No Fate But My Own

Chapter 25

In the end Bo's legs took her to the Dal. Bo had wearily taken the stairs down to her grandfather's study after Trick had told her that he would join her shortly. She helped herself to his good scotch and wandered around the room sipping it slowly.

Bo knew she owed both Lauren and Kenzi an apology for how she had acted in the lab. Running always came easy for Bo because she had done it for so long by necessity. Bo knew she needed to get over her feelings of failure and inadequacy. She was stronger now and had people who loved her for who and what she was. There was no place she would rather spend the rest of her days and she hoped that Lauren would be there with her. An open book caught Bo's eye as she made her way around the room. Actually it was the almost pornographic illustration of two woman in the throws of passion that caught her attention. As she got closer she realised that one of the women depicted was a succubus and she was feeding from the other woman. The picture was very detailed and lifelike. She read the writing underneath and sucked in a breath. "Succubus partaking in the dance of conception," Bo snorted at the sex act being described as a dance but her eyes started reading the opposite page where it described in graphic detail about how a succubus could accidentally or intentionally impregnate another female through her touch and succubus kiss. "Holy Shit!" Bo exclaims. She was lucky that Lauren had taken precautions otherwise she may have accidentally knocked Lauren up.

"Bo?"

"Huh. What...uh..nothing." Bo closed the book and drank the last of the scotch in her glass before turning to face her grandfather. She poured another glass and hoped that Trick would credit the heated blush colouring her cheeks would be attributed to the scotch and not by the book she had been reading.

"Are you alright? You look a bit out of sorts when you came into the bar," Trick queries, eyeing Bo closely.

"I was an idiot Trick, as usual. I don't know why Lauren puts up with me..well both of them actually," Bo exclaims emphatically, falling into the small couch and drinking some more of her drink.

Trick sighs and shakes his head a small smile on his face. "They both love you unconditionally Bo. It's you that needs to realise that you are worthy of their love." Trick takes a seat in his chair opposite his granddaughter and gives her his full attention. "Tell me what happened."

After hearing Bo's relay of her bursting in on Lauren with a substitute succubus and her reaction to the possibility that Lauren was producing chi faster because of his granddaughter overfeeding, he found himself wondering if that was the only reason for Lauren's ailment. "Had you been taking more than you needed Bo?"

Bo looks at Trick with a grimace, "Maybe a little. In my defence..." Bo pauses. She was going to blame her lack of control on the new power but to be honest Bo had been drinking more than she needed for far longer than that. "I can't seem to get enough of her, Trick. I feel kind of shitty about it really," Bo says, slumping back into the couch and taking a drink.

"Why do you feel...bad about it. About wanting what Lauren has to offer you?"

"Well...before we were bonded. When Lauren was just Lauren and not my mate...well...I never fed from her up until she saved me from the darkness. Lauren was never food! But now..I don't think I could stop even if I tried."

Trick looked at Bo thoughtfully. "Bo, if you stopped feeding from Lauren someone else would have to do it. How did you feel about the other succubus feeding on Lauren?"

"How do you think I felt! I hated it and I hated that I wasn't there for her when she needed me. But I also don't understand just how sudden this change in Lauren has been. I mean I've been feeding excessively off her for a while now. Why the sudden change and spike in chi production surely it would have happened over time."

"Maybe..." Bo notices Tricks gaze fall to the book Bo had been reading before looking at her again. "Maybe your excessive feeding isn't the only factor. Maybe something else is contributing to the increase." Tricks gets up and stands in front of his granddaughter. "Did Lauren get a chance to talk to you before you ran off?"

Bo looks away in shame. "No. I...God I'm such an idiot. Did something happen that I don't know about?"

"Bo. Look at me and listen very carefully. What I'm about to say may seem a little harsh but remember that I love you and am just looking out for you."

Bo looks up from her lap to see Trick gazing at her with his no nonsense face. "Okay. I'm listening."

"You need to go to Lauren and apologise for your behaviour today. Lauren and I had a meeting with the Ash this morning and Lauren has done a huge thing for not just you but for me as well. There are changes coming, Bo and Lauren is doing everything she can to protect our family. It's time to grow up. It's time to be the strong, supportive and understanding woman that I know you are. It's time for you to be responsible and start looking at the type of future that you want. I know that this power inside you is hard to control but you don't need to do it on your own. Lauren is the key to controlling your abilities, Bo. She is your soul mate...your destiny. Her abilities counter yours. In time you should be able to feed from afar. There are places in the fae world that very few people see there are prisons and torture chambers. There are clubs that cater to fae with similar needs to yours. The need to feed off of pain and suffering, blood and violence. Everything is catered for if you know where to look. For the time being though I think it will be better if you stick close to Lauren and use her calming ability and allow her to run some tests to see if she can tinker with your serum to see if she can help to suppress the blood lust as well. Go to Lauren and be what she needs. Take the book with you. It has the most information about succubus' and their abilities... amongst other things that may be important. I love you, Bo."

