Ivan Press

Hilary

Can we stay here, for now?

They do.

She does, at least.

--

For a little while, the two of them live in that elegant little attic apartment above the house where Anton was taken as soon as he was born. It's strange, these days that pass: she is bored and she is content. She is distracted and she is delighted. Anton becomes a little more used to her, this beautiful and bizarre interloper who troubles him and obsesses him all at once.

September decays into full, deep autumn, and Hilary stays in Novgorod. Money continues to flow hither and yon: Miranda reaches out to Ivan at some point for help. What is she doing. Is she coming back? The apartment in Chicago is sold, and Miranda eventually comes to Russia to procure temporary housing for herself and the other servants even as Ivan... leaves.

He must leave. He cannot occupy that apartment in the middle of nowhere with the woman he loves and the son he did not really want indefinitely. Hilary is quiescent when he leaves her; she plays with Anton, who is chubby and insistent on her attention. He keeps bringing her books that she does not want to read to him. He inevitably cries, and Miron reads to him, and he stares at Hilary across the nursery, and she stares back at him.

Ivan is leaving her, and it is late in October, and she is troubled by the conversation, by the looming spectre of having to choose a place to live, a mansion to build. Everything waits on her decisions; she does not want to make any. But Ivan is leaving, and he will come back, and she vanishes a little into this contentment that demands nothing of her, even thought.

--

What is celebrated as Thanksgiving in the States is ignored in Novgorod. Hilary has Miron and Carlisle move the bed in the apartment upstairs, and she practices there. It is not quite as nice as the studio built atop the lakehouse in Chicago. But she dances. She leaves the door open, and Anton toddles in sometimes and watches her. He learns how to crawl up and down those narrow, steep stairs. She tries to teach him how to use his flashlight, as though he will need it.

Perhaps Ivan visits.

Snow begins falling. Winter is deep and long and oppressive in Russia. It stopped the Nazis. It is no laughing matter.

--

When Ivan comes for Christmas, the house in Novgorod is blanketed with that heavy snow. It is hard to get out to the house. He knows that Miranda has moved herself, Darya, and Carlisle into a small house as close to Anton's as they could get. He knows the lake is frozen. He knows how long it has been since he last visited his son, and his lover, who is distant and unresponsive, as though she cannot mark the passage of time anymore. He knows that his son is a year and a half old now, this odd little creature who remains proof that Hilary and Ivan existed... at least for another generation or so, if they're lucky.

It is night, by the time the jet has landed and he has found a way out to the little estate. It is ferociously, searingly cold. The moon is high and savage in its light, the sky cloudless, the night clear. It is late enough that no lights are on inside of his son's home.

He knows that only Miron is there, and Anton. And Hilary herself, at the very top of the house.

His breath is a thick cloud before him, and the very hairs in his nostrils freeze on each breath. However seldom he visits, the very land beneath his feet reminds him that this is his territory. His blood lives here, and his heart. Here, as with no other place, he is master.

Hilary's lover cannot bear to stay for long, but he does visit. Once around Thanksgiving Day, which has no meaning at all in any part of the world but the States, so perhaps that is where he was. The States, some sunny and debauched city no doubt, turning golden in the sun, seeing the cartoon turkeys and inescapable commercials until he remembered that Thanksgiving is for families, that he has something like a family, that perhaps he should think to look upon them now and again.

So he looks in on them. Stays a day or two. Drags Hilary to some private corner of the house, or perhaps simply has at her right in the living room; fucks her, rails her, reclaims her. Later while she sleeps he looks at the makeshift studio she has made for herself. It makes him thoughtful.

--

In the early days of December, there is a construction project on the grounds. Never mind that this is ostensibly Anton's house; never mind that Anton may never have any use at all for a ballet studio. One is built, and built quickly, and built well: down at the edge of the water, architecturally matched to the house, with broad panes of glass overlooking the lake. Springy floors and day-bright lighting inside.

--

Late in the month, Ivan's father's jet touches down in Novgorod. His parents are invariably thrilled when he commandeers the plane for the purpose of visiting his son; they pretend not to know he is also visiting his woman. They pretend not to guess at who she is. They pretend Anton fell from the heavens, delivered by angels.

They send gifts with Ivan: the doting grandparents. Toys and clothes and toddlers' books. Two items, too, which are not for a child: a sable hat, lambskin gloves trimmed in that same exquisite fur. Gorgeous pieces, but ultimately accessories; meant to be worn by some woman lucky enough to own a coat, or at least a cape. The gifts are a coyly knowing statement, more to Ivan than to Hilary, and he recognizes it as such.

In the car, Hilary's lover holds the box on his knee and wonders whether or not to deliver the gifts. It is dark already, the days short and bitter and cold. Dmitri is at the wheel, silent and watchful. The manservant knows the way; turns unhesitatingly when he reaches the correct intersections, forks, paths.

--

The car pulls to a stop. Ivan is motionless a moment, looking at the front of his son's house. Then he opens his own door.

"Come back tomorrow," he says as he steps out. "Bring the gifts then."

Headlights sweep the porch, then turn away. It is terribly cold then, the moonlight picking his frosted breath from the darkness. Ivan walks up the path, up the steps, to the door. The metal knob shivers under his fingertips, unlocks to his touch: as though his mastery here were so complete that even the very bones of the house obey him.

Master is what Hilary has called him for a long time now, in Russian, in the depths that they go to. As though she, with some madwoman's clairvoyance, foresaw their child, his domicile, Ivan's territory, so long ago.

The foyer is dark. The living room quiet. The house large and still. Ivan stands a moment, shutting the door soundlessly behind him. Then he climbs the stairs, silence so profound a birthright that he hardly needs to think about it. Miron's room, Polina's room, Elodie's which used to be Izolda's. Izolda no longer comes every day; closer now to every week, and it will only lessen as time passes, until finally Anton moves away and Izolda fades into the rearview mirror of his half-formed memory.

Anton's room up on the second floor too, where Ivan imagines he can smell his cub, hear him breathing. But it is not the cub he hunts but the mother, and so he stands there, in the upstairs hall, at the foot of the stairs to the attic. Breathing, listening, searching.

Goes to her when he finds her. Pushes open the door without knocking, but stands at the threshold without entering. Watches, a lean shadow, until the weight of his stare awakens her.

Late November and it is already frigid in Novgorod. Late November and he corners her after dinner one night, after she has made Elodie miserable with her critiques and it is in him to punish her for being so hateful and it is in him to find her somehow after such a long distance between the two of them and it is in him to hold her even though she refuses to be held.

Corners her because it is in her to be hateful, and to need some rope extended to her to find her way back to whatever semblance of humanity she has, and in her to trust him when he grips her wrist and pushes her down, in her to believe him when he tells her she is a vicious whore, a slut, his beautiful, beautiful girl, his love, his heart. They are on the back porch and it is freezing and he is sweating in the end and she is shaking.

He builds a fire, after. The house is quiet and they have been abandoned to their madnesses. Wraps her in blankets and rests his cheek against her hair, warms her. She stares at the flames and is quiet, and mild, and whole. Tells him vague little stories about her life there. None of them are important. All of them are precious.

--

Construction in December in Russia; there are so many delays. It is never really sunny, these days. Hilary watches though, the workmen who hate their employer, observing through a window. She picks up Anton and shows him through the glass. Says nothing. She rarely talks to him. He talks a great deal to Miron; the boy has given up babbling at Hilary, who does not play along. She is, with him, often as mute as a cat. What communication they have is in touch, in glance, and the times when she comes into his room and lays down beside him in the dark, dreaming that he was never ever taken, and she never ever willed it, and all that screaming and all that loss and all that agony happened to someone else.

He wakes and is distressed that she sleeps, so he always wakes her with his prodding and fussing. He cries if Miron comes to get him before Hilary wakes. He does not like to see her so still. It drives him mad.

--

Not quite Christmas Eve yet, but soon. Heavy snow and many setbacks; circling, waiting for the ability to land. Landing, bundling in fur or leather or whatever he wears because even a creature like Ivan must respect the ferocity of a the winter in this part of the world. Dmitri certainly must. He has gifts for the child and gifts for the boy and it is all so normal that his parents would dote on the youngster they have not properly been introduced to. Perhaps that is how they like it: the idea of the child is entertaining enough. The reality of one is stark and unpleasant.

Dmitri drives away alone. Ivan finds the walkway shoveled but dusted with new snowfall all the same. No matter; he could leave no trace if he liked. He leaves footprints anyway. He carries very little, if anything, into the dark house. Carries very little, if anything, with him up the stairs. His son's servants sleep soundly in their beds, behind their closed doors.

Pausing on the landing he can hear his son breathing through the door. Audible: a touch of a sniffle, though someone like Ivan may not recognize it as such. It has been some time since he was nursed to sleep every night. He still goes for Izolda's breasts when she visits, burying his face there with both grief and entitlement. Izolda is coming to dread the visits: Anton's confusion and Anton's distance, and Hilary's blatant hatred, naked resentment. Perhaps Miron will talk to Ivan about it soon: perhaps it is time to let Izolda go. Perhaps he will not tell Ivan about the day when Hilary stared coldly as Izolda departed the house and then threw a porcelain vase at the door that had just closed.

He turns away from the sound of his cub's breath, the sensation of his child sleeping nearby. Climbs the stairs slowly to the attic apartment, much unchanged since he last came here. The bed is still pushed out of place, leaving her open room to dance when she wills. The curtains are open, because the moon is bright through them, reflecting off the snow. He carries the chill of winter around him like an aura, standing where he does.

Hilary is asleep in the bed. She sleeps a bit to one side, as though leaving space for him. It is cool in the room, and she is completely under the covers, pulled up over her shoulders. She looks different like this, unaware of him.

Ivan stares. And Hilary sleeps. And sleeps. She does not know he is there.

Ivan's lover does not wake to him.

Ivan's lover does not know he is there.

Ivan's lover slumbers on, and in sleep she seems so fragile, so vulnerable, that he almost mistakes it for innocence. And peace.

The no-moon steps into the room. Shuts the door behind himself. So entire is his silence that it seems almost surreal; as though sound had been magically removed from his sphere. In silence he crosses the room. In silence he sheds coat, gloves, scarf, shoes; sweater, pants, shirt, socks. His underwear and his wristwatch come off last. Even the latter doesn't click as he lays it on the bedside table.

The mattress doesn't creak. It sighs. Ivan draws back the covers and slides in behind his beloved; slides across those sleek sheets. Surely she wakes now as the bed shifts. Surely she wakes now when he touches her, his hand warm on her arm.

"It's only me," he whispers; leans over and kisses her shoulder. Wraps his arm around her waist and moves in behind her, his lean body molding to hers. "It's only your vladelets."

The only sound in the room is her breathing. Even when he closes the door, and even when he comes closer to her. Someone taught him, or he learned, or discovered he could: Ivan breathes without making a sound. His chest barely moves. Certain his clothing does not rustle as he leaves it behind.

In this place he is close, perhaps closest, to his wolf. In this place, with him sleeping not so far, Hilary is closest to the creature she says might be her soul. She was not being poetic -- not intentionally, at least. There is nowhere on earth for them to escape their creeping madness, but here they can at least cling to the parts of themselves that stand at the core of all the rest. No wonder he sheds everything. Makes himself naked, slips into bed with her like that, as close as he can get. Like an animal.

Hilary does wake. He discovers she wears something to bed, some little nightgown: a shift from shoulders to just above the knee, softest cotton. Feels it on his skin, where her skin does not touch his in response. In answer to whatever unspoken question his touch gives.

She twitches. Her whole body, a fraction of an inch. She does not open her eyes. Her breath halts, then she takes a deep, slow inhale. She's not afraid. She knows his hand when it's on her; the claim inherent to it, the heat. Perhaps her body knows his very fingerprint.

