Konrad Vrdoljiak

Edyta

Tue 01:23AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: She reclined.

Like a panther over looking it’s territory from some high, concealed branch in the canopy of the rainforests.

There was no other way to describe her posture on the couch that had been pulled up to the bay windows (without much of a view). Legs stretched out, an arm lazily draped along the back of the seating with a cigarette smoldering between two fingers. The other held her customary glass of red wine, the bottle on the floor near by. Much like the ashtray. A wedding ring on one hand and her hair unbound. Clad in a black satin bath robe (some things never change).

A placid (deadly) beast at rest.

…If you discounted the gun by her thigh, cocked and loaded.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 01:49AM
to Edyta: The days are still warm. Still humid. The last gasp of summer and its storms, the hurricanes lashing spirals over the wide sargassos.

The days are warm, but the nights are cold. It's autumn now, the equinox past, the harvests drawn from the fields. In the black beemer cruising quiet down the empty late-night street, where everything is soft leather, brushed steel and high-grade polymer, there is no need for air conditioning. The droptop is up against the slight possibility of rain. The windows are slightly open. The scent of the sea laces this place and seeps into the cabin, insinuates into the senses like a whisper.

A left on Dorchester. Two blocks east. Another left. Park at the curb.

The car door opens. Expensive car. Expensive door. Expensive sound: snick. Konrad climbs out and, with barely a glance for the street number on the building (he knows where he is. he knows who he seeks.), strides into the lobby. Dark slacks. Dark shirt, matte black, knit, longsleeved but loose, heavy but thin. The fabric falls well from powerful shoulders, skims powerful chest, powerful back.

Powerful. It's a good word for him.

A click on the remote arms the alarm: the horn toots once and the HID headlights flash blue-white in response. Then the door of the upscale building shuts behind him. In the lobby, the night watchman looks up, and quickly away. There's something about Konrad that's hard to look at for long. Something about those eyes: glittering like gold, like molten metal, hot but pitiless.

The elevator arrives to take him up. The upstairs hallway is richly upholstered, muffling footsteps. Deja vu. Konrad laughs to himself, his gait easy, low, full of animal confidence. The hall is empty. Numbers flash by on closed doors. Even-odd. Even-odd. Even--

ah.
Here we are, then.

The Ahroun stops before the door. It's like all the rest. Identical. The inside is different. Beneath the scent of shower-lotion. Beneath the scent of candles and potpourri, if she was into that sort of thing. Beneath the scent of hardwood and leather: gunoil.

Oh, yes, and her.

He raises his fist. The knuckles are scratched. Konrad isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, and he's had business to take care of recently. A sharp, fast rap on the door, and then he takes a step back to wait.


Edyta

Tue 01:58AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: Languid (but never ever lazy).

Smooth, feline movements (stretch like a cat) with the swish of satin across leather as her legs slide off the couch and the glass of wine was set upon the table beside the gun paraphernalia that had been spread out earlier in the evening (a girl has to have a hobby, after all). She tapped the ashes from the cigarette before setting the smouldering length down on the edge of the ashtray, her other hand moving (automatic instinct) for the loaded gun.

Footsteps on bare floor (prowling) towards the door, a pacing of footsteps across the open living area, before she was against the wall and to one side. An arm stretched to unlock the door and the hand on the door knob, even as the gun was positioned where a hand had knocked on the other side of the door a moment ago. Wouldn’t it be a wonder to be shot on first visit?

I’ll be the one to kill you, no one else will take that from me…

And so the door opened a partial distance; black satin and a slash of olive skin, pale blonde hair and drowning blue eyes.

But not even a registry of surprise at the guest at her door.

“You took your time,” was all that she said, bland and monotone. As loving as a brick.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 02:11AM
to Edyta: The door cracks open and he inhales long and hissingly and slowly, tongue to the roof of his mouth, tasting every last molecule drifting into his lungs. In...

...out.

Only then does he take the time to look at her through the small angle she has allowed him: taking his time, taking his pleasure, taking inventory and laying claim in the pale hair, the olive skin, the high cheekbones and exotic features of eastern europe. Long lean limbs; head to toe.

