Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes Alek needs a little help getting through the night.
Warnings: Het, Drug Use
Word Count: 1,985
Date Written: 16 August, 2011
Challenge: XDisneyDreamers LJ comm's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Alek, Chloe, all other characters mentioned within, and The Nine Lives of Chloe King are & TM ABC Family and any other rightful owners, none of whom are the author. Meow Mix is & TM its respective owners, also not the author; is used without permission; and may not be used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
His love's scent was intoxicating. Alek would stop dead in his tracks when it first met his nose when they were miles apart. He'd follow that scent anywhere, and every night, as he sat guarding her, it played havoc with his senses. She smelled like all the best things in the world but none more so than fresh flowers just beginning to bud in early Springtime, wild honeysuckle, and the plump berries that had surrounded his human parents' home.
He shook his blonde head. He'd not think about them, not tonight or any night as long as he could help it. They had made their decision. They had chosen to turn from him when he had changed so drastically. When he had become the Mai he had always been intended to be, they had wanted nothing more to do with him. They had made their decision, and he had made his. As long as they did not want him, he, in turn, did not want them.
Chloe shifted in her bed. His ears pricked to alert as he sensed the movement. He could picture her in her bed, dressed in the thin shorts and the little tank top whose sheer fabric he could almost see right through. From the way she was laying in her bed right now, her lithe body would be twisted, and her breasts would be erect and perking against her tank top, begging for his attention, attention which, to this night, she still refused him to give her.
He had never known a woman to hold out so long against him. It was a new challenge, and though it was frustrating, Alek knew he would eventually win and the wait would be worth while. They were destined to be together, and though his beloved Chloe could not yet see that, she would eventually learn it to be truth he had long ago accepted.
The light of the full moon bathed his skin, and desire thrummed inside Alek as he heard Chloe moan in her sleep. The woman claimed not to know what she did to him, but how her words on that declaration could be truth was beyond him. Her every smile beguiled him. Her every touch, few as they were, thrilled him to his inner core, a place that no other person had ever reached.
But her scent was the most powerful weapon of all she held against him. She was the most wonderful thing he had ever smelled, and even before meeting her, Alek had already had a weakness for delicious aromas. He wanted nothing more than to bathe in her scent, than to have it all around him, surrounding him, enveloping him . . . He pressed his lips tightly together just in time to swallow the moan welling inside of him and, in desperation, reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bag.
As the cool night wind played over his hot skin and Chloe continued to moan alone in her bed just below him, Alek opened the bag, buried his nose inside of it, and breathed in its sweet release. It seemed to the frustrated male Mai that no sooner had he found his release than his adopted cousin jumped onto the rooftop. She took one look at what he was doing, and her eyes glowed in condescension. "I don't believe you brought that to your guard post."
"What? This?" Alek questioned, holding up the bag and forcing his raw emotions down. "It's perfectly natural, Jasmine, nothing to be worried about."
"It's dangerous, and you know it. It's caused many a Mai warrior to lose their control."
"It helps me center my focus," he retaliated. "It's only dangerous if you can't handle it, and as you well know, some Mai, like yourself, aren't even affected by it." Though how any one with the grace of feline blood pumping through their veins could ignore the herb's sweet scent and its effects were beyond Alek. He loved it, but he only used it when he needed it.
Jasmine's lips twisted in a depreciating smirk. "I still don't think you should have brought it here. What if Chloe finds it?"
"She won't," Alek spoke determinedly. "I'll make sure of it."
Jasmine glanced again at the bag in his hand. "Doesn't look that way to me."
Alek let out a breath that was a unique mixture of a soft growl, an aggravated grumble, and an exasperated sigh. "Was there something you wanted?"
Jasmine shrugged. "Mom just wanted me to remind you to remind Chloe that she wants to see her for lunch tomorrow."
Alek's eyes shone in the full moonlight. "We won't forget."
"Make sure you don't. You know how she's been lately. I don't want to do anything else to . . . " She paused, searching for the right words.
"Piss the mighty Valentina off?" Alek suggested, and he at last earned a smile and a laugh.
"Yeah," Jasmine said, nodding her agreement, "so make sure you're both there on time tomorrow, okay?"
"We will be."
She paused, and he knew she was about to turn to leave when she looked again at the bag in his hands. "And be careful with that."
"I will be. It's not like this is the first mission I've ever brought it on."
She looked dubiously at him and his bag. Her lips opened to comment on her intuition that he brought it along every time he came to see or guard Chloe, but she thought better of it and, for a change, shut her mouth. She loved Alek like a brother, and although he did always make the right decisions, she knew he'd never do anything to endanger the Uniter or cause himself to not be the best protector for her he could be. At last, she nodded and relented. "Okay." She glanced toward the window leading to Chloe's bedroom.
