Limited There's Copper in Your Walls(Not For Long)

[Phoenix]

When he stopped and turned, she skidded to a stop alongside him. She gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain in her side and looked up at him. She went to speak, but the words died in her throat as she saw his eyes again.

God, he was beautiful like this. She didn’t know what had changed. His eyes glittered in a way she couldn’t describe, but she could read so clearly what they were saying to her, and it made her heart twist in her chest. The rope between them tightened, and she stepped forward, following its lead. Her breathing picked up in a way that was unrelated to the pain in her side or the exhaustion that was starting to settle in her head.

Mine.

She swallowed hard and did the only thing she could think to do. She stepped up to him and placed a hand on his chest. Her touch was tentative and gentle, as though she were afraid of breaking whatever spell had caused their bond to snap into place. Something in the back of her head was screaming at her, warning bells that were too distant for her to really hear. A faint itch in the back of her mind.

Sam kept her eyes on his borrowed ones, on the tilted mask. What was that in them? What was that that had caused all of this to finally fall into place? That joy, which looked so much like the one she had seen in her dreams, it lingered in those eyes that screamed Mine at her. She could feel that claim resonate through the bond and fill her with the most peculiar feeling.

It wasn’t quite belonging. It wasn’t quite a return of the Mine, though that was present in her too. It was somewhere between an acceptance of his claim and… a fear of it. She didn’t understand what it was that was in his eyes, but the depth of what was between them now startled her and made her tremble. Was that fear of what was between them, or was it pain? Did it even matter right then?

No. No, it didn’t.

“Todd, you just left me. You just left me back there. Why would you– after– do you not feel–?” She stammered the words out, a hand still pressed to his chest despite the trembling that was starting to set into her limbs.

He had left her, alone, when any other time he would have run to her. They were always each other’s first priority. After the kidnapping, he’d been especially careful when they ended up in fights. He always went to her first before chasing. He always made sure she was okay before he left her side. But this time, he had just left her. Again, in the back of her mind, was an itch. She couldn’t hear the siren that was blaring beneath her foggy and thick hyper-focused thoughts.

All that mattered was he was there, and this bond was tightening by the moment, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe without him ever again. And that scared her. He was scaring her. He was… scaring her? She searched his eyes, trying to tell herself that was wrong. It was wrong because fear was the last thing she felt, especially right then, so close to him. Especially right then, touching him. Especially right then, watching him.

She swallowed again and lifted her other hand to his shoulder, her fingers feather-light on his coat. Whatever this was, it would be fine. Whatever this was, it would be fine. Whatever this was, it would be fine. Whatever this was, it would be–

“Todd, do you feel it too?”​

 

[Wendigo]

The tight edges of his jaw softened into a smile.

“Yes.”

That question – that was everything. The rest didn’t matter, not at all. He pressed his hand over hers, flattening it against his chest, his firmness canceling out the tremble. She’d feel his heart, the vibrations running up her arm like the steady squirm of a victim in a spider’s web. He held her eyes, letting that vibration do its best to lie to her in a way his lips never could.

The rest of the words flowed back through his mind. The softness lingered, though he held her eyes with his own, unable to suppress the bright eagerness behind them. He had her. He had her. It hadn’t taken a second to get her to the point where, if his icicle heart so desired, he could snap his jaws closed around her throat before she even knew the betrayal.

But there was a hunt on. The hunter knew that wouldn’t do her justice. She was far to precious, too unique, to delicious, to kill like an ambushed deer. There was so much to her he’d never seen, never so much as tasted. And now, looking into her eyes, inhaling her fear like a rare spice, he knew that no matter what he did to her, she was his. She would let him. And that was all he needed to know.

“Of course I feel it, apple pie,” he whispered, and used his free hand to tuck stray curls from her eyes, his claws just grazing her skin in what might have been an accident. “But there was quite an audience, wasn’t there? That– that’s a private feeling. Intimate. And there’s still work to be done.”

He put one hand in the small of her back, the other still holding her hand to his chest. He pulled her in like a dancer, his breaths deepening to hold her wonderful scent as long as possible, as if to store it until he was ready to taste. He leaned forward, and let his lips crash against hers, letting himself taste her – really taste her – for the first time since they’d met. All tongue. He swallowed her, in deep and eager gulps, enjoying the salt, the cinnamon, the sugar and vanilla. All that was missing was blood and meat.

He pulled away, and even if her lips kept following his jawline, he’d bend his head to her ear.

“But I promise, I’ll be back for dessert.”

He kicked, hard and at an angle, into her knee. She was having trouble enough standing with her broken ribs, ribs he couldn’t wait to pull apart to expose the softer organs underneath – but later, later, later, he chastised himself, as he pulled back to see her eyes. He’d hold her until she touched the ground. A little longer, to drink in the pain, the fear.

And then he’d be gone again.

 

[Phoenix]

It all happened so fast.

She had wanted to answer him, to agree that she wanted privacy, that they needed privacy, but that god it needed to be later because of everything that had just happened. She wanted to tell him that she wanted to leave, right now, and go somewhere else so they could have that privacy to feel what now rested between them like an anchor.