She speaks. His eyes flicker up to strike hers but he doesn't raise his head. The light is behind him. It gleams off his hair and dusts his shoulders, but his eyes are in shadow, and the resonant hue of dark amber. His growing smile is ever so faint, and it touches only one edge of his mouth - curving like a blade.

[Dangerous.]

The voice is the same, low and smooth with an edge of steel, and devastatingly gentle. "Sona," says Konrad, a command, "invite me in."


Edyta

Tue 02:21AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: The last person to call her by her true name when they hadn’t been invited to had received a tender steel kiss and a bloody smile from ear to ear. They’d never whisper her name again. He, however, had been given her true name and, in some ways, the rights to use it. But only in some ways: she wasn’t his anymore, for all the way that his eyes lingered and took his time across flesh and material, limb and features.

Cliii-ii-iick
The gun was uncocked (she wouldn’t want the temptation to ‘accidentally’ shoot him by mere tap of the trigger) behind the door and she stepped back away from the view that escaped through the partially open door. A nudge of a bare foot and it opened wider behind her as she turned away, gave her back to him, and walked back towards the living area of the apartment.

“Invited,” was all she said, but unless he got her talking, he knew she was rarely once for flowery invitations and long-winded spiels. Padding (panther stalks) back towards the couch she didn’t put the gun down nor did she put the safety on (Full Blood Bastards), keeping it close as she resumed her reclining on the leather couch, staring out the window.

A neutral expression that was impossible to place under scrutiny; there was just nothing there to read.

Ice Bitch Extraordinaire - - warning: Here be colder than Antarctica.

She laid a long arm down the back of the couch, a wedding band on one finger, after the Flicker-Flash-Flame of lighting a new cigarette.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 02:45AM
to Edyta: Actually, it's more like: she begins to resume her recline. Then the glint of gold catches Konrad's eye.
(Pupil explodes huge with adrenaline and fury, wolf-amber the thinnest circle around black voids.)
And Konrad does not share.

The motion is swift and vicious: three in one, one after another. One, her gun struck away with a lashing left backhand. Two, the door kicked closed behind him. Three [ozone stench of rage lingering electric in the air], fur explodes black over suddenly massive body, ear-tips brushing the ceiling even though he stoops to lunge forward with right handpaw, cover six feet of space without moving his feet an inch, grasp her wrenchingly by the shoulder. He drags her on the end of his arm like a man swinging a bowling ball and releases her to crash hard into the couch, which rocks backwards a few inches, almost tilts, and then thumps back down.

By then the Crinos-beast is looming huge before her, fur bristled, teeth bared an inch from her nose, tail whipping with agitation, one handpaw on either armrest, claws sunk three inches into leather and padding. Caging her in.

"So," it's a growl, flat tongue and sharp teeth forcing out human words, grating and harsh. He does not speak in pidgin sentences as most Garou do in Crinos. He opts, instead, to pause often and truncate, "little cat. I planned to ask. Where have you been. And why did you not tell me. That you had returned."

Rearrange, slow and smooth. Massive muscle moving under thick jet-black fur: the right handpaw relaxes - millimeter by straining millimeter - and the claws retract slowly from padding. He touches her face, and so very carefully. He traces the arch of her cheek with one padded finger from cheekbone to chin, gently. Control like iron.

"But see. Now I needn't. I already. Know."

Then his handpaw comes to a rest on her breastbone. Heavy and hot. And his claw touches the hollow of her throat. There's a low rumbling, like thunder, like laughter.

He's furious.
"Who is he."


Edyta

Tue 03:00AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: Breath in. Breath Out.

Pupils flared wide, each like a camera lens to drown the blue like an oil slick with glinting stars reflected from the apartment lights.

Adrenaline…

(…and fear, for what creature could have no fear of a Beast so incredible?)

And something else… Deeper and so much more darker…

Primal.

