Mark stayed just outside the door for a moment, watching Christian walk away, into the crowd of humans. Possibly it would be helpful to understand what on earth was going on in the witch's mind right now, because obviously some very strong feelings had just been triggered, but human emotions were strange and complex and contradictory things that had always been a mystery. Christian had enough sense and resourcefulness to find a way to alert Mark, although it hadn't actually been necessary. That was a good sign, at least.
The most effective way to protect Christian would be to feed from him occasionally, marking him clearly as a lamia's own to any liminal creature he might encounter, but Mark strongly suspected that he’d be unable to do so even if Christian consented. Marking the house specifically would keep many things out, but it could also draw some sorts of attention, and the latter could be worse than the former.
Technically, his responsibility extended only to anything Christian asked for help with or that was an immediate danger that Alexandra knew about. In practical terms, if nothing else, if anything happened to Christian it would be the end of the bargain. Mark was starting to grow accustomed to the idea of having a pleasant and stable home—and even to having company in it that wasn't lamia-enthralled and didn't demand anything.
Other witches he had encountered had been of no interest as anything but prey. This one was... different. Genuine kindness and compassion and innocence normally held little attraction for a lamia beyond making hunting easier. Lurking under Christian's, though, he kept catching glimpses of an unfamiliar sort of strength. It showed in the readiness to confront intruders in what he figured was the equivalent of Christian's territory: human homes within the city. It showed in the boundless curiosity that he doubted could ever be contained by the sorts of rules other witches worshipped as their safety. It showed in his openness to liminals of all kinds and his readiness to accept them on their own terms, even where that was a poor fit with human morality or values.
He was also young, and that strength existed currently more in potential than in fact. The whole situation was entirely too comfortable and too intriguing for Mark to be willing to allow Christian to become a quick snack for some semi-evolved predator while still hardly more than a child.
With marking Christian or the house out of the question, he would have to settle for continuing to be hyperalert. He could spend more time at home, especially as Alexandra rather than Mark, though it was harder to concentrate on books or games that way; the built-in passive wards on the property and house should keep anything or anyone from noticing, which meant no deterrent effect but also no attention drawn. It might be useful for Christian to get more accustomed to Alexandra.
He hadn't thought to question how useful Christian’s skills would be if he encountered something nasty, assuming that he wouldn't do what he did if it put him at risk, but recent conversations had made Mark much less confident on that score. He should also encourage Christian to put mastering the house's active wards higher on his endless list of projects to work on. He had no idea how to encourage or help Christian get better at handling aggressive liminals personally, since Alexandra’s skills and instincts wouldn’t be useful for that. Maybe there was something else the witch could summon.
Hm, maybe if he picked up a couple of mobile phones, those were now small and effective enough for that to be a practical way to make certain they could stay in contact no matter where each was...
Well, he could work on it. Meanwhile, it was still too early for Alexandra to hunt properly. He pondered for a moment, then shrugged mentally and left the park. That kill had been fast and clean, and his other side hadn’t really had a chance to work off her annoyance that the parasitic worm had dared invade her city. Sitting still wasn’t going to be an option, not with the echoes of that emotional state lingering. Going for a walk would allow both a way to work off some energy and a chance for a bit more exploration, at least until dark.
Maybe Alexandra would get lucky later and find something to take out her mood on.
* * *
The sun was slipping past the horizon, nudging the city gently into the long twilight of late summer, by the time Mark decided it was worth setting Alexandra free.
He strolled around the back of a small shop—a locksmith, according to the sign—so at least no one would actually see the transformation. Humans could overlook a lot, but they never failed to notice Alexandra, even if she didn’t have lamia fascination deliberately turned on.
The molecules of Mark's jeans and t-shirt rearranged themselves at a thought, altering along with physical form, now a skin-hugging matte-black catsuit that left Alexandra's arms and back bare.
The whole city, of something like a hundred thousand humans, was now her territory, and she spent a substantial amount of time each week prowling it, watching for signs of competition for her prey or simply any intruder powerful enough to be worth noting. Competition she would not tolerate: even a city of this size could only endure so much of a loss, and the lamia aversion to over-hunting her territory ran deep in her instincts. Other intruders she might allow, if she were feeling indulgent and saw no possible threat to her or her witch.
