#like i’m forced to hold off on (re)releasing any of my skins/accents because if its not for the new breed go fuck yourself
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there are many many reasons to feel like ancient breeds are being released too fast that have nothing to do with actually wanting those ancients in your own lair ffs it’s so annoying reading smug assholes post about how they have no issue with the pacing because “well the breeds aren’t going anywhere you can get them eventually stop worrying about having all the new things right away!!!” i fuckin hate these undressable bitches and i still very much feel like we’re getting them way too fast. why are people too stupid to consider literally any other reasons for people to not like the pace of ancient releases. if you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about then shut the fuck up perhaps
#the gene bloat they swear a fix is coming for that they keep making worse and worse for literal Years at this point#the ever growing pile of gene/art errors to be fixed. some errors being years old.#honestly i hate the way the entire focus of the site shifts toward every new breed upon release#like i’m forced to hold off on (re)releasing any of my skins/accents because if its not for the new breed go fuck yourself#hard to sell anything that’s not the new breed or dirt cheap fodder people can turn into the new breed#everything just becomes all about Shiny New Thing for a while and personally speaking i fucking hate it#and yes that’s far more of a personal issue/bias but still proves my point#that many of us do not in fact hate this pacing just because ‘weh i have to buy new thing NOW :(‘#you cannot grasp the extent of my haterism.#but i mean ofc its gonna be mostly pro-ancient people who just have bad taste and shitty takes. lol. lmao.
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Date Night
For @meltic-daze, who wanted a Polnareff pining after his S/O! Took a bit of liberty with this one, hope you like it anyway! Congrats on choosing your university!
Your reservations for dinner at the Caprice were at six-thirty that evening, which meant that Jean-Pierre Polnareff had been preparing since well before noon. Everything had to be perfect, after all.
He rose with the sun, enjoying the normal routine: three-mile jog first, cold shower next, finishing with a breakfast of whatever the locals enjoyed (here in Hong Kong that meant egg and satay beef with toast) paired with hot black coffee. By the time eight-thirty found him he almost ready for the day, styling his hair with an attention to detail many would call ‘vanity’. Polnareff preferred to call it discipline; everything in his life had to be attended to in neat and particular detail. Things were at their most beautiful when they fell exactly into place, and today was no exception. He winked at his passing reflection as he stepped outside the hotel room. The day was coming when his mornings wouldn’t be so solitary, he just knew it.
Nine o’clock came and went as the sun overhead turned from mild to overbearing, beating on the crowded pavement. It was a good thing his destination wasn’t a very far walk, even accounting for all the extra scouting he’d have to do. When he finally arrived, double-checking the address against a hastily handwritten note, he couldn’t help but nod in approval.
Caprice must have been doing well; its premises enjoyed the pricey real-estate of the Hong Kong waterfront, giving diners an excellent view of the Victoria Harbor waterfront as they treated themselves to exquisite French cuisine. And they were a Michelin star awardee, three of them! What impeccable taste. He took a moment to indulge in imagining the walk with you here. He could see it now: the brightness of your smile, the flattering cut of your dress, the beautiful figure you’d make as you held his arm…if he found himself grinning like a fool as he snagged a copy of the night’s menu and made for a shaded spot across the road, who could blame him?
All play and no work wouldn’t make for a good evening, though. He thumbed through the menu, mentally referencing what he knew of your likes against Caprice’s offerings for the night. After that, it was another patrol around the block, mapping out the locations of alleys and potential hazards. After that, it was casing Caprice’s premises again, checking on all the entrances and windows. After that, it was waiting for the grocers to come by with the meat and produce needed for the day, to make sure it was all up to par. After that, it was checking the streetlights.
After that, it was making sure he knew where the dumpsters were.
—
Evening came, bringing with it a balmy nighttime breeze and the sense of hopeful anticipation. You didn’t normally go to pricey restaurants like Caprice, but your date insisted on treating you, and it was kind of fun to dress up once in a while.
You gave yourself a critical once-over in the mirror. Were you trying too hard? Was the perfume over the top? Yes or no on the earrings? Was it strange to wear jewelry another man gave you to a date? Maybe—there you go again. You took a deep breath and stopped yourself before you fell into a spiral of self-doubt. Something your friend said about posture came to you…you squared your shoulders and pulled yourself up a little more, trying to project a little more confidence. You looked…fine? The heart-shaped earrings you were trying on gleamed in the light, perfectly accenting the color of your dress.
Yeah, you were keeping them. You reached for your clutch and evening jacket and stepped out the door, sending your date a quick text to let him know you were on your way. He was supposed to meet you there, something your friend had been frowning about, but work kept him busy sometimes—a fact you would have to get used to if this relationship was going to go anywhere—and who died and left Jean-Pierre in charge of what was gentlemanly, anyway?
—
Scott cursed to himself and sped up his pace, dodging around pedestrians not walking quickly enough for him. If he pushed it any faster, he’d be showing up to your dinner disheveled and sweaty, which was embarrassing, but being more than a half hour late was even worse. He squinted at his phone, re-reading your last few texts and tapping out an apology as he rounded another corner, darting through the dark pool of a broken streetlight. He was almost there.
Hey, I’m really sorry, he typed, eyes fixed on his phone, I’m—
Something grabbed him by the neck and pulled, lifting him clean off his feet and dragging him sideways into the waiting mouth of a side street. He slammed against the brick wall with a painful thud, kicking his feet helplessly. Something skittered to the side with the scraping sounds of plastic, and out of the corner of his eye he could see his phone, screen still illuminated with the message he had been trying to send.
“You’ve kept me waiting, you piece of shit.” His attacker’s words were calm and dangerous, emphasized by the sudden increase of pressure on his throat, cutting off his air. What the hell was holding him? His hands swatted at empty air, trying and failing to force whatever was holding him away.
“I don’t—“ Scott wheezed, unsure of what he would have said even if he could complete the sentence. I don’t know what you’re talking about? I don’t have any money?
“You really don’t, do you? You don’t deserve to clean the mud from her shoes, much less enjoy her company.” It was too dark too see much, but the other man was tall, tall enough to be at eye level even with Scott’s feet dangling a good four inches off the ground. His first instinct was to lash out, try to get loose and run away, but he could feel the power in his attacker’s physique as he roughly pinned Scott’s arm to the side and began searching through his pockets.
“It’s dangerous to walk these streets alone, especially after dark. Does her safety matter that little to you? You’d really be careless enough to send her somewhere strange by herself, sitting on your ass until you felt like joining her? You’d dare insult her like that?” Scott felt his wallet and keys leave his pocket still struggling to catch up to what was happening. Was this a mugging after all? Some weird vigilante stunt?
And then the other guy’s fist hit him, squarely in the solar plexus, and a sunrise bloomed behind his eyelids and all Scott could think was oh my god don’t kill me don’t let me die I’m sorry I won’t—
“Mon dieu, listen to you snivel. That was just a love tap.” Contempt dripped from his attacker’s lips, and Scott realized he’d been released, falling to his knees in a limp heap, too busy trying to remember how to breathe to make a run for it. Had he been murmuring those words, that litany of please for mercy? He wheezed.
“You’ve already got my money,” he whispered, hands raised, “you can take my phone—I don’t have anything else—please just let me—“
“Let you go?” The other man repeated, apparently unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth. “You mean you aren’t even going to try to fight back?” A car passed the street they were near, briefly offering enough light to see by, and for a single second Scott finally saw the other man’s face. There was something vaguely familiar about him, as if they’d passed each other in the street once before, but what struck Scott most in that instant was his eyes. They were steel-grey, highlighted by sharp cheeks and a striking brow, but utterly without light or pity. They could have belonged to a shark.
And in that moment, with complete and horrible clarity, Scott knew this man planned to kill him.
He took a chance, scrambling to the side and filling his lungs with breath. “H-“
Blood filled his mouth instantly as something pierced his tongue and the flesh of the chin below it, strangling his cry and making him choke. His hands flew to his mouth, a reflexive attempt to staunch the flow and defend against whatever inflicted the agony, but he couldn’t see the blade that stabbed him.
The other man hadn’t even moved.
“I could be a villain. A rapist, a killer, some swine that saw your girl and decided he wanted to have her for himself. And when confronted with this, your instinct is to…grovel? To beg? Would you have thrown her to whoever asked if it meant you could flee with your skin intact?”
Whatever stabbed him was still there, Scott realized, because he couldn’t close his mouth, and something pushed further until a point dug into his throat, just above the clavicle. Writhing in agony didn’t budge it, didn’t do anything, as if the air itself had turned solid and was holding him in place. All he could do was feel the blood trickle down his throat, unable to even cough as it began to flow down his windpipe and into his lungs.
“I won’t waste her time any more than you already have. Goodbye.”
It was with those words in his ears that Scott died, a sword he couldn’t see driving itself even deeper and impaling his heart with surgical precision.
Polnareff took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped away from the body, snatching up the phone before its screen turned off. He’d gotten more worked up than he thought…it wouldn’t do to approach you like this. You might get worried.
With barely a thought he ordered Silver Chariot to get to work, propping open the lid of the nearby dumpster.
—
You were an idiot.
It was impossible to keep a sigh down, rereading your latest message with a heavy feeling in your chest that was something worse than disappointment.
Hey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this. It’s not you, it’s me, I swear. Get home safe.
Sure. Sure, okay, Scott. Asshole.
