Night's Omen

Fortunately, it was unlikely that they'd ever find out what would happen if he and Sasha went toe to toe, because Loic was fond of the sisters.  As a trio, they were a force to be reckoned with, but he was confident he could have beaten them individually, if the situation ever arose.  He'd much rather trade notes with them, particularly Sasha and sometimes Tanya.  Sasha was worse than he was on some things, and Tanya had the potential and some fantastic ideas; it was just Katya who didn't generally see eye to eye with him, and he even liked her.  She was classy and he could appreciate the moral high-ground she took, even if he found it to be pretty ironic that she may very well have controlled the most powerful animal base (come on, lions, tigers, cheetahs, lynxes and leopards?) of all of them, but he still wished she was more willing to enjoy her power.  Ah, well, he and Sasha could have enough fun with this between actually doing what he came here to do.

The problem here, for Ben anyway, was that Sasha and Loic weren't all that different in their first instincts.  Sasha had said Loic should 'pull his strings and find out', which translated to pushing him as hard as was possible and seeing whether shifting or death happened first, and Loic was in complete agreement.  While a non-prince Cygni was interesting, it was fairly useless to Loic, and even the build-up was entertaining.  The prince's eyes had gone wide, obviously understanding even before the non-prince had, and Loic had to give the paranoid young man credit for being on the ball with that one.  Haven wasn't far behind, though, and the sudden spike of horror and fear was well worth letting him come upon the realization himself.  It gave Loic time to consider other things, as well.

Like Dania Shardae.  A lovely golden hawk, all by her lonesome.  Selene had been upset instantly, which Loic wasn't surprised about (she knew he liked hawks), and Dania promised some entertainment all on her own when Sasha mentioned her boyfriend.  A snake?  Oooh, yes, and not just a snake; it was the younger Cobriana.  If he timed it just right, he might be done with everything else by the time the cobra realized what was happening and showed his face.

"I should have put out a call in this area much sooner," he practically purred, turning just enough to brush a finger over her soft cheek, and he smirked.  One problem at a time, however, and Haven was most pressing.  After the thoughts that Selene was putting into his head, of course.

That sounds like a challenge, but you make a good point about the bubbles and glitter.  Titania and Oberon will be a last resort pull, and we can depend on them to hit hard and fast if needed.  I'll admit that any idle time whatsoever with the two of them here could be dangerous.

Yes, he'd just admitted that she was right and allowed for a change in plan, even if it was a slight alteration and not a complete re-write.  Mark that down, folks.  Honestly, it probably meant that he was going to be ridiculously stubborn about something else in the very near future, and that something else might involve hawks or 'that thing'.  Just saying.

He was going to find a way to make 'that thing' happen.  Somehow, and Rafael had better hope it worked out, or he might double his efforts to make something interesting go on in that corner.  It'd be too late for Ben by that point, or within the next few minutes, probably.  Considering he raised his open hand in front of Ben and suddenly squeezed it into a fist to focus his power inside of the man, something was going to happen.  At this point, Ben shouted as he doubled over, obviously in pain, and Loic twisted with his power, pulling harder.

"You will either shift, or you will break, swan," he ordered, giving a yank that drove the man to his knees.  Progress.

 To say that Veronica felt like a kid at Christmas would be an understatement. If the situation were different and her father had never been killed, well, that might have trumped this sensation, but right now? Well, let's see - she'd been about to trick the man who was responsible for her being taken into Midnight in the first place into going to look for his sister, whom she hoped by now was already dead if not close to it, only to ambush him on the way.

And then she'd just felt awesome - and now, well. Ben was on his knees, screaming in pain, and the vampire - the man of the hour - was just yanking away on his blood, trying to make some results out of it. She practically exploded she was so happy. She'd walked away from them and sat down safely away from everyone else, ensuring she got a clear show. She really was grinning from ear to ear, her big blue eyes watery with joy.

She was still terrified on the inside, of course. Obviously they were planning an assault against Midnight. Veronica was part of Midnight. She was only with Ben because she was trying to work her own personal agenda on this matter now that she'd failed to grab Ryan Shane, but somehow she didn't really care at the moment. She just wanted to see Ben suffer.

