Ivan Press

Grey

Three, four days of playing house with Hilary and Ivan can't bear it anymore. Let's be honest: it was inevitable. It was sooner or later, and really, four days is perhaps later than anyone would have predicted.

Not to say that he avoids her ever after. Quite not so. But four days on end he's with her almost every hour of the day: cooking with her in their bright, well-appointed kitchen, watching her dance in that studio he built her upstairs, sprawling out in the sun with her on their unrailed deck over the lake. And fucking her, yes: fucking her all the fucking time, over the kitchen counter and in the bathtub and on their bed and against the barre upstairs and,

and,

and.

One morning she wakes and he's dressing himself. His slacks are so well-cut to his slim hips, long legs; his shirt is tailored just so. He is knotting up a tie by touch, and he is still so affectionate with her, coming over to the bed, running his fingers through her hair, kneeling half onto the bed and gripping that sleek dark waterfall by the roots and pulling back her head so he can kiss her like he's plundering something from her.

"I'm going down to the city for a while, love," he tells her. "It's about time I apologized to our mutual friend Edmund."

Which is a perfectly valid reason to leave the lakehouse, of course. It's even the truth. If Hilary still has eyes and ears in the Nation -- if ever she had such connections, such luxuries -- she'd learn of it. Learn how her sleek young paramour went before the Sept; learned how he was ever so regretful and ever so ashamed, learned how he apologized oh so prettily and oh so respectfully and oh so publically for Hilary's --

well. He leaves that vague, doesn't he? He never quite says what it is, only that it was bad, bad, she was a bad girl and did a bad thing, how could she, he's so ashamed, how could anyone want such a creature now. No, no. She must be his cross to bear; he is honorable in that self-abasing way, after all: he befriended her when her trials began and he would not abandon her just because she's

a fucking lunatic bitch.

--

He doesn't come home that night. He does call her, sometime after midnight. It is a short conversation and he adores her so, but: he cannot bear to come home.

--

Not the day after, either. Or the day after that. He's down at the penthouse, his servants tell Hilary if she asks: and his servants are there. They are there, and so are hers if she wants them to be, and she is waited on hand and foot. She never has to cook unless she wants to. She never has to clean, period. She has drivers if she wants them and she has cars if she doesn't want a driver and the lake cabin is hers and the lakehouse could be hers too if only she weren't so terrified of its dark, creaking, majestic senility. She can do whatever the fuck she wants,

while her lover does whatever the fuck he wants, whatever the fuck it is he does down in that glittering ultramodern home of his when she's not around.

Maybe he fucks other women. That would be fair, wouldn't it?

--

A week goes by. A week and a half. He spends a few mornings with her but he doesn't stay long. She hears from him infrequently: text messages, phone calls. Once he comes home very late in the night. The door unlocks to his key and he slips in like a shadow and before she knows it he's in bed with her, he's bare and hard and turning her over on her stomach and sliding a pillow beneath her hips and holding her in his teeth, whispering that he wants her, he wants her, he fucking loves her so fucking much, don't you ever doubt it, he loves her, it's just that sometimes --

it's just that sometimes he can't.

Something bestial about that coupling. He holds her in his teeth; holds her down with his hand on her other shoulder. He fucks her, panting harsh against her skin, comes in her and makes such a filthy mess of her and turns her over and slaps her tits and kisses her mouth and makes her say she loves him, say it, pries her legs open when she does and fucks her all over again. When he falls asleep he's still atop her, his arms wrapped around her, his head on her breast as though for once she's the safe harbor, she's the shelter in the storm.

In the morning he's gone again. He leaves something for her though. Tickets to Novgorod. Labor Day weekend. Two of them.

An apology of sorts, perhaps.

--

It is early June. A gorgeous and long-awaited summer breaks upon the city. The trees in full leaf, the grasses green again, and that lake -- oh that lake, deep and blue as a sapphire.

The harbors reopen. White sails on the water. Ten a.m. on a Saturday and Hilary's phone chimes. It is Ivan, via text:

How long since Cielo saw open water?

