Archive of Our Own

Niko was only halfway through unpacking her stuff when she felt that familiar and dreaded drop in her stomach. She’d known her period was coming on, had a pad ready and everything, but she’d dared to hope maybe this time she could skip the cramps and just have the usual amount of suffering. But no, her ovaries hated her!

She searched through her bag once, then twice, more frantic when she didn’t immediately find her trusty hot water bottle. Sudden visions came to her of the last time she’d seen it: putting it aside when she packed because the fluffy pink covering looked too childish, and what would she need it for, anyway? “Oh, no.”

“You good?” her new roommate asked, from where she was lying on her bed and scrolling through her phone. Crystal. Crystal Palace, she’d introduced herself, and Niko had gotten all self-conscious and clammed up, but she had a feeling they’d become great friends.

No way was Niko starting out by asking for help with her period. It was only a thing she’d been dealing with herself for literal years! How embarrassing would that be? “Yeah!” she squeaked. “You don’t need to worry! I just need to go – um, borrow something. From someone.”

She fled the room, trying not to imagine the burn of Crystal’s gaze following her. When the door closed behind her, she bent over, hugging her stomach. Maybe if she just squeezed hard enough, the pain would miraculously go away?

Sadly, it didn’t.

Niko permitted herself one internal groan, then set off in search of the ‘someone’. During orientation, all the newcomers in the dorm had been told where to go to for any problems they had, and Niko had made sure to memorize the room number. Luck was on her side, for once, because when she knocked on the door, someone answered.

Or maybe luck wasn’t all that loyal, Niko thought, swallowing as she looked up and up and up. The girl nearly filled the entire doorway, a good head taller than Niko, way more muscular, and, like, intimidatingly beautiful. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a female rugby game, the ones that were kinda Niko’s guilty pleasure. And, wow, okay, now there was a mental image.

“Good afternoon, my name is Edith Payne,” she said, her voice way more soft-spoken than Niko would’ve expected. Actually, on a second glance Edith wasn’t all that intimidating, really, in a knitted blue sweater and navy slacks, hair braided back neatly. Her eyes were kind. “What can I help you with?”

Niko shook herself out of her daze, blushing. What she thinking, standing there and staring? Edith probably thought she was so rude. “Hi, I’m Niko! I’m so sorry but my period started recently and I forgot – I mean, I don’t have a hot water bottle or painkillers or anything. Is there someone I can borrow stuff from, or…? I can pay them back, I promise!”

Edith’s dark eyebrows furrowed, her eyes raking over Niko from head to toe. “You will be wanting Charlize,” she said slowly, almost reluctantly. “Tell her everything you told me, and she will help. The next door over, on your left.” She pointed for good measure, and her hands –

“I will, thank you so so much!” Niko said, hurrying away before she did something majorly stupid. Like develop a crush on someone light-years out of her league.

At the next door over, on your left, Niko didn’t even need to worry about knocking at an empty room. She could hear the punk rock music – with the occasional trumpet – even from here, as well as the pretty but untrained voice yelling out every second lyric. Niko knocked politely, before realizing the sound would be inaudible under all the music. She knocked again, a little less politely, and after a stressful second, the music shut off and the door swung open.

It was both better and worse than with Edith. Better, because this girl was just as tall and pretty, but in a way less intimidating way. Worse, because as soon as Niko saw her, something deep in her brain commanded, Freeze.

She didn’t know why – it just happened, sometimes – until she took in the girl’s utter stillness, her chest unmoving, her eyes reflecting the light a little too well. Oh. A vampire. Niko breathed through the instincts and relaxed back into her normal stance. Her half-Fae senses had been an amazing help loads of times, but they also came with some built-in prejudices that Niko could’ve done without. It wasn’t like vampires were that big of a threat these days, not with how strict the legislation surrounding their eating habits were.

Niko took a deep breath and repeated her speech, like she’d promised Edith. “Hi, I’m Niko! I’m so sorry but my period started recently and I don’t have a hot water bottle or painkillers or anything. Is there someone I can borrow from, or…? I can pay them back, I promise!”

“Hey, Niko,” the girl replied, raking a hand through her hair. It was short, curly on one side and shaved on the other. She smiled, and it lit her face up enough to seriously call into doubt all the vampire/sunshine stereotypes Niko had ever heard. “I’m Charlize, but I’m sure Edith told you that when she sent you over, yeah?” Her eyes darted over to Edith’s door, now closed – ooh, was it just Niko or did she smell drama? – before she turned away and held her own door open. “Come right in!”

Niko didn’t know what exactly she’d been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t a normal-looking room with a bed on one side and a messy desk on the other. The colour scheme wasn’t even all that goth, mostly red with the occasional hint of blue. There were lava lamps.

Charlize headed straight for the cupboard, saying casually over her shoulder, “Feel free to sit down on the bed so long, I’ll be just a tick.” Then, when Niko hesitated, “Swear I don’t bite,” complete with a wink.

“It’s not that!” Niko blushed. “Just. I’m only wearing a pad, and I don’t want to accidentally stain your sheets.”

“Good thing I keep this around for emergencies, then,” Charlize said, tossing something over. It was a towel, soft in Niko’s hands like it’d been washed lots of times. What emergencies, she wondered. Vampires didn’t get periods. At least, she was pretty sure they didn’t. It wouldn’t make any sense.

But she took the hint, arranging the towel on the bed and then sitting down on it, watching and wondering what Charlize was doing.

“So!” Charlize said, coming over with her hands full. “We’ve got good ol’ paracetamol, we’ve got this ginger tea that a lot of my friends swear by, we’ve even got some essential oils if you’re into that. Your choice, Niko.” She regarded Niko seriously. “Sorry that I don’t have a hot water bottle on hand. But there is something I can do instead, if you don’t mind me invading your personal space a little?”

Niko hesitated. Paracetamol was the obvious option, but she didn’t do so well on it. A hot water bottle had always been her go-to. Besides, Charlize was really pretty. It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship to have her close. So, in the end, Niko scraped together all her bravery and said, “The last one. Please.”

“Brills,” said Charlize, her eyes crinkling with the force of her smile. “Just – lie back? And open your legs a little bit wider, yeah?” She slithered right into the new space, leaving Niko lying on a pretty girl’s bed with said pretty girl between her legs, cuddling into her stomach. “There we go.”

That was when Niko felt it: heat across her front, all the way through her clothes, pulsing along the places where Charlize pressed against her. Like a hot water bottle that could hug you. “You’re hot!”

Charlize smirked. “Cheers, mate.”

“I meant – I thought that vampires…”

“We absorb temperature pretty easily, innit? And I don’t much fancy being cold.” Charlize nuzzled into her skin, and Niko’s stomach twitched. It felt like heaven. “Also, don’t tell anyone, but I came across this heating spell that I’ve used a couple times now. No complaints so far.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not going to change that,” Niko told her sincerely, and Charlize laughed. Niko was so relaxed and warm and comfy, she could fall asleep just like this…

Another cramp, this one harsher, wracked through her daze. She curled inward involuntarily, hearing herself whimper as if from far away.

Charlize ran her hands over Niko’s stomach, lighting it up with heat, and made soothing noises through it. “Aw, sweetheart, you’re really having a terrible time of it, huh?”

