#cesare warning

           “Sweet, sweet, Maria.  I almost prefer you like this,” Cesare murmured as he settled on top of her, his bare skin cold against hers.  “But you’d tell, wouldn’t you?  Why do you dislike me so?” he sighed as he parted her lips gently, tentatively; her breath quickened in terror at the feeling of one of his barbs scraping against her bottom lip.  Much to her surprise, he recoiled at that indication of her distress, slithering out of her bed to settle, just out of reach, on the windowsill, eyes eerily luminescent in the darkness.            The muscles in her arms and legs spasmed as he suddenly released his hold and she bolted upright, clutching the covers to her chest with one hand and groping for her hidden blades with the other.            “Peace, Maria,” he cooed.  “I have no intention of harm, unlike you.  What you did to me this morning was most unkind.”            “And nothing compared to what I want to do to you now, Cesare,” she hissed, still searching for her blades.            “If anyone else said that to me I’d be delighted,” he replied sardonically as he settled more comfortably on the windowsill.  “I moved those while you were sleeping, by the way.  Be a good girl and I’ll tell you what I’ve done with them.”            She twisted the blankets between her fingers, crumpling a handful in the ball of her fist.  “What do you want from me?”            “I should think that would be rather obvious to you by now.”  He slid from his perch and lit a lamp.            She swallowed uncomfortably and averted her eyes from the sight of his naked body; he noticed.            “Why do you dislike everything about me so much?” he asked softly.  “Why can’t you try to like me, even a little?”  He settled – uninvited – on the edge of her bed and tried to catch her eyes.            “Because you’re a monster,” she replied shrinking back from him against the headboard of her bed, covers clasped tightly to her chest.            “No more so than you,” he countered, gently prying the blankets from her grasp.  “I can make you want this, want me, you know.  It wouldn’t be that difficult, part of you wants this already.”            She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and squeezed her thighs together.  I should have accepted that shirt from Ezio, god damn it.  “Stay away from me, murderer.”            “Murderer?” he repeated in surprise.  “Murderer?  That’s really something, coming from you, especially since I’m certain you’ve killed far more people than I have in the last ten years.”            “But you admit that you’ve killed?” she pressed, drawing her knees up towards her chest.            “Only when I’ve had to,” he replied cautiously.            “And why did you have to kill Therese?”            His brow furrowed in confusion.  “Therese?”            “Have you killed so many you can’t remember her?” she bit out, seething at his continued confusion.  She sighed as she decided to try to jog his memory.  “I saw you feeding from her the week before she died.”            “Ah, yes,” he murmured in recognition before his expression became guarded once more, like how he had looked right before telling her about Cristina earlier that day.  It was an inauspicious omen.  “I didn’t kill her, Maria.  She committed suicide, a self-administered overdose of morphine.”  He watched her quick double blink of surprise without comment.            “I don’t believe you.  She was my friend; I would have known,” she blustered, ignoring the kernel of doubt blossoming in the back of her mind.  The events surrounding Therese’s death had been strange; it was sudden and yet no one had evidenced much surprise, the other girls had been oddly recalcitrant to discuss it in front of her and her mother had given a rather large donation to the church after a whispered argument with the priest.            Cesare cocked his head to an almost unnatural angle, lips parting slightly as he scrutinized her.            “How very sheltered you’ve been, my fiery darling,” he finally said with a bemused smile.            “I’m not your darling!” she snapped.  The urge to gouge her thumb into his wounded shoulder was nearly overwhelming.            “You were very young.  I’m sure your mother wanted to shield you from the ugliness of her business as much as possible,” he responded with a shrug of his attractively broad shoulders – not that she cared about the breadth of his shoulders in the slightest. Not at all.            “I have hardly been shielded,” she sniffed, carefully adjusting one of the slip’s thin straps against her shoulder.  His eyes followed the movement, hooded, hungry.            “Maria, Therese developed a morphine habit after a few too many trips to back alley doctors, and then she picked up a few, unpalatable, diseases trying to pay for it.  Your mother was incredibly kind to let her stay, most madams would have thrown damaged goods like Therese out on the street, but she couldn’t let her keep working; no one wants to go to a brothel where the merchandise might give them something extra,” he explained carefully, tracing delicate swirls and whorls on her duvet with the very tips of his fingers.            “I don’t believe you,” she whispered.            “Why not?”            Her breath felt thick in her throat.  The simple truth was that she didn’t want to believe him, that his version fit more cleanly with the actual events she remembered – much better in fact, than the version she had carefully constructed over the years.  