Something wasn't right.
Emily was perceptive, sure; you had to be perceptive when you worked in the BAU...but this was something more than just a little niggling feeling at the back of her mind about that ten dollars Derek owed her from last week.
This was goosebump inducing, hair-raising perception.
The kind of feeling you'd get when you heard footsteps behind yours on the long, lonely walk to your car at night.
Every time he looked at her, it was like he either wanted to rip her to shreds, or devour her whole.
Most times it looked like he wanted to rip her clothes to shreds and then devour her.
It was weird.
Emily shivered, shaking the thought from her head firmly as she turned back to her pile of reports on her desk. Being buried in work sometimes made Emily into a daydreamer, but she'd never before daydreamed of her Unit Chief.
Okay, maybe once or twice.
...okay more than that but the point is that he was never glaring at her with those dark eyes of his and prowling the shadows like some sort of mysterious presence.
Something...something was different.
It started three weeks ago; they were in Salem on a case. Granted the place had been maybe a touch spookier than Emily was used to, it was bearable enough - even with Morgan and Reid both taking turns spouting random information about the Salem Witch Trials and telling ghosts stories about vengeful spirits of the accused witches and warlocks.
By the third day in Massachusetts, their Unit Chief had come out of his inn room paler than usual; the gaunt hollows of his cheeks more obvious and the sharp gleam of his dark eyes frightening.
When Reid had seen the haunted look on the dark haired man's face, he'd mentioned very discreetly to Emily that sometimes witches were accused of raising the dead.
Aaron Hotchner hadn't been the same since.
It was...hard to place. He was quieter now...stealthier. Just last week the man had snuck up on each of them on separate occasions - Emily most times. The stealth became even more evident when Morgan's reflexes sent his elbow into Hotch's face, and the man had merely ducked before the rest of them blinked.
He was frighteningly stronger too. His temper was shorter, his words and gaze sharper when he interrogated UnSubs. With one hand, he'd held a six foot three monster over two hundred pounds against the wall of the interrogation room with hardly any effort.
Even Strauss wandered less frequently into the BAU bullpen. Hotch's office practically radiated dangerous power.
Of all this though; of all the weird (and yet oh so very arousing) changes in her supervisor, Emily was shaken most by one in particular.
He watched her like a hawk now. Or rather - he watched her like a starved leopard, and she was the lithe, graceful gazette he'd caught scent of.
He looked at her like she was something he owned; the hard mask and steel glares he shot Anderson and Morgan whenever they anywhere near her - the barely hidden growls in his throat when Dave kissed her cheek goodnight at the end of the day - it was weird.
Emily felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle again, and she swallowed thickly as she reluctantly raised her gaze from her report up to the man standing like a shadow there on the walkway.
Jesus. He was practically smoldering at her.
"It's late," he rumbled, suit immaculate and briefcase in hand. "You should be heading home, Prentiss. It's not safe for you to be alone at this time."
Emily sucked in a breath and glanced down at her watch, eyebrows arching when she saw the time. She laughed nervously as she stood and began to gather her things, smiling uncertainly at the man who stood there like a statue still. "I must've gotten caught up in the paperwork," she said lightly, though she felt nothing light about his heavy gaze on her at all.
She slipped her folders into her briefcase and grabbed her blazer off the back of her chair, and gave the man a small wave as she made her way towards the glass doors.
She couldn't get there soon enough, and even as she jabbed at the elevator button anxiously; Emily didn't need to turn around to know he was watching her still.
Finally the elevator doors opened smoothly, and Emily strode into the confined space hurriedly, keeping her gaze steady on the elevator pad as she hit the basement button. Unfortunately though the woman's inherent curiosity got the better of her, and Emily lifted her gaze off the panel and up to the man...
...and felt her heart lodge in her throat.
His eyes flashed gold.
She wanted to run out of the elevator when it opened on the basement parking lot. Every fiber of her being tensed and coiled tight like prey ready to flee; her toes curled inside her boots, but Emily forced her roiling stomach to calm, and she strode carefully across the virtually empty parking lot to her car.
As her boots echoed off the walls of the basement in a trancelike mantra, Emily's head reeled at what she'd seen just as the elevator doors shut. It must've been a play of light - an illusion of her over-worked eyes and sleep-deprived brain. Eyes did not glow golden yellow - human eyes did not glow gold!
Emily shook her head, to clear the image of Hotch standing there perfectly put together as always; eyes gleaming at her like Sergio's eyes in the light.
She paused in her step suddenly - her hand reached down for her holster in a rush.
