I do not own the X-Men universe or any characters or themes you recognize. I do this purely for my own enjoyment and wish fulfillment. Please don't sue me.

I'm gradually working on this story and I will finish it, however I can't promise that updates will be frequent. I'm currently in the process of rewriting it.

Content warning: there will be course language, mentions of rape and violence, and sexual situations (including some kink) in this story. If that squicks, upsets, or triggers you, you should probably find another story. Otherwise, read on and enjoy, my sugarplums!

Lina had always known that her bravery was going to get her in trouble. Even when she was a small child at the playground, she would stand up to the bullies, no matter how much bigger they were compared to her. She had never anticipated it would be this much trouble, though.

The scene in front of her had caught her eye as she was walking home from the grocery store. Usually she wouldn't have gone down this unlit side road. She did have some self preservation left - how shocking - however she was anxious to get back to her apartment so she could have dinner and hopefully finally get some sleep. It was late and it seemed she had been working longer and longer shifts at the hospital, although sometimes it didn't matter how exhausted she was. Sleep was elusive.

There was a huge man across the street from her. He was one of the tallest people she had ever seen, and he seemed to be heavily muscled, however he moved with the grace of a much lighter and more agile looking person. He wasn't the type who looked like he needed help, in fact he looked like someone who caused the trouble, until she saw a mugger sneak out from the alleyway and come up behind him with a knife in hand.

Without thinking about the consequences for herself, she screamed for him to look out.

Both the huge man and the mugger looked over and, before she could blink, the man had turned on the mugger and slashed at his throat. She hadn't even realized he had a weapon. It all happened so fast. Blood squirted everywhere from the jugular vein, covering him and the wall with red. That was all she saw before she felt someone knock her over the head from behind and it all went black.

This was just a big fuckin' mess that he didn't need on his hands. He had just been planning on getting rid of the bastards and getting his money. He certainly hadn't expected some bitch to screw that up and force him to work quicker and do a messier job than he'd originally planned.

Why the fuck did she scream anyways? Most people would've run the other direction and pretend they didn't see anything, but this one risked her life for someone she didn't even know. And why did she smell so fucking good? It was like a cold drink on a hot day and suddenly he was fucking parched. He had never smelled anything so good, so fucking tempting before.

He should just leave her there. He didn't give a shit about some frail. No matter how good she smelled - she had already caused enough trouble for him. But there was something about her that made his dick harden the moment he had smelled her. Made him want to take her back to his house and make sure she never left. No one had ever made him want more than a fuck. But just from her scent, something inside of him wanted to take her, protect her, claim her. She wasn't bad looking either; dark hair, pale skin, nice tits.

If he left her there, these guys had friends who would come looking for them and find her here. Then they would get all the fun with her. Fun that he deserved, given all the trouble she'd caused.

Fuck it. He couldn't just leave something so enticing there for someone else to have.

He picked her up and carried her into the warehouse beside them where he had put the bodies of the three scumbags. They stunk of blood, unwashed flesh, and rape, which overpowered the warm smell coming off the frail in his arms. It pissed him off.

He carried her to the other side of the building first and deposited her in the back seat of the Land Rover that was waiting there. He did the same with the dead bodies, piling them in the trunk.

First, he would dispose of them. Then, he would take her back to the house. She probably wouldn't wake up between then. The thugs had given her a pretty good knock to the head. If she did, she'd have front row seats to a nice, little show.

He sat on one of the chairs he'd had made specially for his size in his sitting room, contemplating the frail in front of him and this situation he'd found himself in. He didn't have a fucking clue what as going on. As soon as he'd smelled her he had been drawn to her like a magnet, wanting to make sure she was okay, wanting to fucking care for her, wanting to claim her and mark her and… shit. Mate with her. Not fuck, not rape, but mate. He'd fucking mated to this tiny, troublesome, human frail.

The back of her head, her stomach, and her hip were all screaming at her. The sharp pain radiating from each of them rushed her to her senses, making her suddenly aware that the soft cushion beneath her and lighting was unfamiliar. She sat up and surveyed her surroundings. Where ever she was, it was beautiful. The room was done in ultra-modern looking furniture with old art on the walls. There was a small marble sculpture on a pedestal the corner across from her. This place was like a museum of contemporary art and the Louvre all in one gilded room.

She was in what looked to be a small sitting room of an obviously old house. The ceilings soared above her with beautiful original crown moulding and bookshelves covering every wall, momentarily distracting her. A black leather couch sat across from her, similar to the one that she was on. It seemed bigger than it should have, though. There was half a meter between her feet and the other end of the couch and she had plenty of space between the back and the edge of the seat. The sleek matching chairs seemed to be abnormally large as well. Weird. They were certainly nicer than the ikea furniture she had in her apartment, though.

But wait, she couldn't let herself get distracted by the fine décor. What was she doing here? As nice as it was, she hadn't gone on any drinking binges lately. Think, Lina... what had she done last night? She focused hard, trying to remember.

