Archive of Our Own

The thing that ticks Tamsin off the most is the way the sun turns into a ridiculously bloated orb hanging in the sky. Its light beats down on Tamsin’s bare neck and arms, glaring mercilessly. The sight of the white square houses on her left and the deep blue sea on her right would hurt her eyes, if she wasn’t hiding them behind big aviator sunglasses. Her throat is dry again, but the water bottle she bought this morning has been empty for hours. The heat is nothing short of scorching.

Tamsin hates it.

She isn’t built for temperatures like this. She longs for the air conditioning in the blue fiat she stole in Lisbon, parked a few metres down the street. She can’t return to it, though, not yet. Tamsin still hasn’t found Lauren.
But the blonde has to be her. And this time Tamsin can’t let her escape again. Despite the fact that she has leant against the same dead tree for two hours now and her back aches like hell.
Two kids run past her, chasing a deflated football. Tamsin sighs once more, and keeps her eyes focused on the main street of the little rural village in front of her. She can smell the salt of the sea in the air, and distantly hear the waves break against the rocky shore. It’s a constant background murmur, white noise, making her body yearn for it. She’d submerge herself in the dark water until she lost all record of time and space and stopped her mind from working altogether. The sun makes it hard to remain wary.

Tamsin has earned her stripes in streetfighting and chaos. She is not a sit-and-wait predator. That only gives you too much time to think. She’s no wolf, she’s not an alpha, she doesn’t hunt in packs. But there’s no denying that there's something with jagged, sharp edges coursing through her veins. She was never good at long term plans anyway.

Her mind wanders off, and ends up circling around the human doctor. Again.

She nearly had her once, in Paris. Tamsin scowls involuntarily. The most humiliating experience she has suffered from a human in quite some time. She could bare her teeth every time she thinks about it. For that reason, the Gendarmerie landed right on top of her personal shitlist.

It had seemed so easy in the beginning. She found one of Lauren’s countless aliases in the guestbook of an elegant but tiny Parisian guesthouse. Locating the hostel in the first place cost her a great deal of patience and skill. And then the city itself, with its historic quarters. Whirling snippets of conversations in French, a vibrant mix of colours and scents, and more buildings and statues devoted to apparently important humans Tamsin doesn’t care to remember. She lets out a laconic huff at the memory.

Of course Lauren would like it.

Tamsin knew that Lauren was staying somewhere in the city. So she stalked the alleys and backyards of Paris for the better part of a week until she discovered the small square with the stone fountain covered by moss, and the laundry lines spanned from window to window above it. They’d probably be pulled in at night since there were tables of a restaurant standing in the open, and Tamsin would have loved to wait for her there. Maybe with a bottle of French wine if she felt particularly adventurous. There was, however, also the need to make sure she found the right place. So she strolled into the guesthouse, past a white cat sunbathing on the pavement and a small sign that proclaimed “rooms available.”

Tamsin’s French is a little rusty. She just can’t get the rhythm right. (Her attempt couldn’t be compared to the magnificent piece of art Lauren pulled off later at the ticket office of the Louvre. Tamsin eavesdropped. Lauren’s French is a symphony dripping off the tip of her tongue.)

The valkyrie did manage, though, to ask the receptionist, a tiny lady with such a tight bun it pulled back the wrinkles on her face, whether a certain Mademoiselle had booked a room. Of course the woman declined, since that name was a product of Tamsin’s imagination, but with a blinding smile and a sudden dreadful worsening of her accent Tamsin mused whether she was pronouncing it wrong. So she leant over the counter and snatched the guestbook right out of the receptionist’s hands to have a look herself.

That earned her a death glare. Tamsin didn’t really notice, because the tiny lady protested only silently. The human sniffed affronted at the fae and reached for the phone next to her while Tamsin studied the list of names. Just when the receptionist had dialled a number, Tamsin found it.

It was marvellous, really, Lauren even adapted her style of writing to each one of the characters she played. She wasn’t good enough for the valkyrie, though. Tamsin spotted her signature next to a long French version of Helen Irene Battle. Slowly, her lips curved, the smirk brimming with the shivering thrill of a successful hunt. The receptionist swallowed visibly when she saw her expression.

That was also the moment when Tamsin caught the first glimpse of Lauren.

In a small mirror hanging on the wall. Tamsin remembers it vividly. Lauren’s silhouette flittered across its surface, and was gone before Tamsin had the chance to throw an inconspicuous glance over her shoulder. The fae’s face froze. The doctor wore big black sunglasses that hid her eyes, and a beige scarf of silk that covered almost all of her hair. Her lithe body frame was harder to conceal, though. And Tamsin’s eyes are keen. So, without thinking, she thanked the other woman, and sauntered out of the guesthouse, afraid to lose Lauren in the confusing network of alleys that constitute the oldest parts of Paris.

She followed the blonde for quite some time. Shadowing her was easier than Tamsin had anticipated. Lauren behaved much like any other tourist, stopping every now and then throw a look into shop windows. She even removed the scarf, showing off her toned neck and allowing her hair to cascade down her back. Tamsin’s eyes were not the only ones that lingered on her for longer than necessary.

Tamsin laughed to herself when she noticed where Lauren was heading.

She strolled right into the Louvre. Nothing more typical for the human doctor than hiding from her former employees in a museum. Tamsin knew even then from her sparse but continuous visits that Lauren had a thing for archaeology and art, the interior of both her old and new flat spoke volumes about that.

