Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributors Flore Picard and Alec J. Marsh
We are 57% of the way to our funding goal for AETHER BEYOND THE BINARY, with 19 days to go!! This awesome anthology featuring non-binary and genderqueer characters in aetherpunk settings has been in the works for a year, and weâre optimistic that weâll reach our funding target so that we can publish the book as an e-book, trade paperback, and hardcover. Slow and steady, race winning, you know the deal. đ Things have definitely slowed down, as is normal for this stage of the campaign, so just a note that weâd always appreciate your help with spread the word about this project so that more people will know it exists! You can find our âmainâ posts about the campaign on different platforms using these links:
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You can learn all about the campaign, the book, the merch, and the authors, by visiting our Kickstarter campaign page!
And, today weâre introducing two more contributing authors: Flore Picard and Alec J. Marsh!
The Light Organ by Flore Picard
About Flore Picard: Iâm a linguist and translator who lives in France and I have been itching to write since I learned how to. I started writing (fan)fiction more regularly when I was procrastinating on my PhD dissertation, and I havenât looked back since. Iâm also an artist who loves drawing both fanart and original art, and I have a passion for patterns and systems, for the beauty at the edge of chaos and the complexity of being human. I tend to write about queer and disabled characters finding themselves and each other and learning to take up space in the world.
Links: Instagram | Twitter
This is Floreâs first publication with Duck Prints Press.
Title: The Light Organ
Tags: angst with a happy ending, capitalism is the real villain, coming out, disabled character, emotional hurt/comfort, family, fraught family dynamics, illusion, in the closet, magic use, mechanic, musician, non-binary, parenthood, present tense, science fiction with magic, teenager, third person limited point of view, transphobia (mentions of) (past)
Excerpt:
âNo, no, noâthe organ, the light ringâitâs all about the imagination, not the mechanics,â Kas exclaims, gesturing widely to encompass the aether pool behind the glass.
âIâm just here for the tubes,â the techâGilbertâsays flatly.
His face betrays no emotions, not even annoyance. Kas almost wishes he would yell or be rude, if only for the sake of feeling like theyâre having an actual conversation, but Gilbert has always been polite. He just never seems to care.
âFine,â Kas gives up. âWeâve got glitches. They started about a week ago. It could be a leaking tube, Iâm not sure.â
âWhat kind of glitches?â
âItâs as if⊠as if the story stops responding to me. I know how that sounds, but I swear thatâs what happens. It doesnât last more than a few seconds, but itâs getting worse. Earlier, I powered everything up to tune it and it kept flickering.â
âFlickering,â Gilbert repeats, mumbling into his neatly trimmed beard.
Kas grabs a cane in each hand and makes their way to the organâs seat. âI can show you.â
Youâre Gonna Get Older by Alec J. Marsh
About Alec J. Marsh: Alec lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.
Links: Etsy | Instagram | Twitter
Alec is one of the editors for Aether Beyond the Binary and has also published multiple titles with Duck Prints Press. His novella To Drive the Hundred Miles (modern, f/m, trans male lead) was recently successfully crowdfunded and orders fulfilled. His two erotica stories Heartâs Scaffold (sci-fi, m/m) and Study Hall (modern academia, m/m) are part of the Contributor Short Story Bundle add-on.
Title: Youâre Gonna Get Older
Tags: arranged marriage, christian, coming of age, coming out, cults, fraught family dynamics, friends, in the closet, lesbian, midwest, misgendering, non-binary, north dakota, past tense, post-apocalyptic, relationship of convenience, religion, song fic, teenager, third person limited pov, trans man, trans woman, transphobia
Excerpt:
There was a radio in the room, an old two-way they had found on their last visit and hidden in an empty supply closet. It was still there. They slid open the battery pack and snapped in a fresh battery from their aether lantern. Chips of the meteor had been encased in metal tubing to mimic the lithium batteries of the Before, but they were precious and had to be used sparingly. Stardancer knew better than to use precious energy on something this frivolous.
They popped the battery cover in place and pressed the power button. It crackled to life. They cradled it like it was made from glass. The dials made a tak-tak-tak noise as Stardancer scrolled through channels. Music came through softly. It faded in and out, cut through with static, but it was music, and not the kind made on an acoustic guitar. They adjusted the antenna and turned up the volume.