She took a sharp breath of air.

Oh, fuck.

The men in the alley.

Someone had hit her on the back of the head.

Oh, fuck.

She was shocked out of her thoughts when she heard heavy footsteps stop outside the door to the room. She quickly lay back down, closed her eyes, held her breath, and listened, pretending to be asleep. They were just standing there… a minute passed. They still hadn't moved. What were they waiting for?

She peeked her eyes open and almost screamed. Her heart jumped, skipping a beat, and started hammering in her chest and her eyes widened in absolute terror. He was standing in front of her... the huge man who killed the other guy in the street. His face broke into a huge grin when their eyes met.

"Good morning, frail," his voice was whisper soft, almost a deadly purr. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She stammered, a few mangled sounds escaping her lips, her words caught in the back of her throat. All her instincts told her to run. He seemed to anticipate this and angled his body so he was blocking the door. He crouched down in front of her, the grin still on his face.

My God, his eyes, she noticed, had slitted pupils like a cats and he had fangs. He was a mutant. Her eyes darted to his hands. Where fingernails should have been, there were claws. Huge claws.

She froze. Her eyes glued to the monstrous weapons attached to him.

He saw where her attention had gone. "Like them?"

His voice was still that soft, dangerous purr.

She dragged her eyes away from them and up to meet his. His grin had turned into a smirk.

"W-what am I doing here," she stuttered softly, her tone betraying her obvious fear. Her own words surprised her and made his eyes narrow, but he didn't say anything. Her breath caught in her throat and a scream started building in her chest when he suddenly dragged one clawed finger from her ear to her jaw.

Before she could react, he had grabbed hold of her and dragged her off the couch and into his arms and she suddenly got an overwhelming nose full of his scent. He smelled of expensive body wash, fresh linens, and sweat. But there was something underneath that, something that seemed to be radiating from his very being that was him that made her body respond instinctively. It smelled of safety, comfort, belonging. It made her heart settle and a sharp, pleasurable jolt shot up between her legs. It made her want to feel him… taste him… she wanted to run her tongue over him, to bite him and mark him and never let go.

Wait, what the fuck?

Some strange, instinctual part of her psyche she hadn't even known existed had taken over. It was like they were two poles of magnets drawn together. Acting on instincts, she awkwardly grabbed his head and brought her lips to his neck, clamping her teeth down and sucking. She tasted his blood and, like a shark with a feeding frenzy, made her suck harder. Strangely, the wound stopped bleeding. She bit down again, harder, wanting to leave her mark. She felt a growl in his chest, which snapped her out of her ravaging his neck and brought her back to reality.

She was clinging to this beast and was sucking at his neck like some wild animal… what the fuck was happening?

Her eyes shot up to his.

"I'm so sorry… I don't know what…"

She stammered and looked down at where her hands were clutching his shoulders, her nails digging into him, then looked at his neck. Where there should have been marks from her teeth and should have started bruising from the sucking, there was nothing.

He had a strange look on his face; his were lips drawn back, baring his teeth, although she couldn't tell if it was from pleasure, shock, or anger. Different emotions kept flickering over his eyes. This worried her and she attempted to push away from him and get down, however he held her tighter, pressing his erection against her. His rumbling growl became louder and his eyes fixed on hers.

He brought one hand from her bottom, where he was holding her tightly, and weaved it through her hair to use it as leverage to tip it back so her throat was bared to him. He was doing such precise, slow movements as if trying not to startle her. He bent so his nose was against her jugular and ran it beneath her jaw and down her neck, then bit down on the curve where neck met shoulder.

It felt so right… so good. Rather than being painful, mortifying, terrifying, any of those things she knew it should be, it made pleasure shoot through her. The instinctual part of her that had just overtaken her laid back and enjoyed it. If it could have started purring, it probably would have.

"You're mine," he growled and moved his hand back to where he had been holding her to him at her hips. She vaguely realized he had been holding her up with one arm.

Some part, the same part that caused her to latch onto him like a leech only a few minutes ago, released a wave of satisfaction and relief that he had accepted her. The rest of her, the human part, was confused. The confusion left no room for the fear or indignation at being told, once again, that she belonged to someone like some slave – someone she had barely met and who she had watched viciously murder someone, at that - however she was sure it would come.

"What?"

She couldn't string together words to form a more intelligent question, but that seemed to convey the fact that she had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on.

Had he slipped something in her drink to make her want to rub herself all over him? Shouldn't she still have been scared that she woke up in the house of someone who she saw murder a man yesterday with no memory of how she came to be there? And was now being held very tightly against him in a way he was obviously enjoying, if the huge erection pressed against her was any indication, and just exchanged hickies with and was told that she apparently belongs to him? She hadn't touched anyone aside from what was necessary at work in years. She couldn't remember the last time. And now all she wanted was to climb inside him so far that he could never leave.

"Stop thinking. I know you feel it. I know you smell it. You're mine. And you fucking want this right now too so I'm going to take you upstairs and fuck you." It was amazing he hadn't done it already, he thought to himself. He was showing self-control he didn't even know he had, as his body was screaming at him to claim her.

