| Flesh, Fangs, and Magic

| The Vivienne Vance Confessions

| By Ancient Scribe Woo

Chapter Eight

The cold Detroit rain didn't care about my kidnapped delicium, my unfulfilled pussy, or the fact that Marcus Sterling had just hijacked my life. The wind swept through the shattered panes of my office window and, along with the cold and the rain, brought the bitter stench of the city streets right into my sanctuary.

I lay shivering on the floorboards for a full five minutes after the Count vanished. My skin was dotted with goosebumps but, right down at my center, the fire was still white-hot. The interrupted *delicium* pact was a physical sickness. My veins felt like they were pulsing with carbonated battery acid. Every heartbeat sent a desperate, heavy throb straight to my clitoris, a demanding ache that blurred my vision.

My magic was completely ungrounded, sparking invisibly off my fingertips like static electricity, seeking a circuit it couldn't find.

Midnight snack. If I didn't bring Julian to the court by midnight, Allan was dead.

Also, if we didn't seal our compact his mind would permanently fracture into a mindless husk. How long did I have? The general rule of thumb was 24-hours after the pledge is made in The Nothing. However, our near completion just now would have no doubt shaved off several precious hours.

I needed some way to measure how much longer he had.

"Gods dammit," I growled, forcing my trembling limbs to cooperate. I crawled across the floor, my naked knees dragging against the wood until I reached my three-drawer-dresser and some unfolded clothes. I grabbed a random pair of red cotton underwear, pulled them on, and shuddered at the pressure against the folds of my hyper-stimulated pussy. Next I jammed my legs into a pair of denim jeans, zipped them up with a violent jerk, and gasped as the pressure sent a fresh wave of electricity straight up my spine. Finally I skipped wearing a bra and just threw a tight black tank top over my C-cup breasts, their nipples still hard, angry stones. Then I strapped my.38 revolver back against my ribs.

Sitting down at my desk I rummaged around through the drawers and procured several vials. Some fresh rosemary, a pinch of lemon juice, dew collected from a gravestone at midnight, some tomato seeds, a few other tinctures. Then I reached down my pants and collected some of my own juices. Finally I mixed it all together with my pussy-slick finger and poured the concoction into a tiny vial, corked it, and shook it while speaking a lengthy incantation.

The color that formed, finally, was a bright red. That wasn't too bad. A deep crimson would have been better, though. As it cooled into weakening shades of red, then transitioning into blue, it would draw closer to the end of the countdown. When the liquid became clear it would be too late and Allan's brain would be toast. Given how dark the shade was now I probably had only until around 10pm, so about fifteen hours to find Allan, rescue him, then fuck him until our compact was finally sealed.

I sighed. With that chore done I found my flask and took two long pulls from it to steady my nerves. The gin burned down my throat while I tried to think of next steps.

After a third pull from the flask I put it in a desk drawer, pulled on my trench coat, and grabbed my silver-skulled cane from off the floor. I used the polished metal handle to steady my shaking hands. The eastern horizon was bleeding a bruised, sickly indigo as the sky spitted down more rain and I wondered what on earth I was supposed to do.

Marcus made it sound like I could just waltz into the sanctuary of the second most powerful vampire in the city, have free reign of the place, find Julian, and saunter back out without any problem. That was not how this would play out. I have my powers but they have their limits. Jasiri would have more than enough thralls, who do not need to hide from the sun, on his payroll. I might be able to handle them. But he'd also have wards of protection, wards strong enough to rival Eleanor's. Unlike that Alpha, who had so easily rendered Eleanor's wards useless, I would be outmatched in that regard.

The Alpha. Everything came back to that mysterious fucking Alpha. Who was he? Was he really a Wild? Why would he work for a vampire the way Marcus suggested?

If the Alpha was at the tower, which I suspected, that would be the largest hurdle of all to overcome. That fucker Count Marcus had really given me quite the task.

Before anything else, however, what I needed was answers. Answers that Fortune's riddle couldn't give me.

Just then an idea struck me. For a moment I just stared at it sitting upon my desk: my phone. God I didn't want to use it but if I wanted answers about the Alpha it was my only shot. Carefully I picked up the receiver then furiously punched in Silas's pager number before I could change my mind. After the digital beep, I hammered out my office digits followed by '911': the universal code for 'call me right fucking now or someone dies.' I slammed the phone down and waited.

