Ivan Press

Grey

Hilary has a type.

The truth is, Ivan doesn't quite fit that type. To be sure, he is young and golden and handsome and obscenely wealthy. But he doesn't tower over other men. He isn't thick in the shoulders and chest, powerful in the arms. He is slender, he is smooth-skinned, he is deft and quick. He makes up for it, perhaps, because of the things he is willing to do to her. The things he can't seem to help to do; things that seem tattooed in his blood, deeper than those excellent genes of his. He cares for her so deeply that he can be astonishingly cruel to her. He understands that caring and cruelty are not, in fact, diametrically opposed.

Hard to say if Oliver understands any of that. Hard to say if he cares in the least. Would care in the least about Hilary if she were not betrothed to his father. Surely there's something twisted in the heart of a son who is so willing -- so eager -- to betray his own father so. No need to dwell on it, though. Hilary surely doesn't. Hilary: likely she only sees

that Oliver

is exactly how she likes her men. Her pretty, muscular, arrogant, stupid boys. Look at him, broad-shouldered and clean-shaven, rising soundlessly from the floor, coming across the room. Her back to him. Her face to the door, which he reaches over her shoulder to touch, push, close. The prominence of his knuckles, the forking of veins on the back of his hand. The twist of musculature in his forearm. Then his hand is catching the zipper, pulling it down in a smooth uninterrupted stroke.

Humid air touches her back. Then Oliver's palms, spreading over her shoulderblades, pushing up to sweep her dress from her shoulders. Down her arms. His hands wrap around her forearms, around her wrists, all the way down. It's like a dance. It's like it's choreographed. He pushes that widow's dress of hers all the way off, and then, with a quick tug, frees it from her hips.

And then he takes her by the waist. He pushes her against that closed door, which has only a flimsy bathroom door's push-lock. His shirt-front against her back, the fabric of his fine trousers against her ass. The shape of his erection beneath it, hard and unmistakable; he presses it against her as though he expects her to be impressed. Grateful. Overcome by lust. Something.

"Has my father fucked you yet?" His whisper is harsh, full of cold humor.

She has on earrings and a bangle and a ring and a pair of heels that zip up the backs just like her dress. She has on a corset and a scrap of silk that passes for underwear; the latter is wet between her legs, barely covers her ass.

And this is how she looks, leaning against the bathroom door as he pushes her dress off her arms and pushes it down her body. She braces her forearms on the door like she expects him to fuck her there and then, just like that, which

he might.

Hilary's head turns, and she sees them both in the swiftly fogging mirror, and the truth is: she is overcome by lust. It's not the same as being impressed or grateful, because she is never one and only the other when her beloved Ivan is waking her up in the middle of the night to fuck her where she's chained to his bed beside him. But lustful, yes. He asks about his father, key to this whole passion of his: that she is his father's, that he shouldn't, that he is anyway, that this is all very wrong.

Her legs open, and she bites her lower lip for a moment.

She thinks of toying with him. Instead she simply tells him the truth: "No. He's afraid of disgracing me." She finds she's panting; she finds she's on the verge of orgasm without even being touched. She aches, and her eyes close, her breasts moving on each breath. "Please fuck me," she whispers. "Please make me a whore. I want you to make me your filthy little cumslut."

The bath is still running behind them. Water blasting into the tub. Might cover up whatever sounds they make in here -- maybe. Might also cause a small flood if those overflow drains don't do their job, but neither of them consider that factor. They have bigger catastrophes to worry about -- or not.

Oliver Grey laughs under his breath. It is a cruel sound. "Well," he says, "that's just his loss, isn't it?"

Somewhere beneath the sound of water falling, the faint hiss of a zipper. The sharper sound of that scrap of fabric masquerading as lingerie tearing: torn in half in the Galliard's powerful, aristocratic hands, dropped in shreds between Hilary's spread legs. He reaches around and tugs, yanks, rips the corset down until her tits are exposed. Until he can put his hands on her, and he's not gentle about this: mauls her with his fingers, his palm, grabs and squeezes at her tits, growls in her ear. Sweet, he calls her, his other hand gripping her hip hard, holding her in place

as he shoves it inside her. Fills her up with his cock, snarling low in his chest. The door rattles in its frame, once, as he pushes her against it harder. And then he's fucking her, his feet planted, his hands greedy and savage; hammering her from behind.

