Chapter Text
“What if we’re wrong, and cutting the power doesn’t disengage the locks?”
Clarke’s tone has gone past nervous at this point and is veering dangerously close to frantic.
“Your people said it will,” Lexa says without opening her eyes, swallowing a sigh. She’d been just about to slip into a shallow kind of sleep when the change in Clarke’s tone and scent had alerted her that the omega is nearing panic. When Clarke doesn’t respond she opens her eyes again, and this time she doesn’t bother to hold back her sigh. “You should rest, Clarke,” she says, throwing aside the furs of their bed and standing.
“We could blow the doors manually,” Clarke mutters, nodding to herself.
Lexa doesn’t expect Clarke to listen to her, but she figures she should try anyway. “Plans don’t last very long in battle,” she says, taking hold of Clarke’s shoulders with a gentle but firm grip and tugging her away from the map table. “Tiring yourself with questions already asked and answered is a waste of energy. And you will need all your strength for tomorrow.”
“People died for this, Lexa,” Clarke snaps, shoving the alpha away when she tries to pull her closer and leaning in to peruse the map table again, even though they both know that she’s already memorized it ten times over. “It has to work.”
Her voice cracks on that last phrase, and when Lexa slips her arms around her from behind the Sky girl doesn’t protest. She’s immediately enveloped by a cloud of Clarke’s intoxicating scent, a heady mix that sings to her of warmth and sex and comfort and, oddly enough, home. She had known that she cared for Clarke before their mating two months ago, but it’s only grown harder ever since to pretend that she doesn’t need her. And from the looks she’s caught on Clarke’s face more and more often, she isn’t the only one grappling with these feelings. Lexa doesn’t do vulnerability well; she isn’t one for pretty words. But she feels like an open book before Clarke, the mask of her warpaint and the armor of Heda useless as Clarke’s eyes read a million things that terrify her and exhilarate her, all from one look.
Lexa sees the moment when the doubt in Clarke’s eyes is replaced by something hard and sure, but she doesn’t have enough time to ponder what it means before Clarke is kissing her like the world is ending. Which, Lexa thinks inanely, it might as well be: no matter what happens tomorrow, whether they win or whether they fall, the world will change. Lexa knows that her spirit will return to Clarke, but she doesn’t want to leave this life without making the omega understand how she truly feels. When it comes to speeches that will muster troops, or turn warring clans into a coalition, she has never had a problem finding words. But she has practiced so long at silencing the voice of her heart that she isn’t sure she can find it again. She knows that she must show Clarke instead, and tonight may be her last chance.
So Lexa kisses her back, kisses her as though she’s rain in a droughted land, as though she’s all Lexa’s ever needed and all she ever will. She feels drunk on the sensation of Clarke’s mouth moving against hers, Clarke’s hands fisting themselves in Lexa’s shirt, the way Clarke’s body seems to mold itself to hers when she grabs her hips and pulls the omega closer. She isn’t gentle but she can tell by the way Clarke moans needily against her mouth and tries to press impossibly closer that gentle isn’t what her Sky girl wants.
They pull back to suck in heaving breaths but both feel as though they’re getting more of what they need from the heat of each other’s bodies, the desire in their eyes. “Lexa,” Clarke breathes, and they’re still so close that the Commander can feel her name on Clarke’s lips; can feel her breaths moving her own chest. She doesn’t go on - can’t find the words for what she wants to say to Clarke, what she’s come to mean to her - only everything - but she can read Clarke's eyes, the most expressive part of her, and sees that she knows.
“Clarke,” the alpha says, nodding minutely, and in that word she tries to say everything she’s felt swelling in her chest, welling up in her throat and filling her mouth like a slowly building flood. But Clarke’s still searching her face for what she needs, and the words burst from Lexa despite everything because she can’t go on to her next life without saying them:
“Ai hod yu in.”
Although there hasn’t been much time for Trigedasleng lessons in the months they’ve spent together, somehow Clarke knows what it means. Before Lexa has time to regret her words, to take them back or make up some excuse for baring her heart, Clarke’s rasped out her answer.
“I love you too.”
It doesn’t seem as though there’s anything more to be said after that. Actually, there’s probably a lot more to be said, but Lexa wants to think that Clarke can feel those things in the bruising force of her kisses, the tense power in her hands as she pulls Clarke flush against her body. She’s always been captivated by the way their scents mingle but this is something else entirely; she feels like she’s drowning in Clarke, and she doesn’t mind; she can think of nothing she wants more than to be pulled under.
