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World of Darkness: Attrition - The Secret Lives of Dead Wolves and Warlocks [Fin]


Sarah Dead-Wolf

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[8:15PM 4 Feb 2009]

Tonight's hunt had been a return to old ways. The Red Dragon disgorged the usual string of students eating vast quantities of cheap Chinese buffet on a shoestring budget, and Sarah carefully took the lone straglers that made the error of attempting back-alley shortcuts. Still, she held to the precepts of Harmony - only what she needed was taken, the victims allowed to walk away thinking only that they'd met a particularly randy (if somewhat butch) girl along the way for a lucky (if slightly rough) bit of necking.

With that done, and after a good solid foot patrol of her claimed blocks of parkland and residences, Sarah set out for one of the stranger places on her internal map, though more for the occupant than the house itself.

A half-hour's stroll through the chill February night brought her to a well-appointed and very familiar door, and without hesitation she pushed the mounted speaker button beside.

"Roz, it's Sarah. Is Lucian in?"

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"Sarah!" Rosalinds Columbian accent, slightly modulated, excitedly returned through the speaker. "Sure sweetie, c'mon in! I'm making seviche, you have to try some!"

A few minutes later the scent of freshly cooking food caught Sarah's keen senses as Roz let her into the home. Once again Sarah vowed she'd never be caught wearing anything anywhere near like what the attractive house keeper called her 'uniform', despite Lucien's suggestion that she'd look great in it.

"He's up in one of the studies, hun." She smiled and winked at the Dead Wolf, completely ignorant of Sarah's true nature, before she strolled off in what appeared to house slippers to tend to her cooking. Apparently Lucien didn't require her to wear those god forsaken heels all the time. "Not sure which, try the east one, I heard him and Lou talking there earlier."

As she wandered the immense home taking in the antiques and artwork that made p the decor of 'Hunt Manor' she felt the tingle of her supernatural blood warning her that someone, or something, just like her was near: a supernatural.

It hardly bothered her, the scent she picked up was certainly Lucien's expensive cologne. She approached the large door to the eastern study and her keen could hear... chanting?

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"What in the...." Sarah had heard many noises come from the Underwear King of L.A. She'd been the encouragement behind a fair number of them, voluntary and otherwise. Chanting simply wasn't in the catalogue.

With no small amount of trepidation and care, she freed the latch and pushed the heavy oaken door ever so slightly open, peering within the cavernous chamber.

What she saw was quite a sight.

Lucien Hunt - model, rocker, scholar - was flying.

Well, maybe flying was a bit strong. Hovering was a better word. But in the moment, better words had scurried for cover from the forefront of Sarah's brain, crowded out by ten thousand iterations of, *What the fuck?!?*

Her lover was suspended in thin air, his toes pointing down but not quite touching the center of what she very much recognized as a pentagram, marked in chalk and what her nose told her was salt on the otherwise immaculate imported teak flooring. Shirtless - deliciously so, something dark within her whispered - the warlock was clad only in the simple pants of a taoist.

But that wasn't the most bizarre feature. Not by far. It looked as though some madman had raided the entirety of a Circuit City warehouse, lined the room with televisions, turned them all on to different channels, then took the sets away... but left the images behind, like impression left behind closed eyes after a bright light. The difference is that the entire jumble was continuing to move, scenes of Luna-only-knew-what flickering in and out all about him.

And in the midst of all this, he was chanting. This wasn't some Native American chant, or that of a remote Australian tribe. It was far, far too complex. Not to mention utterly indecipherable. Cripes, the Dead Wolf thought. It's like listening to First Tongue... run through an echo chamber. Backwards.

The scene threatened to overwhelm her mind. And perhaps as a defence mechanism, her mind took a nearly reflexive action. Stepping quickly in, Sarah slammed the door - hard enough to rattle the windows and shake runnels down the little piles of salt.

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The ritual was shattered as the Mage's concentration was scattered like... salt upon his floor. The balls of his feet slammed back to the floor, gravity claiming its own once more, and he stepped forward swiftly once in an attempt to recapture his balance.

