A Feral Interlude

Disclaimer: Violence, blood, adult situations, explicit sex, and graphic imagery. I do not own any aspect or character of the Marvel Universe nor elements of the X-Men Origins movieverse.
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A Feral Interlude: Dizzying Need

His mother always had high hopes and expectations for him. He liked to think it was her aspirations for a better life that motivated him to use his mutation, but when it came down to it, he had been just so fucking sick of being a poor goddamned nobody from Holyoke Massachusetts. His drunk of a father had gotten himself beaten to death outside a bar in Boston when he couldn’t pay some gangster what he owed him, leaving his Irish mother penniless and a widow with a scrawny five year old.

It had been during the countless afternoons locked away in the small town library while his mother worked double shifts that Dan discovered he was different.

He hadn’t known how to read, but when he touched the spines of books, the words poured through him, a myriad of pictures, ideas, and disembodied voices that told the stories to him in a coalesced chronology. The first time it had happened, he’d been huddled in a cool corner of the basement archives, angrily crying after the other kids made fun of him for being dyslexic. Back then there hadn’t been a name for his condition, but his reading troubles made him resent the others who mocked him at school. He had picked up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the intention of hurling it to the wall in his fury, when a jolt flared through him. His mind had gone haywire from the bombarding images and words. Before long, he snapped out of his shock and realized he was trembling. The book was still gripped painfully in his hand, but everything that made it what it was to the world was in his head, and so much more.

He’d been thirteen. It had been the greatest gift his mutation afforded him.

The first time he read a person, though, had been the greatest burden his mutation cursed him with.

Brandon West had cornered him after school with his group of friends. They had heckled him for being a bookworm and a nerd with grand ideas—one which involved asking out Brandon’s sister Ashley to the diner after school. Dan had shoved the bully back, trying desperately to find an out, but when Brandon decked him, he’d seen more than stars. That brief moment of skin-to-skin contact had shot a course of blinding anarchy into his head, leaving him screaming and fisting his hands in his hair crumbled against the brick wall behind the school. Brandon and his friends had freaked and bolted, yelling about not touching the freak while Dan was left shaken and haunted by the shock to his system.

He’d seen Brandon’s childhood; had felt his insecurity and anxiety; had heard his thoughts of anger and resentment while Brandon was none the wiser of the invasion. Dan had been terrified to be touched again. He took on the habit of wearing long sleeves or thick jackets even in the most unseasonably warm of New England weather.

Once he realized he ached to touch a girl, or to be touched by one, Dan began to hone his abilities. He practiced on animals, reading their simple cyclical thoughts and realizing he could learn things from them that no one else could. Pretty soon, he moved on to people, realizing most people were like books: just waiting to be opened and read. He also realized that like books, people could be read without any awareness of it and kept in a mental catalog in his head. His mind was an organic library of information; every book and living being he read through touch would be stored away, just waiting to be picked up, figuratively speaking.

The first time he’d stolen anything was the payroll in his boss’s safe, after he had read the combination out of the balding jerk’s memory. Pretty soon, Dan realized he could use his curse for personal gain. Stealing people’s identities had led to huge payoffs, such as paying for his mother’s doctor’s appointments and keeping himself well off.

He thought he was smart, but in reality he’d just become a cocky bastard. Pilfering people’s memories for social security numbers, account numbers and codes, and stealing any piece of info he could get money for had become his profession. By the time he was 25, Dan had racked up a pretty sweet nest egg. Then he’d been caught trying to close out some jerkoff’s vacation fund. The cops didn’t know how the hell he did it, but they knew he was guilty, so they tossed him into a holding cell in Hartford before the major came a-calling.

“A man with such talents should be doing more…nobler things. How’d you like to serve your country, Mr. Dresner?” the unscrupulous major had propositioned through the bars. When Dan had snickered and asked what was in it for him, Stryker had smiled. “Besides your nation’s gratitude? Thousands of dollars, legal immunity for all past and future bad acts, and oh did I mention you get to walk out of here? Of course, this is a once in a lifetime offer, Dan. I’d hate to see your poor mother suffer with you locked away for God knows how long…”

Of course Dan had agreed after a heartbeat. He’d made his stipulations once Stryker filled him in on his operation, and his first assignment had been to dig up everything he could on Privates James Logan and Victor Creed. He reported to Stryker everything he’d found on the two feral brothers. James Logan had once been James Howlett and Victor Creed had once been Victor ‘Dog’ Logan. They’d left a messy trail over their centennial of living, so Dan had only to trace them throughout the lapses between and during the numerous wars to their present incarceration after they’d been unsuccessfully executed by firing range.

Once Stryker had formed the team, Dan had requested to stay out of the fray. The now colonel had agreed, musing he liked keeping his ‘fountain of knowledge’ away from prying parties.

After avoiding certain death at the Island, now Dan was begrudgingly unraveling a puzzle that spanned a lifetime he’d only read about in fiction itself.

He’d stolen the notebooks right out of a Holocaust exhibit, figuring he’d rather face years in prison instead of hours of agony at the hands of Creed. Like all other handwritten memoirs, Dan had hesitated in even touching them with his bare hands, so he had placed them on his desk with the reverence of a scholar before peeling his leather gloves off and tossing them on a cluttered table. His trepidation only lasted several minutes, since he figured Creed would be calling at any moment barking at him for every fucking detail.

Sitting down at his desk with a large notepad, he took a calming breath and closed his eyes before picking up the first memoir. The first thing that struck him after he ‘read’ the notebook was just how fluid the sensations were. Usually, picking up anything written by hand left him with a headache because of the empathic quality the information had attached to it. It would pour into him in a rush, along with whatever feelings and emotions the person had while writing it. So, if he was, say, ‘reading’ someone’s journal, he’d not only get the information they wrote, but also whatever emotions they had whilst writing. This was also the case with typed up manuscripts. Anything that was printed in mass, however, only transmitted tremors of empathic awareness, so Dan never ended up as frayed as he did with the more personal texts.

These memoirs were organic. They felt as if he was sitting in a shrink’s office while the author spoke to him candidly and crisply. The images were also clear, almost scientific in their chronology. Doctor Mischa Krause had written with composed wonder, as if part of him was scientifically documenting the greatest evolutionary discovery. He figured it was a fair assessment, considering the subject of his memoirs. There were 3 notebooks in all, and before he knew it, he had stacks of notepads with his handwritten translation from the mixture of Polish and Yiddish.

By the time he’d gotten up from the desk, a day and a half had gone by. Swearing in bemusement, he went to the kitchen and attacked his fridge, turning on the small TV on the counter while he made himself a few sandwiches. The news was warning about the perilous weather that was hitting the region before the headlines kicked in. He was stuffing his mouth with potato chips just as his phone rang.

