Chapter 19.5 - Chicken Cottage

The vampyr slashes her sharp tipped parasol through the air, intending to cut the idiot wolf’s legs from beneath her as punishment for such a graceless maneuver. Katarina isn’t against sneaking out into the woods, she’s not uptight, and in fact, telling her a place is forbidden is perhaps the surest way of getting her to show up, (she likes to sleep; these last few days have been trying).
Still though, a little class, maybe? Burning the lock off like a common criminal wasn’t the only evidence the fool left. Having disappeared into the brush mere moments after brute forcing the gate, Mathilde has left a trail like a wildfire, tearing through the thickly wooded forest. With a cluck of her tongue, Katarina follows, covering her own tracks and those of the wolf girl with a simple wind spell to redisperse the leaves. 
Honestly, how difficult is it? 
Katarina, intending to only follow the tracks far enough to hide them from the wall watchers and then go off on her own, is surprised by Mathilde, who apparently ran a huge circle just to come back to her starting point. Dogs. 
She grabs a thin, smooth-branched tree to stop herself and swings around it like a girl round a maypole. “I found something cool. Maybe dangerous,” Mathilde says, flicking her eyebrows as if to dare Katarina.
“Not interested, mongrel.” 
“Come on, Kat, why do you have to tease me? Can’t you see I’m trying to show you a good time? I mean come on, I’m fucking nervous here,” Mathilde crosses her ankles beneath her skirt, swings on the tree, looking anything but nervous. Katarina raises an eyebrow. Mathilde realises the beautiful, strange-faced demon girl is looking for an excuse.
“I mean, come on, we should look out for each other, right? The hot one said it was dangerous.” 
“You are disgusting.” When Mathilde swings herself from the tree and starts walking, though, Katarina follows. The vampyr has little need for her parasol, with the canopy so thick, but she’s already bright pink from sun exposure and doesn’t want to get sick again. She hates being sick. 
“Jealous?” Mathilde walks backwards so she can look at Katarina’s pinched, frustrated face. “She’s not as hot as you.” 
Katarina sticks her bat-like nose in the air. “I’m spoken for, mutt.” 
“That’s fine, it doesn’t ruin it for me,” Mathilde smiles. “I’m surprised, though. He another leach?”
“She.”
“So she is then?” 
Katarina opts not to acknowledge the woman, in the hopes she’ll stop babbling. 
“Oh shit! Is she the one who, y’know-” Mathilde makes a gesture to her throat. 
The vampyr feels a jolt of anger, keeps walking, looks pointedly away from the wolf girl.
“She is, isn’t she?! Oh I bet she’s way older, huh? Has freaky mind powers? Oh my Gods, do you like murder people together for date night?” 
“No!” Katarina snaps, “I don’t… do that.” 
“But she does?” 
“She’s very supportive of my dietary choices!”
“But she doesn’t follow those dietary choices herself, right?” 
Katarina sets her jaw. “She has in the past. It was her idea. She’s the one who taught me.”  
Mathilde grins. “Right. I’m not judging your girlfriend, Kat. Killing’s a riot. It’s just, y’know, isn’t it sort of weird? Dating your sire?”
The vampyr rolls her eyes, “I suppose, what, you’ve never met yours?” 
“No, I have. He’s kind of like my dealer.”
Katarina decides not to engage. She focuses on shading herself with her parasol as they enter a small clearing, and so when she sees the thing, she can’t help but let out a little cry and jump back. 
It’s a cottage, except instead of being rooted in the earth, as any good cottage should be, it sits precariously on a pair of huge, scaled bird legs. 
“How horrible!” 
“Nah,” says Mathilde, “my uncle had a place like this. Come on.” 
Katarina is about to say no, absolutely not, someone probably lives there, but the wolf girl grabs the vampyr’s hand with her hot one, and Katarina can feel the blood pulsing beneath the skin, and immediately all she can think of are her numbers, her exercises, as she fights to control her blood lust. The werewolf is an awful companion, but Katarina hardly wants to be expelled for murder. 
When they approach the cabin, it sinks robotically to its haunches, allowing Mathilde to pull Katarina easily up the stairs and through the twisted oak wood door in her moment of distraction.
Mathilde whirls the vampire inside, twists so she’s blocking Katarina’s way out. She puts her hands behind her back, crosses her legs flirtatiously. The vampyr rolls her eyes. The cottage is dim, slightly dusty.
“Drink my blood,” says Mathilde. 