It's sudden, and rough, and heedless, and when Hilary was married to Dion she made Ivan take her private places before she'd fuck him. She wouldn't join him on his yacht at first. She was so careful, so proper, but now that she has a man waiting -- impatiently -- to marry her for the third time, now that she has her one true love in whatever manner she can actually love anyone, she's

fucking her husband-to-be's son in the bathroom while her husband-to-be meanders just outside. And as her lingerie tears and loosens and Oliver paws mindlessly at her tits, pinching her nipples and yanking her hips back to take his cock, she very nearly thinks she's going to come. Even before he slams his cock into her, starting to fuck her in those askew undergarments, those high heels, that red lipstick.

She watches the two of them in the mirror, panting, her hands pressed firmly against the door. Wetness coats his cock, slicks his balls as he fucks her, and this is just what she wanted, this is what she needed after the last two weeks: this wronful, sinful, wicked sex, heartless and liberating and cruel. There's no finesse to it. It doesn't take skill to fuck a woman like this, and most women would feel their arousal fizzle out and die from this sort of treatment, turning the encounter into a thing to be endured rather than enjoyed. It is the sort of sex that stupid men who like stupider women think is pleasurable.

Christ, how she loves it. She whimpers for him, not thrusting back against him but just taking it, trying not to be too noisy, biting her lip until she thinks it will bruise, thinks it might bleed. "That's it," she gasps, as quietly as she can, "I'm your fucktoy."

It's seconds before she's coming. Maybe a minute, maybe two at the outside. She is sweating from the steam and the sex, and her pussy is so wet it's a wonder he can stay inside of her at all. She is panting, mostly, gasping, rather than giving him the screams she all but promised him. But there's no mistaking it when her cunt starts to clench around him, pulsing in waves on his cock, tugging him deeper, holding him tight. There's no denying the way she comes, either, her knees buckling and her entire body quivering, her teeth digging into her lip again to stave off the keening sound of need that wants to rise up in her, the way she wants to beg, and beg, and beg for more.

The way she whispers, over and over, while she's coming: make me dirty, make me dirty.

Never in a million years would Edmund Grey dream of taking Hilary like this. Never in a million years would he dream of anyone doing this to his fine, lovely, fragile lady; never in a billion, trillion years would he suspect

for even an instant

that she would like it. That she loves it. Needs it the way she does, which is the way addicts need heroin, the way fish need water.

She can see the two of them reflected in the mirror. She is nearly naked. Stripped down to a filthy, elegant tease of lingerie and heels. He is very nearly dressed, his shirt and trousers of the finest quality, his cufflinks flashing at his wrists as his hands maul her breasts. He reaches between her legs; he's touching her so roughly, so covetously, and it's not for her at all but for himself, to get her wetness on his fingers, to discover her most secret parts, as though by doing so he could possess her more utterly. As though he could possess her at all.

As the glass fogs over their shapes dim. It becomes an impression of forceful motion; lust on the verge of brutality. She is trying to come quietly, she is quivering and gasping and whispering a mindless plea, her legs are buckling and he grabs her around the waist, lifts her to her toes, almost off the ground. His breath comes hot over her shoulder. He comes hot into her cunt, biting back snarls, slamming her against that door and pinning her there with his weight, his momentum, the grind of his groin against her ass.

--

Her feet touch the ground again. He draws out of her, slicked and filthy, leaving a catenary strand of wetness between her cunt, his cock that he catches on the side of his finger, wipes thoughtlessly on a nearby hanging towel. Oliver Grey laughs under his breath; there's something rather like triumph and arrogance in it. He kisses her shoulder patronizingly, indulgently, as he steps away from her. He thinks he's won something, somehow.

