Konrad Vrdoljiak

Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 10:12PM EST
He hasn't come in by the door since the first few times. In fact, he hasn't come in at all recently. Nonetheless, tonight her sofa is empty one instant, and occupied the next. In between, only the slightest pop! of the weave of reality tearing, refusing. One of these days he'll get careless, forget to peek first, and pop in at a very inopportune moment. One of these days...

Sitting forward, he combs his hands through his hair. Tiny bits of what looks like frost-strewn spiderwebs fall to the floor and do not so much melt as they simply fade slowly away. He dusts more of this odd glistening material from his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his thighs. Then, groomed, he sits back on the sofa and watches her if she can be seen; watches the furnishings if she cannot.


Edyta

Fri 10:18PM EST
One of these days he will materialize in front of Mark and this little slice of the world will be forever changed.

Something would have to give...

It would no doubt be Mark's blood from his veins.

One of these days he will materialize and come face to face with the cool harsh metal of a gun barrel.

Something would have to give...

His brains.

Or...

Her life.

It could actually be a coin toss on which one, even if he was Garou and she - mere Kinfolk.

Watch out for the human...

She had been crossing the open plan living space of the lushly appointment apartment, from bathroom towards the kitchen and no doubt with plans to head back into the bathroom.

Until he appeared, materialized, popped into existance.

And disrupted her evening plans.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 10:27PM EST
Motion from the corner of his eye turns his head. He watches her heading for the bathroom and, presumably, stopping to face him.

Konrad doesn't say anything. He shakes his fingers clean of patternweb and leans back, steady and smooth in a way only extraordinary strength could give and explain. His arms spread along the back of the sofa; his tawny eyes passing over her from blonde head to oliveskinned toe. The hue of those eyes is not as she remembers, if she bothers to remember what color her lover/mate/business partner's eyes are. The color of those eyes can never be remembered accurately, for they change minutely from instant to instant, day to day, light to light and mood to mood.

They are dark as they linger on the curves of her sleek body and, as they rise to her face, lighten as the weave of his eyelashes lift. They were rich, nearly a cider tone; they are pale now, low-carat gold, thin amber.

And the edge of his mouth lifts, one side first, then the other. "Darling," he greets her. It's the sort of endearment he would use with his women, affectionate without any true affection. It's not the sort of endearment one would use with her, though. "Did you miss me?"


Edyta

Fri 10:34PM EST
"As much as a botched backyard hystermecomy," she answered as she paused in the movement from metallic sheen kitchen, across deep stained and polished wood living room floor with the goal of the cool polish tiled emenities of the awaiting bathroom.

Bottle of wine in one hand, pack of cigarettes in the other.

Water in one hand, fire in the other.

It was like being pressed up against the smooth burning surface of an artic glacier, the temperature drop of the room as it now stood.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 10:47PM EST
"What a thing to say," he murmurs, laughing. "So unrefined."

It's hard to say what it is. Something about the timbre of his voice, a little rougher-grained than usual beneath the smooth veneer. Something about the enunciation of his words, sharper in the internal consonants, a tad, a mite blurrier at the external. Longer vowels. Lower vowels. It's hard to say what it is that tips her off, but she knows it - he's had a few drinks already.

He's come for a few more.

The hand closer to her, stretched along the top of the sofa, turns palm-up toward her. The fingers curl just briefly, and just once in beckoning so subtle she may have missed it. Glacial or not, he is apparently difficult to deter once set on his course. And anyway, once you've had a woman in your bed, how glacial could she possibly be after?

(Very.)


Edyta

Fri 10:55PM EST
She was in no place to comment on his indulgence in the fermented beverages.

Wasn't she carrying a bottle of wine in her own hand?

Wasn't it pretty easy to guess that she would have finished it to herself by night's end?

She looked from his hand - that faint curl of his fingers - to his swathy features. An elegant arching on one eyebrow and a slow exhalation through her nose as she crossed the living room, feet padding silent against the polish floor, and placed the bottle of wine on the table edge.