"Dobro pozhalovat' domoy, vladelets."

Here is where they feel closest to the selves-they-should-have-been. The selves beneath the madness, the hyper-pure blood, the inconstancy, the wreckage. Here he is closest to a wild thing, instinctual and unhesitating in its attachments and emotions. Here she is closest to a creature capable of softness, fondness, love.

She startles a little upon awakening, but that is only reflex. She is not afraid. She welcomes him with words she must have learned for just such a moment. He is warmed by the knowledge, and by the heat of her beneath her covers. He rubs his face gently, affectionately over her arm; against the curve of her shoulder. Kisses her temple before he sinks down behind her, his arm lean and long and strong around her.

"Domoy," he echoes, soft, thoughtful. Kisses the nape of her neck through the fine mesh of her hair. Inhales her scent, which is purity and madness.

A moment later he draws back a little. Runs the flat of his hand up her back; finds the fastenings of her nightgown. Begins, with little in the way of explanation, to undo those buttons.

In November he barely gave her time to speak to him. He fucked her senseless as snow fell on his back. He held his hand over her mouth to stop her screams from alerting those inside, as though anyone could mistake the shiver-snap sensation of his rage in the air. But he knows she hired Darya even in Chicago in part to teach her Russian. And here she's been, since September, surrounded by it.

Of course Polina and Miron speak English. And Elodie happily converses in French with Hilary and Anton both, and Miron has made it his goal to learn at least moderate fluency in yet another tongue. But Hilary wants to learn. She told him, in some letter or some Skype call or something, that she has Polina teaching her Russian,

because she is mean.

Which, in this instance and from this woman, is a glowing review. As glowing, in fact, as telling Elodie that her friseé with bacon and soft-cooked eggs was 'sufficient'.

--

He echoes home. She is too sleepy to smirk. She feels him nuzzling her, rubbing his face on her. Cannot help but think of Anton, who does a similar gesture, just as animal. It does not disturb her to compare father and son: they both possess her, and they are quite similar in ways, and it gives her what passes for joy in her blackened little heart. Ivan encircles her more fully, and she also reflects that no one can -- or is permitted -- to hold her like this.

Hilary realizes how long it has been since she has been touched by anyone but the child.

Ivan's hands search for buttons, find that the shift simply slips on over her head. She keeps her eyes closed. She does not encourage him. She does not dissuade him.

He seems so insatiable sometimes. Comes to her in the dead of night and starts pawing at her, pulling at her clothes. Of course he does: selfish young thing, horny, all that. Except that's not what this is. Her shift gives way so easily and he pushes it up, rucks the hem past her hip, tugs the bodice over her arms. Gets it off, off, shucks it aside where it slips off the side of the bed and collects on the floor.

Then she's naked, or near enough. No; not near enough: if she is not naked he makes her so, pushes down panties, tosses them out of bed as well. Out, out. Everything but him, and her, their bare skin uninterrupted.

Ivan wraps his arms around her, then, firmly though not suffocatingly. He draws a deep breath from the nape of her neck, where her scent is so unmistakable. He nestles her against him, her rear to his groin, her back to his chest, her feet between his shins. Wraps his arms around her waist and closes his eyes.

"Ya skuchal po tebe," he murmurs. "Vy ponimayete?"

Ivan pulls it up her thighs. Finds her wearing something underneath. Slides it up her waist, makes her lift her arms, tugs and works it off until he tosses it away. She is not wearing panties, though. Some kind of shorts, cotton, but close to the skin. A little loose on her narrow hips, with a wide elastic band.

Not at all the sort of thing she wears.

--

Maybe he shoves them down, doesn't care. Gets them off. She doesn't fight him. Now he holds her even closer. Scents her, smells her, feels her warm and soft against his front. She is languid, still, breathing steadily, half asleep.

She breathes in, her chest rising, expanding, exhaling. "Ya ponimayete," she whispers back to him. Not easily, not fluidly, but: she is learning. These little phrases. I missed you. So much. Do you understand me?

She has learned them for herself. She knows the word 'understand'. Doesn't use it correctly, but there you are.

She understands.

Ivan's laughter is low and soft. He kisses her again, gently, behind her ear. An exhale huffs past her neck, and then he's quiet - long enough that perhaps she thinks he's asleep.

Then he stirs again. Laughs again, "What were you wearing? Boyshorts?"

In the time that Ivan is quiet again, holding her, naked with her, Hilary drifts off again. Dimly asleep, she twitches a little again when he laughs, whispering questions to her.

"Go to sleep, stupid boy," she mutters, shifting slightly. Away from him, in theory, or perhaps in pretense. All it does, in reality, is rub her ass slightly against his cock, as she rolls onto her stomach.

"From vladelets to stupid boy," Ivan muses. There's a smirk in his voice. There's a smirk against her skin, too, when he shifts to one elbow behind her. Leans over her. Kisses her between her shoulderblades; bites gently at her fine skin.

"Come on," he cajoles. Moves over her, slow and smooth as a python. That arm around her slides a little tighter. That hand beneath her slides downward, past her navel, between her thighs. "Tell me. What were you wearing?"

She rolls sleepily on her stomach. He follows her, quite a bit more alert. Playful, even. He is not angry with her. Not demanding. He cajoles. He coaxes her thighs to part enough for his hand to slide against her warm cunt. Even the way he bites her is tender. Is gentle.

Hilary sighs, and lifts her ass slightly against him along the cadence of that breath. "Underwear."

"I know that," Ivan murmurs, smiling. He kisses her back. His lips graze along the line of her spine, press thoughtfully against the nape of her neck. "I've just never seen you wear panties like that before."

His hand flattens against her belly. Raises her hips a little. Slides back down, and this time he is not shy, he does not hesitate. He touches her cunt, strokes the pads of his fingers between the labia. Finds her clit with his forefinger first; replaces it with his middle, more sensitive, more delicate.

"I rather liked it," he confesses, which perhaps one would not expect. Flashy young thing that he is. Superficial and drawn to beauty as he is.

Touches her now, slow and teasing-soft. Kisses her neck and the side of her face.

"Seemed comfortable," he adds. "Cozy."

To pick things apart: he did not even see her wear these things. To pick further: they were not panties. Hilary thinks of both these truths. He's wrong. He's so wrong. She is so busy thinking about how he is wrong, wrong, that she does not resist the way he maneuvers her body. Lifts her hips, spreads his fingers, strokes her pussy. Likely she would not resist anyway. Her lips tremble slightly as he touches her, but she sighs again only.

He confesses that he liked it. What he could only feel and not see, as the surprisingly thick cotton was pushed down her hips, as the unfashionably -- for a woman -- wide elastic was nudged down her thighs. Not boyshorts, giving a little peek of her ass. Not boxers, worn under a nightgown and tangled uncomfortably all around her flesh. Something else.

Which she does not tell him about.

Hilary wrinkles her nose, head turned slightly on the pillow beneath her while he presses against her, strokes her not to wakefulness but to arousal all the same. To wetness, to heat where before there was just sleepy warmth. She dislikes the word 'cozy'. Perhaps she dislikes the word 'comfortable'. Perhaps she does not like being caught in comfort, in coziness, that he has not broken her down to. She squirms a little underneath him.

Says, softly:

"Shhh."

So he laughs again.

So he kisses her again.

So he shhhs, quiet now, the sound of his lips laying a trail of kisses down her neck soft, soft. The touch of his fingers soft, too; cat-delicate. Touching her with infinite care, infinite patience, stroking her as he nuzzles her, as his sleek body lies warm over hers.

They stop discussing her choice of underclothes. He still isn't quite certain what the hell she was wearing, but -- he will find out later. He will laugh about it later, maybe, or simply be amused; maybe bemused; maybe baffled. He will deal with it later, or forget, but now, right now,

right now he is touching his lover. He is playing with her now, rubbing her clit in earnest, slow but directed, focal. Kisses her neck, kisses her ear, nips and nibbles at her skin while he gets her wet. Murmurs something in her ear when he feels it, that slickness on his fingertips, that heat against his palm; that quiver in her thighs, and the way she yields to him. Parts her legs. Lets him have his way with her, lets him have her, lets him make her feel again.

All this time, she's been drifting in and out of this half-sleeping state. She does not entirely believe that Ivan is there. This is the sort of dream that frightens and upsets her, sometimes: one where there is such open tenderness, softness, affection. One where all she can feel are the soft sheets beneath her and the surprising softness of Ivan's body atop her. If she focuses she can feel the individual hairs on his stomach, fine as down. If she focuses very carefully, she can sense the intimation of his heartbeat.

Her body responds mindlessly. He strokes her and she grows wet. He urges her and nudges her and her thighs part a little more. He murmurs something she can't make out when her breathing begins to pick up.

Hilary, sighing softly, lifts her arms over her head, her wrists close but not crossing.

It's been so long since he's seen her. Touched her. Felt her, smelled her. It's been so long and yet he reads her body as easily as an open book; understands the quickening of her breath, the parting of her thighs, the lift of her arms. His hand follows her body: from her side to her breast, from her breast to her underarm, her shoulder, her bicep, her forearm.

He takes her wrists in his hands. Holds them together, crossing now: a gentle pressure, but firm. Holds her hands over her head, away from her own body, while he touches her. A little more insistent now. A little faster, a little firmer; rubbing her clit to and fro, round and round. Kisses her with that new insistence too. Kisses her neck and her cheek, murmurs words she can't quite make out. Might not even be words. Might not even be real.

His hand, lifting her hips a little more. Shifting the angle. His cock, hard against the cleft of her ass. He rubs against her now, slow, slower than his stroking hand. A two-for-one rhythm; a long slide for every two quick, delicate circles. One more breaks through the low indistinct murmur,

krasivaya,

and then the exquisite pressure of his teeth clipping the thin skin over her shoulderblades. Say what you will of their twisted relationship, but he does understand her. Knows what she likes. Knows when to indulge, and when to withhold, and when to soothe, and when to punish.

A month, perhaps, or just shy of one. Weeks. So long. Sometimes he craves these long distances, these long stretches of time away from her, without her, all to himself. Perhaps in those times he almost forgets her, forgets their son, forgets all this business. He is as he was years ago, lounging on his yacht. Perhaps he's traveled to some sunny location, away from the bitter cold and the storms in Chicago. Perhaps he's looking for a place to build his lover and his child their eventual home. Perhaps he has a yacht there, too: girls in bikinis, people bringing him drinks.

Hilary imagines him this way, at least. But now, these days, she does not wonder if those girls suck his cock for him. It isn't even strictly that she trusts him now, that she loves him so dearly, that she thinks he is so noble. She thinks he knows that he would lose her. She thinks she would know, even if he did not tell her. She thinks he knows it would all be over, then. And she knows for certain that he does not want it to be over. Even when he goes away. Even if they agree that he should not, can not, live with her, and that she does not want him to anyway. Neither of them want it to be over.

When her arms slide upward like that, Ivan knows what she wants. Reads her clearly, and grips her wrists in one of his elegant, brutal hands. Strokes her but does not finger her. Whets her appetite to snarling but does not feed her. Uses her to stroke himself, and feels her -- hears her -- as she starts panting. Opens her legs, lifting her hips against him. It's a plea, and one he could play with, tease into frenzy, if he liked. Except:

"Pozhaluysta," she whispers. Very soft.

Aching, a little.

[crud]

Of course Ivan doesn't want it to be over. Of course neither of them do. They understand each other so well, even when it sometimes seems they don't understand one another at all. They fit each other, lock and key, hook and eye.

She begs so softly. Her plea is so sweet. There's a flash in Ivan's eyes, like heat lightning. He rewards her aching little request with that rarefied, exquisite cruelty they both seem to crave: one to receive, the other to give.

