[open] O enemy, do I terrify?

[vulgaris]

IT ALL ADDS UP TO THIS: THE HOLLOW CHEST, THE BRUISED NECK, THE SHAKING HANDS.
YOUR BODY, THE TRIUMVIRATE OF UNHOLY THINGS
Vulgaris doesn’t know the first thing about love – not true, honest to god love, at least. He thinks he loves Shiya and there’s certainly some softness to be found within him for her sake but he would never suffer or go without for her. All he’s ever known is how to take when others believe they have nothing more to give. Why, then, does Pond melt like honeycomb beneath his touch? Why does she bloom for him and welcome him like an old friend? As always, he does not stop to soak in the significances. All he can see is what possibilities present themselves to him.

She springs from him then and he moves without hesitation after her, a hound after a rabbit that he had previously been so gentle with. Suddenly she is only prey and his teeth snap to test their might, to prepare for her throat that would be all too easy to snatch up in those terrible jaws. Her legs are so much smaller and so very clumsy compared to his. Their shoulders nearly collide as he realizes that does not want the game to end so soon. For a fleeting second, he had planned to knock her off her little hooves and maybe even break her spindle legs.

Vulgaris eases left, drifting from her side.

For a moment, he is frightened by his own loss of control.

He swallows hard and blinks quickly to dismiss the thought of destroying her, for now. Only true monsters kill without thought. Only useless, sniveling creatures lack discipline. No, Vulgaris is a practiced hunter capable of restraint and he focuses his gaze ahead of them while the sound of his own pulse thrums in his ears. Larva never warned him that it would be this way, he thinks with a pang of shame. No one ever told him how hard it is to choke down the mindless hunger for torn pink flesh and blood drooling down his chin. Still, he eyes her throat and the way all those precious muscles flex beneath her skin.

He is so, so very hungry.

VULGARIS
THERE WAS NOTHING MORE DIVINE THAN HAVING SINNED WITH YOU.