"I'd rather you didn't."
Emily froze at the echoing voice; the low baritone that sounded so leisurely and almost...bored as he spoke the words. Even with such a casual utterance, the woman found her body obeying the suggestion...the gun was left to rest on her hip - her hand was back by her side once more.
Slow, precise footsteps echoed on the hard, wet concrete of the parking lot.
She felt her breathing grow ragged, her heart beat faster in her chest as her spine locked tight when she sensed the heat of his body growing closer to her.
"H-Hotch?" she stuttered, chest heaving slowly as her hands balled into fists at her side. Her dark eyes were wide, lashes fluttering as her tongue darted out to lick the corner of her mouth nervously.
The fear and raw heat radiating from her body was almost too strong to resist; his stomach coiled tight and his throat rumbled a growl, but he wasn't going to take her unless she wanted him to.
Unless she begged him to.
"Did I frighten you?" he asked. "I'm sorry."
The words were wry and insincere as he circled her frozen figure, mouth curved into a feral, coy smirk when he finally stood before her. His dark eyes gleamed sharp in the dim lighting - she wondered how it was possible for hazel eyes to glitter so brightly, but was more intent on the way his eyes raked over her body like she was the first meal he'd seen in years.
A meal he was planning on savoring.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly desert dry. "You crept up on me," she confessed hoarsely, and found the courage in her body to slowly edge around her boss, and move closer towards the haven that was the confines of her car. "It's getting late, I should really get going -."
"I don't think you want to leave," he said slowly; his words seemed relaxed, a statement, but the weight behind it was unmistakable. It was part threat, part suggestion, and completely unrepentantly smug. "In fact; I think you'd like to put your coat and briefcase down, and hand me your gun."
Genuine fear crept into her stomach now. She'd never heard him speak that way before; such a low, husky voice that almost bordered a growling hiss as his words seemed to wash over her like a hot, thick blanket. Her mind began to cloud, her senses began to dim, and Emily began to panic as her hands lost their will to cling onto her belongings.
Her coat fell first; a dull thump.
Her briefcase next - muffled by the soft material of her blazer.
She hesitated. Her fingers twitched to reach for her gun, sliding shakily along the seam of her pantsuit, but Emily struggled to fight his control over her in one last desperate attempt.
Hotch hissed - outright hissed - as Emily's badge came flying at him, darting away from the object as he watched the woman take off in a run towards her car. He growled in his throat and it echoed through the basement, and Emily could no longer smother the whimper of fear in her throat.
He materialized before her in a gust of air - Emily gasped as she stumbled back, falling backwards onto her behind. She scrambled against the cement, scuffing her boots, scraping her hands, but she didn't care. She couldn't - all she could think of was escape.
Escape from the - the beast before her.
Finally she struggled back to her feet, but in doing so had unfortunately turned her back to him. It was a move Emily prayed she would live to regret; his fingers curled around her arm like a vice - his strength terrified her.
She staggered against the wall, her head colliding with the drywall behind her, and the woman began to see stars.
His face was bare inches away from hers, his hot breath against her cheek as he spat at her irritably, and she saw the gleam of sharp white fangs in his mouth. "I do not take lightly to defiance, Agent Prentiss," he hissed, and was gratified when Emily whimpered again as his eyes flashed gold at her. "This will be painful if you fight me - I suggest we not discover just how much."
"What are you?!" Emily gasped, as she reached out on instinct and shoved at his chest, realizing how foolish such a move was in the next moment - when he'd manacled her hands in his crushing grip and held them imperiously at her sides. She turned her head away from him, sucking in a shuddering breath as his face lowered onto the bare skin of her neck.
Her skin was softer than he'd anticipated. Pale, sweetly scented in the lingering tendrils of her perfume, and untouched by any other - unmarked by any other male in her life.
Bare for him to take.
He could see her pulse point beating frantically with the pounding of her heart, and he felt the excitement rise in his own chest at the thought of the bright red that flowed beneath the porcelain skin. He pressed his mouth to her skin, and Emily jolted in fright with a scream.
"I have yet to touch you, Emily," he chided her, words muffled into her neck as his tongue lapped along her pulse; Gods, her skin was finer than ambrosia on his tongue.
The hunger was growing, and his patience waning.
He wanted her.
Now.
Emily thrashed in his hold, fighting with all her might, but the man had an unholy strength to his body, and Emily smothered a groaning whimper as he pressed his hard body closer to her. She wasn't sure what she was feeling - the heat, the fear, the anxiety were tangled in an indecipherable mess inside her as his mouth moved away from her neck and she saw his eyes boring into hers.
