Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 1 of 8 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:42:06 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU DISCLAIMERS: This is an ADULT fan fiction story using characters from 'Forever Knight.' If you do not enjoy explicit and implicit consensual sex between M&F characters, (specifically Nick and Natalie) or violence, graphic or otherwise, please do not read this. The characters were not created by me, but have been borrowed and put back with no real damage incurred. They even appear to have enjoyed their outing. The first section of this story was originally posted on the DarkNN list as 'Consummation, Devoutly Wished.' It has been revised to provide an opener to the later story. This is yet another alternate outcome for 'Last Knight.' All thanks to TPTB who did create these wonderful creatures so fan fiction writers could have an excuse to play. Permission to archive on fkfanfic, Jadfe, or DarkNN web sites is granted. All others please ask. I sincerely thank Calliope Monsoon for the inspiration of "This End Will Serve," wherein a Nickless Nat comes to no good end. I wondered how different things would be if Nick were there. Hugs and a big thank you to Judy Freudenthal for beta reading. Wild Hunt - Part 1 by Rebecca L. Chessman Hovering above the room like a ghost, Natalie Lambert's consciousness drifted above the two men arguing quietly about her future. Nick had taken her blood at her urging, but he had taken too much. That combined with the sudden, vivid rush of his memories had driven her into a period of unconsciousness, but now she lingered at the crossroads of transition or death, helplessly, watching their fate unfold. LaCroix was urging Nick to bring her across. His eloquent words declared the beauty and joy of life, an ironic philosophy for one whose vampiric existence some considered a form of death. Nick simply wept, as he declared his faith in her and in their love. And then he asked LaCroix to do the unthinkable. Nick asked for release from life on this plane, so that he and she could be together in blessed eternity. But this was not the kind of faith Natalie had encouraged in him! She tried to scream at him. The same life to which LaCroix so skillfully sang praises! But Nick could not hear her. He would sacrifice their lives for his ideals. Natalie thought with increasing anguish. And then the unthinkable began to unfold. The sinuously shaped, twisted pike rose in LaCroix' hand, and he balanced it like the martial veteran he was. Natalie's consciousness railed. Natalie tried to stop him, but she was a wraith, helpless and paralyzed. LaCroix' face twisted into a snarl as he drove the pike through Nicholas' back. "Damn you, Nicholas," he swore vehemently. "Why must it always be what you want? Why is it never what I need?" Natalie's consciousness remained riveted to the scene. Nick's blood spewed from his mouth. It flooded his chest and poured over her face and chest as he fell forward. Natalie screamed as intense emotional shock abruptly slammed her consciousness back into her dying body. Her piercing scream opened her throat. And, before she could close her mouth, she was drowned in a veritable flood of Nick's blood. She swallowed convulsively, choked, and swallowed again, and again. The only actions she seemed capable of were choking and swallowing. The weight of Nick's body pinned Natalie to the floor. She tried to move, but she could not. She couldn't even open her eyes. Or were they open, and blackness was all she would ever see again? She was smothering! It was so black, so stifling! Was this death after all?! Suddenly her choking stopped. The thick, sticky liquid ceased its flow down her throat. She could feel it congealing on her face. Utter silence fell. "No, no, no, Nick, noooo!" She keened her protest inside her head, but it was too late. The world was dark, black, silent. Why...how...was she still thinking? Where was she? "Please, God, not this way, please!" Natalie moaned. And then she felt the weight lift from her chest. She took a convulsive breath. She still could not open her eyes. She heard a groan, then footsteps going away from her. A seeming eternity later, the footsteps returned. She felt a cool, moist cloth bathing her face and neck. Then nothing. She heard another groan, a series of moans, a heart-wrenching scream. Something broke with a sharp crack and hit the wall on the far side of the room with a clatter. The sound made her jump, but still her eyes would not open. Then she heard LaCroix' voice murmuring soothingly, the sounds of a subdued struggle, someone weeping desolately. "No, Nicholas, she lives! She lives! Wait, my son. Rest. Drink this, you need it. I will bring her to you." Natalie felt someone lift her and carry her. Then she could feel soft cushions beneath her. Someone enfolded her in a trembling embrace. His scent aroused her, released her. That elusive bouquet of spice, herbs, and woods. It was Nick! Oh, glorious God, he was here, with her! But where was here? Suddenly, Natalie was able to open her eyes. The familiar surroundings of the loft appeared before her gaze, and she could feel Nick's hands stroking her back, weakly, and hear him sobbing softly. The side of her face was pressed against the nubbly white cotton of his shirt, which was slightly open. Her nose was tickled by the few golden hairs which peeked from above the second button. But there all semblance to normality ended, for Nick's shirt front was covered in his own blood. The horrid stake, which had been plunged through his chest, was gone. Only a rent in the front of his shirt, through which could be seen a raw hole in his chest, remained. As she stared, amazed, the wound began to heal. Natalie raised her eyes to Nick's familiar face and reached up to trail her trembling fingers across his cheek. "You are here," she said wonderingly. "You're not dead, LaCroix didn't kill you. Oh, my God, I thought you were dead," she squeaked on the last word and began to sob. Deep, burning sobs wracked her body. Nick murmured, "Hush, hush, Nat. No, LaCroix didn't kill me. He would not do as I asked." Natalie sobbed grievously for a long time, then she finally rasped out, "Thank God for LaCroix!" Natalie looked up at Nick, angrily. His eyes were full of concern. And the love, that he usually kept so very well hidden, was evident. It melted her anger. She reached up to touch his face again. He was there, so solid, so much himself! And there was no more despair in his face as she stroked his cheek, only love, love for her. She smiled at him, and Nick's breath quickened. She was so beautiful! Her lovely auburn hair, those glorious blue eyes, he could look at her forever and never have enough of her. And her scent was exquisite, delectable. It had been too long since he'd held her like this. How had he been able to control himself around her? He wondered this even as his mouth plunged toward hers and captured her lips in a deeply satisfying kiss. They savored one another. Using their lips and tongues to taste and caress, to give and take pleasure, they relished the uncommon opportunity to indulge themselves in a joyous union. When their lips parted, their eyes maintained their embrace. Then their hands began to touch each other's face tenderly, bestowing gentle touches on eyebrow, cheek, eyelid, lip, and chin. Their lips joined once more. And, abruptly, what had been a tender exchange of caresses became an urgent need to join more than lips, touch more than faces, to merge into one being. But it was not to be, Natalie gasped and pulled away from Nick. She doubled over, clutched at her belly, and groaned. "It hurts!" Even as she said this, she felt a bottle thrust at her hand and heard LaCroix say urgently, "Drink this! Drink all you wish. There is more." Nick pulled away from her as she accepted the bottle. The look of horror on Nick's face was almost more than Natalie could bear. "Natalie, I'm so sorry," he wailed. Natalie's eyes burned furiously with more than tears; but she grasped the bottle she had been given and desperately tipped it up to her lips and drained it in only three gulps. She downed three more full bottles before the hunger began to slack off. The fifth began to register, deliciously, on her senses as a delightful lethargy overcame her. She could not resist closing her eyes. The world went black again. Natalie awoke slowly. Befuddled, she could not remember where she was. She could hear odd noises, muffled shouting. She could smell something strangely delicious, an unfamiliar scent, somewhere near. She was so hungry! She sat up and looked around. She was in Nick's bed in her own pajamas! How had she gotten here? And what was that delicious aroma? It seemed to come from the open bottle sitting on the bedside table. She reached for it and drained it before she even thought to savor its flavor. When she stopped, she looked carefully at the label. Cold reality crashed over her like a frigid wave off of the lake. Nick had taken too much blood. She had become a vampire. Now Nick hated her. Despair consumed her, and she fell back against the pillows and began to sob once again. She heard the bedroom door open, then close. Immediately, she was wrapped in Nick's arms. His scent surrounded her, dizzied her. He held her close and rocked her gently. He kissed her lips softly and inhaled her scent deeply. "Shhh, my love, I'm here. I won't let you go. Shhh, shhh, it's all right now. You're all right now." He repeated his soothing litany until she finally quieted. Just as Natalie mustered the strength to push him away, she heard the bedroom door open and a cool, female voice asserted, "He deserves to be rejected, Natalie. He's been perfectly foul to you." It was Janette! Natalie was so astonished to see the beautiful vampiress she did not realize that Janette had read her own thoughts perfectly. Natalie stared up at Janette and merely nodded at her, open mouthed. "You should banish this cretinous excuse for a man from your bed and from your life entirely! How could anyone who claims to love you ignore your needs so blatantly? Really, Nicolas, you've often been thick witted, but I never thought you could be so completely dense!" Janette snorted as she settled on the opposite side of the bed and gently patted Natalie's left hand. "I intend to make it up to her, Janette!" Nick exclaimed. Then he captured Natalie's chin in his hand and made her look at him as he declared, "I love you so very much, Natalie. Please forgive me for being a complete ass?" Natalie was momentarily nonplused at the tremendous sense of contrition she could literally feel pounding at her from Nick's serious mien. She knew, absolutely, in that moment that she could and must forgive him. His love for her was palpable, immense, sincere. She had never felt anything like this in her life before. she wondered? "No, love, only when you are first brought across, and the first hunger still resonates inside you." Nick smoothed her hair away from her brow, pulled her close, and rocked her gently again. Nick had answered her very thoughts! "It's the blood link, Nat. It's very new, very intense. This sense we have of one another will fade a bit with time. But we'll always be able to find one another. You'll never be truly alone again, Nat." "Janette, we must go. Let us leave them for now." Natalie recognized LaCroix' voice at the door to the bedroom. He entered silently holding out his hand to Janette imperiously. "Good evening, LaCroix." Natalie shivered as she greeted him gravely. "Good evening, Doctor. I leave you in Nicholas' hands. He will answer to me if he does not treat you properly. I only hope he will take better care of you in the future than he has previously." Janette rose, "Take care of Nicolas, Natalie. He needs a firm hand." Janette accepted the hand LaCroix held out to her, and gracefully, left the room with him. Natalie heard them lift out of the skylight just past the balcony. Then she looked back up at Nick with a completely puzzled expression on her face. "Welcome to the family, Nat. This existence is not what I'd dreamed for us, but at least we're together. I do love you, ma belle Natalie." Then Nick kissed her, and Natalie knew he did not lie. "Nick, how....when....what....?" Natalie stuttered out. "Shall I just start at the beginning?" Natalie nodded. Nick settled them together comfortably, against the head of the bed, propped up with pillows. Then he carefully explained to Natalie what had happened while she slept, and why he had behaved as he had. "I was able to love you only once, Natalie, the night I forgot myself and found you. I'd wanted you for a very long time, but LaCroix and your mortality stood between us. Your safety was paramount in my mind when I backed off from a close relationship last year. But after the loss of my memory, and the renewal of LaCroix' and my relationship, things changed. There was still much about my life I did not remember. LaCroix believed that I might never regain some of those memories, unless I took blood from someone who had shared them." "When I brought Janette back across, I discovered that LaCroix' theory was true. I learned much from her. I no longer seemed to have the burning passion to become mortal that Janette remembered consuming me before I was shot. The only burning passion I now felt was to possess you, Natalie. And to possess you, I needed control. That control was not to be had by drinking cow blood." "Lately, I'd resumed drinking human blood. Originally, that choice was prompted by the demon. But when I drank from Janette, I understood that her restraint with Robert lay, not only in the depth of her love for him, but in the very real necessity of being completely sated before attempting to make love. I was sure it was now possible to love you. I'd fed well over the past weeks. And LaCroix' old debt for the loss of Fleur was canceled by our renewed friendship and the death of Divia. There would be no interference from that direction either." "When you begged me to love you, to trust in our love, I decided to trust myself and your instincts." He shook his head at his naivete. "I was completely unprepared for the intoxicating effect of your blood, the flood of your memories of our relationship, and the depth of your desire for me. And," he continued, "I was unable to control my desire for you in the face of the unmitigated trust you gave me. I was ready to love you, but, having relearned from your blood my previous attitude toward this life, I could not bring you across, even with your consent ringing through my being as I devoured your blood. I tried to show you why." His intent, Natalie quickly realized, had opened the floodgates of his memories and deluged her in a breathtaking rush. "You were worried about my soul being sullied by becoming a vampire," Natalie quietly commented. "Yes, I was, and I still am," Nick said ruefully. "Nick, I'm not some pure little sprite you put on a pedestal! I'm a thoroughly modern woman! I want you. I want to share your life with you. I don't care what it takes to do that!" Natalie told him vehemently. "I know, my love. I know that now. I could not comprehend that then. But you must understand, a vampire has monstrous urges and desires which must be controlled. I'd hoped to spare you that ordeal. And I thought I'd taken too much. I thought you were dead. I asked LaCroix to kill me, to let us be together in death." "I know. I saw. I could not believe you would do that." She looked up at him with anguish in her face. "You saw?! You were unconscious, dying!" Nick exclaimed. "Oddly enough, I've never felt so completely conscious of everything around me. It was an out-of-body experience. I watched it all. It was like I was floating above you. I was appalled that you would ask him to do that, but even more horrified when he actually did it. The blood, Nick," Natalie shivered in horror, "your blood. It was everywhere. It choked me; and then, I could not stop swallowing." Natalie gasped at the memory and clutched at him. