GENERAL WARNING FOR STORY: ADULTS ONLY. Violence, blood and gore, coarse language, adult themes, coercion, and sexual content. If you don't like it then don't read!

DISCLAIMERS: Same as chapter 1. Plus I've blatantly borrowed some lines from Origins here.

A/N: I'm a bit worried about what your response might be to this chapter. I'm happy with it, it develops the story and the general interaction between characters, it's just not overtly *hot* . Though I reckon there's still Hot in a form that I don't think anyone was expecting...

I'm not making any sense, am I? Shall I just shut up and let you get on with it? Alrighty then. *zips mouth*

*unzips mouth* Someone tries to throw a spanner in the works! *rezips mouth*

~ Nyx ~

CHAPTER 6

Victor frogmarched her in what she assumed was the direction of his lodge, although to her it looked the same as any other direction in the large expanse of snowy mountain.

She stumbled several times, unable to see the uneven ground beneath the drifts of snow. Victor seemed to have no such difficulties. He was always right on her heels, growling impatiently as he hauled her back to her feet and kept breathing down her neck. She once even tipped head-over-heels down a sharp incline and was convinced for all of several spinning seconds that she would crack her head open on a rock or tree. However it was neither of those things that she crashed into, but Victor, as he leaped ahead of her and stopped her fall by letting her slam bodily into him. Bruised, dishevelled, dizzy, snow going down her back, and winded more from the impact against Victor than her actual tumble – she swore he was laughing meanly at her the whole time – she experienced another horrible moment of déjà vu as he threw her over his shoulder and loped back up the hill and back onto their path. It seemed to be his favored method of transporting meat.

She'd managed to keep herself from freezing over completely in the last several hours with her vigorous walking and climbing, but now as he carted her along immobile on his shoulder the cold really set in. Starting with her teeth chattering, her whole body was soon shivering, a faint trembling becoming progressively more pronounced.

"Quit it, frail," he warned.

She clean forgot about his ridiculous hearing when she muttered to herself, "As if I'm shivering on purpose..."

With an irritated grunt he shrugged her off and onto her feet. Onto her dead feet. The cold and sudden inactivity had done the heavy build-up of lactic acid in her legs no favours and they were about as useful as jello. She collapsed immediately.

Victor took one look at her bundled heap on the ground and shook his head. "Fucking frail." To her utter dismay, he then unzipped his coat and scooped her up in his arms, not only bridal style but cocooned against his shirt inside his coat, and resumed their previous heading.

"I can walk!" she protested, trying to squirm free.

"Sure you can. And I'm a fucking angel." His arm under her knees was circled back around under her to her butt and he dug his claws in, not too painfully but it was enough to stop her struggling.

She had covered quite a lot of ground although not always in a straight line and it still took them another hour taking the most direct route back to the lodge at his much faster pace. By then the sun was beginning to set and temperatures were dropping further, but she was remarkably warm and for that she was secretly grateful. Acutely uncomfortable sharing his body heat, of course, but grateful. She didn't need to add frostbite to her already extensive index of wounds and the warmth had worked wonders in returning the feeling in her tired legs.

He dropped her as they neared the lodge, she tottered for a moment then managed to stand. She looked up –

They had approached from the side of the bunker and at the sight, all of a sudden she was consumed by fresh, fevered desperation. She really couldn't be here!

"I have to go –"

He roared at her. Her throat constricted, cutting her off.

"Are you fucking stupid, frail? We've been over this!"

She wondered if he'd read her note at all, it hadn't been a lie. Probably just sniffed the place, realized she was gone and pounded straight after her. "I know, but you don't understand! Blaine isn't going to give up, he knows where I am now and –"

"Yeah, I got your fucking note," – OK, so he had – "Don't think you can get all cute with me. You don't want to inconvenience me? What a fucking laugh."

She shrunk under his fierce glower but she couldn't let it go. "He's not going to just forget about me. It'll be a matter of pride now, it doesn't look good that he can't control his own wife and he'll absolutely hate that people would be laughing behind his back. He's got plenty of money to hire more guns –"

"Do you know how many I've killed?" He began advancing on her slowly, making her back up if she didn't want to be ploughed over.