Clarke’s hands tangle in her hair as Lexa’s reach around the span of her hips to grip the Sky girl’s ass, squeezing – she feels Clarke grin against her lips, and then groan as she grasps harder – before sliding under her thighs to lift her into the air. She feels Clarke’s breath hitch in her chest against hers, and a moment later the smell of the omega’s arousal intensifies, making the tent feel stifling. Her clit’s extending at the mere thought of that scent’s source, and when Clarke’s legs wrap around her waist and she grinds her hips down against Lexa’s, her mind goes blank. She can only focus on one thing: she needs to be in Clarke, now.
Nipping and kissing a line down Clarke’s jawline, she manages to stagger across the tent and deposit Clarke on the bed; she’s a little rougher than usual but from the spark she can see in the omega’s eyes it’s clear she doesn’t mind. She shrugs her coat impatiently to the floor and yanks at her shirt, stifling a growl in the fabric when it gets tangled around her ears. There’s a low giggle from the bed and she emerges glaring at Clarke, but another growl makes the grin drop right off the omega’s face, replaced by pure hunger.
With a certain amount of challenge in her eyes, Clarke sits up and draws her shirt off in one smooth motion. Ordinarily, Lexa might allow herself a moment to observe the curvature of Clarke’s form, the fluid movement of muscles under tawny skin that she’s spent hours memorizing with her hands and tongue, but something about tonight feels different, as though time is bearing down on them like a charging army and the pace of their desire is amplified to meet it. A growl rumbles in her chest as she stretches herself over the omega and leans in to taste her lips again.
Clarke’s hands are on her in an instant, raking down Lexa’s back and gripping at her ass; her hips inadvertently jerk into Clarke’s and she bites back a moan against the omega’s bottom lip. The Sky girl’s not so restrained; she groans against Lexa’s mouth, opening her own to allow the alpha’s tongue entry, and digs her nails in harder, urging her to repeat the motion. Lexa’s happy to oblige, picking up a steady grind against Clarke’s heated sex, and glorying in the increasingly frantic sounds it coaxes from the omega.
It’s not long before her shaft has extended fully; her trousers feel like an unbearable trap but she can’t decide whether stopping her movements to take them off would be worse. Luckily, Clarke makes the decision for her. She shoves at Lexa’s shoulders and when the alpha pulls back to snarl at her she rolls them over fluidly. Lexa only has a moment to regret insisting on teaching Clarke close combat before her breath is stolen by what the omega does next.
Clarke’s clearly relishing her new position if the gleam in her eyes is anything to go by, but she knows better than to let the smile twitching at her lips unfurl. Instead, she reaches behind her back to thumb open the clasp to her bra, and Lexa’s eyes widen and her chest hitches as her breasts fall free, large and firm and, she knows from experience, perfectly shaped and fitted to her hand. Clarke can’t quite hold back her smirk this time but Lexa’s too entranced with the way she moves, slowly winding her body in a tantalizing rhythm, to protest the omega’s smugness.
But not for long. She can smell Clarke’s impatience thickly in the air and feel it searing hot even through the layers that separate them, and Clarke puts the nail in the coffin by reaching up to palm her own breasts, squeezing them and rolling the nipples between. She arches one eyebrow and says, low, “So are you just gonna look, or…?”
That snaps Lexa out of her trance; with a snarl, she lurches upright and yanks the omega’s hands away, taking their place with her own and swallowing the omega’s delighted gasp as she picks up where Clarke’s left off. After a hard kiss that ends with a sharp nip to the Sky girl’s bottom lip, she begins blazing a trail down Clarke’s jawline, no longer caring about whether she leaves marks; if they die tomorrow, it won’t much matter whether their bodies are covered with signs of each other’s passing. Clarke doesn’t seem to mind, though, as her hips pick up their pace and she gasps out Lexa’s name, letting out a little shudder every time the alpha’s teeth graze her throat.