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly for a time. Then he loosened his hold on her and resumed his story. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to suffer. I truly thought you were dead. If we had ever decided to bring you across, I would have done this very differently. I never would have subjected you to that horror, Natalie, never," Nick asserted vehemently. "But it happened, and now it's over. What's done is done." Natalie told him. "What happened next, Nick? LaCroix obviously removed the stake. And it must have been he who washed my face and carried me to you. But after I drank the blood he gave me, I remember nothing." "I was appalled. I thought he had brought you across. I didn't realize how it had happened. I must have passed out for a while. I thought I had truly condemned you to a hellish existence with LaCroix as your master, continually manipulating both of us for his own ends." Natalie's eyes widened as she took in his last sentence. She gasped at the realization that this was what had horrified Nick, not her being brought across, but that LaCroix, and not himself, would be her master. "Oh Nick, I thought you hated me for becoming a vampire." "I could never hate you, Natalie." He hugged her tightly again, then relaxed his hold. "When did Janette get here?" Natalie asked. "Just before dawn. She sensed all the emotional turmoil and was trying to reach us, but the weather impeded her flight. It was Janette who brought you up here and insisted on putting you to bed in clean clothes. I didn't want to let you go, but she insisted that you needed your rest. She was right." Nick smiled at Natalie wistfully then continued, "LaCroix took me in hand and made me shower and sleep on the couch. A phone call from I.A. woke me." "So when is your interview?" Natalie asked. "They've already come and gone. I resigned. It was really the best thing to do. Especially, since Tracy's death," Nick sighed deeply. "Losing two partners in two years was enough of a reason for my resignation. They never even questioned it. We've both resigned. Everyone assumes we're leaving town together." "They do?" Natalie queried. "Apparently, we haven't been as discreet as we thought. The police grapevine has had us as lovers for a few years now." Nick told her as he stroked her cheek. Natalie's eyebrows rose as he continued, "It's been two days since Tracy died. Your car is still parked outside. Your suitcases are sitting beside the piano. I couldn't deny our relationship. I didn't think you'd mind. I announced our engagement." "Our engagement. When I came here, God, it seems like just last night! Two days, Nick?! It's been two days?!" Nick held her close as this fact sank in, then Natalie pushed slightly away from him and continued, "When I came here, I was just hoping to get you into bed, or at the very least to pers uade you not to leave me. Now, suddenly, while I'm unconscious, we're engaged!" Natalie exclaimed. "Do you mind? Will you marry me, Natalie?" "You really want this? It's not just a cover?" Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet covered ring box. "This is not the way I had envisioned this, but will you be my wife, my love?" Natalie accepted the box, looked up at Nick, then down at the box. She opened it and gasped. Inside the small jewel case was a magnificent marquis cut diamond surrounded by crimson fire in the form of rubies. Nick lifted the ring from its resting place and slipped it onto the ring finger on Natalie's left hand with a kiss. Natalie raised her hand and gazed at the ring. Then she turned to Nick and pulled his head down for an ardent kiss. When their lips parted Nick asked, "Does that mean 'yes'?" "Yes, my love, it means 'yes, I will marry you,'" Natalie replied. She had noticed that his scent, which had surrounded and enticed her from the first moment that he had embraced her, was changing slightly and intensifying. Natalie had slid her hand inside the front of Nick's shirt during their kiss and stroked his collarbone. She had continued her caress, and now she was beginning to believe that what she could scent was his arousal. How interesting! End Part 1 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 2 of 8 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:42:14 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Wild Hunt - Part 2 - ADULT by Rebecca L. Chessman She began unbuttoning his shirt. The look on his face encouraged her actions. She pulled the tails of the shirt from his trousers and reached for the belt. There, the belt was open. She pulled it from the loops at the waist of his trousers and dropped it to the floor. The button at the waistband and the zipper at the front of the trousers worked easily, and Nick rose from the bed and allowed the loosened garments to slide off his body and fall at his feet. Natalie just had time to admire the tenting at the front of his boxers when he rejoined her on the bed, throwing back the covers. He reached for her pajamas and unbuttoned and removed the top. She looked up at him and enjoyed his open admiration of her body. He pulled her against him, relishing the feel of her breasts against his chest, as he eased her pajama bottoms over her hips. Natalie kicked them away and slid her hands into the front of his boxers, popping the snap and gaining access to his manhood. She caressed him, pumping him once firmly in one hand as she gently stroked his scrotum with the other. "Janette did say you needed a firm hand," Natalie breathed against his chest. Then she eased his last garment over his hips and allowed him to kick it to the foot of the bed. Nick, engrossed in his own explorations of her body, paused to leer appreciatively at her comment. Then he cupped her breasts in his hands and buried his face between them, inhaling deeply. "Natalie, your fragrance is delicious," Nick murmured into her ear as he raised his face. He continued to caress her breasts as he nuzzled her neck and began placing soft kisses down the column of her throat. His hands continued to caress her body, tracing each curve, teasing each sweetly sensitive nub and ridge. His mouth joined his hands in their sensual explorations. Natalie reveled in his attentions and rewarded his intimate consideration by exploring him. She savored the shape and firmness of his muscles, the texture of the golden hair upon his chest, the delightful musk of his masculine scent, the cool, smooth, texture of his skin. She used her hands and mouth to trace each line of him. Natalie kissed down his abdomen and heard his gasp when she reached her goal. Nick reacted swiftly. He reached under her arms, pulled her up to his chest, and pressed her full length against his body, covering her face with kisses. Every nerve screamed its pleasure as she felt his cool, delicious length pressed against her. She opened herself to him, wrapping her legs around his waist, inviting him to penetrate her. Her actions were rewarded by his slow, deliberate entry into her body. When he had completely buried himself within her moistness, they lay quietly together basking in the pleasure of their union. He nuzzled her neck and slipped his fangs deftly into the vein at the side of her throat. He sipped the nectar of her life, inciting a new pleasure which bloomed deep in Natalie's very being. She closed her eyes and immersed herself in his memories. She watched the images of their first meeting form on the inside of her lids. From his point of view she was a delicate goddess, completely desirable, entirely delicious. Then, swiftly, scenes of their times together, that he had especially cherished, flew before her eyes. Her face in the firelight in his loft, her courage when he confronted her with the vampire at the Raven, her laughter at the police picnic, her encouragement when he had despaired, yet again, that he would never be human, her face in sunlight on the only day he had had in the sun, her face suffused with passion when they made love, her courage when faced with the demon, her steadfast faith in their love, each of these things he shared. As he shared them, Natalie felt a strange compulsion grow within her. A delicious tingle grew in her mouth. She felt an odd sliding sensation within her palate as her new fangs extended. Instinctively, she buried her face in the side of Nick's neck and bit down. A rush of warm fluid, robustly flavored, heady, exciting, luscious flooded her mouth. She swallowed, suckled, and swallowed again. She could feel Nick drawing on her life as she drew on his. It was sensual, erotic, fulfilling. The memories that she had experienced were mere fragmentary shadows compared to the overpowering intimacy which she suddenly perceived as they shared blood. If she had had any doubt at all about the sincerity of his love, it was entirely banished. Then he removed his fangs from her vein, licked at the tiny holes as they closed, and kissed her gently. Natalie copied his actions, but felt suddenly bereft. Missing the emotional sharing, Natalie needed him even closer. She pushed her hips towards his, and excited a frisson of pleasure which encouraged Nick to thrust more deeply into her. Once encouraged, he repeated his action, and she countered, until they both were deliriously riding a building wave of desire that grew with each lunge into pleasure. When it crested, they clasped one another tightly as their release shook their bodies and flooded Natalie's womb with fertile fluids. At the height of their pleasure he again plunged his fangs into her neck, drew her blood into his mouth, and shared the emotional culmination of their mutual passion with her. Natalie mimicked Nick's actions. She had never experienced so ardent a consummation. His deep, abiding devotion to her enchanted her. This time, when they withdrew their fangs from each other's neck, she reached up to his face and tenderly caressed his mouth over the fully extended length of his eyeteeth hidden beneath his lips. "You give so much pleasure with these," she murmured. "Why did you ever want to stop being what you are?" "It is addictive and deadly for mortals, my love," he told her softly. His eyes gleamed goldly at her as he kissed her fingers. "I know. But truly, you have such immense, yet delicate control. I love you, just as you are. And I adore the way you make love to me." She pulled his head down for another passionate kiss, this time caressing his fangs with her tongue. Nick reveled in her open and obvious acceptance of himself and their lovemaking. He curled his tongue around one of her fangs and reveled in the extra caress of her lower muscles his action created. When their kiss ended, he nuzzled her neck again and bit her once more, savoring her love, her acknowledgement, and her enthusiastic embrace of himself as vampire. He did not need more than a few drops. But when his fangs entered her, she responded, involuntarily, once again, by tightening around the part of him still buried deeply within her. He had begun to soften, but he felt himself harden once again as she embraced him. She bit him once more and pressed him into herself, and their upward spiral began again. They moved together, spurring one another on toward yet another thrillingly intense union. At its achievement their souls seemed to merge when they shared blood yet again. They shuddered together and collapsed, depleted, exhausted, trembling in one another's arms. Natalie snuggled into his chest, softly caressing his shoulder, as he held her close, still remaining within her delicious tightness. His fingers contentedly stroked the healing holes in her vein through which he had drawn the essence of her life and love. "Nick," she called softly. "Hmmm?" "I love you." He looked down at her curled into his chest. He allowed his hand to slide up to grasp her chin and turn her face up to his. He let his eyes fill with his love for her. He kissed her gently on the lips and then he whispered, "Je t'adore, mon ange. Ma vie, mon coeur, mon amour. Je t'aime pour l'eternite, ma Natalie." He punctuated each endearment with a gentle kiss. Then he pulled her close again, held her tightly, and smiled when he felt her kisses against his chest. It had been eight months since Natalie had been brought across, nearly six since Nick brought her to this windswept and majestic place. The ancient, yet luxurious, lodge in the Monadhliath Mountains of Scotland had become a sanctuary, a home, and, finally, a prison. Natalie moved restlessly from her contemplation of the moon-silvered mountainscape and returned to the fire lit room where Nick sat quietly reading. His head did not rise from his book at her entrance. His face did not turn to her and lighten with that glorious smile, as it had when they had first been together. It seemed, they had grown used to each other's company. Somehow this familiarity was disappointing to Natalie. She knew it was illogical to assume that he would be forever enamored of her every move and reaction, but it seemed too soon for him to simply accept her presence without any acknowledgment. He'd become so quiet, withdrawn, seemingly uncaring, in the weeks, since LaCroix had left. Even in bed, lately, his caresses seemed mechanical, perfunctory, as if he were distracted. The reason for his inattentiveness was becoming horrifyingly clear to her. He did not want to deal with the one thing he could not bring himself to admit. He had refused to allow her to accomplish the task for which he had so carefully trained her. They were both vampires, and their nature was to hunt. Nick had allowed Natalie to hunt on many occasions. But he had never allowed her to complete the hunt. He had never allowed her to kill. And until LaCroix' visit, Natalie had been grateful for this. During the days after her transformation, Nick isolated himself with Natalie in his loft. At first they abandoned themselves to the passion they had denied for so long. He was a fiery, yet tender, lover. Natalie had never felt so satisfied, nor so cherished, as she was in Nick's arms. But, Nick was also an attentive and thorough teacher. And he soon began a regimen of exercises designed to accustom her to her new existence. On the evening of the fourth day of their seclusion, Natalie was awakened by a heavenly odor being wafted gently under her nose. When she opened her eyes and looked up into her lover's expressive face, she found he was holding an exquisitely crafted crystal vial of perfume in one hand and its elaborate stopper in the other. As she watched, he replaced the top, upended the bottle, then placed a single drop from the stopper in the space between her breasts. He closed the bottle, set it on the nightstand, and slid into bed beside her. "Do you like it?" Nick asked as he nuzzled beneath her chin and caressed her body sensually. "I had it blended especially for you," he whispered as he kissed her cheek. Then he pulled back to watch her reaction. Natalie lay quietly beside him stroking his collarbone and savoring the scent. It was a light, flowery essence with hints of wood and a slight musk. When she first sniffed it, it seemed a simple, pleasant fragrance, but as it developed on her skin, Natalie noticed it became fuller and more complex. It was elegant, obviously expensive; and she found, she loved it. Often she had tried colognes or perfumes in the store. Generally, she discovered, within five minutes or so, that a scent, that had been a delectable fragrance, would grow into something quite vile. She would be forced to wash it off with strong soap or detergent, after stoically bearing the stench until she got home. But this perfume was absolutely divine, distinctive, but not overpowering. Natalie's