How poetic. How romantic. How abominable. A moment later a much more practical message:

Meet me on the lake. 3pm. 42N, 87.5W.

--

Hilary still has friends at the yacht club. Or perhaps they're more of a fanclub, since Hilary does not have friends. Nonetheless: she has people. People who come to her, people who are thrilled and delighted to see her, people who are so very curious; how has she been? What is she doing next Sunday? Oh, she simply must come to brunch with them, there's so much to catch up to, and does she still play tennis?

People who want to know what became of that Spanish beast she was married to, they hope he got deported, does she want him deported, their husbands are very important, you know, they could make it happen. People who want to know what became of that foolish young man who tried to give her a fur coat. People who want to know what became of that distinguished gentleman who was looking for property on the north shore, and were the rumors true, and what about that other man, younger, looked like they might have been related, came here looking for her; such a charmer, that one. What was the story there?

--

It's a little after 2pm and she's standing on the pier. Her people are preparing her catamaran, hauling things, cranking things, tightening things, unfurling things. Such a beautiful vessel; such clean graceful lines. Perhaps Cielo's beauty is not entirely lost on Hilary, but then one never knows. Perhaps all she sees is a method of conveyance, and an inefficient one at that.

"She's a lovely one," says a voice behind her.

It's Oliver Grey. Tall and broad of shoulder. Tanned since the last she saw of him, the bared skin of his forearms and lower legs a warm-toned contrast to his sailing whites. There is a coil of rope over his shoulder, as though he might be hauling it up to Cielo's deck, but he is certainly not one of her people. His eyes scan her boldly, lingering for moments on end before returning to hers.

"People are fascinated by you, you know. I don't think you were here three minutes before Bethany called just to tell me you'd resurfaced. Caused quite a stir in the club. Almost as big as the one in the Sept when your pet Ragabash came begging my father's forgiveness. You know, Father was starting to waver. In fact, I'd say he was on the verge of taking you back when that little No-Moon opened his trap and ruined it for you."

Beat. Oliver smirks.

"You must be so disappointed."

Three, four days of playing house with Ivan and she's already being a petulant little bitch. That's not to suggest that she's ever quite as perfectly demure, tender, and submissive as she might pretend, as they might play, as others have wished upon her. That's not to suggest that she's ever not, on some level, a vicious and vengeful and mean creature. He may adore her, but it can't be for the purity of her heart, because in truth it is shattered from rust, the pieces charred black by her inexpressible, inexpendable rage.

She snaps at him when he cooks all the time anyway, but as hours go by, her tone gets sharper and her demands get higher. She dances and lets him watch but after a couple of days she rages at him if he speaks, if he comments, if he touches her, even if some of those times he tames and settles her by slamming her into the mirrors and fucking her in that way, that specific way, that makes her scream in that way, that specific way,

that makes all their servants shudder.

He swims; after a couple of days she doesn't even watch him. She ignores him like she's making a point. Or once: she tries to come in the water and then she panics, oh she is terror incarnate and he's holding a cold wet hand over her mouth to just shut her up even though he's trying to shush her and calm her and lift her up to the deck again and of course then there's the hot bath and the shoulder-rubbing and hair-stroking and the tying her up afterwards to make her feel contained and safe and fucking her like a lullaby and god, it's all so sweet and god, it's all so tiresome.

One morning he dresses himself, breezily tells her where he's going, and he finds her waking to look at him, stare at him with those pearl-black eyes, reactionless. She knows he is leaving her and she knows on some level why, and he must know on some level, too,

this is the woman who left the city, the state, the time zone, the very country to get away from him and everyone else when she was pregnant. Who tried to claw his eyes out for touching her down in Mexico. Who loves him, and needs him, and yet hates everything and everyone, ever, forever. She does not look relieved that he is going; she does not look hurt. She is quite still, quiescent, looking up at him with open dark doll-like eyes as he touches her and plays with her hair and yanks her head back and sucks those tiny shining pieces of her soul out of her body. That must be why he nurtures them, those bits of humanity and love. He feeds on them.