One by one each of the 'screens' flickered out in a static-like blur. "Alright Roz," Lucien said, not turning around yet to see his guest. "Before you freak I'd like to point out that this is not the strangest thing you've walked in on me doing."

He turned finally, ready to think up a good excuse, when Sarah's fiery lock caught his attention and transformed his defensive expressive into a look of elated joy. "Sarah." He said, as if speaking her name might reveal any illusions before him. When she remained, leaning against his desk with a rather victorious grin (she'd never shattered an Arcane ritual before), he returned it in kind with a wry grin of his own and the Hunt wit rose to the surface. "Sorry, caught me watching some T.V. Thirty different countries and nothing on. Can you believe it?"

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"When," the vampire said, stalking forward with the unnatural grace of a predator, "did you learn," she continued, stepping lightly across the chalk and salt into his personal space, "to fly?"

With those last words, her cold hand found themselves flat against Lucien's very well-defined chest, and her eyes locked with his own. The barest hint of fangs show in a smile that the warlock couldn't quite define between impish and predatory, and there was no mistaking the raw and wild nature of this creature for anything human.

He wouldn't have had her any other way.

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"Not so much flying," his chest heaved at the tingling chill that shot across his torso. "Just the manipulation of space to simulate levitation."

His hands slid up under her shirt and touched the soft cool skin just above the waistline of her jeans before resting her hips. "Missed you." He said softly, his warm breath brushing her cheek and threatening to flush it with life once again with every spoken word. "How was your trip?"

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"It was good," she offered, playing her fingers and eyes over his chest and taut stomach. "Found some lost pups, helped them become a pack, fought some bad guys, saved a lost sacred place. You know," she said, glancing back up from beneath hooded eyes. "The usual.

"But it was missing something," she added, and leaned in to nuzzle - more like a wolf than a woman - against his warm skin, moving up with the side of her nose and soft cool cheek along the road map of sensitive spots she'd mapped out on the mage over many a restless night. There was the slightest sensation of moving air, despite her lack of breath - the slighest of sniffing, Lucien knew from previous experience, her sense of smell every bit as important to her as those of sight and sound and touch, colouring her world in ways a human mind simply wasn't prepared to understand.

And then, he felt something that had been missing for quite a long while, as sharp points of promised ecstacy drew ever so lightly across the skin, tracing the line of his collar bone as they went.

In the barest of whispers, so slight he couldn't be sure if it was heard or imagined, Lucien heard her say, "Missed you, too."

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Sarah was a tough girl, it's what he liked about her. She was real, nothing about her was fake or made up for the sake trying to impress him or hose around her. She was a proud woman with a valorous soul. Every emotion when she chose to let one float to the surface was always there, loud, and in your face. One hundred percent real with nothing to hold her back.

He hadn't experienced many of her emotions. He'd experienced her anticipation, her hunger, and even her anxiety over not being able to have him the way she truly wanted. Her lust he was sure he'd more than likely not survive, but here she was, seemingly uninhibited and finally ready to take what she'd wanted for so long.

One gentle hand crawled up her back, the slide of his fingertips sending shivers through the fabric of her shirt upon her skin, until his thumb traced across her cheek as if brushing away invisible tears. Tears of the soul that only Lucien's arcane sight could see. "Within these walls Sarah, you'll never be judged. Speak what it is you want and I'll give you all you desire." His soft whispers danced along forgotten sensations within her memory. "Desire me and I'll be all you ever need."

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"You have no idea how much I desire you, Lucien Hunt." The words came as half-silk, half-growl, and a fire was alight in her eyes that would have terrified a lesser man.

The soft touch of her fingertips gave way to the sharp points of something far more dangerous, just barely enough pressure to bring a tingling sensation of danger and fear as they drew parallel lines down to - and through - Lucien's loose pants. Strips of fabric fell like ribbons to the floor, followed by what remained of his single article of clothing. And all the while, the strange mixture of nuzzling and teasing with fangs never stopped.