Was there any point in hanging around here, anymore? You could afford the plate, but there was a special kind of humiliation in eating dinner alone when you were supposed to have a date, especially when the waiter kept shooting you sympathetic glances. You raised your hand to ask for the check.
“…oh! Cherie, what a surprise!”
You jumped at the familiar voice. Jean was making his way towards you with a broad grin, ignoring the waitress leading him to his own table. You returned the smile, in spite of yourself.
“Hi, Jean. Wow, you’re eating here tonight, too?”
You hadn’t seen him in a suit before. He cleaned up…well, great, actually. His eyes passed over your face, apparently thinking the same thing about you, and a blush heated your cheeks as you suddenly remembered you were wearing his earrings.
He pressed a hand to his chest, letting the moment pass. “Guilty as charged. It’s nice to have a fine dinner, but nicer still to enjoy it with fine company. You wouldn’t happen to be with anyone tonight, I hope…?”
Scott’s last message was still burned into your mind, and the flare of anger welling up in you made you adventurous enough to take a chance. “Oh, no, that’s not…I mean, not at all! Do you want to sit down?”
His grin got even wider. “Nothing would make me happier, believe me.”
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6 + 99 please!
Bookshop au + Magical accidents (+ mermaid/siren + werewolf + Only One Bed™) for one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. Definitely positively absolutely not safe for work. I’m self-fiving at it not breaking 10k words. It was a struggle.
Thank you to @garglyswoof for tolerating my constant idea bouncing and ‘can you look at this real quick pleeeeeease’ harassment, and to @chica-cherry-lola for helping me get started and @goldcaught and @candycolamorgan for letting me creepily watch them like a hawk in a hotel room while they read the first draft and listening to me complain about how many words this was.
I hope you like it Laine
Caroline tried her best not to give Werewolf With Dimples the evil eye as he walked through the front entrance of the bookshop, the bell letting out a shrill clang.
To be fair, she wasn’t ten thousand percent sure he was a werewolf, but every time he entered Mystic Books her skin would get all prickly, letting her know that another supernatural non-witchy type was around, and there were only a few choices that came out in daylight and could pass for human.
She didn’t know Werewolf With Dimples’s name, nor had she ever had any direct interaction with him. Occasionally she caught him glancing at her when she was shelving new releases—the section he frequented—but other than that, no communication whatsoever.
Anyway, she kind of hated him, mostly on principle.
She’d been working at the magical bookstore on the edge of Mystic Falls for most of the year while she took night classes towards her degree in Economics. The owner, Sheila, taught part-time as a visiting professor in the Religious Studies department, and Caroline had really loved her History of Paganism and Witchcraft in Literature class when she took it for a gen ed credit. She’d quickly pinned on a minor in Religious Studies and asked Sheila to be her advisor. After a few enthusiastic office-hour conversations about the books she was assigned and a side-mention of how she was looking for a part-time gig for the summer, Sheila had offered her a job.
She wished the customer she was ringing up a good day and as soon as they were out the door she glanced around the bookshop to re-locate Werewolf With Dimples with the intent of trying to convey her displeasure through murder eyes as she aggressively shelved books in his immediate vicinity. She was seriously tempted to unclasp her necklace and let her fangs out in the hopes that she’d spook him and he’d take his own ass out the door without any extra effort. Unfortunately, all he did was glance up and meet her eyes with a small smirk before returning to his reading.
She took a moment to remind herself that Sheila would get mad if she ate customers. She was lucky that the owner had trusted her enough to give her a chance. It had been terrifying to admit her secret, the confession leaving her in a low, shaky voice after her fangs had broken through her gums and scared one of the teenage boys that unsubtly eyed her legs while she reshelved books. Sirens had to feed on blood to walk on land and were often mistaken for vampires due to their similar diet, but Sheila knew better and thankfully understood. She made her a necklace to dampen her cravings, imbuing it with enough magic that she could feed from it instead of humans, letting her keep her legs without having to hurt anyone.
Combined with the free access to all the books she could want and the steady air conditioning, if you ignored Werewolf With Dimples ruining her day it had so far been the most stress-free summer she’d had. She glanced up at him again to give him a good stink eye and was absolutely not at all distracted by the shape of his forearms revealed by the henley rolled up to his elbows or the way his long fingers wrapped around the cover of whatever book he was flagrantly consuming without a thought at all to the ‘NO BROWSING WITHOUT BUYING’ sign she’d made the week before and thoughtfully thumbtacked to the shelf by the armchair he always sat in.
The demand for printed grimoires, their best-selling section, was waning because you could find most of the common ones online. They were struggling to stay open as it was, had even opened a magical pastry counter in an attempt to gain more revenue, and she was infuriated that Werewolf With Dimples just came in, read books, and left without buying anything.
Not even from the pastry counter.
Frankly, Caroline thought it was more than a bit rude. This wasn’t a library. You weren’t supposed to be able to just walk in and read whatever you wanted without buying anything. It was a respectable capitalist establishment. She’d taken to mentally ringing up the price of all the books he’d read and then reshelved, and he’d already hit over $500 of stolen knowledge.
He sometimes also reshelved things wrong, watching her with a small smile on his lips when she went to fix it after he got up. She was 99% sure he was doing it on purpose.
Honestly, he was lucky that she didn’t eat customers.
The only good thing about Werewolf With Dimples was that he was cute. She suspected that it was how he’d gotten away with being a flagrant thief for so long. The Halo Effect was a real thing. It was just science.
She swore to herself every time he left that next time she’d tell him that they had the right to refuse service to anyone and to please see himself out unless he was going to purchase something, but for some reason she’d never been able to go through with it.
Until now.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath before walking over, trying not to look too aggressive. He was lounging on a plush chair in the corner of their rare grimoire section, reading a leather-bound tome that looked like one of the newer releases.
“Hi,” she said with her best customer service smile, waiting until he looked up at her to continue. “So, I’ve noticed that you’ve been coming here a lot lately.”
He smirked, and she immediately realized that her opening could be taken in a much different way than she’d meant it. She cleared her throat and jabbed her finger at the sign a foot away from his ear and continued. “We have a policy here about browsing.”
“Do you?” he asked, his voice low and smooth. She hadn’t been expecting the accent, but she shook it off like a champ and nodded.
“Yeah. You can’t just like, read the books without buying things. No browsing without a purchase. This is a bookshop, with the emphasis on shop.”
“Consider me informed,” he said, clearly trying not to laugh, and she glared at him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“Okay, great! I am. So, you going to buy that?”
“I must admit that I wasn’t planning on it, no.”
“Great!” she said with forced cheer, tugging it out of his hands. “I’ll reshelve it then.”
He watched with clear amusement as she inspected the cover, trying to find the title, and she figured out why when she saw it, stamped in gold on the front of the leather cover. Maybe in her first month she would have blushed and been more than a little flustered at ripping a book clearly about sex spells and potions from an attractive man’s hands, but at this point she felt like she’d seen everything.
“Can I help you find anything else?” she asked, grabbing a stepstool and carrying it over to reshelve the book.
He didn’t answer, and when she turned around after sliding the book into its proper place he was gone.
As she’d said. Fucking rude.
He still showed up every day after that (except the three days around the full moon, which totally confirmed her werewolf theory), but he now bought a pastry from the counter before he settled down to read. He’d apparently taken the ‘no browsing without a purchase’ rule to mean that any purchase was sufficient, which was so not the case, yet despite her annoyance she sometimes found herself irritatingly distracted by his tongue darting over his lips to catch the flakes of the buttery croissants, or by the look on his face as he read.
After hours she sometimes stuck around to read books in the back room, and she’d started to pick up whatever he was reading out of curiosity. His choices were good, she was loathe to admit. They seemed to have a lot in common in terms of their favorite subjects. However, it didn’t stop him from being a total ass.
She didn’t have much time to confront him even if she’d wanted to, anyway. Katherine had decided to move back to Bulgaria and Sheila was out of town for winter break. That left Caroline completely alone to do all of the stocking herself. She was pulling multiple shifts, and though the overtime pay was nice, it was still a lot of work.
Caroline was busy sorting the books that were too old for new arrivals but hadn’t been sold yet when she felt someone come up behind her, nearly dropping the newest edition of the magical creature encyclopedia and barely catching it before it tumbled down to what would have been a painful fall onto her toes. She whirled around to have some serious words with whoever had snuck up on her, leveling her glare at none other than Werewolf With Dimples.
Of fucking course.
She pushed a slightly damp curl out of her face, the air conditioning having inconveniently broken just after Sheila had left, trying to calm her racing heart. She didn’t like being startled, her fight-or-flight instincts tending to scream “swim before you become siren sushi,” and it was even worse when she was on land when she just looked jumpy.
“Can you not sneak up on me like that?” she asked, abandoning all semblance of her normally stellar customer service attitude.
“Sorry, love. I was just going to ask if you needed help.”
“You don’t work here,” she said shortly, placing the book she’d been holding on the pile for magical creature research and turning to the next one.
“I’m here enough to know my way ‘round,” he pointed out.
“That’s weird, since you somehow don’t reshelve books correctly when you’re done browsing without a purchase.”
He didn’t even try to deny it, and she huffed at the knowing smirk on his stupid smug face.
“I’d be more of a help than a hindrance, I think. And you look like you’re a bit overwhelmed.”
