63No copyright infringement intended. I'm only doing this for my own enjoyment.
It had only been seven days since he'd found her. Seven fucking days. And the change in him had been almost immediate. The constant burn in his throat for blood and destruction, mindlessly sating the beast inside of him, had eased. It didn't fucking consume him completely anymore.
He hadn't thought he could have gone a week without flying somewhere to take a job. But something else was calming the beast. Something with a tight little ass and rosy nipples; the fact that he hadn't fucked her every way he knew how, despite having the opportunity to, spoke volumes. He had never spent so much time with a frail without fucking her. Even the Howlett whore spread her legs for him. Guess you could say he had a way with women.
Of course, they slept together. She wouldn't ever sleep anywhere that wasn't his bed for the rest of their lives if he had anything to do with it. And he could smell how fucking wet she was when she gave him that look; when her pupils dilated and she blushed lightly and actually held his gaze without getting flustered. But they hadn't fucked. They hadn't even gone near any sort of approximation of fucking. Because she didn't want to. Her heart raced and the scent of her fear spiked whenever they got too close. Fuck.
He had to go pick her up in a few minutes. He wasn't even pissed off about it, as he had assumed he'd be. The hour-long drive brought him closer to where she was and he couldn't find it in himself to abhor anything that resulted with her in his arms. Fucking frail. She'd housebroken the Sabretooth. Well… almost.
Lina had just finished her shift and was musing about what she and Victor would get up to today. He always cooked for her - perfectly, she might add. She ate gourmet every night. Apparently providing her with food is what his instincts demanded of him and she wasn't complaining. But after they were both fed, the rest of the night stretched in front of them and, well, that was a mystery. A mystery that made her ache in places she hadn't paid any mind before him.
She sat down on a bench in the small garden outside the doors where she would meet Victor. The trees were beginning to shed their leaves and the air was growing colder. Her mind was conjuring images of sitting with Victor under a blanket in front of the fire with snow falling outside the window… his hands under her shirt, cupping a breast… wait, where had that come from? She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She didn't want him to smell her arousal. It was embarrassing enough with all the other things she had discovered he could smell.
But hell, just his name incited so many different feelings. The most prominent one was comfort. She felt so protected, cared for, secure. It just felt so right when she was with him. Well, he had his rages and he positively terrified her with his casual talk about murder, but it was greatly overshadowed by all the memories she had of him where he was at peace and almost seemed normal.
Normal for someone with fangs and claws and cat-like slits for pupils, anyways. Memories of him reading in his chair by the fire in the sitting room… always foreign literature – often Russian and never in English; of him holding her as she went to sleep; of the way he would help her getting dressed as if she were a child. She sighed. If she didn't know any better, she'd think she had fallen in love with him after only a week.
Victor's Aston Marten pulled up and she hopped up and got in. As soon as she was inside the car, he took a deep breath to scent her. She smelled thoughtful and affectionate. A hint of arousal. That made him grin, absolutely feral and predatory.
He reached over and grabbed one soft hand in his clawed one and kissed the palm before starting the engine and driving away.
He asked how her shift was, how the Salmon was at lunch, and other mindless questions to keep her talking so he could ignore the delicious scent that had made him harden painfully in his pants.
She was having similar frustrations, although she didn't have 150 years of hiding her reactions, and even if she did, she didn't have any way to hide her physical responses. She told him about her day in detail. He knew about all the patients she was treating right now, although to avoid completely violating the doctor-patient confidentiality she used fake names. It would be easy enough for him to learn about them anyways. She had learned that he could do a lot with computers.
And for some reason, that thought didn't terrify her.
Later that night, after dinner – a perfectly cooked pot roast with a salad for her – they sat in the living room, as was fast becoming their custom. He preferred to have her touching him as often as possible, which she was becoming more used to, and their seating position reflected that with her legs on his lap and his hand on her ankle. She had put her book down a few minutes before she spoke.
"So when can I meet the person who knows about mating?"
"You're not."
"What do you mean I'm not? I have questions to ask them."
"You got questions, I'll ask them. I don't want you anywhere near him."
"And how does he know so much about mutants, anyways? Why do you think he would know about mating?"
"He's studied them," and experimented on them, he added silently.
"I see… and what's his name?"
"Stryker. William Stryker."
She looked like she was going to ask more questions which he didn't want to answer, so rather than allow that, he diverted her attention and picked her up. She squeaked in surprise but wound an arm around his neck as he carried her up the stairs to their bedroom and told her to go grab a bag from the closet. She looked at him suspiciously but complied.
His closet really was way too big, like the rest of the house. Not just in its dimensions but everything in it was suited to his height, rather than hers, and reaching things was quite vexing sometimes.