"You can manage the rest on your own, can't you?" He tucks himself back into his pants, unbuckles and rebuckles his belt. It's been mere minutes; the whole of it a quick, surreptitious, brutal sort of encounter. "Or shall I loosen that corset for you a little more?"

She loves it. She needs it. She takes it, whimpering as softly as she can, leaving Oliver's cock wet with her arousal, leaving her inner thighs damp from their sex. She's as much a whore as she told him she wanted to be. She's as much his cumslut, fucktoy as she was begging to be, and her orgasm seems to roll on and on, renewing itself as he slams into her, paws at her, comes into her with those harsh, furious grinds of his hips.

Hilary is still coming, spasming and clenching, when Oliver pulls out of her. She is now, finally, the kind of filthy mess she was longing to be. She slumps slightly against the door when he starts putting himself away, zipping up and fixing his belt. Her cheeks are pink, and she sweats, panting against the door in her half-torn lingerie and jewelry. She pulls her shoulder from his kiss, even if it's meant as patronizing, because even the intimation of affection disgusts her right now.

She doesn't answer him. She just looks over her shoulder at him, at his crotch, dragging slowly up to his eyes.

"You don't... want me to lick you clean?" she asks, sounding confused. Sounding almost hurt.

A muscle jumps in his cheek. His eyes flick to the door, and there, there she sees it, even if she doesn't understand it: as much as he resents his father, as much as he covets what is Edmund Grey's because he thinks somehow this gives him power over his sire,

he fears him as well. Does not dare defy him openly.

Oh, but temptation. Oliver Grey's regard comes back to Hilary. He has put his cock away, but his hand lingers over his fly. Rubs himself through his pants, eyes narrowed, breath still coming swift. A second later he yanks his zipper down again. Pulls himself out, steps forward, grabs her by that shoulder she wouldn't let him kiss, pushes her to her knees,

and feeds her his cock. "Make it hard for me again," he tells her, like a tease or a promise, "and maybe I'll bend you over that pretty little vanity before leaving you to your bath."

And just like that, she gives him everything he wants. At least: everything she can give him. She cannot give him power over his father. She cannot do anything but be the vessel for his illusions. She does wonder, absently and erotically, how many of his father's wives he's done this to, how many he's seduced, how many he's flirted with. She wonders if she's the only one who has ever been quite like this, and by then

her knees are on the cold, hard tile and his cock, still sticky and warm from her cunt, is shoving into her mouth, and she's groaning, gagging slightly, whimpering softly. Already she's starting to suck him off, obedient and eager and happy, joyous from the core shining outward, because this makes her feel like she's so good. Finally, and more than she ever thinks otherwise, she is good and pretty and sweet and loved and so she holds onto his hips, moaning gently as she begins bobbing her head, her mouth wet and enthusiastic around him.

One has to wonder if his father and brother haven't noticed yet that the water is still running, and that Oliver is still missing.

Impossible to tell what the past holds for Oliver. How long he's been at this. How long he's wanted to be at this. How long he's wanted her like this -- well; no. That one is quite obvious: as soon as he found out she existed. But other than that, the truth is they are closed boxes to each other. They are walls of stone hiding rotting, dead centers all their own.

And he is fucking her mouth before long. He is bracing his hands on the door, grunting low in his throat as he thrusts against that pretty, eager, wet, sweet mouth of hers. His eyes are closed and his head falls back, his hand closes into a fist as he takes her this way, and

meanwhile outside his father and his brother are doing whatever it is they do when dinner is over and it's not quite time for bed yet. Port wine and cigars, maybe. Or maybe:

coming up the stairs. Right now.

Hilary stops bobbing her head against his cock. He's fucking her mouth and she's taking it, taking it beautifully, quivering with desire as he all but bruises her lips every time he thrusts. The buckle of his belt thumps painfully against her jaw and cheek and she loves it, she loves his brutality and his indifference and her cunt is pulsing with longing. She doesn't think she'll survive if she isn't fucked again tonight.

She has a plan. But no plan can stand up to madness.

