Tides moved the war room in a weird halfway-to-the-moon light, making the glass accidental reflections of steel. There were the flares of a lighted fire, and its shadows danced uneasily on maps, scrolls, and the stiff figure of Xavier.
He was standing with his arms crossed behind his back and looking at the border map as though it contained answers to some questions he had not dared to pose. His physical form was here, motionless. Yet war was not in his mind, territory disputes and patrol shifts were not what was occupying him.
They said she's coming.
Larissa.
A zombie, a flesh-resurrected ghost. A name that rang reminding him like a scar in his chest.
He had chiseled her right out of his life as sharp as a knife when he knew that it was his only hope to save her.
And now--now his wound bled anew.
The door which was behind him creaked open.
It was a voice, low and sweet as melted winter-honey, and it said, saucily, You have been dodging me.
He made no turn. "I have been busy."
Selene had strolled in like a queen and then a storm. Her cloak was one of black velvet, over which there was nothing but a silk bodice that rested on her body in a way that almost felt like temptation. She left behind the jasmine and blood roses scent.
She was entering the room slowly and her presence filled the room.
"You always say so when you are afraid of meeting me, she mumbled. Or when you are deep-hiding something."
"I am not concealers." he spat
What then is it? Eves are all talking, Xavier. A whiff of secrets is the blood in the water to the council."
She went around him as a feline, and stopped at his side.
The story is, she will be back. Larissa."
He bit his jaw.
Heard it said… you were to get married to her."
With a slight turn in the head he replied. "Yes I am."
With a parting of her lips there came the bitter laugh which was not laughing after all.
"There, consequently, she said She is rejected by you. She disappears. I have stayed by you years--faithful, enthusiastic, merciless where I had to be hard. and now here comes creeping crawling back and you give her the crown?"
"This is no crown, he answered with clipped voice. It is war armor."
Hissing, she said, "Don t tell lies to yourself. or to me."
She moved in between him and left her chest against him. "How do you remember the nights, that you called my name? The manner in which you glared at me when I came back out of fight? When after we had gotten each other to forget that outside this door the world exists?"
Xavier said nothing.
Slowly Selene ran her fingers up his chest, across the line of muscle set there by years of fighting. "I was yours,"she said. It is because you made me feel it."
And he said, with a grip on his words, "you were part of the mission."
she put her lips close to his. "No… I was yours, Xavier. and you knew it."
Her hand was moving to his neck, her body was against his. He heaved,--only once--but made no effort to get away.
It was a velvet and venom voice of Selene. She does not mean as much to you as she would mean to me, Don pretend. She did not stay here. She never bled by your side.
Xavier clenched his teeth. "What you are doing is crossing a line."
She smiled very slightly. "Or am I reminding you what real power is like."
She kissed him.
It was hot-blooded --home-like. Fire against fire. And one second Xavier did not resist. A moment of instinct, of memory, of rage mingled with lust--and then he thrust her away and was breathing hard.
"No", snarled he.
Selene fell blindly staring in surprise.
"I will not be played with said Xavier Not you, Not anybody."
"You so much did not object to being played with the night before you took me to you bed?"
"It was a mistake" Xavier
Her complexion grew dark. "A mistake you did more than once?"
Turning, Xavier looked savagely away. But more than the furiousness -- it was guilt. It was a curse to him of guilt.
"would you not want to know why I rejected her? He said abruptly in a cracking voice.
Selene narrowed her eyes, the air in that room changed.
"She was my mate. I felt her, I knew it. I could feel it in the bone, in my so... soul."
The facial expression of Selene wavered.
"She was hardly nineteen, A girl full of dreams. She believed that the mate bond was security and eternity. However, at the time I was a weapon. War built. Moulded by blood, and duty. I did not know how to love somebody soft."
Weakly his voice fell into a whisper.
"Whenever I'm with her I feel completely human. And if I should keep her that closer , the council would tear her apart to reach me, we had enemies— then and even now— you of all people should know that, there are people who would have grabbed her just to see me burn. What I did therefore was the one thing that would keep her away."
His eyes were shut. "I rejected her, that is the only way she would run."
A pause.
"None of that was done to hurt her, he added almost to himself. Still I knew I would. I had to make her feel that she was not good enough."
Selene gazed, and was tongue-tied in disbelief
"You see loyalty as fire. As power. She became my silence. My peace. I could not allow her to be my point of weakness with them."
"But now you bring her back", said Selene in bitter tones.
"I never did want to stop wanting her, he said . And I must have her . Not as my companion--but like as my equal. The type of Alpha that will not recoil at his scars I gave her."
He bent her eyes on his hands.
"She had got over what I had done to her. And I give her the truth."
There was a dead tone in Selene inquiry. "She will break the pack. They will never forget what you did and said to her. The way she ran. She was weak, Xavier!"
"she survived it", he answered voice become cold as ice
Selene came still closer, anger in her voice. "You bring her here and i swear she will not last a moon."
He looked at her with a deadly gazed eyes
"Don't step on me, Selene. You had slept on my bed but you will never touched my soul."
Her covering broke. "Well, she did?. After this long a period of time?
"Yes, Larissa did" he said simply
He moved towards the door, the room was choking with repressed speech. But just before the leaving he stopped, eyes fixed on the floor
"Then: I was nearly tempted to give way to you. That disappoint me more than you will ever imagine."
He slammed the door behind him
And Selene was standing singly in the firelight, panting with rage, with any dignity stilled in the gullet.
She stared at the moon.
And vowed that Larissa will never should put on the title.