Niko came back to herself enough to blush hotly at sweetheart. Something about the term of endearment in Charlize’s low, concerned voice was making her heart pound.

“You know,” said Charlize, watching her own fingers tap over Niko’s abdomen. She also had gorgeous hands. Fuck. “Some people say that orgasms are a good way to get rid of cramps.”

All the breath in the room caught in Niko’s throat, leaving behind a quiet as deep and dark as the grave. The only thing she could hear were the strains of classical music that came faint through the closest wall.

“Do you have someone who could help you?” Charlize finally met her eyes, her gaze filled with gentle concern.

An amazingly artistic outfit, long curls dyed red at the tips, the prettiest of smiles. Niko looked quickly away. “No,” she managed, because it was the truth – no one would help her with this.

“Well, that’s not quite true, is it?” Charlize said, and for a moment Niko worried there was some mind-reading on the list of vampire powers that she’d forgotten about. Except, then Charlize continued, “You have me, for one.”

Niko’s mouth went dry. For a long moment, all she could do was stare. “Um.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Charlize was laughing a little, but it was so obviously aimed at herself that Niko couldn’t help but join in. “Didn’t mean to just jump in at the deep end. We can kiss too, yeah? I swear I’m usually more smooth than this.”

“You mean you offer an orgasm to all the girls?” Niko felt confident enough to tease.

The corners of Charlize’s eyes crinkled. “Only the cute ones.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes,” Niko said, more confidently than she felt. “You can kiss me. And make me come. Since it’ll help with my cramps.”

“Oh, I can, can I?” Charlize laughed, doing a clumsy shimmy up that left her draped over Niko’s body like a heated and weighted blanket. She was wearing only a tank top and old boxer shorts. Goosebumps raised on Niko’s skin wherever their bare skin brushed. “C’mon, then.”

Niko didn’t see her coming closer, because as soon as Charlize’s hand cupped the side of her face, her eyes were already fluttering shut. It wasn’t like Charlize’s breathing could warn her, either, on account of her not having any. Niko just lay there, feeling anticipation and nerves gather like storm clouds inside her, waiting for the perfect lightning strike of a kiss – waiting long enough that she almost opened her eyes to see what was happening – and then the storm broke.

Well. It wasn’t a storm. Or if it was, it was simultaneously the intensity of a typhoon and the calm of its eye. But it was also just lips and teeth and tongue: Charlize starting slow, almost chaste, coaxing Niko into matching her motions; then moving a level up, sucking Niko’s bottom lip into her mouth and biting down lightly, using the resulting gasp to lick into Niko’s mouth like she was greedy for it. It wasn’t Niko’s first kiss, but it kind of felt like it. Like she was learning to kiss all over again, to follow her partner’s instructions until she gained enough confidence to take the lead. That didn’t take too long this time around, at least, because Niko had picked up a few tricks from both practical and theoretical sources along the way. From the way Charlize was moaning around Niko’s tongue in her mouth, she didn’t seem to mind.

Sadly, Niko’s half-Fae heritage did nothing for her ability to hold her breath. Soon enough, what little she managed to inhale through her nose just wasn’t cutting it. She broke away from Charlize – regretfully – to the sound of her own gasping. It would be more embarrassing if she wasn’t so focused on Charlize and her bright eyes, her shiny and kiss-bitten lips stretching into a toothy smile.

“Oops,” said Charlize, not sounding particularly contrite. “Always manage to forget the breathing, don’t I? Oh well, more for me.”

Before Niko could ask what that meant, Charlize was at her neck. The same age-old instincts were screaming at Niko about the inherent danger of a vampire so close to her throat – except Niko could hardly think with how amazing everything felt. She probably would let Charlize bite her, if it felt anything like this. But Charlize’s teeth, while sharp, never broke skin. She was more… nuzzling into Niko’s neck, kissing down the length of it, leaving the occasional hickey like a cute little calling card. Something tangible for Niko to press, shaped like a bruise but way more sweet, to remember all of this. As if she’d ever forget, anyway.

Charlize had mapped out the whole of her collarbone, by now, and was heading in a straight line for the vee of her T-shirt’s collar. She hummed against Niko’s breast bone. “Hey, sweetheart, can I take your top off?”

Niko would probably have given up her firstborn child in the moment. A shirt was nothing. “Go for it,” she said dreamily.

It was easier said than done, though. Charlize leveraged herself up easily enough, but stared at the offending shirt pensively for another moment. “How attached to this shirt are you?” she asked, tugging at the collar with one finger.

“I need it to get back to my room,” Niko said, through a suddenly dry mouth.

“I can loan you something of mine?”

“No, my roommate –” Niko swallowed the rest of that sentence. “I can just sit up and take it off.”

“Nah, nah, nah, no need to worry yourself,” Charlize said cheerily. She rucked Niko’s shirt up, snuck one hand under Niko to rest against her mid-back, and lifted. With the other hand, she pushed Niko’s shirt further up, until Niko’s brain came back online and adjusted her own clumsy arms to help.

Okay, so she was super strong. Niko could be normal about it.

“My bra, too?” she asked, hands pausing at her bra clasp. Charlize wasn’t showing any signs of tiring out from holding half of Niko’s body-weight up with one hand.

“Might as well while you’re already there, innit?” Charlize replied, eyes glittering. She followed each of Niko’s moves with hunger, undone clasp to shrugged-off straps to the entire thing getting tossed to one side. Niko had never felt more like prey. Niko had never felt more desired.

Finally, finally, Charlize lowered her back down, except Niko felt more like she was floating than ever. She knew her breasts weren’t much to write home about – on the smaller side, nipples only a few shades darker than her skin, some stretch marks when she’d hit a growth spurt in high school – but Charlize’s gaze was caught on them like a famished woman in front of a feast.

“Fuck,” she said lowly. “You have the prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.”

Niko squeezed her thighs shut instinctively, but Charlize was still between them, so Niko only ended up pressing harder against her. Her face was hot. She was wet, really wet, embarrassingly wet for some making out and a single compliment, but… that was what they were headed towards, wasn’t it?

Maybe Charlize could smell her arousal, or maybe she was just feeling the same impatience build up in her, but when she started kissing along the curves of Niko’s breasts, she also ran a hand down and over Niko’s skirt – then under it. Niko’s thigh jerked where Charlize’s fingers tiptoed along its inside, up and up to where she was hot and wanting, a pair of her least-cute panties the last barrier.

“Let’s get this off, yeah?” Charlize murmured, and then did. Niko couldn’t even properly appreciate it, because Charlize was an amazing multitasker: one hand lingering on Niko’s ass to lift her up, the other pulling down her panties, and all the while she was lavishing Niko’s nipples with open-mouthed kisses and kittenish nibbles. And then – then – There was Charlize’s finger, molten hot as the rest of her, slipping slow through Niko’s folds, then deeper. She rasped, “Fuck, you’re so wet for me, sweetheart,” and her voice was threaded with hunger. Like she’d just eat Niko up if she could.

Niko would let her, maybe.

