by Megan Parker
“Well at least she’s making friends, right?” Nikki smiled, “So what’s your clan mate like? Are they romantic with one another?”
Zane laughed, “I severely doubt it! Though I wouldn’t mind seeing that!”
Nikki frowned in confusion.
“My clan mate’s a girl, Nikki. Her name’s Zoey, and I don’t think she or Serena swing that way.”
“So you are in love with her!” Nikki chided.
“I’m not…” he sighed, “It’s not as simple as that! Sure, there’s something there, but there’s a big fucking mess in the middle of it all.”
“A mess?” Nikki frowned, “What sort of mess?”
“Like the ex-boyfriend-slash-fiancé sort of mess!” Zane sneered.
“Oh. Is he trying to get her back?”
Zane shook his head, “Not anymore. Your precious curse saw to that.”
Nikki looked around to make sure nobody was listening before responding: “She’s still interested in you after you killed her previous lover?”
Zane growled and shook his head, “No, dammit! It’s not… he was already dead!”
Nikki stared at him, “But you just said—”
“I know what I said, okay! I even know how it sounds! But ever since I found her and her phantom baggage it’s become normal, everyday bullshit! Just one more way for her to drive me up the fucking wall!”
“A ‘phantom’? You mean her lover? He was a ghost? Then how did you”—she looked around again and lowered her voice—“how could you kill him if he was already dead?”
Zane narrowed his eyes at her, “Did I stutter, Nikki? I. Don’t. Know! He was trying to possess me so he could have my body to be with her again. Halfway through the process our angry friend came in and ripped his aura to pieces.”
Nikki studied him, “You can do that?”
“Apparently.” Zane glared, “I wasn’t exactly asking for a physics lesson while I did it! One moment his aura was there—working very hard to steal my body—and the next he wasn’t.”
“Then the Maledictus reacted to protect your body from being taken?”
“I guess so.” Zane frowned, “But I’m not about to thank it if that’s what you’re saying.”
“No, I wasn’t going to say that.” Nikki said, turning her head to watch a plane taking off through the window.
Zane looked over, “Then what were you going to say?”
Nikki was silent as she watched the plane lift off the ground before turning away and looking back at Zane, “I was going to ask if that had ever happened before?”
“What do you mean?”
Nikki sighed, “You said that Serena’s dead lover—as an aura—tried to take control of your body; to possess you so that he and Serena could be together again.”
Zane nodded, “Yes. That is what I just said. What’s your point?”
“My point,” Nikki said, narrowing her eyes at him, “is to find out if he’d ever done something like that before!”
The 24-hour window that Serena had given the others to make their decisions was nearly up, and while she was confident in her strategy and hopeful of the overall plan, her nerves had kept her from getting too much rest. Despite what was coming, she was surprised to find the majority of her fragmented sleep interrupted and haunted by thoughts and chaotic dreams of Zane. At times she’d feel as though he was beside her—his tattooed skin only inches from her body—and she found herself waking up to try to move closer to him only to be reminded that she was alone. Scenarios played out within her, refusing to let her mind slip into unconsciousness for hours at a time, and entire conversations—supportive and loving as well as scornful and enraged—were scripted from start to finish. In every case that she imagined, no matter how they entered into the conversation, it ended in the same way. This thought, again and again, was carried with her into what sleep she was offered, and her dreams became an erotic flurry that enacted what she had, in her waking moments, led up to. Then, drenched from both sweat and arousal, she’d awaken, certain that Zane was lying beside her.
And the cycle would begin once again.
Finally, fed up with being teased by her own subconscious, she decided to punish her own depraved mind by refusing to let it titillate her any longer with broken promises of sleep. Instead, in an effort to focus her mind, she followed the route Zoey had shown her earlier to the munitions room and began to explore the collection of high-powered weapons. Though most of them were far more complex and a great deal larger than anything she’d ever handled, she still found herself feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of strolling onto the battlefield with one of the impressive guns slung over her shoulder. As the range of firearms increased in size the deeper she explored the room, she became evermore enticed by them; the fantasy of toting a shiny automatic weapon that was longer than she was tall and sporting a belt of ammunition that stretched for nine yards.
