norfolk.

Constantine
Norfolk, Virginia. A good hundred-plus years older than the United States itself, this is what passes for an old city on this side of the Atlantic. There's a lot of history in this city; a lot of culture.

At least, that's what he's been told. From his vantage point in the first-class cabin of United 723, he sees very little to corroborate. He sees a tiny tangle of streets and highways. What passes for rush-hour traffic glittering in the evening light. A little clutter of ships and buoys that constitutes a harbor. A downtown that barely qualifies for the name. A town, really. A backwaters village next to the behemoth of New York City, where his flight originated. He can't imagine why anyone would choose to live here, even temporarily.

Gravity shifts. A tone sounds. The passengers are requested to elevate seatbacks, stow footrests, tables. He turns his eyes from the tilting horizon and closes the dossier open on his lap. Slides it away. Closes his eyes, and waits for landfall.

There's a message from his personal assistant when he arrives. A phone number, an address, a room number. He promptly forgets the first; remembers the rest. He has a reservation with the car rental people, and it's a special order, an Audi, an R8, charcoal grey. The brake calipers are blood red. He likes that.

It handles like a dream, corners on rails. It gets him to the address in twenty minutes. He leaves the keys with the valet. He ignores the front desk. He takes the elevators straight up. Penthouse suite, he expects. Would be disappointed by anything less. Another man in his position might bring flowers. Chocolates. Something. But then, he is not a man, and this is a matter of business.

Quarter past eight in the evening: there is a brisk, hard rap at Victoria's door. If she looks through the peephole, she won't recognize her visitor. A darkhaired man in a well-tailored suit. The cut is sleek and understated; modern british, not italian. It downplays the breadth of his shoulders. He's still imposing. His shirt is a white so brilliant it makes his skin swarthy. No tie. His pocket square

is blood red.

He shifts his weight as he waits. It's not a nervous gesture. It's sinuous, coiled; smoothly powerful. A moment later his knuckles strike wood again. Impatient. This time when he's done he stares straight at the peephole, and of course he can't see her, of course, but those eyes are shocking and fierce, amber as an animal's.


Victoria
There are a great many human beings who fail to see the beauty in the history of a city like Norfolk. There are many individuals who pass these smaller locales by for something larger. Something filled to the brim with the thrum and throng of humanity. Something much more Metropolitan than the old world charm of a place like Norfolk Virginia. It's hard to say whether Victoria selected this area because it was passed up by the majority or because she enjoyed the old Magnolia trees and beautiful gardens kept by fine and well-mannered women.

Either way. For whatever reason this is where Victoria has chosen to rest her head for the unforeseeable future. Not New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Here. Less than 200 miles from Browntown Virginia. Less than that from Washington. Men like him always think they know women like her. They expect too much and know too little. This hotel is five star. It reaches up more stories than she has fingers and toes and the higher up one goes, the more expensive their stay becomes. He doesn't know that this isn't a typical lodging choice for Victoria. He may not be aware of the Fairfax / Wilmington roots that have been dug down deep and far in that small good for nothing place called Browntown. Or he just might. He may already know the importance Victoria's ancestors have played in one of the strongest, oldest Caerns in the eastern half of the United States. Even if he doesn't know any of that - even if he couldn't be bothered to know more than her name - it wouldn't be hard to figure it out once she answered those sharp raps of knuckles on her door.

But.

She makes him wait. She makes them all wait. It's quite possible that he's lifting his knuckles for another round of knocks (more forceful, more insistent) while irritation flickers dark and true across his expression. It doesn't matter, she makes him wait anyway. When the door is finally tugged open she doesn't let him in straight away. She stands in the slice of an opening just barely big enough to to fit her small framed body in. He can see pale hair falling in loose tendrils to the curve of delicate shoulders laid bare by the off the shoulder silky shirt she's wearing. His eyes have time to register the pale Arctic blue of her eyes, the heart-shaped pout of her mouth which seems to always be set in an enigmatic whisper of a smile. Half there always, aborted before it's fully birthed.

He can see that her slacks are black. Her feet are bare, toe nails painted the same rose shade as her well manicured fingernails. In just one quick glance, he is aware of those roots we mentioned before. Not dark and pointed and dangerous like a Shadow Lord's, but soft and regal and full of promise for breeding another generation of men just.like.him. She bears the gaze of Eclipses the Moon and the small nose of Takes Up the Sword of the Fallen. Her ancestors are all woven into the fibre of her being, worn on her flesh, settled in her bones and as visible to his eyes as if they were tattoos.

There's no welcome invitation. No polite gesture and wave of one pale hand to grant him entry to this temporary home she's claimed as her den for the moment. Just those cool blue eyes that seem far too detached to be good for anyone.

"You didn't ring me first." She says, her voice smooth and easy on the ears when pitched low as it is just then. "I told them someone ought to ring me first."


