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@kittcns124
dvrkprinces:
They stared at each other as if they were the only two people in the world; Luca had spent a month without her touch and her gaze, and here she was…spread out on the hotel bed like something out of a dream, and he wanted to devour her. Their relationship had always been such an intensely physical one; both Luca and Baby were only able to let out the true depth of their wants and desires, feelings and fears, when they were engaging in carnal activities with each other. There was something in knowing he was the first man to give her an orgasm–the first man to teach her about sex and the unadulterated bliss of coming undone with someone underneath or on top of her. It made him think, in a twisted part of his mind, that although neither of them were restrictive when it came to sexual endeavors beyond each other, they belonged to each other. She was his, with every single part of her body; it was something that Luca knew deep in his soul, and the way she looked at him…how had he never paid attention to it before? She looked at him as though he were a god, and she was a simple human begging for mercy. She looked at him like…well, like she loved him.
She was drawn towards him, as though on a line, and Luca watched with dark and hungry eyes as Baby flitted off the bed and rushed over to him. There was desperation and want, clear and pure in her gaze, and Luca felt his cock twitch between his thighs as a response. He felt as though he could burn the entire world to ash and cinder at that moment; his wings fluttered, expanding slightly as she moved towards him, a beacon of light in the darkness that surrounded his life. He watched her stand before him, declaring how much she had missed him, and Luca felt the strangest desire to give her every part of him in that moment. How could someone be such an integral part of who you were and you still couldn’t understand what you felt about them? Perhaps it was the part of Luca that was broken; perhaps he was damaged in ways that even Raphael wasn’t. After all, Raphael had Jane, didn’t he? Despite his own anger and deviant behaviors, Raphael had never been shy about letting Jane know he loved her–the entire world knew how he felt about Jane. Because…they were allowed to want each other. She might have been a vampire, but the relationship Jane and Raphael shared was never meant to be hidden away in the shadows.
Luca and Baby were a secret; something sordid and twisted, but he craved it all the same. He hadn’t realized until she’d been taken from him just how much of his own personal happiness had depended on her there with him.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Baby this vulnerable before him; he allowed his gaze to rake over her bare frame, hunger and lust warring with the anger he felt every time his gaze snagged on a bruise or mark on her perfect, peaches and cream skin. His eyes hung on his favorite parts of her; the full swell of her rear and her soft, heavy breasts, ripe as fruit. Luca reached a hand forward, pressing his palm against one of her breasts and allowing his thumb to brush against her nipple. His thumb rolled against the silken soft skin until he felt her skin flush and tighten underneath his touch, and by the time Baby’s eager hand had sought his cock, he let out a low, hungry moan of want and fluttered his gaze shut. Too much–she was going to be the fucking death of him one of these days.
She was begging him to fuck her, and who was Luca D’Amore if not a merciful god?
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nymphcts:
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IG: alexisren
#tbt the first and LAST time i decided to be a brunette #blondeshavemorefun #daddyiscutetho 🥰
@nymphcts 🐱🐺
rosaxlunar:
It was hard to sleep, and it’s gotten to the point where Rosalia was a little okay with the fact. Sleep only lead to dreams of escape, and waking up to the reality of being stuck in a cell was starting to crush her on the inside. It always felt so real, being back at the Inferno, sleeping in her bed (or the beds of others), performing on stage, and seeing the faces of everyone she cares about. She was happy until she woke up and found that she was still alone and still locked up.
So she was lying on the pathetic cot given to her, her eyes drooping with her exhaustion, yet her sheer will kept her awake. She didn’t want to sleep, she didn’t want to dream. So the banging sounds of doors opening were unmistakable, and Rosalia’s heart began to speed up, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe evenly, as if she was asleep. She didn’t know what was going on, sleep deprivation hadn’t been something used on her and her mind was going through a million different scenarios of what they could possibly be up to.
She never expected a roommate.
Rosalia kept her eyes closed, not wanting to draw attention to herself, not that she would have, she heard the opening of her cell, and she heard someone being shoved in before the cell was closed again. Rosalia was trying to make up her mind if she should drop the pretenses and say something or if she should just attempt to rest to avoid whatever poor fool had been captured too. The shakey soft hello uttered into the darkness changed all of that. Rosalia knew this person, she could recognize her voice in a den of hundreds. Baby. Rosalia gasps as she opens her eyes and sits up. “Bebé?”
In no time her arms are full with the light angel and Rosalia felt her eyes well up with tears. She could feel the moisture of Baby’s tears hit her neck and the full implications of having Baby in this cell beside her was threatening to crush her. “Not you, Baby, oh no.” She held onto her tightly, crying as she felt agony of knowing the precious heart of Inferno was locked away too. Baby who had always been a source of delicious warmth and light never should’ve have been taken. And Rosalia’s stomach fills with dread at the thought of how Raphael must be now, without his sister. “I’ve been here since the night of the party too. They keep trying to make me talk about Raph or Luca and I keep telling them there is nothing to tell.” Rosalia grips Baby a little tighter. Hoping she would understand to be careful here, for even walls have ears. “They don’t believe me when I tell them I’m only a dancer…who loves to sleep with her boss every so often. Which….I know you don’t want to hear about your brother’s sex life but he was really good ok? And so of course I would try to be on his good graces often but these fuckers seem to think i’m some kind of important member of his inner circle? Pendejos.”
Rosalia completely ignores the second question, not wanting Baby to know about the bruises on her body, and how even now her body feels sore as she hugs her darling friend back. She feels relieved that the bruises on her face were already beginning to fade. These were things they didn’t need to worry about, not when they had this moment together. Rosalia instead softly caresses her bebe, rubbing her hands down her back soothingly, knowing how greedy her baby could be for affection and only shuddering to think the agony she would be in isolation. “Enough about me lovely, what about you? What have they done to you? Pinche pendejos….everyone in the Inferno knows not to mess with you querida, when Raph finds out… he will destroy them all.”
Rosalia goes back to smothering Baby with as much affection as possible, running her hands through her hair, leaving kisses on her forehead. “I’m so sorry they got to you cariño, you never deserved this.”
As much of a relief as it might have been to know that Rosalia was alive, and to see a familiar face in the darkest of places, Baby couldn’t help the way that her stomach first sank at the sight of one of her closest friends and confidantes. She would have gladly extended her stay within Yadriel Demir’s makeshift prison if it meant negating Rosalia’s entirely; the fallen angel had done nothing to deserve being captured like this. As close as the brunette beauty might have been to Raphael and Baby both, she wasn’t a member of the inner circle, and it broke Baby’s heart to realize that she was being punished nevertheless. How many times had Rosalia comforted and supported her as the sister she had never truly had? How many nights had they spent cozied up together in their respective chambers, watching overly-dramatic telenovas and drinking margaritas that became increasingly stronger the longer the night went on? There weren’t a lot of women at The Inferno that saw her as anything more than plain and simple competition, let alone any of them that considered her a best friend, and Baby loved Rosalia fiercely in return.
It proved to be impossible for the angel of light not to break down in full, helpless sobs the moment that Rosalia returned her embrace; as soon as she felt the warmth of her slender, soft hands rubbing affectionately up and down the length of her back, right below and on top of her folded white wings, Baby was collapsing brokenly into her arms. Even in the dim light of Rosalia’s cell, the younger girl could make out the dark, shadowy bruises seemingly covering the other dancer from head to toe, and she had to cry even more as a result. Rosa was crying too, and for a long moment, the two angels, one of grace and the other demon-blooded, merely clung onto one another with a painful mixture of relief and heartbreak flooding the air between them.
