"Ahmma go to bed now, sugah."

"Mkay." I grunted, turning the TV on mute.

I raised my arms above my head and stretched, a small groan slipping out as my spine popped into place. Then my lap was full of soft skin and hair that smelled like sunshine, and my groan deepened to a low growl. Marie just giggled into my shoulder and hugged me tighter.

"Nahght, Logan." She whispered into my ear.

And my near constant hard on was back. I swear I didn't know how my hands had gotten to her waist and that she was breathing against my ear on purpose. She pulled away though, and I forced myself to let her go. But she must not have expected that, because without my hands on her waist to steady her, she somewhat fell back into my lap.

Right onto my hard cock.

Through my sweats, but that thin fabric and her nightgown weren't doing a damn thing to hide what she was doing to me. I should have never let her get a nightgown in the first place, and now it had somehow gotten hiked up dangerously high.

And she was sitting right fucking on my cock.

She shifted and half sat up, and I had to breathe slowly through my nose to stop my whimper of disappointment. She was going to pull away now, go back to her own bed, and maybe even ignore me for a few days. I knew I'd have some serious explaining to do to ever get her to trust me again after this. Maybe I could bullshit her about it being the male body's natural response and that it could have happened to anyone. She'd probably stop letting me hug her or joining me in the sho—

She sat straight back down on my cock, stuttering her hips forward for good measure. I tried to say her name, warn her or beg her, but all that came out was another harsh growl. She looked up at me then, brow slightly furrowed like she was trying to figure something out.

And then my sweet little Marie-mate ground her hips against my cock a third time. Her mouth fell open into a perfect O of surprise, like she had just discovered something wonderful.

"Logan." She breathed.

My breaths were coming in harsh pants through my mouth and my hands were twisting the sheets in an effort not to touch her. It was too soon, she was too young, she was...she was...riding my cock through my sweats.

"C'mon, Logan." She urged.

Her hands clutched my shoulders, and she used them for leverage as she rolled her hips against me. I put a hand on her waist, trying to push her away, but once it was there, all I could do was pull her closer. I tried to say something, anything to make this stop—last forever—but I couldn't force any words out.

"Yeh alrahght, sugah." She drawled.

Fuck, she said it was alright. That counted as consent, right? What she was doing on top of me had to be consent, had to be illegal, had to be the best da—

"Yah jus' gotta wake up." She said.

What?

"Jus' wake up, Logan."

I gasped, breathing in the smell of mold, dust, and old cigarette smoke. My face was pressed into the pillow and my hips were grinding into the mattress. I whipped my head up and looked around, searching for—

Marie sat on the bed beside me, her hand hovering over my shoulder.

"Hey, it's alrahght."

I still gasped for air out my open mouth. Only a dream. It had only been a...

"Jus' a nahghtmare."

Our Marie-mate, our good little mate, felt so fuckin' good, gonna make her beg, gonna—

I twisted away from Marie, off of the bed, into the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind me, and I leaned against it, my sweats already shoved down my thighs and my hand already wrapped around my cock.

Just a dream.

Jesus Christ, it was only a dream, and I still finished in seconds, grinding my teeth together to keep silent. I slumped down a few inches, almost collapsing. Not even real, and it was an effort to remember how to make my lungs work.

Go back and claim her, mark her, fuck her until she knows she's ours!

I worked on just sucking in more lungfuls of air, trying to steady my breathing and regain some control. The Wolverine howled and yanked on his leash, but I managed to keep him held down until he quieted to distant snarls. Then I had a mess to clean up, all over my hand, the floor, the mirror over the sink...how did it even get that far?!

There hadn't been any sounds from the bedroom, but I knew Marie was there, waiting for me. And I had no fucking idea what I was going to tell her. She said something about it being a nightmare, and maybe I could convince her that's what it was, but there was no way in hell she could stay in the same bed with me.

Not tonight, maybe not ever again if I couldn't get my shit together.

I stood in front of the door, my hand paused on the knob. Maybe I could get away with the nightmare excuse this time, but something had to change before I fucked things up for good. I just didn't know how to keep shit under control without leaving or flat out ignoring her. I'd already tried the first, and I didn't think I could go back to ignoring her now that I'd already gotten so caught up in her.