Constantine
The door barely opens.  It's just enough to fit her narrow body; not his.  Not that it would do any good were he to insist, so to speak, but perhaps it's the thought that counts.  Through the sliver of an opening she can see him, and he can see her.  She can see him looking at her: there's a certain entitlement in that bold, undisguised assessment.  And she is quite lovely, isn't she -- all frail bones and arctic coloring.

He is not.  He doesn't look much like the tribe he claims.  At least, he's not the stereotype: not lean, not fair, nothing ethereal about him.  Heavy-boned.  Solid, primal, carnal.  Meat and bone and a heart of fire.  His tawny eyes trace from her eyes to her mouth to her throat, all the way to the slanting slash of her collar across her upper chest, shoulder.  Then they flick back to strike her eyes.  The ferocity of his stare belies the civility of his attire and person.

"I didn't speak to 'them'."  A surprising voice, that.  Low, hard at the edges, but not unpleasant.  The corners of his mouth turn up; there's something a touch mocking about it, and not a drop of apology in it.  "And I don't like phone conversations."

A lift of his chin - a few degrees, a gesture toward the suite over her shoulder.

"Invite your tribesman in."


Victoria
Here eyes are on his. Glacier blue pools narrow then relax just slightly, the twist of her mouth says she just might be unimpressed. One hand lifts, slender pale fingers grip the side of the door up near her pale head of hair while the other finds purchase on somewhere near the door knob. This is the posture of a woman quite confident. Distinctly comfortable in her own skin. That gaze of hers is something that threatens to throw most true born off guard. Victoria's eyes hold his for a few beats, a few solid moments in which she takes but one breath. Air is held tight in her lungs, though maybe he doesn't notice the way her chest stills and her shoulders pull back just so. Only enough that it leaves her seeming just  a bit arrogant.

Invite your tribesman in.

Again, she makes him wait. One beat, two and then finally when his Rage is threatening to heat his skin and spark a fire in his amber eyes, Victoria steps back and opens the door wide. She stands off to the side, holding the door in that too comfortable way while she waits for him to step inside. The door closes. It does not lock. Suitcases rest near the big dresser, ornate and distressed so as to look antique.

Arms fold over her stomach, eyes level somewhere on the strength of his chest or the outline of his shoulders.

"So. To what do I owe this pleasure?"


Constantine
Once again, she makes him wait.

Except: he doesn't wait.  As soon as the words are out of his mouth he's moving, bearing down on her position.  If she yields the doorway, there's a cynical amusement in his eyes as he passes her.  If she doesn't, he's physically shoulders his way in, solid and hard, a wall of heat under those fine clothes of his.  He's against her, and then he's not -- he walks right past her, doesn't linger.  His back is to her then, and of course he doesn't fear her, but even so: that's a statement, as much as his entering before the invitation had quite been given had been.

Those strange eyes of his are everywhere.  He takes it all in without hurry.  Luggage in the foyer.  A suite opening into the floorspace of this topmost floor.  Glass and brushed steel, warm woods, cool marble.

Something animal about his gait, his balance low, his footfalls solid but barely audible.  He ranges the confines of the suite like he's exploring new territory.  Perhaps that's not so very far from the truth.  When she speaks, he's already by the window, observing the world at his feet.  His reflection is shadowy in the glass.  Even so, she can see the corner of his mouth curl, straighten again.

He turns to face her.  Even across the room his presence is considerable.  Here is an alpha born.  He stares at her a long time, weighing her, consulting with himself.  His nostrils flare, seeking her scent.  He finds nothing.

"You've no scent."  Her question goes unanswered.  His tone is soft, but there's a thread of mockery in it; cruelty, perhaps.  "You stare me in the eyes.  You try my patience at every turn like you don't fear me a whit, and yet I make you hold your breath.  You're a bit of an enigma yourself, aren't you?"

A flick of his eyes: he indicates the wetbar.

"Be a good hostess.  Pour me a drink.  And then sit.  I've a proposal for you."


Victoria
The sharpness of her gaze (the intensity of keen eyes) drags from the top of his head all the way down to the fine shoes on his feet. Hers is not the gaze of a woman that bears any interest in the man before her, or at the very least it is only as much interest as one might expect to have for a strange man standing so poised and confident in their private chambers. The faintest outline of his face and features are reflected back at her through the glass window as he surveys the city laid out before him. A king regarding his kingdom.

He reminds her that she ought to take care to remember her manners and pour him a drink. Sit. Let's chat awhile. Everything's fine.

If he's perceptive (and what Garou isn't?) he would note that the way Victoria moves is as if she's doing it of her own accord. Not because he just told her to, or that she ought to, but because it's something she wants to do at that moment. With her back to him, she takes a crystal tumbler from atop the bureau and fills it half full of fine scotch. There's no query as to what he wants or how he takes whatever it is she has stocked : He gets a scotch -neat- and no more.

