"In the mouth of the wolf "

"May the wolf die"

Italian Idioms
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She had now broken three oaths since joining the enclave.

They were not rules you could bend, as they were sustained by their apex governing body. The Blood Coven ruled from Romania, included all beings of the night; witches, werewolves, familiars, ghosts, and vampires. Each country then had its council, and Italy as a unified country chose Florence as its capital city. Then there was the Sanguine Enclave, which included only vampires and their familiars when permitted. The Blood Coven created the rules and regulations for all creatures, while the institutions below them would enforce them.

Which brought her to the dastardly realization that she would be killed for one or all of these things.

One, murdering a council member. Two, bringing her familiar to a private enclave function

Three...

She dared not think of the third broken rule.

It had been a week and they were still alive, hidden within the Tuscan countryside. When Cian had conveyed them to her apartment, they had only stayed for an hour. Gathered the things they may need so they could hide within her father's family home which had been abandoned since her mother's death.

They drank wine every night, to the point of inebriation. At least I did. She was not sure she had ever seen Cian drunk, or if it was even possible. He still never turned down a single drink with her. They were left wondering when the reaper would visit them. When the entire order of vampires would come to cut off their heads.

Even if they left the country, they would be found and flayed by some other council. That is how it worked. They were a web stretched across the universe, waiting to catch a fly among its spindling silk. One reverberation would be heard, and the rest would come flocking to help. Efficient. But exceptionally inconvenient for beings deemed inconsequential, and could not pay to have the council off their backs.

Serafina's noble upbringing meant nothing to the vampires when she joined them. It was almost a breath of relief. Short-lived, but freeing. For once she was unimportant, not expected to act according to arbitrary societal rules. The nobility of vampires depended on age and pureness of blood. Those that were born vampires from a long line of night-born families were practically considered Saints. Augustus. And beings like Octavia earned their titles, as their many years of living only increased their power and influence.

That was until she realized they were the family she had grown up with. Just more violent.

Vampires of noble blood could only marry those pure-born, or with a known family name.  Vampires who were poor in their human life were constantly questioned, accused at parties of stealing blood and family jewels. Serafina within her station could see Augustus, but the relationship was frowned upon. Moreso than the ten other vampire men she has killed over the years. Witches and werewolves were not off-limits, but their nobility was considered to be at the bottom of the vampire hierarchy.

And-

Vampires could never, under any circumstances, consort with their familiars.

She looked to her side, making sure Cian was still beside her. Her heart squeezed miserably as he looked out into the night sky, a jug of wine held loosely in his hands. His eyes, nose, and lips cut across the night sky. He is very pretty. Too pretty. The air was chill but sweet, clinging to the curls that were long enough to curl just over his ears and at the nape of his neck. If I just ran through them with my hand-

Though she is drunk off her ass, she does not say the words aloud. But she knows she is too far gone because she is thinking thoughts she never allowed herself to think. Shut up.

Shut up. 

She turned back towards the rolling green hills and waited for golden light to appear.

What a cliché it was to miss the sun, what ungrateful splendor to wish for its warmth instead of eternal life.

Her hands clutched the soft grass, her bottle of red wine heavy in her lap. She heard the snap of blades as she held herself tighter, and more harshly into the ground. Soon, she would have to get up from their little spot on the hill. Soon she would have to hide in their manor, with the windows nailed over with planks of wood. Shrouded in shadow, she would light every candle she had in the place with Cian's help. And still, it would never replace the feeling of those mornings by the ocean.

She liked to torture herself every last hour before it arose. Her love for the sun, made her chase it in every other experience and person she met.

When she first turned, she could not accept her fate. She would try to throw herself into the path of the sun. Sometimes she was successful, and her skin would develop oozing blisters that sometimes wounded her to the bone. Cian would pull her back every time, explaining if she remained there long enough, she would disintegrate. That sort of tantrum only lasted for about a week.