But before she could say any of that in response to his words, to his tender touch (and god, how that made her shiver), his lips found hers. And he kissed her in a way he never had before, in a way she had been desperate for him to. It filled all of her senses with his scent and taste, that wonderful, clean, and somehow foresty mint. She let his tongue in and responded in kind, her hands going up to the back of his neck to hold him against her.

She felt a deep sense of completion at that moment. He was there, and he wanted her. He wanted her in a way he had been withholding from her. She’d allowed him to pull her in close, to hold her close, without so much as a struggle. Why would she struggle, against this? Against him? He was her soulmate.

Part of her was screaming, she could hear it still. Distant, background fuzz warning her about some danger. It got louder for just a moment as she swore she tasted copper on his lips, inside his mouth, but it passed almost as quickly as it had come. And then the only thing she heard was the sound of her heart singing to his as it rang out through her body.

It was pure bliss. It was perfect. He was perfect.

And then, when he pulled back, she kept her lips on his skin, eagerly tracing his jawline up to his ear when he leaned down and whispered to her. There was a moment of confusion laced through her bliss, followed by earth-shattering pain.

Just like that, the spell was broken. She screamed out and caught onto Todd, holding him close by his arms as her knee crumpled beneath his kick. She looked up into his eyes, her own full of shock and betrayal. How? Why? Why? His soft smile never moved, nor did the eager light in his eyes leave as he almost gently lowered her.

Then everything rushed in all at once. No. No, no, no. Suddenly, it made sense. She wasn’t sure entirely what was going on, but she could see it in his eyes now– this wasn’t her Todd. This wasn’t the man she had fallen so completely in love with, even if it was the most natural version of himself. There was something in those eyes that was gone now. Something that looked at her with love now just looked at her with hunger.

She slid to the ground, her knee and ribs screaming. He let her collapse as he ran away, chasing after the kid who had been with the group. She tried to call after him, but her voice broke. Tears distorted her vision and she slumped against the side of a fence and watched her soulmate disappear in the distance.

She had to leave. Her vision was swimming and her body was screaming, but she had to leave He was going to come back for her if she stayed and while he was like this, nothing about their relationship seemed to matter. The hunger had him, and was doing whatever it was doing to him.

She pushed herself up on her one good leg and carefully wrapped herself in heat. She let herself float up instead of pushing off, and very slowly, staying low to the ground, began to drift back toward the scene of the initial fight. The police were there, so she hid behind a tree and watched for a minute. When she didn’t catch sight of the girl, she chose to take off toward her home.

She needed rest. She needed time. She needed to sort through her feelings. She was still reeling from Todd’s kick, and needed to figure out what any of this meant. And she only had a few days to do it. Maybe he would come to her first, and talk about what had just happened.

Or maybe he would sleep off the poor kid he was undoubtably about to eat and she would have to approach him. Either way, they needed to talk.​

 

[Wendigo]

The promise of a second course would mean tonight’s hunt would be a little shorter than usual, of course. He’d have to devise a way to make up for that – probably pain, if he couldn’t get full exhaustion. It’d been a long time since he’d chewed on something while it was still struggling. Long enough that his memory of it was a little blurred. Tonight was as good a time as any for a refresher, he decided, turning a corner so he could cut the prey off from getting to the main road.

Alleys in this part of Pittsburgh would be as quiet as an empty warehouse for what he wanted to do. No help was coming for the prey, and given he was a native like Mary, he’d know it. They knew the local homes were empty. And there was no way the predator was going to herd him toward the distant sounds of life some blocks over, where the police had probably arrived. There was no way that Cryptid was losing tonight’s dinner to a jail cell.

The prey was slowing, though. The chase was short, but it wasn’t just because the predator had something more interesting to do after, no. There was something wrong with Mary’s brother, some physical flaw that was exhausting him too fast. And with the exhaustion, with the desperation, the hunter caught the slightest hint of a survival instinct, an emotion that came with fear.

Anger.

He knew before he skidded into the intersection that he’d find the boy ready for a fight. Anger was a substitute for fear when fear would just make prey freeze. He took a second to catch his own breath, though he wasn’t panting all that hard compared to the prey. He examined the terrain with a casual interest. All the interest of someone looking at a museum exhibit, before settling on the main attraction.

“Giving up already? I was hoping you’d have a little more in you.” He didn’t even assume a fighting stance. He stayed casual, if a little tense, as he took in the scent of fear and blood again. “Guess I’ll have to pull it out of you with my teeth, eh?”

The prey would see the appraisal in the predator’s eyes. It wasn’t like Cryptid thought it worth hiding the way he was splitting the boy into cuts, determining where he’d start, how long he thought he could keep the food fighting before he picked an organ that’d finish the job. The potential for a fight didn’t even concern him. If anything, it seemed to reignite the joy behind his eyes. Under the mask, he licked his lips. The single bite he’d gotten in earlier, to make sure the prey knew he meant business, left the slightest trace of blood on his tongue.

As if overeager for the rest, he offered the kid another smile, and charged in as if to pounce – before backing off at the last second, avoiding any retaliatory attack like a bull-baiting dog. He fully intended to have his fill of fun before actually getting his teeth in.