That day, Tamsin got so close she could almost see the golden dapples in her eyes. She stalked Lauren into an etruscan collection and watched her through the glass vitrines scattered in the rooms. The glass showcases reflected the light falling through the high windows. If she came from a certain angle Tamsin could stand behind a vitrine and stare right through it at the person on the other side without being seen.

Tamsin remembers thinking that with her high cheekbones Lauren would fit nicely into a collection of statues. But they’d have to be greek ones rather than those brown and rusty etruscan pieces. There’s something stoic about the way she pulls her shoulders back when she walks, and while the greeks had a thing for this apollonian kind of reason and harmony Lauren likes so much, she also manages to capture the coolness radiating from their marble faces.
That’s not all, though. There is something flickering around her edges as well. Tamsin sees it only when she watches her out of the corner of her eye, and it’s usually gone before she can register it, she’d miss it completely if she blinked. She can’t catch it fully, and would have trouble if she was asked to describe it. The vibes she gets are close to something she hasn’t felt around Lauren yet, though. They’re almost carnal. And it’s festering. It intrigues the valkyrie.

It’s like Lauren is stalking as well, waiting in supressed exhilaration for something to happen.

Tamsin was just standing on the other side of the showcase the blonde was studying intensely, when Tamsin’s plan to catch her in the next minute collapsed right under her fingers. Lauren strolled on to the next exhibition piece, a broken terracotta cremation urn, titled something hypocritical like sarcophagus of the spouses, and Tamsin mused whether she should approach her from behind to whisper something into her ear.

She was stopped before she could take the first step in her direction.

Out of nowhere two guards – notably human guards – wrapped their hands around her elbows. In low voices they asked her to follow them quietly out of the room, curiously eyed by the rest of the visitors in the room. For a moment Tamsin was so surprised that she didn’t understand the request to come with them into their office. Their stony faces were indication enough, though. She snarled at the men, one half of her fearing that they would blow her cover, the other half demanding to know what the hell they were thinking, when a third man looked into the small bag she had slung over her shoulder.

And, with a triumphant smile, he pulled a goddamn etruscan necklace out of it.

For a heartbeat Tamsin was so stunned that she just stared at it, her mouth slightly agape. It glinted golden in the light that filtered through the high windows. She recognized it, it had been part of the dark fae stocks Evony guards better than she’d protect her firstborn. Then Tamsin’s head snapped around, she craned her neck and just caught the last glimpse of Lauren, who was casually strolling out of the room, and the anger and realization of what just happened crashed down on the valkyrie. Lauren looked straight into Tamsin’s eyes.

And she fucking winked at her as she walked away.

Tamsin had enough control over her body left to prevent her jaw from dropping, but it was close.

Then the anger came. In a roaring avalanche. It surged through her veins, nearly erupting in the form of two white wings from her shoulder blades. It took all her will power not to turn into her fae form there and then.

Another month has passed since then and that she has allowed herself to make such a blundering mistake still goes beyond her understanding. That day, she violated nearly every single bounty hunting rule. And was punished for it. Tamsin hates it, but in many ways she’s still only a newborn.

A drop of sweat runs down her sternum, and she can’t be bothered to wipe it away.

Maybe, just maybe, she has been led astray because it’s not just anyone she’s following through the whole of Europe, but Lauren.

And the doctor had made use of that. She tricked her. Tamsin didn’t know – still doesn’t – how or when she managed it, but Lauren slipped that necklace into her bag, playing Tamsin like a fiddle. If the Fae wouldn’t be in trouble because of it, she’d admire her for that.

The worst was though that no matter how long Tamsin argued, the guards wouldn’t believe her. Not that she was stupid enough to blame the human, she would have never been able to prove anything, and besides, Lauren was probably already on board of the Eurostar by the time Tamsin was escorted into the main office of the security service of the Louvre, but even then, it just didn’t make any sense that she’d try to steal an etruscan necklace. How the hell should she have gotten one of the pieces of the exhibition? And why would she carry it around in her handbag? Everything would have been solved if they would just have checked the records, when they would have realized that that particular necklace was never owned by the Louvre in the first place, but they didn’t, and it nearly drove Tamsin insane, because with every second she wasted Lauren was moving further out of her reach.

It didn’t matter. The police were sent for, and Tamsin spent a whole night in a prison cell. Only in the morning the strings Evony pulled reached someone competent, and Tamsin was set free again. By the time she got out her feet were numb from hours of pacing up and down, like a tiger in a cage. She had spent the night fantasizing of the best way to wipe that smug grin off of Lauren’s face.

Even Evony scoffed at her on the phone. Tamsin snapped at her, called her an inept pinhead that wasn’t able to control her pets, and asked her why her almighty net just never seemed to be able to close around Lauren.
Tamsin had expected a wild threat in response. Instead, the Morrigan laughed.

She never held any illusions about the doctor, she said, and the only way to control her has always been by threatening to harm people that are dear to her. With that human lover of hers long dead (Tamsin made a mental note about that, why has she never heard that story before?) and her relationship with Bo finally in shambles after the succubus first returned to Dyson (Tamsin scowled at that) and then the whole Rainer mess, Lauren just has no reason to stay with them.

But the important thing is that she’s brought back. She’s far too valuable – and too harmful in the wrong hands.

That’s why Evony sent Tamsin. She’s supposed to have experience with this, after all. A few hundred years of it.

Tamsin hasn’t heard from her boss since then, and if she’s honest it could stay that way for a more than a little while longer. But Evony is a cat on hot bricks, and by now probably burning to get her human pet back. That she hasn’t tried to contact Tamsin is not necessarily a good sign. So the valkyrie feels only lucky about the fact that she was able to locate the human again.