The drink is exchanged and she takes up space in the high back chair situated strategically in the corner of the room. It offers a view of the entire room: the leather settee lining one wall, the Queen sized bed with plush pillows and earthen brown 1200 thread count duvet cover. This room is a lesson in opulence. In privilege. And it's a place that seems to suit Victoria, even if it's a setting she doesn't enjoy often.

Fingers brush away an errant lock of pale blonde hair. Tuck it behind an almost elfen like ear. The platnium, Princess cut diamond stud affixed to the lobe glistening and shimmering. Her posture is neat. Practised. Perfect. She almost seems doll-like. As if she could sit there in that particular pose forever and do nothing more than look absolutely stunning.

"I'll warn you." She begins, tone rich though lacking in the faint threads of emotion one might expect. "I very probably won't buy whatever it is you're selling." There's a breath of a pause, long enough for it to be dramatic. Long enough for her to reach across the table and shake loose her fags and zippo lighter from her tawny leather Valentino clutch.

"What do you want from me?" This time her voice is direct. The barest edge of concern colouring the edges of each word she said. The cigarette is drawn to her full lips and lit with all the careful consideration she gave to pouring that Scotch he's holding in his hand. Victoria leans back slightly in the chair, one leg crossing over the other at the knee properly, an arm draping over a stomach that's soft rather than flat and muscular. An elbow is propped up on the tables edge, the smoke from her cigarette wafting upward in swirling grey wisps.

"Mister ....?"


Constantine
They speak without words.  They learn about each other through observation and cunning.  Like animals, they share the same strange space; they divine things from thin air.

It tells him something, every time she makes him wait.  Every time she makes it so clear that she'll act on her own terms - or at least pretend to - if she acts at all.  It tells her something that he didn't wait for her invitation to enter.  It tells her something that he demands her hospitality.  These are lines in the sand, drawn to show her the boundaries and the bounds.

While she pours his drink, he drops onto her settee.  Well; hers so long as she pays for this room, anyway.  He's relaxed when she turns around, his feet spaced wide, leaning back.  It tells her something, too, that his eyes were at the small of her back when she turns.  And that he raises them unhurriedly, unashamed of being caught.

She hands him a scotch, neat.  He can smell the alcohol, potent.  He can't smell her, though, and unexpectedly this disappoints him; she is so nearly perfect.  With the way he pushed his way in, the way he looked at her while her back was turned, she might expect his hands to linger lasciviously on hers when he takes the glass.

They don't.  His thumb hooks over the rim, his index and middle under the base.  He doesn't touch her at all.  His heat is still there, though - seething in the space between.

"Thank you."  Perhaps that idle courtesy is unexpected as well.  Then again, it's such lip service; he's not even pretending.  He leans back again, transfers the tumbler to his left hand, drinks.  Doesn't sip.  She seats herself and his eyes are on her.  Where her scent should be is a hole in the air.  For all her beauty, she's a ghost, half-present, ice cold.

She seeks his name.  He stares at her another beat.  Then, with an abrupt lightness:

"Konstantijn van der Valk, of the House Gleaming Eye.  As for what I want: you ask the question and you are the answer.  I want a mate."

The next swallow is larger, and drains his scotch almost to the bottom.  His arm unfurls to set the glass aside.  It clicks onto the end table.  His smile is a smirk.

"At least the convenient appearance thereof.  I won't love you.  I won't be faithful to you.  I might not even protect you.  I will give you your freedom, though.  My business rarely brings me to the Chesapeake area, so I don't expect to see you often.  I don't care what you do so long as it doesn't interfere with me.  I don't care if you fuck every Garou in your Sept so long as you remain unimpregnated.  I'll tell our elders we're doing our duty.  I'll see to it that they stay out of my business and yours.  And should you actually manage to produce an heir for my family, the van der Valks will protect you for the rest of your life."

A pause.

"Shall I give you time to consider?"  There it is again: that cutting edge of mockery, the steel beneath the velvet.  "A week?  A month?  A year and a day, perhaps."


Victoria
They sit in weighted silence. The cigarette in her hand (held aloft between two fingers, habit) burns away, smoke filling the room while she processes what he's just said. It's ashed, brought to her lips and with a tip up of her chin is exhaled slowly. Those eyes of hers, intelligent and clear blue, never quite leave the points of his face that are pleasing to the eye: generous mouth, sculpted cheeks and jaws, strong chin. She's appraising him. That realisation is like a slow dawning of truth that brings the moment into greater focus.

"Mr. van der Valk..." She begins, turning her attention away from the Garou to snub the life from the fag in her hand. Legs uncross, the soles of her feet touch to the hotels luxurious carpet. "While I'm...flattered by your offer? I'm afraid I must respectfully decline." Victoria's posture never falters. Her spine never curves forward, shoulders never bow beneath the weight of what this man has just suggested.

