[to be titled]
Jan. 6th, 2016 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emeraldembersFic: Skin and Bone and Lack Thereof (Jack/Katherine/Nightlight, NC17)
Title: Skin and Bone and Lack Thereof
Fandom: Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians
Pairing: Jack/Katherine/Nightlight
Summary: Nightlight is a Will o’ the Wisp, Jack and Katherine are vampires, and happy accidents of fate bring the three of them together.
Author’s Notes: Happy birthday to me! I’ll sort through replies and give gifts the attention they deserve (and this fic a decent proofread) in the morning. In the meantime, to celebrate my surviving to see yet another June 16th, have a bit of birthday porn <3. Love you all! ETA: 6000TH POST MOTHERFRICKERS
*
Nightlight was fond of Jack. Jack was one of the newest members in MiM’s coven, but had been promoted to its higher ranks quickly, and Nightlight could see why; Jack was strong, fast, and smart, and spoke his mind without being disrespectful.
Nightlight liked Jack for how he talked to Katherine. Jack had been turned young, young enough that many of the more mature-looking vampires forgot he was three centuries old, and much like Katherine he had been forced to fend for himself from the beginning. They shared that orphaning by their sires, and they shared in being turned young enough that they retained many of the habits of youth - playfulness, a love of adventure, moments of carelessness.
Jack spoke to Katherine like an equal, and it comforted Nightlight to see her so happy in his presence.
Nightlight didn’t realise how deep his fondness for Jack ran until Katherine asked if he would mind her sleeping with Jack, and Nightlight realised he genuinely wouldn’t. Jack understood that they came as a pair, even if Nightlight’s wisp state meant that he lacked the ability to touch, and Jack kept Nightlight involved throughout, making eye contact with him between kisses, turning to Nightlight when he stripped off his hoodie, angling his body so it didn’t obscure Katherine’s from Nightlight’s view when he pulled down the top of her dress.
Jack took Katherine’s hand in his own before resting it on her thigh, offered his free hand to Nightlight as a gesture, and Nightlight laughed before reaching for it.
He hadn’t expected to feel the contact, and from the look on Jack and Katherine’s faces, they hadn’t either.
It spoiled the moment, Katherine straightening her clothes quickly while Jack turned to take Nightlight’s hand in both his own and trace it with his fingers. Nightlight didn’t know how to react - he had come to terms with his fleshless state long ago, enjoyed the freedom being a wisp offered, and Jack’s touch offered up possibilities he hadn’t considered in centuries. Glass could trap him, but nothing had ever held or touched him before.
Until Jack.
“You’re a ghost,” Jack said, his fingers moving up Nightlight’s wrist, too thin to have ever been human, no space for bones and muscles and flesh.
“He can’t be,” Katherine replied, and Nightlight nodded - Katherine loved to read and had poured over book after book about folklore and mythology from both human and vampiric publishers, and nothing indicated him to be anything more or less than a wisp. “Ghosts can’t explore, they stay where they died or where they were loved. Sometimes they follow objects or people, but there’s always something solid - they don’t travel alone.”
“So what if he doesn’t fit the mould?” Jack asked, reaching for Nightlight’s other hand; Nightlight offered it, gasped silently when Jack caught hold of it. It was strange enough to feel touch - feeling it in more than one place at once was overwhelming. “Sometimes coma patients walk around their old offices while their bodies sleep. And - and vampires aren’t meant to be able to touch ghosts any more than humans, but I’ve always been able to.” Jack grinned up at Nightlight. “You’re as dead and not-dead as us.”
Jack’s fingertips were dry and a little rough, his palms soft, and Nightlight’s glow flickered and twitch in response before he looked between Jack and Katherine, realising he had the means to give something to her he had wanted to when they first met.
Nightlight pulled one of his hands free from Jack’s, grabbed Jack’s face - slapping him in the process, due to a lack of familiarity with them as functional - and kissed Jack on the lips, slowly and carefully to make up for the slap.
Jack grumbled initially, but it didn’t stop him from kissing back.
When Nightlight broke the kiss and pointed at Katherine, Jack got the idea quickly.
Nightlight had never wondered what touch would feel like before he met Katherine. It was pure fate that he met her in the first place; he had enjoyed his life in the swamp before he was trapped in glass and stolen away, kept as a prized curiosity in the depths of a ship before a storm finally allowed him to escape and guide the sailors onto rocky shores.
