Lemony by the end. You have been warned.
Brooklyn couldn't decide if he was as lucky that Cordeila wasn't throwing a fit. Or if she was eventually going to punch him in the face. He had no idea what made him want to hold her. And the pretense of keeping her warm was flimsy at best. If he really thought about it he knew. But he was trying to keep those thoughts pushed to the back of his mind. He felt her shiver a little more and squirm turning slightly in his arms. He gently rubbed up and down her arms and watched her curl in closer to him. Eyes still closed so he wasn't entirely sure if if she was asleep or not. He wrapped his arms around her tightly. And realized he was unconsciously rubbing her leg with his tail. That kind of thing was definitely intimate and usually reserved for mates for his kind. But with a thought he realized there was no way she would know that. She didn't even know she was being carried around like a baby until he told her. Part of him was merely concerned with her well being. The other more instinctive part was starting to surface and made him think about taking her somewhere safe and private and seeing just how soft and willing her body would be to his advances. Snorting he shook his head softly. Cordeila raised her head slightly.
"I'm awake" she whispered.
"Of course you are" he answered. Wanting to laugh at her voice and how not awake she sounded.
"I am really. I just..." Cordeila yawned over the last part.
Brooklyn stroked both her arms and then nuzzled the side of her neck. She smelled so good he thought. Until he felt her hand pick up and pull his face away from her neck. And then having her shift in his arms to rest on the side of her hip to look at him. Even both sitting she still had to look up at him a bit. Her dark hair falling to cover her neck that Brooklyn had been touching.
"Is that you behaving your self?" Cordeila asked softly.
"More than I'd like to be" Brooklyn replied honestly.
She sighed in annoyance. That was not exactly what he wanted to hear.
"Most of this" She said gesturing back and forth between them. "Is my fault because of what I am. However if you would keep your hands to yourself it wouldn't be quite so noticeable for you."
"Why do you keep saying that? Like I couldn't possibly be remotely interested in you on my own?" Brooklyn asked in annoyance.
"Because if I could turn off what I am completely there is no way you would be interested in someone like me. Particularly as much as a dumpster fire as I look and act like." Cordeila told him sourly.
Brooklyn didn't understand what the hell she was talking about. And made a face and shrugged at her.
"I am admittedly kind of a bitch. And I very carefully wear clothing to cover up how many scars I have. And they are... not attractive" Cordeila explained.
"How in the hell are you covered in scars" Brooklyn asked in slight alarm.
"From going out hunting, I don't heal like Patrick or Colin do. And I don't go out and find myself a mate or even a date like I suspect Gio and Antoni have done." She answered.
"And the rest of your clan is ok with you getting hurt?" He asked gruffly.
"They think its stupid I don't go find a mate, or a date. But they know better than to outright argue with me, because its not our custom remember. And well... when we go out with the Harkers they seem to take scars as a badge of honor and they even go as far as getting tattoos that accentuate the scars and make pictures with them." Cordeila said yawning again.
"The cabbage heads do seem to like going hunting" Brooklyn grunted.
She smiled at his description of her extended cousins. Most Harkers had freckles and either moss colored hair or bark colored hair. They could use their magic to blend in so much easier with it. And the color was from birth not a hair dye.
"Thank god I didn't get weird colored hair. At least there's that" She snorted.
"Could you have?" Brooklyn asked. She had dark hair like some of her cousins, but not the ginger red or moss green.
"I take almost entirely after my mother. Her and my aunt, Gio and Antoni's mom had the dark brown hair. My uncle, Patrick and Colins dad had the red. The Harkers are much further cousins so that would have been unlikely. Actually I am not sure if I am biologically related to about half of them. There are... an awful lot of Harkers" She laughed.
"I noticed" Brooklyn told her dryly.
"Don't be offended, they like you. They wouldn't have asked if you were going hunting with me or them if they didn't." Cordeila said before asking. "Are there a lot of red gargoyles in your clan?"
"You've met my entire clan" He told her flatly.
"I didn't mean now. I meant before" She said softly.
With a sigh he thought about it.
"Some. A few in other clans that Goliath, Elisa and Angela have met" He told her.
"I wasn't sure. It was super weird to see your whole clan together and aside from Goliath and Angela none of you look alike. Most of the Macnamara's are tan with ginger hair. And the Befana's tan to olive with dark hair" Cordeila said softly, pulling a coil of her hair out and looking at it before dropping it.