A grit of teeth, a slight movement of head. Of eyes fluttering across Crinos maw and the dark, deep fur. Darker, deeper places stir. (Blood Lust Calls…)

I want to hunt this animal… to spill it’s blood and entrails…

And this, this is the excitement.

The adrenaline rush intoxicates, like the wash of a drug through a junkie’s system.

(can’t get enough of this shit)

Breath In / Breath Out.

"My families," (it was supposed to be) "‘Assignment’," she replied, half spat out and oh so very cold. Right down the bones, the chill would sit if it could. Drawing out life and robbing a person of warmth. Make them think of things like revenge, death and torment. If only she wasn’t ‘programmed’ so well by her Family to follow their wishes.

She moved only a small amount forward, enough to press the claw resting on the hollow of her throat deeper into the flesh. To eek a small stain of red and a quickened pulse thrumming below the surface of the olive skin, trails of long pale blonde hair streamed across this particular patch of unmarred flesh.

"And he found out about you," she added as one of her hands crept along the dislodged pillowing of the leather couch and slid down one of the crevices, "I follow my orders and my orders were not to contact you." What more can you expect of a Kinfolk trained, brutal and harsh, by the Shadow Lords to do their bidding. To her family, she was another Pawn piece to get what they wanted when they needed it. Traded and bought like any other horse flesh.

And remarkably, she managed to keep her frosty tones throughout.

Against the adrenaline, the fear and the primal urges.

Welcome home, Konrad. You’ve found your ice block.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 03:16AM
to Edyta: She presses forward.
He shoves her back, handpaw at her throat now.

It's large enough to hold a man's skull the way a man might hold a grapefruit. Large enough to crush a windpipe like a reed, and effortlessly, he chokes off her air supply.

It's the look in his eyes that makes people turn the other way: that uninhibited beast lurking inches beneath the smooth black surface. It's that look in his eyes now, unmasked, untainted, unhidden. That hunger. That starvation. That bloodlust.

How close is sex to death? How far is it to go from the thrusting penetration of one to the thrusting penetration of the other?

One wonders if he ever looks at anyone. If he ever looks at her. Without considering, ever so faintly, ever so slightly, ever so distantly in some dark buried primitive reptile part of his mind that was neither man nor wolf but simply monster,

[assimilate.]
( - those straight dull teeth. those graceful shaped nails. that soft skin. those slim bones. those slender muscles, tender meat - )
[PREY-ANIMAL.]

what it would be like to tear her throat out with his teeth.

It's that look in his eyes that could drive a lesser human mad with terror.

"No." He is growling. He is laughing. "No. You do not. Understand.

"I said.
"Who. Is. He."

His handpaw loosens a fraction of an inch. He licks black lips. He lets her breathe. Barely.

"Tell me his name, Sona."


Edyta

Tue 03:32AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: Asphyxiation.

Some people actually get off on that during sex.

A hand wrapped around their throat, choking off the precious air into the lungs, the head rush and dizziness from oxygen deprivation coupled with the fear of death and the adrenaline such fear produces followed through with the sweet highs and peeks of orgasm all rushing to spill into the blood stream.

That power mad rush of control and submission all bundled together, the right of passage of such an act tremulous and oh so very dangerous.

Just like this situation.

Only there was no sex.

No penetrating of flesh (in any manner of thought).

Just a very Crinos paw wrapped around a very Kinfolk neck; a head just ripe for the plucking (-snap.crackle.pop- takes on a whole new meaning beyond a breakfast cereal) and a curl of faintly blued lips back in what could be a human sneer, snarl or just a grimace from lack of oxygen until the windpipe is given some fraction and a breath was drawn in raggedly.

But the lift of lip from teeth didn’t stop there when the air returned.

It lingered, like a bad taste. Like bile in the back of throat that no matter how much you gargle you can’t get rid of it.

"Lukas," she replied, voice grating with husk from spitting the words out around the still-present restriction around her throat, " ‘Crushing Dragons Jaw’," she added as roughly, given the Garou name she’d been told that her Lord husband (master) wore with pride.