She doesn't mind him feeding on her like that. What use does she have for it, anyway?

No one whispers in her ear all the things he says or does. If he does not tell her, she does not know. She isolates herself in that house on the lake, which is the point. She does what she does when he is there, just the same: she sleeps and she cooks and she dances. She lays on the bed or the deck, staring at nothing. The difference is that it is quieter, and her emotions are less stirred and less frequently, and there is -- of course -- not very much fucking. But little changes.

Hilary sends Carlisle to pick up her prescriptions. She spends some days in a drowsy fog, and does not miss the time she loses. That is, after all, the whole point.

People speak of her. Her ears don't burn. She feels nothing at all.

--

While he is gone, she buys a painting. Abstract expressionism. Choppy and dark-feeling, as though you are in a black chasm, seeing wisps of brightness and color that may be falling, may be rising, and it is hard to tell which. But dark, oh -- you could be in something's belly. You could be buried in the earth. This is your view.

Hilary has it brought to the house on the lake and hung in a spot on the wall where she can stare at it from bed. Which she does. In the dark, it is especially horrifying, and in the darkness and redness of it she feels a heartbeat, and feels comforted, and caught between rising and falling, being buried and being swallowed, she soothes, and settles, and sleeps again.

--

It's there when he comes in the middle of the night, but the place is unlit. Hilary is not drugged; he feels it in her limbs when he grabs her, feels that he has woken her and she is alert and he can feel her pulse hammering in her veins like a panicked bird and god,

but that must arouse him so much, and god,

but that must remind him that he is twisted, too.

It's twisted that she lets him do this, that she rolls over when he could be tainted, when he could have turned evil, anything can happen in a couple of weeks. It's twisted that her initial fear of him makes her wet, that her terrible trust in him makes him so very hard, that she goes so easily, that she comes so violently, so hard that she can't even cry out, it's just caught breaths in midair as he pounds his own orgasm out into her.

The second time is rougher, for both of them. She resists; snaps her teeth, slaps at him, digs her nails in before he holds her wrists down, pins her and forces her legs apart and takes her. She cries, but not from pain, and not from fear, but because she missed him oh she missed him oh and she is whispering it in French and crying softly in English and thanking him in both. He loves her, he loves her, it's okay, he loves her. He falls asleep holding her, resting on her breasts. She falls asleep forgetting him, does not quite know what to make of him when she wakes and finds him cradling her and cradled upon her like that. Falls asleep again, and he is gone upon her second waking.

She doesn't take the tickets as an apology. They are a reminder: oh. They talked about that. Didn't they?

--

She is not awake at 10 AM on a Saturday. But some time later, she is, and does not know what to do. She is at a loss, so she starts asking for help. She summons servants of both varieties and the first one to come, she just... shows the message. She hasn't closed it, because she's quite sure if she does she'll forget how to find it again, so she shoves her phone at them and they look at the message on the screen.

It's someone else, Darya perhaps, who texts Ivan back, with something to the effect of Hilary is a lazy spoiled brat and will be late. Not those exact words, of course. It's Darya.

--

Hours pass. Hilary is at the yacht club, and cannot remember the last time she was here. She is dressed well. Her hair is straightened, as neat and glossy as thousands of needles. She wears bangles and earrings but no rings and no necklace, wears a structured but still comfortable little sundress by some bold but classic designer, strapless and coral-colored. It has pockets. Hilary is wearing cork wedges with it, wearing large sunglasses, and since she is standing in the shade waiting for someone to fetch her and take her aboard Cielo, she is not wearing a hat. Darya is not far away, holding said hat. Hilary at least carries her clutch, which is tiny and on a long gold cross-body chain.

People flock to her and are repelled, over and over. She doesn't want to fake it for them anymore, or for anyone, and no longer has to. She flat-out tells one woman: "I don't like you." They stammer; they are startled. They leave her alone.

