Work Text:
Phyre schooled herself into a bland mask of disaffectation.
One of them had to; and it wouldn’t be Safia, who was nearly vibrating at her side. Phyre herself remained coolly impassive as the brass doors of the elevator slid open, and the sea of partygoers permitted their own festivities in the lobby parted around her.
To the ignorant mortals, a pair of wealthy guests beginning their night. To the ghouls and Kindred staff: The condescension of a lord of the Banu Haqim, trailed by her dutiful attendant.
The Nomad’s ironclad self-control was legend. It lasted nearly half a block before Phyre glanced to her left.
Smirked.
That was all it took.
“...I can’t…I cannot...” It was slow, creeping; but in the end Safia beamed, glee finally beginning to bubble over. “It…worked. It worked, I—Aaaah!”
She actually spun on the spot, hands flying to clutch her head; those stunningly beautiful rapier fangs caught the light as she grinned with a wild, helpless joy.
“She let me go,” Safia gasped in wonder. “She let me go, she just—just handed me to you! Lou Graham gave up—All these years. These—decades. Of the pettiest cruelties. And she finally had something I wanted, something she had the power to—and a lever against you, or—that is, I, I like to think you would—”
“Safia,” Phyre chided gently. Safia, ink still wet on her deed of ownership, waved the interruption off like a buzzing fly.
“—and she didn’t even see it! She gloated while you claimed me—she let me walk out with you!” There was a series of abortive fluttering gestures, before she gave up and flung her arms wide in another round of carefree laughter. “I can’t—I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it! Phyre—!”
“Oh?” Phyre raised an eyebrow, tilting their chin up in an affectionate parody of arrogance. “Surely you did not doubt me, Safia.”
“You? Never.” She rolled her eyes, adjusting her heavy glasses where they’d been jostled by her exuberance. “The mercy of my wise and generous Prince, I doubted…ha. Very strongly, in fact.”
Phyre acknowledged the point.
“Tomorrow evening,” she said. “We will begin transferring your lab out of the Glacier. You’ve spoken with Ryong?”
“Only in passing.” Safia’s voice tightened with alarm. “I do have detailed plans prepared, of course! Very detailed, I've. Mmm. Been trying to get out of the basement for decades—but. Was I meant to…?”
“You were not. It would have been inappropriate.” Phyre waved off the concern. “Provide me with your notes; I will make any necessary arrangements. You will oversee the transition, of course; I would not interfere in your domain. How much did Ryong discuss with you?”
“Oh!” Safia, distracted by her own surprise, took a moment to sort her thoughts. “Well. Only that there’s an office suite in Weaver Tower. Something she believes could be remodelled, into a…better? Modern. Hematology lab. One with more reliable climate control, and…fewer spiders.”
“You are Kindred, Safia.” Phyre tried and failed—badly—to suppress a smile. “Do not tell me you fear spiders.”
“I don’t like their legs, Phyre—!”
Phyre laughed—they had to, they couldn’t help it—but pressed a soothing kiss to Safia’s neck to ease any sting.
“The lab space is on the 21st floor,” they told her. “It is, on paper, a conference room; but it serves mainly as storage and could be made better use of. And I believe the pest control will be more than adequate.”
“You are very funny, Nomad,” Safia said sternly. “I—yes. That will suit. Th-that is—! Thank you. And you…you're sure? I mean. Lou will allow it?”
“You do not serve the Prince,” said Phyre, with casual ease, and satisfaction bloomed in her chest at the way those words made Safia’s eyes sparkle. “It is no longer appropriate to make use of space in the Prince’s own Haven. Weaver Tower is…a compromise.”
“Ah. I see.” Safia laughed faintly. “Well. It is much better, my love. I’ll have to thank Ryong for managing to convince her. Campbell does not remember I exist, I think? Which is much easier to live with. Still. It’s…a bit funny, really. The furthest Lou Graham will allow anything to escape her power: Directly under the nose of her eldest Childe!”
There was an acerbic bite edging into her tone. Phyre agreed entirely; as they began to pass the convenient churchyard, however, she reached behind Safia’s back and took casual hold of an iron fencepost.
