It was all love, wasn't it?<br/><br/>The monster in his dreams, that were made up of a childhood they were both barely hovering over, who made his heart sick and moved sick blood into his cock. The way he felt when she sat on a stranger the way he wanted her to sit against him, the way she did, often. And then his insistence in so many lbs per square inch when he took her arm and brought her along. Just love. And love wasn't good.<br/><br/>The net of synapses she'd tied from herself to Yatcha burst like bloodvessels hanging outside the body. Their connection not severed, but yanked to death, with those tiny tentacles spilling what had felt like gone-love now turning fast into nostalgia and then the sorrow of missing. Welcome to the world you knew, Kormir. The Russian snarled and reached for the girl, but her brother was stronger than the need for an old lover. The exchange happened as it ought, and Al was rich, going out. And Kormir wanted more.<br/><br/>And she was paper light in body but felt like rusted old, single-wall hull ship when he considered her emotions. He tried not to until they were in the car, and she fell so prettily into the seat where he tossed her. Leaned against the other door. She didn't get it. She was still throwing her affection at him, inviting him to come against her, to come<i>into</i>her. And he did. He couldn't give her the violence that was the most honest thing with her because she'd done nothing wrong. And still he was a nest of hornets, which had replace both the brainstem and the heart of the animal with youthful sapien skin.<br/><br/>Sapien skin that shed its canine cover with arboreal power. She stayed out of the way but not away at all.<br/><br/>And then he was a fixture around her throat, all their wood's likeness onto her. Little girl caught up in things much older than her. He could wring her quickly, but with all the power a treetrunk and all its barky umbilical chords over eons of growth. He always wanted that, not just when she was wrong, but because she was gorgeous. And gorgeous things, in Yga - usually visiting beauties - did their best work when they died. But he couldn't, could he? Because he didn't love her like that, not like that entirely. And that made her brother vibrate with frustrations for her fingertips when they came around his wrist.<br/><br/>It became something else. Her caresses. He was something behind a fence, then, that had gone a bit berserk, and she was very human instead, injecting human behavior into him. So slippery, his sister, when she calmed him down and reminded him he shouldn't be doing this. Conjured weakness in his angry fingers and softness in his arm. Slid right up, because that's what you do when you're slippery. He loved her for it shortly, and all the reality she reintroduced into him. That's right. She's Lilith. Not someone who's against you. But he still had all this wonderful nightmares all up between his temples, and she was the most beautiful thing in this world and those things were such good things to break when you're in an upheaval.<br/><br/>In his confusion, like any tamer, she moved. His hand was a claw but it had let go of her, fallen like a real weapon but with a wielder without a cause, anymore. He quaked when she sat on him and Philip drove and Alchem stayed quiet. Fast toward Yga, where the world made sense. He could appreciate all her careful touches and thought they were delicious. And disgusting. He was drowning in the calm she was blanketing his beautiful malice in. Tempering his explosion with thick felt. Made it even better when her ass and her hands and her beautiful face reminded him she was a grown woman now, with grown woman delights waiting for him and his favorite activity. Like a wrapped present holding a knife to its own bow.<br/><br/>She was putting out fire in theory, but he felt as though he was drowning. Anger was what lived in him. He had been raised in snakepits and on jagged stone when his skin had been as soft as hers. In the right moonlight he was just a ragdoll of fine scars. And now she'd insulted him in front of city wolves, and now she was suffocating the resulting emotions. But he couldn't hurt her. Even though he was dying to. So he listened to her instead, lips lax and eyes open, but not at her. Staring to the side, but not entirely turned away so she could still see him, while her sensible words played on the same thread-bare chords in him that a certain mother had.<br/><br/>"Yes." he agreed but with the one syllable his palm slammed up into the ceiling of their cabin, to dispell some of his need for hurting her, and Philip looked back into the mirror. "Alright." Sal said again and continued to applaud the surface above them, denting the material that lined the expensive vehicle, wrinkling his face like he was a predator under threat. All so he wouldn't hurt her. This were mother's techniques still, that Lilith fed him, but he had some kind of wit now, won by whatever she was doing. So he held it back. This thickening flame, reversed from the vapors in his blood that passed his lungs, to fill them up with red liquid again. Felt sick like an animal. Feral like an animal. But none of it could go to her because she was being sickly sweet and innocent and drawing on every familiar bond.<br/><br/>It would have been better to just beat her to a pulp but she had so much filthy logic on her side. Didn't she know what it means when a man holds her throat? What is the end of that? What conclusion did she think he wanted? A fucking talking to?<br/><br/>And even though his yellow eyes hollowed out, will extracted like she could pull magic out of Yga weeds, there was a flicker of brotherly annoyance before the last, panicking, crying, hollering part of his anger succumbed in her sea of loveliness. He put a fist to the ceiling and nodded. How unsatisfactory to be a monster and have a fawn in your lap and for it to sing sweetly. He shrugged, a pouting boy who was really a dying person on merit of self-denial.<br/><br/>Her head was on his shoulder, her verdict set. He palmed the back of her head and couldn't do anything other than to spit thickly to the side. Even Alchem looked into the mirror now. Al knew Sol only did that when punches and kicks and murdering plots didn't help.<br/><br/>"You sound like her." he muttered, defeated but still petted her. He'd asked her not to and she'd given him more of the same. It tasted like lizard on his palled and it made him sick like skunk in his middle. And then, just as the road started being lined with mountain and trees and shit lights, his primordial, boiling chest's cage cooled and became overgrown with soft greenery. A return to savage. His love for her prevailed. He sighed and the cave-in of his chest would affect even her real estate on his shoulder. But they were okay for now. After all, the deal was done and they were going home.<br/><br/>Throughout the ride Alchem tried to say a few things to see if he could rope Salace back into conversation. His way of telling the brother to be less upset. But if that worked, there'd be a lot less death around Yga. Philip parked by the road he always did, and as Salace took her out of the car much nicer than he'd put her in, Alchem threw two wads of cash onto the seat he'd used.<br/><br/>"For you and for the car." Al said before closing with his elbow, and carrying the bags forward into the black woods.<br/><br/>"Y'think the others are up?" Salace asked his little sister as he pulled her along with a grip on her hand. When they were younger, and Devana had imparted moon-eyes onto him, he would drag her through the forest alone. A game he invented and was frankly gleeful over on the night of its conception. Of course, the male blood in their line was only ever a fraction as effective at drinking up the art as the female line. He realized now that Lilith probably saw the surroundings much better than he ever could. So his game had likely been like a man explaining childbirth to a woman. Still, he didn't let go. If he'd give up his impulses because he was lesser fit for their magic, then Devana would still be alive. They'd stay on this blotted out path with Al's headlamp for a while, and then they'd be in Yga again. The folk wanted their money, wanted their paper. He'd brought paper in droves tonight. Should keep them satisfied with a witch-less rule for another while.