She didn’t want any of what he had told her to be true.            “Because Father Cammarieri says that demons are always compelled to lie,” she faltered, mentally kicking herself for how obvious and weak her reasoning sounded.  Cesare’s lips quirked as though he was trying to suppress a knowing smirk.  God damn him.            “Write to your mother, tell her what I’ve told you and she will confirm it,” he replied, edging closer.  She was already pressed against the headboard; there was nowhere further to retreat.            “It wasn’t suicide; it must have been an accident,” she insisted, flinching when he brushed the pad of his thumb against her exposed knee.            “You’re probably right,” he agreed, watching her from beneath the fans of his lashes.  “It’s easy enough to do with morphine.”            “Why did you save my brother, Cesare?” she abruptly asked, holding the top of her slip in place with one hand while tugging it further down over her legs with the other.            Cesare leaned back, away from her – thank god – frowning slightly as contemplated her question.  “I like him. Ezio is…kind.  There’s an unselfish sweetness to him that I’ve seldom encountered; I didn’t want to see that extinguished.  And his death would cause your mother pain.  She has been good to me, to the Maraas; I would spare her further grief if it is within my power,” he said slowly, thoughtfully.  He looked slightly uncomfortable with his answer.            “Thank you, Cesare.  I’m sorry for the injury he caused you,” she said softly, gaze unwilling drawn to his bandaged shoulder.            “But not for the injury you inflicted?”  His eyes snapped to hers, expression indecipherable.            Her eyes narrowed.  “No.”            He chucked – low, throaty and positively indecent – as he grazed his thumbnail across the cushion of his lower lip.  “Does Ezio call you un’asina because you are so stubborn?”            “Sure,” she replied icily, tilting her chin so she could better look down her nose at him.  “Not that it’s any of your business.”            “Be sweet to me, Maria, just a little?” he cajoled, leaning towards her again, fingertips grazing her ankle.  “There is so much I can give you in return; the most immediate being pleasure without the consequences.”            She opened her mouth to retort but any response she might have made was lost in her squeak of alarm as he suddenly wrapped his fingers firmly around her ankle and yanked her towards him.  She twisted her hips and tried to kick him, but he was already between her thighs, hips pressed to hers as he pinned her wrists above her head and she was imminently grateful for the layers of her clothing between them. She had to settle for driving the heel of her foot into the side of his lower back, in the general vicinity of his kidneys – presuming the Maraas’ internal physiology was similar to her own. She childishly savored his pained grunt.            “Did your parents name you as a warning?” he asked, shifting his hips to pin her more securely to the bed, making her uncomfortably aware of how intimately he was positioned against her, how it would look to anyone who might walk in.            “It’s a family tradition,” she replied, trying to squirm away from him while maintaining a conversational tone. “There’s been a Maria in every generation of our family for centuries.  What do you mean was I named as a warning?”            “Your name,” he murmured, nuzzling against the underside of her jaw, “it means bitter.  Will you taste bitter beneath my tongue, Maria?  I don’t think you will; you smell so sweet; so nectarous, like apricot blossoms and honey.”  He slowly ground his hips against hers as he nibbled along her collarbone.  She didn’t want to like how it felt.            “Stop it Cesare.  I don’t want this,” she said unsteadily, ashamed of how enthusiastically her body responded to his touch.  That is his doing, his magic, neither your will nor desire, she reminded herself feverishly.  I can make you want this, he had said.            “Don’t you, my bitterness, even if only a little?” he asked her, carefully tracing her nipple through the thin fabric of her slip.            “No,” she insisted as an anxious gurgle of terrified laughter bubbled up her throat.            Much to her surprise, for a second time that evening he recoiled at her signs of distress, slinking down to the foot of the bed to watch her with hungry eyes.  She took that opportunity to burrow beneath the covers, clutching the upper edges of her bedding protectively against her chest and took a deep, steadying breath. I should tell him to leave, before anyone knows that he was here, she thought reluctantly.  While the assassins held far more lax attitudes towards premarital sex than society in general, she didn’t think her family would be so accepting, and the gossip would be unbearable.  But, then again, no one knows he’s here, what can it hurt?            “What did you mean when you said you could give me pleasure without the consequences, Cesare?” she asked cautiously.            He cocked his head and surveyed her thoughtfully, almost hopefully.            “We are immune to your illnesses, including venereal diseases, and our coupling will never produce children,” he replied crisply, clinically.            “Never?”            He shook his head emphatically.  “No, never.  