When he first met her he'd feared, making the same mistake as all the other blind fools. Blanketed in her warm, heavy scent, his desires convinced him that he would too easily break her, a fragile bloom of gold rooted unexpectedly in the Oxford cobbles.
It builds, this awareness. A vine as fresh and vital as the magic threaded through her that tightens, until the pressure has him hearing the dull beat of her heart in each step. He doesn't know whether to worship at her feet or fuck her in the dirt. It's neither and both, chase bite drink rend tear kill hold protect take keep mine. Somewhere in his head it's all getting mixed up, consume, consuming, consumed.
Diana's got iron in her spine; a smart whip of a mouth and a sharpness of eye that can chill the summer of her face. Stubborn in a way he finds equal parts admirable and maddening. An ephemeral quality catches his scarce breath hard and leaves him with a crumbling sense that she could oh too easily disappear. It overwhelms him at times, how unbearably temporary she feels. The shell that holds her is not built to house the feelings she invokes, and Matthew is so aware of every heartbeat ticking down to the moment he loses her. The thought sends black chasing over his vision; he's loved and lost and despaired before.
There is the true danger. His cravings are that much stronger for the need to keep her here, keep her safe, keep her by his side.
In Sept-Tours the choking sensation eases. The need to hunt quietened by the security it represents, no need to pursuit that which is already held. I made these walls strong, you are safe within them. She seems more anchored to him here, surrounded by his lands, settled in his tower, resting quiet in the polished comfort of his bed. It allows the untiring ache for her settled in the back of his throat to recede. Her scent is everywhere, and instead of tipping him into the abyss it makes him want to stretch out and roll in it. He's whole in a way he's only been since he reached out his hand at the gate in England and she took it.
She's not unchanged, how could she be? The world she knew is turning on her and so she's growing teeth. There's something undeniably visceral that heats in him when she shows them. It makes him greedy. He wants every thought, every moment, he wants the bed to smell like her and him and them and to gulp down every gasp and aborted sound he pulls from her in it. The accelerated pulse of her heart guiding his hand and her pleasure.
No wonder than, the rage so thick it coats him from the inside out. The sanctity of her safety, the safety he swore her, trespassed. The smell of her taunts his every step, whipping his wrath to a bristling, spitting thing. The civilised veneer thins, splits, now is a time for rougher handling. Demands in blows and blood and every ancient power he's ever touched brought to task.
Her retrieval returns him to himself somewhat, the need to care for her outweighing (for the moment), the need for retribution. He remains a wolf in professor's clothing, gaze still lit like dim black stars. The marks on her are too close, too visible, too God Damn unavenged, to allow for the comprehensive rebottling of his fury.
I will not make the same mistake again. I will hunt down anyone who wishes to harm you and I will kill them. His gaze drops half an inch, petulant at the fault of his own mercy. I told you. He did and he does not repent. He will tear them each from limb to limb. He'll burn the stones and salt the earth and will not regret.
He waits for a judgement he does not receive. He's being one of the blind fools again, mistaking her for something that can shatter.
Satu said she was going to open me up. But she didn't. There's a predator staring out behind her eyes, battered, newly branded, but not broken. Never that. They are one, and there are no unequal halves.
I want to deal with her myself. The wolf agrees. Approves.
What manner of untutored wretch, grown fat on the sense of their own unchallenged invincibility, thought they could dig at this power unmolested? To bid her wake and not to worry at what they've woken. They cannot see the unassailable certainty of her, finally re-emerged within herself, laden with the unspoken vow that they would live to rue it.
(She's wrong. Tributes will be taken, and none shall live).