Nothing can stand up to madness. If the Silver Fangs have taught the world anything at all, it would be that. Those shining kings of old, those savage and noble lords of wolves -- they who once flew so high, they who once ruled all that they saw, owned all that they touched. Look at them now.

Look at them now: the son fucking his father's bride to get back at his father. The lover betraying her love -- because surely this is a betrayal, yes? or is it even that, when he left her so utterly, can't stand to be with her when surely he should dote on her every minute of every hour of every day? -- to accomplish some twisted end of her own. Or maybe just because she wants. She hungers. She lusts.

She's just taking it. She's just taking it, so beautifully, so wantonly, she's so wet between those slim white thighs of hers and his hand is in her hair, he's grabbing her by the hair and fucking her face, fucking her throat, his brow is against the door and he's utterly brutal, utterly indifferent, utterly mad; he couldn't stop himself if he tried, and

there is a knock on the door.

There is a knock on the door, and Oliver Grey's head jerks up and he stares at the door as though he could look through it but he doesn't even stop. He doesn't even try to stop.

The knocking does not make Hilary stop taking Oliver's cock in her mouth. He isn't letting her do much of anything; he's grabbing her by the hair and fucking her mouth, and she's not thinking anything at all. This feels good. It feels right.

It hurts. It degrades. It chokes. And it feels like home.

The knocking can't interrupt that bliss, and Hilary doesn't pay it any mind any more than she reaches between her legs to touch herself, even if her body is longing to be touched. She floats, incandescent and joyful, in the flood of Oliver's brutality and indifference.

Maybe someone calls her name. Or waits and knocks again, and she remembers that the man she's supposed to be madly in love with and devoted to is here, too, with his suspicious half-moon son, and neither of them want her to be a naughty, wet little slut, do they? Neither of them liked the smell of her in the midst of lust.

Oliver isn't stopping, so Hilary puts her hand on his lower abdomen, a slow stroke up his leg to his middle, a caress that ends in a very hard, firm shove to get him out of her mouth. She turns her head to the side, lips wet with saliva, lips and cheeks red, and she speaks just loud enough to be heard over the rushing water.

"My love?" she says, gaspingly, as though she is delighted (because she is) and as though she is longing for sex beyond sanity (because she does). "Have you... changed your mind?" Tentative, tentatively hopeful: "Are you going to bathe me?"

It's not that Oliver has no survival instinct at all. It's not that he has no sense of self-preservation. He has enough. Enough not to open his mouth and groan at the way she's sucking him, taking him, letting him fuck her like this. Enough not to thump his fist against the door out of sheer lust, sheer pleasure. Enough not to fuck her hard enough to bang her head tellingly against the door, enough not to laugh aloud when she strokes up his body like that, though his lips do flash an inexact, lazy sort of grin.

Just not enough to stop. Not enough to cease and desist and get the fuck out. Not enough to overwhelm his sense of -- what? vengeance? some sort of twisted oneupmanship in a game that his father doesn't even know he's playing. Not enough to overcome that, no, and so:

yes, Hilary has to shove him away. He staggers half a step back, his hands not quite leaving the door, his breath leaving him in a huff of surprise and silent laughter. She turns her head. Oh, there it is again, the sweet virtuous lady, the innocent untarnished flower,

the unhidden lust that all but sends Edmund reeling away. "No," says Grey, a touch of haste in his answer, "oh, no, darling. I only came to check on you. Oliver was drawing your bath and he seems to have vanished, so I was wondering whether or not you had everything you needed." A pause; is that suspicion in the silence? "And if you were all right."

Oliver is smirking. He is smirking, he is loving this, he steps forward again and -- insistent, spoiled boy that he is -- he grabs himself in hand and taps the underside against Hilary's cheek, offers the head of it to her mouth. Keep sucking, he mouths.

There he stands, still fully clothed but his cock out, erect, wet from her pussy and her mouth, with her hand still firmly on his lower abdomen as she turns her head to speak to her beloved betrothed, the man who will rescue her -- the widow, the divorcee, the mother of a stillborn child -- from certain ruin. He is the epitome of a knight in shining armor, and he is going to rescue her. He will give her the security and the stability she has always needed yet never had. He wants to give her all of this. He wants nothing in return but for her to be as she is: beautiful and delicate, sheltered and protected from the horrors that life among the garou bring.

