DICLAIMER- Pendergast, Proctor and Constance belong to Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Halo Spencer, Ryan Elmasy and the plot belong to me. -Gadget
CHAPTER 7 Halo's POV
The way a typical wizard sent letters was by owl, I may have been raised mostly as a Muggle, but I knew more about wizards than most people. Within twenty-four hours I had a reply from Dumbledore telling me that I was welcome to come to Hogwarts when school started again in September. It surprised me that I'd gotten an assistant's job without having to give the wizard a lot of information about myself or the reason for my wanting to come to Europe. I decided to leave the first of August once everything was in order.
Ryan's funeral was on Sunday; my Grandmother was staying with me at Pend's for a few more days before I went back to Seattle. Ryan's father had never approved of me and I didn't think bringing the FBI agent for emotional support was such a good idea. That was why Grandmother would be with me instead.
When we picked her up at the airport, she crushed the both of us with hugs. She told Pend that she was so grateful that I had a friend like him; willing to take me in and under his wing as it was. Of course, she knew we had dated off and on for a year, but after a while we had started to annoy each other after too long in the same room. That was when I had met Ryan at the club where he tended the bars. The rest, as they say, is history; we became lovers, fell in love with each other and then moved in together. And all that was over with now, my first and only love, gone in a matter of minutes.
Pend still hadn't talked me into sleeping in the guestroom. Not that it mattered, Grandmother was sleeping there anyway. She couldn't hear anything we said or did in Pend's room; the walls were very thick because of the mansion's age. It was a good thing too because I begging Pend to fuck me. Currently his knees were to either side of my hips while he pinned my wrists to the mattress.
"No," He told me again.
I tried to twist sinuously beneath him but I wasn't strong enough, and right at that moment, I didn't want to hurt him with Sidhe strength. "Please, Pend, please."
The blonde man's hands tightened. "No,"
"Please,"
"No,"
"I hate you," I whispered weakly, barely audible.
"I hate me, too." He said.
I tried to buck him off me but I only succeeded in lifting him a few inches. I was so frustrated with him and the emotional turmoil that had begun to constantly gnaw at me since I had packed my things. I needed to drown out that pain, the one inside me and I really didn't what replaced it. I wanted pleasure but I wanted physical pain. I wanted Pend to fuck me senseless but I wanted him to hit me again and again until I was begging him to stop through bloody lips. I wanted pain, I craved pleasure and maybe I could convince Pend to give me both.
I licked my lips. "Hit me,"
"What?" He asked with sincere surprise.
"Hit me," I repeated. "Beat me Pend, make me bleed."
"Absolutely not Halo," He told me and I felt the tensing of his muscles as he prepared for my next move, whatever it might be.
I growled my disappointment at him. "Then fuck me!"
"No, you don't want that."
"Fuck you Pend," I hissed at him. "Either fuck me or beat the hell out of me, I don't care just pick one. Just..."
I couldn't seem to explain my needs to him; couldn't voice the need to replace the emotional pain with something real and tangible. Surely he would understand, but I still couldn't voice exactly what I wanted.
"Pend, just do something. Please Pend, please." I stroked his fingers where they touched mine but he held my wrists so tightly that the small movement was all my hands could manage.
He lowered his head to my neck and I felt his warm breath wafting over my skin. I heard him inhale my scent and then he let go of me, re-arranging my arms so that he could hold both my wrists in one hand. The other, his left hand, turned my head to the side and I thought I heard a low rumble escape form his chest. It sounded like the some kind of contented beast, almost like a purr and I felt my heart pick up speed as I anticipated what he would do next.
Pend's teeth had never actually looked sharp to me but I knew that they were very sharp, like little razors. I knew because his mouth was latched to my neck just were it met my jaw. He didn't chew the flesh or even gnaw on me but he closed his mouth with his teeth still in me, bringing his jaws together. It was the way I liked to be bitten, never mind foreplay and caresses (at least when Pend was involved) just bite me. Draw my blood and leave me with teeth-mark bruises in the morning. But it was still a low-level-dose of excitement and pleasure compared to what Ryan had done for me and only a 2 on my pleasure scale.
Suddenly, Pend's weight above me and the sharp edge of his experienced biting weren't doing it for me anymore. I had Ryan moving around in my head, bringing old memories of us to the forefront of my mind. I saw his face, his milky skin, soft and nearly shorn ginger hair, and his eyes. Their green-blue color had seemed so human, not like Pend's and nothing like mine.
Pend relaxed in the last few moments and he'd moved low enough to leave another of his marks on my shoulder. It put his center of gravity just low enough to give me the upper hand. My wrists slipped free of his hand and before he could act; I had pushed him onto his back and sat across his stomach. Pend looked up at me, his silvery eyes reflecting the dim light of the room. His expression hardened and instinct flashed through me. I knew in that second just how dangerous Pend really was, that enough with my magic I would never be able to draw-down on him and survive. Not unless he wanted me to, but I knew he would never draw-down unless he was certain he would walk away the victor.
Terrified, I slid away from him and silently left the room.
Grandmother was used to me crawling into her bed at ungodly hours. She had been ever since I was a child and had dreamt of monsters. This time I didn't crawl into the bed rather than just sat on the edge near her feet, shaking one leg to wake her.
"Halo?" She mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Can't you sleep honey?"
I took mostly after my Grandmother; she was about as tall as me (which really isn't all that tall) but her once glossy black hair was steadily turning grey and her eyes were a beautiful dark blue. I had Grandpa's skin tone, my mother's build and my father's Sidhe eyes. Grandmother said I had the best of each of my family members.
"No," I told her and thought of a quick lie. "Pend's in one of his moods again."
Pend's moods, yeah, that was one way to put it. At times it seemed like he was a completely different person, or more like something set loose from a cage. He became both needy and distant, sometimes staring off into nothingness while other times pacing restlessly. And still, other times, writing furiously in his journal or playing something mournful and heartbreaking on the Grand Piano. Those moods were what had ended us, I was still attracted to him but the mood-shifts drove me batshit.
"I'm sorry Halo," Grandmother said. "I know you're feeling lonely..."
I snorted, 'feeling lonely', understatement of the millennia. Pend had always been able to satisfy me but he wasn't Ryan. Not amount of pleasure could ever equal the love I had shared with him; nothing would ever come close to the sacred place I now locked within my heart. I wondered, if it weren't for Ryan's murder, if my presence at Pend's home was just another of my impromptu visits, if the older man would have done what I'd begged him to do. There was no way to know for sure.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized maybe he wouldn't. Pend had never taken me anywhere other than his Dakota apartment; I hadn't even known he had other addresses. A man like Pend though, I guess I should have suspected.
"Honey, you okay?" Grandmother asked.
"What?"
She touched my hair and stroked my cheek in that motherly way. "You'll be okay honey, I promise you."
The tears started to fall again and Grandmother wrapped me in her arms. She sang to me the same lullaby she'd sung to me when I was a child; it had the same calming effect it had had then.