 And there he went. Sasha was actually a little surprised, if only because he was about to mangle his newest recruit - someone he could control and someone who could pass for human. Didn't that seem counter-productive when it came to surreptitiously getting things done? She looked over at the brunette, who was about to collapse from sheer joy of watching her friend get tortured, and with her characteristic open-mouthed and brow-raised expression, Sasha looked from Veronica to Ben and then back again. She looked stupid, she knew it, she didn't care. She was confused. She also couldn't push through Veronica's mind with Loic there running the show.

She made a note to find out why Raggedy Anne was so happy Andy was getting the stuffing ripped out of him later, but for now, she wanted to see some feathers.

It was Selene who gritted her teeth and tried to put a stop to it. He's valuable. If you break him, he will cease to have that value. Could you please play with your new toy -after- this is done? She was practically begging, but it was more because she needed his focus to be on these vampires who could potentially get together and kick their asses, not on a latent-blooded Cygni.

When he reached out to Dania, though, that made her snap the pen she had in her hand in half. She wanted to yank the girl away from him, but instead she just said nothing and turned her back on the situation - literally, she set the broken pen down on the table and picked up another one, then began furiously scribbling notes against the paper about who went where and what sort of time frames she had to work with for her own purposes.

"Yeah, she dumped her throne for him," she said over Ben's screaming, as if to pick-up on the remark about Dania and Eden. "So now the Shardae family has once again lost another daughter to the Serpiente. Idiots. I don't see what the appeal is." She rolled her eyes, not even offering any apologies to Loic, Dania, or Selene. "He's not even the Diente. He's the - he's the mini-Diente. And actually, he really doesn't want to be the Diente from what I read, and let me tell you, if Lucien doesn't pop up sooner or later, that's what he's going to get. I bet ol' Dania here won't be too happy about that, either."

She reached out and flicked at some of the girl's hair. Dania just looked at the ground, eyes passive as she tried to avoid any confrontation. She was here to see Loic, not this rude brunette.

Did he appreciate Selene's consistent concern about exactly what he was doing?  Not particularly, because he wasn't exactly known for flying off on tangents just because he could, but how could he resist this unique Cygni?  The issue with Titania and Oberon was more him over-extending himself to give Noelani as much firepower as he possibly could, and he did understand and accept the validity of both of Selene's objections.  Personally, he didn't see the worth of the human if he was just a human, unable to take wing if he needed to (slow), unable to heal if he was damaged (weak), and giving off an entirely human aura to almost everyone else (non-threatening).  All around, Loic wasn't impressed with having a human, but he was intrigued by the fact that there was latent bird, and that it was responsive.  As far as he was concerned, how was it a loss if he broke it?

He finally released his hold on Ben, not enough to leave the man completely devoid of his influence, but enough that he was no longer in pain or having whatever was bird in him being twisted around, and the human remained where he was, breathing hard and trying to figure out what had even just happened.  "It's going to take a few sessions to loosen things up enough, or he really will break," he declared, but he was confident that he could do it.  If, in the end, Haven really did break, then it wouldn't be because Loic rushed things.  He could be patient.

I don't see the value in him being human that you do, but he'll need more work to do what I want, so he stays human for now.  Since he's so valuable, you find a use for him.  Do the same for Rainbow Brite, too, because I'm not fixing his wings until we're finished here.

He could be patient, but that didn't mean that he always was.  Ortega was damaged, and that didn't please him.

As if Pavlov's Bell had just sounded, a gaggle of voices broke into the guild, perpetuated mostly by Zaine screaming at someone who was screaming back. It just sort of figured that as soon as she took to considering what she was going to do with Zaine, he and Marius went by the door, Zaine carrying a girl in his arms.

Well, if Marius was going to stick close by him, Sasha wouldn't have any luck at all. As long as Marius stuck with him, though, it also meant that she could do what she pleased with any other Serpiente she found. She looked at Loic, her brows perked and an interested expression on her face.


"The second-hand king approaches," was all she forewarned. She could sense the Cobra was close. Evidently someone had told him they'd seen Dania. She nearly rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

Selene, meanwhile, could think of plenty of things for them to do. As long as Loic kept that pulse beacon of bird love going, she could convince them to do whatever the hell she needed to.

