matilde & bastiano iv.

Bastiano

Hours together. It is more than they've ever had before, a windfall of time, a luxury of moments. And yet, still, ever, it is not enough, and the seconds slip by so quickly. They while away some time in bed, until their blood has cooled, until the night is cold.

Then they light a fire. Bastiano doesn't bother dressing; he drapes himself in a cloak for warmth, but nothing else. He brought food -- simple fare, crusty breads from Florence, hard cheeses from ... god knows where. Maybe from one of those spotted northern cows. Unworthy of a fine lady. But then, they both know Matilde is not some pampered noblewoman. Not by birth. Not by blood.

He brought wine, too, and a decent vintage at that. They drink, and they laugh. He tells her stories of the wars he's seen, the roads he's traveled. She tells him riddles learned from courtesans, from troubadours, from wolves. He's hopelessly bad at this, gets almost every single one wrong. She forgives him anyway.

She sings him songs, too. Some are so bawdy they leave his ears pink. They drink more, and eat more, and when the dawn begins to light the east they make love again, bodies moving in time under the cowhide, atop his rumpled bedroll.

--

In the morning, Bastiano stamps out the embers of the fire and packs up camp. He is shockingly efficient, and soon enough there's little enough trace of his ever having been there. She can run, but he insists on taking her on horseback -- at least to the outskirts of the city where they must, for safety, part ways.

In the shade of a blossoming vine he kisses her goodbye, their hands lingering on each other, their mouths slow to part. He thinks of her long after they've parted.

--

Days pass quickly, then. Plans are laid, preparations are made. Word of de' Medici's banquet spreads through the city. Additional, temporary staff is hired -- cooks and servants and guardsmen -- and with each group, a few more kinsmen infiltrate the manor.

They glimpse each other briefly, once. The new guardsmen are touring the grounds, familiarizing themselves with the overlooks, the choke points, the layout. Bastiano is their captain, and Lorenzo de' Medici has come to inspect his new men. Matilde accompanies her lord. Their eyes meet from across a courtyard. They pretend not to know one another, and soon enough he is gone again.

--

And then, the night of the banquet. A warm spring evening. Insects whirring in the shrubbery; a cool breeze rising off the river. The kinsmen are everywhere: they guard the gates, they man the kitchen. A good number will guard the banquet hall itself when the time comes. The main gates to the de' Medici estate stand invitingly open, and though candles burn and chandeliers blaze, they shall host one guest only.

That guest is arriving now. Della Rovere's carriage is enormous and luxurious, drawn by a team of eight matched draughthorses. Gold filigrees the crimson paint, and the Cardinal's personal seal emblazons the doors.

Lorenzo de' Medici himself waits to greet his guest at the threshold of his home. His closest advisors, the captain of his personal guard, and the captain of his mercenaries wait with him.

Matilde

There is much between them that feels like memory. Yet still, so much they discover that is new, that is delightfully novel and endearingly perfect. She's never heard some of the stories he tells her; she listens in a sort of blissful state, her cheek pillowed on her hand as she lies beside him, her eyes twinkling. It makes her feel like a child, like a cub, eager for one more tale, one more twist. And soldier that he is, he had no idea a woman at court could sing such filthy rhymes without so much as a blush.

Eating with him feels like an impossible gift. She remains naked, even as the night cools, still feeling quite warm -- especially when the wine draws her blood to her skin. She is affectionate and silly when she begins to grow drunk, teasing him, stealing bits of his cheese or pretending that she won't share her bread. She wants him to kiss her, and she begins to sigh against his lips until his hands cover her sides, stroke upward to lift her breasts in his palms,

and then she is lying back, drawing him over her, murmuring do not leave me this time, greedy man as her arms and legs wrap around his body.

--

But it is sleeping with him that she cannot stop thinking about, days later. Drowsy, tipsy, fucked senseless, only half-conscious of his hands gently laying his cloak over her. The scent of him in her nostrils as she begins dreaming. The thud of his heartbeat close to her cheek, luring her to a seemingly depthless slumber. Not a long one. Not a very long sleep at all, but she treasures it all the same.