"I've heard the Vladimirovich's have a daughter they're wanting to mate off." Her lips twist just faintly, just barely. Just enough to make almost any other man howl in sheer frustration. "Besides, haven't you heard? I've got a suitor." Pale hands grip the arms of the chair and she pulls her slight weight to standing. Smooths down the front of her shirt and starts for the wet bar.

Not for him this time, but for her.


Constantine
Another man would howl in frustration.  This one -- a dark eyebrow wings upward.  The eye underneath catches the light.  Flashes golden.  She rises and his gaze follows her.  Here's a realization for her: his eyes have never left her since he turned from her window.

She turns her back, goes to the wetbar.  And he makes this soft little sound, a laugh, a scoff, as though something has just fallen into place for him.

"If I wanted the Vladimirovich's sweet little virgin," Konstantijn goes on, "I would have made the offer to her.  But the thing about sweet little virgins is -- they're always looking for romance, love, and a storybook ending."

He leaves it unsaid: she's not.  He's not.  There's a stirring behind her; if she looks in the narrow mirror mounted on the back of the wetbar, she can see him move amongst.  That balanced gait, that animal's prowl.  A wave of rage approaches her, breaks against her back.  Then he's there, inches away.

"You have a lover," he corrects.  "If you had a suitor, Victoria, he would be a Silver Fang.  And if you had a suitor,"

this is the first time he touches her.  It is so subtle: his knuckles against her back, brushing the line of her spine,

"he wouldn't make you nearly so generous an offer as I."

His hand falls away.  His attention lingers another moment, his eyes seeking hers in reflection.

"Keep your lover," he says softly.  "Consider my offer.  Until my present situation resolves, it remains open."


Victoria
There is no common blood that runs through their veins. No distant relatives or cousins thrice removed. Their connection is far more mystical. Spiritual in a way that the majority of humanity will never quite be able to grasp. Other Garou will sometimes renounce their Auspice. Forgo the tribe beneath which they were birthed for one better suited to their liking. To their sensibilities. But not Silver Fangs. Their breeding is impeccable - her own more so than most - and to keep it running as strong as it does through Victoria's veins it isn't unusual to find pairings such as Kinstantijn is offering. The best breed with the best. The bloodline must remain pure.

A fringe of thick, dark lashes lift and find that ghostly visage of his face outlined hazily in the mirror above the wetbar. His attention hasn't left her for more than a moment. For the space of time it took him to inspect her room and note the particulars of her stay (how many suitcases? Just two? Oh, Victoria, what are you planning?) and a lack of male companionship.

Their eyes lock, hers bearing nearly no expression. Not full stop, not head on, but with that mirror acting as a go-between. A buffer to soften the heat of his Rage. That is all the Garou is allowed to touch. To hold. To bear down upon her with the weight of his presence and the promise of something else. But even that is brief. A teasing touch before she lowers her attention  to the tumbler in her hand and that same half full (or empty?) bottle of Scotch.

It's hard to imagine how old Victoria is. Her eyes would put her far above her thirties, but the elasticity and youthful appearance of her skin seem to place her somewhere in her mid to late twenties. She is small and delicate, but seems durable and well put together. When she moves it is as if she's floating.

His stalking movements across the space between them is noted quite clearly: soft soled shoes against lush carpet, the sweep of expensive slacks against one another with each stride. Breath at her pale neck. Strong knuckles rolling down the exquisite, neat shape of her spine. Victoria is by no means a woman who visits her gym everyday. He can see that this close. He can feel the soft promise of skin that wraps around the faintest fibre of muscles and fragile bones at her back. His eyes are kept from her bare body, but Konstantijn doesn't need them to realise that the slender curve of her waist to her hip is something that would be comfortable to rest a cheek against. That her thighs would be yielding tucked up against his hips rather than rigid and toned.

They don't make women like Victoria Anne Wilmington any more. They stopped production on her model over 60 years ago.

"Virgins are overrated anyway," She says dryly. Sarcastic. Jaded in a way that a woman can only be when life has been a harsh and unforgiving thing. "I've bore the nation one true born. I've done my part for the cause." Shoulders hitch up, spine twists just a fraction so that she can slip from between the sharp hard edge of the wet bar and the promise of his body at her back. Bare feet carry her to the sliding glass doors. She keeps her back to him, preferring to make him always see her walking away. As if he ought to get used to that very sight when it came to her.

"I appreciate your offer." A pause, the burn of scotch rolls down her throat and she narrows her eyes out over the city as if it's done something quite offensive to her. "But I must respectfully decline." Another drink, and he can tell by the way she doesn't twist up her mouth when it burns her throat and warms her belly that she very probably drinks quite often.