At the moment, she needed to hunt, and it had been a couple of weeks since she'd made her presence felt on the university campus. It wouldn’t be likely to give her a good fight, but some of her irritation had faded, and there were other considerations. She couldn’t allow herself to be hungry and irritable around Christian, for one thing.
On the other hand, if anyone tried harassing her, or she found any more stupidly aggressive liminals, it would be a bad day to be them.
The walk to the campus took Alexandra much longer than it would have taken Mark. She had to pause frequently to check on any liminal traces, signs of others that straddled existence to varying degrees between the human plane and the other one, and reinforce her territorial markings.
At this hour, it was quiet in the series of small tree-edged courtyards between one cluster of university buildings, brick walkways running between impersonal beds of greenery. She paused under a birch to stretch and scan the area mentally for life signs. No one close, save the janitors inside. After a moment's deliberation, she chose the archway that would take her to the nearest male residence.
Hmm, there was one. Healthy-looking, though a trifle overweight. Headed home, judging by the armload of books.
She stepped out into sight; catching his eye, she smiled, and watched any rational thought derailed by fantasies of pure hungry lust. Casually, she turned around, back towards the deserted courtyard she'd just passed through, glancing invitingly over her shoulder.
As men always had when her kind hunted, he followed, attention only on her.
Alexandra slid into the shadows to one side as he came through the arch into the miniature park, and stepped back out behind him.
“I'm glad you came,” she murmured, and he spun around, startled.
“Who are you?”
She laughed, deep in her throat, and relieved him of the books, depositing them on a nearby bench. “The reason men are afraid of the dark.”
He shook his head. “You aren't dangerous, you're beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She moved closer, ran her tongue over black-tinted lips, and looked directly into his eyes. “Why did you follow me?”
He swallowed, hard. Young and human and male, his hormones were rising like a spring tide right now, so high that she could smell the arousal. He couldn't find the words to answer her, but his body did.
Another step nearer, and she traced the shape visible through his worn jeans with a black-nailed finger. He shuddered violently. “Is it because you want me?” she purred. She reached up to unfasten the clasp at the back of her neck, and slid the front of the catsuit down slowly to bare her breasts. One arm across her chest teasingly, she arched her back in a lazy stretch. “Do you want to touch me?”
“Please,” he whispered; it sounded like a prayer.
She let her arm fall, and smiled at him. “Then touch me,” she said softly. “I want you to.”
Hesitantly, he reached out; his hand stopped a bare inch from the satin-soft skin of her chest, quivering.
Alexandra shifted closer, closing that last inch, bringing skin into contact with skin. Her awareness of him took a large jump: the rapid beating of his heart, the accelerated breathing, the longing that overwhelmed thoughts of anything save her. An appetizer only, but a delicious one. She licked her lips again, and kissed him fiercely.
“I want you,” she breathed, close to his ear. “I want all of you, right here, right now. I want you to belong to me, I want you to remember me forever, I want you to wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of me and crying because you'll never have me again. I want to hear you begging me for more, even when you're so drained you could never bear it.” She slid his jacket off his shoulders, dropped it to the fading flowerbed, and sent his grey T-shirt to join it. Lightly, she dragged the tips of her nails down his chest and belly, and he shivered. “Are you going to give me what I want?”
Mutely, he nodded, his hands exploring her body with a kind of desperate urgency. They slid under the stretchy fabric of her catsuit, discovered that she wore nothing at all beneath it, and she made a low growling sound, kissing him again.
She took what she wanted, on the ground beneath the skinny trees. She left him wrung dry, alive but dazed and exhausted—drained of all sexual energy and much emotional energy and just enough blood to form the connection she needed, his aura clearly branded with the fingerprints of a lamia. None of it was permanent; he'd recover, and the marks on his aura would fade.
Hunger satisfied, she put her catsuit back on and walked away, to check on the residence he'd been headed towards, and specifically on the territorial markings she'd left there. A human might notice the gouges in the limestone, as high as she could reach, and an observant one might even notice the similarity to a wild cat's claw-marks on a tree; what a human wouldn't notice was the psychic version of a scent mark. It remained clear enough, but she raked almost-unbreakable nails along the gouges in the stone again. It never hurt for a top-level predator to make her presence a little more apparent to the competition.
