texaswildfire

"Yes," I answer him out loud. "She's been found. I wanted so badly to kill her. I would have, too but something kept me from it."
"Me," Fox says. "I kept you from it. It's the only thing I could do from here is pour some of my control into you. I know you probably hurt her but I don't blame you, Sabrina. I am just glad you're back home. Safe. A little bloody and gross but, safe. Now, come on. I have everything ready for you. A bath, some comfortable clothes. Oh...feel this..."
He places my hand over his heart. Like mine, the pace of its running has calmed. Being connected, not married or another title, has joined us this way. When my heart pumps, so does his. We can feel each other from miles away.
"It's finally steady because you're here," he smiles. "My heart missed yours so much it had to go in search for it."
"Now that it's found mine, what will it do?"
"Never let your heart go that far away from mine again. I hated this, every single moment of having to be away from you. I'll never willingly do it again," Fox professes.
He slides his fingers between mine as it drops down to our sides. I walk with him up to the room we spent our last night in and just let him take care of me. Fox scrubs the pavement, blood, flesh and worry off my skin and hair. He holds me so close to him while we sleep, our breath and heartbeats staying in sync.
The wonder and beauty of being close to him doesn't cease the next morning. Fox refuses to let me out of his sight. Even when Hunter calls me into his study to speak of the previous night's events, Fox makes it known that anywhere I go, he goes. Hunter doesn't make him leave. He only advises him that the things we will discuss may be things he doesn't want to hear.
That doesn't stop Fox from taking a seat next to me.
"Fine, have it your way," Hunter tells him as he takes a seat across his desk from us. "I should tell you how amazingly stupid you were when it came to Ramona. She could have really hurt you. She could have had 10 other vampires around to help her hurt you. However, after I spoke with Jacen, Ivan and Gerard, I have to commend you.
"Your actions lead to her capture, something it would have taken months to do otherwise. It was foolish, yet very brave."
"It wasn't brave," I correct him. "Something inside me just snapped. I saw her face and, before I knew it, I slammed her down onto the street. I never felt the cuts from the broken windshield or even smashing through it. What happened to me?"
"I misjudged your connection to Fox is what happened," Hunter says, leaning back in his chair. "What happens with mates, at times, is their hearts, bodies and minds sync together. You become half of the other, not a whole oneself. When you feel a presence that is potentially harmful or hurtful to your mate, it intensifies everything inside you. That's why you flew at her, why you ripped a patch of skin off her chest and you would have ripped her heart out if given half the chance."
"You ripped through her chest," Fox asks, a tinge of shock in his question.
"Just a little," I try to downplay it. "I think. It was a little, right?"
"No," Hunter sighs. "Not just a little. You went through skin and muscle. If it weren't for the boys, she might have been injured enough that she wouldn't have been able to go on trial. You could have killed her."
"But I didn't," I counter.
"She didn't," Fox agrees. "You can't punish her for what happened."
"I don't plan to," Hunter tells us. "I just want you to understand how dangerous this could have been for you, for the others that were with you. You are going to have to get her to talk. Morgana told you the truth and it got her killed. With Ramona here, she has no one to protect her and she knows she'll never be free again. She stands to lose nothing by keeping quiet."
"What do you want her to do? She's done enough by getting her here in one piece. Well, missing a few but still functioning," Fox says. "I'll talk to her."
"Not without me there," I interject. "She's afraid of me and she knows that we're together. I know she wouldn't do anything to hurt you or even try but, maybe if she knows I'm there, she'll actually talk and tell the truth."
"I don't mind if you go with him. In fact, that might be a good idea. He could use the support," Hunter says. "Just be careful. Please. Think before you act this time, Sabrina. The same goes for you, Fox. Try to restrain yourself. No one is going to be interviewing her today, though. Both of you need to adjust to the other once more. I will see you tonight at dinner."
He lets us just walk out of the study without any other instruction. We waste no time in heading out to one of the gardens. The sun is shining and there is only a thin layer of snow on the ground. It's perfect.
Fox brushes snowflakes off a bench, tugs off his jacket and spreads it over the surface. He sits down and slides his hands over the hem of my shirt. A smirk slowly draws itself on his face as his fingers trace their way along the hem and then down the track of the open zipper of my jacket.
"I love you, you know," he muses, looking up to me.
"I know. And you have to know I love you just the same," I say, finally sitting down next to him.
"Of course I know that, Sab. And, I also know that you slept with Jacen," he blurts out. "It's not like I care that you did. Well, I care but not enough to make a huge deal of it. He will sleep with just about anyone and manipulate his way into a girl's pants."
"Yeah, thanks. That makes me feel better."
"You know what I mean," Fox laughs softly, leaning over to kiss the top of my head. "I'm not mad at you. I didn't sleep with anyone in the time you were gone. I never had the time and, if I did, it would have been spent sleeping instead."
"How'd you even know," I ask, pulling away from him a little.
"I knew I was assuming the risk of you sleeping with him when you left," he says. "He's not a bad looking guy and, I knew that you'd get lonely and give in at some point. It was only once, right?"
I nod, feeling a bit ashamed of myself for having him know all this and accepting it.
"Relax," Fox whispers against my ear. "I'm not angry. I'm just glad you're here, with me."
"You aren't just saying that make me feel better, are you?"
"No," he shakes his head. "I mean it. Now that you're here, though, try not to have sex with him again."
"I can do that," I laugh. "I think."
"Good."
Fox wraps his arms around me and nuzzles his face into my hair. This is the best day.

Morgana's apartment is nothing at all what I expected it to be. Every part of it has been decorated to fit her fancy, whimsical taste. The wallpaper is beige with a classic French design, her bookshelves are overflowing with leather bound first edition printings of books I would kill to own and her collection of wooden music boxes sit out everywhere, not a single speck of dust on any of the 20.

Morgana herself is the opposite of how I had envisioned her to be. She's quite short, only about 5 foot even with an extra lean frame. Her skin is icy white against her big, round blue eyes. Long blonde waves of hair pour down her shoulders to the middle of her back, the tips resting against the start of the skirt on her flowy lavender dress.

"I got the apartment warm for you," she says, her light, high voice sounding polite to me. "I also took the time to brew tea for the two of you. It will shake the chill from your bones while we sit and chat."

Jacen doesn't drop my hand from his as he follows Morgana around her vintage looking pink sofa framed in cherrywood. A tea service becomes visible. It's perfect and delicate with a white base and small pink roses hand-painted onto each piece.

"That was very nice of you," Jacen tells her, faking a smile. "My wife and I won't be staying very long. We only intended to come here to gather the information from you that Hunter said you had for us."

Morgana puts her bright, beaming eyes onto me. They connect with mine and a wonderously lovely smile pulls itself onto her face.

"She's so young," she says of me. "Not more than a year old. You must work quickly."

"I just knew what I wanted," Jacen responds.

Morgana nods her head in the direction of her sofa, offering us both a seat. Jacen prompts me to sit first before he takes a seat. Morgana holds out her skirt so it won't wrinkle when she places herself in a matching chair just across from us. Her hands clasp in her lap while her focus falls squarely onto Jacen.

"Should I just come out with what it is I know or do you need to ask me questions," Morgana asks, her back finding a comfortable place against the chair she rests in.

"Whatever you're comfortable with, Morgana," Jacen eases.

She lets her eyes fall away from Jacen. They rest upon her fragile ivory hands. The veins beneath her skin have rotted away and turned a barely visible black. Her eyes trace the veins for quite a while before she picks up her chin.

"I can tell you the entire story," she speaks as if she's about to read us a book. "It will take some time to complete it in spoken word, however."

"We're all immortals here," Jacen reminds her. "Time means nothing to us. Please, tell us how Ramona met Dios. Start there."

"Their meeting was by complete accident but, from the moment he saw her, Dios wanted Ramona to be part of our clan," Morgana starts. "He'd seen her walking from the hospital late at night with her child. What a beautiful child she was, too. I had gone with Dios to feed on the drunks that frequented the bar across the street from the emergency room. Prime placement for such an establishment, if you ask me.

"The scent of her had shocked him. Wild roses and lilac. I can still remember it because Dios would call her by her scent before he knew her proper name. One night, Dios followed her home to the lovely house she shared with her doctor husband and wonderful angel of a child. He pretended to be in need of her telephone by claiming his car had broken down. She allowed him inside her home and they immediately struck up a friendship."

"When did it become more than that," Jacen asks.

"Not very long after that. Perhaps a week or so. It all happened quickly, as if time were racing for them," she answers. "Dios asked her to leave her husband and daughter behind but, Ramona couldn't leave the child. She begged Dios to allow her to 'change', but he had refused due to our codes.

"He enlisted the help of myself and a few others with staging Ramona's disapperance. It was all going so perfectly until the child awoke. Turning takes no time at all for us. The venom is a mercy in that way. Ramona noticed the child, barefoot in the snow. She grabbed her and bit into her wrist, trying to poison her the same way she had been but..."

"But what," Jacen asks for me.

"But I stopped her," Morgana says, her voice proud, the way it should be at this revelation. "Her teeth hadn't sank in enough to have done damage yet the child had seen too much. She would have told about us, about Dios and her mother. It was left to Ramona to kill her, which she did."

"How did she do it," I press out, disobeying Jacen's gag order.

"She slammed an axe through the back of her head," Morgana forces herself to say. "Dios did what he could to cover it up but there was so much blood left in the snow. There was only so much he could do before sunrise, before Ramona's husband came home to find her.

"I always felt for him, for her husband. But, it wasn't until I heard that he turned into a Sentury did I start to feel guilty. Everything could have been prevented and handled much better. The child didn't have to die."

"But she did," Jacen says, looking over to me briefly. "Ramona will have to be punished for this and, with your help, she will be. Have you had any contact whatsoever with any other clan member that may know where Dios and Ramona are hiding?"

"Yes. I know exactly where they are," Morgana says, shocking both Jacen and I down to our very cores. "Dios has a mansion in Hampstead. He has just relocated there with her and the rest of the clan members. I am very close with one still, Aleks. He was my lover, more my husband, until I was thrown out.

"It was over that child that I was, you see. Ramona sulked and sulked, making Dios feel badly for her. He slowly came to believe if the child had been turned that Ramona would have felt better, easing more into the lifestyle and been happy. Truth is, she's the sort that is never happy. She's a very selfish woman. I can't imagine anyone natrually being in love with her, much less turning because of her. Though, I don't suppose it was, afterall.

"Aleks knows you are coming for her and anyone that stands in your way of getting her. None of them like her much. They will step out of your way when you decide to go after Rochelle, as she likes to be called now. The only one of us that will stand in your way is Dios. He will not be easy to get past. He's very old and strong, stronger than any of us could ever know. There is an advantage, however, when it comes to him.

"Before Rochelle, he would never fight. For all his physical strength, his left hand is weak. It stemmed from an incident he had when he was human. He mentioned to me, once, that he'd been attacked by a wolf. Its teeth had left scars over his body, which healed when he turned but it could do nothing for the damaged tissues of his hand. He holds it down to his side at all times, his right hand in charge of everything."

A corner of Morgana's mouth pulls itself into half a smile. Her hands smooth over the skirt of her dress as she turns her eyes onto me once again.

"You should be the one to speak to Dios," she says to me. "He has a certain fondness for beauty. Someone with an abundance of it coupled with a good heart would possibly make him reconsider protecting Rochelle. I encourage this before taking action with violence."

"Violence isn't our goal," Jacen tells her, moving his body toward the edge of the sofa. "We want to punish Ramona, Rochelle, for her crimes against her own, human, child. It would be the same if she has turned her. You know this, Morgana. My mate will go nowhere near a vampire alone. Safety issues, you see."

"For Dios, perhaps. Not for her," Morgana counters.

"The risk of him biting her isn't worth the idea of sending her in alone," he stands firmly. "I will pass along the information you have given me to Hunter tonight."

With gentle force, Jacen pulls me by the hand to my feet. He's not as open or nice with Morgana as he is when we first walked in. A very stiff goodbye is given to her before we exit the apartment. He keeps his grip on my wrist, hard and protective, until we are at least half way to our own apartment.

When we get home, gather all the money we have. We have to disappear.

His thought is meant to keep from having passers-by from listening to the conversation, not that they'd care what we're talking about. Instead, the heavy, urgent tone of voice that accompanied it sent shocks of fear up and down my spine.

Why?

Jacen looks over to me and then quickly to the people around us. Forgetting the slick ice underneath our feet, he pulls me into a dark, colder alley way. He shields me from the view of the street and leans in close.

"We have to go train," he whispers against my ear. "Morgana may have given us the location but she wasn't exactly forthcoming with all the things that she knows."

"She seemed to tell us everything. She even told us his weakness," I argue.

"She was never kicked out," Jacen smirks, his breath hanging in the air. "If she had been, Alecks would have gone with her. She left. And maybe she was right about all the other details when it came to the clan and to Dios but, as of right now, we have to treat it as a half-truth. The clan members may hate Ramona. That doesn't really mean that they will defy Dios and simply walk away if a fight breaks out."

"Then why would she say she had been kicked out?"

"To her, it might have felt like she was kicked out or pushed out because of the conflict over Ramona's bitchiness. We have to get back to Hunter to tell him all this," he says, forgetting to whisper.

"No. We need to find out more before we go to Hunter with this," I suggest. "What if you are saying is true? Maybe we should go and find this mansion, make sure they are actually there. Sending Hunter on a wild goose chance right now would mean him being pissed off at us both which, as you know, is never a good thing."

Jacen inhales the icy winter deep into his lungs as he quickly weighs his options. He knows I'm right in my assumption. Hunter would love to have our heads on the mantle if he and Fox storm in demanding Ramona only to find an empty house. It would make them, and us, look like fools.

"Fine," he exhales. "I will call some people I know to try to find out if the clan is actually staying at the house in Hampstead. It will take two, three days top. We just can't leave the apartment until we find out for sure if what Morgana said is true or not. If she was lying to us, clan members could be anywhere around here, ready to attack. If it were just me, I wouldn't mind but...you're here. Fox'd never forgive me if so much as a hair on your head was pulled out."

We scuttle out of the alley and back onto the street. If we are going to lock ourselves in the apartment for the next few, rough weather days, we are going to need some kind of supplies. Food that we can make without fear of burning the building down, a complete first aid kit and an assortment of batteries.

Jacen locks us inside the second we get back to the apartment. The place feels 10 degrees colder than it does outside. My fingers feel as if the joints will freeze then break if I try to bend them.

"Don't worry. I'll turn the heat on as soon as I get this stuff put away. It might help you if you took a shower. By the time you get done, the whole apartment will be comfortable," Jacen says, taking the plastic bags from my hands.

Nothing inside me protests his suggestion of a shower. After absorbing all the information I have in the short span of morning, I need the distraction and the flow of my blood restored back to normal.

I leave Jacen with all the tasks he said he'd tackle. My new focus lands right on the extra warm water that is waiting...in frozen pipes. I try the knob a few times in succession, hoping drops will flood through the shower head but none, not even one, ever does. I have no luck when it comes to the faucet either. Everything involving water is useless.

The simple fact that there is no water doesn't stop me from changing out of the frosted over clothes and into ones that will allow me be comfortable once the temperature in the apartment climbs.

As I reach for the thermal henley I brought into the bathroom with me, the door pushes itself open.

"The pipes are frozen," Jacen blurts out, scaring me into holding the shirt to my otherwise bare top.

His face flushes when he sees me. It's not exactly a sight he's seen before; me standing in an empty room with only a pair of panties on, holding a shirt to my chest. He doesn't back out of the room. His feet, instead, bring him further inside. His fingers reach out, the very tips of them skimming themselves down my jawline.

"So beautiful," he whispers. "Sabrina..."

"Jacen, stop," I scoff, not wanting to push his hand away.

His fingers gently grab at the material of the henley, slowly pulling it away from my chest and hands. My skin pricks up at, not the chill in the room, but the pulsing heat of Jacen's hands spilling over my pale canvas. The sound of the heavy buckles on his jacket hitting the floor should shock me into reality but it doesn't. I am much too happy with his fingertips dancing their way down over my stomach to concern myself with stopping him.

The tip of his middle finger stops at the band of my panties. When I find myself looking up to him, Jacen doesn't smirk or smile the way I expect. His intent is serious. Whatever this is wasn't planned. It's spontaneous and unexpected, just like the feeling of his finger leading the way further down and into my panties.

This will get you warm.

The pad of his middle finger doesn't brush against the pleasure center of my body, it presses against it as if it's done it a million times before. His shoulder leans into mine, pushing me back against the wall. It's a wise move. The way his finger pushes with perfect pressure and moves over the raised core sends my heart into overtime, my blood rushing and gasp after gasp escape my lips.

He has no intention of making it easier to handle. His lips, soft, full and warm push themselves greedily against mine. My brain switches off, allowing my hands to just move with his. The belt, jeans and t-shirt he had on get tossed off over the course of 30 seconds. Shifting from the bathroom to bedroom is just as swift, Jacen wrapping a strong arm around my waist, lifting me off the floor and resting me expertly against his bed.

Jacen never pulls himself away from me. Every movement, look and touch is intense. His perfect body and wonderful endowment excite me in every way imaginable. It doesn't matter if he's above me, his teeth and nails sinking into tender flesh or if he's below me, supporting me by pressing his hands against my rib cage. He's oddly familiar, sexy and forbidden all at once, things that I shouldn't enjoy yet do.

For the first time in my entire life, I don't have a problem with lying in sheets while pouring sweat. My body is too relaxed to care that the room is still cold. It can barely register the sensation of Jacen't lips and tongue gliding over the back of my neck as he holds me from behind.

"Warm," he asks, his head hitting the same pillow rests against.

My head nods just a bit, not wanting to disturb the way Jacen twirls the ends of my hair around his fingers.

"He’ll find out about this," Jacen says out of nowhere. "And he’ll forgive you."

"Thanks for ruining this," I sigh against the pillowcase. "You have such a talent for doing that, Jacen. Why does he need to know this happened? Will you tell him just to hurt him? Get even with him? Is that why..."

"No," he is quick to respond, burying his face into my hair. "No, this wasn’t about him. It was about you and how selfish I am to have had no self-control whatsoever when it comes to you. It’s just...when we were sitting in Morgana’s livingroom and she suggested you meet with Dios alone, I felt my heart leap against my chest.

"I can’t explain it, Sabrina but I just feel this overwhelming urge to protect you now. Perhaps it has something to do with feeling guilty, selfishness or just plain wanting you, but I needed to feel and taste you. It won’t happen again. Unless you want it to."

"I don't know what I want."

"No one says you have to know, Sabrina," he starts. "You should be able to do whatever it is you want with whomever you want without having to worry about what someone else will think. But, I understand how you could love him and want to be with him until the Earth literally ends. He looks like Superman, for God's sake. And you're beautiful. You two are wonderful together while I'm just the asshole that sleeps with the pretty girls to keep them warm."

"You might be an asshole most of the time but, not all of it, Jace," I say, turning to face him. "Don't spend your whole existence believing that, that is all you are meant to be because I can see so much more than that."

Jacen smiles and gives my forehead a long, sweet kiss.

"I'll think about it," he jokes. "Just have faith in me. I might change one day and, when I do, it will be because you gave me reason to."

Having to move away from Fox was one of the easier hard decisions I have ever had to make. Not that I really had a choice. Jacen was in no hurry but I could tell he was not very happy with watching the kiss Fox and I shared before we left. While it wasn't rushed, it didn't linger. We both felt it enough to make it memorable.

That was a month ago. Our house on the beach is only a fond memory now. I have been made to trade all the sunshine and warmth for mounds of sticky white snow and cold so harsh is hangs in the marrow of my bones. Jacen and I have to blend into the city now. That means we both have to work jobs that I wouldn't have had to other wise.

The money Hunter gave us pays for rent on an apartment that is horribly small. It's got one bedroom, one bathroom and we keep it very neat. We invested in a pair of twin beds that fit perfectly on opposite sides of the bedroom.

We aren't allowed to have access to any of the back accounts, though Hunter has assured Jacen that he will arrange a 'money drop'. It makes me feel like we're seedy drug dealers that are waiting for a new batch of cocaine. Of course, if we were doing that, I doubt we'd have to worry about money as much as we have started to.