Maraas lack the necessary, ah, components, for sexual reproduction with your species.”            “All Maraas?” she asked quickly, too quickly.            His eyes narrowed.  “Ask Altaïr yourself.  I’m sure even he realizes that he would have gotten Sirocco with child by now if it were possible.”            She would have given anything not to blush when she realized what he meant.            “And what’s that supposed to mean,” she snapped, surprised by how oddly protective she felt of Altaïr at Cesare’s implied slight.            “Just that I’m going to be kind and assume, after his jackal of a mother died, there wasn’t anyone around to have the basic facts of sex talk with him, ever,” Cesare smirked.            “He’s an amazing assassin, and, of course he knows about, that sort of thing,” she hedged defensively.  She felt badly she didn’t have a better comeback, but, frankly, Altaïr would have developed better social skills if he had been raised by actual wolves.            Cesare snorted in disbelief and edged closer to her, eyes sliding over her hungrily.  “And what about you, my bitterness?  Have you ever been interested in that sort of thing?”            “No.”  She edged away from him uncomfortably.  “And I’m not interested in it now.”            “You could be,” he suggested hopefully.            “Not with you,” she retorted with saccharine sweetness.            “Let me sleep with you tonight,” he cajoled. “Just sleeping, nothing else,” he quickly added when she frowned.            “Don’t you have somewhere to sleep?” she asked irritably. She crossed her arms across her chest and adjusted her grip on the covers.            “I don’t like to sleep alone.  I get cold,” he pouted, shifting his body closer to hers.            “So find someone who wants to sleep with you,” she snapped as she pressed the blankets more firmly to her chest.  I really should tell him to leave…            “But the only person I want to sleep with tonight is you,” he purred with a languid smile.            She snorted before she could help herself.  “Was that supposed to be seductive?”            “I was going for honest.”            “You’re not very good at it.”            “You should be one to talk,” Cesare hummed innocently, cheeks dimpling as his lips parted in an angelic smile.            “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, eyes slitted and suspicious.            He swayed into her personal space, only stopping when they were nearly nose to nose, the movement fluid and carefully controlled, serpentine and predatory.  “Your pupils are dilated, your heart rate and breathing are elevated, and you’re flushed; in short, your body wants what I can give it,” he observed in an almost bored, clinically detached tone.  His eyes however, looked like liquid fire, fathomless and luminescent.            “What you’re describing is my body’s physiological response to a frightening and stressful situation, which would be the same regardless of who snuck into my room while I was sleeping, stole my blades and then menaced me.  I’m being pretty damn honest about that,” she hissed, scooting to the very edge of the bed as the incubus inserted himself beneath the covers next to her.            “And entirely dishonest about how aroused you are. Don’t, don’t bother denying it, my bitterness, I can smell how wet you are.”            “That’s creepy.”  She aimed a hard knee at his groin as he inched closer.  She missed her mark and was only saved from an embarrassing tumble out of the bed by Cesare’s quick reflexes.            “Hardly.  Just observant,” he replied coolly as he settled her back onto the mattress with a smirk.  “Allow me to stay, sweet Maria.  I won’t take your precious virginity until you ask.”            “That’ll never happen,” she snapped, trying to decide where she should bite him.            “Let me kiss you, I love the sweetness of your mouth,” he cooed, batting his eyelashes at her with flagrant provocation.            She slammed her forehead into his nose and he fell backwards, off the bed, with an injured squawk.  She laughed before she could stop herself at the sight of him sprawled on the floor.  He slowly sat up and cautiously swiped his hand across his nose; his expression hardened into something positively murderous at the sight of his own dark blood. Her laughter froze in her throat and she scrambled out of bed towards the door.            He beat her to it; she hadn’t even seen him move – one moment he was sitting on the floor and the next he was standing in front of her with his back against the door glowering down at her.            “That was very unkind of you, my bitterness,” he seethed, eyes narrowing dangerously as he advanced towards her.            “You didn’t exactly leave me a lot of other options,” she snapped.  “Besides, you should go.  Someone will notice that you’re not where you’re supposed to be and I was expecting Ezio or Altaïr to drop by tonight; they won’t like it if they find you here.” She was bluffing – she wasn’t expecting anyone that evening – but he couldn’t have known that and she prayed he didn’t call her bluff.            Cesare’s lips split in a smile fit for Lucifer, positively oozing damnation and hellfire.  “No one is going to be looking for either of us; they all went to the cabaret. You would have been invited, but you went so far out of your way to avoid your brother and cousin they never got a chance to ask you along.”