Chapter 50: and we kissed as though nothing could fall
Dawn.
She clings to him and watches it come, leans her head back and pulls her hair loose from its ponytail, and the wind streams it out behind her, pulling so hard her scalp almost stings. Daryl is urging the bike to speeds she doesn't think they've yet reached, speeds that would be utterly suicidal for normal riders on a normal bike as he weaves and turns, but it doesn't scare her anymore. Now that they're moving, she doubts she could be truly scared of anything.
It's nothing whatsoever to do with courage.
She stares up at the sky as it slips from the yellow-orange-black of a skyglow night, to a more complete black as they pass out of the city, to a steadily lightening blue. If there are stars at any point, she doesn't see them. Even the light seems dark somehow, as if the sunlight is failing to permeate the air. As if it's touching the world and bouncing off its fabric.
Or vanishing into it, consumed.
A blur of half naked trees. Fields. More trees. Big housing developments. The headlights of the few other cars on the road this early on a Sunday morning, thinning out until they're the only vehicle in sight. By then they've arrived in the reverse twilight that exists before the sun crests the horizon, pink beginning to bleed into the blue.
Tears are gathering at the corners of her eyes, making them itch. Wind, some. Not wind, some.
She hurts all through. Like she's been beaten.
They pass onto the roads she's known since she knew any roads at all. She's aware of them, even though she isn't looking at them; her gaze is still locked upward, and after a little while she closes her eyes against the thin light and the tears. Daryl's frame is as solid as ever in her arms, her knees pressed against his hips, but she's feeling as thin as the light. Like paper, like worn cloth. There isn't very much inside her, and it wouldn't take very much force to rip her apart.
Her mother, good farm wife in some ways that she now understands approached cliche, teaching Beth how to sew. How to mend and how to extend the life of a garment. Reinforcing a seam, making it a point of strength rather than weakness. When it tears, it won't be at the seam, but it will tear. Clothes always do. And when it doesn't tear at a seam, it has to be patched. It can't be hidden. Sooner or later you have something that's more patches than not. By that point, nothing is holding it together anymore. It doesn't matter how strong you've made the seams.
It falls to pieces.
She opens her eyes as he slows, as she smells the dust the bike is kicking up - her dust, dust of tens of thousands of warm afternoons, working its way into her nose until she sneezed. She doesn't sneeze now; she inhales deep and blinks as she looks around, as he pulls to a stop in front of the blackened foundations of the house.
He doesn't move. Doesn't turn. His breath is coming heavy though not quite as deep as hers, his head drooping forward between his shoulders and his hair hanging in his face as he leans on the handlebars.
When he last took her away from here, she really believed it was the final time.
A soft creak from behind and to her right, and she glances over her shoulder. The slowly spinning windmill, gearbox rusty, a couple of gaps in its wheel. Maybe it was a storm. No one left to repair it.
No one left.
Her legs are emerging from numbness and beginning to tingle as she climbs unsteadily off the bike and takes a few steps forward, her boots scuffing in that achingly familiar dust. The sun isn't yet visible, but it will be any moment, the branches of the ancient collection of trees in the yard reaching up toward the sky like ungraceful lines of black frost. She stands with her fists at her sides and works her tongue in her mouth, and she can feel his silent gaze on her. He brought her out here without argument, without complaint. She wonders if he wanted to be away from the hospital as badly as she did, and if he was grateful to her for providing him with an excuse that wouldn't make him look callous. If he felt the same as she did, about Lori. About seeing Lori like that.
If he felt the same because he can feel what she feels. If she can shape him in that way. Mold him to herself.
She shouldn't. She shouldn't be able to do any of this. She's trapped him, and she's just as trapped. It's not fair.
No one ever said life was fair, honey, her mother whispers, as if from the ruins of the house, and she wants to cry. But she's so tired.
Without a look back, she starts walking.
Past the old trees, past the blackened foundations. As she does, the world seems to waver, to shimmer like heat, and she catches a dizzying second's glimpse of other houses, identical only not: other fires, other shambling monsters, running, the screaming of horses, and him, always him, present then or later but always with her in the end.