Alek followed her gaze and felt Jasmine take her departure a split second before the moon sparkled on Chloe's blonde hair. His breath caught in his throat as it so often did when Chloe looked on him. She stepped out of the shadows and blinked wearily at him. "I thought I heard voices."
"You did, but it's okay," he was quick to assure her. "It was just Jasmine dropping by to remind us we're to have lunch with Valentina tomorrow."
Chloe nodded, and then her eyes focused on the bag he still held. "What's that?"
Alek looked around, his eyes darting everywhere and at everything but his bag. He'd not planned on her finding him with the evidence out in the open. "What's what?" he queried innocently.
"In your hand," Chloe said, coming closer. "The bag."
"Oh, it's just my snack," he said with a sheepish grin. "Nothing more than a bit of Meow Mix." He slipped it back into his pocket seconds before she reached him. He knew the effects that the herb had on the Mai very well. If he allowed her to inhale it just once, Chloe would be putty in his already charming and provocative hands, but he'd never do that to her. He'd never take any woman against her will, and when the time came that Chloe finally accepted him fully and swayed underneath his smooth advances, he would take his sweet time treasuring her body openly and willingly but he'd do so only with her knowing and accepting permission.
Chloe gave him a doubtful look. "Meow Mix?"
He grinned. "Okay," he said, shrugging. "It's jerky. Want a piece?"
She shook her head, and his fingers curled at his side in longing desire as her long, blonde hair tumbled in waves of smooth and golden silk down her back. "Nah. But thank you."
"Any time," he answered with one of his patented smiles. By Bast, she smelled so good! Her scent was surrounding him now as she stood before him, bathed in the silver moonlight with just the minimum of clothes hiding her full beauty from his questing view. The effects of the herb wailed inside of him, and even more than he always did, Alek found himself desperately wanting to reach out to her and envelope his senses entirely in the magic that was his Uniter. Yet he would not do it, he thought, curling his fingers into fists and giving his head a slight shake.
Chloe looked at him in question as he shook his head. "We didn't mean to wake you. It's been a long day. You should get some sleep."
She smiled tiredly. It had been a long day, a longer night, and yet another narrow escape from death. "You're right." Alek's breath left him and his mouth opened in silent surprise as she suddenly hugged him. "Thank you, Alek," she told him, and then she was gone before he could say or do anything else.
He could still hear her heartbeat pounding, and his own pounded rapidly in his chest in an answer he would love to give her. He had saved the lives of her and her friends again this night, and he'd always do so for as long as he could. Though he no longer had any use for humans, the humans his beloved Chloe surrounded herself with were important to her, and thereby, and only thereby, they were worth saving. He'd do anything to make her happy, anything to see her smile, anything to get her to look at him in kindness, to get her to touch him as she'd just done.
He moaned as desire filled him, and his blood roared in desperate need. He'd do anything for her, and he'd wait however long it took for her to be ready to let him complete their destinies. He'd wait, no matter how hard it was to do so when he wanted and needed her so badly that he could practically taste her sweet-smelling hair. He moaned inside again and almost ripped his bag out of his pocket. He buried his nose back into the herb and inhaled deeply.
He closed his eyes as the herb worked its magic, cooling his rising nerves and helping him to delay the fulfillment of his true desires. He sighed. He'd make it through another night and another and another for as long as it took for Chloe to accept him as her true soul mate. He'd make it through all of the frustrating wait, thanks in large part to this herb and its empowerments. He sighed again and took another slower breath as it filled his every sense, pushing Chloe's scent to the back of his mind and giving him the power to wait out his beautiful mate.
He'd never make it if not for the herb, though, Alek knew, and he thanked Bast for catnip as he breathed it in again and again until morning's light. He was fully relaxed at long last by that time, and when Chloe came to him, looking as beautiful and splendid as she always did and practically glowing in the morning sunlight, Alek was ready to face her every temptation. He smiled at her as she babbled on about how nervous she was to be meeting Valentina.
He took her hand, stilling her babbling instantly, and told her simply, "It'll be okay. You'll do fine." She squeezed his hand and blushed. He smiled back in response and continued to wait for however long it would take for her to tell him that she loved him as he already knew she did. Only then would he say the words, too, and only then would he set his little, black bag to the side. When that fateful, blissful day came, he'd no longer have any need for catnip, but he'd use it as the tool for which it was intended until they arrived together at that moment that he would take his beautiful, beloved Chloe into his arms and relish in and surround himself with her instead forever more.
The End
