The royals aren’t the only ones arriving at Vayal for the Gauntlet Games, just the first. Schools from all over come to compete, people from all over to spectate.
Katarina’s skirt flows about her legs in the pre-dawn breeze. She didn’t know if Illaria would come early — sometimes the elder vampyr likes to travel by night so she can throw the carriage windows open, feel the breeze and see the landscape rushing past below them like something from a dream — and so Katarina arrives before anyone else to wait for her love. At least it means she gets a good spot, in front of the snarled wooden bleachers lining the landing strip.
There was no need for her punctuality, it turns out. Illaria’s brightly curtained sky carriage doesn’t roll in until well after the string of Princesses and lower nobility have already arrived, their names and faces sliding from Katrina’s consciousness like rain down a window. Her parasol spins in lazy circles, bothering the students behind her.
When the sky carriage finally materialises in Vayal airspace and Illaria’s pegasi Asteroid and Swifthoof land, hooves thundering, Katarina’s mind explodes with pleasure. When the bright blue and orange curtain opens, just a crack, and Illaria’s deep red eye finds Katarina’s identical ones, she feels like her heart could just start beating again; like it could fly away.
Come find me, Petal. I’ve missed you, the words sound so close to Katarina’s ear that it sends a shiver through her cold body. Katarina soars.
Yes, she sends back, the word filled with utter devotion, yes!
She wants to say more, to say I’ve missed you, I’ve thought about you every night, I’ve gone crazy here, but she doesn’t want to come on too strong. Sixty years together (together most of the time, at least, Katarina doesn’t like to think about their off years), and Trina still feels terrified of embarrassing herself in front of the ancient, gorgeous woman. Her woman, with her irresistibly ageless voice and perfectly oval face, an angel’s face, unmarked by the usual signs of vampirism.
“Kat,” says another, rougher voice; an intruder on Trina’s bliss.
She whirls, her plans to slip behind the guest suites and enter from the side entrance interrupted by Mathilde. “What do you want?”
The willow tree that drapes over them leaves mottled light on Mathilde’s face.
“Wanna hang out?”
The vampyr cocks a bumpy, ridged eyebrow. “No.”
Katarina turns to leave. Mathilde’s arms stop her, pin her against the willow tree.
“Because… that was your girlfriend right?”
“No.”
Mathilde cocks her head, eyes searching. Katarina desperately tries to ignore the smell of her and the steady thump of the pulse in her throat. “Don’t lie to me, Kat,” Mathilde puts a hand to her chest, wounded, “I bled for you.”
“I mean,” says Katarina, fuming, “no as in that’s not why I don’t want to hang out with you. I don’t like you, Mutt.”
Mathilde smiles, leans closer. “That can’t be true.”
Godsdamnit, why does she have to smell so good! Katarina pulls away and is again arrested by Mathilde’s arm. Bitch! Mongrel!
Katarina could overpower her easily, of course, but the animal in her takes over when she fights. Her mind will blank, her fangs will come out, the werewolf girl will be dead- All of this is sounding oddly appealing.
No! Katarina’s attempt at an education will be dead in the crib. Then Illaria will grow bored of her, she’ll be alone again.
“Your mouth is watering.” The werewolf, a head shorter than Katarina, stares up at her seductively.
“Get away!” The closeness, her anger, it’s too much. Katarina eyes blacken, her fangs distend.
Mathilde’s thigh, naked beneath her skirt, comes up and presses hard into Katarina’s crotch. The vampyr, utterly shocked, lets out a whimper. Mathilde kisses her, tongue forcing its way between her lips, tracing the shape of her fangs.
Katarina, whose mind is beginning to work again (at least enough to want the wolf’s blood) lunges forward toward the throat; but Mathilde, surprisingly strong even for a werewolf, uses Katarina’s momentum against her, wrestles her to the ground.
“You hungry baby?” asks Mathilde, straddling the feral vampyr. Katarina gnashes, prepares for another attack.
Suddenly, air is pressing all over her body, the pressure so intense that she can’t move a muscle — can’t even draw a breath. Luckily, breathing is optional for Katarina; even though she can’t so much as scream to express her discomfort, can’t hiss in fury. She can’t tear the throat, can’t drink. All she can do is watch as Mathilde straddles her.