The search for Dios has been extremely hard given the amount of time we have to work. We have managed to find one vampire that was once associated with the clan. Her name is Morgana and she now lives two blocks from our apartment. This gives us a clue to how she will probably be; run down and angry at her excommunication. She will give up anything to know she has Sentury protection.

Jacen is supposed to prepare me for meeting with her when he comes home tonight. It seems she's not just a run of the mill vampire. She has some kind of power that, if I was left unaware of, could be disasterous. Not to us but, instead, to Morgana herself. The way he worded it puzzled me yet I knew better than to ask many questions. If Jacen wanted me to know at that moment, he would have told me. Possibly.

Fox calls at very late hours. He's been training sixteen hours a day with two breaks, one for lunch and the other for dinner. Hunter runs him ragged. Of course, it's all for what they like to call "the greater good". We'd all have to fight, with Hunter and Fox leading us if it came to it. The possibility of a peaceful surrender was already out the window. It was just a matter of getting Ramona to give herself up or kill her. Not just her but the whole clan that has kept her safe and hidden.

Flipping the idea over and over in my mind starts to churn my freak-out reflex. It sounded exciting and then it became scary and, by the time Jacen walks through the front door to find me sitting on the floor next to the sofa, it's turned into the worst idea anyone could possibly have.

Jacen drops the white plastic bags full of whatever food he picked up into a chair before he places himself on the floor next to me. The chill of winter has left his leather jacket feeling like ice. He slowly pushes it off so the warmth of his left arm bumps against my right, wanting some kind of attention.

"It's been a month, Sabrina," Jacen says, not needing to remind me of the time that's passed. "You have every right to be angry with Hunter and miss Fox but, in all seriousness, I don't know what you expect to happen after all this is over with. Fox won't marry you the way you want, no matter what the outcome."

I don't care about a wedding.

"You say that now but Hunter won't recognize a union without one. Neither will the rest of the counsel members. You two can have any arrangement you want but it won't be binding. That's a choice he made that has nothing to do with you," he continues as his fingers stretch out over the knee of his jeans, his pinky timid as it rests very close to my own. "Neither of us has time to be thinking of things other than the task at hand, which reminds me that I need to get you prepared for the meeting with Morgana."

His hand pushes into the the very slight space between us to push his body up. For me, the meeting with Morgana can wait. My hand raises to grasp Jacen's, prompting him to turn and look down at me. His eyes close and a sharp, short sigh rattles out of his lungs, almost like a growl.

Jacen drops down next to me once more, his hand not itching to escape mine.

"I'm not much when it comes to a lot of things," he tells me. "I failed at being a husband by not listening or talking or being home. See, you and Fox are the same in your manners. You care, are passionate, hold impressive amounts of love and faith. You were a great mother to Gage. Fox was a terrific husband to Ramona and an even better father to Celia than even you could imagine. I was horrible to my wife, to Mary. I'd gamble and drink and sleep with anything that had a pulse. I'd stay gone for days at a time and, when I was home, she'd nag and ask a million questions.

"You see, Sabrina, I didn't want to marry her. I didn't want to marry anyone. My parents, on the other hand, they had their own ideas about what should have happened. They were affluent, very well respected people where I come from. Hell, in the South, the last name LeSalle still has power. I failed when it came to Mary and, had we had children, I would have failed them, too.

"Mary killed herself, Sabrina. Right in front of my eyes. I stood and watched as she put barrel of the gun to her heart then pulled the trigger. I wondered for such a long time why she didn't put it to her head. And then, one day while I was wondering this, Fox caught glimpse of the thought and said 'It wasn't her brain that died. It was her heart'. That's when it made sense. I might not have loved her but she loved me. I never took the time, not until she was gone, to even try to get to know her. Losing someone that I had the potential to really love killed me.

"Don't tie yourself to Fox simply because he's the first person that you've met that understands you. You just might end up cutting out someone that is better for you than the person you think you should be with."

Jacen's ragged thumbnail drags itself the length of my index finger. 15 seconds between us feels like an hour. The next time he moves away from me, I don't try to stop him. He picked up the bag he'd dropped when he came in and hid out in the kitchen. My back stays planted against the sofa and I am unable to move.

I feel horribly for Jacen. That feeling trickles down to Fox and then to myself. None of us asked for this kind of immortality but we all made certain decisions while embracing the lifestyle. Jacen wants to help to track down deviants. Fox wants to be a warrior who never marries. And me, well, I am new to his game. I don't know what all there is for me, what I have to choose from.

I forget about dinner. I know the thing I really need to focus on is getting myself ready for the meeting that is looming with Morgana. Jacen knows this from the second I place myself down in the unbalanced second chair at the wobbly kitchen table.

"Morgana is a threat to herself," Jacen starts, pushing the half-cold dinner he brought home toward me. "She knows that if she blabs to us the secrets Dios kept, she will be putting herself in danger. She can't help but brag. So, be careful with her. Don't try to 'one-up' her, don't talk about your life or the one you had in the past. She'll get jealous and could possibly refuse to help us."

"Why would she be jealous," I ask, picking at the so-called salad in front of me.

"Vampires can't have their own children," he says flatly. "Most of them want children, which is how clans came to be. They're a family; a unit of like monsters that can confide in each other. Clans have no secrets from each other, meaning that Morgana will know almost everything that we need to."

"What will happen to her once she's told us everything?"

"Depends on how useful the information she gives us is. If it helps us get to Ramona and Dios, she will get to be relocated to anywhere in the world she wants with complete protection from us," Jacen says through bites of his burger. "If the information sucks, someone will have to kill her."

A bit harsh, huh?

Jacen shrugs his shoulders as his hands wad up the burger's wrapper. He shoots it in the direction of our garbage can and it lands perfectly at the bottom of the plastic lined bin.

"It's a fact of this life, Sabrina. You have to be tougher than the tough, stronger than the strong," he reasons. "You can't be weak. Not even for a moment when you are around people like Morgana, Ramona and Dios. Always have your guard up. Always. So, tomorrow morning, let me do all the talking. Treat me as if I am your mate. Don't give her any clue that I'm not."

"But...you aren't," I scoff. "What does it matter anyway?"

"Well, you aren't paired with anyone at the moment," Jacen smirks. "Has it honestly never crossed your mind how'd it be to sleep with me?"

"Honestly," I ask, eyebrow raised. "No."

"Not even once?"

I shake my head.

"I doubt you could handle me anyway," he half brags. "Your old boyfriend and Fox, I'm sure they were the gentle kind of lover. The ones that take the time to light you up with sweet words, soft kisses and gentle hands. They are your romantic dream. I'm the fantasy. You know, the one where a man walks up, kisses you and doesn't give you a chance to change your mind."

"You sound like a rapist."

Jacen releases a smug chuckle and stands from his chair. He's quick to brush away all the trash from the table before he swiftly wraps his hands around my arms and stands me up. His hands are fast with bracing my spine, his body presses against mine at the exact moment his teeth roughly bite against the nape of my neck.

They aren't at all gentle or nice or meant to mildly excite. They are meant to shock and explode a heart. Coupled with his teeth, the jagged but shorts nails of his fingers digging into my skin through my t-shirt, it succeeds.

"Thinking about it now," he whispers, his teeth dragging painfully slow yet deeply downward over my neck to my throat. His left hand slides over my belt loops, his palm pressing against the button of my jeans.

"No," I lie.

"You are," he smiles against the base of my neck. He lifts his head just enough that his eyes can sear right through mine. They freeze me in my place, rendering me horribly flushed, excited and scared all at once. "There's nothing wrong with me continuing. Is there?"

"Hypothetically, no," I manage to voice. "I can't."

"Can't or won't," he asks, his lips coming dangerously close to my own. "I don't want a commitment any more than you do with me. Just sex. It's primal, human nature."

"No," I say, stronger this time. "I'll pass. I like how Fox treats me when we are together, alone, in a room. He's the one that I want to hold me, kiss me and sink his teeth into me. You felt good but he'll always feel better."

Jacen releases his hold on me, the corners of his mouth upturning into an odd-shaped smile. He comes off as slightly amused mixed with let down. It's not a look that suits him well at all.

"I'll try harder the next time," he promises.

"You'll need to," I say as I turn away from him. "Good try though."

Jacen tries nothing as I walk out of the kitchen. I half expect him to grab me in the hallway and, when he doesn't, I feel oddly rejected. It's easily stuffed down, however, to make room for sleep. The peace is so needed that I don't stir when Jacen comes into go to bed or when he starts to snore.

The night comes to an end a little too quickly for me. Jacen is awake before I am, making his usual morning coffee whose aroma has filled the entire apartment. Today is the day we may find out just where Dios is. By the end of it, we could set a war into motion. Jacen and I have to quickly be judge and jury as far as Morgana is concerned. He could kill her today. I might be made to.

I mindlessly dress myself and automatically pull the heaviest of coats from the closet. From the window, I can see the sidewalk coated with sticky white snow that fell after the initial shoveling. Walking two blocks in this weather is like pushing through the tundra. Our cheeks and lips will start to chap on the way and finish on the way home.

Jacen leans against the counter with his matte black mug held in both hands as I walk into the kitchen. It's obvious he's in no hurry. The only article of clothing he's managed to pull on are the same jeans he's been wearing for the past three days.

"Coffee," he asks, tipping his mug toward me.

I shake my head.

"It feels like 20 below out, Sabrina. It will get you warmed up and help you stay that way," Jacen says, pulling a mug from the cabinet behind him. "Normally, I'd suggest taking some with you but it's probably not a very good idea this morning. You nervous?"

"Not really," I tell him, my voice springing forth heavy and thick as if I have gotten a chest cold. "All I have to do is stand there and listen. Right?"

"You can talk, attack, do whatever you want. I would prefer if you would just listen to everything she says because, admittedly, I am horrible with remembering details and catching things quickly," he says. "Women are better skilled in that area, I find."

"Can we talk for once without you bringing gender into the conversation?"

"Are you mad at me for what happened last night because, if that is what it is that has you acting like a bitch, then fine. I was a total dick. I shouldn't have grabbed you and teased you the way I did. It's not fair to someone in your...condition," he sighs.

"My 'condition'? Just what condition am I in, do you think," I ask, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table.

"You're vunerable, easily swayed these days. Well, I thought you'd be anyway. You honestly do have a terrific amount of self control," he teases, bumping his hip into my shoulder before placing himself into the chair next to mine. "A lot's happened to you, is all I'm saying. You lost your son, you had to give up your family in order to come with one man that treated you badly and another that can still feel your heartbeat next to his though there are 1,000 miles between you. Then, Hunter rips it all away and places you in this shithole of an apartment with me."

"Yeah, well, when you put it that way," I say, trailing off enough that Jacen gets the point.

"Reconsider the coffee. I am going to get dressed and then we'll go. Morgana is waiting for us on pins and needles."

He lounges in his chair for a moment before going to change. I don't move despite the new want for coffee. Making a cup now would make Jacen feel as if he's able to sway me into doing what he wants when he wants. The thought is something I hide from Jacen as we walk the two ungodly cold blocks to Morgana's.

Neither of us speaks to each other, out loud or otherwise. Our hands, encased in gloves, stay stuffed into the pockets of our coats. Jacen's mind is just as blank as mine is. He has swept everything important into the depths of it to keep us both safe around Morgana. Though most can't, some vampires can, and will, read a person's mind. The more they know, the more they can hold against you.

The building Jacen leads me to doesn't look at all as bad as ours does. There are no broken windows or homeless people hang out in front of it. Still, there is no doorman out front, the dark red paint is chipping off and sirens of police cars can be heard over all the other, lesser noises of the neighborhood.

My stomach flips over itself when Jacen steps up to the box containing the names of the tenants. His finger is slow, skimming the space beside each name before it stops on the name M. Way. She's on the third floor. That's two flights of stairs and a walk down a long narrow hallway and into the apartment of a dangerous monster.

Jacen looks back to me, his hand bracing over my left shoulder.

"Sabrina, you can do this," he says, strong in his words. "Remember, she can't kill you and, if she tries, I will have her head detatched from her body before she can so much as make a move against you."

His hand slides down my arm, fingers sliding between my own. For some odd reason, this gesture of his makes my insides warm and grow calm. He presses the button next to Morgana's name. We stand, in the cold and swirling snow, waiting for her to buzz us up.

The next few days were spent searching for the clan via the web. Fox made it his mission to track down every single member but, by Tuesday morning, neither of us was able to find Dios himself. We could, however, deduce he was in close proximity to the other vampires as they all lives within minutes of each other in small towns in the mid-west.

To protect me from the sure wrath that Hunter and Jacen both would bring down on me, Fox goes to work while I go meet with Jacen. When I pull up to Cafe Verona at exactly 10 a.m., Jacen is already waiting at an outside table. No one else would brave the weather, which means that no matter just what we decided to speak of, we were safe.

He stands and pulls a chair out for me. His manners come a little late for my taste, leaving me extremely unimpressed that he even has them. The moment I'm seated, I hand over the list of addresses to him.

"Couldn't wait for the coffee to arrive," he questions, his breath hanging in the frigid air.

"No, I have to get back home before Fox gets there. We have been having pizza and Chinese for a week. It's becoming ridiculous," I inform him. "He's working long hours at the bank and it's just stupid to have him come home to yet another box instead of real food."

Jacen raises an eyebrow at my explaination. Still, he unfolds the list, a smile pulling itself onto his face as he skims over it. He's satisfied. For once.

"Hunter doesn't need to know that Fox helped you do this," Jacen smirks, sliding the list into his back pocket. "Tell me though, how did he find all this out, Sabrina? Did he come home one night with wine, roses and a hard-on? Seriously, if Hunter finds out about this..."

"He found out from Ramona herself," I interject. "The night you visited, he walked in with this big envelope that he thought was from Circe. I opened it up and all these photos, new ones, of Ramona spilled from it when I dumped the contents on the table. He blew up, asking me if was a horrible joke or something."

"And you didn't think to tell me about this," Jacen asks, his voice becoming slightly heated. "Was there a letter, a note, anything?"

"There was a handwritten note. I have it saved at the house along with all the photos," I tell him. "I don't actually know if it was from her, or if it was from someone that wanted us to think that it was her but, Jacen, they know we're looking for them. She knows he's a Sentury."

"Ditch the house today," Jacen instructs. "Call Fox, tell him to come home. Grab only the things that are absolutely essential to to his investigation and get to Hunter's. That's the only place the two of you will be completely safe now. God, Sabrina, how did she even find out?"

"Probably when we went to the cemetery to visit Celia. I swear to you, Jacen, I saw something on the hill as we pulled up to it. A cloak or something. I just chalked it up to being too tired and my eyes playing tricks on me. But, the more I think about it, the more I'm sure she was there," I ramble. "We only went because of that stupid trunk we got from Circe."

"Why would Circe send you a trunk?"

"What do you mean? I thought she was into giving personal missions."

"She used to but that duty's been handed over to Basil. Years ago now," Jacen shakes his head.

My heart drops in my chest. Circe couldn't have sent the trunk or the mission. Whoever had already knew that Ramona was a vampire and wanted Fox to find out for himself. Using our dead children to do it was not only low, but extremely effective.

There had only been one flaw. Fox hadn't noticed. I had instead.

"Bring the trunk and all its contents with you when you come. I doubt Circe, or Basil for that matter, would give you both missions involving your children. It might have been someone else here that wanted to make Ramona's presence known to Fox," he tells me. "But, the sooner we get going, the sooner we can get this taken care of."

"You make it sound like it will be easy," I say, trying to keep my voice as cool as possible while I stand and fish around my pocket for the keys to my car. "Like this is just going to go away because we want it to."

"You still don't get it, do you," Jacen replies, his voice going sickly sweet. "We are the closest things to God on this Earth, my dear. What we want, we get, no matter what it is. Vampires roamed this place thinking they were true immortals simply because they don't need to breathe, stay youthful looking and their hearts stay still. They came with one character flaw. They can die. And, in this case, they will die. Go, get your things and meet me at Hunter's. Today."

Jacen turns away from me with a dramatic flair. I stand watching as he stalks toward his Ferrari and stay frozen in time watching as he roars away. The cold metal of the keys in my hand takes a moment to shock me into reality. But, when it does, time fast-forwards to catch up.

A call is placed to Fox. He isn't exactly surprised by the idea of leaving however, he was taken off-guard by the way I told him. A rough 'come home' was all I said. It's all I technically could say. My mind raced through everything we'd need to toss into the back of the car. The trunk, the photos and both computers. Those are the most important. Everything else can be left behind.

Gathering them is easy. I throw the computers into a backpack along with all their proper cords. The photos of Ramona go into the same backpack. The trunk is left for Fox. Though it's a strain for me to lift, he practically picks it up as if it's weightless.

We wasted no time whatsoever in nostalgia when it came to the house. There was something more important than memories forcing us out of the place we had both come to love. Righting a wrong, punishing people for not just killing a child but also for turning another human life into a Sentury. Thinking of it this way, I wasn't exactly sure which was worse in the end.

Fox knows better than to ask me anything. He saves all his questions, and voice, the entire way to the fortress Hunter kept under lock and key. Hunter would be the only one who could really quell his urge to question everything possible. Asking me would be a waste of time and breath. I know, rightfully, a little more than nothing.

Hunter's prepared for him. The moment we step foot into the house, Hunter pulls Fox into his study, but not before instructing me to join Jacen in the dining room. I don't want to leave Fox's side but, as per usual, Hunter's need outweighs my wants.

I drag myself down the long corridors to the master dining room. Jacen sits at the right head of the overly decorated table, flipping a silver lighter in front of him. A cigarette isn't lit but one sits in an oblong crystal tray at Jacen's side.

"How was the drive," he asks coolly, not bothering to actually look at me.

"Quiet," I tell him, moving to sit at the table with him. "Hunter hates me, doesn't he?"

"No, he doesn't hate you, Sab. He hates the situation and how it's being handled," he says. "It's not your fault. All this is just an amazing mess that needs to be sorted out. And, if Hunter's right, we don't have much time in which to strike out at Dios."

"Why not?"

"We've had someone locate him and his 'Rochelle'," Jacen smiles, knowing that the information has completely set my insides on fire. "They were in Chicago. Are, I should say. They'll move once they are aware we know where they are. That shouldn't come as any surprise to you."

I can't say it does. Nothing, at this point, would surprise me. Some days, I keep expecting Hunter to bring a unicorn out of one of his stables and tell me that I can ride it to Narnia. Maybe he'll pull a magic wand from his back pocket while he's at it.

"Since there is no telling just how long he's going to be in with Fox, maybe you should eat. We should. Actual food, no oatmeal and plain water," Jacen says, pushing himself out of his chair. "Steak and potatoes? Ummm...chicken? Anything you want, really."

"Since when does what I want count, Jacen? Seriously, my opinion never mattered before I got hurt and had to come to Hunter in the first place. Why does it now? Do you feel guilty about it? Do you just want to put it all behind us and pretend it never happened?"

Jacen sighs the most heavy of sighs and drops down to kneel at my side.

"I never thought you belonged with me, Sabrina. I didn't ask to train you, to hunt you down in the first place. It was what I was told to do," he tells me. "I had no idea what I was doing but I knew, from the instant he looked at you, Fox had fallen so much in love with you that it hurt him to breathe. I think I treated you so badly out of jealousy. He could feel and, I, I couldn't. You were so beautifully broken, gorgeous with your feiry hair and not a single thing inside me stirred. I was angry at him, never with you."

"That's no excuse."

"I'm not saying it is, Sabrina. It's only the truth," Jacen says as he gets to his feet. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll have the kitchen staff bring dinner out the moment it's prepared."

Jacen strokes his hand over the back of my head when he walks behind me. I hate the way his fingers feel against my hair. His fingernails are just long enough to snag a strand as he walks away.

I'm not concerned with dinner. All my focus is on trying to read the things going through Fox's mind. He's not all that far away but he might as well be. I can't for the life of me get the smallest thought of his into my own head. Once he's done in there, he will more than likely shut down for a while and, once he's the slightest bit over it, will keep mum on the conversation.

This is all I consume myself with during the so-called dinner I have with Jacen. We're both quiet and mainly pick at the food before us until it grows stone cold. He silently shows me to the room I am to share with Fox.

It's not the same cold as the ones we had the last time we were staying here. This one feels more alive. The walls have blue and black French style tapestry, a large matching female cameo printed on the wall behind the bed. Plush blue carpet covers the floors, black refurbished wardrobes sit between two large, shaded windows.