Baby managed a tearful laugh when Rosalia brought up her sex life with Raphael; it was true that the very thought of her best friend fucking her older brother had always been enough to have her scrunching up her nose in disgust, but right now, Rosa’s tendency to overshare was beyond comforting, and reassured Baby that her spirit hadn’t been broken just yet. “You did nothing to deserve being captured, Rosa. They just - they must have known. They must have figured out just how much you mean to Raphael, how much you mean to me.” She hiccuped, then, and drew away enough just so that she could wipe beneath her eyes and draw in a shaky little breath. “I - I wish that there was something that you could tell them. Anything that would convince them to set you free. You shouldn’t be here, Rosa, and - they’ve hurt you.” Baby’s already-wobbly voice broke yet again, and she fell back into the beautiful brunette’s arms once more; she might not have answered her question, but Rosalia’ injuries were plain as day now that Baby had managed to get a better look at her. And she had been left all alone...
Affection - aside from the disgusting, barbaric things that Yadriel had allowed his men to do to her, Baby had gone almost a month without so much as a simple embrace, and so the kisses, warm and familial, that Rosalia began to press fervently into her brow and the top of her hair were enough to have her wings fluttering fretfully in response, and she squeezed her eyes shut in a fervent attempt to absorb every ounce of Rosalia’s tender love and care. “They’ve got this bastard visiting me almost every single day. Yadriel Demir - have you seen him yet? He’s awful, Rosa. Him and the guards under his command. I - “ She shook her head, then, tears springing past her amber-brown eyes even as she squeezed them shut, and drew in another deep breath before looking back up at her fellow dancer once more. “What if we managed to find a way out together? J - just you and me? Could we make it? If we ran away and never looked back?”
@immcrtals ♡ ; baby and elvyra !!
It had only been a few days since Luca had brought Baby back home to The Inferno, but already the young angel was beginning to feel more like herself. Merely being able to fall asleep in a warm, comfortable bed with the arms of her rescuer wrapped tightly around her instead of on the floor in a cold, dark cell as she awaited the arrival of a much different man was doing wonders for her well-being. Her reunion with her older brother had been nothing short of tearful, and he’d promised her a thousand times over that he’d never let her out of his sight again, and it broke Baby’s heart to realize just how much of an impact her kidnapping had had on him. There were a million different things that could be said about Raphael Crossborne, but one thing was for certain and set in stone - he loved her, and he’d go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe.
Still - she was finally back where she belonged, and despite how firmly Luca, Raphael, and Jane had insisted that she spend a good week or two resting in bed and allowing herself a decent amount of time to properly heal, Baby had never been good at staying still, and the more time that she spent keeping herself busy, the less she’d be able to focus on the traumatic wounds that still lingered quite painfully in the wake of all that Yadriel Demir had done to her in his prison.
She still couldn’t fall asleep without checking every single locked door in the quarters she shared with Jane and Raphael; just last night, she’d ended up crawling into their bed so that she could finally rest. Her older brother was keeping a much closer eye on her than usual, which meant that spending the night with Luca - as she would have preferred - was proving to be impossible.
It was morning-time now, and Baby couldn’t stand to spend another second cooped up in her bedroom. Her return hadn’t been formally announced to The Inferno just yet, and when both her surrogate parents and Luca had insisted that she refrain from returning to the stage for the next little while, Baby had been startled by how little she wanted to protest. Dancing was everything to her, of course, and she took great pride in her position as top dancer within the club, but...throughout the last month, she’d been beaten and tortured within an inch of her life.
There were greater things for her to worry about now - there were more important causes for her to focus on. She’d always be the name in lights at The Inferno; the top-billed dancer known for her fluffy white angel wings and mischievous little face alone. All of that could wait.
Still, she wasn’t about to let herself get out of shape. She’d done her best to keep up with her rigorous, self-taught Pilates lessons while in captivity, but finally getting to go for an early-morning jog had felt nothing short of amazing on her underused muscles. Now, she was warming up in the large, spacious dance studio that Raphael had built for all of the Inferno girls, positioned at the barre in a backless leotard and her favorite ballet shoes. Her own music was playing through the overhead speakers, and she allowed her eyes to flutter shut as she lifted up one of her long, shapely legs and bent forward to touch the bridge of her nose to the front of her ankle; her slim - almost too slim after having been half-starved for a month - body forming a graceful, elegant arch as her downy-soft wings folded daintily at her back.
There. This was her happy place - this was where she felt peace, and she couldn’t think of anyone or anything in the world that could possibly take it away from her.
@jadielxabrego ♡ ; bunny and jadiel !!
It wasn’t often that Bunny was able to sneak away from her security detail unnoticed, but as of late, she’d gotten quite good at slipping past her extensive team of bodyguards; it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy spending time with them (Carter), but there was so much more in life that she wanted to do aside from allow herself to be ferried back and forth from dance lessons to her family’s luxurious estate in the Leaders’ Village. Adonis had still yet to fully explain to her what it was that he did for work, but she knew that it was important, and it went without saying that her father’s job was greatly important as well. Her family’s influence in Amsterdam - and throughout the rest of the continent - was second to none, and Bunny was so gosh darn tired of being the only Deerling who wasn’t allowed to use said influence to make a difference in the world.
Getting to know Carter...he was the only werewolf she had ever met in real life, and during the time that they had spent together, Bunny had become aptly aware at the difference between the way that humans and wolves were treated. Wolves - they were the stronger, biologically superior species by far, and yet for whatever reason, they were considered second-class citizens.
It didn’t sit right with the young heiress. Not even in the slightest, and that was why she had arranged a meeting with Jadiel Abrego, the leader of a local pack in Amsterdam. Truthfully, Bunny didn’t understand much at all when it came to werewolf dynamics; the differences between alphas, betas, and omegas went right over her head. With that being said, she wanted desperately to create some sort of involvement within the werewolf community; if not for herself, then...well, for Carter. This was his world, wasn’t it? And if she wanted to get to know him better, then..
She had an awful lot of work ahead of her.
Currently, she was waiting inside of the quaint little coffee shop she had arranged for Mr. Abrego to meet her at, a fluffy, pink-feathered pen held between her lips as she looked over the equally pink and equally fluffy notepad she had set in front of her. Steaming gently alongside her stationary was a warm hot chocolate made with oat milk, as well as a fresh raspberry scone, as she waited patiently for the alpha wolf to arrive. She was both nervous and excited all at the once ; it was an honor that he had even agreed to meet with her in the first place, and she just hoped - hoped, hoped, and hoped - that he’d consider her worthy of his time.
infernusvacua:
Neve was already preparing a snappy retort for whatever her captor might have in store today, and even inhaled the moment the door opened so that she’d be ready. She had to exhale pretty quickly though, for the person who entered was a stranger. Not only that, she was completely different from Raphael and the caretaker. A halo of blonde curls encircled a face that could only be described as cherubic, complete with big blue eyes and pouty pink lips, all topping off a very short, curvy body. Looks could be deceiving, but there was something so innocent about the girl’s face that Neve had a very hard time believing that she was here as a torturer.