And then she’s wrapped her mouth around one firm nipple and started pulling and sucking greedily, kneading the flesh beneath her hand. Clarke keens, arching into the sensation and Lexa wraps her other arm around the Sky girl’s waist to draw her even closer. But as amazing as it feels to have Clarke gasping and writhing in her lap, the warmth and wet she’s grinding up against are pure delicious torture, and she can’t hold herself back anymore. Letting go of Clarke’s breast earns her a whine, and she stops suckling at it long enough to look up and smirk. “Patience, Sky girl.”
Clarke answers with a nearly inarticulate growl. “Fuck patience, Lexa.”
The alpha’s smirk just grows. “I think you’ll like what happens if you wait.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just takes hold of Clarke’s other nipple between her teeth and tugs. The growl above her trails off into a moan as she trails her fingers down Clarke’s taut belly. Upon reaching her waistband she flicks open the button, drags down the zipper, and then plunges her hand into heat and so, so much slick. She can’t help but buck involuntarily as she imagines pressing her length into that tight, slick channel, and she grits her teeth against the urge to dump Clarke unceremoniously out of her lap, rip her pants the rest of the way down, and take her. But while she knows Clarke certainly wouldn’t mind – is in fact alternating between begging for it and cursing her slowness, her hips moving frantically above Lexa’s hand as she begins to circle her clit – she also knows it will be all the sweeter once she’s driven Clarke to the point of submission. Luckily, Clarke doesn’t seem to be in the mood to play dominance games, and she highly doubts it will take long.
Clarke manages to hold out just long enough to make Lexa begin to worry about her own ability to maintain control, but then the motion of her hips drags her soaked entrance over the tips of Lexa's fingers. The omega lets out a strangled moan and melts, clutching desperately at her shoulders and the back of her neck. "Please, Lexa," she begs, and the alpha is helpless to resist. One finger slips into Clarke's slick channel, and then another, borne on a tide of wetness, and Lexa marvels at the feeling of heated silk clenching down around her. She curls her fingers forward, searching, and is rewarded with a hoarse cry and the sight of Clarke throwing her head back, eyes shut tight in bliss.
But when they snap open again to meet Lexa's, they’re full of a fire and determination that make the alpha's breath hitch in her chest. She only has time for one more thrust before Clarke shoves her back onto the bed, kissing her furiously. Nails rake down the toned plane of Lexa's stomach, making her muscles shiver, before scrabbling at her waistband. She can't hold back a low chuckle at Clarke's frustrated efforts and is rewarded with a sharp nip to her bottom lip.
Somehow, despite their great reluctance to let their lips part except for hasty breaths, and to take their hands off each other for even a moment, they manage to undress one another. Lexa's willing to let Clarke take the lead in the beginning, but something stirs within her as the omega yanks down her trousers and takes hold of her cock. She only allows Clarke a couple of tantalizing strokes before a growl rips its way out of her chest. Gripping the Sky girl's hips firmly, she rolls them over and pins Clarke's hands above her head. The omega opens her mouth, most likely to say something insouciant, but Lexa cuts her off with another growl and then nudges up under her chin, drinking in the scent of wind and warmth and spice that sings to her of Clarke. A moment later, a fresh wave of heightened arousal makes her head spin, and while she knows that Clarke will never admit it, her gesture of dominance was very much appreciated.
While ordinarily she might try to tease Clarke a little longer, drawing out the time until her control snaps and she can't help but push herself inside the omega and take her, something warns Lexa that that will not be tolerated. In truth, she feels similarly. Time is a whip driving her on, racing the moon and stars to hold the morning back just a little longer and let her steal just a few more moments with Clarke. There's a weightiness to this, too, probably brought on by the gravity of what they'll face tomorrow, and Lexa can't help but be reminded of how she had not had this chance to say goodbye to Costia before she was taken from her. She will not waste it with Clarke.
Letting go of Clarke's wrists, she pulls herself back with some difficulty from where she's been suckling at the omega's pulse point and looks into the deep blue pools of her eyes, so easy to drown and get lost in. Clarke looks similarly dazed, flushed with pleasure and need, and Lexa can't imagine a more beautiful sight. If that's the last image she can call to mind tomorrow, she thinks, she may very well go to her death with a smile on her face.
She searches for the words to express herself and once again finds them lacking, but Clarke seems to read them in her eyes anyway, reaching up to caress her face with a tenderness that is made all the sweeter by the way her body shakes with need beneath Lexa's. With a sigh, the alpha leans down to press her lips to Clarke's again, and finally begins to push her hips forward as well, just barely managing to keep them from jerking as a hand wraps around her length and guides her into slick, clinging warmth.
