DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING BY MY OC'S.

... beep... beep... beep...

That was the first sound I heard as I returned to conciousness. I groaned softly, my head throbbing. Almost immediately, my hands were cupped in two larger ones.

"How do you feel?" asked the voice. My eyes slowly opened and I slowly focused in on the man holding my hands... Who... wait... was that...

"Raiden?" I asked softly. He nodded, kissing me gently. Then, everything flooded back. I'd told him I loved him! "Are you... all right?"

He smiled softly.

"Never better," he answered. "The spell only removed my Godly powers and immortality for 24-hours."

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"Two weeks," he answered slowly. I thought that over, then looked at him.

"Did we retaliate?" I asked. He nodded.

"Quan Chi and Shang Tsung don't exist anymore," he assured me. "Apparently, I wasn't supposed to survive."

I offered him a small smile for that one.

"My head hurts," I admitted softly. He smiled and summoned his power, pushing it into me. After a few moments, every ache and pain I had, disappeared. I smiled at him, stealing a kiss.

"I'm glad you are all right," he said softly, then seemed hesitant. "Do you... remember... what happened two weeks ago?"

I smiled, realizing he was nervous. I lightly caressed his face, then stole a kiss, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

"If you mean, do I realize that you and I are going to have a repeat wedding, the answer to that is yes," I answered, stealing another kiss. "I love you, Raiden."

He relaxed immediately, kissing me back. Soon, though, he lifted me off the bed, into his arms and spun me around, kissing me again and again and again. I was just happy to return his kisses and to hold onto him. Finally, he set me down on my feet, his hand cupping my cheek.

"I love you, Frost," he said softly. "I have since a week after our marriage."

I was surprised. He chuckled.

"It took a week for you decide you loved me?" I teased. He chuckled.

"More like it took a week to stop fighting the fact that I loved you," he answered. "At least it didn't take me a year!"

I chuckled and stole another kiss.

"There are several people waiting out there to see if you're okay," he told me. I gave a sigh.

"If I told you to let them wait, would you?" I asked. He gave me 'the look'. I rolled my eyes. "Of course not."

He chuckled and I took his arm, letting him lead me from the room. He walked me all the way down to the dining hall. I wasn't there for more than two seconds before a voice squealled through the din.

"FROST!"

I then found myself in several hugs. When one person let go, another took their place. I blushed at the attention, but let Honey lead me to the table, Liu grabbing me some food. We all sat down and laughed, just like old times. Towards the end of the meal, Raiden stood and held out his hand to me. I gladly handed it to him and stepped up beside him.

"Friends," he said, getting everyone's attention. "We would like to invite you all to the renewal of our vows, taking place here in the temple a week from today."

"Renewal huh?" teased Kit. "Finally break down and fall in love, did ya Frost?"

In response, I kicked the chair out from underneath him. Our clans laughed, as did nearly everyone else in the room. Raiden chuckled at me and pulled me back into his embrace. He leaned his forehead against mine and smiled.

"You couldn't resist, could you?" he asked. I just chuckled and stole a kiss, then sat back down next to Honey. She grinned at me as Raiden joined us, sitting next to me. She and Liu Kang exchanged looks, then she blushed.

"Um... Cilandra..."

I gave her my complete attention. She never called me by my real name unless it was really important.

"Would you be willing... to become a Godmother?" she asked. My eyes widened, then I squealled and hugged her tight. Our table started laughing again.

"Of course I will!" I told her, excited for her. "When did this happen?"

She blushed.

"Well... uh... you see..."

"It was a few days after your... jealous tirade against Sonya," Liu answered me. Sonya looked at me, a brow quirked up. I blushed, avoiding her gaze.

"Long story," I told her. She just shook her head with a smile.

"I'm even starting to show!" Honey said excitedly. I chuckled at her and shook my head. Raiden took my hand in his and I looked at him, all the love I possessed in my gaze.

"If you will excuse us," he said, then teleported us to the balcony of our room. I looked at him, the question in my eyes. All I got in response was a mind-blowing kiss. Kiss after kiss after kiss made it impossible to think as his hands flew over my form, my gown soon pooling at my feet, leaving me standing naked before him. I hesitated, pulling away to look at him.

"No games?" I asked softly, making sure. He kissed me softly.

"No games," he assured me.

"No stopping?" I pressed. He smiled.

"Not anymore," he answered, then kissed me.


She had one coherent thought after his mouth met hers. That this was the way it was supposed to be. This was what people chased all their lives. This was why a wedding ended with a kiss. This was something that sealed, that changed her life, that took her soul to a place strange and new and terrifying.