What caught Neve the most offguard was how the blonde immediately bounced right over to the bed and leapt in as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Neve drew her arms and legs closer to herself out of instinct, her own eyes widening at the other girl’s eagerness. Who exactly was she? Was this some new caretaker? Had the old one got fed up with Neve’s refusal to behave? Her French was much better than her Russian, but she felt confident that’s where the blonde’s—Tatia’s—accent was from. And she was saying that this had been her bed, assigned to her by ‘Master’ Raphael. Gears clicked rapidly into place. So this was the omega, the one Neve had been looking for in the first place when she’d been caught. Neve was far from an expert on werewolves, but that would certainly explain… well, everything about Tatia, from her petite frame to her enthusiastic demeanor.
From what her original source inside The Inferno had said, the omega had been trafficked here, and was therefore a prisoner like her. With that in mind, Neve relaxed visibly. “Nice to meet you,” she answered, a little delayed as she’d taken a moment to process everything. “I’m Neve. I, uh… I guess you could say I’m new, yeah.” The idea that there was just a steady stream of kidnapped and trafficked people coming into this hellhole made her blood pressure spike a bit, but she kept that to herself for now. “Sorry about….” She gestured at the bed. “I didn’t… I mean, I guess I kind of knew it was yours. It’s just where they put me. Maybe they’ll… bring another one, I dunno.” She’d already disliked having to sleep in a pet bed, but she sincerely hoped that it wasn’t Raphael’s intention to make the two young women share the one bed. It was big enough, but still.
Actually, that sounded exactly like the sort of thing he’d do.
Tatia’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Neve blinked as she realized the omega kept glancing at her bruises. She’d stopped thinking about them, but now she was keenly aware of them. It made her feel a weird mixture of pride and shame that she didn’t know how to process or even describe. They showed she was surviving her time here, but… they were also reminders that she’d gotten herself into this scenario in the first place. The ones around her neck in particular, currently hidden by the collar Raphael insisted she wear, just made her think of how vulnerable and relatively powerless she was compared to the multitude of supernatural beings that ran this place. But Tatia looked so concerned, and Neve couldn’t even consider exposing the younger woman to such thoughts. Instead, she put on a slightly crooked grin and nodded, wanting to put her new roommate’s mind at ease. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. They’re keeping me fed and all, these are mostly just from trying to escape. Y’know, trying to bolt out of the bath, getting tackled, all that stuff. They’re really not as bad as they look.” True enough; Neve had had her fair share of bad bruises and scrapes in her life. “What about you? Were they looking after you? They haven’t hurt you or anything, have they? I’ll rip Raphael’s eyes out if he has.”
Tatiana knew and understood very well that she couldn’t have possibly been the only victim of trafficking within the walls of The Inferno, but it still broke her heart in two to see the proof of it displayed so vividly in front of her. There, in the large pet bed that she had previously been sleeping in before the loss of Raphael’s baby sister had led to him requiring her nightly companionship, was a pretty, almost overwhelmingly human brunette whose collar was almost eerily similar to the one wrapped around Tatiana’s own neck. She hadn’t missed the glowering expression that had showcased itself on the other girl’s fox-like face the moment the door had been opened; it was Raphael she was expecting, and the tsarina felt her stomach sink as she realized that the fallen angel must have visited her several times throughout the past month, if the bruises on her arms, shoulders, and perhaps even hidden on her neck were anything to go by. And she was...all alone. The door had been locked, meaning that she wasn’t offered the same sort of freedom that Tatiana had somehow managed to earn. She was being neglected.
Well, all of that was about to change, and it would start now.
She didn’t miss the way that the other girl drew her legs and arms in closely around herself as Tatiana rushed over to the pet bed, and the omega winced guiltily as she realized that she was more than likely frightening her. She was a werewolf, after all, and - in her opinion - a highly-intimidating one at that. Thankfully, the human seemed to relax just a little bit, and Tatiana beamed up at her in relief; perhaps she’d even be open to a bit of cuddling while she sniffed at her pretty hair and small, rounded shoulders until she was able to memorize her scent? “Neve! Is much nice to being meet you. Or, erm - supposing, I guess, though is not under best conditions.” Tatiana winced again, and nibbled fretfully at the rosy swell of her bottom lip as she tried to stop herself from putting her foot in her mouth twice in a row. In the meantime, she remained quiet, and inclined her head towards Neve’s as she listened anxiously for her to confirm whether or not she had been hurt, as well as if she had been properly taken care of during her...stay.
“Oh - good! That they are being feeding you, I mean. If you ever getting go down to kitchens, chef very nice man. He give treats for Tatia sometime; I start bringing them here to share with you!” she chirped excitedly, and reached forward to give Neve’s hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. They were in this together, weren’t they? Raphael had been rather vague when he had told her to return to the dungeons and to her former pet bed, but she understood now that he fully intended the two of them to be roommates, and as saddened by their situations as she might have been, Tatiana was grateful to have a new friend, and maybe they could even...find their way out of The Inferno together, eventually? If Viktor ever managed to come back for her?
“TACKLING?” The blonde omega was decidedly bewildered at the term Neve chose to use, and she blinked her wide, startled blue eyes several times in response. “Why they being tackle you? Why you being bolt out of bath? Water being too hot, or too cold? I have much rubber ducks if you wanting one, so not getting lonely. Is Master Raphael being wash you, or one of older ladies from the club? They can be...little bit grumpy.” She phrased her last sentence incredibly delicately, and let out a small sigh as she squeezed Neve’s hand once more. She seemed very skinny, even if she was being fed, and Tatiana wanted very badly to fatten her up like a spring chicken. “Oh, Tatia doing great! No more hitting, not after first week here. Or kicking, ow. But - hmm. You are talk of ripping out eyeballs, so...not going too well, Tatia guessing?” She didn’t want to draw attention to Neve’s bruises, not if the older girl didn’t want to talk about them, but she couldn’t help but notice the finger-shaped ones in particular on her wrists and arms. “I thinking Master Raphael wanting Tatia stay down here again, and - for us to sharing little pet bed. Is okay with you? Is probably meaning he is...not so angry anymore. In better mood.”
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dvrkprinces:
There was something about seeing Baby again, inhaling her sweet, familiar scent and feeling her body cocooned around his own, that awakened something buried deep inside of Luca. He’d gone an entire month without her, and in her absence, Luca had started to realize just how much of his daily life was made up of Baby Doefoot. It had driven him crazy, haunting the halls of The Inferno and thinking about her graceful wings fluttering through the corridors as she skipped from one room to the other, teasing Luca with that coy smile and her long, mink-like lashes. Neither of them were monogamous, not in the slightest, but he hadn’t realized just how much of a constant Baby was in his life until she’d been taken from him. She was still his, no matter how many men she fucked or how many women he was balls deep inside of. The fucking rats at the coalition had nearly torn that from him.
When he found the bastard responsible for imprisoning his delicate baby bird, he was going to burn him alive.
She was…terrified. It was clear on her face and evident in the bruises and fresh wounds that marred her perfect skin. She was terrified that someone–a man, a monster, she dubbed him–was going to come and find and kill them both. The urge to spin around in his tracks and hunt down the creature who had stricken such fear into the heart of his lover pulsated inside of him, threatening to overwhelm his senses and self-control. He wanted to demand she name the bastard for him so that Luca would know which name he was meant to utter as he peeled the fuck’s face off and gouged his eyes out, but…now was not the time. Because Luca would be back and he would find the man responsible for torturing Baby to the brink of madness. Come Hell or high water, the bastard would suffer.
And Luca, in his sick and twisted delight, would get a thrill in every single bone he snapped and body part he mutilated.