It wasn’t easy, but she did everything she could, and more. On her hunt for Lauren she claimed more old debts and revived more almost forgotten acquaintances than in the last two years combined.
And that’s why she’s standing on this godforsaken patch of land in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fishermen and football playing kids. A seagull flies thirty metres above her head, shrieking once.

By now, the anger with herself has turned into something more chilling that cools her down enough to keep her waiting in this heat. Her eyes follow the bird. She remains motionless.

Normally, Tamsin doesn’t take jobs personally. She makes an exception for Bo’s ex, though.

Lauren is here. Tamsin knows it, she can sense it. She has always been a good hunter, and this is where the chase will end. Her instinct promises that much.

An friend of hers tipped her off. If you look carefully and stay away from major hubs, quasi unaligned fae are not that rare, or at least not as loyal to their masters. They demand horrendous sums for their services, though.
But Tamsin can afford it, and she has learnt from the last experience. This time she waits patiently in the shadows, always watching the house she suspects Lauren to reside in, and the people who enter and leave it. The human has
learnt as well, it seems. She doesn’t appear on the street.

But the valkyrie does see her in the end. She spots her on one of the balconies.

The light is flaring and the fae has to blink twice before she’s sure that it’s her.

Gotcha, Tamsin thinks.

Lauren opens the door to the balcony, probably to let some air in. She pauses in the doorway for a moment, before she steps out into the scorching light. Her eyes wander over the street underneath her, and Tamsin merges with the shadow behind the dead tree she’s leaning against. Lauren’s gaze flickers away again, and she props her elbows on the railing to stare into the distance. She probably has a magnificent view on the sea from where she’s standing. Her golden hair shines radiantly in the sunlight. A gentle breeze plays with it. Lauren draws her hand through the strands and Tamsin can see her chest heave as she sighs, basking in the sun, soaking up the light.

The valkyrie’s eyes are glued to the balcony until Lauren straightens up again and walks back into the shadows of her room, and a little longer.

Then a blinding smirk appears on her lips. Satisfied that she has found her target again, Tamsin withdraws to her car. If Lauren left the house, she’d see her.

…

As soon as night falls, Tamsin is on her way. The suffocating, exhausting heat has finally faded and given way to cooling darkness, and Tamsin feels the energy beginning to circulate in her veins again. She has slipped back into her dark leather jacket, to conceal herself against the nightsky. The valkyrie is as silent as a cat, and equally graceful. As soon as the first stars illuminate her way she’s out of the car again and approaching the house. She keeps to the shadows, creeping along the house walls until she finds a site suitable for her purposes.

Despite the darkness, or maybe because of it, Tamsin’s fingers find every crack, every niche, and every protrusion in the wall where she can force her hands in or put her weight on. And then there is the rain water downpipe as well. She climbs it skilfully, and after a few minutes she pulls herself over the roof’s edge. It’s steep, and slippery in the dark, but not enough to make her lose her balance. A light breeze is blowing, and Tamsin enjoys the feeling of it on her salty skin. Like one of the shadows the clouds cast in the moonlight, she glides over the tiles, every now and then crouching down to peer over the edge of the roof. Finally, she finds the little red stone she has been looking for. She threw it up here on the balcony, in the late evening, to mark Lauren’s room.

Carefully, she lowers herself over the edge again. With a quiet thump her soles hit the stone floor. She freezes for a moment, listening into the night. But the silence lasts, underpinned by the sound of waves in the distance. The windows stand open.

And of course, the door isn’t locked. Tamsin grins to herself as she opens it, carefully listening for any movement inside. Faintly, she can hear water splashing.

Tamsin slides into the house, closing the door behind her. She has a quick look around - spacious room, high ceiling, spartan furniture, large windows, even bigger than they seemed from the outside and wide open, the wind playing with the white curtains. There’s sparse moonlight filtering through them, illuminating the rest of the room. Tamsin’s gaze glides over an open suitcase and a collection of sea shells on the little bedside locker. She leans against the wall between the door to the balcony and one of the windows, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes glint in the shadows, turning into radiating emeralds.

The sound of running water drifts through the half closed door to the bathroom. It stops again, replaced by single drops plinking on ceramic shower trays, the ruffling of towels and clothes being slipped into. And, finally, Tamsin hears naked feet tapping over wet floor, moving towards the door, into her direction. And then she’s around the corner, switching on the light. it flickers briefly before it bathes the room in soft light.

Tamsin smirks so blindingly she nearly bares her teeth.

Lauren stops dead in her movement. A towel thrown over her shoulders, she’s buttoning up a loose white blouse. Her hands freeze, hovering over her chest. Tamsin can almost see her heart miss a beat. The doctor’s eyes grow wide, spilling out more than surprise. They flicker back and forth between the valkyrie’s, then towards the open windows, already calculating exit routes.

But then the moment is over and Lauren has herself under control again. She must have realized that Evony would send someone after her, and since Paris it’s clear who. Now Lauren arches her eyebrows, an epitome of composure, asking dryly “Did you fly in?”

Tamsin only smiles when pushes herself away from the wall. With a few strides she closes in on the human, cutting the distance between them in half.

“Harbinger of death, remember? I’ve got some skills,” she drawls, and before she can stop herself her eyes are roaming Lauren’s lithe frame. She hasn’t expected her to – well, to have just stepped out of the shower. Tamsin can catch a glimpse of a white lace bra underneath the blouse while Lauren moves towards her bed, dropping the wet towel on it. And then the fact that’s only wearing that blouse. It barely manages to cover her panties, or her ass for that matter, where that pair of toned, insanely long legs of hers end. She sees why the succubus had a thing for her.