He didn't wait for a reply.

"At least hundreds, probably thousands. And I've enjoyed every scream, every drop of blood, every life I took. Men and mobs and wars have tried to waste me so many fucking times I can't even count. You think it's ever worked?"

Clearly not, otherwise he wouldn't be threatening her right now. She shook her head, stepping back slowly as he loomed towards her like a giant tornado about to snap her in two.

"And you think I'd just roll over for Castro and whatever puny shit he might be able to scrape together?"

Her heel hit something solid and she fell flat on her backside – it was the first step up to the porch. Before she could go any further he'd crouched in front of and over her, his bent knees hovering over her thighs, one elbow resting on his knee and the other arm dangling close to her side. He wasn't touching her but her skin prickled from phantom sensations at his proximity.

His expression changed into something she couldn't read other than to say that it was highly disturbing. There was a nasty edge in his dark eyes that made her want to deposit the contents of her bladder in her underwear.

"I ain't gonna say this again," he said in a silky, soft voice that gave her goosebumps. "If anyone else comes after you, I'll fucking kill them. If I ever hear another peep outa you about leaving, I'll fucking kill you. You're mine and you're gonna keep me happy if you want to live. You hear me, frail?"

Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.

With dangerous calm he arched an expectant brow.

"Yes Victor," she managed to grate out of her too-dry mouth.

"I hope you do, frail. 'Cos I fucking hate repeating myself. Make me say it again and I'll carve it onto your skin so you can't forget it." His dark gaze travelled along the twin lines, not touching her but still managing to make her cheek burn in its wake.

"Get dinner going. I'm fucking hungry."

He loped off around the side of the lodge and a moment later she heard the heavy groan of iron.

She was too stunned to move, gripped by a creeping realisation that gradually crawled into her mind and sought purchase.

Victor was never going to let her go.

It dawned slowly but with frightening certainty. He would be the last person she'd ever see, the last person she'd ever interact with. She wasn't going to live to a grand old age, she was his toy to play with and terrify until he got bored of her. He would be the death of her, her final moments painful and horrific –

She didn't quite know what happened next. One moment she was sitting there reeling from her moment of enlightenment, and the next she'd been snatched up by powerful arms and was staring at a blur of the landscape rushing by.

Straight away she was almost certain that it wasn't Victor, the arm about her waist didn't feel the same. Then she heard the growl and she definitely knew it wasn't Victor.

What now?

Whoever it was, she clung tightly to his dark jacket, afraid of falling or being dropped at this breakneck speed as he pelted their way across the valley. Peering up, she saw scruffy dark brown hair and mutton chops that were now sadly all too familiar. This man might have had a slightly sharper line of nose and thinner lips but, rather startlingly, his feral eyes were a carbon copy of Victor's.

Speak of the devil...

"JIMMYYYYYY!"

The man didn't even flinch at the roar that filled the valley, only setting his brow in a fierce scowl.

"Hold on, kiddo," he mumbled as he pushed on, legs pumping like pistons, driving on as dusk gathered and the moon became the brightest object in the sky.

Kiddo? Sofie suddenly felt a small grin crack on her face despite herself. It had been a loooong time since anyone had called her that. But the next moment her mirth evaporated – she felt all the blood drain from her face as a black blurry mass barrelled towards them on all fours.

The man abruptly screeched to a halt, turned to face Victor hurtling towards them and set her down behind him.

"Get back," he snapped.

She didn't need to be told twice. She darted behind a tree, her heart pounding, and peered out cautiously.

The man leapt sideways to avoid the full force of Victor's crash, but fierce claws swung out and caught him in the ribs tearing him clean to the flesh before he could get clear. It barely seemed to faze him, he simply growled as Victor skidded to a halt amidst a spray of rocks and snow and they faced off. The man was slighter in stature but their ferocious glares were identical.

"Tell me something, Jimmy," Victor taunted. "Do you even know how to kill me?"

