"Aww, did the little kitty get scared? Did you think the big, bad, Praetor was going to swallow you whole? Mmmmh, you're a lot cuter than I thought you were..."

Bella's face splits into the kind of twisted grin that suggests she'd like nothing better. Her grip on her wine glass is tighter than it needs to be, but she swirls it with a careless ease and watches the liquid swirl around with a look in her eye that feels more nostalgic than hostile. She takes a long sip, not bothering to savor it at all but simply letting it rush across her tongue and down her throat.

It's easy to see why: for all of the fancy wines she's been gifted and the vintages she's acquired on her travels thus far, the one she's chosen for this little liaison is the servitor wine that's come all the way with her from home. The watery, warm, slightly oily, quite weak drink that Empress Nero created to lift up the underclass. She hadn't found it anywhere else. Nobody seemed to drink it beyond the walls of Tellus. 

Vasilia, this wine has no power to impress or intimidate. Whether it's the worst thing you've ever drank is something you would have to answer, but watching Bella and the way that she handles her glass it's very different than when she was sampling the wines in front of Birmingham, and worlds apart from her reaction to the floral wine she declared her favorite. You may not have an Auspex to read muscle movements and heart rates to divine intentions that were meant to stay hidden, but you're at least astute enough to say this: Bella, the Praetor, the most arrogant and selfish creature in the universe, is drinking the exact same swill she served you. 

And then a moment later her glass shatters on the floor. 

In an instant, she is the monster she was in the Eater of Worlds again. Her golden eye looks even wilder and more feral when set against the completely dispassionate bloody socket that's taken over half her face, but her snarl is every bit the same uncouth and savage bit of nastiness as it always was. Her ears bend to the point of pain in every direction, searching for something she must think only she is trained enough to hear. Every muscle in her body is suddenly tense. Her claws strain and flex against the air as the twitching of her arms sets her shoulder chains to clinking and the bells about her waist to chiming. The fur all across her body is rising to its tips, and her tail goes stiff as a rod. The low growl pouring from her throat would never in ten thousand years be mistaken for a purr. 

She pounces with the speed of a divine weapon, such that the sound of her furious howl is still coming through the air when she connects. Two cats collide on top of a bed, and go skidding from one end of the neatly fitted sheets to the other. Vasilia, the first thing you are aware of is the sensation of wine splashing against your face as your cup is knocked away from you. It covers your clothes, and in a stroke of truly bad luck some of it manages to get [i]under[/i] them. It is wet and miserable, but what comes next is worse.

Bella is on top of you. Her wild, ragged breaths are steaming up your face as you feel her thighs squeeze your ribcage with enough force to push the air from your body. She's nose to nose with you, only barely not drooling, one hand seized around your hair and the other crushing one of your arms. She squeezes until you can't help but make a noise. This is it. She's going to kill you, and you'll never know what set her off. 

She shifts very suddenly. Her head dips lower and closer, burying your face in her hair. You can feel her breath tickling your neck, hot and unsteady and pounding. But you can hear her take several long sniffs with her nose pressed right against your skin, and then... 

You think she might have pulled away. She's not going to do it after all, whatever it is. And then you feel her mouth against your neck. Her kiss is a savage thing, greedy and messy and wetter than a sauna. She kisses your neck again, and again, and again, sucking and claiming the space up to your chin, and then down again to your collarbone. Her teeth are not gentle, but where they prick you the pain fades to tingles almost instantly. But the marks are going to be visible from space. 

Her face rises again, and she lifts her hand out of your hair to wipe her mouth off with the back of her hand. She pushes her palm back down across your mouth and hisses.

"Don't. Say. A [i]fucking.[/i] Thing. Don't even fucking move until I tell you to. Understand?"

She doesn't wait for a response. With a final snort, she pushes herself back off the bed and turns her back to you. She stalks toward the door on silent feet against the plush floor, and tears her door open with a fury that would make Ares blush. It is not difficult to imagine the look on her face right now.

"...WHAT?!" she screams.