Tamsin tilts her head to the side. “Sorry to interrupt –“

She doesn’t get much further.

Out of nowhere, Lauren holds a gun in her hand, pointing it at the valkyrie. “Don’t move,” she hisses.

For a second, Tamsin freezes completely.
Coldness swamps her senses. Her world narrows down on the tiny black hole at the end of the barrel, drawing in her eyes. The black metal shines faintly, reflecting the lamps as well as the moonlight that filters through the windows behind Tamsin. Ice creeps into her lungs. It’s drowning her determination. Her hip is reminiscent of the pain firearms can cause. Insecurity washes over her, and a tiny voice in her head whispers calmly that she’s feeling something that resembles fear.
But then the universe shifts back into focus and her eyes wander back up to meet Lauren’s hard gaze. Ever so slowly, Tamsin tilts her head further. There is absolutely nothing in the doctor’s eyes that would give away how substantial her threat is. No emotion, no determination, nothing, just hazel brown pools with the occasional flash of gold.

Within the blink of an eye, Tamsin makes a decision. “You haven’t loaded it properly,” she bluffs.

With that, she takes a step forward, testing as if she didn’t trust the floor that is separating her and Lauren.

Immediately, the tip of the gun is aiming at her forehead, specifically at the point right between her eyebrows. Deadly serious, Lauren clicks the security lever, putting the gun in firing mode. Her voice is low and icy, cutting the air between them like a knife. “Don’t mess with me, Tamsin, I know how to shoot.”

Again, Tamsin freezes at the sudden movement. There’s more to the doctor than she thought. Always has been, if truth be told. But again Lauren’s eyes draw Tamsin out of her paralysis.

“I believe you,” the valkyrie murmurs. Slowly, she raises her hands, as if to show that she’s unarmed. Then she takes another step towards Lauren. And another. “But I doubt you’d shoot me.”

She would see how the barrel starts to quiver if she weren’t so distracted by the emotions exploding in Lauren’s gaze.

The human opens her mouth again, probably to hiss another warning, but she never gets to say it, since Tamsin chooses that moment to lunge forward. She’s fast, faster than Lauren anticipated, and her hands are strong. This time it’s the human who ends up surprised and physically restrained.

The whole movement is so swift she’d have missed it if she had blinked. First Tamsin ducks sideways as if she was falling, out of harm’s way in case Lauren does pull the trigger. The movement turns into a whirl forward. One hand shoots out, and as soon as she’s within reach she pushes the gun away from herself, towards the ceiling. Lauren stumbles backwards, and Tamsin’s free thumb digs into the human’s shoulder joint which results in a sudden lapse of her grip on the gun. With a clattering noise it falls out of her hand, kicked further aside by Tamsin.

She pushes on, using her body to press Lauren against the bedpost behind her, in case the human tries to put up a real fight. Tamsin doubts it, but by now she doesn’t rely on her experience any more when it comes to Lauren. Her hand slides down her arm, and closes around the human’s other wrist, forcing it down to her side. Only when they are standing chest to chest, Tamsin releases the breath she has been holding. It turns into a soft chuckle.

“Gotcha,” Tamsin whispers into her ear, leaning forward.

“You’re a narcissistic egocentric manipulative bastard, Tamsin,” Lauren curses loudly.

The valkyrie pulls her head back and stares at her for a second, lips twitching. Then the laugh bursts out of her, melodious and full of relief. “I’ve rarely seen such a frigid bitch like you, Lauren.”
She’s completely in control of the situation, hands still around Lauren’s wrists. The human can’t do anything against it, and Tamsin revels in the moment. The laughter keeps bubbling out of her lips. She’s caught the blonde, quite literally.

So Lauren does the one thing Tamsin isn’t expecting.

She surges forward.

And for the second time Tamsin is so taken aback by her action that she goes rigid instantaneously. That doesn’t stop Lauren, though. The laughter stops as suddenly as it came, stifled by the Lauren’s open mouth. They crash together before Tamsin realizes what the human is doing.

By then, it’s too late.

Their kiss is all teeth on Lauren’s part, bordering on a threat to scrape her raw. It’s wonder and amazement on Tamsin’s. It’s novelty, because despite the violent effort Lauren puts into appearing as unyielding and harsh as possible she’s incredibly soft. Lauren can put as much anger as she wants to into the way she drags her teeth across Tamsin’s lower lip the fae won’t believe for a second that she means it. Or at least that it’s directed at her.

The grip of Tamsin’s fingers around Lauren’s wrists loosens. She can feel them slip out of her hands.

Tamsin pulls back, a fraction of an inch separating her and the human, but enough to find her gaze again.

“What was that for?” Tamsin utters, her eyes darting back and forth between Lauren’s. They’re unreadable again, and still it’s a completely different expression than before.

“What do you think?”

By now, only her fingertips remain on Lauren’s skin, grazing it lightly. Tamsin can feel her own blood thundering inside her, pulsing through her veins.
The point about cracks is that while they usually let things escape you’d rather keep inside, they also allow you to be filled up again.

Lauren’s is trying to play her again. Tamsin knows it as she knows that there’s a car parked down the street Lauren will steal without as much as batting an eye, and that there’s air ticket to Singapore in the side pocket of the bag hidden underneath the bed.

But Tamsin also saw something else, just for a heartbeat, before Lauren bridged the distance between them and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t find out what it was.

So Tamsin doesn’t allow Lauren to avert her eyes.