And maybe once where the house didn't burn, where no one died, where everything was good and everyone was happy - one world bathed in light, sunlight and moonlight, and a figure climbing up a trestle. A figure standing in the rain.
A world that never moved on.
She staggers a little, scrubs at her eyes and forces herself to keep moving through the blur.
She knows he's following her as she leaves the house behind and moves into the wide, grassy field where she used to ride the horses, running along the border of the woods and out into the open. Still no sun; has it paused? Is it waiting for something? She's lost hold of time. It's going far too fast and not going at all. She digs her nails into her palms and drags in a breath and walks until she's standing almost exactly in the field's center, everything grass and distant trees, the road and the remains of the house and the flat bare ground where the barn and stable stood no longer visible. She might be alone in the whole world.
Except for him.
She turns to him. He's standing a few yards from her - giving her space. He looks uncertain, scanning her up and down, his face very pale through his dark hair.
He's waiting for her to tell him what to do.
"I couldn't stop it," she says softly.
He inhales, sharp. Nearly a gasp. "Beth-"
"I tried to find the magic. I couldn't. There wasn't anythin'. If there was…" She shrugs, and a trembling laugh escapes her. "But I couldn't stop it here, either. Before. I had the magic and I still couldn't save anyone, Daryl." Her jaw tightens and she looks away from him - from his eyes, their wide and glittering mortification. "Pythia was talkin' like I was some kinda fuckin' superhero, but both times I needed to come through, I didn't. So what the hell? What the hell is any of this good for?"
"Beth," he whispers, shaking his head. "Beth, stop."
"Are you sayin' it isn't true? Are you sayin' I did somethin' I don't remember? Except Judith is still dead, isn't she? Lori's still in a goddamn coma, isn't she?" Her voice is rising. "If I can't protect anybody, it's worth nothin'."
I'm worth nothing.
"This ain't on you." In what seems like a couple of steps he's close, gripping her upper arms like he might be about to shake her, his features twisting with pained desperation. "You get that? It's on them. It's on the cyne, for leavin'. It's on me, 'cause I went in there when you said not to. Not a bit of it's on you. You hear? Not one fuckin' bit."
And God, she loves him for that. Even if he's wrong. She loves him so much.
"I said I wanted you," she murmurs. The breeze cools the tears on her cheeks. "I said I wanted that."
"You don't no more?"
"That's the thing." She laughs again, ducking her head. "I do. I can't stop. Isn't that what you told Rick? You told me. It was dangerous before, but you can't stop."
Judith's body falling. Lori's head snapping back, light catching the spray of blood. Rick's ghost-face reflected in the window.
It's worth it.
"Do you wish you could?" Almost inaudible. Quavering. He's scared, she realizes. He's terrified. He knows what this means as much as she does. Better. He has from the beginning. He was scared then. She thought he didn't need to be, thought he was wrong, and she was wrong, because he was completely right to be scared.
"Do you?"
"No." He doesn't hesitate. He speaks practically before she's done, raises his hands and frames her face, lifting it to his. "Told you that too, magden. Not anymore."
He's so sure. He used to be so unsure.
She manages a watery smile. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"I'm gonna." He glides a thumb through the track of her tears. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"I am."
She's quiet for a moment. So is he. Somewhere, birds are starting to trill. It's bright enough now for shadows. And she understands then that nothing has truly changed. It's not more of a risk now. It was always like this. She just gets it. That's the only difference. She understands the full extent of the risk. She understands that it's not even really a risk. At this point, it's a virtual certainty.
It's only a matter of time.
"We're gonna die," she breathes.
"Beth, don't-"
"We're gonna die bloody. Best we can hope is we go down fightin'." She tips his brow against hers and closes her eyes, and draws in his warmth. She feels it kindle inside her, bright and hot, and she knows.
She doesn't want to stop.
"I'm sick of death." She ghosts her lips against his, barely contact at all, but a violent shudder ripples through him, echo of the first time she kissed him. The first time he was kissed by anyone. "Mate with me."
He goes absolutely still.
She pulls back slightly, combing his hair away from his face, and when his eyes lock onto hers she can't move either. She's seen him like this before, in the candlelight in his den. Those eyes are utterly inhuman. Burning. Ravenous. Part of him wants to hesitate, and part of him wants to eat her alive.