She might love him, or at least feel gratitude and loyalty to him, and relief at being so desired despite everything, so taken care of,

if only she were sane.

--

He reels away from the words, the lust, the wanting. She plays it as demure and tender as she can, because then he will -- she thinks -- chalk her eagerness up to her comparative youth and her childlike mind, which should only serve to make him more protective of her. He would, after all, need to shield such a fragile hothouse flower from her own lust, as well as the lust of others, wouldn't he? And so he does, all but retreating from her voice.

Oliver pats her face with his cock and she swallows a gasp, looking up at him as he's mouthing at her to keep sucking, nudging its head to her lips. Her eyes start to fall closed, her mouth opening around him; she nearly comes as they close again, her tongue stroking him. It is all she can do not to whine with pleasure around him, and her hips start rocking, a mimicry of sex she's not having.

Just for a second. She licks him, sucks him happily, for just a second as Grey is saying And if you were all right before she pulls away, swallowing, saying in a plaintive purr that sounds almost aching with sadness as much as pleasure, relief: "I'm lovely, dear one. This is just what I needed."

The bath. The hot bath, the water still running, heating up the room.

Hilary doesn't even address the fact that Oliver seems to have vanished. She is turning towards him again, taking him fully and deeply in her mouth again, her hands on his hips to steady herself while she starts fucking his cock with that hungry, obedient mouth of hers until he is all but dripping wet. Maybe Grey is talking again, talking while she draws her head back, rising up on her knees, lifting her breasts around his cock, urging him to fuck her flesh as well.

It doesn't stop her, of course.

This is

just

what she needed.

Oh, Oliver's eyes gleam at that. His eyes gleam and his teeth flash when he smiles that hunter's smile. He grabs her by the hair even as she's turning toward him again; he pushes his cock into her mouth even as she's opening for him. Taking him in. Outside Edmund Grey is saying something, making some comment or promise about how he would visit her again to say goodnight when she was safely tucked in, tucked away, hidden away where neither of them could endanger her virtue. He's laying his palm against the door, longingly, but of course he doesn't knock to enter, he would never -- he withdraws from her presence again

while on the other side of the door, she's on her knees for his son. She's sucking him off, that younger, crueler, heartless song of Grey's; she's lifting her tits for his pleasure, opening her mouth for his pleasure, using her tongue for his pleasure, and all the while she's getting so very aroused that her desire is almost a scent on the air, almost as heady and rich as the purity of her blood.

Nearly as soon as Grey's footsteps retreat from the bathroom door, Oliver's hand is on her arm. He hauls her up, his strength rough on her frail limbs; he drags her across the bathroom to the vanity, to the mirror, throws her down over the counter. An instant later he's atop her, his chest pressed to her back, his mouth by her ear.

"Look at yourself," he whispers. "The future Mrs. Edmund Grey. You'll remember this on your wedding night, won't you?"

And then it's his hand on her shoulder holding her down. He straightens, his head lowers, he pushes her thighs apart and she can feel him rubbing his cock along her slit, can feel him wet and slick from her mouth, wetter and slicker still from her cunt, can feel him entering her again,

slowly this time, so very slowly, his other hand on the small of her back. He forces her to stillness while he slides into that dripping cunt of hers, holds her still while he throbs inside her.

"Or maybe," he suggests, an edge of raw, dark lust in his voice, his eyes burning hers in reflection, "I could pay you a visit in the dressing room while you're putting on your wedding whites. Maybe I could even bring some friends. You could walk down the aisle freshly fucked half a dozen times. Do you think all those distinguished wolves and men in the audience will smell what a whore you are? Do you think my father will even notice?"

She will never be safe for Edmund. Not tonight. Not if he marries her, not on their honeymoon, not with her around his sniffing pack of sons, not if he were to adopt Ivan the new-moon in place of his estranged daughter. He would never be safe with her, or around her. The life he imagines, and the life he believes with all his heart he deserves, he has earned, is not a life she can give him. It is not a life she would give him, even if she could.