"You two, with me," she said, gesturing to Saffron and Rafael. They were giant colourful pieces of bait. To Ben, she just said, "Your family, I want them here now." Ben might be useless, but he could be convincing, and that meant more Cygni in the long run - which meant more people for Loic to control. They might have been stupid and base, but they didn't have to know how to fight to get information passed, they just had to sit tight and act as a relay. After that, she'd use him as cannon fodder herself if she had to.

Sasha made for quite the introduction before Eden arrived, and as much as he wouldn't have appreciated being called the 'second-hand king', he probably would have rolled his eyes, smirked and given an exaggerated bow to go with it if he'd heard it.  As it was, there would be no such entrance and he wasn't quite as accustomed to having all eyes on him instantly as Lucien was.  Being the owner and manager of his business, especially the way he ran it, had earned him respect in the 'kingdom' he'd built himself in All Hallows, but he never wanted to be Diente and really just didn't have the appropriate attitude for it.  He thought he didn't, anyway, and essentially everyone who had any right to an opinion agreed.  Who knew, really?

He was happy just keeping his own people safe, and though they hadn't been 100% successful at that, they'd done surprisingly well.  Definitely better than Midnight had expected, especially after Niall had arrived and turned into a fucking dragon.  That they had wounded who had survived long enough for medical attention was impressive, and he had Nikki working on a proper head count so that they could figure out who was missing, injured and dead.  He dreaded the results.

What was worse was that Dania was among the missing.  He had confirmation that she'd arrived in Onyx and gone to the room that had been opened for her, and he had word that she'd gone to Frost suddenly, but it was all rumor and asking directions from there.  That he'd found the room with all of the birds in it at all was impressive, and probably only because there had been a lot of unexplained activity there in a very short period of time.  If he'd known what he was walking into, he would have asked Marius to join him, but he'd have still gone.  He wouldn't leave Dania to that, or Saffron for that matter.

There was a serious problem here, and not just in that Sasha was present or that Loic had charge of the birds that were present; Eden had never actually met Sasha.  He'd heard Lucien mention her in passing, but had no real concept of who she was or what she could do, and why should he?  He wanted nothing to do with the guilds or the Serpiente court, and those were both of more interest to her than his little club.  Now, he wished he'd had some warning, because he was taken completely off-guard by her presence as soon as he noticed her.

Surprisingly, she wasn't the first person he noticed.  Rafael and his vivid feathers came first just because the color was that bright and eye-catching (the businessman that he was instantly had plenty of ways that he could put Rafael to use in his club before the bleak reminder that after this, he wasn't sure if he even had much of a business left.  Naturally, that took about 3 seconds of attention before he found Dania, her head down and looking like she was trying to avoid attention from others, which was NOT what he was used to or acceptable.  She wasn't a queen any longer, not officially, but that didn't mean that she didn't deserve the respect she'd most definitely earned.

"Dania?"  Something was very wrong here, with everyone and everything, and his red eyes flicked around the room in search of a culprit, anything that could be the cause of it.  He took in Saffron beside Rafael, Veronica with her obviously pleasant mood, Ben's disheveled appearance, the strange blonde woman and her companion (who had an air about him like he was the single most important being in the guildhouse, nevermind the room), but none of them actually mattered.  Fortunately for him (or perhaps not?), he'd already been on the move for Dania before he locked eyes with the dark-haired woman who'd felt him coming even before he'd known where he was supposed to go.  It was suddenly clear to him how he'd found this room, and it wasn't because of anything except for this woman.  If he tried to say that it wasn't true, he was just lying to himself and had been until he saw her.

She was the scariest thing he'd seen all night.

Somehow he had the presence of mind to step up in front of Dania before his world narrowed down to including himself and Sasha, with Dania like a glimmer of reality behind him.  Too bad Loic would keep her from helping to ground him at all.

"Who are you?" he demanded, or he meant to.  His voice just didn't want to hold that kind of force to it.  With some other vampire, he'd have had his eyes narrowed and his guard up, but with Sasha he couldn't manage much more than an unhappy deer in headlights kind of situation.

 Sasha allowed her bright blue eyes to roam over Eden's form, almost silent so long that it seemed she was ignoring his question. "Nice," was all she said, with a laugh at the end of the word. She bit her lower lip for a moment, as if considering what she was going to do. Of course, she was supposed to be here to "help"... but Katya wasn't anywhere around, for the moment.