Katarina freezes. Even hearing the word creates a dull ache in her throat — apparently, whatever blood she drank during the games didn’t make it back through the stasis field, and she’s hungry. At least it means she didn’t break her diet. 
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, throat burning. 
“I want you to,” says Mathilde, taking a step closer. 
“What? Why?”
Mathilde laughs and looks to the ceiling, as if it’s a ridiculous question. Then she meets Katarina’s eyes — the vampyr shows no weakness, although she fights the urge to flinch. 
“Because I think it would make you feel good,” says the wolf, taking a step closer still. Katarina backs up further, back pressing against the wall now, and swallows. 
She tries not to inhale, because beneath the slightly doggish smell that marks her as a changeling is blood; hot, sweet, nectar, far more enticing than any of the animals she has devoured in the last two decades — even more enticing than the blood of the Restoration mage on the battlefield earlier, because now, Katarina is hungry. Starved. 
Mathilde is clearly waiting for her to respond though, creeping ever closer, and she’s forced to take a breath just to speak. The aroma hits her like a fever charm. 
“Get away! I’ll kill you, you idiot!” Does she think it’s like trying a bite of chocolate cake? Doesn’t she know that Katarina had to train for 20 years just to be able to attend the Academy? To even function this close to mortals as anything other than a killer? 
“You won’t,” Mathilde says, voice slow and seductive. “I’ll stop you before you do anything bad, Kat. I just want to see what you look like.” 
The white fury that flashes through her is nothing compared to her thirst, tearing through her like a windstorm. She can’t control the volume of her voice as she cries, “Even if you could! Don’t you know what this would do to me? Being around people is already torture!”
Mathilde pins Katarina against the wall again, this time aware of what her closeness is truly doing to the vampyr girl. Katarina’s pupils are growing, threatening to engulf the white of her eyes; her fangs are distending, dripping venom. Wings burst from her back.
“You’re telling me you didn’t use those scary bat powers of yours to slurp anyone up on the battlefield?” Mathilde looks up at her, faces only inches apart now. 
“I did! That’s the problem! I need to get it out of my head! I- I wasn’t prepared for this! Don’t you see?” 
Katarina pushes away from the wall, tries to make for the door, but Mathilde grabs her shoulders before she can take a step. The hot pulse is too much. 
“I see perfectly well,” says the wolf, “she’s defanged you.” 
Her rage at the accusation is the only thing that stops her from tearing into Mathilde’s throat instantly. “Because I’m able to be amongst others?” she manages through her lengthened fangs. “Sorry I’m not content to sulk at the edges of society like a sick dog. I will be a part of the world!” 
“Drinking the blood of hares and fawns, I suppose, exhausted and miserable all the while?” 
“How do you kn-”
Mathilde kisses her full on the mouth. Katarina recites numbers to herself desperately, and when even her mathematics abandon her, she resorts to repeating I will not kill her, I will not kill her, as her lips respond to the kiss on their own. 
Mathilde pulls back and sways, high on vampyr venom. “You’re beautiful, Kat. I wanna see you alive. I wanna see you primal.” 
“I am not an animal!” Katarina roars. 
“Neither am I,” says Mathilde, biting her own wrist so that a pearl of glossy red blood beads on her golden skin. “I’ll taste so much better. I’ll satiate you, Kat-”
It’s too much. Katarina’s mind becomes blank, savage. She lunges into Mathilde’s short frame, wraps her arms viciously around her head as she gnashes the throat. 
She has presence of mind enough for a split second to adjust the angle of her bite, so that she avoids the jugular. Mathilde moans like it’s a finger and not two needle sharp fangs slipping into her. Limply, slowly, heavy with the venom, Mathilde lifts her arm to stroke Katarina’s back. 
“Good girl,” she says, “Doesn’t it feel good?”
Katarina does not have the faculty to answer. She gorges. 
After a timeless stretch of ambrosia fuelled bliss, Mathilde yanks Katarina’s head up hard enough that her fangs make a pop sound as they emerge from the flesh. “Okay, that’s enough candy for today,” she says. 
Katarina hisses and attacks again, latching on tight this time. She swallows, swallows-
Mathilde’s hand creeps out and pulls the curtains down hard, sending the entire rod crashing to the floor. Brilliant sunshine streams into the cabin.
“Hssss!”
“Easy, girl, I’m doing this for your own good, remember? You don’t want to be a killer.”
The door explodes and a black mass of wriggling legs crash into Katarina. They tumble through the room and crash out the window. 
“Kat!” screams Mathilde.