Sunset

Sunset

\'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before.—Thomas Campbell, Lochiel’s Warning

The room was suffused with the heat of a late summer’s day, the sun pouring through the windows and casting ominous shadows in the corners. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams, the only cheerful activity in a room edged with darkness and the air weighed down by an oppressive, suffocating heat. A worn brown leather chesterfield sofa sagged against the wall, the wooden floors brittle, warped and split from too much humidity and heat pressing down upon them, day after day, with no one there to polish and protect. Faded and threadbare gold and blue rugs covered the floor, thick with dust and smudged with dirt and grime. The lank and dirty curtains hung off the window in tatters, linen yellowed from years of age and neglect. The only light came from the spill of sunlight in the room’s solitary window. The sun would set soon, but for now, it was still high enough in the sky to throw a hot, white light into the room.

The shadowed corners held portraits with disapproving eyes and tight-lip stares, but the two occupants of the room gave them no mind. The dark-haired woman whose hair was curled from the heat, giving her a deceptively innocent appearance, paced slowly with her dark red robes dragging on the floor and making a slithering sound like a serpent gliding over sand. Her heels clicked on the floor with a staccato rhythm as she measured the length of the room in slow, even steps.

“Stop pacing.” The voice was heavy with annoyance, and the mere sound of it made Bellatrix Black feel murderous. Her eyes stung, her skin prickled with the heat and she forced back the acrid taste of fury burning in her throat. She swallowed and reveled in the tide of dark magic that ran through her body, lifting and tossing her in its passage. How dare that bastard speak to me like that.

How dare he, the magic echoed, pushing her to action, gathering within her for the Cruciatus, or Diffindo, or some spell that would cut and spill his blood on the decrepit floor and the soiled tapestries.

Bellatrix clenched her hands into fists and took several deep breaths, ignoring the sticky humidity of the air in the room as the hot, moist air filled her lungs. It was akin to breathing in a dense, thick cloud of vapor and she struggled slowly not to choke. She tossed a furious glare at the man who was lazily sprawled on the leather sofa, taking up all the room with his long, lanky body. He was dressed in trousers and a shirt, robes folded neatly on the low table next to the sofa.

“Stop being such a bastard, Lestrange.” She tossed her damp hair with practiced insouciance, trying to summon a light breeze to cool her flushed skin, but the air was too humid for the breeze to be effective, so with an irritable flick of her hand, she dispersed it. “It’s far too hot for me to give a damn what you think of my pacing.” She resumed her movement in a swirl of scarlet robes, the fabric clinging to her body, outlining her lush curves, the heavy weight of the robes chaffing her skin and making her uncomfortable.

“You act as if I made it unbearably hot in here just to annoy you.” He raked a hand violently through his own dark hair, beads of sweat inching down his face. He leveled a scowl at her, dark brows crossing over unfathomable eyes.

She snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Bellatrix ended her pacing at the window and stared out, eyes oblivious to the dirt- streaked windowpane. She saw the street below, desolate and empty in the heat of the afternoon sun rising of the grey concrete, but she was not really looking at the scenery.

“Why are you such a bitch?” The undertone of genuine curiosity in his gruff voice surprised her, and kept her from whirling around with her wand in hand to hex him until he screamed.

“What?” She pushed damp hair off her face. She could have twisted it up into a knot on the top of her head, but some dark part of her liked to be uncomfortable, liked the way the heavy, saturated fall of it clung to the sweat-sodden skin of her neck and shoulders.

“You heard me, Black. Why are you such a bitch? It’s not like I requested your presence on this mission.” His drawl had a sharp bite behind it—he didn’t like her, she knew he didn’t. He liked to taunt her, to remind her of his seniority whenever possible. His words were meant to suggest she was tolerated on this assignment only by his sufferance, and she was only admitted to the Death Eaters because of her blood line, not because she was his equal.