Shit, what I did know was that I was hiding in the bathroom like a little bitch. So I threw my shoulders back, opened the door, and marched back into the bedroom like a man.

And immediately froze like a fucking deer in the headlights when I locked eyes with Marie.

"Yah stayin' or yah goin'?" She asked.

I should go. A fight and maybe a quick alley fuck might help me work some of this off, just enough that Marie would be safe. But she was looking at me with her big brown doe eyes, and I couldn't force my feet to move. I knew it hurt her whenever I ran off, I could smell her unspoken loneliness and disappointment. But I had to keep her safe, even—especially—from myself, and I didn't know how else to do that.

Jest tell her the goddamn truth!

I knew the Wolverine meant the truth about her being our mate, but a different thought popped into my head. Maybe I could tell her a little bit, just a small portion of the truth. And then if she still wanted me to stay, I would.

"Kid."

My voice was rough, and I didn't know where to go from there. I'd barely even talked to that one redhead, and I'd fucked her for a month. Just telling someone what I was thinking about, asking their opinion on it...I felt like I'd stumbled into some different world where feelings were okay and I was a pussy.

She scooted over on the bed, and her movement snapped me out of my brooding. I focused on her, and she gave me a hesitant smile.

"Yah can stay, Logan."

I swallowed and looked at the door again, then back at her. She was still trying to give me a smile even though her scent was worried and confused. Fuck, I couldn't leave, not when she was looking at me like that. Her smile only got firmer and brighter when I walked over to her. There was a space on the bed beside her where she clearly expected me to sit, but that was too close to her for me to be at the moment, so I crouched down in front of her until we were at eye level.

She still looked at me like she cared, and it made my throat go dry. I cleared it and tried to think of what I could tell her without freaking her out too bad.

"I'm kinda fucked up right now, kid."

Fucking understatement. But I figured she knew that already, and it was general enough that I could just let her make her own assumptions about my nightmares and what it meant. She didn't try to interrupt or say meaningless niceties, and her silence let me work out what I needed to say next.

"But I'll stay if ya want."

Then she did open her mouth to say something, still smiling, but I cut her off.

"There've gotta be some rules though."

I stopped again and waited until she met my eyes and nodded that she understood.

"I'm gonna sleep in that bed for the rest of the night, and yer gonna stay in yers. No showerin' together in the morning, either. Ain't nothing ya done, I just don't want to hurtcha." I explained.

"Yah wouldn't hurt meh." She argued.

I wanted her to trust me, needed her to think I was better than I really was, but that blind faith she had in me almost made me sick. Her scent smelled clean and free of any doubts. The stupid kid really believed I would never hurt her, but I fucking knew better.

"I ain't gonna take that risk." I growled.

"But—"

"Those are the rules, Marie. Either ya play by 'em or I gotta go."

She glared down at her lap, and I could smell the frustration leaking into her scent, but this was about her safety, not her happiness. Maybe I was just a shit person, but her safety would always win, every time, even if she hated me for it. I risked touching her chin to lift it up so she would look at me.

"I'm trynta give ya a choice here." I said.

She kept looking at me without saying anything, and I started to worry I'd have to leave after all. But she finally sighed, closed her eyes, and opened them again.

"Ah'll follow yah rules, Logan."

I rubbed my thumb across her chin, then pulled back before I went too far. I'd have to follow my own set of rules if I wanted to keep it together. But she still smelled worried and even a little hurt, and I couldn't let her go back to sleep like that.

"I ain't trynta ignore ya, and I promised I wouldn't leave ya. I just need some space to calm down and get my head straight again. Alright, kid?" I asked.

She nodded and relaxed. "Alrahght."

My hands were itching to touch her again and the Wolverine still snarled at me to claim her, but I stood back up and got in the other bed, alone. We had never exactly cuddled or any of that other sissy shit, but the bed still felt empty without her.

"Goodnight, Logan." She whispered.

Cowardly little bitch who can't even claim what's his.

"Night."