When she wakes, he is clearing the fire. She watches him for a while, not wanting to let him know she has woken, not wanting to let this go. She lets herself do something she hasn't done since she was a cub in bisnonna's cottage, and pretends that the day to come is very different from the one she knows she will be given. She imagines they are on their way home from a visit to Florence. They are going to get on his horse and ride miles and miles. Far from here. They may have to stop and camp again. Maybe they find a traveler's waystation, an inn near a river. Maybe their home together is beyond that inn, another half-day's ride, and they will have food to harvest, linens to shake out.

Bastiano is looking at her, and she is smiling gently at him from his bedroll, wondering if he slept more than a few minutes. She is far less efficient than he is, but not exactly lazy. She dresses herself and cloaks herself, all of it unnecessary. She drinks a bit of water when he offers it, helps him take down his rainguard, laughing again about he mighty beast he slew. He kisses her. She smiles as she kisses him back. She is going to change, to run, but he catches her hand. He says

ride with me

and there is something his eyes, his voice, that she cannot deny. Would not. So, barefoot and dressed like one of the lowest of peasants, she sits behind him, legs akimbo like she's no lady at all, arms wrapping around his middle. This turns out to be better. She can close her eyes against his back. She can pretend, again, that they are going home together.

Nearer to the city, though, she stirs. She grows alert, watchful, and when it's time for her to dismount, he comes with her. They hold each other again, tightly. They kiss each other again, slowly. They part. Again. Reluctantly.

--

She keeps her word to him, as he must know she would. Her conversations with Lorenzo yield the hiring of two new guards... and then more. And then a banquet is announced. New kinfolk come in as cooks and butlers and guards. She writes to him through her monk friend, just twice, both times to alert him to be ready, to make sure his men are ready. There is always a crescent moon drawn, in place of a signature.

The day he sees her, she is with Lorenzo, her face half-hidden behind the fan she uses to cool herself. She looks at him only briefly before turning to Lorenzo, murmuring something, then walking onward. She doesn't dare a longer glance. And she knows she can't stay there long without staring at him.

In her rooms, at her writing desk, she writes him letters. They have no salutation, and are always signed Tuo, Per Sempre.

Of course she doesn't send them. She pours her heart out into them, because she cannot speak with him. And then she burns them.

She is sentimental, but not a fool.

--

The night of the banquet she is wearing a rich blue gown so deep it approaches black. Somehow her hair is even more ornate than at the ball -- you remember, the one where her lover murdered the Pope's son -- filled with pearls and ribbons and small flowers forged out of gold. This time her face isn't masked. This time her fan is made of black and blue feathers, with the tip of one peacock feather in the center, adorned with a large ivory-colored pearl.

Her wealth is almost ostentatious.

But she is not wife, nor mistress, nor titled nobility. She is not one of his advisors as part of the game of favors the mercant houses play with one another. She is there because she is both a danger and an indulgence, and the gift of this is that -- usually -- she is not required to greet de Medici's guest alongside him. But he wishes her to do so tonight. He gives her credit for so much of this tonight.. and holds her accountable for much of it, too.

She tries to ignore the kinfolk all around them even though their mere presence puts her on edge, makes her vigilant, makes her think of just how many of them are at risk, how little she can tolerate harm to them. She knows they are soldiers. She knows they, like Bastiano, will fight and die for the cause if that is what protecting Gaia calls for. Still: her skin prickles. Her rage blossoms deep inside of her, longing to be triggered, longing to be freed. She knows how very many things may happen tonight that will unleash it.

Everywhere she goes, she is sipping from a goblet of wine. She's quite inebriated by the time Rovere gests there, and she is standing behind a few other 'close advisors' of Lorenzo's. The male ones.

Bastiano

In all, nearly two dozen of Bastiano's compatriots are gathered tonight. It would not be large for a battalion of human soldiers, but for a company of kinsmen it is a startling number. The half-wolves are rare, too, though perhaps not so rare as the wolves. Half-wolves that fight for the Mother: that is a good deal scarcer.

There they are, though. A good dozen of them amongst the hired guards. Another three or four in the kitchen. The rest scattered amongst the servants. All of them concealing arms. All of them concealing plans, the details of which Bastiano has not yet been able to share with Matilde. Even now, with her a few steps away, they have no opportunity to talk; to even look at one another. There are too many others, too many eyes watching everything.