She smirked at the idea of unloading that into the wide-eyed Keith’s chest.
The whole nine yards!
She laughed to herself as she ran her palm over the cool metal surface, reminding herself once again that killing was not an option, and moved on to the next violent fantasy.
Despite all the ogling and fantasizing, Serena found that she’d only been able to kill forty minutes in her excursion. Carrying a few of the more modest and “less lethal”—as she’d been able to convince herself—guns from the room in a duffle bag, she started back for her room to think of her next mundane distraction.
And then she saw her!
The length of the tunnel Serena was walking through centered her on the end as she looked around the main corridor; clearly lost. Though she was still a ways away, Serena could see that the strange woman—with skin like milk chocolate and bright red hair—was not one of Vail’s warriors or a part of Isaac’s pack!
And that narrowed her list of potential comrades to only one other that knew their location…
Keith!
As the intruder continued to peer down the numerous passageways, still oblivious that she had been spotted, Serena set down the duffle bag and reached in for the first available gun.
Suddenly “less lethal” was no longer a concern.
She wanted something—anything!—that was a part of Keith and his bullshit dead!
Pulling out the first gun her hand touched, she frowned at the strange design. All her life it had been the simple, small things; two parts that mattered: trigger and barrel. One you pulled, the other killed what it was aimed at. Simple! What she held now was at least two-times longer and far heavier than anything her father had shown her before she’d left the clan.
Suddenly she wished she’d paid more attention to what he’d been saying instead of waiting for archery practice.
The handle and trigger she recognized; simple and where it belonged. Good!
The barrel, though a lot more intimidating than what she had seen before, still faced forward when the handle and trigger were held as she’d been shown;the length made aiming a little more complicated, but still familiar. Excellent!
Then there was all this shit in between the two; shit that looked important: complicated, foreign, confusing.
“Fuck,” she grumbled, trying to decipher the gun’s components by glaring at it. Suddenly she remembered what she’d been doing and looked up towards the corridor again.
The stranger was gone!
Serena frowned, “Double-fuck!”
Clutching the gun, she shot down the hall and into the corridor and spotted the intruder as she peered down one of the other tunnels. As she glared, Serena felt her fangs extend and she began to shiver with the anticipation of the impending fight. Suddenly, as though hearing her excitement, the woman turned and looked at her, smirking as she spotted her.
“Ah! You must be Serena!” she turned and started towards her.
Serena’s eyes widened at the advance and she whipped the gun forward and held it how she assumed she was supposed to, hoping
to catch the intruder off guard long enough to plan an attack that relied less on the mechanics of a military weapon.
The woman’s green eyes went wide and her hands went up as she took a step back, “Whoa! Okay! Bad start! I’m—”
Serena hissed, “I know who sent you!”
“Who sent me?” she frowned and shook her head, “Look, you’re confused. I’m sorry if I startled you, but Zane was—”
“Zane?” Serena’s eyes widened. This woman—this bitch—knew Zane? How? If Keith was sending his subordinates to them then he must have captured Zane! She snarled and threw down the gun and charged the woman, “Where is he, you bitch?”
“No! Wai—”
Serena slammed into her, knocking them both to the ground as she reached out with her aura and pinned her down, holding her fists up and baring her fangs, “Tell me where he is or I swear I’ll fucking—”
“Didn’t I tell you she was a charmer, Nikki?” Zane’s voice echoed down the passage as he descended the ladder. “I swear, Serena! This is why we can’t have guests over! ‘Hi, nice to meet you! How was your day? Let me take your coat. Hope you don’t mind if I eat your face’” he shook his head and chuckled.
