Disclaimer: All concepts and characters belong to L.J. Smith and her publishers and are used here without permission for non-profit entertainment. Barred from that statement is the character Maegan Misheirn.

Rating: NC-17 for sex, homosexuality, incest, language, and adult content

Spoilers: None

Note: This story takes place in the middle of "Unbegotten," which is also available on my web page. It begins when Ash and Rowan pick Maegan up at a bar, and follows them back to the apartment.

Having It Once

There is good reason, I guess,

having it once gone too far

Someone tell my why

I do the things that I don’t want to do

When you’re around me

I’m somebody else

-Guided by Voices

It was funny how people ended up in bed together.

Rowan Redfern hadn’t tasted a human’s lips in months, and it must have been almost a year since she had pressed her mouth to a woman. But Maegan Misheirn made it easy to lose track of what was happening. The tally – sex with one human male, sex with two lamia, sex with one panther ‘shifter, uncountable feedings on humans, four feedings where things had gone too far – had been at the front of her mind when they left the night club and climbed into the backseat of Ash’s car, but now it was being washed away by kisses that felt like warm water rushing over her.

She was vaguely aware that Ash was watching them in the rearview mirror, and the fact registered as inconsequential. She felt – absurdly – some strange adoration for this human girl she had only just met, and believed that Ash must be feeling it as strongly as she did.

The car slowed and came to a halt in front of a stack of darkened apartment. Rowan pulled away and Maegan smiled doefully at her as they climbed out. They held hands as Rowan led her up the stairs and into Ash’s apartment. Her brother locked the door behind them and they headed for the living room.

Maegan glanced around with mild interest as Rowan flipped on the television and turned to Fish TV. She had been pleased to discover that Ash received the station; it filled the room with cool blue light and the soft strains of Debussey.

She turned and found Maegan glancing at Ash with uncertainty. He had been a little dashing at the night club, but now the strain of having Heather nearby and the weight of memories in the apartment was showing in his face. The situation was beginning to feel a little like a Kubric film.

Drinks, Ash, Rowan suggested mentally. Give us a couple of minutes.

As if on cue, Ash said, "I’ll go get something to drink. Make yourselves comfortable."

When he disappeared into the kitchen, Rowan smiled and drew Maegan’s attention back to her. They hadn’t spoken a word since they left the club, but standing in the middle of the living room, still holding her soft hand and feeling the pulse beating within it, Rowan had the urge to say something gentle.

"I’m glad you agreed to come back with us," she said.

Maegan nodded. The blond curls around her face bounced, emitting faint wiffs of peppermint shampoo.

"I’m glad you and Ash decided to come by tonight."

What else was there to say? Rowan didn’t have the right words to tell Maegan the exhileration running through her at the knowledge that there was a human standing next to her, tilting her face up when Rowan moved to kiss her.

They melted, quickly refinding that place they had reached in the car. Rowan wondered what would happen if her father could see her, cherishing vermin and taking such exquisite pleasure in it.

Ash returned, set three glasses on the coffee table, and seated himself on the couch. Blurry minutes passed before Maegan's velvet dress landed on the floor, revealing a small, darling body made of distinct lines.

Finally Rowan’s fingers touch the base of Maegan's scull, and felt a subtle flow of power emanate from them. Maegan sighed and her head rolled onto Rowan's shoulder with such trust that it made Rowan’s heart beat fast. She reached a hand out to pull Ash up from the couch.

"You got her?" he whispered, seeing Maegan begin to go slack.

Rowan mumbled something vaguely affirmative. Her lips were caught up in tenderizing the skin of Maegan's neck. Ash wrapped his arms around them both, drawing them closer so that he could press a stumbling kiss to Rowan's cheek and then bite quick and mercifully into Maegan's shoulder.

She knew he was exhausted, starved, and she had fed that morning, so she merely cut a small slit along the girl’s neck with one incisor. The blood was divine, sweet and touched with ginger. Rowan watched her brother sucking frantically at the would he had made in Maegan’s shoulder. She saw his full lips wrapped over the skin and the tears he couldn’t stop forming in his eyes.

