A/N; Who better to give my little gremlin (What I affectionately call Kathryn) a little love than Cristoff, the big teddy bear? Let's see how she takes the news that he's her mate, shall we?

Again, thank you to Desna for making and allowing me to play with her boys. And thank you to the girls for all their help and opinions. You all are amazing!

Enjoy, lovelies!


Word Count: 2,458


Kathryn awoke quickly, her eyes snapping open as she struggled to sit up in the bed that she decided was most definitely not her own. She wanted to know where Marie was, she wanted to know where that asshole that had gotten one over on her was. Most importantly? The pinkette wanted to know why the fuck there was a man laying in the bed right next to her.

The growl in her chest erupted as she leapt from the mattress, throwing the blankets off of her body and scattering pillows on the floors as she misjudged her body's limits. The sheet, an obstacle that the tiny woman hadn't considered, wrapped around her ankle, pulling her off-balance as she landed on her ass with a soft 'oof'.

"Woah," A masculine voice started, drawing Kathryn's attention to the head now hanging over the edge of the bed as she looked up with a snarl. "You shouldn't be getting out of bed so quickly. You should be resting."

She paused in her growls, her eyes going wide as the sense of calm washed over her the moment she laid eyes on the man. Kathryn knew what it was, she knew exactly what was happening to her from that very moment as her inner dragon roused it's grumpy head and seemingly stared directly at the male. She could smell him, all of him, on her skin, in her hair, and, damnit, she cut the purr off the second she realized what was happening.

"No," Kathryn growled out, narrowing her eyes up at the perfectly sculpted face that was lined with worry.

She could see first the concern in those deep blue eyes that had flecks of silver strewn throughout. The devastation came next, sweeping across his features like a tidal wave as he realized just what the small woman was denying him. She refused to allow herself to give into the desire to see if that waterfall of inky black hair was as soft as it looked, refused to even acknowledge that the temptation was there to begin with.

To give into those sensations was, in her mind, a sign of weakness. And Kathryn absolutely abhorred the idea that she would be so weak of will as to allow herself to believe, if even for a moment, that she was staring into the one set of eyes that could never lie to her. She didn't trust anyone, not even if he would be incapable of abusing that trust. She didn't care, all she cared about was getting away, as far away from him in that moment as she possibly could because, and only because, she refused to accept that her instincts were leading her into the right path when they told her to accept the safety and security that this man could offer to her.

And, so, she ran.

The door didn't even have a chance to close as Kathryn bolted from the room, her chest clenching painfully from the poison that she knew was still being forced from her body. She stumbled her way down the halls, knees struggling to support her small body as she gripped at the walls for support. Fight or flight, those were her options and Kathryn knew that she had chosen the coward's way out by running, she just could not handle the idea that everything, everything that Usukwe told her about the mating pull was legitimate.

No, she continued to lie to herself, forcing the thoughts into her mind that she was simply reading into it as she needed something to smoke. Once she fed her magic, she would be thinking more clearly and, until then, Kathryn couldn't trust any of the instincts that were all screaming at her to turn back around and find the man that smelled of fresh mint and a fresh Spring morning. Once she had her head cleared, she would realize that this was simply the pull of kinship, nothing more, because the man was a slayer and it had to be stronger with another slayer, didn't it?

The fact that Kathryn hadn't felt that intense of a pull with Marie didn't even cross her mind, being overwhelmed by the intense need to find something for her to smoke. She just couldn't think with the pounding headache that accompanied the swift rise from sleep she'd had. Couldn't even begin to sort through what was happening to her without first seeing to the needs of her magic.

She grasped a banister when she came to a set of stairs that led down, down several floors that had the slayer cursing quietly. She didn't hear anyone behind her, but she wouldn't let that stop her as she grunted with the first step down the stairs, every muscle in her body protesting against her descent into whatever lay on the first floor of the building she was in. Step after excruciating step caused more aches, more pains that caused Kathryn to grit her teeth as she looked for her much-needed escape.

Not the escape from that building, no, she hadn't gotten any answers, yet.

Why was she there, to begin with? Where even was she? What had happened to Marie? Her pack? All questions that the slayer needed answers for before she got out and got as far away from the man with diamond-sky eyes as she could.

The last flight was the hardest, in her mind. She'd made it down what seemed like a thousand stairs and, as she let out the tiniest, most pitiful sounding of whimpers, Kathryn gripped the railing with all the strength she could muster in that moment, the pale, ghostly tattoos on her hands jerking near-violently in response to her pain. She stumbled, her heart thumping in her chest like the pounding drums of war that she remembered from some time long ago, back before she'd awoken in the forest with Usukwe nowhere to be seen.

Kathryn braced for the impact, the gasp leaving her lips as she fell head-over-heels down the remaining stairs, her head smashing into the stone tile flooring with a sickening thud that seemed to shock every sound in her brain into blissful white noise. It was welcomed to the woman, as she lay there, on the floor, the silence that overtook her very crowded, very confused mind. Warmth began to wash over her cheek, down her chest, and she smiled softly, pleased that she would be rid of the frigidity that seemed to have been plaguing her every waking moment.

Dimly, she heard the shouts from beneath the buzzing in her head, sounding as if the words were being spoken through the depths of the ocean. Figures moving behind a curtain of opaque white as she felt herself become suddenly surrounded, her senses struggling to piece together the fact that she was becoming increasingly encaged in the swarming mass of bodies that had witnessed her fall. It was… ruining her peaceful rest that she'd finally, lovingly, welcomed with arms spread wide and a smile on her face.