“I’m not overwhelmed,” she said, her tone a bit sharper than she’d meant it to be, but Werewolf With Dimples didn’t seem to mind, his lips twitching before he nodded.
“Well, suit yourself, then.”
She huffed, the temptation of an extra hand outweighing both her pride and her common sense for one crucial moment that she was sure she’d regret. “Wait,” she said, and he turned around, his eyebrows raised. She kind of hated that he looked so smug that she was clearly about to let him help, but she didn’t really want to be stuck in the shop too late.
“Yes, love?”
“If you can just sort the books into piles according to their sections while I shelve them, that would be a huge help.”
“Of course,” he said easily, walking over and standing beside her, leaning over the table. He smelled really good, even with her necklace dulling her hunger. She had to resist the urge to linger, instead clearing her throat and gesturing to the large bucket of unsorted tomes before picking up a pile for the Rituals section.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and he shot her a dimpled smile, his eyes sparkling as though he knew what she’d been thinking, and she hoped that she’d turned around before he could see her blush, her tongue running over her teeth just to make sure she hadn’t accidentally let her fangs appear.
What was wrong with her?
He was attractive, and she wasn’t above admitting that she’d totally go home with him if they had met in a bar. If he hadn’t been such a dick about the browsing thing, she might have even considered indulging in a little flirting at the store, maybe even a fling if he’d been a decent person, but she couldn’t justify it now that he’d shown himself to be the actual worst. To be fair, he had offered to help, though she doubted he had pure intentions from the way he watched her. What was the harm in taking advantage of his willingness to make her job easier? She totally deserved it for putting up with him.
As much as she told herself that he was a means to an end--her being able to go home at the end of her shift and bingewatch some Real Housewives--she found herself distracted from her work wondering how his long fingers would feel curled inside of her as he breathed filthy things in her ear, whether his eyes would flash wolfgold with want when he looked at her. She would never go through with it obviously. Purely a physical attraction.
But it was still annoying.
Ugh. He was just a really hot thorn in her side. He’d help out and she’d send him on his way, their totally unfriendly antagonism continuing to run its course. She shelved the books much too slowly, trying to get her heart rate back to normal, and when she returned he was already halfway through the bin, methodically sorting them into the piles she’d created.
“Thanks for helping,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“It’s my pleasure.”
That smile should be illegal. Like, a federal crime. It made her feel like he wanted to eat her, but in a good way.
She swallowed, snatching up the next pile and speed-walking away to shelve it without another word. She was highly aware of his eyes on her every time she climbed the ladder to slide the books into their proper places one-by-one. She was surprised that she wasn’t more nervous, centuries of her kind being hunted out of existence by humans making her wary of anyone who watched her so intently, and when he drank her in his eyes were hungry. Though she’d long noticed the shivers he sent down her spine, the nervousness that werewolves tended to bring out in her, it suddenly hit her that she’d never actually felt unsafe. They were only wolves for one night per month, it was true, but that didn’t make them powerless in human form; their accelerated healing and enhanced strength were still a definite threat to her if they weren’t friendly. A siren could tempt a wolf to give chase, could draw them in with the same heated looks and magnetic draw that they used to trap their human prey, but only at the risk of becoming a meal themselves once they were caught.
The heated glances he sent her made her blood rush, her heart thumping in her chest from the intoxicating high of being hunted, but in an entirely different way than she’d expected. He was hungry for her, and since she obviously didn’t want to give in, not one bit, it was deeply irritating.
When she turned back he seemed absorbed in his task, and she saw that he was almost done sorting the entire pile. Clearly she’d been procrastinating on each section for too long. She picked up the next set of books, looking up at him when he spoke.
“I’m Klaus,” he said softly. The low tone felt odd to her after the heated glances and wicked taunting smirks she’d come to expect from him, the abrupt shift throwing her off.
“Caroline,” she said, putting down the book pile to shake his hand, her breath catching at the heat of his touch, the way the energy seemed to crackle between them. Like witches, sirens could sense magic by touch, could read a baseline of intent, but she’d never felt a charge so strong before. She met his eyes and found that she couldn’t look away. He seemed as surprised as she was by their weird magic-y connection, his gaze finally darting down to where their hands were still clasped, the feel of his calloused palm pressed against hers somehow throwing her off-balance even more.
“Caroline,” he repeated, as though testing how her name rolled off his tongue, and she felt a totally unwanted flush creep up her cheeks at his tone. “Is there anything else I can do?”
She swallowed, desperately looking for a way to diffuse the tension. “Um... Yeah. Reshelve these and then I have some other stuff you can help with. If you want, I mean. Come with me.”
She walked just a bit too fast in the direction of the stockroom, hoping she’d managed to turn quickly enough that he hadn’t seen her blush.
Klaus, as it turned out after a few hours voluntarily trapped in his presence, was annoyingly charming. He had a dry sense of humor that made her laugh before she could think to suppress it, and they ended up in the back stockroom close to midnight, still doing inventory that she probably could have finished up herself by ten.
It was weirdly worth it, though.
She didn’t have many people to talk to other than her roommate, who honestly was kind of a killjoy, and her friends from high school. Even from just snooping on the books he’d read she’d been able to have a real conversation with him about magical theory and history that was much more engaging than any she’d had in university classes. He really listened to her when she talked instead of planning his next point during her debates, and she kind of hated that she liked him for achieving the basic low bar of being attentive when she said words.
Maybe it was more than that, she admitted to herself when she glanced at the clipboard for the last aisle, highly aware of him just behind her. Maybe it was that she hadn’t had this much fun in a really long time. Maybe it was that he seemed to get her. Earlier she’d attributed the heated intense looks to physical chemistry, a primal sort of hunger that had everything to do with how he thought she’d look tangled in his sheets with his mark between her thighs, but she abruptly realized as he laughed at one of her jokes in their first ten minutes in the stockroom that it was more than that. He looked at her like she was fascinating.
They were approaching one in the morning when he’d said it, and honestly he’d chosen what was most likely the worst possible time. She’d been insisting that she could shelve a grimoire that looked like it weighed more than your average ten year old, mostly out of principle when he’d offered. The book was too valuable to keep out front and totally not something for a non-employee to mess with if she didn’t want to face Sheila’s wrath.
He hadn’t argued, just given her an exasperated look that she found more endearing than patronizing, and stood back as she climbed the ladder, subtly trying to spot her. She used a burst of her magic to boost it to the top shelf, slightly off balance from the toll it took on her. Her necklace must need a bit of a refresher spell, she noted. “What are you?” he’d asked, blurted really. It was clearly impulsive, but he didn’t move to apologize, apparently choosing to stand by asking her such a personal question.
She bristled at his rudeness, the distraction making her weight shift unexpectedly. Her arms flapped as she tried to regain her balance, and she managed to hold onto a shelf and steady herself on the ladder before glaring at him. “Excuse me?” she asked, her voice high pitched and defensive. “Seriously? You don’t just ask people what they are.”
“I’m a werewolf,” he said bluntly, and she huffed.
“I know.”
He didn’t seem surprised that she’d figured it out, though to be fair he hadn’t tried to hide it—a lot of the books he borrowed were about werewolves—and as a certified snoop herself she couldn’t exactly blame him for being nosey. Still, she didn’t owe him an explanation, especially since most stereotypes about sirens weren’t all that flattering.
“Well then it’s only fair to enlighten me as well.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that’s how that works.”
“What are you afraid of?” he asked, and she gritted her teeth.
She doubted he’d attack her, especially in his human form, and she’d seen that he’d read a book or two with content about sirens that was accurate. It wasn’t like she was going to eat him. Her self-control was excellent, and he had no idea how weak she currently was. If he reacted badly she’d ask Sheila to add him to the barrier spell on the door. Not only did it emit an electric shock to anyone who was on the list--usually thieves or rude customers--but Katherine had fended off her boredom during an unusually slow afternoon enchanting it to scream creative insults at the unwanted guest.
What was he going to do, write his congressman?
“I’m a siren,” she said reluctantly, fingering her shell necklace nervously out of habit. “But I don’t like, eat people.”
“Isn’t that how you keep your powers?” he asked, and she was relieved that he didn’t seem at all on edge or nervous. Just curious.
“My necklace is enchanted so that I don’t have to feed. Eating people is kind of rude.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”
She snorted, hopping down from the ladder and taking the next book he handed her. “Well, humans are fragile, you know? I don’t want to accidentally give them anemia or something.”
“Fair. Does the necklace also give you enough power to keep your legs?”
She slotted the book into its proper place and made a mark on the clipboard, nodding. “Yep! My powers with my necklace are basically limited to some basic magic and being kickass at karaoke, but that’s only useful at parties. No tail unless the necklace comes off.”
Klaus looked intrigued more than anything, and she resisted the urge to go into more detail as she moved the ladder down a bit and plucked the next book out of his hands, climbing up to shelve it. She was so determined to look normal after revealing such a huge secret that she accidentally knocked one of the artifacts down with her elbow, and it fell to the ground with a clang followed by a shattering of glass.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed, looking around with wide eyes.
She wasn’t sure what she’d knocked over, and she frantically tried to find the label on the shelf she’d knocked it from before sighing in relief. It wasn’t anything important, just some empty vials.