They clung together in the blue-lit room. Maegan’s pulse began to slow and Rowan touched Ash’s shoulder. She didn’t want to deny him, but she couldn’t let him go too far. He swallowed once more and then turned his face away, stanching the flow of blood with his cheek. His eyes were drawn tight with pain; he had been through so much the past few days, the past months. His tears weren’t of a moment but a lifetime, and Rowan leaned even closer to kiss them away. Their mouths met, still painted with blood and hot with sucking. One or both of them let go of Maegan; she dropped with a painful thud to the ground and Rowan stepped lightly over her.

Ash wrapped his arms around his sister and kissed her long and hard, caught up. Rowan responded in like, knowing just what he wanted, surprised to find herself wanting him so much. It wasn’t just that she’d had only a taste of the blood, it was Ash she wanted, Ash she wanted to fulfil. She wanted to give him some of the happiness she had found in humanity, when his experiences with it had been so draining lately.

He pulled back and let his forehead fall against Rowan's neck. Her fingers clung to his hair, dug into the tender skin behind his ears as they stood together and caught their breaths.

"Rowan?" Maegan asked weakly, looking up at them from the floor.

Rowan lifted her easily and licked the blood quickly from her own lips. She raised her eyebrows at Ash and he shook his head. In her mind flashed an image of Maegan curled up on Ash’s bed, his body moving above her, his hands on Rowan’s shoulders as they three of them rocked in tandem.

"I can't."

Nina, of course. His loyalty to her made his refusal to join them somehow sweet.

"Do you mind if I....?"

She gestured toward the bedroom, and he smiled dizzily. "Help yourself."

Rowan carried Maegan’s small body down the hall and laid her out on the bed. She could smell Ash in the sheets, and the scent of Nina’s oatmeal soap. That girl was ingrained here in her brother’s bed.

Maegan stared at the ceiling, dazed, as Rowan pushed aside the blankets and then fixed a pillow under her head. "Are you okay?" she asked.

The girl’s forehead was wet. "What happened?"

"Ash said we could crash in his room," Rowan told her, easily avoiding a straight answer. "If you want to crash."

Maegan rolled her head to look at her. "I think I’ve already crashed once tonight. I feel so strange."

Rowan put her hand above Maegan’s bare stomach and ran a finger lightly over the skin. "You had a lot to drink at the club."

"Not so much." When Rowan didn’t respond, only kept drawing circles on her stomach, she asked, "Is something wrong?"

Rowan tried to look innocent. "I don’t think so."

"I mean," Maegan touched the hand on her belly, "nothing bad happened?"

"Are you feeling okay?" With no small measure of regret, she added, "I mean, I can take you home if you want."

Oh, Isis, if Maegan said yes....Rowan knew that she would still end up in this bed tonight, and she wouldn’t be sleeping along.

"No, I feel okay. Just....I don’t know, nervous or something."

The skin on her abdomen felt like stretched silk. "Why would you be nervous?" Rowan asked, with just a hint of flirt.

Maegan smiled slowly. "I like you," she admitted. "I’ve never gone home with someone the night I met them."

Was it a warning or a challenge? "I feel special," Rowan told her with a light grin.

Maegan’s smile widened, and she reached up to cup the back of Rowan’s neck and pull her head down. "You should," she agreed as they kissed.

It was dangerous, Rowan thought without warning, to be doing this. She was with a human, for only the second time in her life, and she wasn’t doing it to feed, and she wasn’t doing it to play. Her ministrations were deadly serious.

My parents would kill me. Demeter on a dune, Kestrel would probably kill me.

Rowan lifted her head. Maegan was still smiling beautifully, blond curls crushed beneath her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Maegan played with the tag sewn into the neck of Rowan’s shirt. "Is this your first time with another woman?"

That Rowan had not expected. "Not exactly."

"What does ‘exactly’ mean?"

She shifted uncertainly. "Why are you asking?"

"I don’t know. Just a feeling I got."

She couldn’t very well tell Maegan about the times she’d fed off women and things had started to get out of control. "I’ve..." Dammit, how to explain this? "Ash and I..."

"You guys have done threesomes before, but it’s been mostly turn-taking with him?"

Jesus, of course. Maegan still didn’t know that Ash was her brother.

"Yeah, exactly."

Maegan nodded. "I guess I brought it up because, if...if it ends up not being what you thought and you want to stop, it’s okay. You just have to tell me and I’ll understand."

Rowan pressed her forehead against the other girl’s. Her smile was half relief.