The small vintage looking clock sitting beside the bed reads, in Roman numerals, that it's close to 11 p.m. Normally, we would be asleep in our nice, simple bedroom. Even when we were working on getting the addresses, Fox and I made sure to take some time out to relax. That won't be happening tonight.

I go through the wardrobe to find suitable enough clothes to sleep in. Bypassing the silken nightgowns, I settle for the set of black cotton shorts and tank top. I flick off the light, pour myself into bed and spend hours staring up at the intricately designed ceiling. There are too many decorative cracks to count but I find myself trying to.

That is until he comes into the room. Looking over at him, even in the faint light available, I can tell that he's overtired. He looks as if he has been through the wringer, more than once. I don't blame him at all for the way he gets into bed. Each of his movement conveys ultimate defeat, which makes a million thoughts bloom and take shape inside me.

"Please, Sabrina, just let me sleep," Fox whispers as he turns onto his side, away from me. "I'm..."

He doesn't finish his sentence. This isn't because he falls asleep. He simply can't find the right word for what he is. Sorry, tired, disappointed, upset, angry. It would best be accepted he was all those things all at once. There is no word for it, just a heavy, horrible emotion.

Neither of us slept much but I was the one that gave up on the attempt first. I did my best not to wake or disturb him while I got dressed. It was mentally debated on whether I should stay and wait for him to give up hope of sleep or leave him alone, truly alone, with his thoughts. The second won out in the end.

The chill of the morning outside couldn't be felt at all in the house. Hunter kept it extremely warm with the curtains drawn. I wasn't too sure if they were drawn to keep the view of dismal snow from getting us down or because he wanted to prevent spying of any kind.

"It's a combination of both those things," Hunter says from behind me.

I turn to look at him. He's already fully dressed in neat black slacks, dark grey turtleneck and fancy shoes that don't make any noise against the hardwood floor. His gorgeous hair is tied back away from his face, the web of his beautiful scars muted and almost smooth in the light of the hallway.

"He will need an ample amount of time to absorb all the information that I gave him last night. You have to understand that this is now his battle to wage. We, the rest of us, are only going to be able to stand at his side and fight the way it's been planned we will," he explains. "That being said, I made a decision last night that Fox, reluctantly, agreed to. I have to send you away."

The look I give him echoes the tearing pieces of my heart. To this, Hunter doesn't offer me any comfort whatsoever. He merely crosses his arms over his chest and stares ahead out the small sliver of faint sunlight that pours through a small crack between the curtains.

"This choice wasn't made to hurt you, or him for that matter, Sabrina. It was for the greater good," he continues. "Jacen is taking you with him when he leaves tonight once the sun goes down. As such, I have to dissolve your union with Fox. This was not my idea. It was his own. He thought that simply loving and protecting you would be enough but, in this case, it's not. Being around him right now will put you directly in the line of fire which is something that you are not prepared for."

"But..."

"Sabrina, you have to be smart about this. The love you have for Fox, and vice versa, is such an amazing thing and I would not do this if it weren't absolutely necessary," Hunter says, finally showing some remorse in the form of his hand placing itself on my shoulder. "You are better suited to be with Jacen right now, tracking the vampires. Not fighting them. This will be hard on you both but, I promise you, Fox's heart will not change. He would do, and is doing, everything possible to make sure you're safe."

"What will Fox be doing while I'm gone," I ask, hoping to be able to swallow down at least a bit of the bitter anger bubbling to the surface.

"Training," Hunter quickly responds. "And hard. Three times a day until you and Jacen have pinpointed exactly where Dios and Ramona are living. That's the hardest part, finding them. My suggestion is for you to go to the room you stayed in last night and pack the clothes you like. Jacen has all the money and will provide you with a new cellphone once you are secure enough."

"Will I be able to see him at all?"

"No," Hunter slams another hammer down on my heart. "I'm sorry. Just, please, Sabrina, go pack some things. Say goodbye to him."

Hunter drops his hand from my shoulder in order to turn and walk away. The further he gets away from me, the more I can feel the intense heat of anger flood through me. None of this is fair. Why must I be sent away? Of all the Senturies in the world, why must it be me that helps Jacen do this?

I forget the walk I was going to take. My feet walk me back to the room Fox is now pacing back and forth in. He knows what's coming. He has to, just from the look on my face, the overheated, half garbled thoughts that stream from my mind. Yet, he says or does nothing.

So, to show him I will remain dutiful to Hunter, I flip the blankets on the bed back to reveal two large backpacks laid underneath it. I grab them, and all the clothes I can, and stuff them into the packs. I think on it harder and harder, and, before long, the stuffing becomes rough.

"Sabrina, calm yourself down," Fox tries to reason with me as he yanks the second backpack away from me. "This is only temporary. Once all this is taken care of..."

"Oh, 'Once this is taken care of'? Fox, Hunter is disbanding us. We can't be mates until this is over. And, if someone is hurt, God only knows how long it will take for them to heal. Why did you agree to this," I find myself shouting at him.

"What was I supposed to do, Sabrina? Make it fully known that I was going to tag along with you and Jacen? I couldn't do that. It's easier for you two to get into places. Ramona knows my face. She knows how I smell. She knows every single thing about me. I can't just walk up to Dios and expect a straight answer or a few broken bones. You and Jacen can," he says, obviously trying to keep his cool.

I snatch the backpack from him, zip it up and toss it over my shoulder.

"I am going to see if Jacen wants to leave early," I snap. "I'll see you just before I kill your wife."

"Sabrina..."

"Don't," I scoff, oddly amused in my anger. "Don't stand there and say you're doing this because you love me. If you loved me, really loved me, you wouldn't even consider me leaving with Jacen, or anyone else for that matter. You would fight to either go along with me or have me stay."

"That's not true," Fox says, his voice velvet calm.

He reaches out, his fingertips just touching my cheek before I turn my face away from his. Wisely, he doesn't give up. His hands quickly move to clasp themselves on me, the right against my neck and the left wrapped around my wrist.

"That is not true," he stresses. "I love you. It might not seem like it right now, but never doubt for a second that I do. The whole reason why I agreed to this wasn't because I wanted to make Hunter happy or make this mission easier. I needed to do this to prove how much I do care, how much I absolutely couldn't stand to have you hurt. If that means you have to track these vampires down instead of staying behind to train, so be it.

"You need to go with Jacen. I promise you, this is the best way. The vampires don't need to think of you as my mate right now. They'll only hurt you. So, do what you have to do while you're with Jacen. I am not sure when I will get to see you again but, I will call you every single day if that is what you want me to do. Or I can text."

"It's technology," I remind him. "They'll be monitoring everything that happens on Hunter's computers and lines of his."

"He's got everything under strict lock and key so it's perfectly safe. Just like you'll be. So, can you please forget your rush to leave and lie in bed with me for a while?"

The weight I placed on my own shoulders doesn't exactly disappear but a lot of it melts. I place the bags down at the bed's foot and don't worry with them at all while I am cuddled next to Fox. He strokes his fingers through my hair, his eyes and body memorize every bit of me they possibly can. We are not sure how many seasons will pass until we are able to lay this way again.

A cold breeze shocks my hair as it flows out around me. The only sound is that of the ocean's waves crashing against the shore. Sunlight muted by grey clouds lights the day just enough to make everything look cold, lonely and significant. A whole season had past and I am only just noticing it.

I have, for the most part, wrapped myself up in order to keep warm; wonderfully thick blue jeans and dark grey cashmere sweater. Fox was still asleep when I placed myself in this spot. Orginally, it was only to watch the sunrise. I stayed because of the call from Jacen I expected. The futher away I put myself from Fox, the less he can intervene.

The shiny cellphone I was given months ago gets flipped around my right hand in a bid to will Jacen to call with some kind of news. It doesn't work. I sit on the beach, watching waves crashing against precious sand for two hours before giving up.

Time is cruel in this way. I hadn't wasted any and, because we, and they, have all the time in the world, everything moves at a different pace. Jacen has to know this irritates me. At least I hope he does. It will do us both a service if all this happens rather quickly instead of being drawn out for 50 years.

Fox is up by the time I walk back into the house. He's already dressed for a busy day of pretending to be a banker. His fresh black Armani suit, dark purple button down and pinstriped tie make him look like he actually knows what he's doing.

"Where were you," he asks, dropping his plain white coffee mug into an empty sink. "I looked around everywhere so I could make sure you have everything you need for the time I'll be gone."

"Out on the beach. You shouldn't be worried about me anyway, Fox," I tell him, adjusting his tie so it's straight. "I am just going to be sitting in the study, researching some things online."

"Sabrina, I seriously dislike the idea of you doing a passive-aggressive part of Jacen's dirty work, even if Hunter did request you do so," he says for the hundredth time since we left Hunter's a few weeks ago. "I wish you could tell me what it was, at least. Maybe I would be more comfortable with you doing it knowing just what you're looking for."

"When I can, I will tell you everything."

"Alright," he sighs. "If you need me, I will have my cellphone on and I can be back to the house within minutes. If you have to leave, the keys to the other car are in the second drawer of the desk in the study. Extra money is in a pouch in the third drawer and..."

"And I know where everything in this house is," I remind him. "You'll be late if you don't get going."

Fox kisses both my cheeks before he walks out the front door. He hated the idea of getting a normal job but there is only so long you can live in a house like ours on the beach without neighbors inquiring about how we pay for the house, the cars, the clothes and trips.

With him out of the house though, it means I can do more research. He's started to hover over my shoulder everytime I open my laptop or simply open up a newspaper. I know he's just curious but he's, unknowingly, upsetting me. This is something I am trying to do for him. Not for me. Not for Jacen or Hunter. For him. I wish I could tell him that.

No time is wasted sitting around waiting for Jacen to call. I peel off my sweater, toss it over the back of the high backed chair at the desk in the study and flick open the laptop. A surprise waits for me on the screen. For the first time ever, it asks me to enter a password.

Fox thinks he's blocked me from the internet or even so much as playing Solitare by simply setting up a password. That would work if I didn't know computers better than he does. I restart the computer, press the F10 button at start up and wait for my system restore options. There is nothing of mine saved on the computer. The only thing a full system restore would erase are my searches and Fox's perfect score on FreeCell.

Only, pressing this button does nothing. The computer starts up as normal and the unholy sign-in screen pops up. I am at a loss when it comes to just what he could have chosen so I type in a random word just so the machine will give me some kind of hint as to what it is. In a move that I could only call completely brilliant, Fox has entered a series of numbers in the hint's place with a question mark at the very end of the long sequence.

Amused, I shut the laptop and reach into the second drawer of the desk to grab the car keys. If I can't use this computer, I will go buy one I can use. But, from the looks of it, Fox has thought I'd consider this option. The money left behind in the pouch is only equal to $250. It's the perfect amount if I have to leave in a hurry but not nearly enough to purchase a high powered laptop.

"He thought of everything to prevent you from gathering information with his precious laptop, didn't he," a familiar, thick voice asks from the open frame of the study's entrance. "Could I interest you in your very own? It's easily hidden; very light and thin. And silver. I hear you appreciate things that shine."

My eyes roam over Jacen's body as it leans in the door frame. His hair is longer than the last time I saw him, tied back away from his face to draw attention to his dark blue eyes. He looks oddly fashionable in jeans that have no holes, black leather motorcycle jacket that's pulled over a dark grey t-shirt and just polished boots.

He starts a slow stride toward me, releasing the laptop he had tucked underneath his arm. His careful fingers hand it over to me as he takes a place at my side. I place it near the edge of the desk so I can unhook the useless laptop to plug in the one I can actually use.

"You knew he'd do this?"

"Fox, though he may love you, concerns himself with unfortunate things that have the possibility of happening rather than just trusting in someone," Jacen explains as he pulls a chair over to mine. "I am proud of the fact he paid attention to all the things I taught him, however. He did a wonderful thing with this computer though, seriously, I am sure you could have thought of the password."

"Possibly but it would have been a waste of a day to just sit here in front of a screen trying to guess just which word in the English language my husband decided to associate with his computer," I say, pulling the DSL cord into its rightful place on the laptop.

"So, you really did become mates," he questions, falling into the chair he brought over. "Hunter told me that is what happened. I just never figured Fox for the kind that would enjoy the finer points of standing on ceremony once again."

"It didn't happen that way. It was much more casual and just involved a question and simple decision," I reply. "He told me he'd never get married again. Not the way humans do. It's not a choice I blame him for making. This, what we are looking into, will more than likely ruin him moreso to the idea."

"Hearing that your wife left you for a vampire clan's leader and killed your daughter in the process would be hard for anyone to take," Jacen reasons. "Does it ever cross your mind how he will handle it when all the truth is laid out for him?"

"Of course it does. But, really, Jacen, what am I supposed to do? Hunter made it crystal clear that we weren't to tell him anything about this until the appropriate time," a sigh escapes my lips. "It's all I can do sometimes to stop myself from telling him the things we already know for sure. But, then I think, 'What if he doesn't believe me? What if he thinks I am just trying to get attention, trying to undermine what he had with Ramona?' It's enough to make me stop, bite my tongue and swallow it down."

"Alright, we shouldn't talk about this anymore. There is too much to find out before your lesser half returns," Jacen breaks in. "You need to find out where Dios has set up his clan. Hunter sent a full list of names for you to search for but, there is only problem."

"Which is?"

"Ramona's name couldn't be found anywhere within Dios' records for the last 30 years. There is a lady that goes by the name of Rochelle but there the list doesn't show her last name. It's widely assumed it's the same as Dios' name," he tells me. "Did Fox ever tell you what Ramona's maiden name was?"

"No. He's never told me because I never asked. I can find out where Dios is staying and, it's a safe bet that, wherever he is, she is, too," I say, accepting the list Jacen hands me. "How long do I have to get the information?"

"I'll be back around on Tuesday of next week. You might not be able to find it before then and that's okay," he says as he stands. "Do your best, Sabrina. Without that information, we can't properly do this job."

Jacen drags his chair back to where he got it from. My eyes quickly scan the list of 15 vampires. Each is a beautifully dark name that sends shivers down my spine. It's these names that make me wonder just what will happen if it's shown that Ramona, Rochelle, had something to do with Celia's murder. Is there anything at all we could do?

"We'd kill her and the entire clan," Jacen responds to my thought. "Murdering innocent people, especially children, is a horrible offense. Vampires are aware of this. Perhaps that's why they are keeping Ramona under such lock and key, changing her name and putting themselves under the radar the way are. If she is Dios' lover, or just part of his clan, he'll do just about anything to keep her out of our sight."

"I can understand killing her but, the whole clan?"

"Sabrina, if she's with them, then they all knew about Celia. They had to," he answers, backing toward the door. "It's unacceptable to our laws to hide such a person and, because we're the judge, jury and enforcers of everything non-human, it's our job to make sure they're punished for their crimes. Hide the list and laptop. Fox will be home in 25 minutes. Meet me at Cafe Verona Tuesday morning with anything you find, alright?"

Automatically, my head nods. I hate the fact I still accept his orders without question. Still, my head and heart both know that I wouldn't be as willing if Hunter were involved. He, and giving Fox the gift of truth and closure, are the only things that keep me from considering the close proximity to Jacen poisionous.

All the work will have to wait until morning. With Fox coming home as soon as he is, there is not much I can get done in the time it will take for his commute to end here. I close the new laptop and stash it away as if it were a book on a shelf, the hinge of the computer something he wouldn't notice in the dark room unless I pointed it out. The list gets tucked between the keys and screen of the laptop, the safest place for it to be until morning.

Once it's hidden away, I grab my sweater off the back of the chair, toss it over my shoulder and head into the livingroom to call the local pizza place. Fox will hate that I didn't actually make dinner but he'll get over it. He'll have to.

To my complete surprise, Fox walks into the house happy. He doesn't look the least bit stressed out or upset. The thick white envelope he has tucked under his right arm could have something to do with his mood. When he tosses it next to me at the kitchen table, I realize it has everything to do with his mood. It's a letter from Circe.

"I take this to mean that we've done what we needed to do with the first task and it's now on to the second part of it," Fox says, peeling off his suit's jacket. "The pizza was perfect then. Celebratory, in a way, don't you think?"

"It would certainly seem that way," I smile, enjoying the sight of him eating cheap pizza in his expensive suit. "Should I open it up and find out just what she's sent us this time?"

"Go ahead," he mutters with a full mouth.

Happily, I pull the thick, heavy envelope over to me. My fingers carefully tug the back seal off and drop the contents onto the table. At least 40 pictures tumble out to cover the tablecloth. They aren't of either of us, Gage or Celia. Every single one of them is of a woman I have never seen before.

She is just as fair as I am with dark hair and the deepest of green eyes. While confusion paints my face, shock paints Fox's. He picks through each of them before looking to me. His eyes have turned angry and dark, reminding me instantly of Jacen's when I was in his care.

"Is this some kind of joke," he asks, his voice even but an octave deeper than normal.

"What are you talking about?"

"This," he yells, ripping himself from his seat to sweep the photos off the table. "All of these are pictures of Ramona. Time-stamped! Sabrina, this is exactly why I made my computer unusable to you because I knew something like this could happen. Is it your idea of a joke to Photoshop her face onto pictures you found online and make up time-stamps just to test me?"

"That's insane," I tell him, trying to keep my temper under control. "You can check all my online activity if you want. You'll see I didn't do this."

"Then who did," he shouts. "Sabrina, tell me who did this!"

"They aren't fake," I can't resist yelling back. "She's around. She's alive. She's a vampire! You can think whatever you want to about me but there is a whole lot that you don't know about your previous wife."

Fox scoffs in disbelief as he falls back into his chair. The sound of his heartbeat quickening makes me want so badly to make him calm. Nothing I can do will make that happen. Just me taking a step toward him has him reaching out to stop me.

His thoughts are too muddled and heated for me to make any sense of them. There is no use in me trying, at the moment to sort through them. He sits and stews while I pick the photos off the floor. I try not to look at her face but it's very hard not to. She was, is, beautiful. Her delicate features are striking. It's easy to see how Fox or Dios could fall in love with her.

Among the pictures, I find a plain white peice of paper folded in half. I place all the photos back onto the table before pulling the note open.

Fox looks up to me as I read. His eyes aren't as intense as they were just a moment ago. They are now doe-like, full of shame for yelling at me and thinking I was capable of manipulating photos in the way he'd accused me of doing. He reaches out to take the note from me, sighing the instant he reads her words.

"Sabrina," he breathes hard. "What did you get yourself into?"

"More than I think I can handle," I admit to him, turning away so it's impossible to see his face. "It's not something that was intentional and nothing started until you showed me your old house. I'm not supposed to tell you anything but it's blown now. Jacen will be pissed off and Hunter will probably turn the wrath of God against me."

"They won't," he tries to assure. "Look, I have every right to know this. If she's a vampire then this means that she must have had something to do with what happened to Celia or knows of the people that did. I want to help figure all this out."

"As evidenced by you rendering your laptop useless to me."

"I'm sorry. Honestly. Tell me whatever it is you need to know and I will do what I can to get the information," he offers. "I need to know what happened. You know what happened to Gage. Jacen knows what happened to his wife. It's all been a mystery to me just what happened, Sabrina. I just want the nightmares to stop and, if the only way to get them to is by hearing things I don't want to or seeing her with someone else, then so be it."

"Fox, you don't know how hard it's going to be to hear it all," I try to tell him.

"I don't care," he says with complete and total conviction. "I want to know all this, no matter how hard it is. No. I need to know, Sabrina. Tell me where to start."

"We need to know her maiden name," I relay to him. "It will help to determine if she's staying with Dios' clan or someplace else."

"You think she's staying with Dios? No way, Sabby. She would never leave me and sacrifice Celia to just run off with Dios," he smiles a disbelieving smile.

"Yes," I tell him matter-of-factly. "She's more than likely with Dios' clan. As his lover."

Fox looks at me. His head shakes as his heart explodes into a million pieces.

"Not Dios," he practically pleads. "Dios is powerful and horrible, not to mention extremely violent. Other vampires are afraid of him. Some Senturies, too. If that is where she is, there is no way we could infiltrate his clan."

"We aren't doing this alone," I remind him. "We have the best Seturies in the world on our side. If anyone can do this, it's us. And, at the end of this, I promise you the nightmares will stop. They'll have no reason to return."

