Jean-Jacques lay still, unable to move. He watched Chloé sit back fully, mourning the loss of her lips, even if it could barely be described as a kiss. She tossed her head, hair falling away from her eyes, revealing their red colouration, something he usually only saw when she was angry. She wasn't angry.

"Are you hungry?" The statement was ridiculous enough to make him blush, especially so because of how hopeful he sounded at the prospect. Chloé didn't answer, running fingers through his hair instead, pushing it aside from his eyes. It left Jean-Jacques frightfully exposed. He gulped. "I want you to drink my blood."

Her fingers twisted in his hair, not painfully, she likely wasn't even aware she was doing it.

"Jean-Jacques," she started, grave as he had ever seen her. "If I do this - if I drink your blood - it's not because you asked me to. It's because I want to."

He laughed, a surprised but joyful bark. "I have no desire to make you do anything purely for my sake."

"I'll hurt you."

"I don't mind."

Chloé took a deep breath. He'd let her. He would let her do whatever she wanted without a complaint ever ghosting his lips. If she asked it he would lay himself bare and thank her for it. Every drop of his blood belonged to her unconditionally. Just as hers belonged to him. Somewhere along the way they'd gotten dangerously wrapped around each other, always teetering on the edge of mutual destruction. Were she a better person Chloé would cut that tie to at least save Jean-Jacques some pain. As it stood her self-control had crumbled beyond repair, Jean-Jacques' permission the only thing that might have been a barrier.

With a light touch she tugged the cravat free from his neck, letting it flutter to the ground. She continued to the top buttons of all his layers, undoing them and pushing the clothes wide. She lay her full weight on him, the suggestion of her breath on his skin. Jean-Jacques shivered. Then there were teeth.

Jean-Jacques near instantly had to cover his mouth with a hand, Chloé's toxin infiltrating his every cell to tremendous effect. If it felt equally good to Chloé when he sucked her blood he was amazed she hid it so well. He whispered her name, as encouragement for her and a brief release of pressure for himself.

Chloé allowed herself to tear more violently into him. Because it was him she didn't mind exposing every urge she had been suppressing her entire life. Her fangs dug deep into his flesh and tore rough holes in delicate skin. The taste was like nothing else, intoxicating enough to lose oneself, like giving a glass of water to a woman who hadn't realised she was parched beyond dehydration. It was almost a shame she had rarely drunk blood in her life, unable to tell how much of the sensation was natural and how much was due to her status as a curse-bearer.

She separated from him, sitting up and breathing heavily. Blood dripped from her mouth onto his chest. Her face was a horrific mess, looking as though she had killed and eaten an animal raw. And yet, Jean-Jacques sat up, took that monstrous visage tenderly between his hands and kissed her.

She practically melted against him. Right or wrong didn't seem to matter so much as want anymore. He wanted her and she was finally accepting she wanted him, so badly it felt like that desire would consume them. She knew Jean-Jacques' affection couldn't be trusted. She was the only one he could project his yearning onto, if he didn't convince himself of it the entire illusion of their life would crumble around him. To admit he was anything other than absolutely devoted would mean seeing his only companion for what she really was. In order to possess the companionship he wished for, romantic or otherwise, his only choice was to love her. She understood because she used to be exactly the same.

Chloé remembered a time in her life when she would have loved anyone if they'd only loved her. She remembered, despite harbouring no romantic feelings for him, wishing August would confess to her. Maybe she thought it would fix her, or maybe it would have made her forget the things that needed to be fixed. It didn't have to be romantic and it didn't have to be August, it could have been anyone really. August was simply the most convenient to fantasise about. Part of what made that fantasy so easy to slip into was the knowledge that it was just that; a fantasy. There was nothing between the two of them and there never would be. He wasn't even around most of the time.

"I love you," she said.

Those words were so easy to say to Jean-Jacques, used to repeating it almost every day. Love didn't have to mean anything frightening.

In this context those simple words were violent.

"I love you," Jean-Jacques repeated, smiling.

Chloé's face contorted into something difficult to decipher. She was looking right at him, searching for something in his face. He thought maybe she doubted his sincerity. Jean-Jacques kissed her forehead, between her creased brows. Her expression softened and grew sadder at the same time. He thought perhaps he should explain.

"Chloé, if it weren't for you by my side back then, and even now, I wouldn't want to be ali-"

Chloé crushed their mouths together, refusing to let Jean-Jacques finish that thought. She would swallow those poisonous words, eliminate them entirely. She would never let Jean-Jacques say something like that. Never.

She wanted his love and devotion, but only within the boundaries she dictated. It was hateful and unfair to him, like everything else with her. She would weaponise the position she held as the woman he claimed he loved to keep him at arm's length. There were lines they couldn't cross in the game they were playing and poor Jean-Jacques didn't even know the rules.

She bit his tongue, just hard enough to draw blood. He responded in kind. Then they were bleeding into each other, the taste mixing together, coating their maws, flowing down their throats and dribbling from the corners of their lips where they moved against each other.