She wasn't a dog (he was).

She stayed at the table edge, tearing the corner of the soft pack of cigarette open and discarding the metallic and plastic into the ashtray before tapping one of the cancer-inducing vice-sticks from the tight confines of the wrapping.

Rasp. Flicker.

She touched the small lighter flame to the cigarette, the end igniting with a hellish orange glow that flared brighter as her lungs sucked in the poisonous fumes (cancer consumes my soul, my cells; nictotine stains spread). She tossed the light idly onto the table top...

Then...

(and only then...)

Does she grace her mate with her presence.

Antartica has nothing on her when it comes to frost bite.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 11:10PM EST
It's the wine he was after. Gentleman that he is, he wouldn't dream of touching her until she showed herself receptive, after all. He doesn't dream of touching her much at all, in fact. She is, after all, colder than Antarctica.

The wine, then. It doesn't escape him that she's set it on the edge of the table where he must reach to snag it. His tawny eyes are on hers, locked, and at length a small smile curves his mouth and he coils-uncoils forward, joints opening, lean powerful animalistic form stretching slow and easy to snag the bottle in one swift and economical snap of the fingers.

She isn't a dog.
He's neither dog nor wolf nor man.

Leaning back then, the cushions hissing under his body, he pops the cork and tosses it on the table. "Thank you," he says, softly and ironically. "You're even colder than usual tonight," he remarks after his first sip straight from the bottle. "A bad day in the darkroom? Latest portraits didn't turn out right?"


Edyta

Fri 11:21PM EST
Love the packaging, can I return the gift?

She was a pleasent piece for the eyes to rest upon, but the whole image ruined as soon as she bothered to open her mouth. She didn't talk all that often and when she did it wasn't hard to see why not.

Poison of a viper's tongue.
Cold coils of a dragon.
. . . . . . . . and
Lightning strikes of an Asp.

She wrapped one olive hued arm around her waist with a brush of skin (so warm, so cold) against the unrelenting black sheen of the satin bath robe loosely belted with a sash. The slanted V of satin hugged the back of her neck and slid down her torso, spread open to her sternum and feathering barely to conceal her breasts.

She hadn't been expecting company.

But why hide the soft (luxuriate in me) skin that had already been seen?

She watched him drink from the bottle and just remained ever silent.

Ever poised.

Ever waiting.

Ever cold.

Ever resilient.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 11:33PM EST
She watches him. And he, with his animal eyes, watches her.

At last, he sets the bottle down beside him, wedged between two cushions in the couch, fingers wrapped loosely about the neck. Silky-soft, gentle and merciless and mocking as usual, as ever, his eyebrows lift and his mouth smiles and he asks, "Aren't you going to answer me, Sona? Why so cold?"

Such a fascinating voice he has. Precision of diction and enunciation slurred by familiarity of usage. Long American vowels just barely shortened by a touch of British tutors, East European nobility. No actor, he, pretending to uppercrust accents he had never used in his life.

And such a fascinating way of moving he has, swift and smooth as one would never expect: lashing forward like a liquid whip, setting the bottle down with a click of glass on glass even as he's already, and in the same motion, rising to his feet.

"Upset that I've interrupted your quiet evening?" Gentle, gentle, and soft. He could pace around her, staying just within her personal space, exerting his dominance. He could but does not. He paces toward her instead, stopping well within her personal space, or backing her up all the way to the wall if she steps away. "Upset that I didn't interrupt sooner? Upset that I turned you down the last we met? What is it, hm?" A tilt of the chin; a narrowing of the eyes, curiosity glinting alien within. "What goes on in that pretty head of yours when you look away from me like that? What are you hiding beneath that stonecold facade?"