Mustering the courage to visit Gage was hard at first. Each visit gets easier and, by the time I am visiting him without a problem, I am hardly aware of the nerves I once felt. I am sure that it's got something to do with the fact my mind keeps busy by twisting itself around the idea of Celia's murder.

She could have chosen Fox, her own father, to figure out the truth. Perhaps she's tried it before and he was unable to see everything she had sent his way. He more than likely waved it off as part of his guilt. I would have done the same had I been in his situation. However, being locked in this position, I must work to piece it all together as best I can. Time is not a limit. I have, literally, forever.

Ramona is around. This means, no matter what she is now, she had planned to become what she is. Senturies don't get to choose. We become what we are out of need. Everything else gets a say in what it is they become. Some even choose it over a mortal life simply out of curiosity. Some do it because, without turning, there are no alternatives to continue living the way they wish to.

There is a very limited number of things Ramona could have turned into. My money is on that she became a vampire. There would be no reason for her to, prior to Celia's death, to have turned Sentury and, if she had, Fox would have found her. They'd be together. Vampires, though they have dealings with Senturies, they are seperate from us. The communities are as far apart as we are with every other kind of creature.

It would, perhaps, be the easiest to turn into as well. One bite and the poison takes its toll rather quickly. She would become beautiful. She would gain immense strength from her dead, frozen muscles. She'd never have to breathe, sleep or eat again for all her time on Earth.

My thoughts get the better of me too easily these days. Counted time is forgotten so that when I pull myself from thoughts, my dinner is cold, the book I was reading is laying closed on the floor and the clock that had read 7:15 p.m. now reads 3:45 a.m.

The book gets picked up, the food tossed out and I drag myself, exhausted from through the house to the staircase. A rush of cold floods through me as I reach for the banister. The curtains on the square 8 stairs above the floor begins to become fuzzy with the light equal to what it must be like to stare directly at the sun before crashing into it.

And then, she appears; Celia. Her dark hair is left dangling at her shoulders, curled at the very ends. She wears a dress, this one darkest pink with small white polka dots covering the whole of the material. Her feet bare no shoes, and, hanging from small pale fingers, a light brown teddy bear with button eyes.

"You are on the right track," she says, her voice happy. "I am brining someone to you that can help. He has been very horrible to you in the past but he knows more than my daddy does. They are all keeping it from him because they don't know how everything happened. You two will figure it out. You two will give him peace."

"Celia..."

Her head full of shiny, pretty hair shakes and, as quickly as she came, she is gone again. The chill that rattled my bones shakes itself from my system to allow me to speed up the stairs to the bedroom. I expect to find Fox asleep, possibly cuddled to one of the pillows that bares the scent of my shampoo.

That, however, is not the scene I walk in to find. The light is on. Fox holds his cellphone to his ear as he paces back and forth in front of our bed. He's not dressed. I take that as a good sign. If he's not had to hurry to put on pants, us leaving here isn't exactly necessay at the moment.

Please, get into bed. I will explain this when I am done.

Though the thought is clear and polite, the tone of it is not. It's much too firm for me to relax about the situation I have walked in on. Still, I stay quiet and thoughtless as I ready myself for bed. Fox watches me carefully, as if he must. He sends no other thoughts to me and he, for whatever reason, has placed a feiry wall back up around the ones that he has.

I slide into bed but make no attempt to get comfortable. There is no point when Fox is pacing back and forth, his phone still pressed to his ear. It's a very long while before he closes his phone. He doesn't look happy at all yet he isn't extremely stressed. All he does afterward is flick off the light in the room before he drops himself into bed next to me.

A heavy sigh erupts from his lungs.

"Hunter is furious with you," he finally divulges. "He says you have been looking into something that is highly guarded. What have you been doing when I just happen to not be around, Sabrina?"

"Nothing I knew was under wraps, as Hunter says it is," I tell him. "I was just doing some research on a past event. That's it. I was unaware that it was such a huge deal to Hunter."

"To a few others as well," Fox clarifies. "Just, whatever you are doing, have done, it's made him quite upset. He's asked that we come see him before the week is out. Sabrina, just what were you researching?"

"It doesn't matter right now and I'm sure that Hunter would be even more upset if I talked with someone else about it, even if that someone else is you," I dodge, unsuccessfully.

"To get all this cleared up, I want to leave today," he says, pushing himself off the bed. "Whatever you did, however unintentionally, it's being treated by Hunter and his circle as an act of treason. I don't understand this, Sabrina. We're together almost all of the time. I should have known if you were doing something and, trust me, had I known, I would have stopped you."

"Stopped me," I say, shaking my head. "You may be stronger than I am but, if I wanted to do this, I would have anyway. With or without you being around. But, seriously, Fox, if I knew it was such a serious, sensitive subject, I wouldn't have even thought about looking into it."

"It will get sorted out soon enough and, I'm sure as soon as you talk to Hunter, he won't be so angry," Fox reasons. "We will get some sleep and, once we're able to, we'll start getting ready to go."

"Can't you just tell him I'll stop and we can save a trip," I ask, watching as Fox flicks the light in the bedroom off. "He is a reasonable man. I am sure he will understand that I didn't know what I was doing and, now that I do, I will quit."

"Nothing is ever that simple with Hunter, Sabby," Fox sighs, crawling underneath the covers with me. "Let him have his say with you and, once it's over, we'll come back here and move onto our next task."

The extreme warmth of his body pressing itself next to mine usually makes me calm. Tonight, it doesn't. Everyone is in on this except for Fox. Whatever his past holds is a major deal that no one wants me to find out about, no one wants Fox to find out about. It's quite abnormal to hear of Hunter calling at the exact same time, or around it, that I had come to the conclusion that Ramona has, indeed, become some sort of vampire.

I try, as hard as I can, to not think about the situation once we're on the way. Fox is curious. He believes I merely looked into a clan of vampires I wasn't supposed to. Perhaps, that is exactly what I did. That isn't something that I won't know until I am put in a room with Hunter and anyone else he believes should be required to help me keep my mouth shut.

Nerves spring forth, in a harsh unforgiving way, once I find myself standing alone in what I have been told is Hunter's office. It's not like the rest of the house. Every single window has its shutter closed and locked so natural sunlight has no chance at all to sneak in. Old golden, ornate, floor lamps with very dim bulbs provide the only source of light.

Each artificial ray falls upon such intimidating things. First edition books that are worth more than my life line the bookshelves. Hunter's large, dark desk is covered with neat stacks of papers, an rectangle-shaped pen holder made of what appears to be gold woven to mimic wicker and a very large, heavy looking picture frame inserted with a picture of Hunter as a mortal and what appears to be one of the most stunning dark-haired women I have ever seen.

My fingers skim the raised artwork on the frame. It's been smoothed and polished, more than likely by Hunter's own hand. At the bottom, in a long 'ribbon', there is an inscription in perfect, wonderous script.

The beginning is the end. The end is the beginning.

January 18, 1997

"Sabrina, would you please have a seat across from my desk instead of at it," Hunter asks as politely as he possibly can. "We have something quite serious to talk over, it's better if you are comfortable while we do."

I carefully take a seat in one of the vintage, wine colored chairs as Hunter moves himself gracefully across the room to his own chair. Clad in solid black, he pulls his straight white hair back into a low ponytail that falls down his back. The way he takes a seat seems intentionally slow, as if it were meant to somehow intimidate me.

"Do you have any idea why it was I called Fox to bring you here for this meeting," he inquires, reaching out to take hold of one of his heavy, decorative pens. He twirls around in his fingers, his eyes piercing mine in such a cold manner that it sends a mild case of shivers up my spine.

"No," I answer honestly. "I am unaware of the details or the exact reason why but, I'm sure, you will fill me in on those things."

"It's funny how you didn't offer me a quick apology," he says, laying the pen down perfectly on the edge of his desk. "I take this to mean that you were fully aware of the what I speak of. You know far too much to do any good."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Sabrina, you are a very smart woman, very observant," Hunter begins. "This can be both a very valuable tool and the very reason why you are risking a peaceful, quiet existance with Foxius. We have been trying to keep this from him until we are able to confirm all the details of the events that took place but, it seems to be, your idea of Ramona being a vampire is correct."

"How can you be sure that I'm right?"

"We have known she is for quite some time. Telling Foxius would have hindered all the progress he's made in the years that followed his turn," he tells me plainly. "It would be simple for him to find this out, especially from you. Jacen was able to keep it quiet. You, on the other hand, you are too close. You have even been getting visits."

"Visits?"

"From Celia," Hunter clarifies. "This is both amazing and problematic. Excellent because she will give you the clues to find out the whole truth as to why Ramona turned and just what happened to end her life. Problematic because you have to live day to day with the man that cannot know any of these things until it's confirmed. Not to mention the vampires."

"So what if she's a vampire," I ask, shrugging off the seriousness. "You have to deal with them all of the time and nothing they can do can kill us. We are more of a danger to them than the other way around."

"Usually, this is true, Sabrina, but, in this case, it's a bit different," Hunter says as he stands from his orginal seat to move to the one next to mine. "Since she turned, Ramona has been living with a very powerful, revered clan. They aren't violent but they offer the greatest protection for all their members. That alone would be cause for concern and reason enough to tread lightly through all this. Add in the fact that Ramona is the lover, the wife, of the clan's leader, we are presented with a larger challenge.

"You hold the key to breaking the truth open. It could affect Ramona's standing in the clan and completely shatter the rationale Foxius has created for himself. Everything needs to be handled in a very private way and, let's face it, unless you are willing to part from Foxius until it all explodes into the open, you can't do this on your own. That's why I asked Jacen to help you."

"You know how afraid I am of Jacen. He basically..."

"He knows he was in the wrong for the way he treated you when you were under his care," Hunter says of Jacen. "The fact of the matter is Jacen can move around in circles you can't, he is better able to do all the research you cannot. I ask this of you: the next time she visits you, call Jacen. Tell him everything she said. If she leaves clues, rely them to him as well."

I have no true choice but to agree to what Hunter asks me to do. It's either this or leave to do it all myself. With my level of training, it would be easy for me to get caught up in things I shouldn't. Jacen will fair better.

"I'm glad you think so," Hunter smiles, referring to the thought he'd just read. "Please, Sabrina, understand that me asking you to step aside and allow Jacen to do all the work has nothing to do with my faith in your potential or ability. Foxius needs you around more than Jacen does. He only needs a few clues and a bit of information from time to time. Foxius needs you to help him through the next few tasks Circe has set forth for the two of you. Focus more on that than on Ramona. For the sake of your collective sanity, it would be wise."

"Are there any theories as to why Ramona decided to turn?"

"A few but our belief is that she fell in love with the clan leader, Dios. Any woman would go weak for him due to this incredible combination of charm, intelligence and beauty," Hunter relays. "How all this happened, we are not sure. Yet. The only person that would know is dead. With any luck, Celia will be able to tell you all these things. It will take time, though to piece this puzzle together. Foxius deserves to know the full truth. Not just parts of it. Now, please, talk with Jacen while I speak with Fox."

Hunter pats my knee gently as a way of excusing himself. The comfort it makes me feel is eclipsed by the tall, dark figure that is Jacen's body in the shadow behind the the lamp on the left hand side of Hunter's desk. His hands tuck themselves into the pockets of his dark colored jeans as he steps over to the chair Hunter's just stood from.

His hair has been cut short so the top stands in spikes, a pound of gel holding each one neatly in place. A few days worth of stubble has grown around his mouth. This was obviously done with intent since, from the looks of it, the rest of his face is clean shaven.

"Nothing I could possibly say will make up for the things I did to you and put you through when you first came to stay with Fox and me," Jacen says, his voice oddly soft and sincere. "You deserved better than me. Still do, but, as Hunter said, this is the only way we are going to able to find out the truth about Ramona, about Celia."

"I am completely aware of that fact, Jacen. We shouldn't talk about the past. Well, not our past," I say, standing up for fear if I don't, I will become too nervous to continue the conversation the way I need to. "How do you want to go about this?"

"It's best if we keep our meetings brief and do as much as possible by phone," Jacen tells me as he stands himself up. He steps toward me, his hand outstretched just enough so that his fingertips skim the material of my shirt. "Fox more than likely wants to kill me for the past you don't want to speak of."

"He doesn't talk about it much. That could possibly be because he fears the rage it could invoke. So, we speak on the phone and only meet when absolutely necessary? Is that how you want it?"

"No, but that is how it has to be," Jacen nods. "I should probably get going. As should you. Hunter is setting up a dinner for you and Fox in the main dining room. I have somewhere to be."

"Where?"

"I will tell you later on," he says firmly yet without a single shread of anger. "You go on and enjoy your dinner with Hunter. Sleep well next to Fox. Because, when things get heated, I can't be so sure you will be able to spend so much time kicking back and relaxing. Rest now. You'll need the engery later."

"Energy for what," Fox's voice unexpectedly cuts through the room.

Both Jacen and I look toward the door, our eyes falling onto Fox standing perfectly still with his arms crossed over his chest. His stance is harsh. The way he watches Jacen both excites and terrifies me, as if he could leap across the room at any moment to attack.

"You will find out soon enough," Jacen says, trying his best to phrase his response in a way that won't anger Fox. "I understand that you are, rightfully, angry with me and would prefer it if I kept my distance from Sabrina. However..."

"There is no 'however', Jacen," Fox tells him with a tone so cold I expect it to freeze. He steps toward me, his hand reaching out to take mine in order to pull me behind him. "Stay away from her. You have absolutely no business with her whatsoever."

"Fox..."

"No, Jacen," he silences him. "Don't come looking for us. Don't call. Don't write. Leave us alone because, if I catch you around her alone like this again, no matter if Hunter wanted it or not, I will hurt you beyond complete repair."

"You are such a stubborn person," Jacen muses. "And suspicious. These are faults that I can't blame you for because I'm the reason for them. But, Sabrina has been entrusted to help with a mission of mine. It won't require us to see each other every day, just call every so often to make sure the mission is on track."

"Just what is this mission," Fox asks him. When he doesn't answer, Fox turns his attention toward me. "What is it, Sabrina?"

"Hunter asked me not to tell you anything until it's safe to," I try to deflect. "As soon as it is, I promise I will tell you everything."

The way he looks at me as I tell him this makes everything inside me go cold. I can tell he's angry, upset by the fact that I am being serious about not being able to tell him everything I believe he should know. His mind's huge wall of fire pulls itself back up, blocking me from truly understanding everything that he feels, that he thinks.

Fox shoots Jacen a harsh glare just before he grips my hand in his.

"Come on, Sabrina. We're leaving," Fox instructs, his voice almost shaky with anger.

I believe that he has every right to be this way. On some level, so am I. I didn't ask to be paired with Jacen for this or to have any of this happen at all. We walk from Hunter's study, leaving Jacen to stand in the middle of it having to choose between his loyalty to Hunter, his devotion to finding out the truth for Fox and his distaste for bodily harm.

Fox has gone every single day for a week to Camden cemetery. I encourage him to do this. Unfortunately, he spends nights out on the hill with the memory of Celia while I roam around the house alone, too uncomfortable to sleep. The vision of the very tail of a black cloak hangs in my head more than anything that happened the day I'd gone with him.

It's enough to make me, this night, push open the laptop computer that sits in the small study off the livingroom. News is all stored digitally now. Backlogs of news archives are available to anyone that feels the want or need to go looking for them. I do just as I had done when doing research for school papers not very long ago; I Google it.

Facts of the murder are more explosive than what Fox had told me. I sit back in the desk chair to read the original story via the Camden archive.

His hand twitched as he lay sleeping. His eyes searched underneath his eyelids for the things he dreamed. I swallowed hard as I watched him. I didn't have to read his thoughts to know what they consist of. Images of her face. Images of Celia. His worlds are torn between the one we live in and the one he dreams of.

My mind is just as restless as his dreams are. I make myself get out of our bed so I can wander the hallways of our new home. The floors are all hardwood. They are refreshing to our bare feet after we spend the days in the sand of our beachy backyard. The large, panoramic windows hold only flowy white curtains that are sheer enough you don't need to move them aside to see the contents of the yard.

There has been no word from Jacen. Perhaps he suspected this would happen. Perhaps he doesn't care. Either way, I am grateful that I am able to relax the way I do. It's a matter of time until he is able to come find us. His curosity is more than likely already piqued at Hunter's want and desire to help us pull away from him.

The kitchen is lit by the moon. Fresh white paint coats every cabinet, the tall but old fridge's sleek pink airbrushed paint is distinguishable in the dark. Our small kitchen table has been cleared off completely. No dishes sit in the sink. Fox is very anal about keeping every surface of the house clean, after all, time does not rush us into other things.

Glowing green numbers on the only new appliance, the microwave, says the time is just before 3 when I hear Fox's gasp. The walls are so thin here. I can actually hear his heart ricochet around his chest as it pumps wildly, matching his jagged breathing. He's just realized he was having a nightmare. A flashback. They both have the same effect on him.

"Sabrina...."

My name falling from his lips stuns me. The name doesn't match the ones he usually utters. As he throws the blankets off his sweating body, I rest myself in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He will come to find me. He's already on his way down. To make it easier for him to find me, I flick on the kitchen light.

By the time I do, Fox is already standing in the archway. Small salty drops of sweat have begun to bead on his forehead and drip down his perfect chest. His breathing has steadied. His heart is well on its way to joining his lungs in normalcy.

"How long have you been out of bed," he asks, his voice almost robotic.

"Not long. 5 minutes perhaps," I tell him.

"Come back to bed with me. I know that I am not the best person to sleep next to but, without you there, it's worse," he says, sliding his fingers through his hair, brushing it from his eyes only to have it fall back into them. "Could you see them? Are they the reason you couldn't sleep yourself?"

As I stand from the table, I turn the light off. His outline is still perfect in the archway. His dark hair glows silver in the moonlight. The sweat that had, just a moment ago, run down his chest has dried.

I take his hand as I pass by him. He willingly follows me through the house to the stairs and up them. He stays in the doorway as I slide back into bed.

"You moving is what made me leave you in bed alone," I explain. "I couldn't see your dreams. I try not to dive into them. It's the only place you can have privacy now. The way you react to them scares me at times. Tonight was mild in comparison to the others."

"I'm...sorry...," he whispers, his head hanging. "I try my best to keep the dreams at bay but they always come back in a force that is more terrible than the last time. I wish there were a way to stop them but, I can't, Sabrina. Do you have the same sort of dreams from time to time?"

"Possibly. I don't remember most of the dreams I have these days. Save for one," I tell him, letting my shoulders fall against the headboard of our bed. "It, like most other thoughts on lazy days, is about Gage. Your dreams of Celia may be a bit harder to handle, to have, but they are perfectly natural. You don't need to explain them to me."

"They aren't about her," he says, his voice stotic and his body unmoving. "I can't find the right words to explain them to you. Each are terribly violent and so vividly real. Tearing my eyes open to reality is the only source of peace I can get and even that doesn't last very long."

Something about his choice of words engages my mind in an odd sort of way. I'd had a dream, not long ago, that was extremely vivid. So much so that I had confused it with reality. Could these dreams, somehow, be related? Could they possibly be 'scenes' or 'warnings' from someone that is even more powerful than Hunter is?

"Do you understand how dire a situation would have to be in order to involve someone higher in the chain, Sabrina? Jacen and I would spar until we were both completely drained of all forms of energy but he'd never have the gall or sheer stupidity to band with another community just to come after you," Fox is swift to assert. "Hunter will stop him before his mind can even make up as to what to do and whom to band with."

"If that is the case, then we have nothing to worry over," I point out. "Hunter will take care of it. We'll stay safe here. So, please, come back to bed with me. Rest a bit more. When the sun comes up, we can make breakfast and eat it outside on the deck."

Fox accepts my suggestion to come back to bed. He moves timidly toward me but has no trouble in allowing his tight-muscled arms to wrap around me. For the time we sleep knowing dawn would come soon, he had no more dreams. None that woke or startled me, at the very least. They must have changed to sweeter ones this time around.

Though we give in to the wonderful siren calls of sleep and dreams, I am the first to be coaxed from them by pure sunlight crashing its way onto every surface of our bedroom. It all seems so calm but there is a noticable absence of sound. Fox breathing is the only one. There are no birds, no hums of passing cars or loud giggles from kids playing on the beach.

There is only a stiff silence.

