Swiftcurrent Creek your heart [m]

“”

She sensed the nearness of his Totem; her impatient breaths alerted him to the mental acuity she had cultivated both at his side and upon her own searches. Clarice prodded him gently with an inquiring sound; Lecter's ears fell back against his skull momentarily. Lynx's instructions were not sounds to which words could be put; Sos growled from his pedestal within the shaman's head.

Savagery would beget savagery, and a witch-wolf would only spawn other worshippers, unfit for any task save the total sacrifice of their own desires to the Dark Bear. His hackles did raise at length, now, though it was not through irritation with Clarice, but a brief breath of apprehension.

In time, the moonlight cut through the interlocked verdancy of the branches, and brought a slow burn to her silken pelt. Lecter watched as the eldritch glow painted itself across features of her body he had not before noticed, heightened the curious mad glitter of her eyes.

The muscles in his jaw tightened as Sos lengthened Himself, melding His ethereal form to the willing fibers of his prophet. Lecter hissed a breath of agonized pleasure, jaws parted with the great weight and breadth of his deity. Moments slid by into nothingness, but at last Sos snarled his comfort and will.

The icewater eyes had taken on the darkening hue of his God; the pale madman bristled, tongue lashing across his yellowed ivories. And his glare was savage, feral in its intensity as he scrutinized Clarice, questioning silently her commitment to the whims of Sos.