Chloé clutched his shoulder, unsheathing her claws and dragging down deliberately. The skin parted in jagged lines, holding tight to the tips of her fingers in resistance where she was digging too deep, scraps of flesh burying themselves beneath her nails. Jean-Jacques made a strained sound into her mouth and she kept kissing him even when his lips stopped moving.

Shakily Jean-Jacques' hand found its way to her waist. Inch by inch she could feel his own claws extending to poke almost daintily at the back of her dress, where her skin was covered by nothing more than a mesh of black lace. She leaned back into it, inviting him. Blood beaded beneath his longest claw.

All at once he tore his hand across her in one quick motion, rending her skin and dress in a spray of blood. It was enough to make Chloé gasp, finally breaking the kiss. Her blood stuck to the shreds of fabric, plastering it to the skin around the wounds. It itched.

Jean-Jacques licked his fingers, nicking his lip as he pulled the last talon from his mouth. A tiny, enticing dribble of red joined the mess already staining his face. Jean-Jacques used the same hand to grab her waist again, pulling her closer, fingers provoking acute sensitivity where they rested on the new lacerations. Then he was standing and Chloé wrapped her legs around his middle and her mouth around his pulse.

He stumbled a little as she consumed him, pouring a dizzying volume of poison into his veins. With breath erratic and fraught as he struggled to remain coherent enough to stand, still he managed to make the trek through the castle up the stairs to Chloé's bedroom. Jean-Jacques dropped her on the bed far less tenderly than he had intended, in doing so tearing her from his neck. Her refusal to loosen her hold tore a chunk of flesh free as she fell. Chloé smiled at him around the fresh gore before spitting it onto the bedsheets, where it lay in a pool of clotted scarlet. She wondered if she should have swallowed it instead.

Jean-Jacques was upon her in moments, boxing her in as he attacked her neck. He tore into the fabric at her neck, biting right through it. She grabbed his head, forcing him deeper, her nails pricking at his scalp. Unexpectedly she felt remarkably safe and serene though his huge size was blocking everything else out and confining her.

His poison was so much more potent than usual, maybe because for once she wasn't resisting it in the least. It was overwhelming, so much so that Chloé started to squirm. She needed something to ground herself, anything. She grabbed Jean-Jacques' hand firmly, the one still slippery with the blood from her back, unsettling his balance for a moment. She clamped down on his index finger, hard enough that the bone cracked sickeningly beneath the pressure, nearly forcing its way out, Jean-Jacques' skin taut and bulging beneath the knuckle.

He cried out as the pain lanced through him, though he made no effort to rip the finger free. Instead he chose to retaliate in his own way, gnawing on her neck, opening a wider and wider gash, swallowing scratchy fragments of lace and offal with every chew. Her shoulder turned into a mess of lumpy pink and red, tatters of dress making a home within it like flies to rotted fruit. Chloé was sure she could sense tiny particles of fabric burrowing deeper inside with every deforming bite, almost certain to be painful and tedious when the time came to clean it. Even so she couldn't find it in herself to stop Jean-Jacques or even to care.

Chloé shifted her jaw, finger twitching in her grip as she subjected it to further disfigurement, sinew and bone bending against her fangs. She moved her free hand down to his half-undone shirts, releasing the last of the buttons. Jean-Jacques took notice when she started attempting to pull them free, removing his teeth from her neck, and - with a tug - hers from his finger, to shift his weight off her and toss them to the side. As he did so Chloé got an unobstructed view of his bare chest. It sent something unpleasant sparking through her. She heaved herself upwards, shoving Jean-Jacques onto his back, rubbing her thumb over an angry blemish right beneath his heart.

"What's this?" She asked. She knew the answer, though seeing it so close filled her with fury.

"Chloé, you know where that's from."

"Tell me."

"When the villagers came and my father... When my father shot the Beast of Gévaudan."

"I failed to protect you," Chloé said, digging her thumb in harshly, Jean-Jacques arching his back and gritting his teeth in response.

"That's my line," he hissed. "You saved my life that day, I can't say I managed the same."

"Of course you saved my life. More times than you'll ever know."

There was a dark urge to crack his ribcage open just to plunge her hand inside to hold his heart, its beating completely hers to control. She settled for pushing her thumb deeper, arterial blood bubbling up around it, such a deep red it was nearly black. As she pulled her thumb free with a vile squelch it flowed freely in exquisite rivulets over the planes of Jean-Jacques' chest. Chloé licked around the edges of the cavity gently, savouring it, before thrusting her tongue inside, the walls of Jean-Jacques' skin fluttering around her as his breathing grew stuttered. His talons found her head, tangling into her hair hard enough that it would have stung even if they weren't also tearing open holes for warm blood to ooze from. Jean-Jacques writhed with every minuscule movement, the fresh orifice expanding and contracting against Chloé, only encouraging her to assail him with increased enthusiasm.

