Ivan Press

Hilary

With all his starved swans and wounded pigeons and tittering canaries, Ivan would leave. That virgin he threw in her face down in Mexico, the one he fucked to ruin her for her inevitable mate -- he got up as soon as he was done with her and left, buttoning up his shirt and telling her, though not in so many words, to have a nice life. He'd leave them after he used them, and rarely think of them again. But Hilary: oh no. He followed her, needing to care for her after what he'd done with her as much as she may have needed it even then.

He's so fragile right now, in the aftermath. And yet he guards her, because she is even more broken than he is.

This is unusual, this hand laying atop his hand. Even at her most unguarded, her most near-human, it's a strange gesture from someone like her. She watches him, not really thinking about anything, just existing, her lips open very, very slightly as he's touching her cheek. He loves her; her eyes close in a slow blink. He does. They close completely as he leans over and rests with her like that.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't sigh. She just is: sleepy under the fur, satiated by the sex, warm, close, his, trusting, submitted to him -- she is all these things. She cannot describe them in words. It is enough -- and it is rare enough -- to simply feel them at all.

Their eyes are closed. They are quiet now, their breathing evening out, their sweat drying in the cool air. She is sated, sleepy, so utterly relaxed that he can feel it in the air. That bone-deep peace in her touches him as well. He is relaxing moment by moment. She is his. She is safe. They are here together, and some primitive part of him, so rarely tapped as to almost be vestigial, stirs to life and rumbles in contentment. The world seems far away; everything is well.

He thinks, with that part of his mind that is still civilized, that he forgot to turn the heater up when they came in, though it was never off. It's all right, though. They are lying on furs, sleeping the way their ancestors and their progenitors did - hundreds of years ago, millions of years ago. He thinks idly that he should wrap the furs around them. He should light a fire. He should...

Sleep comes. They sleep for hours without even moving. At some point he stirs, or she does, and they come awake to find the lights still on; their exposed skins chilled. She climbs out of bed, disappears into the bathroom. He turns the lights out, turns the heat up a little. When she comes back he's under the coat, using it like a blanket of old, the fur to their skins. He throws it back for her to climb under. Her hands are cold, and he lays them against his chest, between their bodies. His arm wraps around her. They sleep.

It is morning when Ivan wakes again. Nine or ten o'clock. The east-facing shades have drawn up automatically, following some timer. The day is grey, the lake grey as well. Their little deck is wet with rain, or perhaps mist. Snow is in short supply this year.

Ivan doesn't move. Half-closed still, his eyes trace the sky outside. The water. He closes his eyes again. Time goes by. Perhaps he sleeps again, but then

she's waking, and his eyes are opening slowly, the green more evident than the tawny in this light. He looks at her, and she is so familiar to him. He knows her scent like his own. It's almost like they're the ones promised and vowed to each other, he muses. It's almost like he has a right to be here.

He thinks again of Siberia, which in truth is a land he's only heard of; never bothered to visit. No one goes to Siberia except criminals and exiles. He thinks of it now, though - a land of boundless snow. Black sables cunning and swift, killing to survive. He thinks of living with her there. Apart from society; cut off and exiled from the world. It is impossible, of course. He wouldn't dream of it,

but sometimes he does.

Still: his hand on her cheek, her hand on his hand as though to hold it there. As though, even drowsing like this, to keep him there. This, too, is rarer than rare, that she is the one who reaches out to him to hold, to keep, to stay close. And he's brought her here, away from all those people who would circle her or whisper about her, all those people who she does not care about and yet must act a certain way for -- the way she must act A Certain Way for anyone, everyone, always, because who and what she really is is incomprehensible to them. He brought her here, and she is warm and safe.

They drowse, and then Hilary gives a whimper. She twists her head before they sleep, her eyes closed and brow furrowed, his attention suddenly sharp, til he realizes: there are earrings in her lobes, bangles on her wrist, metal digging into her here, and there. His fingers are lazy but deft, even now, as he helps her take them off. They drop to the floor, forgotten and unimportant. Now she truly is naked, moving even closer to him, slipping her arm over his waist in gratitude.

Later, after sleep, she comes out of the bathroom and gives a startled half-yelp, walking into the sudden dark. He's there, though, suddenly, crossing the distance and holding her, remembering that he promised her Anton would never have to find his way alone in the dark, remembering what she told him about that silly little toy with the light-up face. At least this place is not a cavern, is not enormous and mazelike -- she can see everything, wherever she is. So can he. They're safe here: he reminds her of this without words as his hands cover hers in the dark and guide her with him to the bed, pull her down to the mattress, under the furs again, where

the mere motion of Ivan welcoming her to bed makes her lust again. She breathes a little differently. He hears it, can see her vaguely in the dark, can feel that even though her hands and feet are cold, her cunt is still very warm against his fingers. They disturb the furs again, shifting underneath as he works that spark of lust into something greater, building the heat between them until she's gasping, arching a little, but he stops just before she starts to whine and whimper.

The way he fucks her then is no less rough than before, but it's slower. His hand finds its way to her thigh, pushing that flexible leg of hers up higher, fitting himself ever deeper into her, sliding home and reveling in the way she cries out every time, the way it sounds almost like pain and entirely like need. Whore, he whispers in her ear, as tenderly as her name or as any profession of love. Oh, you slut.

And she comes for him, wet and tight and so very hot under his body and that fur, bucking and clenching, grabbing at the sable and the pillow and the bed itself, almost crying from pleasure. He fills her again, luxuriates in how well she takes his cum when he gives it to her, how good she is, how willing. But by then he's turned her over. By then he's deprived her of his cock, and rolled her onto her stomach, and teased her with it before thrusting suddenly, savagely into her, panting, holding her hip and pulling her back to meet every pounding thrust. By the time Ivan comes into her again, she's biting at the coverlets, crying into the sheets, coming under him again, sobbing in whispers

that she loves him so much, she loves him, she loves him. Which is what, in the end, makes him come as much as her body and her heat and his own seething lust for her.

They sleep in a tangle like that, his arm and his leg over her body, fiercely protective, possessive, as though she might dare to move or someone might dare to take her from him while he closes his eyes. But they do sleep. In a mess of sweat and skin and sex, as close as they ever get. Knowing that in the morning, everything might be different. Everything might be the same. It might be better. It might be heartbreaking.

Hilary is still asleep. She moved slightly, and he woke, and she sleeps on a little longer while he thinks about Siberia, and sables, and the cold expanses of silver-white snow. The homeland of their tribe, though arguably her branch of the tribe comes from slightly more moderate climes. Her dead and gone branch of the tribe.

She sniffs. Before waking, before anything, she sniffs, and begins to forget her dreams.

"It smells," she mentions, and has not yet opened her eyes.

It breaks Ivan's heart a little to hear that startled little sound Hilary makes, coming out into darkness. He'd forgotten for a moment - or really, simply failed to consider - that she was afraid of darkness, afraid of being swallowed, afraid of being left alone.

So he's there, awake suddenly, beside her, taking her in his arms. Taking her in their bed, later, he grounds her in reality like that as well. Breaks her open the way he does, empties out the darkness, allows what remains to recoalesce into something human, something emotional, something real,

if only for a while.

The next morning, her first words are a comment on the less-than-fresh condition of the bed. And she's right, of course. That coat of hers, that lovely coat that cost more than some people ever make in their lives, will need to be thoroughly and carefully cleaned now. Still; it aches a little. Such a prosaic little complaint: he suspects she's withdrawing again, withdrawing already.

"I'll have Yuliya in here to tidy up," he promises. He's husky with sleep; lifts his hand and rubs his face a little. "And we'll send the coat to a good cleaner."

The next morning, she murmurs that it smells. It stabs through him: she's pulling away, she's complaining, withdrawing, he's losing her. But he promises to take care of it, all the same. Promises to take care of her, too. Doesn't reach for her, doesn't hold onto her, doesn't assume she's still the way she was last night when she trusted him so utterly, falling into his hands as he came to her in the dark to protect her from it.

"Not today," she murmurs, rubbing her face into a pillow. He's still half over her, half atop her, and she's not moving. Not today: it's Christmas. But that isn't what she says. "It's not bad."

Hilary is all but burrowing into the pillows, so she misses the look on Ivan's face. It's a sort of pleased surprise, which quirks up the corners of his mouth and clears his brow. "Oh," he murmurs, stirring a little, raising one sleep-heavy hand and stroking back her hair. "In that case, we'll simply let it fester."

And he idles a while, his hand passing down her back, his arm draping lazily over her torso. There's probably food outside, he muses. A nice little cart of breakfast delicacies, placed neatly next to where Hilary's bags have been set in the shelter of a portable awning. Mustn't disturb the royalty while they sleep, after all. Mustn't let their things be damaged, either.

He doesn't particularly want Evgeny's cooking right now, though. He wonders if he can convince Hilary to make something today. Maybe he can help. He turns his head; nuzzles Hilary wherever he can reach her. Her shoulder maybe. Her brow, through a screen of her loose hair.

"There are gifts for you in the closet," he whispers. "Do you want me to get them?"

They're so close right now that there's no need to raise their voices, or even speak at a regular volume. He's been holding her all night, possessive and protective both, saturated in her sweat and the scent of their sex in the bed, in the fur until his mind's nocturnal wanderings took him back to ancient Siberia. Maybe there was a cub there, even smaller and more vulnerable than the female, and he hunted in his dreams to keep them both alive -- or risked their deaths because he could not bear to leave them alone. Maybe the moon was in his phase in his dreaming, a dark blot against the stars, and the only sound in the depths of winter was the crackling of the cold that hid his footsteps on the snow so, so well. A good wind to blow the snow across his prints. A safe night.

Maybe in his dreams there was a pack waiting for him out there in that cold, safe, dark night, waiting to hunt with him, waiting on his nose to track down prey, waiting to turn the snow red as they killed, waiting for him to run with. Maybe in his dreams,

it was an older time, when the Silver Fangs were not so mad, were not so broken.

He can see her hair, thick and dark and tumultuous with curls and tangles. He can hear her voice and she can hear his, but mostly Hilary focuses on how heavy his arm is, how heavy his leg, how heavy the fur. She is quite warm. She feels filthy. She doesn't mind. She feels his arm lift, rustling against the interior of the coat, moving to stroke her hair. It makes her drowsy, though she's slept so much that she's quite alert otherwise. He says 'fester' and she wrinkles her nose.

"That's disgusting," she murmurs. "We do not fester."

His arm draws still across her back, sloping and soft. He imagines food; she imagines nothing past the warmth she's in, the comfort. The lights are off and the shades are down, and it's dim inside the cabin though not pitch-dark. And Ivan nuzzles her, keeping her awake, keeping her in the present, keeping her aware of things other than mere sensation, sensation that drags her down, keeps her limbs too heavy to move. He is lazy and animalistic and intent on getting his affection from her, showing his affection to her. Gifts, he says.

He eyes blink open. It's Christmas morning and he gave her a glorious coat last night, promised her more and more, and she has the strangest surge of lust go through her simply because

he is her vladelets, giving her presents because she's been so very, very good. Hilary all but purrs. Her eyes sink closed again and she squirms slightly under the fur in pleasure. "Da, pozhaluĭsta," she says, very carefully enunciating each syllable, very slowly, quite awkwardly.

He is - they are both - so happy right now. At least, as close to happy as they get, which is a sort of bone-deep contentment because she is here, she is his good, beautiful, obedient devushka. And though no one in their right mind would call Hilary a girl - it would be insulting to apply such a term to her - he calls her what he does naturally, easily, as a term of affection.

He is her vladelets. She is his devushka, his khoroshaya, poslushnaya, krasivaya devushka.

And she wants his gifts. She lusts for them quite literally, which is something he can almost smell when he's relaxed like this, hidden away like this, languid and animal like this. He presses himself up on one elbow. Leans over her, nuzzles her between her shoulderblades, kisses her there in the dip of her spine.

Then, lightly as a cat, he springs over her, off the bed. Ivan walks naked to the closet. What does he need clothes for? They are alone in the privacy of the closest thing to a home they have. It's not the same as that den in his half-remembered dream, but the primeval savagery of the dream still lingers like a scent. It makes him want to pace his territory bare except for claw and fang. It makes him want to mount her on the floor, on her furs, bite her as he fucks his cum into her, hold her safe in his den until the cubs come in summer.