Instead, however, he gruffed as he carried her out into the cold night. Something stung when she mentioned Rosalia being trapped somewhere inside the compound, and he tried not to wince as his gaze flickered down to hers. For all he knew, Rosalia could have escaped on her own, but…what were the odds? He’d searched for her when he’d come down here, but hadn’t seen her. And now, well…now, it was too late. He couldn’t risk going back inside with Baby in his arms, and the shouts coming from guards echoed closer and closer as he made his way into the brisk spring evening. He tightened his hold on Baby, glancing back once more as he finally answered her statement.
“I’m not sure where Rosalia is, to be honest; I’ve been kind of a one man mission about this entire thing,” he admitted, adjusting his grip to make sure she was snug securely against his frame. “I didn’t see her when I went down to look for you or on the surface levels, so I’d say it’s a safe bet to assume she made her way out with the others. She’s a tough bitch. A slutty bitch, sure, but a tough one, too. if anyone can scrap her way out of a fight with a bunch of mutts and humans, it’d be Rosalia.”
Luca had spread his great, dark wings and had just propelled off the ground and into the night, Baby clutched around his person, when she told him she loved him. It was enough to nearly make him falter, and he pumped his wings harder as he shot them both into the night. There was a chorus of shouts and orders from below as guards spilled out onto the grass surrounding the compound, and Luca knew he had mere moments before they gathered guns and started trying to shoot them both out of the sky. He angled forward, cradling her body against his own as he moved through the air and away from the coalition prison, her words ringing in his ears all the while. I love you. I love you, and I didn’t tell them anything.
Luca wasn’t deserving of anyone’s love; this was something he knew about himself, right down to his core. His father hadn’t held any desire or love for him; neither had the foster families who’d attempted to take him in over the years. The government paid little mind to him when he was a child, being shuffled around to different workhouses and orphanages. In his long, long time as an immortal, Luca couldn’t recall if anyone ever had loved him. It had never been particularly important to him; how could you miss something you’d never had? But Baby…loved him. She’d had a month to think about it, after all, hadn’t she? So why did he find himself unable to talk, to think, to breathe in that moment? His body moved mechanically as he flew through the sky, but something deep inside of his heart thudded painfully against his chest as he absorbed her words. He–well, he felt something for her, didn’t he? It was strong and potent; something Luca found he couldn’t live without for very long. He cared for her, as surprised as he was to admit it, but it wasn’t enough to say you cared for someone. And after all of these years of meaningless sex and willing isolation, Luca wasn’t sure he had it in him to tell anyone he cared about them. But she–she had to know, surely. She received better treatment and more attention from him than any other woman at the club or beyond. She must know the way he looked at her? The way he touched her, and how possessive and territorial it was? A part of them would always belong to the other, even if Luca couldn’t manage to say the words aloud.
She was like…the sun. And if he wasn’t careful enough, he’d crash directly into her.
“I know…I know,” Luca said at last, his voice hoarse and thick with a strange concoction of emotions as he tore through the night sky, blazing like a comet from Hell. “You’ve always been good for me. My precious, soft, sweet little baby girl. Rest, kitten, daddy’s here now. And he’s going to take care of you.”
The flight was not tedious, per se–he’d carried Baby many times before and had flown long distances in the past–but it weighed heavy on his conscience to know how little she regarded her own self-worth…and how highly she regarded his. When the fuck had Luca D’Amore started caring about someone’s self-esteem?! He’d ravaged entire cities and had acted with reckless abandon and without thought or care for centuries–why had a small girl with wings the color of snow and eyes bright as constellations stolen his breath away? Troublesome thoughts brewed in the back of Luca’s mind as he flew them towards their destination: a discreet hotel in a nearby city, under an assumed name he’d booked under days prior. He flew in with glamours, taking a private lift in the back to the room he’d had reserved for the both of them, and nearly kicked the door in as he moved Baby inside the room with him. A large, plush king-sized bed stretched before them in the main room of the suite, and he carried Baby inside and laid her down against the soft, down sheets.
“I have clothes for you, but don’t even bother putting them on right now,” he demanded, crossing over to the bathroom where he snatched a towel and cleaned himself off. Gone were the soft, sweet whispers of Italian he’d given to her in the dank cell of the coalition’s prison. In replacement were the domineering traits of his inner alpha springing out. He was her dom, and she was his baby girl. She was…everything to him, he was beginning to realize. Luca’s wings quivered with anger as he recounted the way she’d been treated. The bruises, the scars, the marks…his beautiful swan had been brutalized. “You’re going to eat, first of all, because they let you fucking starve in there.” He began to rip at his clothes, tugging them off angrily and letting them pool on the floor of the adjoining bathroom. “And you aren’t going to wear any fucking clothes tonight because you need to let your skin heal. Which is perfect, really, because when I annihilate every single man who laid his hands on you this past month, I’ll have the fresh images of your sweet body in my head. And another fucking thing–” he continued, stepping out of the bathroom and into the room once more. He was completely bare, his cock jutting proudly between his muscular thighs, and Luca felt the world stop.
There she was, on the bed, his sweet little baby girl. Battered and bruised, but all spread out so sweetly for him. And as Luca’s eyes met Baby’s across the dimly lit hotel room, with the city lights of Amsterdam blazing just outside the window, the fallen angel felt something shift into place inside of him.
He took a step towards her, knowing his entire world was careening towards its climax.
Baby felt something sink deep into her stomach as Luca informed her that he hadn’t seen Rosalia anywhere inside of the compound he had invaded; for all they knew, that meant that she had managed to escape all on her own, but the young dancer could do little more than hope that was the case without any evidence to prove as much. Luca was right, though - Rosalia was strong, stubborn, and independent, and even if she hadn’t already found her way out of the underground cells, then Baby would insist on a team being deployed first thing in the morning now that Luca finally knew where the prisoners were being held and how to get to them. Rosalia was family, and Baby couldn’t handle the thought of her being tortured and interrogated for even a moment longer; no, as soon as she was able to, she would tell Raphael all about what General Demir had done to her behind bars, and with the combined power of both Luca and her older brother, Baby just knew that there wouldn’t even be enough left of her tormentor to cremate, let alone bury somewhere in an unmarked grave. Yadriel was - a monster, and she would bear both the physical scars on her body and the ones that had been left upon her already fragile, already damaged psyche for years to come.
For now, though, there was nothing more that she could do aside from allow Luca to cradle her in his big, strong arms and fly them across the city, far away from the underground compound and hopefully somewhere closer to home. She didn’t want to return to The Inferno just yet, not in the terrible state that she was in, but she already knew that she didn’t need to tell Luca as much. He...he knew her better than anyone else in the entire world; he didn’t need her to explain to him that she wasn’t ready to face Raphael and Jane just yet. Seeing her like this, battered and bruised and half-starved, it would tear them apart to their very core, and it was in Baby’s nature to put their emotional well-being high, high up above her own. And...she wanted to be alone with Luca tonight; she needed to reunite with him properly, and nobody else would understand the way that she so desperately needed to be treated and cared for after all that she had endured.