"You two have been together for a long time, huh?"

She nodded unconsciously. "Forever."

"He’s not going to kick my ass in the morning, is he?"

"Nope."

"Great. That said, you want to kiss me again?"

*~*~*~*

Rowan blinked and inhaled sharply. "Sorry," Maegan whispered, settling herself in the sheets. "Sorry."

She’d been awakened by some motion. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just had a really weird dream."

Uh-oh. Rowan knew the kinds of dreams humans could have when they slept in a vampire’s bed, in a vampire’s arms.

"Nightmare?"

"No, just...intense. You were there."

"Really?"

She rolled onto her side so that they were facing each other in the dim room.

"I think so. So was Ash, but you were both younger." She blushed suddenly, as if only realizing herself what had been happening. "Oh, god."

"We weren’t..." Rowan forced what she thought sounded like a skeptical chuckle.

"You were," Maegan told her straightforwardly.

Rowan had to force herself not to admit the panic she was feeling. That hadn’t been a dream, but a memory that had somehow slipped loose and flowed between them in sleep.

"Very strange," she murmured. She caught Maegan’s eye and held it while she reached out and lowered the sheet until the girl’s body was exposed almost to the hip. The fabric rustled as it slid down and Maegan inhaled slowly.

It was a distraction to both of them. Maegan put her hand over Rowan’s and said, "You’re very beautiful."

Rowan felt a rush go through her and closed her eyes.

"You’ve probably heard that before," Maegan added.

"Once or twice," Rowan admitted. "But never when it mattered."

"Ash never tells you you’re beautiful?"

Damned dream. Her eyes snapped open, but Maegan was looked back at her with an unconcerned serenity. "Not for a long time."

Maegan shifted so that she could catch the sheet between her fingers and drag it off Rowan’s shoulder. Night air licked at her skin. "You two aren’t exclusive?"

"Not by a long shot. Sometimes I think..." Somehow the words she spoke were honest. "Sometimes I think I’m just his safety net, the one he runs to when everything else is falling apart."

"He seemed distracted tonight."

"Yes."

Maegan laid her palm flat on Rowan’s collarbone and ran it slowly down the front of her body. She had to rotate her arm when her hand strayed lower, to places the sheet still covered.

Rowan felt herself begin to respond, begin aching. Her breath quickened and her hips rocked, faster, more deliberately as Maegan’s fingers pressed inside her. She clenched the pillow under her head.

Human, her mind reminded her. A tremor ran through her, part pleasure and part sudden fear.

A human is reducing you to moans and shudders.

A human has your belly.

Just as she was about to cry out, a wave of panic crashed so hard in her mind that she gasped and scrambled away. She accidentally kicked Maegan as she rolled across the mattress, heart pounding in her throat and making it hard to breathe.

She landed on the floor on both knees. The room was very quiet except for her hard breathing. Each exhalation was tinged with a sob, but she didn’t realize she was crying until Maegan murmured, "Are you okay?"

She was laying on her stomach on the bed, head and shoulders hanging off the edge. Her touch was hesitant as she put a hand on Rowan’s arm.

"What’s wrong?" she whispered.

"I’m sorry," Rowan told her, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...I’m sorry."

"No, you don’t—Rowan, you’re shaking really bad. Come here."

She allowed Maegan to help her back on the mattress. Wrapped in a light blanket from the floor, she gave in to laying with her head against Maegan’s chest on the bed. "I’m sorry," she said again.

"You don’t need to be sorry," Maegan told her. "I pushed too fast, I apologize."

Rowan didn’t want an apology. What she wanted to hear, strangely, was that Maegan would be there in the morning when she woke up, willing to kiss her for a long time before she left, and happy to come back tomorrow night.

But what if none of those things happened?

"I still think you’re beautiful," Maegan whispered, as Rowan drifted off to sleep.

*~*~*~*

She and Ash had been deer hunting the night it went too far. She had been twelve, he was thirteen, and she was growing and awkward and kept tripping on the stairs. Somehow Ash had managed to skip that stage, he went from being a lovely and agile pre-pubescent to a cat-smooth teenager almost overnight. Suddenly he was so much taller than her, and her height only stole her coordination and stretched her guts so that the hunger hurt more.