She took the time to prowl the rest of the campus, reinforcing her territorial boundaries, making certain that there were no extramundane disturbances. Anything significant crossing into the city from another plane would create ripples that would be readily noticeable, enough so that even Mark would have at least a trace awareness of something happening, the same way he was faintly conscious of a liminal in his immediate vicinity despite being unable to directly perceive or identify it. The physical plane was another matter: anything could approach without her knowing it. An intruder would soon enough spot the signs of her presence, but that didn't necessarily mean that said intruder would then announce itself voluntarily.
All was in order, though, and eventually Alexandra turned homewards.
The city was dark, even the bars closed now, most of the human population asleep in their beds.
Around the corner from their house was a significantly younger building, now multiple offices though probably once a single home. She'd discovered that from one part of the roof, she could see their house, but no one could see her, shielded from the street by the taller front part of the structure.
She climbed up to balance herself on the narrow railing of the back door, her wings spread wide for balance and fluttering to lighten her weight. They couldn't bear her full mass in true flight, and wouldn't have been able to even if she had only human mass rather than denser, stronger muscles than even the best athlete and the bones to go with them, but they were certainly useful. With their help, she pulled herself up onto the small protruding peaked roof that shielded the door, and from there the sloped roof of the rear addition was only a small leap.
She settled herself comfortably on the sun-warmed tin, arms crossed on her raised knees, surveying their house. All the lights were off, not even a glow from the skylight to suggest that Christian was in the library reading. Though he did get lost easily in research and practice, he had enough sense not to do so when he had to work the next morning. Well, usually he did, anyway.
This, she'd found, was a good place to sit and think, and her life lately had prompted a fair bit of that. Unfamiliar with emotions other than those of the hunter, she was beginning to suspect that something new was creeping in, that there might be more to her desire to protect Christian than a bargain and curiosity and convenience. Lamias rarely encountered each other, and when they did it was frequently violent, but she was fairly certain that something in her current life wasn't quite what it should be for a lamia. It was certainly unlike anything her own life had previously included.
Under a greying sky, she finally jumped off the roof, her spread wings slowing her enough to help her land in a neat crouch. Just as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she changed back to Mark, and simply came around the corner towards their house with no trail left. He did need some sleep, and his bed was waiting.
Mark stayed just outside the door for a moment, watching Christian walk away, into the crowd of humans. Possibly it would be helpful to understand what on earth was going on in the witch's mind right now, because obviously some very strong feelings had just been triggered, but human emotions were strange and complex and contradictory things that had always been a mystery. Christian had enough sense and resourcefulness to find a way to alert Mark, although it hadn't actually been necessary. That was a good sign, at least.
The most effective way to protect Christian would be to feed from him occasionally, marking him clearly as a lamia's own to any liminal creature he might encounter, but Mark strongly suspected that he’d be unable to do so even if Christian consented. Marking the house specifically would keep many things out, but it could also draw some sorts of attention, and the latter could be worse than the former.
Technically, his responsibility extended only to anything Christian asked for help with or that was an immediate danger that Alexandra knew about. In practical terms, if nothing else, if anything happened to Christian it would be the end of the bargain. Mark was starting to grow accustomed to the idea of having a pleasant and stable home—and even to having company in it that wasn't lamia-enthralled and didn't demand anything.
Other witches he had encountered had been of no interest as anything but prey. This one was... different. Genuine kindness and compassion and innocence normally held little attraction for a lamia beyond making hunting easier. Lurking under Christian's, though, he kept catching glimpses of an unfamiliar sort of strength. It showed in the readiness to confront intruders in what he figured was the equivalent of Christian's territory: human homes within the city. It showed in the boundless curiosity that he doubted could ever be contained by the sorts of rules other witches worshipped as their safety. It showed in his openness to liminals of all kinds and his readiness to accept them on their own terms, even where that was a poor fit with human morality or values.
He was also young, and that strength existed currently more in potential than in fact. The whole situation was entirely too comfortable and too intriguing for Mark to be willing to allow Christian to become a quick snack for some semi-evolved predator while still hardly more than a child.
With marking Christian or the house out of the question, he would have to settle for continuing to be hyperalert. He could spend more time at home, especially as Alexandra rather than Mark, though it was harder to concentrate on books or games that way; the built-in passive wards on the property and house should keep anything or anyone from noticing, which meant no deterrent effect but also no attention drawn. It might be useful for Christian to get more accustomed to Alexandra.