Clarke is so wet that she probably could have taken her in one swift thrust, but while she knows that's what the omega wants, if the way that she's keening and thrusting upwards towards Lexa is any indication, something makes Lexa want to slow down, to treasure this moment. And so she grasps Clarke's hips and holds them down, savoring the slick, clinging silk of her omega as it engulfs every inch of her shaft.
When she's fully sheathed inside Clarke, she has to stop for a moment, panting and trying to recover her breath. But the way the Sky girl's inner walls are clutching and fluttering around her won't let her fully get used to the sensation. She grips tighter at Clarke's waist, hoping her familiar touch will ground her, but then she catches sight of the challenge in the omega's eye. She's doing this on purpose.
With a low growl, Lexa takes hold of Clarke's thighs and forces them back roughly so that they rest on her shoulders, giving her a deeper angle for penetration that makes the omega suck in a breath. Then she leans forward, bracing herself on her hands, and begins to thrust, picking up a brutal pace that has Clarke gasping and moaning in short order. She knows she's just giving the omega what she wants, but Clarke feels so good squeezing down around her that she can't quite bring herself to care.
She knows the Sky girl's close by the way that her wetness is seeping out to coat their thighs, and how every one of her moans hitch into a gasp, and how her fists are clenching in the sheets as though she needs something to hold onto or she'll fly off the earth. The sight of Clarke beneath her, so close to falling apart, only heightens the alpha's determination to make her. Gritting her teeth, she changes the angle of her strokes, searching for the swollen spot along Clarke's inner wall that she knows will send her omega over the edge. She knows when she's found it - Clarke lets out a wail and her hands fly up to grasp Lexa's ass, drawing her impossibly closer and deeper. A constant stream of "Fuck, Lexa" and "Harder, faster, please!" encourages her to continue, pounding into Clarke at a brutal rate while struggling to hold back her own release as the Sky girl's pleasure mounts.
Just when she's begun to fear that she might lose herself before Clarke's ready, she feels the omega's inner walls ripple and pulse, and a fresh flood spill from within her to soak the place where their thighs join. Leaning further down, she presses a harsh kiss to Clarke's lips before nudging her jaw to the side to latch onto the pale skin of her throat and suckle hard. Clarke keens, nails digging into Lexa's backside as harsh contractions ripple through her, and she comes with a drawn-out moan that approximates the alpha's name before collapsing back onto the furs, gasping and shuddering.
Lexa manages to still with her, panting harshly against Clarke's neck as she struggles to control her breathing. Every muscle in her body is taut with need; she knows that Clarke's hands stroking the lines of her back are meant to be soothing, but every brush of the omega's skin against hers feels like lightning lancing through her body. Eventually she can't stand it any longer - she has to start moving again, or pull out. "Clarke, I need -"
She can't finish, but Clarke can read her body and rubs soothing circles against the back of her neck. "I know," she says, her words fire against Lexa's overheated skin. "I know. Take me."
Lexa lets out a low groan, but that's all the warning she can give Clarke before she starts moving again. She struggles to keep her movements slow and careful, her grip on Clarke's hips light, but it's damn near impossible with the way Clarke's inner walls grip and clutch at her. If she didn't know better she would think that the Sky girl was encouraging her - and when Clarke's nails rake along the muscles in her back to take a firm grip on her backside, she knows that she is.
"Remember you asked for this," she snarls low into Clarke's ear, and is rewarded with a full-body shudder and a fresh burst of slick from the omega's sex. Grinning against Clarke's skin, Lexa begins to pump her hips in earnest, each nip and pulse and strangled groan urging her to greater heights. Soon the omega's keening and writhing beneath her, and the pressure in her cock is immense. She feels as though every inch of her skin is burning where it touches Clarke's and she wants, impossibly, to be closer, even though she's filling the Sky girl to the hilt with every thrust. She tries to understand this impulse, what her instincts are demanding of her, but her head is filled with a thick fog of lust and need.