They didn't say anything for a few moments. Brooklyn wondered where Cordeila got the incredibly pale skin from. Without a single freckle she was just a few shades off as pale as he had seen any human ever come in. He just about jumped out of his own skin as Cordeila reached out and very softly touched the inside skin of his wings.
"I still don't know how you fly with these. And you have no feathers" she laughed softly poking at him again.
This was having an extremely surprising effect on him. Brooklyn really enjoyed her softly touching the inside of his wings. To the point where he was going to have to make her stop or else he was going to do something stupid.
"Cut it out" He said gruffly.
Laughing she smirked at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know your kind was ticklish" She replied.
"We aren't. But knock it off anyways" Brooklyn gritted out.
Misjudging what was going on Cordeila pulled her hand back with a snap.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize that would hurt you" She said and with that pushed out of his arms and swung her legs back on the edge of the tree branch scooting away from him. She looked embarrassed and uncomfortable at the thought of having hurt him.
"It didn't hurt. I just. Ugh." Brooklyn sputtered out. He didn't want to outright say it was a huge turn on and she either had to stop or he was going to want to start other things. He wondered why and how she didn't notice it.
She shrugged and gave him a weird look.
"You and I need to stop touching each other as it is. I am not looking for a mate and I am already not behaving as I should be. And I am suppose to be the responsible one" Cordeila said with a flippant hand gesture. Scrunching her nose as she said it.
"I can make my own decisions thank you" Brooklyn muttered. Reaching out to very gently rub her back. She froze. This was not accidental or coincidental. She reached and caught his claw, pulling it off.
"You don't seem to understand do you? Leading a poor innocent little gargoyle on for shits and giggles is not considered mature behavior." Cordeila explained as she crossed her arms over her chest. Again making a face.
Brooklyns jaw dropped. He couldn't decide what was more insulting. Her thinking she was leading him on by constantly telling him to get the hell away from her. Or being called little by a five foot tall human looking female.
"What?" Cordeila asked in confusion.
Brooklyn hadn't even realized he had gotten into a crouching position and looked like he was going to pounce on her. Cordeila hoped off the branch and landed on the ground lightly. Spinning to see that Brooklyn had landed right behind her. Standing up to his full height he could look at the top of her head by almost two feet.
"Who and what are you calling little? You are the tiniest palest human I have ever talked to" Brooklyn said snidely.
"One I am barely human. In fact I have more in common dna wise with you than I do a human. And two how should I know. Maybe that's why you have such a big attitude. Making up for shortcomings" Cordeila said rolling her eyes.
"What's that suppose to mean?" Brooklyn snarled at her. Getting frustrated that he could either get her to kiss him or scream at him and the in between was woefully short. And he most defiantly preferred the former.
Cordeila still looked annoyed that he had called her human and pinched her finger tips together tightly. It took a second to dawn on him that she was making fun of that.
"I do not have a tiny!..." Brooklyn roared at her. Breaking off before he finished the last part. Loud enough that he startled some of the woodland animals.
"Oh good job, you just took a year off the life of that squirrel" Cordeila said flippantly.
"Why are you like this. We can talk and you are nice, then you act like a witch" Brooklyn snarled at her. His eyes glowing briefly.
"I am a witch dumbass" She spat at him once again rolling her eyes.
Brooklyn growled and this time he did pounce on her. Knocking her down and pinning her beneath him with a claw on her wrists so she couldn't get her hands on him and burn him.
"I am not going to turn you into a crispy critter. Can you be any more insulting?" Cordeila growled back at him.
"Can you? I swear any time I get close to you then you insult me and try to piss me off" Brooklyn growled at her.
"I know, that's the whole point. You are so much easier to ignore if you're angry and staying away from me" Cordeila hissed.
Brooklyn looked at her in confusion then realized what she meant.
"You're insulting me and intentionally pissing me off so I stay away from you?!" Brooklyn asked in confusion.
"I just said that" She gritted out in reply.
"But why?" He asked looking down at her. God she looked mad right now he thought. Pretty. So so pretty. But still mad.
"Because I was not out looking for a mate and its wrong to lead you on like that. I am not immune to attractive males by any means. And on that note you need to let me up." Cordeila frowned. As her eyes went an inky black again.
"Whats so wrong with letting yourself fall for someone?" he asked.
Noticing that his hormones and feelings were responding to hers. Getting use to her eyes changing color with her mood had taken some getting use to. Now that he had learned to decipher... mostly whether it meant she was pissed off or turned on.
"Because I don't want to" She said pushing up on him arms with all her strength. That did not work and Brooklyn had the audacity to smirk at her.
