Eclipse

Syn

R

I do not own these characters.

Summary: What would happen once the earth choked the moon?

Notes: Written for Siorsa.  Sexy little ficlet.  You just had to hit my werewolf kink, didn'tcha? ;)

 

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The moon shone down like a sickly silver eye, its cold light bathing the world in threatening shadows.  Those shadows promised pain, death and things with claws and teeth for anyone who dared trip into them.  But Nymphadora Tonks dared, her fear barely contained behind the determined expression resting uneasily upon her pale, heart-shaped face.  Her body was wracked by the occasional shudder, a cold sweat dripping down the middle of her back and greasing the palms of her hands.

 

Her wand, the end lit and pointed at the nipping darkness, trembled in her sweaty fingers, the light jittering back and forth between the eaves of the trees.  Night sounds erupted around her.  The hoot of owls, the caws of night birds and the eerie, echoing cry of a loon some ways distant.  It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, her figurative hackles rising. 

 

Her quick gray eyes darted through the clawed trees, ears perked for the snuffle and snort of something large and furry digging furrows in the thick carpet of decaying leaves upon the forest floor.  She could feel eyes on her, hungry eyes. A slow howl rose up nearby, drowning out the wail of the loon as it shook the moonlight-dappled trees.

 

The sound made the air creep out of her lungs, her eyes bulging, the instinct to run hitting her like a battering ram.  This was too dangerous.  He had warned her away, just before his mouth had lost the ability for speech.  Why hadn't she listened? Tonks turned in place, facing the direction the lonesome howl had come from.  Just more trees, darkness ebbing like living things through the sighing branches and trunks furry with moss. 

 

High above, the faintest blush of black had spilled onto the moon.  It caught her eye, adrenaline and apprehension slamming into her.  She needed to do this now, before the eclipse was complete.

 

"Come and get me, Remus," she whispered, her voice trembling with each syllable.  She pointed the jittering light from her wand toward the trees and saw two yellow sparks of flame glowing at her from within the shadows.  Another shiver threaded her spine as she kept her light trained on the eyes of the predator slowly creeping through the leaves toward her. 

 

She began to breathe heavily, her body starved for oxygen and longing to panic and hyperventilate.  She forced her breathing to regulate, forced her feet to remain rooted to the spot.  If she ran, he would only leap on her.  She wouldn't give him the opportunity.

 

He had taken the Wolfsbane Potion just before the sun had slid fat and yellow and hazy beneath the horizon, but something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.  Perhaps the potion hadn't been properly brewed, perhaps it was the fact that tonight the moon would be eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth...  It didn't matter.  The transformation had taken the man she loved and twisted him into a beast, a beast whose unfettered rage and strength had snapped the manacles chaining him to the wall. 

 

Tonks shuddered around the memory of those terrible slashing moments, when the heavy clink of thick iron shattering had slammed into her ears.  He had warned her away just before the transformation had taken him.  He had known that this time would be different, that he had no control at all.  But she hadn't listened.  He had snarled and snapped and jumped at her and only a quick spell on her part had saved her throat from being ripped out.  There had been nothing of the man she loved in his feral yellow eyes, nothing but hunger and instinct. 

 

His instinct had brought him here, to the forest outside their shared cottage.  He insisted, always insisted, on being away from as many humans as possible while he transformed.  He had told her the temptation, potion or no, would have been too great for him in a town or city.  Now she was thankful of his precautions; she was the only person in this forest and if she succeeded in capturing him, she'd not have to worry about others getting hurt.

 

She hoped.  It could all go horribly wrong.  Hadn't it so far?

 

Tonks shook off her doubts and fears, moving backward a step, a twig snapping under her boot.  The sound made her insides jangle and her nerve endings jump.  Another slow, deep howl slithered through the trees at her, the lamp-like orbs shining at her narrowing in hunger.  Another step backward; she could feel it approaching, slinking low to the ground.  She could imagine his muscles rippling beneath the coarse brown fur, could imagine the tail tucked low between his strong legs, his long claws digging into the slightly damp earth, sheathing and unsheathing rapidly.  She heard a snuffling snort as he breathed in the smell of her body, ripe with fear. 

 

"Come on, my love," she murmured, finding it hard to find her voice. "Come and get it.  I know you want me.  You can just taste me, can't you?  Well, what are you waiting for?"

 

Another low growl gurgled out of the beast's throat and she stepped backward again, slowly, bringing him where she wanted.  She cast one eye up at the silvery moon and saw with a jolt that the shadows on the moon were halfway across.  The eclipse was nearly complete. Fear hit her again, this time in an unsteady wave that left her heart reeling. 