Most stayed at the site of the wreck to find survivors and salvage cargo, but a few wanted vengeance, chased after Nightlight through the forest.
Nightlight did nothing to stop them, knowing free from his glass prison he had speed they could never match, and luring them deeper into the forest, watching out for a sudden drop, thin ice, something he could make use of as he once used the waters of the swamp.
He didn’t need help from the forest, in the end. A young woman in a butter-yellow dress, hair falling in tangled brown waves across her shoulders, waited for the sailors to draw close before pouncing.
They hadn’t recognised the stains on her dress as dried blood, and she tore through their throats with ease, feasting on their corpses once they all lay dead at her feet.
Nightlight had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life, and when she looked up at him with half-starved features, her eyes shining yellow, Nightlight offered a hand to her she wouldn’t be able to take before pointing back through the forest.
Three days passed before the sailors on the beach realised they weren’t suffering any common plague, and after they began their own journey through the forest in an attempt to find help or escape, it took a week for them to accept that neither could be found.
Katherine’s last feast served themselves up, strung from nooses made of belts and laces, and she had smiled at Nightlight afterwards with plump, flushed cheeks, before kissing him on a cheek that could not feel it.
“Slow down, would you?” Jack asked, pressing a hand against Nightlight’s chest to hold him back so he could carry on kissing Katherine at leisure, and Nightlight bared his teeth in frustration before struggling free and biting Jack on the neck.
It didn’t get the reaction he’d intended, but it was interesting enough to make up for that, Jack shivering and moaning into Katherine’s mouth, and Katherine grinned wickedly before latching onto the other side of Jack’s neck with her own teeth.
“Oh g-god, you’re evil,” Jack gasped, and Nightlight nodded before hooking both his arms under Jack’s, curious as to how strong he might be; it was easy to lift Jack up, and Nightlight laughed before throwing Jack onto the bed, Jack falling in a splayed and topless bundle that both Nightlight and Katherine were happy to latch onto with hungry mouths and hands.
Nightlight watched Katherine pull her dress off completely, tossing it aside recklessly before throwing her bra to join it and straddling Jack’s thighs, burying her face in Jack’s neck and covering it in bite after bite after bite, and he smiled at the sight. He’d seen Katherine naked before, had watched over her bathing, watched over her seducing prey, but this was different - this was her enjoying her body, enjoying what it could do, and while it was a frustration that he still couldn’t touch her himself, he was more than happy to let Jack satisfy her.
He could content himself quite easily with tickling Jack’s feet, Katherine using her extra strength to grab Jack’s hands and press them back against the bed, leaving him helpless. Jack’s cock visibly strained against his leggings for release, and she tormented him further by moving up to sit on his lap, rocking gently back and forth.
“Do you want us both, Jack?” she teased before glancing over her shoulder, and Nightlight nodded at her, happy for her to seek permission on his behalf. “One on the lips and one on the hips?”
Jack snorted with laughter, struggled to free his hands, but Katherine wouldn’t allow it. “Only if you take turns, I want to see both your faces.”
Katherine hummed a sound of approval before wriggling out of her panties and moving to straddle Jack’s head, releasing his hands to brace herself against the headboard, and Nightlight watched for a moment in silence as Jack’s lips and tongue opened Katherine up and made her squirm happily before Jack’s increasingly insistent bucking reminded Nightlight of his own duties.
Nightlight unbuckled Jack’s belt before pulling it and Jack’s pants down in one go, found Jack’s cock hard and leaking, the hair at its base as white as the hair on Jack’s head. He’d never seen someone manage to look as dead and as beautiful at the same time, even amongst vampires, and Nightlight took hold of Jack’s cock carefully, afraid he might hurt him.
If Nightlight had ever been human, or human-like, he didn’t remember it, and he certainly didn’t know how strong he could be around someone as rare as Jack, someone who could touch him. It was strange to feel wet on his palm, and stroking that same wetness up and down Jack’s cock seemed the right thing to do; certainly Jack seemed to enjoy the touch, though any complimentary sounds were muffled by Katherine’s thighs. He leant over Jack’s cock, kissed the head of it gently before lapping at it, not wanting to take it in his mouth in case his teeth were too sharp, wondered at the taste, and started to grip Jack a little tighter as he stroked to try and get more of that taste out, pushing the tip of his tongue harder into the slit.