That is not who they are anymore. Their tribe has by and large lost touch of that primitive drive. Their tribe has thoroughly lost their collective minds. And so his bare feet touch not earth and stone but smoothly processed wood; the walls of this den are not earth and stone but glass, mortar, metal.

He opens the shades first, the ones still drawn against the day. Light pours in, even on this grey day. Then he opens the closet door, and if Hilary looks she can see all the boxes and packages within, not quite so neatly wrapped as the ones at the party. Ivan isn't terribly proficient at arts and crafts, after all, and he did, in fact, wrap these himself.

It takes him two trips to bring all the packages back to the bed, where he arranges them around his lover. Then, not quite managing to hide his eagerness, he climbs back into bed and picks up the first, random package, handing it to Hilary.

It turns out to be that tablet Ivan promised her so long ago. He forgets nothing, it seems; at least not when it comes to Hilary. He spends a long time teaching her how to use it, and to be truthful she'll likely brick it in a week. It doesn't matter. It's beautiful and wellcrafted and feels so solid yet nimble in the hands. It's the best, the very best, and he wants her to have it.

Then there's jewelry, and a lot of it. Ropes of pearls. Bracelets, bangles - she seems to like them, he notes - and necklaces, pendants, earrings. A watch, minimalistic, an arc of metal with a face that almost blends with the band. There's a pair of ballet shoes, white satin. There's bondage gear, white satin, and a riding crop that he'll have to be careful with if he doesn't want to hurt her, and when she unwraps that the corner of Ivan's mouth curls upward. It's also white; white leather, pristine and beautiful.

There's a set of cookware, of all things - by far the largest box on the bed, and heaviest. They have to take a break from gift opening so Ivan can stash it all in their cupboards, hang it over the counter. There's a car, or rather the keys to a car, as well as a calling card with the name and contact information of a driver-on-call. Ivan thinks it's ridiculous that Aston-Martin is making sedans these days, but whatever. It's a compromise: his sense for speed, her need for class. They can ride in this, he says, if she really objects to his Lamborghinis and Bugattis.

And there's chocolate. A rabbit with a santa hat, to replace the one he demanded a piece of so long ago.

Her master springs out of bed, more excited child or puppy now than brutal master, and she watches him drowsily, mindlessly, as though she doesn't know what he's up to but is quite curious. This is not far from the truth. The kiss he left her with burns a little on her back, his mouth the hot flash of a bomb going off, her skin the scorched earth. This sort of thing makes her happy.

She rolls over, though, after awhile, as he's coming back with the first round of presents. She rolls over onto her back and pushes herself up on her elbows, then sits up, fur falling off her breasts. She clutches it back, lifting her knees, because the cabin is quite chilly. Light is streaming in, pouring in from the sunlight, drenching the room, but it will be awhile before it warms it up. She holds the sable to cover those now-plump tits of hers, watching as he surrounds her with gifts he wrapped himself, and they are wrapped horribly, but differently, because every time he got bored or annoyed looking at one kind of paper he yelled at a servant to bring him more. Something different, something else.

Hilary is a little bewildered by the tablet. It's such a fine piece of machinery, to be sure, but she doesn't remember him telling her he'd get her a new one; she certainly never asked for it. Vaguely she can tell that it's different from the one kept in a safe in Miranda's apartment, but that's as far as her discernment goes.

He has pre-loaded some games on it for her. One of them is the little cake decorating one. She smiles and plays that for awhile. For long enough that Ivan gets bored, gets irritated, gets antsy for her to do something else. And considering that at first he is filled with pure, glowing delight at her pleasure over the thing, that at first he spends a very long time teaching her how to use it, this is quite awhile that she spends playing. The tablet makes bloop bloop noises as she chooses different kinds of frosting. It's cartoonish. Ridiculous. More than childish; a literal retard would not be amused with this for long, but Hilary seems to find it endlessly entertaining. She is not terribly verbal with her thanks. She does kiss him before she starts playing, there's that, her hand on his face for a moment, but it finally does come to the point that he has to take it physically from her hands,

and she frowns at him, pouts at him, and he has to be firm, telling her no, saying she can play with it later. This, as much as the stupid game itself, makes her happy. That he all but snaps at her, tells her sternly that she can't have what she wants, deprives her. She wraps the sable around herself and around him, curling up to his body, snuggling against him as he lifts more and more into her hands.

Pearls dip between her breasts. Bangles on her wrists, white gold and yellow gold and one made of smooth, polished granite, carved slender and yet still heavy, cuffs of etched metal, a watch, the various chains. There are boxes filled with velvet and preciousness all around her, gleaming and expensive, and she tries them all on and sometimes they get quite distracted because he adores the sight of her naked and jeweled, adorned like this, and a few times she asks his opinion on how a necklace looks, how these earrings look, and it's always beautiful, beatiful, his mouth and his hands on her, teasing himself as much as he teases her, which brings them to the

white.

Satin shoes. She looks almost sad as she sees them, but this is the first gift he can see has truly touched her in any way. She tells him they're so lovely. She imagines all the horrible horrible things she's going to do to them. Bending and twisting them in her hands. Slamming them in doors. Smashing them against the floor. Stepping on them. Sewing new ribbons onto them. Heating up the box with a lighter. Soaking them to soften the shank. They will not stay white for very long, even up there in her pristine studio. And they will not stay nearly this pretty.

Still, she leans over and she kisses his cheek, murmurs her thanks to him. He won't mind her destroying their beauty if she dances for him. She's mostly certain of that. His hand lifts and cups her breast as the kiss goes on, deepens, warms; he tells her he has more for her.

White again. This time leather, though. White cuffs lined with silver fur, a set of cuffs for her ankles that match, lengths of shining chain to connect them together or not. A satin blindfold. A simple over the mouth gag, which one might think was chosen indiscriminately if it weren't for the fact that Ivan has spent quite a bit of time picking out these gifts. The riding crop comes in a long, neat box like one might receive roses in. She gasps when she sees it, her chest lifting, and she wants -- he can tell she wants it -- to see if he'll play with her now, if they can play with these new toys. She can imagine the sting. She's looking at him, eager and breathless, and he says:

later, which makes her whine a little, makes her want, but: later.

It's strange, going from that to the pots and pans. Yet this, too, touches her. She seems almost exasperated, as though finally she has something decent to cook with out here. Ivan, however, is the one excitedly trying to put them away til she begins calling corrections to him from the bed: no, not there. No. What are you thinking? Finally he just leaves them: if she's going to be that picky, she can put away the cast iron skillet with her dainty little hands.

He comes back and she's lounging again amidst the boxes when he gives her the box containing the car keys, the emblematic keychain. It means very little to her. She can't see the car. Where is it, she wants to know, tossing the calling card over her shoulder and off the bed after looking at it. She has Carlisle. She knows Carlisle. He's kin. She doesn't like new people. She wants to know what the car looks like. She doesn't quite grasp why Ivan snits about Aston-Martin making sedans, not realizing that Aston-Martin typically has not. She lays back, lazing, as he tells her that it's a compromise. That makes her smile, lazily, as she dangles the keys from her finger, watching the light hit them. "You're ludicrous," she says, as affectionate as any kiss she's ever gifted him with.

He lays next to her. Gives her chocolate, which she also doesn't get. "Why a rabbit?" she murmurs, holding it without unwrapping the foil, yet holding it with both hands. Oh, he explains, and she vaguely remembers earlier this year, before the child was born, when he brought her something for Easter, as though it mattered. He remembers demanding a piece, and she was displeased, but Hilary hardly recalls a moment of it. She tips her head to the side. She tears off the rabbit's head and offers it to him, still wrapped in colorful foil.

It makes Ivan laugh to see what Hilary does with her chocolate rabbit. The head breaks off with little effort. The chocolate is so fine, so silky, the broken end bearing none of the crystalline texture of a cheaper candy. It reminds him of something a cat might do to show affection - mangle something. Tear something apart. Offer the pieces.

But then - it's not like his own instincts are so different. He gave her pelts, after all.

And he accepts this small gift that she gives back to him. Takes the rabbit's head in his agile hand, leaning across to kiss her quickly and fondly. "Thank you," he says, mock-gravely, before unwrapping the chocolate a little and taking a bite of it.

They are surrounded by wrapping paper. The mess is spilling off the bed. She is dripping with jewelry again, even as the pieces she wore last night get lost amongst the colorful decorations on the floor. There are pots and pans on the counters; a pair of ballet slippers that she will mash and twist and pound and very nearly destroy before they're of any practical use at all. Perhaps there's a symbolic lesson in that, but he doesn't read into it.

He sits with his lover. He eats chocolate until it melts onto his fingers, specks the corner of his lips. When he's done he sucks chocolate off his fingertips; he feels that enormous sugar-shock hitting his blood through an empty stomach and is reminded, again, that they really should find something to eat.

Not yet, though. One more gift; this one not in the pile. Ivan rolls to the side, reaches into the small nightstand by the bed. This one isn't wrapped. It's just a small white box, and inside the box, another box. This one is crafted of polished mahogany wood. There's a clasp in the middle, hinges on the side; both are gold. When unclasped, the lid swings open to either side rather like tiny double-doors. It is quite unmistakeably jewelry.

Ivan doesn't explain it. He doesn't preface it. He simply hands the box to Hilary, then leans back against the headboard to watch her open it.

They share the chocolate. Hilary eats furtively, small pieces, sucking them to nothingness on her tongue. She ate the other chocolate rabbit like this, too, snapping off pieces first. It's hollow, more finely wrought and more breakable than a solid piece. Strange, how something that takes so much care to produce and is so fine in the end, is so much more fragile than its cheaper, duller counterpart.

Strange. So strange.

Jewelry lies in boxes all around them, or is simply littered atop the sable. Hilary doesn't eat too much; she feels shaky, a little ill, her head light. She doesn't want any more chocolate. The rabbit makes her sad now, makes her unhappy, makes her want to cry, why, why, and she doesn't have the presence of mind to think of how little she's had to eat since those tiny bites of lamb or vegetables at the party with god knows how much liquor poured on top of it. He poured wine for them last night; they never bothered to drink it. It's still sitting on the nightstand in glasses, the bottle open on the counter.

They've been in this cabin less than twelve hours and have already managed to begin trashing it. Strange, strange.

One more gift, though. Hilary is lying back again, looking miserable from the sugar, when Ivan rolls over and finds his last gift, brings it to her. She peers at it, doesn't take it, then finally flicks the lid off the box with her fingers as he's holding it out to her. She scoots over, peeking inside, and finds the mahogany box with its archaic, odd doors. She takes it out, the tissue paper on either side rustling, and presses open the clasp as Ivan leans back.

Sometimes her mood changes so fast he doesn't know what to make of it. There's always some reason, but sometimes those reasons are as obscure as her emotions themselves: furtive, hidden things lost in the darkness, visible only when they roar into rage. He puts his hand on her back as she opens her last gift, though. He rubs her back gently, soothingly, because sometimes this is genuinely all he can do for her.

And in her hands the clasp comes undone with an exquisite little click. The halves of the box-top swing apart effortlessly and silently. Within, laid in a bed of black satin, set in a band of pure platinum,

a diamond as red as blood.

It is as unmistakably extraordinary as the coat had been. Even in such indirect light the stone is fierce in its brilliance, breathtaking in the depth and absoluteness of it hue. Like a living thing, it has a name, and when Ivan bought it and set it he thought to present it to Hilary along with that name. He had a little story to go with it, too, about how true red diamonds are the rarest and most precious of diamonds; how that color comes about because of the most perfect sort of imperfection.

He tells her none of that. He watches her open the box. He watches the diamond burn. And then he looks at Hilary and this, this is what he hears himself say:

"Marry me."

Hilary likes that he rubs her back when she feels ill and lightheaded, laying her head down on his shoulder with a soft sigh as she opens up her last present. More jewelry, no more special than the last except in the way he's presenting it, saving it, holding it out of her reach until the rest are done with. She's curious when she opens the box, soothed by his hand on her back, calmed by his nearness and warmth in a way she never is usually.