"I'm gonna cut your goddamned head off, see if that works!"

Victor laughed. The man surged forwards and Sofie saw three long, white claws shoot out of his fists before they were lost in a blur of movement.

They clawed and sliced at each other, drawing plenty of blood, but the wounds seemed to heal constantly as they viciously continued hacking away at each other. Victor clawed great gashes into the man's bicep, the man swung with his other arm and took a chunk out of his. He went to follow up and slash the triple claws across Victor's face, but the larger mutant knocked them aside with his own claws and connected a solid fist into the side of the man's head. He crashed down but made use of his low position to sweep Victor's legs out from under him. Victor flipped, but managed to twist in the air to grab hold of the man's ankle and as Victor straightened he swung the man by the leg over his head. The man's heel connected with Victor's jaw which bought him a moment's reprieve before they pounced on each other again.

Both men were spitting and snarling as they dealt one vicious blow after another, shredding each other's jackets and shirts in no time, leaving their bared, ripped torsos gleaming in the moonlit dusk.

The turning point came not long after as they came worryingly close to the tree Sofie was hiding behind. The man overreached, missed as Victor ducked inside the target range of his claws. Victor buried his fangs into the man's shoulder and, having secured him in place, proceeded to cleave out almost half of his gut in one huge swipe. The man roared savagely, flinging the larger mutant off of him with a strength Sofie could only dream she had, but as the stranger retreated closer to the tree he collapsed to his hands and knees.

"You don't ever change, do you runt?" Victor said, breathing heavily as he stalked towards him. "Always so fucking weak."

The man pushed back to his feet, but he staggered and fell again to one knee, a hand steadying him against the tree. He wasn't dead but he didn't seem to heal as fast as Victor, and by the way Victor was advancing on him it didn't look like he had much time left.

Not again! He was turned away from her but she stared intently at the back of his head, willing him to live.

"Leave her be, Victor." The man's voice was hoarse, an unhealthy gurgle underlying every raspy breath. The sound of a dying man.

"You know me, Jimmy. I can't do that."

The man shook his head. "I'll make you eat your own shit one of these days, old man."

Victor grinned ruthlessly. "Ooh, I'm so scared."

He grabbed his hair. But instead of fighting it the man followed the motion and swung his claws up as if to slice off the arm. Victor simply caught the wrist, forced it to the ground and stamped down on the claws.

The man bellowed as they broke with a sickening triple succession of snap–snap–snap.

Victor drew up, claws extended, ready to smash down on the man's head –

"No!" Before Sofie even knew what she was doing she'd dashed out from behind the tree and threw herself over the man.

Victor pulled the blow at the last moment, managed to avoid killing her by a hair's breadth. He growled at her furiously. "Fuck, frail! Stay outa this!"

The man was also growling at her and pushed her behind him. He was surprisingly strong for a man at death's door. "I told you to get back," he hissed.

Undeterred, she stubbornly rushed in front of him again. Only then did she see the man's bloody, gaping wound exposing more torn organs than she could possibly identify by sight. How the hell was this man still alive, let alone conscious?

She glared at Victor with fierce zeal, her arms flung wide, making a human shield of herself. "Please don't kill him!"

"Kill him?" Victor barked a short, angry laugh. "Don't even know if that's possible. Is it, runt?"

"Nothing's ever been able to kill us before," the man rasped behind her.

Those words were too odd. They implied familiarity, a shared history...

Victor smirked at her hesitation. "You ain't got no idea who this is, have you?"

There was a soft thud behind her. She risked a glance behind to see that the man had sat down on the roots of the tree, leaning against the bark, his face ashen and drawn as the huge hole in his gut healed by slow inches.

It seemed they were at a temporary truce. Her eyes flickered back to Victor. He folded his thick arms over his broad, gleaming chest, covered in splodges of blood from wounds already healed.

"Meet Jimmy, frail. My fucking brother."

She was vaguely aware of staring. The man moved his hand just enough to give her a cynical wave, not even smiling. "Name's Logan."