She pressed herself against him, needing the feel of his body against her, needing something to hold on to. He was lean and hard and muscular, and his soft white clothes pressed against her skin, arousing her with the very incongruity of clothe against nakedness. Her vulnerability should have added to her fright, but instead, if made her only more determined. Her mouth opened beneath his, accepting whatever he wanted to give her.

His arms slid around her back, arching her against him, and his mouth trailed down the side of her neck, to touch the wildly beating pulse at the base of her throat. And then, with sudden strength, he picked her up in his arms, holding her tight against him, adding to her sense of frailty.

She leaned her face against his shoulder, giving up the last ounce of fight. She was his to do whatever he wanted with. He moved through the billowing curtains into the darkened room with only the white-shrouded furniture marking the way, and then he set her down on the bed, standing over her.

She looked up at him, silent, questioning, wanting him more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. She wanted to see him, touch him, to know him.

But instinct told her to take him on his terms. So she lay back against the pillows, eyes half closed into the shadowy darkness, and waited.

She could hear the rustle of clothing, and knew he was stripping off his clothes. She wanted to rise up on her knees, to reach out for him in the darkness, but she couldn't move, mesmerized by his unspoken command in the inky blackness. She was trembling, not with cold, not with fear, but with her need for him. She wanted him so badly, she thought she might die of it.

And then he was on the bed with her, his hands on her shoulders, pulling her to him, and his skin was hard and hot and damp against her.

"Raiden," she whispered, a small cry of passion, of need, of surrender as his hands moved down her body, dancing across her sensitive skin, arousing her without touching anything but her waist, the outer sides of her thighs, her knees.

He lay back against the mound of pillows, pulling her with him, his mouth against hers, kissing her with a devastating thoroughness that was bringing her perilously close to madness. She couldn't come with just his mouth on hers, his hands on her waist, and yet she was astonishingly close to it. His hands moved upward, sliding against her midriff, and she felt the slight, arousing roughness of his skin as it danced along her softness, moving closer and closer to her aching breasts. If he didn't touch her, she'd die. She knew it even as he tore his mouth away from hers, breathing heavily as he trailed kisses down the side of her neck.

Slipping away from her, he pushed her back on the bed, flat against the mattress. She reached for him, wanting to pull him against her, but he caught her wrists, holding them down beside her body. The touch of his mouth against her breast brought a reaction so intense, it was almost painful. She tried to arch off the bed, but he was holding her still with his hands on wrists as he slowly circled one breast with his tongue, then tugged it gently into his mouth, suckling on it, nipping lightly with his teeth before turning his attention to her other breast.

She moaned, her breath coming in strangled gasps, and she struggled against his imprisoning grip. She wanted to touch him, to pull him over her, into her. Her body was twisting, desperate with longing. She needed him, needed him now. And yet she couldn't tell him. All she could do was writhe on the bed, trying to reach for him.

His hands released her wrists and for a moment, she was almost too dazed to react as he reached up and cupped her breasts, his thumbs caressing the dampened flesh. And then he moved his mouth downward, across her flat belly to the apex of her thighs, and she couldn't make a sound of protest. He kissed her in the downy thatch of golden curls, and then lower still, his mouth finding her with devastating effect. This time she struggled for a moment, her hands finding his head and trying to pull him away as his large, strong hands cradled her hips, holding her still. And then she wasn't tugging at him, she was threading her hands through his thick hair, holding him against her, arching against the devastating invasion of his mouth and tongue.

The darkness closed around her, the thick velvet night where no light penetrated, as the sensation swirled around her. It made no sense. Normally, she didn't even like what he was doing to her, had always found it vastly overrated. And yet now she was being turned into a quivering, mindless mass of female flesh in response to his mouth, his hands, his sheer intensity. She didn't want it; she wanted to give to him, not take, and yet he was giving her no choice.

He knew how to judge her reactions perfectly , the shift, the restlessness, the ripple of reaction, the strangled breathing. He knew when she was just on the edge of explosion, and he knew how to expand that edge, to draw her over it, willingly, tumbling to her doom with no more than a strangled cry. He knew how to prolong it so that she was clawing at his shoulders, sobbing frantically, certain her body could take no more until he showed her, with inexorable determination, that it could.

And yet it wasn't enough. She convulsed against his mouth, her body going rigid in reaction, and still she pulled at him, tugged at him, wanting more and more of him, wanting him, not his mouth, not his hands working their fiendish magic, she wanted all of him.