favorite scent was 'Provocateur,' a not inexpensive cologne. It was one of the few fragrances she tried over the years which she had enjoyed wearing. She used it to mask the less pleasant smells of her profession. It was sometimes enough to distract her from unpleasant odors as she worked, and it was also a way to subtly assert her femininity in a male-dominated world. But this gift from Nick, Natalie reflected, defined the way she felt about herself when he was near. She didn't need anything to remind her she was a woman when Nick held her. She looked once more into his eyes and reached up to pull him toward her. She kissed him sweetly and held him close as she murmured, "I love it. Thank you, my love. What is it called?" "'Natalie,' of course," he grinned. Abruptly he pulled her up from the bed and declared, "Time to get back to work today. We can't have you lazing your entire life away, Nat!" "Work! Do you mean I have to go back to the lab to pay for this latest gift of yours?!" she exclaimed, playfully riposting his comments. "No love," Nick said affectionately, "I mean we need to start training you to use your new abilities." "Oh, well, that's different then. Where do we start?" Natalie asked brightly. With his forefinger he traced a sensual line from the bottom of her ear, under her chin, down her throat, and ended at the spot where he had placed the drop of perfume. "Here," was his only comment. "Here?" she asked. "Yes, this is your focal point. Your sense of smell is far more acute now than it was before. When, eventually, we go outside, you must be able to focus upon one scent and track it to its source. If you have one particular scent you have memorized, and which you wear, it will help you filter out the extraneous odors and isolate only the one you are following." "Ummm, well, I can think of another scent I'd rather follow," she murmured as she nuzzled him. "Ah, but my love, I may not always be around. You're an independent woman, Nat. This will give you your own, personal base for scent identification," Nick told her as he disentangled himself from her attentions. Natalie sighed, "Well then, I suppose we should get to work. I'd better go take a shower and get dressed." She turned away from him and began to trudge toward the bathroom. "No need to do everything alone, love," Nick murmured as he swept her up and carried her, giggling, into the shower. When they finally emerged from the bedroom, clean and dressed, Nick began her instruction. He kept her busy all night with an initiation to the expansion of her sense of smell. He lined up rows of vials filled with all sorts of odors and challenged her to identify them. He provided judicious breaks, when she began to think that everything smelled alike. By sunrise Natalie felt she could become a perfumer, herself. But Nick cautioned her that, while he had been careful to use mostly pleasant fragrances to help her learn, she would reencounter offensive fumes of every kind. And these would be as thoroughly intensified as were the pleasant scents. "I'll deal with it when I must," she asserted. Then Natalie shivered at a sudden thought, "Would I be able to stand my work if I returned now?" she worried aloud. "No, Nat. First let me help you cope with the extra input you have from all your senses. Remember what I've already shown you: focus on your own center first, expand your senses slowly outward, sift through the sensory input, use your original base values to evaluate what you find, then respond, after you know what awaits you." The next evening Nick introduced Natalie to the nuances of night vision. She had been amazed from the very first night at how much she could see with all the lights out. She remembered how often, before she had been brought across, she had turned on extra lights when entering the loft. But when Nick, not only turned off all the lights, but, closed the blinds to the night; she was floored, when he demonstrated how far her infrared spectrum had widened. Nick made her focus upon her own hand first, then widen her gaze and begin to navigate around the loft in the nearly complete darkness. Then he flipped on an electric switch. Natalie let out a small, discomfited squeak at the sudden glare. Nick apologized, briefly, and showed her how to quickly shift out of infrared and adjust to the normal illumination of the loft. His final gift was a pair of dark sunglasses to guard her eyes against sudden light shifts until she could manage them completely on her own. "My God, Nick, how did Vachon manage to cope without a master?!" Natalie exclaimed one evening during a lesson. Then the door buzzer went off unexpectedly, and she jumped three feet straight up in reaction. "It must have been an overwhelming experience. I really don't know, Nat. That's the clothier, by the way. I thought you might be glad to have some clothing that didn't chafe." "Oh, you've noticed my latest unattractive habit, have you?" Natalie mumbled. "What's that, love?" "Scratching. I seem to itch everywhere!" Natalie exclaimed in frustration. Nick laughed merrily and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "I've not noticed a thing. I just know from experience how irritating some fabrics can be." Then he checked the door video and directed the tradeswoman waiting below to roll her racks and boxes into the lift and ride up to the loft. When everything the woman had brought with her had been unloaded from the lift, Nick excused himself and disappeared into the bedroom. The little woman introduced herself as Bertha, and Natalie could tell, by the familiar vibrant tingle up the back of her neck she usually associated with Nick's presence, that Bertha was also a vampire. As this cogent fact registered upon Natalie's changed perceptions, the modiste held out a dressing gown to Natalie, asked her to remove the clothing she was wearing, and then proceeded to literally re-dress Natalie from the skin out. Bertha altered each garment Natalie selected to precisely fit her figure. Bertha had her own ideas about what a proper wardrobe for a lady included. And Natalie found herself being fitted with exquisite formal gowns she never would have considered purchasing for herself, in addition to heavy duty outdoor wear and beautifully tailored suits for every occasion. After several hours, Bertha expressed herself satisfied with her work. Natalie was overjoyed at her new wardrobe. Everything fit beautifully, suited her tastes, and, Natalie discovered, she no longer seemed to itch in unfortunate places. Natalie reflected that this experience was much like that which her Nana had described to her when she'd reminisced about being fitted for her trousseau. Nick rejoined them when he could hear that Natalie was satisfied. He wrote a substantial check to Bertha and helped her move her remaining wares into the lift for her trip back down to street level. After Bertha left, Natalie cheerfully provided Nick with an impromptu fashion show. And the morning ended with an intimate exploration of Natalie's new lingerie. Each sense had its peculiarities and enhancements, Natalie discovered. But Nick taught her carefully, always beginning with a focal point on her own body. "If you are thoroughly familiar with yourself and your abilities, you can quickly conduct a survey when you awaken in an unfamiliar place or even at home. This way you are always prepared for any eventuality. Vampires must be careful and capable of protecting themselves at all times. We have more abilities, more resources, than humans. But we still have several vulnerabilities and many enemies. It's a dangerous world for us, Nat," Nick warned. Although Natalie often tempted him away from her training into their bed, Nick illustrated how to use and control each sense during the following days. He provided her with a personal focal point or some external device with which she could manage each new ability. For her enhanced hearing, he handed her her Walkman, and watched as she put it on, winced, and quickly readjusted the volume downward. He strictly enjoined her to always keep fresh batteries close at hand. The music, he explained, would help to filter unwanted background noise. And she might need to use it during their first trips outside the loft for just that purpose. He used the piano and selections from his CD collection to help her recognize the frequencies she could now hear. She learned to identify each note on the keyboard no matter in what order they were played. And she discovered that, while she could not, necessarily, control the volume of sound or inadvertent noise, she could quickly modify her response to it. Since eating and drinking were, generally, deliberate exercises, Nick had left the sense of taste until last. Natalie had already experienced the pleasures of blood sharing. But now he introduced her to the esoteric joys of each palatable vintage the Raven could provide. He allowed her to experience only those products which he knew had been willingly donated by healthy mortals. He let her sample the foods she had kept in his refrigerator and watched her, sadly, violent reactions to the food she had so lately consumed with enthusiasm. Then he presented her with a container of one of the protein shakes she had constructed for him. This concoction produced an immediate and violent attack of vomiting. Natalie barely made it to the kitchen sink in time to spew the substance down the drain. She could not believe the foulness of the liquid she had thought Nick could tolerate easily. Then Nick handed her a bottle of the cow blood he had given up in order to be with her. "Good God, Nick!" Natalie exclaimed as she spit out the cow blood into the kitchen sink. "How did you ever stand this torture? You must have either a hair-shirt attitude or a death wish to have put up with this for so long! No wonder LaCroix tried so often to beat some sense into you!" "Aww, come on, Nat, it's not that bad," Nick responded quietly. "Nick, no existence could be so bad that someone would want to survive on that swill! I mean, I could see it if you were stuck in a desert somewhere, but Nick, really!" "Nat, remember, someone had to die to allow me to survive that way for hundreds of years. Never forget that what you and I need to survive is a human being's life!" Natalie recoiled from his statement as if he had slapped her. Then she stopped and reconsidered. "I'm sorry, Nick. I did forget. I'm a very lucky woman. I have you to help me get used to this new life. And I have you to remind me of what I've known all along. It's just that the senses we have are so exciting, so thrilling to use! And the blood!" Natalie paused as she relived her reaction to her previous meal. "The exhilaration of experiencing the life of the one whose blood you drink is so deeply fulfilling. And our bloodlink..." She wrapped her arms around Nick's neck, buried her face in his chest, and breathed in deeply as she slipped her fingers delicately through his hair, savoring every aspect of his being. "No wonder it took you so long to regret your initial decision to accept this life!" Nick kissed her deeply, then gently disengaged himself from her arms and led her to the couch. There he settled down with her in his arms as she lapsed into a long, silent contemplation of her new condition. End Part 2 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 3 of 8 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:42:22 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@lists.psu.edu Wild Hunt - Part 3 - ADULT by Rebecca L. Chessman She roused suddenly and turned in his arms to kiss him on the cheek. "Nick," she greeted him, "how long will it take before I can actually go outside and see people again?" "You need a lot more time, Nat. I'll take you up on the roof and let you get used to things there first. Even though I've taught you some control, you still need more practice. And we haven't even begun the flying lessons." "Flying lessons?! Oh Nick! It's the one thing I always wished you'd share with me. But I was afraid to ask you," Natalie breathed excitedly. "Well, now you can learn to do it on your own, Nat." Nick proceeded to divert her premature desire to test her control around humans with an introduction to the art of levitation, the precursor to flight. Natalie quickly learned to use the techniques of concentration and visualization to control her posture in space. At the end of three weeks she had learned to control each of her senses and was zipping around the loft. Nick stopped her enthusiastic flight one evening and reminded her that if she wanted to associate with humans, she would need to remember how to walk, climb stairs, and keep her feet on the ground. "I guess I was overdoing it a bit, love," Natalie demurred at his gentle correction. "It's just so exciting, and so easy!" "And very dangerous for humans to see you doing it. You'll need to use every sense to insure that no one can see you before you take flight. And nowadays one needs to steer clear of airports and specified airways. Always be aware of where you are, who is in your immediate vicinity, and what might be available to use for cover. You must remember the Code at all times. Don't let your exuberance overwhelm your common sense. There can be no empirical evidence of our existence, or we are dead." Natalie nodded solemnly as she recalled his extremely serious demeanor during their lessons on the Code and his warnings about the Enforcers. At the end of the third week, he had decided that she was ready to expand her horizons. Nick had fed her well and then taken Natalie to the roof. He cautioned her that she would not be able to tolerate the close presence of humans for at least another month. She had inwardly rebelled at what she thought was an underestimation of her control. When she refused to take her 'learning tools' with her to the roof, Nick packed her sunglasses and Walkman into a lightweight bag, together with several bottles of blood, and led her to the roof access door. Natalie vividly recalled the shock she received when she first emerged from the stairwell onto the roof of the loft. The sharply cold wind of the March night struck through her warm clothing making her shiver violently. The stars in the clear sky above them stunned her with their brilliance. The splendor of the heavens overwhelmed her vision, just as the scents and sounds of the city overloaded her other senses. It took the better part of an hour for Nick to help her cope with the intensity of sensory input. She had had no idea, prior to that crushing moment when her senses had imploded, that Nick's loft was not only a home, its metal shutters and sound-proofed walls were a refuge from the unendingly intense sensory assault of everyday life. He placed her sunglasses over her eyes and covered her ears with the headphones of the Walkman. Then he made her repeat the exercises he had previously taught her for identifying scents and isolating sounds. Wearing the glasses and the Walkman, she was suddenly able to focus on individual stimuli to determine their origination and trace them to their source. She learned to adjust her tolerance for the weather. She learned to modify the muffled booming emanating from the city at large, which was the drumming of the beating hearts of millions. She learned to concentrate on a single person whose heartbeat and blood scent emanated from the sidewalk below. And that was when the real ordeal began. In the next instant, rage and pain filled her being when she violently impacted the warehouse wall and slid down it to the pavement in front of Nick's building. As she arose slowly from her crumpled posture and shook herself, she belatedly realized that Nick had just kept her from killing a homeless man by sheer force of muscle and will. This event concisely introduced Natalie to the overwhelming intensity of her desire for blood. Nick made sure the tramp remembered nothing of his encounter and quietly escorted Natalie back into the loft. "Never underestimate the power of the vampire," was Nick's only comment. He did not chastise her, neither did he blame her, but Natalie flagellated herself mentally. She might have lost herself in an unending circle of recrimination if Nick had not reminded her that she had not, in fact, killed the man. Nick was there to stop her. "I will be here for you until you are really ready to be on your own," he reassured her. "You always wanted to know about my history. Maybe now would be a good time for me to explain to you just why I accepted LaCroix's offer to be brought across in the first place. And how I felt during my first hunt afterwards." "When I was a boy, and as I grew to be a young man, I was taught to be a Christian. 