Dear readers,

As some of you already noticed, something went wrong with this chapter when I first tried to post it.
If you're reading this, you know it's fixt :)

Feel free to point these things out to me any time, so thank you Bezgraniczna & Yuyuxx
I would've changed it sooner but I was busy cooking. A girl's gotta eat ;)

Anyway, it's hopefully fixed now, so enjoy this quick fill-up chapter, but it's (hopefully) enjoyable nonetheless!

As always thanks for all the reads/follows/favorites/reviews!
I really wouldn't be finishing this story if it wasn't for you!

Love!

KPOV

Keena learned a lot of things every day.

Today for example, she learned that she needed to think twice before crossing Eric ever again. When he had sauntered into the training room for the first time that day somewhere just before lunch, she just knew she had it coming.

But, luckily for her, she enjoyed crossing him way too much to give a fuck. Hell, shooting him in the balls made up for any shitstorm that came her way. Having slept together or not, out of the bedroom they seemed to continue their ways of hostility, mocking and pushing each other's buttons.

Familiar territory. Exactly the way she liked it.

"I heard you were too late this morning." Eric rumbled in front of her, loud enough to catch the attention of everyone in the room.

Keena narrowed her eyes at him. He was playing dirty. He knew she didn't want anybody to know what had happened between them, so she couldn't tell the truth and drag him down with her in her reason of tardiness that morning.

"Only by thirty seconds." She protested, conveying a message in her eyes for him to shut up.

Of course he didn't listen.

"But still too late?"

The smugness of his voice made her want to rip his tongue out. He was provoking a reaction… and hell, it was almost working. She glared at him, which only managed to goad a malicious and amused glint in his eyes. He raised an eyebrow in expectation, waiting for an answer.

Or more accurately: a succumb.

Well, he could stick that succumb up in his arse until it came right back out of his mouth, she would not budge. So, she kept staring at him, raising a delicate eyebrow of her own to intensify the whole 'was that all?' kind of countenance she was giving him.

Having slept together or not, she was not suddenly turned into a prissy girl that would giggle and bat her eyelashes at him like a madwoman. Hell, she still didn't like the guy – and didn't see that changing anytime soon – but she had to give it to him; the guy was good between the sheets.

When Eric rolled his eyes slightly, unnoticeable for anyone who hadn't been looking for it, Keena felt like she'd won, just for the tiniest of seconds.

"Answer me initiate." Eric stated, his voice evident with perfectionated boredom. "Yes. Or. No."

So, he was really not going to let this slight…

Fine.

Have it his way. She could hardly defy him any longer with the other initiates watching, but she refused to indulge in his denigrating yes-or-no ultimatum.

"Indeed, too late." She spat.

Asshole.

The annoying fucking imbecile 'he had it coming' kind of asshole.

"We don't allow tardiness here at Dauntless."

"I know." She gritted her teeth.

"You, laps." Eric ordered her. "As for the rest of you, it's lunchtime. See you back in 30 minutes."

Jasper snickered before leaving the room with his friends. Her own friends lingered a little bit longer, shooting her apologetic looks.

"I'll bring you some." Lara told her and Keena smiled thankfully at the pretty brunette before the group left the room.

Eric and Four were arguing quietly in the corner of the room. By the looks of it did Four not particularly agree with Eric's punishment, but she couldn't quite hear the words.

"What are you waiting for, Amity?" Eric bellowed at her without as much as turning around. Seriously, did he have eyes in the back of his head?

"How many do I need to run?" She asked.

"Until I tell you to stop." Eric finally turned his head towards her, a smug grin in place of course.

Ugh. She could strangle him.

Or jump him?

Both. Definitely both.

Shaking her head at her own thoughts she started to run.

…

If she had thought Eric's revenge had been over after their nightly adventures and him torturing her sexually for the first part of it… Man how wrong she had been.

She had been running laps for 45 minutes straight now. The other initiates were long since back from lunch and after Four had put them to work he had left two minutes ago to get some food himself as he hadn't left for lunch earlier.

Probably because the good lad didn't trust Eric with her alone.

Sensible.

Neither did she.

All the while, Eric had been sitting on one of the benches, his elbows resting on his wide-spread legs as he sliced his apple into pieces before eating it.

His face was just as stoic as always. Emotionless. Unreadable. Passive. Yet, the glint in his eyes told her not to underestimate him. Every time she slowed down even the tiniest bit, he'd comment on her with some nasty sneer.

She ignored his sad humor.

As well as she did her rumbling stomach. Man she was hungry.

In a way she was glad Eric was back to his malicious self. Whatever had made her open up to him under the shower earlier that morning remained a mystery to her, buy she just knew she didn't want to do it again.