"You can call me 'Mistress'," she said with a wicked smile. She wasn't even into that whole submissive/dominant bit. It really didn't appeal to her; not in the way it did to those Midnight freaks. She really just cared about making people do what she wanted them to because she didn't want to do it herself; or to see how far she could push them. And sometimes, like now, to teach them some goddamn humility. Who was she?

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," she snapped, pushing onto him with her power. If Loic got to be a magnificent bastard, so the fuck did she.

It had been a very long time since Eden had minded a woman (or even a man) looking him over with that appraising kind of attention, if only because he owned the club and everyone who worked there had to get accustomed to getting those once- and twice-overs, but he'd also made it a point to be aggressive with his customer base.  He was very used to that look.

That was why it bothered him even more when Sasha did it and it actually made him uncomfortable.  Perhaps the difference was that she wasn't looking him over the way customers did; there may have been a sexual aspect to it, but there was ownership, and nobody had that right to him.  After all of the struggling and fighting he'd done to get away from the serpiente court and build something for himself, to prevent his parents from 'owning' him and his life like they did Lucien, how dare this vampire try to take his control from him?  He'd earned it through sweat, and sometimes blood.

The funny (in a messed up way, not a funny-haha way) thing was that he'd done the submissive/dominant bit before, both as a show on stage and behind closed doors, and it didn't exactly appeal to him, but he was very familiar with it.  If he WERE to participate, it was only as a dominant and that was for that control thing again.  Nobody had control over him, he didn't allow it, yet here Sasha was.  The problem was that she could take that control, whether he liked it or not.

He did not like it, and right then, he hated his brother for what Lucien must have let her get away with.  

Without understanding what she was capable and who she really was, he'd just had a vague idea that she was a vampire and had this 'thing' for snakes.  Well, he didn't like that 'thing' anymore than Ben was liking Loic, even if he technically had less reason.

For a serpiente that had the ability to be surprisingly tactful about his emotions, particularly annoyance and anger (businessman), Eden had apparently lost most of that skill the moment he walked into the room, because as she pressed harder on him with her power for remaining silent thus far, his eyes flashed and he practically bared his teeth, the effort of resisting her force most definitely affecting him.  That, and Eden had far too many mortal sins under his belt, pride being one of the most prominent (this was the man who'd let a vampire feed from him to save Melisande on her way home, behaved like nothing happened and then told the bastards to get the fuck out, all without telling anyone what had happened); this was a blow.

"Mi--" he started, fighting with himself not to when her power screamed through his entire being to say it.  Nobody could ever say he didn't have some serious force of will, especially for someone with limited training in the ways of hunting, but this was just took much.  He was quiet when he broke, but no less pissed.  "Mistress."

 A self-satisfied smile crept across Sasha's mouth until it turned upright into a sort of slasher smile that was nothing less than incredibly creepy. She held a hand out to him, beckoning for him to come closer to her. "Was that so hard?" she asked, blue eyes sparkling with malevolence. "Come, keep me company."

She turned back to Loic, brows perked. "I suppose we've all got our own perks of the job, no? Now, to my knowledge, Midnight does not employ any in the way of snakes, which is a bit sad, but I do know that one of my clients happens to be the captain of their Raven guard. She's a vampire, too, but I don't think that's anything you can't handle." She paused. "The woman has impeccable taste in art, and her money spends like any other, so I would appreciate it if you didn't harm her too badly."

Dania was creeping closer to Loic now, looking shy and unsure of herself. She had her eyes alternating between him and the ground; unusual, even for Dania. She was raised in the company of royalty and thus she did have a rather large ego, even if she acted as though she were diplomatic about how she used it. She'd also become used to being a little more outgoing, thanks to Eden and the club. But now, she was afraid - she didn't rightly know where she was, and her brain was fuzzy and the man in front of her made it hard for her to think straight. She knew, though, very firmly, that he would protect her. She didn't know how, but she knew it.

Idiot.

Hesitantly, she reached out for his hand, and then drew back. "M - may I?" she asked demurely, batting her long lashes at him.

Sasha let out a little yip of laughter, her arm coiling around Eden's shoulders as he inevitably drew into her presence. "I do believe she wants you to hold her hand." She hesitated for a moment, and then her lower lip jutted out. "Aw, Loic, she's scared!"