The bite of the seemingly demure panther's teeth ripped through his skin, piercing his muscles and just barely missed the solidity of his bone. It was agonizing, the sharp pain that filled his frame saw his very grip linger as his crimson blood began to flow freely down his arm, surely filling her mouth. That cry of distress was little more than a wheeze on his lips as Risque's tight grip collapsed his trachea, leaving him perilously without air. He could feel Risque's power course through him, settling almost invasively within his body, fully prepared to take control of the man's figure no matter how much he fought against it. Tetradore's grip upon her wavered, that small fluttering of his eyelashes surely showed that impending fall into unconsciousness as his hands fell slack against his side. Those gasps upon his lips were little more airless pant, only for Risque's grasp to sudden slacken, leaving his body greedily gulping that air his body had been denied. He stumbled backward ever so slightly, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to regain his breath. Unfortunately, Tetradore was hardly given a moment to regather his wits before her affinities took control of his body, leaving him helpless to fight her.

It was terrifying - the sensation of his body moving all on its own. He'd forgotten what it had felt like, to have his every want and whim overrode by some force he could neither stop nor override. His fingers seemed to shake ever so slightly as he struggled to pull away from her, only for his fingers to move ever closer towards the silver collar around her neck. The very touch of his fingers on that metal prompted another searing sensation to fill his already adrenaline filled frame. The metal burned at his fingers as his hands moved slowly to undo that latch that bound her in place. That chain fell with a sharp clatter against the wall as the collar was removed, leaving Tetradore's hands falling at his side as his chest continued to rise and fall unevenly. His emerald eyes stared at the burned flesh around her neck, the mangled flesh prompted a small glimpse of satisfaction within him. For all the silver she had burned him with, it was almost....nice to see that kindness returned, even if it was surely only for a short time and certainly came with its fair share of consequences.

He provided her with an almost deadpan look at the sound of his last name upon her lips, that word near purred in an almost intimate fashion, even if it was anything but. His lips pressed together ever so slightly as he watched her move around him with a predatory grace. Tetradore remained silent, hardly acknowledging her words, quite purposefully falling back to the stoicness that had so often defined him in the two decades he had spent under her care. It had always been easier before, when she had failed to glean a reaction from him. He felt her fingers slide across his skin as she moved around him, prompting the Were-King to turn ever so slightly as she prowled around him, purposefully making every effort to keep her within his view. That sudden shift towards him was hardly expected, her vampiric agility still caught the man off guard, even now. His body tensed ever so slightly as her lips pressed to his ear, the warmth of her breath prompted a shudder to run down his spine as she whispered ever so sweetly in his ear, promising him that she was far more adept at that oppressive dominance than he.

He continued to shift with her as she moved around him, her fingers trailing among the light cotton material of his shirt. How he abhorred her touch, even if he'd long ago taught himself to simply accept it. His emerald eyes remained steady upon her as she seemed to stare at him, the man entirely oblivious of the way her eyes seemed, rather, to linger behind him at that very wall she had crafted with him in mind. That sudden, musing inquiry of what it felt like to die, however, was regarded with the same level of listlessness, even if Tetradore took his time in responding. It was, admittedly, not an experience he particularly wanted to replicate, if only for how jarring such a sensation was. Those moments, when his blood near boiled within his veins, had been pure misery. He hated knowing he was dying, knowing he was failing his pack, knowing Frost had won and everything he'd fought for, everyone he'd tried to keep safe, it was all for vain. For those few moments it had left him feeling so....hopeless and yet, Tetradore hardly intended to share those feelings of vulnerability with her. Although that answer he did offer her did not hold nearly as much bite as he wanted it to, the sentiment was there, all the same, he was sure. Risque, however, hardly looked amused.

