. He pulls her towards the stairs and they ascend by moonlight. He comes to the window first, and she follow behind him, runs a hand through his hair almost as though directing him towards where I stand.
I expect him to be more relaxed, in the bedroom with his wife, but he is strangely tense as he reaches into his pockets. Perhaps he, too, will be seeking furtive relief this evening.
I will not stay to see it. I will slip back through the hedges and prepare for tomorrow. We will need to leave while she adjusts; it may be some time before we return to the comforts of civilization.
But when we do.
I turn my back to them, standing out from the hedgerow to steal towards the hidden entrance. Behind me, the creak of a window sash. But I am unconcerned. Fresh snowfall will hide my prints. Until tomorrow.
Author/Artist:
dicta_contrionPairing: Hermione/Greyback, Hermione/Ron
Word count/Medium: 14,280
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: menstrual bloodplay, comeplay, dubcon/noncon, Hermione doing her SPEW thing and getting in over her head
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Science and law have their limits. Werewolves do not.
Notes: Written for
kink_n_squick’s Christmas 2013 Fest, for sksdwrld’s prompt: “He could smell her from far away and though she was hiding, easily tracked her down. He's going to savour the taste of her. Bonus for forced impregnation/breeding.” It was an intriguing prompt and really got the ideas, um, flowing. Shout outs due to Julia Kristeva and the Moon Cup. Concrit welcome. Also available over at Ao3.Back to Part 1
I had thought it might take some time to get injured. But a werewolf and suspected former Death Eater was a prime target even a year and a half after the last battle. It took only two visits to Diagon Alley, less than a week, to collect a series of bruises and abrasions that looked far worse than they felt.
I had thought it might be difficult to find her, to pick her out of the crowd leaving the ministry without drawing attention. To elicit her care without attracting official notice. But she worked late – so diligent, my girl – and I’d know that smell anywhere. Even without blood flowing from her cunt, I could tell she was walking before I caught the scent of her sweat, her perfume, her saliva as she leaned in to talk to the rangy ginger who had once been so enraged at her good works. He seemed to have recovered. I doubted that he knew about our most recent visit.
As she turned the corner, failing to notice me in the shadow of a nearby entryway, I saw the reflection of light on her hand. A ring. He wanted to lay claim to her cunt. Exclusive claim.
That could not come to pass. Nor would he want it to, if he knew. She would never be his.
I followed them as they took a leisurely lover’s walk to a flat – Theirs? Hers? His? – on a mostly muggle block not twenty minutes from the ministry. I kept to the shadows, hidden in an alleyway across the road as she opened the front door and he followed her in to a well-lit vestibule and up the stairs. A moment later, lights clicked on in the front room of the second story.
She moved towards the window and then away again, and didn’t come back for some time. I was cold, standing behind somebody’s bins in early December with bruises blossoming across my torso. But I was hungrier still.
I could barely make out her voice over her neighbours’ televisions and conversations. Wolves hear everything, but I wanted only her breath, her voice. Her cries.
She became clearer as her neighbours began to retire, lights clicking out up and down the street. I heard his voice too, nasal and loud, rambling on about crime and quidditch and making crude jokes. She laughed. Unexpected from my dark, writhing, brilliant girl.
And then their voices became quieter, his and hers, and then disappeared altogether, though the light stayed on in the front room. I strained to hear, wondering if I had missed my opportunity. Their neighbours to either side were asleep or on their way to it, lights out and breathing evenly. But the two of them were not. A door opened and shut. Her breath quickened, and then his. A slow rhythmic banging began. Wood against plaster. It got faster. A headboard.
My vision swam. Shame may be unfamiliar to a wolf, but rage is home. He was fucking her. Claiming her. He was grunting in time to the headboard, likely covering her in his filthy sweat. I imagined her tiny frame, pushed into the mattress beneath him as he shoved into her. And then he was coming, swearing and panting before collapsing onto the creaky bedframe.
I howled. I had meant to all along. She had to know I was hurt, that I was a wounded Sentient Magical Beast in need of her care. But this cry was more than pain. It was fury, hunger, ownership.
But she had never known a real wolf. Only that vile, stringy traitor Lupin. She would not know the difference.
After a moment’s pause, the bedframe creaked again. Footsteps. She came to the window in a thin robe, craning her neck to look up and down the street.