She looked out to where he lying on the bed propped up on the headboard with his hands folded behind his head, seeming to be fully aware of her predicament. His sweater had ridden up a little to show a sliver of a firmly muscled stomach with a mat of dark hair. She had made a point not to stare too long. She was still uncomfortable with him smelling her responses and didn't want to encourage him.
"You know, you could at least try to be helpful."
"But then I wouldn't get to watch your cute little ass wiggling around."
He grinned when she blushed and gave an indignant little huff. She finally got a good grip on it and dragged it down to bring it to him. When she got close enough he grabbed hold of her and brought her down to the bed beside him and opened the bag to pull out a blue box with Tiffany & Co. written on it. He handed it to her, watching her closely.
He had started this habit a few days ago. Every day, when she least expected it, he surprised her with a present. First it was while she was digging through the closet looking for a pair of shoes. Yesterday was while she was in the obnoxiously large bathroom grabbing her hair dryer. When she opened the drawer, there was a beautiful set of hand carved wood hair combs after she had complained to him about her hair bugging her at work. But this was over the top.
She hesitantly took the box, eying him with trepidation. She was wildly uncomfortable with the idea of him spending money on her, despite how obvious it was that he had more than enough. But when she opened the box, all of those thoughts disappeared. Inside was the most beautiful necklace she had ever seen. Nestled on a Tiffany blue pillow was a rose gold key encrusted with diamonds on a chain that looked long enough that she could hide it in her shirt while she was working. She didn't even notice she was crying until she heard his purring.
"It's beautiful," she whispered reverently, her voice almost breaking. "Thank you."
Rather than answering, he gripped her chin and turned her face so he could look into her eyes. Since meeting her, green had fast become his favoured colour. The green of her eyes, to be exact. He took a breath to scent her. He could smell the salt of her tears and her insecurity and hesitation. But he could also smell the sweet smell she gave off when she was giving into her instincts and feeling affectionate.
The smell of her arousal was growing in the air as well, which caused him to growl and bring her lips to his. His growl grew when her lips moved against his enthusiastically and her hands came up to run through his hair to scratch her nails against his neck.
His hands gripped her hips, being mindful about his strength and her delicacy. Wouldn't do him any good to injure her. He dragged her into his lap so she was straddling him and ran his hands under her shirt over her back, tracing the lines of her waist and ribcage. He was awed by how soft, small, and sweet his mate's body was compared to his. He wanted feel her tits, her perfect fucking tits, but was concerned about startling her for fuck's sake.
He was startled out of his deliberation when she ground her hips into his erection and he instinctively purred for her. As expected though, she suddenly realized what she was doing and broke apart and scooted back on his lap. She was breathing heavily and her face was flushed. He continued his purr and moved his hands back to her hips where he knew she was more comfortable with.
When her breathing had calmed she curled back up closer, moving sideways across his lap with her head under his chin the way that was quick becoming her preference.
He ran his hands up over her back, once again startled, but this time by how much he enjoyed touching her without even fucking her. Just comforting her was fucking pleasant. Fuck.
For the past two days he had been driving her fucking crazy. She was desperately trying to be patient because she didn't want to make him angry. Despite how comfortable she had become with him over the past two weeks, when he was angry she still had to fight down her automatic fear response.
And he was still doingsweet things for her; cooking for her every meal, leaving little presents around every day – she was now the proud owner of outrageous amounts of chocolate from places she had never heard of (most of which she had brought to work to share with patients and colleagues), an actual first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice, and more expensive bath products than she knew what to do with, once he learned that she loved to take baths. But his mood was absolutely foul. He was snappish and generally seemed to be constantly annoyed with her and everything she did.
She just didn't understand why wouldn't he just take her to see this Stryker. Although she had learned to stop asking about it a few days ago when he backed her against the kitchen counter and glared at her in a way she knew meant bodily harm was imminent. And if she were anyone else, she wouldn't almost certainly be dead. But instead, he just left and came back half an hour before they needed to leave for her shift without saying a word.
Now she was eying him in a long trench coat with two duffel bags in his hands, his eyes cold and forbidding, as she sat at the dining room table with a cup of tea and copy of Architectural Digest. She was about to go to bed after a 9-day stretch of work with three gloriously free days ahead of her.
"What's going on?"
"I'm going to be gone for a few days. I'll be back before your next shift. Don't leave the house. Don't answer the door. The alarm system goes off, you press the red button and get to the fucking bedroom closet and lock the door and stay there. You hear me?"
She could only nod, stunned by how curt he was acting and the words coming out of his mouth. He was leaving? She suddenly had a cold, hard knot in her stomach that threatened to make her throw up.
