Mmm...
Marquise slowly began to feel his body reforming. He tried to stretch out a bit, but it felt like someone was holding his legs...
Hmm?
"Hey there, love."
Vrasje...?
Nuzzling against something cool, Marquise opened and closed his mouth a little a few times, then blinked open his eye.
Ah, he's carrying me.
Now that he was more awake, he could also feel his legs slightly wrapped around the man's midsection and his hand...
Under my naked ass.
Said hand flexed slightly, though it felt like more of a flinch, as Vrasje continued to walk, making Marquise realize that he'd likely heard his thought.
"I'm sorry, it honestly wasn't intentional. I was spending time with Garlic when he got tired and wanted to be carried. I've been walking around with him in the back garden for nearly an hour," Vrasje said, making Marquise's eye widen as he finally leaned back enough to look around.
We're... outside.
And more importantly, he was naked outside.
"Don't worry, I told all of my servants to find things to do inside, and the hedges are all plenty high. Just in case, however, I also put up a barrier."
He was a bit surprised.
"Would you like to go back inside and get dressed?" Vrasje asked as he slowed to a stop near a large fountain.
Marquise was about to answer yes, when he noticed his refection in the faintly rippling water.
"Can you set me down, please?"
Vrasje did so immediately, carefully helping him down until he was steady on his feet. He then stepped back, but remained just close enough in case he was needed.
Marquise carefully walked up to the fountain and looked down into the water.
It's a little dirty...
"I'll have them clean it tomorrow," Vrsaje said, reading his thoughts again.
Marquise tilted his head one way, then the other as he considered what he wanted to do. He felt that same strange sensation in the depths of his body that he'd had when he was messing with Vrasje earlier.
My leg still isn't that great, but maybe...
Reaching for that strange feeling, Marquise felt his blood suddenly pump through his system at twice its normal speed!
An excited grin slid onto his face as he felt a strange kind of strength surge through him. Without hesitating, he leaped up onto the ledge of the fountain. He immediately winced as he felt his leg spasm from the strain of the abrupt action, but it soon faded into a dull ache as he slowly stood up.
Not bad.
Flexing his left hand, he felt a perfect response. Hell, better than perfect. Focusing, he watched as his fingers began to blur before his eyes.
He'd been so caught up in all of his problems that he hadn't really thought about exploring his new vampiric side much.
Turning his attention to his other hand, he tried to flex his fingers and tensed.
Ouch.
Undeterred, he focused on moving his darkened fingers slowly inward, then outward. It hurt for the first minute, but then it began to change again. A dull ache took over as he excitedly lifted his hand up toward the rising sun.
He was just about to really start seeing what he could do with it when Vrasje suddenly appeared beside him and gently clasped his damaged hand between his own two.
"Be careful, love. Your vampiric side is amazing, and I definitely want you to explore it, but the rules for you will be a little bit different than a normal vampire," Vrasje said as he gently massaged his hand.
"You still have your wolf half, and that keeps your body alive. If you strain your damaged hand before it can properly heal as much as possible first, you could make it much worse."
Ah, that makes sense.
Looking down, Marquise pursed his lips and, hesitantly, let his hold slip on the new power he'd felt within himself, allowing it to settle back into the depths of his body... for now.
"I'll be more careful," he said as he looked back up at Vrasje. "I guess I just got a little too excited."
The man gently guided him to sit down, then slipped off his own shoes before setting his feet in the dirty fountain water. Marquise watched him, a bit surprised that he would do such a thing. His pantlegs were even getting wet.
"It's nice and cold," Vrasje said as he gave him a lopsided smile that made Marquise blink a few times before looking down at the water.
No harm in it, I guess.
Since he was already butt naked, Marquise simply lowered his legs into the water and immediately shivered a tiny bit. It did feel refreshing, though.
Smiling, he kicked his feet a little, stirring up the dirt and leaves that had settled to the bottom of the fountain. He could feel Vrasje's eyes on him, but he didn't really mind. If what the man said was true, and it was beginning to dawn on him that it was, then he couldn't blame him for staring. He'd only seen a mate bond situation once before, and that poor pup had been completely smitten even after it had been rejected.
"Hey Vrasje?" he asked quietly, nearly mumbling his words as he continued to watch his feet kick up the dirt beneath the surface of the water.
"Yes, Marra?"
Leaning back on his hands and not minding that his back was a bit hunched, Marquise glanced sideways, then quickly averted his eyes back to the water.
"How much do you love me?"
It wasn't easy to ask such a question, but this was only his second time seeing a mate bond, and he was curious to see how it actually worked.