Edyta

Fri 11:49PM EST
He rose - the eye of a storm just waiting to break and lash all it's fury upon the world. to prove it's worthiness of such a ferocious gift as the Mother gave - and as she had in the past she'd slid her weight evenly across her stance even as she lifted the smoldering cigarette to her mouth, wrapping her lips around the tip and drawing in deeply.

He paced forward - the stalk of the predator that runs through the jungles, the deserts, the forests, the plains, and the mountains all: man and feral as one - and she steped backwards.

He kept coming.

She kept moving.
(back was to a wall)

Cats lash out when cornered, didn't you know?

She dropped her head back against the plaster and paint of the wall and closed her eyes, darkly tinted lashes meeting together in a mutual embrace. She exhaled a toxic miasma of smoke, the whisper of noxious fumes seeping from her lungs and through the lips that spoke with silver blades.

Finally...

She lowered her face, eyes opening slowly in the process but only that a slash of ice blue was visible through the criss-cross of lashes as she peered at him in that same uncanny silence. She lifted a hand and placed it against his chest; palm flat and fingers splayed.

Warm flesh against warming material.

She curled her fingers, tugging at the material of his shirt so that it puckered and gathered into her slowly forming fist. A minor tilt of her head to the side as she lowered her eyes to her hand, drawing him that little bit closer with a pull of her hand against the clothing wrapped up in her (iron)fingers.

Close the distance between man and woman.

So close.

So very far away.

Like a cat that was being affectionate she wove her head from side to side, coming within a hairs breath to material and skin of his throat alike. She breathed out slowly then, warm and lush against his throat(jugular).

Ever tried to scream with your throat sliced from ear to ear?

"You speak too much," she replied finally, soft and dangerous and so much more than any normal(sane) person could include in a tone to speak so few words.

She then...

Pushed back against his chest and het her hand fall back to her side.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Sat 12:18AM EST
She pushes him away and he moves, a motion faster than any human should be capable of. His left hand, his off hand (not that it ever really mattered at all) flashing up in a smooth, furious, strong arc to catch her beneath her jaw and slam her up against the wall, very nearly lifting her off her feet. Change seems to ripple up and down the one corded arm that holds her up against the wall, blunt square nails becoming sharp curving claws becoming nails again; coarse sparser hairs becoming smooth thicker fur becoming hairs again. The lifting moisture of her warm breath cools his throat but does not cool the molten gold furystorm in his eyes.

(Not so civilized after all...)

"You dare too much," he tells her, as softly as she had spoken, as insidiously, "little kočka."

Where her hand had grasped, the material of his shirt - a heavy but thin weave, expensive natural fibres cooling in the air - is bunched and smoothing itself over the slow metronome thud of his heart. It's his turn to lean close, then, the arm thrusting her to the wall flexing at the elbow; that iron hand still holding her skull fast to plaster, two inches higher than her head should normally be held, pulled taut, tilted up to his bestial tawny eyes. She might think he would force a kiss on her now, and more. It does occur to him: to fuck her up against the wall until she screamed, and screamed for more. She can see it in those eyes.

Which lower now; which half-lid, animal and sensual, sensing.

He inhales her scent. Her skin. He is very nearly pressed against her now. His clothes brush hers, and her skin where it is bare. Beneath, the heat of his body, and the heat of hers. Lover: adversary: mate.

(...not so cold after all.)

And he lets her down, centimeter by centimeter, steel grip loosening about her throat and smoothing down her neck, then her body. The back of his hand trails down between their bodies, slides over the skin revealed by the cut of the robe, slips briefly between the lapels, then skims the satin-covered arch of her abdomen and drops to his side. All the while his eyes follow the path of his hand and, after, rises to hers glittering like quartz. Resonant like amber.

You could almost call his tone warm. Certainly, as ever, you could call it gentle. Amused. Pitiless like a beast. "You should be more careful, Sona. You should choose well whom you bait and how."


Edyta

Sat 12:35AM EST
He could have throated her then and there.

Could have.

Didn't.