Dan practically choked at the sound, rushing over to turn the TV off in mid story about a bloodbath at some hotel gala before picking up the phone.

“Yeah?” he picked up the line in his office with restrained trepidation while he preemptively reached for his notepads.

“It’s Creed.”

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The withering nothingness never came; instead, just a form of stasis that numbed to the very core. She could feel…and she didn’t know what that meant as she slowly became conscious. Her body felt like it was incased in something thick and warm. She felt engulfed, and for a moment her heart clenched. This couldn’t be death.

Thrashing wildly, she opened her eyes and clawed free from her bondage before her vision swam into bleary clarity. Panting slightly, she shielded her eyes from the firelight across from her before shaking her head free of the drowsy cling. Where am I…

Her eyes squinted and her surroundings started coming into focus. She was in a spacious room. As a matter of fact, she was bundled up on a sprawling bed covered in thick bedding across from an impressive fireplace in said room, the hearth of which was grey river stones that extended up into the ceiling. Staring down at herself, she realized that she’d been tucked and wrapped under heavy fur pelts. She also realized she was stark nude.

She closed her eyes and breathed out, trying to recall the last thing in her memory. I was drowning… her eyes flew open, awareness setting in when she sniffed the air. Raising the fur to her nose, she couldn’t believe it.

Creed had saved her. His scent was on everything around her. Crawling out of the bundled cocoon, she slid off the bed and quickly hugged herself before snagging a long wolf’s pelt and wrapping it around herself. She paused, closing her eyes to sense her surroundings.

The wind was howling outside, and she was hyper aware that she was alone. His scent was stale, as if he’d been gone for some time now. Walking around the bed towards the fireplace, she finally noticed the discarded heaps of clothes left strewn by the foot of the huge bed. Her gold gown was a tattered pool of dirty and bloody fabric. She crouched down to survey it and realized it had been torn clean down the front, still damp from her venture into the freezing depths. Creed’s clothes were in a heap just a few feet away. She picked up his black undershirt and realized it was sopping wet and icy to her touch. He dove in after me…? She was slightly taken aback at the realization.

His clothes and boots were wet, but the massive trench coat caked in blood and gory matter was barely damp. Her nose twitched at the myriad of scents that clung to the heavy coat before she let it fall back onto the pile. Standing, she surveyed the rest of the room. There was a snug walk-in closet to the right, a door to the left, and a set of double doors adjacent to the fireplace. The room only had four pieces of furniture: the massive bed, a night table on each side of said bed, and a tall dresser. Going to the dresser, she dug into a drawer and found a collection of undershirts that would do little to hide her nudity. Raiding through more drawers, she found a long-sleeved denim button down. She put it on and quickly wrapped herself back up in the fur again. It practically dwarfed her in size, but managed to cover her effectively. There weren’t any sweatpants or long johns of his that would fit her, and she couldn’t find her panties—but she was damn certain Creed hadn’t tried anything while she was unconscious.

The door to the left led into a wide bathroom with a roomy shower and decent-sized tub. A secondary door connected the bathroom to a short hallway that opened up to a common room that reminded her of a rugged sky lodge with its sparse furniture and high-and-bare-beamed ceiling. The only illumination in the ample ‘cabin’ came from the fireplaces. There was one just as impressive as the one in the bedroom in the living room.

She walked the entire cabin, finding a plain kitchen along with two other rooms she couldn’t gain access to. The doors weren’t simply locked; trying to snap the door jam with a judicious jerk, she was surprised when the door didn’t even budge under her ministrations. A thought sprung up at her and she rushed to the front door of the cabin. She tried to open it, but the doorknob didn’t even turn under the torque of her palm. Could this be a security system that only unlocks under the pressure of his hand? She’d heard about a similar system, but didn’t know Creed had access to such measures.

The fact that she’d underestimated him slapped her in the face…again. Somehow, Victor Creed had bested her. She couldn’t begin to think where he could’ve gotten his information—if you’re looking for a saboteur you should really think twice about who you work for, viper!

Her whole body stiffened with unbridled rage.

She’d been double-crossed by the Frenchman. The goddamned slithering bastard had sold her out to some top secret taskforce to cover his own fucking tracks. Evidently he didn’t think she was an ignorant fool. He knew she’d seen the files on that ‘telecomputer’ and had decided to kill her off. Her mind was whirling with fury, contingencies, and bemusement—I was hoping to get you before these fuckers snapped you up. How the hell had he known? Most importantly, how the hell had she NOT seen it coming?

Because you were distracted! She seethed angrily at herself. Digging her nails into her palm, she fumed as she stalked back towards the hall and into the bathroom. The fucking savage has you so twisted up in musings that you dropped right into his lap! She wanted to gut something; wanted to tear him inside out and crack his fucking jaw for his smugness—his bestially gloating triumph over her own frayed stupidity.

Who the hell knew what he had planned. He’d fished her out of the lake to cage her in a prison surrounded by wintery oblivion. Even if she could escape, she would perish out in the cold while he’d track her and drag her back like a fucking petrified victim for him to pick at with leisurely pleasure. Frail.

She didn’t know how long he’d be gone, but figured his little abode was so out of the way that any trek he made would be delayed by the feet of snow that seemed to be piling up just outside the living room windows.

Aware of her weaknesses, Isabela knew she at least now had the element of surprise. This was completely his turf, however, so she set out to prepare for the Sabertooth’s return from the cold violent storm that isolated her off in the darkness of winter.

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“Feral homo what?” Victor grumbled into the pay phone’s mouthpiece and slouched, trying his damdest to fit in the tight-ass booth.

“Feral Homo-varanus Anolis tacto-phero-impetus” Dan repeated over the line without elaborating.

“For fuck’s sake Dan, pretend I’m not a goddamned nerd and explain what the fuck that means!” Victor scowled, hating that he couldn’t be in front of the bastard so he’d get to the fucking point. The line was slightly crackly due to the storm, and he wanted to get all he could before the lines went down.

“Well the breakdown of that means she’s a feral mutant with reptilian characteristics similar to a Varanus and Anolis type of reptile. Anolis indicates her physical mutation to be similar to anolis lizards, which can change their skin colors, except the morphing of her skin indicates the triggering of her secondary mutation: tacto-phero-impetus” he paused and cleared his throat. “It basically means she emits pheromones that stimulate, neutralize, or attack her victim’s nervous systems and affect certain neurotransmitters according to what type of pheromone her skin is—uh, ‘shimmered’ with” he stated before adding quickly, “Oh, and the Homo-varanus means her primary mutation is something similar to varanus lizards, which include certain monitor lizards that are carnivorous and characteristically vicious, like a Komodo dragon. Her predatory drive is most like that of a Komodo dragon’s, and so is her level of strength—!”