Serena’s eyes widened as her aura deflated and withdrew into her still chest as she struggled to remember how to breathe. “Z-Zane? You… you’re here. You came back!”
Zane nodded, “Well yea! What? A guy can’t go on a calm relaxing stroll without panicking the little lady?”
Serena glared, “You were gone for four fucking days!”
“Yea…” Zane rubbed the back of his neck, “Sometimes calm and relaxing strolls are more like trips to other continents and dangerous hikes up unexplored, mountainous terrain. To-may-to, to-mah-to, right?”
“You ass-hat!” Serena threw herself off the still-shocked woman and drove her knee into Zane’s stomach and brought an elbow into his solar plexus, “You left us here with no idea of where you were or when you’re dumb ass was planning to come back! I thought you were dead, you inconsiderate fuck!”
Zane heaved and keeled over as he dropped to his knees, “N-nice… to see… you too!”
Serena glared down at him, “You’re lucky my ass doesn’t know how to work that piece-of-shit gun or I’d shoot you in the dick!”
“Glad to see…” he groaned and curled tighter into the fetal position and began to cough, “… I’m one of the fortunate ones.”
The woman that Zane had called Nikki stood and frowned, looking down at Zane as he writhed about in pain.
“Incredible! The magic isn’t even awakening!”
Serena looked over, still breathing heavily from the rush of adrenaline, “What are you talking about?”
Nikki knelt down and pointed at Zane’s tattoos, “See? They’re still black! Not even a spark! After something like that the Maledictus would have taken over—should have taken over—but there’s nothing!”
Serena sneered, “What’s this about Megatron taking over?”
Though he was still groaning in pain, Zane started laughing only to cringe and clutch his stomach tighter, “Oh! Damn!”
Nikki blushed, standing up, “The Maledictus; the curse! The beast that he turns into!”
“That thing has a name?” Serena frowned.
Nikki shrugged, “More-or-less.” She shook her head, “No matter what you call it, it should be on a rampage after the beating you just gave him.” Staring at Zane’s tattoos a moment longer she chuckled, “I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years! You really do calm it!”
Serena shook her head and shot another glare at Zane, “Doesn’t have a thing to do with ‘calm’! Damn thing knows better than to show itself right now or I’d hand it its own ass, too!”
It took nearly an hour for Zane to coax Serena’s voice to a normal volume and pitch, but in that time he wasn’t able to keep her from hurting him any further beyond the occasional slap when she was forced to pause long enough to draw a breath.
“Look,” Zane sighed when the rage in Serena’s eyes dimmed and turned to sadness, “I’m sorry that I made you worry. After I left, I realized that what we needed—what I wanted—was to be able to live without worrying about that goddam monster fucking up everything anytime I got upset. I’ve tried so many times to have the tattoos removed or the curse lifted; been to doctors, cosmetic surgeons, fortune-tellers, mediums, and enough aurics to repopulate those we lost the other day! But nothing works! The tattoos won’t come off and the magic in them has fused to my cells! I’m not even sure dying will work at this point or if I’d just be handing control over to it for good.”
“Why? Why does it matter who or what you are? You’ve known for so long that they couldn’t remove the tattoos!” Serena frowned, slumping down on the bed beside him, “I understand that it’s important to you to not to be a monster for my sake or the sake of Zoey and the others! But did you ever stop and think that disappearing like that might hurt us more? I mean, maybe I like you the way you are! Did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren’t as bad as you or everybody else or even the curse says you are! Have you ever once looked in the mirror and realized that, behind all the fireworks and special effects, these are still just tattoos? And, let’s be honest for a moment, it’s not like they’re hard on the eyes; pretty far from it, actually!”
Zane gave her a look, “You can’t be serious!”
Serena smirked, “What? You don’t believe me?” she shook her head and stuck her tongue out, “Girls love sexy men with ink!”
Zane raised an eyebrow, “So you’re calling me ‘sexy’?”
