strange hungers
Sloan visibly tensed from where she was propped up on the bar and engaged in a casually flirtatious conversation with Nora; she tried to check her surroundings without being obvious and met Vale’s stare from across the bar. The dark lighting must be playing tricks on her, because Sloan swears that she sees black eyes with tiny red pin pricks tracking her every movement. Nora clocks the tense moment and sends a glare in Vale’s direction, moving to block Sloan’s line of sight to the shadowy corner where Vale and Evie sit.
From where she was sat, Vale was unable to discern what exactly the two women were talking about but from the light touches Sloan kept placing on Nora’s arms and the way Nora kept leaning closer as the night progressed - it didn’t seem to be not flirting. Evie was watching the pair as well, albeit with a more humorous gaze, knowing that seeing Sloan was an annoyance to Vale on a good day.
“Looks like Avery’s fallen in with the… promiscuous sort, hm?” Evie purrs lowly, “or maybe she’s got a thing for vamps.”
Vale hums noncommittally in response, eyes still focused on the woman in question. Irritation floods through her as she watches Nora angle her body in front of Sloan, effectively shielding her from Vale.
Vale nudges Evie with her elbow, “Maybe you should see if she’ll flirt with you.”
Evie reads between the lines of what Vale is actually saying and huffs, moving to stand and head towards the pair of women at the bar.
With an expression that is decidedly less amused, Evie makes a vaguely affirmative noise and stalks off, shoving past the other patrons in the bar roughly. Vale rolls her eyes at Evie’s antics but her expression could almost be called fond, if the minute twitch of her lips meant anything. She watches her approach them, sees the tense line of her posture clearly signaling she’d really rather be doing anything else but Evie will always bend to Vale’s will.
Her approach is aggressive, doubtlessly because of who she’s approaching and what she’s supposed to do. Evie claps Sloan on the shoulder roughly, causing both her and Nora to stiffen at the sudden appearance.
“Who knew we had such a free-spirited mutt amongst us?” Evie leans in closer to Sloan’s face, tightening the grip around her shoulder, “Surely Avery knows how… giving you are of your affections, hm?” The threat behind her words is obvious at the feral grin Evie aims at Sloan.
Sloan’s eyes go wide, her body instinctively trying to lean as far away from Evie as possible, but she’s cornered into the bar, nowhere to go. Her heart starts thumping wildly, and the second Evie is distracted by Nora letting out a soft growl, she slips from her seat, mumbling something about needing to call her mom before it got too late.
Vale tracks the movement from her corner, languidly rising from her seat and following after the frightened hound. For such a massive pain in Vale’s ass, Sloan’s willowy frame sure can disappear in a crowd fast. Ears flattening in irritation, the vampire stalks after her, roughly shoulder checking anyone who happens to step into her path.
There’s no reason to truly try and track the fleeing woman - there’s only so many places she could be going, but age-old instincts drive Vale to inhale deeply, picking through the various scents from the bar until she can taste Sloan’s fear on her tongue. Her fists start clenching and unclenching mindlessly as she follows the sour tang to the bar’s alley door; pushing through without hesitation, Vale hones in on the sight of Sloan slipping into the phone booth. A cruel smile pulls at her mouth, wicked and bloodthirsty -- as she makes her way to the booth, she can hear Sloan shakily trying to slip change into the phone, coins hitting the ground as she fails to keep her composure in the face of Evie’s aggression.
Sloan barely has the time to process the door of the booth being yanked open before she’s pinned firmly to the side wall by a strong hand around her neck. She immediately gasps at the disruption, hands flying to try and rip Vale’s hand away; her efforts are useless, made obvious by how Vale smiles mockingly at her, like her efforts at trying to survive are cute. Sloan can feel the panic building by the second, pressure building behind her eyes, pressure building in her throat as she tries not to whine and gasp under the brutal grip.
Her ears are pinned back and her tail is tucked between her legs instinctively, screaming submission, but Vale isn’t here for submission. She’s here for destruction. The urge to rip apart the woman cowering before her is almost blinding in its intensity.
At first, Sloan was a nuisance in the same way a gnat buzzing around her face was a nuisance - manageable; but now that she had attached herself to Avery of all people, she had become an ever-present thorn in Vale’s psyche. Poking, prodding, demanding her attention - it was slowly driving Vale to insanity, making her question her own sense of control - and that was unacceptable. Sloan was a problem that demanded to be dealt with, and if it was up to the ache in her teeth, it would be as violent and bloody a solution as possible. But Vale had decades of experience in ignoring her own needs, so she swallowed the saliva that had pooled in her mouth at the thought of sinking her teeth into Sloan’s neck, and focused her gaze on Sloan’s face.
Vale leaned in closer to Sloan’s face, inches away from their noses brushing.
“You’re starting to become an annoying little mutt, aren’t you? Clinging on to those who are better than you,” Vale spits derisively, watching as Sloan flinches away, smothering the whine crawling up her throat.
“Trying to bring meaning into your own pathetic, waste of a life. As if you’ll ever be more than a mistake,” Vale whispered cruelly. The whine that Sloan had been choking down finally broke free.
Vale cocks her head to the side, staring down at Sloan while her grip around her throat slowly tightens.
"What do you think you could offer Avery?" Vale's grip so tight now that it felt like the walls of Sloan's throat were being crushed under the pressure.
"Mortals are so... fragile." A sudden stinging pain, as one of Vale's claws punctures the side of Sloan's throat, dangerously close to the artery.
As the scent of blood hit the air, Vale's once brown eyes were swallowed by an inky black with a disturbingly bright red pupil. Sloan's panic visibly increased as Vale leaned into her throat, a low growl starting to rumble from her chest.
"Vale."
Seconds before Nora's hand makes contact with her shoulder, she's spun around gripping the vampire wrist in a tight grip, leaving Sloan to slump onto the floor of the phone booth, clutching her throat and gasping for air. A vicious snarl ripping free from Vale's throat was Nora's only response as she shoved past Nora's bulk, back towards the bar's back entrance. Crumpled against the brick wall was Evie wiping blood off her split lip, watching the scene unfold with a baleful eye. Understanding that the injury came from Nora, Vale rolls her eyes at Evie and wordlessly stalks back into the bar.