“You make that fairly obvious, Lestrange,” she snapped, tired from the heat and the continual barrage of his obvious dislike. “I can’t imagine why the Dark Lord put us both in this room unless one of us is to kill the other.” She turned to look at him with narrowed eyes, one hand on her wand and the other twining in the soft fabric of her robes.

He was a good-looking man, Rodolphus Lestrange, dark-haired and full-lipped with a slightly sinister aura of discontent about him. Perhaps that was the only thing Bellatrix found attractive about him at all, though it might put off other women. She did not think he was lacking for female companionship- or male- for that matter, if that was what he desired.

She should not be thinking about what he desired. The temperature in this hovel seemed hotter, more stifling, as she watched him. He was still sprawled on the sofa but an air of tenseness had replaced his earlier languor. Sweat dripped down her spine, tickling her, though she refused to do something so gauche as to reach behind her and rub it away.

“Then why don’t you try and kill me?”

It was the smug smile that did it, that look of utter unconcern on his face as he suggested it that infuriated her. The heat that surrounded her seemed to gather together and coalesce in her body, her eyes lit with an unholy glee as she stalked towards him. “I’ve been waiting for you to give me a reason,” she whispered, voice tight with her ire.

Lazily, he unfolded himself from his sprawl with lazy grace and an indolent smile, as he stood up, shifting his weight imperceptibly to the balls of his feet, ready for anything. “I can hurt you so bad, Black, you’ll wake up at night for weeks screaming from the mere memory.” His voice was thick with leashed excitement.

For a second Bellatrix’s body went still, her eyes cold and flat like a cobra as she accessed him for a moment, before she threw her head back, her laughter spilling from her lips, rich and full. “Oh, Lestrange. You talk about hurting me like it’s a threat. If you could hurt me as well as you say, I might not hate you.”

He stalked menacingly over to her, careful to leave combat room between their bodies as any good Death Eater would when engaged with an enemy. Warily, they circled each other like sleek panthers, testing their boundaries, protecting their territory. Or even – animals that wanted to draw the first blood, wanting to watch the other suffer, submit in a blood-soaked haze of defeat. “Scary, scary Bellatrix Black,” he sang, hands up, rolling his eyes. “You don’t frighten me with your madness like you do everyone else.”

At these words, a fine tremor started in her limbs. How dare he? Didn’t he know who she was? Savage. She exhaled slowly, the motion allowing her to focus only on him as she circled; ignoring the pain in the arches of her feet from the heels, the searing glare of the sun in her eyes as she passed through the rays spilling in through the window, the burning hate that was like a living, breathing entity within her, clamoring to escape the confines of her heated body.

“I’ll just have to frighten you with something else,” she whispered, allowing her lips to curve in a smile, focusing on him so intently the world narrowed to nothing but his sneering face and her desire to hurt, to punish, to make him fall at her feet and scream- only for the blare of a Muggle car horn to shatter her concentration, as she whipped her wand around to the window, allowing her guard to slip for a fraction of a second -

With a snarl, Lestrange sprang forward, one hand gripping her wand wrist tightly, the other snagging a handful of the wildness that was her black hair. “You think you’re beautiful, don’t you?” He hissed, his eyes wild, as he tugged her head back so that she could only see him. To force the issue because he could, he pulled her closer to him, as he twisted her wrist behind her back for leverage, the wand dropping from her nerveless fingers. Inwardly, he smiled as she momentarily winced, before her eyes shifted towards him and glowed.

Bastard, Bellatrix allowed herself to think. Such a splendid bastard. At this thought a rush of warmth trickled down her body, pooling between her legs. But it was not from the heat, nor was it from her rage. She laughed huskily, the sound imbued with frenzied amusement. “I don’t think I’m beautiful, no.”

She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck as he bent closer to her. It stirred the hairs on her neck and provided a moment of cooling air to soothe her sanguine skin, but she was not interested in being soothed or cooled.

“I know I am.”

