Chapter 21
Leonardo watched the silent exchange between her and Raphael. Raphael helped his brothers to their rooms and she turned her attention to him. Her eyes blazed amber. He took a step back. She marched up to him and slapped him hard across the face. His face burned but she had obviously held back because his head was still attached to his body. "Don't you ever do that again." She said in a deadly low voice to him. "Ever. Never offer your life to a Being of Power. I almost killed you Leonardo. I would have killed you and I would never have been able to forgive myself. If I had an ounce less of will power you would be dead and I would not have been able to bring you back. Your brothers never would have forgiven me, and I would have been responsible for the death of a man that I lo..." She cut herself off. He looked at her in shock. She walked away from him as he moved to take her into his arms. There were tears in her storm blue eyes. A man that she loved?
"Don't ask the question that you are about to ask Leonardo. I cannot answer it the way you would wish me to. Ask me instead the question that you wished to ask me."
"But..." He began. She shook her head then looked down at her right arm which was now completely healed. She moved her hand flexing and bending it. His mind turned to the original question he was going to ask her. He wanted to step closer to her. To wrap his arms around her, but she was not offering him any encouragement to step any closer to her."Would you have really ripped your arm off?" Leonardo asked instead.
She looked at him. "That is the question that I was expecting from you." She said looking into his eyes.
"Why didn't you want my brothers to hear what you were going to say to me?" He asked her.
She shrugged. "Your brothers did not need to listen to my anger, and they do not need to hear the answer to your question. Possibly Raphael could stand to hear it, but not Donatello and especially not Michelangelo."
"You are dancing around the question again." He said slightly irritated.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time, it was very badly damaged." She said suddenly.
"But..." He began.
"I feel pain the same way you do Leonardo. Pain is pain, but ripping my arm off would have saved me from having to try to get the bone back to where it should have been." She said tiredly. "But the thought of me ripping my arm off seemed to disturb you, so I opted to do what I did, which was just as painful. At least if I had just ripped it off I wouldn't have continued to feel the pain of the entire arm anymore. The arm was so badly damaged that it actually took more blood to heal it than it would have to re-grow it."
"How would you even know that?" Leonardo asked bile rising in his throat.
She shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. "It would not be the first limb I have had to re-grow." She looked at him. "I'm not discussing it Leonardo so don't ask." She said to him. He felt himself pale.
She gave him an inscrutable look and walked out of Donatello's work room. He followed her and watched as she grabbed a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around herself. Somehow she managed to wrap it in such a way that she looked exactly like how you would imagine an elegant beautiful goddess to look. She even managed to make the soot, ash and blood look good. She then walked over to him and reached out her hand to him. He looked at her hand in confusion. "Have you ever danced Leonardo?"
Leonardo blinked in shock at the question. "No." He replied.
She tipped her head slightly to the side. "No I guess you wouldn't have." She said sadly. "Come dance with me Leonardo." She whispered.
He took her hand in his and she pulled him in close. She showed him how to move his feet and when he got the hang of it she began to hum a tune. The song drifted around him and he felt himself moving in time to the music. "I figured that you would be a graceful dancer." She said to him. Leonardo blushed. "I miss dancing." She said wistfully. "I miss the music, the feel of two people moving as one. I know the waltz is an old person dance, or a wedding dance, but I danced it when it was the most scandalous dance ever brought to England." She said wistfully. "To actually touch the waist and stand so close to your dance partner, why it was positively indecent." Leonardo twirled her around the lair to the tune that was now running through his mind. She was quiet for a moment as he watched her silently. She was looking away from him caught in a memory of long ago. She pulled him closer and leaned her head on his shoulder. He put his head on hers and slowed so that they were barely moving anymore, more just swaying to unheard music. She tipped her head up.
"You smell good Leonardo." She said dreamily.
Leonardo stopped moving as he felt the scrape of canines against his throat. He froze as fear raced through him. She moved her face away from his neck and she gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. Her skin had begun to glow, her eyes a luminous green with a red tinted pupil.
