A cold wind passed through the fourth floor bedroom of Dr. and Mrs. Fell. The woman stirred, suddenly chilled. Still half asleep, she turned over to where her companion should have been. She reached out, needing comfort against some unknown dread. Feeling only the cool satin sheets beneath her hand, she murmured a name only one man would ever hear. Now fully awake, she looked about the room for her lover.

"Hannibal?"

A dark form stirred in the corner, but the room was otherwise silent.

"Hannibal? What is it? You okay?"

"Ah. That is a question, now isn't it, Clarice?"

The dark still form continued speaking, in the voice she thought she knew so well. But now, there was something different. Something wrong.

"You know Shakespeare, my dear? The 'Scottish Play?'"

"Hannibal? Ah... you are scaring me a little here..."

"'Full of scorpions is my mind...'"

She heard him move slightly, enough to switch on the small desk light, enough to bathe his face in an eerie glow.

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The cobalt shade turned his face blue in the silver moonlight. She heard, more than saw, him slide open a drawer, remove something, and then he turned away from the desk. All she could see were shades of black and blue as his shadow approached the bed. The white sheers billowed from the window as another gust of wind swept into the room. In the distance, she heard the far off crack of thunder.

"Hannibal?" she asked softly in a whisper that was almost a whimper.

He did not reply, but continued his inexorable advance. She heard his bare feet pad across the hardwood floor, heard the susurration of his silk pajamas as he moved closer and closer. Slowly he came, precisely, with each measured step falling to a peculiarly languorous beat. She could scarcely breathe by the time he finally reached her side of the bed.

And then he struck with a flash in the darkness. A shriek swiftly stifled, and she was in his arms... though she did not feel the warmth that usually came from his embrace. Rather, she felt a cold edge against her throat as he held her. Their bodies were twisted and he was behind her, pinning her arms in his strong hand.

His breath was the only heat in the room as it hissed sibilant against her ear.

"Perhaps a little Dickinson is more your style, Clarice, hmmm?"

The back of the blade pressed harder into her neck. She could not stop the tremors rippling through her body. And then she felt his touch as his hand released her arms and thrust between her thighs.

"For each ecstatic instant, we must an anguish pay..."

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Clarice shuddered and shuddered in his cool, unyielding grip, heart hammering in her ribcage, and she breathed an almost inaudible reply as the hand at her thighs pressed against her.

"...all zero at the bone..."

An appreciative low growl and a reward, of sorts, a single caress of thumb and the whispery sound of a lock of her hair sheared by sharp teeth. A new game, then. Rewards... and punishments.

She'd play.

"In the beginning, there was nothing..."

A quiet, harsh sound, somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. A dip of the thumb into her core, and another lock of hair cleanly severed, closer, this time, to the vulnerable skin of her throat. Waltzing on the edge. A reward, and a punishment. She'd known he would object to her source in this case.

"Better to rule in Hell..." he whispered, taking his turn. He tightened his hold on her wrists, pinioned behind her back, and she felt a small wrench of pressure in her shoulders.

Two locks of hair gone. Electrical scent of approaching thunder in the air. What must she say next? And what stakes were they playing for? It was so hard to tell. Sometimes... he played rough.

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"Take me," she whispered. "Teach me..."

"Mmm... you are just beginning to know me." The velvet of his voice caressed her and he rewarded her with a stroke over her moistness. "I see you love my voice when it causes you fear as well as gentle pleasure."

"I used to question myself, Hannibal, why must I always keep away from the edge?"

She was rewarded with his mouth at her throat. Ripples of pleasure made gooseflesh of her skin as his teeth closed on the flesh just below her ear, and bit down... not gently, but hard enough to cause her to shudder with the memory of his past... as well as the ecstasy of now. "I love the fear, too, Hannibal... please, speak to me more, and cause my adrenaline to rush or I shall go quite mad!"

"If it's a job worth doing, it's worth doing well," the lethal voice under her ear growled.

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The tension in her arms tightened, and she knew he wanted something more. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead and stung her eyes. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, though it was useless anyway in this darkened room. She felt his grip grow stronger and the blade press more insistently at her throat. Just the slightest growl...

She gasped out the first quote that surfaced in the raging waters of her addled mind. "Full fathom five my father lies..."

A full-throated chuckle, and a slick caress. But then, there too was the pricking of fallen hair on her chest.

She let her mind wander in the general direction of Dante. She'd read some, after learning of Lecter's affection for the long-dead Italian poet. But she didn't know if she could come up with a direct quote...

"For Love, when he discovers me near you, takes on a cruel, bold new confidence and puts my frightened senses to the sword."

Where that came from, she'd never know, but it earned her a gut-twisting and sensational foray into sensuality. And no more hair fell.

She was close, so close, but the knife's edge still kissed the hollow of her throat. He wanted something more.

She dropped her head back, and, through her gasps, shot her last arrow. "We can only learn so much and live."

And, as she climaxed, she was very certain that it was time to stop learning and start living. At least until his next game.