He didn’t tell her that he loved her back, but Baby didn’t need him to - nor had she expected to hear it from him in the first place. She’d professed her love to him a handful of times in the past, and not once had he returned it in kind, but all that mattered to the lithe blonde was that he was made aware of her feelings and how ardently she cared for him. She...she wanted him to know that he was loved, and even if he wasn’t ever able to feel the same way about her, then Baby would, at the very least, feel relieved in knowing that he knew that her heart belonged to him. It was easy enough to merely curl up in the reassuring warmth of his embrace as he took to the sky and flew them away from the prison she had been trapped inside of for the last month; the nighttime air was frigid and cold on her sensitive, exposed skin, but the heat of Luca’s strong and powerful body was more than enough for her to focus on to get by. He had a destination in planned, and Baby was relieved - but not surprised - when she realized that it was a luxury hotel and not The Inferno. Later on, perhaps in the next day or two, she would bring herself to return home to Jane and Raphael, but for now, her aching, torn-apart body desperately needed rest.
He brought them in through the back entrance, and Baby remained weak and pliant in Luca’s arms as he carried her into the room that he had reserved for them. She could barely keep her eyes open, as drained and malnourished as she was, but she refused to drift off into unconsciousness; a part of her was still terrified that, if she allowed herself to fall asleep, she’d wake up to find that her entire rescue had been little more than yet another fever-dream. Instead, she let out a soft, grateful little mewling sound as Luca laid her down gently on the plush, California king-sized bed; it was the most comfortable thing that she had laid on in weeks, and her sore, aching muscles all but sang with relief as she sunk into its pleasant cushiness. Luca stood up, then, and Baby peeped out a tiny sound of protest as he stepped away from her in favor of heading over to the en-suite bathroom; she could hear him cursing angrily, and she found herself flinching when he told her that the first thing she was going to do was eat.
If there was anyone in the entire world that she’d willingly eat for, it was him - nobody else.
“Food sounds...okay right now, ” she said softly, tentatively, and her dark-blonde brows furrowed together when she realized that he was undressing, as well as informing her that he didn’t want her to wear anything either. She was practically naked as she was, just barely-covered in the tattered remains of the clothes that Yadriel tore apart on a regular basis, but if her daddy wanted her bare, then - so be it. With trembling fingers, Baby shakily shrugged out of the shredded blouse and skirt she had been given to wear, and she was beyond grateful for the bath she had taken shortly before Luca’s arrival - the humiliating bath that she had been forced to endure - because aside from a bit of blood from being held in her daddy’s arms not long after he’d killed a half-dozen men, she was...clean. Soft, clean, and smelling sweetly of warm vanilla amber.
Shakily, she laid back down on the bed, her arms outstretched above her head as she focused on steadying her breathing; the entire world seemed to spin around her, and she could only just barely make out the sounds of Luca’s furious ramblings. He was - livid, of course, with the men that had taken her, with the men that had harmed her, but all that she wanted from him right now was to come back to bed and show her exactly who she belonged to. Eating could wait. Sleep could wait. Tending to her numerous injuries could wait. All that she needed to survive was him.
Mid-sentence, Luca came back into the room, and - despite the countless times she had seen him naked in the past - was awe-struck by the sight of him now. There he was, bare from head to toe in all of his broad-shouldered and muscular glory, his raven-black wings akimbo and every inch of his powerful frame seemingly vibrating with rage. It all came to a halt when he spotted her on the bed for him, spread out so sweetly on her back without a stitch of clothing to be found, and for a moment, it was all that they could do to look at each other from across the room. He was Lucifer himself, proud and vengeful and in possession of a dark, cruel form of beauty; he was the Hades to her Persephone, the leader of the Underworld that she’d worshipfully follow into the abyss time after time. “God, daddy,” Baby breathed out, then, and there was a sudden surge of energy rioting through her slender little frame; in an instant, she was standing up from the luxurious bed he had laid her down in, and her wings fluttered tremulously as she crossed the room towards Luca. “I missed you so - so fucking much; I thought about you every day.”
Helplessly, Baby was gravitating towards him; he was the sun that she willingly orbited around, and all roads would always lead back to him. There were still tears present in her warm brown eyes, and despite the amount of times that she had undressed for him in the past, she felt more vulnerable than ever standing before him now; her fluffy white wings drooped a little uncertainly, and she wondered if he would still find anything to desire in her bruised, banged-up little body. “You have to fuck me,” she whimpered then, as her trembling hands ran up along from the broad span of his chest to his shoulders, and then finally to clutch onto either side of his face as she tilted her own head to look up at him desperately. “Please. Before we do anything else. I need you inside of me, Luca, because I won’t feel anywhere close to whole again without my daddy’s thick, perfect cock buried so deep in my cunt that I’ll be able to feel it for days.” She sniffled shakily, standing on the tips of her toes to nuzzle her nose fretfully against his; she was afraid to kiss him...begging him to fuck her was one thing, but what if he didn’t want her when she wasn’t the glamorous, sultry little sex kitten he’d claimed as his own all the way back on her sixteenth birthday? What if this damaged, torn-apart version of herself just...wasn’t enough?
“I’ll do anything you want,” she continued breathlessly, dizzy and delirious from both her current state of weakness as well as their proximity, and she kept one hand cradling his strong jaw as the other slid down between the press of their bodies; she didn’t stop until she found his cock, and she wrapped her dainty fingers along the thick, swollen shaft of it so that she could stroke slowly up and down his length. “Anything for you to fuck me, daddy. Just say the word and it’s yours.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” It was just another night for Noah, with the full moon approaching he tried to take on as much work as possible to allow for a week or so off to rut in the woods, that meant visiting The Inferno on a damn near daily basis to hunt down the targets he was ordered to kill. Things had slowed down ever since the motherfucking raid that had overthrown Amsterdam’s seediest supernatural nightclub a little more than a month ago, it was hard to find people to kill when the human government had already taken so many of them out all on their own.
A man had to eat, though, and if life in heaven had taught him anything at all, it was that his body was nothing more than a weapon meant for power, destruction, and cold-blooded murder. He had a few cardinal rules that he laid out at the beginning of each transaction, of course—no kids, no mothers, no goddamn women in general unless they were murderous bitches themselves—but aside from that, it was business as usual. Except for tonight. Throughout all the time he’d spent at The Inferno, he’d only heard murmurs and hushed rumors about the gossamer-skinned, flaxen-haired Angel of Light that fluttered in and out of the dungeons, usually in the arms of one of the vampire king’s generals, nonetheless, but not once had he seen her there for himself.
Until now. There, in a sheer, shimmering gown of rose-gold, and with her dainty, tiny little feet bare and hardly even touching the ground, was Sophia Wren. She had no fucking business even crossing The Inferno’s doorstep, no fucking business fluttering those fluffy white wings of hers around where they didn’t belong. Hadn’t he told her to keep herself safe for him? Hadn’t her parents told her the same damn thing? Before they had been … before …
Something tucked deep away in the heart he rarely ever used these days gave an unbearably painful tug, cursing angrily beneath his breath, he downed his pint of ale at the bar in one heavy gulp and resigned himself then and there to the realization that his mark was going to live to see another day—until he dealt with his former mate, that was. Looking furtively from side to side to ensure that no one was watching him, and knowing too damn well that that would change the moment he approached the most eye-catching girl in the entire room, he walked towards Sophia, doing everything he could to ignore her sweet, honeyed scent as he gripped onto her bare forearm hard with one of his large, calloused hands. “You tryin’ to get yourself killed, Soph?” he asked gruffly, and while his voice was low and quiet, she’d be able to see the way that his jaw was clenched with barely-concealed fury, the way his nostrils flared as he fought to keep himself composed. “Or did something in that pretty little head of yours get knocked loose within the last year and a half?”