“So you’re saying if she wanted she could tear my arm off with just her teeth” Victor interjected, glancing out the booth’s glass at the busy emporium.

“Pretty much, yeah” Dan’s response crackled over the line. “Her speed, strength, and agility are enhanced by her feral mutation, and her senses are increased like yours…and she has one hell of a regenerative factor. Which brings me to the kick in the pants” Dan paused—as always—for the suspense of it, “she’s way over half your age, Creed. According to my source—”

“And pray tell, where did you get all your information from?” Victor interrupted, too damned curious about how Dan was able to find such a detailed source.

He could hear the air tense in the other man’s throat even over the crackling phone line. “I found these scientific journals” he stated, and just when Victor was going to yell at him, added, “The first one was written in 1929. A German doctor named Mischa Krause kept a meticulous account of these…sessions he conducted with a Countess de Winter…” he trailed off and for once Victor appreciated it.

The name reminded him of one of the first books he read to Jimmy. The runt had taught him how to read first, but once he learned, Victor took it upon himself to read to his sickly brother on the cold nights by the fire, before they’d even known they were kin. Dan had caused the memory to surface the last time he mentioned Dumas’ novel, but the name triggered the actual image of him and Jimmy laughing and vouching “All for one, and one for All.”

“Let me guess” Victor muttered into the mouthpiece and clasped his hand around the pay phone, “Countess Isabela de Winter.”

“She has an affinity for cunning literary figures, doesn’t she” Dan confirmed. “She and Dr. Krause made an agreement: he’d get to study her, and she’d find out more about just what she was. He makes the comment in his journal that she was weary of herself and of not knowing how she fit into the world. Anyway, he compiled 3 journals of his notes. They span little over a decade of his research and observation, and include some dialogue sessions he had with her. For all intensive purposes, the guy thought he was talking to an immortal; to a preternatural being that shattered all scientific notions and that added a whole new level to Darwinism. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to mainstream his research. If he had, it probably would’ve been the first real discovery of evolutionary mutation” Dan explained.

“So just how old is she?” Victor wondered into the phone, and ignored the bustle just outside of the phone booth as stupid fucking frails hustled around buying provisions for the hellish winter storm that was heading down over the valley before night’s end.

“Doing the math, she’s around 453 years old.”

Victor jerked in his surprise and bumped his head on the top panel of the booth. He gritted his teeth not from pain, but from how shocked he was. Nothing ever shocked him, especially not after all the nasty shit he’d done over his centennial of life. But the idea of someone walking the earth for over four centuries made a knot in his gut. After enduring all the poking and prodding by Stryker’s legion of labcoats, Victor had pretty much been guaranteed that his long life at that point was only the beginning of his immortality. He and Jimmy hadn’t considered themselves immortal; indestructible, sure, but not immortal. When their mutations were explained to them, the realization that immortality was their reality made both of them pause. They had swallowed the information, too numbed by the fact to let the weight of it ever linger in their thoughts for too long. He knew it really bothered Jimmy. As for himself, Victor didn’t give a damn. He hadn’t cared for many years now, resolute in doing what made his blood hot and his pulse rush and just fucking living. After all, if he was going to be a fucking immortal, he might as well live everything to the fullest and with his predatory gusto. That’s where he and Jimmy had started differing.

Where the runt thought they should live as monks with bleeding hearts, Victor thought he and Jimmy were beyond it. They were animals with more than a license to kill; it was in their genetic code to be superior creatures. Humans had done nothing but cut them down and cower at their ferocity. As far as Victor was concerned, humans were to him what apes and chimps were to humans: just another link in a chain. They were an evolutionary improvement, and as such, should act as their natures dictated they should. Humans were the prey, and they were the predators. Plain and simple. Except Jimmy didn’t think it was.

The idea that someone had spanned 4 centuries with no scientific intervention or knowledge of what sort of being they were amongst the rest of humanity was a daunting notion to him.

“Anything else worth knowing?” he husked into the phone, recovering from his pensive thoughts.

Dan hesitated. “There’s a lot here, Creed. I managed to translate all the journals. Most of this stuff is scientifically anecdotal, in a way. Observations of her ‘in the field’ showing off what she could do and a lot of retrospection on her past” he explained. “Dunno if any of it would be worth you read—”

“Send it all” Victor cut in sternly.

“Uh, there’s over a hundred pages worth of stuff here—!”

“So that fucking fax machine of mine will be buzzing for a while. Is there going to be a problem on your end?” Victor ground contumely, the edge of a threat cutting into his tone.

“N-No, not at all. Just might take a while if it’s alright with you” Dan stammered over the line and Victor couldn’t help a small smile tug the corners of his lips. He gave the tacto-empath his fax number and was about to cut the call when Dan cut in, “Oh Creed, you never mentioned specifics about your run in with her…did you get dosed by her?”

Victor answered gruffly, “Yeah. She called it “stillness”…why what’s it to you?”

“Cuz these journals break her tacto-phero-impetus trait down, explaining the extent of each of her pheromones and the potency levels. Figured that would be the most important part of the read” Dan muttered.

“Even if it was, not like she’ll do much more than piss me off with that shimmering bullshit” Victor grumbled, “and I doubt that stillness shit will have an affect on me second time around—”

For the first time, Dan interrupted the feral. “Not necessarily, Creed. Her secondary mutation isn’t like Silverfox’s; tele-hypnosis is singularly mental, working the same way as telepathy and tacto-empathy. Mind over matter type of shit. Tacto-phero-impetus works as a biological imperative over its victims, overriding all else. It isn’t something you can really develop immunity to, especially when it’s passed on between ferals. It’s all hormones; just like you can both be affected by scent, so can you be affected by the hormonal and biological impetus her pheromones can trigger.”

Victor growled unintelligibly before muttering, “Sounds to me like you’re liking these odds, Dan. Hoping the little viper will take me out?”

“Trust me, Creed. Even if she could take you out, it isn’t much of a consolation. Just means there’s someone who can do better than you—that’s a scary thought all in itself…” he stated without much hesitation, to Victor’s chagrin. He hadn’t told Dan the specifics because he didn’t want to admit his goddamned oversights, and the fact the Irish mutt seemed to intrinsically know that he’d met his match wasn’t something the vicious mutant liked at all.

Victor huffed sourly, not liking the idea of having a vulnerability nor that fucking Dan was the one to point it out. “Send me anything and everything you find on ‘er” he told the other mutant in a terse grunt. “Got anymore spook-talk?” he inquired suddenly.

“Uh, no, haven’t kept an ear out for any since the last stuff I told you. Why?”