A single sharp tug hauled them both in, pointedly flush against the bars. Phyre’s free hand anchored beside Safia’s head—a cage as cold and immovable as the wrought-iron gate itself.
Charged and sudden silence, as they held her pinned.
“There is one name I would hear from your lips tonight,” murmured Phyre. “It is not Lou Graham’s.”
“I—! That...” Safia ducked her head, hands hovering anxiously before settling, at last, on Phyre's chest. “Right. Yes. Of course. I…haaa. I am…not good at this.”
“I disagree.” Point made, Phyre released her and stepped back, offering an expectant arm. When this was abashedly taken, they continued. “You are a delight to me. That is enough; be content.”
“Ha. Mmm. Ahem.” Safia cleared her throat. She was beginning to relax, already carried less tension in her shoulders; when she spoke again, however, her voice was hesitant. “I…thank you, Phyre. For everything. I am more grateful than you know. And I—I will try. To be…worthy. An, an asset to you, not an embarrassment. Only…be patient with me? These… social niceties, the politics of the Camarilla, they—I struggle with them. With…decorum. But…”
“Why do you trouble yourself over Ventrue follies?” Phyre demanded—mildly, without heat. “The expectations of some…distant magister? They are no longer your concern. You are free.”
“Am I!” Safia tittered. “You’re certain? That would be news to…tsk. I mean to say…I would never dream of contradicting my lord and master. But…”
Phyre rolled her eyes.
“I have taken you as my protectorate,” she corrected. “I am entitled in turn to your obedience, and within reason, your loyalty. But to take a lover in thrall is obscene. You are my responsibility, Safia. I do not own you.”
“...Ah.” Safia badly hid a smile. “Well. You do, rather, my love.”
“That is a perversion of ritual.”
Into the long silence, Safia gave a delicate cough.
“I see!” she said, voice suspiciously high. “That is…certainly a…a way, to phrase…”
“Do not giggle,” said Phyre, fondly dry. “I am discussing the sacred.”
The command did not result in less giggling. Shaking their head, Phyre took her hand again and began toying with the ink-stained fingers. Safia held her pens too hard; a hundred years of researching her way through stress had left indents in the dead flesh of her thumb and pointer finger. It was… adorable.
“It pleases me,” Phyre said after a long few moments of tender fussing. “To see you look me in the eye. I would have you let go of your fear. You offer apology for the air you use to speak.”
Safia cringed at the summary, ducking her head to hide. Phyre allowed it; but they traced a coaxing circle on the back of Safia’s hand as well, holding her attention, drawing her back.
“I do not…fear you, Phyre,” Safia confessed. “Not anymore, at least…? You are—hah. But I don’t think you would hurt me.”
“Good. I am glad to hear it.”
“The rest, the confidence, I…do you know, I have been Kindred near a century and a half now? I hardly like to think of it. And I have had Gideon at my side, for nearly as long; and he wants much the same as you. Only. It is…they are long habits, Phyre. Well-learned. Give me time.”
“Your lord has no objection to your conduct,” Phyre murmured. “Still. Sweet as it is to see you tremble, little rabbit…I desire your happiness more.”
Safia watched Phyre’s fingers dance over her palm and bit her lip. The point of one fang dragged over soft skin, caught, pinched, stretched; testing the delicate curve. An ivory saber edge threatening at any moment to cut, to pierce—to finally break the surface tension and draw blood, slide cleanly into yielding flesh—
“You will stop that,” said Phyre, voice low and rough. “Unless you intend me to discard the Masquerade entirely, and have you where you stand.”
Were her body still capable, she suspected Safia would be blushing scarlet. “Promises, my love.”
That was a taunt. Worse than a taunt it was a challenge, and Phyre rumbled deep in their chest at the temptation of meeting it. Promises? They had not yet begun to make promises worth keeping.
I will mark you, they swore. I will score your sides and lick your screams from my talons. But not until you beg for it, sweet girl. Not until you forget space and time and cry to me in your mother tongue for mercy I will not give—
Alas, that there were so many eyes on this street.
She growled, “Do the mortals in this city never rest?” Then, frowning: “Where is it you are taking us, Safia?”