'Thou shalt not kill.' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,'" he quoted, and then he laughed scornfully. "Then I was sent on crusade for a church that taught that what I did in its name was a deadly, unforgivable sin, but refusing to sin in the church's name was heretical. I became disillusioned and bitter, especially when I found that none of the people around me were any wiser than myself. It seemed the world was rife with cruelty and hypocrisy. Then I was very seriously wounded. I nearly lost my life. The church released me from my crusade. I was rewarded for my service and sent homeward. On the way home I met Janette and LaCroix." "When LaCroix offered me eternal life and eternal revenge against the church, I took it. He never told me precisely what this life would be like. I knew I would have to kill to survive. But then, I had been a murderer for the church. At least, I thought, I should be no worse than the hypocrites who had sent me into battle. I was wrong, Natalie. I became a monster." At this assertion Natalie shook her head vigorously, but he placed one hand on her shoulder and the index finger of his other hand across her lips to quiet her. When she subsided he clasped her hands in his once again and continued. "It's true, Nat. I was a creature who valued nothing but himself and his own survival. I accepted LaCroix' view of the world and considered myself to be superior to those upon whom we fed. I ignored the niggling doubts in the back of my mind that urged me to rethink the path my life had taken. I immersed myself in the pleasures of this life. Janette and LaCroix were more than happy to indulge me. I ignored what my conscience told me." "One night, about three weeks after my transformation, LaCroix challenged me to a hunt. Before this time he and Janette brought me the women I fed upon. I had only begun to learn how expanded my senses were. LaCroix used many of the same exercises I've shown you to help me cope with the changes in my body." "I had not yet ventured outdoors. We were living in a castle at the edge of Paris. Only we three occupied the huge stone pile. I wondered why there were no servants. I was used to someone waiting on me for everything when I was not with the army. LaCroix told me that he'd recently acquired the castle and had no time to hire a staff. I later discovered that I was the reason for the lack of servants. LaCroix and Janette could not risk my killing any human who came near us. We would not have any servants until I was capable of controlling my lusts around them. This hunt was my first attempt to use all the abilities I now had." "I remember asking LaCroix how we would find and capture game." Nick snorted at the remembrance of his naivete. "Little did I know that we could use our own abilities as well or better than any of the animal companions with which I was accustomed to hunt. The moment we left the castle I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the impressions which bombarded my senses. Suddenly, it seemed, I could see, hear, smell, taste, feel the very essence of the night surrounding me. The night was dark, and overcast, but seemed as bright to me as if there were a full moon. I could hear innumerable strange noises, and my sense of smell became a torture near the middens. LaCroix helped me sort out my impressions. It quickly became clear to me that we, ourselves, could function as falcons, horses, and hounds on any hunt." "He took me over the town. There, amid the din of hundreds of human hearts and the reek of their blood, he showed me where I could hunt. He explained carefully that those who belonged to our estate, I must preserve for our safety. I might take only those who had no standing, family, or property to satisfy my hunger. And, he cautioned me, I must hunt only in the city where my depredations would appear to be the work of the ordinary criminals who occupy the dark corners of every city. Then he turned me loose in a narrow alley occupied by the human refuse of 'civilization' to find my own supper." "It was my first time so close to so many humans since I had been brought across. I glutted myself on the first beggar I happened upon that night, along with numerous others. I do not remember how many poor ragamuffins I destroyed. But I learned just how far from humanity I had fallen. I became a monster, I killed, over and over again, and I reveled in it." "Nick, there was no other way for you to survive. When you were able to get blood by other means, you did. You can't blame yourself for wanting to survive. Every organism will kill for survival," Natalie broke into his increasingly mournful recital of his sins. "It doesn't matter why I killed, Nat. I've killed hundreds of thousands of human beings of every sort and kind. Some I killed for survival, some because I could do it, and get away with it. It was fun! Others I killed in the line of duty or to protect another. But each time I killed, it was murder, no matter how you dress it up or justify it. That is what I finally realized. It's why I've refused to kill anyone for their blood for the last century." "I understand what you are telling me, Nick. The first time you took my blood I understood this. I know why you despise yourself and this existence." Nick began to shake his head, but Natalie reached for his chin and made him look into her eyes. "Nick, stop. Listen to me." She waited until she felt she had his full attention. "We share the same kind of guilt, Nick. I have never sucked a human being dry, felt their life flow into me, and known that I killed them, simply to feed my desire. But I have shared blood with you. I have drunk blood and savored the life of the donor. Tonight, I hunted and lusted after the life of another. I know what you live with everyday. I will never again underestimate the power of the vampire, Nic k. You've taught me well." "Then I've succeeded far beyond my expectations, my love," Nick told her quietly as he gently stroked her face and leaned in to kiss her. But Natalie pulled away from his seductive touch. "Perhaps you'd better wait until I tell you something, Nick." Natalie took a deep breath and looked seriously up into his face. "By your definition I am guilty of murder, too. I took a chance with a patient's life and lost it for him. His family didn't blame me. They thanked me for helping him! I preened myself on their thanks, until the pathologist told me that my treatment had caused his death. My patient had a hidden internal malformation of the colon which contraindicated the procedure I had ordered. He bled to death right on my treatment table. The pathologist was very kind to me. He reassured me that there was no way I could have known about my patient's condition prior to the autopsy. Neither X-ray nor MRI had revealed the defect. But the fact remained that I had killed him." Natalie reached toward Nick, took his hand, stroked it gently, and continued. "I nearly killed you when I gave you the Lytoveuterine. My arrogance could have killed you. LaCroix had every right to be angry with me. I know you've seen in my blood just how many failures I have had as a doctor. I am not a spotless angel, Nick." "I never mistook you for one, Nat. But none of what you have said can begin to compare to the temptation and the danger of what you are capable of now, Natalie." She impatiently gestured for him to be silent. "I know, I know. We've both done things we regret. And we've both done things of which we can be proud. You always say you're paying your debt to society. You need to understand that that is also what I've been doing." "Then let's just continue to value what we have learned through hard-earned experience, Nat." Natalie looked at him questioningly for a moment. Then, "Never underestimate the power of the vampire," they repeated earnestly together. Later, he took her to bed and loved their worries away. The next evening Nick insisted on a visit to a local park. Natalie was reluctant to go. Her fear of repeating the attack on the homeless man ate at her insides and subdued her self-confidence. Nick reinforced his warning of the previous night, but reassured her that he would stop her from killing anyone. "You can control yourself, Nat. You simply need to remind yourself of your limits. You'll be fine." Nick ran her through her 'mantra,' the thorough and orderly sensory assessment he insisted upon each time she awoke and each time he presented a new lesson. Natalie voluntarily donned her sunglasses and Walkman. Nick carried the bag, filled with extra nourishment, he had taken to the roof the night before. He drove them to an isolated area and talked her through the tracking of a young couple as they meandered slowly through the quiet, forest-like surroundings of a park near the lake. Natalie found and followed the couple easily. Nick used his quiet voice, and reinforced his suggestions with surges of approval or disapprobation through their growing bloodlink, to curb her natural, and still largely uncontrollable, reactions to the intensely delectable scent of the couple's blood and the enticing drumbeat of their hearts. Natalie's eyes changed color, her mouth watered, and her canines descended, but she was able to restrain herself from attacking. That is, she was able to restrain herself until the couple settled onto a blanket they spread under a tree, and curled up together. At first they simply sat comfortably in each other's arms, pointing out constellations, admiring the unseasonable warmth and clarity of the night, and remarking upon the brightness of the stars and moon which were easily visible. But their admiration of nature soon devolved into an exploration of each other's bodies. Natalie could literally hear the increasing speed of their heartbeats and breathing, and scent their arousal. The obvious pleasure the couple induced in one another elicited a violent response from Natalie. But, instead of attacking them for their blood, she found herself pulling Nick through a screen of bushes into the next clearing where she abruptly attacked him. She ripped his jacket off, tore open his shirt, and was blindly struggling with his belt, and the fastenings on the front of his trousers, when she felt his mouth close over the nipple of one of her, suddenly bare, breasts as he worked at pulling her jeans away from her hips. For his part, Nick relished Natalie's unleashed desire. It was the first time in at least a century that he had allowed himself to experience the compelling titillation of making love out of doors. He had been cautious and reserved for far too long, Nick thought to himself. Loving Natalie, training Natalie, had reopened the sensory world of the vampire to him in a way he had both wanted and feared for nearly a hundred years. She was reminding him, with her vehement enjoyment of her newly expanded senses, of the sheer beauty he could experience by exercising the vampire inside himself. Loving Natalie was thrilling, exhilarating, he thought as he pressed himself into her body and drank in her scent, her blood, and savored her body's energetic responses to his vigorous invasion. Natalie could hear the sounds of the couple making love in the next clearing as she and Nick passionately coupled. The other couple's cries of surrender to oblivion, the scent of their blood, Nick's, now familiar and ever-enticing aroma, and the delicious friction of his fullness within her, combined to create a crushingly intense consummation for Natalie. At the peak of her enjoyment, she struck Nick's jugular and drank deeply of his dark nectar. But she still was not entirely satisfied until she felt his fangs sink into her own neck and the circle of blood-sharing was completed. For a long while afterward, Nick and Natalie lay quietly in one another's arms completely fulfilled. Nothing disturbed them. They heard the other couple dress, pack up their belongings, move on towards their car. And still Nick and Natalie lay together exchanging gentle caresses, small kisses, snuggling. Finally, Nick broke their quiet reverie. "Natalie..." "Ummhmm?" "I think it's time you learned the arts of projection and control." "Projection? Control?" Natalie wondered aloud. "You mean the 'whammy'?" "You know, Natalie, sometimes you have the most unfortunate tendency to slang!" Nick teased. "Well, whatever you call it. I've often wished I could do it. But I thought it would be a natural thing for a vampire, an instinctive thing that helped you get your dinner," Natalie answered. "It is instinctive to a degree. When you went after that first bum, you hit him hard with a ferocious bolt of hunger that froze him in place. But you had no real control over what you were doing. If an alert human had seen you then, and had a stake handy, you would have been dead. The trick is to consciously command your abilities. And to do that, you have to curb your appetite. You've managed that, now I can teach you to refine your natural talent." "I can already see that this is going to get complicated. Maybe we should get dressed. Then you could start to train me properly," Natalie said as she moved to get up. "Not so fast, love. I'm still enjoying holding you right here. We'll start tomorrow. I just thought you'd like to know, you're ready for the next challenge," Nick murmured in her ear as he stroked her left breast. Natalie responded to his attentions by stroking a portion of his anatomy which obviously relished her ministrations. The two vampires remained where they were, enjoying the warm night, the soft grass, and each other's body for another hour before returning to the loft. End Part 3 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 4 of 8 Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 09:37:44 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Wild Hunt - Part 4 by Rebecca L. Chessman The next evening Nick began Natalie's lessons in 'The Whammy' as she insisted upon calling it. "It's really what I told you, Nat. Projection and control--you project your own feelings at the recipient, and, as you control your own emotions, you reach out and manipulate theirs." "Nick, let's just get rid of the fancy titles. I'm learning to make my prey do what I want and enjoy it," Natalie asserted. "All right, if you must, that's precisely it, Nat. First practice on me. Later, when you are able to manage me, you can practice on humans. I'm going to play something on the piano. You sit on the couch, relax, reach out to me mentally, and try to make me stop. Send me a reason to join you on the couch," Nick invited her. "Oh, come on, Nick, you have to give me something more challenging than that! All I have to do is look at you lately, and we're in bed together." "Never mind that, Natalie, just send me an enticement. Then once you have me, try to get rid of me," Nick said, trying manfully to avoid leering at her. "That'll be a lot harder! O.K., go play. I'll give it a try." "By the way," Nick kissed her gently, then marched over to the piano, "I'm going to resist you as long as I can," he