I am what she made me
her words are spiderwebs inside my head

Risque was a difficult woman to read at the best of times. Her moods were as fickle as her emotions. Her wants, her desires- each was prone to changing upon a mere whim and yet Darcy had spent more than a century at her side. He knew her as well as any being surely ever had. That fascination she had held with that Fae had not merely been his imagination. No. Tetradore had seen it too. The sad little Were had nothing to gain by admitting that truth. Darcy, in turn, so readily allowed those contemplations to turn within the ravaged depraved depths of his own mind. How he was loath to share his mistress with anyone. Perhaps, once, long ago, he too had suffered at her hands and yet over time those punishments had lessened. Darcy was content to believe that surely this was a result of her affection for him having grown over time- and how he relished it. Her attention, her affections, her favours. Risque was the veritable sun his earth orbited around. He knew her well, more than well- and yet this Fae was unanticipated. Unexpected. She held no Fae friends. He was certain of it. Darcy, in that moment, was near oblivious to Tetradore's own ploy. The very notion that the Panther knew him well enough to so purposefully fixate his mind upon those paranoid thoughts had hardly occurred to him. Tetradore fed into those obsessions, his every word so designed to push the vampire towards his own mental disdain. Darcy's utter possessiveness over his lover, his jealousy, so eternally the vampires weakness. One he remained all but blind towards.

Darcy's tongue brushed over his sharpened fangs in contemplation. Risque had looked at that Fae as if she had known him, as if she intended to enjoy him, she had spoken to him within her own language as if she had anticipated the Fae might answer. Yet the fae himself had appeared equally baffled. How...unlike Risque it was. That Tetradore had, momentarily, thrown that suspicion for his own actions from himself hardly occurred to the Southern cowboy. Darcy, for now, far more fixated upon his own lover before his mismatched gaze cut abruptly to the Were beside him. There were times, rare though they were, that Tetradore, in his animal form, was alone with Risque in her office. The Panther afforded that undeserved luxury of basking within her presence as she conducted her business. Had she shown this level of fascination with other men? How that...displeased him. Hmmm. Something would need be done about it. Darcy,for near as long as he had existed at Risque side had taken to....eliminating others from it. The Southern cowboy alone determined to remain the single and only man of importance in Risques life. Tetradore the sole exception. Risques veritable...fascination with him all that prevented Darcy from ripping out the Panther's spine. His sudden command for the names of these other men Risque so apparently did business with seemed to spark Tetradore's own irritation. The panther insisted he hardly knew.insufferable little wretch. What fucking good was he? Did he pay no attention at all to what Risque did? A vampire in the west, a warlock in the east, was that all the damned idiot remembered?

"Yar was born a fucking waste o'space, Tetradore. Ya ain't improved over time- yar just took up more space."

Darcy's words held that near same bite of irritation to them. A subtle warning for the Were to remember his goddamn place. Darcy's fingers tapped near rhythmically agianst the wooden work bench then. His mind content to turn those facts over and over. Was she seeing other men? Surely not.She had taken him for a mate. That alone spoke of a certain expectation of monogamy, didn't it? They had hardly ever discussed it and yet Darcy ahd near assumed it was an implication. Perhaps he had been a fool to believe Risue would limit herself to merely one man when she could surely have any she desired. That irritation within the vampire only seemed to fester more potently. Other men, unusual Fae, none of it made any damned sense. That hardly changed the fact however that Tetradore still owed him for the Fae he'd murdered. How certain he was he could find a way for the other man to pay that back. Tetradore's response far more cutting then Darcy deemed acceptable as a final, warning growl vibrated within the vampires throat.

"Oh yes yar fuckin' are."

He would get that money back from Tetradore one way or the other. The Were could merely co-operate- or be forced too. How Darcy nearly hoped he chose not to cooperate. If only for the very lisence it would give him to torture the other man just a little more. To make his life just that bit harder. He hardly needed that cash, he had plenty of it. This was merely an excuse exact all the more vengeance agianst the only other man in Risques life he was forced to tolerate. Tetradore's mere existence was an irritation Darcy held every plan to one day eradicate. How the dreams of what he would do to Tetradore danced within his mind's eye every night. One day the panther would slip. One day he would falter. One day Risque would remove her protection and favouritism from him and oh how Darcy would be waiting. It was that very favouritism however that prompted Darcy's unyielding mismatched gaze to narrow ever so slightly upon Tetradore once more. There had been a time once, when Risque had taken Tetradore to her bed. Over and over. Were they still doing it now? That singular act had been the final nail in the veritable coffin of any....peaceable relationship Darcy may ever have fostered with the other man he had found almost tolerable as a child. Risque's sexual relationship with Tetradore was a distinctly sore and potent point for them both. That very act alone was the metaphorical eye of the storm of disdain the vampire felt for the WerePet. Tetradore's sharply uttered no betrayed the disdain the panther felt for that act. For even the question itself. Darcy, this time, willing to ignore tetradore's tone if only because the answer satisfied him. Good.

How surely Darcy might have been content to leave that line of questioning behind, his own loathing for it momentarily soothed and yet Tetradore, this time, was the one to make that fatal mistake. The panthers words were a veritable lash of salt to an open wound. The younger man incapable of holding back as he rebelled agianst the torment that questioning alone had stirred within his mind. His words akin to throwing fuel atop flames.

"What da fuck did yar just say yar lil bitch!?'

Those words were spat with an undeniable venom. The outrage within the vampire was clear. Tetradore had crossed a line. A distinctly dangerous one. One so few ever dared to even tread towards let alone strike agianst. Darcy's sexual relationship with Risque was a distinctly....private affair. That suggestion that he was failing to satisfy her so seeming to prompt a near...nuclear reaction within the already short-tempered vampire. Darcy whirled near instantly, his hand attempting to seize Tetradore by the throat and pin the Were up agianst the wall with enough force to crack that plaster behind it. His feet lifted from the ground and left flailing. Darcy's fingers tightened, his grip threatening to crush Tetradore's trachea with every passing second- the panther offered less and less air. Darcy's lips pulled back from his fangs, the vampire leaning distinctly close, the cold air of his breath brushing over the other man with every quietly uttered syllable. His gaze hardly wavered, his grip like iron agianst the Panthers throat

"Say it again, Tetradore. I fukin' dare ya."

A near vicious snarl rose within the vampires throat. Darcy seeming too teeter precariously upon that ledge of control. How close it was to snapping entirely. How it took every fibre within his being to prevent himself from slamming Tetradore into that wall over and over, to stop himself crushing the pants neck. His vice-like grip hardly lessened. Those very words a near vicious hiss.

"What da fuck would ya even know 'bout satisfying' a woman? I ain't never seen ya do anything' but lay dare."

Darcy's tongue brushed over his teeth again. he could smell the blood in Tetradore's veins, so close to the surface so filled with adrenaline. How readily that saliva in his own mouth pooled at even the anticipation of bloodshed.

"Yar only alive cause Risque ya miserable little son of a bitch. If it 'ad been me decision dat night idda burned ya wit da rest o'yar good for nothin' family. Yar momma laid dare while she burned too, dat where yar learned it from?"

Darcy

i'm in love with the madness