'Usually'. As though anything between them is usual, or normal, or typical.

The ring is spectacular. The setting alone is worth thousands, and that's before the diamond. It's also quite large, its facets creating hundreds of individual spots for the eye to catch as it twists the light.

Hilary does not gasp at the sight of it, but even she is not immune to the splendor of this gift, this thing so precious and rare that it is singular, named in the world despite its silence. Her lips do part. She thinks ruby at very first, is unimpressed, but no: a ruby's color is different, is deeper, is not like this, which is so much like a cranberry. Hilary does know a little about these things, having been gifted with so many fanciful bits of colored, expensive rock over her life. It is no ruby.

She has not even taken it from its box and slid it onto her finger before Ivan is saying what he does, the words coming out of his mouth the way she likes best, not asking or requesting but simply telling her what to do, ordering her about, telling her what pleases him. She looks at him, abruptly startled, and stares for a moment.

Any other time, and she might slap him. Or try to. She might tell him that he's insane, yell at him, try to cut his face with that damnable diamond. Today, though, Christmas morning -- well, early afternoon -- and in their cabin, wrapped in that fur he gave her, Hilary just looks

sad.

"You'll come to hate me if I do," she says softly, and sets the box down.

Hilary is startled. Who wouldn't be? Ivan is the very icon of irresponsible commitment-phobe. God knows how many women have been kicked out of his penthouse over the years. God knows how many women have spent a night in those hotel-like guest suites of his, cleaned out like the soiled linens and bath towels when the sun rose.

But he gives her this diamond, which was really only meant to be a gift. And then he does the other thing he does best: act on impulse. Recklessly. Fecklessly, with little concern for outcome or end.

Still; he doesn't look surprised when she answers as she does. His mouth moves a little; a sad little smile of his own. So quickly they've come down from the elemental pleasure and contentment of their awakening. She puts the box down and he's reminded of last night, when she rejected his gift as a sort of show. Playacting for the clueless masses. This is different.

The ring sits atop the furs, red on platinum on black, black, black. It seems its beauty should dim in the face of rejection, but stones and metals always were indifferent to such heartbreak. Strange to think how long this ring might last, now that it's forged. Strange to think how much longer that indestructibly hard stone will last - not quite forever, no, but certainly at least until the end of the world.

"And I'll lose you again if you don't," he replies, just as quiet, "one way or another."

Her fair hands are still cupped around the box, holding it atop the furs, cradling it. Set down, stared at, considered. She looks at him and her eyebrows tug together, almost as though in pain. "Ivan," she whispers, pronouncing his name the way it was always meant to be said, "you will lose me faster, and more certainly, if I do."

And there's an answering flicker in Ivan's eyebrows, as though her pain echoes along an unseen thread and into him. His hand comes spontaneously to her cheek, cups her face heavily for a second, then drops.

"Have you so little faith in my ability to love for long?"

They've dropped into semi-archaic language, but they have also dropped into this open endearment, this aching affection, that normally neither of them can really stand. Hilary exhales, and he feels it against his wrist. She turns her face toward his palm, kissing the heel of his hand, inhaling the scent of him that lingers there. For awhile she just remains like that, holding his hand between her cheek and her shoulder. Her hand covers the top of the box she holds, as though the diamond radiates heat and she is warming her hand against it.

"If you want me," she whispers, "I will. Even if you come to hate me, and take mistresses, and send me away because you can't bear me, I will love you."

It's perhaps damning that Ivan looks - feels - so unsure now. She agrees. Rather, she submits as she always does: if this is what he wants, then she will. Whatever he wants, she will. And his brow is still furrowed, and he's looking at that blood-colored ring cupped in her hands, and

she speaks of hatred, of mistresses, those other women he has not entertained for some time now because he hasn't wanted them. He's only wanted her. In some ways, that's all he's ever wanted since he met her.

And of love. She speaks of that, too, as though last night wasn't a dream after all, and she still remembers what that means. And he reaches over, puts his hand over hers, his fingers folding over, his palm warm. Moments go by. He leans the side of his head against hers, his hair golden against her dark. His thumb rubs along her finger.

"It just infuriated me," he murmurs, "watching those men sniff after you last night. They don't know you like I do, but ... they still want you. And you say you'll be true to me, and I believe you, but my claim to you is so tenuous. It would be so easy to tear you away from me."

A pause. His fingers drift past her hand. He sinks them knuckle-deep in the furs, feeling that impossibly soft texture, that impossibly rich depth. Like touching a piece of night made solid, he thinks. The best, the very best; always the best for his krasivaya devushka..

"It's not just that, either," he admits then. "Sometimes I just so get sick of pretending you're nothing to me."

Not only submission. She's not so far gone, so emptied out, that she has no will left. There's something there, in the promise that not only will she submit, not only stay, but that she will love him

even if.

Ivan comes closer still, resting his brow close to hers, and she still has his hand against her face, their hands on the ring, covering it but not donning it. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but it's impossible to tell right now. Another gift measured in six, seven figures. Ivan has no real concept of what that means sometimes. Maybe a little, but all he thought when he considered it was that it was worth it, and he didn't even know what exactly he was trying to buy with the money, with the ring, just: worth it. Somehow.

He does not say yes to that, or no. Isn't backpedaling nor rushing headlong ahead. He just... explains. And Hilary's eyes are closed, her lashes dark on her cheek, her face as serene as though caught in sleep. They slowly open as he talks about last night and those men sniffing around after her. He talks about claim. She doesn't pretend that she doesn't understand. It isn't about being a woman in the 21st century, able to make up her own damn mind, thank you. It's about claim. It's about how easy it would be for some male -- not some man, not some human thing, but another male of equal or greater rank, of equal or greater wealth, equal or greater strength -- to come and take her away from him.

Which would be true, even if she married him. If he collared her. If he sired cub after cub on her until she couldn't give him any more. It would still be easy to tear her away, For The Good of the Tribe, perhaps.

Hilary looks down, watching his hand smooth through the fur.

"When," she asks him, "do you pretend anything of the sort?"

Ivan's laugh is a scoff, an angry and vengeful sound, though not directed toward her. "Every moment of every day that I'm not here with you," he says. "Every time I'm taking some twenty year old supermodel to dinner just to keep up the appearance that I'm still playing the field. Every time I'm flirting with some forty year old society wife just to keep up the impression that you're not the only one I chase. Every single time I'm at the club and I see you and I don't go to you because god forbid someone sees and puts it together.

"Every time I'm with you in public and want to kiss you, but can't because what would people think. Every time I have to fly you to Ibiza, Montreal, Monaco, Lausanne, Casafuckingblanca, just so we can stroll the streets together and not have to play the roles we always play.

"You're cool and polite and keeping me at arm's length. I'm young and reckless and panting after you just to stay in practice. The truth is so often I like it. It turns me on that they don't know. I say come and you say no and no one is the wiser. But sometimes - once in a while - I just get so tired of it. Sometimes I want to take the mask off."

here with you is so different from merely with you.

Hilary does glance up, looking around briefly, recognizing where they are as though it matters, then letting her eyes float back to his face. He seems so sad, she thinks, recognizing another person's feelings for once. So torn. And she aches for him, really does love him, but

of course she doesn't think to say this right now. She does lean over and kiss him softly, through all that. "You don't really want to marry me, do you?" she murmurs, almost gently, when he is done.

He turns toward her when she leans in. Their mouths touch. It is so gentle that it's almost unrecognizable. When it parts his eyes open: lean, beautiful thing that he is, old blood in an old tribe.

"I don't want to lose you to anyone else," he whispers. And after a pause, this confession: "Or to myself."

Hilary is silent to that. She is watching him, still waiting for an answer.

And so the silence goes on a while.

Outside, the morning clouds are clearing up. It'll be a beautiful day, entirely too warm for December. Water laps at the pylons that support their cabin, though they cannot here it in here. A gull lands briefly on the rail of their deck before taking wing again.

"No," Ivan murmurs in the end. "I don't want to marry you. I just can't stand the thought of you married ... or mated ... to someone else. And I don't know what else to do about it."

She kisses him again, gently, and her hand moves under his. She isn't angry with him for asking when that isn't really what he wants, for being so damned impetuous or throwing around things like marriage as if they don't matter. She isn't angry at him at all. She, for once, feels pity for him, and not the condescending pity of the powerful to the sniveling, but simply:

compassion. And that is rarer than even her affection, her love, even though she gives him her trust so freely that it is terrifying.

Hilary has left the box open, and she reaches into it, removing the ring and sliding it on to her right hand. Holding it up, she lets the light from outside catch on the red diamond and moves it side to side a little, watching it spray color across her arm, watching it gleam. It's a beautiful thing. Her head tilts as she watches it, surveying it. This is a famous diamond, and there are people -- at the club, in her world -- who will see it and be surprised that she wears a knock-off of something like that. They'd think she was better than that.

They will also read, in their little magazines and reports and such things, that this gem was sold for such-and-such price to so-and-so, who was acting on behalf of such-and-such company, owned by the Presses, or Priselkovs. Or it might be more direct than that: bought at this price, by this man. And it's on her goddamn finger.

"Let us worry about that when we come to it," she murmurs.

When, she says. Not if. And for a second he wants to grab her, shake her, make her take that back and tell him, tell him again the way she did when she called him to her after the pregnancy, after the birth, after so many endless months of waiting --

no wonder Ivan thinks losing Hilary is inevitable. It's not just the order of things. It's not just the way of their tribe; the way of the world, really. It's also in their history, which is scarred by loss. So many times they nearly walked away from each other. So many times they nearly gave up. Once, when she came to him after they had given up, and he had her, she was his; they made Anton that night. And moments later she had to leave. Her husband had come for her, reminding Ivan so very starkly that the woman he was slowly, inexorably falling for was not his. Could not ever really be his.

Once, when they finally found some peace in each other, she left for Mexico days later. She was gone for months, and when she came back she told him

-- that Dion was leaving her. That their mateship was dissolved, their marriage over. That she did not think she would be mated again.

Tell him that now, he wants to snarl at her. Tell him that. Make him believe it. But: she touches him, and then she puts that ring on. That immortal, fiery stone forged in the crushing darkness.

He puts his hand over hers. His hand firms; he brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her fingers once, burningly. "All right, Hilary," he says. It sounds a little like:

Yes, Ivan.

Hilary

She obeys. That sound -- that crack of her hand across his face -- would be heard outside the confines of a cheaper elevator. This one does not descend unless it is told to; his guests are right on the other side of the silent steel doors. And his cheek instantly turns pink, then red, the force knocking something loose enough that his nose reacts, blood filling the nearest orifice and trickling out. Hilary is looking at him not in horror, not in angst, but as though to see if that's good. If that's what he wanted. If she did it right. If he's pleased with her.

And he is. In his own twisted, awful way, Ivan is not just pleased but aroused, grabbing her again and kissing her, holding her by the hair. She moans, and she can smell his blood right under her own nostrils, and she sinks slightly as her knees buckle.

Then he leaves her. She has one hand on the wall of the elevator, looking shaken, and that is what a few people in the gallery see when the doors open and Ivan stalks out. Ripples of gasps follow him, and then are silenced by the doors closing. She descends. Carlisle is waiting for the car, holding her coat. Darya is already in the passenger seat. She looks up and out as Hilary nears, as Carlisle folds her into her coat. She is trying to be unobtrustive as Hilary settles into the seat behind her, as the doors close, as Carlisle gets back in. The engine is running; the car is warm.

"We're going to the cabin," Hilary informs them, and Darya is secretly quite happy. She likes the big lake house, and the servants' quarters there. It's so quiet, and big, and old-fashioned, and with Ivan and Hilary sequestered away from everyone, it's like a little holiday every time they go. She hides a smile.

Hilary rubs her stinging palm. Not to soothe it. To make the ache burn.

They drive, and they get there before Ivan does. The car idles in the drive, past the house and out by the cabin. Hilary looks out the window, uncertain. Ivan told her to go to the cabin. He didn't give her any instructions on what to do when they got there. Someone else might think about the servants, too -- is the lake house staffed? Is anyone there to let them in? Hilary does not. She looks at the lake house, dark inside right now, and doesn't want to go by herself. She sinks into her coat a little more, reluctant, irrational terror creeping up cold inside and gripping various internal organs. What if Ivan doesn't come? What if he doesn't come for a very long time? What if she can't find the lightswitch?