Instead, the valkyrie surges forward, her mouth open like Lauren’s. Their lips are almost closing around each other again, outlining each other’s shapes. They match perfectly, their merging before proved it without any doubt. It’s vexing, being this close and still not touching. But Tamsin has to see the hunger in Lauren’s eyes too before she acts on hers. So she keeps still, breathing softly against her hot skin, and holds her eyes.

It works.

“What are you doing?” Lauren asks back, so silently Tamsin wouldn’t hear her if they weren’t this close. Her voice is coarse enough to send a shiver down the Valkyrie’s spine. It’s not an unpleasant one.

Slowly, Tamsin grins widely, her lips still parted.

Click.

The sound echoes in the silence of the room.

A look of confusion, then fear rushes across Lauren’s face before she has her emotions under control again. In the end she settles for calm disdain. Tamsin can feel a shit-eating smirk starting to tug at her lips.

“Handcuffs, huh?” Lauren asks, composed as if she was making a remark about the weather and not about the fact that Tamsin just chained her to the bedpost. “Kinky.”

Tamsin licks her lip, her hands tightly wrapped around one of Lauren’s wrists again, plus the metal. It’s not cool, since she has been carrying them close to her own skin underneath her shirt. Her next sentence is melodious as the glinting in her eyes. “You, me, handcuffs… Who would have thought?”

Fuck you. Lauren’s eyes dart down to her mouth and back up. “You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”

Tamsin chuckles, and let’s go of her hand. “No, not really.” She steps away from the human and crosses the room with a few strides. Swiftly, she starts to go through the stuff Lauren has scattered over the table and dresser by the wall. There are at least three different passports lying openly around, maps, journals, and she can see an envelope with quite a big amount of banknotes sticking out of it.

With her free hand Lauren grabs the towel again and rubs her hair with it, while her eyes follow Tamsin’s every movement.
“Just checking for any other nasty surprises,” Tamsin calls over her shoulder, answering the unspoken question in her gaze.

A few minutes pass in silence, only filled by the sound of papers rustling as Tamsin shuffles them around. She whistles when she takes a closer look at the passports. The forgeries are incredibly authentic, even better than the one she’s carrying and that’s saying something.

“Where did you get them?”

Lauren tries to cross her arms, and fails, the handcuff ringing against the metal of the bedpost. “Made them myself,” she answers curtly.

Tamsin smirks, but doesn’t press. Instead, she places them back on the table. There is nothing she has to worry about on it, like conspicuous phone numbers Lauren might have called, or any other sign of other people knowing where she is. It’s not likely, but the possibility does exist that Lauren teamed up with someone to increase her chances of staying out of the dark fae’s reach.

But Tamsin doesn’t need to worry. When it comes down to her pure survival instinct, Lauren works best if she’s on her own. No extra responsibilities to worry about.

Tamsin pulls a wooden chair away from the table and turns it around so that it’s facing the wall. But she sits on it turned towards Lauren nonetheless, her legs straddled by the backrest and her arms propped up on it. Her eyes are fixed on the human, the smile fading again.

Lauren is still standing. She doesn’t struggle with the handcuff. By now Tamsin imagines that she has about four different plans laid out in her head about how she can escape the situation. The valkyrie hasn’t failed to notice that Lauren’s eyes flickered to hairpins lying on the bedside locker. Maybe she can lock pick. It wouldn’t be surprising.

For a moment or two, they eye each other silently. Is not so much taking each other in, they know exactly where they stand, but purely acknowledging each other’s presence, for the first time. As Lauren’s hair dries it turns more and more golden, and Tamsin realizes that the human seems thinner than she has ever seen her before.

And she’s pretty sure that Lauren doesn’t fail to notice the dark rings under the fae’s eyes, the worn out, dusty jeans, the patterns of scratches on her leather jacket, bleached by the sun. The last few weeks haven’t been very kind to either of them. The light in Lauren’s eyes hasn’t faded away, though, and Tamsin knows that her own are as bright and green as ever.

“What was that in Paris?” Tamsin snaps finally when the silence becomes too deafening.

The curve of Lauren’s mouth twitches. With amusement, Tamsin notes angrily. “You’re still mad because of that?”

The valkyrie simply glares at her.

“Well,” Lauren licks her lip, “you were kind enough to be really conspicuous when you turned up at my place. Adele warned me with a phone call.”

“The lady who runs the guesthouse.”

“Yes.”

“And then I walked right into the trap you set up at the museum.”

“Exactly,” she smirks, “You made it very easy.”

Tamsin runs her tongue along her teeth.

“No hard feelings, though,” Lauren says, watching her mouth.

“Yeah, the handcuffs are nothing personal either.”

Lauren’s gaze flickers up to Tamsin’s eyes again. “Did Evony send you?”

The valkyrie hesitates before she nods, once.

“Pity,” then Lauren adds in a playful tone “I thought you just liked me.”

Tamsin arches an eyebrow, glancing at her pulse point because the way she tilts her head to the side accentuates her collarbone.

“So, are you still angry?”

“Fuming,” Tamsin states dryly.

“Which is why you’re not unchaining me now.”

“Well, I enjoy the sight too much.”

Much to Tamsin’s dismay, Lauren takes that as a reminder to close the remaining buttons of her blouse with her free hand. “How long have you been following me?” She asks while doing so.

Tamsin toys with the idea of commenting on the agility of her fingers, but settles for “a few weeks.”

“I know. I mean for how long since I vanished. Did Evony send you right away?”

Tamsin frowns. Her ineptitude to find Lauren sooner does not belong to the things she wants to discuss right now.

The amusement returns to Lauren’s gaze. “You’ve been following me for the whole two months.”

“Well,” Tamsin snaps back, “I’m out of practice.”