said over his shoulder. Natalie sat down on the couch, reached down inside herself, and thought carefully about Nick's instructions. The brightly strident tones of a Sousa march danced through the loft as Nick began to play. She relaxed and remembered the way she had felt the first time she had lost control of her hunger. She found that sorting through her emotional reactions was revealingly vivid in retrospect. Natalie could literally reexperience each moment. And as she did, she understood when and how she had influenced the actions of the human she had nearly killed. She had sent him her desire for his blood and the anticipated delight she would feel when she took it. The homeless man had frozen in place and smiled as she had gone for his neck! Then Natalie relived what she'd felt as she and Nick followed the couple into the park. She began to realize that her own desire for Nick prompted the romantic encounter of the humans. She'd telegraphed her feelings, and the couple had acted upon them. They were both considering making love to one another, but neither had the courage to initiate the act. The conversation she and Nick had overheard as the couple left the clearing confirmed this. Natalie sincerely hoped that they enjoyed their union as thoroughly as she had enjoyed Nick. Although, she reminded herself, no human could ever experience the intense eroticism involved in the sharing of blood, which powerfully complemented the normal physical gratification of lovemaking for a vampire. As she thought this, Natalie began to replay to herself her favorite moments with Nick. When she felt she had stored up the proper amount of energy, she reached out toward Nick with her pleasure in his company and her overwhelming desire for him to come to her and let her touch him. She pulled together the sum of the sensual delights she had experienced with him the night before and sent it to him again. The tone of the music he was playing changed dramatically as she found herself listening to a few measures of 'The Rite of Spring' before he managed to bring himself back to a march. Natalie smiled to herself and thought of the feel of Nick's body pressed into and against hers, and the lazy, self-satisfied smile she'd caught on his lips just after they'd made love for the second time as vampires. She sent him her earnest desire to repeat that encounter. Suddenly his lips were tasting hers. No more music was played on the piano that evening. They spent the rest of the night and the following day in their bed, alternately pleasuring each other and napping. The only blood they consumed was each other's. Natalie couldn't seem to manage to summon enough energy to send him away. And Nick was in no mood to enforce the letter of his assignment this time. Later, Nick told Natalie that he could not resist her call. Natalie insisted that he was too vulnerable to her charms. "After all, we do love each other very deeply." "Ummmm," was Nick's only reply as he nibbled at sensitive and delicious portions of her body. Then he pulled away and said, "I know, love, but you have a very clear, direct call. Your ability to concentrate on one emotion, and project it, is extremely refined." Then he returned to his previous activities, and the subject was not raised again until the following evening. "Nat, you're going to have to learn to send more than just desire for me. You need to decide how to attract your prey and make them forget your presence afterward. If you're ever caught manifesting the vampire to a human, you must be able to cover it up. You don't want the Enforcers tracking you down because you've been indiscreet." Natalie shivered at his mention of the Enforcers. She had, vicariously, experienced Nick's confrontations with them in his blood. She had no desire to experience a visit from them, personally. "What are some of the approaches you've used, Nick?" Nick considered for a moment, blushed slightly, and then confessed, "Usually, I did just what you did. Taking blood is a sensual experience, I prefaced it with seduction. But when there was no lovely young woman, I used curiosity, disgust, and anger. Curiosity enticed, then anger and disgust let me kill," Nick said thoughtfully. "I used anger when I went into battle as a knight. I was never comfortable with the killing the church expected of me. I had to get angry to kill. The church provided appropriate propaganda to make us hate and despise the people we were to destroy. LaCroix incited disgust when he taught me to take the outcasts we normally fed upon. But he preferred inducing 'blood frenzy,'" Nick shivered as he spoke the last two words. "That makes perfect sense to me, Nick. The only time I've ever really wanted to kill was when I was angry. I could have easily killed Ronald Gault if I'd ever gotten close enough to him. And I did attack Ms. Sheppard, his attorney. If I'd been a vampire then, she'd never have survived!" Natalie exclaimed vehemently. Then she asked what she had wanted to know ever since Nick had told her about his first hunt as a vampire. "Nick, when you were human, did you ever experience the blood frenzy you told me you felt when you were first a vampire?" Nick looked at her with sheer agony in his face. Then he closed himself off and turned away. Natalie went to him and caressed his shoulders, then hugged him from behind, pulling him close to her body. "Nick, we have no secrets now. You know I will always love you, no matter what you think of yourself." Nick heaved a huge sigh. Turning in her arms, he held her close, his head resting against her own, for a long time in silence. Natalie waited, content to remain in his arms, sure that she could forgive him anything, and confident that any confession he made to her would help his psyche to heal some of the eternal self-torment he suffered for his past sins. "We were ambushed," Nick began. "We had been on a scouting expedition. There were only twenty of us in our troop. The men I served with then had trained together, lived together, fought together for almost a year. I'd been in other regiments, but never had I found so many friends. Several of us had gotten close enough that we'd even discussed settling near each other when we were mustered out. We'd been in several skirmishes, but no pitched battles. The crusades were winding down into political wrangles. We were just holding little bits of territory here and there. The Saracens resented our presence in the Holy Land more each day, and their leaders were better skilled in strategic tactics than our own. We had word just the week before that we would all be going home soon." "It was a sweltering afternoon, we hadn't found anything new in our explorations and were heading wearily back to camp when they struck. My friend, Henri, was one of the first to die. He was also the youngest of our group. Seeing his head rolling away, as his body toppled from his horse, enraged me. I turned and swung my sword blindly at the first human I saw, then I don't remember much more. I literally saw nothing before my eyes but a veil of red. Part of that, I discovered later, was from two puncture wounds from the ball of a spiked mace that grazed my forehead." "I finally came to drenched in blood, surrounded by disemboweled horses and butchered men. I didn't remember much. Of the ten who survived that battle with me, two were my close friends. Jules and Yves said I drove off our attackers. They said my rage had terrified them. They told endless, gloating stories of the monster I became when I went berserk to anyone who would listen every time we got drunk together. I've seen other men overcome by that frenzy in battle over the centuries. It is a horrible sight," Nick shuddered deeply, then continued. "We were sent home after that. I'd been injured very badly, and it took several months for the wounds in my shoulder and hip to mend. But I'll never forget the sickening sight of bloody destruction my companions told me I was responsible for, as they congratulated me for defending them." Nick shivered once again. "And that horror was what LaCroix wished to reawaken when he taught me to kill." Nick shook his head sadly. "Nick, you fought to survive. Other veterans I've spoken to have had similar experiences. My older brother, David, and his friends served in Vietnam. They told me of the horrors they encountered with the booby traps in the jungles. Those traps made them so angry that they killed with a ferocity they hadn't felt before." "David? I didn't realize you had an older brother, Nat. I only knew Richard," Nick said, although now he understood some of the flashes he had seen in her blood. "David didn't come back from his last mission," Natalie said simply. Nick nodded in acknowledgment. "When he was home the last time, we avoided talking about the war. I found out after Richard died, that David had confided his feelings to Richard in letters. I guess, even though Richard was only fifteen at the time, David felt better confiding in another male. Sarah found David's letters among Richard's things and gave them to me. Some of David's war experiences were horrific, but he wrote about them as if they were just everyday occurrences!" Natalie sighed deeply then continued. "I met another veteran when I was in med school, an American named Michael. He told me how he had won the silver star. His platoon was ambushed by Vietcong. He watched, paralyzed with fear, as two of his friends died, then, he said, he suddenly remembered he could fight back. He cut the enemy to pieces with automatic fire from his own rifle, then picked up the weapons of his dead friends and emptied them into the enemy as well. Afterward, he didn't really remember what he had done either. But he told me he never again wanted to feel the loss of control the blood frenzy brought him. No wonder you and LaCroix are at odds, if he wants to induce that feeling in you again, and you resist it," Natalie told Nick solemnly. She paused thoughtfully, then finished her story. "Michael told me that he had friends who welcomed the frenzy. He said they were the ones who signed up for a second tour of duty, voluntarily. He considered them half-mad. He wanted to become a doctor to help heal, instead of kill. You sometimes remind me of Michael, Nick." Nick smiled briefly at Natalie, "LaCroix enjoys the frenzy, he cultivates it. Sometimes, I think it's his sole motivation for living. Perhaps he is one of the half-mad ones your friend Michael told you about. Just be careful, Nat, when you decide upon your approach to a human, that you keep your anger tightly under control. It's very easy to slip over the edge and become something you don't want to be." Natalie quietly nodded in agreement. Later that evening Nick took her on yet another tracking expedition and encouraged her to approach a solitary man and attempt to control him. As Natalie came into view on the park path, her quarry for the evening attempted to pick her up. He sidled up to her, slipped his arm around her, and murmured his best pick up line in her ear. Natalie found she was the one perceived as prey by the lascivious young man. But she was experienced in fending off the unwanted advances of young males, and discovered that sending him a platonic, calm confidence, then thinking of a blank white wall, made him forget her presence entirely. He wandered away from her as if she didn't exist. "I could have taken him, and he never would have known I was there," she gasped to Nick as soon as they were out of earshot of the mortal. "This is truly amazing!" "And truly deadly for the mortal," Nick reminded her grimly. "Oh, of course," Natalie said, but mentally, she cheerfully relived her ability to completely disappear from a human's perception. Over the next several nights Natalie confronted a variety of humans in different parts of Toronto. She frequently managed to fend off the unwanted advances of human males by sending them her 'quiet whammy' as she baptized it. She never needed to use more than that dissuasion. No one offered her any real harm, and Nick's fears of her becoming lost in overwhelming anger never seemed to materialize. But she kept his warnings in the back of her mind, knowing that there might come a time when she would need to heed them. For the first time, Natalie thought, she fully understood the profound disparity between human and vampire. And she found, she relished it. Over the next two weeks Nick took Natalie on many tracking and controlling missions. At first he drove them to each location, but as Natalie was able to better restrain her instinctive impulses, Nick rewarded her with flight. They now flew directly from the loft to the site of each training exercise. Some nights Nick even allowed her to avoid the stalking, the projection, and control, and simply indulge in the giddy joy of skimming through the air acros s the lake. She was thrilled by the use of each of her abilities. If she lost control, Nick was there to stop her before she harmed anyone. She anguished over each failure, and Nick comforted her. But the flood of new sensations continued to tantalize and excite her. Natalie guiltily suppressed her newest desire--to hunt and, finally, to kill. She must learn to control herself as Nick had! That was her only alternative, she told herself. Each outing made her more aware of her powers and her limits. And each one increased her pleasure in her new state of being. Nick slowly reaccustomed her to the presence of the other inhabitants of Toronto. Natalie gradually became able to walk among humans without the need to tear their throats out overwhelming her, in spite of the delectable fragrance of blood which wafted to her nostrils, and the heartbeats which thrummed in her ear relentlessly, whenever she left the confines of the loft. Natalie hadn't realized just how powerful Nick's control really was, until she was able to exercise a bit of her own. As Natalie became more capable of controlling her desires, Nick gradually expanded their range. He took her on longer flights over the city, the lake, and north over the highlands, gradually accustoming her to the realm of the vampire. Each new experience awed and pleased her with what she could accomplish. And she loved Nick more each day for his quiet, calm patience with her eager inexperience. Each day she longed for the time when he could trust her to be on her own, and secretly doubted that she would ever be able to trust herself. Since she had been brought across, Natalie had never been outside the loft without Nick by her side. She sometimes wondered, wistfully, if she would ever be truly alone again. After two months in Nick's loft, they moved to this lovely wilderness to give her the opportunity to further accommodate herself to the intensity of her new senses without the distraction of millions of humans surrounding her. Nick told her he would have liked to introduce her more slowly to her new existence. They had not moved earlier simply because the lodge was not ready for them to occupy. But, he was quick to reassure her, he was very pleased with her rapid progress, especially in light of the temptations offered by living in a city the size of Toronto. She was thrilled with Nick's approval and with their new home, a natural stone dwelling, hidden high in the mountains. It had been a friend's hunting lodge when Nick had first seen it in the eighteenth century. It had belonged in turn to many generations of the Macintosh clan. The main building had recently been remodeled as a ski lodge. Nick had only acquired the estate, when the late chief's family had decided to parlay its worth into more 'civilized' surroundings in London. Their house blended so beautifully with its terrain that Natalie imagined it would be difficult to find, especially on a misty night. And there were many misty, cloudy, rainy nights in these rugged mountains. She would be