Jack whimpered out loud, the sound clear despite his tongue being buried between Katherine’s folds at the time, and Katherine giggled before climbing off him, freeing Jack’s hands to grab Nightlight by the back of his head and pull him up. “You really don’t go easy on a guy, do you?” Jack said, though he was grinning despite the question, and Nightlight smiled back, unsure of whether that was meant as a caution or a compliment. “Get up here, let me return the favour.”
Katherine’s hand passed through Nightlight when she tried to pat him on the back, a reminder of how strange their current situation was, but only allowed herself a brief sigh of frustration before giving Jack a quick kiss on the lips. “That’s from me,” she told Nightlight, moving down the bed so they could finish swapping places, and Jack arching up with a grunt as soon as she lowered herself onto him and started riding his cock.
“Your turn, little ghost,” Jack said, grabbing Nightlight’s ass and pulling him closer before frowning. “I… may not have thought this through,” Jack concluded after a moment, his frown concentrated on Nightlight’s crotch, and Nightlight looked down, laughed on realising exactly what problem they were dealing with.
Nightlight didn’t have anything for Jack to suck or lick. He’d never needed anything. He had his mouth to laugh or growl with, his human-like figure to lure those who weren’t tempted by his light alone, and that had always been enough. He didn’t miss having a cock like Jack or a cunt like Katherine because he had no memory of one and no particular desire for one.
Still, it was clear Jack wanted something to deal with, so Nightlight offered his fingers as a compromise, pushing three of them into Jack’s mouth; enough to stretch without straining, and enough to let him explore Jack’s mouth freely, stroking his fingers along Jack’s tongue, across gums and sharp teeth, pressing into the softness of Jack’s cheeks.
Jack in turn sucked and nipped at them, licking his own precome from them, and Nightlight bit his lip at the thought it meant Jack had known all of their tastes - Nightlight’s, Katherine’s, and his. It certainly seemed to do the trick for Jack, and his fingers dug into Nightlight’s ass as he moaned, breathing erratic, Katherine crying out behind them.
Nightlight almost wanted to turn and watch, but he’d seen Katherine come before, fingers buried inside herself and rubbing at her clit, sometimes just for herself and sometimes for his viewing pleasure. Jack was new, and Nightlight couldn’t help but feel protective of him when he tensed up, face tight and confused and somehow innocent-looking for it.
Nightlight pulled his fingers free from Jack’s mouth when he arched and waited for a scream that never escaped, Jack’s gasps for air as loud as he got, and Nightlight wanted to kiss white eyelashes that fluttered against pale cheeks, wanted to kiss the creases in Jack’s forehead and at the corners of his eyes, the stomach he’d never needed before feeling tight with sympathy.
When Jack fell back against the bed Nightlight was quick to curl up beside him, wrapping an arm around Jack’s stomach. He didn’t need to sleep, suspected he couldn’t, but he wanted to watch over Jack and Katherine from their perspective.
Katherine took Jack’s free side, slid her own arm across Jack’s stomach and through Nightlight’s, looked between the two of them with a sly smile. “I think we’d like to keep you for ourselves, Jack,” she said, nipping at his ear with her sharp teeth.
“I’m not wearing a collar, but fine,” Jack murmured, and Katherine laughed before squeezing him tighter.
They both looked sated and satisfied, and Nightlight was proud to have contributed to it.
The night after called for thinking what this meant for all of them. They agreed it would be best if Jack’s ability to touch Nightlight was kept a secret - Nightlight’s non-threatening status as a wisp was part of why he was allowed to accompany Katherine wherever she went if he wished - and Katherine was happy to volunteer herself as a physical barrier between Jack and Nightlight in public. It wouldn’t be hard to keep the secret otherwise, given that Nightlight left no physical traces of himself anywhere, and wore no clothing that might accidentally be borrowed or abandoned somewhere inappropriate.
If the legends about born vampires were true, MiM would know exactly what was going on, but he would be just as aware of their reasons for keeping quiet. He controlled the coven with knowledge more than fear, valued reason over loyalty, and while he monitored idle gossip for stories his telepathy had not already uncovered, he took little interest in it otherwise.
Katherine might have had intentions of discussing the matter further, but Nightlight took the chance to interrupt her for the first time in his existence by grabbing Jack’s hand and using it to smack her backside, turning her likely well thought-out sentence into a squeak followed by indignant yelling.
The yelling didn’t last long. Nightlight scraped his teeth over Jack’s neck, making him shiver, and after a moment’s grumbling, Katherine couldn’t resist joining in.