Within Sarah's mind, instincts and wants clammored for attention. Her Beast made the same claim as always - to feed on this willing vessel. But other instincts had been developing in the Dead Wolf. Her time with the Sonomas had brought about feelings of closeness that had always been denied her, the pack at times coming together in wolf-like touching that sang to her soul. And there was something else, too. Perhaps it was from spending too much time with Declan, or maybe some of what she'd felt from the Sonomas had worn off. Maybe it was even some small offering from Luna, something to bring her closer to the thoughts of the People. But whatever it was, Sarah wanted to mate.

Whichever of these things won out, it resulted in a whisper that floated up to Lucian's ear: "If you want me, undress me."

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Certainly in rare form this evening, Sarah's advances were never anything less than received in full and returned in kind. Exhilarated by the pleasure/pain sensation brought on by her desire, mingled with the exotic sting of her claws, sent him busily to work on removing all he could from his amorous vampire guest.

Every garment seemed to take him an eternity as his lips explored flesh and his mind connected to hers. He knew for certain that Sarah was indeed still Sarah, that the Embrace had not erased her memories, it simply dulled her emotions and tucked them away, locking them deep within the lair of her Beast.

His magic traveled through her mind, reaching out to those long locked away memories, those echoes of a time when Sarah was once a living, breathing woman, echoes that were held tight and treasured by her Beast, for with them, he controlled her. Silently, weighed in moments that spread along lengths of time the couple couldn't' begin to measure the Arcana struck an accord with her fire haired Beast. Give to Sarah what was rightfully hers, if only for the span of this evening, and it would have the Mage's blood it ought so eagerly.

In a rush of euphoria she suddenly knew the pleasure of a lovers lips upon her own, the sensation of gently traced fingertips across the sensual curves of her body. This night Sarah's memories were restored from the shadowed veil of undeath. Tonight she could feel. The desire for blood still consumed her every thought, but with it now were the ripe pleasures of the joys and lusts that comprised the entirety of Humanity's desire.

She almost sat upon the large desk, but instead leaned against it as the last of her clothing was tossed without concern to some shadowed corner of the study leaving her in only her bra and panties (in a pattern she claimed she never wear, ever) and him in near shredded pants. Reflexively inhaling after each shiver of pleasure tingled up her spine she began to wonder what he'd done to her to make her feel so alive.

"My gift," he whispered softly, while exploring her collar bone with a gentle tongue and peppered kisses. "To you."

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He'd done something; of that, she was absolutely sure. Exactly what was unclear, but Sarah felt more vibrantly alive than at any point in the last three years... no, she amended, than I ever have. It wasn't to say that she couldn't be emotional; the Dead Wolf was a creature driven by feelings, after a fashion. But those feelings were usually ones of envy for her Uratha cousins, of hope to win acceptance and perhaps even become a bit more like them, of the thrill of a hunt - or of Hunt, for that matter - and of course the near-euphoria of feeding. Other, lesser emotions were still in the mix, but muted in a way, held in check in preference to the instincts of survival. It wasn't to say that they couldn't find occasional way to the surface - her breakdown in front of Declan the previous night was harsh proof of such - but such moments were rare, and even then deeply tied to her baser emotions.

Now, the balance had changed. The slight pleasures at a lover's touch, treasured more for the sense of camaraderie than anything else, had suddenly flared to bright and living meaning of their own. Joy - true joy, not the mere sense of accomplishment and hope for more that she'd called joy for these past few years - washed through her like cool spring water, caressing parts of her soul that had been untouched for so, so long.

But all of this joined with feelings and drives that were starkly inhuman. The memory of Lucien's sweet blood was like fire now, hot and bright and a burning need in a way that was nothing short of dangerous, her Beast finding the advantage of this new vibrancy in her feelings.

And challenging that renewed call to feed, vying for emotional supremacy, were her newfound instincts as something so very akin to the wolves she'd treasured, the lessons of her brief packmates - and her hoped-for Alpha - writ in searing silver upon her heart and mind. She had wanted to mate. It was no longer a want; it was an imperative, an undeniable command from some force utterly beyond her. It was the way of the wolf... and now, it was the way of Sarah Dead Wolf.

When she pushed him to the floor, tearing away the last remnants of both's clothing with claws still bright but not nearly so bright as her eyes, there could be no doubt in either's mind that this would be a night remembered - if survived.