"I'm not tellin' you. I'm askin'. Daryl… Please." She sighs and leans closer, and as heat floods between her legs she feels him hard against her lower belly, straining, and her sigh slips into a moan, and it's all she can do to keep from sliding a hand between them and cupping a hand over him.
Then it hits her that there's no reason to stop herself. No reason at all.
His hips twitch forward as she strokes her palm up his length and he hisses through bared teeth. They gleam, those long incisors, and she can already feel them scraping down her throat. And she's already doing that to him, pushing up on her toes and pressing her open mouth to the side of his neck, and he tilts his head back, muscles shifting under her lips as he swallows.
Under her teeth as she bites him and holds on.
Mate with me. She squeezes her thighs together; she's so fucking wet, her body preparing itself for him like it always has, and finally she's ready. It doesn't matter that she's not speaking aloud. He can hear her - in what he feels if nothing else. Mate with me. Please. Right here. Right now.
He jerks himself free and stares down at her, and that's when she feels his hand closing over the back of her neck, and it's not gentle. He's gripping her so tight it's almost painful, and her breath flutters in her chest.
This is not going to be like the other times.
"Now," he murmurs - not entirely a question.
She exhales, her lips quivering. Everything quivering. Something is rising in her, hot and bright in a way her arousal isn't. It's coming from somewhere deep, a place she senses she's only ventured into briefly, and it's taking her. She can't think about this. She can't question. She has to put all that away and feel. The only thing that has any place here is pure instinct.
She can't be human.
"Now."
For another few seconds, she's motionless. Then she whirls and starts to run.
She hasn't picked a direction. The direction doesn't matter. This isn't about getting away from him. Her boots pound the earth under her, her arms pumping and her lungs swelling like bellows, and a flock of starlings explodes crying out of the grass in front of her. She sprints through them, the field spreading out on either side of her, some distance in front of her the treeline she doesn't intend to reach. It's whispering in her in a voice she's never heard before - how this has to go, like a ritual she already knew but has since forgotten. It has to be in the open, under the sky, unhidden. They don't have to protect themselves from predators. They're the predators, the apex predators, strong and wild, and nothing matters but this.
She's laughing as she runs, even though an absolute bitch of a cramp is knotting her side, and she doesn't need to glance back to know that he's right behind her and gaining - he's coming for her, because he's scented her heat and he knows she's ready, and weeks ago he claimed her for his own.
She never intended to reach the treeline, but she's almost there when he takes her down.
It's hard. He slams into her with a snarl - still in his human form but nothing human about him - and hooks a powerful arm around her waist and drags her to the ground. The impact knocks the wind out of her but he turns them so he's mostly beneath her, cushioning her, and for a second she's on top before he rolls her roughly under him and straddles her. Human form or no human form, he looks huge against the backdrop of the morning light, towering, and the denim between her legs has to be soaked dark as she gazes up at him.
She needs to feel him. She needs to feel his strength, how much he wants her, why her body chose him, and she squirms suddenly, frantically, and almost works her way free before he pins her by the wrists. Once more she's motionless, panting - panting into him when he kisses her so hard their teeth collide, and then she's biting his lips, his jaw, and he's biting her, sharp little nips that jab whimpers out of her. The prickle of his incisors, warm breath, his tongue rough and broad as he laps eagerly at her throat. She cants her hips up, her jacket half off one shoulder and her shirt gathered above her belly, and he greets her with a slow roll of his entire body, the bulge of his cock grinding against her mound through her jeans.
Too many clothes. Too many fucking clothes. She moans low against his open mouth, and this time she doesn't struggle when he releases her wrists and shrugs off his own jacket, tosses it aside, takes hold of hers and jerks it off her so fast and so hard she hears it tear.
He could rip it off her. He could rip it all off her. Strip her bare and devour her, teeth and claws, and she drags her shirt off over her head as he does the same with his, the sun finally breaking fiery red-gold through the trees and gilding the curves of his muscles.