She was scarcely aware that he'd released her. Not until he covered her trembling, shivering body with his, wrapping her in his arms against his own tense, damp body did she realize that despite the contractions still rippling through her, he was no longer touching her.

She put her tear-damp face against his shoulder. He'd taken her completely, and yet he hadn't even attempted his own satisfaction yet.

His hands reached to cup her face. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the tiny glow of light had vanished from the room, leaving them plunged into inky darkness. His long fingers brushed the tears from her face, and then his mouth followed, kissing salty dampness from her cheeks, her eyelids, her mouth.

She turned her mouth to meet his. Once more darkness surrounded them, cocooning them in a world of sensation and midnight glory. He shifted her beneath him, parting her legs so that he rested against her, the heat and hardness and need of him, and she trembled, uncertain that she could take much more.

His slow, inexorable possession of her body was something she couldn't deny. It seemed endless, overwhelming, consuming, as her body shifted to accommodate him, and she knew from her initial twinge of discomfort that he was far more than what she was used to. Far more of everything. When he finally rested inside her, he pulled her legs up around his hips, settling in even deeper, and she couldn't contain a little gasp of dismay.

She could feel the iron hard muscles against her, feel the fierce control that tightened his body.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked softly, urgently, and she knew if she said one word, he would pull away, leave her. AND she would die.

But she wouldn't lie. Never would she lie to him. Instead, she kissed his mouth, silencing the question, and tightened her legs around him, pulling him in deeper still.

Now it was his turn to shudder, to tremble and shiver in reaction. The control that he'd kept so tightly began to slip, as he slowly pulled away from her, only to fill her again. She winced in the darkness, keeping still, determined not to flinch from the fierce possession of his body.

She wasn't quite sure when it changed. When the last trace of discomfort vanished and she was reaching for him, clutching at him as he strained against her. He was so strong, so powerful, that her entire body felt invaded, overwhelmed by his possession, a possession she didn't want to end. She arched up against him, knowing that nothing could possibly reach the heights she had earlier, but reaching anyway when the moon came out from behind the clouds, filling the room with silvery light.

His muscles were bunched, slippery with sweat beneath her hands, and was loath to give up holding him, touching him, but she had to. Reaching up, she caught his face, turning him to look down at her, full face. She kissed his mouth, his nose, she kissed the side of his face. She trailed the kisses down the side of his neck, down between their joined bodies.

For a moment, he stilled the hypnotic, powerful rhythm of his body and she was afraid she'd gone too far. And then, flinging his head back, he began to move again, slow, deliberate thrusts that she met with every last ounce of her strength. Until the tempo increased, until he was thrusting into her with a fierceness that should have frightened her. She held on desperately, somehow wanting to absorb him into her very skin. She knew he was on the absolute edge of his climax; she could feel it in the shivering tension of his body and she wondered why he held off, why he waited.

And then she knew, as suddenly, without warning, her own body convulsed again, around him, with a power that seemed to stop the earth in its orbit. She could feel him, rigid against her, she could hear her name, a curse of despair and triumph, as he joined her, spilling into her, giving the last that he'd kept from her in a timeless, endless dance of desire and satisfaction that she was certain would destroy her. And she would have gone willingly.

When reality returned, it was minutes, hours later. He was lying on top of her, his face hidden in the white pillow beside her and his body was cool and shivery and very tense. She knew he was going to move away and she couldn't let him go. Threading her arms around him, she clung tightly, unaware of her tear-streaked face, the desperation in her embrace.

His tense muscles relaxed against her, and his hand came up to gently caress her face.

"I once told you I had a vision of you before we met," he whispered to her. "This... this is what I saw."

In a moment, he was asleep, pinning her beneath his much larger body, and she found, to her amazement, that she was smiling through her tears.

He was human after all, and just as prone as any other damned man to fall asleep after making love. It was a tiny measure of relief to know that even he wasn't always astonishing.

She lay beneath him, accommodating herself to his weight, knowing she couldn't possibly be smothered, even though it felt like it. As the tumult in her heart and body subsided, the tumult in her mind increased. It made no sense. Her experience hadn't been extensive, but enough to know what she liked and didn't like, of what her own body was or was not capable. And he'd proven her wrong on every point, taken her on a trip of such mysterious, mesmerizing proportions that she doubted she'd ever be the same again.

She just shook her head, letting herself revel in the memory of his touch, knowing she would undoubtedly get it all again... and soon.