The madness will not end! Will not let me be! Vincent screamed silently to himself as he roared in anguished frustration and rage. His animal cries rang and echoed erriely against the rock walls of the small cavern--magnifing to a certain extent the sounds issuing from his slavering mouth and bared fangs. He tore at the walls, bloodying his hands, fiercly raking his long and deadly claws up and down the hard granite walls that maddenly would not give, way under his assault. Since the walls would not give he began to tear at his offending clothes, that in his unhinged mind impeded his movements and actions. They fell to shreds as he tore and ripped them off his body, raking his own skin and tearing great hunks of fur of in his haste to destroy his madness, his surrounding, and himself to end his torment.
The blood red haze of his mindless madness was upon him full force overpowering and exclipsing all that was kind, gentle, and human within him. He was fully the beast as he had never been before--and he was rapidly reaching the point of no return.
"Vincent!" Catherine screamed from somewhere behind him. Her voice full of anguish and terror--for him--for herself. Then he turned.
She was silent, wide eyed, afraid of him as she had never been before because she sensed he was not there. The Vincent she knew and loved was not there before her only the beast---and it was swooping down upon her with jagged bloody claws and gaping deadly fangs. There was no recognition in those souless, dark blazing eyes--only hatred and the foreshadowing of her own destruction. The hands reached forward--inches from her face--claws stained red with his blood and soon to be her blood as well. She fainted, collasping limply before him onto the dirt floor.
When she fell he stopped dead in his tracks confused. His angry growling ceasing as his mind tried to comphrend what had happened to her. He looked down puzzled at the still body sprawled in front of him. He did not recognize her, nor could he feel their bond or could he acknowledge what theyt meant to each other, his madness did not--could not allow that. He could only sense that she was female--a mate--as other more instinctive, primival reactions to her presence began to overtake him.
Vincent moved nearer, squatting down beside her prone form sprawled limply on the floor of the cave. Cautiously, his clawed hand reached out to touch her. Before he could he heard the sounds of whispered voices and rapid, yet careful footsteps approaching the entrance to the cave. His head snapped up and an angry maddened snarl escaped his lips, while he barred his teeth growling warnings from deep within his throat as the intruders edged towards his lair. His eyes narrowed, becoming slits as he looked to the entrance then down at Catherine. Reacting to the threat of being invaded he quickly swooped her up in his arms and headed for the entrance roaring threateningly.
Father, Mouse and Pascal had not yet gained the entrance to the cave when Vincent burst into view carrying Catherine in his arms. They stopped in their tracks and he stood before them his head thrown back, his hair and eyes wild as he roared his definance, daring them to approach to take her from him--if they could. She was his prize and nothing was going to take her away from him! That much was obvious from his very bearing and stance. There was no compromise possible--no way to reason with this Vincent who was now all beast with no human reason present. The three men backed quickly away fearing for Catherine life and for their own if Vincent decided to attack.
A low moan escaped Catherine's lips as she began to stir in Vincent's arms. The thick lashes fluttered as she sought consciousness. In her mind and heart she tried to respond to his roaring--to the anger she felt as almost tangible waves radiating outward, challenging those she knew who had come to help them both. It was for them that she was fighting to awaken, to save Father, Mouse and Pascal from the consequences of Vincent's madness. She had to reach the true man within the beast that held her or they all were lost.
If Vincent had felt her waking stirrings he paid her no heed. His attention was concentrated solely on the three men. It was not until she suddenly threw both of her arms around his neck and tried to pull his head down to look him eye as well as shout his name did her presence really register on his consciousness.
"Vincent! Stop it! Look at me---please!" Catherine shouted at him with tears in her eyes.
He stopped in mid-roar, puzzled and angried at the interuption. His mouth was curled back in a snarl, his fangs gleaming brightly white in the light of torches. She jerked his face down closer to his and finally he looked down and at her, this mind making him focus on the small figure he clutched tightly in his broad arms.
"Vincent, look at me! It's Catherine! Please Vincent try to remember!" she pleaded with him, the tears falling more rapidly now down her dirt splattered face. Her hands were locked on to his neck, fingers tangling tightly into his red-gold mane. She could feel the muscles of his neck tense up, but he made no move to remove her arms. His mouth was scant inches from hers, and she could feel his hot panting breath against her face. His normal intelligent blue eyes were vacant, but she could sense the struggle behind them- the warring within between the man and the beast that had overtaken him. She had to reach the man--she just had to! What they shared could never be lost, never be broken, their love was for always, for eternity. Only hours before he had spoken out loud the words she knew had long gone unspoken and dwelt only his secret heart. . . "No matter what happens, know that I love you."