There were noises echoing through the room, the slick of Charlize’s finger moving in her, the moans and gasps and cut-off breathing that Niko recognized distantly as her own. Charlize added another finger – a fuller stretch, a deeper reach – and repositioned her thumb to grind against Niko’s clit with every thrust. Niko arched her back, pushing her breasts up against Charlize’s teeth and her pussy down on her fingers, wanting more, more, more. She’d be blushing at her own desperation if she had the brainpower to think at all.

Charlize didn’t seem to have nearly the same problem. She laughed lightly, gentling her fingers so that Niko couldn’t get any of the friction she was chasing. As if that wasn’t enough, she withdrew her hand completely, ignoring Niko’s desperate keen, and inspected her fingers for a long moment. They were shiny-slick and red – Niko felt her remaining blood flood her cheeks – which was all she saw before Charlize popped them into her mouth with a curious expression. Niko moaned. She couldn’t exactly help it, watching Charlize’s lips part around her long fingers, the pink tip of her tongue poking out as she sucked Niko’s wetness and blood off her own skin.

Their gazes met, Niko’s wide, Charlize’s half-lidded, and Charlize had the audacity to wink at her while she hollowed her cheeks around her fingers. Niko was so turned on that she could feel her literal heartbeat in her pussy, begging for Charlize’s attention.

But Charlize was thorough, cleaning each finger completely like some creative new torture, before she finally said, voice hoarse, “You taste brills.” A flick of a fingernail against Niko’s skirt hem. A flick of a coy look through thick lashes. “You wouldn’t mind if I went back for more, would you, sweetheart?”

It took a moment to register, but when it did, Niko didn’t waste time on surprise. “Please, please, please,” she begged, pulling her skirt up and out of the way herself, spreading her legs as wide as they would go.

Charlize grinned up from the skin of her inner thigh, where she began brushing the ghosts of kisses, a silent confessional. “I love girls in skirts. They look mint and they’re easy access! A tempting little treat for me, innit?” She crept her way up like the predator she was meant to be, and Niko kept watching her slink closer, closer, until only Charlize’s wild curls, eyebrow slit, and shimmering gaze were visible. Kept watching because she might die if she didn’t.

Kept watching even though she might die if she did.

There was still a playful air to everything, but if Charlize had any more jokes, she kept them to herself. Instead, she licked into Niko, deep, humming a satisfied little noise, then just – kept going. It was less like being eaten out and more like being consumed, like Charlize was tasting every bit of her and was still hungry for more. Niko didn’t even know what sounds she was making any more, one hand pressed to her hot cheek and the other buried in Charlize’s curls – not daring to pull, just holding on to something, anything, as her world was very literally rocked.

Charlize had been holding her thighs apart, fingers biting into the sensitive skin, which Niko only really noticed when one hand disappeared. A confused moan ripped from her throat. Charlize just shushed her gently, patting along her hip, and then her fingers were back in Niko’s pussy, her rhythm picking up, on the edge of too much. Her mouth followed, sealing around Niko’s clit and sucking, and Niko was pretty sure she saw into, like, a different dimension. The whole fucking Aurora Borealis dancing in front of her eyes.

When she came back to the current plane of existence, Charlize still hadn’t let up. She was licking through Niko’s folds all languid, suddenly no rush to be found, less pleasuring than… cleaning up. Niko blushed hotly. Well, Charlize wasn’t complaining, and it was to be expected that she was into blood, so. Niko didn’t say anything until her last shudders tipped over into actual oversensitivity, twitching away from Charlize’s tongue. “Wait, wait…”

Charlize didn’t chase after her. She sat back and lifted her still-bloody fingers to her mouth to clean them too, no finesse, just slick and messy. Pink tongue and too-sharp teeth. Niko felt another bolt of desire arc through her, only to ground itself in her exhaustion and fizzle out.

When Charlize lowered her hand and Niko saw her full face, she had to stifle an inappropriate laugh. Charlize’s lips and jaw were covered in slick blood, as if she’d dipped her face in it. Which she had. Kind of.

And just like that, the image tipped from funny back into fully hot. Niko swallowed.

“What?” said Charlize, having caught only the laugh, and then, “oh,” laughing at herself too. Her teeth were sharp, stark-white against blood-red lips. “I look a right sight, don’t I?”

“You’re – you don’t look bad,” Niko said honestly.

Charlize laughed louder, bright and beautiful, a bit like staring straight into the sun. Not that Niko was doing anything straight at this point. Charlize leaned over and used a corner of the towel to wipe most of the blood and slick off her face, then collapsed back down next to Niko, hooking a hand around her jaw and drawing her into another heady kiss. “Feel better?” she asked lowly, when they finally parted.

“Yes, thank you,” Niko said. “Do you need…?”

A flicker of a smile danced over her face. “Nah. Don’t even worry about it.”

A little later, when Niko had reached her capacity for cuddling, she made her way back to her room on shaky knees. She’d gotten dressed in the same clothes, put her hair back in the same style, checked her reflection in Charlize’s mirror to make sure she didn’t look too obviously well-fucked. She didn’t. The biggest change was the two painkillers Charlize had passed her, just in case, along with a wink and a cheery, “Well, you know where to find me!”

Still, when she slipped back into her room, she felt like a completely new person. Like her Fae side had taken over and she was suddenly glowing for the whole world to see, much less her roommate. But Crystal was still where she’d left her, and she only spared Niko a single glance away from her phone screen before asking, “So I’m guessing you got what you wanted?”

Niko collapsed on her bed, grinning up at the ceiling like a crazy person. “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”

Edith waited precisely ten minutes after the girl – Niko, she wouldn’t do her the disservice of pretending to forget – had left Charlize’s room, dazed and pain-free as they always were, before she made her way over. The climactic strains of Verdi’s Dies Irae at top volume still thundered in her ears, threatening a migraine, but the world’s orchestra could not have drowned out the symphony coming from next door. The questions and answers, both verbal and otherwise. The laughter. Niko’s moans.

Charlize’s.

She was half-afraid her hearing had misled her – though that was hardly her current problem with her all-too-active ears – and that she would stumble upon her best friend and another girl still caught in the throes of pleasure, pausing only to stare at her with accusing eyes for violating this sacred sanctum forever closed to her. But when, after a cursory knock, she entered the room, only Charlize remained within. She was in her bathroom, half-visible, lit far too brightly by the fluorescent lightbulb, and still, by far, the most beautiful thing Edith had ever laid eyes on.

She was also standing at the little sink, humming to herself, and scrubbing a familiar towel.

Edith leaned against the doorway. “Another successful encounter, I take it?”

There was no other way to describe it – Charlize jumped in fright. Somewhat similar to a cat seeing a cucumber for the first time, if the feline-related videos and jokes an old almost-ex still insisted on sending to Edith were anything to go by. Tall as Charlize was, it was a miracle she did not ram her head through the ceiling. But when she turned to Edith, she was all smiles. “Gave me a bloody heart attack, mate, sneaking up on me like that! This is why people think you’re the vampire between the two of us, innit?”

Between the two of us. Edith tried not to preen too obviously. She enjoyed being one half of an inseparable pair, identities so amorphous that they were often confused for each other. And what she would not give to be the vampire, to be regarded as elegant, refined, a delicate edge of danger.

