hearts on fire

Red, the color of passion and lust. Raw and carnal and my, it ran beautifully. Ichorwood inflated Elsiphe with a sense of treachery and tragedy, eyes keening with hunger and unadulterated wander. She slinked through the woodwork like a shadow, ducking between bushes and trees as she stalked the flock of chittering sparrows scattered amongst the leaf littered floor. They pecked at the seedy ground, blissfully unaware of their impending doom. 

With belly tucked low to the ground, she waited in the dark, pools of jade unblinking and wide. A pair wandered close and her tongue slid between sharpened ivories. Her muscles coiled tight, twitching with the ache of temptation, and without warning they snapped. She lurched forwards like a curled whip, the crack of leather resonating in the way her maw clasped shut around one and her paw coming down on the other. Claws pierced the delicate skin as the rest of the flock scattered like leaves to the wind, rising into the sky where they disappeared within the fog of clouds. The tiny creature twitched, its frantic panic slowing as its life slipped and Elsiphe dropped the other tiny fowl to the ground. 

---

@Felmont

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A towering beast within the shadows. From behind the dark mask draped across the standing trees, the cunning one weaved his way through the crimson escape; his form blended naturally into the seamless browns of the landscape. He was on the trail of a demoness, something unbeknownst to him -- Felmont searched for her through the Ichorwood, his smoldering eyes lit with a passion unable to be sated. He had followed her from the borders of the land he now hailed, having picked up her scent there on the cusp of Hrafnsvaktin's snowed in hills. He had heard of Hrafn's newest enigma, her name passed around from the lips of the mountain's wolves, and he sought to pick her apart himself. 

In a brief grove is where Felmont found her, dark form tormenting a small flock of innocents. The one still alive, squashed beneath her grip, cried out for help -- but it's friends would not offer it, taking flight to the skies. It squawked and panicked much to Felmont's amusement, his lips curling back over his stained incisors. Then it died. 

And so did Felmont's amusement, and so he'd have to seek out a new source. And luckily, she was clad in black silk. 

He'd make his presence known now, suddenly moving through the bushes from where he'd been stalking her. A deep rumble gurgled in his throat, followed by a hungry chuff; his eyes raked across her sanguine form and he was not slow in his approach, his lumbering gait taking in long strides. “Sweet Elsiphe.” His voice, husky, was more of a growl. He already knew her name, and he wondered if she knew his? 

“Have you caught me dinner?” A sneer grew upon his snout as he pushed his face into hers.

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The sparrow died quickly, its life extinguished by a single claw to the heart. Elsiphe did not consider herself a sadistic entity; she believed in quick, clean, efficient kills. There was only a single time where she siphoned delight in death. She made it as slow, torturous, and agonizing as he'd made her life. His wails were a holy hymn to her ears and her name a scathing lyric. The blood that laced his body, that spurted from violent cavities she'd carved, were sprawling rivers of ambrosia from which the Gods drank. She wore his ichor in the days following. No kill had ever left her so swollen with satisfaction.

Her thoughts were disturbed by the crunching of leaves underfoot and she was delicately reminded of her leatherbound stalker. He was a towering beast with deep set eyes and a haunting step. She wasn't blind to the disturbing hunger in his gaze nor his shameless strides when she absconded the dens and made her way to Ichorwood— he'd eyed her like she was a naive doe and him a starving lion. Elsiphe found it to be quite the contrary. She'd allowed his presence, in fact, she'd welcomed it. With the subtle arch of her back and the innocent glances behind her shoulder, like a dangling bait teasing him, urging him, feeding his predatory instinct.

“Dearest Felmont.” She crooned, half-lidded, sultry eyes twinkling as if he was the finest thing on four legs. Elsiphe had learned his name during the first few days of her stay in Hrafn territory. She did her due diligence, swallowing information, and filing them for safekeeping. Knowledge, when used correctly, could be as dangerous as an arsenic-dipped dagger. Oh yes, she knew a thing or two about the infamous Felmont Vallaðskjall.

He'd all but bumped his nose into hers and she was instantly met with an olfactory assault of salt and spice so strong it stung her nostrils. His perfume reflected his poise; abrasive and insensitive. She should have found it offensive, but where she was supposed to feel disgust, she felt an alluring warmth pool inside her belly. If he was a pirate, mangy and deranged, she was his siren. His call to the sea and the promise of fabled treasure unfound.

“Why else would I have caught two?” She asked politely, carefully sliding one of the sparrows to his wide paws, “Stalking such skittish creatures can be so—” She circled him now, leisurely, her gaze raking his figure and swallowing him whole. Her tail stroked beneath his chin, sliding along his chest and squared shoulders, “Exciting. Are you excited, Vallaðskjall?”