But for much longer, at night she would play the human. She would walk around the city, attending late food markets, and praying in cathedrals. She would walk around the piazza and listen to music. Watch artists paint on the streets.

She knew what humans saw when they stared at her initially; a fellow human. Just a pretty girl that had origins in the South.

Serafina prided herself in that she did not look like most vampires. Pale or dark-skinned, tall or short, they all had the same severe bone structure. The same gaunt expression, and lifelessness in their smiles that refused to kiss their eyes.

Life clung to her in the way death refused to hold her.

She inherited most of her looks from her mother.

Her skin tied her to her home, pressed olive, warm, and smooth. Her hair waved like the Tyrrhenian down to the small of her back, long and dark brown. It turned the color of wine in the sunlight. She liked to tie half of it up with velvet bows to keep it out of her face because she could not stand to get the wisps in her mouth. Her eyes were large but narrow, many shades of hazel. Her mother always told her looking into her eyes was like staring through the surface of a river to the bottom, with tones of brown, green, and gray. Full, arched brows sat above her eyes, only broken by a faint scar she acquired on the left when she had fallen as a child. Her chin was pointed yet round, her face widest at her cheekbones, and her hairline curled close around her forehead. Her slightly Roman nose and her upturned lips were all her father.

She was soft where women were taught to be. Curved, with more flesh than the average vampire woman, whose bones arched through skin with regality. Maybe her hips were too flared, and chest too large, but it only helped her to get what she wanted out of men.

She remembered the last day she walked so naively among humans. It had been right after sunset in the summer, and children ran playing near the edge of the city. She had been for a walk, and a child dropped a toy.

A little girl ran over smiling. Serafina held her scarf tightly at her chest, hoping it would hide some of the unnatural aura she had acquired. The child's warm small hand grazed along her palm, and she smiled back.

The child began to cry. Leaving the toy, and begging for salvation.

It was only when humans were close that they realized that oily wrongness clung to every part of her. She was inhuman, uncanny. Strega. They would say. Demona. Her favorite.

Madonna Triste. A sobriquet that branded her forever in gray clouds and agony. It hurt worst of all.

She became much more cautious after that first year. While her family never looked for her after her sudden 'disappearance' there was always a chance she could be recognized. She had not visited her father.

He would fall to his knees and pray for her, instead of asking forgiveness for himself.

"What do we do now?" She broke the silence, already imagining the blaze of yellow and pink that would soon drown the stars. Taking a swig of wine, she let its cherry tang revive her. The liquid remained in the chamber of her mouth, warm.

She stupidly thought of first and last time tasting human blood. How it clung to her teeth. The way it carried the screams into her body.

She swallowed quickly, hoping that Cian did not catch her disgust. When she felt his eyes on her, she knew that was a fruitless wish. He never missed anything.

Still, he ignored it. Answering her instead as he lay flat on the ground with both of his elbows behind him. "Flee? Ship ourselves out into the sunset and never return?"

She turned to him, scathed. Regretting it entirely when he took a deep drink of his wine, which caused some to escape past his lips. Her eyes followed the path of wine, as it crossed veins and pooled on the muscle of his neck. He whisked it away, and she was forced back into her body and her annoyance towards him.

He would not want to leave the life they created for themselves. Eleven years, and they had never traveled beyond the city boundaries. They had spent years now attempting to acclimate her to her new body, to educate her on the other caste of creatures. The history of their kind, and if there was any cure other than death. At some points, they even tried to make peace with the hesitant enclave. It took time to adjust to the darkness.

And as much as he pretended not to care, she knew he loved Florence.

She knew everything about Cian. Mostly. While he had been intentionally vague about his origins, she knew that he much preferred it here.

"Real solutions, please." She huffed out, sitting up. Unable to sit still, as if something was crawling under her skin.

She would not make it out of this alive. If Cian was caught, his fate would be evidently worse.