Della Rovere comes with his own guards -- six of them riding behind the carriage, two more atop. Some of them stink of old blood, though not of death. They are silent and unsmiling, watchful, reining hard as their master's carriage rolls to a dignified stop.

A few beats of silence. And then, as though responding to some silent signal, the two guards atop the carriage rise as one and descend. They open the carriage door.

The stink of old blood.

The stink of death.

And the flash of a Cardinal's ring, borne on a hand wrinkled but strong. The vampire emerges, all opulence and power, his robes watered silk and velvet, as deep and rich a scarlet as any. And as de' Medici and his (male) advisors move forward to greet their august visitor, Bastiano steps forward in their wake

until he stands just behind his lover.

His eyes straight ahead, his lips scarcely moving, he whispers: "Don't drink the Castilian wine. We'll incapacitate or eliminate as many of them as we can before we begin. When the bell rings for the sixth course, we strike."

Matilde

She fans herself a bit more as the Cardinal -- the bloodsucker -- approaches, he and his guards both reeking, setting her teeth on edge. The fan also helps hide any stray baring she may do. She drinks again, and then

feels him.

Not the Cardinal, not the presence of the Wyrm, but Bastiano, whose nearness is like a cool spring, a breeze, a feeling of cleanliness. She catches herself before she sighs. She sips her wine as he warns her off a different vintage. "Pity," she murmurs, "I love a good Castilian."

A bell, he says. She gives a small nod, meant to look dismissive and perhaps a bit annoyed at the guard who is standing so close, breathing down her neck. It takes everything she has, especially while drunk, not to touch his hand. Not to touch his face. But she hardly even looks at him.

She's been fighting since she was... well. Found. And they can only guess at her age.

She walks forward eventually. Being a woman, she is introduced last, and gives a low curtsy to the Cardinal, feigning meekness as excuse for not looking in his eyes.

For some reason she feels like someone told her not to look into his eyes.

Bastiano

When she steps forward, he does not follow. Perhaps he wants to though. Perhaps, irrationally, he was to stand in front of her. Shield her from the vampire. He wants to tell her not to look in its eyes. He wants to tell her never, ever to drink its blood.

None of it makes any sense. And so he says nothing, and she moves away, and he watches as she curtsies; as the Cardinal gives a shallow, courteous bow in response.

The last of the pleasantries done with, the party moves into the estate. The Cardinal's personal guard surrounds him in a loose ring, which even de' Medici must respect. Matilde, however -- as the only woman of status, and in recognition of that status -- has the honor of escorting their guest. Della Rovere offers his arm.

Lorenzo de' Medici and his advisors follow. Bastiano is just steps behind, watchful. Within the entryway, gathered servants curtsy and bow. Guards, too, who rise from their deference to follow in the Cardinal's wake.

Matilde

The only feeling she has for Bastiano that comes close to her adoration of him is a sense of great, grave responsibility for him. This, like her love, feels older than she is, greater than even the two of them put together. It stands apart from her nature as a wolf, from his nature as kin. It stands apart, even, from the way she desires him, feels their mateship in her bones. It is a heavy imperative, but one as undeniable as all the rest. She knows she must protect him. She knows he must protect her. It is as simple as that.

Tonight, part of protecting him means being patient. She must not show her true form yet. She must not tear the Cardinal limb from limb, rip out his throat with her teeth, though her instincts are firing, popping behind her eyes until she sees washes of red that have nothing to do with wine or watered silk.

She is too aware of how close his guards are to her kin. She is too aware of the sort of power a creature of his age can have, even over her kind.

So she takes one last sip of wine, hands the goblet to a nearby servant -- not one of the kin -- and rests her hand on the false clergyman's forearm. Her touch is so light it almost hovers. Her palm itches. She fans at herself, trying to rid her nostrils of the scent of stale blood and moist, graveyard earth.

They go inside. And she is seated beside him as well, on the other side of Lorenzo.

The first course arrives.

Bastiano

Matilde's lover, of course, does not join them at the table. He stands apart and vigilant, hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword. No nobleman's rapier, that, but a heavy slashing weapon, fit to slash off a limb or a head. Surely he would stand behind the Cardinal if he could, in the position of greatest strategic value. But the Cardinal's own men occupy that vantage point, leaving Bastiano nearer the ends of the table where the minor members of Lorenzo's and della Rovere's entourages sit.