"I'd die for you, and kill for you," Vrasje said without an ounce of hesitation, making Marquise look back up at him in wonder.
The vampire's expression was calm, but just beneath the surface he could see how sincere he was about what he'd said.
"What about other wolves?" he asked as he returned his attention back to the water again.
"I don't care about them," was Vrasje's immediate response.
It made him grin a bit, but his smile didn't last.
"Would you kill them again? I know you said that you didn't kill any during your last hunt at the border of your territory, but does me being a werewolf really mean that you won't kill any others?"
He honestly wasn't against the man's hunting, because some wolves really were that bad, but definitely not all of them.
"You know, that's exactly what Pepper had talked with me about earlier," Vrasje said, surprising Marquise enough to make him immediately straighten and look over at him.
"He came out? You met him?!"
His heart was thrashing around his chest like a tornado had abruptly been locked inside.
"It's okay, love. Yes, he did come out, and I broke the seal on his forehead so that he could speak with me," Vrasje said, making Marquise become light-headed from stress.
Evidently seeing his distress, Vrasje reached up and gently tugged him against his side. Marquise was grateful for the support and quickly rested his head against the man's shoulder and closed his eye.
He soon felt a hand softly patting his head, allowing him to calm down enough to open his eye again after a minute or two.
"I am sorry that my actions have caused you stress, love. I got ahead of myself and should have asked you before I unsealed him. I did put up a strong barrier sealing off our rooms, but I apologize for acting without your permission," Vrasje said.
Marquise sighed and kicked the water a little.
"Did he do anything besides talk to you? It doesn't feel like I've been asleep for too long..." Marquise asked nervously.
Vrasje replied with a hint of wonder to his voice, "we just talked and he nibbled at the big bone we'd gotten him. He was honestly very calm and just wanted to chat for a little bit."
Marquise began processing what he said, but then Vrasje added something.
"Oh yeah, he was also very itchy. He had dried blood all over his coat. I was actually going to help him wash it all off when Garlic suddenly took over."
Garlic, took control from my alpha wolf?
Garlic immediately wiggled in his mind and tried to take over again, but Marquise quickly pushed him back.
I'm sorry sweet one, but I need to stay out for now. Besides, weren't you tired? You had Vrasje carry you around for quite some time before I finally took over again...
The pup paused in its wiggling for a moment and flicked an ear, then hurried to turn tail and wander away.
That's what I thought.
"What's so funny?"
Oh, oops. Guess I had laughed out loud a little.
"Garlic just tried to come out again, but it's my turn."
Vrasje lifted a hand up to his lips to try and stifle a chuckle, but it clearly failed.
"I love him to death," he said with a cheeky grin on his face.
Marquise slowly sat up straight again, then rubbed at the back of his head.
"Um, well... what are your goals in life? Like, what are you future plans?" he asked awkwardly, trying to start up a different conversation.
Vrasje's face immediately lit up in the dim twilight.
"I didn't really have much thought toward my own future until you came along. I'm already over two-hundred years old. Most people these days struggle to hit sixty, so I'd honestly just planned to live out the remainder of my days protecting this town from werewolves and making sure that Taru was well taken care."
That's... kind of sad.
He could understand wanting to look after his heir and the town, but was there nothing else besides hunting that he enjoyed any longer?
"I enjoy being around you now," Vrasje said, making Marquise quickly looked back down at the water... then suddenly feel a tad self-conscious. He was naked in front of a guy that evidently really liked him.
"I don't mind!" Vrasje said abruptly, making Marquise give him a side-eye before he decided to just slide into the fountain.
Holy hell it's cold!
He felt strong arms tuck beneath his own not a second later, but before Vrasje could pull him back up and out of the water, Marquise lunged forward, making the vampire slip and fall in, too.
Unfortunately, he hadn't exactly planned out the situation all that well. Sputtering as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, Marquise shook his now-dirty mop of dark hair like a dog, then coughed out a small mouthful of water.
He would have sat back and taken a few deep breaths to calm his shivering body, but he was a bit stuck at that particular moment because of a firm hand was pressing against his belly.
Looking to the side, he stared at a curtain of Vrasje's long hair as it hung beside his face. The man above him was actually panting quietly as he held his body with one hand and used the other to hold himself up off of him.
"Are you okay? Did I hurt you?" he asked, making Marquise a little nervous that his first try at playing around with the man had somehow backfired.
Vrasje moved his hand after a few moments and his breathing thankfully calmed back into nonexistence, allowing Marquise to scoot away a little bit, then turn around.