It was like nothing they had heard before, fast paced with a heavy beat. Even over the fuzzy AM connection, it was invigorating. They wanted to dance. They wanted to sing along with words they had never heard before. The singer screamed their triumph, and Stardancer felt invincible.
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And it is here! A Penumbra Bang 2022 drawing for @alecjmarsh fic NDA No Loose Lips .
Their fic just sucks you in and is so hard to put down.
Juno Steel has done good for Mars as President Aurinkoâs bodyguard, but if she doesnât win her reelection campaign, theyâll both be out of a job. Then paparazzi photos surface of Juno kissing the Brahmese prince. It was only supposed to be a one night stand, but now the press is accusing Buddy of showing special favors to an outcast outer rim planet.
Fixing Brahmaâs PR would be a win for both teams, and Buddy has the solution: Juno and Nureyev have to pretend theyâve been carrying on a secret relationship for months, and create a romance so sweeping that the public forgives the ethical breach.
First problem: Nureyev snuck out on Juno without even leaving his name, and Juno is maybe a little bit bitter.
Second problem: Nureyev turns out to be vapid and selfish and grates on Junoâs every nerve.
Third problem: Junoâs starting to suspect that the Brahman prince is hiding more than his planetâs crumbling infrastructure. Junoâs compelled to keep up the charade long enough to solve this mystery, even if his heart gets broken in the process.
This is me being a Big Romantic but I hope that True Love's Kiss saves the day at the end of the SC finale. My Evidence: (1) Moonlit Hermit is a Beauty and the Beast retelling (2) Quanyii said that they needed something stronger than physics to break out of prison (3) Rilla suggested a miracle (4) This SC season has been about science vs metaphor and the power of stories and emotions (5) Arum's Monster twists emotions and magnifies them (6) True love is the strongest force in the universe
Iâm wondering if itâs not just True Loveâs Kiss, but True Love in pretty much every sense.Â
Marc and Talfrynâs brotherly love. The Keepâs parental love for Arum, and his devotion to it in return. Sir Angeloâs love for his friends. Sir Carolineâs loyalty to people who maybe possibly a little bit make her feel like she has a home with them.Â
And, based on what weâve seen with Marc and Arum, compassion for oneâs fellow beings, be they human or otherwise.Â
Writing Behind the Scenes is a weekly Q&A feature about writing. Submit your writing questions as an ask to get your own question answered.
QUESTION:Â How do you manage to describe stuff so well and so to the point?
Tellthenight: I am a to-the-point writer by nature, so I often struggle to use *enough* description. My first drafts are essentially dialogue and blocking. If there is description in that first draft itâs usually a lot of adverbs and generic words. I sometimes put in [DESCRIBE THIS] when I know I need description in a particular place but donât have the brain space to think it through.
On my second draft I aim at getting rid of all the brackets and then trying to find better words for my first attempts at description. I use thesaurus.com, I use word lists, the thesauruses by Angela Ackerman are invaluable to me. I also try reading the fic out loud to feel the pacing of the sentences so I can place description accordingly. (ALSO: beta readers are good people to ask.)
Clpolk: I actually think about the scene location in some detail before I write the scene. I often make notes about a particular location, including full sensory details, and also what a particular character would notice in that location that others might miss, and why/how it might be important to the character's state of mind, or mood, or internal conflict.
But when it comes to writing it, I don't spend an entire paragraph on the weave of the curtains. I tailor the description to the point of view of whichever character i'm in, and use only the details they actively engage with - do they shiver in the draft from a warped window, smell the mildew and the leavings of mice in an abandoned warehouse, wipe a smudge of dust off their shoulder? Do they collapse in the middle of a cushioned suede couch - and then roll their eyes because the TV remote is on the dining table behind them? These are the details that ground character and setting at the same time, and they're more useful than an introductory description of a space.
Tryslora: I used to struggle with writing dialogue-dominated white room fics with little to no description. The way I've turned it around is to write as if I'm roleplaying the character, which both lets me try to experience the way they experience the scene, and narrow it down to their POV so I don't include too much. I used to do little exercises, like⊠when I was in college, and walking across campus, I'd pretend I was my character, try to see the world like they do. Catalog what's there, like are they the sort of person that's going to notice the flowers? Will the giant lilies seem really tall (like they do to me, I'm 5' short) or are they normal? Do they make them sneeze? Is the sun warm, or the breeze cool? How do they feel about the crowds walking by them? Okay, actually, I do still do this⊠it's incredibly helpful.