For one reason or another, she does not notice them mentioning another man, younger, looked like he might have been related, a charmer? She pays it no mind, but remembers

when Oliver shows up. Maybe not a little after 2pm. Maybe later. Maybe her people and a few borrowed from Ivan are rushing around. She is watching the water but not the people and not the boat. She senses rage and hears a voice that should probably sound familiar, but still she turns, and looks at him from behind her dark, dark shades.

'People' are fascinated by her. Bethany. Her pet Ragabash. It isn't until he says that his father was starting to waver that Hilary begins to feel a reaction to seeing him again, which would likely insult him if he could tell, if he knew, if he weren't such a sociopath himself. She feels something familiar uncoiling inside of her, unfurling,

unsheathing. It is sharp and bright and vicious.

"Yes," she says quietly, and turns her face away, though she is still speaking to him. She watches the water. "I was going to be your mommy." Her voice has a dreamy, fairytale quality. "I would have been a good mommy for you. And John, too. And Dickie, of course, when he was ready to start fucking properly,"

as though Dickie were an innocent virgin, not yet initiated into the ways of women. Or maybe she is using 'properly' as shorthand for incest... even step-incest.

Hilary sighs. "I think you would have been my favorite baby boy, though. You would have been the first one I'd have invited to share me with your father."

So not step-incest anymore.

She is not looking at him, and so she does not see if her words strike a mark. If there's even a flicker of revulsion or disgust or shock on Oliver's face. He exhales -- the sound could be a snort or a laugh or a sigh.

"You are a mad little snake, aren't you."

Softly spoken, that. Hard to read that, too. Disgust or admiration or both. He heaves those ropes off his shoulder and drops them at his feet; wraps his hands around the railing. Leans into it, his eyes scanning the harbor.

"Was that your plan all along? Oh dear. Did you actually suggest it to him that night; is that why he had such a psychotic break? You should have told me first. I would have saved you the trouble, and you needn't have ruined a lovely night.

"My venerable father would crack in half at the very thought of sharing you with anyone, Mlle. deBroqueville. My noble brother never flouts his sire. And as for me: I don't eat the scraps off Father's plate."

A slow smile curls his mouth. Savoring, "Sometimes he eats the scraps off mine, though. He doesn't know it. He wolfs down every worn, shabby morsel and then he sniffs around for more."

Beat. Then he turns to Hilary; smirks.

"Dickie, though. You might have a chance there. We've shared cunts before. Not many; I'm much more discerning than my brother. Stupid boy is a dog in heat. He'll stick his dick in anything remotely pretty. I've pulled him off the maid that cleans our toilets; can you imagine? You're so far above his usual tier he wouldn't even know what to do with you.

"I could teach him, though. I could have him hold you down while I fucked you. Show him how it's done. I could have him lick you clean after I'd made a mess of you. He's stupid but he's diligent; he might even get you off. He'd be happy to do it, so long as you let him fuck you in the end."

Oliver's eyes are glittering. He's standing so close to her, his eyes hooded, fixed on her profile, her mouth, the neckline of her top.

"You're a rare thing," he whispers. "So lovely, so pure, so twisted. I don't think my father even knew what a precious thing he had in his wrinkled old paws."

Calls her mad, calls her a snake. She's called herself mad. Few dare to. She's never been called a snake, though, and she turns slowly to look at him from behind those smoked-glass shields. He drops the ropes; she ignores them, as though they never were.

He goes on about her plan. His father's psychotic break. Their lovely night. She watches him, as he watches the harbor, and she wonders where Ivan is; she thinks he is already on the water, waiting for her to sail by. That would be something Ivan would want: to recreate that, to try and recapture it. Or maybe she misunderstands him. It is so exhausting, trying to understand anyone.

You cannot lie very well, or very often, without that understanding, though. This is why Hilary just checks out. This is why she submitted so well to Dion for so long; it was so tiresome to do anything else.

She checks back in: Oliver is bragging about his father eating the scraps from his plate. Shabby morsels. He talks of Dickie; she thinks of mentioning to him that males don't exactly go into heat, not exac-- he's already moved on. He tells her things she might not have guessed. Dickie did seem a bit dim-witted to go with his large muscles, which is -- or once was -- her preferred type. She finds it a bit sad now. She finds Oliver a bit... drab.