A minute passed, then another. I sat there in my chair, wanting so badly to pleasure myself but rather scared what might happen if I did. I was too charged up to do it on my own, every nerve in my body ungrounded and electric. I could get lost in it and lose precious minutes, even hours. If I was part of a coven this would be when I called one of my sisters and explained what I needed. But I was alone.

Always alone.

A clinking sound made me realize that the bottles in my liquor cabinet were rattling. I was exuding too much raw, unkempt power. Cursing, I opened the cabinet, drank from one of the bottles of gin, then pulled out my flask. I topped it off with more gin, then drank again from the bottle to steady my nerves.

It helped a little. Maybe. Unfortunately I couldn't drink enough to truly calm myself. I was feeling a good buzz now but that would have to suffice. I would need my wits today if I was to somehow prevail.

Suddenly my phone rang and I marched back to my desk and grabbed the receiver, held it to my ear, said, "Where are you? We need to talk, now!"

A long pause. Then Silas said, "Good to hear from you, Viv. It's been awhile."

Just the sound of the lupine's voice made my skin crawl. I still couldn't believe that a year earlier I'd fallen in for his rugged, tough-guy charms and had agreed to a date. Big mistake. It hadn't ended well and had cost me a reliable contact within the lupine community.

Forcing my disgust at the man out of my voice I said, "Silas. Sorry, but I don't have time for small talk. This is important. I need information and I don't trust my phone isn't compromised. Can you..."

"Meet? Yes. But you come to me," Silas said, his voice gruff and commanding. "You know where. I'll be here until nine, then my pack is going north to hunt."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes," I said, then hung up the phone with a clang.

Downstairs it hit me: how was I going to get there? Not only do I hate driving I don't actually know how to do it. I'd taken one lesson when I was fifteen and that had been enough for me to know I didn't want to do it ever again.

I would have to hitchhike or find a cab.

Outside the rain had really started up again and I marched out into the downpour, my boots splashing through the puddles as I headed toward Woodward Avenue. It took me fifteen minutes of freezing, teeth-chattering desperation to flag down a mundane gypsy cab. The driver didn't look twice at the wild-eyed witch with copper hair and a silver cane, soaking wet and smelling of fresh magic and raw, unreleased sex. Viel or not, this was Detroit, after all.

"The old Tranchard body plant," I muttered, tossing a crumpled twenty onto the dashboard. "The abandoned one off I-75. Step on it."

***

The Tranchard assembly plant was a towering, hollowed-out monument to a decaying empire. Massive concrete skeletons stretching into the dark, their windows long since shattered, their iron rebar rusting like exposed bones. To the mundane citizens of Detroit, it was a dangerous, visceral illustration of urban decay and the decline of the automobile industry. To the urban lupines who refused the call of the wild packs beyond the gray, it was home.

The cab dropped me off a block away, its taillights bleeding into the thick morning fog. I gripped my cane, my leather trench coat heavy with rain, and slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence.

Inside, the air was freezing, thick with the scent of stagnant water, decaying wood, and ancient engine grease. But beneath the industrial decay, my nose picked up the sharp, musk-heavy pheromones of the local wolves. They were awake, shifting in the shadows of the old assembly lines.

I didn't try to hide my aura. That would have been difficult anyway so, in fact, I let it bleed out: volatile, hyper-aroused, and dangerously ungrounded. It was a beacon.

"You're a long way from your office, witch," a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the darkness of a collapsed catwalk.

A massive silhouette descended the iron rungs. Silas, the alpha of one of the urban packs that preferred the grime of the city to the ancient forests. He stood well over six feet, a wall of pure muscle wrapped in a grease-stained canvas jacket and muddy boots. He had a rough, square jaw covered in thick stubble, dark eyes that caught the faint morning light, and a primal, alpha-adjacent scent that smelled like wet pine, woodsmoke, and raw testosterone.

Despite his size he was small compared to the wild Alpha I'd encountered at Eleanor's. That monster had to be over seven feet tall in his human form, I reckoned.

I knew Silas well enough not to let his size intimidate me. In fact it had the opposite effect: my treacherous mind immediately cataloged his physical presence. The breadth of his chest, the heavy, calloused hands resting on his hips, and the prominent, unmistakable ridge swelling beneath his canvas work pants as his nostrils flared, catching my scent. My ungrounded magic flared in response, a visible blue spark jumping from my cane to a nearby iron pillar.

Now I remembered why I'd gone on that disastrous, disturbing date.

"I need information, Silas," I said, my voice tight as I fought back a shudder. The friction of my jeans against my hyper-stimulated pussy was making me dizzy. "And I need it now."