He hadn't thought to question how useful Christian’s skills would be if he encountered something nasty, assuming that he wouldn't do what he did if it put him at risk, but recent conversations had made Mark much less confident on that score. He should also encourage Christian to put mastering the house's active wards higher on his endless list of projects to work on. He had no idea how to encourage or help Christian get better at handling aggressive liminals personally, since Alexandra’s skills and instincts wouldn’t be useful for that. Maybe there was something else the witch could summon.
Hm, maybe if he picked up a couple of mobile phones, those were now small and effective enough for that to be a practical way to make certain they could stay in contact no matter where each was...
Well, he could work on it. Meanwhile, it was still too early for Alexandra to hunt properly. He pondered for a moment, then shrugged mentally and left the park. That kill had been fast and clean, and his other side hadn’t really had a chance to work off her annoyance that the parasitic worm had dared invade her city. Sitting still wasn’t going to be an option, not with the echoes of that emotional state lingering. Going for a walk would allow both a way to work off some energy and a chance for a bit more exploration, at least until dark.
Maybe Alexandra would get lucky later and find something to take out her mood on.
* * *
The sun was slipping past the horizon, nudging the city gently into the long twilight of late summer, by the time Mark decided it was worth setting Alexandra free.
He strolled around the back of a small shop—a locksmith, according to the sign—so at least no one would actually see the transformation. Humans could overlook a lot, but they never failed to notice Alexandra, even if she didn’t have lamia fascination deliberately turned on.
The molecules of Mark's jeans and t-shirt rearranged themselves at a thought, altering along with physical form, now a skin-hugging matte-black catsuit that left Alexandra's arms and back bare.
The whole city, of something like a hundred thousand humans, was now her territory, and she spent a substantial amount of time each week prowling it, watching for signs of competition for her prey or simply any intruder powerful enough to be worth noting. Competition she would not tolerate: even a city of this size could only endure so much of a loss, and the lamia aversion to over-hunting her territory ran deep in her instincts. Other intruders she might allow, if she were feeling indulgent and saw no possible threat to her or her witch.
At the moment, she needed to hunt, and it had been a couple of weeks since she'd made her presence felt on the university campus. It wouldn’t be likely to give her a good fight, but some of her irritation had faded, and there were other considerations. She couldn’t allow herself to be hungry and irritable around Christian, for one thing.
On the other hand, if anyone tried harassing her, or she found any more stupidly aggressive liminals, it would be a bad day to be them.
The walk to the campus took Alexandra much longer than it would have taken Mark. She had to pause frequently to check on any liminal traces, signs of others that straddled existence to varying degrees between the human plane and the other one, and reinforce her territorial markings.
At this hour, it was quiet in the series of small tree-edged courtyards between one cluster of university buildings, brick walkways running between impersonal beds of greenery. She paused under a birch to stretch and scan the area mentally for life signs. No one close, save the janitors inside. After a moment's deliberation, she chose the archway that would take her to the nearest male residence.
Hmm, there was one. Healthy-looking, though a trifle overweight. Headed home, judging by the armload of books.
She stepped out into sight; catching his eye, she smiled, and watched any rational thought derailed by fantasies of pure hungry lust. Casually, she turned around, back towards the deserted courtyard she'd just passed through, glancing invitingly over her shoulder.
As men always had when her kind hunted, he followed, attention only on her.
Alexandra slid into the shadows to one side as he came through the arch into the miniature park, and stepped back out behind him.
“I'm glad you came,” she murmured, and he spun around, startled.
“Who are you?”
She laughed, deep in her throat, and relieved him of the books, depositing them on a nearby bench. “The reason men are afraid of the dark.”
He shook his head. “You aren't dangerous, you're beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She moved closer, ran her tongue over black-tinted lips, and looked directly into his eyes. “Why did you follow me?”
He swallowed, hard. Young and human and male, his hormones were rising like a spring tide right now, so high that she could smell the arousal. He couldn't find the words to answer her, but his body did.
Another step nearer, and she traced the shape visible through his worn jeans with a black-nailed finger. He shuddered violently. “Is it because you want me?” she purred. She reached up to unfasten the clasp at the back of her neck, and slid the front of the catsuit down slowly to bare her breasts. One arm across her chest teasingly, she arched her back in a lazy stretch. “Do you want to touch me?”