A couple more weeks passed, and the rules held up good enough for me to keep my shit under control. Marie still didn't like them, but she didn't have to like them to follow them. I got a little better at handling things, like my dick, and I tried to make an effort to talk to her more.

So about a month after her birthday, I knew that Marie likes chocolate, which is a fucking understatement. She also likes drawing, so I got her some pencils and shit. I thought a pencil was a motherfucking pencil, but apparently there's a goddamn difference between 2B and 2H, whatever the fuck that means. I just gave up and let her pick out what she wanted me to buy her. They cost way more than any pencil had the right to cost, but it still wasn't that much, not compared to the type of sparkly shit women usually wanted.

And it made her happy.

She listened to classical music, and I listened to classic rock. Her shit wasn't that bad though. It wasn't something I'd ever just listen to on my own, but it was a fuck ton better than the goat screeching most kids listened to. And even that wasn't as bad as the shit made by computers. I knew Marie thought I was just paranoid, but it pissed me off to know that even music had been taken over by computers.

I pretty much let her do what she wanted, so long as she stayed in whatever motel we were at when I was out cage fighting. It wasn't that I never let her go anywhere without me, I just didn't want her going out when I was on the other side of town and didn't know about it.

She had her sketchbooks, a couple of regular books she liked, and TV to entertain her while I was gone, and if there was ever anything else she wanted, I got it for her. The stupid tabloid magazines, a deck of cards, even an old gameboy I bought at a pawn shop. So I thought I was pretty goddamn laid back about what she did with her time, but even I drew the fucking line at watching a show about rape.

"It's not 'bout rape, Logan!"

"—stem, sexually based offenses are consi—"

"The fuck it ain't!"

Marie flopped down on the bed. "Yah jus' don't understand!"

Goddamn teenage girls.

"Look, kid—"

"DON DON!"

"Shit, can you turn that the fuck off? I'm trying to have a goddamn talk with ya." I said.

"Ah don't need a talk, Ah'm not ten!" She replied.

I crossed my arms. "Yer fourteen."

I must have said that wrong, because it only pissed her off even more, and she threw the remote at my head. That only pissed me off even more. She seemed to realize her mistake when I caught the remote before it hit me and turned the TV off. She huffed and twisted sideways on the bed. I narrowed my eyes and stalked over to her.

Gotta discipline yer mate, bub. Yer whipped enough as it is.

"Marie." I growled.

I waited until she reluctantly scooted around to face me again. She wasn't allowed to turn her fucking back on me, and she knew I hated it when she pulled that shit.

"What?" She muttered.

"Ya know what."

She raised her head and glared at me. "But Ah don't know whah!"

"Because I fucking said so."

"Whah?"

That's why I never talked to kids before. I hated the little fuckers. Why, why, why?

"Because this ain't the sort of shit ya should be watchin'." I said, trying to keep calm.

She looked me dead in the eye. "Whah?"

The start of a growl slipped out, but she cut me off.

"It's nothing Ah ain't seen before." She stopped and shook her head. "Ah used to sneak over to mah friend's house to watch this show. An' after Cody, Ah thought Ah could jus' go to Alaska like it was one big road trip. An' then it was like Ah was in the show."

Just the thought of Marie wandering alone, hitching rides from who-the-fuck-ever, seeing the sort of fucked up shit on that show...I could feel my claws slide down my forearms. But the worst part was that I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't punch or slice open the past. If something had happened to her before I found her, then it was already done.

"Mah skin stopped anything...real bad...from happenin'. But then it was in mah head, an' Ah didn't know nothin'!" She stopped again, her face twisted with anger. "Ah was just a stupid little girl who thought people would help meh 'cause that's what Ah'd always been told, an' it wasn't true!"

I couldn't stop myself from grabbing her at that and pulling her over to me. She didn't resist and wrapped her arms around as much of me as she could. Fuck, but she was so tiny and young and innocent.

"Ah'm not innocent." She said, making me wonder if she couldn't really read my mind.

"Ya—"

"The things in mah head..."

I tipped her head up to make her look at me. "They ain't you."