Silas walked closer, his boots heavy on the concrete. He stopped just inches away, his heat radiating off him like steam in the freezing plant. Behind him, lurking in the darkness, I could sense the rest of his pack watching on as the man studied me with a look of sheer contempt on his face. Looking down at my flushed cheeks, my heavy breathing, and the way my hand was trembling on my cane, he immediately guessed what kind of state I was in. A wicked, knowing grin split his rugged face.

"You smell half-cooked, Vivienne," he said, his voice a low, masculine rumble that vibrated straight through my stomach. "Don't tell me you finally made that driver of yours your pet? Or tried to, anyway?"

"Maybe," I said. Gods I was always surprised by just how sensitive, and discerning, a lupine's sense of smell was. "That's not important."

There was chuckling and some light barking from around me but when I tried to see the sources, all I saw were the ruins of the plant, a line of motorcycles belonging to this pack, and darkness.

Silas took a step closer. "It's safer for you like that, isn't it?" he said. "What was that kid's name? Allan? Sweet little driver, a mundane pup who won't scare you off with a few interesting... ideas?"

I scowled. Remembering what made me leave our date a year earlier I said, "Interesting ideas? Is that what you call them? Shit, Silas, I'm no prude. But what you wanted... what you suggested was beyond the pale. And on our very first date before the main course even arrived!"

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. "Ah yes, I remember your salad arriving just as you departed. You nearly ran over that waiter on the way out. I was very disappointed in you, witch. Of all the females I've known you were the first I thought could handle my request. Who might even get off on it."

"Shut up," I breathed, my throat dry. I didn't want to think about his feral, rough-edged demands, what he'd whispered into my ear over a basket of cheap breadsticks before I threw my water in his face. Not now. Not when my body was already a lightning rod begging for any ground it could find. I said, "I need information. Do you want to talk business or not?"

"Ah, information, information. The only thing I ever meant to you. The only reason you ever cared," he taunted me. "I assume it involves Allan?"

I nodded, doing my best to keep my eyes on his and not on the thick outline pulsing against his jeans.

"Ok then. But first answer me this: how often have you touched yourself while thinking of my request last year? The one that made you run?"

"Never!" I scowled, shocked that he'd even ask.

He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes while he did. Then he smiled. "Oh, Viv, you know I can smell a lie."

My scowl deepened. He was right. A year ago he'd whispered to me the plans he'd made for us that night. It involved him bringing me back to his pack where I would service all his males as a bitch in heat. He wanted me to let them all take me in feral form. I'd been so insulted I'd stormed away.

But he was right: I had thought about it sense. Fantasies only, mind you. I never seriously considered fulfilling that fantasy. But my duplicitous mind can be quite depraved and so yes, obviously I'd masturbated while imagining what it'd be like on a few occasions.

But I wasn't about to tell him that.

"Look, believe what you want," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm here for information, not to indulge you in your little fantasies."

"Well, witch, underworld information doesn't come cheap," Silas murmured, his dark eyes burning as he took a slow step forward, forcing me back against a rusted iron workbench. The cold metal bit into my lower back through my coat, a shocking contrast to the scalding, desperate heat pooling between my thighs. "Especially not tonight. The whole city is tense. Marcus's boys have been tearing up the lower east side looking for... something."

"I know," I said. "And I know why. A trade."

He shook his head definitively.

"I have cash," I tried again, reaching for my pocket.

Silas reached out, his massive, grease-stained hand wrapping around my wrist, stopping me. His fingers were burning hot. "I don't want your crumpled dollars, Vivienne. Look at you. You're short-circuiting. If you don't ground that magic soon, your brain is going to fry right along with your temper. And personally? I've always wanted to know what it'd be like to fuck a witch."

My heart hammered against my ribs. It was messy. It was entirely unprofessional. It could even be considered demeaning. But gods dammit, I was an outcast slut on a ticking clock, and my body was screaming for a release to stabilize my mind before I faced Jasiri's tower.

"The Count," I gasped out, my head tilting back as Silas leaned in, his rough stubble brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck. "Tell me... tell me why an Alpha from the wilds would work for Jasiri against the Count. I need to know who he is, what his motives are..."

"Trade first," Silas whispered. "Are we agreed?"

I didn't meet his eyes. "Only you," I said. I glanced around, didn't see anybody else but could sense they were there. "Tell your packmates to scram."

He shrugged. "You don't want them to join in? That's your loss. But I won't deprive them of a show."

