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Nice is Overrated by lovethatignites

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"You work too much."

Mia raised her eyes to glare at her Chosen One tracking board, never moving a muscle otherwise. She had been leafing through her dad's old journals for the past hour in hopes of finding a Kanay trick that would successfully take down Emma. She'd been through his journals several times before, and as she flipped through the pages, she came across many notes she had made over the years. She used different colored highlighters as a system: blue meant she personally had success with the trick, orange meant she was still working on it, and red meant she doubted that particular area of Kanayuese would ever mesh well with her powers.

And then there was Daniel. He had been lounging on the sofa, providing her with aimless commentary since they got home from hanging out at The 7 after school.

"Time is money, Daniel," she told him impatiently. "Your ex-girlfriends managed to override the Crystal. If I can't weaken them with my secret weapon, I have to find another way."

Daniel shifted into a sitting position on the couch. He coughed and cleared his throat. "Maddie's not a problem, but I still say you can take Emma. She's a shit Chosen One."

Mia told herself not to smirk. She enjoyed hearing Daniel bash his ex, especially given how close they had been before she put the Seal on him. "Ain't that the truth…"

"Why don't you come over here?"

The brunette felt the space behind her bellybutton flip-flop involuntarily. For reasons unbeknownst to her, Daniel's voice was deeper, rougher, sexier since acquiring the Seal. They had shared some intense makeout sessions over the past two weeks, but something or someone always interrupted before they could get any further. Tonight, however, her Aunt Teresa was working late, and they had the house to themselves. Given his voice infliction, Mia could guess what Daniel wanted to do.

She turned in her swivel chair to look at him, her gaze hooded. Daniel gave her a suggestive upturn of the lips, and suddenly, she wasn't the last female Kanay come to end witchkind; she was a normal teenage girl. Mia walked over to the couch and collapsed next to her boyfriend.

"Look at you," Daniel said pointedly. "You're exhausted. Let me help you relax…"

Mia barely had time to turn her head in his direction before his lips were on hers. She sighed and eased into the kiss. He was right; she needed this. It wouldn't hurt anything, right?

The kiss went on for a couple of minutes before Daniel began to snake his hands under her shirt, sliding up her bare skin toward her bra…

Before Daniel, she had used her Seal on a total of four people: two wizards, two witches, and none of them had suddenly fallen in love with her. She wanted to believe so badly that meant Daniel's feelings for her were real, that he'd wanted this before but just wouldn't allow himself to give into his desires. But the truth was she wasn't sure. Daniel was a human; what if the Seal affected him differently? What if he didn't want this?

"Stop." She pulled away, hating every inch of herself as she did so.

"What's wrong?" He took his hands out from under her shirt and dropped them in his lap. And then a knowing look appeared on his face. In a flat tone of voice, he half-stated, half-asked, "Don't tell me you're cheating on me, too?"

Mia's eyes widened. "What? No! What do you mean, 'too'?"

He rolled his gorgeous blue eyes. "You didn't come across that in your research? Emma spent all of sophomore year sneaking around with Jax."

Mia's face contorted. "Ew! Then why didn't you dump her?" Before he could answer, she held up her hands. "Forget it. I have work to do." She quickly stood and returned to her desk.

Daniel scoffed. "Fine." He laid down and faced the back of the couch, sulking at having been rejected, apparently for nowhere near the first time. If only he understood…

Mia quickly made work of scrounging up every Kanay book she had on Seals. She was sure she'd read through them all before, but maybe she'd missed something that mentioned how humans reacted when under the influence.

Half an hour later, she was so frustrated she felt like crying. Everything she came across was under the subtext of the Seal being passed to another magical being. There was nothing about how it affected humans. Mia wished her dad was around so she could ask him, or any other Kanay for that matter, but—and this was something she thought about far more than she'd prefer—she was the last one.

Not only was it lonely, but it guaranteed she was an outcast no matter where she went. She had perfected the art of blending in, of acting normal, but she wasn't. There was no one else like her alive because the witches had wiped them all out. And for what? Just because Kanays had a different type of power than they did? Threatened much?

