Anita Blake

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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nathaniel_kitten

Nathaniel makes a shocked sound through gritted teeth.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!"

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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.

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anita_blake

It's been a long time since she's been bitten with rolling or sex involved, and so Damian's bite is excruciating. It takes everything Anita has not to scream with the pain of it.

Gregory, half-shifted, stands over her, ready to pull Damian off, and Anita wraps her arms and one leg around him. "No!" she gasps. "You'll do more damage pulling him off me than leaving him."

"He's going to kill you," Gregory warns in the half-human voice.

Damian presses his mouth deeper into her, forcing her to groan with the pain. "When I need help, I'll ask for it!"

Anita focuses herself, focuses on Damian and the feel of their bodies, the feel of his mind. "Damian," she says, her voice so soft, so gentle compared to what he was doing to her throat. His eyes closed, his weight simply resting atop her as he feeds, Damian doesn't immediately react. "Damian," Anita says again.

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Though Anita may not realise it, there is power behind her words despite the soft tone. That power calls Damian back to himself. It isn't instantly freeing as far as the madness is concerned, but more of a tentative sanity.

The slow return of his ability to reason makes the realisation of his position and the blood of his mistress down his throat less jarring than it might have been otherwise. Damian's grip on her softens, and his eyes open as he turns just a little so she can see him looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

He doesn't let the wound go, but he draws on it more gently, his own power sparking to tentative life, trying to take away some of the pain he has caused.

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anita_blake

She's thankful that the pain eases, and she sags against the floor in relief. But just as she's thanking God for small miracles, she realizes they're both naked.

And Damian has fed.

Anita feels the thickness of him against her, hard and insistent.

With Richard but a few feet away.

Fear fills Anita, but it's a different fear from the one she'd felt moments ago. It's fear of moving, of making everything worse... or better, because she can feel her pulse, matched by Damian's, shared. Magic, power coursing through them, bound in the blood Damian drank. The power suffocates her, even as she remembers it vividly the last time she'd bound him to her.

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With the sanity come the emotions, and they well up in Damian the more he becomes aware of himself. His bloodthirst has been sated enough that it doesn't scratch at his mind like a beast clawing to be free, but the skin hunger he has felt for Anita ever since they became metaphysically bound flares to life in a blaze that he can't deny, even though he fears it.

One hand tentatively glides down Anita's side, his fingers spread wide to take in as much of her skin with the single touch as he possibly can. He marvels at finding their bodies pressed together without any barriers. It may not be the first time he has pressed himself to her without clothing in the way, but it feels so very real, so very raw and wonderful.

He has wanted to feel this lack of boundaries with her for so very long. The loneliness of the desire wells up in him like a great echoing abyss waiting to be filled. His mind is open to hers, his spirit close, though still only a heartbeat away from madness.

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