Not beastly and hideous and out-of-control.

“And yeah, I helped her out, like I always do,” Charlize said, eyes caught on a stubborn bloodstain. “’S why you send them to me, innit?”

Edith glanced through the room, taking in the rumpled bed and her rumpled friend, cheeks rosy with new blood. How could Edith ever deny her that? The scent of sex and iron and Charlize herself permeated the air, mingling to form a wholly new scent, thick enough that Edith could barely breathe through it. She wanted to wear it as she would cologne. It was the closest she could ever come, after all, and she had made her peace with that. Somewhat.

Because Charlize had ‘helped’ every single person Edith had ever sent to her door – who could resist her? – but she never even touched Edith during her monthlies. Not once.

Instead of the frighteningly desperate, frighteningly obvious, Why don’t you want me?, Edith only tapped her own cheek in demonstration and remarked, “You missed a spot.”

Charlize never had quite enough blood in her to blush, even so fresh after a feeding. But her expression said it all. “Ah – cheers, mate.” She scrubbed at the mirrored area, the actual mirror useless to her, and then the surrounding skin for good measure.

Edith mourned her own exactitude. Charlize had cleaned up all the blood, now, leaving Edith with no excuse to bridge the distance between them and touch her. She managed a tight nod. “I, um, was wondering whether you would still accompany me tonight?”

That remark turned Charlize’s face blank beyond blood. “What’s tonight?”

“The full moon,” Edith reminded her, heart in her throat. Would this be the time that Charlize finally refused her?

Charlize’s expression twisted strangely, terrifyingly opaque to Edith’s eyes, before settling into a bare-boned smile. But a smile nonetheless. “’Course! I’ve ‘accompanied’ you every full moon since we met, now haven’t I?”

Relief swept through Edith as a tide, drawn to the moon as inexorably as she was. “It is settled, then,” she said, feeling the sea foam smile form on her face. A flash of teeth, too. Goodness. She always felt self-conscious about her teeth, but never around Charlize. How could she, when Charlize’s teeth were far sharper? “I shall see you tonight, Charlize.”

Charlize blamed two things: herself and the moon.

Well, three things, if you counted her cunt of a sire, but he sort of formed the baseline for all her problems, didn’t he?

(He’d waited until she was eighteen, about to flee forever, before he turned her. The last bit of control he could exert over her. She’d fled anyway, still shaking her way through the fever, and resolved there and then that she’d never be like him – sucking his wife dry of blood and liveliness over and over again, using his supernatural strength for nothing except beating on his own family, acting out every awful vampire stereotype not under the sun.)

But not Edith. She could never blame Edith, not with her impeccable outfits and her soft voice and her beautiful broad shoulders permanently hunched. Not with her iron sense of self-control (silver, really, the way it hurt her) like it was penance for the one day each month she couldn’t control herself. Charlize wanted to tell her what it was like to have never been in full control a day in her life, how she’d survived despite it and sometimes because of it. Wanted to tell her she could stand to let go a bit, when it was just the two of them. When it was her, just Charlize, who’d never leave her.

Couldn’t exactly say that, though, could she? Not without setting Edith’s brain all ablaze, and with the secrets Charlize kept, she simply couldn’t be having it.

The point was, she’d lost track of the full moon, even though she’d installed the lunar calendar on her phone and everything. The point was, she knew how sensitive Edith’s ears and nose got the day of; had long ago resolved not to do anything too wild during. The point was, she’d just spent the afternoon fucking someone in the room right next door, like an utter pillock.

Edith’s poor ears!

She didn’t seem too hung up on it, luckily, chatting with Charlize easy as ever as they made their way into the night. On full moons, they had special permission to hike out from campus to a nearby forest, one that humans knew to steer clear of if they wanted to survive the night.

But there was something strange in the air, something that even Charlize’s average nose could pick up on. Not at first: Edith undressed like always (Charlize with her back respectfully turned, resisting the urge to peek), leaving behind a neatly folded stack of clothing – only Edith, really – and a magnificent wolf. It wasn’t like Charlize was an expert or anything, but anyone could see that. Edith was built already, but her wolf shape was massive, shaggy black-brown fur the same colour as her human hair, those gorgeous grey-green eyes managing to maintain Edith’s prim stare. Pretty impressive, that.

The strangeness came later. Charlize had expected their usual drawn-out chases, cutting through the trees and making their own tracks, the goal to stay ahead of each other; where catching up consisted of quick contact before the chase resumed in reverse. Sometimes, when Edith was feeling a bit playful, they’d do a few rounds of fetch – with their own flashy stunts added, obviously.

But not tonight. No, tonight Edith came up close and personal, fighting like she meant it. The chases were quick and dirty; they all ended with Edith knocking Charlize over, rolling them every which way, snapping her teeth like she wanted to get them around Charlize and shake. Bit by bit, Charlize let her own tenuous control go, until she was wrestling with Edith at full strength and only winning half the time. It wasn’t like she minded, not when the worst that could happen was a lapful of wolf. And – it was exhilarating. Charlize spat out a bloody mouthful of fur and grinned wide enough to hurt. Her fangs were dropped, like if Edith bit her, she’d bite right back. She couldn’t remember when last she could let go so completely.

By the end, when Edith collapsed into a panting heap, the two of them looked terrible. Hair and fur covered in leaves and mud and who-knew-what. Some blood, too, probably. Charlize stared down at her T-shirt, which was definitely a lost cause, in dismay. She’d liked this one!

Still, there were more important things to worry about. Like getting a full-grown wolf back onto shaky paws and to campus, all the while safeguarding Edith’s clothes with her unlife, because she’d never hear the end of it otherwise. Edith listed into her, leaning heavy against her legs; Charlize curled a hand in her ruff and marvelled at the soft fur all over again.

They made it safely back to the halls, then Edith’s room, where she lay Edith’s stack of clothes on her dresser, then helped Edith up onto her bed and the towel she always put down on full moon nights, to protect her sheets. Charlize made it all the way to the door before Edith let out a keening, heartbreaking whine.

“Shhh, you’ll wake up the whole hall!” Charlize hissed.

Edith paid her no mind, working up to what was bound to be a full-blown howl.

Charlize darted a glance outside – Edith would never forgive herself if she was the reason everyone woke up – then sighed, making her way back to Edith’s bed. Edith instantly piped down, and her wolf-y face looked fucking smug. “Fine, you big baby,” Charlize groused, slipping into the gap between Edith’s bulk and the wall, “I’ll stay.” She couldn’t resist a last stroke through Edith’s lush fur. “Bloody lucky you’re cute, aren’t you?”

Edith awoke to sunlight, the sound of her shower running, and the scent of blood. She squinted, raising a hand – now human-shaped, thank goodness – to block the blinding light pouring through the half-open curtains. Likewise, no investigation was required to locate the source of the blood: she could feel it drying slick and sticky between her legs, down her thighs. She groaned deep in her throat, thumped her head down on her pillow, growled a bit for good measure. It was not often that her monthlies and the full moon coincided, but the rare occurrences were nonetheless rather vexing. Bloody hormones.

Far worse were the flashes of the previous night insisting on filtering through her mind, transparent and damning as camera film capturing all that had transpired. She had been so damned obvious!