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Were there sacred laws in Atlantis that forbade the act they committed, both surely would have been found guilty in a heartbeat. There upon the floor, lost in the ecstasy found in the grip of a lovers flesh and the taste of their kiss, the rolled about within the center of the Altantian Pentagram each attempting to find purchase upon the other in a wild display of sexually fueled one-upmanship.

His body glistened, well oiled by his own sweat and the heat of passions long over due as Sarah's inviting body and luscious curves reamined soft and timeless, frozen in eternal perfection. He held her tight kissing her passionately, each sensual moan she let slip was owed to his damp body as it flexed tightly muscle groups that allowed Sarah's touch to explore regions of his body she'd only imagined in sun soaked slumbers. Together, with every tightening of his thighs and abdomen she felt him fall into her deeper and deeper until she and her mate both seemed as a one; a pair of souls in perfect communion with their lust and desires. He was lost in the majesty of her primal Embrace as his Awakening of her mind unlocked pleasures unimaginable.

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It couldn't happen. Every vampire knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no real pleasure to be found within their dead bodies in the act of physical intercourse. It was always just a prelude, a ploy, a trap to lure in prey for the real moment of pleasure: the ecstacy of the Kiss. There was simply no way for the body to feel the joy of sex.

With arcane words, Lucien had ripped that page from the rules that governed Sarah's existence, casting it to the side... and releasing a true monster in the process. Her body, vibrant with sensation sent to a mind once more alive with passion, sent her down roads far more dangerous than she had planned to tread. Claws found purchase in his yielding flesh, and a panoply of instincts drove her to acts that would have broken a lesser man than her lover.

Somewhere in the midst of passions, her hunger came into the fore. Bright points of bliss tore into the wizard's throat, and the pair were doubly coupled in a primal, lustful embrace. The incredible nectar that pumped through Lucien's veins flooded her senses with such incredible bliss, such mind-altering rapture, that there was a moment's risk of his life ending right then and there, slipping away beneath her fangs.

Enough - barely, but enough - of Sarah remained to prevent that tragic end. But not enough was there to stop what happened next. As wave after wave of pleasure washed over the pair, her wolf-like needs and wants made clear that this one, this magnificent male, would be claimed. The problem was in marking the claimed. Whatever pheromones Sarah may ever have had were over three years gone now. There really was only one thing left to her, one scent uniquely and undeniably hers. Biting her own tongue, she moved swiftly into a kiss that was as passionate and needful as it was brutal and fell. In the heat of the moment, the sweet elixir that was her vitae ran over his searching tongue, and down a throat that was parched for everything she could give.

Such was the moment that realization came late - too late to save either one, really. As Lucien's eyes went large in realization, the kiss was broken, and the Dead Wolf looked to him with eyes full of passion and pride, lust and ownership. "We..." she panted, "we both need... each other... now." She pulled in air thick with their mingled scent, and said in final fashion, "Now, you are my mate."

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Lucien cared for Sarah more than Sarah could imagine. She was lovely, determined, strong, and just so real that she'd stolen his interest within just a few moments after their first meeting. He was her loyal friend and trusted confidant; he was her friend first, and lover second and not just because of the obvious reasons.

And it was all cast aside in crimson droplets down his throat. All that remained was the realization that 'Sarah tasted good' as the vitae coursed through his mind an body Lucien wanted more. Sure, he was aware that sometime ago he was incredibly interested in the redheaded vampire but for the life of him he just simply wanted to get back to the sharing.

He closed his eyes and focused, inhaling deep the sweet scents lust and blood. Calling out to what little composure he possessed at this point the Mastigos slid his hands down from between her shoulders, cupping her breasts and trailing his finger tips across her abs until they rested gently upon her hips. "If by mate, Sarah, you mean we're 'going steady', then okay." His words were honeyed, but she could sense something more was coming. "This is not animal kingdom."

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"This is not animal kingdom."

Sarah heard his words, and understood them... to a point. However, she was a creature well and truly unleashed - except, of course, from his magnificent and sustaining blood - and her thoughts were a complex tangle of man and wolf, Beast and Dead-Wolf, all seeped in a lifetime of learnings of the Uratha.