Katarina desperately tries to move against the pressure, wits slowly returning. If she could just get control of her fingers, just cast.
Mathilde bites her own wrist, releasing a steady flow of hot blood that splashes over Katarina’s face and collar. Any brain function she had ceases immediately. The pressure around her face releases and she strains toward the source, hissing.
“Now, now, I’m not gonna let you drink if you can’t be good.”
Katarina does not understand. She moans in pure, animal desire, stretching painfully toward the blood, eyes wide and totally black, snarling. The smell is her totality.
“Well shit, Kat, I just can’t say no to you.”
Tenderly, Mathilde raises her wrist over Katarina’s uncontrollably salivating maw, opens the wound with her nail to speed up the flow.
Katarina drinks, maddened by the trickle. If she could just stretch an inch higher, just wrap her teeth around the soft arm and latch on. All these thoughts are wordless, a matter of instinct.
Mathilde watches, enraptured. She tries to reconcile this creature with the small, put-together woman she observed all morning at the procession; uptight bitch with her spine all straight and her parasol spinning like it isn’t blocking the view for half the bleachers. And then when the gaudy carriage came, ugh, the way she melted. When the smoky red eye peered out from behind the curtain, she actually shivered. Idiot.
That wasn’t this Katarina, though. This Katarina is hers. She’ll never want the stupid, flashy vampyr as much as she wants Mathilde’s blood, right now. The wolf uses her other arm to stroke Katarina’s hair lovingly. The vampyr doesn’t notice.
“Why don’t you want to be like this, Kat? Animal; living for what feels good. Why do you have to put on an act like that?”
Kat strains toward the slowing trickle, mindless, in bliss and agony. When it finally slows to a stop, the vampyr screams.
“Sorry, baby,” says Mathilde shifting her weight back and forth slowly, “enhanced healing. My blood coagulates real quick.”
The wolf licks the remaining blood from her wrist, locking her eyes with Katarina’s while she does it, smiling at the desperation in them. Mathilde moves faster, squeezing her thighs tight around the vampyr’s thin hips.
Katarina, mind only just beginning to relight, lets out a moan. Mathilde does too, moving faster. In her excitement, she loses the wind magic for a moment, but it doesn’t matter. Driven by another animal need now, Katarina only slams her hands into Mathilde’s hips, uses her preternatural strength to move Mathilde more firmly against her.
The blonde woman screams up into the trees as she cums. When she’s finished, she slips off Katarina, whose mind isn’t present enough to argue. Mathilde directs Katarina’s semi-transformed hand into her underwear, and that’s all the encouragement she needs.
Mathilde, who had meant to leave immediately after extricating herself, finds she can’t look away as Katarina moans and shivers and thrashes, hand moving wildly under her skirt, totally unbound now. Finally, Mathilde forces herself to speak.
“Sorry,” she says, voice burning as she backs away, “I just don’t want to argue with you, and I have a feeling you’re gonna get pretty clearheaded pretty quick after- well.”
Katarina looks up at her pleadingly with dark eyes, whimpers. Mathilde, not wearing underwear and fully visible beneath her skirt, stops, smiles. “You ever notice that you’re always angry when you’re clearheaded? Makes you think, y’know, maybe you should fog it up in there a little.”
She shrugs, and then skips away. Katarina watches her retreating back as she cums.
Katarina lets herself into Illaria’s suite with her head down, cheeks flaming with Mathilde’s blood. Illaria, 6’3 and hugely curvaceous, doesn’t stop gazing from the window. Her light brown curls are glossy, healthy, bouncy — nothing like Katarina’s, which looks straight from the grave.
“You smell like you’ve eaten.”
Katarina can’t even bring herself to hold her eyes on the beautiful woman's back. Guilt overwhelms her.
“Who?”
“It’s… this werewolf girl from my class. We were talking, and she provoked me-”
“Really?” When Illaria turns, her perfectly groomed brows are angry. “To be brought to anger by a child? I expected better.”
Katarina’s eyes prick with tears. She blinks them back.
