fic thoughts
Drafty BH fic snippet:
He doesn't think she stands a chance. She's young, soft. She's never had to work a day in her life. Her skin looks like milk and he imagines that if he presses his tongue to it, she’ll taste new and just a little sour. He doesn’t taste her. Once he has her away from her mother, he barely touches her except to throw her into her chambers. She stumbles and falls to the floor.
It confuses her, he can tell. Young women like this, they’ve been told what will happen to them at the hands of men like him. They’ve been told, but in this case, they’ve been lied to. He won’t touch her. That isn’t why she’s here. He wants to keep her guessing.
He does it because he enjoys it. He anticipates her terror, her screams, and he wants to relish in them. He never expects that she'll win.
She screams, yes, she screams in fright and in horror, and it’s delicious, but after that initial shock the screams die in her throat, cut off as though strangled. He thinks for a moment that she might faint and he feels disappointment wash over him. The vampires behind him shift, impatient.
How boring. How predictable, this young girl fainting at the feet of a monster.
She doesn’t fall. She bends to the floor and she picks up the knife that he tossed into the cage with them at the start of this. She picks up the knife and when she stands, her eyes have changed. They're hard now, cold, and suddenly Hal realizes that he was mistaken in this choice. This girl isn't soft or easy. She's a survivor. There's a killer in her. It’s been asleep for sixteen years, and Hal has managed to rouse her for the very first time.
When it’s over, when the wolf lies dead at her feet, she drops the knife and clutches at her waist, at her torn gown.
“I’ve been hurt,” she says. She says it as though she’s surprised, as though even here, taken by force and thrown into a cage, even here, death was never a realistic option for her.
“You’ll heal,” Hal says. He smiles. He can’t help it. He smiles and then he starts to laugh. One of the vampires standing behind him starts to laugh too, and then the rest join in.
She’s just seen a man bend and twist and scream. She’s seen him transform into a monster. The smooth young skin of her stomach is as torn as her dress, Hal can smell the blood that spills out of her, yet here she stands. As they watch, she unfolds beneath the sound of their laughter. She pushes up against it, stands tall and straight. Her clutching hand, red with her own blood, is the only indication that she’s wounded.
He wonders if perhaps it’s taken hold already. He wonders if it’s already working on her, changing her, this infection that’s started its race through her veins.
"Why Lady Catherine," Hal says. "What a surprise you've turned out to be."
"What happens now?" she asks.
The smile stretches wide across his face.
I have no idea where I'm going to end up going with this. I'm thinking ... I think this story might be Alex/Lady Catherine, which - well, we'll see. Right now I'm going back and forth between liking the start of it and thinking it's way too close to how things started for McNair. I'm not sure that matters though, considering that it'll end differently, especially if I go the Alex/Lady Catherine route (which I know sounds like time-traveling crack, and it is, but it might work!). Or, hm, even if I do attempt Alex/Lady Catherine, I might end up scrapping this entirely and going a bit more straight forward with the whole thing, just Alex's POV with none of these flashbacks. Decisions!