Serena smacked him again, “Don’t be a prepubescent bitch-boy, Zane! We’re not in middle school and you’re not asking me to some spring formal!”
“Yea,” Zane frowned, rubbing his shoulder, “I’ll try to remember that. And I guess I see your point—about the tattoos and all, at least—but it just… well, it sucks! I’m not gonna sugarcoat it; it hurts so fucking bad, and I don’t know how much more fucking stress my body can handle before...” He sighed and hung his head, “I don’t like not knowing how much longer I’ve got.”
“Yea, because I wake up every morning knowing exactly how long I’ve got before I go tits-up!”
Zane frowned, “‘tits-up’?”
“Grow up, dick! You know what I mean! The point is that nobody knows when they’ll die! Some are given days and march on for years, and others who are seen as the fittest and finest end up choking on a damn Tic-Tac!” She shook her head at him, “You think everybody with some condition that might end their lives use it as an excuse not to live?”
Zane bit his lip and looked down, “I guess. It’s just scary to think that I might lose myself to that thing.”
Serena smiled and set her hand on his knee, “I won’t let it take you over. We’ll work together and you’ll get better. Even if you can’t cure it, you can learn to control it more.”
Considering this for a moment, Zane shifted his eyes to her hand on his leg—feeling the warmth and comfort from her palm starting to send ripples through his body—and realized it was the first time that a woman had touched him out of genuine affection and not just because he’d paid them or because they were afraid of him.
And he didn’t want it to stop there.
Not now.
“Serena…” He looked up at her, studying her and trying to see if her expression might answer the burning question. Even then, seeing her stare back at him without fear or repulsion, he couldn’t be certain. It had just been too damn long!
“It’s alright, Zane,” Serena assured him, her ruby lips curling up in an irresistible grin, “I’ll never be done getting under your skin.”
Zane felt his body go hot, and, though he felt a well of terror initially, he realized that, for the first time in a long time, it had nothing to do with the curse. “I want…” he scowled at the way it sounded and shook his head, “No! I need to touch you.”
Her smile didn’t waver or shift as her eyes shifte
d to his mouth and she moistened her lips, “Then what’s stopping you?”
And suddenly his fear was gone.
God damn if she didn’t do it again!
Smirking at the bizarre power she had over him, he pushed her to her back with one arm while using the other to pull her face to his, finally getting a chance to taste and feel her. That contact, like the first drop of blood on a parched tongue, sparked a raw need that transcended any previous desires.
Suddenly any distance between them—any part of her that wasn’t held against him—was an even greater curse than any the tattoos had ever been or could hope to be!
Suddenly the deaths of many and the destruction of all were distant concerns when compared to the collapse of the current moment.
Suddenly he understood.
Struggling to pull his lips from hers, he looked into her face, seeing her for everything she was and would be from that moment on.
“What?” She smiled and started to move her face towards his again.
“You…” he blushed as she paused to hear what he had to say, “You loved me.”
She smirked, “Dummy. I still do!”
He shook his head, “No. Before—back in the forest that night—you showed me love; showed him love.”
She blinked and leaned back, “What do you mean?”
He smiled, “That first night… I couldn’t remember what had happened; how we ended up waking up together like that.”
Serena blushed at the mention of that night and she began to stammer, “I… I’m sorry. Devon and I nee—”
Zane’s smile widened and he squeezed her hand, “No, I know, now! I understand, Serena! Devon possessed me—took control of my body so you two could have a physical moment—and, in doing so, you showed me—my body and the curse tied to my body—something that I’ve never had; something that the curse was never ‘programmed’ to understand!”
Serena stared at him, blushing and smiling, “Then you…”
He nodded, “I remember that night! Remember letting Devon in; letting him control us… because of how you looked at us. The curse was made to destroy and cause suffering! It was never supposed to get far enough with another to have what you gave us that night!” he beamed, “You—your love—is the reason you can control it! You are a cure to the rage!”