Truthfully, it scared Mia, what she felt for Daniel. She had assumed she would one day marry and have kids to ensure the Kanay line lived on, but she never pictured she would genuinely care for her husband. Until Daniel, she hadn't been one to catch feelings easily, or ever. It wasn't like she had the time, what with constantly moving around, hunting witches, focusing on revenge… And now that she finally found someone she connected with, she wasn't even sure he really liked her, therefore she wasn't allowing herself to share the utmost intimacy with him which she found she so craved.

She didn't realize she was crying until Daniel appeared behind her. She jumped but he paid no mind, only rubbed her shoulders and bent down to kiss her hair. "Come to bed," he whispered.

She swallowed hard and allowed him to pull her up and out of her chair. He led her up the stairs of her Aunt Teresa's basement, up the first floor's set of stairs until they were in her bedroom on the second floor. Daniel laid down on her bedspread and she followed suit, lying on her side, facing him. He wore a blank expression, but he reached out and brushed away her tears with his thumb. A tingle ran through her body, tinged with both love and despair. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly as though that would make her disappear.

"What's wrong?" he murmured.

She didn't give herself time to think about it. "Why do you like me?" she blurted. "I'm not even nice."

He shrugged. "Nice is overrated. Emma is 'nice' and I dumped her. You're fun and funny and sexy as hell."

Mia blushed despite herself. "You're all those things yourself," was her quiet reply.

"Yeah, now. Thanks to you and Spidey." He smiled. "I was so boring before!"

Mia studied him closely. He even looked more attractive this way. "If you knew Emma was sneaking around with Jax, why didn't you break up with her before?"

Daniel's eyebrows drew together. He was so confident, so sure of himself with the Seal, but this question seemed to penetrate his newfound cockiness and make him think. His words came slowly as the answer revealed itself to him. "I guess I thought eventually she would see he was no good. Probably should've realized if trying to kill her wouldn't turn her off, then nothing would." He gave an irritated eye roll. "And now that he's trying to be good and dressing like a dork, well," Daniel smirked, "they're a perfect match. They can have each other." He rested his hand on her waist and ran his fingertips along the indentation of her hipbone. "I'd much rather have you."

Mia sighed miserably and flipped over so she was on her back, facing the ceiling. "I wish I knew that was true."

"It is." He looked confused. "Why would I lie to you?"

She snorted. Well, that was reassuring: he still hated lying.

Suddenly, she got an idea. He valued honesty, right? And if this conversation ended badly, she could always give him a brain freeze…

She turned her small body so she was facing him once more, placed her palms together in prayer position, and tucked them between her head and her pillow. "I've never put my Seal on a human before," she confided.

"Huh." He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, seemingly impressed. "So I'm the first one."

"Well, I don't know if you're the first one ever, but I can't find a log of it anywhere in my dad's books, so… For all intents and purposes, yes, you're the first one."

He broke out into a grin. "Sweet!"

Mia bit her lip. "But the thing is… that means I don't know how it affects you."

"What do you mean? The whole point of your tribe's Seal is to 'release a person's inner wild,' right?"

"Yes, but the Seal also guarantees loyalty to its owner." She shrugged self-consciously. "Since you're a human, I don't know if your feelings for me are a part of that loyalty."

"They're not," he said so quickly he cut off the end of her sentence. It warmed her insides that he knew her speech patterns so well he could predict where that sentence was going. "I've thought you were hot since the first day I rescued you. You brought me to life."

When Mia gave no response, just breathed evenly and continued to study him, he sat up on his side of the bed and looked out toward her wall. "Can you believe flirting with the tower keys and the melted ice cream was the most fun I'd ever had with a girl? My life was sad before you got here. I always wanted you to be my girlfriend; I just didn't have the balls to do anything about it until Spidey."

Mia shifted up into a sitting position herself and cocked an eyebrow. "You're telling me Goody-Goody, Mommy-Two-Shoes Danny liked Supervillain Kanay Extraordinaire while he was dating Emma?"