She pulled away from him and he felt bereft. "No I..." She put a finger to his lips and smiled a soft smile at him.
"I would never ask anything from you that you could not give Leonardo." She turned and walked in the direction of the bathroom, pulling the blanket off she dropped it onto the couch. She walked into the bathroom leaving the door open a crack. He heard the shower turn on and watched as steam rolled out from the crack in the door.
He walked slowly to the door and placed his hand on the door handle. He rested his head against the frame as he contemplated entering the bathroom. She had left the door open, but was it an invitation or not? He questioned himself. He stood there a few minutes before finally gathering up the courage to open the door the rest of the way and walk in. He gently closed the door behind him and locked it. Steam rolled around the bathroom, but he could see the blurry outline of her in the steam filled shower. He had entered the bathroom, but now that he was in there he didn't know what to do. She needed his blood, but he feared her bite. He didn't fear the pain, he feared what her bite would do to him. The fact that Michelangelo and Donatello seemed to have lost some of their own will scared him. It frightened him to lose any control over himself, even to give it up to her, for her, it was something he didn't think he could do.
He turned and walked back to the door placing his hand on the handle. He closed his eyes. For her, he could give up a moment of control. He walked back to the shower and waited for her to be finished.
"If you are going to be in here, you might as well come in here and help me." Her voice drifted over the sound of the shower.
He looked at the shower door with trepidation. He stripped himself of his mask, his pants and underwear and stood in front of the shower nude and apprehensive. She opened the door and held out a hand for him. "Really, you've seen mine, now I get to see yours." She said with a smile and half closed eyes. "And no, me waking up naked on top of you doesn't count." He took her hand and she pulled him into the warmth of the water. Luckily for them the shower had been built oversized so the two of them fit without it being too cramped. Her wings took up quite a bit of room. She had turned to face the showerhead. She looked at him over her shoulder and handed him a bar of soap. "Why did I wake up naked on top of you anyway?" She asked.
"Um..." He was trying to get his brain functioning. He fought with his body and failed to get it under control. "Mikey noticed that the black veins faded if you touched us, so we each took turns with you until you woke up." He finally managed.
"Huh." She said pausing in thought. "My body broke down the bad blood expelling it into the air. But I guess my body wanted to touch magic, maybe it helped. Thank you Leonardo. Now if you could get the blood and ash from my back I would appreciate it."
He took the bar of soap in his hand and looked at her back. Her skin was still glowing, it was pale but there was a strip of black down the center. Black scales delicately covered parts of her back and he felt himself grow harder. "You have scales." He whispered.
She chuckled as she began washing her hair with shampoo. "I am part reptile Leonardo, and part many other things." her tail languidly moved from side to side.
He watched as the soap ran down caressing each curve of her back. Muscles bunched and moved and he realized he had never seen anything so erotically beautiful in his entire life. She turned around and began washing the shampoo from her hair. He watched as soap ran down and lovingly caressed the soft curves of her breasts, sliding lower rolling over her belly until it hit the patch of hair between her legs. Pulling on willpower he didn't even know he possessed he worked the soap into her skin, caressing hard delicate scales. He tried to think pure thoughts, but he couldn't. The feel of her skin, the scent of her body, her scent, not the scent of the shampoo or the scent of the soap, overwhelmed him. She always complained that his scent did something to her, well her scent drove him crazy. He closed his eyes and stepped out of the shower. He needed to get away from the temptation of her. He stumbled from the shower grabbing a towel and wrapping it around himself.
He leaned against the door to the bathroom watching as she turned the water off and wrung her hair out. She was watching him intently.
"I'm sorry I..." He began but stopped as she stepped from the shower. His brain stopped working.
He watched her walk towards him, hips swaying, each movement sensual and dripping sex. She stopped before him breasts almost brushing his chest. She tipped her head to the side assessing him. She smelled him which should have been disconcerting, but for some reason he found alluring.