Like clpolk said, though, it's really important to use the details important to the character. One example I remember really working hard on was a kidnap scene. Mom gets in the car on one side, a van opens a door on the other side of her car and grabs her daughter. There's a LOT going on that Mom is processing. An adrenalin rush, so she's shaking, her breath's coming short (use short sentences to describe panic, or really long run-on uncontrolled ones). She hears a scream. But she's not aware of the way the hands feel curled around her daughter's arm. She doesn't know anything about what the kidnappers see and feel. She has a cursory view of the van--it's big and white and unmarked, and there's rust, and the door's loud when it slams. The engine roars. But she doesn't know what the inside is like. She smells the muffin her daughter was eating on the way to school. The coffee from her cup. Hears the silence in the aftermath. When I wrote the scene, I was shaking too, I'll admit. But you can be super visceral by really digging into the heart of what your character feels, and cutting out the rest. Use what will connect your reader to the character.
AlecJMarsh: what everyone else has said about POV is really important. Some scenes donât need a lot of description if itâs somewhere the character has been before. Some need a lot if a character is anxious or gearing up for a fight. (My favorite descriptive scenes are the ones where characters are searching for clues or weapons in a room).
Another important thing to consider is the language you use. Flowery metaphors really bog down a paragraph. If the curtains are the blue of the summer sky after a storm and remind Dean with a pang of the summer he was fourteen and kissing someone for the first time, that memory had better be (1) important and (2) the only one in the description of the room. Iâve read stuff where the descriptions are so long I lose track of what is going on in the story. Only put in exactly as much as you need to set the stage and the mood.
AJ: To describe things well, you have to do your research. Thereâs no shortcut for that. Your imagination is great but donât avoid google searches and asking your friends about things.
To be concise, take as many filter words and passive phrases (see also: state of being & helping verbs) out of your writing as you can. Doing this will not always make a sentence better! You have to make that decision yourself. Â I also suggest not trying to do this while you write your first draft, it will slow you down. However, by critically examining word choices and sentences when you edit a draft--your own or someone elseâs!--you can improve your understanding of what makes a sentence clearer, more concise, and/or better. Here are some things to consider when looking at a sentence or a paragraph:
What is this particular sentence/paragraph trying to tell me?
Are there any wordy and/or confusing phrases that can be replaced either with a single word or a clearer phrase?
Who is performing an action here? -- with the corollary that, if no one is doing anything, what purpose  does this sentence/paragraph serve in your story?
What is this particular sentence/paragraph trying to tell me?
Are there any wordy and/or confusing phrases that can be replaced either with a single word or a clearer phrase?
Who is performing an action here? -- with the corollary that, if no one is doing anything, what purpose  does this sentence/paragraph serve in your story?
It can be informative to read someone elseâs writing with these things in mind, because you donât already know the explanations behind the chosen words. Then you can apply the same thinking to your own edits! When it comes to descriptions specifically, think about how the character interacts with their environment (MAKE THEM INTERACT WITH IT! They shouldnât just be standing there doing nothing.) and what the setting theyâre in can tell your reader about your worldbuilding.
One more potentially tough piece of advice: donât be afraid of deleting words, phrases, or even whole sentences or paragraphs. Be free.
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29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?I would tell a frigging adorable story on @actualdemon but sheâd have my head for it, lol (the one about the beer), soooo
A large part of how @notquiteinsane and I became close was telling each other bedtime stories of a sort. Mostly her sending me things. The stories themselves were absolutely not the cute kind, but itâs next to impossible not to feel a swell of affection for someone who sends you the fruits of their imagination and signs them off with things like âSweet dreams.â
31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.Listen, if I could comfortably live my life without so much as ever touching another sock Iâd be all too happy for it. Unfortunately, I live in Texas and wear leather combat boots almost 365 days a year, so socks are a much-loathed necessary evil in my life. If itâs not cold, my socks come off immediately after my shoes when I get home. Almost every single one of my socks is black, with the exception of a pair thatâs black-and-white striped.
That said, that striped pair is comprised of two extremely fluffy double-layered socks for when itâs cold as balls, and I kind of love them a little. Or at the very least, I hate them much, much less than I hate having cold feet.