“Just keep me posted if you hear anything new, Danny-boy” he replied and hung up without another word.

Shucking the booth door open so he could duck out of it, Victor straightened his coat—a brown leather trench with fur lining the collar—and stuffed his hands into the pockets before striding over to the counter where the proprietor was just finishing putting his preserves and supplies together into a lightweight crate. Frails were still stocking up around the emporium, so he went virtually unnoticed as the guy rang him up.

“S’been a while since I’ve seen you around, Vic” the stout and steely-eyed man behind the counter remarked. “Staying out of the line of fire, I hope?” he quipped as Victor smirked at him and paid.

“The line of fire follows me wherever I go, Rob. Just been busy elsewhere” he replied coolly as he picked up his filled crate effortlessly.

The man—a fellow ‘Nam vet that had aloofly befriended him since the first time he came into the shop—chuckled at that before adding an extra bottle of whiskey to Victor’s order. He’d noticed Victor’s vicious claws and the flash of a fang after seeing his dog tags the first time he came in for supplies. The fact that the tall and brawny man was probably a mutant was effectively overridden by the fact that he was Vietnam vet, so reticent Rob was amicable with Victor every time he was in town.

Victor gave a cursory nod of thanks before walking out of the busy store to the snowy parking lot. He never knew what to make of the amiability random strangers like Rob would extend towards him, but figured one decent human would never make up for the whole lot of ‘em. A century of resentment and distrust had taught him that much.

He couldn’t begin to imagine what he would’ve known after 4 centuries.

Driving down the boulevard and making his way up into the mountain roads, Victor couldn’t shake how disconcerting it was to have found someone infinitely older and attuned than him, let alone have said immortal locked up in his cabin.

Locked in and naked he corrected and smirked, reaching into his pocket and fishing out the bit of white lace he had taken off of her. Her scent was like a sweetly dewy perfume that tantalized him, making his mouth water as he held her panties up to his nose and breathed her in. He wondered if she was still unconscious. If she was, then he just might have his way with her; see if that stirred her back into the world of the living.

When he watched her fall through the ice, he’d hesitated, expecting her to bob back to the surface so he could snidely mock her, but when she never came back up and everything around him went deftly silent, something inside him had jolted. His coat was off and tossed away before his mind registered the impulse to dive in after her. The water had prickled through him with its biting chill, but he managed to swim down and see her boneless and floating in the darkness. There weren’t any bubbles coming from her when he grabbed her and pulled her up with him, but he still didn’t feel like leaving her in the frigid depths.

He had burst to the surface and hauled her up and over before clawing out of the hole in the ice. Completely drenched, he’d picked her up and shuffled away from the broken and cracked ice to collect his coat and wrap it around her. Her pulse had been little less than a thrum against his fingers, but she was alive. The wind had howled around him as he took her into his arms and headed back to the closest place he could steal a car. While she was unconscious, she’d suddenly started coughing up water in the passenger’s seat before curling up and shivering under his coat. She was pale, her lips tinted blue and her long dark mane was running down her shoulders and temples in damp tendrils. She’d looked like a sleeping goddess made out of marble.

After ditching the stolen car for his jeep, he’d driven northeast to one of his closest properties, a cabin out in the mountains. He didn’t know what to do with her. From the minute he saw her glistening in gold silk and looking like a mythical fury, Victor had wanted her. It had itched under his skin more than the rage and revenge he had wanted to inflict on her. That hadn’t happened before. The fact that he wasn’t angry with her pissed him off. She’d toyed with him and—now he didn’t know what he wanted. He’d jumped in after her for fuck’s sakes! He could’ve left her to freeze and die a thousand deaths in that lake, and instead…here he was, taking her into his renovated cabin up in the mountains—stripping her out of her tattered clothes and wrapping her in the furs covering the foot of his bed and tucking her under layers of bedding. He’d started a fire in each hearth and peeled his wet clothes off before going to the side of his bed and staring down at her. Running his fingers through her hair, he had leaned over her and inhaled her scent, loving the mixture of sweetness and savagery she was perfumed by.

Inhaling her pungent aroma off the pristine white lace again, Victor felt the roaring pulse of urge tingle in his loins. By the time he parked the jeep several meters away from the cabin, his cock was throbbing hard. Maybe he didn’t know whether to kill the bitch or skin her alive like he’d promised, but he sure as hell wanted to fuck her again. If he admitted it to himself, he had positively ached for her heat again. She’d been the rarest and by far the best fuck he’d ever had.

He chuckled to himself, musing over the most lewd and lascivious things he would do to the little viper while he trudged through the shin-deep snow to the generator. He switched it on and heard the familiar hum of the battery clicking the power on, but all the lights in the cabin remained off. Only the porch light came on, casting an eerie glow over the snow that was flickering down from the dark sky and shimmering on the ground in thick clumps. He grunted, knowing he’d switched the lights on so when he came back he could flick the switch and light the place up. Getting his supplies, he trudged up to the porch cautiously, sniffing the air for any signs of intruders. The snow was still untouched except from his large boot prints from earlier.

As he wrapped his hand around the doorknob, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Anticipation was buzzing in him, but a flicker of trepidation had him on guard and ready for violence. The feelings irked and pissed him off. Sneering at himself, he wrapped his palm around the cool steel before turning it stealthily. The doorknob turned and unlocked under the distinctive pressure and torque of his hand, a nifty security feature he’d had installed by a crafty gearsmith that had worked on many of the security measures Stryker had on the Island and the Facility up at Alkali Lake.

He walked into the sprawling living room, kicking the door closed behind him with an audible slam. Nothing, save for the crackling and popping of kindling from the fireplace. He flicked the porch light off and stared about into the penumbra of his cabin. Sniffing the air, he couldn’t help relish the cornucopia of scents, familiar and new. The telltale citrusy tang of anxiety was stale but present, along with the musk of anger. Some of the anger was his, but a lot of it was hers. The only thing he could compare the scent to was blood-soaked soil. It turned him on.

His senses were buzzing. He knew goddamned well that she wasn’t still unconscious, but wasn’t about to skulk around his own territory like a prowler. Walking through the living room and passing the fireplace, he headed into the kitchen and put the crate of supplies on the sturdy table—shoving all the perishables into the fridge—before loping back into the living room. The quiet was only interrupted by the crackling fire, the howling wind outside, and his every step over the hardwood floors. He flicked a light switch on and off, and nothing. Walking over to a lamp, he turned the switch before peering over the lampshade. The fucking bulb was gone. Blinking, Victor stood straight and smirked despite himself. Cunning little cunt…

Tension built between his shoulder blades, his senses hyperaware as he shrugged his leather coat off and tossed it over one of the couches before walking to the open double doors of his bedroom. The smell of fear spiced the air, but it was faint. She wasn’t in his bed, and there was no sign of anything being out of place. He tried picking up her musky scent, but couldn’t discernibly sift it out of the air. His keen nose only picked up stray and stale aromas of her natural perfume all over his bed and leading into his bathroom, where her scent seemed to disappear all together.