Oh... he's mad.
Feeling his heart drop from the top of his throat to the bottom of his stomach, Marquise slowly lowered his eyes down to the water and hunched his shoulders.
I shouldn't have tried to mess with him.
Vampires and werewolves were two very different species. He'd also never really played much after he'd begun training to be an alpha. That was when he was six, so...
Lifting up an arm, he rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed as his teeth chattered.
I really shouldn't have done that.
He could sense Garlic watching the situation through his eyes, wiggling a little at the idea of playing with Vrasje, but there was also something else all the way at the back of his mind, too. It remained there patiently waiting and watching, not seeming very interested in the current situation at all.
My alpha really is back...
It was also acting how it used to, before it went crazy and murdered several humans. It was subdued, quiet, and overall unwilling to make itself known. It didn't feel right that his enraged alpha had gone back to being a tamed kitten.
Marquise gave out a surprised squeak as he was hoisted up out of the water and into Vrasje's arms. He flailed for a second until he was able to wrap his own arms and legs around the man, then settled with his chin on his shoulder.
"Sorry, love. You seemed like you were communicating with your pups and unable to hear me but you were also shivering very badly. I couldn't leave you sitting there," Vrasje said, making Marquise give a quiet grumble of acknowledgement.
He then tucked his head a little more against the man's soft hair.
"I'm sorry."
Vrasje began rubbing a hand against his bare back as they stepped inside, then hugged him a little closer as they suddenly blurred forward.
Marquise squeezed his eye closed until they had slowed to a stop, then blinked it open as he leaned back to look around.
Ah, his bathroom.
It made sense. They had just fallen into the dirty fountain. A bath was only logical.
Vrasje gave him a few more moments to understand the situation before he carried him over to the already-filled tub and gently set him down. The water was a bit cold, but Vrasje quickly heated it with his ability to a comfortably-warm temperature.
Once he had stopped shivering, Marquise scooted himself to the back of the large tub so that Vrasje could climb in and wash up, too.
Except, right as the other man was about to climb in after removing his wet clothing, Marquise felt his form waver and his vision go dark.
"Sweet Pepper!" Vrasje cheered as he knelt beside the now rather-full tub and smiled.
"Welcome back."
"Vampire," the large wolf replied as it slowly bowed its massive head in acknowledgement.
Vrasje could already see little flecks of blood and dirt drifting off of the giant beast's coat and immediately lifted his hands to the edge of the tub.
"May I give you a bath, Pepper?"
The giant wolf flicked an ear twice, then tilted its head to the side like it was about to try and reach up with its back leg and scratch it, but it caught itself before it could accidentally fall over into the water.
Returning its attention to him, it slowly nodded, then dropped its chin to the edge of the tub.
"Awesome! I'll just try my best to get most of the gunk out of your fur first, then we can go downstairs another time and use the household bath that has a pump attached and do a thorough cleaning then," Vrasje said as he bustled around the room with a huge grin on his face, collecting soaps and brushes, and just about anything else he could find that Pepper might want.
Once he had everything ready, he lifted up two containers of shampoo after opening the lids to each.
"Do you have a preference? I don't have unscented, but these aren't too strong."
He waited patiently as Pepper turned his head slowly and sniffed the lavender, then nudged his head in the opposite direction to try the other one.
"Lemon," he eventually said before closing its tired-looking eye.
Just like your other half.
With the shampoo all picked out, Vrasje got busy wetting what he could of the pup with a large pot he'd brought up the other day for Garlic. It proved invaluable now, allowing him to rinse out a good amount of the blood before beginning his work scrubbing his mighty love.
While the wolf looked formidable on the outside, it had clearly only shared some of the healing Marquise had been treated to during his stay with them.
You're all skin and bones. No wonder you went for that bone right away, even though you seemed so tired.
Splitting his focus for a moment, he sent down a request to his kitchen staff to prepare a large meal with whatever they had on hand. He also gave a few others instruction to go to the local butcher shop as soon as it opened and load up on as much meat as they could store.
With that done, he returned his full attention to his task. It took him nearly an hour to scrub everywhere after draining half of the tub.
Thankfully, Pepper did whatever he needed to do in order to get cleaned up. He even rolled over onto his belly once the water was mostly drained. It was incredibly hard not to give him a good belly rub at that time, but he knew that he had to stay focused and get his task done before the giant wolf lost interest.
Once he was content with his scrubbing, he walked out and retrieved several large tubs of fresh water another vampiric servant had brought up and carefully rinsed his baby's coat until it was as clean as he could get it.
Next was conditioner!