38: tell us about your pet peeves!Buddy I got a million of âem. Iâm a very peevish and critical person. I cannot stand people who chew with their mouths open. Itâs so nasty. Of all the disgusting habits out there, chewing like a pig is one of the ones that most strongly makes me want to never see someone again in my life.
I get peeved when I give someone an extremely simple instruction thatâs well within their capability and they bungle it by doing something I explicitly told them not to do. But as a ~learning facilitator~ part of my job is to be patient when this happens :) :) :)
Malaprops drive me out of my mind. One of the worst is people using âverseâ as if itâs a form of the word âversusâ â eg, âHow about we verse himâ or something fucking idiotic like that.
People who ask how youâre doing when they donât actually care is a pet peeve. I call bullshit on it being polite.
Likewise, people who ask a non-rhetorical question like âHow are you?â and then immediately continue talking without pause. You a rude-ass bitch
Folks not using tags peeves me. Like, tag your fandom stuff with something more than two letters, PLEASE, so I can see my dash through your spam without having to unfollow you. Or on AO3, I would really like to know if Iâm gonna be wasting my time before Iâm twenty thousand words in. I donât have time to waste reading fifty pages just to find out youâre gonna spring daddy kink or bottom!Steve on me and ruin the whole damn thing.
I could keep going all night, but Iâm gonna cut off where, lul.
Speaking of "The Day That Wouldn't Die," Juno was around 15 when it happened, right? A few years older than Annie, but still definitely a kid. And if Ben didn't die until Juno was in police academy, he would have still been alive during that. So where was he? Was he there, and Mick and Sasha know not to mention him to Juno? Or was he somewhere else, completely innocent? That seems even more tragic, because it would be just one more way that Juno could put Ben on a pedestal
Itâs hard to say exactly, because Mick tried to bring up Ben, but Juno reacted violently.
MICK: Whatâs going on, Juno? You havenât looked this bad sinceâŠJUNO: Cut it out, Mick.MICK: ⊠when we were kids, and your brotherâŠJUNO: I said drop it!
But I donât think Ben was involved.Â
There were only three human-faced sharks chasing them in the sewers-- one for Juno, one for Sasha, and one for Mick. And there were only three trials-- one for each of the trial-givers (the drink was Mickâs, Faustâs Funworld was Sashaâs, and the factory was Junoâs).Â
The whole thing was meticulously researched by Dark Matters. And considering that the whole event was designed to induce trauma, I donât think that Dark Matters was about to skimp on bringing up references to Ben.Â
So my money says that he wasnât there when it happened.
It would have given Juno one more horrible thing to blame himself for, one more horrible thing for their mother to blame him for, and one more thing where Ben was probably torn between comforting Juno and being horrified that he and his friends had killed a kid.
Hello! I hope nano went well for you (however you want to define that) I'm selfishly very glad to have you back. I would love to see something where Juno gets to be the violently protective one and Peter is the one to be rescued. We don't get to see Peter shaken out of his cool very often. ( If this overlaps with an existing AU or a new monster! AU, all the better)
Thank you~
This is pretty much one of my favorite tropes ever, and I donât tend to write it very often, because it tends to get dark.
On that note, if youâre sensitive to blood, gore, body horror, mind stuffs, etc, maybe skip this one.Â
The existing AU it fits into is the Vampire and Werewolf AU, of which you can find the first part here.
If you werenât expecting that AU to go in this direction, itâs probably because I got hit hard by the flu over the weekend, which resulted in me spending a night with a high fever trying to keep my insides where they belonged while this whole sequence was spinning in my head in an endless feverish loop.Â
I think the end result reflects that.
âAgain.â
And Juno tried, dammit, he tried. But his skull felt like it was splitting in two all on its own, and reaching into Nureyevâs head felt like sticking his hand in a blenderâ except that you could only ever do that twice, tops.
This? There was no end to this sick game.
Miasma let out an irritated sigh and reached for the dial.
âNo, wait!â Juno cried, dragging himself back in. âJust give me a second. Itâs aââ
Miasma wasnât listening. She turned the dial. Agony hit Nureyev like a sledgehammerâ and Juno, still inside his head, felt every shock. He hissed through gritted teeth, the straps around his wrists and ankles straining as his back arched off the table.
