Ivan Press

Grey

Spring has finally taken hold in Chicago when Hilary returns to the city. The days have lengthened. The trees are in sprout. The harbors have reopened, and the deep blue waters of Lake Michigan are once again dotted with the bright white sails of the private yachts and their private, wealthy owners.

Perhaps Ivan is among them. Ivan, with his flashy ways and his predator's charm. With his jet skis and his fast cars and his legendary parties and his legions of beautiful, shallow friends. To be sure, he isn't with Hilary. His plane landed and he took Hilary home; he stayed with her until she reached some semblance of stability again, or until she pushed him away. And then,

and since,

he has neither seen more contacted her. He's like that, after all. Undependable. Fickle. Broken in just such a way as to be physically incapable of indefinitely maintaining the level of intensity and devotion he has to Hilary. At some point, he just has to get away for a while.

--

A week and a half, two weeks go by. And then one day a message arrives for Hilary. It is delivered by a pair of young men in matching suits, grey rather than black to suit to turning of the seasons. Even had one come alone, his deferential manner and the simple, conservative cut of his clothing would have marked him for a servant. A footman, even. But there are two of them, and side by side they request admittance downstairs. Side by side they stand at Hilary's door if and when she allows them entrance. They could be twins with their fair, close-cropped hair; their fine features echoing ever so faintly of Fang blood. They could be, but they are not.

One of them bears a wax-sealed envelope addressed to Mlle. de Broqueville. The other stands patiently with his gloved hands folded before him, car keys glimmering on their ring around his index finger.

The letter reads:

My darling betrothed,

It has been too long since we have met, and I fear the lion's share of that blame falls upon my head. Though I would enjoy nothing more than to while away the hours by your side, the duties and responsibilities of my rank have consumed much of these recent days and weeks.

Nonetheless, summer is fast approaching and with it the day of our greatest happiness. Would it be too forward if I requested your presence? Your input regarding the details of our matrimony, both ceremonial and practical, is both welcome and desired; however, I must confess that my true purpose is merely to be in your company once again. Be kind, my exquisite lady; grace me with your smile soon.

Ever your servant,

Edmund L. W. P. Grey

"If you are amenable, Mademoiselle," the key-bearer suggests as Hilary finishes reading, "I would be honored to chauffeur you to my master, Mr. Grey. Or, if you are presently occupied, we can return at a more convenient time."

May is gorgeous just about everywhere. Even if the first few days are still cool, they warm quickly, and by mid-May it seems you can't go anywhere without soaking in the impossible beauty of the season.

Hilary does not go anywhere.

They flew back from Novgorod; she barely spoke. He took her back to her shiny newfangled building, which she now hates entirely if not inexplicably. She had nothing to give him: no words, no long glances, no tender touches of the hand. She withdrew, and withdrew, and became like a ghost even as he watched her fading.

For a week and a half, then two weeks, she stays in bed. She wakes only to stare, endlessly, waiting for sleep again. She is fed by Darya, on Miranda's insistence, and it is usually broth or some simple soups, because she ends up half-chewing and then spitting out anything more solid. It is as though the effort of keeping herself alive is just too much bother. She grieves the way people might have expected of her a year ago, when her baby was born dead. No one in her social circles questions her absence during the height of the season; it is the first year anniversary of that terrible tragedy, after all.

Some send her flowers, or cards, little well-wishes that are more for show. Hilary has no true friends, no one who worries for her. Miranda takes care of the correspondence. Miranda writes thank-you notes. Miranda keeps up appearances and keeps things running smoothly; Darya spoon-feeds her mistress and feels, in Hilary's sudden silence and lack of violence, pity for her. For her madness, for her longing for that happy, curious little blonde boy in Russia, for her emptiness. For the first week she expects Hilary to get up suddenly, to throw the bowl at her head, to do something insane and cruel, but Hilary just devolves into a child, and a befuddled one at that.

One day, it is simply over.

--

Hilary wakes early that day, and with no precursor, she is tired of her bed. She is tired of her drawn shades and her sorrow. When she gets up she sloughs her blankets like a snake shedding skin. She has lost weight, and she did not have much to lose so it is somewhat noticable, her eyes that much larger and rounder, her jawline tighter, her pale skin an unhealthy color. She is weak, as though she's had the flu, and shuffles nakedly to her window, looking out at this stupid, self-important city by the lake.

She does not think of Anton.

She does not think of Ivan.

She thinks about the Donut Vault around the corner, and when Darya comes to feed her, she finds Hilary wrapped in a sheet, hair askew, telling her she would like some of the sugar-dusted ones. Later Darya holds that split-ended hair back while Hilary vomits up those dense, sugary pastries after wolfing them down on sight. Later, Darya combs that hair when it is wet after the first shower Hilary has had in a fortnight -- a very long shower indeed -- and trims the ends, freshening the layers. Later, Darya files Hilary's fingernails and toenails and paints them with a pearlescent, transparent gloss, giving them the faintest hint of diamond shimmer.