Lauren remains silent, studying the other blonde through dark lashes.

“Why are you asking?”

Lauren bites her lip. Her voice loses some of its neutrality. “I was wondering whether you might have any news, but it seems you’ve been just as cut off as I have been.”

And as simple as that Tamsin can feel a few of the wounds she has been trying to close rupture again. She frowns, straightening up on her chair. Two months are more than enough time to think a few things through, and it feels like
she has used every single hour she could spare with trying to wrap her mind about, well, what happened in the last year.

The human must have done the same, though, judging by the way the light in her eyes changes with every syllable.

“To be honest,” Lauren continues, “I was expecting someone to come for me, sooner or later. Evony would never let me go that easily.” Tamsin frown deepens involuntarily at the second mentioning of the Morrigan. That she and the human are on a first name basis is not something she wants to elaborate further. Lauren doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort though. She continues quietly, “but I would like just a little more time before I go back. To think. To breathe.”

Tamsin nods, understanding. She still hasn’t opened her mouth, and doesn’t plan on doing so if Lauren follows that line of conversation.

“How did you do it?” Lauren asks cautiously, “how did you handle everything that happened in the last year? If I remember correctly you weren’t exactly free or in command over your own actions either.“

The valkyrie’s eyes turn a shade darker, as does her tone. “Stop,” escapes her lips, and it’s almost followed by a growl.

But the point is that Tamsin’s not so much worried by the way Lauren is spreading salt all over the valkyrie’s wounds, but that Tamsin can’t see any of the golden spots anymore. The human’s eyes have been clouded, just like her voice.
Lauren seems to sense that she’s treading on dangerous grounds. It doesn’t bother her, of course. “What?”

There’s electricity in the air between them, not unlike the humid atmosphere before a summer storm, and both of them allow it to build up.

“Thinking,” Tamsin answers finally.

It’s not clear whether it’s a command or the answer to Lauren’s question. But the next second she is on her feet again, approaching Lauren and the bed faster than her mind can keep up with. She pulls the key out of the back pocket of her jeans, whirling it once around her finger.

“If I set you free again, be nice,” she drawls.

“Promise,” the human whispers back, licking her lip.

With a click of the little metal mechanism Tamsin frees Lauren’s arm. She’s not looking at it, though, her eyes remain locked with Lauren’s.

The human raises her wrist to her chest and rubs it. She holds Tamsin’s gaze. The softness the valkyrie could taste earlier returns to her eyes and the way her mouth curves. There’s some sort of rawness unravelling in front of Tamsin’s eyes, and it’s creeping under her skin, because it makes the human’s pupils dilate like the time she slapped her so hard across the face that Tamsin had trouble getting the exploding lightning field out of her head again.

“Does it work?” Lauren asks quietly.

“Usually,” Tamsin replies, unable to keep eyes from darting to Lauren’s lips. Her voice sounds huskier than she anticipated, giving away how much she wants to bend forward and close the remaining distance between her and the human.

The way Lauren looks at her makes it hard to resist, though, and after her next words it’s impossible.

“Show me.”

Tamsin manages to hesitate for one more moment. “I –“

And then Lauren is pulling her down on the bed, or Tamsin pushes her, it’s not entirely clear to either of them. But the next second Lauren’s back is pressed into the soft linen and Tamsin above her, sharply sucking in her breath. Their hands slide over the sheet and clasp together. Tamsin holds them above Lauren’s head, pinning her against the bed, and then her open mouth finds the other woman’s, and something in her snaps.

It’s like she is inhaling for the first time in years.

Their movements are hasty and rash, fuelled by the need to be as close to each other as soon as possible. This time Lauren manages to wriggle her hands effortlessly out of the fae’s grasp. She entangles her fingers in the other blonde’s hair, while Tamsin slides her tongue over Lauren’s upper lip, before tracing the line of her jaw, not quite realizing what she’s doing. She’s crouching over the human, and feels her arch underneath her, making her bury her fingernails in the bed sheet.

Lauren peels her out of her leather jacket. Before Tamsin can throw it across the room Lauren’s hands are already up her shirt, trying to get rid of it as well, leaving hot traces on the skin of Tamsin’s ribcage. She chuckles then, and for a second Tamsin has enough breath left to ask why.

“Aren’t you supposed to have wings?”

Tamsin smirks, eyes on fire, and moves down to meet her mouth again. “I do.”

Lauren hums, taking the valkyrie’s lips between her teeth. Just after her tongue moves smoothly over Tamsin’s again she whispers “Show me next time.”

Somehow the laughter in Tamsin’s chest bubbles back up. When it escapes her lips against Lauren’s, the human pauses in her movement, lifting her eyebrows, and looks so beautiful under the valkyrie that Tamsin can’t help but moan her name and press their lips together again. Lauren gasps.

Tamsin breaks the kiss only to help the human to pull her shirt over her head.

The doctor surges up again, dragging her lips over the exposed skin. When she finds that particular spot in the hollow where Tamsin’s sternum ends under her throat, her tongue darts out, followed by her teeth and Tamsin knows that she’ll have marks for the next week.

Hungrily she pushes the human back down and returns the favour.

Lauren groans, and bucks up her hips.

Tamsin takes it as an invitation. Without lifting her mouth away from Lauren’s hot skin, vexingly close to the soft cups of her breasts, her hands slide down Lauren’s sides, over the fabric of the blouse, until they find its rim and further. She lets them come to a rest on the back of Lauren’s thighs, and pushes up against her. The human, surprisingly muscular as Tamsin notices with a flash of hunger piercing through her core, complies, spreading her legs and wrapping them around the valkyrie towering over her.