He growled “I bet you do, you bitch,” and pulled her so she was flush against him. The fabric of his Muggle clothing was scratchy against her over-sensitized skin, and she could feel his heart thudding through the drenched white linen of his shirt. Her hands came up, long-fingered pale hands topped with pale pink nails, to find purchase in the folds of the fabric.

“You know nothing, Black.” Rodolphus’ nostrils were flaring, his lips thinned and white as he pressed them together. “Nothing.” He tightened his hand in her hair and tugged her head back.

The sun that was coming in through the windows was flame red now, a burst of light exploding through the curtains and over the floors, casting a sinister pall over them both. The red sunlight was reflected in his opaque eyes, giving him a demonic appearance – red eyes, sharp cheekbones carved in granite relief on his harsh face, shadows playing about him as if they had been commanded to do so--that served only to heighten her breathing and caused the muscles low in her body to ripple in anticipation.

“Are you going to slit my throat?” Bellatrix considered when the best moment to go for her wand would be—he wasn’t holding her hands, after all—when it became suddenly apparent what the bulge pressing into her was.

“Rodolphus Lestrange,” she purred, touching her tongue to the corner of her mouth as she delighted in his reaction, pushing her hips towards him. “Why, I had no idea.”

For a moment – the air in the room thrummed with barely restrained anger and magic. Bellatrix could hear the roar of it in her blood, her skin flushing with magic and her nerves pulsing with it. She then heard his minute inhalation of breath, sounding like a hiss and a rattle in the quiet of the room as she felt triumph surge through her. He wanted her. Why this gave her such a heady thrill she did not know, but it did. He wanted her, and she….

“The idea of killing you fucking turns me on, Black. What can I say?” He moved his hand from her wrist and wrapped around her throat, pushing against her airways, constricting her breathing.

“I can tell,” she choked out, light-headed, sound rushing in her ears as if she was going to faint. The edges of her vision started to blur, to turn violet edging into black… The floor is filthy. It will ruin my robes. She would not give him the satisfaction of blacking out for him, of ending up prone and sprawled ingloriously at his feet. Never.

Just as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he shoved her away with a strong push. Bellatrix gulped in air as she stumbled backwards, hitting against the wall with a wince and a muffled Oomph. The impact jarred her, pain thrumming her body. The deep gulp of air also came with a jolt of dizziness that faded quickly. Her senses sang with it, the unbridled joy of meeting someone who was her equal in this, who wanted to give her the pain she so desperately desired in the secret part of herself. Bellatrix licked her lips as she raised her eyes to meet his. “Decide not to kill me after all?”

Rodolphus was standing above her, legs spread, hands on his hips, his eyes literally feral as he levied the most intensely hate-filled look she’d ever received from anyone, including those poor souls whose lives she’d taken in her rampages of death and blood.

“You made it too easy,” he said with a snarl, and it made her laugh.

His shoulders rose and fell as his struggled to contain his ragged breathing, and in that moment she thought he was beautiful. His clothes were clinging to his lean frame, hair wet, and wild around his face, his eyes dark with menace. He was all tense muscle and coiled, predatory grace, and she wanted to snap his control, see what happened when he gave vent to that darkness pulsing beneath the surface.

Slowly, her hands raised to the silver buttons adorning her crimson robes, her fingers tracing the serpent motif on them, before she began to release them, one by one, eyes on his. “It’s too hot in here to think straight.”

Rodolphus’ eyes drifted down to her fingers as he watched her, pulling his lower lip between his teeth as he did so, his eyes aflame with heat, but his voice was brisk and he almost pulled off bored. “I don’t particularly want to see you without your robe on, Black. So maybe you should just tolerate the heat before I try and choke you again.” Beneath his latent irritation there was something else—was that a hint of desperation, then, that she would be naked before him and he might find something about her he actually liked?