And just as quickly as it started, it fell away, leaving them both gasping. Something wet seeped from Junoâs eyes, but he couldnât tell if it was blood or tears. He couldnât tell if the agony was in his head or Nureyevâs.
But he was still there, inside Nureyevâs head. In the sudden absence of pain was a moment of numb clarity. Nureyevâs eyes were on the card, even if his mind wasnât.
âThe card,â Miasma said. And maybe the most twisted thing about all of this? She sounded bored.
âBlue diamond,â Juno panted. Already his grasp on Nureyevâs head was slipping, but he clung on.
âVery good. Next.â
Nureyev flipped the next card, and Junoâs stomach lurched. He yanked himself out of the thiefâs head. He couldnât. Goddammit, he couldnât, he just couldnât.
Miasma narrowed her eyes at him, and she reached for the dial.
âRed diamond,â Juno said.
It had to be red. Of course it had to be red.
She pulled her hand back. âNext.â
âGoddammit, just give him something to eat already,â Juno said. âItâs been days.â
âVampires can survive weeks between feeding,â she said carelessly-- as if alive was the same as whole or in tact or sane. âI wonât need him to last that long.â She tipped her head toward the microphone. âNext.â
Juno had no choice.
He went back in.
The moment of clarity had passed, chased away by the pure, sweet red of the cardâ and in its wake was nothing but hunger. It was overwhelming. All-consuming. The next card was in Nureyevâs hands, but he wasnât looking at itâ his eyes were on the masked assistant in the corner of the room, watching the pulse beat under the skin of xir neck. Nureyev could taste the memory of blood on his parched tongue, could imagine it pouring hot and thick down his throat. Every fiber of his being was driven toward it, honed with animal instinct and inhuman thirst.
He wanted to killâ to rip open that pathetic sack of flesh and take what was his due. He wanted to slaughter every creature in this godforsaken tomb and gorge until he was satisfied.
And if he gave himself half an instant to feel it, Juno wanted it, too. And not just because of the vampire sharing his head.
He was sick of hurting, of being hungry and tired and usedâ but more than anything, he was pissed. Because Miasma had come into his city. Sheâd killed his people. Sheâd tortured his thief. Sheâd violated his mind.
The ancient, animal part of himâ the part that he shared with kingpins and gangsters across the galaxyâ wanted to kill her for it. Slowly.
But he was Juno Steel, not just some goddamn werewolf, and he wasnât going to hand over control to that side of him. He was smarter than that. Smart enough to know that he was strapped to a table and Miasmaâs people were packing heat, and even a werewolf couldnât shrug off a laser to the head. Revenge might be sweet, but it wasnât worth a damn if he didnât make it out of this tomb alive.
Look at the card, he mentally pleaded, wishing like hell that this mind-reading thing worked both ways. Come on, Nureyev, look at the fucking card. Please. Please, goddammit, please just lookâ
Nureyevâs eyes flicked down, and Juno got a glimpse. Just one, but it was all he needed.
âBlack triangle,â he gasped. âItâs a fuckingâ fucking black triangle.â
âVery good.â Miasma couldnât even be bothered to look up at him. âNext.â
âNo.â Fuck, he could barely get the word out. Every time he went in, it got harder. He couldnât take it anymore. âNo more cards. No more games. Not until he eats.â
âNo,â she said flatly.
His straps creaked as he threw himself at her. âGoddammit, this is inhumane!â
âI donât care.â
And of course she didnât. Why would she? After all, torture and murder and nonconsensual medical experiments didnât ding her moral compass; why would she give a shit about starving a man to death?
So Juno grabbed onto the only thing she did care about.
âItâs interfering with the experiment,â he said quickly. âHeâ heâs too hungry to think straight, and if he canât think then I canât read his mind, okay? Just let him eat, or let me in there and Iâll open a vein myself.â
âThat isnât going to happen,â she said in that flat, detached way of hers. âIf he isnât useful, then heâll be disposed of.â Â She reached for the console again, not for the dial but for the intercom. âAssistant, get rid of the thiefââ
âGoddammit, stop!â
âThen give me the next card, Juno Steel.â
His brain felt like it was trying to claw its way through his skull as he forced himself back into Nureyevâs head. Choked screams were spilling out of his mouth, but he had to keep going. He had to reach just a little fartherâ just a littleâ
There: Nureyevâs eyes. His vision was tunneling, their edges going hazy and red. His eyes were fixed straight ahead at the card in his hand.