Bites her, the sharp points of his canines catching at the cartilage of her ear. Not hard enough to draw blood, or even to leave much of a mark. A quick little zing of pain nonetheless; a hot frisson to meet the languorous pleasure he draws out of her with his fingers. And he is still touching her, stroking her, teasing her until she's arching her back and lifting her ass; opening herself to him in so base and instinctive and ancient a way that he can't help but respond.

Truth is he never meant to fuck her tonight.

Truth is he can rarely -- maybe never -- resist her.

So: he fondles her. He guides himself to her with his free hand, his chest pressing to her back, his weight briefly upon her in its entirety. He slides into her, slow, playing with her clit all the while. Gentle with her now, cognizant of how long it's been, as thoughtlessly certain of her fidelity as she is of his.

A different sort of ache. Though whispered in the darkness, in a language she barely knows the outskirts of, it's hard to tell. Her need sounds sweet to him -- and perhaps it is sweet, in its way. In its sad way, its missing way. In the way she sounds heartbroken, in advance, by the teasing refusal he may give her.

He hears it or he doesn't. He is summoned and he responds or he is begged and he indulges. Or he is asked, and he answers:

yes.

The answer is biting -- quite literally. Sinks teeth into tender and hypersensitive flesh, and a shiver runs down through her body. Her breath hitches. The shifting of his body presses his hand harder into her wrists, presses her down harder into the mattress, and she is finally waking to her own arousal, her own wetness, her own heat. Her legs spread farther, wanton now. Hilary turns her face to the pillow. She bites against it, moaning as he slides into her, sinks into her, as she closes around him, hides him away inside herself.

Sometimes she wants to hide inside him. Shrink away to a homuncula of herself, a dot, a point. Carve open his sternum and disappear into the convulsant sound and fury of his heart.

Sometimes she is the one to hide him. Takes him in like she doesn't really want him to go away from her, and like perhaps this time he won't leave. Her moan is muffled, but the house is so quiet, and so he hears it. So he runs that free hand up her body, squeezing her breast, grasping her throat, gripping her arm, pinning her wrists.

Holds her down like that when he starts fucking her. Slow, rhythmic, attentive fuck, this one. Works her clit with his clever fingers while he works her cunt with his cock. Folds his body, his focus, the whole of his being around her, so close and passionate that one might actually believe him,

that he missed her, that she is his beloved. One should believe him: these things are true, insofar as anything he says or does or is can ever be true.

Most times -- though it has been a long while since there has been regularity to this -- they don't care if their fucking wakes the servants, the boy, the whole city. Disturbs them. The things he did to her in the cabin of his yacht, all that time ago, the things the maids heard, chilling their blood. The things he did to her, the things he had others do to her, at his Halloween party last year, which made some of his guests feel as though they had stepped into a particularly pleasurable circle of hell.

But most times they are not in his home of homes, his land, his truest territory, where the cold itself reclaims his blood and whispers in his ears. Most times, the gift and duty of silence does not rest so intimately against him, wrapped around his spine, unfurling tendrils into his mind. Most times Hilary only stops her screaming if he gags her, if he covers her mouth, if he tells her to shut the fuck up, slut.

Things have changed, or are changing, perhaps in her more than anything. From hating the child inside of her to wishing to forget he existed to longing for him like a missing piece of herself, she has been changing over the past year and a half or so. Defying sense and refusing Grey. Defying understanding and rejecting Ivan's ownership of her. Coming here to take her son, staying here to be with him, living in this house in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of winter. All of these changes and more: sometimes she helps wash herself and dress herself after he's done with her, and sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she muffles her own screaming, and sometimes she doesn't. And sometimes:

he fucks her slowly, and though their bodies are insistent there is a gentleness to it, and though he grips her wrists to hold her down there is no real sense that he is using her, and despite all this she is not bored by it. By him. This sex does not leave her passive and detached, uninterested.

Sleepily and yet warmly, she responds to it. To him, like this: showing her that he missed her and he loves her and she can believe it, really, she can trust him. It's making her wet and making her squirm and it goes on and on as long as they can bear it, because she is slow to orgasm in this state, slow to start whimpering that way that tells him she's getting close. Slow to the little bucking counter-thrusts of her hips, urging him on, faster, harder. Hilary is face down, almost mewling from need, when something like a snarl coils in her throat and descends through her whole body, rushing through her limbs and tightening her cunt around him. And she has her face turned to the side, panting against her own bicep, when Ivan comes, however he comes, however hard or however long or,

if he comes at all, like that. It depends a bit on how playful he's feeling.

--

Lying at the corner of the bed, not quite tossed fully free of the mattress, are a pair of his shorts. Slim-cut boxer-briefs. Thick cotton, that wide elastic waistband. That scandalous bit of orange piping right down the seam over his cock -- well, his cock when he's wearing them. They smell like Hilary, though. Hilary's skin, and whatever Hilary's servants wash her clothes in, and Hilary's cunt, so recently nestled inside of some left-behind pair of his underwear. Cozy, he said, when he felt her wearing them under her short little nightgown.

She has her eyes closed where she still rests underneath him. A coil of hair sticks to her temple from perspiration. Her cheeks, fair from winter and royalty both, are flushed a pink he can see even in nothing but moonlight. She tastes like sweat and smells like a queen, her back stuck to his chest from the heat between them, no matter how cold it is in the rest of the house, or outside, or anywhere in the world.

They never used to fuck like this: intimately, quietly, dwelling in the moment and in one another's bodies. He never used to fuck her like this, firm but gentle, without even the pretense of using her, brutalizing her, taking what he needs from her with no regard to her pleasure. It was never like that anyway, but -- the pretense: that used to be a constant thing. A necessity. She would have been bored otherwise, and he -- let's be honest -- would have lost interest soon enough as well.

Different now. They could chalk it up to the time they've spent together, the harrowing circumstances they've been through, the child they've made together; and perhaps that would be true, to some degree. But truer still is this:

they are like this now, sometimes, simply because they are. Because she has changed, slowly but inexorably. Because he has changed with her. Because they are different, and maybe a little better now. Or at least: because he loves her, and she loves him, and even though they are broken, terrible, vicious, careless people,

they have this much that is true.

--

Hilary's orgasm rolls through her like a wave. Like a riptide, pulling Ivan under with her. His lean hand on her wrists: tightening, gripping without crushing. Holding without bruising. He holds her fast, holds her tight, holds her with his hand on her wrists, his teeth in her shoulder, the weight of that lean, beautiful body pressing hers to the bed.

Sometimes when he comes he hammers her ruthlessly. Sometimes he uses her cunt mercilessly, makes her take it, grunts like a beast, pulls her off and pushes her down and makes her suck him clean while he's still shuddering with orgasm. This time,

this time he makes hardly a sound. A gasping rush of an exhale. A particularly firm thrust; and then an electric stillness. A shivering release cascading down his vertebrae, making him grind into her, rub his face against her shoulder, pant against her back. He stays inside her. He doesn't withdraw, not an inch, not a millimeter; buries his pleasure inside her as though he might hide it there forever. Lock it there along with his love, his adoration, all the soft and beautiful and fragile things they keep between them like an unspoken secret.

--

He still has a hand beneath her, between her legs. He still has his fingers on her clit, wet from her wetness, just cupping her now. Just holding her, feeling her, forgotten in the moment.

She's turned her face to the side. For a while he mirrors her. For a while they just lie there, unmoving, replete.

Eventually Ivan opens his eyes. Whatever it is she was wearing has made its way into his line of sight. His hand loosens over her wrists. He reaches out: the sleek length of his arm, the elegant fingers that snag, that pull the garment lazily back. When he recognizes it he laughs, almost silently. Rumples it into his palm, loose and lazy.

"So that's where that went," he murmurs. Rolls then, shifts off her. Pulls her with him, her bottom nestled to his groin; his softening cock still held inside her. Wants to stay there, long as he can.

He kisses her behind her ear. Sighs a breath out.

"Go back to sleep," he whispers. "We'll go Christmas shopping in the morning. Put up a tree. Buy gifts for Anton." A small, sleepy quiet. "If you want to, of course," Ivan adds. "Only if you want to."

Languid after: all long limbs and ivory skin, both of them. In winter he is seldom golden -- though if he is now, it is a tell to where he has been since the last time he was with her. Her dark hair spreads everywhere, thick and silken. So far she has not developed white tips or wings at her temples; she may very well get them one day, but she is not truly all that much older. She seems ancient. Primordial. Merciless, like such old things often are. Perhaps that is why she feels -- and acts -- older than she is.

Ivan moves her around, rolls her, holds her pussy and later holds her around her middle. She does not resist him, as she has not resisted him since he came into the room. Has no idea what he's talking about at first; opens one eye and peers at the underwear that she was wearing, that he left here on some other trip, that he was so curious about. Hilary hides her face against the pillow, refusing to acknowledge it.

Tells her to sleep. Tells her they'll go shopping. Mentions their son.

If she wants to.

This part, Hilary deigns to ignore. She keeps her eyes closed and does not move from the pillow. This could be one of those dreams that tears her heart out; she won't try to disturb it, because like most nightmares they are incredibly seductive, pulling at the curiosity. These more than most: there is the temptation to think this is real. That he loves her, that they make love like that, that they will buy presents for their child together.

She rubs her face on the pillow, getting comfortable again, though it's a bit challenging with a cock inside of her. She slides away from him but doesn't get up, even though a part of her wants to. She is so tired. She curls up, keeps her eyes closed,

sleeps again.

Ivan

Like gravity, she holds him. Lets him spin out to that farthest point, only to arrest, only to return. He tugs her as she tugs him, firmly, the space between diminishing. He wraps his arm around her this time when he kisses her, his body pressing against her knees, her shins,

and then between her thighs and against her torso as she opens for him. She is wearing skirts that seem to be made of a thousand diaphanous layers, rustling softly as they stir. He wraps both arms around her, lifts her, picks her up and shifts her up one step, two, sets her down and comes down over her. Her skirts are everywhere. Her hair is everywhere. His hands are everywhere, grasping at the fabric, sweeping them up, pulling them up in great handfuls, over and over and over until his hand contacts her ankle, her knee, her thighs.

They are on the second-floor landing. The stairs go up another flight, up to the attic where they have their own apartment with its modern furnishings, its stark contrast to the warmth of wood and age. The hall extends both ways -- one room in the front and three in the back. The doors are open. The inhabitants are gone. The lamps are off. The house is silent,

filled only by the hush of their breathing, the soft sound their mouths make. He is kissing her with a quietly desperate fervor: like she was lost for ages, lost at the bottom of an ocean, and he has only now found her again. He is kissing her as he rucks up her skirts and spreads hands over her skin; as he pulls her neckline awry and pulls down her bra to get at her breasts. He is hungry, starved, eating at her mouth and eating at her breasts,

pausing to press his face to her breastbone, kiss her there too; close his eyes and breathe her in, the smell and purity of her.

"I love you," he whispers; says it like an incantation as he swims through her clothes and discovers her skin. "I love you. I love you, Hilary. I love you."

Of course her hair isn't everywhere, Ivan you mad thing. It's bound up neatly, tightly, smoothly, sleek as a if she were on stage. It will not stay that way. Not with Ivan leaning over her, kneeling down to her, pressing to her, shifting her clothing out of his way, moving her body to -- literally -- the nearest flat surface available to them. Not with the way he likes to pull at her, destroy her, scatter her finery and her fineness across the floor.

Hilary spreads her legs for him. The way she's sitting, her knees are together. She's perched so elegantly on those steps. But she pulls him, and he comes, and covers, and as his body presses to hers she opens those thighs, hands grasping at him, pulling him between her legs, urging him there, there, home, there. When he lifts her and sets her down again she is already starting to lean back, lie back, lifting her hips as he pushes her skirts up so he can get to the slip of underwear beneath, hooking his fingers under it or running his hands over it.