It hurt that night, fierce in her belly this time. She licked her dry lips as she tied her hair up with a rubber band and then contemplated the bra laying on her bed. Her mother had finally insisted that she buy one, saying that no girl with B-cup breasts should be running without one, but the garment made her nervous. It was enough that her body was changing without her permission; now she needed plowing equipment just to keep it functioning.

She put the bra on, settled herself into it, and did a few stretches. The straps dug into her arms when she stood up straight and the underwires popped away from her skin when she leaned down. All things considered, it was a thoroughly unpleasant thing to wear.

There was a knock on the door and she grabbed her shirt off the bed. The door was already opening it and she didn’t have any time to put the shirt on, but she did manage to cover herself with it.

"Hey," Ash started, and stopped abruptly. His eyes touched her for a only a second before he looked past her. "Ah, sorry."

"It’s okay," she told him, fighting to act like it was no big idea. "I’ll be ready in a minute."

"I’ll wait outside."

It wasn’t until he had left that she realized he had been staring into the mirror behind her, which must have given him a clear view of her bare back and shoulders.

She put on her shirt, a dark turtleneck that had fit fine a month ago but was now stretched tight around her torso, and went downstairs. "Are you two just heading out?" her mother asked, tugging on Rowan’s shirt as if she might be able to stretch it. "The sun will be up in a few hours."

"We’ll be quick," Rowan promised, and skampered out the front door.

Ash avoided looking at her as they headed out. She tried not to be hurt, but she couldn’t help the shame that ran through her. For a moment she contemplated just telling him she didn’t want to go, but he had promised her blood and the ache in her belly had increased three-fold since the sun went down.

The lands around their home were dense with forest. Living things hummed or moved all around them, mostly from deep in the ground where they would hibernate for a few more weeks. Spring still felt a long way off as the frost-crusted earth crunched beneath Rowan’s feet.

Ash walked a few feet ahead of her. He foot never landed on a twig or a hollow log, he never walked into the low-hanging branches of trees so gray they were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the forest.

When they had walked about three miles, he said, "Did you feed before we left the house?"

"No," she replied.

"You smell like blood," he told her.

"I don’t know why, I’m parched."

But she could smell it, too, as if it was wafting up from the ground her bare feet broke with each step. "Maybe I stepped in something dead and didn’t notice," she suggested.

He glanced at her oddly, and then suddenly he was in front of her. "Rowan, you’re bleeding."

"What? Oh, Isis."

The crotch of her jeans was soaked with blood. She knew in a second what was happening, what should have been obvious hours ago. The throbbing in her gut wasn’t hunger but muscles cramping.

But Ash had no idea what was going on, in fact he thought she was dying. "What happened?" he asked. She squealed, startled by the chill on his fingers, as he slipped them into the waistband of her jeans, then her underwear, and then jerked so that the seams tore straight down.

"No, Ash-"

"There’s no wound, you must have eaten something. Demeter on a dune, you’re bleeding from inside."

She winced, pushing his hands away. She tried to step back but her legs fumbled and she fell back on her bare ass. A branch scratched her inner thigh.

"It’s okay," she told him. He was staring at his hands now, at the slick blood that glazed them. "I’m sorry," she said, "I’m fine. It’s nothing."

Slowly, understanding came to him. "You’re-"

"I’m fine," she told him forcefully. She just wanted him to quit looking, to pretend that he hadn’t seen this the way he pretended she hadn’t been near naked a hour earlier. She should have realized earlier, so much earlier, and avoided this whole gross mess. "I’m fine," she repeated, as he got to his knees in front of her and tried to smooth her pants back together. All he succeeded in doing was smearing blood across her clothes. A smudge appeared on her stomach where her shirt had ridden up, and without thinking, Ash darted down to lick it away.

Rowan gasped out loud as his tongue grazed her belly and he froze. "Jesus," he whispered. "You taste like..."

She didn’t want to know what he was thinking. She kicked him and threw herself back in the underbrush. Bark scraped the skin off one arm and she felt another trickle of blood escape from under her flesh.

"Rowan, stop it," Ash said, grabbing her leg and pulling her out. More bits of wood bit into her back and split the skin there, and more blood began to drip. "It’s all right, I understand."

He understood? Understood how awkward and gangly and unbeautiful she felt? How could he understand when he had never been anything but gorgeous and certain of himself.