Mentally opening up to him that is.
Physically speaking…

But, yes. This hostility of making her run and snarling nasty commend her way was a good thing.

You know… If she disregarded the ache in her legs, the forming dizziness and her throbbing head and of course the unending humiliation in front of her peers.

"Good work. For an Amity."
"Keep it up and you might end up factionless before the end of this training stage."
"Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic."
"I suppose you could come in handy when we need a human sacrifice to catch some bullets of the enemy… Easy target."

She hadn't responded to any of the insults, not finding them worth the trouble of snarling back when she was already out of breath by the running alone.

Eric wasn't fond of the fact she was ignoring him, that much had become clear; his sneers became more frequently and each more offending and aggressive than the last. No doubt trying to provoke a reaction out of her.

Such a sweetheart.

Well, for what it's worth: Jasper was having the time of his life though. Every time he was just snickering that tiny bit harder than with the last offense against her.

Well, he could laugh until his fucking teeth fell out, she would not take the bait and give Eric the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her.

Thus, she ran on.

…

When the 45 minutes had turned into an hour, Keena felt - rather than heard or saw – Eric approaching from behind her. She tried to speed up, hoping to outrun him, to no avail.

Only seconds later she was 'graced' with Eric's annoyingly sexy smirking face. She only glanced at him briefly before fixing her gaze firmly to the ground in front of her, but the short glance had been long enough noticing the twinkle in Eric's eyes.

He was up to something.

"You're slacking off again." He taunted, brushing his elbow against her own as they ran side by side.

'After running for 45 minutes straight? Sue me.' Keena thought bitterly but began running even faster nonetheless, ignoring the black spots her vision was starting to see.

The throbbing and nauseating feeling had become more prominent in the last 10 minutes but she kept ignoring it, hoping they would daze off.

And even if it wouldn't, she would honestly rather throw up because she was running her brains out before giving Eric the satisfaction of her giving up.

If he wanted to push her to the ultimate max, fine. So be it. But she would not give in before that happened just so he could have his way with her.

Because that was it.

Keena simply knew Eric was only hoping she'd quit so he could hang her off the damn chasm or do something else spectacularly 'fun'.

The guy was a sadist in heart and soul and although she was quite curious about how creative his twisted brain could get, if it came down to sacrificing herself over it…

Thanks but no thanks.

She roughly snapped back to reality around her when she lost balance right before her cheek collided with the ground.

The bastard had tripped her!

So much for ignoring him.

Coughing up some blood she turned to glare at him before unleashing all the best words from hell on him.

EPOV

Finally she acknowledged his presence.

It had taken a full 60 minutes but at least she finally acknowledged him again.
There simply had been no fun in taunting her if there was no reaction to enjoy.

Well, he got plenty response now.

She was seriously irked by him. But merely being irked wasn't enough. Not after what she did. He had the urge to push her buttons until she caved.

Why?

Because he could.

And also, because his pride had been wounded, his balls had been shot, he had lost Capture the Flag from Four and he had been sexually frustrated for over a week.

And she had been the girl causing all of it.

Last night had been fantastic, but his lust had gotten in the way of his revenge. To say that she held some sort of unknown power over him was an understatement. If Eric was one to believe in magic, he'd been sure she had bewitched him.

She would make him forget all of his revelations he had with as much as her presence.
She would make him smile when he didn't want to by the mere gleam in her eyes.
She would turn him on at all times, more often than not without as much as trying.
She would make him reconsider or doubt his own actions by a single raised eyebrow

Unbeknownst to her, she was making him soft and he absolutely didn't fucking want it! And the fact that she didn't even intended to do so only fueled his anger even more.

Because that meant he had no one other to blame than himself.

Which he did.

Oh, he did. He was absolutely livid at himself, but he was about to unleash all of that brewing anger at her.

Or at least… he had been planning at doing so, but here she was, fucking up his plans again.

As Keena was screaming and shouting what must be the nastiest stream of words she could come up with – which wasn't that spectacularly nasty, considering she did grow up at Amity – Eric couldn't help but be aroused.

From up close he could see her eyes burn with this fierce passion he had grown oh so fond of.

Her words blurred together as he concentrated at the movement and shape of her peachy and plumb lips, remembering how he had bit and kissed and sucked them mere hours ago.

Keena blew a small lock of hair out of her face before pushing herself up off the ground and taking on a guarded stance in front of him before ranting on again.

He caught the last part of her sentence – something about running for an hour straight – before he watched her retreating back as she continued her laps again.

Snapping out of his daze he sprinted after her. How dare she decide when they stopped talking? He was the leader here. She would have to listen to his commands.