 

What would happen once the earth choked the moon?  Remus had told her the effects, what to expect from him when the silver was eaten by black.  But that had been before the potion had failed him, before this dark chase.  In the light of her wand, she saw a paw slide into view, nails digging into the soft loam.  The shine on his eyes faded as his muzzle slid into view.  His black lips were curled up over his long, razor-sharp teeth, saliva dripping down and matting in his thick fur.  His ears twitched forward and then back.  His eyes were completely feral, boring into hers with something like lust. 

 

She felt a hot shiver course through her, not fear exactly, but something very like it, something that made her nipples spring to life.  This was not the animal she'd come to know from the many months of watching him transform.  That beast had been dangerous, yes, but there had been a spark of intelligence behind the eyes, the spark of Remus.  Now, Remus was completely gone.  There was only the beast and it wanted her in a familiar way.

 

His lips curled back even further in a parody of a smile.  The hot shiver centered low in her guts, burning acutely behind her navel and spreading delicious little fingers to her womb. 

 

"Wotcher, tall dark and furry," she squeezed out, her courage failing for a moment faced with his hungry leer.  His bared teeth clenched down around another low growl which turned into a snapping bark as he hunkered down as low as he could, leaves trapped in his fur as his belly brushed the loam. He was readying himself, like a great lion ready to bathe himself in zebra flesh.  He coiled up his muscles, his back claws digging in.  Tonks waited, waited for him to spring, and spring he did. 

 

He was up in the air in a flash, his mouth open, jaws snapping at the air.  Tonks thrust herself to the side, rolling in the dirt and fetching up against a tree trunk.  He landed where she had been and turned on her, springing at her again.  Tonks blasted at him with her wand and missed by mere inches as he twisted out of the way, singeing his fur but doing no more damage than that.  She threw another curse and this time it hit him straight in the chest, tumbling him end over end.

 

She climbed to her feet, throwing one terrified glance at the moon; the moon was merely a sliver, the faintest rim of a fingernail in the ever-blackening sky.  It leered down at her like the Cheshire Cat's wicked grin, merciless and terrible.  She looked back down at Remus's beast and saw him shaking his head, shaking off the Stunner like it was nothing.  Her eyes widened. 

 

He got to his four feet, a shudder racing across his bristling fur.  Before he could leap again, Tonks was off, running fast.  She heard him growl in protest and leap after her, his paws thudding heavily as he churned up the leaves and loam.  Fear breathed down her neck, fear and adrenaline. 

 

She knew she couldn't outrun him, even for a few feet.  She knew she had to stop and fight, but the instinct to run had crowded her good senses and she couldn't make her limbs stop and face him again. 

 

When he landed on her back, his weight carried her down to the ground.  She lost her wand in the tumble and cried out as her face collided with the damp ground.  She expected to feel the pain of his claws in her and then the wet snap as he closed his jaws on her neck, but it didn't come.  His weight was crushing, but his claws were sheathed. 

 

Tonks shifted beneath him, turning her head to the side, but all she saw was darkness. She heard a deep rumbling next to her ear and shivered, expecting to feel the sink of his teeth in her neck or shoulder.  Instead, she felt hands on her shoulders.  Before this fact could register in her mind completely, she was suddenly flipped over on her back with a bruising force. 

 

Tonks screamed.  She couldn't help it. 

 

Remus's face was staring at her from the darkness.  But it wasn't Remus, not completely.  His eyes were hard yellow, with black slits for pupils.  His incisors were long and sharp and his nose had the faintest look of snout about it.  His ears were long and sharp, switching back and forth like a cat's to catch the sounds of the night.  He was completely naked, his body covered in a soft wave of dark hair, which did nothing to hide his nakedness.  She saw his hands were clawed, but he wasn't hurting her with them, wasn't even breaking the skin.

 

He had told her to expect this, before he'd drained that smoking goblet of rotten potion.  The eclipse rendered him trapped in a half-transformed state.  So long as the full moon was covered in shadow, he was neither one thing nor the other.  Man and beast.  He had told her that he might even be able to talk to her in that state, with the help of the potion.  But the potion had failed to keep him docile and now, there was no guarantee that Remus was behind those terrible eyes or even if he could speak.

 

"Remus?" she managed, her hands squeezed up into fists.  She felt like sinking into the soil, sinking in just to get away from the look in his feral eyes.  That look in Remus's nearly human face frightened her, frightened her to the core. 

 

Another one of those rumbling growls came up from his throat and he bent down, snuffling at her dark purple hair, his tongue sliding along his sharp teeth.  Her stomach muscles tightened.  Her whole body tensed.  Surely he would bite her now? 