My body slides from Fox's grip so I can, carefully, inspect the room. Nothing is out of place. All the figurines sit in their exact place and the door is left in the same perfect angle Fox had left it open at. Walking out into the hallway, there is nothing that alerts me, visually, to the one thing waiting for me at the bottom of the staircase.

A large black box sits directly below the last step. Attatched to it, via a bright green ribbon wrapped around the whole of the box, is a heavy looking piece of white parchment paper. Whoever had come in knew the layout of the house. They were very aware this was a place the box would definitely be noticed.

Timid feet move me down the stairs. I sit on the very last stair, positioning myself in such a way that my feet rest on either side of the box. The parchment paper does not state where the box came from or just who it's for. I am left to believe the contents are for both Fox and me. And, because I was never able to wait to open presents on my birthday or Christmas, I find my fingers sliding the parchment away from the box and ribbon.

My eyes scroll over the wonderful script, absorbing each word like it's straight from God.

The name is not one I have ever heard before. Circe. I speed through the pages of my memory, hoping someone had mentioned the name to me before, even just in passing. No one had.

"Where did the box come from," Fox asks me, taking a seat on the stair next to me.

"Circe."

Hoping to understand more of who this person is, I look to Fox's face. He slides the parchment from my hand and reads over it in the exact same manner that I just had. Only, once he's done, a very proud smile takes shape.

"Circe is an anicent," Fox says, handing the parchment back to me. "She is this amazing woman. Brilliantly beautiful and intelligent. She has used her time wisely, reading every book that comes out on every subject. Because she's this way, she is the one put in charge of personal tasks and missons. It's safe to say that, what she has planned for us to do will be emotionally draining. Shall we look inside the first box?"

Fox unties the ribbon, pulling it from underneath the heavy box. He drapes the ribbon over the knee of my pajama pants then, with both his hands, pushes the lid off it. It hits the unprotected wooden floor with a crashing thud. The scent of peppermint springs from the box along with a burst of lush green tissue paper surrounding three identically sized boxes.

Each is numbered in Roman style with thick black painted script that clashes against the stark glossy white of the rest of the box. Fox reaches into the box to remove the first of the smaller ones. Opening it, for him, is much easier. He uses his thumbs to flip the top open slowly.

Fox shifts his body so his back rests against the banister as he places the box against the stair above the one we are seated on. The happiness his face held drains considerably as he reaches inside the box and pulls out a pair of lockets attached to an identical green ribbon as the original box was tied with. On the very end is another piece of parchment which contains another length of beautiful handwritting.

I reach over to take the lockets from his hands. Inside one is a wonderful black and white photo of Celia. In the other is one of Gage. That one slides around my neck and, once it finds its place against my chest, I slide the other around Fox's.

"In all honesty, I haven't been to see Ramona or Celia since I came to train," Fox confesses to me as his fingers twirl the locket. "I have only gone a total of 3 times."

"That's twice more than I have gone to see Gage," I confess in return. "It was very painful in the past to even think about going but, I really do believe Circe is right. It's time we go. We can do this if we do it together. Facing our pasts will make us stronger and better at what we are supposed to be able to do."

"Who goes first?"

"You should go first," I suggest. "You're older and have been away longer. You won't have family or friends that will recognize you as easily as mine would. Besides, I am so very curious to see just where you lived before you turned. The house, where you worked and everything else you can imagine."

"Why are you so curious, Sabby?"

"Aren't you at all curious as to what remains of the house I burned down? Don't you want to see what my parents looks like, where I went to school and every place I ever visited," I ask, reaching over to push the hair from his eyes.

"When you put it in that way, absolutely," Fox says, leaning toward me just enough to press his lips to the top of my head. "I will do all this first. In fact, where I am from isn't too far from here. Maybe 20 miles. So, should we forego the breakfast and get started on this mission?"

"Seriously? Maybe you should think on it for a few days and..."

"It wouldn't matter if I waited 3 days or 3 years, it would be just as hard for me to do," he says as he stands. "The sooner I get started, the better. So, if you are up for it, we can get dressed and drive into Camden, get some breakfast on the way."

It's impossible to turn him down. The idea of seeing all the sites he's graced when he had a limited number of days to enjoy it, is too good. We move the box out of the way, placing it finally beside the sofa in our livingroom. Once Fox has placed the lid back on it, we take it upon ourselves to get dressed.

The weather allows us to wear normal clothes. Blue jeans and t-shirts paired with sneakers with clean white laces. Fox makes no attempt whatsoever to hide his identity. He has no real reason to. Everyone that could have known him has more than likely died. It gives him the freedom to walk among the people just as freely as I can.

Fox is careful to lock up the whole of the house, windows and doors both, before we set out on the trip. 20 miles has never seemed so long to me as it does now. I am much too comfortable in the front seat of the overly luxurious sports car Hunter just had to secure for us. Just knowing that I am about to get my first glimpse into Fox's old life has my mind racing with images of the things I hope to see; his old house being at the top of the list.

I find out quickly that it's not so high on his own list. 5 miles from Camden's city limits, Fox detours onto an unpaved road and pushes the gas petal as far down as it can go. The sudden speed pushes my back further into the seat. He shifts gears as if he's a professional race car driver.

For this, I don't blame him or question his motive for it. He's not had a chance to use it since we got to Ettika, a nice little town far enough away from everything that it's peaceful but close enough to things it wouldn't be a hassle to get to it if need be.

The speed I expect. The stop courtesy of grinding tires on gravel, I don't. It causes me to jerk forward harshly enough that the pressure caused by the seatbelt almost cuts through my breastbone. But, I am saved from that due to Fox's arm extending out to push me back into the seat again.

"Sorry about that," he laughs a little. "Speed is addictive at times, especially when I haven't driven anything like this in my entire life."

"You're forgiven. This time," I say after taking the deepest breath I have in such a long while. "Where are we? Why'd you stop?"

Fox nods his head to his left. My eyes follow his direction to fall upon an old looking 2-story house in the middle of a lush but overgrown yard. Though it looks long abandoned, the paint on the columns of the porch are still white. The coating doesn't look fresh at all but it doesn't show the normal wear and tear a house being left alone for 60 years would.

He unbuckles his belt, giving me perfect leeway to do the same. Fox waits until my door shuts to lock it up with the button on his keychain. He walks ahead of me into the yard, seemingly unafraid of snakes or spiders. I am much slower than he is. I can't help but try to imagine him walking up the way after a long day of work, not being able to wait to see Celia, to kiss Ramona.

"Come on," Fox encourages, reaching behind him for my hand. "The outside looks bad but the inside is pristine. Maybe a little dusty, but it won't kill you."

My hand slides into his without thought. Fox leads me up the concrete steps of the porch, over the porch itself and, after pushing the door open with extreme force, through it.

The giant windows let in enough sunlight, though heavily filtered by dust, to flow into the large open room in which we stand. Fox drops my hand. This isn't done with the intention to leave me, it's instead done in order for Fox to rip the covers off the rich cherry wood sofa in burgundy.

"This is where I used to live," he tells me, allowing his legs to give out on him so his tall frame can rest awkwardly on the sofa. "There was a time when I would keep my hair cut short, went to bed at exactly 9:00 and ate meatloaf every Wednesday night. My parents names were William and Sarah Kerwin. I had one sister, Laura. I was, very long ago, a doctor. A surgeon, to be exact."

"That would explain why you're so good with your hands," I tease.

"Haha," he mocks, a smile on his face. "I was very, very good at what I did. Ramona was a nurse. And, I suppose I should come out with what happened the day they died. Maybe I will get extra points with Circe for being so honest and forthcoming so quickly."

His willingness to tell me this story pulls me over to him. Fox swings his legs over so his feet can rest on the floor, giving me the space to sit with him. And, so, I listen to his story.

"I had been asked to work overnight in the emergency room. Ramona thought nothing of it. I often took the opprotunity to work at night because it meant more of my day could be spent with Celia," he starts. "When I came home the next morning, just after dawn, I noticed the front door was open. Not just cracked, but wide open. It had been kicked in.

"All I can remember after noticing that was I dropped my bag on the pathway and started to search for Celia and Ramona. It was so cold. Snow had coated the ground, sticking to everything it touched. I remember finding Celia. She was out behind the house covered in so much blood. A trail of it had streaked the snow, letting me know that someone or something had drug her out into the back yard.

"I picked her up and cradled her to my chest. She was like stone, so cold and lifeless. The next thing I did was start to call for Ramona. I yelled and screamed for her but there was nothing. It haunts me to this day. I found Celia but I never found her."

Fox doesn't look over to me. He merely leans over, letting his head come to rest against my shoulder. I don't have to look at him to know the look that stays on his face. It's one of grief. He's crying.

I wrap my arms around him the best I can in the position I'm in. Instead of cuddling into me the way he normally does, Fox pulls himself away from me. I am not upset. This home isn't the one he has with me. It's the one that holds his old life, the one I know he misses desperately. I'd be the same if mine hadn't burned to the ground.

"I'm sorry. I just...It feels odd here," he says, moving back toward me to kiss my temple. "For so long, I kept this house just like it was when I lived here full time but, I think, it would be unwise for me to continue to. Another family could use the house, one with lots of children that can enjoy the backyard and garden. We will make another home for ourselves, one that doesn't bear so many memories and where great ones can be created. So, while I continue my roll, would you like to meet Celia?"

I nod.

It means another trip out in the sports car. This time, darkness has started to fall and more control of the car is needed. Fox expertly drives to the well maintained cemetary and up to the hill in the very back that holds not one, but two, older looking headstones bearing the last name Kerwin.

A flicker of deep black catches my eye as Fox pulls up to the small hill. It reminded me of the tail end of a cloak but, with darkness falling, I chalk it up to me being sleepy and overwhelmed with all the things I have learned about Fox during the day.

We walk up the hill where, we both, sit crossed legged in front of the stone that bears the name Celia Elizabeth Kerwin. My eyes, however, continue to divert to one that belongs to Ramona. Something about the feel of it draws me to it. I stare and stare at the name engraved in the stone as shivers work their way quickly up my spine.

Something suddenly is out of balance and makes me feel more odd than usual. I dare not voice this to Fox or even think too much on it. He stays for such a long time playing with the grass that covers Celia's grave. It's just before dawn before he decides to leave. We slide, both emotionally and physically exhausted, into the car.

As soon as Fox starts the car, my eye catches the same dark flicker on the hill. I close my eyes and take in a few deep breaths. Being sleep deprived has caused my senses to weaken.

Every muscle in my body is paralyzed. Fox's fingers dance their way along my ribs as if they are expertly playing an old, familiar instrument. His eyes hold mine intensely as his shockingly warm fingertips swirl round my navel. They don't have to travel any further than that. They stay perfectly gentle against my skin, the thin material of my nightshirt.

When he pulled back, and stood, I felt numb. My mind was trying to wrap itself around this new development, without much success. I can only watch as he begins to remove his clothing, first the pajama bottoms and then slowly allows the boxers to fall to the floor.

In every way, he is perfect. My mind comes to a halt when I see it; his thick, raised scar, running from hip to knee on his left side. I watch as he lowers himself back onto the bed on one knee, the other foot still on the floor. I sit up and allow him to pull the nightshirt off. I lay back and, after he tosses my nightshirt into his pile of clothes, he lays with me.

"Fox?" I whispered.

He asks me for silence, his finger on my lips. I closed my mouth and my mind, just allowing long forgotten sensations to follow.

He carefully ran his fingers lightly down my arms, raising goosebumps as they went. A soft gasp escaped me when he skimmed his thumbs down my breasts, making my stomach contract tightly. My nipples became hard peaks and his eyes seemed amused and strangely aroused at the same time.

Almost shyly, I placed my hands on his shoulders, feeling the muscles that had fascinated me for so long. I traced my fingers along each corded musculature, back up them and to his collarbone, where I laced my hands behind his head and pulled him into a kiss. His dark hair fell against my face. His eyes, deep doe brown pools, stared into my dark grey ones. When I felt his member burning against me, I involuntarily shivered out a sigh.

A slight smile came to his lips and I wondered briefly what was going through his mind. A memory of a fantasy hit me and I froze when he recognized it. He wasted no time in leaning down to tear my panties off with his teeth. When they became the last of the clothes to find a place in the pile, his teeth were bared in a not-so-innocent grin. He slid his body over mine, kissing, touching, tasting every patch of skin he came in contact with.

Though I was a quivering mass of nerves, I began to touch, taste and kiss him as he'd done with me. I slid my fingers over his scar, the texture of it strange and slightly frightening in some way. I kissed and then licked at his lower lip.

But when he took his hand and placed it over his erection, my mouth went dry. My eyes widened with desire as his want flooded through me. He lowered his head to first one nipple, then the other, while his fingers worked to secure my readiness on the sensitive, swollen flesh of my core. My breath came in gasps. I shook as the first orgasm flashed through me, fire in my veins and pinpoint flashes of light on my eyelids.

I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me, somehow strangely smug and anticipatory at the same time. I placed my hands on his shoulders and he placed his member at my entrance. To keep from showing my rattled nerves, my leg ran itself up his, finding comfort in the imperfection of his scar.

Fox skimmed his lips over my chin. His teeth bit into my lower lip, gently tugging it away from my upper. Warm fingers traced down my sides to hold my hips in place. His focus was melted into my gaze when he began entering me. Though he breathed heavily upon his entrance, our eyes stayed locked in place.

He slowly began to pull out. I wanted nothing more than for him put himself back inside me. He granted the want, the wish. Over and over, the dance of love and lust began for us, hurtling us faster and faster towards euphoria. And, after the highest point, we were both left breathless, hearts pounding, minds drained and body's struggling to recover.

I lay there, listening to his breath train itself to become even, his heartbeat slowing to a normal pace. I closed my eyes, feeling the edges of sleep trying to come around. I pushed them back for a while, happy to just be here, like this, in his arms, a place I had been dreaming of being for such a long time.

"Sabrina," he exhaled but said nothing more.

He suddenly turned himself over, so that I was caught and curled against his side. He pulled a sheet over us and I turned to him, looking at the face and magnificent body I had once only been able to dream about. I skimmed his face with the nail of my thumb, his eyes closed against contrast of hard nail and soft skin.

I suddenly wondered how we looked at that moment. Me with my blazing red hair flung out wildly against the very white pillow, face pressed up against his perfectly sculptured chest, bronze on marble. His hair, darker still, on his pillow, one arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. I felt his lips press a light kiss on my forehead, lingering there.

And then I saw something that made me smile. A small hole in his earlobe.

"How long have you had it pierced?"

His eyes opened, the brown no longer as soft as it had been before, but did not reflect the hardness they sometimes held.

"A long time," he said.

I thought he wouldn't tell me, so I closed down my sense of hurt as best I could. He seemed to sense my withdrawal, and took my hand, placing the fingers on the small hole.

"I have it because of Celia," he said. "When she was 5 years old, my wife decided it was time for her first pair of earrings. Ramona took a needle and heated it to kill any germs but Celia was afraid. I wanted to show her she had nothing to fear, so I allowed Ramona to pierce mine. I believe I carried on worse than she did, actually, but she did it to show me how brave she was."

His eyes closed slowly when my thumb and middle finger began to massage his earlobe. My action was more thoughtless than anything. It kept him occupied while I thought of his wife. The fact that he'd said her name suddenly brought a new feeling to the ones bubbling and erupting on my insides. This new one was labelled, rightly, as guilt.

I wondered a million other things in an instant. How he met her, how much he loved her, how he was finally able to remove his wedding band. There was no use in blocking them, Fox hadn't heard a thing while enjoying the gentle pressure against his earlobe. And, if he had, I made sure, through soft lingering kisses to his jawline, that he'd forget about them.

His fingers weaved themselves in my hair. I could feel them tangle the soft waves inbetween his fingers. This was his way of holding me place and telling me to keep on track. The intensity turned sensitive, my kissing growing to long, skimming lines over his neck and shoulders until I was once again beside him, cuddled into his warmth.

The hand of his that hadn't busied itself my hair couldn't stop delicately travelling its way down my arm, side, hip and thigh before changing direction. His simple indulgence of my skin relaxed us both, perhaps a bit too much. Before either of us could comprehend the onset of glorious sleep, each of us became lost in dreams of the other.

Once sleep and dreams had run their course, my arm slides out across the spacious mattress in search of Fox's body. It glides and glides over cold sheets, never reaching him. Searching the other direction is impossible. My body kept itself just at the edge. And, for a moment, I fear all that transpired between us was one of the dreams my mind made up to torture me.

That changes once I sit myself upright. Fox sits across the room in a high backed chair. His attention is focused on the newspaper that is spread open enough to hide his face. My heart falls when I notice he's had time to put clothes on. His modesty transfers to me, making me quickly gather the sheets of his bed around me.

The thin newspaper flops over on the lefthand side as my fingers adjust the sheet over my chest. Fox peeks around the mass of grey paper to land his eyes on me. His soft brown eyes sparkle the color of dark honey in the sunlight, offset by the plain white t-shirt he wears. The corners of his mouth pull a wonderous smile onto his face.

He drops the newspaper into his chair when he stands. Our eyes lock, never wavering, even after he places himself onto the bed with me. His right hand raises to allow his fingers to timidly trace along the edge of the sheet and my skin. I blush when he moves his hand over my shoulder, slowly tracing up my neck to hold the back of my head.

"I thought it was a dream," I whisper, feeling the overwhelming need to confess.

"No, it's better than a dream," he says, the beautiful smile returning to his face. "Our reality is so much more than any dream we could ever weave. This, though, is not something we can take lightly. We have to make a decision now, one that cannot be undone once we have made it."

"What decision must we make now that is so important," I ask him, still embarrassed by my lack of clothes.

"The one to become mates," he says, smiling, blushing, his fingers nervously beginning to shake in my hair. "Neither of us enters into things without thinking about every single detail, no matter how insignificant they make seem to a normal person. For me, this wasn't something meaningless and I know it meant just as much you as it did to me."

I can't argue with his logic. I wouldn't even if I were able to.

He was the brightness of my days for so long, the person I looked for and toward. Even in my dreams this hadn't happened. The only things I thought I'd be good for were torture and sex. It became clear to me, in that moment, just how worthless I'd grown to be to myself.

Another painful realization comes to me that, perhaps, Fox wouldn't want the same thing I do even though he'd brought the subject up. He could tell me that, though he loved me enough to protect me, he didn't hold enough to be with me the way I so desperately want him to be.

"No, no, no," he breaks in. "I want you. I have wanted you, Sabrina. I may not be perfect but I can protect you, stand with you and love you harder than you have ever been loved. It's these feelings that will forever bind me to you."

"Do you understand the gravity of what you're telling me, Fox? You are so beautiful, you could have any other person in this world that you wanted," I say, standing and pulling the sheet with me. "You can't want to spend your forever with me. There has to be someone better. Someone more...worthy."

"I hate saying this to you but, Sabrina, shut up," he booms. "My life would probably be better spent walking this world alone but, what would it be without you? When Ramona died, I never thought I could feel anything close to what I felt for her. You surpass it! You just have to look at me and I just want to hold you in my arms because more than anything, more than anyone else in this world, I want to protect you. If that isn't love, then it needs a new definition."

I look at him. Really look at him standing in front of me. His eyes are clouded over with tears, his arms at his sides, he stands stiff. Everything that I have been taught to do would tell me to turn away from him, not let him affect me.

All this could be a test of my self-control. He could just be a magnificent actor playing the part of a man that really could love me. If that is the case, I should run. I should decline his offer. I should leave Hunter and Jacen and Fox to live alone, just spend my forever locked away in a padded room.

Suddenly, Fox is towering over me. His hands hold my arms to keep me in place. When he is confident I will stay, his left hand drops so he can fish around his pocket. I want nothing more than to walk away, to not let anything else happen. My choices are becoming heavier and harder to process.

"This is all I have to show you that this isn't a test, a lesson or anything else you can think up," he tells me, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. "I can't wait. You need to tell me whether or not you want me because the sooner you do, the sooner we can leave."

Inbetween his thumb and index fingers, he holds a ring. It's far too big for me but it's perfect, the gold highly shined.

"I will put this back on for the first time in 45 years if your answer is that you will be mine," he tells me. "It's the only thing I can give you; my word that I have, do and always will love and protect you. You have to decide for yourself if you want to come with me or stay with Hunter."