Bo gives Trick a kiss on the forehead. "I love you too, Trick. I know I've been overwhelmed and feeling sorry for myself lately and I know that I have been taking my inadequacies out on everyone around me." Bo grabs the book from the table and drains her glass before putting it beside the scotch. "I'll try my best to be the woman you see, Trick. I just wish that things would slow down for a minute. It's been crisis after crisis for months now. I just want a happy ending every now and again."

Trick gives Bo a smile as he guides his granddaughter towards the stairs. "Everyone wants a happy ending, love. Sometimes we just have to make our own. Off you go now. Lauren's waiting."

An hour later Bo was standing outside Lauren's apartment. She had called Kenzi in the cab and apologised to her for being running off. Kenzi as always was supportive and easy to forgive her for her childish outburst. Kenzi had told Bo that Lauren had gone home for some rest after Kenzi had sat with her for a while. She then told Bo to get her Succubutt over to Lauren's and apologise because the doc had news and that it was time for Bo to put on her big girl pants.

So here she was standing outside Lauren's door. Bo took a deep breath and then knocked hesitantly and waited. Bo thought for a moment that Lauren wasn't going to answer. She was just about to knock again when she heard the lock click on the other side of the door. The door opened and Lauren stood looking at Bo with a careful neutral expression that gave away nothing about how she was feeling towards the succubus standing there. "So you didn't run far then?" The blonde says in a flat neutral voice.

Bo looked at the floor for a moment before meeting Lauren's eyes. "No. Uh.. I got as far as the Dal. May I come in ?" Lauren was shielding her emotions from Bo and her face gave her nothing as she moved aside and allowed Bo entry to her home without a word. Bo stands uncertainly and watches as Lauren closes and relocks the door. Lauren was in her pyjamas. Bo eyes drift from her bare feet to the lightweight cotton pants and a loose fitting spaghetti strapped top that came to an end just above her bellybutton.

Lauren raises an eyebrow when she turnes around to find Bo ogling her body. Lauren crosses her arms across her stomach and moves past Bo towards the couch. Her arm brushes Bo on the way past and both women shiver at the barest of touches. "Come sit down, Bo," Lauren says softly as she takes her place on the couch.

Bo moves into the room and takes a seat beside Lauren being careful not to sit too close. Bo wasn't sure just how much trouble she was in from her outburst earlier that day. The air felt thick with tension as both women sat in silence.

Lauren was the first to break, "Bo, about today. I tried to call you several times before I made a call from the list. I was in a lot of pain and I'm ….."

Bo places a hands on Lauren's thigh making her look up in her face. Bo couldn't allow Lauren to apologise for this. "I'm Sorry, Lauren. I know I overreacted today and I had no right to run away from you and Kenzi. I know you did what you had to do and I hate that this change in you hurts you so much. You have nothing to be sorry for. This is all on me and it's time I started taking responsibility for my shortcomings."

Lauren while happy that Bo seemed to be calm and non-judgemental was not ready to allow her to shoulder all of the responsibility for the plight Lauren was now in with the excessive production of chi. "I didn't exactly stop you from feeding on me, Bo. It's quite pleasurable you know."

"Lauren you're not supposed to resist and stop me from feeding. That's the whole point of what I am. I'm a predator, baby. When I'm feeding from you, you are my prey. When I'm riding on that wave of power it is very hard not to take you and consume you. It's why I resisted tasting you for so long...Why I wouldn't allow you to be my guinea pig when we were working together to help with my control and not killing every human I fed from. You were way to important to me and I never wanted to put you in the position where I could hurt you. When I was consumed by the darkness, when you offered yourself to me willingly. I was screaming from within trying to break free to stop myself from taking you."

The pain in Bo's eyes when she remembered being trapped by the darkness broke Lauren's heart. "Bo, I..."

"No. Please let me finish. Sometimes it's like my succubus is a separate entity and that she has a personality all on her own and that it is only my humanity and morals that keeps her in check. When I was consumed by the darkness it was her, my succubus, without all my values that was walking around and hurting the people I loved. I was a passenger through it all. Watching, unable to stop her. Oh, honey, she was delighted when you offered yourself to her. You were forbidden fruit, always denied by me because of my love for you. She took almost as much pleasure in taking you from me as she did getting her first taste of your essence. She laughed at my screaming as she emptied you. That is until she started screaming as the darkness that held me prisoner released me. I am thankful everyday that I was able to bring you back and I don't regret this bond that came with it and joined us together. It was my love for you as much as the chi I breathed back in to you that brought you back."