"Wait. Please," she whispered, and tried to ignore the pleasure that was spreading through her body at his words. "Stop. I don't understand."

He sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. If she hadn't been his, he would have fucked her over the couch right then. He knew, though, that this frail belonged in his bed and the idea of fucking her if she didn't want it didn't interest him at all either. What the fuck was this? Usually he didn't give a shit one way or another. Plenty of frails got off to him, but even if they didn't, he took what he wanted.

He tried to explain what little he knew as quickly as possible. "You're my mate. It's some biological shit. Don't know much about it, but feral mutants are programmed to find one mate and we stick with them for life. When we find 'em, we mark 'em, and we fuck 'em. Though your marks won't stay because of my healing factor."

In the back of her mind she remembered learning about ferals when she was taking her courses at university, but she wasn't a mutant, so why was she feeling it too? And why had it happened so suddenly? As soon as she had smelled him, her body had responded.

"But I don't even know you", she whispered. She looked at him beseechingly, as if asking him to understand. "I'm not even a mutant and I'm scared and I don't know what's happening."

She didn't know why she was asking him to be patient, rather than telling him to fuck off and getting the hell out of there, but the idea of being away from him made her stomach turn and her heart start pounding in fear. He was hers and they belonged together. That much she seemed to know.

He sighed and glared at her for a long while. Finally, his expression softened just a tiny amount, enough for her to notice the flicker of it across his face.

"Fine", he said curtly, and allowed her to slide to the floor and steadied her on her feet.

"You hungry?"

She realized she was starving and nodded her head. All the instinct or hormone or whatever the fuck it was weird stuff that was going on had distracted her from the pain in her stomach.

"Come on then," he grunted.

He turned and left the room and she followed. As she trailed behind him through the rest of the house – all as beautifully decorated as that first sitting room – she didn't even consider trying to run. She knew she should, even though he would probably catch her before she made it away and kill her like he did the man yesterday, but she didn't want to. She wasn't even being held prisoner this time, she genuinely didn't want to leave him. That thought scared her more than seeing him murder someone yesterday.

Holy fuck, she had seen someone murdered yesterday. It wasn't the first time she had witness death - she had seen patients die in front of her in the hospital, but never from a deliberate murder. Her stomach turned a little, yet she still didn't want to leave this huge, menacing man. She just wanted to understand why. Her reaction only added to the confusion she felt. Take a number, she thought. Any more confusion will have to wait and I'll get back to you just as soon as I can.

They walked through a hallway covered in priceless art and done in a pale cream and lined with doors, through a huge formal sitting room, and into another huge room, although this one was totally modern, other than the small eat-in table and matching chairs at the other end of the room which were an ornate dark wood. The chairs were straight-backed and appeared to be reupholstered in a cream damask print. The appliances were all stainless steel and looked like she would have no clue how to begin using them.

He watched her face as she took everything in, feeling a small bit of pride and satisfaction that his mate was impressed with what he had. He could provide for her. She'd live comfortably, have whatever she wanted.

"I got steak, pork chops, bacon, sausage, or salmon", he said.

"That's it?"

He scowled at her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew having this predator upset with her was a bad idea, but she didn't feel any fear about it.

"Yeah, what the fuck else do you want?"

"Maybe some cereal or fruit", she suggested.

"I'll pick some up later. I'm having bacon and sausage. Tell me how you like it."

After they were finished eating, Lina asked what time it was. He looked down at the complicated looking watch he was wearing.

"Nearly 10. Why?"

"I have the night shift tonight. I need to go home and get some sleep."

Even as she said it, she knew she didn't want to. Even though he was gruff and ate his meat almost raw, she liked being around him. It as if the constant hum of stress and confusion and pain of the rest of life had been silenced with him.

He scowled. "No. You're staying here. You don't need to work."

"Excuse me?"

"You fuckin' heard what I said. You're not working there anymore."

She got up from the table and placed her plate in the sink. Huge predatory mutant or not, "mate" or not, she didn't take shit from anyone.

"I don't give a fuck what you said. I'm going. This is my residency and I don't care whether you like it or not."

He got up, his chair screeching backwards as he did.

"And I don't give a shit about whether you like it or not. You're not going. You want me to find some rope to tie you up?"

His voice had reverted back to the dangerously soft tone. She frowned, a little shiver of fear going up her spine. Maybe this was the wrong approach.

"Look, this is important to me. This is what I do. And I barely know you and don't feel comfortable with you trying to tell me what I can do with my life."

His eyes were narrowed and a soft growl was emitting from his throat.

Abruptly he stopped and his face went blank. "Fine," he said, curtly. "I'll take you back to your apartment. Grab some fucking clothes, though. You're going to stay here."

She hadn't even considered defying him. Suddenly, this huge house felt more like home than her apartment ever had… she knew it was because he was there but chose not to think too far into why.