Looking up to him, I realize the wall around his mind has been switched off. The only thing flowing through his mind is the line Please, Sabrina....love me the way I love you. It repeats over and over, without an end in sight.

His silent pleading twists my heart and mind into a frenzy. The pounding of my heart, the whirring of my overactive mind, the sweat freshly forming over my eyebrows becomes too much. I just can't say no to him. Not when my heart is trying desperately to fly from its place, through Fox's chest wall to get to his heart.

"I'll always be with you," I tell him. "Now, where are we supposed to go? Why do we need to go anywhere? Hunter can..."

"Hunter is going to protect us both from Jacen," he spills. "I don't care about where we go, I just care that you are going with me."

Pushing his ring back on, he kisses me with every bit of passion that he somehow had left over from last night. His lips instantly relax me. If, in the future, he would just press them to mine, no matter what difficult situation we are facing, it would renew my faith. Even just seeing his smile would do that.

"Unless you want to go naked, I suggest you put some clothes on," Fox whispers against my lips.

"Right," I blush. "Just where is Hunter sending us away to this time? I didn't know the last two times and, for once, I would like to know before hand. If you know, that is."

Fox crosses his arms over his chest, nodding his head.

"Somewhere...sunny," he smiles. "That is all I am allowed to tell you."

His vague answer helps me to determine what I should wear and what I should throw into the black backpack sitting in the middle of my bed upon my return to it. I don't bother with a shower. The smell of Fox on my skin fills me with my first flashes of happiness. They almost overtake me. I am just lucky that I can contain it.

Well, to a certain degree. I just wear a smile on my face the entire time I am changing into jeans and a classic cut teal t-shirt. It stays while I slide on my shoes, while I brush the waves down to the ends of my hair and only grows when I join Fox in the hallway between our rooms.

"Do you have everything," he asks, tossing his own backpack onto his shoulder.

"More than that," I tell him.

"Not quite. It seems you're missing something," he says.

I look down. I am fully dressed, my shoes are on and tied. Another pair of jeans and six t-shirts, toothbrush and paste, a comb and a bottle of perfume sit inside my backpack. There is nothing that I am missing.

Fox reaches into his right pocket then extends his hand. His fingers slowly start to uncurl, exposing a smaller, simple gold band in his palm.

"Don't worry, no one wore it before you," Fox smiles. "You deserve one of your own, if for nothing more than putting up with me. Do you want to put it on or...should I do it for you?"

"I don't know how these things are supposed to work," I tell him, so frozen at the sight of the ring in his palm that I hardly even make the effort to breathe. "I mean, we don't have to do anything formal? We don't have to have a wedding or make a speech in front of anyone to tie us together, you know, like we would have had to do before?"

His head shakes. He steps toward me, reaching for my left hand. The cool gold slides onto my finger perfectly, filling me all at once with everything I'd been missing and waiting for. My smile, my sense of happiness blooms tenfold.

"I have been married once in the human sense, it's not something I will do again," Fox tells me. "In this agreement, we don't need a priest or vows. It takes more than those things, and these rings, to bind us."

My heart cracks a little to hear him say he will never bring himself to marry someone again. Thing is, my logic repairs the crack rather quickly. What we are doing may not require a ceremony, dress and flowers but it's much bigger than those committments. Ours is a true forever. We can't back out of it with divorce or seperation. We are bound, tied and wound together for all of space and all of time.

Fox blinds me with another of his smiles as his hand takes mine. I don't regret my choice to call him mine forever. There is nothing more that anyone could ask for in another soul. Someone smart, protective and full of all the things you just can't live without. Wherever we are heading this time, I want to stay.

It will be sunny there.

A long month passed before I was comfortable training with Hunter. Unlike Fox, he is a slow guide. He explains things before we do anything, making sure that I know the movements I am supposed to make before I even step onto the sparring strip. It works well. I haven't gotten a single bruise, broken bone or even come close to getting stabbed again.

Fox trains as well. I envy him because he gets to work alone. My body pushes itself to the limits each day that I fight and spar with Hunter. My schedule would look odd on paper; wake up, eat, train, eat, train, shower, sleep. I intend to repeat this every single day until I am a true warrior. One that can fight my own battles and not have to rely on anyone else.

Today was no exception to the rule. I trained, hard and long, then came back for the night. Leaving the room is hardly an option when your legs feel like concrete blocks and the 45 minute cold water shower I just took doesn't help me feel any less like I am running a severe fever.

The nightshirt that I choose to wear is one of the more simple ones Hunter had gotten for me. He had gotten pretty ones made of satin but I don't feel right in them. They are too expensive for me, too sexy. I just need something to sleep in, something to feel sore in for an hour before my body starts to melt the pain away.

I lay in the middle of the bed, in a dark room, eyes closed, willing the pain in my legs and arms to go away. My damp hair feels good against my back and shoulders. And, just before my concentration gives way to the amazing release of sleep, my bedroom door opens, allowing the light from the hallway to pour over me.

"Sabrina..."

I don't turn to look at him. There really is no need. Fox's voice is second nature to me and I know that he can read my thoughts. He knows I know it's him. He knows that I am still sore, that I am overtired and that sleep is the only thing that I want.

Still knowing all these things, Fox lets himself into the room, shutting the door behind him. Privacy is big here at Hunter's house so the locking of the door isn't necessary.

"Just lie there," he says quietly as he sits in the plush white chair beside my bed. "Converse with me through your thoughts but, there is a situation."

Situation?

"A big one," he tells me. "Hunter is happy with the way you have been training. Jacen, however, is not. He is done with the mission he left us alone for. He wants us to come back, join him again."

Will you go?

"I can't go back. He's too risky to deal with now. The mission he left for was highly dangerous and he didn't properly do his job," Fox explains. "For the first time ever, he has enemies."

I'm surprised he doesn't have more but, what does that have to do with you and me?

"It means that he will have to come under Hunter's protection until his name is cleared," he says. "He will be around for a long time, I suspect. I don't know exactly how he will treat you since, technically, you aren't his responsibility anymore. I wanted you to know that, whatever happens with him, or because of him, I will protect you over anyone else."

Why?

I expect him to have an answer ready. He stays silent, sitting back in his chair as if I have stunned him. His brick wall prevents me from reading his mind the way he reads mine. I let him know it's frustrating and completely unfair. So, though he sighs and physically acts as if he doesn't want to give in, he does.

His thoughts flood my mind brilliantly. They don't make sense at first. Each is too bright with sunshine, too concentrated on the orange horizon. It's a scene. Jacen never really showed me scenes, nor has Hunter. It feels odd to have someone else's vision in your head. You can't control it. You can only endure it.

And this scene is wonderfully delicious to my mind's eye. Tall, lush grass surrounds him and I am there. I see myself from his point of view. I am beautiful in his thought; thin with clear skin and fire for hair. His feelings rush through me as they would him. "Alive", is the only way to describe the emotion. His heart has a reason to beat, it pounds against his chest. He doesn't love me. I can't quite call it that. He wants to do for me what he couldn't do for Celia; protect me and keep me happy.

I push the thought from my mind harshly, tossing it back at him in unanticipated anger.

Don't show me that again.

"Why not," he asks innocently enough. "It's how I feel about you."

No. It's all that you allow yourself to feel for me. I'm not Celia. You were too late to save me, Fox. No one could have anyway. I was always too far gone. I hate that you can't...

"What? You hate that I can't love you," he says, his eyebrows furrowing together. "I can't love anyone, Sabrina. My heart is incapable of feeling it. It's all it can do to beat for you. Isn't that enough?"

Would it be enough if the roles were reversed?

Fox stares at me for a moment. His eyes stay harshly fixed on my face. My eyes are still closed, my body still looks at rest. My muscles, though, are flexed with anger. If I weren't so sore, I'd stand up and fight with him the way he expects. I cannot. If I even attempt to stand right now, the pain would be too much and I would collapse against the floor.

"No," he finally says. "But I don't know that it could never feel love. I...I just know that it can't right now. The closest thing to love is alive, and...I'm asking that, that be good enough. For now."

Forever.

Fox slides to the very edge of his chair, leans over and allows his forehead to come to rest next to my right hand.

"Not forever," he whispers. "Not forever. Not forever. I promise. I am only just a bit older than you are. It's hard to know if I am healed enough to have a mate. But, I know that when I am healed, I want it to be you."

The room goes quiet. My eyes fly open. My muscles relax and I sit upright. Fox is nowhere to be seen, sunlight is blinding me. It was all a dream. I should have known it would be one. Fox would never say any of those things to me in reality. He's too tight lipped, he'd never show me a scene. He would never want to be my mate, not for any reason.

I slide out of bed to put on the clothes laid out for me on the dresser. It's a small surprise to me when I find none there waiting. Are we not training today?

Supposing not, I go through the dresser drawers for something to put on. I find a nice pair of jeans and toss on a very pretty lime colored satin tunic with little purple flowers decorating the hem line and straps. I take the time to actually brush my hair and teeth, spray on perfume from a pink bottle on my dresser top and actually use the make-up Hunter arranged for me to have in my bathroom.

The girl in the mirror finally looks familiar. I am the same kind of pretty I felt in my dream. I miss looking like this all of the time. I miss who I used to be and having a future that included Gage, my parents and siblings. Now I am alone with basically no personal health routine to speak of. Hopefully, Hunter will allow that to change at some point.

The final touches to my overall look are made just before I walk out of the room to have my breakfast. I pull my hair back into a sleek, high ponytail that falls down the middle of my back and my feet slide into a pair of dark purple heels that bare the name of some designer that I am more than thankful to for making them so comfortable.

My heels click melodically down the hallway as I make my way to the kitchen. I like their rhythum, I like how my hips sway with the small stilts on my feet. They make me feel confident and sexy, things I am sure that I have never really felt before.

According to the looks on both Hunter's and Fox's faces as I walk toward the table, they are just as stunned by how I look as I was. Am. They stare at me, forgetting the fact their breakfasts are growing cold on forks and spoons right in front of them. I expect it to stop when I take a seat. It does not. They both continue to watch me as if they have never seen me before.

"Is there something wrong," I ask, not directing the question toward anyone in particular.

"No," Hunter says, finally composing himself. "We just weren't expecting you to come in so...together."

He nudges Fox gently in the ribs, prompting him to drop his spoon full of eggs onto his plate. His face fills with scarlet as he picks the small particles of egg off his lap.

"Yeah," is all he manages to say as he drops the collected egg onto a napkin.

"I know I should have told you last night that we weren't going to train today but it slipped my mind," Hunter tells me. "You seemed to be very concentrated on the lesson. It was hard enough to tear you away from the punching bag and bringing you back to your room. I do fear that you will, one day, over do it all and hurt yourself."

"Hurting myself is only a minor concern," I remind him.

To this, Fox actually looks over to me and sees through all the make-up and glossy hair.

"You should care if you get hurt. I know I would care if you got hurt," he starts.

"She won't get hurt," Hunter interjects.

"She very well could," Fox tells him. "And she won't get hurt again. I can't let that happen. She's already spent too much time being banged up, bruised and mentally shackled. I won't allow it to happen again."

"And what do you plan to do when Jacen returns? How are you alone, Fox, going to protect her," Hunter questions.

I feel as if I shouldn't be here. I need to be in a garden outside, far away. My ears don't need to hear what Fox would do. I fear knowing. The kind of things that Hunter wants to know are the exact things he hides from me. With good reason, I'm sure.

Fox stares toward Hunter, his eyes fixed and burning with intensity. His mind, to me, is a huge brick wall with no cracks. It's not the same to Hunter. Fox allows his thoughts to free flow into his mind, making me jealous. But, not for long.

Hunter, as it is, brings his attention to me once Fox's thought is done. A clear, devious smirk pulls itself onto his lips, making my want of breakfast disappear.

"That certainly is a plan," Hunter says. "I would support it fully, but Jacen, he would fight it tooth and nail. He's never been able to leave well enough alone. He certainly wouldn't be starting where Sabrina is concerned."

"What did he say," I ask Hunter, not caring that Fox is sitting right across from me.

"Don't tell her," Fox snaps at Hunter.

"I wasn't planning to," Hunter says, going back to eating his breakfast. "She will find out soon enough. Jacen will be coming back soon, I suspect. I am starting to be able to read his thoughts again so I am assuming that he's either close by or actively hunting you both."

I immediately remember my dream. Had it been a dream? If it hadn't, all the things that Fox had said were true. But, if that were the case, he wouldn't have blocked his plan from me. He would have just said it outloud.

"It was a dream," Fox assures me. "And I don't want you to know because the more you know, the more Jacen can torture you. I meant that I didn't want you to get hurt, in any fashion, ever again. I stand by that."

And he does. For the next few days, training aside, I try hard to get him to reveal things to me. He won't. He stays silent about the plan he has for me, for us. He talks about everything else. Even Celia, her mother, all the rest of the story of their horrible deaths. I keep telling myself that he's just trying to protect me from Jacen's wrath but it doesn't quell the curiousity.

Hunter's mind is just as tough to penetrate. Where Fox has a brick wall, Hunter has a wall of pure, raging fire. There is no getting around it, under it or over it. Hunter refuses to tell me about it. He cites 'trust' as the main, really, the only reason, why he can't tell me.

So, I have to let it go. I will find it all out in due time. I will find lots of things out in due time though I hate having, literally, all the time in the world. It just makes it drag by without having any real consequences. Fox doesn't need to tell me anything for 300 years if he doesn't want to. We will both still be gorgeous and young looking and still have forever stretched out in front of us.

Hunter leaves me alone tonight, the same as any other, after we train. We are taking a break from it, he says. He has to leave for a week to retrieve Jacen from his mission. He's leaving me in the sole care of Fox. According to him, I am more safe with Fox than anyone else on this Earth. Himself included. That is why I don't protest or beg him to leave Jacen where he is. Fox is with me and he's not going anywhere.

I suppose that is why, once I am clean, I take it upon myself to walk to his bedroom. I have only been in it one time since we have been here. All I can remember of it is that it's the same harsh white mine is.

It's not locked when I try the knob. As if he knows it's me and not some other Sentury, Fox merely looks over toward the door instead of getting up. His body is laid in the middle of his bed. His hair is wet. The only articles of clothing I can see that he has on are a pair of blue flannel pajama pants and the boxers that peek from underneath the waist band.

His arms stay folded behind his head, the only movement he makes is the rising and falling of his chest as he breathes.

Coming in?

I nod at his question as I put myself into his room. My fingers automatically lock the bedroom door, something that makes Fox slide one arm from underneath his head. He reaches out to me, his fingers motioning me over.

When I get close enough to him, Fox grabs my hand and pulls me into his bed. I find a place against his side, his shoulder acting as my pillow. His arm wraps around me and his fingers slowly slide themselves up and down my arm gently, comfortingly.

"Are you worried about Hunter bringing Jacen back," he asks in a whisper.

I nod against his shoulder, my body moving closer to his. His lips skim themselves over the top of my head as he embraces me.

"I told you that you don't have to worry about him," he tells me again. "There is nothing he can do as long as Hunter is around, not as long as I'm around. I have my plan and Hunter will help it come to fruition when it needs to."

"I just wish I knew what it was," I mumble against his shoulder.

Fox holds me as he shifts onto his side. He allows his eyes to fall into mine as he pulls his blanket over us both.

"You had a dream that was so vibrant that it felt real, do you remember that," he asks me. "I saw that whole dream that morning at the breakfast table. I felt it all. And...it's fairly accurate of the things that are coming out. Jacen is coming back and you really do make me feel alive."

I try to bury my face into his chest to avoid his gaze but Fox stops me. His hands slide over my cheeks, holding me in place so I can't hide. The way he looks in the brightest rays of moonlight heats my cheeks underneath his hands. His eyes are intense but soft, his face is relaxed but serious.

"I hate the idea of you reading my thoughts," he confesses.

"Why," I immediately ask.

"Because they are the last place I can hide from you," he tells me. "Jacen knows. Hunter knows. Even Ty knew. I hate the fact that I feel like I do about you. I'm not supposed to love anyone anymore. I am supposed to be numb and hard. That's why I block my thoughts from you. I don't want you to see how many of them are about you."

"Fox..."

"It's not right," he continues. "You're so new. I'm...older. Way older. If we were human still, I would be old enough to be your grandfather. Grandfather. It's hard, Sabrina. I know it shouldn't matter. We are more than our bodies and more than time now but, from the second that we met you, I have felt so attracted. The more I trained you, the more I protected you, the more I..."

"The more you what?"

"The more I fell in love with you," he spits out as if it's poison. "Sabrina, I can't love you. I just can't. You need more training, you need someone that can remain objective but protect you at the same time. I can't do that. I am thinking with my heart, not my head. That could get us in trouble."

"With who," I ask. "We don't have anyone to answer to, Fox. You have to know that I love you..."

"Don't finish that sentence," he tells me. "Stop loving me. Stop caring as much as you do. Stop...making me love you."

Confusion rushes through me with a burning heat. How can someone do that? It's not possible to just turn off emotions that way. It doesn't matter if they are yours or someone else's, they don't work in that manner. Things would be easier if they did, though.

I pull myself away from Fox's side just a little before he catches my arm with his hand, holding me in place, preventing me from moving any more than I already have. He holds me still as he slides over to me, his body gently crashing against mine. His heart beats hard against his chest, altering the rhythum of my own.

His right thumb presses lightly underneath my chin, tilting my head up just enough that my lips brush against his as my head comes into the place he wants it to be. Time truly does stop for a brief moment. Tension builds around us, tying the strings of our whole beings together, tangling them in such a way that they can never be straighted and returned to the same state they were in before the kiss we share.

And, I understand what he meant in my dream, and in my reality, when he said I made him feel alive. It's adds a new deminsion to our lives, our forevers. Alive is the feeling that trumps love in our case since living in the traditional sense is the one thing we can never really have.

I knew that daggers were dangerous but I couldn't imagine how much the blades hurt when they sank through flesh, fat and muscle. Fox showed me just once the way it felt. It was what ended the training session. It wasn't done on purpose. Far from it. It was an error in judgement about how quickly I would move.

He was swift to act. I suspected it was more out of the guilt of an addition of a stab wound to a hundred bruises than the actual stab itself. For my part, I didn't scream. The pain was too much to even think of making a sound, however loud. My knees just gave out on me. Time began to speed up so, before I could comprehend it, I was laying on the basement floor.

Blood pooled around me, soaking my entire back, my hair, my clothes. I look like a murder victim. Fox treated me as if I were about to become one. He pulled off his perfect white t-shirt to wrap it around my entire top half before lifting me up off the floor. He didn't mind the blood seeping through the material to his skin. All I could think was..."He's done this before..."

Though my body was virtually paralyzed, my mind was not. I could understand everything Fox was doing. He held me up while starting a shower. The pain shot through me like molten lava straight from the sun. It was hard to contain how much it coursed, hurt and made me want to die. Really die.

"Don't think that," Fox half shouted at me as he placed me in the basin of the tub. "The heat is your body healing itself, like it's supposed to. Just grit your teeth and bare it. Trust me. Trust me, Sabrina. You have to on this."

A rush of cold water hit my chest, washing away some of the blood but none of the searing pain. Fox got desperate to release heat. I felt his hands rip the material of my jeans away from my legs. My panties disappear. My top went next.

Fox pushed the shower head up so the water hit my face. Every drop of blood that had soaked and stained my skin got pushed away with hard pressure. The water stripped my hair clean. And, after what seemed forever, the heat on the inside of my body began to subside.

"Is she awake," Fox asks someone in the room, obviously not me.

His voice is hazy, surreal. Maybe I'm dreaming. Opening my eyes doesn't help the idea of being in a dreamstate. They immediately fall onto an angel. A lovely vision of one of God's very own creations, one that he took a lot of time and care on. He's more beautiful than Fox, Jacen and every other Sentury I had ever laid my eyes on.

"Her eyes are open but I am not sure of just how aware she is," spoke the angel.

He stepped away from me, never blessing me with the hint of the smile I so wished he would. It would make me feel better. It would make me alive again, I was so sure of it. But Fox's smile coming into view made up for it. For a moment anyway. My eyes wanted nothing more than to soak the angel in.

"Sabrina, can you hear me," Fox whispered against my ear, his fingers combing through my hair. "Blink once if you can."