Hilary doesn't move. Carlisle doesn't speak; nor does Darya. Eventually, Carlisle turns off the car, and it's warm enough that it stays warm for some time. When Ivan arrives in one of his ridiculous sportscars, Hilary's car is sitting there, dark inside, and she is a shadow.

All things considered, Ivan is there fairly rapidly. Certainly he had to wait for everyone to leave first. Well; no, he didn't have to, but he suspects the gossip mill has more than enough to churn on. No need to add speculation as to where he was going this late at night. So: he waited, and after they were all gone, he hopped in one of his ridiculous cars and drove here. Quite fast. Quite a bit over the speed limit. At this hour on a Saturday night - on Christmas Eve at that - Lake Shore Drive is almost deserted. Sheridan is too. His lakehouse is very quiet, very dark. By morning the other servants will have come, following their master like so many shadows, but for now, stillness. Silence.

Enough that Hilary can hear Ivan's roadster pulling into the drive long before the headlights sweep her vehicle. He parks not in the garage at the main house but right behind her, a lean dark shadow himself when he swings out of the driver's seat. The doors open upward; it's the Lamborghini. Hilary likely considers it the most vulgar of his toys.

Then he's coming to her car, coming directly to her door and pulling it open. He bends to look at her, curious. Her coat is in its box, under his arm. "Why are you sitting out here?" he wants to know, and holds his hand out for hers. "Come inside, dorogoi."

And only after she's risen out of her car, only after he's already turned to go, does he remember her servants. He turns back, reflexively and carelessly polite, tossing his keys to Carlisle: "Let yourselves in. Make yourselves comfortable. I'm sure Dmitri and the others will be along soon."

A fool could see he barely cares what the servants do next. A fool could see he only really cares about this woman whose hand is in his. He's turning back to her without waiting for a response. As they go down the path to the wood-plank bridge, and across that bridge to their cabin on stilts, he bends a little to her, he looks at her - attentive, very nearly devoted.

"Are you all right?" These words never reach the servants they leave behind. The wind catches them, and as it pulls across the narrow walkway out to the cabin, Ivan puts his arm around Hilary, pulls her against his side as though to shield her from the cold. A fool could see how much he cares.

There is a bright blossom of a bruise on Ivan's face when he stalks toward the car. Carlisle notices him, unlocks the doors with a flick of a switch, and so when Ivan grasps the handle it swings easily outward. Hilary doesn't startle; rather, she looks gratefully and quickly toward him, taking in the sight of his coat, the box under his arm, the discoloration of his face. She looks elated.

"It's dark," she explains, half-petulant, and likely both her servants all but twitch with the desire to cast a sidelong look at each other, a wtf, seriously?.

Her hand slips into Ivan's. He draws her out, but before he closes the door, he remembers the other two. Carlisle catches the keys and gives him a nod: "Thank you, sir," he says, faintly accented. And the servants do what they do, take care of themselves, though as soon as Ivan and Hilary have vanished into the cabin there is the business of laying Hilary's overnight bags at the end of the bridge. They do not cross it. It is as though there are trolls beneath.

Hilary just holds his hand, though, as he walks her across the bridge, toward the cabin and the lapping dark water, watching her with adoration and devotion and care, deep care. She tucks herself closer to him against the wind, even as he's pulling her closer. "Da," she says. She is done with telling him no tonight, it seems. Her hair brushes his bruise. She nuzzles him under his jaw there, not to heal or even thinking of the slap at all, but simply because he's there.

That bruise of his still feels warm. It would be easy enough for Ivan to shift and get rid of it, but - in some odd way it amuses him, and so he lets it stay. He can't remember the last time he was bruised, but doubtlessly it was some monster, some fiend. He didn't even think it was possible to be slapped hard enough to bruise; but then, Ivan rarely gets slapped. Not that his doves and pigeons and swans haven't tried.

He wonders how her hand is. He tries to look, but it's too dark out here. He thinks of her saying it's dark gives her shoulders a squeeze, keeps her firmly against his side even as he's reaching into his pocket for his keys. It's only a few steps from the car to the cabin, and he hasn't bothered to button his coat. Underneath, he's still wearing what he was wearing the last time he saw her.

It takes a bit of dexterity to open the door without dropping the coat-box. He manages. The first thing Ivan does is flick on the lights. The second thing he does is lower the shades. Light lives in the space between the white walls and the pale wood floors; the high ceiling and the pristine furniture. Ivan lets Hilary go as he's turning to close the door. The box ends up on the bed. Ivan helps Hilary out of her coat, then goes to hang both their outerwear up in the closet.

"You should put it on," he says of the furs. "Though I'm afraid I've made it rather hard for you to wear that in public, at least in Chicago."

The closet door closes with a soft tap. He goes to the kitchen, retrieves a bottle of wine from the small cooler under the counter. They've both been drinking, but it's Christmas Eve; what's another glass. A buzz and a whirr, and the automatic decorker has the bottle open. He fetches glasses, pours with negligent ease: the small of his back to the counters, both glasses caught in the fingers of one hand. When he's finished, he holds one glass toward her. Makes her come across the cabin to him.

The overt dominance in that is belied by his question, though: "Should I not have done that?"

She's tried to slap him before and failed; he's caught her wrist, her hand, bared his teeth at her in warning. And she's been simultaneously incensed and aroused, furious and yet ardent. This time she only did it because he told her to; didn't ask. Told. Instructed her to harm him, and that's the only way she ever would have, could have, in the state he left her in up in his bedroom.
It's not the same as wrecking her completely, not the same as completely forcing her body and mind to finally melt together, leaving her in an extraordinarily vulnerable state. He couldn't have left her alone if he'd done that to her, couldn't have gone back down to the party, couldn't have expected her to put herself back together and pretend to be human for all those people. He didn't take her that far this time, though.

Not yet.

They walk across the bridge and into the cabin, and he makes the dark go away. She exhales a soft sigh as the door closes behind them. The interior of the cabin is cool but not cold, never completely cold, and it is clean. Very soon it is brigh, the shades down to hide the fact that it is nighttime out there.

She has nowhere to be tomorrow for Christmas. One stepchild in Paris. One stepchild with his friends in Ibiza and a barely-present chaperone. One soon-to-be-ex-husband somewhere in the Amazon, unaware of what time of year it is, his proxies handling the details of the divorce as well as the dissolution of mateship. One child in Novgorod, who has no idea the kind of extravagance and brightness and noise and excitement that awaits him when his caregivers get him up out of bed in the morning.

Hilary's coat is gone, and the sable goes on the bed. She floats when she does walk, staying right where she is when he first steps away from her, looking around like she's caught in a dream. Eventually she does walk further in, stepping out of her shoes, unbuttoning the strap of her gown's halter, drawing down the zipper, letting the satin whoosh down her body as she walks. She steps out of the puddle of green, takes pins and barrettes and the like from her hair, drops them everywhere, scatters herself everywhere,

while he prepares something to drink and tells her to put it on. Says now she can't wear it in public.

"I wouldn't have," she murmurs, and the bustier leaves her, parts of her skin still pink from wearing it even for a couple of hours. She's in nothing but garter and stockings now, her hair a tangling mess of curls down her back, across her bared shoulder. Jewelry on her wrists, her fingers, her bangles on her wrist. She unbuttons her garters, strips out of them, flops on the bed as she peels her stockings off. For a moment they drape along the edge of the bed, then slip and slide off, down, another puddle on the floor -- this one silk, this one black.

In moments, mere moments, she's down to jewelry and flesh. She is peering at the box, curling up on the bed with it, looking over at Ivan. He's holding a glass out to her. She looks at him, tips her head, as though uncomprehending. She has her hands on the box, is kneeling, prepared to lift the lid and obey,

put it on,

but he asks her if he shouldn't have done that. Her eyes close once, open slowly. "I don't know," she says, her words so frightfully, disturbingly innocent.

While he hangs up their coats, she lets down her hair. While he pours wine, she slips out of her dress. In some ways they are like any other couple coming home from a Christmas party. In others, they are the very mockery of such a thing.

He pours by instinct, mostly. Muscle-memory. His eyes are on her as she lets her bustier fall. Peels out of those stockings with their archaic little button-holes. Then she's naked, her body pale and perfect apart from a red mark here and there where her lingerie - those garments so cleverly engineered to contain, shape, and present her to best effect - cut into her. She's naked, and he's growing aroused, because

- well. The link there is obvious.

She does not seem to quite understand what he means with the glass and the wine. She is so fragile and innocent now, which is disturbing because she is also kneeling naked on his bed, turning him on with her very presence. He comes toward her instead, setting both glasses down on one of those slender-legged little tables that flank the bed.

"Well," he says, "it's done. So I suppose there's little use analyzing it now." And he sits on the edge of the bed, indenting it a little with his weight, turning his head to watch her. "Go on."

She wears her sexuality so openly now. She doesn't have to. At his party, cool and aloof, she fascinated. She drew looks. Men sniffed around her, circled her, thought themselves entitled to her simply because they wanted her. And she ignored them, and upstairs all she did was tell Ivan no, and yet it was still there, a corona around her. She does not have to play at sensuality to get attention, and she doesn't have to act sexually to have people wanting to fuck her.

But she doesn't feel it. That aura burns around her, not from within her. She seems untouchable not because she plays hard to get, but because she doesn't even feel that part of herself most of the time. She's disconnected. She's separate.

Now, though, she feels it. She looks at him and knows he wants her, and she knows she wants him, and she can barely wait for him, but she is just human enough now to fear rejection if she asks him for it. So, naked because that was the image she first had of herself in fur, naked because he gifted her with such a primeval present, naked because they are finally in their strange little home and because she wants him to pin her wrists down and take her,

Hilary knows that her body was made to fuck. To move. To be touched, and beautiful, and adored, and taken care of. To hurt. To bruise and bleed. To heal.

He comes to her and her heart quickens, so does her breath. Just a little. Ivan sets the wine down and sits, not quite reclining or lounging yet. He isn't even fully facing her. Hilary is watching him, though, and she obeys: rises up on her knees, begins to draw the heavy, thick fur out of the box. Yard after yard of it, all those glistening pelts, til she finds the inner lining of the coat and wraps it around herself, winds it around her body, over her calves, behind her ass. Hilary twists to look over her shoulder as she finds the sleeves and slips her arms into them, drawing the fur upward with a long shrug.

Her jeweled hands wrap the fur around herself, closing off the view of her for a moment. She revels; her eyes close, her lips part. She rubs the coat against herself: her breasts, her belly, even between her legs, luxuriating in it against her naked flesh. A soft gasp leaves her and she topples, flops backward on the bed, her head at the foot. The box and tissue paper tumble to the ground, the sides of the coat opening over her chest. She writhes slightly, arching a little, then, with a sigh, relaxes her entire body. Lays limp like that, wearing the fur he spent half a million on and ruined his reputation in high society to give to her,

to see her just like this.

The truth is Ivan's expenditures of late have been a little beyond the pale, even by his family's grossly distorted standards. The idle ten thousand here, hundred thousand there; the random trip to Monaco, the regular hedonistic parties - well, these expenses are understandable. Even expected. The enormous funds now set aside for the upbringing and education of his firstborn son, bastard though he may be: more than justified.

But then there were the millions spent on commissioning a cabin over the lake. The millions more spent on putting a dance studio, of all things, atop it. The jewelry. That ring he's yet to even present to her. That coat. Ridiculous expenses, and obviously not for himself. Obviously for a woman. A lover. His mistress. There's curiosity. There are raised eyebrows. There's idle speculation in his family now that Ivan's taken up with a dancer; how free-spirited of him. Maybe it's that ballerina at Joffrey, but no, reportedly he hasn't been seen with her since godknowswhen, and

well. After tonight, rumors will spread like ripples on a pond. And those in his family that care about such things, those who track expenditures and genealogies, who very much think of certain gifts and allowances and bestowances as rewards for certain tasks well done - if they don't add two and two, if they don't begin to even suspect that this former dancer, this silver fang kin, this wife and mate of another wolf, this woman to whom Ivan tried to present half a million dollars of prized prey from his homeland, is the mysterious mistress who mothered his child.