Chloé pulled her tongue out with one last sickening slurp, dragging it up his chest and neck until she reached his ear, advancing to nibble on the lobe. With his grip on her hair Jean-Jacques could have held her at his chest but he seemed content to let her choose how to proceed. She liked that. That was foul, surely, to so enjoy having him under her thumb. After all she was the one who made him that way. She moulded him into the man beneath her. He had been taken from his rightful place in the sun by her black-heartedness. Every touch was profane.

Chloé scratched a cut down Jean-Jacques' cheek and he bit her arm, hard enough that even his blunt teeth managed to draw blood through her sleeve. All of it snowballed together into one inexorable craving intensified by the natural, monstrous inclination of a curse-bearer to devour. Teeth, tongues, claws, they scraped and mutilated indiscriminately. If cloth was in the way it was torn, removal too inefficient and time consuming to consider.

The bloodlust was heady and stuck in a positive feedback loop exacerbated by each other's own, compelling ferocity in all movements. Blood was everything. It needed to be seen, smelled, touched and tasted. Every sense had to be immersed in it, as instinct dictated. Even simply exposing the crimson fluid to the open air was of utmost importance.

They wrested with one another, twisting and turning to lay claim to every inch of their partner. Lesions flowed like rivers across their skin, twisting in intricate arrangements following the peaks and valleys of flesh. Everything was being opened, until they were more cord and bone and agony than flesh. Overlapping wounds mangled painfully, pulling tissue in competing directions or squashing it together while moans of pain and ecstasy blended together until they were one and the same.

"You're mine," Chloé snarled when next he was beneath her, scraps of him spitting from between her teeth.

It could easily be dismissed as a declaration in the heat of passion but she was aware of the truth in it. In some small, twisted part of herself Jean-Jacques was her possession. Her most prized possession.

"Mine," Jean-Jacques responded with a growl, biting high up on her neck and dragging her to him with a grasp on her hair.

He wasn't doing it for the purposes of taking blood, but instead to leave a love bite that he was certainly putting effort into making as big and obvious as he could. Chloé sighed breathily, tilting her head for him. It was amusing, her neck had already been more than obviously savaged by him and yet he wanted to leave comparatively negligible bruises to accompany the damage. Sweet, almost innocent, in a way that was so like him.

She tugged his hand from her locks carefully, Jean-Jacques allowing it without resistance. She kissed the palm before lapping at the blood all over it, sucking his fingers into her mouth until each one was clean. Or mostly clean. Her tongue was still bleeding and even brushing her crimson lips transferred some small measure between them. Jean-Jacques shook with effort as she did so, unable to withdraw his claws or move too drastically without risking hurting her. Not that it would matter to her if he did. It was already quite clear causing pain was perfectly acceptable. Although, Jean-Jacques did seem only to be harming her when she did so to him first.

"Jean-Jacques, you can do anything you like, you know," Chloé murmured into his ear. "I'm not afraid of your teeth or your claws."

He lay back to look her in the eyes. "What precisely are you asking me to do?"

"Anything. Nothing. Your choice."

Jean-Jacques slowly raised himself, letting Chloé slip off his chest and into his lap, the both of them facing each other from an equal position, barring their difference in height. Chloé waited while he found a grip on her midsection, anticipating whatever he would decide to do. Nothing prepared her for him dragging her into his chest, arms wrapping tight around her, head falling onto her shoulder. A hug.

Trembling, she returned it. Of all the things he had to do, it was unfair that Jean-Jacques' choice had been thus. He knew her too well, choosing to ruin her with kindness when she had asked for brutality. She collapsed sideways and tugged him down so they could lay on the bed and she could curl against his side.

Everything from their skin to the sheets to what was left of their clothes was slick with still-cooling blood. It was strangely comfortable, though it smelled so strongly of rot and rust that even most vampires would find it distasteful. Anyone looking at them from the outside would see horrible beasts drunk on sadism and masochism in equal parts. To them there was nothing so beautiful or freeing as seeing their own dreadfulness reflected without judgement.

The abjectivity the world had been so afraid of was nothing short of divine.

Chloé recalled the shadow's questions attempting to tease out what Jean-Jacques was to her and felt a sardonic smile tug at her lips. They were both fools, Her and Chloé, as if there were a word large enough or with enough meaning to convey how precious his existence was. There wasn't another soul that could begin to comprehend the encompassing nature of her relationship with him.

Chloé peeked up at his face and found grey eyes peering right back. He was almost unrecognisable under all the carnage and muck but those eyes, they could belong to no one else. She traced his features with her gaze, pausing on the left side of his neck and shoulder. There was something strange about it, though she could not determine exactly what below the mess. They would have to clean themselves up, and it would be wiser to do so sooner rather than later, still Chloé thought it reasonable to remain as they were a little longer.

Already the worst of the damage was fading, being knit back together by their impressively sturdy bodies. Even the bones that had been broken and fractured were repairing themselves gradually, sure to be completely normal within a few hours, at most half a day. Though, as the adrenaline faded and their poisons weakened within each other's veins, the agony was catching up. It bore deeply into every nerve, demanding retribution for such careless treatment of their bodies.

Jean-Jacques' hand caressed her cheek and she closed her eyes, leaning into the familiar touch. Just a little longer.