"Yep." Then he chuckled, more to himself than to her. "If Emma could've heard the thoughts going through my mind when you showed up in that red wetsuit…" He smirked and raked his eyes over her lithe form appreciatively. The muscles in her lower abdomen clenched deliciously. "Let's just say Mommy-Two-Shoes Danny was having one hell of a time keeping his dick in check."

Oh, this was torture. Mia knew she was good looking, and all her Kanay training and time spent on the beach kept her in tiptop physical shape. She was used to guys checking her out, making a pervy comment here and there—those guys promptly received a magical threat that sent them running. What she was not used to was having a boy she actually liked in her bed, saying things that made her want to let him have his wicked way with her.

He had convinced her: she believed he truly wanted this, Seal or no Seal. But there was still another problem at hand.

"Daniel…" Her voice came out small and she immediately hated herself for it. She averted her eyes and confessed, "I've… never…"

He didn't miss a beat. "Hey, neither have I. But it can't be too difficult to figure out, right?" he joked.

Mia whipped her head up and widened her eyes at him. "You're kidding me. You dated Maddie and Emma and you never—"

"Maddie hardly wanted to kiss for fear of messing up her lip gloss," he rolled his eyes, "and Emma, well." A sardonic smile spread across his face. "She had Jax for that."

Suddenly, Mia was overcome with a fresh wave of anger toward the Chosen One. She already hated the witch, yes, but to hear of the way she had treated Daniel, her long-term boyfriend who had almost died because of her on more than one occasion… Especially over someone like Jax…

If Mia hadn't been completely certain Emma deserved everything that would soon befall her, she was now.

She shook her head, returning to the issue at hand. It was dangerous to let her walls down. Witches weren't supposed to be able to remove Kanay seals, but given this special circumstance, Mia wouldn't be all that surprised if Emma found a work-around. If Daniel went back to his goody-goody self, he'd be angry with her. He might even use this super personal moment against her. And yet…

Mia twined her fingers through Daniel's and locked eyes with him once more. She leaned forward, shaking only slightly, and whispered against his ear, "I've never been interested in being with anyone until you."

Daniel growled, a low, possessive rumbling in his throat that intensified Mia's desire. His hands were suddenly on her hips, and in one swift motion, he pulled her on top of him. She straddled him, her knees digging into the comforter on either side of his hips, and their lips quickly met in a heated kiss. His hands came up to cup her face; her hips ground against his of their own accord. They both moaned as their kiss intensified.

Daniel leant in to kiss a path along her jaw, down her neck. She held onto him tightly, pressing her body into his, her breasts pushed up against his chest. She closed her eyes in pure bliss for a moment, and when she opened them, the Spider Seal came into her line of vision. Absentmindedly, she trailed her thin fingers against the marking on the back of his neck. She only consciously grasped what she'd just done when Daniel gasped and jerked his head away from her chest, the ultimate destination for his trail of kisses.

Mia froze, anxiety immediately overriding her arousal, until—

"Do that again," he demanded, voice even lower than before.

She looked down once more and noticed that "Spidey" was almost glowing. Her jaw slackened with awe. The Seal reacted to sexual pleasure when passed to a human? Now that was cool!

Snapping out of her trance, she obediently ran her fingertips over the Seal once more. Daniel moaned like a starving man, and when she turned to face him, Mia saw his eyes were once again black. She swore in that moment she felt her own eyes darkening. He was looking at her with such raw openness, such blatant lust, and so much more. She felt her heart stuttering inside her chest, and the only thing she could think to (breathlessly) say was, "Doesn't seem like Spidey You has any intention of 'keeping your dick in check.'"

"I don't." He gripped her hips and flipped them so that she was on her back and he was on top of her, caging her body with his own. He gave her the best open-mouthed kiss of her life, deep and passionate and making her go weak all over. When he pulled away, his lips a mere hair's breadth from hers, he spoke a single sentence that annihilated her last shred of resistance, not to mention ruined her for any other man.

"You better do that again when I'm inside of you."