Since Pepper still seemed content to be groomed, he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to do it well. Just in case, however, he grabbed his large comb at the same time and began combing through his coat part by part as he added conditioner to each area. It was a hell of a lot of work, but he happily did the job to the best of his ability.
By the time he finally got through the majority of his coat he'd had to clean thick clumps of fur off his comb more times than he could count.
Dear god... you are absolutely gorgeous.
Now that all of the blood had been cleaned from its fur, the ebony black color shone incredibly in the faint morning light coming in through the window.
He allowed the pup to rest for a few moments and quickly used the last bucket of clean water to clean himself off, then returned his attention to Pepper.
"I think we're done for today. May I dry you off, sweetheart?" he asked as he gently ran his fingers through the wolf's soft, smooth fur.
He heard a content grumble from his large fuzzy friend and took that as its agreement. Thus, Vrasje quickly hopped out of the tub and retrieved an armful of towels.
Not wanting to waste time, he heated them with his ability, then got to work.
It took nearly twenty minutes before he was satisfied.
"I could be a dog groomer," he said with a chuckle, only to have his humor silenced by a quiet warning growl.
Huh?
Looking toward Pepper's face, he only managed to meet the wolf's eye for a split second before it finished turning its head to face the opposite direction.
"Um... okay, sorry that wasn't funny I suppose. Would you like me to help you out of the tub?"
He got another growl in response, and now even Pepper's ears were tilting backwards.
I'm so confused!
Pursing his lips to keep from grumbling, himself, Vrasje hopped out of the tub and got dried off, then loaded up all of the towels into two laundry baskets and brought them to the hallway. Once that was all done, he got himself dressed in a pair of loose black pants but decided to forego a shirt.
He was just about to go back and check on Pepper when he heard a light knock on his door.
Ah, the food must be ready.
"Oh wow..."
His cooks had outdone themselves.
He got everything inside after saying his thanks, then set it all up on one side of his bed. Of course, he probably shouldn't allow the wolf to eat on top of his bed, but he could always have the bedding washed tomorrow. It would definitely be more comfortable than the floor, too, and his baby deserved to be as comfortable as possible.
Hmm, maybe he's cooled off a bit by now.
Deciding to try his luck again, Vrasje wandered back into the bathroom.
Oh my god.
He was about to self combust from the adorableness!
Pepper still didn't seem too pleased to see him, but it was just too cute seeing him just-barely glancing over the edge of the bathing tub at him.
He actually looked like he was about to duck his head again and dismiss him when he big nose flared slightly.
"Hungry, love? I had my servants make you something to eat," Vrasje said with a knowing smile.
That got the wolf's attention!
Pepper stood up on shaky legs and tried to climb out of the tub, but without the use of his right paw, he was struggling quite a bit.
"May I help?"
The wolf immediately grunted and sat down, then looked away.
This pup... is getting to be almost as stubborn as his human half.
"I suppose everything will just get cold then. Maybe I'll have a nibble, too, since I rather enjoy human food," he said as he slowly turned around on his heels, exaggerating the movement just to try and annoy the wolf.
It worked.
He heard the pup scrambling to get over the edge of the tub, but even with its best efforts, it failed to climb out.
"Okay you stubborn boy, I'm not sure what I said to make you upset, but you need to eat so just put up with it for a moment," he said as he walked over and helped carefully but quickly lift Pepper out of the bathing tub.
He immediately set him down once he had cleared the edge, then jumped back as the wolf lunged to nip at him!
Such unruly behavior.
Of course, Pepper didn't bother pursuing him, and he likely didn't have the energy to even try, anyways. So, Vrasje just waited and watched as the giant pup gave him one more frustrated grunt before turning toward the bedroom and limping away.
Vrasje waited a few minutes before following, then stopped in the doorway to observe the situation. The poor pup had managed to shimmy its way up onto the bed and now had its face buried in one of the overflowing trays of food.
It would have looked funny, and that side of his bed was definitely going to be an absolute mess, but he didn't mind at all. In fact, as he watched the poor pup down as much as it possibly could, as fast as it possible could, he could hear something he hadn't expected to between all of the bone crunching and raspy breathing.
I need to have a serious talk about this with Marquise once he is back in control.
Pepper was clearly trying to hide the sound, but his ears were far too sensitive not to hear it. His sweet wolf was whimpering like a day old pup that was starving for its mother's milk. It nearly choked itself several times just trying to eat faster than it was capable of.
You're so hungry... even after we've been feeding your other half well for so long.
Something was definitely wrong, and he did not like it one bit.