Shower…she fucking showered and used my soap! The realization hit him like a slap to the face. She had masked herself and was lurking somewhere, waiting to pounce. He wouldn’t be able to tell just where she’d be because his own scent was on everything.

His jaw clenched tightly as he loped impassively back out to the living room.

The quiet was fucking unnerving him now. There weren’t any corners for her to hide, nor was visibility poor enough that he wouldn’t be able to spot her, but he didn’t know where the fuck she could be.

“You might’ve found a place to hide, viper, but there’s no way you’re getting out of here. Not unless I open the fucking door and escort you out, so why not come out and play” Victor purred evenly, his ears sharp for any cue. She watched him from her perch in the shadows, her eyes piercing the darkness as she slinked closer to the wood beam.

Snickering at the stillness in the air that only made his hackles rise. Victor rounded his furniture like a panther, his claws lengthening while the firelight glinted off of his dog tags. “C’mon, Isabela…if you’re a good little bitch, I just might mount you again. I know how much you loved having your pretty ass dominated” he mused in a husky tone, his shoulders rolling back as he titled his head and grinned. “Probably been thinking about me” he purred leeringly, “missing me and wanting an excuse for the big bad cub to come after you?”

Only silence answered him, but something in the air shifted. It was a small price to pay in order to prowl into a better attack perch, and Isabela couldn’t rely on her frayed senses from keeping her predatory pride in check.

Victor decided to instigate further. “Been so hot for me that you lost focus? M’not surprised, after how hard up you were for me to pound that juicy cunt of yours. How else would you’ve been so distracted to get dropped in on twice in one night?” he growled mockingly before his senses jolted and he looked up into the darkness of the rafters. His eyes went wide when he saw her practically emerge out of the darkness as she dove down at him, effectively getting the drop on him.

They both crashed to the floor before thrashing and fighting tooth and nail, snarling and slashing against each other wildly. Furniture was kicked and shoved down from their brute strength, their bodies tangled in a battle for dominance that left his clothes tattered and ripped open and her practically naked. Just as Victor sunk his claws into the meat of her shoulder knuckle deep, Isabela drove her taloned fingers in between the flesh of his ribs and curled her fingers around bone before yanking hard. They both hollered at the jagged agony the other inflicted. Battling for the upper hand led Isabela to use her free hand to claw at the thick tendon in Victor’s neck while he in turn yanked her up and slammed her back down on the floor. The jarring motion made them both flinch and howl in pain before she snarled up at him and plunged her other hand to mimic the motion of the first. Now the fingers of both hands were curled around a rib, anchoring him down towards her while his own claws sunk deeper into her shoulder and her side.

No matter how hard she tried to roll them, Victor thwarted the maneuver by pressing his torso down on her and pinning her hips down with his waist. By now they were both panting harshly, their teeth bared at each other but their eyes heavy with bloodlust. She shifted under him, but refrained from struggling. Her fingers wiggled in between his ribs, forcing a growl out of Victor and for him to shift against the jarring sensations.

“Why’d yah stop” Victor husked bitingly at her and earned a sharp tug at his ribcage by the fingers still anchored there.

“I can smell you” she panted in a smoky tone before gasping at the claws still embedded into her flesh when they tore in deeper in surly retaliation. “There’s no fight to kill in you…not like before” she murmured and arched against him when his nails dragged down her flesh. The air was crackling between them, scented with blood and predatory lust. Then: “I did miss you, cub.”

Victor was shocked, but only his flinty eyes betrayed his surprise when they flickered bemusedly down at her.

Her eyes were glowing from the firelight, while his looked almost clear as they gazed into her frondy irises with the russet ring dilating around the pupil. He could smell part of his scent on her, but now the air around him was spiced with arousal and savage anticipation. Both their scents were laced with it.

The sucking sound of her fingers pulling out of his ribcage was as sick as the feeling, but not nearly as jarring as the sensation of the tapered and bloody digits coming up to caress down the curve of his cheeks to linger at his furred jaw. Victor’s fingers only tightened around the flesh of her wounds, making her hiss and arch up against him. When her hips brushed his, she gasped at how aroused he was.

He ground against her, the simmering urge she was stirring up in him making him ravenous. His cock was straining against his zipper, but he didn’t trust her; didn’t want to pull his claws out of her long enough to fucking unzip and take her.

“You can’t fucking seduce me like any other piece of shit weak bastard, so don’t even try it!” he seethed into her face, making his point by clawing more blood out of her wounds and jamming his thumbnails to scrape against bone while unwittingly grinding his confined erection against her mons.

She hissed at the assault and arched up against him, wrapping her legs around his hips and pulling him between her thighs. Her fingers tangled in his tattered shirt and ripped it before planting her palms against the hot and hairy pectorals of his chest. His dog tags swung between their bodies as she murmured, “You’re the one doing all the seducing, cub. It’s why you brought me here: to take me…claim me” she paused before purring sensually, “so what’s stopping you?”

Victor’s brow furrowed in anger, but his lips parted in a brooding sneer. His whole frame tensed against her, but she could smell the musk of his arousal. She was surprised his cock hadn’t split his zipper open yet from how rock hard his erection was pressed against her.

He was right. She wouldn’t be getting out of here without him letting her. But if Isabela had learned anything in her centuries of life, it was what men wanted—before they even knew. As far as she was concerned, she was the first true femme fatale. A boast like that meant she could manipulate a man inside out. She could pick them apart and reassemble them in a jumbled mess that suited her ambitions, but he was incredibly unique. He wanted her. Maybe not the way most men wanted her, but she could smell it on him; read it in his every gesture and hear it just under the surface of every boorish word. He couldn’t kill her, so the allure for him was to take out every lurid sadistic fantasy he’d ever machinated, with the gleeful understanding that he could do it to his heart’s content without killing his plaything.

Oh, she wanted him. Her scent spoke volumes to him, making his mouth water and the blood roar in his veins. But he knew there was cunning lurking in her eyes, waiting for him to acquiesce to lust so she could pounce.

Her bloody fingers smeared across his chest and up his neck, making him intently focused on her provocative expression. Her lips were glistening and her eyes were hooded, making her fucking delectable. She was practically naked under him, covered in drying blood and one of his tattered shirts. It made him hot to see her in his things—to smell his own blood mingled with hers. She was a supple hellion, just as bestial and ruthless as he, and just as hungry for him as he was for her.