restless with the solitude, she reflected, if she were still mortal. But there was so much of nature to see, hear, smell, experience in this place. And here she did not have to worry as much about the temptations of the hunt. Although two small villages lay within twenty miles by a rough, unpaved, single track private road, five miles as the crow, or the vampire, flew, below them in the valley. They flew to their retreat in one of the private jets owned by the deBrabant Foundation. Nick had piloted it, himself, rather than force Natalie to spend too many hours cooped up in a small plane with mortals at the controls. After landing at the Inverness airport, Nick returned the plane to the care of the Foundation's mechanics. Nick and Natalie continued their journey into the mountains in the Land Rover which was now parked in the garage adjacent to the lodge. They brought several suitcases and a week's supply of blood with them, but everything else they needed had been shipped by Aristotle's efficient relocation service. They settled into their new home cheerfully and comfortably. Nick had ordered many modifications to the lodge to insure not only their present comfort, but their long term enjoyment of the property. The lodge had originally been designed with sixteen guest rooms, eight in each wing, which flanked the central public lounges and the basic service suite of kitchen, laundry, and general reception and work areas. Plentiful, hydroelectric power was carried to the site by overhead lines, but the lodge had been built as a self-sufficient outpost and had been modernized so that its own well, generator, underground propane tank, and septic system could provide for the necessities of life. None of these systems needed regular outside maintenance more often than quarterly, and could go six months unattended in a pinch. The eight rooms in the north wing were heavily remodeled to create a private living area separate from the remaining eight rooms in the south wing. The north wing was a marvel of spacious comfort and efficient engineering which insured complete security from either prowlers or unwanted sunlight. The master suite contained a bedroom, en suite bath, office, and sitting room. The sitting room included a wet bar with refrigerator and microwave. Nick and Natalie's blood supplies were stored, upon arrival, in this convenient facility. Immediately adjacent to the master suite were rooms containing Natalie's laboratory, Nick's studio, two guest suites, and a second large lounge area, fully equipped with a small library, a completely modern entertainment center, a computer work area, a large fireplace, and plenty of comfortable furniture. If they wished, they could close off the south wing of the lodge and maintain it minimally, heating it only to the extent necessary to keep pipes from rupturing in cold weather. Natalie immediately settled into her laboratory. Checking the contents of the huge, walk-in cooler, she found that Nick had had all of her research samples shipped and stored properly. She left the cooler and explored the rest of the laboratory. Her records, detailing her work on Nick's cure, had been preserved intact. Equipment she'd never expected to find outside a university lab resided on the counters or was mounted on the walls. Nick had provided her with an ideal research facility. Natalie was overwhelmed, not only by the expense represented by the very existence of the equipment, but also by the thoughtfulness of her mate. He knew she would never be happy unless she could continue the practice of her profession. No matter that its practice had to be modified in this remote retreat where she could learn to control her new abilities. But then, she reflected, Nick had had eight hundred years to discover that human beings are essentially curious creatures, compelled by their nature to learn about their surroundings. She reflected, thoughtfully, that eternity for such a creature, gifted with the abilities of a vampire, must present an enormous challenge to avoid the faults of narcissism and casual cruelty. She wondered, momentarily, if that eternal ennui was what motivated LaCroix' legendary cruelty. It had prompted Nick to become a compassionate philanthropist, a skilled teacher, an intuitive detective, and an accomplished musician and artist. And those were only the qualities she had seen him demonstrate to her in this lifetime. She was looking forward to sharing his future incarnations. Yes, she replied to that little voice in the back of her brain, LaCroix, too, was still human, cruel though he might be. Vampires were still human beings, mutated perhaps, but essentially human! All of the body's systems still worked, though they were enhanced and refined considerably. She refused to buy into Nick's insistence that he was a monster. Even though her new reactions to humans had forced her to act in monstrous ways at times, she could learn Nick's control, eventually. She promised herself that. And, this home Nick had made for them demonstrated to her just how human Nick really was. During the first month of their stay, Nick slowly introduced her to their neighbors as he became confident of her continuing control. The nearest house, owned by a local distiller, was fifteen miles away, just outside the village of Dalbeg. Natalie's first introductions to the local inhabitants that spring required a great deal of conscious effort on her part, to keep a civil demeanor, and to suppress the hunger she constantly felt around any human. But she found, as time passed, and she became friendlier with the local folks, that it was easier to regard them as people and not prey. Nick still insisted upon accompanying her when they went to town for supplies. And he refused to allow her to interact with humans, unchaperoned. But she was allowed to fly over their own land alone for the first time since she became a vampire. End Part 4 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 5 of 8 Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 09:37:50 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Wild Hunt - Part 5 by Rebecca L. Chessman A young shepherd ventured onto their land later in the summer. Natalie discovered him and his flock one night while ghosting quietly over one of the mountain pastures, following the flight of an owl. She watched the owl catch the mouse it had been hunting, and then decided to find out who their visitor was. "Good evening," she called as she came up to the campfire a few hundred yards from a small dwelling. She deliberately made plenty of human noise as she walked through the pasture. The last thing she wanted was to startle the poor man. The scent of fear, she had discovered during her training flights in Toronto, only served to sharpen a vampire's appetite. She rigorously examined her own sensory reactions and was pleased to find that this evening she radiated an aura of peaceful calm, a slight variation on the 'quiet whammy'. Her greeting was returned solemnly by a young man quietly watching a flock of sheep as he relaxed before an open fire. His dog raised its head and sniffed suspiciously at her as she approached. It apparently decided she was no threat to either shepherd or sheep and lowered its head to its paws once again. "What brings you so far from the village?" the shepherd asked. "We didn't think anyone would be so near," he said, gesturing to refer to himself and his dog. "I live in the lodge on top of the hill. I didn't realize there would be a shepherd and his flock so close to the house," Natalie answered. "When I saw your fire, I decided to check it out and be sure it wasn't a wildfire lit by lightning." "An excellent precaution. You must be Mrs. Chisholm. I heard in Dalbeg that new folks had bought the lodge. You're from Canada?" "Yes, from Vancouver. Please, just call me Natalie. I was surprised to see your fire. Nick told me the sheilings were built for the shepherds. I expected to see smoke coming from the chimney rather than from an open fire." "Your husband is correct. But there's a ewe who's nearly ready to deliver her first lamb, and I wanted to be near when it came. The fire's cheerful, and it discourages predators." "Oh, I understand. Do you bring your flock up here every summer?" "This summer it was my turn. I'm Willie Macpherson. My family has pastured our animals here for several generations. Each of my brothers has served his turn before me. Before we had the sheep, it was cattle." The shepherd continued to tell Natalie of his home and his family history. Natalie was exceptionally pleased that her current projection of calm had induced a kind of instant trust in the shepherd and in his dog. She responded to his conversation, but noticed that the expectant ewe was beginning to be restless. Nick, who was working on a painting in his studio when Natalie felt the need to wander, noticed a sudden bloom of pleasure along their bloodlink. It was intense enough to distract him, so he followed it, and found Natalie visiting merrily with a young man by a campfire near a sheiling in one of their pastures. He was angry that Natalie had disobeyed his order not to approach a human alone, but refused to let his reaction show to the human. The open pasture beside the tiny shelter, built expressly for summer herding, was the perfect place to attempt to interact with a human, alone, for the first time since her transformation, Natalie thought. Out of doors it was easier to ignore the tempting odor of the blood and the sound of his heartbeat. But, she wished to leave before the ewe decided to deliver. She did not want to risk scenting fresh blood while she was alone with the young man. She was just bidding Willie good-bye when Nick joined them. Nick was very pleasant to the young shepherd and invited him to come to the lodge if he needed anything. But when he and Natalie returned home, Nick let his anger out. "Suppose you'd lost control, Natalie!? What then? Why didn't you call me before you tried this?" he demanded. "I didn't call you because I didn't expect to meet anyone while I was following the owl. When I realized a human was there, I used all the proper preparations before I approached him. I wanted to test myself without you there to interfere. I needed to know if I could do it without you. I needed to find out just how good my control is, Nick," Natalie rejoined exasperatedly. "I know you think you're protecting me, but I need to be able to trust myself. Can't you understand that?" He'd stopped, pulled in his anger, and agreed with her after some thought. "Yes, yes, I see, Natalie. I'm sorry. I should have trusted you. You've learned so fast. You've adapted yourself to this life so well. I just don't want you to go too fast, love. I want you to be safe. I don't know what I would do without you." Nick apologized by passionately making love to her, but later, lying in bed next to his slumbering form, Natalie admitted to herself that she had been lying to Nick, and to herself. She had, unconsciously perhaps, been hunting again, and toying with her prey, when Nick had discovered her. Not long after this incident LaCroix had come to visit. Nick rhapsodized to his master over how well Natalie was adapting to her changed nature. LaCroix drew her aside and questioned her closely about Nick's treatment of her. He seemed pleased with her narration of her training. But he took her out one night and tested her abilities, as if he did not believe what he had been told. He refused to allow Nick to accompany them. "Show me your new home, Natalie," LaCroix commanded. Natalie did. She showed him the lightning blasted tree where the owl, that she loved to follow on its nightly hunts, nested at the edge of the wood. They found the red deer at their evening watering hole and discovered their resting places. Then Natalie took LaCroix on a tour of the mountain slopes and the pastures. "Good evening, Willie," Natalie called when they encountered the shepherd with his flock. "Hello, Natalie. Is that Nick with you?" Willie asked before he could make out LaCroix' face in the fading light of the gloaming. "No, my name is Lucien," LaCroix told the shepherd. "Nicholas is my son." "Sorry, sir, I didn't expect to see anyone but Nick or Natalie so far up the mountain," Willie told him. They exchanged pleasantries for a short time and then moved on. When Natalie and LaCroix continued their walk, LaCroix complimented Natalie on her control around the young human. Natalie told him of Nick's displeasure at her first solo visit. And she confessed to LaCroix her secret fear that she had unconsciously been stalking their neighbor. "Nicholas was correct to be concerned. It is not a good idea to risk killing a neighbor in a rural area such as this. We vampires usually live in large cities for many reasons, most of which have to do with survival. There are always plenty of unfortunates who can be easily taken who will not be missed. The masses provide a great deal of camouflage. Necessary supplies are easily available. Cultural diversions are plentiful. This has been true throughout the ages. But, nowadays, with cities as huge as they have become, the sensory distractions are very difficult for a new vampire. I'm sure this is why he has brought you here. Be very careful, Natalie. I should not like to see you or Nicholas hurt because you could not suppress a very natural reaction." "I understand that, LaCroix. It is much easier to control myself here. The sensory overload in the city was debilitating. I'm very glad Nick brought me here. I just hope I'll be able to trust myself soon. When I can trust myself, then, I believe, Nick will be able to trust me. I'm sure he can feel my doubts when we share blood." "I'm sure he can, my dear. LaCroix thought to himself. "Natalie, please call me Lucien. It is my given name," LaCroix requested. "Of course, Lucien," she acquiesced. Throughout the rest of his visit Natalie found that LaCroix could be an entertaining, thoughtful, and considerate friend. It was a side of him she had not expected. The three of them discussed literature and movies and took turns matching wits over the chessboard. One evening they gathered around the piano. As Nick played, Natalie sat dreamily beside him enjoying the wide variety of tunes from every era that he drifted through. Neither of them noticed when LaCroix left the room. Suddenly, the quiet tones of a stringed instrument joined those of the piano, and Natalie was surprised to look up and find LaCroix playing an ancient stringed instrument she had never seen before. "How lovely, Lucien. You and Nick play well together," she commented innocently at the end of the piece. But she felt Nick's muscles tense as she sat beside him and realized that in some way LaCroix had again tugged on the leash he kept on Nick. In an effort to abate the tension Natalie had continued, "I played the flute until I started medical school. My dad was very disappointed when I gave it up. Perhaps I should pick it up again, broaden my interests." "Indeed, my dear, then we should be able to perform trios," LaCroix had contributed. Nick made no comment but abruptly began to play a jazz piece which flowed into a medley of Dixieland rags, but the peace had gone out of the evening. LaCroix was the first to retire. The next night, when Nick and LaCroix walked out together for 'a stroll in the woods,' Natalie felt an unusual twinge of violence along her bloodlink with Nick. She dropped her pen, left the journal in which she had been recording her latest impressions open on the desk in her lab, and rushed out of the house to check on his safety. As she neared the woods, she could hear voices raised in anger. She stopped and listened. "Nicholas, must you always be so stubborn? I do not fault your training of her. But, do not thwart her growth. You must allow her to finish a hunt. Someday, soon, she will