I howled again, tightening my throat to produce a whimper that echoed down the alley, and forced my uninjured legs into an imitation limp that brought me out of the shadows.
I saw concern cross her face. Fear.
So clever, my girl. She knew. If she helped me he would object. If she didn’t, she undermined her own crusade. If she didn’t, I could ruin her.
She yelled over her shoulder, paused by the door, and opened it, appearing a moment later in the vestibule. The overhead light revealed everything. Her chest was flushed, her hair thoroughly dishevelled, her lips bitten. She must have stepped into the heels she’d worn home, and the white satin robe she’d tied at the waist would hardly protect her from the cold.
Then she was stepping onto the pavement, looking for cars, crossing the road, approaching me slowly.
“Mr. Greyback?”
I whimpered again.
“Mr. Greyback, what are you doing here?”
“Injured…”
She didn’t step any closer. “What happened?”
“Diagon…attacked.”
“Attacked by whom? We can call the aurors.”
“No…good people. But I am a wolf.”
Her features hardened. “They can’t be very good people if they would do this to a living thing.” I didn’t speak. She went on, “I’ll floo St. Mungo’s, just wait right there.”
“No….”
“Mr. Greyback, I know for a fact that St. Mungo’s has always provided you with excellent care.”
“Won’t help…need—”
She knew why I had come and, even on the empty street, she dropped her voice to a furious whisper. “I can’t help you like that.” I whimpered again. She took a step closer. Two more and I would have her. “Even if I could, it’s not that – It’s not the appropriate time of the month. I can’t help you.”
I muttered a few nonsense words under my breath. “Mr. Greyback?” She took another step closer.
“Need you.”
“I can’t help you. I only know basic first aid, and your injuries appear to be more extensive. There are no other options. We can floo to St. Mungo’s together, and they’ll tend to any injuries thoroughly and professionally.” She shivered against a cold gust.
Medicine would help the bruises, but not the need that had brought me here. I did not need their science. But she did. I could play along.
“Protein.”
“What?”
“Your proteins…linked to the blood. Will heal, still.”
“Proteins?”
“Please. I need…” I nodded towards her thighs.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I…” She straightened. “There’s no evidence of that. The Ministry requires that all medical protocols be thoroughly vetted by committees from St. Mungo’s, and the DMLE must review clinical findings before any treatment is administered to Sentient Magical Beasts”
“Not at the ministry.” She looked shocked at that, as though she hadn’t quite realized she was half naked on a street corner instead of hiding behind a Ministry crest. “Please. Help.”
She looked over her shoulder to where the light still glowed in the front room of the now-quiet flat. There was no movement. She turned back. “How do I know it will help?”
“Please. Trust me.”
I thought she might soften at that. Instead, she nodded tightly. Maybe she knew she couldn’t refuse without risking exposure, whether as deviant or intolerant. Maybe she even wanted to believe. “Quickly, then.”
I nodded and drew back into the alley. She followed, after a moment. “Here?”
“Please.”
“How?”
I dropped to my knees, facing the brick wall behind the bins. “Here. No one will see.” She nodded again, keeping her distance as she walked around me to reach the wall. She stood in front of it with her back straight and thighs clenched. I shuffled forward, still on my knees, until my mouth drew even with her waist.
I rubbed my face against the fabric of her robe, my beard catching the satin and pulling it open. She froze at the intimacy and pushed my head away. “No,” she said, “just tell me how to help.”
“Open your legs.”
“Robe?”
“Fine.”
She nodded, tightening her sash and spreading her feet to shoulder’s width.
Her smell was familiar. That same saltiness, deep and rich, even without the blood. But I could smell something more there. Him. Lingering there, like milk gone off, dirtying my girl. Rage, again. I would not let him have her.
I rested my haunches against my calves and bent forward, bracing my arms against the brick behind her and pushing into the space between her legs. She opened them a fraction further to permit an exploratory lick. I drew the tip of my tongue over the soft hair that had come in over her lips and felt her shudder against me. Again. Again. But her legs didn’t open any further.
I drew back and looked up at her. Her eyes were closed, head tilted back, her upper body held stiff against the wall. “I can’t quite…” I moved a hand up the inside of her thigh and cupped the back of it, pulling it towards me. Her arse lifted off the wall, her robe falling open around her hips. She followed my lead as I draped her leg over my shoulder. “Thank you.” She nodded, eyes still closed.