And her hand that she’d been questing with had slipped down between two of the leather seat cushions, olive digits wrapping around the hilt of a concealed dagger (The Cat of Knives & Bullets), sliding it out of the hiding place.

Prick. Sting.

The feel of cool, cold and hard edged steel buried through a layer of dark fur and resting against the flesh, ready to plunge between two heaving bones of his rib cage, slice through muscles and organ alike. So very close to his Fury beating heart.

A warning, perhaps.

Dangerous, maybe.

But Death wears many guises, and not all of them Proverbial Shredding Machines.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 03:45AM
to Edyta: Lukas.
Crushing Dragon's Jaw.

Slick of tongue across black lips again. Tasting the name on the air. Tasting her breath. The vise grip around her throat loosens another fraction of a degree.

"Thank you."

He begins to rise. To remove his weight from the couch, his claws from the leather. Her expensive cowhide furniture now sported ten new holes. But that's a small price to pay. It could've been her skin.

And then she (dares.) press a knife to his ribs.

And he? He doesn't quite freeze. No, nothing so sudden nor tense. He simply...stops moving. His eyes - yellow in this form, burning hellhound eyes - flicker down to glimpse the bright blade among dark fur. His chin lowers, his muzzle a black V against the darker, thicker black of his shoulder-ruff.

And he laughs, quietly, an amusement devoid of human compassion. A cutting amusement made all the worse by its gentleness, entirely at another's expense.

"Go ahead, Sona." Again and again he speaks her name tonight. Again and again, as though he liked the sound of it, or perhaps the thought of it. That her true name is Sona. That he knows her true name, and by knowing it, lays some irrevocable claim. "Go ahead. Try it. See what happens."

[...just this once...]

"This time."


Edyta

Tue 03:56AM
to Konrad Vrdoljiak: She just watches him with those black(so much pupil)-blue(that ring of drowning iris blue) eyes for the longest, stretched out moment of time. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. - - just the beat of their hearts. His so large and loud, her own so much smaller. Delicate. As bloody as the rest of her ‘cattle body’.

‘Go ahead’ he says to her. Using her name, laying claim and laughing in her face with that Crinos maw.

Tempting. So very tempting.

Instead there is the feel of the metal sliding along between the tufts of dark, stormy fur and the allergic twitch and itching burn of the one Garou Bane. The blade was laced with a high concentrate of silver. Through fur and serpentine smooth along the skin, over bump if bone beneath skin and the bulge of muscle compact and killing efficient around his chest and up to slip across the fur of his throat.

And Silver… Burns.

Much like Hatred. Love. Passion, even. - - especially hatred.

’Go Ahead.’ he taunted and laughed and tempted, devoid of human compatibility to the sound, but it was a laugh nonetheless.

His words. This time.

Her words: “No.”

This isn’t the dream (made flesh). This isn’t the time.

I’ll have your hide one day, but not because you ‘let me’ …


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Tue 04:21AM
The laughter subsides. Becomes a smile twisting up the corners of the wolven maw. Becomes nothing, fades away.

He's serious now.

He shifts again. Forward. His hand comes off her throat and his forearm rests over the back of the couch. He lowers his weight until he, kneeling on the floor, braced against the couch, is nearly upon her. Even kneeling, he's taller than many would be standing.

A moment passes.
The air is thick as liquid.

Then, very softly, "Dispose of the knife. Or hide it well. I care not which. But if I should see. Hear. Taste. Smell. Or feel it again. Your life will end instantly."

Another pause.

Softer, "As for this." He doesn't need to look down to strike the gold ring unerringly, his claw ringing off the soft metal. "Destroy it. You no longer need it. And I never. Wish to see it again."

His handpaw closes hard around the back of her head and neck, dragging her forward until he could see himself reflected in her eyes.

It's just a whisper. "You are mine." A beat. "And only mine.

"Never. forget. that."

He's gone across the Gauntlet without giving her a chance to reply. All that remains is the ringing of her ears, reaction to the popping of the air rushing to fill the vacuum his simply ceasing to exist creates.