She eyed him warily, not trusting her voice and hesitant to ask anything out of fear of him snapping at her. But where was he going? And why did he have two duffel bags? One had to be for clothes, as he had said he'd be gone for a few days, but she wasn't sure what the other one was for.
She knew he could smell her fear and confusion and saw a flicker of something cross his eyes before they steeled and cut her off again. He crouched in front of her and put his hands on either side of her on the chair, trapping her in. Her fear and arousal both instantly spiked, leaving her head spinning.
He took a deep breath through his nose and grinned at her, although it seemed somehow forced to her.
"Gonna go get those answers we both want, frail. Now you stay here like a good little girl. I'll be back soon."
With that he straightened, gave her one last look, and left.
She just sat there looking at the door he had just exited through, her head still spinning with all the emotions she was experiencing. If he had been surly before, that was downright terrifying… and then there were all the new unanswered questions she had - why was he gearing up like he was going to war just to ask this Stryker person some questions? And if he really was that dangerous, why did Victor want to go near him in the first place? What had she gotten herself into?
Predictable. The posturing piece of shit hadn't moved his operations since the last time Creed had been there before he went private. The building was a huge modern work of architectural art in the middle of Washington D.C.
"Defense contractor." He snorted. Fancy term for hired weapon. Whether the weapon itself was walking on two legs and could think for itself before he got his hands on them didn't much matter to Stryker. From the first time Stryker saw him and the runt in Vietnam, Creed saw right through him. Ambitious, filled with hatred, and ruthless. He could readily relate. That's why they worked so well together. Well, until her anyways.
Fuck, he couldn't afford to think like that with this son of a bitch.
"Ah, Victor." He clapped his hands together when he walked in the office without knocking. "I was wondering when you might show up again. What can I do for you?"
Creed took a seat in front of the desk. "Got some questions, need some information."
He was always one to get to the point.
Stryker blinked at him once, closed his laptop, and looked at him directly. "Indeed? What is it you need to know?"
"Mating."
He didn't miss a beat. "Have you found yourself a mate, Victor?"
"That's not any of your fucking business, is it?" Creed snarled in response.
"No, no of course it's not. My apologies. Well, it's quite hard to find a mated feral pair to… research, you understand."
Creed grunted but Stryker continued.
"However it is a fascinating subject. With the few we have seen, we have been able to gather their feral mutations are not always of the same genus or species, however the family is always the same. So of course, they share much of the same genetic make up."
As fascinating as it was, Creed didn't give a shit about the biology behind it.
"How does it form?"
"There's a hormone that we found in mated pairs that's not found in unmated ferals which we suspect have something to do with the bonding but unfortunately… we do not know much more than that."
Creed had to hand it to him. He almost looked genuinely disappointed. But Creed could smell it. The plotting. The excitement. Disgusting. He kept his face blank from years of practice when all he wanted to do was strangle the piece of shit in front of him for even thinking he could experiment with his mate.
"And this hormone… what does it do?"
"It forms an immediate attachment to the mate, triggered by all the senses. More powerful than any drug. And when apart, or when a mate is rejected, it makes them sick and then… well, then they die."
Creed was once again thankful for the years of practice he had keeping his face blank. The sudden urge he had to be back with his mate and protect her from danger almost overwhelmed him. He studied Stryker, who was similarly keeping his face blank of anything except friendly interest.
His eyes narrowed and he allowed annoyance to seep onto his features before he stood up, nodded at the man who was once his colleague, and left.
As he watched Creed, the deadly animal, a weapon he had honed so precisely, leave, he allowed an excitement to overcome him. A mate? So many possibilities… he would need to look into this. Creed was always good at hiding, keeping his den carefully protected, but every den had a hole or two…
Ever since he left, Lina had been feeling awful. It started with the nausea, deep in the pit of her stomach, that ached with an emptiness she had only caught a glimpse of when she was parted from Victor before. It spread further, deeper, and intensified as the hours went by, consuming her. She tried to distract herself. First by reading her own books, but her mind couldn't focus. She tried reading some of his which was only slightly better. Not because she could focus any better on them, but at least his scent still stuck to them.
She wasn't sure how long she had been in bed. The puking ended a few hours ago – she thought it had anyways. She might have passed out longer than she thought. She had nothing left in her stomach, and she could feel a fever burning through her. Her thoughts had a hazy fog to them, and only seemed capable of replaying all her insecurities, all the times he had looked at her with anger or disgust, all the times she had been beaten and hurt for being such a fucking disappointment. She didn't deserve him. How could she have ever thought he could want her? Hadn't she learned by now?
That was all she could remember before it all went dark again.