He comes closer. She looks at him, eyes hidden, and she does not smell the way she did that night at the little 'cottage' his father had procured for -- well. For her. She finds herself almost pitying Oliver as he moves in, as he describes her -- how his eyes gleam and how excited he is, how his skin must be tingling right now.

Hilary realizes something about him then, though she does not realize that her realizing anything about anyone is remarkable. He knows he's mad. He knows they're all mad. And he doesn't deny it, and he doesn't soldier on underneath the burden as some try to. He likes it. He revels in it. He rolls in his own filth and the filth of his tribe and it makes him hard, it makes him thrilled.

That's not to say she feels anything in response to that realization. Not even, really, pity.

"Why are you here, Mr. Grey?" she asks him, finally. "Why have people waiting to text you if I appear? Why rush over here?" A beat. "Why the rope?"

She doesn't smell the same.

She doesn't smell overheated and maddening, overwrought and mad. She doesn't look the same either; she's not the swooning creature sighing every word, drunk on her own lust. Whatever his madness, Oliver is right to think his father and brothers stupider than himself. He is smarter. His intelligence is cunning and base and feral, but it is sharp as a blade. He doesn't, he can't miss that he does not excite her today the way he did the other night. He's too arrogant, though, to consider that perhaps it was never he himself, per se, that excited her at all.

So: still he tries. He thinks maybe there's some button, some combination, some arrangement that'll set her alight again. Light her off like match to gasoline. His teeth catch his lower lip for a moment. They are not alone out on these docks, but the trees and the architecture and the shade she stands in gives them some measure of privacy. He shifts his balance, fluidly, and he is a little closer still. With the back of his index finger he traces her arm: the outside line of her bicep, her elbow.

"Don't pretend you don't know," he says. "I came here for you. My father had no idea how to appreciate you. He was frightened of you. He's weak. I'm not. I understand you. We're two of kind, you and I, rotten to the core."

He wraps his arm around her arm. Tugs her toward her, half a step closer.

"Come with me."

And maybe there is some button. She's not dull-witted, but she is quite entirely out of her mind. Look at who she trusts to hold her together, to keep her pieces intact. Look at what he's like, how he leaves her, and what that does to her, how far away she goes, how desperate she becomes. The truth is, it was Oliver himself, in a way, as much as it is ever anyone themselves. An arrangement of parts, each one appealing in its own right and composed in a way to make the entire package a bit thrilling. He is attractive to her, on that animal level they all share. His easy carnality, his lazy cruelty, his eagerness to degrade her and thus himself -- these things arouse her. She never would have permitted him to be so brutal with her, had she met him before she knew Ivan, before she fell into whatever it is between she and the No-Moon. She never would have... what is that word?

She never would have trusted him. It was a mistake, to let him fuck her like that and believe he would take care of her when it was over the way her falcon does. It was foolish, and Hilary knows that. It also cemented in her mind -- a remarkable feat, given how shattered that mind is -- that she is terribly afraid of losing Ivan, particularly losing his love and forgiveness and all the adoration he pours over her that almost, almost makes her feel whole sometimes. She was briefly convinced that letting Oliver fuck her at all, no matter how he did it or how cold he was in the aftermath, had ruined everything with her vladelets.

It hadn't. But she intuits, somehow, that if she fucks other wolves again -- no matter who, no matter how -- it will. It's not a promise to Ivan that keeps her in line; she forgets promises easily. It's the threat of that loss, the fear of it, that dampens whatever instinctive, natural, misshapen, deformed excitement she feels when Oliver moves closer,

and touches her like that. It's light. Intimate. Coy. Possessive. It gives her goosebumps, and reminds her of the way he treated her, at least before he left her, and mad, mercurial thing that she is, it turns her on.

He wants her so badly. She can hear it in those words and see it in his eyes, feel it when his hand curves around her arm. He thinks of her the way many have thought of her: that she will understand, that she is what they've been looking for, that she is the icon, the perfection of their desire. He sees her, in essence, exactly the way his father did: a mirror for his own light. Or darkness. Whatever it happens to be at the moment.