“I didn’t kill her, she-” Katarina stops short, because Illaria sinks to her knees, looks up angrily through her lashes.
“The thought that you were out cavorting with a wolf while I was here, waiting for you.”
Trina reaches out for Illaria’s shoulder, but she pulls away. There’s a pain like a splinter in the younger woman's heart.
“I didn’t mean to- Illa please.” Katarina drops, tries to wrap her arms around the larger woman, but Illaria stands abruptly and turns her back.
“To be stood up for a werewolf!”
“No, that’s n-” Illaria raises a manicured hand and Katarina stops talking instantly.
“Leave me.”
Illaria’s tone brooks no argument, but Katarina is desperate. If she can just make her see. She stands, clutches Illaria’s shoulder desperately.
Thwack.
The slap is fast and vicious. One of Illaria’s rings slices Katarina’s cheekbone, spilling fresh blood down her face. The smell of Mathilde fills the room.
“Leave.”
What else can she do?
As Katarina is walking through the Honey Suites — the silent statues guarding its doors honour psychic invitations, as long as it comes from someone staying in the Suites — Mathilde is stalking the gardens looking for a way inside.
The problem with being a wolf is damn near everything gets your blood up. Sign ups are on right now, and she ought to get over there; they say First Years shouldn’t compete, but the Academy’s never had Mathilde before, and she reckons there’s gotta be some events she can win. And it’s not like she can’t regenerate any hurt in like, what, a couple minutes?
Be that as it may, sign ups are a theoretical, far off thing in the most distant horizons of her mind, owing to some powder or perfume or whatever that’s rubbed off on Mathilde’s thighs, skirt, and hips, and so she made it about five steps before the smell flooded her mind, eliciting the same reaction as, say, a freshly killed deer.
Now, if Mathilde wanted, she could get up one of the many leaning trees throughout the garden, shimmy along the branches, and make it through an open window, but all she’d get for the trouble is a teleport back to her room and an automatic black mark.
It’s not clear how pacing the garden is going to make an invitation reveal itself; but the smell of gigi is a welcome distraction from this brick fucking wall she’s hit (like literally the statues just won’t talk to her), and she follows it a little too fast, almost running.
Its source is a deer, a good few inches taller than Mathilde, leg cocked against a wall, joint in her hand and booze in her veins.
The two noticing each other triggers a palpable shift in the air, the sudden presence of static and copper, the tension of dogs circling, growling, never looking away until they’re satisfied ‘we all understand, if something happened here, I’d win.’ It was the same feeling back in Achillea.
“Sup.” Mathilde takes the initiative; point to her.
“Hey.” Alyx is unbothered, impassive; point to her.
“You smoking gigi?” Mathilde, like any other casual user under forty, finds the name gigglegrass ridiculous. (As well she should — the extraordinarily powerful and equally thoughtless mage Genna The Pure erased the plant’s much cooler former name in an effort to reduce its consumption [an effort foiled by the near-immediate adoption of slang terms like gigi, skeef, longleaf, klangor, grass, and — because of course — Genna.])
“Finest grass on campus. Want a puff?”
Mathilde reclines against the wall next to her and accepts the joint with just the right amount of nonchalance, earning another point to cancel out the one Alyx got for holding it out so casually, like why would I ever be scared of you?
“Godsdamn,” Mathilde mutters. Every other time someone’s held out some gigi and told her it’s good, the stuff has gone down clanking — but this girl’s dead right; finest grass on campus.
“I can get you a lot more than primo-grade Genna. Course the Genna’s my specialty, but I can get you all kinds of shit. Harpy? Girl like you loves harpy, surely.”
It’s been a long time since Mathilde was On The Claw, and she’d gladly take some if it didn’t knock her flat for four days afterwards (she has no idea why, but a particularly knowledgeable observer would be able to tell you it’s because Harpyclaw only grows under moonlight, and absorbs a hell of a lot of it when it does, so you put that in a werewolf and the high’s great, but the crash is just as bad — funnily enough, she’d be totally fine with Alyx’s conjured claw, just not the organic stuff). But she asks “how much?” anyway, just to feel it out.