Gracefully, Bellatrix rose, as she pushed her hair back, allowing it to flow down her face. Slowly, Bellatrix stripped the robes from her body until she stood proudly before him, head tilted imperiously as benefited a Black. She was dressed in a clinging camisole of ivory and a matching pair of lacy knickers. Her dusky nipples pressed against the white silk, and the dark curls of her sex were clearly visible between her legs. She caught her hair up in her hands and pulled it off her back, sighing in pleasure. “Much better,” her voice was a gravelly purr, eyes heavy-lidded as she smiled at him dangerously.

Rodolphus growled and took a step towards her. She blinked innocently, all doe eyes and coy – an expression quite incongruous on her features, but she wore it well. “Oh, yes, you want to strangle me.” She glided past him, still wearing her heels, which made her legs look longer, accentuated the sleek muscles of her thighs as she walked to the other side of the room. She sat on the couch he’d abandoned, legs spread wantonly, elbows on her knees, and dropped her hands to let her hair fall around her face and shoulders again.

“Come and get me then, Lestrange.” She leaned casually back and crossed her ankles, sitting primly with her hands folded in her lap. Her words were laced with a sexual overtone so thick it almost shimmered in the stilted air between them. She smiled slowly, tempting him, the words if you dare left unspoken.

He was tearing off his shirt as he stalked towards her. “You don’t want to be strangled, Black. You want me to fuck you. Just admit it.”

Her eyes traveled down to the obvious bulge in his trousers, and she allowed her voice to be conversational, as if they were speaking about the latest wizarding ball. “Why? Can’t do it without my saying I want it?”

He tossed the linen shirt away from him, the simple act of it fluttering to the floor kicked up a small amount of dust. “I can do it, Black. Never you fear.” He paused in front of her, hands on his trousers. Her eyes were drawn to his Dark Mark, the skull was grinning at her and she found herself obscenely aroused by the sight of it etched into the olive skin of his arm.

Bellatrix shifted restlessly on the couch, legs falling open again, eyes on his Mark. Her fingers trailed down her sweat-kissed skin, drifting with the lightest of touches over her knickers. “Don’t you want me to be afraid?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper as she tilted her head and looked up at him with catlike, gleaming eyes. Her fingers pressed against her clit and she arched her back, skin sliding on the damp leather. “I know how much you like fear, Rodolphus.”

She never used his first name, and it sparked like candy in her mouth, sweet and delicious. Only the Dark Lord addressed them thusly, and it gave her a tiny thrill to speak it aloud.

“I know how much you like your pain, Bellatrix,” he sneered, and the way he said her name made it sound like a curse.

She preened for him, back arching, chin tilted down to give him a sultry smile. Such posturing was lost on him, and she could see him losing interest as his hands fell away from his trouser buttons.

The smile slid from her face like water sluicing off a stone. Offended, but damned if he’d ever know it (she was a Black, after all) Bellatrix stood, kicking off her heels with unbridled disgust, turning her back on him as she walked away. “You’re not man enough for me, anyway.”

She felt it before it happened. The air swirling and sparking with suppressed magic and menace as he rushed at her, disturbing the heavy silence of the room with the violence of his movements. He barreled into her, knocking a portrait of a dour-looking spinster from its hanging place. The woman in the portrait made a horrified shriek and Rodolphus kicked it out of the way, shoving Bellatrix brutally against the wall. She threw her hands out to brace and balance herself, palms smacking loudly on the plaster.

So predictable. He didn’t want her lustful, doe-eyed, come-hither looks. He wanted her hate and her fury, wanted all that passion generated by her wrath.

“Anyone with a pretty face and a cock can have your lust, Black,” he hissed at her, proving her correct. She felt him behind her, his hate and his heat and the strong, lean lines of his body. Desire uncurled and exploded in her stomach, flaring downward as her sex wept for him. “I want something else.”