Ripping at the grass once more, she imagined it was Octavia's spine.

Cian did not ignore her minimal expression this time, but he took it the wrong way. He angled himself on his side, his torso facing her. His brows crinkled closer together as he glared at her, "Is it that strange to want to run away together? It would only be us that we would have to deal with. That is how we live already."

Serafina stopped moving her hands, her stomach dropping.

Yes, they had spent almost every day together for eleven years. Except when he would disappear at times within the shadow world familiars spawned from. Or when she found a new suitor, which required strict perseverance.

She could count the number of times he touched her on one hand. Serafina does not count training for hand-to-hand combat. Or a touch that resulted from a life-or-death situation, which they have definitely encountered throughout their years.

She remembered every single one of them.

They were seemingly practical touches. Never offering anything more than aid, or consolation.

There had been times when he comforted her, which happened frequently the year she was turned. When she was injured, and did not realize that blood would sustain her. When she refused to kill other humans after her ex-husband.

He embraced her once when she told him the tragedy of her mother's death.

Only. Once.

She counted eight times when his eyes glanced longer at her than they should. Four times when his hand slipped a little lower on her waist when he pulled her up from training. Two times where it looked like he would say yes to dancing with her at a party, before politely declining.

Despite his avoidance of her skin, she knew he loved her as a Familiar should. It was a devotion between two people, who would protect and care for one another against the world. Who would lay their lives for the other if in danger? Who was both a friend, and family.

She loved him in all of those ways. And in more forbidden ways. One, two, three.

He waited for a response for her, and she stared back at him. Searching to see if he knew what his suggestion did to her, or if he simply refused to see it. Unlike every other emotion they shared, it was like her feelings for him were something beyond his reach.

She counted. She could take more touches, more embraces and her conclusion would be the same. He did not feel as she did. So she let it settle within herself. A resolution. It was better this way because loving your familiar was unlike breaking the other rules.

The bond between familiar and vampire existed before there were covens and councils. The ban existed before there was even written language before anyone could enforce it.

It was not the council they would have to answer to. There would be no vampires to run from. Aristocracy to kill to be free. She had never been told what exactly happens if they consort together, but she had been warned well enough.

It was their souls that would feel the consequences of their defiance.

It did not matter either way.

Serafina buried her feelings for him six feet under. A tombstone lay above, with all of her desires and wants that would never be fulfilled. He placed flowers over its grave every day, though he did not realize. She spoke to him only as a friend, only flirting in the way she did with every other person. They spoke of her lovers openly. Played rough when they fought. Every single time her thoughts strayed when she looked at him, she lashed herself internally.

A perfect friend.

Her bitchy, loving emotions only clawed their way up when she had too much to drink.

"They will always find us. And if not them, some other council that is dedicated making life on Earth truly hell." Serafina answered instead, grimacing. Knowing that if they were to run away somewhere, she would feel untouchable and do something stupid.

Like tell him how she felt.

Then, as lucky as she is, they would both burst into hellish flames. Condemned to suffer for all of eternity because she could not control her impulses.

"Was it worth it?" Cian implored, his face a stone mask. His eyes told her nothing, but the set of his body did. Tensed and a little aggravated. His hands threaded together, messing with his knuckles.

Serafina assumed he was asking if she loved Augustus enough for his death to be worth their lives. He did not have to tell her what he thought of the man. He already did, with colorful curses and words she thought died out in the last century.

'Pitiful, egotistical, self-important, terrible at dressing, and surely not good enough for her' could sum up quite beautifully his flagrant opinions of the councilman.

She peered down her nose at him, straightening her shoulders back. "Yes." She lied, knowing that the truth would be more complex. She lied to herself all the time, trying to convince herself all of these men could be enough. That maybe their love would be more worthy than their blood.

A means to an end. A justification for her gain. Even if sometimes she did enjoy their company. Even if their betrayal was like another needle stuck within a felt case. It all paled in comparison.

