Title: Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.

Author: grayglube

Rating: M/NC-17

Spoilers: None, NextGen

Prompt: #178: Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others. -Eric Hoffer.

Summary: Between the breakfasts of cigarettes and coffee and the nights feeling homesick for a place they've never seen, between the red marks on lunar calendars and hankerings for red meat, there were stories and ceremonies, apologies and accidents, waning and waxing, alpha and omega.

A/N: Originally this was supposed to be my entry for the nextgendarkfest but I dropped out because there was no way I could finish it the way I wanted to finish it in the time I had to write it. It turned out better I think than I planned. Thanks go out to stormsandsins for the help with the French.

Sorry for the two year wait.

"No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren"

1st Day of the New Moon

He knew that she was aware of his presence at her door because quite suddenly after he'd knocked he realized that the footsteps across the floor above had stopped.

Teddy had realized that something was off but it was only in the absence of the thudding above his head that he'd even noticed it was there.

"Vic, I want to talk," he spoke through the door with his fist propped on the frame, eyes downcast.

"So come in."

He startled and raised his head but the underside of the stairs blocked his view of where she had spoken from, the door on the floor above shut with a click.

The door he stood in front of was locked and he wondered with a bite to the inside of his mouth if he was supposed to mount the stairs and try the other door. He turned and wrapped the end of the banister inside his palm, running the toe of his trainer through the layer of dust settled on the stairs to the third floor he wondered when someone had last climbed then.

Peering up at the last landing and the last door he felt chilled, made smaller by the height of the ceiling. He felt a distinct sense of unease, primitive fear, he had no idea what had brought it on but it only sharpened when the door to his back opened with no one standing in the threshold.

The unease did not ebb just for the fact that the lights inside her flat were on and he could hear the ticks her heels made on the wood floors, it only sunk deeper into him making him all too aware of the fact that there was something savage in Victoire.

He went in and tried to piece together her expression from the dark reflection in the window glass she stood in front of.

It puzzled him to notice that she was barefoot, the tendons delicate and pinched as she stood one foot flat and the other arched against her ankle.

Shutting the door he lets it hold him up.

"Did you want me to do those things to you?"

Her head tilts to the barest of angles and he sees then that she is smiling, small and cold.

"Yes."

Teddy sits in the worn leather wingback and clenches the arms, hating that she is so honest with him.

"Why?" He asks it bitterly and suddenly he feels malicious. She turns and he sees the gleam of magic encasing her, the spellwork is sound and all of the marks he made are hidden in the haze of it.

"You know why," her smile is vindictive.

"I don't."

"You do."

He does but he hasn't seen it and because he can't see it he can't believe it so he goes silent and slumps back into the cracked leather savoring the scent of it and the mingling of smoke and violets.

"…"

Her fingers click against the glass in a pattern of noise that reminds him of the way she walks.

"You think you're the only one who feels these things? The urges, the pulls, the temptations? I feel it. You've seen it. That's why."

"Don't justify it like that," he scoffs. Victoire turns and leans against the window, her body straight and her head turned, every line tight and perfect as if she's presenting herself to him as an object to impact the situation they are involved in that much deeper into his memory, his being.

"I'm sorry if you're offended that I did exactly what you wanted me to do," her tone is waspish, it makes his position in the chair much harder to keep, he wants to get up and draw her up to him tightly, unforgiving, relive the past.

"It wasn't me, the wolf isn't me!" He shouted as he stood from the chair. Delight lighted her features as he moved her eyes suddenly mirthful.

"It wants the same things you do, it at least asks for it."

"I didn't want that," he glared at her and realized he had moved closer to her, he stepped back and turned away putting her out of his sight for a brief moment.

"No. You didn't want it like that. You wanted sweetness, not violence. You wanted that because you thought that was all I could ever take from you. I don't need you to be sweet. Not all the time."

"What I did is not alright!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're not like me!"

"When you meet a beast, show it your teeth. Don't recite poetry to one who is not a poet."