His claws pried out of the healing skin of her shoulder and curled to grip the back of her hair, jerking her up to gasp into his mouth as he devoured her in a hungry kiss. Her hands gripped the back of his neck and forced him to tear his other claws out of her in order to prop himself above her. She returned his kiss with gusto, groaning into his mouth as their tongues battled for dominance. Victor parted from the kiss and growled against her lips, his forehead pressed against hers so he could gaze into her scintillating eyes as he shoved a hand between their bodies to roughly unfasten his fucking jeans and zip them open.

The vicious guile flashed in her expression so quickly Victor was too late to notice the shimmer that coursed over every plane of her bare skin. An irksome feeling of numbness began to lace up his skin, instantly making his limbs heavy and preventing him from thrashing as violently as he could. Isabela rolled and slammed him belly up on the floor before his arms went out from under him. Kneeling and crouched down over him, she pressed her forehead against his and ignored his snarling, waiting for the stillness to effectively incapacitate him before nuzzling his cheek.
The action startled him, and snapped his seething down to a gruff growl that eventually died in his throat. She wasn’t sinking her nails into him or ripping his jugular out like he’d expected…and it unnerved him.

She seemed to read his mind when her eyes fixed on his. Rearing back up to straddle him, Isabela rolled her shoulder and hissed while her hands absently caressed the muscled and furred planes of his chest. “To answer your questions from earlier” she purred, trailing her fingers over his dog tags, “Yes. You made an impression…lingered in my thoughts. But clearly, it’s been the same for you.”

Victor stared implacably up at her, his lips parting to huff at her. He didn’t know what to say. She took one of his hands and brought it to her lips, brushing her mouth over his knuckles before licking up his forefinger from base to nail. She sucked his finger clean of her own blood, gingerly cleaning under his wicked claw before pursing her lips around the digit and letting him feel her fangs and incisors lengthen over it. Victor swiped his tongue over his teeth and watched her hungrily, unable to do anything against the stillness that clung like a vice over him. Guiding his hand down her body to feel the heat of her skin and the curve of her figure, Isabela used her other hand to free his erection before palming the shaft and stroking it lightly.

He hissed in appreciation, his hips jerking with the urge to buck up into her hand but unable to. She fixed him with an expression softened by desire before guiding him into her heat and rearing down over his hips. Victor clenched his teeth and growled, his eyes heavy with animalistic want. He could feel the tingling in his extremities as they fought against the debilitating numbness, but all he could manage to do against the stillness was flex his forearms and fingers.

She rode him with savage accomplishment, mewling with her efforts and gripping his chest while Victor relished in the sensations, ignoring the animal and the loathing of being dominated…for the moment. His hands managed to creep up her thighs to dig his nails into the back of her hips, his groans and panting gruff and raw, sending chills up her spine.

When he bucked against her, she cried out in surprise, her eyes locking on his in a moment of feral levity. Moaning at the savage gleam in his clear blue eyes, she lowered for a kiss. Victor dove as best as he could to capture her mouth, tasting the blood on her lips and nipping at her for more. Her hands gripped his shoulders as she ground down on him, raking a growl out of him and deepening their kiss. Before long, Victor could muster enough will against the stillness to grip her waist and work in unison with her rhythm, slamming his cock into her tight heat with bruising strokes that left her bucking and sighing from the intense pleasure and tingling pain.

Her nails scraped down his collarbones and dug into the top curve of his pecs when she arched over him and cried out. Victor felt her whole body tense and strangle his cock, working him into a frenzy. He slammed his hips up in powerfully frantic thrusts before her rippling orgasm milked him into his own ecstasy. He roared his climax, leaving him mindlessly fulfilled as they both rocked against each other and prolonged their bliss.

Completely spent, he fell back on the warm floor, panting up at the beamed ceiling while she hummed and rested on top of him. She nuzzled the side of his neck, sighing against his skin before nipping drunkenly at him. Victor growled noncommittally, his body tingling and his pulse roaring under his skin. He wasn’t sure if he could move, but he really didn’t give a fuck. He felt too goddamned good to think over the contingencies of what he was going to do once he could move.

For long moments, the only sounds in the cabin were the crackling in the fireplaces and their satiated breathing. Then Isabela shifted on top of him, sighing at the feeling of him still deep inside of her. Biting her lip, she lifted off of him and shivered minutely at the sensation of losing his heat before she smiled the first impish smirk he’d ever seen on her.

Her Komodo-like teeth flashed at him before retracting. “I have to say, Creed. I like your brand of punishment. Makes me wonder what your rewards are like” she mused before standing and coquettishly leaving him on the living room floor to slink sinuously into his bedroom with a cool glance over her shoulder at him.

Victor growled rapaciously while his predator’s pride seethed at him. He’d been fucked belly up by the viper…and he’d fucking liked it. Here he was, still frazzled by her goddamned stillness and all he could think about was how he wanted to fuck her silly—pound into her until the only breath she could muster was to scream his name. He stood shakily, his legs threatening to buckle from the remains of the stillness. It also didn’t help that his jeans were still shoved down mid thigh.

Furiously kicking his boots off, he stripped his jeans off his legs and shucked his torn shirt before prowling as impassively as he could to his own bedroom. She was laying out on the thick furs sprawled on his bed, her hair fanning over the side of the mattress and the length of her neck was tilted taut, exposing her slender throat. His tattered shirt was strewn on the floor, leaving her naked and illuminated by the glow of the fireplace. She shifted just enough to acknowledge his presence before a smile softened her kiss swollen lips.

He looked like a god, standing utterly naked save for the dog tags around his neck and the smears of his and her blood. His body was chiseled muscle, streamlined with taut tendons encased by hot tanned skin. Dark hair covered his chest and trailed down his abdominals down to his navel before dipping into a coarser path down his apex. His eyes were smoky, but crystalline blue, making it seem like ice water coursed through his veins.

“You’re a manipulative little viper” he murmured gruffly as he stalked into the room and into the warm glow of the firelight from the hearth. “If you think your lizzie ass is getting outta here alive, you’ve fooled yourself real fucking good” he snidely growled as he strode to the foot of the bed and loomed over her.

“I can’t kill you, Creed, and you certainly can’t kill me” she purred gently, her expression cool, even when he grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the foot of the bed.

“Creed? Have you gone cold on me already? I think we’re on a first name basis, Izzie” he snapped nastily, cleverly combining her name and ‘lizzie’ to make for a nickname condescendingly endearing.

Her whole body flinched as if she’d been physically struck by the name. Not the first to be clever. She jerked up and away from him, her eyes flashing with a storm of emotions that Victor had seen thousands of times before they dimmed and grew hollow. Ghost eyes.