Remnants of him were dried across her thighs, and when I pulled her to my face and slipped inside her hole, the bitter taste of him was waiting. It couldn’t be allowed to remain. It couldn’t be allowed at all. I scraped my tongue against her walls, drawing him out of her. I pulled back and spat through her legs, his spunk and my spit and her sweat steaming against the cold brick.
And then I cupped her arse and drew her to me, burying myself in her, licking her clit until she was shaking, until she let me lift her other leg so that she was pressed between my face and the wall, until her fingers tangled in my hair and she was moaning, shifting her weight against my shoulders to open herself further against my mouth, scraping my back with her heels.
I could not let her come. If she came, she’d run. And I was not finished.
I pressed her back into the wall, shifting her weight onto one shoulder and lowering the other leg to the ground. One of my hands held her steady as the other scraped up her inner thigh, pulling his spunk from the fine hairs that rested against her skin. I would replace it with my own. My cock jerked at the thought.
She stiffened when my fingers reached her, when I rested two fingertips at her entrance. I licked along the thigh that still rested on one shoulder, drawing ever closer to that glistening knot of nerves and tissue, until she sunk down onto my fingers, desperate for something more.
Eyes still closed, she began riding my hand in earnest, angling her hips towards my mouth in search of that final lick that might give her release.
It would not be forthcoming.
I added a third finger, and she moaned her approval. My breath ghosted her clit but I didn’t come any closer. I wanted enough distance to see my fingers pushing into her and pulling back out, slick and shining. I wanted to see her when she reached into her robe, cupping one breast, squeezing a hard nipple between her fingers as the other hand continued to pull at my head, his vile rock catching in my hair when she urged me closer.
I had known her desire from the first taste. Had known she sought pleasure. I had learned, as she rode my face, that she had the lust to be a wolf. That she, too, wanted for something.
So it was not surprising that she let out a disappointed whimper when I withdrew all but a finger. I worked the single digit into her and held it there. I could feel her muscles tightening in search of it. I crooked my finger towards the front of her abdomen, rubbing the spongy tissue that turned her thin cry into a gasping moan and then a whisper: “More.”
“More?” I looked up to catch the tiniest nod of her head. I withdrew my hand and dropped my shoulder, sending her leg back to the ground. “Turn around.”
She stiffened. I took hold of her waist and turned her, finding that her feet followed even if her body remained stiff. I stood, unbuttoned my trousers and pulled down the flies. Her shoulders tightened at the sound, but she didn’t close her legs.
I leaned forward to run two sticky fingers up the back of her leg, her robe beginning to pool around my wrist. I reached for the knot and dropped it to the ground, then stood directly behind her naked form, my cock pushing into her lower back, my mouth above her ear. “Bend over.” Nothing. “If you want more.”
She was slow to move until I dug my teeth into the flesh at the back of her neck, but then she braced her forearms against the brick, dropping her head into the crook of her elbow and stepping back to spread her legs. Her muscles were tight from ankle to arse, her heels just tall enough to bring her into line for my cock. I kept her there a moment, exposed, her body throbbing with a pounding heartbeat.
I put a hand to each hip and angled her towards me. Her pulse quickened. Her nails dug into the skin of her upper arms.
She almost howled when I shoved into her, a wolfish keening moan that echoed off the brick. I did not relent. I thrust into her like I would another wolf, until she was gasping for air, her forearms scratched, her fingers grappling for purchase in the brick. She raised her head, a wild look across her face as she cursed and begged.
I heard it before she did. Before she could. Her name shouted across a flat.
I fucked her harder still, feeling my bollocks tighten as she struggled to keep her footing against the onslaught.
A door opened and shut, heavy footsteps in the stairwell.
I turned her so we were both hidden by the bins, our sides to the wall. But I did not stop. Would not stop until I had made her my own. She tried to stand, to move away. I put a hand to the back of her neck to push her forward again, holding her down, bent out of view with her cunt in the air for me.
The creaking of a building’s front door, more footsteps. He called her name again, this time so she could hear.
She froze at the sound of his voice, but I did not. I could feel blood rushing through my ears, filling my chest, keeping my cock hard inside her. And then I was coming, slamming into her stillness, stifling the cry that I knew would bring his unwanted attention, and filling her. Her chest heaved with silent sobs, her body sagged against the wall. Still I pumped into her until her cunt was overflowing, until each thrust displaced more of my seed than it delivered.