The first course begins. It is a shellfish appetizer, exquisitely seasoned and presented on the half-shell. There is music. There is candlelight, and that dazzling view of the Arno; of Florence's lights reflecting off the rippled surface. Della Rovere speaks mostly to Lorenzo, both men speaking in quiet voices. It is a negotiation more than it is a conversation.

Servants bear forth platter after platter of mouthwatering fare, the soup, the fish; a sorbet made with ice from the Alps. Glasses are refilled frequently and generously. Soon the lesser guests are quite drunk. Laughter rings off the rafters. Lorenzo de' Medici remains clear-eyed, cautious. Della Rovere remains unfailingly polite, but few could claim to know what thoughts stir behind his shuttered eyes.

The fifth, main course begins: venison hunted from the north of Italy, seared to perfection. Even della Rovere's men look tempted. It is accompanied by a glorious Castilian red, full-bodied and rich. Lorenzo drinks. The lesser guests drink. Della Rovere pretends to drink the way he has pretended to eat: swallowing it down into his dead stomach, his dead guts digesting nothing.

The guests are very drunk now. One or two simply lay their heads down and fall asleep. Their compatriots laugh, slap them on the back, shout for more wine and are obliged.

A pretty serving-girl offers the guards wine, in gratitude for their vigilance and their protection. Just a taste, just a sip, what could it hurt. Della Rovere's men are hesitant until one of de' Medici's -- with a long glance at Bastiano -- accepts. He swigs it down. A long pause, and then one of della Rovere's takes a tiny glass. Then another, and another, until nearly all of them are sipping cautiously.

The two that smell of blood do not sip. They watch, hawk-eyed and disapproving.

Servants are emerging from the kitchen. They begin to clear the dishes from the meat course, working around the guests fast asleep on the table.

One of della Rovere's men sways on his feet.

Matilde

Oh, she drinks. With each course she sips, and indulges, and eats the dishes presented to her. She does not feign interest in the conversation of men around her but quietly listens all the same, a practice she has kept for years now. Very, very occasionally, her eyes drift to Bastiano. She wants to go to him. She wants to take him in her arms. She wants to sink to the floor with him, the world and the other guests melting away,

and she does not. She does not let her eyes linger for long.

Her gaze is swaying, however, by the time the venison arrives with the Castillian. She laughs softly as her glass is filled and takes a bite of her game, then lifts the goblet to do exactly the opposite of what she was instructed to do,

and then,

quite abruptly,

Lorenzo's little advisor sets the goblet down heavily, sloshing a bit, and lays her head to one side of her plate, sighing as she rests her cheek on her head. A few people laugh to see such a drunken woman at the table next to the Cardinal, passed out. It's late enough in the evening to be a stir and a story but not a scandal, and surely in a few minutes servants will come to usher her away.

Except: now she is not the only one falling asleep.

Except: she is one of the only ones who isn't asleep.

Bastiano

When Matilde lifts that forbidden glass, Bastiano visibly stiffens across the room. Fortunately, almost no one notices. Almost no one cares, because at that moment, Lorenzo de' Medici's mysterious, powerful, infuriating upstart of an advisor

passes out cold on the banquet table.

Oh, make no mistake, there is a certain level of dark glee amongst those awake to see it. Another few hundred years and Bastiano's people will invent a word for it: that delight in seeing the mighty stumble if not fall.

That's not quite what Bastiano feels. But it is a kind of joy, too. A beat or two of wild, unfettered delight: in his woman's cleverness, in her wits and wile.

The table is cleared. They are moments away from the sixth course. Servants, indeed, come to collect the drunk. They are not the ones who have served all night. They are new, fresh, with quick hands and alert eyes. They do not disturb Matilde, though she is perhaps the most prominent drunkard of all.

So many guests are asleep now. And the Cardinal is beginning to frown, beginning to look askance at the sudden sleeping epidemic. He opens his mouth to say something to Lorenzo, but Lorenzo has leaned back in his chair, tipped his head against the elaborate scrollwork, and closed his eyes.

"What is the meaning of this?" della Rovere demands. "What -- "

One of his guards slumps to the floor in a clatter of armor and arms. The Cardinal surges to his feet. And the dinner bell begins to ring, not sonorously but shrilly, insistently, clanging again and again and again as swords leap from their sheaths.