"Are you leaving Norfolk?" This time it's her turn to lift her gaze and peer at the Silver Fang through the reflective glass of the balcony's sliding doors. "Or staying on business?"


Constantine
Konstantijn doesn't give the appearance of a creature prone to rash outbursts.  Unconsidered actions.  He seems controlled.  Considered.  Confident.  Calculating.

Appearances lie.  There's a beast under those fine clothes.  That human skin.  She tells him something else he didn't know.  He wonders who prepared that dossier for him, where his goddamn fact-checkers were, whose head deserves to roll.  He wonders

who those pretty soft thighs of hers opened for, who gave her that bastard.

She starts to slip away.  Softly but unerringly, his hand comes down on the wetbar.  He bars her way.  He doesn't let her walk across the room; he doesn't let her get so far as repeating her rejection just yet.  This close they are utterly contrasted; they barely seem of a species, let alone a tribe.  She is the epitome of Silver Fang femininity.  She is soft; she is smooth.  She is white as alabaster, white as ivory, and her blood is old as the land her family owns.

He is large.  He is dark.  He towers over her.  There is nothing soft or sleek about him.  He is dressed like a nobleman, but something about that rings false.  There's something hard and seething about him; a brutality in his body.  Cruelty lives in the beat of his heart.  Power coils in his lungs.  There are men whose threat is carried in words and postures.  Then there are men like this one, wolves like this one, whose very existence is strength.  And dominance.  And war.

Oh, but the beast can murmur so softly:

"Bear me another."

This wasn't what he said earlier.  These weren't the terms.  Moments ago he spoke of an heir -- from her -- as a distant and laughable possibility.  How fickle the wolf-kings are.  His weight shifts now; it is subtle.  Then the crisp front of his shirt, the sleek-spun wool of his jacket, is only an inch from the bare skin of her shoulder.  If he breathed deep enough he would touch her.

He wants to.  He wants to push his nose into the bend of her neck.  Inhale.  Find her scent.  No one is truly scentless, he thinks; no one.  He just isn't deep enough inside her.  Fuck her senseless and he'd smell her sweat, he'd smell her satisfaction.  Or peel back the skin, strip flesh from bone.  There's your scent.  A rich visceral stench in the glisten of intestine and organ.  Sometimes his thoughts are pulsing and red.  Sometimes he can't tell lust from bloodlust.  The rage runs through everything, fills it all with blood.  Sometimes he has to draw his own lines in the sand.  This far; no farther.

"You might enjoy it."

He bends his neck.  His voice is a velvet growl in her ear.  But he doesn't touch her again.

"I could make it good for you."


Victoria
That he knew nothing of her child wouldn't surprise Victoria. Few did. A pregnancy out of wedlock and a child born to the Garou who claimed her mother after her father's death would have been the equivalent of social suicide had the news been allowed to leak to ears beyond the walls of her family's estate. They have homes in London and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin and Corniglia on the Cinque Terre in Liguria Italy for just this sort of thing. Birthing homes. Mare estates. The list of monikers is endless. So Konstantijn knows what it is the Nation and Tribe have been allowed to know - and that is nothing of her child.

Perhaps that in and of itself says more than her mouth every will: You know this because I allow it and that is all.

His arm moves. Lifts and settles his palm against the edge of the wetbar. Her body is turned in such a way that he is given no more than her relief: The long curve of dark lashes, the slightly pug shape of her nose, the ellipse of her chin. She bears no scent other than what she has put in the empty void of its place. You don't have to know the designer name or label to know that a perfume is expensive upon smelling it. He can tell that what serves as her false scent is exquisite. The eau de parfum is a beautiful symphony of scent layers. Konstantijn can peel them back: the top note that wore off within an hour of being sprayed at the curve of her neck and the down the valley between her breasts to the softness of her stomach. He can decipher the middle note that seeped into her pores and would mingle with her sweat. But it is the base note that fills up his olfactories. That subtle composition of citrus, floral and amber notes that all resonate around a heart of musc that's too expensive to be found on the shelf of any boutique.

It's rare. Like Victoria. He knows it in his bones. Can feel the way both that sweet scent and the thrum of a quickened heartbeat in the vein at her neck threaten to arouse and stir that wolf pacing the cage of bones and flesh inside of his chest. One shoulder is drawn up, body twisted, and he's closing in on her so that she has no choice but to either sustain that uncomfortable pose or relax and allow him to draw in a little closer to her body.

She opts for the latter.

This allows the Garou to threaten her with the touch of his nose and mouth and teeth. Her head turns just barely toward him, just enough that they share the same air. Bare me another, he growls. It brings the hair all over her arms and the nape of her neck to stand on end. You might enjoy it, he adds with all the arrogance one would expect from their Tribe.