It took her a moment to recover from the whirlwind of memories he’d plunged her into, and by then the only thing she felt was a hollowing sense of melancholy...and a sinking ache that welled in her chest. She’d unconsciously scurried back on the bed and her whole frame was twisted with tension.

Victor watched as she tried to recover her cool veneer, intrigued and humming with accomplishment that he’d rattled her so deep to the bone with just a well-chosen nickname. He climbed onto the bed and crawled towards her with sinewy mischief before her gaze focused on him again.

“Triggered a memory?” he quipped scathingly before trailing his clawed hand up the slope of her foot to bracelet around her thin ankle. She jerked and hissed at him, but there was no hostility; the fight had receded, leaving her haunted and skittish under his imposing presence. He shushed her with amused bravado before tugging her towards him.

She reared up and gripped his wrist, wringing it away from her as she fronted him in a seething gesture. He stiffened, but didn’t feel threatened by her forceful gesture. His eyes locked onto hers, and for the first time he felt a blistering intensity bore out of her as she dragged her hands up his arms to frame his face firmly. A twinge of hurt flinted momentarily in her eyes after flickering over every sculpted detail of his face before fixing on his steely blue eyes.

It wasn’t him. Creed…Victor wasn’t him.

Nonplussed, Victor watched her expression cool and the stoic façade flood her eyes once again.

“You’re right, Victor. We’re definitely on a first name basis. I think more than you’ll ever know” she murmured stoically before brushing an open mouth kiss over some dried blood on his cheekbone.

The viper was just brimming with surprises.

All the tension washed away, leaving Isabela sinewy and inviting as she lowered back down to the mattress, propped up on the furs and pillows. Her eyes never left his, following his gaze when it raked up her body for a brief moment before he hesitated and growled.

He wanted to slam her against the headboard and shove into her pussy, fuck her with brutal ferocity and bite down on her pulse. Still, he hesitated, the skeptical caution coiling his lust like a spring deep in his gut. She was tumultuous, volatile, and captivating, but no matter how much he wanted to fall upon her, he didn’t know what she was capable of; wasn’t sure if she was being pliable or cunning.

Soothingly, her foot trailed up the side of his thigh and lingered at his hip. “Victor” she murmured so softly, with such assurance that it stunned him. “I’m not going to bite, at least not unless you make me” her lips parted almost wistfully as she rested her arms palm down on the bed.

Submission. She was submitting herself to him—belly up and claws down, her hair tossed in a lovely series of dark chocolate strands and chunks all around her. The scar skirting her womb was taut and smooth. Victor prowled over her and dragged the pads of his fingers over it. She tensed, but didn’t move, watching as he fought the overwhelming senses that warred within him. Her offering didn’t make him feel powerful. She wasn’t a frail—wasn’t a victim for him to break and be filled with power by, fleeting and sweet. She was more than that.

“As much as I love it when a frail strokes my ego…I gotta say” Victor trailed off as he crawled over her and fixed her with a stony glare, “I’d love it more if you fought me, Izzie.”

Her eyes blazed, anger flooding her scent as she rose up and slapped him. She definitely didn’t use her full strength; Victor knew if she had, he’d have a shattered jaw at the very least. As it was, the joint in his jaw stung brilliantly, flaring pain all the way down his neck and back up, but he still couldn’t help the bark of a laugh that her livid blow brought up as he propped himself from rolling off the bed. He caught her wrist when she aimed a punch at his mouth, but couldn’t catch the knee to the gut when she jerked her arm away.

“That’s it, Izzie, fight me! If you don’t I’ll peel the flesh off you and fuck you raw” he laughed and growled as they fought on his bed. “Maybe you’d like that? Having me tear you to shreds and do it over and over again every time you heal, huh Izzie?” he hissed with sinister lust dripping in his tone when a hard punch connected with his cheek and jerked him backwards off of her.

She pounced on him and he actually bristled from the intensity of her rage. “You can’t call me that!” she seethed into his face, her eyes trembling with fury. “Not unless you can die, do you understand me?! Unless you can die and I watch you die, don’t ever call me that, do you understand” she hissed ardently before pressing her hand flat over his heart and lifting off of him towards the head of the bed.

The electricity was blazing in the air, and Victor rose on his elbows to watch her calmly wrap herself up in a fur pelt. That moment of burning passion was staunched out. Only ice remained in her now.

Licking his lips, Victor tried not to let her audacity feed his rage. No one told him what to do anymore…no one threatened him. But there was something in her eyes—in her lividly pained expression.

He wondered if he’d looked that way when someone mentioned Jimmy to him.

“I’ll call you whatever I want, viper” he suddenly broke the silence, and she focused an icy glare at him. He prowled over to her and yanked the fur away from her. She hissed warningly, but he forged on, “If you can call me ‘cub’ and get away with it…I’ll call you whatever the fuck I’d like.”

The anger faltered slightly in her gaze. They looked at each other for an intense moment before he dragged his hands up her arms and over her breasts, nuzzling her temple and possessively grabbing her, gathering her into his lap. Shivering, she gripped his shoulders before relaxing against him, returning his primitive gesture by tilting her head and nuzzling under his jaw.

He didn’t know why he gravitated to her, but something savagely primordial linked them, and it wasn’t their feral natures. She felt it too, and it unnerved her to the very marrow. She ached because of it, and all she wanted was to be the animal she was, feral and open to the predatory reciprocity Victor offered her. Fisting his hand in the back of her long hair, Victor tilted her face up and lowered his mouth to hers, unknowingly wanting the same thing.

They kissed savagely, brushing tongues and scraping teeth against each other as Isabela arched taut against him when he slid inside of her. Victor growled, working them both into tantalizing desire as he clamped his teeth over the tendon joining her shoulder and neck. He set their pace, slamming her onto his lap over and over again while she clung to him and cried out. His clawed hand cupped a heavy breast and squeezed when she dragged her nails down his upper back and scraped her mouth over his earlobe to nip hard at his jaw. Groaning with approval, he suddenly slammed her back against the bed and rose up on his knees, forcing Isabela to wrap her legs around his waist and to press her shoulders back against the bed. With one forearm propped behind the small of her back, Victor thrust hard into her, earning a hearty gasp from her when he stroked upwards to press against her womb.

He dragged his hot mouth and sharp fangs over her supple breasts, sucking roughly on a dusky nipple and twirling his thumb over the other all the while driving into her with wanton force. She gripped the back of his shoulder and cupped the back of his head, arching heartily into his mouth with dizzying need. He hummed against her flesh before sinking his fangs into the top curve of her breast. Stifling a mewl of pleasure, Isabela bucked hard against him before his tongue laved at her wound leisurely and ripped a contented sigh from her lips.

