Valkyrie, Mirya reflected drowsily, had
skilled hands. Whether guided by Vicissitude or Auspex, her paladin's
long fingers found knots of tension and smoothed them out. I
wonder what she's thinking about? Mirya mused, listening
to her paladin humming under her breath. It resembled no tune
she knew, but many people used
tones and rhythym as a kind of focus for meditation. Their emotional
fluxes could be tracked by such, if one knew the full range.
Of course, Valkyrie kept so much to herself, she couldn't say
with certainty just what her Paladin was expressing. Mirya
sat up slowly, pushing away from her work table.
Valkyrie started slightly, emerging from her reverie.
What does she taste like? Mirya wondered suddenly. She had only drunk of Valkyrie through the Vaulderie, the younger Cainite's strength blended in with the Pack's.
Valkyrie's voice and features remained expressionless, locked into place by their Art. Mirya blinked, and the younger Tzimisce's aura swam into her Sight. Pale, as all Cainites' auras were, but luminous, like the layers of a pearl or the heart of an opal. On impulse, she rested a hand on Valkyrie's shoulder. She seldom touched her paladin physically, honoring the living blade of the young warrior's body. She watched the eddy and flow of emotion in Valkyrie's aura, as if observing the surface of Jupiter.
She gave the younger Tzimisce a slight smile. "All is well, petite."
After briefly listening with Heightened hearing, Valkyrie agreed with Mirya. She could faintly hear the rest of the Pack engaged in various activities elsewhere in the Haven, and though the soundproofing in Mirya's workroom put even her ultra-fine hearing to a difficult test, the noises were those of relaxation and recreation. Fuchs arguing with Sade about something, a noise which was probably one of the others exercising in the gym... in all, the place seemed more tranquil and relaxed than it had since Hahn had suicided. They may be getting over her at last. Good.
"My Liege," she responded softly,
looking into Mirya's gleaming eyes. Feeling a bit awkward at
looking down at her in a conversation, Valkyrie sank down on
one knee so she could look up at her instead, unconsciously reaching
up to lightly touch Mirya's hand where it
rested on her shoulder.
It required only the smallest shift to take Valkyrie's hand in her own. What is this? Mirya wondered, watching the other Tzimisce with new intensity. Something was at work here, as primal and undeniable as gravity--but which of them was the sun, and which was the moon?
"My Liege," Valkyrie repeated,
suddenly feeling oddly out of balance, as if the world had shifted.
She gripped Mirya's hand, hoping to steady herself, but instead
she felt even more disoriented. In confusion she lowered her
gaze. Mirya's hand felt... almost electric in hers, as if some
sort of current had started to run between them.
She tried to remember if it had felt like this the last time
Mirya had gripped her hand like that. And suddenly she realised
that apart from times of crisis or action where one had needed
support from the other, this was the first time they'd ever
touched hands. She tried to pull
herself together.
"My Liege, how may I serve you?"
she asked, almost
hesitantly raising her gaze again.
Oh, this was too perfect, Seamus thought
in delight. The little Tzimisce wench had left herself wide-open.
From the beginning, the small one had braced herself for abuse
and degradation from Mirya. Even now, she
was uncertain--but she had forgotten to shield herself this time.
It would take only a small suggestion from him to stir those shadows in his wife. Every scientist is a potential sadist, after all.
Mirya shone with a rich, vibrant light,
the lush hues of restrained passions, dark and eerily luminous
as ultraviolet. The Spectre felt a giddy rush of Angst, a sweet
promise of satiation. He began to beat out a rhythym against
his thigh, an impromptu metronome. Once his thoughts had settled
into the beat,
he began his Dirge...
Mirya stared down into Valkyrie's face, still holding the girl's hand in her own. The texture of her skin, so smooth and firm, her eyes, the only expressive part of her face, of her whole body. Change your features, change your voice, but the eyes are the windows of the soul.
Valkyrie felt a sudden rush of unfamiliar
emotion. Not nervousness nor even tension, though it resembled
both. If she had been mortal, she would have blushed furiously.
She began to analyse that thought,
then shied away from it. No. This is absurd. I cannot be feeling
this way. In confusion, she lowered her eyes again, the gesture
transmitting an air of shyness she wasn't even aware of projecting.
Without giving the impulse full thought,
Mirya reached out, put her hand at the back of Valkyrie's neck.
