A/N: Sorry about the long wait. Can you believe how long it's been? This is what happens when real life takes over.

Disclaimer: Beauty and the Beast belongs to The CW.

I woke up with the sunlight filtering through the makeshift shades. I was naked under the warm covers of a huge bed. It took me half a second to remember I wasn't home. I stretched my arm and it bumped into another body. I tried to turn but I was pinned down by a huge bicep on my shoulders. I scooted under the covers, but the huge arm, enveloped my waist and pulled me to his heating center... I felt his naked arousal against me...

"Vincent?" I whispered.

"Expecting someone else?" A raspy whisper. His warm lips against my ear made me shiver.

"You didn't leave." I smiled even though he couldn't see it. He pulled me closer and spun me so that I was facing him. Crushing against him, there was nowhere to hide, I felt every hard muscle against my skin.

"I live here, beautiful. Remember?" He nuzzled my neck. Warm lips traced soft kisses from my chest to my ear. My heart raced. He looked at me, cocking his eyebrows. "Is something wrong?"

"Lisa..." I said simply.

"She's still asleep." He moved away from me. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking." He frowned. Hid his face behind his arms. I grabbed his free hand and placed it on my chest. My breast fit perfectly in his rugged hand.

He kissed my neck again.

"I wish we could stay in this bed forever." I exhaled. He released me without replying. He tensed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." I chuckled nervously.

He pulled me against him again, cupped my chin and forced me to look into his now glowing eyes. His skin burned against mine. I couldn't get enough of that energy. He paused for a moment as if to say something, but then his lips just collided into mine. Lips, tongue, teeth, violently ravaging me. I forgot to breathe.

Every time we touched, I felt the violence surround us, heat emanated from our bodies, he began to change, I changed. It felt like we were the only beings on earth... and it seemed to go on forever. I wanted more. I wanted to feel that electricity inside me, exploding within me. Together, somehow, we were more beast than human... and I couldn't get enough of it. It was as if we belonged together on a deeper biological sense... we belonged because we were the same species... And try as we may to disguise ourselves as human, we weren't. That realization broke my heart. Vincent stopped kissing me.

"Something is wrong." His eyes questioned mine. Still shining. His voice growing husky.

"Can't you feel it?" In that moment, I felt brave. I knew I'd never be happy away from him.

He smiled and nodded but rolled off of me. Sat up in bed and started to pull his jeans on.

"Please say that you remember us..." I begged. He shook his head, not even looking at me. Was he ashamed of what we had done?

"I..." he started. "Lisa's waking up... I'll go fix up some breakfast." He said softly. The moment was over. He was back to being professional, agent, assassin, bodyguard or... whatever they had made him into. He stopped being my Vincent and became theirs.

Lisa was wide awake by the time I pulled on some clothes. She chattered happily about her bed, that Vincent had made, her castle, in which she lived with Vincent, her dragon slayer, Vincent himself... Listening to her droning on and on, I lost myself in my thoughts again... I needed to tell her the truth... I needed to tell him the truth. Before it was too late, and whoever had sent him decided we were expendable.

...

"Focus!" JT's voice rang out in the darkness.

"It's useless."

"Come on!" He huffed. "I'm trying to teach you! You have to focus on the scent!"

"Well, I can't smell anything besides you." I hissed. "Maybe you shouldn't wear that much cologne."

"Well, focus on Vincent." He threw something at my face. A rag? I picked it up. It smelled of Vincent. Musk, sweat, faint trace of aftershave.

"I'm not a search dog! This is useless!" I yelled out in frustration.

"You need to focus. You can track. Vincent can do it, so can you... How do you think he found your apartment that first night you told me about." JT laughed, mocked me. I was getting angry. I snarled. "Good! Get angry... your senses will be more animalistic then..."

"Animal?" I grunted. "I'm not an animal."

"No, you're a beast... we've gone through this... The serum changed your DNA, you're like Vincent! I'm trying to teach you to be more like him... to track him down!"

"This is useless!" My anger deflated. It was useless. He knew it. He knew my DNA wasn't like Vincent's... he knew I never beasted out... I just got warm, my eyes glowed in the dark and my skin felt prickly... but I had never gotten fangs or claws, my face never changed... I was beast 2.0... I could hear things neither JT nor Tess could. I could hear the neighbours talking through the walls, or Lisa coughing in her room. I could focus on the sing song of my baby's tiny heart... I was more athletic, had more energy to run, but... other than that, what JT was asking me to do right now, seemed totally superhuman and unattainable... tracking Vincent from the scent of his shirt from a place he hadn't been in in over a year.

"Fine! I give up!" he turned on the light. "Just stop. Stop. You're right, we have to accept he's gone."

...

Vincent disappeared after breakfast and for the whole morning. When he came back, I was fed up with being locked up... so was Lisa who kept asking about going to daycare. My nerves were stretched thin. He came in with chinese take out boxes. Lisa ran to his lap and started chattering on about school and her friends. I sat down at the table, but I didn't eat. I wasn't hungry. After eating Lisa went off to his desk to draw a picture for Vincent. My skin was itching to get outside. I tucked my hands in my armpits to stop me from shaking.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"How long do we have to stay here?"

"Until I get my orders." he looked away from me.

"Are those orders going to be for you to let us go... or..." I asked.

He frowned and shook his head.

"I don't know. I told you... they usually send me to clean their mess. This is the first time, they've sent me to... protect anyone." he looked at me then, his face was sad, worried. "I don't understand why. Why they would send me here, to you..." he reached out to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. "I'd never hurt you... even if..." he looked away again. "Even if they ordered me to."

"Maybe you're not going to get a choice." I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. "Please dont hurt my daughter..." my voice was small, shaky.

"I would never..." he pulled me into a hug. "Don't worry." He cupped my chin and made me look into his hazel eyes. "Hey... hey, look at me... Nothing's going to happen to you or Lisa. Not on my watch." He kissed my forehead.

Just then, his satellite phone went off. He smiled reassuringly before picking up. I went to check on Lisa.

...

"I'm going on assignment." Dad announced from where he was sitting with Lisa fast asleep in his arms. I looked up to take him in. He looked like any other grandfather, but I knew he was studying her very carefully. His eyes always calculating. Benefits and costs.

"You've only been home a few months!" I whined.

"I can't put it off much longer." He was lying. I could always tell now.

"Where to?" I knew better than to ask.

"That's classified." He replied. "But I'll be working to keep you safe." He winked. He always said that when he was travelling abroad. It was our secret code.

"When are you coming home? You have a granddaughter now, remember?" I sensed his elevated heartbeat, his fear. Something was very wrong.

"It's precisely because of her that I'm going!" he exasperated.

"Of her? How come?" My turn to be impatient. I felt his anger rise, but then as I stared him down, he seemed to grow calmer... a trained cooler attitude. If nothing, my father was a great spy.

"I meant to make sure she is safe, like all americans... you know, do my job!" he gave me his best all-american special agent smile and I let it go, so I wouldn't lose my temper in front of him.

...

"Mommy's sad?" Lisa tugged my hand. I looked at her, startled. I'd spaced out, thinking about my father and his cryptic message. Tess, I needed Tess. I needed to talk to her and make sense of things, that was the way I had kept myself sane for the past few years, talking to Tess... and JT. I worried if they were ok or whether whoever had attacked us, had hurt them in any way.

"Mommy?"

I smiled at my babygirl as she finished her drawing. "It's going to be fine, Lisa. Mommy's just a bit tired."

"That's ok, Lisa ask Vincent make mommy a bed!" she smiled brightly.

Me? I just burst out laughing.