I groaned softly. Gods but I loved his dominant attitude. And the idea of his followers watching him fuck me was just too wrong, too humiliating to resist. I wish I could blame it all on my pent up sexual frustration and the way my magic was, as Silas put it, short-circuiting. But the truth was that Fortune's prophecy had the right of it: *"wanton slut with no romance; Such is the way for Vivinne Vance".*

I'm not always so bad, I promise. But at that moment I was a fully wanton slut.

I nodded my head, and he smiled. "Don't worry," he hissed as he stepped closer to me, "they'll stay in the shadows." And with that his heavy hands caught the waist of my denim jeans and panties, ripping them down past my hips, down past my knees. I heard tearing as I kicked them off, along with my boots, and hoped to the gods that they weren't torn beyond saving. I was tired of losing clothing. I'd practically gone through an entire wardrobe since Eleanor had crossed my threshold hours earlier.

With the pants and boots gone I grunted and shrugged off my trench coat, and let it fall the the floor. I gripped his face with both hands and pulled him to me and pressed my lips against his. "Stay... in... human... form!" I breathed, then I kissed him again.

"Again," he growled softly, "your loss..." Then he reached between my legs.

I heard a low thrum of growling echoing throughout the plant, from more than a few different sources. Lupines have, as I've said, a great sense of smell and they were no doubt getting a nostrils-full dose of my raw scent from between my legs.

When Silas's calloused fingers brushed against the soaking wet, swollen heat of my clitoris, a loud, breathless scream tore from my throat, breaking off our kiss. A massive shower of blue, magical sparks exploded from my fingertips, shorting out a flickering emergency light fifty feet away. And then his free hand grabbed my left breast giving it a desperate, forceful squeeze, causing my knees to buckle. As he brought his hand back he tore my tank top off with it, exposing my breasts.

I could feel the eyes from the shadows as his lips locked around my right nipple. How many were watching? Six? A dozen? More? The thought made me shudder, to be so exposed, to have an entire pack of werewolves watching me get fucked...

He continued to finger me between my legs and gods but it was wonderful. My hands ran through his dark hair: frantic, pulling, yanking, desperate to hold him there as his tongue flicked out and around my sensitive, diamond-hard nipple. Each lick made me gasp and curse and groan.

Silas chuckled, a dark, primal sound. Finally letting go of my breast, he withdrew his finger from my body and unbuckled his heavy belt, freeing himself from his work pants. He was thick, rigid, and burning like an iron forge. Not Allan-big, but big. He grabbed my hips, hoisting my thighs up onto the rusted workbench, and drove himself into me with a brutal, heavy thrust. A blinding web of blue static exploded from my skin. It arced across the concrete, blowing out three overhead bulbs in a chain of shattering glass.

In the flash of my own electricity I saw gleaming amber eyes reflecting from the shadows. At least ten pairs of eyes, I guessed, and the thought made me groan all the more.

"Gods, Silas!" I shrieked, my fingers clawing into the canvas of his jacket. "Fuck... fuck me!"

The encounter was raw, frantic, and completely devoid of the tender devotion I'd felt from Allan. It was pure, unadulterated street chemistry, fueled by industrial grease, freezing concrete, and desperate necessity. Every time his heavy pelvis slammed against mine, my ungrounded magic lashed out, sending ripples of kinetic force through the rusted machinery around us. The metal gears groaned; the old assembly chains rattled in the dark, and I could hear his pack growling and barking as they watched their alpha brutally take his bitch.

But even as the massive, shattering waves of an ungrounded climax began to take hold of my body, even as my vision blurred and my thighs shook violently against his waist, my mind remained fiercely, desperately locked on Allan. I used the rough, grounding friction of Silas's body to anchor my short-circuiting brain, hammering my arousal back into a weapon I could use to go save my driver.

With a final, guttural roar, Silas buried himself deep inside me, his body tensing as he spent himself inside my eager pussy. He began his wolf-howl as he did and his brothers and sisters watching the show took up the call. Soon the entire plant echoed with the sounds of howling wolves as I shuddered beneath him and his seed filled me, my head resting against the cold iron workbench as my breathing finally slowed, the liquid fire in my veins dropping back down to a more manageable simmer.

The orgasm hadn't been what it should have been. It wasn't the climax I'd built toward with Allan. But it was enough to make me feel more like myself.

For now.

***

Silas pulled back, panting as he buckled his belt, looking down at me with a new measure of respect. I hauled my torn jeans up, realized my tank top was gone. Glancing around I saw half of it on the workbench, the other half hanging on the rusting railing of a catwalk twenty feet away.