be unable to resist the urge to kill, and you will not be able to stop her. You must allow her to release this tension. You are saddling a fine, strong, young vampire with your ridiculous 'humanitarian' attitudes." "I cannot allow that, LaCroix. This area is too small, the population too limited, for us to hunt safely." "That is very obvious," LaCroix returned. "Let me take her on a trip down to Edinburgh or Glasgow or London if you choose, and let her loose there." "I am responsible for her training, LaCroix, not you. I will decide what she will do and when she will do it. Completing a hunt is not in her training program, and will not be at anytime in the near future. You have your revenge for Fleur, LaCroix. Natalie has been brought across. Leave us in peace!" "Nicholas, you willfully misunderstand me. She must do this to insure her survival in this new life." "I will not make her a killer for you, LaCroix! She is a doctor, she has taken an oath to protect life. How would she feel when she realizes she has killed a human being? It would destroy her! I will not allow it." "Nicholas, you are being short-sighted, as usual. It should be easy to find some kind of prey which will suit even your prudish standards. Allow her to release some poor soul who is suffering from a terminal illness." "Even that might be too much for her, LaCroix. Natalie has never killed anyone. She would never forgive herself if she did!" "That is complete bunk! Your beautiful Doctor Lambert is not one of those pernicious little sullied doves you used to be so fond of, she is a doctor. Doctors continually do precisely what vampires do--they play god! She understands what you refuse to, Nicholas! She must complete a hunt. She will never be able to trust herself, or allow you to trust her, until she does this properly. You are sentencing a very lovely and independent woman to a life of eternal dependency! Don't do this, Nicholas!" "I refuse to believe that, LaCroix. Natalie has done very well with her training. She does not need to kill just to satisfy your idea of vampire initiation. This is the end of this discussion." "If you will not listen to me, my child, listen to what your heart tells you. Listen to what Natalie tells you when you share blood. She is a doctor. She is already responsible for numerous deaths. Even if they were not deliberate! She can take it, Nicholas. She must kill, or she will ultimately fail to survive! And it will be your fault!" Natalie watched as LaCroix furiously launched himself into the sky. Nick walked on into the darkness alone. Natalie realized that Nick and LaCroix had been so focused on their disagreement that neither had sensed her nearness. Not wanting them to discover that she had overheard their argument, Natalie turned toward the house. As she walked, she thought over the reasoning presented by both men. She began to see what each would gain by the action he urged. But where did her own best interests lie? That question had occupied her during every waking moment since she had been brought across. When she reached the lodge, neither of the men had yet returned. Natalie went to her lab and added her observations about this latest disagreement to her journal entry. Then she closed the book and locked it back up in its file. She extended her senses as she passed by LaCroix' door. It appeared that he had locked himself in his room. Nick did not return until nearly dawn, and Natalie spent a long, lonely evening by the sitting room fire, worrying, before retiring to their bed. When she and Nick arose the next evening, LaCroix had gone. After LaCroix left, Natalie wondered how he had known what Nick still refused to acknowledge. No doctor, no matter how excellent, had never lost a patient. She had lost many patients during her internship and her residency. She felt deeply responsible and grieved over her inadequacies. Nick knew this, they had discussed it. But, perhaps, he still had not completely accepted her very real responsibility for those deaths. Perhaps that was part of the reason he had withdrawn from her since LaCroix' visit. She knew Nick still had some ridiculous idea about her purity. Nick was capable of the most amazing self-deceit, Natalie thought. He simply ignored anything about her which did not reinforce his image of her. And since LaCroix' visit, and his insistence that Nick let her hunt, Nick was ignoring her most of the time. Nick's blindness to her true motivations must stop! And not just because she missed his amorous attentions. It was dangerous for them both if he did not watch her more closely. Natalie was terrified that eventually she would give in to her deeply natural, and most terrifying desire--to hunt and to kill a human being. And Nick would not be there to help her cope with the inevitable guilt, and the consequences of her actions, if she did not get him to accept her true nature. It was mid-October when the first heavy snowstorm of the season set in with characteristic ferocity. The storm slammed precipitately into the western coast of Scotland with winds higher than predicted, and roared up the Great Glen, arriving quite unexpectedly, to dump several feet of snow onto the Monadhliath Mountains. It caught a group of climbers out on the exposed flank of a rocky spur. They rode out the initial blast of the storm bundled into their down-filled bags inside their hastily erected alpine tents, but they were unprepared for a lengthy stay. When the temperature remained below freezing, and the snow did not begin to melt within a day or so, the leaders encouraged the rest of the climbing party to set out for a more secure and permanent shelter. They knew the mountain retreat, that Nick and Natalie called home, was near. They expected that they would be offered hospitality until the snow melted, then they could make their way down the mountain. They were unaware of the strain their presence would place upon the hospitality of their hosts. Their refuge could prove more hazardous to their health than freezing or starvation. Natalie was, initially, pleased at being able to show Nick just how much control she had learned. The climbers arrived in the early evening and were warmly welcomed and assigned to rooms in the south wing of the lodge. Nick made sure the heat was returned to a comfortable level, and Natalie found herself cooking to provide for their guests. Nick had made sure that Aristotle had provided adequate supplies of human food for just such an emergency. But what had once been a pleasure for Natalie became a trial. The scent of the food she prepared nauseated her, even as their guests' blood scent enticed her. She found herself focusing more and more often on her 'mantra' to avoid the warm temptation so blatantly displayed to her senses. Her distracted manner forced Nick to explain to their guests that Natalie was a writer, and that her inattention from time to time was due to creative inspiration. His little fiction also allowed her to escape, frequently, to her lab or their suite, where she could find refuge from her overloaded senses. Being trapped inside a confined structure with humans for the first time since her conversion was a sobering and, ultimately, strengthening experi ence, Natalie thought to herself. A week later she and Nick watched the party as it headed enthusiastically down the mountain just as the sun rose one morning. Nick had offered to drive them into Dalbeg, but the expedition leaders told him that they had decided to finish their trip on foot. And they were headed for Laggan, on their original route, which was located in the opposite direction. Natalie closed the door of their lodge against the morning sun and turned to Nick. "Well, thank God that's over! Did I do all right, Nick?" Nick pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately for the first time in weeks. "You were magnificent, my love. I'm very proud of you. That was a real ordeal for you, wasn't it?" "Yes, it was!" Natalie replied. She was overjoyed when Nick carried her to their bed and once again consummated their passionate relationship. Later, as she rested upon Nick's chest, Natalie realized that her thoughts were drifting to the climbers headed down the mountain. Deep inside herself she wondered what Nick would do if he allowed himself to realize she was dreaming of following that party down the mountain and feasting on their bounteous and delectable lives. That evening Natalie dressed warmly and told Nick she was going out to see what kind of wildlife she could find on the mountain tracks during the winter season. But she found herself following the track of the climbing party. She quickly located their camp and hovered silently over it, spying on their conversation, gloating that no one saw her, testing her control, once again. But Nick saw her. He followed her. He knew the past week's experiences had Natalie on the razor's edge of control. He was intent on stopping her if she lost it. By the time she broke off her hunt and turned back, Nick was enraged at her folly. But, he continued to hang back to see what she would do, and he followed her home. There, Nick confronted her as she entered the hall. "Just what did you think you were doing, Natalie? Why did you follow those climbers?" "I wanted to be sure they were still safe. I wanted to see how far they would get today. It's still very snowy out there. I wanted to be sure they were all right," Natalie said innocently. "You were tracking them, Natalie. Hunting them. LaCroix warned me about this kind of behavior," Nick accused her. "This must stop, Natalie. You must learn to control your desires. I don't want to have to do to you what I had to do to Richard," Nick continued in a coldly stern voice. "Wha...Nick...you wouldn't! You couldn't!" she exclaimed. "I would and I could, Natalie. You cannot allow these desires to overcome your good judgment." End Part 5 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 6 of 8 Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 09:37:56 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Wild Hunt - Part 6 by Rebecca L. Chessman Natalie simply stared at him, aghast, for a seemingly interminable time. She knew in the very depths of her soul that he was entirely capable of killing her, if she lost control, just as he had been forced to kill her brother. And she knew, to her horror and her shame, that it would, again, be her own fault. And worse yet, if he were forced to destroy her, he would destroy himself. For the first time, she fully realized the gravity of their situation, and that they could no longer avoid discussing their mutual dilemma. "Nick!" she grabbed his arm, dragged him to the couch before the fire, and shoved him down onto it. She stood stiffly over him and imposed her demands. "Nick, we have to talk about this. We've been dancing around this issue ever since LaCroix visited. I know what you two argued about. We have to get this out in the open, Nick. You can't just back away from me and refuse to face the issue. I'm a vampire, Nick. I have the same desires you d o. I need to hunt. And I want to kill! Help me cope with this, Nick! You have to help me cope with this!!!" Nick watched Natalie's impassioned face, noted her tense, agitated posture, and made his decision. He reached up to her and pulled her down onto the couch with him. She resisted, "Nick, don't try to romance me out of this! I need your help!" Nick withdrew from her slightly, but he grasped both of her hands tightly in his to gain her attention. "Listen to me, Natalie. I will answer you. I need you to understand what I'm feeling, what I fear." "Then talk, Nick. I'm sick and tired of being ignored!" "I know. I know, love. Please...just listen." He looked deeply into her eyes and waited until she relaxed slightly before he began to speak. "I know you think I have an idealized vision of you, my love. And you are right, to a degree. I do love you so very much, Natalie." He lifted one hand from where he grasped her own and stroked her cheek delicately. Then he heaved a great sigh and replaced his hand around hers where it lay in her lap. "But, Natalie, I don't want you to suffer from the depth of guilt and despair I once fell into, either. I know you are strong, but strength is not what this is about. It is about our very basic beliefs about life and death, and our responsibility to others." Natalie opened her mouth to speak, but he shushed her and continued. "Remember what I told you about my first hunt?" Natalie nodded, "After that first killing frenzy, LaCroix taught me to be more subtle. I learned to waylay the lonely traveler caught outside the gates after curfew. I hunted hermits, gypsies, foresters, prostitutes, beggars, any who lived solitary lives unconnected to a known and protected family. And in hard times he taught me to take the ill, the injured, and the wounded. I've taught you those skills, so you would know how to survive. But, Natalie, times are different now. You can't use those skills in our modern world. You have to exert control over your desires." "I know that, Nick! You and LaCroix are right about the strength of my desires, but I do NOT wish to act on them. How am I to deal with this? What are my alternatives? I haven't found a cure for either of us. That particular prospect isn't very promising just now. I've hit a dead end, and I haven't found any new avenues for research." Natalie looked up into Nick's face to see how he was taking her assertions. To her amazement, he was smiling at her. "Nick? Are you all right? I thought you'd be screaming at me by now." "No, Nat. I'm relieved, especially, because you don't want to follow LaCroix' advice. As for our cure, I knew when I took your blood for the first time that you had plans to continue your research if I brought you across, but that you had run into a blank wall you couldn't find a way around. I knew part of the reason you wanted me to bring you across was to buy time for your research. You never admitted it to me. I sometimes wondered which you wanted more, me or your work." "You, of course, you idiot!" Natalie exclaimed. "Eventually medical science will find a way to cure, or at least modify, our condition. I might even be able to do it. In the meantime we have to find a way to continue to contribute to society and keep our antisocial desires under control." "And that is the point of this entire discussion, Nat. How do we do that for you? I don't think allowing you to complete a hunt is the way for you to learn control. I think our experience during the past week shows that you have very considerable, very reliable control over your desires." "But Nick, look what you just caught me doing! I tracked those people! I was toying with them, with their lives, when you found me. How can you possibly compliment me on that?" "You didn't kill any of them, Natalie. You didn't even hit any of them with a suggestion that they wander off the trail or return here. And you left their camp and came back here on your own without being prompted." Nick stopped for a moment and assessed what he had just said. Then he smiled into Natalie's eyes as he asserted, "I don't think you would kill, unless you were very hungry or threatened with death. I think that perhaps our greatest danger, and your greatest temptation, is precisely what LaCroix wants you to do. You know, don't you, Natalie, that you can never take LaCroix at face value. While he can put on a very civilized front, he truly believes in the superiority of the vampire over mortals. He sneers at our values. He would do anything to get us to live as he does. And he certainly drove a wedge between us while he was here. He had me half-convinced that you were on the verge of losing all control over yourself!" "He seems very lonely, Nick. I think he's terrified that he will have to live for eternity alone. When you decided to live among