Matilde

That is the thing, though, of being what she is. Underneath all the pomp, all the worldly power, all the influence she has garnered, she is not really a woman. She is not really a mortal. She is not really a drunken adviser resting a flushed cheek on her hand.

Illness cannot grow in her body without being destroyed. Cold winds hardly chill her. The strongest drink burns out of her system in the blink of an eye. She speaks to storms. She rips apart monsters. She is unafraid of nightmares. She is a nightmare.

And not even the private dreams of powerful men are out of her reach; she learned to infiltrate them there when she was still little more than a cub.

The room falls to rest. Even Lorenzo, though she does not think it will save him. The Cardinal begins to demand answers. The woman beside him opens her pale eyes, a snap of brightness, of motion, and as he rises to her feet,

she rises to her fullest height and then her greatest form, which turns over a chair, pushes the entire long table before them to its side, spilling meat and wine and rolling goblets, splashing drugged wine across the floor.

She is a beast, blackfurred and horrifying, and all who see her either recoil in horror or surge forward in panic,

or are of her blood, and know what she is, and know what it means when she lunges for the Cardinal's throat.

Bastiano

In an eyeblink, pandemonium.

The humans -- those still awake -- scattering like mice. Shrieking, mindless mice. The kin drawing swords, shouting for encouragement or fury or simply for the sake of it. Some of the Cardinal's men are running, too. Some are unconscious. A few, a handful, are drawing their own weapons. They close around the Cardinal

even as Matilde, suddenly a demon or a beast, heaves the table over and lunges for blood.

What follows is sheer butchery. Blades slash and plunge. Men and not-quite-men scream. There is no finesse to it, and no mercy; on both sides, even those who run are cut down. The kin are trying to slaughter every last one of the Cardinal's retinue, for fear that one of them might be the vampire himself in disguise. The Cardinal's blood-thralls are simply trying to slaughter everyone.

--

And then there's the matter of the werewolf. She lunges. Her teeth snap. Her jaws close not on fragile human tissue -- not even on dry, dead flesh -- but one something horrid and monstrous in its own right. Skin tough as leather, flesh hard as dry sinew. The Cardinal, rising out of his robes like some demented mirror-image of her own warform: a monstrosity of protruding bare bones and too-long limbs, leering face gone inhuman, skull-like, entirely too many teeth.

It is unthinkably fast, unthinkably resilient. There amidst crashing ceramics and splintering woods, they duel.

Matilde

There is a point, after a blade has been shoved to the hilt into the side of a great black-furred beast, that a man's body is lifted from the ground and hurled through the air across the hall. He soars, plummets, and then skids across the floor for several feet, the sound of snapped bone echoing as blood streaks the floor. This is their payment for causing a distraction, and a potentially lethal one, to a creature like her.

She has been riding the edge of frenzy all night. All these kin surrounding her. The one she loves just in sight but out of reach. The stench of the vampire, the filth of his attendant ghouls, death itself filling her nostrils faster than she could fill her bloodstream with wine.

But with the change came a hot, stinging clarity of mind that only made her angrier. The drunkenness bleeds out of her as she faces the Cardinal, even when a blade sticks out of her side. She leaves it where it is, unconscious to the pain it would cause. She moves as quickly as she can. He is of a breed she has not faced often, but she has heard nightmarish tales of what they can do. What they enjoy doing. To living creatures, to malleable beings

like herself.

Like Bastiano.

Like all these kin, who were not born to die, who were not called to fight, who should all walk out of here alive. Because if she does, and they do not, then she has failed. She has failed beyond reckoning.

--

That is how she fights. She keeps his attention on her. She is relentless, clawing, slashing, snapping with her teeth, mauling him with knees and elbows in a pinch. She harries him, calling on everything she has: all her strength, all her rage, all her will.

At one point she clutches his arm, one long, barbed forearm, and yanks. And yanks. And snarls at him, pulling until something snaps, until something tears free. She uses his arm to knock over a torch on the wall, spilling embers and flame across the carpet, eating up a tapestry behind him.

Bastiano

It is dangerous business, fighting a creature like this. Its very touch is corrosive, corruptive. Wherever it touches her, flesh warps and bone bends. It is of relatively little consequence to her. She can heal. Already she can feel her body repairing the damage, undoing what has been done.