Quite abruptly, she hates him with the depthless, howling rage that marks her most familiar dreams. She wants to dig her fingernail into the soft spot at the base of his throat, where his clavicles meet, until she feels the skin burst and hot wetness flood outward. She wants to flay his chest of its skin, snap off his ribs, use those sharp curving blades of bones to open up his heart, his lungs, whatever she finds. She wants to gut him. And the vague desire to also fuck him again, to be debased, to be used, to be shared between brothers, all of it -- that doesn't go away. It lives, as it often does, in close and comfortable quarters with the violence of her hatred. They are both, after all, often directionless things, existing in a dark vacuum inside of her.

"You're a crying little boy," she whispers to him, and with other words she might be panting softly for it, telling him to take her somewhere, hold her down, tie her, leave bruises, "who misses his mommy and is mad at his daddy, dreaming there's someone out there as tawdry and pathetic as he is so he won't feel so empty."

Hilary has not pulled away, or even leaned away. She submits

"And worthless,"

so prettily.

"And alone."

Hilary is quiet, but only for a beat. The words have enough time to sink into the muck of him a centimeter or two.

"And your cock is a little on the thin side, Oliver."

It does indeed take a moment for the words -- their spare brutality, their sheer audacity -- to sink in. Hilary can see that, the dumb animal incomprehension giving way to shock,

to understanding,

to lividity.

Oliver Grey's pupils blow out. He lunges at her, he's even more a beast now than he ever was the other night; he grabs her by the hair and he grabs her by the arm and both are punishing, brutal, vicious. The wood railing hits her midsection, or more precisely: her midsection hits the wood railing, he bends her over her, shoves her down by his fist gripping the hair at the nape of her neck. Can't say for sure what he intends: to throw her into the water, to fucking drown her, to fuck her, to beat her like an errant child. Unclear if he even knows which, if he knows anything right now beyond violence and lust and some rotten amalgamation of both,

what was it he said,

he's rotten to the core.

Nevermind the broad daylight. Nevermind the paltry shade of the treeline. Nevermind that anyone looking this way would see him, would notice this, would be shocked by this, even if they didn't notice or pretended not to notice the way he was standing so close to the recently-divorced, recently-tragic, possibly-romanced former Mrs. Durante. Some sins are acceptable; the idle excesses of the wealthy and privileged. Others are unthinkable.

This is unthinkable.

So.

Her madness, her twistedness, her evil, her cruelty -- these things aren't attractive anymore when she uses them against him. When she's not just begging him to fuck her, make me dirty make me dirty, when she's not on her knees. Hilary is staring at him through her sunglasses as she says all that, cutting him open as easily as though wielding scissors, but she doesn't flinch when she sees shock give way to rage.

Grabs her hair and spins her, shoving her to the railing. Hilary grabs hold of it by instinct; Ivan has done this to her at the barre at least once, something like this, something similar enough. She feels pain but it doesn't bother her; she feels him shoving her down, feels the hot pulsing of his rage behind her, and someone down the docks sees them, sees them from another angle and hesitates, then starts jogging their way. Carlisle, supervising something, hears footfalls on plants and turns, sees, starts running himself even though he recognizes Oliver. He's reaching into his pocket for his phone.

Hilary doesn't scream. Hilary is seething, snarling at Oliver despite his position over her.

"I'll cut your fucking balls of," she growls at him. "I'll sautee them in butter, you worthless trash!"