mortals and try to be like them, he felt abandoned. He was excessively pleased with the way you trained me. It's easy to see how much he loves you, Nick. I watched him while he was here. He was very gentle with me for your sake. I'm not afraid of his hurting me. He wants you close to him." "Natalie, don't be deceived by his present mild manner," Nick warned her seriously. "We're enjoying a truce just now, but it can't last long. He's pleased, at the moment, that by training you, I've returned, in a way, to the life he wants me to lead. You are his tool to insure that I continue leading it. But we've just decided that isn't what we want. He'll keep at us, Nat. I've learned, to my sorrow and shame on too many occasions, that LaCroix will have things as he wishes them and someone will die." "Is that why you reminded me about Richard?" Natalie asked softly. She had been unwilling to mention his earlier threat, but knew they had to be rigorously honest with each other in this conversation. Nick's face took on the solemn expression he had worn earlier when their conversation had started. "Yes, Nat...it is. I'm very concerned about what tactic he will try next to seduce you into killing. He's very clever. He understands how to twist people and their emotions to gain what he wants. I don't know how to protect you, Natalie, except to warn you." "Nick...I asked you to help me cope with this desire I have to kill. I really didn't expect you to give me a foolproof answer. I just need to know that if I can't live up to our expectations, that you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I will not do this thing if I can help it. But if I do.......Nick, please don't leave me alone in this life. The one thing I could not bear is to lose your love, your respect." "Oh, Natalie, how could I reject you for something I have done so often in the past? I will never abandon you, my love, no matter what happens." Nick pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, and Natalie was comforted for a time. But they both silently feared what tricks LaCroix might use in order to impose his will. They did not have long to wait. Alyce Hunter turned up on their doorstep only a few days later. Nick stood, thunderstruck at her appearance, as Alyce blithely entered the front hall stripping off her gloves and laying them on the table beside the coat rack which occupied the wall on one side of the long, narrow room. She hung her coat on one of the many wall hooks and set a briefcase beneath it. Then she turned to Nick and threw herself into his arms. When Nick did not immediately reappear after answering the door, Natalie came into the hallway to find a woman she had thought dead, an early rival for Nick's romantic attentions, kissing Nick as if he were her long-lost love. When the dark-haired woman released Nick, she turned, and seeing Natalie standing disapprovingly at the other end of the hall exclaimed, "Nick, who is your lovely companion? LaCroix never told me about her. He only mentioned Janette. I've met her, this is not she!" "Alyce Hunter, this is Natalie, my wife," Nick replied firmly as he walked to Natalie's side and pulled her against him. "Your wife! Well, that's quite an assertion for our kind. I didn't think any of us would tie themselves down to only one diversion for eternity. But, then, you always were impulsive, Nick," Alyce murmured. "Good evening, Dr. Hunter," Natalie greeted her coldly, "we thought you were dead. I suppose LaCroix must have brought you across." "Yes, he did. I asked Nick to do it, but he refused. I still do not understand why he insists upon rejecting this life. I am thoroughly enjoying it. It's ideal for an archaeologist. I'm looking forward to many centuries of research. Which, by the way, is why I am here." "Why don't we all go into the main lounge where we can be comfortable," Nick asked nervously as he released Natalie. "Alyce, why don't you go and have a seat beside the fire. Natalie and I will be with you in a moment." Nick gestured toward the large room where he and Natalie had been sitting, quietly conversing, when the doorbell had rung. Then he took Natalie by the hand and led her into their suite across the hall for a short, intense discussion. "I thought she was dead!" Natalie exclaimed as Nick shut the door. "So did I, Nat." "So, is her kiss still mesmerizing?!" Natalie hissed. "What does she want, Nick?" Nick wisely ignored Natalie's first question and answered the second, "I have no idea. Let's just hear her out and find out what she's up to, then we can decide what to do about it." "All right, but it sure is strange that she, of all people, should turn up just now," Natalie commented. Nick pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly and passionately. "Are you just a bit jealous, Nat?" he teased. "Maybe. Just a little," Natalie said soberly. "You needn't be, love." Nick murmured into her ear as he nuzzled her neck and hugged her closely. "She kissed me, not the other way around." "Well, I still don't have to like it," Natalie replied. "But," she observed in a self-satisfied tone, "You did introduce me as your wife, and that's not technically true." "It will be soon enough," Nick replied quietly. "Are you thinking what I am?" Natalie asked. "That she was sent by LaCroix to try to stir things up and make you angry enough to kill?" Nick asked. "Precisely," Natalie returned. They stood and looked deeply into one another's eyes for a moment, then Nick said. "Let's play along with his game until we really know what it is, Nat." Natalie slipped her arms around Nick's neck, kissed him deeply and then said wistfully, "Just don't get too caught up in the play, love." "Never," Nick murmured as he returned her kiss. Then they returned to the lounge and their puzzling visitor. "If you don't mind, I want to consult Nick about a display I'm organizing at the Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie." Alyce ostensibly addressed her remarks to Natalie, while eying Nick hungrily from the chair opposite the couch where the couple sat. "The climbers who just left here were raving about the fine hospitality they received from the new occupants of this lodge at the pub in Kingussie. Your reputation for having comfortable accommodations and fine cuisine has been made in this area. If you wanted to run a successful tourist lodge, you've certainly got the publicity for it. When I heard Nick's description, I realized who it must be. I decided to come to the lodge to ask him to do me a favor." Alyce turned her full attention to Nick and asked, "Nick, would you come down to Kingussie and check my part of the exhibit for authenticity? All the museums in the Highlands added a section on the Jacobite period for tourists, since this year was the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the battle at Culloden. In April the National Trust opened "The Swords and the Sorrows" exhibit at the visitor's centre there and sponsored a memorial service at the battlefield cairn. The interest in that period seems to be continuing past the anniversary celebrations. Although the museum in Kingussie is a far smaller and less prestigious venue, I would like our exhibit to be accurate. LaCroix told me, during the year I spent with him, that you lived in this area at the time." "Yes, I was living here, in this lodge, as a matter of fact." "Your experience of that time, with your background in archaeology, and your experience as a curator would be very valuable to me. Please, Nick, will you help me? We have several items donated by local families that need to be authenticated. You are the only person I know, who isn't already employed by one of the other museums, who could help me." She had apparently retrieved her briefcase from the hall while Nick and Natalie had held their conference in their room. She presented Nick with a stack of papers and photos to peruse. Nick flipped through the items in the pile Alyce had handed him. "You have some very fine artifacts here. These have all been donated by local residents?" he asked. "Yes, they have," Alyce answered. "That's what makes it so tempting to just accept them at face value. It's easy to see they are things that match the style of the period. We need to make sure that they aren't reproductions that someone's uncle might have picked up at a fair last year. And you can do that for me. You're the only one I know who could tell me accurately and quickly. And I don't think you're the sort to charge a fee the museum can't afford!" "Not likely," Nick grinned. "I don't really need a fee, but I will charge something just to appear to be legitimate." "I just knew you would do this for me! Thank you, Nick!" Nick was flattered by Alyce's acknowledgement of his expertise and her obvious and open admiration of himself. He turned to Natalie for her approval, and was stunned to see a disgusted look on her face. "Nat, would you mind if I looked at these pieces Alyce's museum has? I can help with their authentication." Realizing that Natalie was still under the influence of her admitted jealousy, perversely, pleased Nick, and in an attempt to appease her anger, he added, "You could come down to Kingussie with us. You haven't seen that part of the country yet. It's a lovely little town. We could have fun being tourists together." But Natalie was angry at Alyce's continuing, blatant flirtation and at Nick's willingness to believe Alyce's reasons for this visit. All thoughts of their previous conversation about LaCroix had disappeared as she had slowly been consumed by an overwhelming jealousy. "Thanks just the same, Nick, but I think you and Alyce can do this by yourselves. I have some work to do in the lab. One of the journals that arrived in the mail this morning has an article in it that may open a new avenue of investigation on my pet project." Natalie found herself rising to her feet. She thought if she stayed in the same room with the other vampiress much longer she might attack her. She could smell the challenge the other woman's presence was arousing in her, and wondered if this was another aspect of vampirism Nick was unable or unwilling to tell her about. And she could scent Nick's response to the heightened sexual tension in the room. She was sure she wasn't going to be able to remain civilized and in control for very much longer. She excused herself and quickly flew to her lab. "Well, your wife seems to have given her permission for you to help out on my project, Nick. Would you like to go this evening? We could spend the day at my place and go into the museum tomorrow evening," Alyce insinuated in a mildly salacious tone. "Oh, I think we can do it tomorrow in the early evening, Alyce. We have plenty of room here. I'll show you where you can sleep," Nick rose and offered Alyce his arm, which she took with alacrity. As they walked down the hall, Alyce took every possible opportunity to rub up against Nick. When they reached the door to the room (farthest from his and Natalie's suite) where Nick told her she would spend the night, Alyce threw her arms around Nick in a passionate embrace and attempted to bite him on the neck. But Nick pushed her away and held her at arm's length. "I told you that Natalie is my wife! I'm faithful to her, Alyce. I love her very much," Nick told her firmly. He fully realized that she was attempting to seduce him. "What is it that you really want, Alyce? Did LaCroix send you here to try to drive Natalie and me apart?" Alyce just smiled at Nick and said, "I thought we had something together once, Nick. Perhaps not! But, at least I tried," she smiled up at Nick, kissed him once more, then turned and entered her room. Nick stood musing in front of her door for a moment longer, wondering just what LaCroix was attempting to do. Nick's present relationship with Natalie was so much deeper, so much more precious to him than any passing fancy. There wasn't a chance that Alyce or even Janette, for that matter, could influence his feelings about Natalie. Then he turned and walked confidently down the hall to his studio. He was thinking cheerful thoughts of making love to Natalie when he presented her with the new painting and the composition he had created expressly for her. Natalie, however, was furious with both Nick and Alyce. She had fled the main lounge for the lab, her personal refuge from the world. She found two bottles of blood in the lab refrigerator that she hadn't remembered were there, snatched them up gleefully, and drank them down quickly. The first taste had seemed oddly bitter, but she had ignored it. By the time she finished both bottles, she had convinced herself that Nick was beginning to regret his commitment to their relationship. She was intensely wrapped up in a violent emotional reaction to Alyce's presence in her home. Natalie worried that Nick would find her wanting if he compared her to a more accomplished and better controlled vampiress. After all, she told herself, he was used to the attentions of the delectable Janette. And, Natalie convinced herself, in a haze of over-indulgence, that any other woman would be more capable of satisfying him than an inexperienced, clumsy, dull, and practical doctor who was incapable of fully utilizing her vampire abilities without making a fool of herself. Natalie saw Alyce's advances as she stepped out into the hall from the lab to return to her own bedroom. When Alyce kissed Nick, Natalie ducked back into the lab until she heard Nick go down the hall towards his studio. As soon as she heard the sound of the piano, Natalie returned to their bedroom. By the time Nick returned to their room, Natalie appeared to be asleep and didn't acknowledge his presence. Nick was rather pleased that Natalie had taken Alyce's presence with her usual unflappable aplomb and was sleeping peacefully. He snuggled up against her, assuming that all was still right with his world. "By this time tomorrow," Nick thought to himself, "this job for Alyce will be finished, and I can hurry home to Natalie. I'll present her with the picture and her song when I get back." End Part 6 - Wild Hunt by Rebecca L. Chessman All comments to bdundee@aol.com Subject: ADULT: Wild Hunt, Part 7 of 8 Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:45:34 EDT From: Rebecca Chessman To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Wild Hunt - Part 7 by Rebecca L. Chessman Nick awoke in the late afternoon. Natalie was still asleep. Nick worried about that for a moment. She had, after all, retired before he had and didn't usually sleep so long. He rolled her over against his chest and kissed her deeply. Natalie's eyelids fluttered slightly, but she still didn't open her eyes. "Nat, love, are you all right?" Nick whispered against her mouth. "Mmmm, jus' sleepy...." Natalie mumbled. "Wake up, sleepyhead. Don't you want to see me off to Kingussie? After tonight we won't have to see Alyce ever again if we don't want to." Nick whispered in Natalie's ear. "Never would be too soon," Natalie said and rolled away from Nick to bury her head in her pillow. "Too true!" Nick exclaimed. He patted Natalie gently on the rump, got up, and headed for the bathroom to shower. Natalie rolled back over and watched him walk away. She got up, threw on a robe, and padded into the sitting room, to the wet bar, where she picked up a bottle and two glasses. When Nick came back into the bedroom, Natalie was sitting in her easy chair sipping at her breakfast. Nick dressed quickly, then settled into his chair and eyed her uneasily. He could feel that she was still angry. He poured himself some breakfast and took a sip before attempting to calm Natalie's temper. "Nat, you know this isn't something I want to do. We both know LaCroix has something to do with Alyce's reappearance. Are you sure you don't want to come with us? I'd feel better if you did." "No, Nick. I think we'll probabl