“Oh, just remember who’s looking out for you, should you ever have an opportunity to look out for me. But, I mean, hey,” and here she goes in for the lunge, baring teeth to show she’s not afraid, “I can think of a few ways someone like you might pay me.”
“I got my own thing going on.”
“Hah. Don’t I know it? This girl’s got me so fucking worked up. It’s like nothing I do can scratch that itch.”
Mathilde laughs, and the tension vanishes. Two wolves can be enemies, circling the same carcass — but they can also be the beginnings of a pack, and then there’s meat enough for all. “We’ve got that in common. It’s why I’m here.” She knocks her knuckles against the wall behind her.
“Need a way in?”
“Shit, really?”
Alyx pulls one half of the window open. The thumping dum-dum-dum-dum of Hoofbeat music spills out, the soundproofing enchantment disrupted. Pulsing rainbow light colours the curtains. The deer shouts “hey, Princess, my friend wants to come party!”
A whinnying voice shouts back, “yes bitch!”
Alyx cocks her eyebrows and grins, clearly expecting one hell of a thank you. Mathilde plays it cool, puts her hand out. “Mathilde Iceforge; good to meet you.”
“Alyx Fartrot. Better to know me — I remember my friends.” Mathilde has turned her back already when Alyx calls, “Wait, Iceforge.” There’s a flash of orange magic as she conjures. The implement she presents to Mathilde is frankly outrageous, massive and made of vines. “In case you get lucky,” she says with a wink.
Mathilde can’t stop herself from taking it, smuggling it in her bookbag as she slips into the building.
Katarina doesn’t make it two steps out of Illaria’s door. She can’t be seen like this. She presses her head against the cool wall and digs her fist into her eyes, trying to compose herself. Her first thought, of course, is to go find the wolf bitch, make her pay for fucking up this reunion that Katarina has waited so long for. This instinct is carefully discarded — it’s exactly the sort of thing that would make Illaria even angrier at her.
What she needs to do is forget Mathilde exists. The first Gauntlet events are tomorrow. She was supposed to be blissed out by then, well-rested from a night sleeping in the arms of her love, ready to compete, to make Illaria proud of her.
The hands on her waist take Katarina completely by surprise. Her first thought is Illaria, she’s forgiven me! But these hands are warm and the smell of them is burningly familiar.
“Hi,” whispers Mathilde.
Katarina whirls, furious, then remembers herself. The last thing she needs is for Illaria to hear yelling right outside her rooms. She modulates.
Mathilde sweeps her eyes over Kat’s face — notices the cut and the red eyes at once — feels a stab of disappointment when the vampyr’s rage is replaced with frozen courtesy.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“That’s alright,” Mathilde coos, voice quiet and comforting. One arm stays on Kat’s hip, the other comes up to wipe the blood from her cheek. “You don’t need to say anything.” She licks the blood from her thumb.
Katarina swallows. “Don’t do that.” Her voice is a whisper.
“Why not? It’s mine, isn’t it?”
The vampyr rolls her eyes. “I have to go.”
Mathilde’s claws dig in at once; she presses her body in close, trapping Katarina in place. Her other hand pinches the angry vampyr’s chin, appraises her. “What happened? Mommy get mad at you?”
“Get away from me,” Katarina hisses. “You ruin everything.”
Mathilde’s pretty face turns to a mask of sympathy. “Did she send you away, baby?”
Katarina’s nose wrinkles into a snarl and Mathilde’s small hand covers her mouth a moment later, squeezing tight, muffling any sound.
“Shhh. Do you want her to hear?” Mathilde’s face gestures toward the door as her free hand slips into Katarina’s pants.
The smell of blood so close to her nose is enough to drive Katarina to distraction, and the gentle pressure in her underwear blanks her mind entirely. When Mathilde’s hand comes away from Katarina’s mouth, the vampyr can only let out a little gasp.
Mathilde smiles. “Look how good you are,” she says, stroking Katarina’s hair. “So cruel of her, to deprive you of attention. A girl like you needs to be touched.”
Katarina can’t help but lean her cheek into the warmth of Mathilde’s hand, grinding against the other, muffling her moans.