It will have to be kept under wraps, of course. But oh, there are those who would be delighted: that she is purely bred; that she is lovely and surprisingly genteel, considering the typical type of girl Ivan tends to gather; that she is, quite simply, old blood in an old tribe. There will be more scrutiny than ever on his son's nature. More pressure than ever to let a Theurge look at him, just a peek into his future, just a quick assessment to determine

just how much this Ivan Press is really worth, investment-wise.

All things considered, perhaps he should have been a little more discreet tonight. Perhaps he should have presented her with some unremarkable little trinket, just like all those other senators' wives and tycoons' mistresses and generals' daughters he entertained tonight.

Ivan frankly does not care about this any more than he cared about what the servants did with themselves after he left their company. He doesn't care about the petty little rumors circulating even now. He doesn't care that Polite Company will now consider him not even roguish, daringly inappropriate but simply heedless. Pathetic. He doesn't care that if he ever shows his face at the yacht club again, or the polo club, or the country club, he'll be politely snubbed; or worse, pitied. It might even filter down to the trendier company he keeps. Those actors and models, those dancers and singers, producers, record execs, up-and-coming young sharks that filled the penthouse on Halloween. Jesus, they'll say, kill me if I ever get so hung up.

He doesn't care what they'll say, though. He doesn't care because his lover lifts that coat out of that box. The silver sheen to the fur marks its quality, but it's the pitch-black undertones that give it such luxury. It is absolutely decadent; the collar and lapels layered with so many pelts that even when she slides it on she can feel fur against her back, against her breasts, against her stomach

almost as though he anticipated that she would do just this. Wear it naked. Slide it on and revel in it. Rub it all over her body.

And watching, Ivan's lips part; his eyes narrow. He wants to sniff the air, catch her scent. He feels fulfilled in a bloody, primal way that he hardly even recognizes. He spends so little time as a wolf. He did not hunt those cunning, swift sables through the snow. But he could have. He would have hunted them for her, hunted every last one of them if that was what it took; killed them and brought them back to be skinned, for their skins to be stitched together so his lover can wear the fur and not be cold even in the dead of winter. So she accepts his offering because it is fitting, it is proper, he has proven his worth and that means she's his. It is a ritual as old as mating.

The bed hardly jostles when she tumbles back onto the mattress. She can feel it dent when his hands come down on either side of her, though. He crawls over her like an animal, on all fours. Lowers his head to her like he's thirsty and she's water; like he's starving and she's meat. He puts his mouth on her: his lips against her skin just beneath her breast, just to the left of her breastbone where her heart beats so achingly close to the surface. He kisses her there, silent in his intensity, rubs his nose and his brow, his face against her.

And then he lifts his head. Earlier she wouldn't let him do this through her dress. You'll leave spots, she said, and he stopped because he wanted to fuck her with his hand instead. She is made for fucking. Made for adoration. No one would ever say she is made for loving; but obsession, certainly.

Ivan closes his mouth over her breast. His tongue circles her nipple, traces it around and around, and then he opens his mouth and takes more of her in, as much as he can, as though he wants to devour her whole. And that first sound escapes him, raw and low and pained, almost, as though lust were agony, as though satiation kills.

At his penthouse, in his room, Ivan told her that he was giving her presents -- plural. Several gifts, and that most of them were here. She sees none. No tree, no twinkling lights, no signal in this cabin of what time of year it is. Some part of her would appreciate this, or will later, when she can think. When she can recognize anything but Ivan and sensations related to Ivan. She likely could not explain why she appreciates it if she tried, or even express that appreciation sanely.

Some furtive, selfish, childlike part of her remembers that he told her he got her lots of presents. This part of her doesn't see them, and wants them, and will ask for them, demand them, always wanting, wanting. That part of her is quiet though, soothed by touch. By, frankly, this gift.

But somewhere around here, there are more. Extravagant, mind-blowing gifts that no one in their right mind would give to an Old Friend of the Family. No one believes that shit anymore, though, not in their circles. At least Dion is divorcing her -- maybe he won't care, if he hears. Maybe his attendants won't care, either, when word trickles back to them that the slightly lavender Ragabash 'protecting' his mate tried to give her a full sable coat. And Hilary doesn't have to tell anyone where she gets the rest. Admirers, she can say. An old friend. She can lie and say it's an inheritance, but she has nothing from her parents, nothing at all left behind that wasn't sold to keep her and her caretakers going. She can pretend. She can look at every single one and think not of Ivan rewarding her for the child, not of Ivan laying claim on her,

but Ivan fighting, raving, obsessing, going mad for her. Showering her with presents because she's been good. Because he wants to have her. Because every animal and every conscious instinct in him is to lay these things at her feet if she will only let him kiss her knee. She can look at them and think of the way he is now, climbing over her so suddenly, ravenous for her, opening his mouth on her breasts like he was denied earlier, suckling at her with a hunger and a pain in him that can only be sated for moments at a time... if that.

Forgotten are the little kinswomen that have peppered his past and present: the school chum, the sailing friend, the drinking buddy, the dancing partner, all of these decadent women with their long legs and pert breasts and whatever else they had that he was drawn to. Forgotten, for now, at least. Hilary doesn't think about them, or about the child, or the rumors, or the people at the party, or his family, or the chance of some relative or acquaintance going to Novgorod and seeing that old photograph in a lovely frame in Anton's nursery and recognizing the woman in it --

old blood in an old tribe. They will keep their mouths shut, avert their eyes, swallow the lie, particularly if Anton Ivanovich is true to that old, old blood.

Ivan lowers his mouth on her, moans for her, licks at her like she's cool milk, and Hilary does not think of and could care less about any of this, any of them. Fur rubs all over her body, caresses her back as she moves against the covers. It slips and tumbles off her leg as she lifts it, slides it against Ivan's side. A soft, helpless sound leaves her mouth. Her hands hold onto his arms, clutch at the sleeves of his shirt. She arches, but he's too far, he isn't grinding between her thighs yet. She lowers her hips again and closes her eyes, head tipped back, hair tumbling down the white, white coverlet of the bed. Their bed.

Her hands on his throat then. Yanking at his tie, tugging at the knot, pulling at the silk. Off, off.

She's tugging at his tie, but he's not ready to take his mouth from her, so she has to work the knot open but it seems to be beyond them right now; those deft fine fingers of hers that undid his fly with such staggering ease that sunny July afternoon seem incapable of the task now. The knot pulls out of shape. The tie catches on itself, half-loosened, and she could tug it over his head but when she tries he lifts his eyes to hers and snarls at her, snarls like a beast in the midst of an interrupted meal

before putting his mouth back on her. Her other breast this time. His brow furrows. He sucks hard enough to make her head fall back, make that helpless little sound of hers tear into a full-throated cry, and then his hands are grabbing hers by the wrists; he wrenches her hands down against the mattress and holds her there, fur soft around the cuffs of the coat, fur soft against his forearms. And he kisses and sucks and nips at her breasts until he lifts his head, kisses her mouth this time, kisses her hard enough to push her head down. His body collides suddenly against hers. Is simply there, lean and hard, viperlike in his quickness. He pins her against the bed; it's as much the bonewrought strength in his body as it is his weight. He devours the taste of her off her tongue. He drinks her breath from her bodies, and

only when he's had his fill - at least for now - does he let her hands go. Lets her pull that tie from around his neck. It ends up somewhere, and while she's getting rid of it he's peeling out of his vest; she's working his pants open and he's literally tearing out of his shirt. Buttons go pinging everywhere again. The cuffs catch on his wrists as he flings the shirt off, rears back over her to rip it down his arms. A moment where he's trying to get the sleeves off, on the very edge of frustration - then a cufflink flies loose, another one simply snaps in half. He whips his shirt over the edge of the bed and

grasping her hands, pushes them back against the bed. Holds her down as he comes down over her, his pants sliding down to his thighs and then his knees. Behind the soft, faintly elastic fabric of his boxer-briefs he's so hard it's a wonder he can control himself at all.

Hilary's fingers duck into the fold of Ivan's knot and do tug -- more deftly than he might expect. He's so mad right now, so lost, just like he was when she pushed him, and provoked him, and said no up in his bedroom -- which is not as dark, or sinful, as most would expect. All that matters to him seems to be her flesh in his mouth, her body open beneath his. Hilary is far more aware of his clothing, of the layers between them, of the way each button fits into its hole, how one length of fabric slides under another, how the mechanics of buckle and zipper function and lock her out.

She tugs, yanks on that tie a bit fumblingly at first, whimpers as his mouth's suckling hardens on her nipple, and then... wriggles it. Unwinds it. Squirms beneath him as she unties that blasted tie, slides it off from beneath his collar -- halfway, at least. Then it just dangles, trailing across her ribs and her stomach. She doesn't interrupt him, no; despite her lust she's shockingly, bizarrely methodical. That feralness, that wildness is his right now, leaving her with a sort of raw clarity that borders on innocence. Disturbing, frightening innocence.

So of course Hilary doesn't begin tearing at his buttons, yanking apart his lapels. She whimpers again when he changes to her other breast, sucks at her so hard that it makes her whine, but she doesn't cry out -- not yet. Her whining, though, that keening sound of want that leaves her throat, is answered by his hands on her wrists, her wrists to the bed, his mouth turning her tits pink and red with his kisses, his teeth. Hilary lets loose a moan, which is almost his name but is entirely a plea, and he shuts her up with his mouth on hers, as fast and as wicked as a serpent, though perhaps not as wise.

Then, then, his body is against hers. Pushing hers down, holding her there, making her gentle a bit, making her calm, soothing her with the press of his body between her legs, which is all she wanted, all she was whining for, really. Hilary softens to him, kisses him back so much sweeter than, perhaps, he's capable of processing right now. It's so thankful. It's so adoring. Her legs begin to wrap around his lower body, caressing him while he locks her hands down. Yes, that embrace says, which is something she still hasn't said to him tonight, not in words, not really. Oh, yes. Thank you, yes.

When he stops kissing her, Hilary's dark eyes are drowsy, dreamlike, unsure of what to do. She's so fucking languid, so placid, so... compliant, like this. There's even a strange little smile on her face, as she reaches up and plays with the end of his dangling tie, not unlike a kitten. And he's

not unlike a tiger.

She draws that tie out, winding it towards herself while he goes mad, yanking his vest off, tearing at his shirt, breaking cufflinks, desperation making him heedless -- though that would be suggesting he's not normally rather heedless. He likes, after all, to see and hear how things break. Sometimes.

Then he's on her again and she's letting out a soft cry that's half surprise and half welcome, arching her body towards him until he pins her down, pushes her back down, only to find that she's still lifting her hips a tiny bit, rubbing herself against him through his underwear,

whimpering,

whining for it.

That odd playfulness in her - those notes of innocence and sweetness - are so incongruous as to be intoxicating. He pauses when she plays with his tie; looks at her with the uncomprehending, cunning eyes of a beast. Then he's tearing at his clothes, she's unwinding that tie and getting rid of it, he's coming down over her and she's making that little sound like he's given her another gift.

She presses against him. Rubs against him, begs with everything but words. He kisses her again, hungry, ravaging, but searching for that sweetness she showed him a moment ago. Searching, this time, for that yes, that welcome he did not quite find the first time with her.

It's there in the motion of her body. The lift and roll of her hips. The wrap of her legs. He frees her hands because he puts his hand on her face instead, cups her face as he's kissing her, kissing her as he's reaching down their bodies. She's already naked. He pushes that last troublesome article of his own clothing aside. He's going to fuck her now; she knows it, she can tell in the way he's breathing, and the way he touches her, the way he nudges the head of his cock against her to slick himself up.

There are miles of fur beneath them. Yards of silky satin lining. It is as decadent a bed as they've ever found each other on. He's kissing her as he enters her, the kissing spilling apart into a snarl; he's cupping the back of her head and holding her close, close as he drives into her. Hard: pounding her to the bed on that thrust. He wants that sweetness, wants it because it's so vanishingly rare, but he can't seem to find anything to give her in turn except for savagery.