[charisma (captivating) + pure breed + intimidation / -1 diff because she totally means it]

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 7) ( fail )

Hilary's anger is pure venom. The things she says, the things she thinks -- it could make a man blanch white. It has made men blanch white, on those rare and terrible occasions when she gave others a glance into her insanity. It makes even Oliver Grey,

wolf, sociopath, brute, monster, secondborn son of one of the stronger Theurges to walk the earth today, rising Galliard in his own right,

tense. He doesn't let her go. He doesn't -- well. He doesn't. Whatever it is he might have done, thought to do: he doesn't. He holds her there, his grip harsh, his teeth bared. He hisses, "You're a fucking slut, you're good for nothing, you think I'd ever let you get your soiled little hands on me again, you little bitch, you're fucking dreaming, no wonder your fucking baby died inside, you're toxic. You think I still want you? You think anyone -- "

-- and that someone, that random patron of the club, that fit and confident-in-any-other-situation 40s-something gentleman who perhaps owns one of those forty-footers moored in the harbor, that would-be good samaritan: he has his phone in hand, he's already dialed the police or, more likely, the private security of the club. "Hey!" He's still a good fifty, hundred feet away, closing, within earshot now. "Let her go!"

In the last however-long, Hilary's servants and Ivan's servants have come to know each other rather well. They have each other's numbers in their phone. They know each other's names and preferences regarding coffee. Carlisle, for example, has Dmitri on speed-dial. And is calling Dmitri, not Ivan, not Max, to tell him that Oliver Grey is, at this moment, bending Ms. de Broqueville over the shore railing at the yacht club yanking her hair back.

So. Y'know. TELL IVAN OR SOMETHING.

Carlisle also assumes Dmitri has silver bullets and plenty of them, but what does Carlisle know?

--

Hilary means it. She means she will cut him to pieces and cook him. Thank god she doesn't get into who is going to be eating his body parts when she's done with him. Thank god she's as frail as she is, as weak, or she would be terror incarnate.

Oliver seethes at her, defensive, and she laughs halfway through what he's saying. She's in enough pain from her scalp that her eyes water but she's laughing, cackling a little, as he whines and mewls about how she's a slut, a bitch, he won't let her touch him, she's dreaming, no wonder her baby died.

He's so stupid. She laughs and laughs because he's so stupid, but she's crying, and someone is storming towards them, someone who doesn't know any better. A kinder kinswoman would try to get him to leave, tell him it's okay, protect him from the wrath of a Silver Fang Galliard. But Hilary... isn't kind. Far from it.

She stomps on Oliver's foot with her 4-inch cork wedge.

[dex (graceful) + brawl (0): kick! -1 diff for perfect instep-stomp positioning!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

[damage! str + 1 + 2]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

[OW MOTHERFUCKER.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 10) ( fail )

"FUCK."

That is the utterance Hilary inspires with that precise little stomp of her dainty little foot. Oliver Grey fairly howls, that hand in her hair slamming her head down out of some kneejerk knack for vengeance. Against the railing, if he can manage. Against her own forearms, if he can't. An instant later he's let her go, he's wheeling from her and pacing -- limping, really -- in a tight, agonized circle, bellowing invectives.

That would-be do-gooder, he's still running toward them. He doesn't know any better. Of course he doesn't know any fucking better; he's a member of one of the most exclusive yacht clubs in North America. He pays exorbitant annual dues for the privilege of not knowing any better, of not having to know any better, of not having to deal with this sort of behavior. This isn't a backalley in the goddamn South Side. You can't do something like this, you can't manhandle a well-dressed, well-groomed, wealthy white woman on the docks of her own yacht club and not expect some sort of response.

This sort of response: the man jogging over, still shouting into his cell phone; overtaken shortly thereafter by a good half-dozen men sprinting toward Hilary and her assaulter in identical, unremarkable jackets and ties. They have tasers in hand, and then they have tasers trained on Oliver, and they're all barking at him to CALM DOWN, BACK OFF.

And then Dmitri, pushing through the crowd to Hilary's side. He has a hand in his coat. And then Carlisle. And then the do-gooder, putting a hand on her shoulder, wanting to know if she's all right, if she knew the man, if he was even a member.

Oliver, surrounded by club security, has his hands up, palms open. Resentment carves out every plane and feature of his face. He glares at Hilary through that bristling wall of black suits, brandished tasers.