Rather, it was a look of irked tiresomeness that seemed to cross her features, as if she had come to expect more from him. Perhaps she had expected the cold, ruthless man he had once been, the one who would have come prepared to simply throw away his life if it meant freedom from her. How things had changed in those short years she was away. Those connections to the outside world had changed him. They had brought within the man a sort of cautiousness, a kindness, a sense of responsibility that simply had not been there before. A small frown crossed his lips as she leaned closer towards him, watching him in that predatory way that he had come to expect from her. Those words, he knew, were meant to fracture his confidence. It was surely meant to catch him off guard, her knowledge of all the ways his power had increased in her absence. And yet, Tetradore had already come to terms that all he had gained was not enough, alone, to combat her singular ability for control. He watched as that small smile spread across her lips before she leaned closer still, her tongue flicked at the small indentation upon his neck, stealing but a taste of his blood. His nose wrinkled, his lip curled ever so slightly and yet, for the moment, Tetradore made no effort to move away from her.

He felt her hand reach up, her fingers entangling in his hair as she roughly pulled his head back, exposing the full expanse of his jugular in a way the feline part of him abhorred. He swallowed as she uttered those final few words, so purposefully letting that silence linger for a heavy moment. She moved with supernatural quickness, hardly giving the man a moment to prepare himself before her fangs plunged into his flesh, prompting a soft sound from his lips as his features winced at the sudden violation. He hardly prepared for the second bite that followed, or the third, and by the time the fourth and fifth had married his once pristine frame, that venom had already begun to take hold of his system. It had been a long time since she had dosed him so....potently, his very thoughts seemed hazy before those hallucinations began to flutter at the corner of his periphery. He'd become numb to her bites, those figures that sat in the corner of his mind far more potent than the sensation of her fangs ravishing his flesh.

It was the petite frame of his sister he saw first, curled up in the corner, with her face hidden behind her hands, sobbing over....something in her lap. And then Tobias slunk from the darkness beyond, his spotted frame matted with crimson, his sharpened nails clicking on the non-existent tile. He saw Matteo settled on her desk, amongst the toppled containers of pens and fallen laptop screen. The sweet scent of Mira filled his nose, her long ebony locks swaying behind her and yet, she felt so far away. It wasn't real. Any of it. He knew it wasn't real. How many times had he watched his sister burn over and over again? His mother, his father? His childhood home? How many times had his fear and nightmares crossed into the waking world all over again? It was the sharp, agonizing sensation of her nail digging into his arm that seemed to make everything collapse around him, that cry of pain left his lips quite before he could stop himself as he stepped backward, only for his body to collide into that wall behind him. He was vaguely aware of the sensation of her indulging in the taste of his blood, the mere loss of it made him feel....woozy as her fingers brushed against those very wounds she'd created, the silver of her finger created burn marked on his skin as she traced trails, only to dig into his shoulder.

He tried to jerk his arm away from her, just as that sudden burst of flames drew his gaze to his opposite side. Those screams filled his ears, screams only Tetradore could hear as he watched Nadya's children were engulfed that fire, the young girl desperately trying to rescue them only for those very unquenchable flames to swallow her too. It wasn't real..it wasn't real...it wasn't real. He tried to repeat those words over and over in his head as he watched Risque's cats tear apart Tobias' frame, the boy too lost to his insanity to even notice them as they dug their mouths into his flesh, the leopard's eyes merely staring at him almost expectantly. The sheer amount of that venom that filled his blood brought such a stark vividness to those hallucinations, the heat from the fire almost seemed hot against his skin. A sound slowly pulled his hypnotized eyes away from his sibling in the corner of the room, those hazy emerald eyes settled on the sight of the woman in front of him, the man entirely surprised to find Matteo stand next to her, so close that they were touching. Those silver eyes of the Frenchman stared at him with a dead sort of look, blood seeped from a wound in his head, the bite of a vampire upon his neck. His skin held a blue hue, looking more akin to a mangled, walking corpse then the very much alive man Tetradore knew he was. He'd forgotten how real it all could be - like he could reach out and touch those very hallucinations. Some rational part of him struggled to push Risque away from him and yet, he hardly seemed entirely aware of what he was doing, those fears, those illusions, that pain and adrenaline roved through his system so poignantly the man almost seemed lost in it all.