She shoved herself back, rubbing her arse over the bulge of his cock. “Do you? In the end, isn’t it the same? What makes you different from any man I’ve ever had between my thighs, then?” The playful taunt was undercut by the animosity she felt towards him, though her words were breathy with lust.

How could she not want him? He was violence personified. If the Cruciatus could appear as a man from the tip of her wand, it would be Rodolphus Lestrange. All whipped and charged and arcing and the promise of pain evident in every tense, battle-ready line of his body. Despite herself, Bellatrix threw her head back, her moans dragged and broken over the jagged edges of her lust as they were wrenched from her throat. Her hair was soaked through with sweat now, and it clung to her, veil-like. He shoved fingers into it brutally, twining the wet black strands around his fist and pulling with excruciating slowness.

“Because I’m the only one who knows how to hurt you, bitch. Isn’t that right?”

Bellatrix grinned, at the freedom of it, her breasts hard against the plaster, her inner thighs shaking, breathing erratic. “We’ll see about that.”

His response was to sink his teeth in the pulse throbbing at the base of her neck. Her breaths were mewling sounds, the feel of his teeth a starburst of immediate pain where before there had only been the suggestion of it, hands curling against the wall. He stopped just shy of breaking the skin. Just. She knew this as his teeth released their hold, and the blood rushed to the surface of the skin, with beats of ice hot ache…“I guess we will.”

He spun her around, his hands catching hers, pressing them against the wall above her head. Their eyes met, gazes clashing in a conflagration of unsettled desires and sharp, burning want. His fingers crushed hers with bruising strength, his body dominant and demanding as he arched into her.

“What do you want, Bellatrix Black?” He trailed his mouth to the Mark on her forearm, pressing a kiss to it, gentle where his other kiss had been brutal. She could still feel his bite on her neck; as the blood throbbed there, she felt an answering pulse in the heated recesses of her sex. She shifted restlessly.

“I want…” her words fell, soft and quiet, in the muted light of the room. The light was a soft orange glow now where before it had been red, as the sun crept below the horizon. There was more activity on the street below, sounds of traffic and laughter and life. In contrast, they breathed heavily in a room rapidly descending into darkness and shadow. She looked up at his savage face, perfectly beautiful and exactly what she’d secretly always wanted.

“I want you.”

His smile was disturbingly bright as it cut across his face. “I thought so,” he said with smug superiority. He leaned down to kiss her, his lips hard and demanding as they descended upon hers.

She was not one for kissing, never had been, never liked the forced intimacy that came with it. She could surrender her body to pleasure but she always kept her wits about her, always knew that beneath the drenching rush of orgasm she was in control. Kissing was far too involved an act for her, and while she submitted to it for a few moments she usually tore her mouth away and urged her lover’s mouth elsewhere with murmurs and a few tugs of hair with her fingers.

With Rodolphus, she couldn’t stop.

The sweat ran into her eyes as she kissed him, hot and open-mouthed, messy and frantic. He bit her lip and she gasped, writhing against him, held prisoner by his strength. She could feel the spark of magic here, the tang of salt and the zing of ozone. Beneath his skin, his own magic rose, dark and vibrant and eager to clash and meld with her own. Eventually he dropped her hands to drop to her waist, sliding down her damp skin to grasp her legs under her thighs and pull her up against him.

“Want you,” he snarled against her mouth, moving her frantically up and down the front of his body, rubbing her wet center against his cock. “Can feel you wet through my pants.”

“It’s hot in here,” she told him, mock petulant, and he growled again, though this time there was an edge of playfulness to the sound she did not expect.

“That it is.” He leaned her back so he was still supporting her, though her shoulders were propped against the wall. It was a highly uncomfortable position, and each time he moved, she was forced back against the wall and her skin rubbed raw by the friction.

She loved it.

He looked down at her. “I’m going to fuck you, Bellatrix. There is nothing you can say about it. It’s going to be hot and messy and I don’t fucking care what you think about me or why you think I’m doing this. Right now I want you, and that’s all I care about. Understand?”