Only then Tamsin’s fingers dart up again, to open the blouse buttons, one by one, until she that white lace bra lies almost completely exposed. She kisses the spot in the valley between Lauren’s breasts, and the human buries her fingers in her hair. Tamsin is almost sure that she heard her own name, softly, escaping Lauren’s lips, and she has to smile so widely against Lauren’s skin, nipping and darting her tongue against it again and again, because it’s the first time the human hasn’t snapped it, hasn’t made the name sound like a cold bullet aimed at the valkyrie and everything she stands for.

Tamsin wraps one hand around Lauren’s waist, slightly lifting her up from the bed to open the clasp of her bra behind her back.
It’s easy, really, Tamsin has always been the type to do push-ups before dawn, and right now she can feel her biceps flex. Lightly she rakes the small of Lauren’s back with her nails.
Lauren helps, and before Tamsin realizes it she’s still wearing bra and jeans while Lauren lies under her, legs still loosely around hers, and only in her silky underpants.

Tamsin’s mouth ghosts over the bare flesh and hardened nipples, and Lauren arches her back even more. Tamsin stops the light brushing, rests her hands on Lauren’s hipbones, and lets her tongue flick out. Lauren’s skin feels hot to the touch. The way it curves over her hipbone must be the most bewitching sight Tamsin has laid eyes on in a very long time. They way its tastes kindles fires behind her eyes. It sends Tansin’s head spinning and fills with the scent of bronze basking in the sun and yet every single one of Lauren’s movement couldn’t be more cool and fluent, just as the sea, engulfing the valkyrie. Tamsin sucks and teases, losing every feeling of time and space while she maps the exact constellation points of Lauren’s ribs and the concaves that separate them, and her stomach, and breasts. It makes Lauren curl her hands to fists in Tamsin’s hair.

By now, she’s greedy. Tamsin notices it in the way Lauren’s fingernails leaves crescent moon marks on her back and arms. The glide under her bra and open it. Tamsin doesn’t even notice how she strips it off because a heartbeat later Lauren’s hands are over her breasts, and Tamsin has suck in her breath, sharply.

That’s when their eyes meet again, green on brown, for the first time able to be torn away from each other’s exposed bodies. Tamsin sees a mischievous spark flashing up. She licks her lips, and feels shivers running down her spine and rippling her core when she finds traces of Lauren’s salty beads of sweat on them.

But Lauren takes her by surprise yet again. She’s strong. Without much effort but a smirk so blinding Tamsin wouldn’t resist anyway, she spins the fae around. Suddenly Tamsin is pressed against the linen sheets and has to dig her fingernails into the fabric as Lauren begins to ravage her, making her way down her sternum, the valley between her breasts, her ribcage, her flat stomach, until she finds the clasp of Tamsin’s jeans and presses her lips against the soft spot of skin just above it. She gasps, then her jeans is open and she lifts her hip. It’s a kneejerk reaction. Hastily, Lauren gets rid of the fabric that separates her from Tamsin’s legs.

Her hands glide them up all the way until they rest on Tamsin’s hip. She’s hovering over her, her knees between the valkyrie’s. Tamsin is mesmerized once more by the way her golden hair cascades down her head and shoulders. Something in her gaze makes the human bend forward until Tamsin surges up to meet her halfway, pressing her back down again, her hands struggling with Lauren’s lace pants. Lauren digs her fingers deeply into Tamsin’s sides.
The valkyrie hums. It’s a little husky, like she has drunken too much or breathed in too much cigarette fumes. She catches Lauren’s lower lip between her teeth, and lusciously draws her tongue along it, before she whispers Lauren’s name again, this time against the corner of the other blonde’s mouth, and she can feel her pulsate under her palm because Tamsin finally manages to remove her underwear while rolling her around once more.

The doctor’s head falls back on the sheets, and she rocks against Tamsin, buckling up against her touch. Her thumb just above where Lauren wordlessly, desperately indicates her to be, Tamsin’s fingers graze Lauren’s skin. She feels wetness against her fingers. And then her hand is in her for the first time.

Lauren dissolves.

Tamsin’s circling movements, ebbing and strengthening in rhythm with the expression on Lauren’s face, make her cry out the valkyrie’s name more than once. Or maybe it’s the way Tamsin’s mouth and other hand are back on Lauren's breasts.

Bringing her closer and closer to the edge, Tamsin’s lips move down the human's upper body until they’re just above Lauren’s clit. Her other hand moves along, but further, until it’s resting on one of Lauren’s trembling knees.

Lauren is close, deliciously close, when Tamsin ceases the circling. Lauren whimpers, arching her back, demanding more.

But the valkyrie only smirks, and straddles Lauren’s thighs wider. She’s kneeling between them, and positions herself so that her mouth can resume what her hand just stopped. Lauren's finger twist and turn, either guiding Tamsin, or digging her nails into her shoulders, the bed sheet, anything in reach.

The first time Tamsin uses her tongue Lauren cries out. She does it a few times more, and one last time before she collapses under Tamsin’s skilled movements. A warmth settles in her own chest when she sees how Lauren’s eyes flutter, how she bites her lip, and how her hands ruffle through her hair, slowly resurfacing from wherever Tamsin sent her. The valkyrie's eyes glint.

Satisfied, Tamsin glides back up over her body, pressing her against her, and lets the human taste herself on Tamsin’s lips.

Lauren’s isn’t done yet, though. Not for a very long time, in fact.