As submissive as she is, as compliant and fragile and obedient as she can be, Hilary gives Ivan nothing that he does not earn. He fights for every scrap of affection, every tender word, and he creates entire trips to far-flung locales around seeing so much as a glimmer of gentleness in her eyes when she looks at him. He does things he never thought himself capable of just to get Hilary to kiss him with something more than hunger. He bears constant punishment from her and risks his wealth, reputation, and his damn neck for the sake of her putting her hand on his cheek and calling him ma petite faucon with something other than mockery in her voice. They both know, deep down, who is really in control here.

But it isn't about control. It isn't about power. It's about something far more sinister than dominance, something far more dangerous than the wickedest games they 'play'. They want, so badly, to love each other, be loved by each other. Neither of them can, for more than a few hours at a time, stand such things. For Hilary to allow Ivan to love her, he has to hurt her. For Ivan to allow Hilary to love him, she has to run from him. For either of them to love the other, they have to overcome the worst madness in them,

and that's so very hard to do.

So he's built her this cabin, this studio above it, filled them both with light, hidden them away from the swallowing night and the jabbering world, painted everything with decadence, poured money over her in the form of god knows how many dead sables, all for this:

so she'll moan just like that when he mounts her, so she'll gasp and whimper and clutch at him when he's on her, his lust clawing up out of him with snarls and violence. So she'll put her hands on his face and his chest when he starts nailing her to the bed, giving him back adoration for every terrible, needful throw of his hips. So she'll be his. So she'll clench down on his cock -- oh, unbelievable -- with that sweet, wet pussy of hers, hold him with her soft hands and her long legs and her tight body.

So that she'll love him.

Ivan would never, ever say it quite like that. That all of this - the cabin, the studio, the coat, the gifts hidden in the closet, the christmas party, the trips, all of it - he does because he wants her to love him. He wants her to be able to love him. He wants to be able to love her.

No; he would never admit to any of that. It sounds worse than romantic. It sounds needy, greedy, pathetic. It makes that part of him that cannot stand to be attached, cannot stand to be leashed, cannot stand to be anything but wild

(when so often he is anything but wild, anything but feral)

claw at itself in horror and misery. He can't bear to think of himself in love with her; had to whisper it when he said it, had to put i think and might be in front of it. And then push comes to shove and he flies her to Monaco, he flies her to Lausanne, he flies her somewhere where they can be anonymous, they can be unknown, they can unmask and be themselves and love each other and, later, leave it all behind.

Even this cabin is something of an escape. Who they are here, how they fuck here, is now who and how they are anywhere else.

Oh, but it's good. And oh, but it's worth it - all the madness, all the grief, all the uncertainty, all the fallout he might've just rained down on his own head. Worth it for the way she adores him right now. Worth it for the way she holds him in her hands, in her legs, in the tight hot grip of her body.

It might be said that they make love. It is forceful, and it is savage, and there is precious little tenderness in the way he moves in her body again and again. But they stay so close. And their mouths meet again and again as though the only air in the room is the air shared between their lungs. Her hand covers his jaw, covers his heartbeat. He fucks her with his eyes closed, his brow to hers, and there are no filthy utterances this time, no edgy curses, no slaps of his palm on her skin, no marks left behind.

None except the way he kisses her mouth swollen. None except the way he bites at her shoulders sometimes when it's just too much to bear; when he has to take her by the hip and shift her, angle her to receive him, tilt her and lay his face against hers and gasp,

groan at the way she feels. "Fuck me," he mutters against her mouth. And then, what he really means: "Love me."

Earlier tonight he said he never did anything to deserve her. That the gifts he gave her were just ...for her. Really hers. And that was true: the gifts, the cabin, the studio, the party, the trips, all of it aren't quite to make her love him or earn her love, but perhaps as a way to express what they otherwise can't. She was repulsed by him saying it, though, irritated by it. Less so by the way he pushed his fingers into her cunt and made her squirm, but that was what she chose to call repellant. There's no trace of that rejection in her now. It's like a nightmare he woke from only to find this beautiful, naked, loving woman in his bed. This is reality. The rest of it is just a bad dream.

And she's here, and she's warm, and she must love him, he can feel it in her bones and the way she moves and hear it in her voice, and he must love her too because the way she tastes...

...the way she tastes...

There's no use trying to think anymore.

His words alone make her moan. Hilary arches, hard and firm, pressing up against him, her legs drawing him harder, deeper inside of her. They're working themselves into a fervor, rocking the bed together -- even if it's only barely, something this fine and this well-made and this sturdy because he knew, he knew what he was going to use it for when he picked it out -- and she's starting to cry out, finally, god, she's starting to make louder and louder noises, clutching at his back now, her nails digging into his skin, holding him so tightly as he fucks her.

Makes love to her. They still don't call it that -- won't call it that later, won't use those words even in the privacy of their own thoughts -- but that may in fact be what it is. Groaning, gasping, sweating into each other and into those furs, marking them with the scent of the two of them together, fucking atop it like they really are in a cave somewhere, a den, keeping warm in the middle of winter, making cubs to be born in late summer,

or something like that.

"I love you," she moans, as he lowers his mouth to her throat again, groans at the taste of her sweat atop the feel of her pulse on his tongue, fights the urge to bite her there and bites her shoulder instead, fucks her that much harder. "Oh, Ivan," pronounced the way the old world pronounces his name, his real name, his ancient name, "I love you --" And then, in French, it starts pouring out of her, certain words punctuated though he hasn't the faintest idea what they mean, and every time he thrusts -- harder -- her breath hitches, she gasps, she holds him tighter and trembles, tightens up with the urge to come.

The first time she said it, he didn't really believe her. He wasn't sure she was capable. He questioned it, and she was - in her way - stung.

The second time was like this. He was inside her, she was stripped down to naked truth; he had no choice but to believe her. He would believe anything she said right now, because he knows she is only capable of truth right now. And: because she is capable of it, right now.

Every time she says it may as well be the first. It pierces through him like an arrow; leaves a mortal wound. He can only staunch it by kissing her, eating her words as though they were the antidote. Every time she says it may well be the last. They both know the madness of their tribe worsens with age. Sometimes he's afraid that one day what little humanity is left in her, what little emotion and attachment, will simply fizzle out. So often he feels like he's on borrowed time, and every moment is precious. Every word, every time she says it,

is priceless.

I love you, she says. "Say it again," he says, but when she does he can't take it, he can't bear it, he bites her hard and she shifts into a language he doesn't even understand; they're just sounds, they're just sounds spilling liquid from her as he pushes himself up on his elbows, bows his head to her body,

fucks her atop those furs, groaning, biting, coming inside her with such obliterating intensity that for a singular, pulsatile instant all the world may as well have collapsed down to this room. This bed. The smell of her body. The darkness of her eyes.

Afterward - he feels emptied. Utterly destroyed and remade, but not quite completed. Half-formed, half-conscious, collapsing atop her in a suddenly boneless sprawl. He can't seem to pull enough air into his lungs. His eyes closed, he rubs his face blindly alongside hers - sweat-slippery, his skin hot. The furs feel overwarm, but it's still moments on end before he rolls

so slowly, lazily, to the side. Opens his eyes. She's inches away. He touches her face; says nothing.

It's rare that she's ever sweet to him, kind to him, affectionate at all. Even when he breaks her, cracks her open to see what spills out, Hilary does not seem to know what to do with whatever she feels. She stares at him, more often than not, feeling it, and not quite grasping that perhaps she should tell him that she loves him. Or: that she likes his face, and his body. That she thinks he's good to her. That she is happy to be right where she is, safe with him for as long as they may have. She never thinks to say any of it out loud. Sometimes she doesn't even think to look at him, or touch him, in a way that might be soft.

As rare, perhaps even moreso, are the times when they come together like this, crashing on the shore at once, shattering together. She clutches at him, moaning, marking his back with red trails, seeing bright flashes of color and light behind her own eyelids. He is rough, savage, thrusting madly, and she is... incandescent. Hilary leaves her body for a moment. She floats; she feels rigid in his arms and tremulous then, shaking apart, unaware even of the cries that are leaving her. All she can feel, all that brings her back, is Ivan's body in her own, against her own, holding her amidst all those luxurious furs.

He's sweaty, and hot, and ever so real. She's not sure she can bear to let go. She's not sure what will happen to her.

Hilary opens her mouth on his shoulder as she's coming down from her orgasm, as he's coming down from his, and she doesn't lick him or bite him. Just holds him between her lips, closing her eyes, every breath scented and flavored with him.

The next time she opens her eyes, Ivan is moving away. It feels like it's been no time at all -- not a moment, not a minute, nothing but a blink -- and he's sliding, rolling off of her, onto his side. She stirs, her body protesting, and rolls with him, dragging the fur with her, tossing it across both of their bodies. Too hot by far, even in a room that's slightly chilled. Her breasts perked, nipples hardening, the moment he moved from her, but she warms them quickly, tucking her body against his under the sable. One sleeve is off, tossed across his ribcage. She closes her eyes again, contented. His hand touches her face,

and she does something she never does. Her hand comes up, so delicate and so pale, to cover his on her cheek. Her eyes open, bottomless and -- for once -- warm, finding his. Her hand just stays there.

It was never his intention to break contact, or even to draw away. Even at the very beginning, Ivan never simply left Hilary after they wrecked each other. The very first time he had her, he followed her into the shower afterward and - totally untrained, totally by instinct - gave her the aftercare that she craves almost as much as she craves the intensity, the pain.

They both need it. They used to fight about that: he tried to pretend he didn't need this, all of this, because it frightened him to be needed. Or something like that. But liar though he is, Ivan does try not to lie to himself. He needs this. He needs her very much, and so

he stays close to her, even after he rolls to the side. Their lower bodies are still entangled. She moves with him, her eyes opening. They are side by side, and he is not crushing her, and this is important because in these moments more than any other Ivan is aware that he is, in fact, not only her lover but her guardian. It is his place to protect her. And in moments like these, Hilary - who so often seems almost reckless in her nonchalant daring - needs to be protected.

He touches her face. Her eyes close. She is the picture of contentment. Peace. The inside of his arm covers and warms the outside of hers, and then

she reaches up from within the circle of his embrace and lays her hand over his.

Their eyes meet. Even now, she may not be able to read the expression in his eyes. It is adoration; but a complex, aching adoration. His hand shifts ever so slightly, stroking thumb over cheek. He takes a breath, so quick as to seem involuntary.

"I love you," he tells her, because this may be the only time she understands it. And he moves a little closer, resting his forehead against hers. "I do."

With all his starved swans and wounded pigeons and tittering canaries, Ivan would leave. That virgin he threw in her face down in Mexico, the one he fucked to ruin her for her inevitable mate -- he got up as soon as he was done with her and left, buttoning up his shirt and telling her, though not in so many words, to have a nice life. He'd leave them after he used them, and rarely think of them again. But Hilary: oh no. He followed her, needing to care for her after what he'd done with her as much as she may have needed it even then.

He's so fragile right now, in the aftermath. And yet he guards her, because she is even more broken than he is.

This is unusual, this hand laying atop his hand. Even at her most unguarded, her most near-human, it's a strange gesture from someone like her. She watches him, not really thinking about anything, just existing, her lips open very, very slightly as he's touching her cheek. He loves her; her eyes close in a slow blink. He does. They close completely as he leans over and rests with her like that.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't sigh. She just is: sleepy under the fur, satiated by the sex, warm, close, his, trusting, submitted to him -- she is all these things. She cannot describe them in words. It is enough -- and it is rare enough -- to simply feel them at all.

Ivan

When Darya goes upstairs, Hilary is brusque, pragmatic, forthright. Let's get on with it. Her lipstick is smeared. Her mascara has run with tears. Her hair is askew and her dress is torn. There are bite marks on her neck. There's cum on her thighs. Her lovers clothes are all over the floor. The shower is wet, there's steam in the air; he didn't even stay to make sure she was presentable again.

None of the servants have much of a romantic outlook on what the soon to be former Mrs. Durante's relationship with Mr. Press is. If anything, Ivan's servants imagine something worse than reality. They never see the way he touches her in the aftermath. They never see how he bathes her, and how he strokes her, how he protects her sometimes when there's nothing left but cinders. They hear her screaming through the doors. They hear the slap of flesh on flesh, and sometimes leather on flesh. They hear chains clanking. Once, they saw him give her to a roomful of strangers.