Cian did not know that it was little to do with love that she killed that man. He did not know it had everything to do with love that she distracted herself with them.

The man sat up, startling her. They were much closer than before as he placed his hand on his strong chin, lost in thought. "If you cannot join them if you cannot outrun them." His voice was a whisper, if she were human she would not be able to catch them quickly enough, "Conquer them."

The word hung in the air between them, thick like oil. The wind started to pick up around them, blowing strands of hair into Serafina's face. Cian hand's twitched, his eyes catching the struggling strands. But he made no effort to push them away.

She did herself. So she could send her most egregious look at her friend.

"Excuse me?"

"Marie Antoinette. Charles I. Julius Cesar."

"They were all murdered."

"Yes," Cian replied easily despite her deadpanned reasoning. His eyes shined bright under the moon, and she was worried. He was almost excitable. Maybe the wine had finally gone to his head. He continued his proposition, "And someone else took their place. Carved the world and the laws how they wished it to be in their vision to create a better life."

No. She knew what he was getting at, and she would not even entertain the thought.

It was ludicrous. It sounded like one of her ideas instead of his. He needed to be the pragmatic one or all hope was lost.

"Or they were just as hungry for power." Serafina shifted, wrapping her arms around her knees. Though the elements rarely affected her impenetrable skin, this night cared not of her being. It held no prisoners.

She had learned over the years that one taste of power will foster a life-long addiction, no matter how noble the intentions at the start.

He shook his head, growing more serious. The man refused to look away from her eyes, even though she tried to them. His voice was too ardent, unwavering, "Yet you are not. You are good. You have more human left in you than the rest of us."

He cannot be so resolute on this whim. With every passing moment, his stoic silence became her answer. He genuinely was suggesting this idea.

She did not deserve him thinking the best of her. He had met her after she lost everything she had to live for. He had not seen the shallow shell before. A victim of her circumstances, and unwilling to continue.

She laughed in his face, wondering when she had become the sensible one. He looked discouraged by it. Did he expect another reaction? It was insanity. Madness. Inconceivable.

"You are truly suggesting for me to usurp the High Empress and take over the Sanguine Council? A human-born woman of muddied blood, inconsequential name, and practically exiled? I was already dismissed by them before, but at least I was tolerated. Now my fellow enclave members will surely deny me, even if I get as far as killing Octavia."

It was impossible. Just the thought of facing that ancient, sadistic woman pumped fear into her body. She had almost shattered underneath her offense. This was not some arrogant fool she could seduce into bed, and then kill.

The side of Cian's mouth quirked up, "It would not matter if you owned them."

His eyes flashed a brilliant green at the thought. She could see the vengeance in his eyes, endless as the Tuscan hills before them. She understood, for they talked constantly about the order they followed was inherently wrong. How familiars were mistreated by vampires, and what that change would look like. But that was morality. Theory. And she had no true power, other than being an earthly self-made succubus.

This was an impending collapse of order.

Serafina leaned closer to the man, unsure of how to answer him. She bit her lip, watching closely to see if his eyes would follow the movement. They remained trained faithfully to her eyes. She just wanted to forget everything he said, and all the possibilities running through her head. Silly thoughts of equal bearings. Her being the one to lead them to it.

Ridiculous.

She needed something to forget it. Entertainment. Pain. Anything to get the glorious thought of forging a new council, a new era out of her mind.

"What will you give me if I do it?" She offered impishly, letting the words sink through bitten lips. She let the wine control her movements, pushing her chest forward. Hoping that Cian would be so thrown off he would just let the conversation drop and wither into nothing.

She expected him to roll his eyes. To laugh it off and tell her to quit it, as he usually did when she teased him.