He broke into a jog, heading south and calling her name.
I began to soften, but did not stand. If I stood, so could she, and it would all fall away. I slid a hand from her hip, putting fingers to her clit without letting her straighten. She shuddered and hit my hand away. “Need,” I whispered to her. “Come for me.” She shook her head, eyes shut tight and leaking.
I got to my knees behind her then and laved a broad stroke from her entrance to her clit, focusing my attention there. I buried my face, my own taste mingling with hers. Still, she did not come. Tried to pull away, even though my grip was strong around her thighs.
I held her there for a moment longer, postponing gravity’s effects, resisting the desire to crawl under her skin. If all was successful, I already had.
My come poured out of her when I let her stand, splattering the pavement, leaving thick white streaks down her thighs. She didn’t turn to face me. She didn’t say anything.
I tucked my cock into my trousers and did up the flies. Took a step back.
She avoided my eyes when she picked up her robe. It was pilled from the brick, stained and damp from the pavement. Before she could wrap it around herself, I saw my future.
She had my seed. She was covered in me. Wet and dirty, naked, her face streaked, howling at the sky, hungry and clever and strong. She will be a small wolf, but formidable. We will run wild.
She left on shaky legs, her ankles trembling as her heels hit the pavement. I didn’t stop her. Didn’t need to. If she wanted like this, she was already mine.
His footsteps reached my ears before she could hear him. She was trying to turn the doorknob, trying to force it open without a key or a wand when he rounded the corner. He called her name again, and she sagged against the door.
He ran to her, and she collapsed into his arms. She told him everything. Almost everything.
Not that she had asked for more. Not that she had moaned against me. Not that she had let me lick her afterwards.
Not that it was the third time. Not that she had agreed. Not that I know what she looks like when she comes.
Not that I was still hidden in the alley. Not that he could have killed me then and there.
She apologized. Said she had been wrong about me, but couldn’t he see that the principle was still right?
He threaded his fingers through hers, kissing his ring, and promised to take her away. He had a key. He took her inside and drew a bath when she asked for one. He came to the window while she soaked and looked up and down the street before pulling the curtains shut.
When I returned the next night, the flat was dark. I couldn’t smell her amidst the crowd of ministry workers at the beginning of the next day, or the end. The lights stayed off all week.
At our next scheduled meeting, my liaison to Werewolf Support Services said she had taken a personal leave. Even when I tracked him home, even when I began to eat long strips of his skin, he swore he knew nothing more, just personal leave and something about a cabin in the north. I bit him, ate him, left him in a pool of his own fluids. Even his blood was tedious.
And then I headed north.
It took almost three weeks to find her here.
She’s well hidden, my girl, but her friends were not. The saviour was easy to find at this time of year, so many public events for the holidays. I caught his scent outside of a party for her house-elf protection scheme. He had agreed to speak in her absence, uncomfortable though he seemed in his dress robes. I could smell her perfume on him. He had seen her. Would lead me to her.
It was easy enough to guess where they’d go, once north. Somewhere near the school, near Hogsmeade. Harder to find an exact location. I waited, under a heavy cloak and disillusionment charm, outside of the Three Broomsticks every night until I picked up his scent, broom polishing oil and treacle. He stumbled out into the snow with a group of ginger-haired men, hers among them, barely escaping Rosmerta and her mistletoe. I followed at a distance until they disappeared into a hedge only a few minutes’ walk outside of the town. A cheap tactic, but the young always think highly of their own inventiveness.
Come morning, the saviour and all the gingers but hers left the same way they’d arrived, disapparating just beyond a ward. I marked their point of entry and waited. She would leave. He would leave. I would wait.
They did not move from their hiding place. Others have come and gone, and they have not moved. But this morning, I could smell it.
Blood. Fresh. Flowing from her again, as it has every month. Every month that she is not with my child.
Snow started falling on the village two days ago. The moon is almost here for me. When I turn, my prints will be enough evidence to force me away from here. From her. Which leaves me one night before she is turned. This night.
The air is crisp. The wind carries a hint of frost. Everything is white, down to the fairies lighting Madame Puddifoot’s window. I am alone with my footsteps.