She turned her face towards his, and smirked. “I understand.” She rolled her hips slowly, as best she could in her position, a tingling sensation running over her and making her crazed with want. “Hurry up, then.”

None too gently, he carried her over to the couch and threw her upon it, the sofa giving off clouds of dust. Impatiently, he flicked his hand, making the dust disappear, and sought to arranging her limbs on the sticky leather. “What are you waiting on?” Bellatrix snarled, her voice stripped of its bored, aristocratic plummy accent to a steely need. “An invite?”

Smiling, Lestrange reached up and casually backhanded her across the mouth, the slap singing against her skin. “Shut up. I didn’t say I particularly wanted to hear you speak.”

The blow caught her lip on her teeth, on a spark of pain and copper it started to bleed a bit. She laughed and licked her lip, her teeth red with blood. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

He shucked his trousers off, and shoved them down his hips, struggling with shaking hands to get his boots off. She laughed at him, stretching out on the couch, reveling in the decadence that she was feeling. He was in a temper when he finally joined her, face flushed, cock pressed hard against his stomach. He backhanded her again. “Stop laughing at me.”

She had arched into the blow, loving the sharp pain of it, and her hand slid between her thighs as she began to pleasure herself through the lace of her knickers. The scent of her arousal rose in the humid air as she rubbed herself, head thrown back. “God, do it again.”

He did.

Her lips were smeared with blood and swollen, and her smile must have looked grotesque. “Not bad, Lestrange. Not bad at all.”

He went next to her, on his knees on the dingy wooden floor, pulling at her camisole. “You’re easy to please, Bellatrix, if such mundane brutality makes you so…excited.” He flicked her nipples with a smirk.

Bellatrix arched into his touch, but glowered at him regardless. His fingers were warm and pulled at her nipples so beautifully she wanted to keen in pleasure, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Not yet, anyway. He would have to earn every cry that flowed from her lips, and he’d have to work a lot harder than that to get them.

Her skin was flushed now from arousal more than heat, as the setting of the sun caused the room to cool, muted twilight somehow more appropriate for what they were doing. In the harsh light of day, they hated each other. In the dark of the night, they worked for him. In the time that lingered between, when the air was soft with the remnants of the day and infused with the promise of the night to come, they could surrender to each other and this primal desire that raged between them.

Primal it was, indeed. He did not kiss her, he devoured her—lips scouring her skin, teeth nipping and biting with ferocity. She was marked and bruised, and even bloody, before he was finished with her. She looked down at her body with half-closed eyes, drinking in the evidence of his savage possession.

The room was forgotten as his mouth traveled between her legs, as he rubbed his face against her wet heat and pulled a low moan from deep within her breast. Her hands traveled down to tangle in his dark hair, tugging eagerly as she pressed herself against him. “Yes,” she gasped, excited, as she felt his fingers slide up the overly responsive skin of her upper thighs to grasp at the lacy panties and pull them off her. She tilted her hips to help him, eager to feel his mouth on her without the barrier of lace.

“Bellatrix, Bellatrix,” he murmured, kissing the inside of her thighs. He’d not shaved in a few days, and the stubble on his was an erotic shock to sensitized skin. “So eager for me aren’t you?”

She grasped his hair and tugged his head forward, and he laughed. The sound tickled her sensitive clit and she growled in frustration as the harder, rougher touch she craved was withheld. “Rodolphus,” she snarled, voice low and unrecognizable.

“Mmm. I like that, Bellatrix, having you wild for me, wanting me, spread open like the whore you are…”

She finally forcibly thrust her cunt against his face, while he was talking, and the vibrations of his words shimmied over her swollen nubbin and had her coming, hard, eyes closed and breath held strangled in her throat. When it had washed through her, she fell back against the couch, breathing harshly, white hot spots momentarily blinding her vision.