The sigh was short-lived, her panic over the vials upending her balance, and she fell off the ladder with a thump, her arms aching, vaguely recognizing the sharp high note of something shattering against the concrete floor. She stared at the ceiling unseeingly, too distracted by how her hips suddenly felt like they were on fire. It took about half a second to realize what the familiar sensation was, the itchy bubbling of scales already tingling on her lower abdomen as her skin tightened and shifted.
“Caroline?” Klaus asked, sounding worried, and she winced as she heard the rip of cloth, her fusing legs ripping her jeans and thong in half as the spell crept down her thighs.
“My necklace,” she said frantically, clumsily rolling over on her elbows and reaching for the shell and cord that lay a foot away, trying to crawl toward it. She knew that it was most likely shattered and therefore stripped of its magic, but her tiny flame of hope that it had just become unfastened was extinguished when Klaus followed her line of vision and immediately bent down to pick it up, handing her the leather cord with only a fragment of the shell still clinging to it. “It’s broken,” she said unnecessarily, staring down at it.
“Where can you get another?” Klaus asked, and Caroline sighed.
“Well, Sheila can enchant one for me, but she’s out of town.”
He winced, clearly trying not to stare at the shimmering scales that had replaced her legs, the transformation only just finishing with her feet elongating into the end of her tail as she tried to sit up. She swore, and as soon as Klaus noticed what she was doing he bent to help her, his hand warm against her arm as he helped her regain her balance.
“Can I help in the meantime?”
“You’ve already done me like, fifty favors today,” Caroline pointed out, knowing that any decent person would help her get home instead of leaving her to lay on the stockroom floor unable to walk, but feeling like she had to say it out of principle.
He seemed to agree, giving her a disbelieving look before turning to her jeans and the red lace scrap that had previously been her thong. She probably would have been embarrassed if she wasn’t so stressed from her predicament. “You can leave those there,” she said. “Just grab my phone out of my pocket.”
He did as she directed, checking both back pockets and pulling out her phone. “Your purse is by the front desk?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right back,” he promised, returning moments later with her purse over one shoulder and bending down to pick her up. “My car is the only one in the lot, but if you’d prefer I can get something to hide the tail.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s dark anyway,” she said, distracted by how warm he was and how good he smelled. She hated how even though she felt completely helpless in her current form, she felt oddly safe cradled against his chest.
“Your apartment?” he offered, and she shook her head.
“I live with a roommate. She doesn’t know. I don’t want to give her a heart attack.”
“I live alone?” he offered. “I even have a bathtub, if you’d prefer.”
She resisted the urge to snort, not wanting to be rude him when he was being nice (and she’d heard dumber questions before by far).
“Your place would be great, but don’t worry, I won’t need to take over your bathtub for anything other than bathing.”
She could have sworn she heard an off-beat thump of his heart, the hitch of his breath. Her words replayed in her mind and she tried to keep her composure while fighting the image of him walking in on her in the bath out of her mind. She wondered how entranced he’d be by the glistening of her scales, whether his gaze would trace the beads of water... She caught his eyes, noticed they were darker than they had been just a moment before. Had his thoughts been wandering in the same direction?
A few days ago she might have found the idea of him thinking of her naked creepy and irritating, but now she had to internally admit it was kind of hot...
She felt the light pierce of her teeth against her gums and shook herself, trying to push down the sudden bite of hunger she’d felt. He smelled even better now that her powers weren’t suppressed, his heartbeat temptingly strong and his jugular just inches away from her watering mouth. She was highly tempted to ask him whether he’d let her have a little taste so that she could get her legs back and they could both pretend this never happened, but feeding from someone was intimate, gave her a rush of adrenaline and pleasure and was as potent an aphrodisiac for whoever she was taking blood from as it was for herself. It would be taking advantage of him to ask, especially considering that he was clearly into her, and if she connected with him like that, things could get messy.
It would be better to wait for Sheila to come back and solve this without any unnecessary complications.
The night air was cool against her skin as they exited the shop, Klaus scanning the parking lot as though looking for threats before he brought her to what must have been his car, clumsily poking at the lever with his foot to move the chair back so that she could rest in the passenger seat comfortably. “Thanks so much, Klaus. Really,” she said, needing to break the silence somehow as she strapped herself in.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Her heart fluttered and she swallowed audibly, staring determinedly at a streetlamp out the window, listening to the driver’s side door slam and the car start up, not wanting to meet his eyes. Maybe it was more than lust, she realized, chewing her lower lip. Maybe she liked him. Just a little.
Ugh.
Had she seriously managed to catch feelings for this guy she’d been annoyed with for literal months? Seriously?
She was too exhausted to give it any real thought, she decided, determinedly leaning against the cool glass of the window and trying to ignore Klaus’s glances at her whenever they stopped at a light. She managed to doze off against the window as they drove, and it felt like just a moment had passed when he gently touched her shoulder to wake her. They’d arrived at a brick apartment building that she’d noticed before when she was downtown, and she unbuckled her seatbelt as he got out, a bit embarrassed at how helpless she was in her current state but deciding it was better not to draw attention. She took deep calming breaths as he carried her up the stairs in silence, doing her best to avoid catching his scent.
She hadn’t really thought this plan through, she realized once Klaus got the door to his studio open. It was a small space, which made sense given this housing market and that he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, but it also meant that the one bed took up a good third of the non-kitchen living space.
It was late and she was exhausted. She could tell Klaus was getting tired too, but werewolves were natural night people, and considering that he barely ever came into the bookshop until afternoon she’d assumed that he either slept late every day or had a morning job.
“It’s a recliner,” he said as he set her down on a chair in the tiny living room. “The lever is on the side.”
She quickly figured out how to operate it, the footrest popping up to support her tail, and she sighed in relief as she leaned back against the cushions. It wasn’t as comfortable as a bed, and she’d have a nasty backache the next day, but hopefully she could borrow Klaus’s computer and get a hotel until Sheila got back from London. “Thanks.”
“Of course, love. The remote is in the side drawer and I can get the wi-fi password for you in a moment. I just need to start the laundry for fresh sheets. I hadn’t expected guests.”
“Laundry?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “For the bed. You can’t possibly think I’d make you sleep on that?”
“Klaus, I’m the one intruding on your space. I don’t want to make you go out of your way—“
“Honestly, Caroline, it’s not a problem. If you’d feel more comfortable with me in the chair that’s all right, but my mother would roll in her grave if she knew I’d let a young lady sleep on my apartment’s equivalent of a couch.”
She eyed him for a few seconds gauging his sincerity before deciding that sleeping in a chair instead of a bed was not a hill she wanted to die on. At all. Especially since she wouldn’t be able to get out of the chair.
She was putting her trust in him and it was scary, but her instincts told her that he wouldn’t hurt her. He was dangerous, but so was she and it wasn’t like she wasn’t a perfectly functioning member of polite society. As long as she didn’t give into the temptation to take just a taste of him, everything would be fine.
“We can use the bed, but I’m too tired to wait for laundry,” she said, fighting back an unwelcome yawn even as she spoke, and he smiled slightly.
“All right, love. Shall I get you something to sleep in?”
“Just a shirt is fine. Thanks.”
He nodded and went to the dresser in the corner, opening a drawer and bringing a henley back to her, murmuring that he was going to use the restroom. She changed quickly, wrapping her bra in her shirt and throwing it in the general direction of her purse, satisfied when it landed just behind it.
The fabric of the shirt was soft against her skin, and it was comfortable enough that she knew she wouldn’t mind sleeping in it. She yawned again, stretching, and she vaguely heard the door open and saw Klaus come out shirtless in just a pair of boxer-briefs. She tried her best not to let her eyes wander, but she couldn’t seem to manage it, absorbing his abs and the tattoo inked across his shoulder, barely stopping herself from licking her lips, wondering what his skin would taste like. “I live alone so I don’t keep anything to sleep in as a general rule. If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll take the chair.”
She hoped that he couldn’t see her flush at how loaded his tone was. He clearly knew that the only discomfort she had was with their chemistry, and she was hoping he didn’t comment on it. He had a mirror after all, and she didn’t want to get into a conversation about whether she found him attractive or not. It was too much effort, and she was practically falling asleep in the recliner.
“It’s fine,” she said, thankful that she could keep her voice even. “Can you move me?”
He nodded, picking her up easily and setting her down on the mattress, making himself busy plugging his phone in and offering her an extra charger, which she accepted. While he pawed through her purse for her phone she managed to wriggle to the other side of the bed, trying to make herself as comfortable as possible while soaked in his scent and craving a taste. She felt herself sink bonelessly into the mattress, her eyes closing, and it wasn’t long before she fell asleep.
Caroline stirred slowly, instinctively turning to blindly fumble for her phone from where her side table usually was and coming into contact with Klaus’s chest instead, her eyes flying open when he grumbled softly, stirring but not waking.
It was then that she realized she was in a bit of a quandary.
She was half underneath him, her face level with his shoulder, and she suspected that she’s slept with her face tucked into it (whoops), pressed against him comfortably with his arms tight around her, the heat and scent of him cloaking her. The beat of his pulse thumped insistently next to her ear and her mouth watered at the prospect of just a taste. The magic in the necklace had only been enough to keep her from being uncomfortably hungry, and now that she didn’t have that safety net, she was fucking starving.
“Klaus,” she hissed, poking him lightly in the chest, feeling slightly bad for waking him up but figuring he’d be happier being awake and not breakfast rather than the alternative. He shifted, and her breath hitched when she felt his morning erection pressed against the sensitive skin where her scales met skin.