She freezes and stares up at him again, propped on her elbows and her teeth worrying her swollen bottom lip as a shiver rolls from the crown of her head all the way down to her cunt. His skin is ultimately only a mask and it's a battered one, worn and scarred; if she didn't know about it, she would never think of the softness it conceals. That form is so beautiful, she thought that word the second she saw him that way, but he's beautiful like this too. Because she's looking at his life, marked into his flesh. It's not lovely, what that life has been.
But he is.
He meets her gaze for half a moment before he shifts his own away, hair curtaining his eyes. All at once the animal hunger has run out of him like water and she sees the ghost of the man who didn't know how to touch her, who needed her to guide his fingers into what she wanted. He's not scared of her, or of this, but he is scared, and she pushes herself up and strokes a hand from his stomach to his chest, his muscles jumping under her touch.
"Daryl," she whispers, and he releases a breath that stutters and goes ragged when she drops her hand between his legs and kneads him in slow, even squeezes.
He lifts his eyes back to hers and something snaps into focus behind them, and he covers her hand with his. He's trembling.
But only a little.
He told her it would be a while before she could speak the words of the Reord, that she would understand them for some time before that. And maybe that's true, but this is a world like the one at the Frithus, the one in which Eostre's shrine sits, carved off from the rest and self-contained. Safe. Theirs.
Many rules might be suspended.
The words come to her and she says them, and it's the easiest thing. It flows out of her like her breath. Geane mid me. Mate with me, my love. Geane, min heorte, min beorht eoten, my beautiful monster. Mate with me now.
"Lufiend," he says softly, and he falls on her like a wolf on a deer.
It hurts when he rips her bra off, breaking the snaps in a single fierce yank, and she drops back into the grass with her back and ribs stinging, friction-burned. But it's what she wanted and all she wants is more; he growls and bites at her nipples as he shoves her jeans down her hips, the button popping loose and the zipper grating. She wriggles them free along with her panties, fumbles off her boots and kicks it all away, and stretches out naked under him, her legs falling wide and the air cooling the wet of her pussy and the insides of her thighs. She's just as rough, pulling at his waistband, and he's just as clumsy as he gets the rest of it off and crouches over her on his hands and knees, no longer pinning her with anything except himself. She raises her head and looks; his cock is hanging thick and heavy between his legs, foreskin stretched tight around the head, and as she watches, speechless and suddenly dry-mouthed, a shining drop of precome gathers at the tip and drips in a long clear strand to her belly.
They could do this slowly. But there's no more time for slow. Whatever else they've done, this is still her first time, and she remembers what she thought it might be like, candlelight and satin sheets to cap off a perfectly pretty wedding, and instead a monster is going to fuck her in a field drenched with rising sunlight, while grief and fear is still a cruel fist around her heart.
They're going to die bloody. So fuck slow.
She reaches down and closes a hand around him, feeling him twitch and flex as she squeezes him, and he rocks into her fist with a harsh groan, his head sinking below his shoulders until his brow nearly lies against hers. She tilts her head back and strokes him, licks at his lips, at his tongue when he parts them.
A bird she can't name screams somewhere in the trees; it might be urging her on. She tugs his cock downward and streaks more precome across her skin. Fresh laughter bubbles up inside her, sheer delight: he's wet, wet as her, wet for her, angling his hips to nudge the head of his cock insistently against her mound.
He hasn't changed. But she's not bothered by it. Every cell in her is chanting that this is right. This is happening the way it's supposed to. She already knows what to do. She has since she first pushed up onto her knees and fucked herself to the image of him waiting in the shadows behind her.
Her body knew then, better than she ever did.
He doesn't try to hold her down when she turns over and crawls out from between his arms. She feels him watching her, bestial eyes searing into her, as she bends on her elbows and settles her cheek against the cool grass, blades tickling her nipples, spreads her quivering legs and lifts her ass high.
She's so open. She's nothing but a brilliant burning openness, and it's pulsing through her like her heat: a dense relaxation in her muscles, another rush of wet trickling down her thighs. Him, grasping her - nails digging into her hips and the snuffle as he noses at her, nuzzles her pussy, a stab of lightning and a helpless whimper when he flicks his tongue across her lips and throbbing clit. She wants him, she's been waiting just as long as he has, and she whines, pushing backward. Hissing a word through her teeth.
Besece.
Please.
