Incubus Dreams - October 27th

[anita_blake]

As Anita wakes up, she makes several realizations.

She is on the floor.

She is on the floor of her kitchen.

She is on the floor of her kitchen, naked.

Slowly, she looks around and sees Nathaniel on the floor at her side, his cheek resting on her thigh. Memory comes back to her, of the hungers, of the ardeur, of the fucking and feeding and memories. Anita eyes dart around, looking for Damian, because Damian was with them, and they land on his form, bathed in sunlight.

Like his pale skin had been dipped in honey, and Anita has the distant thought of how beautiful the vampire looked with his blood-red hair, warm skin, and relaxed features. But the most overwhelming thought was that Damian was bathed in sunlight! She scrambles over to him, grabbing Damian by the ankles, and pulls him out of the sunlight, but then he's awake, screaming, struggling, and Anita panics.

Comments

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard should know better. Theoretically at least. But between everything happening and the pain he doesn't think, just reacts. He counters Damian's bite by wrapping his hand in the vampires hair and pulling him off. He uses a a good amount of his strength to do it too, leaving a how in his upper chest near his shoulder, not just in the shirt but in his flesh and muscle too.

The most imediate show that it was a stupid thing to do is that the arm pinning Damian's shoulder goes limp and he's now struggling to hold the vampire away from him just by that red hair.

[anita_blake]

Anita quickly pushes down on Damian's shoulder. Between that and Richard's grip on Damian's hair, they're able to hold Damian at bay, even if they can't pin him to the floor completely.

She finally hits upon a better idea. "I'm going to put an arm around his neck and control his head," she explains to Richard, moving quickly behind the vampire. She looks down at Richard's hand on the back of Damian's head and remembers for the first time that she's still naked, and that if she does this, it'll put Richard's hand right between her breasts. It's not as embarrassing a thought as it might once have been, but it still takes an effort not to blush.

Anita takes a deep breath and moves quickly, because if Damian sensed her arm before it was fully around his neck, there was no way Richard could move fast enough to stop the vampire from biting down. Her arm slides across Richard's blood on Damian's throat, but before she can get it into position, she gasps as she feels Jean-Claude waking.

[masterofstlouis]

His eyes snap open, and he sucks in a deep breath of air as life returns to his cold body. It's earlier than it should be, he realizes even before reaching over to Asher's body beside him and finding it still lifeless and stiff. There's a brief moment of confusion at that until he recalls that when Asher had returned to the Circus, he'd helped Jean-Claude return Byron to his room to recover and then had curled up beside Jean-Claude for the day.

He feels the surge of power in his head from Anita and frowns. What have you done, ma petite? he asks her, mostly rhetorically. The events of the previous night are still fresh in his mind, and even he isn't entirely certain what they mean.

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

Spitting out flesh and blood, Damian twists in Richard's grasp as much as possible and lunges at Anita again. He doesn't really see hands moving or feel the pain at his scalp from where his hair is pulled in order to keep him from sinking his teeth into Anita. All he feels is the blind urge to attack, even as Anita and Richard both manage to grip him at hair and neck.

Mouth wide and fangs straining, he tries to bite but makes no effort at finding the weak points in his opponents.

[anita_blake]

Anita knows inside Damian's head is no rational thought. There is nothing human in Damian's mind, nothing vampire, either. She's not even sure 'animal' could be applied to him. Anita struggles with Richard to keep Damian from hurting anyone else -- and it isn't just Richard and her, but Gregory and Nathaniel and anyone else should Damian get out.

If this were two hundred, three hundred years ago, Anita knows exactly what words she would have chosen. Demon. Possessed. Damned.

[masterofstlouis]

Damned is precisely what he will be if you cannot save him, Jean-Claude tells her. He knows she's distracted by fighting with Damian; he's opened his awareness of her enough to sense what's going on. But he feels this was an important thing to point out.

[anita_blake]

Anita finally gets her arm completely around Damian's throat and braced against her other arm. She feels Richard letting go of Damian's hair by the way his hand slides out from between her breasts.

The instant Richard lets go, though, Damian springs to his feet, picking Anita up and carrying her along as he pins Richard to the floor. She has neither the weight nor the leverage in this position to do much of anything except possibly break Damian's neck. She's hesitant to do that because she's not entirely certain he could heal that level of damage, or, for that matter, survive it. Decapitation would kill just about any vampire out there; would breaking the spinal cord at the neck count?

Richard has his good arm against Damian's chest, but it's already beginning to shake and buckle. Anita looks around and finds Nathaniel and Gregory at the foot of the stairs. "Nathaniel!" she yells, and the leopard rushes to her side, pulling on Damian's arm.

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

It's a distraction that draws Damian's attention, and ta-da! He has a new target. His earlier injuries have healed and his speed is restored. One second he is struggling atop Richard, and the next he has Nathaniel on the floor. The only thing that keeps him from ripping into the wereleopard is a shift of Anita's weight that staggers him enough for Nathaniel to get his arms up and a leg between them.

There is a snarl and more struggling, blood spraying from his ravenous mouth.

[nathaniel_kitten]

Nathaniel stares up at Damian with wide eyes, at the bloody, dangerous mouth that he's kissed so often. There's nothing there when he pokes the connection between them that even feels like Damian, and that's confirmed at he stares into the vampire's eyes.

His arms and leg strain to keep Damian off him, to keep those deadly teeth from his throat. "Damian," he all but whimpers, already aching and tired and ready to be done with this.

[anita_blake]

This was getting downright ridiculous.

Hanging onto Damian, Anita just feels this wash of hopelessness. What the hell was she supposed to do? Riding the vampires back as Damian tries to kill their people wasn't changing anything, but Anita herself is low on ideas. She makes a mental note to teach Nathaniel how to fight, though she's glad between the two of them, they can keep Damian off the wereleopard.