“What, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice low and rough from sleep.
“You need to get up.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know but I’m hungry,” she said, unable to resist taking a deep inhale of his neck before he pulled away, looking at her with bleary, sleep-glazed eyes.
“I can do a coffee run in a bit if you—“
“No, like, hungry,” she emphasized. “Like hungry as in for you.”
He suddenly looked much more awake, his eyebrow quirking as he clearly fought not to laugh. “Is that so?”
She huffed, knowing that a flush was creeping up her cheeks to show her embarrassment at her poor choice of words. “Like, for your blood.”
“Do you want to eat?” he asked, his tone loaded with innuendo as he moved to brush her hair out of her face in a surprisingly tender gesture that made her heart flutter and her pulse race. “I don’t mind.”
She bit her lip, part of her wondering whether he knew what he was signing up for and the rest of her tempted beyond belief.
“Feeding on a person is intimate,” she said slowly, shifting underneath him, just the prospect of the rush of his blood on her tongue making her nipples pebble. She doubted the flush in her cheeks was just from embarrassment now. “I don’t want you to do it because you feel like you have to. Like, I can stop myself from—“
“I want to,” he interrupted. “I’ll heal, Caroline.”
“I know,” she said, trying to keep her voice from growing thick with lust. “It’s not just intimacy though. It’s also kind of sexual.”
“You can’t possibly think that I would say no to the prospect of spending the morning satisfying all facets of your hunger for me,” he murmured, the goosebumps bubbling up on her skin and the quiver of her tail against his leg betraying how much she wanted to give into him. She took a deep shaking breath, licking her lips and trying to muster her very best glare.
“This is a one-time semi-hate fuck,” she said as though it was an announcement, one they both knew was most likely completely false.
He snorted. “Is that what your plan is?”
“Once,” she repeated, and he smirked, bending down to nip her ear.
“I’ll try to change your mind then, shall I? I’d like nothing more than to coax you into my bed again, Caroline,” he whispered, his hand skimming down her scaled hip up to her side, sneaking under the henley she’d borrowed to stroke her soft skin. “Are you open to being convinced?”
“You can try,” she said, too stubborn to admit that she was most definitely open to it. Wanted it, even.
“I’ll do more than try, sweetheart,” he said, bending down so that his lips hovered over hers, stopping just short of brushing them together.
He was waiting for her, the ball definitively in her court, and she was too impatient to feign stubbornness anymore. She brushed her nose against his, catching his lips in a soft kiss, the swipe of tongue against her lower lip making her moan softly, her back arching at the sensation of his hand gliding down her spine, the brush of his calloused palm over her sensitive skin making her gasp. She let her finger trace the tattoo on his shoulder as she bent to kiss the other side his neck, her tongue tracing the dip of his jugular, her fangs splitting through her gums just from the anticipation. “You sure?” she asked, pulling away to look at him. He was watching her with parted lips and dark eyes, a finger reaching out to trace the line of her lip before he cupped her cheek, brushing the pad of his thumb against her fang, slicing into the skin. She moaned at the scent of it, her eyes closing as she lightly sucked a bit of blood from the wound, unable to tear her eyes away from his, enjoying the way he swallowed audibly, the low rumble in his throat when she flicked his skin with her tongue as she withdrew.
“I’m sure,” he said, and she grinned at the obvious lust in his voice, pulling off the borrowed henley so that she could feel his skin on hers as she bent to nip his shoulder, his cock hard and hot against her hip through his boxerbriefs. She flicked her tongue to catch the blood that welled up, grinning at his answering groan. “Take more,” he said, his tone rough and demanding and full of need.
She bent to sink her fangs into his neck, moaning loudly as she sucked gently, his blood rich and thick against her tongue. She felt her skin begin to relax, her scales melting away to reveal pliant flesh, and Klaus wasted no time sliding his hand under her thigh to part her legs, settling himself in between them as she fed, his cock pressed against her inner thigh, the fabric separating them giving her a delicious sort of friction just inches from where she really wanted it..
She reached beneath the waistband of his boxerbriefs to wrap her fingers around his length, stroking him firmly and ghosting her thumb across the tip, and it was immensely satisfying to hear the way he swore out her name, how his hips moved automatically, chasing her touch. She lazily explored the skin of his abs with her fingertips as she stroked him slowly, pulling back to look at him with dazed, blooddrunk eyes.
His gaze was focused on her tongue as she licked his blood from her lips, and he reached down to wrap his fingers around her wrist, stopping her from stroking him. “Fuck, Caroline...”
“If you didn’t I’d be really disappointed,” she muttered, shifting to try to get friction against his covered cock, needing to soothe the persistent ache between her thighs.
He chuckled, bending down to catch her mouth with his and tugging her lower lip roughly between his teeth as he slipped two fingers inside of her, his lips parting slightly with a groan when he found how wet she was, fingers curling against her walls with a practiced motion that made her muscles tighten as she rolled her hips for more, her moan almost embarrassingly loud. The blood high had gotten her most of the way there, and when he brushed her clit with his thumb she dug her nails into his back and chased his touch, panting out his name and falling back bonelessly from her release.
“Disappointed?” he asked lightly, a wicked smirk playing on his lips that turned her on even more.
“It was pretty fast. Was that all?” she teased, knowing that it was completely impossible for him not to know how good it had been, her breathing still shallow and quick.
“Oh, that was just the beginning,” he murmured, drinking her in with dark eyes that flashed gold for just a moment when she reached to trace the already healed wound her bite had left on his shoulder. “I’m not nearly done with you, sweetheart. The full moon is close, and you’re not the only monster here.”
“I’ve had wolf sex,” she breathed, still shallow from coming down from her high but turned on enough that she didn’t stop him when he lazily slipped two fingers back inside of her, hooking them against her walls as he watched her face intently. “My ex was one.”
His eyes flashed again for just a moment, his thumb pressing down on her clit as he dragged his nails just shy of her g-spot, and she bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to stifle what would have been an embarrassingly loud moan.
“So you know about what the moon does to me, then?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Do I really seem like a ‘please fuck me gently’ type of girl after that?” she asked, her eyebrows raised, though she was barely able to get the words out evenly when he brushed his thumb against her clit again, his other hand pressed against her hip to keep her from getting too much friction. He clearly wanted to draw it out, and she wasn’t opposed.
“Then what do you want, sweetheart?” he asked, a slow, pleased smirk spreading across his face, and she felt her breath catch as Klaus found her g-spot again, pressing in a way that made her legs turn to jelly. “Tell me.”
“I want to come again,” she said. “From your cock this time.”
His smirk grew into a full smile, one that was almost feral, that showed all of his teeth. “I’ll fuck you from behind then, shall I? I’ll fill you with my cock while while you feed from my wrist. Do you like it rough, sweetheart? Do you want me to take you hard and fast? To claim you?”
“Yes,” she breathed, spreading her legs for him as he continued to fuck her with his fingers, and he withdrew, making her whimper, squirming for the touch he’d taken from her.
He leaned down to nip her ear, his breath hot on her neck as he spoke. “I’ve wanted you for months, Caroline. My wolf has wanted you, to claim you. I’ve spent hours wondering what pretty sounds you would make if you bent over the counter for me with your legs spread. I imagined you wet and panting, begging for my cock as you held the skirt of your sundress around your waist, craving the feel of my hands as I mapped every inch of your skin.”
She gasped softly at the visual he painted for her, her pussy clenching around nothing, craving to be filled.
“Get on your knees for me, sweetheart,” he said, his voice low and rough as he pulled back to let her flip over, his hands returning to her hips to steady her before they slid down to encourage her to part her thighs. His palms lingered on her skin for a moment as though he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her, and she tensed as his hands moved up slowly to settle on her hips, somehow knowing that if she complained he’d make a point to go even slower. He let out a pleased hum that made her flush as he dragged his finger gently along the flesh of her ass before bending to kiss her shoulder and toy with her nipple. Her heart was pounding with anticipation, and she bit her lip hard when she heard the rustle of fabric and some movement behind her before she felt the tip of him at her entrance, teasing her.
“Klaus,” she breathed impatiently, looking behind her to see him looking down at her with want and something that resembled affection. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she took in a sharp breath as he bent to press his chest against her back, his voice low as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to her shoulder blades, speaking between each one.
“You’re so fucking beautiful like this, sweetheart. Bent over with your pretty arse in the air...”
She pressed back against him to try to get him to speed up and push inside of her, and he groaned, his hands pressing into her hips to hold her in place. “So impatient,” he murmured, and she huffed, curling her fingers into the sheets.
“I was promised rough,” she reminded, and he chuckled, pressing one last kiss to her spine before filling her with one thrust of his hips.
He definitely didn’t disappoint, fucking her hard and fast, his fingers rubbing her clit as he spoke to her, beginning to outline some of the fantasies he’d had of her while he was watching her shelve books, his voice growing thicker with lust as he spoke and listened for her reaction.
“I wanted to watch you drape your legs over the armrests of one of the chairs, watch you touch yourself,” he said, his voice a low growl, pinching her ass lightly when she moaned, the sharp pain a delicious contrast to the way his cock felt inside of her that it made her whimper out his name, her high building steadily, every part of her achingly sensitive for his touch. “Even more now, I want you to show me how you like it, what you do when you come around your own fingers wishing it was my cock. I must admit I’m not sure if I could let you finish without the chance to touch you. Perhaps you’d let me watch up close. Would you like that, Caroline? For me to kneel between your thighs and watch you touch yourself until I grow impatient and convince you to let me replace your hands with my tongue?”