"You don’t understand," she shouted at him, suddenly furious. "I’m bleeding all over, Ash, I’m laying in the woods on my back bleeding like...like..." A moan escaped her and she lost momentum. "Like prey," she finished.

Ash quit trying to drag her out and instead slithered up beside her, under the low branches of a pine tree. "You’re not prey," he told her.

"You don’t know," she replied.

From not more than a quarter mile away, a wolf howled. Ash swore. "It’s the blood," he whispered. "It can smell the blood."

The same way we can, she added in her mind. "The wolf sees me as prey," she told him.

He was breathing hard, laying beside her. "For chirst sakes, we can take him."

"Not if he’s in a pack." She knew that blood was pooling beneath her, and that once a wolf tasted it, he wouldn’t give up.

"If you climb up a tree, I might be able to run and get Dad and Mom. They could take a pack."

Rowan could just see herself, up the tree, blood running down her legs and dripping off the cuff of her jeans, then splattering on the snout of a dozen wolves crouched below her.

She looked at Ash, who had his eyes pinched shut as if in pain. "What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head, rustling branches above them. "I’m very thirsty," he told her. "And I shouldn’t have..."

"Tasted me," Rowan finished, her anger draining away. Ash’s hand had crept up onto her arm and she became very aware of the fact that her pants were torn down each side almost to the knees. She was hiding under the branches of a tree, bleeding and waiting for a pack of wolves of come eat her, but when she shifted slightly, opening her legs, Ash’s hand clenched around her arm.

"I better get out of here," he whispered. He didn’t move.

The wolf howled again, but he had been going in the other direction and was at least a mile away by now.

"Don’t go," Rowan said.

"No, I should really...before I get to thirsty..."

But she ran her fingers along the edge her legs until the tips were stained with blood, and she lifted them to his lips.

"Rowan...don’t...I’m going to..."

Then he did, and she smiled even though it hurt like hellfire.

*~*~*~*

She woke up tangled in the sheet, struggling against it. "It’s okay," Maegan was saying again. "Take it easy, it’s okay."

She landed on her back, her head tilted too far for comfort, staring at the ceiling. She labored to breathe while Maegan straightened the sheet and spread it over her.

"Better?"

Rowan nodded. Her chest began to rise and fall less rapidly. Maegan eased down beside her, their bodies close but not touching.

"I bet," Rowan whispered, "you didn’t realize I was this fucked up when we met at the club, huh?"

Maegan laughed, but kindly. "I don’t think you’re fucked up."

"I had that dream."

"Which dream?"

"The one you had."

She tilted her head, propping it up on her elbow. "You had my dream? About you and Ash in the woods?"

"Yeah."

Maegan didn’t assume she was joking, or ask how it was possible that they had shared the same dream. "What does it mean?" she asked instead.

Rowan looked at her. Her gray eyes were almost black in the dark bedroom, and her thick blond ringlets had been split until they hung in curly tufts over her shoulders. "It means I’m very vulnerable right now."

Maegan pushed a strand of dark hair behind Rowan’s ear. "I remember that feeling."

"Things went too far that night," Rowan admitted, and Maegan’s hand paused. "We...right there on the ground."

She didn’t look at Maegan until the human said, "You were very young."

"I know."

"But he made you feel beautiful, didn’t he?"

"Yes. I thought I was ready for it but I wasn’t. Any of it."

Maegan’s fingers ran through Rowan’s hair until they reached the end and then retreated back under the sheet. She folded her arm against the mattress and laid her head against it. "I’ll need to leave pretty early in the morning."

Rowan closed her eyes against tears. "Shit," she whispered.

"Unless you want me to sleep on the floor. Then I could probably stay until noon."

She opened her eyes again. Maegan was smiling a little. "We probably did this too fast," she added.

"Probably," Rowan agreed.

Without protest, Maegan slid out of bed. She found a comforter hidden in the closet and folded it double on the floor. Rowan handed her a pillow from the bed and then stretched out at the edge of the mattress, looking down. Maegan laid on her back, looking up.

"Not so far away," Maegan told her.

Rowan nodded. Her arm snaked out from under the sheet and hung off the edge. Maegan reached up and held onto her head. She could feel the blood rushing rhythmically beneath Meagan’s skin again, not so far away.

July 5, 2000

Jory San-Corinth