Look at her now, after all: he longs for her, was on the verge of howling for the woman he has turned into an icon. And she is fucking his son. Fucking him again, not just with her mouth or her breasts now but with her cunt angled towards him, her arms on the vanity, her legs spread, panting softly but still heatedly enough to steam the mirror in front of her as he puts his cock in her

again.

Hilary obeys. She looks at herself while he rubs himself all over her, making himself slippery, making her choke on a groan as she is denied the pounding she needs. And it is that: need. She needs him to fuck her again, hard again, like he did at the door. She needs him to hurt her. So of course, as he's taking her slow this time, not slamming into her but holding her down while he pushes gradually into her pussy, Hilary squirms. She resists him, simultaneously trying to wriggle away even as her back arches, even as she bites her lip to keep from moaning aloud, even as she so obviously wants to bounce herself eagerly on his cock. But she fights him a little bit, squirming and slipping while he tells her that he could bring some of his friends to fuck her, one after the other, on her wedding day.

She has no answer for him. He calls her a whore again and she feels new wetness slick down over his cock from her body. She can't think about his father or the audience. All she can think about is wolf after wolf on top of her, nailing her, pulling aside her pearl-colored lingerie to make a toy out of her. Hilary shudders, winding her hips in circles against him as best she can, even with his restraining hand on her ass.

They really should turn off the water.

They should do a great many things. They should turn off the water. They should leave each other be. He should not be locked in a bathroom with her. She should not be bending over for him. He should certainly not be availing himself of that sweet little cunt she's offered up to him, and she certainly should not be offering herself up like this. He should perhaps never be left alone with anyone or anything belonging to his father. She should perhaps never be left alone with anyone at all, lest she twist them as she herself is twisted. Lest she ruin them.

A case could be made in her defense, of course. Oliver is probably already twisted. He was probably, to some degree, ruined long before she ever came along. Blame his father for that. Blame that string of stepmothers. Blame the silver blood in his veins. Blame anyone, anywhere, but Oliver himself. The Silver Fangs never were very good at owning up to their failures.

They should be better fiancees, better children. They should be more responsible. They would have to be someone

quite different from themselves

to have a chance of accomplishing any of those virtuous shoulds and woulds.

--

Hilary can't seem to bear this stillness. She moves incessantly, as much as she can. She gets so very wet at the thought of being used by Oliver and his friends. She is trying not to moan, and in the mirror she can see him looking down, can feel him spreading her cheeks, looking at where he's buried inside her. She can see him smirking. Feel him touching her, rubbing his fingers alongside her cunt, his cock, coating his fingertips in the thin, viscous shine of that new wetness. Feel him taking that fluid and wiping it onto her back,

painting it onto her back, a single four-letter invective that makes that smirk of his turn hungry:

s l u t.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you liked that idea," Oliver Grey says softly; as softly, as slowly, as he grinds into her -- a lazy flexing torque of his hips. "I'd say you wanted to be passed around like a party favor. Fucked senseless like a toy. I knew you weren't the prim little angel my father thought you were. But I must admit,"

he grabs her. By the hair. With his filthy hand. Pulls her head back, is atop her, is biting her neck like a vampire, like a wild beast, clapping his other hand over her mouth if she starts to scream --

"I had no idea just what a dirty little cock-whore you were. We should make this a regular little appointment, hm? What do you say?"

-- and he shoves her facedown over the vanity, one hand clamped over her mouth, one tangled in her hair: starts pounding her every bit as suddenly, as warninglessly as the first time; every bit as brutally.

She loves it. She does. He quips that he knows better and she can't possibly, but it's no more than that: an offhand remark, a quip. He knows it because he feels it in her body. He sees the way she shudders, feels how she clenches. Hilary has no idea what he's writing on her back, that he's writing at all -- only that he is wiping her own slick on her skin, moving her body so he can see the way he has her, the way she's submitted to him, the fact that she loves it.