The smooth strands of the paladin's close-cropped white hair
felt as soft and plush as a sable brush. She looked into the
girl's face, noting the pale lips, the wide
eyes.
Valkyrie raised her eyes again and looked
into Mirya's eyes, seeing a strange hunger in there. For her?
Surely not. But somehow the older Tzimisce's gentle touch simultaneously
comforted her and tantalised
her, as if it gave her something she needed without truly sating
that need. A strange hunger stirred within her, a hunger that
had nothing to do with the thirst for blood but burned ravenously
nonetheless.
'How may I serve you?' An invitation, clear and direct. She needed no further permission.
She bent her head, pressed her lips to Valkyrie's.
This was no cautious, first-lover's kiss,
but hungry and demanding. She kept her grip on the back of Valkyrie's
neck, holding her in place. A cold light seemed to blaze through
her, frozen lightening that drove her out of her habitual reserve.
Her paladin's body was under
her hands, her mouth beneath Mirya's own. And, oh! was it sweet!
In her stunned amazement, all Valkyrie could do was respond to the kiss. Mirya gripped her tightly and skillfully; with her long experience she knew precisely how to keep someone she held immobile.
The paladin didn't even try to resist, but instead met Mirya's
tongue with her own, playing with it, tasting it, and doing so
with an appetite that astounded her. Involuntarily she let out
a small moan of pleasure; it emerged as no more than an inchoate,
animal sound.
Being vampiric meant not having to come up for air. She explored Valkyrie's mouth, coaxing her to respond. The feel of her flesh beneath her hands, the scent of her...
Valkyrie reached out to touch Mirya, but froze in mid-gesture; she had invited Mirya, but Mirya had not extended that invitation to _her_ yet. With difficulty she contented herself with responding to that marvelously skilled tongue that probed her mouth and made that strange fire within her burn ever hotter.
At last, Mirya broke the kiss. Had she
been human, she would have been gasping for breath, her lips
swollen from the hungry kiss. She kept her gaze focused on Valkyrie's
face. She should stop this, should
do something--anything other than what she was doing. But it
felt so right, to hold her close, to touch her.
Yet, it wasn't enough.
Valkyrie met Mirya's gaze, keeping her hands off her only with an enormous effort of will. It had felt so wonderful, so good, but surely she'd been too forward in offering herself to Mirya in such a way, surely Mirya would send her away in disgust for acting the whore... Desperately, she forced down her incipient panic .
Mirya ran her hands along the sleek lines of Valkyrie's torso, coming to rest at her waist. The paladin wore a t-shirt neatly tucked into her jeans.
"Take this off," she breathed. "I want to see you."
Valkyrie's eyes widened. "My Liege?"
she
whispered, not sure whether she'd heard Mirya right.
Seamus grinned, proud of himself. The
prickly little Leech would never submit to this. Her precious
honor would balk at being treated like a whore. She would resist,
and that tightly leashed emotion in Mirya would
flare into life. Forced obedience, the delicious snarl of resentments,
lust, and shame.
The pair would separate, a wedge driven
between them. The fragile links tying them together would shatter--and
his wife would be even further
isolated from the Leechs. She would be spending more time with
him, as was proper.
A rich source of Angst, and all his for
the mining.
"Please, _petite_," she breathed.
Valkyrie met Mirya's gaze in shock at
this confirmation that she'd understood her correctly the first
time. Slowly, almost mechanically, she rose to her feet and unbuttoned
her jeans. Recovering her poise
partially, she pulled off her black t-shirt with something almost
resembling her ordinary easy grace. Mirya's eyes still held her
own riveted; she couldn't look away from them.
Next, the skin-tight white bra that she
almost didn't need to keep her small, firm breasts from bouncing
when she engaged in exercise. A brief hunt for the clasp in the
small of her back, and she pulled the bra off and let it fall,
too. Her nipples slowly came tightly erect --
a reflex she'd thought dead forever, and hence hadn't bothered
to eliminate.
And suddenly she realised that she was
blushing now; so off balance was she that her Vicissitude now
responded to her unconscious desires and reflexes in a way it
hadn't done since the nights just past her
Creation. She lowered her gaze and concentrated on her jeans,
unzippering them to reveal her small white panties. She then
looked at Mirya again, unsure of whether she wanted her to continue...
[to be continued...]