"Bo..." Lauren had never heard Bo be so certain and forthcoming about her feelings before the bond. Before she had died saving Bo from the darkness.

"I need to get this out, baby. All of it. I don't want you to ever think that I regret what has happened between us. I know that I had shut you out after our first time together. That I punished you because I thought that you had only been in my bed because the Ash ordered you too." Lauren looks down at her hands as the memories of that painful night pummel her. Bo reaches out to cup Lauren's cheek the book Trick had given her falling to the floor. "Please, Lauren. Look at me. I knew that you wanted me, your aura always gave away your attraction towards me. I made love to you that night. My succubus wasn't even there with me. I punished you because I knew that if he hadn't asked you to distract me you would have continued to just admire me from afar. I wanted to believe that you had made love to me too and that I wasn't a fool for completely letting my guard down and letting you see me at my most vulnerable...At my most human. I am impetuous and severely insecure without my succubus. I would be shy and awkward without the confidence that my succubus side gives to me. She thought me weak because of my humanity but I now know that it is my humanity that gives me strength and it is you that inspires me to be a better human and a better fae and I need your help to keep that balance because lately my humanity has been slipping and it scares me that I may fall into the sea of my power and drown in it."

Lauren smiles at Bo a single tears falling down her cheek. "While I appreciate your confession, Bo, I don't understand what this has to do with you running away today."

Bo smiles back at her girlfriend and brushes the tear from her cheek. The brunette gives a nervous chuckle realising that she had gotten completely of track as she started to release everything that she had been bottling up for a very long time. "Uh.. yeah..there's a point coming, I promise. Since you started to produce enough chi to sustain me, I have allowed my succubus side to rule my human side when it comes to feeding from you. Your essence is addictive and powerful beyond anyone I have ever tasted. I need to reel the bitch back into her box so to speak because I have allowed her to take advantage of you and the gifts that you bestow. It is a battle to control my nature everyday but I know now that I don't have to fight this battle alone. Trick says that it is through you that I will be able to control these abilities. I have to stop seeing you as someone to protect. I need to allow myself to accept the help of those that love me, to stop taking everything onto my shoulders. I need to allow myself be vulnerable with you again."

Lauren needs to look away from the raw intensity in her lovers face as her own emotions crack through her shields and push their way through the bond into Bo. She hears the succubus gasp at the overflowing love and trust that she felt for Bo. Lauren picks up the book by her feet. "What's this?" she asks curiously. The doctor starts browsing the book that is now sitting on her lap. She is very careful as she turns the old brittle paper. "I've never seen this volume before."

Bo moves a little closer to Lauren feeling better after unburdening herself about a lot of her bottled up fears and regrets. "Uh Trick gave it to me after giving me a healthy dose of grandfatherly advice. Oh he also said that there was something you needed to tell me about your meeting with the Ash today. That you have done something huge for me and my family. Actually before you tell me can we open the book to, ahh..." Bo reached over and opened the book towards the centre, she flipped a couple more pages finding the place that it had been open at Tricks.

She let out a small chuckle when Lauren whispers, "careful," as she turned the pages eagerly, certain that it was significant for some reason. Lauren let out and, "Oh..uh..wow," when she sees the illustration that had caught Bo's eye earlier.

"Yeah, It caught my attention as I was pacing Trick's study," Bo says, taking Lauren's hand with her own. Something is bothering me about my conversation with Trick."

Lauren looks up from the book. "Tell me."

"Well when I was telling him about me being the reason that you were increasing your output of yummy chi...he..well..he looked over towards the book and said that maybe it wasn't just me that there may be another factor to.. uh... consider."

Lauren had gone back to reading as Bo fumbled through her explanation. She thinks I may be pregnant, Lauren thinks to herself. No, I can't be...can I? I only stopped taking the birth control pills a few days ago and we haven't done what the book was suggesting since I stopped. Lauren frowned as her doctor side started lecturing her internally. But we know that birth control isn't foolproof, especially when it come to a succubus' abilities let alone one as powerful as Bo. There have been a few times that the circumstances discussed in this text happened. And what about that unexpected sharing of Bo's rage through the bond and the excessive chi. It was quite sudden... If you are pregnant and the embryo is also needing the chi to grow it could be plausible... Lauren slammed the book shut and closed her eyes. She was having trouble breathing.

Bo watches in silence as Lauren seems to unravel in front of her. "Lauren?" Bo was concerned she didn't seem to hear her.

Oh my God. Am I ready for this? Is Bo ready for this? She has said she is but is she really? Lauren stands up suddenly the book falling to the floor. She was hot and she couldn't breath. Bo misses Lauren's arm as she moves away from the couch and heads towards the back sliding door. "I..um..It's a little hot in here..I..uh need some air."...