On The Prowl

Little electric jolts ran through me as Dontaine touched my shoulder, trying to distract me, I think, bring me back to myself. But it only served to draw my attention to another food source. Here, too, was blood.

Slowly I turned and looked at him, at his hand, smooth and white, skin so soft-looking, so easy to pierce, to tear open to get to that rich flowing blood beneath. That call of life.

"Your eyes," he whispered. "Dear Goddess, they're blue like Mona Louisa's." And I felt his fear jolt through me with thrilling pleasure, almost as sweet a sensation as blood smeared upon my lips would have been. Crap.

"Don't... don't be afraid," I said, my voice strained as my own fear – fear of myself – flooded over me.

"Mona Lisa, what's happening?" he asked like a child begging a grown-up to tell him there was no bogeyman in the closet. That he was only imagining it. But he wasn't. And the bogeyman wasn't something hiding in the closet. It was me.

"Touch me, Dontaine," I whispered. "Hold me. Make it go away."

Carefully, he sat me up and held me from behind, so he would not see my disquieting eyes. And perhaps, so my teeth would not be near his throat, a wise move. But though he pressed his chest again my back, wrapped his arms around me, encircling me with his electric presence, it did not chase that terrible blood thirst from me. I was aware, so aware of that slow, beating heart that pounded against me like an ancient primitive dramming. Calling: Here. Here I am. Come get me.

And how I yearned to do so. So much that I shuddered.

"It's not working, Dontaine," I said, trembling against him, my voice tight. God, how it was not working. I pushed to free myself from his hold, from that terrible dramming heartbeat pressed against me, but he would not let me go. His arms tightened and that strength inherent in a Full Blood warrior kept me chained, kept me captive for a moment, as long as I did not fight him.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"Please, my Queen, I feel your panic... Don't run." I felt him tremble against me. Felt his heart quicken under the flooding surge of adrenaline. "My fear. Your fear. It triggers my beast. If you ran..."

His words gave me an idea. Made me think of that other thing that dwelled within me – so many things inside me now.

My own beast.

I tried to call it forth, tried to unleash my tiger self to drive out that other thing – and it was a thing, not truly a person – possessing me with its hungers and desires. Come out, kitty cat. Come out and play.

Always before it roared out of me. Rushed out the moment I unleashed it. But not this time. There was the faintest stirring, the brush of fur inside me. Then it subsided, once more quiescent within me, unable to come out and save me.

"Dontaine." My hands squeezed the arms holding me, kept them pressed down against me. "Call out my beast."

His arms spasmed around me for a second. "You're asking me to change into my Half Form, and I ca

"Dontaine..." Against my volition, my head lowered. My hands wrapped like shackles around his strong, pulsing forearms. And with but a thought, gently, easily, I broke his hold on me and lifted his pulsing wrists up to my mouth. I kept my lips closed, fighting myself, but could not stop myself from whispering those closed lips over that white fragile skin, so thin, where just beneath the surface pounded sweet flowing blood. I smelled it. Literally smelled it like the most alluring perfume. And my mouth, my gums, burned again like something set aflame, and my teeth ached to change, lengthen, become dagger-sharp fangs.

With an effort that made tears spring to my eyes, I lifted my head back up, out of immediate biting reach. But only that one thing I could do. His wrists were still held like willing sacrifices before me.

"Please," I whispered. "Call my beast, I ca

He heard me, and his body stiffened. First with puzzlement, then with fear. "I thought this was your beast's hunger."

"No." And my voice was careful, so careful. As if one loud sound would be enough to break my restraint. For fangs to break through my gums. For me to sink them into that beating pulse there before me like a waiting present. "Not my beast. Something else."

And there was not much for it to be, that something else. Only two things liked blood. Our animal beast. And demon dead. I could almost feel him reaching this new conclusion. And realize that he wasn't holding me, so much as I was holding him now. Realize that it was not my animal self coming to the fore, giving me that greater strength. Nope, something else already there.

"Please, Dontaine. Call my beast." I said it so calmly when I wanted to scream it, especially when his heart started pounding in fright, in terrifying realization that something worse, much worse, was going on.

"Blessed Night," he whispered. Then he gave me what I asked for. The energy in his arms, only his arms, changed, like a distinct line drawn up to his elbows and stopping there. A hot wash of energy poured out from him, powerful waves coming out as if pushed by a tide from the arms that I held. Beneath my touch I felt his skin shimmer and change under the cloth covering it. Felt his bones shift, elongate, tendons and muscles popping into new positions. His hands, the only things visible, stretched, became wider, the fingers rougher, coarser, the skin thicker, less human and more Other. A sheen of fur flowed over the skin as power spilled down his hands. They spasmed once, then huge hooking claws popped from his fingertips like energy let loose to take form and substance and shape. That hot wash of energy flowed up my hands where I touched him, and into me, tingling and heating my palms, then spilling it up through the rest of my body until I was pulsing, vibrating from head to toe.

That Other in me could not stand beneath that warm flooding power. It was pushed aside, and my animal self rose. My tiger stretched and roared, then snarled, caught, unable to come out, unable to fully rise to the surface. That small lingering presence of that demon-tinged Other interfered with it, so that while my beast presence dominated, it could not totally push out the other entity. Both were caught in incompleteness, one coming, the other going, neither able to reach their destination.

His hands – his claws – pulled from me and I let them go, and turned to look up at Dontaine. He was still in human form, his face still etched with that strong masculine beauty. Only his forearms, his hands, had changed, looking unreal against the normal rest of him. "You didn't change completely."

"Neither did you. Your eyes, though, they are that of your beast's... and not of her. Are you better?"

Better? I laughed, and it was a harsh, crying sound. A sound that made Dontaine flinch. "Yes, I'm better. Anything was better than that... but I can't completely change. She won't let my beast come completely out, Dontaine." The urges and needs of my beast, however, were there, though the form was not. The animal hunger, the need to hunt, to bring down prey, to feel the hot spill of blood and quivering meat sliding down my throat... it beat within me. Only I was still in human form, like Dontaine, but not because I willed it. Oh, no. My will was being roadblocked by that she-bitch I had sucked into me.

I was caught in a limbo of in between, feeling the needs of my animal self, unable to fulfill it in my human form. And before me stood something that could sate my hunger, something that still looked like prey. I pushed away from him, gasping, falling onto my back, crawling away from him, hysterical giggles choking my throat. I didn't want to drink him anymore. Now I wanted to eat him.