The same can't be said of the others. A servant -- not even a kin but a human, panicked, running for his life -- has the misfortune of crossing the monster's path. For the insolence of his distraction he is grasped, twisted, left a shrieking and mangled mess on the ground.

It tries to do the same to a kin. But she does not let it. She would die before she lets it.

--

So a limb comes off. There is a sickening pop, a sense of something coming loose. Flesh hard as an exoskeleton; blood foul and black. One thinks of rotting shellfish. One thinks of crustaceans, octopus ink. That exquisite first course hardly seems so tempting now.

And the creature screams. It is the first hint of pain, of damage, it has given. It seems to rally the kin. They roar. They redouble their efforts. One of the blood-thralls turns and runs, and is dragged back, is dragged to the floor and stabbed again and again until he moves no more.

A torch -- flames -- a fire erupts, and the vampire shrieks again, retreating, flinching from it in instinctive terror. One of the kin, emboldened, makes a rush with his sword raised. Is met with a bonecrushing sweep of the vampire's remaining arm, thrown back, hurtles into a pair of dining chairs. His brethren are instantly at his side, and drag him away to safety.

Matilde

Tearing the Cardinal's arm off and knocking fire to the floor is the last conscious act Matilde takes.

When he knocks back the kinsman who rushed him, there isn't even time for a flicker of frustration at his foolhardy bravery. Something in Matilde's brain snaps. A prison door pops open, iron shrieks as it scrapes against iron in her mind, and her vision goes red.

She doesn't even try to control it.

--

Matilde never remembers what she does in frenzy. It's as blank to her as the first half of her life. There are only dreams and nightmares, flickers and flashes. Sometimes she sees or hears something innocuous and has the strangest reaction: wistfulness or anger, sorrow or wonder, and she never understands the connection. But frenzies leave nothing to her: she always awakens exhausted, emptied of all inner strength, more often than not saturated in blood, til even her eyelids are sticky with it. And all she feels, at first, is a bone-deep sort of satisfaction, of satiety.

She remembers the wash of fury going through her, so strong it dissolves her mind. She does not remember leaping onto the Cardinal with her full weight, all four massive paws grabbing at him, claws digging into him, knocking him down to the carpet. She does not remember holding him down with her claws, ripping through his shoulders, his torso. She does not remember engulfing half his head in her jaws, biting down, then shaking it wildly back and forth like an animal.

Like the animal she is.

She won't ever remember.

Bastiano

Somehow, she survives the night.

Somehow, she emerges victorious.

Somehow, she gets out of Lorenzo's burning house in one piece, unsinged.

She'll never remember any of it. The hows and whats, the details. She comes back to herself at the banks of the river, vile old blood still on her tongue. Smoke in the air. Look up the embankment and she'll see the terrace, the grand manor, the flames, the servants and concerned neighbors gathering to try to put it out.

Closer by, the kinfolk she fought and bled beside tonight. All of them, some bruised and others battered, but alive. Some are cleaning their swords. Some are bandaging their wounds. One or two look at her as she awakens; smile tiredly.

Bastiano approaches. He stops beside her, then sits in the grass. They have to move again, soon, but he takes the moment. His eyes are on her, looking at her, studying her -- for wounds, perhaps, physical or emotional. After a time, saying nothing, he reaches out to wipe a smear of blood from her face.

And to take her hand.

Matilde

She's in her birthform. Her clothing is gone: shredded by the change, any remaining scraps burnt up in the fire. The smell of smoke and ancient, rotted blood is in her hair and the taste of both is on her tongue. She was covered in the wretch's remains when she collapsed. Now she's covered in a cloak whose scent might be familiar, if she could smell anything other than war.

But her eyes do come open, and when she takes her first deep breath she feels the remnant of pain in her side from a wound that has already closed, is little more than a mottled purple bruise where once it looked like her guts were about to spill out. She sees the terrace where she was standing when she first saw Bastiano, when her attention was drawn off the reflection of the moon on the river Arno and over towards a wolf-masked man.

It was not so long ago at all. She wonders how he could possibly come to mean so much to her, to mean everything to her, in such a short time.

Her eyes find the kinfolk nearby, and she tries to count them, but she realizes she forgot to count them before the battle itself, and then she tries to remember all the new people that were hired in the last few weeks, and she worries that she missed a few even as some smile at her.