While Tamsin settles at her side, her lips start to curve, and in one fluent movement Lauren is back on top. It’s her time to sear Tamsin’s skin with her lips and teeth, her hair spilling over Tamsin’s body. The fae arches her back, reaches out, anything, to feel her inside her.
And then Lauren is even further down. Her lips trail the inside of Tamsin’s thigh, beginning just above her knee, and the valkyrie thinks she's going mad, burying her fingernail in the pillow until her knuckles turn white.

Lauren is slower than the valkyrie, taking her time. Tamsin’s breath falters, and Lauren revels in the effect she has on her. That doesn’t mean the valkyrie is enjoying it any less, though. Lauren's tongue turns Tamsin's world into whirling fragments of blurred images, scents, touches, ingraining into her brain until she moans "Lauren, please" again and again. She can't remember an occasion when she hasn't called her doc, or something similarly demeaning, and she's almost positive that Lauren basks in the way her name drops from Tamsin's lips now.

…

About three or four rounds later, Tamsin has lost count, mostly because she actually had her whining once, they finally take a break. To catch their breath, or to take in the sight of each covered in sweat. They’re wrapped around each other, the small of Lauren’s back against Tamsin’s stomach. Their hands still tracing and circling over bare skin.

That’s when Tamsin’s eyes fall on the gun again. It’s still lying abandoned where Lauren dropped it a little while ago.

“Would you really have shot me?”

“Absolutely.”

Tamsin bends over, takes Lauren’s earlobe between her teeth and tugs. Lauren chuckles throatily, before Tamsin whispers against her skin “Don’t lie to me.”

Lauren presses her back closer against the valkyrie. “Okay. Maybe I would have shot you in the knee.”

She says it quite huskily. The fact that her hoarse voice comes from her crying out Tamsin’s name gives the valkyrie an almost blissful amount of satisfaction.

Tamsin strokes a wisp of her golden hair behind her ear. A few minutes before, any time before, really, she liked it in the open, ruffled way, but right now it’s blocking her access to the side of Lauren’s neck Tamsin wants to kiss.
Lauren lets her, for some times. The she sighs, and rolls around to Tamsin. Their faces are not more than two inches away from each other. This time, Tamsin does count the golden specks in her eyes.

“What are you going to do now? Try to convince me to come back?”

“I thought this would be enough to persuade you,” Tamsin replies.

Lauren grins. “It’s a start.” She pauses briefly, before she adds in a more serious tone. “And in earnest?”

Tamsin sighs. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Lauren arches one of her perfect eyebrows, remaining silent.

“This hasn’t turned out to be what I expected.”

“I actually don’t know whether I’ve heard that one before.”

Tamsin moves forward with a smile, her fingers lightly brushing over the fine curl of Lauren’s biceps. “I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it. It’s just – new.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it,” Lauren teases.

Tamsin bites her lip. Her hand wanders to Lauren’s flat stomach. “Well, you were completely out of my reach. You were with Bo.” She surges forward a little further and presses her lips against the corner of Lauren’s mouth. “So of course I’ve thought about it.”

Lauren doesn’t react the way she had hoped, though, Tamsin mentioning Bo makes her frown.

“She has us completely twisted around her little finger, hasn’t she?” Lauren muses, her legs entwining with Tamsin’s. There is no hurt, not even remorse in her voice; she’s just stating a fact like that the sun raises in the East, or that she’s human and Tamsin fae.

With one slender finger Tamsin draws circles on Lauren’s bare midriff, backing off a little. “I suppose so.”

“I loved her, you know.”

Tamsin holds her gaze. Her hand moves around her and starts playing with one of the golden strands cascading down Lauren’s back. There is an overwhelming need for Lauren to speak this out loud, maybe to compensate, or to justify the situation they have hurled themselves into.

And Tamsin would be damned if she stopped her from talking right now. Lauren’s husky voice still sends shivers down her spine. No matter the content.

“A part of me still does, I suppose,” the human continues.

“Do you think it will ever end?”

“Maybe.”

Tamsin nods, and bends forward, to let her lips ghost over Lauren’s pulse point.

“What about you?”

The valkyrie pulls back immediately. “What do you mean?”

Lauren raises her finger and traces the outline of Tamsin’s lips. “Don’t play innocent. I slapped you once because you said you kissed her. And I saw the way you looked at her every day after you came back to us.”

The movement of her thumb and the sensation it leaves on her skin gives Tamsin trouble with following her words. Gently, she presses her mouth against Lauren’s fingers, before she answers “Would you believe me if I say that she hit me unexpectedly and it took me some time to figure out who and what she really is?”

Lauren smiles and it’s so beautiful that this time Tamsin does miss her answer. Lauren arches and eyebrow and repeats “I said I’d believe you. At first you had trouble with me, too.”
Tamsin lays her head back and laughs, melodiously as ever. When her eyes return to Lauren’s again she finds them full of warmth and amusement too, and feels her own filling up with something infinitely more worrying.

…

Sunlight falling through the open balcony door wakes Tamsin in the next morning.

She blinks, slowly, and stretches like a cat. The bed sheets feel pleasantly cool against her skin as she moves through them. Contently, she closes her eyes again, her hand seeking for Lauren. With her mind still on the edge of sleep she reaches out. And out.

She almost, almost, whispers “morning, babe.”

But her hands grasp only air. She can’t find the human. The sheets feel cold to the touch.

Abruptly, Tamsin sits up, blinking rapidly.

The bed next to her is empty.

Her head snaps around, her eyes focusing on the room. All of Lauren’s stuff is gone, apart from a crumpled piece of paper on the bedside locker.

Fuck, Tamsin thinks.

Then she smirks.