unbound

Reccing Notes: I lay the blame for this one squarely on nonky. She encouraged me to post werewolf!au!Davis, so I did. I wouldn't have had the courage to post it if not for her. So, take the scholarly, half-in love Chloe from Prey and transport her back some three thousand years. Bring in a bloody attack on hundreds of people and a blood-covered, amber-eyed Davis on a full moon. She is supposed to shoot him through the throat with a silver arrow. She's not giving up that easily.

by vagrantdream at her/my livejournal

2200 words, nc-17, prey-ish au

He was far stronger than she was, and the only other thing she could do was try and hold him down if he actually went into lupine seizures.

You do not need to know how the werewolf came to be. You do not need to pity him. You see his amber eyes and loose an arrow into his throat.
He would rend you. Your blood would spill in a steady pool over the ruff of the dead and he would lap at it. Your compassion would not matter then. In your death, for the barest moment, his eyes would be human again.
-Book Of The Huntress

Chloe found Davis in an enemy camp, the only survivor of a ghastly attack that had left the tents empty and thick with the reek of blood. His skin had been matted all over with flakes of it. Then, dazed and half-alive, he’d taken an arrow in the back for her, a complete stranger. He could have been someone saving lives, as easily as he could have been a werewolf but then he’d healed immediately.
She’d looped an arm over his shoulder; she’d seen the amber in his eyes, soft and wondering. An arrow into the throat would have freed him. She couldn’t shoot.

She vouched for him while twisting Kal’s arm behind his back. You brought him; you take care of him, Chloe. Which lead her to this. Davis was curled up outside her tent, wary amber eyes on the waxing moon. I’m going to change. He was convinced. She was convinced he wouldn’t be one of those soulless creatures tore the throats out of feeble farmers. That’s how they returned to themselves, according to legend, crippled muddy hind quarters and wolf-like man parts.

Chloe settled herself the mud splattered grass, eventually gleaned the courage to reach out to him and catch one off the shivers off him. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and the scratchy blanket over him. “I don’t care if you’re a unicorn. Get in with me.”

“I can’t, Chloe.” Davis was shivering. He was heavier than her meager size too, and it didn’t matter how many leather straps she had, she wasn’t going to bind his arms with a leather breast-band.
He thought he was guilty, the archer wanted to shoot him through the throat, Kal would go with it. The entire camp thought she was getting her throat ripped out tonight. He didn’t even believe in himself. That left her, ever the optimist.

“Please, Davis.” She settled for whispering at him. “If were even going to try to save your life, I need someone to trust me.” Wiping a messy, stray hand through his hair.

When he clambered inside her tent it was a whole lot more crowded than she would have liked. He was not as big a man as Kal, but some off her scrolls jumbled against his arm.
“You wrote all this?” He ran a finger over the old paper in wonder she hadn’t seen from anyone but the young ones, for so long. He probably didn’t understand what the symbols meant, but she scarcely had the composure to say yes.

The sleeping pelt was more than a few thick wolf skins sewn together, thick and heavy. At least it didn’t have fleas. Chloe struggled with it, acutely aware of the darkness and the dangerous shift of his brown eyes over her mouth, the flap closed from the moon now. It was done. Thick fur was warm over parts of her back the straps missed and he’d been out in the rain. Her arms locked over him. Should she lay down over him, next to him, behind him? There was body heat to think of too.

She settled for curling into his shoulder; cool but strong, a strange forbidden comfort in the thick trappings of her hunting clothes, suddenly something very wrong about the confines of them. Davis nuzzled his face against hers, whispered thank you, didn’t turn away. Perhaps, wolves were clingy sleepers. Her skin felt raw, prickling with something wanting to tear its way out. Chloe knew what this was. She’d wanted Kal once, but it wasn’t like this. The thought occurred to her that they must have thought she’d taken him for a mate, out there.

“I like you a lot.” She whispered, barely audible. It didn’t take very much more then, breath mingling across his deeper one, the press of his mouth unfurling the breath in her. She might not have minded if his eyes were amber. She was half-caught under him, his tongue sliding against her mouth. Her nails caught against the pelt. Davis caught fingers into the end of her hair when he stopped and she found herself strangely lost.

“I can’t let you be hurt.” he said. “If it starts, I’ll wake you.” He pressed the bolt of her arrow in her hand. Dead center.
She gave a short, soft sigh and rolled onto her back. “I think my chastity is safe with you, too.”

“It’s happening.”
When Davis woke her his breaths were thick and uneven. It must have been midnight. Her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dark and in a panic she slid her hands to his chest. Human skin, there, a prickle of hair but that was not abnormal. The only thing abnormal about this was his perfectly warm body attempting to tug the flap of her tent open. For a moment, her waking thoughts reasserted themselves. If he went out, he wouldn’t come back alive. If he stayed…

The confines of the tent shook and trembled with whatever had taken him over. Something roared its way out of his throat, wracked him with small volcanic shudders.

“Stop that.”
Davis was too far panicked to listen now, fingers pushing the arrow into the bolt, hands shaking so much that the first one nicked him. He was far stronger than she was, and the only other thing she could do was try and hold him down if he actually went into lupine seizures.

She tried to grab the next one, a small scratch across her knuckles as she broke the shaft... He could smell the miniscule drops of her blood. Now. Too late.

Chloe fell hard on him, suddenly furious at him and this thing in him. Why was it always the ones she liked? She was the kiss of death. She pressed her hand hard into his wracked cheekbone, a pitiful drop of blood smearing across it. She saw bits of pieces of her, only bone and torn tissues and blood pooling on the furs and his eyes brown again. What big eyes you have. He was stunned enough for her to run, and then they’d shoot him. She’d hesitated too long.