And Hilary cooks herself some breakfast, simple fare but with elegant flourishes here and there. She wears an apron, even. She chops more slowly than usual, because sometimes her hands lose their grip from frailty. She has felt worse, and she just takes her time. She seems to be preparing, over the next couple of days. She does not go out to her dancing studio atop the house on the lake, but she does exercise at home, and she stretches, and she prepares all her own meals with suspicious glances cast at Darya, giver-of-broth who is also giver-of-evil-donuts,

(yes, it is the donuts to blame, and Darya to blame, for her sickness of them)

and she looks over what remains of flowers and gifts and cards given by people thinking she was mourning her poor dead baby, her wasted son, her shallow and worthless womb. She is still very quiet, and does not ask to see that terrible, fickle, loveless mate of her equally terrible, fickle, loveless soul. Nor does she ask to Skype with Miron to see the one thing on this earth she is mostly sure, most of the time, that she truly cares for. When he is this far away, it is far easier to slide back into just... not having a soul at all. Not having a heart.

It is always easier, that way.

--

Messengers come, and messages are ferried back and forth between Hilary's servants and these strange ones until she knows who they are. She takes the letter they give her between two fingers like it is a dead thing soaked in clammy slime, then slashes it open with one of those fingernails that looks like the perfection of carbon, skimming the words on it with eyes that are the color of the basest version of the same element.

She looks up as the servant tells her he will chaffeur her, if she likes. If there are implicit orders in all of this, Hilary chooses to ignore them. She looks between the non-twins, then at the one who spoke.

"I will see him for dinner this evening. You may return after dark," she informs them, her voice as soft as her words are decisive. They leave.

--

When they come back, she is different. Her hair is curled, and her lips are red. Around her wrist is a solid metal cuff, shining, but not quite gold; it absorbs as much light as it gives off, if not more. Her dress is black, as the first and only time Grey has met her, and skims her form just as that one did, but it is a bit more conservative. There is a slight ruffle around her hips, accentuating her rump. Teardrop-shaped earrings that match her manacle-like bracelet hang from her earlobes.

There is that ring on her finger. The blood red diamond. The gem of incalculable cost. As she slid it on tonight, she thought of the nipple clamps with their thread of diamonds that Ivan gave her in Novgorod; she thinks of the gift he promised would be hers when they returned. It is not the first, but it is the most lengthy, thought she has given to her love, her master, her everything, since the last time she saw him and pulled away from him when he tried to touch her one last time.

She feels, watching it on her hand and thinking nothing in particular about him, a surge of lust so potent, so molten, that she feels the slip of silk between her thighs dampen. Hilary licks her lips, and does nothing at all about it.

--

Her clothing does not suit the season. Nor does her makeup. She looks very much like a ghost of winter, the dead trees stark and black against the white earth and the chilled sky, when she comes down to the car that is waiting, whatever car it is that has been sent for her, and the color of her dress matches the color of her eyes and the color of her lips matches the color of her ring and the scent of her blood matches, then outshines, the preciousness of the metal she has adorned herself with.

And all of these things are cold.

If indeed there was an order implied in the invitation and the presence of those not-twins, it goes unheeded by one party and unenforced by the other. The Athro's footmen bow to her, and then they depart. It is hours before they return.

By then Hilary has changed. She has made herself blood-red and ebon-black, like some wintry, frozen, ice-hearted incarnation of an old fairytale. If ever Hilary was innocent and young and sweet, that time has long, long since passed. When she emerges from her building, she finds the serving-men waiting for her at the curb, where they have waited since sundown. One of them is smoking a cigarette, leaning against the car. Upon sighting Hilary, he instantly straightens, puts the cigarette out --

(no, wait. he turns it off. it was electric. mustn't risk stinking up the lady's conveyance, after all.)

-- and bows a small, subtle bow. The other sweeps open the passenger's door of the very same smoke-silver Phantom that bore Hilary to her would-be mate the first and only time they met. The interior is as she remembers it, if she remembers it at all: all quiet opulence and butter-soft leather, well-stocked, well-appointed.

She is alone this time. When the privacy glass goes up, when the car begins to move, she could has slipped this mortal coil. She could be in her own tiny, alternate dimension, silent and removed, remote as a ghost herself.

--

As before, she is taken north. Out of the towers of the city, along the darkening shoreline. Past Ivan's lakehouse, past the yacht club she patronizes, past the country club she shares with Ivan, past the house Dion kept her in. The car rolls to a gentle stop in front of a house that is, by the astronomical standards of their ilk, almost humble. Two stories. Perhaps three or four bedrooms. A corner lot, but a small one; with a walled garden and a pretty, well-kept front lawn. It is not ostentatious. It is not enormous. It is no more than a modestly successful dentist or some manager of a bank branch might be able to afford.

It is also, though Hilary can have no way of knowing this, purchased especially and exclusively for this one evening. This one brief meeting between Edmund Grey and his intended.

--

The driver shuts down the car. The other footman gets out and sweeps Hilary's door open for her, offering a hand from around its edge to hand her out. The anonymity is purposeful; a good servant has no face, no voice, no will of his own.