Soon she's gasping and panting, her hips stuttering as she tries to maintain control, but Clarke's hands feel like they're everywhere, urging her to lose it. She feels like she's going to go mad with her urge to - what? And then she catches sight of the pulse fluttering in the omega's throat and feels her stomach sinking like a stone. She's never wanted anything more - but she also knows that it's probably the worst thing they could possibly do. She loves Clarke - so very much that it feels like her chest is bursting with it - but should either of them die tomorrow, that space will be left aching and empty. She had never gotten the chance with Costia, to feel their souls entwine irrevocably, but she knows it would break her.
Clarke's hand strokes down the side of her neck, her sudden gentleness a sharp contrast with the way she'd been clutching only moments early, and slides along her jaw, her thumb resting just over Lexa's hammering pulse. The omega's eyes are vast, dark pools, and Lexa feels her breath hitch in her throat. All of a sudden the concept of mating Clarke, claiming her irrevocably as her own, is all she can think of. Her words stick in her throat, but she can see the moment understanding dawns in the omega's eyes. To her shock, however, it’s not sadness she can see, but desire. Lexa tries to avoid it, but she can’t keep the thought from rising to her mind: She wants me to.
The thought makes her feel feverish, possessed, like she hasn’t since Clarke’s heat – and then the omega arches upwards and wraps her legs around Lexa’s waist to draw her in a deep as she can. The Sky girl rakes her nails down Lexa’s back, tracing the lines of scars and tattoos that she’s spent many an hour tracing, dropping the alpha into a contented near-coma as she murmurs the stories behind each of them. But what Clarke whispers harshly in her ear makes her feel live as a wire, every muscle in her body straining against the urge to follow her instincts: “Do it. Claim me.”
Lexa almost can’t believe what she’s hearing. Her every instinct roars at her to follow Clarke’s command, to bite down and make the mark that will make Clarke hers. But the love she can feel trembling in her every muscle makes her thrusts stutter to a halt, dragging a whine from the girl beneath her; she has to swallow back one of her own when she feels Clarke clenching and pulsing around her, wordlessly begging her to move. “Clarke, I don’t…we shouldn’t…” she chokes out, and can’t go any further. She stares into those bluest eyes, pleading with her to understand what she can’t say: I want this, I do – more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But I can’t lose you.
“I know,” Clarke says, and Lexa can tell by the way she’s looking up at her that she does. They both know all the reasons why this is a terrible idea, and will continue to be a terrible idea whether they survive the battle or not. There are so many things outside this tent that would be more than happy to part them, but right now what she wants most in the world is to forget that the world exists. “I know,” Clarke says again, rubbing the back of the alpha’s neck with her thumb; this time it sounds like I’m sorry. “But I don’t want to go into battle tomorrow without knowing how it feels to be your mate.”
Lexa feels like there are two storms waging war inside of her, or two forest fires struggling to swallow each other up. She has spent so long trying to honor her duty to her people, that makes her what she is – alpha and Heda – that she had hoped she had managed to subsume who she is under the glorious burden of responsibility. All of her reasons – that she is the Commander, that she has a war to fight and a peace to make last, that she knows what happens to the people (Costia, Anya, Gustus) who love her – clamor inside her head. But when she looks at Clarke, all of those voices fade into silence. Staring into Clarke’s eyes, being in Clarke’s arms, being within her and feeling the omega’s every minute shift with agonizing keenness, has made all of that seem inconsequential. Lexa finds that she wants this, more than she’s ever allowed herself to want anything in her life, and a wave of need sweeps through her: Mine.
Clarke reaches up and draws her down into a kiss. It nearly steals her breath, and a moment later the alpha’s hips start moving again and she’s gone, swept up in the wave of desire that had threatened to engulf her before. She hooks her arms under Clarke’s shoulders, holding Clarke tighter to herself and basking in the pull of her scent, the heat and perfect slickness of her sex. For a few moments there’s only Clarke’s low moans and cries, and her own harsh breathing that ends on something like a sob. But then she feels the omega’s lips against her ear, hears her murmur, “Yes?”
Lexa’s answer comes on a hot exhalation that finishes in a hoarse growl: “Yes.”
And then Lexa’s driving into her, hard, powerful strokes that fill her until she’s gasping and crying out, clenching down around the alpha’s shaft. The only thing she’s fully conscious of is the urge to claim Clarke indelibly as hers and be claimed by her in turn. As she feels herself barreling towards her release she feels herself drawn to the heartbeat she can hear pounding just under the surface of Clarke’s skin, peppering it with kisses that gradually become sharper and sharper nips. Each one drives the omega wilder, and soon she’s pressing herself up against Lexa, desperate for as much contact as possible, while her inner walls are clenching around Lexa’s cock. She knows Clarke’s not going to last much longer, and neither will she.