"We're all animals, Lucien," she purred out. "Strip away the trappings, and we're all primal. It's just that some of us," she said with the purr becoming a growl, "are more than others."

That last word was slightly distorted, as something happened, something wrong. Her fangs were joined by similarly sharp teeth as her face elongated. Beneath Lucien's hands, smooth skin sprouted a soft undercoat and then the long surface coat of grey fur. The hips he had been holding changed, realigning on lines never intended for bipedal locomotion. Her hands, flat on the floor to either side of his torso, clenched into fists... and then became paws.

In the space of a few seconds, a wolf stood where Sarah had knelt, astride the naked warlock and looking down into his startled eyes with primal black-on-yellow orbs of her own that still somehow, impossibly, showed a window to that same immortal soul.

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The playboy's face was stuck in a mix of shock, revulsion and irritation. He sighed, rolling his eyes a bit, the 'mood' was just officially shot dead. "Get off me." He said half sighing.

Sarah cocked her head to the side.

He snapped his head forward to look directly at her. The floor boards broke away, falling into some unknown void, space beyond being nothing but darkness as patterns of purple and muted reds swirled about like a nebula beneath him. The walls and furniture all seemed to melt away into a twisted rendition of a Salvador Dali painting as the distance between all surrounding points fluxed and wavered as gravity lost its dominance. The Devil within Hunt unleashed a pathway into the realms of Pandemonium. "I said, get off me."

And this time she did as she was told. Not because she wanted to, but because she was ordered to do so. He was in her mind, controlling her every thought, and action. She strode to the side as he got to his feet. Naked and sweating he leaned, his back to her, against the desk. His hands resting on its surface as he stood attempting to collect his thoughts. "You may change back now Sarah." He commanded.

And so she did as he patiently waited for the transition his mind was filled with dark thoughts. Were she so anxious to play the animal, she'd need to learn who the master was. He sighed and snuffed those lingering thoughts of anger. No. She is simply misguided and I've already over reacted enough. Christ Lucien, I'm supposed to be helping her, not raping her free will.

The rooms returned to normal in a simply blink that left one wondering if it ever happened at all. With out any secret speech or command word Sarah felt the hold on her freewill released. He didn't turn to face her, still in the process of calming himself, he spoke as he leaned over the desk. "We both know either an argument or dismemberment is well on it's way, so would you mind telling me what the hell you were thinking, Sarah?

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Once the world returned to some semblance of normality, once control returned to her mind and body, the mass of emotional turmoil that was Sarah at the moment was likely the only thing that saved Lucien from a rather immediate and fatal disembowlment. Her Beast had turned over the keys to her heart for this one night, and without them couldn't muster the frenzy that her humiliation and outrage threatened.

So, the sleek and powerful wolf didn't leap at the Mastigos and tear out his midsection. Nor did the lean woman who reformed, naked and clawed, leap at her lover's turned back and remove his spine segment by segment.

Instead, she simply stood her ground - fully aware that this warlock, her lover, her confidant, her friend, her mate could rip it away from her at any moment - and asked in a voice rife with both anger and pain, "Which part? The one where these feelings you've loosed in me brought me to feed? The one where I marked you and you alone as my mate? Or the one where I showed you the form I hold dearest in my heart? Which part, Lucien, is the one that you want to understand?"

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"First, if you want us to be together than I accept there are certain requirements, my blood being one of them, for you." He turned and leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. "And that I give freely, if it's what you desire."

"Second." He kept looking towards her. "People do not 'mark other people and call them a mate. Animals do that, and you are not an animal Sarah, you are a Vampire, and while you may be a predator, you are certainly far from being an animal. If you want to have a relationship, and I can't believe I'm saying this, then fine, I'm willing to give it a shot. I do not want to be straddled by wolves while I'm naked and erect Sarah. For Christ's sake."

"Third." Lucien sighed. "If that is what you hold dearest in your heart Sarah, then how can believe that there will be any room for me?"

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She bristled through the first note. Months of effort were gone, and there was no doubt in her mind now that she would indeed be needing Lucien's blood now just to keep her head halfway straight.