If Jack had any objections to being sandwiched between them for the second time in less than twelve hours, he didn’t voice them.
The End
Title: Skin and Bone and Lack Thereof
Fandom: Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians
Pairing: Jack/Katherine/Nightlight
Summary: Nightlight is a Will o’ the Wisp, Jack and Katherine are vampires, and happy accidents of fate bring the three of them together.
Author’s Notes: Happy birthday to me! I’ll sort through replies and give gifts the attention they deserve (and this fic a decent proofread) in the morning. In the meantime, to celebrate my surviving to see yet another June 16th, have a bit of birthday porn <3. Love you all! ETA: 6000TH POST MOTHERFRICKERS
*
Nightlight was fond of Jack. Jack was one of the newest members in MiM’s coven, but had been promoted to its higher ranks quickly, and Nightlight could see why; Jack was strong, fast, and smart, and spoke his mind without being disrespectful.
Nightlight liked Jack for how he talked to Katherine. Jack had been turned young, young enough that many of the more mature-looking vampires forgot he was three centuries old, and much like Katherine he had been forced to fend for himself from the beginning. They shared that orphaning by their sires, and they shared in being turned young enough that they retained many of the habits of youth - playfulness, a love of adventure, moments of carelessness.
Jack spoke to Katherine like an equal, and it comforted Nightlight to see her so happy in his presence.
Nightlight didn’t realise how deep his fondness for Jack ran until Katherine asked if he would mind her sleeping with Jack, and Nightlight realised he genuinely wouldn’t. Jack understood that they came as a pair, even if Nightlight’s wisp state meant that he lacked the ability to touch, and Jack kept Nightlight involved throughout, making eye contact with him between kisses, turning to Nightlight when he stripped off his hoodie, angling his body so it didn’t obscure Katherine’s from Nightlight’s view when he pulled down the top of her dress.
Jack took Katherine’s hand in his own before resting it on her thigh, offered his free hand to Nightlight as a gesture, and Nightlight laughed before reaching for it.
He hadn’t expected to feel the contact, and from the look on Jack and Katherine’s faces, they hadn’t either.
It spoiled the moment, Katherine straightening her clothes quickly while Jack turned to take Nightlight’s hand in both his own and trace it with his fingers. Nightlight didn’t know how to react - he had come to terms with his fleshless state long ago, enjoyed the freedom being a wisp offered, and Jack’s touch offered up possibilities he hadn’t considered in centuries. Glass could trap him, but nothing had ever held or touched him before.
Until Jack.
“You’re a ghost,” Jack said, his fingers moving up Nightlight’s wrist, too thin to have ever been human, no space for bones and muscles and flesh.
“He can’t be,” Katherine replied, and Nightlight nodded - Katherine loved to read and had poured over book after book about folklore and mythology from both human and vampiric publishers, and nothing indicated him to be anything more or less than a wisp. “Ghosts can’t explore, they stay where they died or where they were loved. Sometimes they follow objects or people, but there’s always something solid - they don’t travel alone.”
“So what if he doesn’t fit the mould?” Jack asked, reaching for Nightlight’s other hand; Nightlight offered it, gasped silently when Jack caught hold of it. It was strange enough to feel touch - feeling it in more than one place at once was overwhelming. “Sometimes coma patients walk around their old offices while their bodies sleep. And - and vampires aren’t meant to be able to touch ghosts any more than humans, but I’ve always been able to.” Jack grinned up at Nightlight. “You’re as dead and not-dead as us.”
Jack’s fingertips were dry and a little rough, his palms soft, and Nightlight’s glow flickered and twitch in response before he looked between Jack and Katherine, realising he had the means to give something to her he had wanted to when they first met.
Nightlight pulled one of his hands free from Jack’s, grabbed Jack’s face - slapping him in the process, due to a lack of familiarity with them as functional - and kissed Jack on the lips, slowly and carefully to make up for the slap.
Jack grumbled initially, but it didn’t stop him from kissing back.
When Nightlight broke the kiss and pointed at Katherine, Jack got the idea quickly.
Nightlight had never wondered what touch would feel like before he met Katherine. It was pure fate that he met her in the first place; he had enjoyed his life in the swamp before he was trapped in glass and stolen away, kept as a prized curiosity in the depths of a ship before a storm finally allowed him to escape and guide the sailors onto rocky shores.
Most stayed at the site of the wreck to find survivors and salvage cargo, but a few wanted vengeance, chased after Nightlight through the forest.