"Running? Is that what you call it?" He snarled as he caught up with her. "Don't flatter yourself to a point of absolute embarrassment, Amity, it doesn't suit you."

To his utter surprise, all she did was snort. He didn't know what kind of reaction he had been expecting, but it was definitely notthat.

It slightly put him off balance as she sped up even more.

She was seriously fast, he'd give her that. Not that he had any problem keeping up with her, seeing as his legs were about double the size of her own… Well, not double, but you get the point.

"The only time I've ever seen you run properly is that time when you ran out of my apartment, afraid like the Amity and soon-to-be factionless coward you are." He continued meanly, forgetting there were other people in the room.

She faltered her steps and turned to look at him, eyes blazing. She flicked her eyes quickly over to where the initiates were training and Eric followed her gaze, for the first time noticing they had drawn the attention of everyone in the room.

Fuck.

Although he hadn't said anything that couldn't been fixed with a small bending of the truth, he had come close to revealing something they both didn't want revealed.

Something she had explicitly told him to keep a secret and he had agreed upon.

In a way he had broken the single rule of their weird attachment on the first fucking day.

His eyes snapped back to Keena, hoping she could read the apology in them but something in her countenance shifted. Her expression became unreadable, her eyes dull.

"Yeah, about that…" She began with an icy demeanor, the perfect picture of indifference. "However embarrassing that may have been, I'm sure it couldn't quite surpass the embarrassment you must've felt after I, 'a soon-to-be factionless initiate' shot in the balls during Capture the Flag."

Gasps and stifled laughter could be heard from the onlookers but for the moment being, Eric couldn't care less. His eyes were fully focused on her dull ones as he wondered what he could do to get the spark back into them.

Putting on a show – as to not reveal their secret even more – he roughly grabbed her arm and pushed her forward towards the exit, just as Four reentered.

"What is going on?" He questioned, looking warily over at Keena.

"Train the rest of your initiates." Eric ordered. "This one needs to be taught a lesson." He added a malicious grin that could turn everybody's blood cold. Eric looked over his shoulder at the group. "We don't appreciate bigmouths here at Dauntless, you'd do well to remember that."

With those words they disappeared from sight, leaving behind a worried group of initiates, an internally struggling Four and a wholly satisfied Jasper.

KPOV

She had been stupid to trust him.

He was unpredictable and malicious.
Arrogant and intolerant.
Uncaring and greedy.
A self-serving sadist.

She knew that.
Had known that for months now.

And yet, somewhere in the back of her mind she was still disappointed that he'd thrown away her trust so easily.

Not that the situation couldn't be fixed, because it could: She could still simply tell everyone that he had been hinting on the night after Jasper had thrown the knife at her during training – which was true – and that he had found her on the roof in the snow and brought her to his room because she hadn't had wanted to sleep in the dorms that night – also true.

There was no way anybody would think they had had sex or something like that. The notion alone was ridiculous, everybody with eyes and ears was a witness to their constant fighting, so no, their 'secret' was not out yet.

The only annoying thing was that Eric had painted her like a coward and she saw no better excuse to why she would've run out of his room without being said coward.

So, she guessed she would have to take one 'for the team'.

Not that they were a team.
Or ever would be of course.

She was pulled from her thoughts as Eric pushed her into a room.

Well, pushed… guided would be closer to the truth. Ever since they were out of the training room his guidance had softened a bit, to a point she'd even call it gentle if she'd been in a less sour mood.

She wasn't.

She was still way too angry with Eric for breaking her trust and with herself for giving him the opportunity.

The guy in question was currently locking the door they just entered behind him and it took Keena a moment to realize they had just entered an office.

His office.

It was similar to Max's, for as far as she could remember. But then again, most to all rooms at the Dauntless headquarters looked alike: Dark stone floors, grey walls, no windows. Only the interior made them stand apart really.

Eric guided her to the corner with some couches and chairs situated around a small table. One of the couches was a mustard-yellow, by far the most colorful object in the room and looked extremely comfy.

"What am I doing here?" She asked him with a flat voice, careful to avoid his eyes at all costs.

"Keena." He urged.

She ignored.

"Keena…" He urged again, this time with more power behind it.

"So, what punishment did I deserve?" She continued, disregarding him. "Dusting the floor under the couches with my tongue? Collecting all the unused tacks on my forearm? Or maybe eve-"

She was cut off as Eric's lips attacked her own. It took her a second to adjust to the feeling before battling back for dominance. Whatever she had been about to say, it was lost forever now.

She knew she should pull away, he had definitely not deserved kissing her with his childish behavior today – seriously, was he an infant? – but the moment he stepped closer, she knew she was doomed.