“Oh!’ Safia jumped slightly, glancing around before making a vague gesture. “I had thought—the park? Or—would you prefer something else? It is your victory, after all. The Kindred venues should be open, still. Staffed by ghouls, but…which is a marked improvement, actually, in many cases. The Makom, without Fletcher! Imagine. Atrium might even be tolerable—”
“Safia,” said Phyre patiently. The anxious babble stuttered to a halt. “I would enjoy the park. If you would care to join me?”
Embarrassed, Safia tucked herself closer against Phyre’s side. “I—yes. Happily.”
Phyre clicked her tongue. “Such obedience.”
“But of course,” said Safia primly, fighting her own grin. “I live to serve.”
“Mmm.” Phyre raked a heated, appreciative look over Safia’s body, watching as her chest hitched on a breath she didn’t need. “I would hear much more on that subject—but perhaps, in better privacy. Was that the reasoning, behind your choice? Or merely to enjoy the beauty of nature?”
“I…” Safia coughed. “Can it not be both…?”
It could, Phyre acknowledged. But it wasn’t. She hadn’t even meant anything by the question; but Safia’s sudden cagey awkwardness, the way she was avoiding eye contact…
Safia seemed to realize it. She winced; then, hesitant, explained, “I used to come here…oh, all the time. To get away from the noise. And the… expectations. With—with Gideon?”
Phyre tilted their head, interested. “Go on.” When Safia responded with naked relief, they frowned slightly. “You expected disapproval?”
“Well, I—some would assume—and the nature of Kindred, especially after—not that you would! Of course…! Only—if you were the type of elder to—that is, were jealousy in your nature—”
“Calm yourself,” said Phyre. “And explain. You have given no offense.”
Safia sighed.
“You—it’s not a criticism, my love. I only mean to say—you did tell me. That you did not wish me to speak any name tonight but yours?”
Oh, the Tremere hierarchy had much to answer for. Tremere and the damned Ventrue; though that was, at least, unfair to Ryong.
Too heavy a conversation for a night of joy and possibility. And it was Phyre’s prerogative, now, to lift Safia’s burdens where they could. So they set aside the protective—possessive— anger, and nudged Safia with their shoulder; gentle but playful, purposely light.
“I believe I said,” she said drily. “That I did not wish to discuss Lou Graham, when my time could be better spent choosing how best to ravish you. You are welcome, Safia, to do me the insult of comparison to your beloved mate of a century.”
Safia laughed out loud, a rush of releasing tension. She shook her head at herself. “I—forgive me. A moment of…I apologize. For my…insecurities.”
“You are forgiven.” Phyre inclined her head in a gracious nod. “Now obey me, and tell me more of what this place means to you.”
The way Safia’s eyes softened would have taken their breath away, once.
Quiet but no longer hesitant, she gestured to the darkened landscape with a smile. “There was a time when we would find a reason to retreat here nearly every night. Not to hunt! It was…a sanctuary, of sorts. No nightlife, but too many eyes to be of use to the bootleggers.” She paused. “You…do know about Prohibition?”
“I was being hunted by Sabbat across Morocco at the time,” said Phyre blandly. “But between Fletcher and your Malkavians, I have been made familiar with the period.”
“Right! Of course.” Safia blinked. “...You were found in torpor in Damascus.”
“Yes.” The observation was bone-dry. “I would also like to know how that happened. Continue.”
Safia had, briefly, a dog-with-a-bone expression better suited to Fabien. After a moment she visibly shook herself, however; and Phyre slipped an arm around her waist as she wrestled her thoughts back into line.
“R-right. I…was saying?”
“Your Gideon,” Phyre prompted gently. “He courted you here?”
Safia seized on the reminder. “It was—the only time I did not have a role to play. There was so much…scrutiny, back then, even when it was not outright suspicion. And Gideon…oh, Phyre. He has always loved his gardens…to see things bloom and grow. Ha—like Fabien, I think. He keeps greenhouses, you know, on the roof of the casino; but they must be tended by ghouls. Which is hardly the same.”
“The immortality of our kind is cruel.”