Nightlight did nothing to stop them, knowing free from his glass prison he had speed they could never match, and luring them deeper into the forest, watching out for a sudden drop, thin ice, something he could make use of as he once used the waters of the swamp.
He didn’t need help from the forest, in the end. A young woman in a butter-yellow dress, hair falling in tangled brown waves across her shoulders, waited for the sailors to draw close before pouncing.
They hadn’t recognised the stains on her dress as dried blood, and she tore through their throats with ease, feasting on their corpses once they all lay dead at her feet.
Nightlight had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life, and when she looked up at him with half-starved features, her eyes shining yellow, Nightlight offered a hand to her she wouldn’t be able to take before pointing back through the forest.
Three days passed before the sailors on the beach realised they weren’t suffering any common plague, and after they began their own journey through the forest in an attempt to find help or escape, it took a week for them to accept that neither could be found.
Katherine’s last feast served themselves up, strung from nooses made of belts and laces, and she had smiled at Nightlight afterwards with plump, flushed cheeks, before kissing him on a cheek that could not feel it.
“Slow down, would you?” Jack asked, pressing a hand against Nightlight’s chest to hold him back so he could carry on kissing Katherine at leisure, and Nightlight bared his teeth in frustration before struggling free and biting Jack on the neck.
It didn’t get the reaction he’d intended, but it was interesting enough to make up for that, Jack shivering and moaning into Katherine’s mouth, and Katherine grinned wickedly before latching onto the other side of Jack’s neck with her own teeth.
“Oh g-god, you’re evil,” Jack gasped, and Nightlight nodded before hooking both his arms under Jack’s, curious as to how strong he might be; it was easy to lift Jack up, and Nightlight laughed before throwing Jack onto the bed, Jack falling in a splayed and topless bundle that both Nightlight and Katherine were happy to latch onto with hungry mouths and hands.
Nightlight watched Katherine pull her dress off completely, tossing it aside recklessly before throwing her bra to join it and straddling Jack’s thighs, burying her face in Jack’s neck and covering it in bite after bite after bite, and he smiled at the sight. He’d seen Katherine naked before, had watched over her bathing, watched over her seducing prey, but this was different - this was her enjoying her body, enjoying what it could do, and while it was a frustration that he still couldn’t touch her himself, he was more than happy to let Jack satisfy her.
He could content himself quite easily with tickling Jack’s feet, Katherine using her extra strength to grab Jack’s hands and press them back against the bed, leaving him helpless. Jack’s cock visibly strained against his leggings for release, and she tormented him further by moving up to sit on his lap, rocking gently back and forth.
“Do you want us both, Jack?” she teased before glancing over her shoulder, and Nightlight nodded at her, happy for her to seek permission on his behalf. “One on the lips and one on the hips?”
Jack snorted with laughter, struggled to free his hands, but Katherine wouldn’t allow it. “Only if you take turns, I want to see both your faces.”
Katherine hummed a sound of approval before wriggling out of her panties and moving to straddle Jack’s head, releasing his hands to brace herself against the headboard, and Nightlight watched for a moment in silence as Jack’s lips and tongue opened Katherine up and made her squirm happily before Jack’s increasingly insistent bucking reminded Nightlight of his own duties.
Nightlight unbuckled Jack’s belt before pulling it and Jack’s pants down in one go, found Jack’s cock hard and leaking, the hair at its base as white as the hair on Jack’s head. He’d never seen someone manage to look as dead and as beautiful at the same time, even amongst vampires, and Nightlight took hold of Jack’s cock carefully, afraid he might hurt him.
If Nightlight had ever been human, or human-like, he didn’t remember it, and he certainly didn’t know how strong he could be around someone as rare as Jack, someone who could touch him. It was strange to feel wet on his palm, and stroking that same wetness up and down Jack’s cock seemed the right thing to do; certainly Jack seemed to enjoy the touch, though any complimentary sounds were muffled by Katherine’s thighs. He leant over Jack’s cock, kissed the head of it gently before lapping at it, not wanting to take it in his mouth in case his teeth were too sharp, wondered at the taste, and started to grip Jack a little tighter as he stroked to try and get more of that taste out, pushing the tip of his tongue harder into the slit.
Jack whimpered out loud, the sound clear despite his tongue being buried between Katherine’s folds at the time, and Katherine giggled before climbing off him, freeing Jack’s hands to grab Nightlight by the back of his head and pull him up. “You really don’t go easy on a guy, do you?” Jack said, though he was grinning despite the question, and Nightlight smiled back, unsure of whether that was meant as a caution or a compliment. “Get up here, let me return the favour.”