It is now an hour or so after dusk, and though the days are warming, the nights are still quite cool. The driver, coming around the car, unfolds a man's overcoat that bears neither the scent nor the warmth of any previous occupant. It was brought purely for this purpose: to drape over Hilary's shoulders for the duration of the short walk into the house. As she approaches the front door, it opens for her. Yet another serving-man stands within, bowing out of her way as she enters. The coat that was so recently draped over her shoulders is removed again, hung up. The door is shut.

She stands in a small foyer. The house is cozy and close rather than grand and sprawling. There is a staircase to the second floor; a passage to the kitchen and perhaps a den or a spare bedroom. To her right, there is a small, intimate living room. It is warm and warmly lit, but it feels just a little crowded with two couches, a coffee table and an end table, plus some floor lamps and an upright piano.

Or maybe it's the presence of the two Garou on those couches that make the room feel crowded. The two older trueborn sons of Edmund Grey, John and Oliver, are sitting kitty-corner to each other. They are sipping scotch. They are playing cards: Oliver languid and relaxed, sprawling on the couch with his feet on the coffee table; John hunched over, shaggy head bowed, heavy shoulders rounded, beetle-browed. They look over as Hilary comes in, their eyes sparking simultaneously with instinctive, instantaneous awareness.

And they stand, the younger son a little slower and a little less regimented than the elder. "Madam," says John Grey, bowing his head. He does not smile.

Oliver Grey does. "Ah, at last, Mademoiselle de Broqueville," he greets her, having evidently borrowed the styling cue from his father. "Thank god you've come. Another hour and our father might've howled your name from the rooftops."

"Oliver." It is nearly a growl from John, clench-toothed. He is summarily ignored by his brother, who sets his hand of cards down and crosses the room to take Hilary's hand,

and bow over it,

and kiss her knuckles. "Welcome," Oliver says, a twinkle in his eye implying that the extremity of his courtesy is at least in part a shared and harmless joke, "to our humble country cottage. I hope the trip wasn't too long or boring. Could we offer you refreshments? Entertainment? We are -- how does Father like to put it? -- ever your servants. Or I, at least, would love to be."

"Oliver," sharply, as John comes alongside Oliver, "enough. Madam," this is to Hilary, "you will forgive my brother's insolence. He has had too much to drink, and he forgets his place in this pack. Our father will be downstairs shortly. Until then, you are welcome to join us. If you would rather not, I wouldn't blame you."

When Ivan wanted to please Hilary, he turned himself inside out and started beating her. He bent her over a stone table, the rock digging into her knees and palms, and fucked her in front of -- what? Eighty people? He let a lot of them fuck her, too. He took over a practice studio at the Joffrey. He bought her a diamond collar. He bought her what may be one of the most expensive precious stones in the world.

He built her a house, he built a studio on top of that house, he engineered a grand scheme to hide her child in another country while juggling her angry mate and at a downturn of her mouth he decided that he would go ahead and undo that scheme if she asked it, undo all that work, if she wanted the little bastard back. He would give her anything, has given her much, and has torn himself to pieces half the time in the process.

Buying a house and sending a Phantom to pick her up does not do much to impress Hilary. Even Ivan can't impress Hilary. Hilary merely floats from plae to place, from door to car to the shelter of the overcoat, into the understated and somewhat pedestrian opulence of a house like this, and she does not seem to take much notice of it at all. None of it is strange to her; none of it matters.

One might say that almost nothing in the world matters to Hilary at all.

John and Oliver, then. She remembers them, dimly, from her little 'date' where Edmund somewhat decided to take her as his bride, and she didn't bother to try fighting him because Ivan had said there was so little point in it: that they would keep coming, and they would get more brutal and less honorable the longer he held out. She looks at them, as they instantly begin to attend to her, and she doesn't bother pretending to be frightened or retreating. She permits Oliver her hand.

She smells like ecstatic lunacy. One could lose themselves in the mere scent of her purity because that is precisely the essence of it: losing oneself, over and over again, perpetual and blissful and unfettered.

They jab at each other, each in their own way, and through it all she is silent, her hand going easily to Oliver's lips and just as easily returning to her side. She says nothing, does not blush or shy away or make a sound of disgust, even as the half-drunk galliard tosses a not-so-subtle flirtation in her direction, the sort that is often a not-so-veiled barb.

Her head tips as she stares at him, eyes unblinking, but whatever she might say is precluded by John, who then garners her attention for a moment. He forgets his place. Father will be coming down soon. He won't blame her if she doesn't want to be around them.

Quietly, instead of answering, and though she looks nothing of the kind this sort of question makes her sound so innocent, so lost, like a babe in the woods, untouched by the world: "Why would he be howling?"

It is an unintentional image, that frail thing alone in the dark. She isn't calculating it. She doesn't even hear it. But the image is there, in her sound and her eyes and her strangeness. Even there, unsettlingly, as she glances at Oliver again, a bolt of heat through her pitch-dark irises, a stray thought of his hand up under her skirt, his sweat staining her thighs, his snarling the counterpoint to her own desperate cries for orgasm.