"Please," she whispered, and Hotch tilted his head curiously at the pleading tone. This woman against him, pressed between him and the wall - she wasn't meek, she wasn't submissive.
She was a fighter, and it intrigued him to feel the fear radiating off her body.
"I frighten you."
She swallowed thickly, uncertainly meeting his low, dark gaze. "Yes," she whispered, and she felt him grip flex around her wrists.
His brow furrowed, slightly. "Why?"
She had never feared him before; never cowered from his authority before. Many a time she'd stood toe to toe, stubborn and fierce; defiant and strong.
He'd never seen fear in her eyes before - only fire.
Emily nearly scoffed. She flexed her hands in his hold pointedly, her dark eyes flashing at him in the way he expected them to. "Why do you think?" she retorted, but cursed herself for the quiver in her voice.
She was afraid for many reasons. She should be - here was her boss, her superior and the man she respected: pinning her against the wall of the basement parking lot and staring at her with glowing feral eyes.
She was afraid, yes...but not as afraid as she should've been.
What was the fire burning in her stomach? What was the flame licking at her chest and her stomach and her loins? This was not fear - she was an intimate lover of fear, and this was not fear.
This was...this was lust?
His hands tightened around her wrists, jolting her, and Emily's eyes flickered up reluctantly to meet the burning blaze of his golden hazel eyes bleeding into her gaze. His mouth moved; she saw the sharp flash of his fangs there, and shuddered as fear and exhilaration scraped down her spine.
"That's not an answer, Agent Prentiss," he growled, and Emily thought she was swooning.
Emily licked her lips; his dark eyes flashed down to her quivering lower lip as she sucked in the air to speak.
"Because..." She looked away from him, hung her head low. She could not believe the words she was about to speak. "Because I should be afraid, I should be terrified, but...but I'm not."
His head tilted again, curiouser and curiouser as he regarded for a long, tense silence. "I'm dead," he said suddenly, and Emily's eyes snapped to his in alarm. He was so close he could almost count the long dark lashes that framed her dark eyes, but he was most focused on other parts of her at the moment. He watched her eyes cloud; confusion, alarm, fear - and then clear with a startled realization.
"Salem," she breathed, and he nearly shivered at the low word.
He nodded, mouth twitching bitterly. "Windows are dangerous gateways for monsters that hunt in the night, Emily. I advise you to sleep with them locked shut from now on." His hold on her shifted again, and his mouth curved into an ironic smile. "But what good will that do you now?"
"What happened to you?" she exclaimed, shifting and writhing restlessly in his grasp until he pressed harder on her, and Emily gasped as she felt her skin bruise. His eyes flickered to her face, and he sensed her pain there, and his grip relaxed almost apologetically.
The man shrugged; he didn't like to give it much thought now - he'd spent the first week agonizing over his change, worrying about his son, his job, his life. He didn't have the energy to care now, nor the patience. His hunger had grown for nearly two weeks; he had to feed or he would lose the last fraction of control he had left.
"I left my window open and she came in," he told her simply, but Emily had the courage to fit a flat look at him, and it made Hotch smirk. "The innkeeper's daughter." He watched with amusement as Emily's eyes flashed jealously at the memory of the buxom young blonde that had been fawning over the man; a girl he was old enough to have sired himself that he barely gave any attention to. "She gave me a choice - stay, 'disappear', and live with her and her coven...or crave the taste of human blood for eternity."
He smiled at her again; bitter, wry, and perhaps a little bit pained. His eyes were gleaming at her again, without malice staring back at her now - it wasn't Hotch or a monster swimming in the depths of his golden hazel eyes.
It was...Aaron.
"No points for guessing which one I decided to live with," he uttered softly, and suddenly Emily felt her heart clench for him.
She was almost terrified to ask. "What about...what about Jack?"
Something flickered over his face; the shadow of his former self before it was gone in a moment. In its place was the hardened mask of the creature of the night before her. "He's human," he responded shortly, aloof and cold then. "I don't touch him; blood of kin is like poison to vampires. We only take -."
He growled suddenly; a pained sound as his grip tightened painfully around her wrists and he nearly keeled over like something had slugged him in the gut. He doubled over slightly, pressed into her and taking Emily with him as he struggled to fight the burn.
Emily gasped desperately, trying frantically to release his grip from her hand and to touch him. "Hotch!" she cried worriedly, and stumbled back in fright when the man threw his head back and snarled.