Clearly, there was nothing for it but to confess to her sins.

Her bathroom door opened to a cloud of steam, and Edith became abruptly aware of the state she was in. Naked as she always was after her transformations, but her skin streaked with earthy stains, her hair hopelessly tangled and – was that a twig? She fought down the desire to cover herself, not so much because of her nudity – Charlize had seen far worse, after all – or the blood – despite what Charlize might say, her control was quite impressive – but because she felt laid bare in far too many ways, especially in front of Charlize, who was…

Who was freshly-showered, stunning, and dressed in one of Edith’s shirts, which was ridiculously oversized on her. Who must’ve used Edith’s soap and shampoo, because she smelled like her. Like hers. Edith felt light-headed, although perhaps that was due to her instincts insisting on inhaling as much of the scent as possible, and damn the exhaling.

“There you are, mate!” Upon spotting her, Charlize’s face, if possible, lit up even more. She was excruciatingly beautiful, somewhat akin to staring directly into the sun’s glare. Edith had never felt a closer kinship to vampires. “Sorry about this,” she said, tugging at the shirt’s hem, and Edith’s eyes slid helplessly down the long line of her legs. Given Charlize’s fondness for boxer shorts, it seemed she was… only wearing Edith’s shirt. Edith swallowed with effort. “But my clothes were a bit of a lost cause, honest. Bloody shame. I liked that Nosferatu shirt, you know! Anyway, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” Edith said weakly.

Charlize continued to chatter, darting around the room as if she could not bear to stay in one place. Helplessly, Edith recalled her own atrocious behaviour. How she had hunted Charlize and pinned her down, had kept her caged until she could barely move, over and over. But her instincts recognised Charlize as mate and could not be convinced otherwise by any logical explanation of unrequited feelings, no matter how hard Edith tried.

All that remained was to reveal the entirety of the terrible truth, to place in Charlize’s sweet hands the single weapon that could harm Edith beyond the effect of any silver. That could destroy her utterly.

Now would not be her first choice, of course, not with her appearance as it was, but she owed this much to Charlize. Edith cleared her throat gently, an old and nervous habit, and Charlize’s bright gaze immediately returned to her, her eyebrows curving in curiosity. “I fear I owe you an apology, Charlize,” Edith managed, her throat fighting every word. “My behaviour last night was unacceptable. I am sincerely sorry and will ensure it never occurs again.” She had not the first idea how, but she would find a way. Even if it should spell the end of her. “I can only ask your forgiveness, though I do not imagine I deserve it.”

Charlize’s eyebrows furrowed, forming fine lines across her forehead. “Mate, what? I haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about! You didn’t do anything ‘unacceptable’.”

It would be the easiest thing in the world to let her continue to think so, which was exactly why Edith could not. “There are some matters that you are unaware of,” she said wretchedly. “That I withheld from you, though you must believe it was never with the intent to deceive you.” Charlize only watched her, unusually serious eyes steady. “I possess certain… instincts, you see. I was taught those instincts were never to be spoken of. And now I have the freedom to speak, I confess I have little idea of how to approach the matter.”

“What’re these instincts, then, Edith?” Charlize asked gently, perching at the end of the bed.

That was rather the crux of the matter, was it not? “It is instinctual for werewolves to have a certain territory we consider our own, you must understand. To defend it with our very lives. And, I’m afraid, to be rather… possessive of it.”

“Yeah?” Charlize’s voice was blank. She still did not understand. “You possessive of our hall? The forest? We’ll figure it out, mate –”

“The, ah, territory needn’t be territory as such,” Edith interrupted, unable to handle another reassurance. Here, now, was the plunge. The only question was what awaited her in those icy depths. “These territorial instincts may extend to – persons.”

“Oh.” Finally, finally, Charlize’s eyebrows shot up in shock.

Edith avoided her gimlet gaze. “Yes. Rather.”

“Who is it, then? You seemed dead keen on that crow shapeshifter…”

“What?” How, in the moon’s name – “Charlize, I’m speaking of you! Of the fact that you were covered in the scent of someone else, and my instincts insisted on – on rubbing myself all over you to replace it with my own scent! Of my refusal to let you leave my room last night!” Quieter: “Of how I love you – as more than a friend, I’m afraid.” She turned away, curling her shoulders in, covering herself as much as she could. “Do not misunderstand, I’m well aware you don’t reciprocate, but you’ve long deserved to know the truth. Furthermore, going by the growing severity of my actions, it seems best that I distance myself from you. For your safety.”

Charlize’s expression was flayed open and raw, yet as unreadable to Edith’s eyes as the dark side of the moon. Hoarsely, she asked, “What d’you mean, I don’t reciprocate?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Charlize, it is not difficult to notice that you do not deign to touch me during my monthlies,” Edith snapped. “If you are disgusted by my blood, that is perfectly fine, but do not lie to me about it.”

“Disgusted – what?” Charlize asked, her face distressed enough to cause Edith a moment of doubt. “I’d never be disgusted by any part of you, mate. It’s – look, if I touched you during, I’d never be able to hold myself back, now would I? I know how important self-control is to you. Didn’t want to put you off, did I?”

Edith scoffed. This was far too ridiculous to believe. “A fact that doesn’t seem to extend to any of your cohort,” she said, waving a hand to encompass the entire building.

“Of course it didn’t! I liked them, yeah, but they’re not you. They were… pretty, or funny, or sweet, that sort of thing.” Edith felt her shoulders hunch at every new descriptor of what she was not. “You’re –”

“What?” Voice brittle as broken glass. “What am I, Charlize?”

“A goddess,” Charlize whispered, quiet enough that a human would not have heard. Then, growing stronger: “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Someone who rolls her eyes at my stupid jokes, someone I’d spend centuries trying to make laugh. The best person I know. The only one I want to spend forever – literal forever – with. I had fun with everyone else, sure, but I didn’t love them. Not like I love you.”

There was no saying who moved first, given the speed both of them possessed, but it hardly mattered, because in less than a split-second they were kissing desperately, as desperately as they had fought yesterday night. Charlize was warmer than usual from the shower, but Edith was warmer still. She could feel her own pulse racing, her nipples pebbling against Charlize’s – Edith’s – shirt, her hands greedy and grasping. Her entire body, reacting. Which reminded her… “Your timing is excellent,” she rasped against Charlize’s mouth. “Do you know, my monthlies have just begun.”

“Your timing is excellent,” Charlize rebutted. She groaned, “And yeah, I know. I could smell it from the moment you transformed back. Meant what I said about my self-control…”

“I do not want your self-control.” Edith set her blunt teeth to Charlize’s neck. Bit down. “I want you to ravish me.”

The click of Charlize’s swallow echoed loud as a gunshot through the room. “I will, I promise – just…” She was nearly in Edith’s lap already, and seemed intent on completing the journey.

