“No turning back,” Aneela says breathlessly, eyes dark with arousal. She’s already connected the tubing to herself, plugging it into a vein at the nape of her neck; now the other end simply needs to be inserted into Delle Seyah’s artery in return. There’s a machine that will facilitate the blood transfusion, of course, but while it’s sitting on the desk beside their bed it’s by far the least sexy part of the whole set-up. The tubes, and needles, and their own bodies—those are what Delle Seyah is focusing on.
So Delle Seyah smiles and extends her arm. She has never backed down from a challenge: She was born to the Nine, and she is the one who has made them Ten once more, and she will regain the power with which she brought this miracle. “Do it,” she says, and her voice is strong. She can feel every single beat of her heart, and she feels acutely aware of how her blood pulses through her, iron-red, and how it will soon be Green again.
Aneela kisses her first, teeth fastening around her lips and tearing until Delle Seyah tastes her own blood. It’s hot, and familiar, and tastes like meat, and the pain makes Delle Seyah gasp and grab onto Aneela and wish— soon Aneela’s strength will become hers once more, and the same blood will flow through their veins like it did before their untimely separation. “Aneela—” she hisses, pulling back the barest centimeter from their kiss. “I swear, if you hold back any longer—”
It was a dare and she knew it would bring this but when Aneela’s smile turns wicked and her arm stabs down and the needle parts her skin, it’s not on her arm, like she expected, but of her neck, the mirror to Aneela’s own choice, and Delle Seyah swears, because how the fuck is Aneela sure that she connected it to an artery—
Then Aneela’s blood touches her, and it’s all Delle Seyah can do to stay upright on their bed. Distantly, she hears the machine they’re tethered to croon, but more important is the quicksilver rush of something alien and wild forcing its way into her body. It burns her from the inside out, lancing through her circulatory system with a torturous slowness: With each pulse of her heart, she feels the chill extend another few inches.
That is the first reaction.
Her second reaction, as soon as she regains control of her body, is to press herself forward, until she’s on top of Aneela. Aneela’s laughing, lips bloody green, teeth bright white against her dark skin, and Delle Seyah curls her hand into a claw and wraps it around Aneela’s throat. It doesn’t stop her from laughing; it just stops the sound from coming out as Aneela’s eyes fix on hers. The look there isn’t human; it’s too exposed, too full of predatory lust, too single-minded.
But then, neither of them are human anymore.
Delle Seyah’s hand spasms closed as the blood reaches her heart and she almost orgasms from that sensation alone, the hot-cold burst that radiates through her and dances along every cell of her body as she is remade in Green.
Beneath her, Aneela squims and almost screams, the sound fatally curtailed by Delle Seyah’s newly-strengthened hand. The slick wetness of her cunt presses up against Delle Seyah’s leg, and Delle Seyah groans, her free hand tearing down Aneela’s body, sharp fingernails leaving bloody green rents behind. They won’t last; they never do, with the Green’s help. But Aneela writhes and gasps, throat doing its best to stay functional against the force of Delle Seyah’s grip, and Delle Seyah moans at the pleasure of the sensation, of being able to tear her lover apart with desire and have that desire echoed back to her.
So she does it again.
This time, her fingers dig deeper into Aneela’s flesh, tearing muscle and letting her fingernails click against ribs. This time, Aneela’s scream breaks free of her throat in the rawest, most primal sound Delle Seyah can ever remember hearing, and Delle Seyah presses herself down against Aneela’s leg and comes, just like that, rocking on Aneela’s muscles made harder through pain. The Green spreads into her cunt as she comes, and she thinks she feels Aneela’s windpipe crack under her hand as she shakes, pleasure coursing through her.
She falls forward, not caring what it might feel like to Aneela, but her stomach presses into nothing more than healed flesh. The part of her that’s immortal is disappointed. The part of her that remembers humanity and how weak she was a mere minute ago is glad, because she doesn’t want to ride Aneela so hard she breaks for good; it’s only fun if she can get back up again and they can keep tearing each other apart in the name of pleasure forever.
Aneela’s teeth rip into the muscles of her neck, and Delle Seyah screams at the pain of it. Then, in the next moment, she’s screaming from the ecstasy of Green-healing flesh and the cruel twist of Aneela’s fingers on her nipple. “I taught you everything you know,” Aneela hisses into her ear. Her free hand breaks the blood-transfusion machine, and its hum dies in a crash. “You’ll never best me.”
Delle Seyah grabs Aneela’s hip, hard enough she knows it’ll bruise. “We’re at our best together, my love.” She kisses Aneela’s bloody lips, tasting bitter leaves and copper tang.
“Yes.” Aneela calms, for the moment, enough to remove the needles from them both and toss them aside. “And we will be the best queens this system has ever known.”
Their floor will be dangerous, full of blood and broken metal, but that is a problem for another day. Delle Seyah smiles and slips her hand past Aneela’s hip, down to her cunt. “Yes,” she says, as she slips a finger inside Aneela. It doesn’t matter if her fingernails scrape; it will always heal perfect and new. “But let’s set the plotting aside for tonight, my dear, and celebrate. It isn’t every day one becomes immortal again.”
Aneela laughs, and spreads her legs wider. “So very true,” she says, and then she pulls Delle Seyah closer and Delle Seyah stops thinking altogether.