And she is reaching for him, pulling his shirt from where it is tucked in, dragging it over his skin, finding the flesh of his lower back and running her palms up. At the touch of him she's gasping in his ear, head tilted back. He's so warm. He's always so warm, and she does not always take a moment, even one, to revel in the simplicity of that pleasure.

That gasp is truncated; Ivan is kissing her again, ardent and ravenous. She moans instead; her fingers curl and her nails drag down his back, harder than they should but gently, oh: so gently, for someone like her. She presses herself to his body, lifting her hips again, closing what distance there is between them. He fights with the dual, crossing layers of her sweater, pulls at the neckline of her camisole, stretches everything out brutally to get at her breasts. One, then the other, her arms nearly trapped at her sides and now her hands resting on his waist, and he is touching her and sucking at her, ferocious.

Hilary clenches, deep inside. Ivan may as well be rolling in her scent the way he is now, rubbing his face and his hands on her, rubbing his body against her, covering himself in her. She knows, is intimately and instantly aware, that they haven't done this for weeks. She doesn't know how many; it may be just two, for all she knows. But she hasn't let him touch her since the day he had her followed, and that was

quite some time ago.

She is panting. She is pleading, in a whisper:

"Make me yours again, Ivan,"

and whatever else she's said, she means it.

At least for now.

He loves the way she breathes when she's like this. When he's mauling her like this. He loves the way she gasps, he loves the way she pants, he loves the shudder on the edge of her breath and the moans just underneath. She wants him to make her his again,

at least for now,

and his response is instantaneous and instinctive. He sinks his teeth into her. He bites her shoulder, firmly, seizing soft skin between his hard teeth. He growls: no mistake about it. It's a primitive, feral sound, on the edge of violence, even though

god,

he wants to be gentle, he wants to be soft and slow and ever so sweet to her.

Sometimes he likes her arms pinned while he fucks her. Sometimes he likes to turn her on her stomach, pull her wrists behind her, push her into the mattress while he pounds her. Right now he doesn't want that. Right now -- he rears up suddenly, leaving her nipples wet, leaving the imprint of his teeth in her shoulder. He tears his shirt off. Soft, long-sleeved, a pullover, it rises to bare his lean torso; those long supple muscles and bones. The shirt falls aside, a rumpled heap. He grasps her and pulls her up and pulls her sweater up, up, up the other way, yanking it, tugging it, heaving it loose and whipping it out behind him. It drapes down the stairs. He returns to her, cupping her face between his hands, drinking from her mouth like he can't breathe without her, and now her hands are free, now she can wrap her arms around his neck or scratch her nails down his back, whatever she wants, anything she wants. He wants for her anything she could possibly want.

"My beautiful girl," he mutters, kissing her. Slows, slows: smooths her hair back. Cups her breast, those lovely handfuls, that softness beneath which her pulse beats like a trapped thing. He bends his head. He kisses her upon her breast, while his left hand deftly, precisely works the fastenings of his pants open. "My krasivaya devushka. Ty tsentrom mira. Ya razvalitsya bez tebya."

He enters her smoothly, deeply, shudders when he pauses to collect himself. He wraps his arms around her, tightly. She is very precious to him, after all. He holds her close to his body, their bare heartbeats pressed together, their lower bodies still entangled in all manner of ridiculous human trappings. He is kissing her, and he is muttering in her ear, and it is all in russian, and she understands so little of it, but

he is murmuring words of love, words of adoration, words of praise. He is saying again and again: mine, mine, mine.

[Russian: "My beautiful girl. You're the center of my world. I'd fall apart without you."]

Somehow she knows that he isn't going to bind her this morning. She knows he isn't going to grasp her wrists and pin her down. That is not what he wants. She knows, like a lightning bolt briefly illuminating the black and darkened heath of her mind, that he wants to have her, own her, take her,

and also wants her to love him, and forgive him, and accept him, and be as pleased with him as she longs for him to be pleased with her.

Hilary knows, and the knowledge troubles her but she clings to it anyway, soothed the way she is often soothed by disturbing things. She is bitten, hard, and the pain of it makes her cry out suddenly, soaring and aching and pleading. That will mark her. That will stay, and bruise where even his flat human teeth dug in, and that sends her to heights she had almost forgotten. She clutches at him, nails digging into his waist. She imagines him tearing her apart with his hands and teeth, claws and fangs. She opens her mouth and pants her breath out, arching for him.

Ivan, seconds later, lifts up over her. Hilary is askew: her crossover sweater draping off one shoulder, her camisole beneath yanked down to bare her breasts, her nipples pink from his savaging. Her perfect bun is even starting to look a little loose, a little lopsided, a little frayed. She looks up at him, ripping his clothes off like that, and her pupils opening. She is sitting up to him, lifting her body with her hands on his body, running her tongue up his midsection, playing homage, giving worship. Ivan, more practical than a god, unwinds her from that narrow, thin sweater, if he can manage it: tugging and pulling won't serve him much here. Anyway, it falls.

They lower themselves back to the floorboards, and her legs wrap around him. He's over her again, kissing her, playing with her breasts, stroking her hair, kissing her flesh. It's like a magician's act, all the soft things while he unfastens his slacks, undoes his belt. Hilary knows, though. She knows they are one and the same: the patter is the same as the trick. It's all the way that he adores her, wants her. She whimpers for it, not understanding a single word he says other than those first two. She tries to catch the others but they drop around her ears, drip to the ground. She writhes a little, her clothing pushed up and pulled down and Ivan's fingers working at her panties, tugging them aside so he can fuck her.

Hilary gasps, a sharp and deep intake of breath, when he slides into her. She grabs at his upper arms, clenching around him in those same seconds while he is trying to remember his name. Her teeth bite into her lower lip; her eyes are closed, have been closed for a little while now. She is lost, for a little while. She is feeling him on top of her, feeling how heavy he is, feeling how hard he is. She is being kissed, so softly, while he is fucking her now, fucking her to the tune of mine, mine, mine, to endearments she can't understand, to acts so primitive she can't help but understand them. The way he is with her now, the way he takes her. The way her shoulderblades and her hips move against the hardwood. The way he grasps at her, her body or her hair or her face. The way she aches, so tightly, and the way it wells up in her, making her eyes wet, making her whimper a half-sob.

If anyone were to walk in on them now they would not think any of this was okay. To know that she left him, or that he left her, to know that she came here only to take her son away from him, to know that he was threatening her servant-kin outside, and then:

to see him fucking her like this, both of them half-clothed and her clothing half-torn off of her. To see her weeping, body shifting slightly again and again on the floor in time with Ivan's thrusting. They would not understand, to look at the weeping woman with the bite mark on her skin, that she was so scared. That those tears are relief.

Maybe it's fucked up that she cries when he fucks her. Maybe it's fucked up that he never stops when she starts crying. That sometimes it just makes him fuck her harder. Hit her more. Tie her tighter, cover her mouth, call her hair-raising names. That sometimes he uses her tears as a sort of metric, a sign that he's taken her there, he's broken her down, she's open and raw and she feels, she feels, the words coming out of her mouth are finally unadulterated truth.

He never stops,

except,

today he does stop. He is fucking her, and she is weeping, and she is clutching at him and holding him like maybe if she doesn't he'll disappear, he'll insubstantiate. He is fucking her and biting her and kissing her and she is just

taking him, dissolving into some strange tearful emotion he can't even understand. They are half-clothed. They are half-wild. They are half-human at best, but that part of him that is human, and humane, and maybe even a little sane compels him to stop this time. Pauses; joined with her still, his weight and all that sinewy lean strength of his atop her. He kisses her. He kisses her mouth and her face and her neck. He kisses her again and again, so softly, nuzzling her; stroking her hair until the strands start to come undone from that once-perfect ballerina's bun.

"Why are you crying?" he whispers. "Why do you cry when we make love?"

The sick thing is that he's right.

He fucks her until she cries; he fucks her harder, then. Slaps soft, tender skin until she's screaming, until she's red, until she's sobbing and shrieking against his covering palm while he holds her down, thrusts into her. It's sick. But what's worse is that it's all true: she's there. She's with him. And she can feel everything, including love, including tenderness, and she can tell him the truth.

Hilary clings to Ivan, who is not striking her or hurting her, just fucking her now, kissing her so savagely, biting her sometimes. She holds onto him, and he pauses. It isn't a slow stop, just a pause, his body in her body, his arms and his mouth enfolding her, cradling her, keeping her from falling down the stairs.

She shivers, because he stopped. She shudders beneath him.

Her eyes, reddened, open. Her head turns so she can see him.

"Because I missed you," she tells him, answering the first. She has no answer for the second.

Their faces are close together. He brooks no distance between them. He is on his elbows over her; his biceps against her sides, his forearms under her shoulders, his hands in her hair, cradling her head. He looks at her -- wet eyes, soft mouth. His eyes darken with some nameless emotion of his own. He closes what little space there is and he nuzzles her again, very gently, very delicately, the tip of his nose against hers, tracing over her cheek, his mouth pressing kisses like secrets into the corner of her mouth. The line of her jaw.

"I missed you too," he whispers, barely audibly.

And moves again. Slow, slow, steady, smooth. He draws back and rocks into her, wraps his arms around her, buries his face against the curve of her shoulder, her neck. She hears her name. She feels him kiss the side of her neck, and then

his teeth gripping her again, not so hard as before. His hand pushing into her hair. He grips her there, too, and god their love is sick but it is love, the way he holds her by the hair is loving, it truly is: and god knows what anyone seeing them now would think, but they don't care. They never cared what other people might think of their relationship. Their love. Their obsession. It is at once their strength and their blindness, their weakness.

Long ago, or what feels like long ago, he used to try and pry her open. Demanded answers where there were none, emotions where she had only emptiness, explanations to things that she gave up trying to make sense of a long time ago. And she got so angry at him, finally, so fed up and so wrecked and exhausted. Ivan relented, but that doesn't mean he gave up. He found other ways of understanding her. She came, ultimately, to trust him.

Some of the things she has told him make him understand, now, why she keeps everything out. Why she looks away from even herself, looking only into oblivion rather than live with what is inside her.

Now, when he could drag so much from her, learn so much, he doesn't want to. He doesn't insist she answer him: why does she weep? Why does she ever weep when they are making love? He only tells her what is true, and begins to move again. She chokes on a sound, a sob, a cry, lifting her arms and holding him by the head, the back of the neck, arms around him, legs around him, not quite happy but not cold any longer. And that does matter. That does make a difference.

--

Their coupling at the top of the stairs is quick, all things told. It is a little rough, Hilary's body pressed hard against the wooden floors of the old but refurbished house. They sweat a little, though the house is cool. Her hair is mussed beyond reckoning, almost. But there is more to it than what goes where, who is on top or bottom, where he bites her or how she holds him.

Something in it is so tender. Because her tears do stop. She is overcome from within by something else, growing and burning and rising upward. It heats her skin, dries her tears. She tips her head back, gasping, as Ivan pushes her thighs higher up, snarls to her to wrap her legs around him, tighter, hold him. Lilting, panting French shivers from her tongue as he growls, chasing down his pleasure in her like a beast harrying its prey. Which is closer to the truth than most things that could be said of the two of them.

This, too, is tender: the way he holds her, holds her so very close to him, his hands on her arms, his mouth on her shoulder, her neck, kissing her mouth, kissing her heartbeat, nipping at her breasts with low, caught groans echoing against his parted teeth.

No saying, really, who comes when or how or what it feels like. Only that they do please each other, as they almost always please each other, as they have ever pleased each other. He with his young, hard body, his rough attentions. She with her fair skin, her long legs, her soft breasts, her plaintive submission,

her secret savagery.