It was when her gaze caught the concern in those starry sky eyes that Kathryn growled. It wasn't her best growl, she would admit, but she had growled nonetheless, and those eyes had filled with a sense of sorrow so deep that she wanted nothing more than to take back what she'd done. But, she couldn't, the only words coming from her mouth and passing through her chapped, parched lips, being the same first word that she'd spoken the first time she'd seen him.

"No."

Cold, a cold so intense, yet soothing passed through her body for several long moments, making Kathryn's eyes drift shut on a sigh. She smiled again, happy that the man seemed to have taken her words for what they were, a denial of what they were to each other and a refusal to acknowledge the raging of her instincts deep inside of her very soul. It was all she wanted, all she needed, and it made her absolutely sick to her stomach.

Nauseated, Kathryn's eyes flashed open, the vertigo of sitting up seeming to be sensed by someone present as she had what she was sure to be a steel bucket pressed into her palms. She wrenched heavily, her already empty stomach pushing out the only thing that the organ held at the time, pure stomach acid. The taste made her wretch more, Kathryn's gags and heaves making those around her shine with concern even as they watched the man they all adored stand up and back away from the scene, making a hasty retreat as his heart was wrenched from his chest.

She whimpered low in her throat, even as a cool cloth was pressed to the back of her neck as her head hung low, her chin touching to her chest. The shame of vomiting, of falling, in the midst of her grand escape was too much for the reclusive slayer to bear even as she knew that she was far too weak to stand on her own at that point in time.

"Smoke."

Kathryn's voice came out dry, cracked sounding. It was so quiet that she wasn't sure anyone had heard her until a small cigarette was held to her lips, one she graciously accepted with a sigh as that first inhale had the aches and pains seeming to drift away into a dull buzz in the back of her mind. By the time she'd finished the cigarette, everyone seemed to have moved on, all but a handful of figures that wondered just how they were going to deal with the small woman that very obviously needed help of some kind.

"Woah, there," One of the men said, catching her arm as she attempted to climb to her feet. "Take it easy, Little Bit."

The pinkette didn't even have the strength to growl as she was lifted into strong arms, the man's scent being on the clear opposite end of the spectrum from the man that made her want to take back her clear denial. This one smelled not of the fresh mint, but strongly of some hickory and bourbon that intermingled and irritated her sensitive nose. It made her long for the comfort that the mint offered her, the offer that she had repelled like a disease.

Her eyes opened groggily as she was set in a comfortable chair, the lights in the room a comfortable shade of orange that didn't serve to expand on the headache that still throbbed behind her temples. A glance around told Kathryn that she was undoubtedly in a guild, whether it was the one she'd been bound for or not, she didn't know for certain until her silver gaze fell on the man with hair of spun platinum and eyes the palest of lavender.

"How are you feeling?" The man asked, the timbre of his voice sounding awful to Kathryn's ears when all she wanted was the voice of liquid silk the other man had.

"Fine," She muttered, tugging her sleeves down to obscure her tattoos from view.

Kathryn knew that the markings were selling her out, as they always had done. Crawling up her pale cheeks to signify her discomfort at so many people looking at her, as if they were putting her beneath a microscope and picking her apart with nothing but their eyes. The concern they had there was misplaced and she wanted nothing more than to scream, to yell at them to find that man and make sure that he was alright because, with each passing moment, that ache in her chest grew.

She'd noticed it before, the dull throb that stung just beneath the life-giving muscle beneath her breast. It was there, from the moment that the pinkette had uttered that singular word in the bedroom upstairs, she'd felt it. The pain was much more broad, now. It felt as though it were strangling her heart, making it beat in slow, languid strokes that caused her to absentmindedly reach up to press her palm to her knit-covered skin in an effort to make it stop.

But, she didn't care about that. No, her mind was solely on the man that she knew would be experiencing that pain right along with her. She wanted to know that he wasn't taking the distance too harshly and, to her, she chalked up the worry she felt to simply the worry of kin, nothing more, nothing less.

"Cris is hurting," The man said from across the table, his words bringing a sharp stab straight into her heart and causing the small woman to double over with a small gasp of shock from the abrupt pain she felt. "You can't deny the bond forever."

"It's… only kinship," Kathryn managed between deep gulps of air. "Only kin."

"You can keep telling yourself that until you're blue in the face," He acknowledged with a tone that spoke of no-nonsense. "But, until you accept what it is, what you're feeling, you are both in danger."

She shook her head, pink hair flying as she did so and making her startlingly aware that the band was gone, that her waist-length locks of spun sugar were what was offering her a chance to hide from the world. "You're wrong," She mumbled as she retreated behind the blush colored strands as she heard the familiar sound of blood rushing to her head.

"He's not," Another voice argued. "You're mates."

"Don't say that word," She pleaded.

"What word? Mates? Because that's what you are," That second male voice stated, pushing further.

"Stop it."

"You're mates and you denying it is going to kill you both."

Kathryn clamped her hands over her ears, tears swimming in her vision as she struggled to continue denying what was being told to her. "No," She whimpered in a tinny voice. "Stop."

She felt the pain in her chest nearly explode, causing the slayer to jerk in her seat. She refused to be forced into something she'd thought was a tale spun by a dragon that had left her. The reasons why he'd sent her through the Gate didn't matter, what mattered was that she'd been achingly alone for far too long and Kathryn hated that she would be thrown into such a situation just as she was beginning to figure out how to handle being around others again.

The hand on her shoulder had her teeth bared, as Kathryn lunged at the unwelcome person. She growled loudly, the sound of a beast that had been pushed too far, trapped in such a confined space that it finally had to find a way out.

And the only way out was through the large male slayer that had dared to touch her.