"I hate you, sometimes."

He turned back and found her staring at him curious and concerned.

"I hate you too, sometimes," she shrugged. Teddy gripped the back on the chair he had turned from and let his hair fall over his face and his shoulders sink and clench.

"Just tell me," he wagged his head back and forth, not believing that he was asking a question that he never wanted to think of her answering, thinking of answers he never wanted before. He heard her sigh, he did not look up.

"I'm different from the rest of my family. I feel things the way you feel them, just at a different time than you do. I wanted
you, like that. But I want you like this too. Because you are both of these things."

"Why?" He looked up at her from underneath his eyelashes.

"Because I was being cruel. I'm cruel now. I want you to let me hurt you; I want you to enjoy it. I want to hunt something and fuck something that's like me, that can take it, that can understand it," her voice was hushed, a rasp mingled with the sound of her nail running over the windowsill.

"Are you hurting?"

"Yes, it hurts. It always hurts."

Looking at her he wondered why she had answered his question in that way. He knew she had not understood what he was asking, and he did not understand her answer.

"What does?"

Her eyes were narrow, wary. Turning towards the window fully he watched her turned her face up at the empty, darkening sky.

"Nights without the moon hurt," her body tightened and shivered under soft spring dress she wore. Teddy thought it was the most delicate he'd ever seen her.

"You're not wearing a glamour because of the marks I left, so why are you wearing one?"

"Because if you don't feel like staying there's no reason to show you," her voice was quiet, pained.

He took in the shape of her shoulders and the silhouette of her thighs and knees through the gauzy white of the dress, he wanted to know what it was that he had ignored.

"I was never leaving so show me."

Her fingers yanked off the ring she wore and dropped it to the floor. His throat constricted and his cock throbbed as she unbuttoned her dress to the hem and let it drop from her shoulders, simply and without flourish.

The savage thing inside of her was standing in front of him.

A thing with hair like starlight and spun glass, nails that had become talons; long and black and to his surprise painted, vainly so with gold designs that would have made him grin at any other time.

A thing with every bone sharpened and lengthened, eyes inky and teeth small and sharp.

A thing stuck formed too much like two different things to be either, skin mottled with the pull of something underneath, spears of fine streaks grouped tight together, the shape and stretch of feathers creasing her skin silver.

A thing that was sharpening and changing more deeply as slowly as the sky turned black and the stars streaked across the dark devoid of moonlight.

A thing whose scent made the clench of denim against his groin tight enough to wince from, whose nudity was natural and expected, arousing in an unexpected way that coupled with his sudden apprehension and fear.

A thing that was as likely to fuck him as kill him and more likely than one to do both, most likely to do both at the same time and make him want it to last as long as possible.

She looked at him, eyes inky and alien.

"What's upstairs?"

There was no answer, just the sound of her nails clicking on the floor as she made her way towards him and all too suddenly pounced, settling on his lap, roosting comfortably while making him growingly more uncomfortable.

"Wha…-"

Her mouth was on his, dragging his tongue around hers. Her lips sweet and taunting, strange and smooth. Her teeth bit down on his own chapped pair and savored the taste, sucking and nipping before trailing away and onto his fragile pulse.

The suction of her mouth pulling the artery to closer to the surface of his skin and he'd never felt closer to having his throat ripped out before, there was always the chance that she'd do it; rend him.

"Ugh, Victoire…-"

Her eyes scared him when they turned up and leveled his own. There was nothing in them, just blackness. Pools.

"Quiet."

Her voice was like wind rattling twigs, far away but coming closer, like it wasn't there at all, as if she'd never spoken.

Teddy didn't speak and Victoire grew pleased and preened against his cheek, the texture of her skin a soothing rasp. He felt deliciously weak and weightless. He felt like prey. He felt like she'd already caught him.

"Touch."

His let his fingers trace the tendons of her neck and shoulder, let his palms roam down and around her pert breasts, let his nails pinch puckered nipples tightly, let his knuckles buck up into the hot wetness between her thighs and roll over the yielding flesh of her cunt.