@nymphcts
Sophia’s biggest self-coping mechanism had always revolved around sex and intimacy. Even prior to the tragic death of both of her parents, she had sought comfort and relief in the form of trysts with angels who were far too old for her; Noah and Celine had been forbidden enough as it was before they had decided to fall. Tucked away deeply within her heart, there was still that little girl from the orphanage in Paris whose life had consisted of nothing more than abuse and neglect, and even to this day, she was still attempting to fill the hole in her chest that her childhood had so cruelly provided her with. That was why she had once again found herself within the dark, demonic depths of The Inferno; it was no place for an angel of light like herself, let alone the orphaned heiress of Laurent and Melody Brodaire, but ever since Kael had been captured by the human government, Sophia had been utterly torn apart by her devastation.
Kael was - her lover, her master, her owner. Without him, she was more lost and alone than ever before, and she needed something, anything, to get her through the rest of the night.
Wearing a dress of long, rose gold silk that clung to every inch of her lusciously curvy frame, Sophia stood at the bar, shaking out her gilded, gossamer locks of hair over her shoulders so that they cascaded down the length of her exposed back in glimmering waves of gold. She should have glamoured her wings - it would have been the responsible thing to do, after all - but instead they were on full display in all of their pure-white and angelic glory, and she hadn’t missed the dozens of heads that had spun rapidly in her direction the moment that she had walked through the door because of it. Still - she wasn’t looking for someone new. No, there were numerous people whose beds she had warmed within the walls of The Inferno; Jane, Lysander, Yadriel, Izzy, and Alexander came to mind immediately, and she wondered if she’d be fortunate enough to stumble along any (or all) of them before the night was over.
However - she wasn’t even able to order her drink from the bartender before the sudden sensation of a rough, calloused hand gripping harshly onto her forearm was taking her completely by surprise, and Sophia let out a startled yelp in response, hazel-green eyes opening wide and fluttering upwards in shock, only to be met with a pair of deep, dark brown in return. Noah. Standing almost a foot taller than her five and a half foot frame, her former lover - her former mate - was glowering down at her with no small amount of fury. It had been nearly two years since she had last seen him, and she couldn’t help the way that her heart ached in response to not just his touch, but the mere sound of his voice as well.
“Let go of me,” she breathed out in a tremulous rush, shakily attempting to yank her soft, slim little arm out of his rough grasp; it was to no avail, of course, because he was every bit as strong as he had always been, and Sophia thought back to the long days and endless nights that he had spent proving that to her time and time again. “The only person in this room who could possibly bring me harm right now is you, Noah.” Her voice quivered as she said his name aloud; how long had it been since she had allowed herself to do so? Finally, she was able to tug her arm fully out of his reach, and she held it defensively to the swells of her pert breasts, not at all unlike a wounded, distrustful animal as she looked up at him in the dim Inferno lighting. “S’il vous plait - how dare you insult my intelligence like that? As if you have any right to say anything to me at all.”
Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people.
dvrkprinces:
Alex wished, desperately, that he could take the pain and turmoil Tatiana had felt tonight and completely eradicate it from her mind. She’d been through so much in the time she’d spent at The Inferno, and Alex blamed himself wholly for not being able to protect her this evening. And if he hadn’t stumbled across her in the corridor when he’d been tearing through the club looking for her, something far more dreadful than the heinous scene he walked in on would have happened to the tiny omega. It caused his chest to constrict painfully, thinking of the amount of trauma Tatiana had managed to survive in the time she’d spent living here in the Inferno. Would there be no end to the tortures Luca and Raphael put her through? Kidnapping the poor omega had been bad enough, but training her in pleasure and subjecting her to the horrors of gritty, dark night life in supernatural-infested Amsterdam?
There weren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe the waves of rage and overwhelming emotions that crashed through Alex, even as he forced himself to remain calm and firm as he washed Tatiana and soothed her frayed nerves.
She was a trembling mess of limbs in his arms, and Alex tightened his grip on her as she ran her tiny hands against his chest. They were a study in contrasts, him all hard, defined angles and her with soft, luscious curves. She was a rarity, this tiny omega, and even if Alex hadn’t imprinted on her that fateful night a month or so ago, he would have felt the same instinctual pull towards her. She was a kind, soft soul, and while Alexander didn’t think the battered remains of his own heart were worth her attention or care, she seemed to disagree. She had, after all, chosen him, against all odds. There was something almost peaceful in the knowledge that the entire world had set out to destroy Alexander and Tatiana, but somehow, despite fate’s obstacles, here they stood.Together, underneath the warm water cascading over them and cleansing them of tonight’s sins and horrors.
There weren’t words to express the way Alex felt when he gazed into Tatiana’s eyes, so bright, wide, and trusting. He could scour the edges of the Earth and still wouldn’t find anything to convey the depth of understanding and acceptance that lived in her adoring gaze.
“It’s still mating night, true, but are you sure you’re up for it, all things considered?” Alex asked tentatively, his hand sliding up and down the smooth skin of her back as he re-positioned her in his arms. “I don’t want you to offer to fuck and mate me because you feel obligated to. I want it to be something you feel like you need to survive. Like…” He trailed off, his thumb brushing across the defined lines of her jaw as he sought the words he wished to express. “…when I’m deep in your cunt, and all I can think about is how I would rather die than give up the sensation of your warm, soft, quivering pussy wrapped around my cock. I want you to dream about my knot, until you wake up in the middle of the night, completely soaked through your panties and whimpering as you beg to have me fuck and knot you until my seed is buried inside of your womb. But we have–time. If you are sore and exhausted and traumatized tonight, then we have all the time in the world.” You’re my mate, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out.
To be honest, Alex didn’t think he deserved a mate.
But still, he grew quiet as Tatiana continued to speak again. She was…nervous, he could tell, as she attempted to explain the use of pet names in the Russian language. His lips formed soundless words as she told him what her family and friends would have called her back in her home country. Tatia. Tatiasha. There were names for him, too, she explained, and Alex merely lifted his brows at first as he listened to her explanation. There was such…raw, naked passion and adoration in her voice, and the soft lilt of it was enough to have Alex subconsciously leaning into her touch. And then she called him Shura, and explained what the word meant to her in her native tongue and culture, and it was as if the world had stopped for him. Alex’s grip on her tightened, almost reflexively, as his gaze honed in on the tiny, soft omega bundled up in his arms. Defender of man. It felt like an awakening; it felt something like forgiveness. Alex had never been able to save his mother–she was a rejected omega in society; terrified, but rebellious, and her rebellion had eventually cost her her life. Alex should have been able to protect her–he was an alpha. He held more power and influence than someone of his mother’s rank and station did. But…he hadn’t been able to save her. It was a guilt that had weighed heavy on Alex’s chest for years. For decades, even, the guilt of his mother’s passing hung like a heavy cloud over Alexander’s head.
But this…Shura. Protector of Tatiana. Defender of man. With Tatiana, he had managed to succeed where he had failed with his mother. If he had been a sentimental person, perhaps he could have viewed this as an opportunity for redemption for the tattered remains of his soul. But Alex was not a very sentimental man, not at the crux of his being, but he felt…affected by the faith Tatiana placed in him, even if it was misguided.