Icy self-consciousness doused some of the heat inside Edith. She could still remember girls with cold eyes, kissing her furiously in private and calling her names in public. Their reactions to even the hint of a bite. “Should I not –”

“You joking, love?” Charlize asked, half-laughing, closing the last bit of distance between them. Edith’s breath hitched, both at the term of endearment and the sensation of skin against skin where Charlize’s soft thighs straddled her. She really wasn’t wearing anything except the shirt, which itself wasn’t all that long. Charlize shot her a toothy smile, plastering herself completely against Edith’s front, the coolness of her body perceptible through the single layer. Oh, she knew exactly what she was doing. Low, directly into her ear, “I want to wear your love bites like a choker.”

A growl escaped Edith’s throat, all instinct, no thought, and then a dark-eyed Charlize was flat on her back and Edith was latched onto her throat. She wrestled back enough control not to completely ravage Charlize’s lovely neck there and then, but, now that she had permission, she could not resist sucking and biting at the soft skin until pretty purple bruises bloomed under her lips. Never before had she had been allowed this: marking a partner with her mouth, a partner who only moaned under the onslaught and clutched her closer. If she were still in her wolf shape, her tail would no doubt be wagging uncontrollably.

Before long, Charlize was squirming beneath her and breathless with it. “Ah – not that this isn’t fucking mint,” she ground out, her voice vibrating in her throat to buzz like an electrical current through Edith’s lips, her teeth, “but didn’t we have something else in mind? ’S what I’m here for, innit?”

Utterly ridiculous. Edith surfaced from her crucial work for the sole purpose of levelling Charlize with her best disbelieving stare. “You are here because I love you.”

Charlize melted. There was truly no other word for the way she softened around the edges; the way her expression thawed from opaque to clear waters, through which flitted bright little fish of emotion, flashing in the curl of her smile, the corners of her eyes, the curve of her cheeks: happiness, and awe, and love. “I love you, too. So bloody much.” A silly wink, sparkling with mischief. “How about you let me prove the ‘bloody’ part, yeah?” With effortless strength, she flipped Edith over and crowded back in – only to pause at the last possible moment. “Oh, this towel is mingin’, we are not fucking on it.”

Ah. Yes. The towel covered in various forms of plant material, earth, fur, and blood. Edith supposed she could understand Charlize’s concern. “Fetch your towel, then.”

“The one from my room?” Charlize asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No.” If Edith had her way, that towel – still covered in all-too-obvious traces of other girls, at least to Edith’s sensitive nose – would be burnt to ash. “From my bathroom.” The one Charlize had used after her shower. The one that would smell of her.

Charlize’s amused glance said she had sussed that one out, but she fetched the towel without further complaint, spreading it out beneath Edith and tossing the old towel… somewhere. Edith didn’t exactly give a damn where it ended up.

Again, Charlize paused, still much too far from where Edith wanted her. “You sure you want to risk a posh towel like this? The blood might not wash out.”

“Am I supposed to care?” Edith asked pointedly. “Ruin it if you must.”

Charlize’s irises rippled under her pupils’ expansion, her needless breathing quickening into near-gasps, and throughout it all threaded the thickening scent of her arousal. “I’m holding you to that,” she said hoarsely, and ducked down. Not to where Edith truly wanted her. Not yet. At first she only nosed her way down Edith’s neck, laying light kisses along the way, then down along the lines of her arms, all the way to her wrists. Where her blood ran close to the surface, Edith realised after a too-long moment. Charlize stared up at her through half-lowered lashes. “Fuck. Told you you’re a bloody goddess.”

“You may have mentioned something of the sort, yes.”

“Let me worship you, then?” Charlize chose that moment to take Edith’s hands in hers, bringing them up to her mouth to layer lingering kisses along their length. How could Edith refuse in the face of her? She nodded. The whoop Charlize let out in answer was endearing, her immediate interest in Edith’s breasts arousing; on the whole, Edith supposed it balanced out. Unlike previous lovers, Charlize’s focus was far wider than only her nipples. She mouthed down Edith’s chest and along the curves of her breasts, as if wishing to map out every inch with her lips. Her tongue darted out, mischievous, and Edith gasped at the wet heat of it, the way it lapped at her skin and the sweat that gathered beneath her breasts. Finally, finally, lips closed around her nipple, and Edith groaned and shivered into the gentle suction, the teasing hint of teeth.

Only when Edith was successfully reduced to a shuddering mess – nipples red and kiss-bruised, breasts covered in jagged bite marks – under the onslaught of Charlize’s skilled mouth, did she move on. She trailed down the line of Edith’s abdomen, her nose faintly ticklish, the tip of her tongue a tease in Edith’s navel. Edith was shivering uncontrollably, now, all her senses narrowed to pinpricks as they focused in on the only person in the universe that mattered. Close… so close…

But Charlize skipped over the obvious destination in favour of, of all things, Edith’s ankles. Edith let out a desperate whine, grasping for her, but Charlize evaded her hands, snapping playfully at her calves. “Bloody hell, I’m getting there! Let me bask first, won’t you?” She ducked her head, pressed a kiss to Edith’s knobbly ankles. “Fucking gorgeous ankles.”

“Charlize,” Edith ground out, and took advantage of Charlize’s momentary distraction to haul her up and kiss her, desperate and dripping with desire. “I thought I told you to ravish me,” she murmured, paradoxically breathing easier now that they were kissing again. But Charlize only blinked at her, looking well-kissed and dazed with it.

There was nothing for it but to take matters into her own hands, very literally. Edith cradled Charlize’s beautiful face in her hands, bestowed another kiss to her lips, and then pushed her down to where she wanted her.

Charlize laughed at her, the minx, but Edith could hardly be affronted when faced with her toothy smile, the half-moon curves of her shining eyes. She nuzzled into the soft hair that covered Edith’s thigh. Trailed up the sensitive inside, laid down a kiss or two or ten. “Just let me worship you,” she said again, near-pleading, then suddenly darted to the top of Edith’s thigh to drag her tongue through the blood. Edith moaned at the sensation, at the promise of it. But Charlize’s teasing smile fell as soon as she took the blood into her mouth – her eyes widened, darkened, her fangs dropped, her tongue darted along her own lips as if desperate for a last trace. Hunger, all-encompassing. “Oh, fuck.” She returned to Edith’s thigh, licking up the blood with quick, greedy strokes of her tongue as if unable to stop herself, groaning deep enough to vibrate through Edith’s entire body like a plucked string. She mumbled, “Fuck, Edith, you taste like a bloody dream,” sounding half-drugged with it.

Edith clutched at Charlize’s head with both hands and clung on for dear life.

No more gentle explorations, no more teasing comments, no more pausing at all. Charlize lapped up the blood with desperation, moaning all the while, until Edith’s thighs were only covered in the traces of her wet tongue. It set the coils of pleasure in Edith’s core alight, heat heightening enough to burn, to blaze. She was molten and dripping with it.

And then, then – an approximate aeon later – Charlize finally reached the apex of her thighs, humming and dragging her tongue through Edith’s folds, nuzzling against her dark pubic hair. Her hands were tucked along the creases of Edith’s hips, spreading her thighs open, spreading her open. Like this, Charlize’s hot moans and murmurs were so much closer, echoing through Edith’s body as if it were the ir very souls pressed together. The hands on her hips flexed, opening Edith impossibly wider, and then Charlize was inside her, her tongue soft and slick and relentless, beyond anything Edith could have spent her rather long lifetime imagining.