I blinked. Hard. It wasn't just to make Fox know that I could hear his wonderful voice, it was also to make sure the angel was truly real. He was. His long, super lean frame, his white blonde hair down to his shoulders and his startling ocean colored eyes were all an incredible reality.

My heart practically overheated when the angel finally bestowed his smile upon me. I could never have imagined anyone in the history of the world that looked like him could walk around this Earth without being made into a celebrity, a God.

"Sit her up," the angel told Fox. "She is coming around. It will take just a few more moments until she is able to speak. She's in shock."

"Still," Fox questions, amazed by what he thinks is my inability to heal quickly.

"She thinks I'm an angel. Perhaps a vampire," the angel tells him. "Funnily enough, her mind isn't as muddied as you think. It's clear. She just doesn't know what to make of me. Just, please, sit her up right and find her something with a high concentration of sugar in it. It will jolt her into coming all the way around."

Fox's arms slid underneath my body and, swiftly but carefully, sat me up on a bed that I had never seen before. I had been washed and dressed in the span of time that I was burning on the inside. I wondered, for a moment, how I could have been so consumed in my own pain that I didn't notice being moved, being washed and dressed in new, fresh clothes.

Fox leaves me alone with the stranger when he goes in search of sugar for my sensitive, shocked system. I freeze as I watch the angel, my angel, push an armchair to my bedside. He is purposely slow. He thinks movements too quick will scare me. It's plain to see that he has never had to live or train with Jacen.

"I assure you, Sabrina, I am no angel," he tells me, his melodic voice contradicting his statement. "I am the same as you are. A Sentury. Do you remember what happened to you?"

I nod.

"Good," he practically sings. "The first time you go through a regenerative healing, it will feel as if the whole of your insides has been set ablaze. I only wish I could say it gets easier to ease your whirling mind, my dear, but I cannot. The sensation is always the same. Then again, so is the end result. We turn back into the picture of perfect health, which, as you can imagine, is an amazing blessing."

"Yes," I manage to squeak out.

"Strengthen your voice," he gently commands. "You don't want to sound weak, my dear. Remember that for future reference. You are a woman, a Sentury and quite beautiful. You have the world stacked against you as far as 90% of male Senturies are concerned. Why do you think Jacen treats you as badly as he does? Do you think he does it out of some misguided sense of kindness? Another assurance I will give you is that the only reason he does is because you are a threat to him."

"Jacen couldn't possibly view me as a threat," I say, this time speaking a little more clearly, with a strand more of confidence. It gets squashed.

"My dear Sabrina, Jacen has done a number on your glorious mind," the angel ticks his tongue. "I am thankful now that Fox brought you here to me when he did. I fear if I would have left you with Jacen any longer, you would have been damaged. Perhaps beyond repair."

The angel effortlessly slides from his chair when Fox appears at the door carrying a slice of what looks to be chocolate cake on a very delicate plate. He takes it from Fox then hands it over to me, along with what appears to be a proper dessert spoon. This is when it finally dawns on me that the man really is no angel. He has incredible taste, luxurious surroundings and is beyond the definition of beautiful.

He is Hunter.

I expect him to read my thoughts as he'd done earlier but he doesn't. Instead, he gives Fox a hard, stiff pat on the shoulder before turning to leave us. Fox isn't as smooth in his movements as he once had seemed to be. He collapsed into the chair at my bedside and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"Jacen is going to hurt me in the most dire of ways when he finds out that I brought you here," he says, his tone reflecting the horrible dread I know he feels. "You have to understand, I didn't have a choice. I had never seen a Sentury get hurt before and there was nothing I could do. You just...kept bleeding. I couldn't ask Jacen to come back. He wouldn't have cared. But, Hunter, he was quick.

"He came to the house, stitched you up like a pro and made the bleeding stop. He told me that my training abilities were, well, better served for the newest of Senturies and, we both agreed, I should give up training you and allow him to do the rest. I'm decent with a blade and a gun but, Hunter, he's an expert."

"Does that mean you are leaving me here and going back to Jacen," I ask, trying desperately not to sound as if I care as much as I do.

He shakes his head. Though he still won't allow me to read his thoughts, it's understood that he's not going to just leave me anywhere. This was his plan all along. When he was strong enough, he would join Hunter and drag me along with him. It all just happend before he had planned for it to. Thanks to me.

Fox stays silent though I know he's read the thought. He sits there and watches ever so intently while I eat the cake. Slow, savoring the taste of the chocolate. I taste it all day, long after the cake is gone and I have been given a tour of Hunter's home.

Every inch of it makes me feel oddly comfortable. Different colors of muted, pastel shades hang on the walls along with expensive artwork that is hundreds of years old. All originals. The rooms are all large, open spaces that have been decorated with extreme care and attention to detail but it doesn't feel like a muesem. Despite all the collectables, it feels like a home. My home.

A memory springs forth, clouding out all reality when Fox and Hunter lead me out onto the sun-porch. The fresh air, sunlight and breeze kick it back to me in such a hurry that I find myself so consumed with it that it becomes my reality.

The lush green of my backyard was more than inviting. I tied my hair back with a white ribbon, pushed the screen door open and started down the steps as quick as my feet would take me. He followed me into the yard, laughter bursting from his tiny lungs. I had heard him a million times before but each time he started, I couldn't help but join him. 

I swirled around in the damp grass to crouch down just in time to catch him in my arms. He flung himself against my chest. His legs automatically wrapped around my waist as I stood myself up, all the while enjoying the warmth of his preciously soft skin. Everything about him, about me, about the day was perfect.

His brilliant red hair, the same as mine, burned bright like a flame in the harsh afternoon sun. He smelled of his father's cologne. And, when his soft pink lips hit my cheek, I could have died a happy woman.

"Love you, mama."

"I love you more."

"Than what," he giggled.

"All the planets, all the stars, all the universes in all the galaxies that have ever existed."

 

My head swung around when I heard Fox call my name. I removed my hand from the latch on the screen door of the sun-porch and walked to where he stood. He reached his hand out to me, a beautiful smile upon his face.

"Come on, Sabrina. Hunter is going to show you our new training room," he beams when I take his hand. "I hear it's got a boxing ring, punching bags and a proper sparring strip for sword fights. He wants us to start training in a few days, once you have all your strength back and I am completely over the shock of hurting you so badly."

"That should be fun," I try to enthuse.

He agrees and continues to pull me through the house. I let him because, if it weren't for his hand, I would have never moved from the sun-porch. My mind would have stayed fixed on that day. The last day with him.

My mind doesn't allow any more memories to flow through to me now. It's thrust into grasping the concept of the oversized room where all the things Fox mentioned before lie. It doesn't seem real to me at all. That is, until I notice Hunter standing in the middle of the sparring strip.

He looks much more menacing here than he did when I first started to come around. It's all due to the fact that he's changed into a black training suit and tied his lovely hair back away from his face. With the hair smoothed away from his cheeks, new parts of him become visible. Long burn scars run the length of both his jawlines. Even they are beautiful, webbing themselves in a very intricate design that I am positive wasn't intentional.

Hunter pulls on a pair of leather gloves just as another person comes into view. This time...a woman. She is even more angelic looking than Hunter was the first moment my eyes locked to him. She is short, very small but her hair is long, glossy and the color of midnight. Her shockingly blue eyes catch me off guard and, if it weren't for the fact I stood next to Fox and had his support, I would have stumbled over.

"Ty and I are going to spar," Hunter tells us, motioning toward the girl. "Fox, show Sabrina to the room she is going to be..."

"Sabrina," Ty interjects. "Jacen's Sabrina?"

Hunter's head nods curtly just once. "Yes, don't talk to her," he tells Ty in a very cool, stern manner. "She is off limits. Keep that piece of information in your pretty little head forever because, if you touch her, you will have not only me to deal with, but Fox as well."

Fox stiffens at my side, clutching my hand with enough force that he could have crushed all my finger bones to powder if he had chosen to.

"I see," Ty says slowly, her eyes trained hard on Fox as she pulled on her own gloves. "Her mate. I have to give it to her, she has taste. He's gorgeous."

"Fox, take her to her room," Hunter continues on as if Ty hadn't even spoken. "Make sure everything is to her liking and, if it's not, take down notes on what she would want instead so it can get done."

He doesn't hesitate. Fox walks me out of the training area then up to the main house. Ty obviously made him nervous but, with his blocked thoughts, I am not able to see just what the real reason was. Perhaps he knew her. Maybe they had a history.

"I know her," he answered only when we were in the privacy of my second new bedroom in a week. "Don't ask any more questions where Ty is concerned. She's small but dangerous. Stay away from her. As a matter of fact, forget you even met her."

"Fine," I tell him. "She's forgotten."

"Good. It's better that way," Fox says, his voice still a bit sharp.

My hand pulls itself, with some doing, from Fox's so I can inspect the room. It's plain but lovely. Carpet, walls, furniture and linens are all white. The bookshelf next to the window is fully stocked with all the books that I love and the dressers and closets are full of lovely clothes just like the ones at Jacen's.

There is one thing in the room that catches my eye. A small, simple frame made of silver sitting on one of the dresser tops next to delicate looking bottles of perfume calls to me. Fox stands back, letting me have space. My fingers brush over the edge of the frame as my eyes try to make sense of the photo in it.

It's him with me. He's in my arms, wearing his favorite overalls and white t-shirt. Barefoot. A huge smile is planted on his face as his fingers grab at strands of my sunlit hair. I am kissing his face. We look happy.

Tears begin to well in my eyes when I realize he's gone. I pick up the frame and hold it closer to my face, trying to figure out just how this photo survived. The fire burned the house down. Nothing could have stayed in tact, much less this harsh reminder of both the life I used to live and what could have been.

"Sabrina, is there something wrong," Fox finally asks, breaking me of the deep urge to sob.

"Yes," I press out, being honest for once.

"Jacen found it next to you when we came for you. Even he couldn't bare to leave it behind," Fox tells me. "He gave it to Hunter for safe keeping. If I would have known that he put the photo in here, I would have removed it, Sabrina."

"It's fine," I tell him, trying to smile. "He's just painful to remember."

Fox reaches behind him to carefully extract his wallet from his pocket. As he unfolds the worn brown leather, he lets himself rest on the foot of my bed. I press the frame to my chest and take a seat next to him.

"She was my everything," he says as he pulls a photo from a hidden fold on the inside of his wallet. "I remember finding her. I swear, it felt like I turned instantly when I did. She was broken and covered in blood. This isn't something I look at too often. Everytime I do, all I can see is her face the way it was when it went lifeless."

He hands me the photo. His daughter was such a pretty little thing. Pretty light sand colored skin, big hazel eyes and wonderful chestnut brown hair that curled just at the ends.

"What is her name," I ask, admiring the purple gingham dress she wears in the photo.

"It's Celia," he answers. "What is his name?"

I hand Fox his reminder of Celia back and lay the frame on my lap. He slides his hand over mine, something we both know I need in order to say his name for the first time since I turned.

"Gage," I tell him.

"What happened to him?"

The question echoed inside my head but not my ears. The brick wall that Fox had fought so hard to keep solid had finally cracked, even if it were only momentary. He looked to me quickly when I registered his thought in such a way that showed his embarrassment.

"That wasn't meant to flow," he explains. "I'm sorry. It was completely inappropriate."

He pushed himself off my bed but my hand caught his before he stepped far enough away I couldn't reach him. I told him to stay through a thought and he did. He was slow to sit next to me this time, knowing the story that I was about to tell would rival his own. And, indeed, it did.

"I had him when I was almost seventeen," I start. "His father was my best friend's brother. We never meant for him to happen, he just...decided to bless us. My parents took care me, and Gage once he came. They adored him just as much as I did. I kept going to school and, as much as we tried, his father and I just couldn't make it work. We were civil to each other where Gage was concerned but we kept our lives outside him private.

"His father had come to pick him up the afternoon this photo was taken. I remember hugging him for the last time. He followed me out into the backyard after he hugged his father and ran into my arms. I held him close, kissed him and told him I loved him more than...well, anything. His father came out to take him from me so they could visit his other set of grandparents. And, that was the last time I saw him alive.

"I suppose, looking back, the moment that I started to turn was when I had to pick something for him to wear for the funeral. My mother wanted me to pick a small suit for him but I just couldn't imagine him wearing that forever. So, I took his second favorite pair of overalls, this little green t-shirt with a caterpillar on it, his light-up heeled shoes and his teddy bear to the director."

I had to stop. Fox understood all too well why I had. He didn't ask me another question in any form. He simply slid his body closer to mine and wrapped an arm around me, allowing my head to comfortably rest against his shoulder.

"I wanted to die and I did," I whisper. "Everything that was left of that life is gone."

"That doesn't mean you can't miss it," Fox tells me. "You can miss your life, your son, your family. It's expected. But, Sabrina, you can't dwell in it anymore. Release it when you're training, when you're fighting. This new life was a gift. Is a gift. Don't waste it."

I can't waste this opprotunity, I know that full well. This is something that I have to do for me, for Gage. I spent too much time being lost to waste anymore time now that I have something to live forever for. My mind makes itself up to train harder. I want to become like Hunter and Ty and Fox and Jacen; dangerously beautiful.

The memories I had before I met Jacen are all too clear. I remember everything except for the pain. That had turned itself into my immortality and I had lost the ability to feel it the way I had before. I could feel the want for Fox so strongly along with my distaste for Jacen's actions toward me. There was just no accounting for the emotions that went with the memories I held. Perhaps the visions were reminder enough of my misery.

I couldn't change what happened. I can't change what I have become. All I am able to do is accept it, keep my place with Jacen and Fox and learn everything that I possibly can from them. They protect me, train me and keep me from the ones that want to prey on someone as young and stupid as I am.

They want me to be able to defend myself if I ever need to. I am sure there will come a time when it will be essential that I have the skills that Fox is trying to teach me. After all, a true eternity is such a hard concept to grasp. Vampires can die. So can every other 'magical' creature in the universe. We cannot. Set us on fire, bury us in a sealed coffin for a week, try to behead us. Nothing works.

That's supposed to be the upside but I can't imagine how much fire would hurt to burn and burn and burn against my skin and muscles until nothing remains. I would regenerate, after a few years and become stronger, according to what Jacen says. We are rare for a reason. Not just anyone could stand to really live forever. We have nothing to fear, nothing to lose.

But, according to Fox's idea, we are more Heaven than Hell. Most would see it in the opposite way. We go against God's laws. We are supposed to live and die. In a way, we did those things. There was just a reward not quite as big as Heaven for us. We are seen as guardians of sorts. We are supposed to protect anyone that needs it, be them human, changeling or even vampires.

We are nothing, in reality, than soldiers that never get relieved of service.

There are also what Jacen considers downsides. Since we didn't technically die and still work in the same manner as we did when we were purely human (out of habit more than need), the women can still reproduce; human babies.

Jacen said it only happened once but the pair that created the child lived as humans in order to raise it to adulthood. They, of course, had to 'age' in order to keep up the picture of normalcy. They continued it up until it was an appropriate time to 'die', when they faked their own deaths (not in any fantastic way) and returned back to the community.

This is why Jacen has such a problem with me being around. Fox has said so. I am a woman and we make men weak. Girls like me make them weak. I still don't know what that means but I am sure it has something to do with how dangerous it would be if something intimate happened between he and I, me and Fox, me and...any male Sentury.

"Of that you are correct," Fox says as he walks into the (my?) bedroom. "That is always a concern but, really, it was a concern when we were human as well. Those Senturies had more tenure than what you or I have. They could afford to be out of service for 50 years. We cannot."

"It's not something I am actively considering. I was just remembering the things Jacen had said," I tell him.

Fox nods his head once. His hands move to pop open the snaps that keep his brown plaid shirt closed, exposing the plain white t-shirt I was absolutely sure was underneath it. He slowly runs his fingers, rough but gentle, against the soft comforter on the bed I sit directly in the middle of.

"Then remember something else he said, if you can. Think all the way back to when we found you. I know those memories are foggy but they are there," Fox suggests.

"I don't have those memories," I say, a bit ashamed that they have fallen into the darkness of my mind, into the memories when I was just a shell or shadow. "Is there a way to coax them out of where they hide away? I don't know if I would want to see it all anyway. With the way you and Jacen talk about it, the events weren't exactly the most amusing or lovely that you had been involved in."

"They weren't," he sighs. "But they are something you need to see. Shall I show you?"

I want to tell him that I don't want to see the things that happened to bring me to them. Or them to me, whichever the case may be. Thing is, curiousity gets the better of me. Jacen is the one that usually shows me things. He'll toss them most violently at me, leaving me to figure them out for myself. Fox has never volunteered. The fact that he is now, is something that I just cannot pass up.

Fox can read the agreement as the thought flutters through my clear mind. He drops onto his knees on the bed. My eyes stay locked on his as he crawls closer to me. It's a scenario that I have envisioned a million times before, much to Jacen's chagrin, but in those he wasn't wearing a shirt, sweat was dripping over his chest....

"Would I also be willing to undress you with my teeth," Fox asks, raising an eyebrow.

"If that's your style," I mutter.

The slow smile he pulls across his face shows his relief that everything Jacen't put me through hasn't killed what's left of my sense of humor. His calm hold over me ended the moment that he pressed his palm to my forehead. The lights in the room disappeared, Fox disappeared and I was back to where it all began, to the moment they found me.

The feelings started to rush back along with the memories. I was too comfortable where I sat. On the ground, on the dark, rich earth in my favorite dress. Long and white. It's dark all around me. I felt free for the first time in a year. The air was heavy with the scent of pine and smoke. Heavy mascara and eyeliner ran down my pale cheeks and my dark red hair swirled in the wind.

My bare feet were planted against the ground, my knees to my chest. My chin was pressed against my knees as my eyes focused hard and heavy on the burning house. I'd danced around every inch I could, dousing the entire surface with gasoline. I left a nice, long trail down the elegant porch. It was too easy for me to strike that match, even easier to toss it.

A smile etched itself on my face and didn't pull itself away until...they showed up. Both of them were nice, kind. I thought they were beautiful wanderers that just happened by my burning house. I welcomed them there.

There was one phrase repeated from the blonde, Jacen..."You are so beautiful. So beautiful." Jacen was such a sweet talker then. He made it seem natural for me to go along with them, seeing as my whole life before had just, literally, gone up in flames. With muddy feet, a dirty white dress and streaked make-up, I left and never looked back.

Only, there was an oddity in the memory. The emotion was wrong. I was happy in them. I wasn't sad or distressed or upset. I was happy. The smile I wore only became brighter as I was walking out of the woods with them. Happiness didn't seem fitting. It looked all wrong. It felt wrong.

But the memory was gone just as quick as it came when Fox removed his hand from my forehead. I looked to him, almost in a frenzy, wanting him to tell me that he had implanted something into them to make me able to swallow the memory with ease. He shook his head.

"You were happy to go," Fox tells me, his fingers involuntarily smoothing out my hair.

"Why," I quickly ask. "No one is supposed to be happy to come into this. Are they? Isn't it all supposed to be about pain and suffering and sadness?"

"That is how it usually goes but you aren't exactly a unique case," he begins to explain. "The happiness you think you felt was a ruse. You made yourself believe it was happiness when, in reality, it was insanity. You were so far gone that you wouldn't have ever remembered anything on your own."

It's a bit hard to understand but I believe him wholeheartedly. I would have never remembered if I was truly in the mental state he's showed me I was in. That understanding doesn't make me any less tense. My loss had been so great that it not only drowned me in sorrow, it also drove me mad.

"You shouldn't feel the way you do now, Sabrina. You are perfectly sane now, thanks to Jacen not coddling you the way I begged him to," Fox says. "Jacen did the right thing in the end though, now, I question his methods. He is much too harsh on you."

"Then why don't you ever say anything," I ask, my voice trying hard not to show my absolute frustration in him but faltering at the end.

Fox's fingers twist themselves in my hair, pulling the ends into curls. His eyes drop from mine to watch the brick red color of my smooth hair bounce off his tanned skin. I know he's trying to avoid me, hoping that I will forget the question I'd just asked or start to feel too embarassed for asking it. I don't forget nor do I feel embarrassed.

He removes his fingers and slides his arm over my body, letting his hand come to rest against my upper left arm, nearest my shoulder.

"I don't say anything for the same reason you don't," he confesses. "Jacen is a terrific force of nature and I am not able to venture out on my own just yet. But, I make you a promise; when I am ready, which isn't going to be too much longer, I will take you with me. I wouldn't leave you with him. Not in a million years."