It had taken much for him to confess that to her, though it had always been an unspoken truth between them. She had always known how much he loved her, wanted her near, needed her as much as she needed him. But until now he could not say those simple words directly to her and lay his soul and heart bare to her. She had to reach the gentle being that loved her, make him feel their love, make their love the catalyst that restored his sanity.
Her green-grey eyes locked on to his. With every fiber of her being she radiated her trust, her belief in him, in their love while at the same time talking to him in gentle, soothing tones. "Vincent, I love you. Trust in our bond. Feel my love. . . I love you. I love you." She whispered softly, looking up at him, looking for some sign of recognition in his eyes that showed that her words were registering on him.
There were none, and she began to cry again. "Oh, Vincent, No! You can't be gone from me. Vincent I need you! I love you! Please come back to me, my love! She cried, grasping him more tightly as she began to shake from the emotions flooding her being. "You have to come back, my love." she pleaded, drawing his head more downward towards her own.
Was it instinct or need, she did not know, but her lips sought his and found them. He tried to draw back, startled, growling softly, but he couldn't. She held him too firmly in her grasp, deeping the kiss, putting all her love as well as all her passion behind it.
Slowly he began to respond, meeting her passion with his own, and as he did recognition began to take place in the dim recesses of his maddened mind. He began to remember, to feel, to recognize their bond as it existed that had been clouded over by the beast and anger in his mind.
"Catherine. . . ." He murmured. Her name slipping out unconsciously as their kiss deepened and intensified.
All else was forgotten as their bond leaped to life and as it did awareness of who Catherine was and who he was returned to Vincent. As that happened Vincent became happily aware of what he was doing. What they were sharing. At first he had wanted to break away from her--not allow this to happen, but he could not. He wanted--he needed this as much as she did. He grasped her more tightly, molding her body to his as he held her tenderly and carefully gently in his arms.
She knew she had finally reached him--that her love, her Vincent had returned to her. He was himself again, yet changed somehow subtly. The animal was still there. She could sense it, but it was now being held firmly at bay by the man, the fully aware man that was becoming unafraid to show the depths of his real love and his passion for her. Time and space were suspended for them as their hunger and need for one another grew and spiraled upward.
The sound of Father's embarassed cough penetrated their consciousness finally. They broke their kiss, both feeling very self- conscious as they began to become aware of the three men watching them with wide eyed expressions.
Catherine opened her eyes and shyly looked up with embarassment at Vincent, who was now staring out at Father, Mouse and Pascal who had been watching the interplay between two from a slight distance incrediously. In an instant Vincent became fully conscious of where he was, what he had been doing in front of them and how he was still holding and being held by Catherine
"Catherine? Father? " He asked confused and still puzzled by it all.
"It's alright, Vincent, it's over now. You're you again. I think you can put me down now," she suggested smiling up at him.
He nodded dumbly, still somewhat stunned by his public behavior and display, and set her down gently upon her feet. "Are you alright?" He asked her, looking her over worriedly. "I did not hurt you, did I?" His concern rising.
"No. But how do you feel?" She asked cupping her hand under his chin so that he would face her and answer her question.
He tried to turn away from her questioning glance but found he could not. Her eyes held his and he bent to her will. Slowly, hestantly, he answered her. "Like I've awaken from both a nightmare and a wonderful dream. You vanished the nightmare, Catherine, with your love and your touch. You turned it into the most beautiful of dreams. Surely what we just shared had to be a dream for such reality could never have been so sweet."
She shook her head smiling, her eyes bright with love and passion still inflamed fom his touch. "No, my love. It was real--all of it. Your kissing me was not dream."
"Catherine, what can I say."
"You need not say a thing. Your heart reached out to mine, and the feelings you denied broke free. It was what we both wanted--have always wanted."
He nodded slowly, searching her face seeing no deceptions or falsity to her words. "Yes, your words are true. But this bears more discussion--later." He told her agreeding , and then he glanced up and over acknowledging the approaching men. "And WE will discuss this
tonight--Above." He added his blue eyes holding a look she had never seen before nor could not fully read.