“Yes,” she hissed, nodding. She heard him chuckle, felt his hands wrap around her thighs to adjust her position to get deeper, and she swore when he started to move faster.
“I’d love to taste you,” he said, his breathing harsher now, tone rough with lust. “Perhaps during the day, sneaking you off to a back section where people hardly ever wander. Watching you struggle to stifle your moans of my name would be as much a pleasure as making you come on my tongue.”
She was more than a little turned on by the idea of someone walking in on them having sex in the back of the shop, a soft gasp escaping her as he finished speaking, and he chuckled quietly. “Does that appeal to you, then? Spreading your legs for me in secret, knowing that at any moment someone could walk in and see you with your legs wrapped around me, moaning my name? Or perhaps on your knees? I’ve often wondered what your lips would look like wrapped around my cock...”
She moaned softly, clenching around him as he spoke. He was into the dirty talk thing, clearly, and the filthy words that were coming out of his mouth in his rough growl through gritted teeth were definitely the hottest thing she’d ever heard in her life. His breathing was heavier between words now, thick with want, and she could tell from how tightly he was gripping her hips and the strain in his voice that he was trying to hold himself back from coming, clearly wanting her to fall apart first. She was so close...
“Keep talking,” she panted out, and he chuckled.
“You make the most beautiful sounds, Caroline. It would almost be a pity to stifle them, but I think it would be just as sweet to watch you lick my come from your lips.”
She felt her muscles grow tight, her toes curling as he brought her to the edge, her breathing shallow and fast. He pinched her clit and dragged his teeth along her shoulder, and she licked her lips when he offered her his wrist, holding it in front of her mouth as an invitation. She could feel her gums break as her fangs pushed through, hear the rush of the blood in his veins even as the sound of skin against skin filled the room. Klaus’s encouraging groan when she ran her tongue along his wrist was all she needed to hear before she pierced his skin, moaning at his taste and tipping over the edge, taking just a few gulps before withdrawing and running the tip of her tongue along the closing wound to get every last drop. She felt him come inside her as she nipped his wrist with her blunt teeth, his body a comfortably heavy weight on hers before he rolled off of her. She shifted to face him, breathing hard, and she moaned when his hand moved between her thighs to build her up again.
He looked at her, reaching to wipe blood from her lips with his other hand and groaning softly when she licked it from his thumb before laying back so that he could climb on top of her, spreading her legs for his fingers, needing more.
His nails dug into her hip as he bent to press kisses to her neck, his cock hardening against her thigh when she tangled her fingers in his hair and traced his spine, breath hot on her neck. She took a sharp breath when he lazily circled her clit with a slick finger, her eyes widening when he spoke. His tone was smoother now, more seductive than rough and heated, and it only took a few words for her to realize that if she thought that he’d be satisfied with just one day with her, and she with him, she was sorely mistaken.
“We’re not so different, you and I, Caroline. We’re predators. I love the thrill of the chase, the anticipation, the catch. You’re a different sort of monster. You’re a temptress, luring your prey to you with just a simple look and finishing them before they realized that the pretty girl they thought they’d chased so easily had teeth when they got too close. I’m not fool enough to think that you’re mine already. We’ve only just begun. But tell me, Caroline, have you ever considered letting anyone close enough to catch you?”
She took a deep shaky breath, moaning as he began to press inside of her again, her walls stretching deliciously to accommodate him. She tried to gather every shred of annoyance she’d felt for him over the last month and a half to channel it into a stubborn glare, barely managing to keep her voice from being too breathless. “Not yet.”
He pushed himself on his elbows as he moved, the pace slower than it had been before but just as pleasurable, and her breath caught when she saw the way he was looking at her, drinking in every slight shift of her expression as though memorizing it.
“Perhaps one day you’ll let me.”
#klaroline#klaroline drabbles#klaroline drabble#klaroline smut#klaroline fanfiction#my fanfiction#mydrabbles#lalainajanes#ask#answer
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Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do
What is cooler than one multibillion-dollar box-office hit? Two multibillion-dollar box-office hits.
British actor Daisy Ridley is about to have both to her name as she returns as Rey in the next instalment of Star Wars. Emma Brockes meets her as she prepares for superstardom. — ELLE UK, December 2017
A few weeks after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey – Jakku scavenger, desert-planet survivor and feminist hero – went on holiday to an island off Croatia with friends from the crew. The actor, who was 23 at the time, had been warned that after the release of the movie – number seven in a franchise that has made more than $42bn (£33bn) – her life would dramatically change, and she was terrified. This was, after all, her first big-screen role.
In restaurants, she scrutinised waiters to see if they were being too nice to her; she wondered if she’d ever be able to use the tube again. On holiday, her friends started calling her Linda, ‘as a jokey alias’, she says, ‘and then they started calling me Paranoid Linda’ when she became convinced a man was following them around and wondered if he was a private detective employed by the studio.
Two years later, 25-year-old Daisy is sitting opposite me at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, dressed in a shirt and capri pants in clashing blue-and-white prints, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s brimming with the kind of enthusiasm that reads on screen as charisma, and that helps to explain her meteoric rise from stage-school graduate with a few TV credits to her name to one of the most recognisable young stars on the planet. Paranoid Linda still makes an occasional appearance, she says, but mostly she has managed to adjust to life after two Star Wars movies.
Daisy clings to the fact that fame doesn’t need to have a warping effect. It also fits in with her belief that the best way to survive the pressures of high-voltage exposure is to try enjoying it. Everything is ‘amazing’ in her world and everyone is ‘remarkable’, ranging from her mum (‘a great person’) to Barbra Streisand, with whom she recorded a song in 2016 (‘a fantastic woman’), Harrison Ford (‘awesome’) and ‘Colly’ – Olivia Colman to you and me – who she starred with in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and who she found ‘incredible’, naturally. There is no hint of sycophancy here; it appears that Daisy is simply joyfully happy.
This cheerfulness has acted as a useful screen to hide behind during the years since she made Star Wars. Now her character, Rey, is back for The Last Jedi, the new Star Wars movie, directed by Rian Johnson. But Daisy found this one to be much more pressure than the first movie. ‘I suddenly felt a much bigger sense of re- sponsibility,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that.’
This is no humble brag. Daisy’s candour when it comes to her own performance is kind of startling. As a child, her general inability to disguise her feelings occasionally sent her into scatter-brained overdrive, an impulse that her loving London-based family: Mum, who works in internal communications; Dad, who’s a retired photographer; and two sisters – a model and a musician.
Daisy sometimes reads as posh – there is a certain ringing tone to her accent. In fact, she says, her family is more bohemian than posh. The accent, meanwhile, probably comes from boarding school. Aged eight, Daisy went to board at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire – not, she says, from any desire to be an actor, but because a friend of hers had gone to boarding school and it sounded like fun. ‘I was such a grumpy child,’ says Daisy, smiling at the implication that she can still, now and then, throw a big wobbler. ‘I used to get super-distracted – once I’d done my work, I would be annoying to everyone else – and my mum thought if I was busy, I’d be less distracting. I always sort of felt like I didn’t fit in.’ This anxiety wasn’t just a result of being a bookish teenager, but a feeling of unreadiness to go out and meet the world as an adult. ‘At 12 or 13, I didn’t know how to do make-up,’ she says, ‘and I still don’t know how to do my hair. And people wore high heels at that age!’
Even now, Daisy retains some small sense of herself as an outsider looking in. How could she not? Her CV at this point is extraordinary: as well as Star Wars, the actress has starred in Ophelia opposite Naomi Watts, and shot Murder on the Orient Express alongside Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Sir Derek Jacobi and Olivia Colman. It was on that last set that Daisy finally cracked. ‘I turned to Ken, wiped away a tear, and said, “I can’t believe I’m here, thank you so much.”’ Daisy adds, only half-jokingly: ‘“Did someone make you cast me?”’ (No, he said.) The self-deprecation is real. It’s not just the burden of fame or lame faux humility. There have been times in Daisy’s life, most notably after the first Star Wars movie was released, when she was literally uncomfortable in her skin.
At 15, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition of the uterus lining that, along with other symptoms, can result in severe acne that is exacerbated by stress. You know, the kind of stress that comes when you find yourself the star of the biggest-grossing film of all time. ‘I was in my flat going nuts, and then my skin got really bad with the stress of it all, and I hadn’t been well – I had holes in my gut wall and stuff – and we were trying to figure out what to do with that because I’d felt poorly.’ She did what she always does in times of stress and turned to her family, moving first to her sister’s house, a few streets from their parents, then to a flat she rented on her own in the same west London neighbourhood.
Still, says Daisy, it was scary. It is difficult to think of a more in- tense introduction to Hollywood than winning a big role in a new Star Wars movie, nor a bigger professional leap than Daisy’s jump from small parts in the usual roster of UK dramas and long-running soaps – Casualty, Silent Witness, Mr Selfridge – to the first day of filming The Force Awakens in Abu Dhabi. She had only turned up to the audition when a friend mentioned she was going, too, and now here she was, on day one of the shoot, with a production assistant holding an umbrella over her to keep the sun off while she looked around and ‘freaked out’. And then JJ Abrams, the director, yelled ‘action’.