"I can smell your desire Leonardo, I know you want to touch me, so why do you deny yourself?" She asked him, eyes glinting red.
"Because I..." Have no idea what I would even do. He finished the sentence in his head.
She pressed herself up against him. She tipped his head to the side slightly. Her breath was warm on his neck. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain to come. He tried to slow his breathing and accept what was going to come. Canines scrapped against his flesh. The feeling was oddly erotic. She turned around, throwing her arms around his neck, her ass pushed into the hardness of his groin. His hands travelled down the sides of her body of their own volition. They slid back up and cupped her breasts running his hands over them, enjoying the sensation. His own mouth went to her neck as he nuzzled her and lightly nipped. She groaned and his control shattered. He knelt down and picked her up, towel sliding to the floor. He wasn't going to do this here.
He managed to get the door open and he carried her to his room. He kicked his door shut and locked it. She had haunted his dreams too many nights to count. He lay her down on his bed and kissed her. He had never been with a woman before. Hell he never thought he was ever going to be with a woman...ever. He revelled in her skin. He touched ever inch of skin he could touch. He slid himself down her body and explored between her legs. She was warm and wet and she moaned body arching off of the bed. He stilled as desire raged through him, desire and something else, something primal. That feeling that men experienced when they knew a woman was wet and willing and it was because she desired him. It was him that she wanted. He brought his head down and tasted her and she groaned louder. He knew he was being tentative and probably clumsy, but her moans were giving him more confidence. She pulled him up, wrapping a leg around his leg, his hard length was trapped between himself and her groin. She reached up grabbed his neck brought it down and bit. Pain coursed through him followed by mind numbing pleasure.
She drank and she drank, finally she broke away from his neck and kissed him again. She tasted sweet almost like honey, but underneath was a faint tinge of copper. His blood was on her lips, in her mouth and on her tongue and he had never wanted to taste anything more. It was no wonder Michelangelo and Donatello had kissed her when she had asked. To kiss her was to taste pure bliss. She moved against him and he cried out in pleasure. She broke away from his kiss and tipped his neck the other way. He pulled himself down slightly and felt himself slide between her legs. He was pressed against her entrance and he stopped looking at her. He wanted to slide himself into her depths so badly it almost hurt. He wanted to claim her as his, and if he did she would be his, for an eternity. He looked into her luminous green eyes and knew she wouldn't stop him. He clenched her tightly. He couldn't, not yet. He moved himself away from temptation.
He kissed her again, but she broke away tilting his head and biting the other side of his neck. She began moving in a rhythm against him and the pleasure washed through his like the roaring sea. He plunged his finger into her matching her rhythm. She writhed against him and he could barely hold onto his own control. Finally he shuddered his release as he screamed. Her muscles clenched and she screamed his name.
She pulled away from his neck, blood running down her chin. He wiped the blood away with his free hand. She licked his finger and he shuddered. Spots flashed before his eyes.
"I..." He began but she silenced him.
"Shhh Leonardo. I took too much." She said softly. "It's time for you to o to sleep Leonardo, but first..." She bit into her wrist blood dripped from the wound. She offered it to him and he drank. The blood coursed through him, warming him. The dizziness and spots disappeared and he pulled away from her wrist. He watched in fascination as the wound closed. He was tired. Even with her blood coursing through his veins he felt tired.
"Go to sleep Leonardo. My blood will heal you through the night, I have to see to Donatello and Michelangelo." She said as she stroked his cheek and then kissed him. "I would have stopped you Leonardo." She whispered to him. "I wouldn't have wanted to, but I would have." She stood up and looked at him, eyes glinting red in the semi-darkness.
She walked to his door but paused when he spoke. "Katherine..." He began. She looked back at him. "Katherine please don't leave...us" He managed to say before sleep claimed him.
Authors note: expect more of the same for the next chapter, hope you enjoy!=)