Katherine’s hand passed through Nightlight when she tried to pat him on the back, a reminder of how strange their current situation was, but only allowed herself a brief sigh of frustration before giving Jack a quick kiss on the lips. “That’s from me,” she told Nightlight, moving down the bed so they could finish swapping places, and Jack arching up with a grunt as soon as she lowered herself onto him and started riding his cock.
“Your turn, little ghost,” Jack said, grabbing Nightlight’s ass and pulling him closer before frowning. “I… may not have thought this through,” Jack concluded after a moment, his frown concentrated on Nightlight’s crotch, and Nightlight looked down, laughed on realising exactly what problem they were dealing with.
Nightlight didn’t have anything for Jack to suck or lick. He’d never needed anything. He had his mouth to laugh or growl with, his human-like figure to lure those who weren’t tempted by his light alone, and that had always been enough. He didn’t miss having a cock like Jack or a cunt like Katherine because he had no memory of one and no particular desire for one.
Still, it was clear Jack wanted something to deal with, so Nightlight offered his fingers as a compromise, pushing three of them into Jack’s mouth; enough to stretch without straining, and enough to let him explore Jack’s mouth freely, stroking his fingers along Jack’s tongue, across gums and sharp teeth, pressing into the softness of Jack’s cheeks.
Jack in turn sucked and nipped at them, licking his own precome from them, and Nightlight bit his lip at the thought it meant Jack had known all of their tastes - Nightlight’s, Katherine’s, and his. It certainly seemed to do the trick for Jack, and his fingers dug into Nightlight’s ass as he moaned, breathing erratic, Katherine crying out behind them.
Nightlight almost wanted to turn and watch, but he’d seen Katherine come before, fingers buried inside herself and rubbing at her clit, sometimes just for herself and sometimes for his viewing pleasure. Jack was new, and Nightlight couldn’t help but feel protective of him when he tensed up, face tight and confused and somehow innocent-looking for it.
Nightlight pulled his fingers free from Jack’s mouth when he arched and waited for a scream that never escaped, Jack’s gasps for air as loud as he got, and Nightlight wanted to kiss white eyelashes that fluttered against pale cheeks, wanted to kiss the creases in Jack’s forehead and at the corners of his eyes, the stomach he’d never needed before feeling tight with sympathy.
When Jack fell back against the bed Nightlight was quick to curl up beside him, wrapping an arm around Jack’s stomach. He didn’t need to sleep, suspected he couldn’t, but he wanted to watch over Jack and Katherine from their perspective.
Katherine took Jack’s free side, slid her own arm across Jack’s stomach and through Nightlight’s, looked between the two of them with a sly smile. “I think we’d like to keep you for ourselves, Jack,” she said, nipping at his ear with her sharp teeth.
“I’m not wearing a collar, but fine,” Jack murmured, and Katherine laughed before squeezing him tighter.
They both looked sated and satisfied, and Nightlight was proud to have contributed to it.
The night after called for thinking what this meant for all of them. They agreed it would be best if Jack’s ability to touch Nightlight was kept a secret - Nightlight’s non-threatening status as a wisp was part of why he was allowed to accompany Katherine wherever she went if he wished - and Katherine was happy to volunteer herself as a physical barrier between Jack and Nightlight in public. It wouldn’t be hard to keep the secret otherwise, given that Nightlight left no physical traces of himself anywhere, and wore no clothing that might accidentally be borrowed or abandoned somewhere inappropriate.
If the legends about born vampires were true, MiM would know exactly what was going on, but he would be just as aware of their reasons for keeping quiet. He controlled the coven with knowledge more than fear, valued reason over loyalty, and while he monitored idle gossip for stories his telepathy had not already uncovered, he took little interest in it otherwise.
Katherine might have had intentions of discussing the matter further, but Nightlight took the chance to interrupt her for the first time in his existence by grabbing Jack’s hand and using it to smack her backside, turning her likely well thought-out sentence into a squeak followed by indignant yelling.
The yelling didn’t last long. Nightlight scraped his teeth over Jack’s neck, making him shiver, and after a moment’s grumbling, Katherine couldn’t resist joining in.
If Jack had any objections to being sandwiched between them for the second time in less than twelve hours, he didn’t voice them.
The End