His eyes were black - wholly black. No white of his eyes, no pupil. Black veins spread around his eyes and along the bare ridges of his cheekbones, and Emily pressed herself futilely into the wall as his eyes slowly, painfully bled back to their normal gleam - the gold and the hazel.
He was breathing hard as he glared at her, sucking in harsh, grunting breaths as he struggled to control the hunger clawing at his stomach. "I'm sorry." His voice was guttural and raw - more animal than human now. "The hunger, I - it's been weeks since I've fed."
Emily stared at him hard, mouth agape as the man's face seemed to fight between a mask of stubborn control and tortured agony. Whatever that bimbo whore had done to him - it was torturing him inside, turning him into a beast.
...but was that beast already inside him to begin with?
Was the beast something she could sate?
"Wh - Why me?" she asked, as he pressed her hard against the wall and stared at her with those whirling dark eyes of his. They were pools of liquid gold; iridescent and molten as his body pressed firm against her and tempted her with the muscular frame she knew to be hidden under his suit. "Why...drink from me? I - I've done no wrong."
"Why not?" he countered stubbornly, and he released one of her hands to cup her hip possessively; angling her thin frame just so. His mouth twitched when he heard her breath hitch as he ground his lower body into hers, pinning her by her own will to stay. With his other hand, he released her wrist, free now, but she remained rooted in his embrace, as he reached up and stroked her soft, dark hair and tangled his fingers into it.
"You're a beautiful woman. One of the most beautiful, in fact." His eyes flashed in delight when Emily blushed. Such a curious thing - his effect on her. He'd never seen a woman react to him as she had. "Beauty and brains and loyalty. You're a formidable foe in the office and on the field, Agent Prentiss."
He lowered his mouth to her ear, and Emily couldn't help the moan that escaped her mouth when his lips touched the shell of her ear and his breath gusted hot against her skin. "I'm curious to know if you're as...passionate -," he chuckled in his throat when Emily's body shivered against him, "in your endeavors when you have a man between your legs."
The hand on her hip had somehow unbuttoned and unzipped her slacks between his words and hers; the large hand sliding against the silk of her panties as the material slid down her long, long legs and pooled in a black mass by her feet. Emily's eyes snapped open wide when the cold air blew against her bare legs, and she felt the panic well, but it would not bubble through.
It couldn't - not when his mouth as now moving against her neck, sucking and licking...marking her as his. She flinched every time his teeth touched her skin, anticipating the sharp sink of teeth into her flesh; of her blood spilling warm against his mouth, but no such sensations assaulted her.
His mouth did though - his mouth and his hand.
"H - Ooh!" Her knees nearly buckled under her, but his body held her in place as his hand slid underneath her panties and his fingers brushed against her clit. She fisted his suit jacket in her hands, clawing at his clothed back and sucking in mewling gasps as his fingers delved lower and plunged inside her.
He growled as her body arched taut against him, sliding his fingers deeper as he pressed his thumb to her clit and circled it carefully. "You're practically dripping," he groaned into her shoulder, nipping at her collarbone, tempted, oh so tempted to bite down just a little harder and bring precious ruby to his sight...
He didn't. Instead he doubled his efforts and began to lower himself onto his knees before her. It was the very least he could do for her; the least pleasure he could allow her before he took what he needed from her body.
Emily fisted her hand in his hair almost as soon as his mouth descended on her; there was nothing else she could do. It was as if her body had grown a mind of its own, and nothing she commanded of it was obeyed. She gasped, loud and echoing when his tongue lashed across her clit, and she tightened her grip on his hair.
"What did you do to me?" she gasped, swiveling her hips against his mouth and twitching when it was too hot, too much. "Why can't I move?"
"Glamour," he rumbled, and she felt it more than she heard. She moaned as his fingers continued unrelenting inside her, his mouth hungry before he pulled away to spare her another black gaze. "A vampire's ability to beguile a human and have them do their bidding." His mouth and chin were damp; his tongue darted out and licked his lower lip, and Emily shuddered.
"And what exactly would you have me do, short of a blood donation?" she gusted, gasping sharply as his fingers sank deep and curled inside her. Her head was beginning to spin, her stomach beginning to coil tight - she was close and he'd barely even touched her.
He tasted her again, savoring, relishing; lavishing her with pleasure he could sense was blinding her - it would be, because he made it so. "Right now, I'd very much like you to come."