The sound of movement in the room behind her returns Katarina to herself such that she remembers she can’t be doing this, opens her eyes and pulls away. Mathilde stops the attempt lazily, pinning Katarina with an arm across the chest, pressing warm forehead to cool cheek as she holds the vampyr with her weight, keeping up the movement of her hand.
“You need to be fed,” Mathilde whispers, “and told nice things.”
Despite herself, the tickle of living breath against her makes Katarina let out a little moan. “Tell me them,” she says.
What am I doing!? Katarina thinks, Illaria is right there! We’re in a public hallway!
Mathilde smiles and tilts her head though, and for some reason the small movement is the sexiest thing in the world.
“You’re pretty,” says Mathilde. Katarina moans, wraps her arms around the wolf’s neck, balling up the collar of her shirt in her fists. It’s so nice to be complimented, to be touched. “And strange and wild; you catch the eye, Kat. I wanted to be on a team with you for the Gauntlet.”
Pleasure receptors fire wildly in Kat’s brain. She’s been so unappreciated here, surrounded by 18 year olds who all think they invented the wheel.
“Why?” half intelligible through her moans.
“I thought you would win.”
That does it. Kat collapses into Mathilde’s arms, shaking as the pleasure rushes through her. Mathilde strokes her head as she cums, feeling the already intense chemical bond she shares with Katarina grow stronger. It’s like the leech is a drug. “Good girl,” says Mathilde.
Katarina’s eyes flash open and Mathilde can actually see her mind clearing, regret and shame clouding her features. Mathilde, who was unbearably worked up before she had an almost six foot, gorgeous vampyr against her, sees where this is going.
“Stay with me; come back to my room,” she says, but the vampire is already shaking her head in disgust. Shit, she thinks, aching, should have gone first! Mathilde knows she’s strong. Stronger than a pissed off Katarina? “Please, Kat.”
Katarina shoves Mathilde off and starts storming away. Fuck it, gotta find out.
Mathilde throws herself forward, tackling the vampyr. They tumble to the ground together, Mathilde wrapping her hands around Katarina’s face at the last moment, wanting to protect it from any further damage.
“Fool!” Katarina cries, but when she sees the massive strap in Mathilde’s hand, her eyes become edged with fear. “Stop!”
“Sh-sh-sh,” Mathilde tuts as she shoves the strap under her skirt and it instantly fuses to her body, becoming as much a part of her flesh as her own arm. “Shhh. You don’t want her to hear do you?”
“She won’t hear because nothing is going to happen. Get off me now!”
When her words are ignored, Katarina, deciding it’s preferable to be caught killing the werewolf girl than to be caught being fucked by her, lunges for the throat — and her brain jolts in terror when Mathilde pushes her easily back into the floor and holds her there.
Mathilde’s cock throbs. “C’mon, Kat,” she says, blonde hair falling over her face, “You know I hate to fight you.”
Katarina’s hiss melts into a whimper as her underwear is pulled aside and the oversized strap plunges into her. She can’t help but cry out with pain and pleasure at the second thrust.
“Damn.” Mathilde whirls Kat onto her stomach, finding a better angle to clamp her hand over the fanged mouth. “Sorry, I’m trying to be gentle, it’s just,” Mathilde collapses into Katarina’s shoulder with a moan as the vampyr whimpers and struggles, “I’m just so worked up,” she says into Katarina’s skin, “and you feel so good.” She thrusts again to a squeal.
“Shhhhh.”
“Mmmphh- mm- MMPH!”
“She’ll hear you, Kat.”
The yelling stops, replaced by muffled moans. Mathilde can only keep up the slow pace for so long, though. She can’t control the acceleration of her hips, can’t control the rush of excitement that goes through her at each involuntary noise from the vampyr girl. When Katarina lets out a scream, Mathilde realises that someone really could come out and catch them, that someone probably will if she can’t control herself.
With a herculean effort, Mathilde stops her strokes, falls against Katarina’s ear. “You can get fucked here in front of your girlfriend’s door, or you can get fucked in your rooms,” she says, feeling it necessary to lay out the stakes clearly and efficiently.
Katarina rolls her head in Mathilde’s hands, exhausted, blissed out, humiliated and aching. “In my rooms,” she whispers.