I slip through the hedges, expecting more resistance than I find. I knew to expect these spells, had to test them while in human form. Even considered bringing my own wand, though I’d lose it in the transformation. I cut through her wards with my Werewolf Support Services liaison’s instead.
The ground floor is just a kitchen and living room, both with large windows that open on to a small garden. They’re on the sofa together, holding mugs and chatting while the fire blazes. There’s a tree by the hearth, and a small stack of gifts. Christmas is still a few days away, but most are unwrapped.
The flames jump and crackle, and I can hear them talking in low tones. He makes a joke. She laughs and switches sides so she’s curled into him.
The redness of the light makes him look like a child’s stuffed toy, a long-limbed bright red doll.
It makes her look alive. It glances over her pulse point, flickers over the white skin of her chest where her jumper makes a deep vee. It catches in her hair. When she smiles, her teeth catch the light. This is the how she will look when she feeds, blood taking the place of flame.
He slips an arm around her and I can see a ring on his finger. They’ve done it, then. The gifts. A Yule wedding. He thinks she will only be his.
Even through glass I can smell her now, now that I know her so well. Rich wet earth. Iron. Salt.
He goes to put on the kettle and comes back with a chessboard. They play on the floor in front of the hearth. She toys with fallen pine needles. I see her eye strategies she won’t use. He takes her mug when the kettle whistles and returns with two steaming cups of tea. She lets him win.
He packs up the pieces and goes to put the game away. She glances over her shoulder when he leaves the room, quickly and then again for longer, and I wonder if she can see me against the hedges, lit by the moon. If she’ll come to me.
She turns back towards the fire when he approaches the threshold and comes to stand behind her, circling his arms around her waist, folding his hands across her pelvis. Her emptying womb.
He kisses her head.
He won’t fuck her tonight. Not this kind of man. If she comes tonight it will be by her own hand. I wonder how she will do it. If she’ll sneak away for a bath, if she’ll slip a hand into her pants over the sink, if she’ll try to stay still in their bed, touching herself as he snores beside her. If she’ll open the door and spread for me, the snow soaking up her blood as I slam into her again.
This kind of man is too scared of blood. He’ll claim custom or disgust. But we wolves. We love blood.
There is no substitute for it. No amount of magic or meat or will that can replicate the power of human blood in our veins. There is no potion that can create life as she can, no salve that can replicate the pure pleasure of that viscous, metallic liquid. Humans have never understood that. But we wolves have seen them. Tasted their muscles, drunk of their ventricles, cleaned our teeth with their bones. We are not afraid of their bodies.
Some of us will even admit it. Admit to revelling in the fearlessness that comes with stripping skin off the kind of bodies we used to inhabit. Admit to finding that blood from the thigh, or the neck, or the womb tastes better than blood from the kidney or liver or brain. Admit that even when we assume human form we crave it, that we want to see what’s underneath. That we thrive on it. On them.
I have always been among that group. Reviled not just for loving the blood, but for refusing to deny it. For seeking it out without the wolf for an excuse. For glorying in the strength of my limbs, my nails, my jaw.
She will too. She will not let them hide her away, my girl. She will speak with ligaments in her belly, with blood under her fingernails, with my children in her womb.
She will see this when she is with the blood and he is without it, when he is pale and shrivelled in the early morning light. When she is full and warm and stronger than she has ever known.
I will return here tomorrow. I will call to her at moonrise. I will break down the doors. I will set my wolf’s tongue to her blood, will have her legs around my muzzle. I will fuck her as a wolf, will show her why she needs a wolf’s strength to withstand what we share. I will bite her when I come. We will feast on him together.
The fire is almost dead in the hearth. He pulls her towards the stairs and they ascend by moonlight. He comes to the window first, and she follow behind him, runs a hand through his hair almost as though directing him towards where I stand.
I expect him to be more relaxed, in the bedroom with his wife, but he is strangely tense as he reaches into his pockets. Perhaps he, too, will be seeking furtive relief this evening.
I will not stay to see it. I will slip back through the hedges and prepare for tomorrow. We will need to leave while she adjusts; it may be some time before we return to the comforts of civilization.
But when we do.
I turn my back to them, standing out from the hedgerow to steal towards the hidden entrance. Behind me, the creak of a window sash. But I am unconcerned. Fresh snowfall will hide my prints. Until tomorrow.