âBlack triangle,â Juno said.
âI said the next card,â Miasma snapped.
âWhat are you talking about? That was the next card. Itâsâ itâs not my fault your people did a shitty job shuffling the deck.â
âThere are no repeated cards in this deck,â Miasma said.
âWell, then I donât know what to tell you. Maybe somebodyâs been cheating at poker night. I donât know, but thatâs the goddamn card in his hand.â
Miasma narrowed her eyes. âThen draw the next one.â
But Nureyev didnât reach for another card. The black triangle stayed in his hand, slowly crumpling in his grip. There was no conscious thought left in his headâ nothing but the hunger and the all-consuming pain.
âNureyev?â Juno whispered. He could hear his own voice filtering through the intercom. He could feel Nureyev reacting to his name for just a moment, trying to respond, but there were no words left in his head. âNureyev, please, just draw a card.â
Nureyev extended his fingers. The card fluttered from his hand.
Junoâs own vision was fading, but he fought against it. He couldnât black out now, not when Nureyev was like this. He had to stay awake.
âSomethingâs wrong with him.â Juno tried to grab at Miasmaâs arm, but the cuff kept him in place. âThis needs to stop. Just give him a break, or give him something to eat, or some water, orââ
Miasmaâs finger twisted on the dial. Juno felt every volt that arced through Nureyevâs spine. As soon as Juno stopped screaming, she leaned in close.
âDraw the next card.â
Juno thrashed at his restraints. âDonât you get it? He canât! Neither of us can! We need rest, and we need food, and we needââ
Miasma reached for the intercom button again. âAssistant.â
Juno sagged. Finally, she was going to give them a break.
âAssistant, Iâve had enough of this. Kill the thief.â
No.
No no no no no.
Juno could hear the masked assistant stepping toward Nureyev. There was a knife in xir hand.
Nureyev bared his teeth at his attacker, but there was nothing else he could do.
He was going to die.
After all this, Peter Nureyev was going to die.
And suddenly, getting out alive didnât matter so much anymore.
In his head there was only hunger and hatred and a deep, primordial rage.
You want control? Then fucking take it.
In the vampireâs mind, there were no words.
First there was hunger.
Then the knife.
It was glowing, crackling with its own electricityâ meant to stun him, disable him, keep him from fighting back, but heâd fight all the same. Heâd never stop fighting (but he was so tired, and so hungry, and so hurt, and he wanted it to stop).
And then there was a sound.
He knew these noisesâ the wet gurgle of a punctured lung, the choking gasp before a death rattle, the howl of a predator. The song of a hunt, echoing through the chamber and abruptly cut off, but it wasnât over.
The one with the knife turned away from him. Xe ran to the door, only to be knocked back when a second human crashed through. There was blood on that oneâs hands, on her clothes. He could smell it from here, and the vampireâs mouth watered. Together the humans fumbled at the lock, bleating their panic with throats that could not scream.
The door pounded.
Once.
Twice.
The humans bolted like rabbits as the door lurched open. They didnât get far.
He couldnât see the blood spilling onto the floor, but he could smell it. He could taste it in the air, sweet and saporous, and it made his mouth water.
Footsteps drew close, each step punctuated by the click of claws on stone. Even without words, he could recognized a werewolf on sight.Â
The wolf loomed over him, his bulk hunched forward, his muscles rippling, his whole form cloaked in sleek black fur. His lips pulled back from his fangs in a growl. The vampire flashed his fangs in returnâ he would rather fight as a predator than die as preyâ but only for a momentâs defiance. He was hurt. He was tired. He was so, so hungry.
The wolf reached out to him, and that must have meant something, but the vampire didnât care. The only thing that mattered was what was dripping from the wolfâs paws, the sweetness of a meal so near his face, the satisfaction as he ran his tongue over one extended claw, and then the next.
It was ambrosia on his lips, utterly irresistible. He didnât let go of the claw until heâd licked it clean, and only then to take the other and bring it to his mouth.
He didnât realize until heâd lapped away every last drop that the cuffs around his arms were gone, shredded at his feet.
When he looked closer, he realized that the wolf had changed, too: he was smaller, thinner, more human. When he leaned in, Peter felt no fangsâ just full, soft lips, and always, always the taste of blood.