Somewhere in there, the door downstairs opens. There is a beat, only, and it closes again, the servant who was entering quickly showing themselves out again.

--

Hilary is a mess now. Her clothing is shucked, to some degree. She is wet between her legs, sticky, though he is still inside of her. Her bun is fallen, lopsided, pins still stuck in it. She is red-cheeked, red-breasted, looking up at him as she trembles. There are salt-tracks on her cheeks, almost invisible now. Her eyes gleam, wetly, ass he looks at him.

She wants to tell him that she thinks her baby is here. Her son. She is afraid to tell him. She is afraid he will ask her how she knows.

She is afraid of the fact that she just knows.

It's like they can't help but make a mess of each other. It's like they can't help making a mess wherever they go: of clothes, of houses, of other people's lives.

Their clothes are strewn over the stairs. He's ruined that sleek bun of hers. She's left marks on his back, and he's left marks on her shoulder. Her tears still shine on her face, dried and near-invisible, there only if you know where and how to look. There only if you can taste it, as Ivan does, kissing her beneath her eyes.

He keeps kissing her. He kisses her where he can reach her, here and there and over and over. He lays over her and cups her face between his hands and kisses her in this slow, adoring, patient way. He covers her breast with his hand and he is still kissing her like he is learning her with his lips, her taste: the inside of her arm. The dip of her throat. The seam of her lips.

--

People are here. Carlisle still waiting outside in the car is joined by Miranda and Miron, pulling up alongside. None of Ivan's people are here; only Hilary's. Even Miron is Hilary's now, by his own choice, and before that he was technically Anton's. He gets out, the baby held comfortably and easily against his side.

They look at the house, the servants. They wait for their mad mistress and her mad paramour to finish with each other. They wait for those breathless gasps, those moans, those growls, the inevitable rhythm of their coupling, to cease. They wait for those well-born Fangs to break themselves apart and put themselves together and show themselves and give instruction the way they do, with utter and thoughtless entitlement.

They know neither Hilary nor Ivan will explain a thing -- not the reasoning, not the rhyme. They know they are not privy to the secret machinations of their betters. Need to know, see. They know it's better that way.

--

Gradually he subsides. Gradually he shifts to the side, gives her room to move and breathe. He lays beside her, stretched out on that hard floor, feet hanging over the stairs. He doesn't want to move. His eyes are open and he watches her ceaselessly, tirelessly, pausing only to blink these slow animal blinks from time to time. Thinks perhaps she will fade, and he will wake into a nightmare, if he moves.

"Ya ne mogu zhit bez tebya," he whispers, watching her still. They are words she has spoken to him, but not with his fluency. Not with his familiarity. And a moment later, in a different language: "I can't live without you."

Anton keeps wanting to get down. He is home and no one is going inside, where his toys and snacks are. Eventually he is permitted. He toddles around the yard, inspecting hedges, following bugs. He talks, jabberingly, to Miron about everything. He is a talkative boy. He is curious.

There is no trace of what shape his madness will eventually take, only the clarity of his mother's breeding, his father's blood, in the shape of his nose and the color of his eyes. That perfection will bring a cost. A heavy one.

--

When Ivan slides out of her she is a mess. She exhales. All he did was pull her underwear aside, and now it is sticky as the rest of her. She is dazed, reaching up to her mussed hair as he lays out and as she slowly sits up. Her fingertips take hold of the edge of a pin, sliding it out of her hair. There are others. She drops them, one by one, methodical and mindless, until her hair starts to fall, fall, until she unwinds the elastic. She is disheveled then, though not in that lazy, natural way he likes. Just messy.

Hilary's shoulders are tense. She starts to reach, to lift the strap of her camisole, but it makes her shiver.

He is staring at her, and cannot miss the vulnerability in her body, the sudden terror at the state she must be in, the act of re-clothing herself. She shakes, and startles when he speaks. Hilary looks at him, without responding. She just sees him, anew, and her lip begins to tremble. She can't.

As good as she sometimes tries to be and wishes she is, she cannot escape her madness. Her endlesss, relentless terror.

Ivan doesn't sit up. Not yet. His brow furrows, though, and he turns slowly onto his back. Even in that there is a grace, a fluidity of flesh and bone that is his birthright. From Falcon; from Luna; from his blood and his lineage, which despite his family's indiscriminate and mercenary matings still stretch back into the mists of antiquity.

He looks at her, sitting, reaching, shaking. She looks at him; in her eyes, the look of a trapped thing. He raises his hand, and he does it slowly, so that she can see every motion. The prelude of every motion, even, in the way his muscles move, the way his tendons tense.

And he settles his hand on her back. He touches her as lightly as one might a wounded animal, a startled wild thing. He touches her, he strokes her, he murmurs some wordless sound of hushing.

"What are you afraid of?" he whispers.

"I don't want to be naked," she says, tight but not whimpering. "Ivan, please."

So he does sit up, then. And he is most of the way naked as well, his pants somewhere down his legs, his shirt ... somewhere, period. It is reflexive to reach out, to put his arm around her, to draw her fiercely and silently against his side. He shelters her with his body. He would shelter her even if the sky were falling.

Even if all the stars go out.

Even if all the world vanishes.

"Okay." He presses a hard kiss to her temple. "Okay. Wait here." And he lets her go, gets up, pulls his pants quickly and ruthlessly up -- nevermind the mess -- goes down the stairs picking up their clothes as he goes. His shirt, her sweater. Her bra. He comes back up, handing her that criss-crossed garment of hers; wrapping his shirt around her overtop for good measure.

"You have some things upstairs," he reminds her. They went shopping the last time they were here, after all. "Should I draw you a bath?"

Some of their clothes are down the stairs, draped as though they were falling once, and the people within them vanished. Ghosts. Gone.

Hilary shivers. She doesn't mind Ivan being naked, pants around his knees. She minds that her breasts are bared, that her panties are askew, her skirts rumpled, her hair a mess, and she does not seem to be able to stop trembling to put herself back together, and something about putting herself back together makes her want to wail. She exhales, drawn to his side, curling so that her chest is covered, her legs tucked together, her face hidden.

And he kisses her, after a long, hard moment. Kisses her, and she yelps a little when he leaves her, covering her chest with crossed arms. He brings her the sweater he pulled from her, leaving her camisole around her waist, handing her things. Hilary, helpless, looks up at him.

Ivan offers a bath and she exhales, nodding. Tension floods out of her, suddenly, unexpectedly. It will not be bad to be naked then, getting clean. She nods again, but is still curled in on herself while he wraps her sweater around her, arms out of the sleeves. Covers her with his shirt as well. She closes her eyes, trying to hold on to that sensation of the anxiety leaving her, gone.

"Just a little one," she says, and stating something decisively, preferentially, seems to solidify her a little. "Just a short bath. I want to be able to hold Anton while we talk to Miron." She looks up at Ivan again, opening her eyes. "They're here," she tells Ivan quietly. "Anton's here."

Which means the others must be, too.

Ivan stills for a moment.

"I know." His voice is as quiet as hers. His eyes meet hers for a moment. Then he holds his hand out to her.

"Come on," he urges. "Let's wash. And then we'll talk to Miron."

--

For the first time in months, the attic apartment is opened. There are dustcovers on the bed, the furnishings. The pipes clank in the walls when Ivan runs the faucet. He lets the water run for a minute or so before stopping up the tub, letting it fill. And downstairs, Miron's cellphone buzzes in his pocket. He sees who it is and hesitates; then answers.

The blast of water is a backdrop to Ivan's voice: "Take Anton inside and get him something to eat. We'll be down in half an hour, and we'll want to talk to you about our son."

Miron thinks for a brief, flashing, rebellious moment that these people hardly deserve to call Anton their son. That Anton would be better off if his mother had stayed dead and his father had stayed on the other side of the world. That he does not understand these people, and never will, and has very little to say to them at all.

He swallows it. He answers, "Yes, sir." And he waits until Ivan hangs up, and then puts his phone away.

Something, dark and aching, moves in her eyes when he tells her that. Hilary just watches him. And as he holds out his hand she takes it, unfolding, unfurling, rising to him.

--

In the attic apartment she looks around, feeling like they are coming back from the dead. She aches inside, twisting, wanting Ivan to slowly and gently undress her, wanting him to move her about like a puppet or a doll, but a small part of her feels she has somehow lost the right to that. It makes her very sad. She also wonders, somewhere in that echo chamber of her thoughts, if that's what she wants, despite it all: to be a doll, to be dressed and undressed, to be bathed, to be cared for like she is a mute animal, a child, something weak and weary and mindless.

It gives her a skull-splitting headache, trying to understand. In the end she just stands there, holding sweaters around her body, skirts fallen again around her legs, while Ivan calls Miron. That makes her look up, taking cold fingers from her brow, looking at him while he fills the tub and while he tells Miron what to do. When the phone is tapped off, Ivan will find her looking at him.

There is a strange, dark clarity in her eyes.

Slowly, as though stiff, she unwinds the clothing from her body. She lets it fall, and removes her skirt, stepping out of it in panties and boots. Her camisole is dropped as well, a dark stain atop the diaphanous cream of the skirts. She stands there and tips her head, beginning to remove her earrings, her rings, her bangles. She swallows, staring into the distance like a normal woman, a sane woman who isn't overthinking anything, just undressing, and then wiggles one, then her second foot out of their boots.

Hilary is wearing little socks, too. She exhales, dropping jewelry atop clothing, stripping down to nothing. And when she has, she comes to him, and puts her hands on his waist, kissing his mouth. It's very soft. Her eyes are open, and are watching him when her lips withdraw. Her hands rest where they are.

"I'm going to take a bath now," she says, slow and quiet and careful. "Are you joining me?"

When Ivan sets his phone on the bathroom counter, an uncertainty settles over the moment. Hilary is standing there. She is looking at him, and he looks back at her. Their eyes are very naked. He feels very naked, down to the moorings of his soul.

He wonders if she wants him to undress her. To move her about like a puppet or a doll. To undo this and peel back that; to take her down to skin and bone and blood and flesh. To lift her in his arms and set her in the water where she can be cleansed again, returned to the way she was. Baptized; reborn.

He wonders if he has lost the right.

After a while, she moves. She begins to undress herself. One and then another, her garments fall. He watches even after she looks away. Sees the motion of her throat. The gentle lift of her breasts when she lifts her arms. The subtle softness of breast, stomach, thigh; all the places where their intrinsic nature differs most. When she is naked, when even her jewelry is glittering amidst the clothes, she comes to him. His hands match hers. They hold each other gently, familiarly, with hands that know one another's bodies. His eyes are open too. He kisses her with a low, banked fire in his pupils, an ache on his brow.

"Of course I'm joining you," he says softly, tenderly, when she draws away. He undoes his pants, lets them fall; steps out of socks and shoes. All the while her hands stay on him if they wish -- feel the pattern of his motion beneath his skin. He finds her fingers with his when he's done, and he laces them together.

She steps into the tub ahead of him. He follows, sinking into warm water.

So, she says, she will bathe. And he is invited directly to join, or requested, or -- simply asked if he is going to, which is a subtler way of asking if he wants to. This is nothing she has ever done before. Even confessing to Ivan that she wanted him to fuck her, that night she let Oliver do what he did to her, was hard for her. Whispered, like a secret. She likes to pretend that she has no will, no wishes of her own. She likes to hide inside of Ivan's desire for her, where she is simple and perfect and cannot be displeased or disappointed or distressed. She likes, or has liked, to be a vessel for someone else's wanting.

Something is changing in her. And despite her anxiety, visible and trembling, she walks with him to the attic bedroom. She undresses herself, very quickly and not very seductively, distancing herself from the act of disrobing under her own power without entirely letting go of what is built between them when they fuck. Make love. Whatever it is. This work is terribly difficult, though; it takes all of Hilary's concentration to maintain that tenuous bond without submission so utter, so entire, that she vanishes into it even as it reveals her.