They think it's all about the sex. Which is in part true: Hilary and Ivan could not be what they are without what they do. But the servants also think it's about degradation, and punishment, and pain. They think it's a form of perversion. A reflection of Falcon's taint.

Dmitri thinks there might be some attachment there; some strange and necessary bond. Max - with her own demons in the closet, with her own unspeakable and very occasional need for a soul-scourging sort of exorcism - is perhaps the only one who can come close to understanding what it is. But Max, frankly, cares very little about it all so long as things stay in a reasonably manageable state.

Hilary cleans herself and she is dressed. Her hair is redone. Her makeup, too. When she exits the room she looks like the past half hour or so never happened at all. Eyes follow her as she moves. A black-haired woman with shocking blue eyes smiles at her. Max - Maximilian Max - has his girlfriend on his arm now and turns red at the sight of her. Jonathan's nostrils flare as he stares at her, and then he turns his face away.

By then Ivan is as bored as his guests, but he plays the part so well. He is so charming; he is so sweet with the children that a few of his guests mentally match-make. He teases the little boy who had to pee earlier, but never to the point of cruelty. The gift is handed over; it's a racecar set. The boy is happy with it. He thanks Ivan and runs back to his nanny, and Ivan looks over the two or three children still waiting for their gifts and

his eyes meet Hilary's for a moment. The corners of his mouth twitch like he wants to smile at her. Smile, and not the way he smiles at all his guests, that sleek superficial charm; not that, but something more unguarded, plainer, genuine.

He changes it at the last moment. It comes out roguish. He winks at her, and some of his guests think to themselves of course, and will gossip later about how Ivan Press was trying to charm the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Durante again, because of course he was, and of course she wasn't having any of it, because of course she wasn't.

After the last of the children get their gifts, Ivan is done playing Santa. His maids move through the crowds; gifts are distributed while Ivan stands to the side, gallantly accepting the thank-yous that come his way, receiving the kisses on the cheek, the handshakes. Conversation is starting up again. People are comparing gifts, commenting on how thoughtful Ivan is! And how clever! And what lovely presents! There will be reciprocation, of course; over the next few days a small fortune of return-presents will pour in, most of which will be filtered down to the servants because, really, everything Ivan wants he has.

Almost.

Soon enough there are only a handful of presents left under that towering tree. And in truth, none of the gifts have been - by Ivan's standards anyway - terribly extravagant. Toys for the children. Keepsakes for the adults; small pieces of jewelry, porcelain, tie clips, pens, cufflinks, tickets to the opera for the season. Two, three hundred dollars apiece. For the most part, the moment the guests open the wrapping is the first time Ivan has laid eyes on the gifts.

And then one of his maids retrieves a rather large box from under the tree. She is walking past when Ivan recognizes it instantly and, handing her his drink, takes the box from her. This is unusual, a deviation from the pattern, and so of course people notice. They watch, curious, as Ivan personally walks the gift over to where Hilary is. Ivan knows he's taking a bit of a risk. Everything about this is a risk. He doesn't care; he holds the present out to his lover, mute,

smiling.

Only Darya sees Hilary much in the aftermath, and even that is rare. She has helped put her back together. She's seen her in Ivan's company, too, after the fact, or on the morning after. Downstairs, she can tell that Ivan's maids have no idea. They don't see the subtle change in Hilary, even when she's still terse with everyone. They don't see the softening afterward.

All Silver Fangs are mad; Darya knows this. The better bred -- which means the more powerful, the wealthier, the more beautiful -- they are, the worse it is. Hilary is quite well-bred. She's quite beautiful, valuable, precious. Darya has never seen pictures or videos of the baby she knows exists -- only Miranda and Hilary have the combination to get into that safe, and only Miranda and Hilary have the passcode to open that iPad, and Darya suspects Hilary doesn't remember either -- but she knows he's out there, somewhere in Russia, and she knows that Hilary is learning Russian. She knows that the father of this baby boy is a werewolf. In their tribe, she knows that the boy himself is part of Hilary's power.

Which means that Hilary must be insane. Ivan, too, and worse because the moon pulls at him as well.

But Darya also knows there's softness there. Hilary, a wreck on the armchair, looking so languid and trying so hard to seem brusque. Hilary, who does not seem to want to leave that exact spot until Ivan comes to get her again. Darya tries to be gentle with her. She gets biting little comments in return, but she feels like she's intruded on something, forced Hilary out of one of the few places where she is comfortable, and happy, and safe. Darya, tonight, has it in her to be patient with that. To feel, ultimately, mostly pity for the woman.

It isn't always so. Sometimes she seriously considers tracking down that cousin of hers that family rumor says is good with poisons and seeing what could be added to Ms. de Broqueville's coffee, drop by drop, over a very long period of time. Catching herself plotting the weeks and months of slow death out in her mind, Darya sometimes pauses, and wonders if this is normal, or if her blood makes her insane, too.

Hilary ignores Max, and Phoebe, and most people. Ivan lifts his eyes to her and gives her that smirky little smile of his, winks at her, and she rolls her eyes. People see that; even Ivan has no way of telling if it's a show for their sake or if she's already reverted, already gone back as though he never gave her anything up there.

The next time he looks up, she's drifted off, wandered into the crowd of people, is talking to the husband of some government official. Occasionally someone is handed a present and all those in a circle around them peer curiously at what it is. Oohs and aahs commence once more. The children play with toys all over the place. It's a great deal noisier now than it was before; more alcohol has been flowing. The parents of those kids, however, are thinking it's time to go home, or at least send the nannies and the children home while they stay at the party.

When Ivan himself brings a gift over to Hilary, the people she's talking with look over, surprised. Hilary raises a droll eyebrow at Ivan, wondering what fresh hell this is -- from her expression, at least. He's smiling, holding the gift out, and she plays patient, she plays like this young man is trying to get himself into trouble by bordering on flirtatious all the time, and she hands her drink to another guest that offers to hold it for her.

Taking the box from Ivan, Hilary plays polite, too: "You really shouldn't have," with just enough seriousness in her words to suggest that she means it. Her fingernails slice through taped-down corners of intricately folded paper, then shred a corner, then rip off the rest. It took close to half an hour to wrap this one gift. It takes her less than half a minute to destroy it.

"No," Ivan agrees, that smile taking on a wry cant, "I probably shouldn't have."

Hilary slices the wrapping paper open. Black and silver parts; beneath, a box, matte black, monogrammed with the initials of whatever ultra-exclusive purveyor provided this gift. Ivan folds his hands behind his back. He is aware of his heartbeat, the air in his lungs; a sense that he stands on a subtle precipice. In a moment a line, invisible but very present, would have been crossed. He can flirt with the lovely wives of other men. It's almost expected of him. But there are certain things that simply aren't done, certain gifts that are not given, certain lengths that are not approached, lest people start to wonder. And talk. And suspect.

There's a certain anticipation in the air. A hush in their vicinity. A lull in the conversation as eyes turn this way. Only the younger children are oblivious, playing with their new toys, running about the terrace and the enormous marble spaces.

Hilary opens the box, and no one could possibly mistake what is within for something inexpensive; something even remotely on the level of what everyone else was gifted with tonight. The fur is thick, impossibly rich, absolutely flawless. The underlayer is night-black, soft and light as down. The guard hairs sheen silver wherever light strikes. The coat seems to go on forever: unfolded, it would drape to the ankles, envelope the form. A quarter of a million dollars or more: given as a Christmas gift to this old friend of his family. This completely platonic, distant acquaintance who is too proper, too boring, too old for his wild lifestyle.

The fellow on Ivan's right blinks once or twice. "Wow," he says.

Everyone has noticed, in this group, that Mrs. Durante no longer wears her wedding ring. Well: the women noticed. A few of the men. Strangers had no clue. That one man out on the terrace -- DuSomethingont -- didn't think to check til she schooled him. The enormous pink diamond that was previously on her finger is gone, as is the band of diamonds that Dion gave her after their first anniversary. Such a short marriage. Such a fickle, horrible man, to divorce her because of a stillbirth. Archaic. Why didn't he just stone her, they wonder? They have thoughts about foreigners. They whisper them.

Poor white woman.

A few people watching recognize the monogram and are already murmuring before Hilary nudges the lid upward and removes it, her face a mask of seriousness. And then she folds back some of the surprisingly silky-soft tissue paper inside and -- sighs. She tries to be polite about it, keep it quiet, but she sighs and other people gasp. She does not pick it up and unfurl it, spread it out, whirl it around herself, coo and squeal with delight. She sees the sable and works, far harder than even Ivan may understand, to conceal the hard clench of lust that captures her then.

A man of their strata might, if he is rather old-guard and old-fashioned, give a simple wrap, or hat, or muff to a 'friend of the family', and even then it might raise an eyebrow or two. For his mistress, if he is rather fond of her, a short cape to wear over her opera gown on a chilly night. You see a man in his sixties out with a woman in her twenties or even thirties and you'll see her stroking it, delighted despite the glares from the more liberally-minded. Some of the people here -- many of the people here, in fact -- are horrified, disgusted, but they also are horrified and disgusted by the fact that he serves lamb. They'll still come to his parties, though, they aren't social lepers, after all. Daddy wouldn't like it if they made a stink about their vegetarianism.

A man -- again, older, and of this very old-fashioned mindset -- may give his wife a fur jacket. Mink, perhaps. A set of lined gloves for her birthday. For Christmas, though, the jacket, swinging around her hips. The level of the relationship does seem to dictate the length of the garment: covering only the shoulders for your aunt, the upper arms for your mistress, the entire torso for your bride. A full coat, like this one, is the sort of thing a man gives his wife... on their twenty-fifth anniversary. Or fiftieth.

This is not the sort of thing you present to a separated woman who is a 'friend of the family', no matter how strong your flirtation.

Hilary does place her hand on the fur. She strokes it once, unable to stop herself, and no one watching can blame her. But then she lifts her eyes and stares directly Ivan, weighing the consequences of every possible action. Wow, says some ill-mannered second son of an idiot. Hilary ignores it, and then gives a small shake of her head, holding the box back toward Ivan. She keeps her voice low, as though half a dozen or a dozen people aren't watching them.

"I can't accept this."

In some ways, the damage is already done. People are already whispering. Everyone in this penthouse will know in moments that Ivan Press just gave a sable coat, a full-length siberian sable coat, to a soon-to-be-divorced woman. The same woman that he took sailing once or twice, didn't he? Oh, and yes, there was that once, that time when he interrupted a tennis game to play with her and stood at the net for minutes afterward talking to her about something. A crush, Hilary's tennis partner tittered them.

Infatuation, they'll say after tonight. Totally inappropriate, of course; who does he think he is? He might have money, certainly, but he's not on Hilary's level. Not really. Look at his family. Russian boors masquerading as high society. Tradesmen; cable-layers and wire-stringers. Their fortune can't be more than a hundred years old, and now,

now this playboy of a scion thinks he can reach for forbidden fruit.

Tainted fruit of a withered tree, Espiridion called his wife, some time after deciding to abandon her; some time before actually doing so. Later that night, he wanted to take her home and fuck her again all the same. There's something to be said for that which should not be touched.

Hilary touches the coat. Just for a moment; just her hand white against that sheening silvery-black. And then she holds the box back toward Ivan, rejecting his gift. He should have expected it. What did he expect her to do, really, after he made it so glaringly obvious that she was special, she is singular, she amongst all these guests here tonight meant something more. What did he expect?

Except - the truth is he didn't expect anything. He had no expectations whatsoever; he somehow put quite a lot and very little thought into his actions at once. Hers was the only gift he personally selected. Hers was the only gift he inspected, measured, weighed and finally found suitable; the only gift he cared about even a little. But beyond that - nothing; no forethought, no consideration of how she might receive it or what might happen; nothing except a certain recklessness:

he doesn't care. He doesn't care if they think he's overstepping, if they think he's infatuated, if they wonder what exactly is going on between the lovely Mrs. Durante and the young Mr. Press. He doesn't care if they all know he's fucking her. He wants them to know, the same way he wanted his Halloween party to see and hear and know, that she's his, his, he's the one she calls vladelets when the doors are shut and her walls are all crumbled away.