Daisy will never forget that first scene, in which she had to dismount from her Speeder bike and walk a short distance with BB-8 while saying something like, ‘We’re going to get you home.’ Is it true that, after delivering her line, JJ called her acting ‘wooden’? Daisy laughs. ‘It is true! After the first take, he goes, “Just a bit... wooden”, and then we carried on. But JJ is the kind of person who before a scene says, “Don’t fuck it up.” So he said, “Just a bit wooden”, and I was like, “Oh my God.” But it got better.’ She is still laughing at the discrepancy between how bad it sounds (quite bad), and how bad it was. ‘It’s only because that word “wooden” is so loaded. But it was just tense. And I thought, “OK, loosen that shit right up and it’ll get better.”’
In fact, Daisy found JJ Abrams and the rest of the production crew to be incredibly nurturing, to the extent that she was rarely aware of the Star Wars ‘ma- chine’. It was a friendly set, she says, where she mostly hung out with John Boyega, the 23-year-old Brit who plays Finn, and with whom she had the greatest number of scenes, although her best friends were among the crew. JJ Abrams had deliberately hired hair and make-up for Daisy from the team who had worked on the Harry Potter franchise because, she says, ‘aside from the fact that they’re amazing, he knew that they had looked after Emma [Watson], Daniel [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint] for however many years. I felt very well taken care of.’
Harrison Ford, meanwhile, reminds her of her dad – ‘They both have an earring and are fucking awesome,’ – and the first time she shot a scene with him, he gave her a hug and said, ‘She’s so adorable’, and she felt right at home after that. (Mean- while, when her real dad visited the set, he went up to Mark Hamill and, in classic dad fashion asked, ‘So, who do you play, then?’)
In fact, the most difficult thing about the whole Star Wars experience has been reconciling the terrible warnings she received about how life would change with the reality of what actually happened – that, and the anxiety of shooting the second film. In the first instance, ‘Everyone asked me, “Are you ready for your life to change?” And that gets into your mind.’ Throughout this period, she tried to hang on to a piece of advice given to her by the late Carrie Fisher – not to shrink away from the success, but to enjoy it – ‘And that was wonderful.’ Beyond that, she threw herself back into work. ‘At work, you’re normal, you’re not the anomaly, unlike in other situations.’
Surely she has occasionally been starstruck herself? ‘Absolutely not,’ she says. ‘I’ve never idolised anyone, really. I never had a crush thing. So when I met Barbra Streisand, for example, I was blown away, not because of her work, but because she’s a fantastic woman.’ It was JJ Abrams who recommended Daisy to Barbra, who was looking for a young star with a good voice to feature in Encore, her album of 2016. Daisy ended up singing with her on the song At The Ballet from A Chorus Line, and finding a new role model for herself. ‘I went to her house and we talked about [psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl] Jung because my dad loves Jung, and we were talking about dreams, and I left and got super emotional, not because she’s famous, but because she’s amazing. Part of her reputation comes from being a woman. If it was a man being “controlling” about his career, people would just say he knows what he wants.’
One of the things Daisy has struggled with in the wake of grow- ing fame is the responsibility of being told Rey is a role model for young girls. She has been asked about feminism and has had to scramble, on occasion, to form an opinion, not because she is bland or apolitical, but because everything she now says has the potential to come back and haunt her. For someone struggling with self-doubt, this can have a paralysing effect, and it is testament to Daisy’s seriousness that she has the sense to acknowledge it.
Of course, whatever kind of attitude you have, being a beautiful young woman in Hollywood means you are exposed to constant scrutiny. Daisy, like Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence before her, will have to weather the salacious interest that undercuts anything she has to say and, if she seems less confident than her peers, it’s not only part of her charm but also, paradoxically, speaks to some deep-seated security that one assumes comes from Daisy’s family; it can take greater courage to admit to one’s weaknesses than to cover them up with bravado or a fake kind of self-confidence.
She has also learned to sit back and relax a little, although shooting the second Star Wars movie, in which she had fewer scenes with her pal, John Boyega, made her briefly very stressed. ‘It’s not this big adventure that I’m on with John [unlike in the first movie]. I was thinking I did the first one because I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into and I was having loads of fun, and suddenly I’m realising what this actually is, and I can’t fucking do this.’
She says all this with a smile to acknowledge how neurotic this was. ‘I’m highly dramatic – so it’s all “oh my God”. And [director] Rian [Johnson] just said, “We’re going to do this, and these are the scenes, and this is how it’s going to work,” and finally I was like, “Oh yeah, this is working.” The fact is sometimes you’re not good at your job, and sometimes you’re better at your job.’
Having that kind of experience helps, but Daisy still has moments when she has to check herself to make sure it’s all real. There was one night on the set of Murder on the Orient Express when she found herself sitting around playing cards alongside Sir Derek Jacobi, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz and her husband Javier Bardem, who had come to support his wife. (Judi Dench had retired early to bed.) The next day, she and Sir Derek sat around doing the crossword. Even Paranoid Linda couldn’t worry the fun out of that one.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on 14 December.
— ELLE UK, December 2017
#i forgot to post this earlier#*#uploads#daisy ridley#elle uk#interview#rey#star wars#tlj#the last jedi#the force awakens#john boyega#jj abrams#harrison ford#rian johnson#kenneth branagh#murder on the orient express#carrie fisher#q
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The Duchess - Part 4
Summary: She hated him, for everything he had done to them, the damage he had caused, the suffering and pain he had left behind. She hated him… Didn’t she? Emilia comes face to face with the leader of the Saviours and is confronted with his true nature, which in turn has her questioning her own.
Warning/s: Eventual smut, slow burner, profanity/swearing, graphic descriptions of violence.
Pairing: Negan/OC
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
No gifs are made by me unless otherwise stated. All credit goes to the original creators.
Part 4
The Sanctuary/The Saviours
He rolled his shoulders and grinned as a tingle shot up his spine, whilst leaning forward in the passenger seat he re-angled the rear view mirror to watch her. Dwight shot him a look from the drivers seat, but didn’t dare question him and refocused his eyes on the road.
He rubbed a gloved thumb over Lucille’s handle as he saw Emilia watch the trucks go before she turned to Rick, placing one of her small hands upon his back. The smile fell from Negan’s face and his jaw jumped as he flexed it in anger, he watched from the growing distance as Rick turned to her and embraced her, his head resting atop her chestnut hair.
He was unaware he had growled in irritation until Dwight looked at him again and uttered a quiet “Boss?” In question.
He returned the rear view mirror to its original position and reclined in his seat, his eyes unfocussed on the road ahead. He could feel Dwight’s curiosity coming from him in waves and he sighed and rotated his head to face the man, scarred side on, he admired his handiwork for a moment before speaking.
“You gotta question you wanna ask me Dwight?” He felt his fury bubbling deep within his chest. Any rise he had gotten from Rick, any victory his submission had given him, had all been snatched away as he’d watched their embrace.
Dwight must have heard that in his tone for he gulped once and gripped hard onto the steering wheel. “I was just wonderin’ why you didn’t bring her with you.”
Negan’s jaw flexed again and as her face flashed in his minds eye he swiped his lower lip with his tongue. “The Duchess?”
Dwight’s brow furrowed as he glanced sideways at him. “Err, the one who beat on Arat. I don’t know her name. The English bitch.”
Negan’s grip on Lucille suddenly tightened and his gaze darkened further. He looked up in the rearview to see they were a considerable distance away from Alexandria and made his decision.
“Stop the fucking van.” His voice was quiet. Deadly. Lucille was begging for a taste of flesh, even if it was the twisted, charred kind. When Dwight didn’t immediately obey he yelled again in his mangled ear, leaning forward. “STOP THE FUCKING VAN.”
The brakes emitted a high pitched whine and the tyres squealed as Dwight jumped and slammed the breaks on fast. The vehicles behind followed suit, but no one was stupid enough to come up and ask why.
He could see Dwight’s hands shaking even as they gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.
“What. Did. You. Call. Her?” He leaned forward emphasising every word, his elbow was now propped upon Dwight’s shoulder as he ground the words out into his mutilated ear.
“I-I’m sorry Boss. I-” Suddenly Negan moved, his much larger frame pushing against Dwight, his elbow was lodged under his chin, forcing him back with a loud bang into the window. The force of the impact cracked the glass and Dwight wheezed as his air supply was cut off by Negan’s large forearm.
“Be careful Dwighty boy.” His voice was deep and rough with fury and Dwight was too afraid to meet his eyes. Too afraid he’d see the same look he’d seen there when the hot iron had approached his skin.
Then as quickly as he had moved he was back in place again, nonchalantly tapping his fingers on Lucille’s handle as he whistled a tune and looked out the window as if nothing had happened. Dwight rubbed at his neck as he sat up, his chest heaving with terrified gasps, and released the hand break.
Once they were moving again Negan spoke, his tone devoid of the fury Dwight had just been witness to.
“Her name is Emilia.” His voice caressed the name as if enjoying the taste of it in his mouth. “And I didn’ bring her back yet because when I do, it will be because she chose it.”
Dwight frowned again, worried about inciting Negan’s wrath again but also not quite understanding what he meant. “You think she’ll come voluntarily?”
Negan chuckled, his dark, rich tone filling the air around them. “Oh I know she will. I’ll just need to give her a little nudge in the right direction.”
