Serpentine/Hunter
There was a rustle of straw, and Serpentine's black-garbed butler stepped out of the shadows. Hunter blinked at her. The woman cast a glance at the two drunkards – the man and the girl – snoring quietly in the straw, then spoke. "My mistress requests your presence."
Hunter smiled. Requests? "Tell your mistress I am a bodyguard, and I cannot leave my post."
The wasp-waisted butler shifted, her leather skirt sweeping aside pieces of straw. "They will not be harmed here. Serpentine would not allow it."
Hunter signed to herself. She and Serpentine, they knew each other too well. She glanced around the stables and nodded. "Alright."
She didn't need the butler to lead her to Serpentine's chambers, and she never noticed the woman fade into the shadows that she resembled, and leave Hunter to approach Serpentine alone. The caramel-skinned woman halted on the threshold. "I thought that woman followed you everywhere."
Serpentine shut her book and looked up at Hunter from an armchair. "Only nearly everywhere. She knows when her presence is not desired." The tall woman stood, torn white skirts tumbling like water from her narrow waist. "Come in," she added.
Hunter did so, but remained standing near the door, her expression guarded. "You've changed," she said, after a pause.
"And you have not. Not in looks, at least." Serpentine ran a hand through her mostly-grey hair. "Don't lie to me. I look old. Sometimes I almost miss my looks."
"No-" Hunter broke in, her voice so soft it was barely audible. "No – you're still beautiful." Her gaze flickered up and down the white woman's body.
"You flatter me."
"No, really." Hunter smiled. This woman – she was irresistible, and Hunter had learnt long ago that it was pointless to try. The one being who had ever bested her, and it was another woman. She has smiled at that, before she realised Serpentine was not something to smile about.
Hunter realised that one or both had moved across the room until they stood, now, barely a foot apart. This close, the tension in the air made her shiver. She reached up a hand to the other woman's face, brushing smooth, unlined skin. Hunter closed her eyes. A moment later, she felt cool lips on hers. She melted instantly, drowning in sensation.
Serpentine's hand cupped the back of her head, drawing her closer. The other slid around her waist. Hunter put her arms around the pale woman, marvelling at how well the contours of their two bodies still fitted so well together, in the one corner of her mind that was still capable of rational thought.
They broke apart. "It's been too long," Hunter sighed. Serpentine said nothing, but she smiled, for once a smile free from malice and manipulation. She had never had to manipulate Hunter. The bronzed woman was one of the few indulgences she permitted herself. The slim woman in the white dress turned and crossed the room. Hunter followed, halting at the doorway to Serpentine's bedchamber. "…You told me once I would always be welcome in your house. Am I still welcome here?"
Serpentine looked up, in surprise, from the bed where she had seated herself. "Of course," she replied, beginning to undo the ties of her corset with nimble fingers.
Hunter smiled as she stepped into the bedroom. "Then let me do that."
She undressed the other woman slowly, revealing pale, no longer flawless, skin, inch by inch. She was so much thinner than she appeared when fully clothed. Attired in her usual white leather and lace, with that imperious look, Serpentine could be queen of the world. But here, in her inner sanctum, she had let down her guard and looked oddly fragile, vulnerable.
"I do not need a bodyguard," she had told Hunter when they first met. "But you need a patron, and I like the look of you – so you're hired."
The young Hunter had just blinked at this tall, commanding woman, wondering at how bluntly she spoke, and… what she had seen to like. She found that out later.
Looking down at her now, Hunter realised she was no longer convinced that Serpentine could protect herself from everything. Certainly, she would be weak in the face of a physical assault.
Serpentine looked at Hunter with large dark eyes, and Hunter's heart twisted inexplicably. She would return here, she decided impulsively, once she had killed the Beast. And she would kill the Beast. Its hide could adorn the wall of Serpentine's banqueting chamber, and they could live here together like they had all those years ago. But this time not as mistress and servant, but as…
Her train of thought was broken by Serpentine's questing fingers. She gasped as they slid under her clothes, tracing lines over her taut stomach. The older woman pulled her down, rolling on top of her. "My turn," she smiled. Hunter closed her eyes. She knew that smile, and it meant she was in for a sleepless night. In the moments before she abandoned her brain entirely to pleasure, she made a silent promise to herself.
I'll be back.