Her hands traced the outline of his muscular arms through his sweater until she reached his neck. With her arms around his neck she managed to push herself upwards, standing on her tiptoes as she leaned into him and started kissing back.

It wasn't a sweet or kind kiss, nor was it one of lust.

The kiss was angry: Both unloading all of their confusing, irritating and scary feelings in it.

When she bit his lip, she bit hard.
When he nibbled and pulled her lip, he pulled hard.

She moaned as his strong bulky arms closed around her, pressing her against his groin. His arms felt so, so… utterly masculine, she supposed.

Yes, masculine. That was the right word to describe Eric.

Whereas her previous sex-buddies had been total boys, Eric was all man. It wasn't that she had ever really liked the 'boy' types, because she hadn't, but she had always, albeit somewhat unconsciously, avoided men.

Until now that is.

They had always spiked her interest, for sure. But she had always maintained a safe distance between them and herself. Not that she could be blamed for her skittishness; she didn't exactly have a good track record with the men in her life.

Her father hadn't been around and her grandfather who had played the role of a father figure in her life had died when she was merely 5. She didn't remember much of him. Amity also never had a male leader since long before she'd been born and the first man she trusted, her biology teacher, turned out to be a pedophile and raped her.

So no. Men had been off limits. Instead, she had always gone for cute but slightly unsatisfactory boys to remain having the upper hand in the situation.

Men were dangerous. They were strong and big and overpowering. With men, she could not possibly be in control and without control, she put herself in danger.

And yet, here she was: Kissing Eric.

Eric was without a doubt a masculine man. He was strong and big and dangerous. And yet, when those arms wrapped around her like they did now, ushering her closer, she felt wanted, protected and safe.

But it was an illusion.

He had showed her as much only minutes ago.

She broke the kiss, ignoring the protest of literally every single cell in her body as she took a step back.

For once she did noting to hide the disappointed look in her eyes as she watched him watch her.

"Eric, what are we doing?" She sighed, when he seemed to be struggling for words.

She expected a cocky grin and some smart-ass reply akin to 'kissing, obviously', but instead he let out a ragged breath as his left hand found her cheek, caressing it softly with his thumb.

He seemed lost in thought.

She let it be.

And so they stood there, in the middle of his office, an awkward space between them as his hand continued to caress her face.

"I apologize." He breathed eventually, dropping his hand from her face. Keena's eyes snapped towards his, looking for any untruth in them: she found none. "For earlier. I apologize." He repeated. "I got carried away."

Slowly, a small grin crept up her face. Leave it to Eric not to be able getting the words 'I'm sorry' out of his mouth. Still, an apology was an apology and it had been more than she had dared hoping for.

"So did I." She smiled an honest smile, partly filled with regret.

Suddenly, the air shifted.

He stretched his arm out, his big rough hand wrapping around her small delicate one as he pulled her closer towards him. His other hand came up to stroke a small curl out of her face and behind her ear before cupping her cheek once again.

His eyes seemed to bore into her soul, leaving her vulnerable and exposed under his gaze. But since last night – or better said this morning – it had become more familiar to her. Somewhere, in the back of her brain, she even started to like the thrill it gave her.

Her heart was beating so hard, she was sure he could hear it.

He was looking at her lips as he closed the distance between their heads.

She wetted them in response.

He softly groaned as he hovered his lips over her own.

She whimpered as they brushed.

The moment his hands grabbed possively at her hips, pulling her up against his rock-hard bulge as he claimed her mouth with a primary groan, a soft knock on the door made them jump apart.

"Eric, Sir. Four called." A woman's voice called out from the other side of the door. "He wants the girl back before he'll explain the next part of training."

Eric rolled his eyes in annoyance. "When's that?"

The woman on the other side of the door hesitated. "Now, sir."

"Thanks Maddy." He dismissed her before reluctantly pulling away from Keena.

"You'd better go and show Four you're still in one piece." He grinned. "He's lucky, because I was just about to fuck you into two halves."

"Raff, down boy." Keena chuckled, winking at him as she made her way towards the door. Just before she could open it however, she was spun around and pushed into it, Eric's obvious enthusiasm pressing in all the right places. He trailed his lips from her mouth, over her jaw before stopping by her ear.

"Come to me tonight." It wasn't a question.

Keena buried her own face into his neck, breathing in his smell. Playfully biting him, he growled before she pushed him off of her, making him stumble back a bit.

"We'll see." She replied coyly before opening the door and stepping through it.

She didn't look back as she walked away.

But maybe, just maybe, she swayed her ass just that tiny bit more.