She nodded dumbly. "Of course you are." She was still thinking of this man being Victor's brother. After the extraordinary two days that she'd had - was it really only early the previous day when the mutant had interrupted her altercation with Freddy?! – this talk now about siblings seemed bizarrely too normal, and blasé sarcasm seemed to be the only way she was able to respond. "Of couse. 'Cos that's what you do when you have a brother like Victor, right? You try to kill each other. Just another perfectly ordinary day. Hi Logan. I'm Sofie, not that Victor ever calls me that."

A heavy hand draped around her neck, drew her back against a hard chest. She gulped, tension suddenly leaping through her frame as she instinctively grabbed Victor's arm. His hold was loose but it didn't have to be tight to be threatening. She knew exactly what he was capable of.

Logan or Jimmy, whatever his name was, growled and tensed, but remained in his seating position as his sharp eyes flickered from one to the other. Sofie doubted he could have got up even if he'd wanted to.

Victor leaned his chin against her head, a gentle pressure that was entirely ominous. "You've got a choice to make, frail. You wanna go with Jimmy or stay with me?"

Did he really think she was that stupid? Or was it just the first test to see if she'd heeded the warning that he'd threatened to carve onto her? She liked her skin as it was, thank you very much. "Gee, ooh, let me think!" she exclaimed with overblown enthusiasm.

Jimmy frowned as if he couldn't quite tell if she'd understood Victor's veiled threat.

"Frail," Victor warned. He understood well enough but wanted a straight-up answer, partly for Jimmy's ears.

"It's hardly a choice is it?" she snapped over her shoulder.

"Frail," Victor warned again, squeezing her neck a little this time for emphasis.

"I'm staying, I'm staying!" she croaked.

"Right answer." He eased up on the pressure and locked his eyes with his brother's hard glower. "Don't try and come for her again, Jimmy. If you do, next time, she'll pay for it."

"You're a fucking animal," Jimmy growled.

"Damn right," Victor agreed smugly as if it had been a compliment. Then he shoved her forwards, hard, so she was thrown to the ground next to Jimmy. "Smell her."

Both Sofie and Jimmy looked up at him, one in confusion, the other with simmering anger.

"What –" Sofie began, but was cut off as Jimmy turned towards her and sniffed.

She drew back, conscious that she hadn't showered in days and was most likely as fragrant as a pig. Jimmy's frown deepened as he seemed to detect something he didn't expect, and he grabbed her arm and drew her closer to have a better sniff.

He looked up at Victor. "You haven't fucked her."

Victor sneered as her jaw dropped.

"Oh, for God's sake! What is it with you two?" she exclaimed, yanking her arm free and coming angrily to her feet. "Enough. About. The fucking!"

She glared at Jimmy, but her ire rapidly deflated at the sight of his bloody, horribly injured body gradually reforming itself.

"Sorry, kiddo," Logan mumbled.

And that just made it worse. He'd tried to save her, and now look at him... She found herself speaking with a voice she hadn't used since she'd last seen her Pa on his deathbed. "You're alright, Logan. If Victor's not going to have kittens having you in the lodge, you're welcome to join us for dinner once you've healed up. Otherwise, take care of yourself."

He gave her the smallest farewell nod and she turned away. Throwing Victor a glare of renewed hostility, she began marching off up the hill.

She heard Jimmy growling quietly behind her. "I've been smelling her for two days now, Victor, the hell are you playing at?"

Fortunately her noisy stomping drowned out Victor's reply. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

The moon was bright and the sky still not entirely black, but all the shadows and snow merged into an indistinct wash of grey. Unsure footing as well as exhausted legs made for slow progress and Victor soon caught up. He tossed her over his shoulder – she rolled her eyes but the direct contact with his hot skin over rolling, powerful muscles had her nervously swallowing any complaints.

"Is he coming?" she asked instead.

His grunt sounded vaguely like a No. She wasn't surprised.

A/N: So... are you still reading? I hope so! *peers out from behinds hands*

Next chapter's shaping up, watch this space! :)

~ Nyx ~