[tak!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

[dmg D:]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )

[soak!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

[RAILING]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )

The shove of her head downward again hurts her neck in a way that makes her see stars. Hilary's breath catches, even before her brow bounces off the wooden railing, which turns the stars into fireworks. she sways, her knees buckled, her hands gripping the rails, but Oliver has let her go, is swearing and limping. Even falling, she looks strangely and painfully graceful -- a broken-down doll, a marionette with the strings cut.

A half-dozen men rush the dock, and rush Oliver, and Hilary is pulling herself to her feet and Carlisle is right there at her side, taking her elbow. Dmitri stands with them, facing Oliver as the tasers and the do-gooder square off against him.

There are still tears in Hilary's eyes from earlier pain, the hair-pulling. She has a red mark on her brow that is already fading. She looks overwrought. She is touching her lips with her hand, covering her chest with her other arm as though afraid her strapless dress has been tugged down indecently.

"Take me to Ivan," she whispers, where Carlisle can hear her. But she is talking to Dmitri.

There's a curious mirroring at play here. Isn't this how Hilary's last encounter with Oliver went? Didn't he leave her abused and bruised; didn't she fight him, injure him; didn't she batter his ego, and didn't he glare at her just like this?

So petulant, so resentful, only to forget all about it in the days and weeks after. Only to smooth over the memory in his own mind, rewrite his own history and hers along with it until he had convinced himself that the blow to his pride wasn't so terrible, that she was exactly what he's wanted and searched for,

just like his daddy.

--

They are separated. Even if Hilary for some godforsaken reason wanted to close the distance she couldn't now. That jostling line of security, the modern-day answer to those longago guardsmen and watchmen and men-at-arms that guarded Hilary's ancestors, is herding Oliver away. They're going to detain him. They're going to question him. They're going to turn him over to the police, or so they think.

Hilary knows better. The laws and morals of mere mortals: such things have no power over the Silver Fangs. Such things never did bind her.

--

One of the security guards wants to talk to Hilary. Get her statement, something of the sort. He's intercepted: not Dmitri but one of the others, one of her people or one of her lover's; it hardly matters which. Someone holds the line. Someone keeps her apart. No one is allowed to approach her; not the security, not the do-gooder. She is beyond their reach in every sense, and the only ones beside her are those who share her shining, mad blood, no matter how thin theirs might be diluted.

With Oliver's distance and departure, Dmitri's hidden hand relaxes, slips back into view. Hilary whispers where Carlisle can hear her, but the words are for Dmitri. Ivan's most trusted servant bends his head to hear her. He nods.

"This way, madam," he says; polite, deferential, guiding her to her own catamaran.

They are leaving. Oliver is being ushered away and Hilary hardly even notices the way she is cordoned off from the commoners. Carlisle remains at her side even after she has regained her footing, his head high, his eyes hawklike and piercing. Dmitri is an impenetrable wall between the world and the kinswoman and her manservant; he has a gift. People believe him, even when they do not trust him. They believe that they should leave her alone, and that it doesn't matter if they should or not; there she goes.

She is out of their reach. She may as well be flying.

--

They are guiding her towards Cielo, and she sighs to see the yacht she has not boarded for... god knows how long. She can't remember. It reminds her vaguely of Dion, but that passes; nothing reminds her of anything in more than passing. She is led up the gangplank, and gets her own phone out of her little purse, pressing a button beside a picture of a blank silhouette and the name GREY.

Perhaps he is on the phone with his son right then, or someone else, but she gets Edmund's voicemail. She sobs, gaspingly into it. "Edmund --"

pleadingly,

"your son, he --"

a ragged inhale, fragile and almost shrill at the edges, then her voice surging back, angry and tremulous:

"I never want to see any of you again!" she half-sobs into the phone. And hangs up, puts the phone away, and the gangplank is pulled in after her. A hysterical phone call, careless and unconsidered. Darya is waiting for them on board, dressed in little striped deck shoes and a pale blue shift dress, her hair tied up in a ponytail.

"I want to change into my swimsuit," Hilary tells her, flatly, and leaves loyal Carlisle and erstwhile Dmitri behind her, walking with her handmaiden toward her cabin.