Brooklyn let her arms up but simply rested his on either side of her head. Letting his body relax into hers. He could feel her tense and then something else as his hormones decided to take over and he leaned to kiss her. Starting softly at first in case she flipped out and and burned him. Putting an arm under her back and rolling them so that she was on top of him and off the cold ground. Cordeila kissed him back before pulling up with a sigh.
"You are more persistent than most you know that." She told him.
"And just how many males are chasing you around the woods kissing and touching you?" Brooklyn asked gruffly.
Cordeila laughed softly and brushed some of her dark hair behind her ear.
"Do you really want to know the answer to that?" She asked.
Brooklyn was torn between wanting to say yes and whom in order to find them and beat the piss out of them. Or wondering if he was better off not knowing and being ridiculously jealous. Cordeila snorted because she could see the wheels spinning in his head figuratively.
"Absolutely none. Because every witch and human I have ever met has more sense than to keep chasing around a succubus after she told them to get lost the first time. Most other kinds of witches have a... healthy appreciation for exactly how dangerous I am and how very very stupid it would be to piss me off." Cordeila explained softly. Propping herself up with one arm to his side so she could talk to him more easily.
Brooklyn thought on that for a second. She was so much smaller than him. Even if she was a full blooded gargoyle she would be more petite than anyone he has ever met. Including Katsumi and her several sisters. She didn't exactly look dangerous and the more he got to know of her, well he really couldn't think she would hurt anyone unless they were a direct and clear threat to her or her tiny haphazard clan of cousins.
"I think I have some idea" Brooklyn said dryly again. Gesturing with his eyes at his arm covered in the metal bracer.
She flushed bright red as she thought about that. She looked nervous about what she was going to say and shifted her weight like she was going to move away from him. In response he put both claws around her waist reassuringly.
"That is... Not even a fraction of what I can do as a succubus. And then throw in your regular old witch magic... and what I got from my dads side of the family. And most beings have the good sense to go the other way. I'm sorry about the scar." She finished. Looking like she'd still had something to say. He raised a brow bone at her in question.
"I might be able to fix it. But its not something I usually try and do. And it doesn't work on humans at all. So I don't know if it will work on a full blooded gargoyle or not" She said uneasily.
"How on earth can you fix a scar on someone else and not yourself?" Brooklyn asked perturbed.
"The exact opposite of how I'd fix myself." She told him matter of fact.
Thinking on it and deciding that asking forgiveness might be better than permission. She snatched Brooklyn by the shoulder and the back of the neck and pulled him foreword. Not kissing him on the mouth but very carefully kissing his forehead. A warm feeling came over him, like getting a bucket of hot water dumped on him. And he sighed and slumped back to the ground before feeling Cordeila push off backwards and very quickly get away from him.
Brooklyn snapped out of the stupor he was in and yanked the bracer off his arm. To his surprise his skin looked smooth and red as normal. And no trace of the hand print shaped scar that had been there.
"Hey look! It worked" Brooklyn said amused.
"Put the bracer back on and go back to the ward and the house this instant" Cordeila hissed at him. Her voice dropping several octaves in tone and sounding lower and more deadly. She was facing away from him and was half crouched half leaning up against a tree. No, holding onto the tree hard enough that her human shaped hands were digging into the bark.
Oh great, that hurt her somehow Brooklyn thought in frustration and guilt. She didn't have to do that. He would have been just fine with the scar.
"Hey, its ok. I'm sorry about that. Are you alright?" He asked. He himself felt... great actually. Not tired or cold or hungry as he had been. As they were sitting out here waiting out the night without breakfast or dinner.
"That was not the same as healing one of my cousins. You really REALLY need to go back to the house and I'll wait out here by myself" She growled.
"I am not leaving you out here alone Patrick and Goliath said" Brooklyn was interrupted by Cordeila.
"I do not care what they said. Get the fuck away from me" She yelled. Before pushing herself up and bolting through the woods away from him.
"What the fuck Cora?!" Brooklyn called after her, using her nickname again in hopes he would get at least a response from her in annoyance.
She kept running. Not to the house and ward either. What the hell he wondered and took off after her. It actually was hard to keep up with her running on the ground. So he climbed a tree and took off after her flying. After a couple hundred yards he caught up to her and swooped down. Wrapping two arms around her she was struggling too much for him to keep flying. They fell and Brooklyn turned to take the brunt of the fall. It could have been worse, the soft pine needles cushioned them and they only skidded across the ground. Quickly turning her to face him he looked down at her again. Her face was... exactly like the first time she had caught scent of him as a human. Her eyes a solid reflective black. With traces of it darkening most of the way down to her cheekbones. The same sense of subtle danger came back. Oh hell... trying to heal his arm had made her very very hungry. And he guessed that because she didn't go out for that kind of hunting at all that she was dangerously hungry.