She feels no guilt or shame for this; it is possible she does not know what those things feel like. Her eyes come back to John again.

"Maybe you should fetch him," she murmurs, as though she forgets what servants are for, "before he starts."

John Grey's spine stiffens as he is essentially issued an order. A strap of muscle tightens in his jaw, half-obscured by his beard. Then he snaps his hand of cards closed and sets it face-down on the coffee table.

"I suppose he would appreciate notice of your arrival. Madam," a dip of his head, courtesy made curt.

He doesn't hurry out of the room. He takes the stairs deliberately, at his own pace, his heavy tread eventually disappearing to the second floor where his father is -- doing whatever it is he might do before what might be termed his second date with his fiancee. Getting ready. Dressing and shaving. Making himself handsome for her.

Oliver, left behind with Hilary, has scarcely taken his eyes from her. That moment when their eyes met, that moment when undisguised heat flashes in her black irises: he didn't look away then, either. He held her gaze, sly, half-smiling, knowing, his eyes flicking away only briefly as his elder brother departs.

Now his regard returns to her. "I am wondering," he says, "what is it that draws you to my father? His wealth? His status?"

It wasn't meant as a directive, nor does Hilary seem to realize that the elder son takes it as one. No one tells her why Grey might howl on the rooftops for want of her. Ivan has never told her of such a feeling, and she has scarcely been concerned with his emotions when it comes to things like leaving him for months at a time to go to Mexico or refusing to see him for days, weeks. Neither of her mates ever howled for her, though one terrorized her with pure delight and one all but held her hostage in his obsession. This one, this betrothed of hers, has met her only once; she can't imagine he shares Dion's obsession with possessing her or Dominique's fascination with her screaming.

John leaves, and Hilary watches him go in silence before Oliver turns her head again, draws her attention back to himself by virtue of his voice, his rage, his youth, his beauty, all the things that Falcon and Hilary alike cannot help but attend to, no matter how bright and dangerous these things get.

Hilary stares at him. She does not blink or cock her head, she does not smile or appear changed. She speaks slowly to him with her reminder, because he must be quite stupid:

"He came to me."

"Oh; is that all it takes?" The Galliard has somehow slid a little closer to Hilary. He reaches out -- his fingertips touch the wall behind her, and his smile spreads. "Asking nicely?"

Footsteps upstairs. Distant, but not so very distant: it's a small house, after all. Coming closer. Oliver's eyes flick up, then back to Hilary. They have -- he has -- mere seconds before his father will be able to look down the stairs and see what he's up to.

"And what if I asked very nicely?"

Oh, he's simple. Hilary's brows tug together a bit. She can smell him when he's this close, and feel the heat radiating off of him the way it does so many of his kind, enough of his kind that it feels like all of them. She's aroused, and she's distant, and she stares at him with those empty eyes of hers.

"I was not drawn to him by anything," she says quietly, just as slowly as before. "He came to me."

But she is not as innocent as she pretends. She is not a delicate flower alone in the forest, a lost lamb in the mountains during a storm. She is not a child waiting to be snatched up in the dark, and though she only grows more detached from her humanity with every passing year, she knows what is happening here. She knows, and she goes on staring at him, the way so few kin can stare into the eyes of garou, unchallenging but unflinching. With Hilary, it is as though she doesn't realize there is any reason not to do this.

"Garçon," she murmurs, barely above a whisper,

(and we point out here that to address even a young waiter of measly rank at a lower-class establishment in this manner is rude; to call the adult and ranked son of your intended husband, a male who is above you by virtue of rage and renown, nothing more respectful than boy, implying serving-boy, slave-boy... well, it borders on unthinkable.)

and her breathing fuzzes the edges of her words, the softness of the other language curving on her lower lip before it drops like wine from her mouth,

"are you trying to find out what it would take for me to let you fuck my hot, wet cunt?" Her head tips, her stare unabating and unwholesome. "Do you want to make me scream for you, pretty and sweet, til you make a nasty mess of me with your cum?"

There's this look that crosses Oliver Grey's eyes, then: a sort of dawning, delicious recognition. He watches her mouth move. His eyes linger; they drag back to hers, though, when those filthy, pretty words drop off her tongue.

"Forgive me," he murmurs; quite close to her now. "I've underestimated you. You've clearly danced this dance before. And as a matter of fact -- yes. That is exactly what I'm trying to find out. Would you care to -- "

Here he breaks off. His eyes flash to the staircase. Footsteps at the top: he straightens, takes his hand off the wall, takes a single measured step back from Hilary. Puts a modest amount of space between them once again.

"Father." His smile is all warmth. "I was just keeping your lovely bride company."

Edmund Grey descends the stairs. He does not hurry; he moves quickly, but his gait is easy and smooth. He gains the floor and holds his hands out to Hilary, smiling. "My darling," he greets it, sweeping her hands to his lips as he bows. "How wonderful to see you again."