No sooner did the words leave his mouth, Emily felt her world collapse in on itself; her vision tunneling, her breath escaping her as her body jolted and shuddered with the burst of fire in her loins. She tried to suck in a breath but it fled from her; she could do nothing but claw at his scalp and sink her nails into his shoulder as his mouth moved languidly against her until she had to beg for him to stop.
Reluctantly he pulled his fingers and mouth from her, licking his fingers clean and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as she struggled to catch her breath. She was slumped against the wall, knees quivering but surviving as she could finally breathe and speak.
"I thought..." She jolted in an aftershock and groaned in her chest. "I thought vampires fed on human blood."
"They do," he murmured, and Emily felt his mouth on her skin again. "But I couldn't resist a taste. You're saccharine sweet and fiery hot both inside and out, aren't you?" He made a growling moan in his throat at the thought of what her blood would taste like mingling with her essence on his tongue.
"Fuck," he sighed, and Emily shivered at the word on his mouth. "You would taste like the sweetest sin."
His mouth was warm - no, burning hot - against her skin as he dropped fierce, open-mouthed kisses along her knee, travelling up to her thigh and moving inwards and closer upwards to the radiating heat of her core.
She tensed, body rigid and heart frozen in her chest as his warm breath sighed against the soft skin of her thigh. His mouth pressed a reverent kiss there.
"Y-you - you're not -."
God, she couldn't even form sentences anymore.
"I never said where I'd take it from," he murmured, and Emily felt the sharp scrape of his fangs on her inner thigh. "Why scar that pretty neck, tempted as I am to claim you for the rest of the world to see, when I could just...," he nipped at her skin, and grinned when Emily yelped, "taste you in a place only I would know?"
"The skin of the inside of your thigh is thin, weak. It would hurt less to puncture and leave less scarring." His fingers pressed into her skin, his mouth hovering maddeningly as his dark eyes raised to her face slowly. "Are you still afraid?"
His low voice wrought shivers down her spine, but Emily licked her lips and shook her head after a moment. Perhaps when she woke from this erotic nightmare, she would blame it on the 'glamour', but she knew there was no waking from this, and that there was no lying to either of them.
He smiled, and it was a coy and wicked thing. "Good."
And then he bit down, and Emily thought her scream reached a new decibel.
Fuck, she was the most delicious thing to have passed his throat. Hot, spicy sweet and tainted in heady rust; her blood was as distinctive as she was. He growled deep in his throat; a guttural, animalistic sound as he pushed her thighs further apart and plundered harder. He could feel the warm thickness flowing down his throat, dripping down his skin and marring the porcelain skin of her thigh; red and delicious and potent.
He was starved, and she was exactly what he needed - exactly what he wanted.
His fingers dug into her skin hard enough to bruise, but Emily was already whimpering as her mind began to cloud and her body weaken. Was he taking too much? She gasped when he growled viciously between her legs and she felt his mouth press greedier into her thigh, and yet she could do nothing to fight him.
"You're taking too much!" she gasped. Black stars danced across her vision, white fog seeped into the edges of her sight as she felt him push harder into her skin and her warm blood spill more down her thigh and drip onto the concrete floor under them. She tried to weave her hand into his hair again, desiring the leverage there, but her hand fell limp at her side and she fell back against the wall.
Finally, finally, he pulled his mouth from her skin, and Emily sighed in relief...until she saw the red dripping from his lips and down his chin. His eyes were black again, the veins even darker now around his eyes as he stared up at her; panting with a hoarse growl in his throat. Panting like a beast after a hunt - a predator after savoring its prey.
Emily was on the verge of succumbing to the darkness when he straightened to his feet before her. She struggled to keep her eyes on him; keep awake and to keep focused, but every time her eyes fell upon his darkly handsome face, her vision would blur.
He wanted it this way.
"Sleep," he rumbled, and Emily fought it for but a split second longer before her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped forward into his arms; half-naked and bloody and bruised in the most delicious of ways. He held her in his arms, cradling her body close as he lifted her into his arms and pulled her to his chest.
He spun on his heels and walked away, the sound of his shoes against the concrete the only sound; her briefcase and slacks left abandoned by a pool of her blood.
The next morning, when the team came in and Derek Morgan walked the same path he always did to meet Emily, he saw flawless concrete and an empty parking spot where Emily's car usually sat parked.
A stomach flu, Rossi later told him; Hotch and Emily got stomach flus from bad burritos the day before. They weren't coming in, and weren't going to be for the next few days.
"Might as well," the older man harrumphed. "Aaron looked like he was death incarnate anyway."
End of Part 1.