Victoria's chest rises and falls slowly with each breath despite the fact that her heart has begun to beat hard and fast in her chest. She may kiss him. There's the lingering hint of just that between them. Teeth draw in her bottom lip and her lashes lower demurely, like a young girl expectant and nervous for her first intimate kiss with a boy. Open mouth. Just a bit of tongue.

"I don't even know you." She whispers, "I might enjoy a lot of things, Konstantijn. I might enjoy those cigarettes I smoke and that Scotch we're drinking, but enjoying it doesn't mean it won't bring you a slow and painful death when it's all said and done." Her words pass from her lips to his mouth. "Stop posturing." Even spoken softly it seems like a demand. An order from a lady not used to being denied.

Her head turns, cast down slightly so that her eyes can lay on that arm serving as a gate to keep her where he wants her. Her hand touches his wrist and against the Rage kissed burn of his flesh, she is just as cool as the icy blue of her eyes.


Constantine
Her hand rests on his wrist.  His eyes flick down.  An eyebrow lifts; it's a sardonic expression, and a falsehood.  The hairs on his arm rise, his skin tightening with sensitivity.  That's an autonomic response.  The body doesn't lie.

His eyes rise again.  They're so close, and it seems sudden.  Tension has grown thick in the air between.  Her lashes shade those extraordinary eyes of hers, and he can read nothing there.  He takes a long breath through nostrils and mouth both, tasting every molecule on the air.  Her scent is a staggering loss.  It's simply not there.  All the same he can see the tremor of pulse in her throat, feel the carefully controlled cadence of her breathing.

Fear.  That's there.  Of course it is.  He's a stranger, dangerous, a brutal, feral thing for all the refinement of his blood.  He's far too close.  But there's something else there too, isn't there, and it proves that there's a lie in her too.  Victoria, for all her coolness, is not all ice and distance after all.  There's a toxic heat in her.  She's a rare, intoxicating thing -- fragile, too bold, molten at the core.

She tells him she doesn't even know him.  He scoffs, a harsh sussurance of breath.  She speaks of addictions.  Death.  His head is tipped, the angle inhuman, the glint of his eyes viciously intelligent.  She dares too much -- issues a demand outright.

His forearm twists under hers.  Cords of muscle and tendon pull under his skin.  Blunt-tipped, hard, his fingers clamp around her wrist in turn.  Another Garou, another Silver Fang so challenged might strike her now, hurt her, force submission on her.  It's not that Konstantijn is a better man.  He's certainly not a kinder one.  But the back of his hand doesn't fly across her face.  He doesn't throw her against the wall just to see how many ribs he can break.

A sudden, jarring inch: that's how much closer he pulls her.  And now the distance between flirts with nothing.  She's close enough to see the black threads in his golden irises -- the eyes of a wolf; the eyes of an eagle.

"We're Silver Fangs, Victoria."  Even in this, a cruel cutting edge of mockery.  "Words are weapons.  The facades we adopt are our only armor.  Truth is more precious than gold, and letting down our guard is worse than death.  Don't pretend you don't know this.

"If you want me to stop 'posturing'," lower now, his tone; rougher, "then you need to give something up yourself.  Tell me why you've denied me.  And don't lie."


Victoria
For a moment Victoria realises that she may very well have bitten off far more than she was able to handle. Her hand is on his wrist, and then it's not. She is immediately surprised by the strength in his grip as he takes hold of the fragile bone at the carpals above her hand. A gasp leaves her lips, a sharp hiss of air that causes her eyes to narrow. Were he a normal man she'd slap him. He can see it in the way she glares at him, if only you weren't what you are. He would find her arm is limp in his hand, fingers curled as if even they can't help but think of striking him.

Their eyes meet - lock on one another - and for the first time Konstantijn would find the lovely pale and ethereal seeming kinswoman submitting to him. Those long lashes drop over her eyes like the closing of the curtain on fantastic work of art. In that moment, there is no denying which one of them is the dominant in this new found relationship - at least just then.

With the shift in his voice to deeper and rougher, she offers one tug on her arm. Not so much insistent as it is questioning to see if he'll actually release his hold on her. "There's a Fenrir full moon who's asked me that very same thing." The tone of her voice falls to match the pitch of his. Not dangerous or rough or deep, but a rich low purr of velvet sound. "Men like you always want women like me. Until you have me. Then you want the next woman, just like me." Victoria narrows her eyes on Konstantijn, her nose is a hair from brushing against the tip of his, her mouth (such a cruel and unobtainable thing) is less than a breath away from his own. There's just the idea of space between them and just as she can feel the overwhelming heat of his Rage surging and pulsing beneath his skin and those fine clothes he wears he too can feel the rapid fire beat of her heart.