 

"Tonkssss..." he said against her ear as he smelled her.  Goosebumps twisted down her skin and her heart lurched in her tight chest. He could speak... "Tonksss...miiiiiinnnnneee..."

 

His voice petered out into another inhuman growl and she was shaken by the sound, so very close to her ear, so very close to her jugular, where her blood was pumping furiously through her veins.  If he bit her...

 

"Remus, do you...understand me?" she said as she lifted her hands.  Her fists melted into flat palms and touched his furry, sweat-shined shoulders.  He jumped at her touch and grasped one of her hands in his strong grip.  He pulled up and smelled her wrist.  She gasped as his tongue flashed, licking her wrist, right at her pulse point. "Are you...in there?"

 

"Mate!" he barked, an actual bark.  She flinched. "Tonkssss mate!"

 

Her eyes widened. "Maybe in the morning," she found herself saying and her nerves made it seem like the funniest thing she'd ever heard.  She was close to hysterics, but something about the way he was looking at her, with that hungry, familiar lust in his alien eyes made her stifle her laughter.  A blush crept over her skin.  She started to shift out from beneath him, but he pressed one knee between hers, parting her legs with his weight.  Then she felt his tongue between her breasts, licking up toward her neck. "Ohhh..."

 

She moaned before she could stop herself, her hands gripping his furred shoulders, feeling the pull and bunch of his muscles as he covered her body with his own weight, the musky smell of animal in her nostrils.  She twisted her head to the side, perhaps in an attempt to get away from him, perhaps to capture her rapidly scattering wits. 

 

She saw her wand close by, close enough to grab.  The tip was still lit.  Her eyes narrowed and she let one of her hands drop down, stretching out toward it.  Almost...

 

Remus's beastly tongue slashed at her neck, right over her jugular again.  The sensation sent a warm rush through her body, arousing her.  She shuddered against the feeling, trying to will it away.  Remus's face hovered back into view.

 

"Mine," he growled again and then he slammed his sharp mouth down on hers.  She was too stunned to even think for several seconds.  She felt his tongue against her lips, could feel the sharpness of his teeth against her lips.  His kiss was dark, instinctual and forceful.  Tonks cringed away from him, fighting the urge to kiss him back and reached...

 

She grasped her wand and immediately jabbed it into his ribs.  He broke off the kiss and bared his teeth at her.  At the same time, she sensed the lightening of the world around her and knew the eclipse was ending...knew that Remus's conscious mind would be pushed out as soon as it did.  And as soon as the beast was back in full control, Tonks would be dead.  She was a sitting duck beneath him.

 

"STUPEFY!" she cried as he started to transform again.  The spell took him square in the chest and blasted him off of her prone form.  He landed in a tumble of buckling limbs and almost immediately shrugged off the spell, his dear, familiar face twisted back into his beastly shape.  The werewolf climbed to his feet, his eyes on her again and she could see that his recognition of his mate was completely gone.  He was going to have her.  Chew her up and spit her out.  "STUPEFY!"

 

The spell hit him again as she climbed to her feet, knocking him down.  This time she didn't let up.  She hit him with it again and again, knowing he could shrug it off.  Finally, after the seventh volley of red light had slammed into him, he whimpered and didn't get up.

 

"Sorry, Remus," she said, wiping at the wet skin on her neck where he had been licking at her. "You'll thank me in the morning."

 

She conjured large, thick chains and conducted them to wrap around him, locking them tight.  He whimpered again and then growled, struggling, but he was trussed up tightly and could barely move.  His yellow eyes glared at her, slit pupils dilating rapidly.  She saw his lip curl back from his teeth, but he couldn't even open his mouth. 

 

Tonks, shaking, completely unnerved, glanced up at the sky, watching as the moon slowly came out of hiding.  She was almost glad to see it there in the starry sky.  She could handle the beast; she knew what it wanted.  Just to tear and kill.  But when he'd been half-man, half-wolf...

 

She shuddered, still attempting to quiet the reaction of her body to his.  She put her back to a tree and sank down the mossy trunk to a sitting position, facing his bound and trussed form.  His struggles hadn't ceased at all, but she knew he wasn't going anywhere.  Her pulse raced as she sat there, waiting for the moon to shrink to nothing as the sun came back up.  She'd never been so terrified in her life.  And yet...she'd also never felt so alive.

 

A smile came crawling across her face and it looked like that last cold sliver of moon before the darkness had swallowed it.  Across the clearing, the werewolf watched her hungrily, aching for her and the moon in her smile.

 

(end)

 

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