Catherine looked surprized then pleased at his request, but quickly nodded agreement to it. "Tonight, I'll be waiting." Then she turned to meet the approaching group who looked happy and relieved to see Vincent restored to them all.
* * *
Catherine's balcony was softly lit by rose scented candles. He came to her wearing a white satin and trailing lace peasant shirt, over black velvet britches and his high leather boots. His hair was freshly washed and carefully combed, cascading across his flowing cape and down his broad back. Vincent smiled happily as he drank in the sight of his love who stood waiting for him before her opened bedroom doors.the soft glow of the many candles luminated and backlit her shapely form and made her hair seem as though she wore a golden halo.
She was dressed in the pale blue nightgown that he loved so well with its lace panels, and thin straps. It clung to her soft curves, both revealing and concealing her beauty from him. Her hair was lightly curled and fluffed. She held two long stemmed glasses in her hand filled with pink champaign. In her eyes he beheld not only love but an earnest invitation to adventures and delights yet unknown to both of them.
"Catherine," he gasped tightly, the sight of her making him almost breathless and causing a trembling within him that he had never acknowledged before. "You are truely an angel standing there. Are you real, and not a dream?"
"This is no dream, my love. Nor are the feeling we are sharing meant to be denied tonight or ever again. This is our someday that we talked about and what was always meant to be from the time you found me." She answered, her eyes filled with the love and the wanting of him in this time and place.
"Yes," He answered simply, crowding volumes of words and feeling into that gently spoken affirmation. He then took the proffered glass of amber-pink liquid from her and sipping it cautiously as he gazed down into her eyes losing himself in their green-grey depths feeling their bond intensify with every passing moment.
"This is our time, this night, and yet I feel no fear between us. Does not the reality of our joining frighten you?" He asked sincerly.
"No, my love because I want it and need it as much as you do. Only then will we be truely together, complete and whole at last. Trust what you feel, let your heart led you tonight." She whispered moving closer to him, touching his chest lightly with her small delicate hand.
"Catherine, I have never. . . ." He started to say. But she hushed him by touching her finger to his lips.
"Shh, my love. I know. Trust me, trust yourself and everything will be wonderful." She smiled, taking the glass from him and putting it down on the glass topped table by the door.
She molded her body to him, twinning her arms around his neck, then reached on tiptoe to lightly kiss him on his mouth. He started to jerk back surprised but then he relaxed and responded to her. His strong arms went around her, carefully at first and then tighter as their passion increased. He felt on fire, all his senses became alive aware, as hers did too as feelings long denied rose to the surface and found their outlet at long last.
Without breaking their embrace he swooped her up in his arms and trumphly carried her into her bedroom to her bed to lay her carefully down upon her creamy colored satin bed sheets. She looked so fragile and delicate upon them he began to be afraid again and hestitated, wondering if he had the right to even think about doing what he was about to do.
Catherine sensed his hestitation but there was no way that she would relinguish her hold on him so she pulled him closer still to her. She was very serious. He was not going to get away now. This moment had waited for too long to be denied. He still held back, hesitant, and unsure of what to do, and afraid of inadvertently hurting her as had with Lisa.
She looked up at him searching his face, seeing his fears clearly etched there in the worried deep blue eyes. She smiled reassurringly, her eyes holding no fear of him, only trust and absolute belief in their bond, in their love, and the rightness of this moment in time. Her love for him gave him encouragement and lessened his fears.
"I'm yours, Vincent. I have always been yours and you mine. That is our truth. We are and have alwys been and always will be--forever, my love--forever. "
"Yes, it is so. I know that now, in ways I never knew it before. We are one heart, one soul. one mind, until the end of time. I am not afraid," he said, his gravelly-velvet voice sending shivers down her spine and make his limbs tremble with the wanting of him.
"Nor I, my love. Kiss me, Vincent. Let yourself go with our love," she begged, urging him on.
He smiled happily and bent his head slowly downward, his unique lips were just a hairsbreath from hers. She could feel his warm heavy breath upon her and the trembling of his own body as he lay suspended above her. He looked at her questioningly from under his tawny lashes. Then he lowered his head further and kissed her in earnest feeling her respond enthusatically to his rising passion.