The second point nearly pushed her right back into a near frenzy. The last thing that Sarah wanted was for yet another person - especially one near and dear to her - to lecture her on her nature.

And then the third point hit, and her anger melted into regret.

"You didn't hear me right," Sarah said in a surprisingly soft voice. "The form of the wolf, the one I hoped and prayed I'd be able to take as my own someday, is the form I hold dearest in my heart. It's not the thing I hold dearest. I thought you knew the difference."

Sighing, she looked around for a minute, then finally decided on her traditional seat: the edge of his desk.

"I've been trying to stave off the cravings for your blood for months. It's why I'd been so careful around you. Hell, in part it's why I'd been kinda scarce. I figured that it'd diminish in time, and then I wouldn't be a threat every time we got together." Looking down at her feet, the nude woman rued, "That sure as hell didn't work."

There was still the other matter, probably the most touchy of the bunch. Without looking up, she sighed again and tried to explain. "I'm not a werewolf. I know that. I accept it. But I am a Dead Wolf. It's as much a part of me as breathing is a part of you. It's not an affectation, or a fad, or something I can take off and hang up on the coatrack when I come to visit. It's not the same as being like my cousins. But it's close in some very fundimental ways. And we take a lot of our customs and habits from our shapeshifer cousins.

"Not everything applies, 'course. But some of us are closer than others. I... you didn't know this, but when I went up to Sonoma, to try to teach that pack, I became a part of that pack in all but a very few ways. I was the Alpha of that pack. And it felt like coming home in a way. Like family. I'm geared to join a pack, Lucien. I think a lot more like the People than I do most vampires. And even when I was human, I was raised from my earliest days in how one takes a mate.

"Yeah, we're not animals. I know. But what I know isn't 'going steady', or 'marriage', or whatever the term is in California this week. What I know is a mate, and I know that to be a very close bond." Finally looking up, she dared gaze into Lucien's eyes again. "That's what I thought we were going to have. A very close bond, soul to soul. Maybe I was wrong."

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"No, Sarah, no." His bare feet padded across the remnants of shredded clothing and scattered underwear. The sympathetic tone she'd come to know reclaimed his voice. "You weren't wrong."

Without fear of reprisal the Mastigos pulled his lover near and held her close. "Things will work out Sarah, we're just going to have a harder time of it than most." His cheek brushed hers and he lovingly kissed her temple.

"I over reacted, and I'm sorry." he said, holding her close. "I know how much the wolf means to you, but please understand that I know there is a woman under all that wolf, so please, for both our sake, keep the wolf off my naked body. I'm not sure how you were raised up there with the People and their kin with all the wolf sex going on, but I'm not them, and I'm not you. Those things aren't cool with me, so please, pretty please with a heaping scoop of sugar on top, please remain in a human shape while your with me."

Sarah opened her mouth to protest and he gently placed his finger on her lips. "Give me time to get used to you and this, and then we'll work on the wolf thing. But never in bed again Sarah, and I'm not even kidding. I almost soiled my floor."

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Despite herself, Sarah managed a smile. Not just a smile, but a rare, clear, true smile the likes of which hadn't graced her face in a long, long time.

"I think we can manage that. One step at a time." With a tenderness that Lucien wasn't used to seeing in his undead girlfriend, she leaned in and gave him a quick, tiny kiss on the tip of the nose.

"But," she said after the kiss, "one ground rule of my own. No more messing around in my head. OK?"

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"Sarah, it's not right. I know that. I accept it. But I am a Mastigos mind reader.. It's as much a part of me as pack-dynamics is a part of you." The grin he was giving her was a mile wide. Where had she heard this before? "It's not an affectation, or a fad, or something I can take off and hang up on the coatrack when I come to visit you know."

A slender talon slid down his toned frame and caressed his still very exposed manhood. Sarah's raised eyebrow and wry grin spoke volumes.

"Messing around. No more. Got it." His levity helped to ease some tension the young couple certainly had pent up. "Now c'mon, lets get cleaned up and do all that except the bad stuff again. Maybe even in a bed this time. You'll love it."

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