Private Finished Shocks and Bites Engulfing Me

Lochlann was getting the hang of this. Alaude's blow came at a normal speed and Lochlann countered it easily. He realized that if he kept an eye on Alaude's elbow, it was easier to anticipate where the blow was going to go than when he looked at the other man's hand, and that made it easier to bring his arm up and move with the blow just like Alaude showed him.

For all his problems in the classroom, Lochlann was not a terrible student.

Unfortunately, Lochlann couldn't counter Alaude's verbal jab as easily.

"What's with you and dancing?" Lochlann said, getting back into position. "Are you bad at it? Is that why you were drinking?"

He blew his hair out of his eyes. It was getting a bit long again.

Alaude's next swing was fast, very fast, and Lochlann barely got an arm up to counter. As it was, he still found himself taking clumsy step back as he was glanced by the blow.

Alaude's comment his a nerve.

Lochlann's jaw twitched. It hurt more than if Alaude actually had managed to get more than a glancing blow on him. But, otherwise, Lochlann looked unphased by the comment. His expression was cool. His dark eyes narrowed. His lips fell into a straight line.

This, Lochlann was used to this. He could handle this, or at least, he thought he could. Lochlann was always waiting for someone to throw that at him. in a way, it was reassuring, because it verified every dark and horrible thing Lochlann thought about himself. He was a monster, and if people knew what he was, they'd just see him as a monster. Alaude was no exception. It was better to think he was right and terrible than to think that someone like Alaude, someone like Addy, could really believe he was a good person.

On another plus side, Alaude hadn't mentioned the necklace, which meant that maybe Lochlan's comment had more weight to it than he anticipated.

"You're right," Lochlann agreed. He pushed again, taking another step back, then another, and slipped into the same stance. He made sure his back was to the lake, though. Lochlann didn't want to see the water when his thoughts were like this. He cast a glance back at his necklace. Maybe he should put it back on. "So why were you drinking? What did you do that you regret? It can't be being a raging asshole, because you do that every day, so what was it?"

He should get the necklace.

Lochlann's thoughts had started to spiral. Alaude was right. He was a monster. And that made being here stupid. He'd put off learning how to fight for years, because if he didn't know what he was doing, then whoever he was trying to hurt had a better chance defending themselves. He wanted to learn to fight so he could be helpful to Guin, who was going to help him, or he hoped, but maybe Guin couldn't help him. Maybe no one could help him. And all of this was stupid, because he just wanted to be with Addy, but what a stupid idea that was. Like someone like her could ever love something like him. They weren't even the same species. Addy had her life together. She was like a beautiful painting, and he was a crumpled sketch balled up on the floor in comparison. He was litter. He was something that needed to be swept up and removed from the scene. Everyone could breath a sigh of relief when he was gone. He was poison.

Lochlann took a deep breath. He was distracted.

"Maybe you're still like a little kid," Lochlann said, but his eyes weren't on Alaude now. "Just swinging your fists because someone hurt your feelings. Only now you're so good at it, people are impressed by your tempter tantrums."

Not like Lochlann could really talk.

Everything turned to shit. Lochlann looked back just in time to see--

the surface of the water.

Alaude had tackled him backwards into the lake and this was bad, bad, bad.

That was his last cognizant thought.

If Lochlann had been prepared, maybe he would have fought it longer. He could have braced himself for the impact, but instead, Lochlann got a mouthful of cold lakewater.

Sometimes, when Lochlann thought about trying to explain what it was like to be wet, the only comparison he had was sticking his hand in wet paint and then sticking his hand into a bucket of water and watching the tendrils of the paint splay away from his fingers. His glamour was a bit like that, like it was never completely dry, and now it was being washed away.

It was also a reflex, like jerking his hand away from a hot surface.

Lochlann wasn't thinking.

His body read danger and then it read water and then it read kill.

Because it was the shore, it wasn't deep enough, but it didn't matter. They sunk down far enough in that initial jump that Lochlann just wasn't human anymore. There was no painful, werewolf-eqsue transformation. One minute he was Lochlann and the next, he was a monster.

If Alaude was able to see in the water, he would have seen Lochlann the way he was really meant to look as a human, only he wasn't human. He was fae.

For a moment, he was beautiful, as though being wet was how he was made to be. The camera had finally managed to focus.

And then he was terrible, the crash of a wave knocking over a ship. He was dark black, rows of sharp teeth like a shark, a horse with slick skin like a seal.

Lochlann snatched onto the first thing he could with his long mouth: Alaude's arm, right below his shoulder.

The same spot he'd grabbed Addy.

Only Lochlann wasn't thinking of Addy. He wasn't thinking of Alaude, either.

He wasn't thinking.

He was hunger.

Lochlann used the momentum of his legs scraping against the shallow floor of the lake to push upwards, bringing them both up to the surface, and he breached like a whale or a dolphin might. For one moment, he and Alaude were suspended in the air again, and then Lochlann angled his body and dove them down into the deeper part of the lake. The impact of his body hitting the water sounded like a thunderclap.

They disappeared into the cold, dark waters of the lake.

Lochlann's mode of killing was brutally effective. He'd drag his target down to the bottom of the lake and let them go, let them swim frantically up to the surface, but then Lochlann would grab them again before they could get another breath and pull them back down. He would do this until his target had exhausted themselves, until they'd drowned, and then Lochlann would rip them to shreds and devour almost every part of them, leaving behind a heart or liver on a rare occasion, which was quickly consumed by whatever else was in the lake.

He was so, so hungry. Lochlann hadn't eaten anything substantial in two weeks and his body was overjoyed with the chance to finally consume, to finally eat what it was made to eat.