At this point she is biting her lip, trying not to make noise even though every move he makes, every word out of his mouth, makes her want to whine, makes her want to moan, makes her want to scream. She is thinking

about Ivan,

and strange and wild fantasies are falling through her mind like ticker-tape. Every turn is a new thought, a flash of consciousness or desire or brief, brief flares of true emotion. She sees things like weddings and parties and her beloved in a tux and in a mask and six, seven, a dozen men and women taking turns on her while Ivan, Ivan looks on, Ivan approves, Ivan permits, Ivan loves, Ivan protects her from the utter destruction she would both wreak and suffer if she were left on her own. And while Oliver brutalizes her the way that sometimes she wishes Ivan would be more free with, yanking her hair back and biting her throat and fucking her so hard, now, that the fronts of her hips collide with the edge of the counter, Hilary can only begin moaning, crying out into Oliver's palm which is Ivan's palm, nodding, tears coming to her eyes.

Yes: a party favor, a toy, senseless, angel, cock-whore, again, always, yes, yes.

This is all she wants.

What is so hard to understand?

There are toiletries laid out for Hilary atop that vanity. The little discs of unopened soap tumble down from their neat little pyramid. The still-wrapped toothbrushes rattle against one another in their heavy ceramic tumblers. A small assortment of scents and perfumes clink together over

and over

and over

while the man who is neither her betrothed nor her intended, but who is still, somehow, in ways that transcend the understanding of those who are not mad, her beloved -- while he pounds her from behind, his hands cruel and covetous, his teeth bared in a rictus grin.

--

Downstairs, in the modest little den with its heavy bookshelves and wingback leather chairs, Edmund Grey and his eldest son enjoy after-dinner brandies around a small fire in a small fireplace.

Edmund Grey enjoys his brandy, anyway. He is content in his chair, his ankle crossed ever so elegantly over the opposite knee, his eyes half-closing with every slow sip. He is warmed and pleased with the thought of his bride-to-be safe under his roof, safe in his care, he can keep her safe, she is his and only his and he will keep her, protect her, love her,

make love to her when the time is right. He allows himself a single, guilty moment of carnal ideation: her slender wrists turning as she handles her fork and knife; the violin curves of her waist and hip through that demure widow's dress. No -- he must not think of such things. She is pure. She is virtuous. In times like this Edmund cannot quite comprehend or remember that she was once mated, that she has been known by not one Garou but two, that she has carried,

though failed to deliver,

a cub. He cannot understand that. In his mind, she is pristine.

--

She is getting fucked. She is being pounded. She is being utterly, thoroughly used, and there are tears on her cheeks; she is transcendent.

--

John is hunched over his drink, his elbows on his knees, the drink half-forgotten between his big hands as he stares troubled into the fire. He wrestles in his mind with his suspicion, with his doubt, with his absolute certainty that his brother's absence and Hilary's lengthy bath are related; with his loyalty to his brother

(his half brother.)

and his father. Occasionally he takes a sip. Occasionally he lowers his head into the palm of one hand, scuffing fingers through his thick hair. Scratching fingertips down his beard. A few times he thinks to himself, fine, okay, that's it, he's had enough. He's going to say something. Do something. Put an end to this madness,

but then he's never sure how. Where to begin. Whose madness to unravel first. What right he has to throw stones, really, from the confines of his own glass house.

--

Sudden and violent as it began, it ends. Oliver's hands crushing her shoulders, Oliver's body pinning hers to the vanity, Oliver's cock deep inside her, Oliver's voice in her ear. The low bitten-back noise he makes. Oliver's cum in her, then,

and dripping out of her when he straightens, when he pulls out, when he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and pants a laugh out. He bends down to pull his pants up, and then he walks over to the tub and finally turns the water off.

A thick quiet settles. It's hot in here, humid. Once in a while, a drop of water, ripples in the bathwater. Oliver comes back to the vanity to look at her through the mirror. He gives Hilary's ass a fond little caress.

"I enjoyed that," he says. "Maybe I'll have you again when everyone else is asleep."