Ivan touches her. And Ivan goes with her to the bath, helping her step over the side and sit down so she doesn't slip. She has such elegance then, such regal carriage, the way she rests her hand in his and permits him to serve her. Such grace, when she lowers herself into the hot water. Such

tender, aching need, when he slides in behind her. Hilary is curling into his chest almost before he can settle himself into the bath with her, reaching for his arms to pull them around her. She almost makes a noise while doing so, plaintive and eager, but she swallows it, burying her face against his bicep, inhaling the scent of sex and sweat he acquired out on the landing.

--

Downstairs, servants are entering. Anton is starting to toddle around, looking to make sure everything he left in his house is still there where he left it last night. He doesn't much remember last night; he has never woken up in the morning anywhere but his own house, so everything is Very Exciting right now. He has been on a long journey. He must ensure that his den is still his.

Miron watches him, but goes to prepare some sort of lunch. This is really what Izolda does, and Elodie -- but he knows how to feed his charge. Whatever Anton needs, isn't that his purpose? Isn't that why he's here?

Miranda sits in the car outside, on her phone, communicating not only with Darya but with the US, the wealth management firm she's conscripted to grow Hilary's money, the people looking for more permanent lodging for their clan -- because now she is not sure, entirely, if they will or won't need a place with an extra wing for the boy and his servants.

Carlisle waits outside, standing beside the other car still, hands folded, watching the house.

--

In the apartment, upstairs, Hilary is not sure if she wants to fuck again or if she wants to simply be held or if she can stand her own skin. She is not shivering as much, due to the heat of the water and her lover, but she is touching his sides and she has half-turned in the bath to be closer to him, and she kisses his chest and his arm and his shoulder, his neck, panting softly, but that uncertainty almost vibrates off of her. She does not know what she wants, or wants too many things to choose. She is unsettled, animalistic, touching Ivan's face with her wet palms and kissing him, kissing him, each one a plea,

though, if he listens to her body under his own hands, not a plea for sex. Not in the end.

Ivan is a little surprised when Hilary clings to him like that. He wraps his arms around her even as she's pulling them into place. The water is warm, on the edge of hot, but never so much that it would scald her skin. Give him this much: he is careful with her when they're like this. He tries, he does try, and so very hard sometimes, to take care of her.

He tries hard enough that sometimes he even understands her again. Sometimes he can even tell the difference between need and lust. And so, kissed, touched, curled into like that, he wraps his arms around her tighter. Holds her still and holds her firm, fixes her against his body, surrounded as they are by the water.

"Shh," he whispers to her. "I'm here now. We're here together. We're still here, and it will be all right. We will make it all right, Hilary. With Anton, with each other, all of it."

That is what she wants. What she needs. When he holds her, firmly and solidly, and keeps her still against his chest. And she is so grateful, again, so relieved, that she shudders, finally coming to rest her brow against the cradle of his neck and shoulder. Her hair, only wet at the ends, drifts in the water and falls to shield her face from view. It muffles his voice, which resonates through her fingertips and breasts where she holds him and is held by him.

Like this, she can believe that it will be all right. They will be, Anton will be, everything will be all right. She breathes in deeply, exhaling slowly, trusting. She begins to relax, slowly, her joints and muscles unwinding until she is soft, until she is pliant, resting against him. She calms, and that is all it takes: one would think she'd learn, when so quickly reassured, that there is no need for her anxiety to trip over into terror, no need for her uncertainty to become panic. That, in fact, inhabiting her own body the way she does is not something that must leave her so vulnerable, so frightened, so helpless, by default.

Hilary has had decades to learn, and has not learned. May never learn. But given a look back into those first years, and the ones that followed, few would say that she has no justification for being so filled with fears as she is.

--

She does relax with him. She turns a bit more, resting her back against his chest, closing her eyes. She breathes a little, opens them again. Her arms unfold, after a while, and lift to the sides of the tub, fingertips draped off those sides. She is still, for a bit, until she remembers: just a small bath. A short one. Anton is downstairs, and when she is quiet in her own mind she can almost hear them in the house below. They need to sort out what to do about him. And thinking this gives her a little furrow to her brow, a consideration.

After a while, if Ivan has not already, Hilary reaches for the body wash sitting in the basket with sponges and the like.

Everything about this is different. Everything, from the prelude to the undressing to the way she clung to him to the way he takes care of her.

Ivan doesn't wash his lover. He doesn't wet the sponge, he doesn't scrub soap into suds. He doesn't cleanse her, inch by inch, limb by limb. He doesn't rub the tension from her back, kneading her spine loose with his thumbs the way he's learned to after all this time.

He just holds her. He holds her, and she relaxes, and he does too, and the two of them: they drift. They let the water warm them. They let the warmth suffuse them, relax them. After a while Ivan thinks of that day in the late spring, when the two of them came here together. He thinks of how he rowed them out onto the lake in that little boat, and how he held the umbrella open so Hilary could lie in the shade. Lying in the tub with Hilary now, Ivan stirs under the water -- threads his fingers through hers, wraps both their arms around her waist.

--

She reaches for the body wash. His eyes open. He watches her and he doesn't stop her. When she takes that little bottle, when she uncaps it, he cups water in his palm and sluices it over her shoulders. Leans around to kiss her temple. Looses his arms a little, giving her room to wash herself in the shelter of his half-embrace.

He doesn't say a thing. He doesn't remark on how unusual this is. He watches. He thinks maybe he understands.

It happened so naturally, the first time. He fell into ravaging her so easily that it disturbed him. He cared for her so effortlessly in the aftermath, and she didn't know what to do with herself. So much, between them, has simply been an expression of their nature.

It must mean that not everything in them is terrible, wrong, bad, and broken. That his instinct is to take care of her; that her instinct is to trust him. Not everything, Hilary thinks. She takes a sponge and carefully pours some of that creamy, lightly perfumed body wash onto it. Her eyes briefly close and she sighs when he pours water over her, leans forward to kiss her, and then she begins to wash. Her arms. Her breasts. Her stomach. She covers herself in lather, then twists slightly, looking over her shoulder, holding the sudsing sponge towards Ivan.

He is still with her.

See: she can care for herself, and still want him to care for her.

Until that moment, Ivan was uncertain if she still wanted him to bathe her. If she still wanted him, sometimes, to care for her, to be gentle with her, to treat her like as precious and rare as she is. Until that moment, he is simply holding her, accepting her,

aching a little inside for the loss of some small part of what has become a ritual.

But then: she turns in the circle of his arms. She hands him that sponge. He looks from the sponge to her hand to her, something soft-dawning in his eyes. His hands are so deft, so precise, and his fingers gather hers up, sponge and all. He kisses her fingertips as he takes the soapy implement from her. He kisses her shoulder, and the truth is he has soap on his lips now, but that's all right. With gentle hands he urges her to sit up, lean forward, lean her elbows on his knees if she likes. He sluices water over her back with one hand, soaps her with the other.

Neither of them say a thing. Neither of them remark on the silent significance of these rituals, these transactions, what changes, what stays the same.

Until that moment, they were both unsure of this.

But Hilary does turn to him, unwilling -- certainly not unable, as he knows, as he has personally searched for the limits of her flexibility and not quite found them yet -- to wash her own back. She holds the sponge out to him, not knowing he was aching, not knowing he felt a loss or feared a loss as she did. There is a hope, a request, in that offering, as much the demand that rests like lace atop the rest of her feeling.

Ivan takes it. Something changes in his eyes and, absurdly, he kisses her through the soap on her fingers, on her shoulder. Hilary huffs a breath outward, murmuring so quietly:

"Stupide petit faucon," which he doesn't need to know French to understand. She says it with strange tenderness. Fondness, even.

Hilary reaches into the water, sudsy as it is in spots, and cups water in her palm. She reaches, turning, brushing the soap from his lips with her own fingers, pouring water over his closed mouth to rinse him clean. And as she does, she leans toward him, nuzzling under his chin, kissing a drop of water as it rolls off his jawline.

Then she turns, obedient and willing, leaning forward. Her hair drapes past her cheeks, falls more into the water, as Ivan washes her back. She exhales slowly, sighing. No, neither of them remark; Hilary would not know what to say. How to name it. It is, perhaps, better that she doesn't try.

Ivan laughs softly as he is called stupide. He keeps still for her, his eyes flickering down to her fingertips, as she brushes soap-suds from his mouth. Pours water to cleanse him. He tips his head back too, eyes closed, trusting and enjoying, as she kisses him where his lifesblood flows so near the surface.

She is turning as he lowers his chin, opens his eyes. His hand has grown lax, forgetful, but it tightens now again around that sponge. He bends to his task, diligent and careful and tender, cupping water over her back, soaping, cupping water again, and then abandoning the sponge to float atop the bathwater as he uses his hands instead.

He kneads her back, the same as he always does. He rubs tension from her sleek muscles, rubs his palms over her back to feel her slenderness, her strength. He wonders, sometimes, if she knows how beautiful, how perfect he finds her. One can hardly fault him for seeing her perfection more than her flaws; wouldn't anyone?

He does see her flaws, though. He sees her changes, too; her strange moods, her altering mind. That is more than anyone else can say. That alone would make him unique.

His wet hands slide around her after a while. He pulls her back against his chest, exhaling like a sigh. His jaw rubs against her temple. He sinks into dissolving warmth with her again -- never minding the tick-tick-tick of time.

It has been a long, long time since she has called him her little falcon. It's such a fond term of endearment, but it hasn't crossed her lips in ages. Even with his foolishness teased as part of it, the words hold deep significance. They carry forgiveness. They carry acceptance. They carry something that both of them thought, even an hour ago, wasn't possible. Not ever again.

How quickly they change. Their moods, their goals, what they can put up with. What they feel for each other.

--

She is not expecting the backrub. It makes her breath catch a little, but she closes her eyes and gives in to it, washed and massaged and taken care of. She does not think of how he sees her, beautiful or perfect. She thinks of the warm water, her undone hair, his hands on her back. She thinks of her breathing, as it steadies.

She thinks, idly, of his body as he draws her back to him, as she lays against him, her breasts and upper chest bared to the air. Hilary blindly wraps his arms around her there to cover her, warm her. And for a while, all they do is drowse, as the water cools.

--

Eventually they let it drain. Eventually they rise and rinse off. Hilary lets all of her hair get wet. She moves efficiently then, after they've stood up: when the water turns off, she steps out of the tub first, reaching for a towel and a robe. She even begins to dry herself off right away, without waiting for Ivan. She isn't cold, distant, ignoring him, but she isn't nuzzling him and hugging him and waiting for him to treat her like a child either. It's very strange. All of this is very strange.

Ivan, in a rare chance, gets to see Hilary dress herself. Sees her search for clothes and put them on, clean underwear and bra that were left here, then dark blue slacks, then a sweater the color of oatmeal. He gets to watch her stare at the bathroom mirror, her eyes piercing as knives, determined, as she combs and then twists and pins her hair into a lower bun at the nape of her neck, where its wetness matters less. Hilary, of course, has jewelry here: she puts on a light gold chain of a necklace, a gold bangle dotted with pearls, a pair of earrings with a gold setting, diamond studs, pearl drops. She even, in the little clutch she carried, has lipstick to darken her mouth a touch, mascara to illuminate her lashes.

Perhaps it is shocking that she can do any of this without Darya. Perhaps it is merely shocking to see her doing it, rapid and thoughtless, her fingers dancing as she prepares herself. Finds thin trouser socks and rolls them on; finds shoes and slides her feet into them. She looks casual, and almost businesslike, and yet still elegant, still regal. Only after she is satisfied does she look to see where Ivan is, what he is doing, if he's dressed himself so they can go see to Miron and Anton.