His teeth took firm hold of her wrist, stinging sharply enough to make her lose her balance. One rough hand swiped across his face, blood against his teeth. She groped in the dark for some semblance of Davis’s face; found his hair was a little thicker. Maybe… His nose nudged at the hollow of her throat again and he growled lowly, almost like a prized pet. The frequency of it sent a pleasant tingle all the way to the pit of her stomach. That was it; she had to pet him all night?

She reached up explorative fingers to his neck, half relieved not to find a massive crest there. He had that curious mark on his neck still that told her he was a man, not… He touched them with his lips, a quintessential human motion. His eyes were Davis’s eyes, perhaps not entirely, just rippling under the surface.

“I’m cold.” She didn’t know if he could understand. His eyes watched her curiously as she gathered the warmth of a skin much like his over her. If he changed into that, the sight of the dead reminders didn’t make him lose hold of his tenuous grip. He even let it settle on him, not for long before flipping over, warm against her back. She had a functional uniform for hunting, but the straps were digging into her shoulders. She felt two press hard, chafe against her breasts before snapping. Chloe braced her knees on the ground, anticipating the smallest touch. Maybe this was his way of returning the favor. She didn’t feel it yet, nothing but the warm weight of him against her back. This was how animals copulated.
Maybe…

Chloe hissed out a breath at the hard, uncontrolled press of lips against her neck. The last one was gone. She felt him at last, gentle probing fingers, the slow coaxing of an alien feeling inside her body. Chloe had heard enough about women or men who spread their legs in stories around the camp fire, and when they chose to do it. Lois pounded a hand over the backs of those green enough to cough up their grog. If this was all then… Davis stopped, and then it was different, more. He licked his hand, her mouth and when he started again his touch and the wet sliding sounds of it left her voice too raw to scream.

Her head forced itself back when he jerked into her. Blunt and sharp and a hundred things she couldn’t name. She felt skin tearing. Davis took his hands away and wrapped his arms around her, panted soft, crooning syllables into her ear. Chloe scratched at his arms in the fury of it. He didn’t stop, slower, not painfully blunt now, sliding deep enough into her that she needed more, more until she tore to pieces. It felt as if her throat had been torn out long ago.

It was not unlike death. There was the fight of it, grinding up against him in an ecstasy of adrenaline and conflict, the pained death rattle as her head arched and rubbed into his shoulder. There was surrender when his voice broke-a ragged, ebbing howl and he seemed to tense up inside. She looked back at him- saw his eyes for glancing seconds. Vaguely, her mind registered that the color of them was dark shifting through her vision. She moved to him and the weight of him was thick. Chloe came in sobbing, jerking gasps with him between her legs, arms around her, thoughts swept along a frenzy of heated pleasure.

Chloe felt the blood pounding behind her eyelids. Felt herself slump onto her elbows, spent as he retreated. Her scalp prickled, hair tugged between his teeth. Her eyes slid shut-struggled open. She tried to loosen his grip so she could roll over, get warmer. She ended up winding her arms around him. His eyes were half-comprehending, careful. His skin burned to touch. She pulled the pelt back with mercifully slow fingers. It was as it should have been. Only, her blood trickled down her thigh, dyed brown fur crisp and red. Blood like from a woman’s menses… She scrabbled back. Surely, she wasn’t...

Werewolves picked up the trail of blood. He was going to follow. She lifted her hands to stop him, only shoved him once. He wasn’t aggressive, nose nuzzling into her skin, tongue rough and warm and licking it away. Desire burned through her like it couldn’t have if she was broken.
When Chloe finally drifted off- warm skin tickling at her nose, thick furs wound awkwardly over her back and hands on his skin, the vague blood-smell was still in the air.

The sunlight streamed over Davis’s half-closed brown eyes. “I told you. “ She said, no need to say anything more. This time, she felt like she’d mattered. Davis crawled until his arms were around her shoulders, no fur, no huge teeth, sweat slicking their skin together as he hugged her tight. He slid a hand over her mouth, as if to check to see if she was intact. A chaste touch. He had to remember.

“We are all clear up there?” she asked finally. Her heartbeat still felt like it had been jolted from miles of headlong flight. No virgin left to set herself up as a sacrifice. She was dressed in little more than her own skin.

“More than bits and snatches. We-”
His breath hung in the air, a question. He was half-horrified that this had been something beyond the pale and ultimately destructive to them both.

“You’re important to me. I didn’t get to say how much I liked you enough.” Chloe kissed his mouth, hand groping his face in the light. His fingers caught hers, traced their intertwined hands across it, so human it made her ache. He looked at her, and in some bizarre, beautiful way she was not found wanting. “I’m not going to be without this, whatever form you take.” She whispered, half-breathless at his slow, fascinated proximity. “We can stay. You think?”

She shifted her weight back as his hand stroked lightly across the curve of her thigh, inwards, intimate as a kiss. This time it would be just them, no leftover adrenaline, no alter egos.

“I think you’re everything.” That was her first time for that too.
Chloe watched his face shift from gentleness to hot tension as he slid into her. She was already wet, but what did he expect?
“Tell me-tell me-“ Later. All later.

Davis’s eyes burned into her and she could not be afraid anymore. She’d died for a moment, lost control and found she could hold her weight after all. Davis was a good man, her man now; she expected the campfire gossip to say. And- this-this was what happened when she lived again.