Down below, John and Edmund think of Oliver and her, respectively. One thinks of truth he suspects, one of lies he clings to. Hilary, gradually, does not think at all, at all. She whimpers. She cries out into Oliver's palm, feeling her body tighten and writhe for pleasure, relying on his lust and Edmund's delusion and John's indecision to save her, the way she always relies on someone outside of herself to take care of her, to sustain her, to shelter her from her own mad, inglorious end.

Which is what it would be. If she were not so pure. If she were not so beautiful. If she were not to be desired so strongly -- she would die in an alley one day, alone and cold, her last memory of the smell of the stagnant puddle-water against her forehead.

If she were not a Silver Fang.

--

Oliver comes. Hilary comes with him as he begins surging inside of her, her cunt greedy for his cum, taking it, taking him, taking everything he does to her and only begging for more. When he pulls his hand off her mouth and his cock out of her pussy she is panting, feeling a filthy roll of fluid down her inner thigh.

As before, Oliver puts himself away and tidies himself up right away. Hilary stays where she is, bent over the vanity, her breath steaming the glass, as he turns off the bath water. She can barely move. Her legs tremble, and the face he sees in the mirror is close-eyed, tear-stained, transcendant, messy. When he touches her ass she whimpers, needful, arching her back as though asking for more.

This time, he declines the offer. He tells her he enjoyed her. He suggests fucking her later. Hilary does not answer.

--

When he leaves, it takes time for her to come down. She is shaking, shaking terribly, and she finds herself within herself but

alone. Hilary looks at herself, eyes wide, frightened, her trembling almost convulsive. Ivan. Ivan is not there. Ivan is not coming. She does not know what to do. A knot of panic tightens inside of her, winding harder and harder in on itself, igniting spontaneously, rushing through her veins. She puts her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. She doesn't know what to do now. She is in herself, she feels herself, and there is no one, no one with her, no one taking care of her, and all she can hear now is a ringing in her ears, a white noise that threatens to overwhelm her.

Her eyes search wildly, back and forth, as though she does not know where she is. Her hand slips from her mouth, whimpering, whispering, like hidden somewhere in a corner there is

"Ivan?"

And she waits, listening to the dripping of water, but he does not come. And she starts to cry again, quietly, her mouth twisted, her eyes full. She can barely even remember now everything that just happened. Not intuitively. Not deeply. She knows it, sees it as though something outside of herself, even though her body still feels it. Even though her mouth and breasts and hips are still reddened from Oliver's near-bruising hands. She moves slowly, tremulously, away from the vanity. She almost stumbles on her shoes but grabs the vanity again, uses it for balance as she goes to the toilet. Sitting down, she rids her body -- somewhat -- of Edmund's son. She unzips the backs of her heels and slips them off, and removes the rest of her corset, and lets her torn panties fall past her ankle.

When she gets into the tub, Hilary just stands there a moment, then sinks down into the water, slowly. It is hot and almost too hot, because Oliver stopped checking it like Ivan would before allowing her in the water. She does not know what to do next, how to wash herself, how to find her way back. She struggles to remember what she came here to do. She sits there, for a long time, until she begins to remember. Until she feels numb, body and spirit.

Until she, and the water, are cold.

--

Hilary spends longer in the bath than perhaps any of Edmund's wives. She drains the tub and showers. She brushes her teeth, spitting out minty foam and with it, the remnant flavor of Oliver's dick. She finds the robe left for her and wraps it around herself, combing her long hair out, scenting herself ever so delicately at her wrists and behind her ears. He got her the perfumes. He would be pleased for her to wear them.

She rearranges the soaps on the vanity as though they were macarons, stacking them elegantly once more. She dabs a colorless balm on her lips, leaving her hair wet, and prepares to leave the bathroom. She leaves her shoes and dress and corset where they fell. She leaves her jewelry, but for the red diamond ring, on the vanity counter. Her panties, torn asunder, are hidden beneath wads of tissues in the wastebasket. Good enough for now.

Hilary opens the bathroom door and steps out.