Opening her eyes, she saw him glaring at her, eyes narrowed. His face was flushed and she saw the smear of her juices on his chin, and he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth to wipe her essence off him. He then held it to her mouth. “Lick me,” he hissed, and she did, tasting his sweat and herself on his skin, loving it, drawing the roughness of her tongue slowly over his knuckles again and again.

He shoved her away from her, grasping her lead laden legs and pushing them off of him. He sat on the couch, his cock purpled and pressed against his stomach. Reaching over he grabbed her hair and pulled her down to him, guiding her mouth to his cock.

“Do something useful with that mouth of yours, Black, in thanks for what I just gave you.”

She smiled though it was covered by the fall of her hair. You mean what I took from you? She consented to his wishes and leaned over his lap, hair falling to brush against his stomach and thighs. Her lips were burning from his earlier brutality, stretched around his swollen cockhead, but she sucked him deep in her throat, wanting to hear him moan.

His hands found her head again, pushing her down on him relentlessly. He tasted salty and a little bitter, but she made not a sound as he roughly fucked her throat. Her jaw hurt from being forced open, and she was uncomfortable bent over him as she was, but she sucked him enthusiastically, feeling the quiver of his thigh muscles beneath her hands with something like triumph.

She carefully dragged her teeth down his length, tongue pressed firm against him as she did so. It was enough, finally, to push him to release her head.

“Enough,” he bit out, pulling off of him. She smiled at him and licked her swollen lips with a throaty purr. “Come here.” He still sounded so very angry, and it liquefied her body until she felt boneless.

Bellatrix stood and looked down at him, hair flowing around her white shoulders, skin looking translucent in the soft light of dusk. Her hands went to his shoulders, his skin slicked with perspiration, as she settled herself over him.

They both watched as she eased him into her body, as his cock filled her. Bellatrix threw her head back, moaning at the feel of him stretching her, clenching her muscles around him with desperation. She was close, so close to her pleasure, and he didn’t matter, he was only the one from whom she took it…

“Bellatrix,” he gasped out, muscles in his neck corded as he arched into her, towards her and the pleasure she offered. His fingers were bruising her as they clasped at her hips, moving her on top of him. She knew he didn’t like her, knew what took for him to surrender and call her name in pleasure, and the very sound of it caused her to flutter and break around him, pushing herself closer, forehead against his as she covered them both with the curtain of her dark hair.

Her body was drenched in sweat again, covered in bruises and blood, and she felt a delicious lassitude overcome her as he thrust into her and growled in gratification, his eyes boring into hers as he came. She felt the hot rush of his seed inside of her, flooding her, all his hate and passion handed over by his body into hers.

How long she rested there she wasn’t sure, but the sun had finally set and they were in darkness by the time she moved off him, muscles stiff and sore, her thighs wet from him, back slick and muscles shaking just slightly from exertion. She walked naked to the puddle of her scarlet robes on the floor, the city lights illuminating her as she dressed. The soft silk gown felt cool against her, soothing her skin rubbed raw from his ministrations, and she twisted her hair up and charmed it to stay back in a low ponytail.

She left her camisole and knickers lying on the floor. “We have to get ready.”

She heard him behind her, dressing, silent as if nothing had passed between them. She found the cloaks and masks in the corner where they’d stashed them, and pulled the wool over her head, mask in her hands. She looked at him, similarly attired, in the hushed darkness of the room, broken by the lights from outside.

“This room looks nicer in the dark,” she said, inanely. He’d put his mask on, and he looked…soulless, other, no longer the man who had been at the mercy of body and his sharp, biting hate.

“Everything is nicer in the dark, Black,” he said, though there was a hint of guarded amusement in his tone. He turned from her, black cloak making an elegant swirl as he did so, and she stared daggers at his back for a moment before shaking her head and putting her own mask on.

They were no longer Bellatrix and Rodolphus, but Death Eaters. Whatever had passed between them had faded with the setting sun, and it was a new horror which waited now to rise.