“Stop biting back those sounds” he growled against her breast before rubbing his mutton-chopped cheek against the hypersensitive flesh under her jaw.

Humming, she mused in a breathy tone, “Tear them out of me, Victor.”

His hackles rose at that, but when he looked into her teasing frondy eyes, he knew what she meant. Grinning wildly at her, Victor flashed his fangs at her with lustful eyes before sinking his teeth into her soft neck. The hot gush of blood flooded his mouth, making him dizzy with pleasure as he pounded into her.

Isabela cried out, stiffening against him and digging her nails into the back of his shoulders. His next thrust stroked against her womb again, and Isabela shouted his name with vigor as her sheath clenched around him in her blazing orgasm.

Victor tossed his head back with a roar of pleasure as he frantically fucked her into his own shuddering climax, bracing his hand against the headboard when he drove into her one last time and groaned in savage completion.

He loomed over her as tremors shook his hunched shoulders, while she remained sprawled under him. His eyes were half lidded when they connected with hers, and a rush of heat curled in his belly at the sight of her looking so content and sated under him. She grabbed his dangling dog tags and yanked him down onto her before licking up his throat and chin at the blood he’d spilled, clamping her own feral teeth at the tender spot under his jaw. Victor craned his neck to allow her better access, purring a growl as he settled on top of her. Their predatory signs of affection spoke volumes, more than either recognized.

Her nails scratched soothingly at the back of his scalp when she licked his healed skin clean of his blood and rubbed her nose against his mutton chopped cheek. Victor purred, burrowing his face in the crook of her neck and breathing her in. She smelled tantalizingly beautiful in her afterglow, especially since whiffs of his scent were laced in her own now.

Her breathing was soft against his ear when he shifted; her hands were loosely resting over his shoulder blades while her knees clung gently along his haunches. Drowsily grabbing a mess of comforter and furs, Victor covered them both before nudging his head against the side of hers and grunting. She hummed tiredly and cuddled him in response, nuzzling his jaw and cheek. The heat and acceptance of her body made him feel high. It was a feeling that made him privately swell with pride.

Mine.

His satisfied thoughts clung to the proclamation as he started to doze, savoring the heat and feel of her pinned under him.

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Basset hadn’t called. It wasn’t like the man to doddle when a task was expected of him. Débile incompetent.

Armand swirled the glass of amber liquid languidly as he stared out the lit up Parisian night. He was too self-assured to worry about the lowly flunky. Besides, Nagaraja being assassinated would be headline news in the morning. As far as he was concerned, it was now smooth sailing, especially since the tele-computer was reaping so much already. He had investors salivating and with Khomeini being outed when Basset leaked his ties with Nagaraja, his dealings in a FDI-friendly Iran would be cemented.

All in all, Armand felt like he was on top of the world, figuratively as well as literally.

Only a few hours until morning stood between him and a jubilant future.

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“With all due respect, sir, I don’t see how this is my problem.”

“Oh really? You don’t? Your fucking unit went in and blasted that ballroom into the Stone Age, commandant. There was so much goddamned blood and guts that even my most grizzled men were puking their fucking brains out in the hall! I put you in charge of this unit and I expected diligence, not a goddamned SWAT team!” the burly man shouted and rose behind his desk, hollering the last of his tirade right down at the man. “If this isn’t your problem, than I’d like to know who the hell you think it belongs to?!”

“We had several sources and good informants…the third target wasn’t expected” the surly man muttered. “I followed orders and did everything to procedure—!”

The electronic door slid open to allow the glowering agent into the room, cutting the man off. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything” he aloofly remarked, to the chagrin of the commandant.

“Not at all Nick. Just the man I need” their superior stated before directing a sharp glare to the other man, “I’m reassigning you, commandant. And the next time you fuck something up royally, your answer better not be how it wasn’t your problem, understood!?”

“Yessir…” the man grimaced slightly before stalking out of the room.

“This is a giant mess, Nick” the man sighed and dropped back into his seat.

“I know, sir, but to be frank, I told you Moss wasn’t keen for this job” Nick said, implacably respectful.

“I know. That’s why I’m assigning you to this unit” the man couldn’t help a lopsided smirk at the balking stare he got from the agent’s good eye. “C’mon, Nick. You’re up for the task. I trust your judgment and am prepared to give you whatever backing you need.”

“Just tell me one thing, sir” the agent warily said, “will I have final say so on our targets and who we tag for detention?”

“Listen very carefully, Nick. If you bring this up again, I’ll deny it, but off the record?” the man leaned over his desk and ground out, “I don’t fucking care what mutie freaks you decide to tag and bag, just as long as you use your fucking discretion. Clearly we got shitty intel on this ‘Vipress’, and I really don’t know what to make of one of Stryker’s pet projects prowling into the situation. Frankly, if they’d just made mince meat of Nagaraja and his cronies, I wouldn’t even be this pissed, but they took out some good men…”

“I understand sir…but I have to tell you, I don’t think either of them are a priority. I’m not saying I don’t think they’re important targets, especially after the rampage they caused, but I have a hunch something bigger is happening. Vipress is a pro, and so is Sabertooth. The fact that we got the drop on them is too convenient. I’m more concerned with just who was feeding us the intel” Nick explained, “all of this coincides with the theft of the tele-computer, and the fact that our list of suspects has narrowed down to whoever benefitted from Nagaraja getting killed makes me want to track that lead…”

“Nick, I trust you. Do whatever the hell you think you need to do. I’ll be cleaning up this mess for weeks, so you have that long to follow your hunch and get back to me, clear?”

“Yessir. Thank you” Nick saluted the man and strode out of the room.

The last thing he’d expected was to get promoted, but hell, if it meant he got out of the CIA and into a position with more clout, than he was fine with it. He knew that computer was involved in this whole mess, but he just needed to find out who wanted it and Nagaraja out of the picture. Two mutants crossing paths was the least of his worries, as far as he was concerned. The piece of technology that had been stolen held enough secrets to bury the U.S. in wave after wave of attacks, domestic or otherwise. No, as far as he was concerned, finding the computer would lead him to the bigger fish.

With his hunch and objective in mind, Nick headed on to track leads, memories of better days clouding his thoughts.
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THANKS FOR READING! PLEASE REVIEW!

I want to thank the reviewers and all the people who've faved and watched the story so far! I hope these gaps between updates aren't too grueling for you guys; trying to write every free chance I get. Just want to assure you that I have a very good idea where this story is going, and hope you all are happy with my take on Victor (and hoping you don't think he's really OOC!).

My infatuation for Liev Schreiber is over; I am now deeply enamored with him! Multiple thanks and kisses go out to him for inspiring me.

-ROGUEFURY