He withdraws, and she's about to beg him again when he hauls her back and plunges deep into her.
She cries out. She can't help it. It's not that it hurts - he's not even moving, clasping her by the hips and gasping huge breaths, and she's loose. She can take him with ease. It's that something in her head bursts open as he enters her and floods into her heaving chest, almost more than she can stand. She nearly crumples. It's like falling, her heart leaping into her throat, falling off that cliff and into the blinding core of the Dwolma.
But it's not quite enough.
He's shaking, holding onto her as though she's all that's holding him up. Maybe she is. "Magden." Strangled moan. He sounds broken. Close to frightened. "Ah, fuck, Beth, I'm- Beth."
And he starts to change.
It's indescribable. Another cry rips out of her and she clenches her eyes shut, clawing at the grass, packing soil under her nails. He's changing inside her, shattering and reforming above her and swelling against the walls of her cunt. Soft fur on her ass and thighs and claws scratching her sides, groans shifting into growls, his teeth grazing the ridge of her shoulder. It's happening slowly, slower than it ever has, and the part of her that can still think understands why: it's so he won't hurt her, so he won't split her open the first time, so her body has a chance to learn him.
But he's so big. She sobs as he fills her and fills her and doesn't stop. She's so small and he's enormous over her, powerful beyond anything she's ever felt. And the truth is that a healthy portion of her sobbing is relief, plain and simple, because finally she has this - what she's been needing so bad it's literally been driving her insane.
He has it too.
For a moment he's motionless. Silent. Then he starts to move.
She has no idea how she's taking it, but she is. Long slide out of her and a squelching thrust that forces tears out of her eyes, but it even now it doesn't hurt. It's all pleasure, relentless pleasure, washing through every inch of her as he fucks her. She's sobbing and he's snarling, both melting into a sound completely different from either. Melting flawlessly, sweetly, as if they were meant to.
Mingling.
She is. They are. She can't move at all under his assault, except for how his thrusts are shoving her forward over and over, yet she is moving, moving in a way she doesn't comprehend, in perfect sync with him. Keeping perfect time. It couldn't be anything but perfect, because she's in him just as deep as he's in her, his pleasure just as much hers. She can feel herself, her slick tightness, the way she fits him, the way she's cracking him open with every roll of his hips. The way he feels her, herself through the lens of him, crashing waves of roaring heat and so deliciously full as he pounds mercilessly into her.
Her sobs are rising into more choked cries and she throws her head back, her eyes wide and staring into the sky. It's like it's coming down on her, the world no longer enough to hold it in place. Or she's tumbling up into it, Daryl around and inside her. They're carrying each other. Everything is in ruins and everything is perfect, so beautiful, so precious. If this kills her now, she'll die happy.
It's worth it.
Faster. The sky, the sun whirling across it, his cock fucking her mindless, her juices dripping into the grass like raindrops. The light is screaming and she's screaming into the light and writhing in his claws, flash of red blood on her skin, and then the red is pumping through her and blooming like a thousand roses, his final violent thrust and then his roaring howl as he pours his seed into her, his teeth, her neck-
Onlucan.
Open.
Sun through trees, light through veins, wind in her hair. Soft fur under her hands and damp grass under her feet. She's running. He's with her. He always will be, by her side.
Long as he's breathing.
Ic beon eower.
She says it with him.
I belong to you.
They're both shuddering when he lowers her down, paw strong and supporting her. He slides out of her and she moans; it aches, burns a little, but mostly all at once she feels so empty, so stunningly incomplete, limp and trembling.
She'll always want him inside her now. She knows this.
She lies there gasping, fresh tears drying on her cheeks, sensing his bulk looming over her. His breath is warm and moist on her spine as he bends to lick her, sweeping his tongue slowly and gently over the nape of her neck, soothing the sting. The skin between her thighs is slippery with his come, and she smiles.
It didn't kill them. It didn't drive them mad.
They made it.
"Afena," he whispers. His voice is all quiet wonder. Awe. He strokes the smooth upper curve of a claw over her cheek, and a sigh escapes her. "Afena."
"Afena." She echoes it even quieter than his whisper. Yes. Afena, at last. "I love you."
I'll love you for the rest of my life.