"You really should go back to the ward" She whispered. Leaning into him and running her hands along his chest. One curling around his back and tracing lightly. The other hand running down his abdomen and catching on his belt buckle. His breath caught and held. He knew exactly what she was asking. She stopped and paused. "Last chance Brooklyn. And I make no guarantees that I don't try and eat you alive" She told him. Kissing up his chest as she spoke as high as she could reach on her tip toes.
He didn't answer her in words. Instead wrapping a wing around her and leaning her back onto it like a blanket. His eyes glowing a bright white as he pulled her tightly to him and rolling on top of her. Pushing himself into her hand and groaning at the contact and friction. Kissing her with an open mouth he moaned as she grabbed and pulled at his clothing. Getting the buckle undone in an instant wrapping her soft hand around him. Softly pumping up and down. It took him a few seconds to even comprehend how good it felt. He had gotten desperate and released himself before. This was unbelievable and couldn't even compare. Knocking her hands away he wanted her the same way that she touched him. And struggled not knowing how to get most of her human shaped clothing off quickly. She helped him kick her boots off and start pulling her sweater over her head. Not going fast enough Brooklyn ended up just pulling and hearing the wool shred in his claws. Not caring he smoothed one claw down her side while the other squeezed and held her surprisingly plump breast in his other. She arched her back into his touch and pulled his face to her lips. Kissing him and wrapping her hands in his silver hair. He felt something pass between them magically and was glad he had knocked her hand off him or he would have been done then and there. He saw what she meant by scars. And he was going to ask about them later. But right now he wanted her more than anything else in world.
Reaching down he tore her jeans down her hips tossing them aside and shoved her legs apart. Settling himself between them he touched her causing her to hiss and squirm beneath him rocking her hips up at him. He very much liked that. She felt wet and hot to his touch and she gasped when he pushed a clawed finger inside her. Arching her back he felt her legs move on the sides of his hips. Not wasting any more time he grabbed each side of her hips and pulled her body up and onto his. Her gasping and him grunting with pleasure. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down on top of her. They fit together perfectly and Brooklyn had the briefest moment of passing relief that he didn't seem to be hurting her or too big to fit in her petite body. Looking down at her flushed face with every ounce of self control he had he paused to make sure she was alright.
"Don't stop" was all she managed to grit out.
Brooklyn didn't think that he could form words at this point. At least not anything that made sense verbally. Hormones and their own instincts were taking over and he growled as he started thrusting. Pinning Cordeila under him and running his claws over the rest of her body that he could touch. She moaned and pushed her hips back up at him to match him movement for movement. After some time they could each feel the pressure building. Both had worked themselves up to a hurried pace. Cora moaned and pulled him in by his hips and back. Brooklyn holding back a roar as he heard her hiss and then relax in his arms. Her body squeezing him in small after shocks. He had no idea he could feel something so delicate and was done seconds later. Pushing him self as far inside her as he could. He collapsed onto her and buried his head between her neck and shoulder. Huffing and puffing neither moved or lifted their heads for a while. Cordeila gently ran her hand up and down the small of his back. Brushing into the sides of his wings gently. Brooklyn absentmindedly ran him one claw through the hair on the top of her head. Neither one wanted to talk first and break the peace and stillness of the moment. Though Brooklyn thought he might when he felt her shift slightly under him. Thinking he might now be too heavy he pushed himself to the side and off her body, he kept Cordeila wrapped in his arms and wings.
"Are you?" he questioned. He awkwardly didn't know what to say.
Cordeila nodded in response. Curling in tighter to him as she wrapped an arm around his abdomen and sighed.
Brooklyn decided he liked that as well and would have gladly stayed just like this the rest of the night when he suddenly felt her stiffen in panic and pull him close in her arms. Her heart beating wildly and erratically again.
"Hey whats wrong?" He asked concerned. Pulling back just enough to see Cordeila's face. She snapped a finger up and silenced him. Listening to their surroundings her eyes went glassy as she strained to hear.
"We aren't alone in the woods" She whispered.
Brooklyn could hear panic in her voice. And judging from the panic and the time of night it wasn't Goliath or Elisa either. with a hand on his chest she motioned for him to hold still with the other. Indicating with a tilt of her head that someone or something was coming up behind them.