There is a beat. He does not come up with some cover story, some tall tale about family businesses in the fur trade, cousins who were fur magnates, a mother or an aunt that absolutely wanted her to have this. Nothing of the sort. Simply a pause, his eyes on hers. His hand takes the box - exerts a gentle pressure, pressing it back toward her.

"Please," he says. "I insist."

The more well-read among them are thinking about Russian history, of Russian literature, of the young Russian men who were or even are actively encouraged to pursue older, married, forbidden women -- as though cultivating the sorrow of an exquisitely, inevitably broken heart tempers them into adulthood. Trust the Russians to view grief, not sex or wealth or even war, as the line between a child and a man.

A crush, they tittered. An infatuation. An obsession. The more cunning will think it's a ploy, new money chasing old money in an attempt to validate itself. The wiser ones will know better: he is just that stupid. He is just that entitled, that hopeless, that lost. They look at her and they can't entirely blame him. And the younger women, the single women here, imagine themselves in her position, or comforting him when she ends up crushing his heart, which they think must be fragile.

He must be fragile, to do something like this. To lay it all out, to show everyone everything like he is. Fragile, foolish, doomed Ivan Press.

Hilary rejects it. He doesn't look hurt; he doesn't even look dissuaded. He cements himselves in the minds of their audience as hopelessly obsessed now, longing for a woman he cannot possibly have, who must have been rejecting his advances on those long-ago sailing trips, trying so hard to be polite to her 'family friend' without encouraging him, who has finally reached a point where she cannot entertain him any longer.

She shakes her head, and she puts the box firmly in his hands, and she lets go, even if he won't take it, but then it drops on the floor and so be it --

"You mustn't," she whispers, and it's so gloriously anachronistic, her face and her voice and the way she says it, that the imaginations of their viewers soar a little to hear her, to see her turn away from Ivan, murmuring pardon me to someone, forgetting her drink in someone else's hand, moving into the crowd as though she fully intends to walk away and leave, leave the room and the party and this insane young man who wants her badly enough that he did something so abominably retarded as offer her a full sable coat in the middle of a society party.

No one is speaking now. Some child somewhere laughs and is quickly hushed by her nanny. The string quartet plays gamely on, but even they're acutely aware. When Hilary presses the box firmly into Ivan's hands and turns to go, the violinist misses a note.

It is hard for Ivan to tell how much of this is pretense and how much is truth. If he could step back enough to look deeper, he could read it in a second. But he can't -- can't step back, can't see the truth for what it is; can't. The box is in his hands again. He holds it, and Hilary turns away and sweeps through the crowd and her small, discreet entourage is rapidly rallying to her.

All around Ivan are the faces of his faceless guests, none of whom matter in the slightest to him right now. The gentlemen and ladies of the old guard are appropriately appalled by his foolishness and his excess. Some of the younger men are smirking: jealous of his wealth, jealous of the luxury and status and sheer oceans of pussy that wealth seems to buy him, glad to see him finally break himself against an impenetrable fortress. Some of the younger women have their hands over their breast.

By tomorrow the whole town will be abuzz. Were you there when he -- , they'll ask each other, and confirm for one another that yes, yes, I was there when she -- and by the end of the week the attendance of the party will have miraculously soared to three or four times its registered guest list, and everyone will have something to say about the coat he gave her, it had to have meant something; the way she touched it, do you think it meant anything?; the way she walked away, the way he looked when she did.

And:

the way Ivan, after a moment, drops the box as though it and its contents were suddenly inconsequential. Miles of sable spill onto the floor as he walks away, his footsteps purposeful and brisk; following Hilary. Some would-be white knight tries to get in his way, says Come on, Press, let it go, but suddenly there's Evgeny, putting his hand on his shoulder and frowning. Some too-curious guests try to follow, and suddenly there's Dmitri, turning the crowd back, encouraging them to enjoy the party, please, enjoy yourselves --

while Ivan, alone, stalks down the gorgeous entryway of his penthouse, jams his foot in the closing elevator door, gets in the car with Hilary. He knows he can't possibly leave with her, just like he couldn't possibly stay and shower with her, just like they can't possibly let the secret out, let everyone even suspect for a moment that this infatuation, this obsession, was anything but one-sided. He knows.

The doors shut. The car doesn't move. He looks at Hilary like something starving and wild.

Hidden by the curtain of Darya's impossibly thick blonde hair is a small bluetooth headset, a small black bar that is of the same angles of a strip of gum but about half the the size. She is away from the other servants and paying attention, out of nowhere, lurking in the crowd, unseen and unheard as her caste is supposed to be, when all of this happens. And as soon as Hilary turns on her heel, Darya takes a step backward from the other guests and reaches under her hair, tapping a small button and calling Carlisle. He doesn't ask her if she knows what Hilary plans to do, because he knows that none of them ever know, but he does start to get the car ready, should she want to leave.

A sable coat? he repeats back to Darya, laughing. Seriously?

Darya rolls her eyes as she heads for the elevator. No, not the one that opens into the gallery. The other one. The plain one with the steel doors that all but blend into the wall, the one that the servants use, the big one that can fit the sort of furniture that Ivan occasionally has sent there. It's cavernous around her petite form, but it is just as fast as the other one. She rockets downward, straight into the garage.

Hilary glides through, ignorant of all this and yet expecting it. If she goes downstairs and has to wait for her car, she'll be cross. If she goes away and Ivan doesn't pursue her, meet her later, call her later, she'll be cranky. If he chases her, she'll be annoyed. If she goes down and Carlisle is holding the door open for her, she'll be huffy.

Never pleased is never pleasing, her caretaker tried to say once, the woman who was her nurse and then her nanny, then her maid and then her nightmare. Hilary remembers, quite young, telling her to shut up. She wasn't interested in pleasing anyone.

The door tries to close and stops due to the intervention of a polished, gleaming black shoe. Hilary looks at it first, then up at Ivan as he pushes his way in, eyes blazing. The way she looks, the way he smells to himself -- it's like he never touched her. Never had her. Didn't fuck her with his hand before going down and playing Santa. If he looks very, very closely on her throat he can see --

absolutely nothing, but how skilled Darya is with some concealer and a makeup brush.

He's looking at her. She looks back at him. And this, this alone, is his sign that it happend, it was real, he did break her for a moment: she doesn't shake her head at him and tell him how foolish that was, how stupid, how could he. Nothing droll, nothing dry, nothing cutting or cold. She just looks at him, breath caught in her throat, like

she's waiting for something.

They are both silent. They are both staring, caught, electric, waiting. And then he moves, and it's explosive, he comes at her and seizes her with both hands, grabs her by the arms and pushes her against the elevator wall and kisses her as hard as he'd kissed her upstairs when she told him no again and again.

She told him no again, just now. He can't blame her. He doesn't know how much of her storming out was pretense and how much was genuine. He doesn't know if she wants to just get away from him, if he's ruined everything, if he was a romantic fool; any of that. He kisses her like maybe he can find out like this. Like maybe if he just tastes enough of her,

touches enough of her,

he can finally understand her.

And his hands are all over her, spanning her waist, cupping her breasts. The kiss goes on forever, and in the end it's only a handful of seconds. Then they tear apart and he looks at her; thinks of fucking her right here and now in the elevator, see if Darya can produce a third dress, see if his guests won't hear her screaming in here.

"Go to the cabin," he says. For all he knows she'll work herself into a black mood on the way. For all he knows she'll be livid when he gets there, she'll want to know what he was thinking, how could he be so stupid, so obvious, such a lovestruck fool, but - "I'll be there soon."

He kisses her again. He grabs her behind the head this time, kisses her until he feels blind, he feels like the floor has dropped under his feet and he's falling, falling.

"Now," for all that, he's only barely panting, "slap me. As hard as you can."

Ivan can feel it as soon as he moves for her. It's in the air, a sound wave hitting a wall and bouncing back to him. It's in the way he grabs her and throws her to the wall and is on her, against her, and she is

submitting to him. Kissing him back, electric and hungry, starving, aching. Her resistance is only because her hands might go to his face, touch him, keep him there, love him. But he grabs her. Hilary can't move her hands until he lets her go and starts pawing at her, feeling her tits through the satin and through her lingerie, running over slender hips, defining her slender waist. Then she does, in fact, touch his face, his hair, kiss him, too.

Go, he says, and there's a flash of agony in her eyes mingled with joy. I'll be there and she calms, she breathes, she bends into that second kiss with her eyes closing, her spine melting.

Then he tells her to slap him, and she looks at him like a normal, sane person might look at him if he told them to strangle their own puppy. She's so upset, and yet, ultimately,

so obedient.

"Vladelets," she says, half a whimper, and then

lashes her hand across his face. As hard as she can.

[dex + brawl][WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

[damage: str + suxx -1][B]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

[D: LAWDY.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Ivan knows her after that kiss. He knows what she feels, he knows what she felt when he gave her those furs in front of all those staring eyes, knows how she felt when he laid the skins of slain animals before her like an old-fashioned man, like a barbarian would, like an animal would. Furs have become so synonymous with luxury that so many forget what a bloody, visceral, primitive offering it really is - but not them. The taste of her mouth tells him that. The way her hands go to his face, keep him so close, tells him that.

And then he gives her a command. And she obeys the way she always does: utterly.

It's no dainty little tap she gives him. The motion comes from her shoulder, involves her whole arm. She fans him across the face hard enough to jerk his head to the side, set his shoulders off-balance. His face is numb, and then stinging, and then aching. When he straightens he dabs at his nostril and finds a thin streak of blood on his fingertips. Ivan, astounded, stares at Hilary for a second. Then he grabs her behind the head, kisses her yet a third time, burns that kiss to her mouth hard and fast.

There are no further goodbyes. When they come apart her handprint is already livid red on his golden cheek. He mashes the OPEN DOOR button with his thumb. Hits the garage button as he's stepping out. The door shuts and divides them. She goes down, and he goes back to his party where everyone's still pretending to be cheerful and holiday-spirited and not at all gossiping ferociously about what just happened, what just went down before their very eyes.

A hundred eyes turn his way when he comes back to the living room. There are gasps, quiet but audible. More fodder for the gossip mill: the raw look to his mouth, that scalding mark on his face. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes. He goes straight toward the abandoned gift that no one's dared to touch, not even to pick up off the floor. His shoulders are tense, and he stuffs the coat back in the box and closes the box and

finally, finally looks at his guests, who are by now more of an audience. Stiffly courteous, he apologizes for his behavior and for the scene he's caused. He hopes they enjoy the rest of their night. There's a beat, like he might say more. Then he simply turns and walks away, and behind him, the puppet show starts up all over again.

No one stays long. Everyone starts making their excuses to leave. Everyone's still talking about what happened all the way to their chauffeured cars, all the way to their opulent north shore homes. It's so obvious what happened, and by the week's end most of them will have insinuated that they saw it all. Half of them might even believe they had: Ivan - foolish, reckless, tragic young man - rushed after Hilary. He caught her in the elevator. He must have done something foolish, perhaps professed his love, possibly even tried to take liberties with her, but of course the unimpeachable Mrs. Durante put an end to that. She seems so gentle. He must have really pushed her. He certainly deserved what he got, and maybe that'll teach him. Maybe he'll know better next time. Maybe next time he'll set his sight a little lower,

maybe he'll be looking to one of them next time to heal his wounded heart. Volatile, heedless, romantic young man that he is.

Ivan, in the privacy of his own room, takes the coat out of the box again. He folds it carefully. He sets it inside, arranges the tissue paper just so; closes the lid. There are two elevators, but both are in use as his guests partake in a mass exodus, so he doesn't go that way. He waits until they're gone, until the elevators are quiet. On his way out, he checks his reflection: his cheek is already bruising, good god. He wants to laugh; at least one blonde kinswoman in this city, though he doesn't know it, would have told him that's what you get.

Hilary's scandalous gift under his arm, Ivan rides the elevators down alone - past the lobby, past the public garage, into his private parking. He gets in his car alone. He sets the box on the seat beside him, buckles in with those seatbelts that Hilary hates, they're so crude, they're so flashy, they have no class; he starts the engine and, alone, drives to meet his lover in the cabin he built for her, and for them.