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To a fool Elsiphe would have been a prime victim, a she wolf just waiting to be besieged. Yet, Felmont was no fool -- easily, his wit matched that of the ebony enchantress, a rival she hadn't expected. He'd dumb himself down, wear the mask of 'just another brute'. But he was more than that and he knew it well; and he knew that her show was merely just that: a show. But why not indulge in it? Why not appease her? He would do so, and he'd enjoy it while he did -- because he knew come morning, he would be just another name upon her chart, and was that something to complain about? No, surely not.

As quickly as she had offered it up, a large paw had silenced the small frame of the finch, squashing the corpse beneath his weight. It crunched, bones snapping beneath the unrelenting pressure of his mass. Muscles curled and rolled along the length of his shoulder, extending down his herculean frame; and all the while his golden eyes remained trained on the midnight beauty, admiring all that she offered him. She was irresistible, and if Felmont had been some ignorant sailor, he would have surely fallen victim to her. Another fool come along to claim a beauty of his own, only to wash ashore dead later that day. His eyes followed the woman as she moved, strides that of a silk dance. She circled him as if he were a piece of flesh, and in truth, that was all he was to her. It was all he could possibly have to offer to the woman.

“Mmm.” His voice was a honey hum, gravelly and yet smooth within his throat. He was still until he was not, spurred on by the woman's tail which trailed along his chest and beneath his chin, coaxing him into her spider's web. Felmont was swift despite his size, and he did not spare Elsiphe any attempt at gentility as he rushed her. His hefty paws knocked into her chest to push her into the Ichorwood's floor covered in leaves, laying her back against the bed of crimson. His head lowered to hers, his nose brushing against her snout, and his lips curled backwards into a hungry sneer. “Excited... hungry. The lines begin to blur.” His voice of mischief had been consumed by a desire driven by heat, a fire that billowed from his stomach into his chest.

He pressed his nose to her throat, tongue rasping gently against her fur, grooming the expanse of her thin chest, all while his warm breath blew across her fur. “Let's forget the birds, ást.”

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Elsiphe was familiar with Felmont's type: sinful savages who believed that there was more to eating than meeting bodily needs. Men like him were greedy, careless, cunning. Their voices were wicked and their hearts, or their lack of one, bled with blood so black and toxic it rivaled their own rotten sense of honor. He crushed the sparrow. She abhorred men like Felmont. They hadn't a single redeeming quality and he was no different. For them, sex was meant to be some sick form of redemption— some depraved act to inflate their pleasure and pride. Elsiphe turned it into her own. She seized its power, wrangled it in leather and rope, and let it choke on her mordant ire. She'd suffocate him too. What else did insects like him have to offer?

Carefully, gingerly, she lured Felmont into her sea, her vox an enchantment meant for his ears alone. In another life, perhaps she'd be leaning on the railings of his wood-rotten ship, scales glinting in the moonlight, her hands tangled in a knot of wind tousled hair as she stroked his cheek and pulled him to his watery grave. There, she'd eat him alive with nothing but his clothes and a pathetic sea shanty to be remembered by.

Elsiphe drank him. He may embody all she despised, but she wasn't dull. He was a hunk of a man, chiseled and warped by wind and sun who smelled of brine and adventure. Like the breath of a new day and the promise of glory to come. Then, suddenly, he'd shoved her. It wasn't entirely unexpected. He was the kind who seized what he wanted, when he wanted. She was what he wanted. That didn't stop the whine of surprise that escaped her ebony lips.

There, she lay, belly up and exposed. Her onyx fur was stark against the blanket of velvet crimson and her gaze was hot with warmth and heat. Her paw splayed against the broadness of his chest, claws raking into the thick muscle beneath, a spur to drive him forth, and a wicked reminder of the depravity he was about to ravage her with. He would not soon forget this. He'd bask in her divinity, the picture of her beneath him an unholy worship to only the most depraved and darkened deity.

She shuddered against his touch, fervent kisses being laid so generously across her feverish skin, “Make me forget, doux amour.”

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The soft, shocked noise that caught between her teeth had been like music to his ears. He relished in her surprise, he bathed in the reaction he pulled from her. With every feline-like arch of her back and honeyed coo she breathed against him, Felmont was lured in like a drunken sailor. He was her victim, a piece of flesh for her to consume. Funnily enough, he'd been hellbent on not falling into the saccharine ladies web -- and it is exactly what had happened, her allure one so erotic he found himself captured in her claws. 

His tongue scraped from the bottom of her chest, tangling through the languid waves that fell around her neck. It pressed warmly to the base of her throat once more, and it caressed her thin jawline as his mouth once more came to a stand off with hers. Whenever the fiend spoke, his voice dropped into a thick vox, one made of chocolate, burly and thick with the want and need for her. “Your wish is my command.” He'd growl almost playfully against her, and then he nipped at her throat, sharp teeth finding her scruff. 

The wolf yanked her up and around, flipping the she-wolf around onto her stomach, enjoying the feel of the way she relented beneath him. The crimson trees around them felt as if they were closing in, hiding their transgressions from the critters that lurked. 

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