“Tanechka,” he said at last, rolling the pet name over his tongue. His throat was thick and ached with repressed emotion, and Alex hummed to himself as he turned the shower off. The water shut off abruptly, and for a long moment, the only sound that filled the shower cabin was their combined breathing and the soft plink of water droplets hitting the floor. As he pulled them out of the shower, snatching a towel off the rack, he spoke again. “Shura. I like that.” Alex led them away from the shower and towards the bedroom, rubbing her down with the towel as he did so. Alex gingerly placed Tatiana on his plush bed and crawled on top of her once he’d dried himself off. Her hair was still damp, and he spread the soft, wet ringlets out on the pillow beneath her as he settled his large, heavy body over hers.
“I will always protect you–we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland together, and I’ll be there to hold your hand until daylight breaks,” he murmured, his lips grazing against hers. He thought of the way she’d rubbed their noses together fretfully in the shower and felt something bloom deep in his heart. The sensation of being cared for, particularly in a world as dark and dismal as life inside The Inferno, was an exceptional rarity. His lips slid across her own, feather-light but wanting; a promise of more to come. “No matter what happens, I’m your protector. And no one, under any circumstances, is allowed to touch what’s mine.” He took her face in his hand, gently, and angled her so that her gaze was forced to lock onto his own. “You are my mate, Tanechka, as I am yours. Not Raphael Crossborne’s. Not Luca D’Amore’s. But mine.”
It was reassuring to know that, despite everything that had happened tonight, Alexander still considered her as his mate. Raphael Crossborne and Luca D’Amore had left marks on her body both inside and out that would take days, weeks to heal, and she wouldn’t have blamed Alex in the slightest if he had chosen to cast her aside because of it. After all, it was the sole reason why he had ended up in bed with Baby Doefoot during the full moon instead of being allowed to bury himself balls-deep within his warm, wet, and always willing omega; they’d been kept cruelly apart from one another, and it was only now that they had been able to come back together. Still...he hadn’t hesitated even for a moment when he had come across her in the corridor, pinned up against the wall by one of the coalition alphas and crying out weakly for help as he threatened to have his wicked way with her; no, Alexander had done everything in his power to rescue her, and it was entirely thanks to him that she hadn’t found herself once again being violated by yet another man who wasn’t her mate. He...he had saved her life, and in return, Tatiana had had no choice but to bestow him with a pet-name that embodied all that he had done for her tonight.
Shura. He was her Shura.
She couldn’t help but be a little nervous as she awaited his reaction. English was by no means her first language, and due to remaining home in Russia far more often than either of her older brothers while Viktor was tending to business on their father’s behalf and Dimitri was away at boarding school, her language skills were more inclined towards her heritage than anyone else in her family. Still, she tried her very best to piece together sentences that made some semblance of sense, and hoped that the earnest tone of her voice and big, shining eyes would be enough to fill in the blanks at least a little bit. This - teaching Alexander the meaning behind Shura and bestowing him with the title itself - meant the entire world to the young tsarina, and possibly more than her alpha was even aware of. With her breath held anxiously in the back of her throat, she looked up at him timidly, uncertainly for a response, and when he finally provided her with one, it was enough to have that same breath rushing freely past her rosy lips in relief.
“Da, da - Tanechka,” she confirmed breathlessly, with an eager nod of her head as Alex tested the unfamiliar Slavic syllables on his tongue. A tiny shiver coursed its way through her small, curvy body in response, and she felt herself flush with pleasure; rosy heat flooded her cherubic cheeks and even the peaks of her full, soft breasts as Alex reaffirmed his understanding of everything that she had just conveyed to him. He understood Shura and what it meant to her, and he was accepting the weight of it in full. He turned off the shower, then, and Tatiana beamed happily, holding her arms out to him like an excited little child as he helped her out of the steam-filled cabin in favor of drying her off with a large, warm towel. Instantly, she felt better than she had all evening, and his earlier words about mating night, and - and everything that he wanted to do to her before it came to an end, replayed themselves over and over again in her mind the same way that the exuberantly-fluffy sheep she counted before bed jumped over the fence.
Squeaky clean and wonderfully warm and dry, Tatiana was mewling contentedly the moment Alexander laid her down upon his bed; for the first time all evening, she was at ease, and she felt safe. The entire world might have been crumbling down around them, but so long as she was with her mate, she had nothing to worry about - she had nothing to fear. Alexander crawled on top of her, covering her small, naked body with the reassuring weight of his much-larger one, and Tatiana mewed her approval once again, like a sleepy kitten greeting its owner in the sunrise morning light. His scent was purely him now, with not a single trace of Baby remaining, and the young omega couldn’t stop herself from eagerly breathing in the her alpha’s dizzyingly addictive and all-natural cologne. “Big man being smell much nicer now,” she sighed in relief, and she opened her clear blue eyes to look up at him just in time for him to tilt her chin up towards him with the calloused palm of his hand; obediently, she raised her head, and listened attentively as he spoke, her adoring gaze never breaking away from his even as she squirmed a little underneath him. He...he was naked, and she could feel every inch of his hard, muscular body.
“Only Shura’s,” she agreed softly when he reassured her that, despite everything that had happened to her tonight, neither Raphael or Luca bore any ownership over her body. Both men had taken something crucial from her, a part of her innocence that she would never be able to reclaim, but Alexander was there to pick up all the pieces, and...now, she wanted to give him something in return. “And you are Tatia’s. Nobody else’s. Miss Baby very nice, but she not getting have you the way I do.” Her voice was soft but insistent, determined in her own small, childlike way, and it was Tatiana’s turn to reach up with one of her dainty hands to gently rest it beneath the curve of Alex’s strong jaw. Gingerly, she tilted his face upwards to expose his the edge of his beard where it met his neck and the curve of his Adam’s Apple, and it was only then that she tentatively, carefully peeped her head upwards to latch her mouth onto his skin.
Tatiana was guided by instincts that were as old as time as she squeezed her eyes shut and began to suckle gently at the underside of Alex’s jaw, right alongside his Adam’s Apple as she used her tiny, kitten-like tongue and even her teeth to leave a perfect red mark upon his otherwise smooth skin. Marking - it was a form of ownership that was inherently primal in nature, and it meant far more than any of the simple hickeys and lovebites that Raphael and Luca had left upon her creamy flesh. Tatiana was claiming Alexander as her own, and by the time she gingerly drew her flushed little face away from the crook of his neck to sheepishly look back up at him once more, her mouth was swollen and red, but nothing at all compared to the blooming bruise she had gifted him with. “Moy volk. My wolf, Shura bear. Is - is being okay?” she asked a little shyly, then, with an uncertain gesture towards the claiming mark she had left on him. “Is not...too much?”
cvllofthewild:
The lifestyle Nate had led in recent years, up until six months ago, had taken its toll on his physical health, the amount of alcohol he had consumed combined with the lack of sleep he had gotten - and still got - leaving him in poor shape. It was why he had started training with Alex, wanting to make himself more useful now that he had started drinking less and was more determined to help the rebellion with their cause. He recalled meeting the alpha earlier that evening at the fighting ring, where Alex had tried to convince him that they should join for a fight and Nate had insisted that he wasn’t ready. Feeling every inch of his body ache now, it felt like a bitter confirmation from the universe of just how true that had been, how not prepared he was for any of this. He briefly wondered if the alpha would be as disappointed in him as Nate was in himself, but pushed that thought aside for now to focus on the situation at hand.