They live their lives in such luxury that it's almost shocking to remember they are not helpless or wholly devoid of survival skills. Ivan in particularly sometimes has a hard time remembering that once upon a time Hilary was not waited on hand and foot. Once upon a time, Hilary was quite alone, rather destitute, surviving on the dwindling remnants of an evaporated family fortune. She can dress herself. She can feed herself. She can survive

without him.

So it is with Ivan as well. Without his attendants, without a silent valet to pick out his clothes and do up his tie, shave his jaw, fasten his cufflinks, he likewise manages. Truth is, he dresses himself more often than not, even at home. He's vain like that, and distrustful of Dmitri's dubious sense of style.

He pulls dark jeans off a hanger. Pairs it with a thin sweater, quarter-zip at the collar. Doesn't wear socks at all, or even shoes. This is his house, after all. This is, he supposes, his den. It takes him a shorter time to dress than it does Hilary, and so when she looks to him, she finds him ready, leaning against the wall, watching her in turn. He looks sleek and dark, a slightly more casual foil to what she has chosen. Seeing her looking his way, he shrugs off the wall, straightening.

With a touch of humor he offers his arm. They exit the attic apartment together. They can hear Anton downstairs, far away, babbling as he bangs one toy against another. The sound grows closer, clearer, as they descend one flight of stairs,

two,

round a corner, come into the kitchen. They are at the table, Anton and his faithful Miron. Miron is trying to feed Anton, because that is what Miron does and what Miron has been instructed to do: feed him, care for him, love him, be the father and mother and brother and guardian and servant that Ivan, quite frankly, doesn't care to be. He looks up, startled, as Ivan and Hilary come into the kitchen. His eyes flash between them. He has no idea, none, what has happened, where they stand now, what will happen.

He swallows. He takes a step back from Anton, because somehow in Hilary's presence he never quite feels at ease to be so close to the boy. And, lacking anything better to do, he bobs a quick bow to the two of them: shining, regal, mad creatures that they are.

Ivan offers his arm, but Hilary wraps her palm around his upper forearm only to slide it down his sweatered arm to his hand, linking their fingers. They exit, and descend. The deeper they go down the stairs, the clearer she can hear her son, and her heart lurches. She heard him babbling this morning, and heard him crying when he was wet and hungry, and heard him last night,

screaming,

as she took him away from his home. Her heart is broken. And it is such a small heart to begin with, so fragile, that she isn't sure what to do with the pieces. She just goes downstairs, a step ahead of Ivan, but never letting go of his hand. She catches her breath at the end, and at the foot of the last set of stairs her palm slips from Ivan's grasp.

She walks forward, distraction that she is, to the baby. She hardly even notices Miron stepping back. Anton is older now, has a little spoon of his own clutched in his hand, but if we're honest, he still needs a great deal of help actually getting food to his mouth. She pays no mind to the servant; she strokes her fingertips over Anton's scalp, following the flow of his golden hair, leaning over him to kiss his brow, his temple, his cheek. You would almost think she's a real mother, a normal woman, the way she fawns over him, the way he wrinkles his nose and pulls away, unsure of what to make of this.

He feels, when she is near, a rising of need warring with sharp anxiety. They are simultaneous and he cannot make sense of it. He starts babbling at her; she rubs her face against his face, nuzzling him wordlessly, heavily, like an animal. Only after a few moments of this does she draw back, looking at what he's eating,

judging it, of course,

and then looking at Miron.

"Finish feeding him," she says. "Then we all are going to talk." She looks to Ivan, then, turning away from Anton. "We should eat, too," she thinks.

A hesitation. Then, Miron, knowing how insufficient it will be considered: "There is chicken in the refrigerator."

So that is what they end up eating. Ivan does the honors, seeing as how Miron is still occupied with Anton. Perhaps Ivan fantasizes that he is being so responsible right now: providing shelter and food, feeding his mate. He finds the half-a-roast-chicken in the refrigerator and he carves meat from the bone, slices it, makes cold cuts of it that he garnishes with cucumber and tomato. There is bread in the bread-box, home-baked, and butter as well. Apparently not feeling terribly well-mannered today, Ivan eats with his hands, sitting at the opposite end of the small kitchen table. He discovers he is ravenous; he tears through bread and meat, pauses now and then to freshen his palate with a cut of cucumber, a sip of water. Or perhaps juice. There's a lot of juice available, with a toddler in the house.

When he is finished, Anton is too. The boy is babbling, banging his palm on things, looking at Ivan and Hilary. Miron is trying to wipe Anton's face, but the boy keeps squirming around him to stare at the strange people. Eventually, his charge's face most of the way clean, Miron gives up and folds the napkin. Then he looks to Ivan, to Hilary.

"You said we must talk," he says. This is a small act of bravery. "What must we talk about?"

For a while she is torn: to go into the kitchen and make sure Ivan doesn't prepare something disgusting, or to stay with the baby and watch him eat, stare at him as she sometimes does. In the end, she waits to be served by the man who is and is not and is her mate, brought a plate with chicken and cucumber slices and tomatoes. She thinks of this as simple fare, wonders why he didn't think to include cheese, but tries to remember that he is an uncouth Russian with no taste whatsoever. He wouldn't know good cheese from soured milk.

There's no fondness in this judgement, no amusment. Just an eye-rolling sort of resignation to the flaws and lack in the man. He cannot help it; it is in the blood. She doesn't think he has adequate taste in wine, either. Maybe vodka, sausage, but certainly nothing more refined than that. Who cares if his is the oldest house of their tribe? If you can't pick a good wine, what good are you in polite society?

Hilary sits at the table, watching Anton be fed with keen eyes and a faint smile, until Ivan brings her a plate and a glass of water. She sits closer to Miron and the boy while the animal at the end of the table gorges himself on the majority of that half-a-chicken. For her part, Hilary eats slowly, slicing through the cold chicken and pairing it with tomato slices, dropping cucumber slices in her water glass. She smiles at Anton at one point; he laughs at her, pointing, jabbering to Miron in broken, toddler Russian that she can only barely make sense of. He gets bored of eating near the end of his own meal, and Miron doesn't force the issue. He moves in to clean the boy, who naturally fusses about it.

One of the sounds Anton makes is akin to a snarl, a throaty growl that is not intimidating at all but is animalistic.

This arrests her attention, briefly. She glances down at Ivan, for a moment, then away.

She has only eaten half of what was brought to her. She looks at Miron with some degree of affront that he broached the subject again without her leave, raising her eyebrows, then narrows them, frowning slightly. "I do not want to be away from Anton for months at a time. Nor do I want to tear him so completely from his... from the people he knows."

Hilary gives a small shake of her head. "He was unhappy last night. I do not wish him to be so unhappy. Your purpose is to care for him, and do what is best for him, and you know him well. So you will tell me what you think is best."

It is, in truth, a grotesquely unfair burden to heap on Miron's shoulders. But then, neither Hilary nor her paramour have ever been terribly interested in fairness or justice. The question is posed to Miron. Miron, justifiably, looks put on the spot. Trapped in the headlights. He steals a glance to Ivan at the end of the table.

Ivan chews the last of his meat-and-bread. He takes a swallow of water, slouching in the kitchen chair: negligent, languid, dissolute, lordly. His eyes are keen and sharp, though, and they stare blandly back at Miron. The boy will get no help from his quarter.

And so, Miron turns back to Hilary. He thinks a moment. Then: "Do you... do you wish to live with him, then?"

Hilary's brows tighten together. "I do not know. Not altogether. I do, but I do not know if it will distress him."

She looks down at her plate: half-eaten slices of chicken, slices of cucumber, one with a perfect set of her dental imprints. Tomato and its juices, leaking.

"He could come live with me, in Chicago, but I am known there as someone who birthed a stillborn son. We could move elsewhere, if Ivan is there to protect us, and find some place with enough space. With grass and a pond or a river. Quarters for all of you as well as my own servants. Or... I could live here, at least sometimes."

Hilary looks up again, looking at Ivan. "I do not know what Ivan wants. Or if he cares." Her eyes come back, quickly, to Miron. "You should be with him. And I think Polina, despite how sour her face is, is quite effective. I care less about the others, so long as he has someone who can improve his French and cook decent food for him." She frowns. "Do you think he must stay here, in this house, as things have been? Will it... damage him, if we do otherwise?"

There is a moment when Ivan's eyes meet Hilary's. When she looks his way. When she says she does not know if he cares. There is a stirring in his pupils, a thread of ache. It passes, and then she looks away.

Miron, then. Miron, who looks consummately uncomfortable, out of his depths. His eyes flick again from Hilary to Ivan, Ivan to Anton. On Anton they stay, fixing like a magnet to a lodestone. He seems to draw on some inner source of strength, taking a breath and speaking.

"I think... I think he's young enough that he can move to another city, or even another country, without being traumatized. He doesn't go to school yet. He basically knows us, and that's it. He knows this house, it's true, but ... I think as long as you bring his things with him, his bed and his toys, he will be all right."

Miron looks at Hilary, then. His chin rises a little. He dares:

"I think he'll be better off if his parents are in his life. Everyone wants to know their parents. He'll be better off if he can live in the same city as you, maybe even the same house. He can have his own wing, but if he can at least see you most nights for dinner, or maybe for bedtime, I think that'll be good for him. In the long run.

"Because right now he's still very young, but soon he'll be old enough to remember things. If you leave him here and keep visiting once a year or even once a month, he'll soon be old enough to notice that most children live with their parents, but he doesn't. And he'll wonder why, and he'll think it's because you don't love him.

"I will go to America for Anton. And for you. I think Polina will too, even if she will make a stink about it. I don't think Izolda will, she has a husband here and a baby of her own. But that's okay, because I think to be honest Anton doesn't really need her that much anymore and she ... probably wants to live with her own family too. I think maybe Elodie will come too, if you want her. We can all help you. I know... I know it's not easy for you and Ivan to... to be parents.

"But if you are asking me what is best for Anton, then I will tell you: what is best for him is to have his parents with him more often than not, instead of two times since he was born. If you can stand to, you must try."

When Miron tells her that he thinks Anton will be better off with his parents in his life, she is startled. It shows. She looks surprised, not just that he thinks that but that he would say so. That Anton would be better off to live with her, near her at least, be close to her, see her at mealtimes, bedtimes. That it would be good for him.

That she could be good for him. There is a brightness in her eyes that she will not permit to show in front of the help; she looks away, and blinks, and as Miron goes on, she rises slowly from her chair, walking around the table. She unceremoniously but more slowly than last night lifts Anton from his chair, into her arms, sitting down. He wants to get down and play. She buries her face in his shoulder for a moment, marveling at his softness and fragility, marveling at the fact that his tenderness and vulnerability does not inspire murderous and grotesque thoughts in her, nightmares of methodical and curious violence, and marveling a little at his smell, which seems as familiar as any she's ever known.

She looks up, hearing Miron say that Anton will eventually notice that other children are different, and that it might make him wonder if he is loved at all. She looks stricken, and she looks furious. She has her teeth on edge behind her lips, and looks away, letting Anton move from her lap to the floor, his tiny bare feet setting down and immediately taking off for the living room and the basket of toys he knows is there, which he has to check on, excuse him, it is very important. His belly is rotund with having been freshly fed; he toddles off and pauses at Ivan's chair.

Looks up at him. Babbles something, pointing at the living room. He has his small hand, cleaned by a rag, pressed insistently against the side of Ivan's leg. He speaks, and pauses as though to await a response, then babbles again and takes off.

Hilary watches this, but does not look at Ivan. She turns back to Miron for a short time. She does not make a decision. She exhales, thinking, then says: "Thank you, Miron. You are excused. I will stay with Anton."