Behind him, John is glowering suspiciously at Oliver.

When Grey comes downstairs, Hilary smells of her mad, wild purity. She smells of sex, too, arousal and searing heat, calling back to nights spent with banked fires and bodies between furs to stave off the winter -- a time when so many children were born during the harvest because their making was a striving to keep warm many, many months before. It is a scent bordered on all sides by that creeping, relentless cold: a core of fire to combat the night, a place to call home.

She does not smile when she sees him, because she almost never smiles but that broad, flashing thing that she hasn't even bothered to give to anyone for... how long now? Since that awful tragedy a year ago? Who would blame her if she never smiled again?

"Grey," she murmurs, when he steps to her, and she permits him to lift her hands. She is aware of all three of them now, varied ages and varied strength, the moons they were born under only waxing as the years roll back from eldest to youngest. She watches him kiss her hands, both of them, and finds him most curious.

She wonders if this is also why she is here: because he wants her now, possesses her now, wants something for himself finally and she is it. And she wonders if he intends to have her tonight, to feel her under him and seal her in his own ritual version of mateship before a ceremony by mystic or mankind. Briefly, her eyes glance at John, the only one who has not looked at her with some measure of open lust in his eyes. She wonders if he hates her. She does not wonder at the fact that this idea, like Oliver's reduction of her to whore, like Grey's elevation of her to icon,

only arouses her further.

Hilary's cheeks are pink. She exhales, suddenly, and murmurs: "Goodness. I am faint," as she sways slightly away from him, her hands slipping like ghosts from his grasp, her second step taking her towards a nearby couch.

How prettily she swoons, like the ailing heroine of some old tragic romance. How prettily she wears the twin thorned-crowns of madness and grief, which is more recent than they could know, and which descended on her like a true illness. How lovely she is even with her too-prominent bones, her too-thin body.

They would not be Silver Fangs, these men, if one of them did not come instantly to her aid. And so one does: strong arms and firm hands coming instantly to brace her, to support her, to lower her gently to that couch she sways toward. It is, however, perhaps the least expected of the three: the elder brother, the one who hardly ever looks at Hilary, and the one who never seems to look at her at all without a frown.

John is the one that catches her. He's the one that helps her down to sit. "Some water for the lady, perhaps," he suggests, looking to his father.

And meanwhile his brother leans indolently against the wall, the tip of his tongue touching the tip of one incisor as his eyes wander down Hilary's legs. As for Edmund Grey: the patriarch of the family is in fact striding to the doorway to the kitchen, speaking to the servants there. Something about refreshments. Talens. Food and drink and healing for his beloved and intended.

They would not be wolves either, these men, if they were not aware of her arousal. If they couldn't see it in her flushed cheeks. If they couldn't smell it in the air. Hilary can be such a wanton, decadent creature, as though her humanity has been drained to dregs, as though all that remains to fill her is utterly amoral lust and boundless, implacable rage.

Yet not a one of them reacts the same way. Her sexuality arouses Oliver. Goads him to levels of insubordination and flirtation that perhaps even he is not usually capable of. It seems to anger John; seems to make him cold and suspicious. And as for Edmund Grey, her supposed betrothed:

look, he has walked away entirely. As though an icon like her, a beatific angel of the heavens, could not possibly be touched by such base things as desire. He is tending to her, of course. He is essentially carrying through what his elder son suggested. But his back is turned. He's not even looking her way.

John steadies her, and Hilary neither flinches from him nor leans into him. She sighs as she is helped to the couch, a pillow shifted to help support her, and she looks faintly embarrassed but

not really.

Some water, John suggests, and his father does not balk or tense up to receive this suggestion and answer it. Grey goes overboard, wanting to lavish comfort on her. Hilary wants a fan. She wants a whip. She wants all three of them, brutal and uncaring, and then she wants Ivan to punish her for such sinning. Hilary cannot quite fathom how deep and how overwhelming her desire is right now, how overpowering it feels as she sits there in this quaint little house, the first time she's even been out since she left Novgorod. She is terribly pale for the beginnings of summer, and so the pink of her cheeks shows up all the more.

When water is brought, Hilary sips it slowly, watching Grey, whispering her apology. "I am so sorry," she murmurs. "I feel so foolish."

It is a small house, and so it is modestly staffed: a lone serving-man, as impeccably and unobtrusively dressed as the men who brought Hilary here, brings her water. A pristine glass, filled with water bottled from some Alpine spring or other; garnished with two thin slices of lemon, cooled with three crystalline ice cubes. He presents it on a tray. Beside the glass is a small, curious gourd,

which Edmund Grey picks up without so much as a glance at the servant. He breaks it open with a clever, deft motion of his hands and he spills the liquid within into the glass, a dollop of some purer-than-pure fluid splashing in.

"Darling," he soothes, "you've nothing to be sorry for. It was a long drive, and you must be beside yourself with anticipation for our happy day. Who could blame you for being a little overwrought?" He lifts the glass. John Grey, thus far standing silent beside Hilary, moves aside now as his father comes to kneel before his intended bride. "Hush now," Edmund continues, "drink this and you will feel right as rain. I promise."