He sunk his teeth in deeper, letting his mouth fill with blood and it was like being overwhelmed with pleasure, but it wasn't pleasure, it was relief, as though his body had been crying out for this and now that it was here how could he stop--

--but he did stop

freezing in his descent

because this blood
tasted
like

'Addy," Lochlann whispered, but the sound was a low click and a hum, a noise that reverberated beneath the water.

It took every piece of willpower he had in his body to let go of Alaude. He started to, and then sunk his teeth back in. He was already this far. Why should he stop? Alaude knew what he was now. He'd already hurt him, already had his blood in his mouth. He was already fucked. Why not just finish the job?

But Lochlann wasn't thinking of Alaude.

Because he wasn't thinking.

He was reacting.

To the taste of Addy's blood.

Not again.

Not again.

Not again.

Lochlann was a fairy tale creature, but people tended to forget, that in the old fairy tales, love meant little in the face of dangerous monsters. The wolf ate little red riding hood because he was a wolf, and that's what fairytale wolves do.

But fairy tales change.

This wasn't beauty and the beast.

This was Alaude and Lochlann in the middle of the lake. Love wasn't going to turn Lochlann back into a person. Love couldn't fix the parts of him that were broken, the parts of him that were lonely and starving and desperate.

But love was enough to force him to pry his teeth out of Alaude's arm and let himself sink down into the bottom of the lake. He snapped his eyes shut and tried to ignore the sounds of Alaude's body in the water.

He opened his mouth deep, but the taste of the lake couldn't remove the memory of Addy's blood in his mouth.

The part of Lochlann that was a monster regretted letting go of Alaude the moment Alaude's arm wrenched free of his mouth. His body ached with the desire to swim after him. Alaude was fast, but Lochlann was in his element, and he would be faster. He could grab him by the lake and pull him and--

Lochlann had started to swim after him, his body barely stirring the water as he moved.

But he stopped himself again and stayed where he was, his dark mane and tail flying up in the water around him like tendrils. Lochlann let himself sink to the bottom, let himself lay in the soft silt and mud where he blended in completely.

He'd read a poem once, one that he didn't fully understand, but he felt like maybe he could understand one of the versus:

When one is alone and lonely, the body
gladly lingers in the wind or the rain,
or splashes into the cold river,
or pushes through the ice-crusted snow.

Anything that touches.

Was this why he loved the feel of Addy's fingers brushing through his hair? Because it felt like the water?

Did every single touch, every single thing he enjoy, have to come back to this, to being a monster? The taste of blood in his mouth was fading but Lochlann was still painfully hungry. But just like everyone realizes that their hand jerked back because the surface was hot after the hand had already pulled away, Lochlann could finally think.

And he wanted to stay in this lake forever.

Maybe if he did Alaude would go take Addy away and they'd leave the island.

And he'd be alone with the koi fish that sometimes surfaced, twirling through his mane, bumping their bodies against him. It was the only touch he could rely on. They often came out when he laid like this in the water.

The aches and pains that assaulted Lochlann as a human were blissfully gone in this water. He never wanted to leave. He wanted to stay here forever. Lochlann wasn't sure how long he was down there. It could have been five minutes. It could have been five years. Time was meaningless here.

But staying here was the same as running, wasn't it? And didn't he promise to stop running?

Lochlann groaned. He tilted his head back and gave an anguished cry, one that meant nothing in the water. bubbles didn't even leave his mouth. He pulled himself up, and he swam, not disturbing the water as he moved. He slowed when he reached the shore, folding his knees and pausing.

His head emerged like a crocodiles might at the edge of the lake, his dark eyes and nose surfacing just enough to scan the horizon. And there was Alaude, by the bike, and by his--

--fuck the amulet.

Lochlann stepped out of the lake. He was a large horse, magnificantly tall, resembling the friesians. His coat was jet black and his mane and tail hung down his body, pieces of lake weed and lillypad tangled into them.

There was something about Lochlann like this that made people want to get closer. He couldn't always control it--it just was.

Lochlann swallowed. He took a step towards Alaude. His eyes were black, save for the tiniest sliver of green that surrounded the edges, the faintest trace that Lochlann was still Lochlann.

His nostrils flared, smelling Alaude's blood, seeing the knife.

So what? Lochlann thought.

His eyes were on Alaude's and then, he glanced towards the necklace.

And Lochlann bolted towards it. Alaude was closer, but Lochlann was fast, and he was convinced he could make it.

Lochlann bared his teeth at Alaude and breathed through this wide nose, blowing up his mane from his face.

His eyes went from the necklace, to Alaude's face, and back to the necklace. He could still smell Alaude's blood. Lochlann took a step back, his tail flicking behind him as though trying to swat away flies.

Lochlann observed Alaude's ripped shirt.

While he was fully aware that Alaude was using the ripped shirt to heal the very bite marks that he made, Lochlann couldn't resist.

"If you break that, you'll die looking like a back street boys reject," he said, referring to Alaude's ripped shirt.

He wasn't sure how serious Alaude was. The amulet was sturdy; it had survived a hell of a lot. But no one had ever tried to break it before. If Lochlann was human, his palms would have been sweating.

In this shape, his real shape, he loomed over Alaude. It was unusual for Lochlann to see him from this vantage point. He lowered his head to look at the man and flicked his ears back.

"Please don't," he said. His eyes went back to Alaude's shoulder and Lochlann took a deep breath and exhaled, his entire body shuddering with the urge to pull him back into the lake.

"I need it," he said.

He tried to keep the pleading out of his voice but it didn't make it.