[masterofstlouis]

The bond between you and Damian is damaged, ma petite. You must repair it if you are to calm him.

Jean-Claude opens the marks as wide as he can, letting both Anita and Richard have what strength they can draw from them. It is all he can do at the moment, given that the sun is still hours from setting.

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard's movements are a little stiff, a little slow from the pain and the loss of one arm. Though Jean-Claude's offered strength helps to as he moves to wrap his good arm around Damian's waist, helping Anita to pull him off of Nathaniel. He's not liking the no use of one arm, not that it seems to be so much harder to pin Damian than it should be.

[anita_blake]

With both Nathaniel and Richard sitting on Damian, Anita wraps her arms around his throat again, curling her body around his neck to provide extra weight to control his head. Without the others there, Damian could simply have sat up and taken her with him, but three against one was finally enough to give them some control.

"What do you mean, I've damaged the bond?" she asks Jean-Claude aloud, earning her a quizzical look from Nathaniel.

You are shielding against him, Jean-Claude replies in her head. Why is that?

"He woke up in the sunlight, and it terrified him. Nathaniel and I could both feel it, and it was choking us."

[masterofstlouis]

Jean-Claude lays back onto the bed, conserving his energy as much as he can so that those who need it more right now can have it. Still, his fingers brush across Asher's back, idly tracing along the muscles as he thinks. If he concentrates, he can also feel the itching in the back of his mind that represents a knot of mindless fear. Knowing that Nathaniel felt it as well clears up a great deal.

Ah, he answers. I think I begin to understand what has happened to us all. Not how or why, mind you, but what.

[anita_blake]

"Ahead of you on that one," Anita says through gritted teeth. Damian bucks before she can continue, and it's only because of the other two men slamming him back down that she doesn't go flying. The breath gets knocked out of her, though, so she thinks the other half of her reply. They're part of our triumvirate now.

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

"I heard that," Richard murmured with breathless exertion as he puts all his strength and effort to helping keep Damian pinned. There's a note just under the exertion, faint and barely there. Color him not the happiest by the little turn of events.

[masterofstlouis]

When you shielded from Damian's fear, you did it too well, Jean-Claude explains, this time opening the communication to all of them now that he recognizes the others in his head. You have cut him off from your power. You need to drop your shields.

[nathaniel_kitten]

Nathaniel makes a shocked sound through gritted teeth.

"Did I just hear Jean-Claude in my head?"

[anita_blake]

"Yes," Anita grinds out. "It seems we're all one, big, happy fucking family."

Anita struggles with Damian, and she knows they'll all tire out long before he does.

So what the hell do I do? We're all right here! she sends between the three minds that are still aware.

[masterofstlouis]

Drop your shields, he repeats. They are keeping your power from him.

[anita_blake]

It is so simple.

Anita had spent months with Marianne learning how to shield, how to think of metal or water or rock to keep the thoughts she didn't want shared to herself. What Anita hadn't really understood until just this moment was how to not shield, how to remove them. She used to think of doors or walls, which are easy to open or see crumble, but how do you crumble metal or open water?

It isn't about that, she realizes as she holds tightly to Damian. It's about not thinking about metal. As soon as she stops thinking about it, the rage of Damian pours into her.

No, not rage. Rage implies anger, fury, thought. This... Anita had been thinking she was slowly going crazy in this detached manner over the previous months, but staring into what she is now, she knows crazy isn't detached.

Crazy is fucking crazy with no logic to it at all.

One moment she's worried about keeping Damian's mouth off Richard, off Nathaniel, and the next, she's drowning in feeling and impulse.

Trapped, trapped by hands, trapped to the floor, trapped while hunger is a fire in our gut. Feed, we must feed, fresh blood so close, warm and willing and waiting for our teeth. And there is pain, such pain, ripping through our skin, devouring us from the inside out, and we must feed--

Anita screams, but she knows the sound leaving her throat will never be loud enough, never be long enough, to exercise what she's just felt. Nathaniel's scream is right there with hers, just as tortured, and she wonders if they're all going to drown in their own blood as Damian consumes them utterly.

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard doesn't scream, his reaction to that feeling of drowning in that hunger comes out a low feral snarl. Both he and his wolf trying to fight that consuming tide in his head. A buck from the vampire pulling his focus to that, to making sure that he doesn't get up from between the three of them.

[masterofstlouis]

Jean-Claude feels the change and is instantly aware of the mistake he had made in underestimating the situation. Damian was much farther gone than he had anticipated. He throws his own shields between them and Damian, not as tight as Anita's had been, but enough to silence the raging hunger flooding the links.

Forgive me, ma petite. I had not realized what dropping your shields would do to you. He has become revenant. You must rebind him as you did before. Give him your blood, and speak the words over him.

[anita_blake]

Anita knows Jean-Claude has shared this information with both Nathaniel and Richard. Blood and words.

That's all.

She looks at everyone, at the blood covering herself, Nathaniel, Damian, Richard. All of them, coated in the red liquid. And then Damian bucks, hard enough to dislodge Nathaniel, sending the wereleopard sprawling. Richard's weight isn't enough to keep Damian down, and Anita has a split second to decide.

"Damian!" she shouts, waving her arms. "I'm here!"

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

It isn't so much the use of his name that gets Damian's attention, but the movement of Anita's arms. Free from the other two, he falls for the distraction in an instant and barrels into Anita, not even hearing her shout to the others to allow him to get to her.

He crashes into her with otherworldly speed, sending them both to the floor. There is no resistance this time, so he carelessly strikes out, his teeth plunging into the soft flesh between Anita's neck and shoulder.