“Mmm. But not here.” She trailed a hand through the bare branches of an overhanging shrub, as if seeing life in bloom that would not exist until spring. “It was…peaceful. To speak without having to measure every word was…and we were able to share so much! Most of these plants have no alchemical use, so I knew little of them; but Gideon could tell me their names, their histories…and on the occasion I was familiar, he was always fascinated. And we would…design little riddles, trade them as we walked. He donates generously to the conservatory, now. In, ah.” She cleared her throat. “In exchange for the occasional night tour, or…well, not all of their research is strictly public, these days, not that they know it.”
A fond sigh. Perhaps a hint of wistfulness, but not regret. Her body was soft and relaxed, in the circle of Phyre’s arm.
“We grow, we change,” she observed. “A century of familiarity can…and the city has shifted, as well. Whatever my differences with Magister Thorn—at Wake The Dead I do at least have somewhere to be, as Safia. Other than the lab, I mean, or huddling as a refugee in the back offices of the casino. Not that I ever felt unwelcome, of course.”
“Do you still visit together?” Phyre asked. “The park.”
Safia smiled.
“Sometimes,” she acknowledged. “At first it became weekly, then perhaps once a month, though that was decades past…but yes, we do still make the time. On special occasions, mostly. When he is feeling nostalgic, or concerned for me, or…when we have something to celebrate…?”
She could not have been more obviously angling for something, and the look she shot Phyre was hopeful. So they indulged her, sliding one hand suggestively along her flank and shifting just slightly closer at the hip.
“Oh?” they murmured, lips pressed to the sensitive skin behind her ear. “And have we cause for celebration, tonight…?”
“Well,” she said, and something in Phyre perked up its ears at the playful undertone. “Should I not be glad of my new patron? We went to so much effort! And I…look forward, to the chance to serve you. My lord. In…whatever capacity, you…?”
Phyre could have laughed. It was a fumbling, amateurish attempt at flirtation—but the awkward sincerity of it melted her dead heart. Safia did want so desperately to be known. So she merely smiled, and looked up with hooded eyes.
“Can it really be called service, Safia? When you beg for the privilege.”
“Phyre,” Safia warned her.
“You will not leave your knees unless ordered,” Phyre teased. “I must pull you from me by the hair like a woman possessed—”
“Phyre—!”
Phyre chuckled low in their throat. Safia had hidden her face in her hands; they reached out and pointedly reclaimed one, pressing a kiss to the palm as an apology. Then another. And another, all pretense of altruism abandoned, mouthing at her wrist in open hunger.
“Oh,” breathed Safia intelligently. Then, as Phyre’s grip tightened, turned her wrist to expose it, tongue laving along the dead vein: “Harder—”
Phyre froze dead. Raised her gaze, very slowly, to lock eyes with her prey.
Whatever was in her expression—unfiltered desire, a predatory glint, the shadow of the monster—Safia quailed in the face of it.
“If—!” she squeaked. “Only if you want—! It’s just, you’ve never asked, or, or…tried. Which makes sense! Of course! It’s not, ha. As if I have anything to offer, not to you, not—in terms of power, I mean. Anything to be gained from my Blood is, would be—nothing you do not already have, I know.”
She moved as if to step back, but Phyre’s hold was iron.
“It’s just—it’s only that I would not deny you. Anyth—”
“I am trying, Safia,” said Phyre softly. “To be romantic.”
Safia whispered an apology, which Phyre ignored entirely.
“It would not be respectful,” they murmured. Took a deliberate step forward, holding Safia in lockstep, in a caress of steel. Walking her steadily backward. “To have you against a tree—make you scream to the open air, bleed you in my arms, take your pleasure until it sated me—”
Safia made a softly wrecked noise.
“...would be hardly the behavior of a gentleman.”
“I see—” The words came out several octaves too high, and Safia swallowed. “I see. Then, perhaps—”
Phyre shoved her.
There was an undignified scramble. Safia was no combatant; but she was Kindred still, with Kindred reflexes, and did not stumble easily. She would have caught herself—but the Nomad wanted her to fall, and she had no chance. A sharp push, the sweep of telekinetic power; a leg slotted casually into place…
Safia Ulusoy yelped and landed on her back in a tulip bed, one knee hooked around Phyre's hip as they pinned her wrists to the frosted soil.