"Dare I ask why?"

"Because," Fox whispers against my ear, "You deserve better."

The concept of 'better' had long left me. It had to have for me to think a normal bed, normal house and normal clothes were luxuries. Food, televison, sleep. It's all been made to seem like things I have to earn instead of having an automatic right to have.

He leaves me pondering what he means by better. I think he caught glimpse of the food I used to like. Fried things, cake, soda. Everything that I hadn't so much as thought about in, well, a whole lifetime. I don't dare move from the comfort of my bed. Fox's scent lingers against the blanket and, that alone, makes me feel safe in the knowledge that Jacen won't be back and, when he does stumble in, there is an escape plan.

I lie on the bed for another hour before deciding that it really is okay to check out the whole of the room. In addition to the dresser drawers, there is a closet. I hadn't thought much of it until now but, opening it, I felt as if I were free falling into more memories I didn't even know I had.

The inside of it was lined with pretty blouses and dresses and shoes. Heels. Sneakers. Even a pair that looks like the old ones I have worn out in training. The only difference is they are clean and white with light pink laces. Jacen will hate them. I like that Hunter knew that and deliberately got them anyway.

One thing, besides the shoes, catches my eye. A white Badgley Mischika bag that is worth more than my life. I carefully pull it out of the back, revealing more bags. Pink Versace, classic Versace, small white Gucci, denim colored Valentino and evening bags by Leiber, BE&D, Moschino and Fendi. Hunter has taste and isn't stingy with his money. I wonder if he has a mate.

"No, he doesn't have a mate," Fox laughs, bringing me back to reality to find him leaning in my doorway. "And he wanted you to have the best. You won't find Hanes or Fruit of the Loom in any of your drawers, you won't carry bags that anyone else can find and you won't slide your feet into anything that is made cheaply. Hunter takes very, very good care of people."

"That is more than evident," I agree. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know that you like the Fendi more than all the other bags because it's sparkly," he jokes. "Come downstairs. I found some things for dinner that I think you will actually enjoy. And, don't worry, it's not cereal or oatmeal and, best part, you can eat it while watching T.V."

"It's been so long since I have eaten real food, I will probably get sick," I say, trying to stall the process so I can dig more through the closet. So I don't have to eat. I'm almost afraid to.

"As long as you take it slow, it shouldn't be a problem," Fox tells me as he pushes himself away from the door frame. "Look, I know this is all new. You got used to Jacen's orders and I know you aren't sure if you should completely trust me in this new environment. You should know by now that I don't have it in me to be the way Jacen is. So, come down and have dinner with me, watch a movie, just...relax."

"I don't even know what that means anymore," I say, placing the bags back in order in the closet behind the larger white one.

Fox doesn't give up. He walks over to me, presses his hand against my shoulder, gently pushes me back and closes the closet door. His hands gently hold my shoulders as he turns me around and walks me out of the room. He doesn't take his hands off me until we're downstairs and what he calls dinner comes into view.

"Anything that's over the top would have really made you sick so I decided to ease you back into eating things that have a solid consistency," Fox explains of the bowls of salad topped with grilled chicken. "This will be easier on your system since it's mostly vegetables with no dressing. But, don't think I could let you go without some form of sugar. While I was out, I found this little bakery place that had these mini-cupcakes. I thought that would be best. The smaller the better."

He was right. As always. I would have easily eaten too much if Fox hadn't limited my intake. It was more than just looking out for me. He didn't want me to be sluggish for the first of our training sessions involving my new, shiny dagger.

We had to dress for the occasion. You can't just train in whatever, according to Jacen's philosophy. You need to be able to move well, quickly and comfortably so that, once you have the training, you could be wearing the heaviest of Russian winter coats and still be able to defend yourself as if you were wearing the relaxed fit jeans and sports bra you trained in.

I wasn't ashamed of being dressed down this much in front of Fox. It was second nature to me now. He never looked at me as if I were anything more than a student. That is, until tonight. His eyes stayed glued to me, clinging as if his life depended on how long he could hold his gaze upon my body.

It was plain to see that I had lost weight and toned all my muscles. My body is nothing like it was when we started. I had never come to a training session clean and shiny and smelling of expensive soap made from fresh pink rose petals. Being dressed this way made every bruise Fox had unintentionally given me during our last training session that much more obvious.

He bowed his head upon either noticing each deep green and purple patch along my ribs or from hearing that I had caught his staring in the form of a thought streaming from my own mind.

"It's the bruises," he quickly assured me as he looked up again. "They look so horrible against you. Does it hurt at all?"

"No more than usual," I shrug, not understanding how these words sting him as hard as they seem to.

"I understand they are a side effect of quality training but, you're a woman," he says, his voice thick with embarrassment. "You shouldn't be so banged up. Once the lesson is over, I will see what I can do to diminish the pain they cause you. That is, if you would like me to."

My head automatically nods before my mind can really process what his method of pain removal entails. I just know that he didn't mean for these marks to happen. They just did. He has to know that I have never hated him for anything he's done because he's never done anything with malice. Unlike Jacen.

Because Fox stays in my head, he merely accepts what my thoughts have told him and stands himself up straight. He pulls his dagger from its black leather holster at his side then quickly, but carefully, wiggles the tip of it in my direction.

"Want me to go easy on you," Fox asks, the corners of his mouth upturning into a seldom seen smirk.

"Do I really get a choice," I counter, fumbling with my own dagger.

"Never do. Just thought it polite to ask," he tells me.

And so it begins, our first training session involving potentially dangerous weapons.

No one could have ever prepared me for this moment. They couldn't have. Words could never express the relief and freedom the speed brought me. I forgot everything in the blink of an eye. Everything that wasn't voluntary ceased. I could only see bright lights swirling ahead of me, taste the metal on my tongue, hear the collective sound of the city's heartbeat, smell the salt that poured from my skin and feel my skin and insides overheat.

He was bold, that's for sure. He tore me from the bed before dawn, tossed me the clothes he thought were appropriate and told me to get my ass in the car. In the backseat. The front was reserved for people that deserved it, that had earned it. I hadn't even begun to train or work or anything other than be a small burden to him.

We were not alone for the ride. Another was with us. Someone that had earned the right to sit up front. He was gorgeous. My heart skipped beats when he was around. He made it hard for me to concentrate some days. He was oblivious when the other was not.

The backseat is too hot. I can feel the black tank top sticking to every bit of skin that it covers. I wish I could rip it off. That wouldn't help matters. Being that much closer to naked and having to look at him, the one that shows his close proximity to being overheated just as much as I do, would make me want him more.

But he knows. The other one. The one that drives. The one whose sweat stains his grey wife beater as it trickles down his overly tanned skin. It makes him look rugged. Or, at least to an outsider it would. We know better. He's just cheap and won't fix his car's air conditioning system.

His name is Jacen. He told me that just one time, the day he found me. He said then, and only then, that I needed to have a good memory because "in our line of work, you need to remember just whose throat you are going to rip out with your teeth". I tried to envision it then; killing someone that way. It seemed impossible. Now, it's something I'm aching to try.

The other, the one that my mind, body and heart struggle with...he's Fox. Such a fitting name for someone like him. His mother must have had a sense of humor or recognized that her son would surely be, someday, a heartbreaker.

He's nice to watch. He enjoys the hot breeze flowing in from his window. I enjoy watching his pin straight dark hair blow about his face. It makes him look sexy, like a vampire. He's just as dangerous. So is Jacen. So am I. We just don't need blood to survive. We're, as Jacen put it, "a few step up from those cruel vermin."

We are what he calls Senturies. I don't know what other people call us. I suppose they don't really call us anything. We fit in with every crowd be it human or vampire. We just have every power they wish they did and some they deem only pausible for the likes of fictional superheroes. Hmmm...that is more fitting. I will tell Jacen we need to be called "Super Heroes".

He'd laugh about that. I already know. He's seen my thought and shot his back at me, a clever little remark about we are the people that super heroes look up to, whom they envy. Jacen is cocky but rightfully so. He's strong and beautiful and powerful. Power is his favorite thing in the entire world.

Fox doesn't let his thoughts fire like Jacen does. They are kept close to his heart as if he's guarding them. It's nothing I blame him for. Considering our pasts, no one could. They are, after all, how we came to be because, you see, it was great loss that turned us from human, to shadow and then, eventually, to this.

Jacen explained this to me once but it was Fox that made me understand how I turned. "Loss is almost like vampire's venom," he had told me. "It's just infinitely more potent and slower. Certain people are able to swallow it down, even in large doses. Some, like us who feel too much, let it consume us. It burns our every emotion and, as we heal, we become static. Being in the darkness heals our emotions but they are never set in the right way.

"It's like turning up a radio with a round knob, the depth of us get heightened. Everything inside constantly burns hard. It has to, otherwise, we wouldn't feel it. It's the first lesson we have to learn; to control ourselves. Food tastes brilliant, the lights shine brighter, whispers can become booming shouts and our urges, however primal, take a front seat to everything else."

When I asked him why, Fox had smiled for the first time since I had met him and said, "We pushed them down for so long. Coming back full force is their way of making it clear that you're still alive."

I believed it. Anything that falls from his lips I'd believe. My thoughts about him have to be kept as close as I can keep them because, like Jacen, he can read every single one of them. If he chose to. I don't think he would want to read my thoughts. I'm not interesting enough.

A slow smile starts to pull itself over Fox's face, setting my heart off in a race against itself.

"Sabrina, quit thinking," Jacen snaps at me, outloud. "It's driving me fucking crazy! Wait until we're at the new house to think about that kind of bullshit."

"What is she thinking about," Fox asks, his voice so low and smooth that I can almost feel the fibers that hold my overactive heart in place start to tear.

"Your cock," Jacen laughs. "She thinks about it all the time. I swear, some of the scenarios even make me blush. There is this one that I really do like, though, where, when you are sparring with her, you just start ripping off her clothes and...Oh, I'm sorry, Sabby. Am I embarrassing you?"

Jacen looks back at me in the rearview mirror. I almost hate him. He looks stupid with his perfect smile and teeth and overly gelled blonde hair. I wish I could attack him but, if I ever did, even playfully, he has the power to kill me before I would even know what was going on. No. He couldn't technically kill me. No one could do that. He'd just put me out for a few years.

Fox is a different story. He gives me a sympathetic look from his seat. He, unlike Jacen, knows that it's only natural to have such an attraction to someone that you work with all the time. He's told me it could happen. Maybe that is why I think of him constantly.

Then, something new caught my eye. The lights of the city start to fade out as the sounds of the siren wails grow quiet. The road Jacen takes is nice, freshly paved. I can smell the tar that is only a few weeks old beneath us. The air is still sticky and hot. Maybe this means we are close to the new house.

My suspicions are confirmed when Jacen pulls into the smooth grey driveway of a nice looking house. It's got two stories and in the curve of a cul-de-sac. Though it's dark, the street lamp aids me in figuring out the color scheme. White base, light blue trim with candy cane striped poles on the porch. It looks normal.

Jacen puts the car in park and pats the steering wheel before he hops out. Fox looks back at me, giving me the softest, most beautiful of smiles, then walks around to my side to open my door. Jacen put the child safety locks on, just in case I decided to run.

"Welcome to disturbia," Jacen laughs.

He walks ahead of us to the front door which he doesn't need a key to open. He flicks on a light to expose the front room. It doesn't smell, or look, the way I expect it to. It wasn't damp or stale. It smells of fresh linens and the room is comfortable with a new black plush sofa, plasma screen T.V. mounted on the wall across from it and freshly laid black/white checked tile.

"Okay...I am taking the master bedroom," Jacen announces as he peels off his soaked wife beater. "Sabrina, you take the other bedroom upstairs. Fox, yours is just off the livingroom. Everything is stocked. Don't worry about clothes, books and all that other bullshit. It's taken care of. Hunter owed me one."

Jacen is rich. Fox is rich. I am rich by association. The few others like us are rich as well. Money is something we control, not humans. New clothes, new cars, new technology...it all comes from us.

Jacen grabs my arm and pulls me up the strudy stairs. I'm his responsibility. If anything happens to me, even if Fox does it, it's on his head. He drags me through the hallway (painted the brightest red imaginable) then pulls open a big black door. He doesn't let me go. He pulls me through it and locks the door once we're both inside.

"Appreciate everything Hunter did for you. I told him I wanted you to be spared everything but basic clothes, bed and blanket. He saw things differently," Jacen tells me in a very stern, serious way. "Thank him when he comes to visit and, if you are hard pressed to find a way to, remember to find one that involves keeping your pants on because God knows he'll try to talk you out of them. Now...there is a little bathroom at the end of the hall. Take a shower then go to bed."

I don't argue with him though, when he leaves, I take a few minutes to soak up the sight that is my new room. The one Jacen had for me was bare. White walls, one window that wouldn't open, a mattress on the floor with an old blanket tossed on it.

Fox gave me a pillow a few days after I got there. I loved that pillow. It was plush with little blue flowers on it. Jacen found it and set it on fire in the middle of the room. He told me I hadn't earned a pillow then he took away my blanket.

This new room is luxurious by Jacen's standards. The walls are painted a deep purple with a pure white ceiling. There are no cobwebs. The carpet is nice, clean and lavender. It's not the color I like, though. It's the bed. It's full and comfortable looking with sheets, pillows and a blanket that is soft. I wonder how long it will take Jacen to deem me unworthy and take it all away from me.

The clothes, however, I expected to be what Jacen wanted. They were not. There were basic pieces for fighting in one drawer, cute underwear and socks in another, three pairs of folded jeans in the one under that one and, in the last drawer, were pajamas that were covered in adorable things that I hardly recognized anymore.

I didn't bother to look through each article. I just grabbed the first things I could. A pair of plain pink panties and a long lime green night shirt so I can take my shower as instructed. Jacen wanted me to hurry, I know that, but it was impossible once I was in the bathroom.

Hunter had left me soft towels in all my old favorite colors, lined the counter with perfume, lotions, brushes, make-up, razors and a new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. He spared no luxury when it came to me the way Jacen had. Shampoo and conditioner sat in the shower. So did expensive face scrub made from champagnes and soaps that matched the perfumes on the counter.

I took my time. I knew that it could, and more than likely would, be taken away from me when Jacen found it all. I was half tempted to gather it up in my used towel and stash it in my room, away from sight. But, I couldn't. If Jacen found out it had all been there and I was hiding it, it would just set me up for his brand of abuse.

When my shower (glorious as it was!) was over with, I pulled on the fresh clothes I'd brought in with me then folded my dirty ones before I placed them in the basket meant for dirty laundry. Jacen would yell if I left anything untidy.

"Sabrina, are you done?"

If the voice hadn't been smooth and low, my heart would have fallen in my chest and exploded. Knowing it was only Fox, my heart just started to speed again. I toss my towel into the basket where my clothes are then pull the door open to come face to face with Fox.

His shirt has been pulled off and his dark skin glows with sweat. It's almost too much for me, especially when he walks around me to grab a sweet scented towel off a shelf.

"I smelled these from my bathroom," he tells me, inhaling the scent freely, his eyes closing as he takes in every single note. "I couldn't resist them. It is okay if I take one, right?"

I nod.

"Thank you," he says. "I will get it back to you when I do my laundry. Do you like your room? Jacen came down to complain about it. I took that to mean that it doesn't look like it belongs to a mental patient and is...nice."

I nod.

"You know, Sabrina, I'm not Jacen. You can actually talk to me. I don't approve of the way he does things where you're concerned but he's our leader," he explains, wringing the towel in his strong hands. "He just wants you to be tough."

"I know," I whisper.

Him actually telling me that, after the long months I have been with them both, help me to sleep the best I have since, well, since I can remember. My body got so used to being hot and miserable at night that the cool room slammed me into a long, much needed semi-coma the moment my head hit an oversized pillow.

When reality hit me once again, and my eyes opened to a sun filled room, I expected Jacen. I prepared myself for his unkind gesture of running in through the room, pulling open all the shades, calling me a lazy bitch and yanking me from bed. I waited and waited for him. He didn't come.

The house was oddly quiet. Jacen was either still asleep for himself or he'd been called away by Hunter. Those are the only two reasons why he wouldn't barge in and get terrible amounts of pleasure from my misery.

My body pulled itself from the comfort of the bed and I moved automatically to change into a pair of the jeans left for me. Not knowing what the day would bring, I opted for a black sports bra then pulled on a matching fitted t-shirt. I leave my shoes off. They will only get in the way if I have to spar with Fox until Jacen gets back. They are old and falling apart anyway. It'd be better to be barefoot than to risk killing myself tripping over lost pieces of shoe.

But, as I make my way down the stairs, I realize there will be no sparring today. No fighting of any kind. Jacen is gone and Fox is relaxing on the sofa with a bowl of what looks to be Cheerios in his lap. I haven't seen him dressed the way he is today. Clean jeans without a single rip in the knee and an old-fashioned looking cowboy button down that's brown plaid.

His hair is clean and shiny and he doesn't smell of sweat. I like when he does. And, to my chagrin, he's shaved. He looks too put together.

"Jacen wants you to eat before we spar today," Fox tells me when he finally notices me staring. "He says you will need your strength since we are going to be using weapons."

"What kind of weapons," I ask, not moving from my place beside the stairs.

"Knives," he says, his voice too excited for my taste. "There is pretty much every kind of cereal you can imagine in the kitchen. I suggest the Cheerios, though. There isn't a lot of sugar in them and you won't tire out so easy."

The mention of real food, even if it's just cereal, shocks me a bit. Jacen wasn't keen on me eating things like that. I had to eat oatmeal three times a day and all I could drink was water. The idea of cereal and milk was instantly exciting. I was just afraid I'd eat too much of it.

So, to make sure I didn't, I measured out one cup of the cereal and just a bit of milk. Jacen would have been proud. I was growing more disciplined. He would have been even more proud to know that it was more out of fear of what he would do than doing for myself.

I ate it slowly, savoring the flavors of the grains and the milk as if it were a treat. To me it was. I loved it. I wanted more, almost needed it. Milk more than cereal but I didn't have the time. I had to fight. With a knife this time around. And, once Fox lead me down to the basement/sparring area, I realized these weren't just any switchblades. They were menacing, sharp things that could, and would, be deadly.

Fox picked one of the two up. It was beautiful shiny, sharp steel with a handle that was wide and held pretty green jewels in places your hand weren't likely to touch. Daggers, not knives. He was trying to downplay the seriousness of the new lesson he had to teach me.

I watched him handle it. He was already an expert. If I had been standing here with Jacen, I would have been screwed. He wouldn't have any mercy on me. Fox knows better. He is more patient and willing to actually teach.

That doesn't exactly help me in this case. The second that Fox drops the pretty but heavy dagger into my hand, my stomach turns.

"We don't have to do this today," Fox tries to soothe. "You need some time to get used to the idea that you have to use this as a weapon. I understand that they are much more intimidating than guns. 100% accurate everytime and you don't need to reload. You can just hold it and get comfortable with it for today."

"Jacen will get pissed if he knows we didn't have a lesson," I tell him.

"He won't have to know. It's just you and me until he comes back," Fox says, picking up his own dagger that is identical to mine, save for the purple stones. "Take some time with it. It should become a part of you the way mine has. And, you know, Sabrina, I won't hurt you doing this."

"I know," I assure him though my voice is just above a whisper.

I look up to him. There is more he needs to say to me but he keeps it hidden behind the brick cloud that protects his thoughts. I selfishly will him to spit it out, to just tell me what he's hiding. It doesn't work. It never works.

"Is there something that you have been wanting to eat that you miss," Fox asks me after what seems like forever.

I shrug. Food hasn't exactly been at the forefront of my thoughts these past few months.

"Don't worry, I will be listening to your thoughts and, when something pops up, I will catch it. And, it's not something you need to hear," he tells me, obviously speaking of my want to know his thoughts. "I keep my thoughts from you for a reason, Sabrina. It's the right thing to do. And, before you can speak up, I know it's not exactly fair but, if I ever hope to teach you anything, you can't know my moves before I make them. That would be unfair."

"But I can hear the thoughts of others," I tell him, speaking up for myself for the first time, the tone stinging my throat.

"So? You can't learn that way," Fox counters. "Just trust me like you have been doing. You'll be rewarded in the end."