The man pulled back from her sharply, as if bitten. He peered down at her, eyes narrowed and voice shrouded in warning, "I am not one of your playthings." Cian was not teasing her back. No, the man was angry with her, she felt the emotion boiling in her chest from their connection. It sent the hairs on the back of her neck standing up at the sudden burst of emotion that usually ebbed with her jests. Why? He was not finished with his onslaught, "Stop thinking you can avoid this discussion so easily with me like I am one of those moronic dogs you associate yourself with. We have little time and less viable options. You have been the only young vampire in existence to kill eleven ancients. You can do this."

Did he not realize? That she was no better than the vapid dogs she carried on a leash. That was why they flocked to her so willingly. Bred from the same mold.

It brought her comfort that she ingested in her body still made blotchy marks across her chest, a trait she felt shamed by in her life before. Now it was a sign she was still within her new, ageless body. Somewhere deep in the recesses of it.

She sat up onto her knees, a little embarrassed by how she swayed. Cian attempted to steady her but she pulled out of his reach. Though his expression turned severe, he fretted with his knuckles once again. Her voice held a pathetic rasp and she despised herself for it, "I am nobody, from nowhere. I do not want this. All I want to do is drink wine, fuck as many beings as I like, continue to play the piano, dine at the finest establishments, and wait for the sun to never touch my skin again-"

Her shoulders fell as he regarded her with mortifying despondency.

"You are more than that."

I have no purpose. Her lower lip began to tremble. Soon trails of red would flow down her face, an autumn weeping. I will not cry.

"No I am not." She insisted, her voice raising at the man. I am not a leader. I am not a revolutionary. I am one woman who cannot stand the mistreatment of those who believe they are better. Serafina had been given a chance. Now she could crush the soul of lovers who wronged her. She could grow stronger from it. But being a vigilante was not a purpose.

"You are lying," Cian raised his voice to match her fervency. She refused to back down and returned the glare he branded into her skin. She could sense his deteriorating patience. She grew more confused when he looked at her with lack of credence, his impassive expression finally animating into exasperation. "Do you think me blind? I know that you are doing exactly what the council suspects of you. I know you are seducing your way into the bed of older vampires and killing them so you do not have to feed off humans. Hating who you are is not living Rin. That is scarcely surviving."

His reveal that he knew the truth of her actions shocked her. It was not like she did not expect him to know, she had told him she never wanted to feed from humans. He was with her when she threw up the contents of her late husband. They had never spoken it out loud, in fear of another hearing.

Her chest felt numb, a saddened void. Is that what he thought of her all these years? She believed it herself, but she had thought Cian saw no issue with how she chose to live.

The vampire stood up slowly, the sun still had another hour to rise. Brushing off her dress, she turned to look at Cian. The air between them tense and fiery.

Her voice was quiet when she addressed him again, "I failed at being a human. I am failing as a vampire. I should just give myself over to Octavia, shouldn't I?"

The man exploded. He had been there, watching as her broken body repaired itself. Broken bones shifting from wrong angles, her skull gluing itself together from tiny fragments. Still she did not rescind her words.

She never took words back that she meant.

"Do not say that Rin! Do not dare-"

"Watch me." Serafina interrupted him harshly, voice raw.

She clenched her fists tightly, turning swiftly on her feet. She could feel her fangs beginning to brim the sockets of her teeth, a painful breach that ceased to phase her anymore. Her undead heart beat uncomfortably, telling her to go back to him. To mend things and apologize for being such an ass.

Her pride one out, carrying her from the only person that made her second life worth fighting through.

"In bocca al Lupo." His voice called out to her. Good luck. He was a little awkward sounding out the words, as he was with all of her language's idioms and slang.

It meant she would have no chance of bringing herself to an end. Not while he was around. She did not have to look to know he was laying on the hill once again, in no dire need of rushing.

He would follow her anywhere.

"Crepi il lupo."

May the wolf die.

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(A/N: Heyyy guys!

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions.

The tension is going to be amazing and the plot and ugh I love what these characters have in store.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting! <3333

STAY TUNED :)