Her hands began to work at the fastenings of his shirt. Undoing the top buttons she slid her delicate hands underneath the loosened collar, trying to make no sudden moves to frighten him. She then ran her hands lightly across his softly furred chest feeling him shiver with her touch. She explored upward to his muscled neck and then ran her exploring fingers across his muscularback. His eyes were closed and his breathing became more and more rapid and gasping with each stroking and lingering touch.
"Catherine," he panted, fighting for some measure of control, "your touch is like a flame upon my flesh."
"As yours is upon mine, my love." Catherine added, wanting him to realize that the feelings they were sharing were mutal. "I want you, VIncent. I have always wanted you. You are my life and the man I want to spend an eternity of loving with."
He looked at her surprised, but he saw no deception there. "You amaze me still, that you want me, want to make love to this creature that I am."
"I see no creature, no beast as you think you are, only the man that I love, and that man is beautiful both outside and in. I do love you and that is all that matters." Catherine answered, her voice soothing with the love and happiness that she felt at that moment.
"And know too , that I love you, my beloved." Vincent murmured as he bent his head down to kiss her rounded full lips and tightened his embrace as he felt their emotions rise.
Vincent broke their kiss and began to nuzzle her neck with both his lips and tongue, then boldly he excited her by nipping her gently with his canines. She moved her head to allow him greater access to her neck and shoulders as he began to explore downward.
His hands carrassed her carefully, cautiously and then with more and more confidence as he found that she actually welcomed his unpracticed touch upon her bare flesh as he revealed more and more of it to his eyes and wandering hands. He knew then without any doubts that she was his to do with as he wanted. It was clear that she wanted fully to experience all that she had to offer.
He was gentle and sensitive to her every need as she was to his growing urgent ones. There was no haste or rush to their lovemaking. They both wanted to savor every moment shared, and to delight in exploring their new levels of intimacy. When he finally entered her, the sensations he experienced were beyond anything that he could have ever imagined or dreamed. Was this something unique to them due to the resonance within the bond or something new that had never been? Even Catherine was overwhelmed with what and how she felt as she merged with him not only on the physical level but on the spiritual and psychic ones as well. Their mutual climax was a super-nova that left both of them breathless and profoundly trembling within each others arms. They were numb inside and out.
The bond had been shattered. They did not notice this at first because of the afterglow of their love-making. Changing the physical aspects of their relationship had also changed the spirtual aspects too. They could feel each other in close physical proxity but they would not know until later that their bond was gone. Though on a deeper level they were connected more intimatly than they ever had been before. They slept exhausted, but satisfied within the comforting circle of each other arms. As the first rays of dawn began to lighten the skyline beyond the doors of the balcony, Vincent awoke. He sighed resignedly at the quickening light. He was reluncant to leave her, to return below alone to his lonely world beneath the city. But he knew he had to, he could not stay and she would have to get up soon to go off to her work. He glanced at her clock on the bedside table. It was going on five, and she did not need to get up until seven.She looked so angelic, so happy lying there in his arms. His soul had never been so content as in that brief, flashing moment of realizing that it was not a dream and that he was truely lying there beside her. He smiled and gently kissed her forehead before he moved to disengage her body from his. She moaned slightly in her sleep but she did not waken as he rose from the bed and began to quickly dress.
Once dressed, he looked down upon her, wishing still that he did not have to go and how their lives had been forever changed by their joining. They needed to talk further on this--but not now. Glancing around he sought a piece of paper and a pen. He would leave her a note to meet him tonight below. There was much that he needed to do between now and then he decided.
Finishing his message, he folded it and left it where she would find it upon awakening. Then he kissed her again and turning he left quietly through the french doors to make his way quickly home before the sun revealed his presence to her waking world. Soon he was safely back in his world, smiling happily to himself, remembering their night, as he walked down the tunnels to tell Father his news.
Above Catherine awoke with a start hearing someone fumbling with the locks on her front door, and the final click of the tumblers as the door was opened. She grabbed for a weapon as the inner bedroom doors were flung open and three ski-masked men approached her as she sprang up to crouch defensively in her bed. She screamed as she saw one of them raise his arm and aim a nightstick towards her head and then there was darkness.
Vincent never heard her, never felt her distress as he walked along unknowing that his love had been taken on a journey to hell that neither would recover from.