Leaning against the wall, out of his father's sight, Oliver smirks. Straightens.

"Perhaps you should invite your lovely bride to stay the night," he says. "Hardly seems right to send her home in her condition. If you're concerned about her modesty, John and I could share a room, and she could take the other."

There is nothing in Hilary that needs healing except for some strain on her body brought on by a brief spat of malnutrition. But she sits, reclining in that widow-black dress of hers, that deep red lipstick, her jewelry absorbing the light and then leaking parts of it back out, and she accepts the glass of water with the little spirit inside, watching Grey. She watches him kneel. She watches him speak, watches as he translates her arousal -- which in human company could have been mistaken -- into something else.

She sips, watching him, and then her eyes flick to Oliver as he speaks. She takes a breath, and her brows stitch, and she reaches over to his hand, laying her fingertips against the back of it. "Oh... would that be too much?"

"I think perhaps it would not be appropriate," John says, gruff, but:

then, almost instantly, Grey's hand turns over under Hilary's. He catches her fingers, brings them to his lips. Kisses her hand again, perhaps a touch more fervently than need be. He reads her pink cheeks as a beautiful sort of frailty. Reads the breath threading through her voice as faintness and exhaustion. Reads her soft words, her swooning, her willingness to stay,

all as a sort of dependency, a need of someone strong and mighty and experienced, a guiding hand, a stronger will. God, she must be such a delicate, fragile, lovely flower. Something to be shielded from everything, everything; something that is his and his alone. He reads her arousal this way because, of course,

this is what arouses him. He kisses her hand yet again.

"Of course not, my love," he answers. "You will stay here tonight. In fact, I was rather hoping you would like this little house. I thought perhaps in the future, when you and I are married, I would keep this for you. As a pied-à-terre here in Chicago. I recall," and he looks proud, if mildly so, that he remembered such a thing, "you wished to spend at least part of the year here. Though if it is too humble -- "

"Father," Oliver interrupts, "perhaps we could save the planning for tomorrow. Look at her. She's exhausted. Surely the two of you could discuss damask patterns and lodging arrangements in the morning. Dinner, I think, and then early to bed."

There it is. Not her arousal, her want, not even the fact that she's wet -- these things don't do it for Grey. It's her fragility. Her thinness, her paleness, her swooning, her need. It is sick, but perhaps just as sick as anything else. Maybe no more sick than what she and Ivan get off on.

He kisses her hands again and again, and he does not lack warmth, none of his kind do. He is as heated and ferocious as any of them, and it seeps through his lips into her skin. She watches him, catching him, understanding now.

What he says makes her flicker the tightest, smallest of smiles. She does not get a chance to answer, because Oliver is rushing them ahead. Dinner. He mocks wedding preparations. Hilary knows him, too, understand what he is really getting at, what he really wants: to go through dinner, quickly. To get into her bedroom, if his brother is dead asleep and his father is too proper to try anything. To fuck her there, covering her mouth with his hand.

Hilary wonders for a moment why he wants her so.

She looks back at Grey, slowly sitting up, looking a few inches down at him, a dark shadow over his gleaming silver. "I would like that, my lord," she murmurs, as though entreating.

What a strange, archaic term she bestows upon him. It's one that makes Oliver's eyebrow hike contemptuously upward. But oh, it's one that Grey likes, and she can see it: the way his eyes light up, the way he

kisses her hand

again.

My lord. My lady. Damsels in distress, and he their white knight. Those are the fantasies playing through his mind, this dignified, aging Theurge of the many marriages and many offspring. This man the tribe is a rank and a half away from very nearly deifying. This creature who wants something of his own, something to keep precious, something to polish and shine and admire and -- let's be honest -- to place on a pedestal and worship.

"Come," he says, smiling as he rises, holding her hands to help her up. "Are you feeling better? Let's put some good hearty food in you. And then a warm soft bed, and in the morning we'll discuss all the little details."

There's few ways to describe how Grey thinks of her that do not bring the idea of a trophy instantly to mind. That is exactly what he wants, and what he sees her to be: the reward, the accolade, but ultimately the shiny and useless thing to be polished and adored and looked at but which really has no meaning except what is inscribed upon it. All his. With his name etched onto her, and her beauty behind his own glass.

Hilary rises with the sort of grace reserved for serpents and angels, blushing faintly at his concern. "I'm quite all right now," she says, and she is: though she isn't ill, isn't injured, it means that the spirit in the gourd only strengthened what was already there as best it could. She smiles at him, thinly, and it is the last time she smiles

all through dinner.

That is a gracious affair, and Hilary sits where she is told and eats what she is told. She eats small portions of whatever is served to her, and compliments everything. Everything is wonderful. Everything is perfect. She does not drink -- of course not, she seemed so weak in the parlor -- but she, at one point, even holds Grey's hand a bit. Does not smile at him, and does not let the touch last.