He'd had her by the throat, precariously lifted and slammed against the wall of her own home. From threatening to considering such nefarious actions. Wasn't it his right?

Slow deep breathing in and out, her ribcage rising and falling under the expansion and slow collapse of her lungs under each strained breath as she lifted a hand to her throat after he had lowered her and released that trembling (deadly) grip.

Her eyes closed as his hand trailed slowly down...

Down over satin.

Down over skin.

The rush of blood through veins; a scalding blaze of heat rising.

She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip slowly and exhaled quietly through her nose.

"Life is risk."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Sat 12:52AM EST
Her eyes have closed. He isn't surprised. Her eyes always close.

And now the right hand has curled about the knot in her robe. Dexter and sinister: right and left. Left to choke off her breath; left for violence. And the right...

He pulls, long and slow and steady. Pulls it apart. Lets it come undone, satin straps falling to trail about her knees, one side longer than the other. Satin folds of the morning-robe slipping slowly apart with every breath. And his back is to the room, and he stands crowding her to the wall: an inch or two between, no more, shadowed by his larger frame.

His hands on her waist, large and rough and warm. His hands slipping around her flanks. He pulls her forward - forward and up, and now she's on her tiptoes again, the mark of his hand on her throat, the brand of his heat on (bare) skin, through his shirt and his slacks. He's strong as some armageddon machine, and as relentless. Unstoppable. Unopposeable.

Life is risk?
"Then look at me."


Edyta

Sat 01:07AM EST
Her eyes open, a slow peel of lashes that come apart like unwilling lovers, to reveal the glacial cool (ocean deep) blues that swirled in a hypnotic dance of flecks and intertwining strands of her iris'. From darkness into the light that streamed down from the track lights that ran a line across the living room ceiling, her pupils flared out, expanding like the focus of one of her much beloved cameras.

Flared out and then bled...

Blackness weeped like an oil spill, through that cacophany of blues and threatening to dominate and conquer.

Artic Glacier.
Raging Inferno.

She balanced on the tips of her toes, dragged forward into her lover/mate/enemy's embrace...

Even then (the scales of height tipped)...

She needed to tilt her head back to stare (not gaze) up.

Blue to umber.

Woman to man.

Sociopath to Predator.

He held her and her own arms rose from her sides where they'd hung loosely, fingers curled into loose (waiting) fists. She encircled his waist, hands (fingertips) meeting at the strong curve of muscle at the base of his spine. Met, married and then splayed against the material (warmth bleeds to burn) before slowly the fingertips dug in, dragging slowly(deeply) across the press of muscles.

Look at me... he'd commanded.

. . . So she did.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Sat 01:35AM EST
And so she did.

And in his eyes, the shifting gleam of hazel-tawny-amber-gold, metallic one moment and organic the next - in those eyes flashes something like satisfaction, gratification. Something like triumph.

Her pupils contract and flare like the lens of a camera: mechanical in its precision. There is much about her that is precise and nearly mechanical. The way she moves. The way she's poised. The way her arms encircle him -

- but not the way her fingertips dig in. Not that.

It darkens his eyes, that insistence of her fingers. And, sucking in a breath, he kisses her - not her mouth (which she would never allow) but her throat, her neck, beneath the arch of her jaw while he holds her nearly off the ground, pinned like a poisonous butterfly to him, one arm tight about her sleek waist while the other strips her of her robe in three. harsh. tugs.

Satin falls in a sleekly gleaming heap. He sets her down. He throws her down on the floor. He divests himself of his clothing in a fury of motion. Stripped bare there's nothing left that's civilized. He clothes himself in the trappings of society and man, but when he moves over her he moves like an animal. The human beast: smooth and powerful, earthy and without grace, forceful, dominating.

Coupling. Mating. Fucking.

And he doesn't release her eyes. Not this time. Not unless she looks away or shuts her eyes.

Amber to blue.
Man to woman.
Predator to sociopath.

Shadow Lord to his mate.