“Charlize, Charlize,” she became aware of murmuring, her own voice already sounding hoarse and fucked-out. Charlize moaned against her, and Edith’s back arched, her body attempting to close a distance that did not exist. “Ah, ah – Oh, you are – perfect, darling. The best thing to – hmm – to ever happen to me.”

Charlize made a choked sound, surfacing from between Edith’s legs only to dive in again, sucking slowly on Edith’s clit, as if savouring the taste. She maintained eye contact all the while, her eyes wide and shining and overwrought even as she systematically took Edith apart with her tongue.

“Perfect, perfect,” Edith murmured, threading a hand securely through Charlize’s hair and twisting, noting the flutter of her eyelashes. Her thoughts were beginning to fray under the onslaught of pleasure, so Edith saw no harm in setting her mouth loose even as she was swept away in a sea of sensation. “Oh – Charlize – I want this forever, I want you forever, just keep – yes – Charlize!”

It was something wholly innocuous, in the end. Just the hint of too-sharp teeth scraping over her clit, and Edith, overwhelmed, pressing the side of her face into the towel, into Charlize’s scent. After how tightly she’d been wound by Charlize’s lips and tongue and teeth on every other part of her, it was more than enough. She clutched Charlize’s head to her core and convulsed her way through the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced, her throat raw by the end of it.

When she floated back down from the peak of pleasure and the shivery aftershocks, she finally loosened her hands, feeling vaguely guilty about holding Charlize down. But Charlize did not surface; in fact, she continued her ministrations. Catching every last drop of her blood, Edith realised with a hot shiver.

Edith tried to be patient, knowing as she did the compulsive need for blood, but she could only wait for so long before she simply had to haul Charlize up and into another heated, hectic kiss. Her mouth tasted metallic and musky-sour. Edith would happily spend lifetimes in worship of it. She brought her hand up to cradle Charlize’s jaw, to encourage her mouth to open more, but paused when her thumb encountered something sticky. She withdrew slightly and gasped as she fully took in the sight of Charlize’s face, having been somewhat distracted before. Blood streaked over her jaw, her cheekbones, the tip of her nose. There was even a stain on her forehead, for goodness’ sake! What parts of Charlize’s skin showed through were shiny, covered in Edith’s slick. She could be the lead in a horror film, truly. Bloodstained and beautiful. “Oh, I’ve made rather a mess of you, haven’t I, darling?” Edith asked, barely recognising her own voice.

Charlize’s smile formed slow and filthy on kissed-clean lips. “Yeah, I reckon you have. You’d better take responsibility, innit?”

“Naturally,” Edith breathed, swaying into her before she had even consciously thought to, avoiding Charlize’s tempting lips in favour of the surrounding skin. She lapped up the slick blood, the traces of herself and the pleasure Charlize had provided her, then kissed it back into Charlize’s slack mouth. Their tongues touched and teased and tangled between them until it was no longer Edith’s mouth or Charlize’s mouth, but something wholly new. A single space, sealed by their lips, for them to share gasping breaths in. The whole greater than the sum of its parts.

But, despite everything, Edith still required oxygen. She tilted her head back, and Charlize seized her chance. At first, the kisses pressed to the line of her neck could be termed ‘innocent’, but before long they devolved into open-mouthed and biting affairs. Edith need not have worried about ravaging Charlize’s neck, if this was how she was to be treated.

“Have you forgotten which one of us is the werewolf again, dear heart?” she murmured, half-heartedly indignant.

Charlize sucked on a new section of skin, then released it with an obscene sound. “You aren’t the only possessive one, love.”

Well. That was rather an effective argument. Edith would perish before refusing any marks Charlize wished to bestow upon her.

As for the bites she’d given Charlize, they formed a small and elegant collar around her neck, purplish-red and stark against her shirt. Edith’s shirt. Which reminded her – she might enjoy the sight of Charlize in her clothing, but she would very much prefer her out of it.

“Off,” she demanded, tugging at the hem of the shirt.

“Gotta let go of me first, love,” Charlize said, infuriatingly logical.

Edith growled a little. The cotton was flimsy between her fingertips, so Edith adjusted her hands and ripped clean down the front. It was only a shirt, after all, when there were far more important matters to attend to. She could always provide Charlize with other clothing of hers.

In no time at all, the shock in Charlize’s eyes reshaped into sheer shimmering desire, all heat. She shrugged out of the torn shirt, slow and effortlessly sensual, fully baring herself in front of Edith for the first time.

For her part, Edith could not conceive of turning her eyes to anything else, after witnessing this vision. She had stared brazenly into the sun’s blaze and it had blinded her for any other beauty. Because Charlize was beautiful, so indescribably beautiful that the word hardly did her justice. Her skin was smooth, lightly-haired, pale brown from lack of sun. Every part of her was another piece in a perfect puzzle, drawing the eye irresistibly: her shoulders’ curve to the elegant line of her clavicle to her small breasts and dusky nipples – pebbled already and pierced. Edith’s mouth watered. She had known, of course; Charlize could not keep a secret to save her unlife, and the way she walked around without a bra hardly helped matters. God’s personal test, Edith had always thought, and yet here she was, able to reach out and touch those golden barbells, to tug at them and watch the sensation shiver through Charlize’s entire body – down the line of her abdomen, her sweet little navel, the thatch of dark hair between her legs.

“How should I…?”

Charlize only blinked at her for a moment. “Oh, love, you don’t have to –”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlize,” Edith said, offended at the mere insinuation of leaving her beloved unsatisfied. Very well. If Charlize would not choose, then Edith would choose for her. She reclined on the bed, her head near the bed frame, and beckoned. “Come.”

“That an order?” Charlize asked, chuckling.

“Not quite yet, no.” Edith let the smile slash over her face, fast and vicious. Maintaining eye contact, she said, “Sit on my face.”

Charlize swallowed convulsively. “Buggering fuck, Edith, warn a girl, won’t you?”

“Very well. Here is your warning: I wish to eat you out until you beg for it. Now come here, Charlize.”

That got the job done, a still dazed-looking Charlize crawling her way over to situate herself atop Edith’s face, lowering herself down sinfully slow. Edith curled her hands around Charlize’s thighs, equal parts to stabilise her, hold her close, and spread her open; she licked up into her, light and lovely. It wasn’t all that different from any of the girls she’d been with before, a heady salt-sour flavour hot as summer, yet Edith could already feel herself grow addicted to Charlize as she had with no other. Charlize’s taste, Charlize’s weight and thighs on top of and around her, Charlize’s inescapable scent.

All of a sudden, Edith found herself ravenous for Charlize, for every part of her she could ever hope to touch – an urge only unfamiliar in its intensity, tipped from mere desire to craving at some point between her confession and their kiss. She wanted to share her body’s blood equally between them, until they formed two halves of one whole on yet another level. Wanted to close her teeth around Charlize and never let go. Wanted to curve along the full length of Charlize’s fangs, wanted to weave herself throughout the ladder of Charlize’s ribs, wanted to form a shield around her unbeating heart and guard it against any and all danger.