It is a gracious affair, but it is also -- at least amongst the Greys -- an intimate family affair. The dining room is small; the table can seat a maximum of six. Eight, if they add chairs and squeeze, but they are not the sort of add chairs or squeeze. If they needed to, the Greys would just buy another table. Buy another house.

So: six chairs, of which only four are occupied. Hilary at Grey's right hand. Oliver across from her, staring at her so unabashedly that it's a wonder his father doesn't notice. Or doesn't care. Grey's heir at the other end of the table, which is an honorable seat but also an isolated one. It seems to suit him. He keeps to himself, cutting his meat in precise, brutal strokes, downing wine by the mouthful.

It's Oliver that carries the conversation again. Grey seems content to sit back and enjoy his dinner; to watch his bride. Oliver, for his part, behaves himself. He talks of harmless things. Sailing yachts and horseflesh, polo, croquet, all the absurd sports that no one in their right mind really plays anymore. Dinner itself is served by the one serving-man that brought Hilary her water earlier, and it is a relatively simple affair: a prime rib roast, herbed potatoes, steamed vegetable mix. There is wine. Hilary does not indulge.

She holds Grey's hand at one point. And he gives her fingers a gentle squeeze, gives her a smile that she does not return.

--

Dinner winds down. It ends when Grey folds his napkin and sets it over his plate, though he is polite enough to wait until Hilary is evidently finished before he does so. The servant begins to clear the table, but if Hilary begins to stand Grey waves her back into her place.

"Go see to the rooms," he tells his sons. "Have a bath drawn for our lovely guest. We'll be up shortly." And to Hilary, indulgently: "When our affairs are settled, only you and I will have access to this house. You needn't worry about my boys tromping all over taking up rooms and beds."

A bath, Grey orders for her. One of the sons is to draw it. There's no need for that; the servant could do it, and should do it, but Grey sends John and Oliver instead. Hilary is not so detached that she doesn't know why, doesn't realize he wants to be alone with her. He tells her not to worry about the house, or his 'boys' tromping all through it. She shakes her head. "I was not worried," she murmurs. Her eyes go to her plate: the remainder of meat, the skins of potatoes, the overcooked carrots, which she could not stomach no matter how much she lied about the food's quality.

Then they go, dark and slow, back to Edmund's. His sons rise and depart. She waits for their footsteps up the stairs and tilts her head slightly, watching her husband to be.

"A bath?" she murmurs to him, questioningly. "Do you think I'm filthy?"

It is not easy to fluster Edmund Grey. Who knows what the man has been through. How many battles and wars hinged on the deals he could strike, the bargains he could make, the ground he could hold without batting an eye. And yet, just for a moment, he is off-balance; embarrassed.

"Of course not, my dearest. I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort. I simply thought you would enjoy the relaxation after a doubtlessly long day." He reaches for her hand. "Forgive me if I've insulted you."

Doubtlessly long day. She mustn't worry about his sons tromping all over the house. He makes a thousand and one assumptions about her, but it's no more or less than she is used to. Hilary breathes in deeply, moving that hand with its blood-red stone across the back of his hand. "No. I just... want to make sure I please you. I want to make sure you find no fault with me."

Her eyes find his as her fingertips touch his wrist. "I want you to be certain," she whispers, "that I would do anything for you. Anything you want of me."

Grey: so calm and collected, lounging so elegantly in his chair at the head of the table. Yet beneath her fingers, his pulse bounds. His eyes flick down; his fingers spread and then, ever so carefully, wrap around her wrist in turn. His exhale is slow and subtle, his thumb passing over her skin.

"My darling," he murmurs, "you please me more than anything. All I want... is for you to be just as you are. Lovely and delicate. Sheltered and safe. A garden that my pack and I surround like a wall, and in which I could, just once in a while, rest my weary head.

"Let me take care of you for the rest of your life. That is all I ask." His takes her hand. Seizes it, squeezes it, bears it to his lips, quietly fervent. "Let's be married soon. I can scarcely wait another day."

There is a great mockery swelling up in Hilary. She wants to laugh at him. Darling, he calls her. Lovely and delicate, sheltered and safe. She wants to brutally, mercilessly tear these illusions down from his eyes and shred them in front of him, slaughter his image of her. She wants to see the way it breaks him when the realization takes hold. She wants to watch the anger and betrayal light up his eyes. A garden. She wants, madly and viciously, to tell him about last Halloween, and about all but inviting his son to come inside of her. Perhaps tell him of her own son. But no.

There are worse stories she has to share with him. And she'll never get to see the crawling cold terror in his eyes in reaction to that if she ruins it all just by telling him about naughty sex things.

"Nor can I," she whispers back to him, sounding dreamlike, ethereal, as he kisses the hand wearing a ring given to her by another wolf. She is leaning towards him, her scent rising like a perfume, and she does not smile but she offers,

since he just told her she pleases him, be lovely, be safe, let him take care of her,

"Would you like to bathe me?"

The laugh that escapes him is quiet, a breath; half a gasp. "My lady," it almost sounds like a vow, "I would like nothing more. But I'm afraid that would, indeed, cross the boundaries of propriety.