The mist over his mind made him much less able to care that this was not what he'd come to do, all he needed to do now was what she wanted him to do.

"Thrust."

Her hips arched into his, hard and rhythmic, he was keening and his hands grasped and dug furrows into her skin. She was biting at him, her sharp tiny teeth marking him, sending throbbing heat into his blood, pain searing and making mounds of the corded veins under his skin.

The crenellated punctures she left behind oozing weakly, the mix of blood turning black and venomous as it mixed with her saliva.

It burned. He found himself relishing the feel of it as his haze cleared and his hips and hands stilled.

"What did you do?"

Teddy wanted to throw her from him but she was suddenly much heavier than he'd allowed himself to notice, like an iron boned creature.

"I'm hurting you," she grinned wildly.

"Not even close," he smiled weakly. "Try harder."

She did. He wondered if he was enjoying her own brand of retribution as much as she was. His mind was cloudy and indistinct again when she rose off him smoothly, seductive and spoke to him.

"Follow."

There were stairs to the next floor deeper down the hall that they climbed.

She led him forward into the old owlery that had once been much more grand. There was a ladder that she drew herself up as if by the force of something pulling her. He followed and placed himself crouched at the top of it in a loft that was lighted from the outside by street lamps and stars through the large ceiling high window.

Her body glowed silver.

He waited for a command or a suggestion that he'd carry out in the same way, either way.

His mind was in an instant clear, sharp, wary of her as she stood amongst a bed of cushions, a nest of soft fabric and feathers.

"I get it now."

Those eyes, inky and indistinct in their blackness seemed to never move, it was only when they shined that he knew that they were taking things in.

They shined and he knew it was his body that she was taking in.

She didn't respond but he didn't let it bother him too deeply.

"Whatever you want, however you want. Victoire."

At the site of her teeth he rubbed the spot where she'd bitten deep, he stared at his fingers and realized that the spot had gone numb and the blood was seeping out a very far cry from red.

"Scar."

He rolled his eyes and scowled and followed the way her sharp nails ran along her neck along a mark that he knew he'd be the one to make.

He laughed weakly.

"We'll match," he laughed harder after he said it.

She was fast and she was in front of him staring up, eyes gleaming as they rolled and rattled. Her scent was overpowering, pungent and potent.

"Fight."

She was faster than his first blow, but not his second. The shove sent her off the high loft and onto the floor beneath. He heard the hit of her body but as he looked down the expected sight of her sprawled below wasn't there. Her fingers grabbed him from the back of his neck and drew him towards her.

With a snap of her elbow he careened into the wood paneling. He had her jaw in his palm as he sprung away. There was pain then and the gush of blood and the snap of bone as she broke his wrist and sat heavily, bringing him down to the floor under her weight, her hair streaming behind and above her with the motion.

He snarled and snapped his open mouth at her cheek. It bruised quickly and her fingers closed on his nose until he had to let go of her skin in order to breath, her forehead slammed into his and he saw sparks.

She ripped his jeans from hip to thigh and rubbed her thigh against his bared cock.

Then she was wrapped around it, pulsing and slick and he couldn't help but buck at her, trying to get her off. Her knee pinned one wrist and the other was flopped useless, broken and bleeding.

Her body thrashed and he tried to bite every bit that came within reach until she buried her fingers knuckle deep in his mouth. He gnashed at them as hard as his jaw could bear.

The arch of her spine and the pull of her body only ignited his fury.

A hard thrust gave him enough leverage to throw her off. Looking down with a hand across her mouth he slammed her skull into the floor.

The bite opened his palm and spilled warm, salt spray across her palate.

"Stop."

She rose up and touched his mouth, his eyelids, his cheeks, his hair, studied him slowly.

"Change."

He varied color and feature until she stopped him with a small command: "Fuck."

She put him to task until the sky lightened and she rested curled against him, sweaty and sated.