"The fact of the matter is quite simple, Konstantijn." She addresses him in an intimate tone. His name falling like a thousand dirty, sinful promises from her mouth. "What you're offering is a lie. You make it sound all very convenient. I haven't met a Garou yet who understands how to share. You'd go mad thinking about some other Garou between the legs of the woman you've labelled your mate." Turning her head just so as if she were done with him and wanted no part further in this causal yet oh so intimate discussion. That movement brushes her eyelashes against the rise of his cheek. Drags the cool tip of her nose in that touches wake before pulling her shoulders back and tugging once more on her arm in his grip if he still holds it.


Constantine
Give him this much credit at least.  Konstantijn doesn't fly into a fury when her lover's tribe is revealed.  Doesn't strike her, beat her, demand to know how could she.  How could she abase herself like that, how could she give herself free to the unwashed masses like that; she whose blood is worth a hundred wars.  A thousand ships.  Everything.

None of that.  Nothing but a flicker in his eyes, information gleaned and absorbed, like light cast down a deep well to spark, finally, on that cynical amusement that lives so deep in his bones.  She speaks; he listens.  She speaks; he watches.  His eyes follow the motion of lips and tongue, that tantalizing dance.  Over and again she draws close only to turn away, shy away, she never touches him.  His eyes flick up to hers when she speaks his name.

A lie, she says.  Mad, she says.  Your mate, she says, disdainfully, the nearness of her mouth a promise she never does keep.  She starts to turn away again, but this time he doesn't let her.  He puts his hand behind her head.  He holds her there.  Inescapably, which is not a surprise.  Gently, which may be.  The size of him: his hand swallows the back of her skull.  Flexed, his bicep, his shoulder, his chest strain the dimensions of his fine jacket.  He's nearly engulfed her in his presence, the wetbar at her back, his hands holding her caught.

"Look at me," he says, low.  And gives her a single short shake if she doesn't: "Look at me."

They are eye to eye.  His rage is not at all mercurial, or flashing, or electric.  It is a pulsing gravity in the gut.  It is the unrelenting black pressure of oceanic depths.

"I want you."

There's a truth for her.  There's the moment when posturing gives way to something far worse.  Raw and dark and too, too hot: the very heart of fire, the very soul of hunger.

"I know you want me.  I can smell it.  Just like I can smell your fear.  And your exhilaration.  You like to play with fire, Victoria, but you've got paper wings.  Lure me again and I might take it for an invitation."

She can feel his pulse in his wrist, the base of his hand where it presses to the nape of her neck.  Count it: one heartbeat, two.  He's looking at her mouth, and then abruptly he lets her go.

Perhaps she slithers out from between him and the wetbar now.  He doesn't watch.  It's the first time he's taken his eyes off her in longer than he can remember.  He reaches for the bottle she'd poured from.  His hands are steady, his motions crisp as he takes down another tumbler and splashes scotch in.

"And Victoria," his tone has smoothed over again, "there are no other men like me.  Nor women like you.  I would keep our terms."


Victoria
There is always the lingering promise of something in this dangerous dance the two of them share. The hint of lips to lips, breath shared, the threat of her breasts pressed to the strength of his chest with each word they speak. She can smell the scent of Scotch drifting from his lips, feel the heaviness of his Rage pressing against her as if exacerbating the weight of his presence two fold. Tongue rolls over lips, lashes lower and she observes the way his shirt fits around the curve and shape of his neck.

Look at me. She doesn't. He hooks that murderous hand at the back of her head and she keeps her eyes away from his. Refusing him even that simplest of things. Look at me. He insists, and he would find her acquiescing to his wants slowly. As if she had to do this thing he desires on her own terms. In her own time. Eyes drag up from his chest to find his gaze. He can see the way the pale blue of her own search the amber wolfish hue of his. She doesn't like it. There's no desire to stare that long into the eyes of the predator that she knows him to be.

He tells her that he wants her and that she wants him, there's defiance in her posture and the faint lift of her chin. But slowly Victoria is beginning to realise that this man isn't one she can push around or manipulate - not just yet. It isn't something she's used to nor is it something she seems to like. It's as if taming a wild animal. He can see that slow to form acceptance of small things: his nearness, his touch at the back of her head, the feel of his warm breath over her mouth.

Konstantijn's hand leaves her head and she leans back further into the wetbar, the hard edge of it pressed to the small of her back. He promises to keep his word and her hands float down (her touch leaving his arm) and grip the furniture at her back on either side of her hips. She does not scamper away like a frightened mouse. Victoria does not run.

Only after a handful of moments have passed does she move, as if she needed to show him that she could withstand being there in front of him on her own accord. As if she wasn't fearful of the monster she's aware he can be. When she does move away from him it isn't hurried. It's a slow progression as she walks from between the Silver Fang and the wetbar to her glass of Scotch sitting on the table next to her clutch. One hand hooks on the curve of her hip, the other draws the tumbler to her lips for a deep drink, back to the Garou at the bar.

"Where are you staying?"