With a final wrench, she manages to pull herself away from the Sky girl’s neck and look into her eyes, to ask one final time whether this is truly what Clarke wants. But she finds she’s beyond words, getting lost instead in the eyes of the girl she has come to love and, now, cannot imagine ever truly living without. Thankfully, Clarke understands what she’s asking, because her own words come on a high, plaintive wail:
“Lexa, Lexa, please, I’m yours!”
“Yes,” Lexa hisses, her breath unfurling hotly against the omega’s skin. “You’re mine, and I’ll never let you go.”
She flicks her tongue out once more to taste that perfect mixture of salt and sweet submission, and then nips at Clarke’s jawline. The omega tilts her head back instantly, exposing the unmarked column of her throat and the pulse fluttering wildly under pale skin, and Lexa loses all control. She latches onto Clarke’s pulse point, suckling hard and lashing the skin greedily with her tongue, all the while pumping furiously as she hurtles towards release. Clarke’s shaking beneath her, nails digging into her back and her neck, cunt clenching and fluttering wildly around her shaft, and she angles her hips upward to catch that spot against her front wall that never fails to make her fall apart. A scream tears from the omega’s mouth a second later and she knows she’s got it, and she finally, blissfully surrenders to her instincts: she sets her teeth against Clarke’s skin and bites down. A burst of salt and sweet and iron, and Clarke is hers.
Bliss fills her brain, so much that her entire body feels like it’s flying, lifting towards the stars. What brings her back to reality is a brief burst of pain as Clarke’s teeth find their home in Lexa’s throat, but it soon only doubles the elation she feels. And then they’re soaring together, crashing over the edge simultaneously as Clarke’s cunt ripples and spasms around her and the pressure is racing along Lexa’s shaft to fill the omega with her release.
The waves of pleasure keep breaking over her; she comes in seemingly endless pulses. With what little of her mind is not taken up by rapture, she recognizes that she hasn’t felt this throbbing, searing sensation since Clarke’s heat. Her thoughts are blank for a moment as she tries to muddle through why this might be; when she understands, she lets go of Clarke’s throat with a gasp.
They stare at each other, gazes locked as tightly as Lexa is now locked within Clarke: tied to her by her knot. She can feel Clarke pulsing and fluttering around it, her chest heaving as she tries to get used to its size, but Lexa feels like she can’t breathe. Finally, Clarke gasps out, “Did you just…knot me? How?”
“I…don’t know,” Lexa says hoarsely. “I’m not in rut, and you’re not in heat…I didn’t think it was possible.”
And yet the evidence is still between them, Clarke stretched and squeezing around her knot as the alpha’s release continues to fill her, hips rocking gently. Lexa can’t help herself: she leans down to nuzzle at the ragged edges of the mark she’s left on the Sky girl’s skin, whining softly at its sluggish bleeding. “Did I hurt you too badly?”
“No,” Clarke says, a little breathily, and Lexa pulls back to look at her in concern, but all she can see is tired desire. The omega reaches up to touch the mark on Lexa’s skin. “Did I hurt you?”
The moment the omega’s – her omega’s – fingertips touch the mark, a spark of pleasure sears through Lexa’s entire body, making her jump. Clarke giggles and Lexa growls in fake outrage, reaching around to the unblemished side of the omega’s neck and nuzzling into it, nipping and licking playfully. Clarke’s laughter spills up to the roof of the tent and Lexa drinks in the sound, thinking that she would do anything to hear it over and over again. When she finally pulls back, exhaustion tugging at her eyelids and making her body feel languid and heavy, she’s rewarded with shining eyes and a tired smile. “Sleep, ai hodnes,” she whispers, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on Clarke’s lips. With a sigh, she settles her head into the curve of Clarke’s shoulder, letting the omega’s scent comfort her like a warm blanket.
She’s almost asleep when she hears, “Goodnight, my mate,” but it brings a faint smile to her lips anyway.
They will go to war tomorrow with fresh mating bites on their necks; tonight they find solace in each other's arms, and in the knowledge that the only thing that can part them now is death.