Gods dammit, I thought.

My skin still tingling, I wrapped my trench coat tightly around my body, leaning heavily on my cane. My bare breasts, still hot and buzzing with desire, crushed against the leather of my coat. I was glad that at least my torn jeans were salvageable, even if my panties were not.

"Alright, witch," Silas breathed, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. "A deal's a deal. You said that an Alpha from the Wilds is working with Jasiri?"

"Yes," I said, my voice finally steady. "Against the Count, it would seem."

"There's more than one Alpha in the wilds, witch," he said. "Give me details."

I sighed and then gave him the short version of the night's events. Eleanor hiring me to find Julian, the discovery of the Wild runes at her estate, the fight with the vampires. When I was done, he sounded thoughtful.

"Interesting. You sure manage to get yourself into some... interesting situations, Viv."

"Just tell me what you know!" I demanded.

He shrugged. "A black beast was spotted two nights ago, well over eight feet tall, a true Ancient like you described. From what I hear he was packless, a real lone wolf. I can only think it'd be Jericho. He's a recluse, owns a boating repair place all the way out in Milan. Hunts around Ann Arbor but considers Detroit his home, it's where he was born. The last time I know he was in the city was five years ago. He almost singlehandedly stopped a brewing civil war here."

"I remember the war," I said. Five years earlier the urban packs began to form alliances and dispute each others' territories. There'd been some manipulations from other supernatural sources causing the whole mess, which was why I'd done some investigating at the behest of my former coven. I hadn't turned up much before the ordeal ended. I had, however, heard that some 'ancient wilds' had been responsible for putting an end to the fighting before it got out of hand.

"Lone wolf or not, he's protective of us," Silas said. "It's his nature. If he's working with Jasiri against the Count, you can bet he believes the Count has been doing something to us urbans."

"Like what?" I said.

"I don't know," Silas said, but his eyes shifted away from mine.

I closed my eyes in frustration. "So let me get this straight, Silas: the Count is doing something to your own people, and an Alpha from Ann Arbor knows about it but you don't?

He scowled at me. "I lead one pack. I don't know what's happening with every lupine in the city."

"Fine," I said, pissed off. I turned from him and said, "What a waste of time." I began to walk away.

"Wait," he said. I stopped, turned back. He sighed. "I don't know why I put up with you, bitch."

I stared at him.

He scowled and said, "Look, I don't know anything for certain, okay? But... well, there've been rumors about the Count for a long time."

"What kind of rumors?"

"The kind that could ignite a full on war with the immortals," he said. He seemed pensive for a moment. Finally, he made a decision. He said, "Rumor is the Count is addicted to lupine blood."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Impossible!"

"Like I said it's only rumor," he said. "But some strays go missing sometimes and we never hear from them again. There could be a million reasons for that in this fucking city, of course. But there've been attacks on some of us from time to time, attacks from people not trying to kill us. More like trying to capture us. Again there could be a million reasons for that in this city. But if the Count is feeding on lupine blood..."

"Then he'd need victims," I said, thinking through the implications. "He'd need a constant supply. If he was hunting lupines openly he'd never be able to hide it. But if he was capturing wolves and turning them into his own personal bloodbank..."

"It'd be horrific," Silas said, seething now despite himself. "Leaving us alive only to drain, then nursing us back to health only to drain again, and on and on until the body finally gives up. That alone breaks all the laws of the Veil. If it got out he was doing that it would ignite a war to end all wars."

We stared at each other for a moment. Then my eyes widened and I said, "Wait, wait. Marcus told me that he requires Julian because he saw something he shouldn't have."

"If Julian saw something that could confirm these rumors," Silas said, finishing my thought for me, "he'd want him silenced for sure."

"And if Jasiri told Jericho these rumors were true," I said, "and there was proof in the form of one thrall named Julian..."

Silence fell between us for a long minute. Then I half walked, half ran back the way I'd come.

"What are you gonna do, Vivienne?" Silas yelled after me. "It's only rumor and speculation! You go talking about this stuff like it's fact and it'll be your ass!"

I stopped at the edge of the chain-link fence, looking back at the rugged lupine through the morning mist. I let a cold, dangerous smirk return to my lips.

"I'm a private investigator, Silas. It's my job to find facts," I said, my voice dripping with venom. "And Count Marcus is going to learn the hard way why it's so dangerous to piss off a witch... even a covenless slut like me."

END OF CHAPTER EIGHT