Constantine
There was a dangerous moment there.  The span of a few seconds when his hands were holding her fast, when he told her to look at him and she wouldn't so he made her and then she did,

and it was like gasoline on a flame.  So few kin can look a Garou in the eye.  So few Garou can look this one in the eye.  It's a survival mechanism.  His rage is too terrible, his bestial nature too close to the skin.  Eye contact is a challenge; he is a sovereign born.  Of course he'll respond.  Of course:

and so the terrible gravity of his presence shifted.  He shifted ever so slightly -- he was a whisper closer, there was a certain cant to his head.  He might have kissed her.  He might have taken that soft cruel mouth of hers.  Bent her over the bar.  Dropped her clothes to the floor in shreds.  It would have been nothing like the kiss she hinted at but never gave him; nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing innocent.  He doesn't think she would kiss like that, anyway.  She looks so fair and fragile, she looks so cool and pale and lovely, but he's beginning to understand her a little.  They are beginning to understand each other.

He is a beast that has never been chained.  Lure with an inch; he'll take a mile.  She plays with fire.  She has paper wings.  She's cold and she's manipulative and her heart might be stone.  She's damaged.  She must be, else she wouldn't be like this.  But then perhaps the same could be said of him, of his ancestors, their entire tribe.

This is war.  They are the mad kings.  They're all walking wounded here.


The moment passed; he let her go.  She doesn't scurry away.  Of course not.  He pours himself another drink anyway.  He still has half a fingersbreadth left in that first drink, the one he demanded from her.  He pours more into this glass, and while she at last moves away from him, he drains it all in a single smooth swallow.  There's no snap of his head back, no grimace, nothing more than a long slow exhale to clear the burn.

She speaks.  This must mean something too: his head turns at the very sound of her voice, before a word has even formed.  He controls it.  She gets his profile.  Hard angles, a glint of gold in the eye.  Her question makes him laugh, a short sharp sound that flashes his incisors.

"I'm not," he replies.  He sets the glass down beside the bottle, and he turns.  His eyes level on her.  He's not the least bit ashamed: "I came for you.  I arrived an hour ago.  I'm on the twelve o' clock back to New York-JFK."  The corner of his mouth tilts.  "As I've said.  I prefer conversing in person."

The smile fades.

"Should I leave my number?"


Victoria
She should be surprised that he came for her. All the way here from New York, just for her. If she is impressed (worried?) it doesn't she. A glance is cast over one slender shoulder and she observes him for the briefest of moments before turning back and settling her eyes on the City of Norfolk. He downs his Scotch, she nurses her own though it's probably simply to keep up appearances. We wouldn't want anyone to think us a drunkard now would we?

Tension is thick across her shoulders, down the course of her back. The hand that had been anchored on her hip lifts to push back locks of blonde hair and tuck them behind her ear.

"Yes." Her body turns, facing him once again with one hand holding the back of a chair, the other still holding that tumbler of Scotch. They have learned enough about one another to be wary. These sorts of things were quite common among their tribe. It was very much like negotiating the merger of two mega-corporations: tedious and costly for all involved. Victoria doesn't say anything further but that one word: Yes.

Yes, Konstantijn. Do leave your number. My people will call your people and ....


Constantine
Yes.

She's looking at him when she says it.  So of course she sees it, fleeting as it is: that brief and irrepressible flick at the corner of his mouth, the barest hint of a smile.  Or maybe it was a smirk.  Maybe it was triumph; maybe he thinks of her as just another piece of ass, all but in the bag now.  Men like him --

there are no men like him.  There are no women like her.  She's not just another anything.  She couldn't be if she tried.  It wasn't triumph but something far more complex than that, and riskier.  He's the animal here, but she's the one who must be tamed.  And perhaps le Monsieur de Saint-Exupéry had it right after all: you have a responsibility to that which you tame.  It is a binding contract; forever.  Then again, they say the same of mateship.


Konstantijn slips a hand into his pants pocket.  His wallet is a sleek fold of leather.  Mostly charge cards inside, exclusive, designer, dark.  Some crisp bills for the valets.  And calling cards: stylish little wafers of translucent plastic that bear his Anglicized name and a Manhattan number:

Constantine
(212) 555 - 5800

He holds one up between fore and middle finger.  It's more indication than beckoning.  Knowing her, she doesn't come to retrieve it, and he certainly doesn't go to deliver it.  The card is clicked down on the bar instead, between his empty glass and the bottle of scotch they've, between the two of them, put quite the dent into.

"That goes through to my personal assistant.  She knows where to find me."

Another moment he watches her.  Framed against the window.  Diaphanous white against the night.  Poised, lovely, pure -- halfway to drunk by now, surely.  There's no more shame or self-consciousness in him now than there ever was.  If anyone ever told him it was rude to stare, he's forgotten, or never cared in the first place.

This is his one and only nod toward common courtesy:

"Goodnight, Victoria.  We'll speak again soon."