not-close-to-straight:

Vampire Queen (Diana Prince/Valkyrie)

(This is… Halloween-y? Idk I had a thought and I wrote a thing)

The man lay twisted on silent cobblestones, limp against unfeeling rock.

All too loud his cries had risen, ripping through the late night quiet, echoing through empty streets, falling on deaf ears as curtains were drawn and doors were bolted and eyes were turned away.

He should have known better, they will say in the morning when the newspaper boys find him.

He should have known better, they will say when the doctor isn’t called because he already knows what happened and it isn’t worth his time to care.

He should have known better, they will say when he is tossed aside like so much trash, an unmarked grave that is more a gaping hole where one more nameless body is added to the already too high count.

A man should know better than to wander the streets at night, the whores will say with painted lips and rouged cheeks and a smile that speaks of a certain knowing that the men will never have, a type of knowledge that comes from working the street, from knowing who and what lurks in the shadows to pluck a man away, to take his very soul.

“He wasn’t to your liking, my Queen?” She says from the dark, bending to dip her finger in a river of red and drawing it to her mouth to taste, to inhale, to breathe in what had once held so much life.

“He tasted bitter.” Her Queen answers, and she is terrible and ancient, her voice a whisper to the one she loves and a scream to those whose eavesdrop, a beauty too rich for the Underworld and too vibrant for man, speaking in low tones of secrets and millennia and a hunger that is never quelled.

“He was a politician, a crooked judge.” The other counters, each consonant a death sentence as if his choice in career had marked him as deserving for this fate.

“Ah.” The Queen smiles, sharp edges and sharper fangs curling over her lips, a sure sign of death reflected in her silvered eyes. “Then of course he was bitter.”

“We shall find you something sweet?” She offers then, and it is her own body that she gives over, as desperate tonight for her Queens teeth in her neck as she had been that first night and every night after.

“My love, you tempt me.” The Queen answers. “But it is still before dawn and the hunt calls me.”

“You know they call you their Saint.” She murmurs, “The women of the street do. You strike down those that hurt them, that are too rough, that take what they want . They call you a saint, an angel.”

“I am neither.”

“You are so much more.”

When they kiss it is more gentle than anyone would ever know, a touch of lips, a barest breath, a sweet touch as if the other is too fragile, to precious, as if the night wind that winds through their hair could tear them apart, as if too sudden a moment would break their unbeating hearts.

“You don’t regret it?” Her Queen asks, just as she has every other night. “You don’t regret being mine.”

“I could never.” She whispers and this time the kiss is full of teeth and tongue, fangs and growls, greedy breaths and grasping claws and when Her Queen pushes her into the dark, against a wall, she goes willingly, bares her neck willingly, never closes her eyes because she will never tire of the way her Queen gasps with the first taste of blood, of the way the silvered eyes melt scarlet with desire, with the way her Queen tears at her clothes until they are bare beneath the moon and the night bears witness to their passion.

And then, as they lie together and pant into each other’s mouths, as the shadows themselves rearrange to cloak them from sight, as the city lies quiet and waiting, holding its breath until the Queen speaks again—

—it is then and only then, soft and sweet and yearning, “My darling Valkyrie, how did I ever think I lived without you in my arms?”

“Diana, my Queen.” The name is reverent, a whisper, a privilege, a prayer. “Come hunt with me.”

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Another man lies on the docks, pale and still and empty, the fog surrounding him, hiding him until the sun pushes it away and a fisherman spies his form.

Two last night, they say with worried faces. I wonder if she is angry.

Two last night, the doctor says and it’s too early to drink but he drinks anyway. Something must be wrong.

Two last night, they say and no one mourns the politician but the other had done nothing wrong. Why did she take two?

Two last night, the whores say as they leave their corners and head towards home, smiles sharp and brittle and longing because they know what the men will never know.

Two last night, because nothing piques the Queens appetite like moments beneath the moon and the stars with her love, two last night because after crying her pleasure to the abandoned streets she was ravenous, two last night because the Vampire Queen had torn the second ones throat and watched her love, her Valkyrie, drink until she was full and sleepy and had carried her back to their dwelling to watch the sun rise.

Two last night, and no one could be bothered to care.

A man should know better than to wander the streets at night when the Queen is out to roam.