“What noises you make for me,” Phyre purred, and buried teeth in her throat.
The Blood of Tremere is weak, it was said, and not without reason. There were some who claimed the warlocks’ vitae had always been soiled, reduced, lesser than in true Kindred; that much, Phyre knew to be false. And yet generations of layered and interconnecting blood bonds had taken their toll. It left the taste thin and astringent, so confused by its thousand conflicting demands that the richness and promise it should have held was diluted…
…but thaumaturgy was not the power Phyre sought from the bite.
Safia gave a single broken cry, then went limp like a scruffed kitten. The bite was shallow; sufficient only to wake that surge, the hunger of desire, the ache to be consumed. Phyre swallowed less than a mouthful before licking the wound closed. It was enough.
More than enough. It left Safia, barely touched, already pliant and panting with her throat bared shamelessly to the night. Phyre ran their palms up the girl’s thighs—laughing quietly at Safia’s eagerness, sliding a cooperative skirt out of the way, snapping an elastic band by touch as an afterthought—and pulled back only to let down their hair so that it could be pinned aside more securely.
“No,” protested Safia. Phyre paused, nonplussed; but Safia just pushed herself up on one elbow to reach, still visibly dazed, for their belt. “I can—I should—please, my love. Will you not let me…?”
“Ah.” They relaxed. Finished putting up their hair, and trailed a smoldering gaze over their prize. “You wish to serve me, as you put it?”
“Always,” breathed Safia.
Phyre couldn’t keep the fondness from her voice. “How entitled. Already my pet forgets her place.”
“Wh—” Safia spluttered, affronted. “I didn’t! I only—!”
The protest faded to an indignant mumble as Phyre’s tongue pressed between her lips, kissing her silent—and then harder, harsher, into strangled moaning submission. They ran an affectionate hand through Safia’s hair; then seized her by it, dragging her to the ground, holding her in place.
“Greedy creature,” they crooned, openly adoring, into her mouth. “You drank freely from the vein of an elder; was that not enough? Are you still not satisfied?”
“L-let me repay you,” she begged. “Please—”
“Behave,” said Phyre. “You have had your taste.”
This time, the bite was no sweetly-rousing trifle.
Phyre was the Elder ascendant; her fangs plunged deep, and she pulled. Hard and rough and claiming, a beast in rut, the girl had worn this dress on purpose, she had known what she was doing—Phyre growled, twisted, flexed her jaw into the hold; tearing deliberately, turning the pinpricks to lacerations, flooding her open throat with the cool burn, the sour vinaigrette of Tremere blood—
Safia keened. Little claws worked their way inside her lord’s shirt, clawed blindly down Phyre’s chest.
That was not the diffident submission expected of her; Phyre allowed it. They could taste Safia’s heady bliss at being used, made use of, wanted, belonging to, owned—and it spiked deliciously at the touch of a hand between her legs. Two slick fingers slid easily to the hilt, then a third—then the two again, at a sound that was more pain than pleasure—as they thrust into her, inhumanly powerful, snarling with every surge, an unnecessary addition to an already shattering euphoria—
Phyre broke the Kiss with a gasp.
“You want to give me pleasure?” she growled into Safia’s ear. “Give me yours.”
Then they ducked beneath a wine-colored skirt, and took.
In their centuries the Nomad had bedded countless beautiful women, and plenty of beautiful men. They knew a thousand ways to please the flesh…and applied them methodically.
This was no courtship; Safia’s parting under them was abject surrender. Weak, helplessly willing, staggered from the Kiss, and Phyre kept her there. Kissed the girl merciless and deep, spread her for their tongue; ground her against their thigh until pain bled freely into pleasure. Held her to the knife’s edge with four hundred years of experience, the artistry of a master, the vicious precision of an assassin.
Phyre drank their fill as if starved from torpor. Safia was a picture in submission, a masterpiece; she offered herself with all the sinful piety of a sacrificial lamb. Such a desperate, pretty thing beneath the sorcery; sweetly delirious, raw need laid bare...