“Please,” he whispered; it sounded like a prayer.
She let her arm fall, and smiled at him. “Then touch me,” she said softly. “I want you to.”
Hesitantly, he reached out; his hand stopped a bare inch from the satin-soft skin of her chest, quivering.
Alexandra shifted closer, closing that last inch, bringing skin into contact with skin. Her awareness of him took a large jump: the rapid beating of his heart, the accelerated breathing, the longing that overwhelmed thoughts of anything save her. An appetizer only, but a delicious one. She licked her lips again, and kissed him fiercely.
“I want you,” she breathed, close to his ear. “I want all of you, right here, right now. I want you to belong to me, I want you to remember me forever, I want you to wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of me and crying because you'll never have me again. I want to hear you begging me for more, even when you're so drained you could never bear it.” She slid his jacket off his shoulders, dropped it to the fading flowerbed, and sent his grey T-shirt to join it. Lightly, she dragged the tips of her nails down his chest and belly, and he shivered. “Are you going to give me what I want?”
Mutely, he nodded, his hands exploring her body with a kind of desperate urgency. They slid under the stretchy fabric of her catsuit, discovered that she wore nothing at all beneath it, and she made a low growling sound, kissing him again.
She took what she wanted, on the ground beneath the skinny trees. She left him wrung dry, alive but dazed and exhausted—drained of all sexual energy and much emotional energy and just enough blood to form the connection she needed, his aura clearly branded with the fingerprints of a lamia. None of it was permanent; he'd recover, and the marks on his aura would fade.
Hunger satisfied, she put her catsuit back on and walked away, to check on the residence he'd been headed towards, and specifically on the territorial markings she'd left there. A human might notice the gouges in the limestone, as high as she could reach, and an observant one might even notice the similarity to a wild cat's claw-marks on a tree; what a human wouldn't notice was the psychic version of a scent mark. It remained clear enough, but she raked almost-unbreakable nails along the gouges in the stone again. It never hurt for a top-level predator to make her presence a little more apparent to the competition.
She took the time to prowl the rest of the campus, reinforcing her territorial boundaries, making certain that there were no extramundane disturbances. Anything significant crossing into the city from another plane would create ripples that would be readily noticeable, enough so that even Mark would have at least a trace awareness of something happening, the same way he was faintly conscious of a liminal in his immediate vicinity despite being unable to directly perceive or identify it. The physical plane was another matter: anything could approach without her knowing it. An intruder would soon enough spot the signs of her presence, but that didn't necessarily mean that said intruder would then announce itself voluntarily.
All was in order, though, and eventually Alexandra turned homewards.
The city was dark, even the bars closed now, most of the human population asleep in their beds.
Around the corner from their house was a significantly younger building, now multiple offices though probably once a single home. She'd discovered that from one part of the roof, she could see their house, but no one could see her, shielded from the street by the taller front part of the structure.
She climbed up to balance herself on the narrow railing of the back door, her wings spread wide for balance and fluttering to lighten her weight. They couldn't bear her full mass in true flight, and wouldn't have been able to even if she had only human mass rather than denser, stronger muscles than even the best athlete and the bones to go with them, but they were certainly useful. With their help, she pulled herself up onto the small protruding peaked roof that shielded the door, and from there the sloped roof of the rear addition was only a small leap.
She settled herself comfortably on the sun-warmed tin, arms crossed on her raised knees, surveying their house. All the lights were off, not even a glow from the skylight to suggest that Christian was in the library reading. Though he did get lost easily in research and practice, he had enough sense not to do so when he had to work the next morning. Well, usually he did, anyway.
This, she'd found, was a good place to sit and think, and her life lately had prompted a fair bit of that. Unfamiliar with emotions other than those of the hunter, she was beginning to suspect that something new was creeping in, that there might be more to her desire to protect Christian than a bargain and curiosity and convenience. Lamias rarely encountered each other, and when they did it was frequently violent, but she was fairly certain that something in her current life wasn't quite what it should be for a lamia. It was certainly unlike anything her own life had previously included.
Under a greying sky, she finally jumped off the roof, her spread wings slowing her enough to help her land in a neat crouch. Just as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she changed back to Mark, and simply came around the corner towards their house with no trail left. He did need some sleep, and his bed was waiting.