"Wait, my love. Wait until we are wed. It will not be very long."

Propriety. She almost smiles. She doesn't.

"Of course," Hilary says, casting her eyes down, looking not just embarrassed but uncomfortable, distressed, her hand tensing in his hand. "I only meant... to wash... excuse me..."

she breathes this last, rising swiftly, moving like mercury from her chair and away from him, out of the room, fleeing from his imagined displeasure like a fawn. She does not run, she is too lovely to run, but she is wind moving out of the room, towards the stairs.

She flees. Surely Grey's mad, silver-touched wolf's mind flashes to deer, to lovely, slender-legged prey-things darting into the greenery. He rises behind her. Hard to say if it is a gentleman's instinct or a predators, but regardless, it hardly matters because

John, coming down the stairs, nearly collides with Hilary. The Philodox's hands grip for a moment at her elbows, reflexive and steadying. Then he releases her and steps back, bowing his head to her. "Madam," he says by way of greeting and apology, "your bed is prepared. I had the servants change everything, from sheet to bedspread. My brother is personally drawing your bath as we speak."

"Hilary," this is Grey; this is perhaps one of the first and only times Grey has ever called her by her given name, "you mustn't think that I am displeased in any way. Or that I do not ... want." He has come close to her again. They have, intentionally or otherwise, surrounded her there at the foot of the stairs. Grey's hand touches her elbow, a gracefully imploring gesture. "I do. Very much. It is only that I must guard your honor as I do my own. You understand, do you not?"

John's jaw tenses. He looks distinctly uncomfortable. Clears his throat and begins to step back to return upstairs.

John is not the only one who looks very uncomfortable. Hilary doesn't flinch away from the hands that grab at her, steady her, slow her, cage her. She just looks upset, looks disturbed. She doesn't want John to overhear, but Grey seems not to mind, and Grey is the one she has to please.

Her eyes find his again, after being downcast so long. "It isn't that," she murmurs, standing just a step or two above her intended husband. "I wasn't... propositioning..."

Hilary, who spoke such filth to his son before dinner, looking so shamed that Grey thought she wanted him to bathe her like that, like sex, like... something improper and wrong. She looks so troubled, so upset, that she obviously wants to not be touched anymore, but doesn't pull away because he's her fiance, after all. She forces the smallest smile at him, tight and pained and mad and broken. "I understand, my dearest. I'm just so very tired, after all. I'm sorry to have been so silly all evening."

Grey is shaking his head, holding up his hand, even before Hilary finishes. "No more apologies," he says gently, but with a certain finality. "You did nothing requiring forgiveness, and even if you did, I would have forgiven you before you had even trespassed against me. My love,"

he follows her up a step, and now he is eye to eye with her, cupping his hand warmly over the outside of her arm,

"my love," he repeats, "you have done nothing to be ashamed of. And it was I who -- shamefully misinterpreted your words. It is I who should ask your forgiveness. If you would give it to me, we can put the incident from our minds, and you can, and should, go to take your rest. We will speak of happier things in the morning."

God, they're so polite. Hilary is suddenly, consumingly tired of him. She nods anyway, and waits anyway, and crawls out of her skin to be away from him, away from John, away from the meal and the politeness. She wants something raw, and after she slips her arm and hand away from Grey as smoothly and forgivingly as she can, she goes upstairs. She finds the bathroom by the sound of water.

They let her go. There is that, at least. These wolves, these mad creatures who pretend to be polite and moderated and not-greedy, not-lustful, not-insane; who pretend so well that they almost believe it most of the time -- they shift aside, they loosen their claws, they let her slip away from them.

"Goodnight," Edmund Grey calls softly after her. And whether or not she answers, they leave her be.

The staircase is narrow. The upstairs is as close-quartered as the lower. A family could be comfortable and cozy in this little house. A family that was close-knit and loving, that understood the delicate balance between blood-bonds and necessary freedoms; a family that did not hold too tight, that did not neglect, that is not and could never be the sort of family Hilary grew up in.

The bathroom is there, though, easily discovered by the sound of running water, filling tub. Curls of steam escape the cracked-open door. When she pushes the door open, she finds Oliver Grey still in there, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbow as he tests the temperature of the water, spills bath salts into the tub.

His eyes catch hers in the mirror. Flick over her shoulder to check for the presence of father or brother. Finding none, return to her.

"Shall I assist you?" he asks, soft as silk.

She was expecting him.

The bathroom is half-full of steam, and warmth, and the rage and purity of Grey's son. God, she feels wet at the sight of him. She watches him look for others, though what, really, is he going to do? It's a small enough house that if Grey is somewhere and John is somewhere and Hilary is in the bathroom and they look everywhere else for Oliver, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where he is. It wouldn't be a grand leap to deduce that he's in the bathroom with his father's bride,

who is naked and bathing before him.

Hilary stand at the bathroom door and reaches up, sweeping her hair across one shoulder. She turns her back to him, her zipper exposed, not saying a word.