Kindred did not easily tire. Nor did they need to breathe. She dragged her prey from peak to reeling peak without pause or quarter until it writhed, until there were bloody furrows gouged in the dirt, until Safia no longer knew what she was begging for and her teeth scraped along Phyre’s jugular, too weak to break the skin—
“You are,” Phyre groaned against Safia’s ragged throat. “Exquisite.”
“Yours,” Safia mumbled; the words slurred against each other, less than a whisper, barely coherent. “Yours, anything, love—my love, regnant, my lord, my prince—”
Dangerous. Dangerous to allow, even once, even—especially—for the Nomad’s paramour, even in a kiss-drunk fantasy…but she could not quite bear to give the correction it warranted.
She chuckled, instead, and dropped a lazy meandering line of open-mouthed kisses along her lover’s jaw.
“Energy enough to speak treason,” she noted. “I can put it to sweeter use.”
“Please—” The word was nearly a rasp. “You—if you—”
“Yes?” Phyre curled long fingers inside her; watched still another orgasm spark in Safia’s wide dark eyes before they rolled back in the wave of it. “Speak.”
“You’re going to kill me, Phyre—”
“Am I.” Phyre dropped their voice deliberately. “I have not yet begun.”
Safia laughed—high and unstable, breathless, more than a little hysterical.
“Mercy,” she gasped through a smile, nerveless fingers fumbling at the pendant of Phyre’s tie in an adorable attempt to cling to them. “Mercy, Nomad, have…”
“Ah, and you plead so charmingly,” purred Phyre. “But is that truly what you want, Safia? You can take more. You can bear it. I will give it to you, if you beg.”
Safia brought up one trembling hand to stroke, clumsily, at Phyre’s cheek. “Dawn, my love—”
“—is hours of indulgence away.” Phyre caught the hand at her jaw and kissed the shivering fingertips. “How lovely you look. Bloodied in the snow beneath me, imploring my mercy…”
And for all her lover’s teasing, utterly spent. Safia barely even reacted to the attempt at further seduction, and Phyre softened. Turned her hand in their own and dropped another kiss, chaste, nearly genteel, to the knuckles.
“Forgive me. Are you thirsty, Safia? You needn’t hunt. I will bring you something suitable.”
Safia shook her head against Phyre’s chest. That much was no surprise; she had feasted on the ancient strength of the Banu Haqim only hours ago. But it was courteous to offer.
Stirring slightly, Safia mumbled, “You don’t…have to…to do that, Phyre, I…”
“I thought,” said Phyre with mild humor. “That I would not leave you like this. In the middle of a public park.” They glanced up; Seattle had apparently just entered an unseasonably warm January. “In the rain.”
Unaccountably Safia flinched. As if from a phantom blow, or some unexpected humiliation.
“You—I’ll, I’m fine. Please. You don’t—coddling. I don’t need to be—”
Ridiculous creature, Phyre thought tenderly. They hushed her, nuzzled reassurance against her temple, and held her close. Pressed their weight into Safia’s body until the worst of the shaking had stopped. Until it was only the occasional tremor; and then, slowly, even that faded to the peaceful stillness of a corpse.
“Lovely,” Phyre repeated into her hair. “And you will look lovelier still, when I have seen you bathed and wrapped in blankets before a fire, like the treasure you are to me.”
Safia clicked her tongue; but she sounded merely embarrassed, now, with no edge of shattered glass.
“Phyre.”
“You have more beautiful eyes,” Phyre murmured, “than I have seen in four long centuries.”
“Oh…! Oh.” Safia blinked, wearing an expression of delicate wonder. “You…you mean that.”
Holding her gaze, Phyre inclined their head.
Safia swallowed. “I see.”
“Come,” said Phyre. “Stand. My Haven is not far—”
Slim fingers tightened in the fabric of her shirt. Phyre paused obediently, eyebrows lifting nearly to her hairline.
Safia looked up at her—dark eyes devastating in their power, what a weapon Phyre had given this woman—and offered a shy, inviting smile that contained just the barest flash of fang.
“...Once more, perhaps,” she decided. “Gently? If…if my lord will indulge her servant.”
Phyre’s eyes glinted.