But most of these urges were deemed unacceptable by society and UK law, so Edith would have to settle for the more conventional ways of joining their bodies together. What a hardship. Spending an eternity between Charlize’s thighs, that was one. Attending a party and pulling Charlize into her lap for Charlize’s cohort and the world to see, teasing fingertips under the hem of one of Charlize’s seldom-worn skirts until her thighs trembled around Edith. Fucking Charlize with her strap-on – on a bed, against a wall, bent over her desk; the location hardly mattered. Would Charlize be interested in that? Edith rather enjoyed the sensation of wearing a strap, how it became an extension of her and affected her appearance. She’d never had complaints from previous lovers.

That was all for future consideration, though. Edith returned her focus to where it was meant to be: taking Charlize apart with her lips and tongue. From the tremor travelling through Charlize’s thighs, the way her hips rocked down against Edith’s face, the words that turned into nonsense halfway out of her mouth, Edith was succeeding. How reassuring to know she still had a knack for it.

Past the press of Charlize’s thighs, Edith could hear metal creak where Charlize was clutching her bed frame. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she was babbling. “Edith – oh – please –”

Begging already? Edith had hardly done anything. And she could do so much more…

She traced fingertips over Charlize’s thighs, then higher: her sharp hipbones, her ribs, and finally, her destination: Charlize’s perfect breasts and pebbled nipples, the cold click of her piercings against Edith’s nails. The pretty sounds that dripped out of Charlize’s mouth as Edith pinched her nipples and played with them. The pressure of her against Edith’s tongue as she fucked down desperately. Edith lowered one hand to her waist and encouraged her to roll her hips harder, enough that her own jaw ached with it.

It was an inexcusable mistake, in the end. Edith knew that certain characteristics lingered even after the full moon had set, and yet, carried away in the moment, she let her control slip. Not completely – but enough. Enough for her nails to lengthen, to sharpen into claws and bite into Charlize’s skin so thoroughly that any other being would bleed.

Edith gasped – tried to withdraw her claws and simultaneously lift Charlize off her – hoped that Charlize would stay long enough to hear her apology –

The sound that Charlize let out could have been punched out of her, sharp-edged and desperate. It took Edith a delirious moment to identify it as a drawn-out moan. Without warning, Charlize was coming, core pulsing and pretty noises spilling, and it was all Edith could do to hold her in place and gentle her through the first peak, then each slowly descending aftershock that followed, shivering its way through her. By the sound of the creaking, Edith’s bed frame was steadily being demolished, but Edith could hardly find it in herself to care. Not when she had a miracle in her bed, in her life, in her arms.

She spent a pleasant moment awash in Charlize’s pleasure, broken only when Charlize said, hoarsely, “…I can’t feel my legs.”

Edith scrambled to lift Charlize up and off her face, before her legs should give in. For her part, Charlize was absolutely no help, going limp and giggly in Edith’s hands, then splaying out next to her on the bed, all limbs. Her face was aglow ( Edith had not the faintest idea how, on a physical level), fangs still proudly on display, her kohl streaked over her cheeks, artfully messy. She must have applied the cosmetic newly after her shower. Ridiculous girl. How Edith adored her.

“Are you alright, Charlize?” she asked carefully. She could not seem to keep her hands from exploring Charlize’s body, mapping out the contours of every peak and dip, committing every detail to memory. Charlize did not seem to mind it overmuch, arching into the touches and humming low in her throat as she was. But when Edith reached her waist and the indentations of her own claws, a shiver swept through that beloved body. Edith inhaled sharply at the reminder. “I’m afraid I might have become… carried away.”

Charlize’s eyes finally opened, deep and dark and disbelieving. “Yeah? Like I was being so careful?” She tilted into Edith, kissing her sweet and slow, before trailing her fingers down to Edith’s neck, pressing down lightly on the messy love bites she had left. Edith groaned at the spark of pain-and-pleasure, pleasure-and-pain. No one had ever – no one had ever wanted to, with her – “I’m in love with you, Edith, not your self-control.”

“I, ah.” Edith’s throat clicked. “The feeling is mutual, of course.”

“Brills,” Charlize purred, nestling closer to her. Leaching away Edith’s body heat, quite likely. She could have it. She could have everything. “Besides, I fucking loved you getting ‘carried away’. Think that’s pretty obvious, innit?” She slung a leg over Edith’s hips, plastering the length of her lukewarm body, her hot core, against Edith. Edith, for her part, wondered if it was too soon to request another round.

It was truly a sin, how much of Charlize’s body had been unknown to her; an injustice Edith would spend several lifetimes setting straight. Her delicate wrists, thin enough that Edith could clasp both in one hand; her sharp elbows that she always dug into some lucky person’s ribs after cracking a dirty joke; the wiry strength of her shoulders; the dark hair under her arms, and how her body twitched when Edith brushed through it. (She was ticklish? Edith filed away that fact for later consideration.) Her elegant neck, and the difference of texture between the shaved section of her head and her curls. The lovely line of her shoulder blades, the flex of her back muscles, the skin soft and smooth except where it wasn’t – old scars from her life, forever preserved in her turning. Edith spent a pleasant moment imagining hunting Charlize’s father for sport. Perhaps Charlize would enjoy his decapitated head as a trophy.

“Yes,” she said belatedly, reminded of their current conversation when she brushed explorative fingertips over Charlize’s cute little bum and felt her hips rock against Edith’s thigh. Charlize hummed a sweet, questioning sound. “You were very obvious.”

“Oi!”

“You said it first, my darling.”

“Meant for you to defend me, didn’t I!” Charlize gave her neck another nibble. Edith could hardly think that an inch was left unbruised, but she was not about to stop her. “Since you loooove me.”

“I do love you,” Edith admitted, if only for the way Charlize gasped, as if hearing it for the first time all over again. “And I am only being honest. Do you wish me to lie about how desperate you are for me?”

Charlize bit down in answer, and Edith groaned. Oh, that one would definitely bruise. Edith wanted it tattooed into her skin, wanted to carry Charlize’s claim on her until the sun burnt out. “Bloody hell, love, the things you do to me,” Charlize gasped, hot breath against her wet skin, her hips starting to work again in a restless rhythm. “I am, I am – I’m so in love with you, so desperate for you – I want to spend forever worshipping you, want to see how many times I can make you come in one night, want to drink down everything you’d give me –”

“That would be one way to keep my sheets clean of blood,” Edith said, keeping her voice indifferent even as her pulse raced in her ears. The rest of the world could drown, for all she cared, so long as this room and the two of them remained. “But you would find some other way to ruin my bedding, wouldn’t you, Charlize?”

The ice queen act was clearly working on Charlize, who whined high in her throat, though she should be more than aware of Edith’s telling heartbeat, pressed close as they were. “God, yeah, love, anything you want. Anything for you…”

Edith rolled them over, rising onto hands and knees to rake her eyes over the entirety of Charlize’s breathtaking body, and smiled with all of her teeth. Another round did not seem so outside the realm of reason, now. “Show me, then.”

They sank into another kiss, syrupy-sweet and scalding, Charlize’s nails biting into Edith’s shoulder blades and her teeth into Edith’s lower lip, breathing life and light into her, and she did as she was told. Over and over and over again.

For the rest of forever, if either them had anything to say about it.

fin.