She sighed. "Ah'm sick of pretending everything is alrahght an' the world is nice, because it ain't. An' Ah know yah would make it better if yah could, 'cause yah have. Ah know it's jus' a show too, but it seems real. Like that stuff really happens and Ah'm not jus' crazy."

I didn't really get what she was saying, because of course that shit fucking happens, that was what I tried to protect her from. I just...fuck, I just didn't get it.

"And ya gotta watch this shit because..." I snarled out.

She sat back, and I tightened my arms around her. She didn't try to move away though, she just stared at my chest and twisted her lips to the side while she thought about it.

"The two detectives always watch our for each other. An' sometimes it doesn't end happy an' a lot of bad stuff happens, but it makes me think, an'—"

"Dammit kid, I don't want ya to think about it!" I snapped.

She glared up at me and let out a breath through her nose. "Used to, Ah didn't think 'bout it! Ah didn't think 'bout what happens tah runaway kids, an' how the law sometimes doesn't work, an' what it's lahke tah be hungry. But Ah don't wantah live my lah-fe sheltered lahke that!"

"That ain't ya problem, kid. Not anymore, not ever again."

Protect her, never let anyone else touch her, our Marie-mate!

"'Bout a week after Ah left, a man offered meh a rah-de. Ah was tired an' it was late an' cold, but Ah said no 'cause on the show they talked 'bout most abductions happenin' in grocery parking lots. He kept insistin', but some people came outtah the store, an' Ah ran in."

I pulled her back against my chest and tried to keep my claws in. She should've never had to worry about hitching rides and abductions. She was my little Marie-mate, and I'd never let anything hurt her again.

"Ah kicked mahself for it all nah-ght 'cause Ah thought maybe he really was jus' tryintah help until Ah saw his face in the paper the next day. He killed two girls, an' it coulda been meh jus' 'cause Ah didn't know...anything."

She looked up at me. "Ah ain't watchin' it 'cause Ah lahke what Ah see. Ah watch it 'cause it's important."

I grabbed her head and shoved it back against my neck. I was still just trying to resist the Wolverine's howls to go hunt the fucker down and kill him slowly for ever threatening my Marie-mate. She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder and smoothed her hands down my sides. I managed to pull my claws up out of my knuckles, at least partway back where they normally rested.

"Ah promise Ah won't watch it without yah, so if it gets too bad, yah can jus' turn it off." She mumbled, still stroking up and down my sides.

I let out a sigh that was more like a growl. It was clear she wasn't giving up, and I didn't want her to sneak around behind my back to watch it. At least if I was watching it with her, I could turn it off without her being able to say shit about it since she already fucking promised.

Damn little brat knew she had won and gave me an extra squeeze before reaching for the remote and turning the TV back on. We shifted around until she was comfortable laying against my side and watched her damn show. We'd missed the first fifteen minutes too, so I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but that could be because I was too busy concentrating on the feel of her snuggled up against me to pay attention.

As soon as the show ended, another one came straight back on, with the commercials promising they were lined up back to back all night. Apparently, there were thirty fucking seasons of this shit, or something like that. I grabbed the remote and turned it off before we got sucked into an all nighter though.

"No, jus' one more, please Logan?" Marie pouted, twisting around in my lap and making things damn difficult for me.

"That's enough for tonight." I growled.

She stuck out her lip and gave me the eyes, so I resorted to desperate measures and asked the question that had been eating at me for the last forty five minutes.

"Who the fuck is Cody?"

A/N: I know this chapter is a little bit shorter than usual too, but I promise I'm not going to make a habit of updating with half assed chapters. I actually planned to write more, but then I wrote the last sentence and was like, wow, that's a damn good stopping point. Cliff hangers, bitches.

I included as much sexy time as I possibly could at this point, because I hate teases who upload a story and rate it M, and then either never have smut or skip over it with some sort of "he ripped off my panties...and then the next morning" bullshit. We all know fanfiction is basically just for porn. And while the real smut won't be here for a while now, just a heads up, it will be eventually. So please don't get emotionally attached to this story if you can't handle that. Rant over.

Also, the goat screeching is a reference to Taylor Swift. There's a video on youtube where one part of her singing in "Trouble" is replaced with a goat. It sounds exactly the same.