Give her this: for a moment there, she realizes that Miron was dragged out of his home in the middle of the night. He has not washed. He has not changed clothes. She waits for him to leave, if he does. And then she begins to rise, but Anton is waddling back into the little table where they take such informal meals. He is carrying a stuffed toy, a dragon with scales stitched in, shimmering. It is blue and purple and black with hints of fiery orange and red at the eyes and crest and tips of the wings. It has been well-loved, which means it has been gnawed on, slept with, and is missing scales. He is carrying it with his fist wrapped around the long neck, and holds it up to Ivan, blathering away.

"Dakon," he keeps saying, missing the r sound, regardless of language. "Dakon." And he hits the soft stuffed dragon against Ivan's lap, insistent that Ivan must take it, and look at it, and perhaps... appreciate it? Or have some opinion of it? Who even knows. He baps the dragon on Ivan, all but whacking him with it, and starts making growling noises.

Hilary covers her mouth with her hand.

There is a mild sharpening in Ivan's regard, his alertness, when Hilary lifts the boy from the high-chair. He is watchful; he is, if we are honest, a little wary. He does not intercede, though, and after a while Hilary wraps the boy up close, buries her face in his small shoulder. And Anton, who really just wants to get down and play with his toys now that food-time was over, nonetheless calms for a little while. He puts his head against the side of hers. He has his fingers in his mouth, his eyes big and curious, staring at the light coming in through the kitchen windows because at his age even the light through a window is wondrous and new.

Ivan aches again, a little. It is different this time.

--

Miron is excused. Anton is released. Anton comes over to Ivan -- he is walking now, Ivan realizes -- and he presses his little paw against Ivan's leg. Ivan looks down at him, perplexed. The speech is too unclear even for Ivan to decipher. When no answer comes, Anton takes off for the living room, and Miron departs the room, and

it is just him and his lady. Him and his love.

"I do care," he says softly, after a while. "I care because you care. And because he is mine. Maybe I don't care as much as you do, or love him as deeply as you do ... but I only gave him to you because you can't live without him. I would never disown him, left to myself."

Anton is back. Anton has a toy, and it is a dragon, and he is talking now too. He is bashing the dragon against Ivan's leg, doing it again and again until Ivan picks the toy up, bemused and amused, lifting it to examine it.

"You're supposed to hate dragons, you know," he tells the boy, smiling. "They are the great enemy of our race, and you're supposed to trample them into the dirt." He hands the toy back. "It's even in Moscow's heraldry. What sort of Russian Silver Fang are you anyway?"

It means something to her, what Ivan says. Not that he cares because she cares, not that he cannot love as deeply as she loves, but the rest. That he would never disown him. That he only gave him up because Hilary would die without her son, or thinks she would. It is not what he said when she asked for Anton to be given to her. He only said he didn't care: what good was the boy, if he was losing her?

She thinks now that maybe, at least in some measure, Ivan was lying.

Walking over she stands near his end of the table, his emptied plate, as Anton comes stamping his tiny feet back into the room. Her head tips. She watches as Ivan plucks the dragon from Anton's hand, and Anton watches as well. Anton's brow begins to furrow. He realizes he does not have his toy anymore. He reaches for it, whining, and it is handed back. He hugs it, biting down on its throat right beneath the head.

Hilary does not cover her mouth in time now. She laughs, short and bright, and Anton looks up at her, dragon dangling from his tiny mouth, and she bends to him, stroking his scalp. "He is also Belgian. Aren't you?" she asks Anton himself. "L'union fait la force," she coos at him, and he beams, still holding his toy in his teeth, and then turns, dropping to all fours to crawl off, back to his toybox.

She follows him with her dark gaze, then looks to Ivan. "I do not think we can bring him to live with us in Chicago," she says quietly. "No matter the size of the house. We might both be very well killed. Whether by Durante or Grey. Neither would swallow that affront, to find me with a living child who is, we can both plainly see, obviously the product of our two lines. He will be known by bloodline, by scent." She is still, a moment. "Someone might kill him to punish us."

"Good boy," Ivan approves as the dragon is clinched and throated. "Quick study."

Then, surprised, Ivan shifts in his seat to look more directly at Hilary. "I didn't even know you were Belgian," he says. "I thought perhaps you were Parisian, the way you melted into that city like you were born to it. Hm." He smirks at her, gently. "It seems I have inadvertently fallen in love with a Brussels sprout."

They become serious, then. She speaks of the impossibility of Chicago, and Ivan nods in immediate assent. She thinks perhaps someone will kill them. Will kill him, their baby boy. Ivan's eyes go to the toddler. He is so small, so golden, so harmless and unharmed. Ivan wonders if he was ever so innocent. If Hilary was.

"Not Chicago," he agrees. "That is impossible. Perhaps New York. My parents have a home in Manhattan and an estate upstate. In a pinch they could take the boy without anyone growing too suspicious. It is already quietly known and accepted there that I have been borne a son by an unknown mother. It wouldn't be out of the question that he would be reared by his grandparents.

"Or perhaps somewhere else altogether. The weather is nice on the west coast. Or we could move to Lausanne." A pause. "If you want to live with me, that is. With Anton, and me."

In the living room adjacent to them, Anton is down on the ground, taking things out of his toybox one by one and throwing them around. He still has a dragon between his teeth, the neck thoroughly soaked in toddler slobber now, and he keeps growling, snarling as he does, the monster in some story living in his formative mind.

In the little dining nook, Ivan makes a pun that has Hilary lifting an imperious brow at him, melting him with a gaze. She does not stop to explain her heritage. The truth is: she doesn't know it. She doesn't know much more than a bit of Belgium, some English? Perhaps she really is French. And she has never ached over the not-knowing, but she has many, many times run into Garou who are a bit taken aback. Her purity is so strong, her lineage so powerful, that they wonder at even a kinswoman being unaware of the names and titles of her ancestors.

Hilary is used to it. But the pun: oh she withers that, giving a small shake of her head. She mutters something dismissive in French: that he is an absurd child, more than likely. Something along those lines. Nevermind his profession of love, after all they have been through the past weeks. Months. It's all he could say, groaning in her ear, as he took her on the landing. He loves her, he loves her. He cannot live without her. God damn him, he loves her. Despite everything. Because of everything.

She sits, where she can see Anton playing past Ivan's ear. They are both looking at him, for a moment. New York is mentioned, and his parents; she wrinkles her nose a bit. Something about that gives her distaste: having grandparents about, as though family is an inconvenience. Or perhaps it's something else. The way she might remain unknown. That now she realizes he would still be, for her, too far.

Ivan mentions the west, the warmth there. He speaks of Lausanne, where they were together once. He says --

Hilary turns her head, looking at him once more. "I think I would like to live with him. Even... with some space. I like that he has his own house right now, his own servants, his own land. But if we could have such space and freedom but... be close. Where I could walk down the halls and see him." Her brow is furrowed; she sounds sad. "I am afraid to live with the both of you. I am afraid of it all happening again. And I am still afraid that you will try to... own me."

What humor and lightness there was -- and there was humor and lightness, and even a rare, rare laugh from Hilary -- has ebbed away. Hilary is sad. Ivan reaches out to her; puts his hand over hers. They sit like that for a while, quiet.

"I'm afraid of that too," he confesses. "And I'm afraid I won't be able to stand it, truth be told. I'm -- I'm sorry to admit it."

A smaller pause.

"I think you should choose. Which city, which house, when. I'll arrange the finances and the documents for Anton and his household to join you. Perhaps we'll hire additional staff to keep the house and its land, if it is large. And I'll get a place in the same city. I'll visit, often." He looks at her keenly, questioning. "Does that sound all right?"

Bizarrely, she is relieved. He says he might not be able to stand living in a house with her and their son, and Hilary looks up at him, not so much startled as aware, brightening. She hears him: she chooses, and he will arrange the rest. He'll --

"That is what I was going to say," she tells him, the sort of thing couples love hearing from each other early on, when you can dream that you're one person, that you share a mind. It's not something they've ever had, but it is also the truth in this moment. "I was going to say... you should be there. In the same city, but with a penthouse. Like you have now. It's so lovely. It's so you. And then you'll be there, and we can be together, but... I can also be with Anton. And you can be, too.

"Sometimes."

When he can stand it. When she can stand it. But he will still be there, always ever welcome in the wing or building where his son lives, welcome on invitation to Hilary's domicile. There to guard them, there to watch over Anton, make adjustments to his staff or his training so that one day, he will be a better wolf.

Hilary squeezes his hand. "I don't know where," she confesses. "Can we stay here, for now?"

She is relieved, and so he, too, is relieved. Relieved that she is not hurt; relieved that she does not feel betrayed or rejected. His hand is squeezed. He looks at her hand in his, and then he lifts it, places kisses on the tips of her fingers rather as he had in the bathtub.

"Of course," he says softly. "You don't need to ask. You are his mother. This is your home too."

Her relief floods her, too. That he is not hurt, that he doesn't feel held at arm's length, betrayed after their painful reconciliation. Relief, too, that he will not be stalking the hallways of some household, infiltrating, watching, controlling. That he doesn't want that, at all. That he wants what she wants: to be near, but independent. That's what she wants, ultimately, for both he and their son.

There is a clatter in the next room. Hilary starts, looking up even as she is brushing her fingertips over Ivan's lips. It's just Anton, toppling his toybox so that everything spills out. He claps for himself, laughing at the carnage, and she doesn't mind. She looks back to Ivan.

"Perhaps the west," she says quietly. "But we can decide later. We are all right, for now." She is quiet a moment, seems about ready to go, then, her voice falling to just above a whisper:

"Do you believe him?" Hilary wants to know. "Miron. When he says... it would be better for Anton, to have us near?"

Ivan thinks on that for a while. His head is turned, his eyes abstract on Anton. In the morning light, which is drawing nearer to a noonday light, his profile is quite a thing of beauty: the eyes deep-set, the bridge of nose high. He thinks of Hilary and her parents. He thinks of his own. He thinks of Miron, young and full of ideals. He thinks, too, of Hilary's fragile heart.

"It would be better for him to have us near," Ivan says at last, "if we can keep our madnesses at bay. If we try, and try hard, to be at our best for him, and to keep away from him when we are at our worst.

"It will, as Miron said, be difficult at times. But it is worth it, because if we are near, then Anton will know he is loved. Just as you wanted for him."

She fears that: Anton growing up thinking his parents love each other, but not him. Anton growing up without knowing that love exists, or that it matters. Even as the thoughts pass through her mind she feels like scoffing at them: how absurd, to be concerned that way. But then she knows, on some level, why she scoffs.

This is what happens to you, when you are not given love. This is what you think of it. This is how you go mad.

She clutches at his hand, briefly, and just nods. She wants to believe that her being near her son is better for him than her being away. She has a very, very hard time believing that. But she rises, smoothly, as gracefully as she ever moves, and crosses into that other room. Anton is lying on his back, holding a toy with his feet, examining it with his hands. She walks to him, kneeling down, and strokes his mouth with her fingertip, ever so softly. He looks at her, open-mouthed, and she smiles, albeit thinly. She turns her hand at the wrist, curving her fingers, tickling him under the chin. A gurgling, sputtering laughter emits from the boy.

This makes her happy. As bathing with Ivan made her happy. They are different sorts of happiness. But she thinks they might both be real. She stays in the little living room even when Miron comes down; she is in there, being handed toys and handing them back, and she is simultaneously very bored and very content. She tries to hold on to both, and then slowly begins to let go of both, simply sitting there, inhabiting the rituals that the toddler brings. Here is a toy, now give it back. Here is a toy, now give it back. She does not join the conversation when Ivan tells Miron, if he bothers telling him anything, that Hilary is going to stay here for a while, while she decides where they are all going to move to.

Hilary just sits there, playing with her son. Watching him play. Thinking about what it will be like,

living together,

as a family.