Dwight kept his eyes on the road, probably wondering what plan Negan was concocting, but he most certainly wasn’t brave enough to ask.
Once they reached The Sanctuary Negan was quick out of the vehicle, swinging Lucille beside him as he barked orders to the men unloading their loot. As he made his way past the walkers out front, deliberately not breathing through his nose so he didn’t catch their rotten stench, everyone who saw him dropped to their knees. He couldn’t remember when that had begun, but he liked it, it gave him power over them and showed newcomers what behaviour was expected of them.
The sudden kneeling continued as he made his way through the halls, Lucille firmly gripped in his hand, he ignored anyone he may come across as he made his way to his office. Once he closed the door behind him he laid Lucille on the couch and poured himself a drink from the crystal decanter which was always kept filled to the top on his desk. He raised the whiskey to his mouth and took a deep drink, once he had swallowed he released the breath he felt as though he had been holding since he’d first seen her.
He didn’t miss a thing and certainly hadn’t missed her as she’d bashed her way past fat Joey on her way out of Rick’s house. Hm, what had she been doing in there anyway? She’d told him they weren’t a thing but they seemed awfully fucking close to him.
She had been a breath of fucking fresh air in that place and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to wanting to fuck her as soon as he’d seen her. But then she’d approached them and looked at him with such disgust that is interested was piqued beyond that. Hell as soon as she’d fuckin’ talked he knew he was screwed. That voice. That accent.
She had held herself like fucking royalty and his brain had immediately coined her ‘The Duchess’. She was too badass for ‘Princess’ and deserved far more than his regular phrase of ‘doll’.
He chuckled to himself quietly as he took another drink, letting the whisky burn his through as he recalled her first words to him.
‘Go fuck yourself.’
She really was something and he wanted her bad. He’d very nearly done as Dwight suggested, swooped her up and stolen her for himself, but he knew he had to be patient. She may not realise it but his charm had worked, he knew he was a charismatic motherfucker naturally, but when he put real effort into it… Hell even the larger chick had been creaming her pants for him.
Though that was probably due to her not seeing a lot of action. He’d bet The Duchess saw plenty.
His dark brows furrowed as he tried to get that picture out of his brain, he couldn’t think of her in that type of situation with any man. Which drove home to him just how screwed he was. He’d been in Alexandria, in her company for a couple hours and here he was jealous over her imaginary conquests.
He drained his glass and slammed it on the table. And to think he had to wait a whole week before he could see her again. He thought of her gleaming chestnut hair and her stormy blue eyes, he was sure a bruise would be coming up on that smooth cheek of hers, her heart shaped face would be marred by purple, green and blue and her perfect little lower lip would swell.
He smirked slowly to himself as he turned and look at Lucille in contemplation. He picked her up and made his way out of the door, he had things to do, besides perhaps they could pay a visit to Alexandria a little earlier than planned to keep Rick on his toes. Of course that would bring the added benefit of seeing her a little sooner.
And in the meantime he had the resource right in these very walls to try and find out more about his Duchess.
It turned out that said resource was galvanised from seeing his boyfriend Rick and had been pounding away at his cell door for hours. He’d had to have a conversation with Dwight about that. Even tried to tempt him with Sherry… He hadn’t caved, but also hadn’t accepted the invitation the fuck anyone else willing. Then showing what a good boy he was, ran off to do grunt work and left fat Joey in charge of Daryl, after Dwight had left Negan went to have a conversation with his favourite prisoners current babysitter.
“Boss!” Joey dropped to his knees quickly, his considerable weight making a loud thud and one of Negan’s eyes squinted in an almost wince as he thought about the pain that would have caused his knee.
“Get up fat Joseph, I want to test whether our guest is gettin’ the way things fuckin’ work around here.” He swung Lucille so she balanced on his shoulder. Joey glanced between her and Negan in fear, sweat breaking out on his upper lip.
He watched from afar as Joseph left the door unlocked and walked around the corner, pursed his lips and sighed in disappointment as Daryl made a break for it. He followed from a distance, bemused at his escape attempt until he glanced around a corner and saw Sherry whispering into his ear. All amusement vanished as rage descended, he watched intrigued as she told him to go back, told him it could get worse.
Damn fucking right it could, and would for her if she wasn’t honest with him.
He remained where he was as Daryl fled round the corner, heard her heels click on the floor as she approached, she came round the corner and slammed straight into his chest. He didn’t put his hands out to steady her as she stumbled but instead remained impassive as he looked at her.
“Why hello, my darlin’ wife.” Irony laced the word and her eyes shot up to his. She wasn’t dumb by any means but it took a little longer than he would have expected for her to get it. When understanding finally lit her eyes he only quirked a questioning eyebrow at her and rocked on his heels, Lucille still balanced on his shoulder and his other hand in his pocket.
“Daryl is out.” She said reluctantly. “He went that way.” She pointed behind her and Negan only nodded once as he looked over her appearance.
“You look like a schoolgirl in that sundress, go fuckin’ change it.” He barked and stormed past her as she flinched backward. He knew why he was being an asshole to her. Her eyes held only fear and resignation, not the fire and defiance he had seen only hours earlier in those stormy blue eyes which he was sure would stay with him. That sundress would have been perfectly acceptable to him in the hours before he’d seen Emilia in her white tank top and those tight camo pants which were perfectly moulded to her ass and thighs, leading down to her black leather boots.
He stood for a moment and closed his eyes at the memory, tracing every curve in his minds eye. Boy was he glad she hadn’t seen fit to zip up her jacket.
He jolted back to himself as he heard a door slam and continued on his way outside. He was really fucking disappointed in Daryl, but maybe he still had a chance to redeem himself.
Negan whistled as he walked slowly up to the circle of his man surrounding Daryl. He’d made it as far as the bikes, but the keys weren’t kept in them so had never stood a chance of getting away on one.
He meandered his way into the centre of the circle, like he had all the time in the world. He held Daryl in his gaze and smirked as he swung Lucille to his side and asked “Who are you?”
Fat Joey answered immediately “Negan.”
“Who aaare you?” He pointed her over his shoulder at whoever stood behind him, his eyes never wavering from Daryl as the answer came from behind. “Negan.”
“Who are ya?” He held both hands out to his sides and bounced once in apparent glee.
A chorus of “Negan” echoed around them and a self satisfied smirk bloomed on his face.
“You see that? I am everywhere and this was your shot to prove to me that that fundamental fact was sinking in, and you failed. Which sucks as your life was about to get so much cooler!” He remained facing Daryl but spoke to Fat Joey when he asked “Isn't that right?”
“Damn right.” Fat Joey repeated, a conceited, sly smirk turning the corners of his mouth up.
“Now Dwight gave you some options.” Negan said feeling both impressed and irritated by Daryl’s composure. “I don’t think you get it yet so I'm gonna break it down for you. One, you wind up on the spike and you work for me as a dead man. Two you get outta your cell and you work for points but you’re gonna wish you were dead, or three… You work for me, you get yourself a brand new pair of shoes and you live like a king! Choice should be pretty obvious, you should know, there is no door number four. This is it. This is the only way.”
Nothing.
Negan sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “Fair enough if you haven’t quite made your mind up yet, it’s a big decision, I understand. But i’m feeling generous so I’m willing to give you a little more time to think… Perhaps in a better room with food beside dog meat sandwiches? If you can give me some information.”
The men around Daryl briefly glanced at their leader, they hadn’t heard this part before. This little test was usually part and parcel of breaking someone, at this point most people agreed to join or went back into their cells listening to ‘Easy Street’ on repeat until they cracked. No one else had been offered more comfortable lodgings whilst they made up their mind in exchange for information. Whatever it was, the boss must want it bad.
“Yeah?” Daryl asked, lifting his chin defiantly as he glared at Negan through his swollen eyes and unwashed hair. “What you wanna know?”
Negan span on his heel and chuckled, swinging Lucille around with him. “Emilia.” Negan watched Daryl carefully and he saw the younger mans reaction, saw his eyes narrow and his jaw clench. “I wanna know everythaang there is to know about her. You willin’ to trade?”
It seemed even the mention of her name had injected more courage into Daryl and Negan felt his blood began to boil again, maybe he had her lover right here… He could open up the position in one fell swoop if that was the case. Everyone could see Daryl wasn’t going to talk, his extended silence only confirmed this.
“Screw it.” Negan spat before taking Lucille in both hands and swinging hard and suddenly toward Daryl’s face. He didn’t even blink.
“Wow! You don’t scare easy! I love that. But Lucille…” He raised the barbed wire baseball bat under Daryls nose. “Well it kinda pisses her off, she finds it to be…” He waved her around as if he was searching for the right word. “disrespectful. Lucky for you she’s not feeling too thirsty today…”
“But I am.” Negan leaned close, whispering menacingly into Daryl’s ear, his face was stone cold fury and a weaker man may have crumbled. “So i’m gonna go get me a drink!”
He laughed as he turned away and made his way back inside the factory, whistling as he heard fists connecting with flesh as his boys took Daryl down. He was irritated that he hadn’t managed to get any further information on The Duchess, but he wasn’t surprised that she inspired such loyalty.
Hell he didn’t even know why he was suddenly so interested in her, maybe it was the thrill of the chase, or how she looked at him like she fucking despised him. But interested he was.
Part 5
Taglist: @negan--is--god @negans-network @aeiflegonphoenix
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