He nodded silently at Lilianna’s statement that a wolf at least wouldn’t have used poison, something he supposed was a small mercy given everything else. It didn’t change how much his stab wound hurt, how it shot through him like fire, tearing through every one of the cells of his being, to the point where he almost wished he had simply fallen unsconscious at this point, but he knew that it would make the healer’s work easier at least. He took to her orders gratefully, much like an omega searching for an alpha’s guidance, as every one of her commands meant he didn’t have to think for himself. Keeping his hand pressed tightly against his ribs, he waited with his eyes closed and his head leaned back against the wall behind him, as Lilianna went about whatever it was she was doing. Then she was beside him and helping him sit down on the floor. The dull, throbbing pain ripped through him as she guided him to the ground, and his free hand clutched uselessly at the wall behind him, his teeth gritted in an attempt to hold back any sounds that threatened to leave. As soon as he was sitting, however, it proved to be a relief compared to standing up and he let out a sigh that was somehow both painful and relieved as he let his back rest against the surface behind him.
Opening his eyes in apprehensive worry at her warning, he glanced down to see her holding a bottle of vodka in her hand. He tensed at the thought of what was coming next but he knew it would be better than the water from the busted pipe and while this wound was deeper, angrier, than any he could recall getting in his past, cleaning injuries with alcohol was something he was familiar with. He braced himself with a nod, carefully removing his blood-soaked shirt from his side with a wince. Her warning had been direct and with no sense of coddling, but he preferred it that way, preferred to know what to expect. The cleaning of his wound with the water-soaked lace - seemingly some she had cut off from her dress as far as he could tell - was bearable, the pressure against the cut no worse than when he had put pressure on it himself with his shirt. He clutched onto the fabric of his jeans with both his hands as she picked up the bottle of vodka, a pained groan tearing from his throat as the liquid washed over the deep wound.
His breathing was labored and his head was spinning, but he pushed through, telling himself that at least the worst part was over and Lilianna just had to bandage it now. But then she started talking about how that wasn’t enough and did he understand what she was saying? His muddled brain, too busy focusing on breathing, on the pain coursing through him, meant that he didn’t and he opened his mouth to ask before she clarified herself. Cauterization. Shit. He had never had that done before but he knew it would hurt much worse than the alcohol had. Even in the feeling of dread that followed, he trusted her judgement, though, knew that she would do what was best for him and he nodded reluctantly. “Wait,” he gasped, a single thought making its way through his otherwise useless brain. Something to bite down on. He looked around helplessly at the ground for a moment before remembering that he brought a wallet for him. Digging one of his hands into the pocket of his jeans, he quickly turned the fabric inside out. It took him a dumbfounded moment to register the white fabric of the panties that had been in the same pocket and with a flush to his skin, he quickly stuffed them into his pocket again, so only his wallet was left lying in his lap.
He reached for the bottle of vodka with the hand that wasn’t holding his wallet, drinking from it deep and quick. If he had been more clear-headed, he might have been hesitant to drink from an open bottle left at a party like this one but as it was, all he could think was that he needed the drink if he was to get through this. Setting the bottle back down, he took a deep breath and bit down on the leather material of his wallet, looking up at Lilianna and nodding at her, as if to silently say he was ready.
Absolutely nothing about this situation was ideal. Medicine might have been her specialty, especially when it came to werewolves, but Lilianna greatly preferred working either within her family’s apothecary or in a brightly-lit room at a hospital or a clinic. Here, in the dank, dark, and incredibly unhygienic and dungeon-like alcove of The Inferno, she’d never been quite as out of her element as she was right now. There was a war raging on outside as well; people were dying left and right, and if she didn’t act quickly, Nate was going to become one of them. Usually, Lilianna didn’t give much thought to the differences between alphas, betas, and omegas, but when it came to healing them, it had to be front of mind, and the fact that Nate wasn’t regenerating even half as quickly as his alpha counterparts wasn’t something that she could simply ignore. He was bleeding out in front of her, but she refused to allow him to do anything less than escape from The Inferno and return home to Grace. He had - a family, as tiny as it might have been; he had a small child that depended on him in everything that he did.
And Lilianna knew all too well what it was like to lose a parent. She wouldn’t let that happen to Grace.
Mere seconds after she informed Nate of what she was going to have to do, he asked her to wait, and Lilianna hesitated only long enough to allow him to rifle through his pockets. It was a wonder that he was even able to think coherently at this point, but as shoved his hand around in his jeans to locate whatever it was that he was looking for, the absolute last thing that Lilianna had been expecting was for him to pull out a pair of white cotton panties complete with a tiny pink bow. Her dark, neatly-groomed eyebrows arched high up on her forehead, but she remained otherwise silent as he retrieved what he’d actually been looking for: his wallet. Instantly, she understood - he needed something to bite down on; something to quell the pain of having his gaping wound welded shut with hot metal. That and a hearty swig from the bottle of vodka she had been using as antiseptic would have to do, and when he nodded to her and indicated that he was ready, Lilianna knew all too well that they didn’t have even a singular minute to waste.
“Wait here.” After ensuring that he was still resting securely against the stone wall, Lilianna rose gracefully from her perch between his legs, and she withdrew her khanjar dagger once more before dousing it in vodka to sanitize it as best as she could. It was a beautiful blade in its own right, but all that mattered now was that it had a wide, flat enough edge that she’d be able to place fully over his jagged injury. She reached for one of the torches that lined the walls, the flames flickering brightly from the oil lamp underneath it, and she sat carefully down in front of Nate once more with it held cautiously in her slim, elegant hand. “I need you to remain very still for me - do you understand?” she said as she looked up and leveled him with her firm, unrelenting gaze, her big dark eyes urging him to follow every word that escaped her. “It won’t take longer than a few moments, but you need to remain still the entire time nevertheless.”
There was nothing else that she could do to convince him. If he ended up reacting instinctively to the pain, he was far bigger and stronger than she was, and he’d be able to throw her off of him with relative ease even in his injured state - all Lilianna could do was hope that his will to survive was stronger than his body’s response to trauma. Carefully, she held the flickering flame of the torch in front of her, and she brought the blade of her dagger into its warmth, shifting it with precise coordination to ensure that every inch of the sharp metal was bathed in fire. Then, when her dagger was glowing white-hot and shining brighter than anything else in the dark alcove, Lilianna looked up at Nate only once to assuage his reaction before she was setting down the torch and bracing herself with one hand on his chest, while the other brought the blade down to his stab wound. “Shì. Just like that,” she breathed, watching intently as the skin that came into contact with the burning-hot edge of her dagger began to melt; the outline of his injury started to meld back together, blood vessels sealing and painfully forcing Nate’s flesh to sear shut.
“Just a few moments longer - hang in there, Brennan,” Lilianna reassured him urgently, gently touching the side of her white-hot blade to his skin in ten second intervals; the longer she applied pressure, the more she risked damaging his healthy cells instead of merely stopping the flow of blood. Finally, she was done - the wound was sealed shut, red and painful and scabbed over with a fresh burn, but the bleeding had stopped completely, and she was certain that Nate’s body was already attempting to rapidly heal itself. It didn’t rule out things like internal bleeding or infection, but it would by him enough time to get the hell out of The Inferno and into a proper hospital setting. She used her blade one last time to cut off another length of fabric from her tattered dress, and used it to gingerly wrap his now-cauterized wound. “Done. It’s done, Nate. You’re going to be okay.” She dropped her dagger onto the ground beside him, and reached up with one of her bloodied hands to rest it upon the side of his worryingly-pale face. “Nǐ hái hǎo ma? Are you alright? Can you stand?”