Footsteps on the grass. Boots on softened earth. She can't look up yet. She could, truthfully, if necessary, but: it's not necessary. She knows she's relatively safe here. And then

there he is. Looking at her. Realizing, surely, that she's looking back at him. There is black ichor all over her face, under her fingernails, streaking her body beneath whomever's cloak she's under. She pulls away when he tries to wipe her face, only because she doesn't want him to touch that filth. It doesn't matter that she knows he's been touched by all manner of things she would rather he never get near; she doesn't want him to touch her skin while it is covered like that.

His hand goes for her hand. She wants so much to touch him, but she refuses that, too.

"Please do not touch me," she whispers, her voice hoarse from disuses, though not from the savage howling she was unleashing near the very end. Her throat has already healed from that. "Not til I am cleansed. Please, my love."

A moment. She rallies; she breathes in and then pushes herself to sitting, keeping herself mostly covered for the sake of these poor kin and their likely more developed senses of modesty. She looks around, then at Bastiano. "Did we lose anyone?"

Bastiano

It is Bastiano's cloak she wears. Of course it is: no one else would have rushed to cover her faster. His scent still lingers in the thick wool; thick enough to survive a trip over the Alps. No bizarre black-and-white patterns, though.

He respects her wish, though it aches not to touch her. As she sits, his hand moves as though to help her -- arrests. He looks about. Then back to her. "None. A few injured, but ... it was one of our more successful missions. In no small part thanks to you."

Matilde

She huffs a breath, not quite a laugh, but she doesn't say anything to that. To agree would be arrogant; to deny would be dishonest. She doesn't, at least right now, know how to express how relieved she is, how much it means to her for the kin to have survived, how their danger as much as his caused her frenzy.

She doesn't apologize for that, either. She knows perhaps she should: it's the honorable thing. It's a loss of control. But honor was never her strongest suit. She looks at him, for the first time seeming like it hurts not to touch him, too.

"We all need to get out of here," she whispers. "Is there somewhere I can meet you? Before I leave Florence, there are some debts I must repay. Things that have lingered."

Bastiano

His brow furrows. He glances at the men, then back to her. His eyes are frank.

"I don't want to be parted from you," he says. "Whatever debts you have to repay, I want to accompany you."

Matilde

There's no room for misinterpretation in what he says. There would be, if she didn't know what he means. If she didn't understand immediately how he feels. Every time he's left her, gone back to his men, gone back to planning for tonight, it has cut her through.

She hesitates, though, all the same. In that moment of hesitation, she thinks of what future they really have together. Where they will go, what they might do, what they will likely face. She thinks of why it makes sense, why it feels right, why she wants him at her side.

And what it means to truly want someone by your side.

Then she nods. "Very well. Then you must know: some are debts I am repaying. Some are debts I am collecting. But we will move quickly, and you must trust me."

She breathes in deeply, her nostrils flaring, and it gags her to smell the Cardinal still stuck in her hair and on her skin. She rises her feet, wrapping his cloak around her bare body, clasping it at her chest.

"First we go to the house of a merchant. He owns many ships now, though he did not when I first met him. It is not far."

Bastiano

Without hesitation, Bastiano rises as she does. He follows her.

The riverbank is still littered with his compatriots. His brothers-in-arms. Men he has fought beside, killed beside, very nearly died beside. Men he has trusted with his life for months, years.

He might never see them again. Some part of him feels perhaps he owes them an explanation, or at least a word of goodbye. Yet there never seems to be enough time. There certainly aren't enough words in the world to explain why, how, what it is he feels.

A few of them -- perhaps one or two who had smiled at Matilde, earlier -- look up to watch him go, though. A few of them understand without needing to be told. They all saw how he ran to her when it was over. They all saw how he covered her, how tender his hands were.

They are all kin. They all understand on some bone-deep level the inexpressible bonds of blood, of destiny.

They all understand.

--

And so he leaves them behind. And soon enough the kinsmen, too, depart: gathering their things and vacating the scene, leaving de' Medici to repair his burning house and his fallen fortunes. Leaving the vampire and his shadow empire so much dust on the wind.

Their paths part. The kinsmen leave the city, move on to their next quest, their next target. And Bastiano follows his lover.