Part Three: The Heir

Chapter 25

Supreme Love, Supreme Hate

I see what you've done.

A voice in her head. One she knew. One she hadn't heard in so long. But the very few times when she would, it was always during those last moments of sleep before she would wake. Right on the edge. And maybe that place was the place where reality could bend a little.

The place where you could hear the voice of a man long dead.

It was her father's voice. Dom hadn't heard it in years. Her daughter had still been only a blob of flesh growing inside her since the last time. And as he was then, Maximilian Cross would not be ignored by his child.

I see what you've made. I see, Dom. I see that little girl.

Dom's brows drew together as she slept on, as she slowly headed for consciousness to leave sleep behind. Her daddy had been only a memory to her ever since her discovery of their true relationship. She had not forgotten him as her father, but the worship of him had stopped once reality had been forced upon her. She had never grown to hate him, but she had most certainly moved on from him. She had to, as a mother. Being a parent now, it was quite possibly the only real thing she could relate to him now.

She didn't live by his teaching's anymore. Hadn't for some time. But the voice, the last time it had spoken to her, had apologized for his behavior and his longing for a son he'd never been given. He had repented and she had forgiven. For that, she listened to him now.

"Daddy," she whispered in sleep, a word she had not spoken in years pertaining to her own father.

You did what I told you not to do. My baby has a baby of her own. And… I can hardly believe it.

She felt the weight of her daughter on her body, felt Emmeline's little head resting on her chest, snuggling close. She also felt the intense need to defend her child if any harsh words would be spoken about her. Her father had not wanted her to have a child so that she could live life to the fullest and remain untied, a twisted way for him to live on through her. For a while, she had listened to him. The greatest thing now was that she hadn't.

But, just as the last time, he surprised her.

I'm so proud of you, kid. You're giving her everything I didn't give you. You should know it makes me happy.

And for the first time, in a very long time, Dom felt sadness after those words, felt grief that her father could not be here to see what she'd made. He'd repented and he'd regretted. He was dead and Emmeline would never know him. But Dom smiled through it. Smiled through the heartbreaking realization that Max Cross could only be real after death. But it was better late than never, she supposed. Better to accept the truth than flee from it.

I couldn't bear it if I didn't reach out to you one last time. I said things to you that I shouldn't have. I told you not to belong to anyone, man or child, so that you would not live and lose. I'm telling you now… that you should belong to your man.

Dom felt Emmeline on top of her… and then she felt the other body against her. The one warmer and more solid than that of her daughter. Bane was at her side, his presence all-consuming. The three of them had fallen asleep in his bed, huddled close. Huddled almost like one form, something that could be related to a normal family.

A family, Dom repeated in her head. Her father seemed to hear it, too.

It was wrong of me to manipulate your heart. You shouldn't have had to struggle with your feelings. And you have them, Dom. This guy… He's yours.

Hers, she thought. If she wasn't supposed to have bonded with any other man in her adult life, then Bane was too powerful even for that. The uncatchable woman had been caught. The invisible woman was now seen. And here, she knew, she could stay.

I see what you've done. I see what you've made.

Man and child. What had been denied had been given. What she had run from, she belonged to. The wanderlust was no more.

Keep it. Keep it all. Your baby girl is gorgeous.

Max's voice was drifting away as she woke. As her lashes fluttered, she caught one last word. The very last one she would ever hear of her own daddy. Her true name. The one he'd never spoken in life. It seemed to matter more in death.

Dominique.

Dom woke, and was surrounded by the man and the child.

Children were always meant to move on, she mused in the midst of wakefulness. Her entire life, she'd strived to keep the memory of her father alive so that he would somehow remain so. So that she would never be truly alone and without the one person she had loved more than life. But that was never the way of the world. Children grew up. And those children had children, continuing the cycle repeatedly. To live in the past meant destruction, a life not truly lived. The future, Dom thought, was where she needed to stay. To be alone could be torture, but she'd never truly felt such isolation. She'd carried life inside her, had given birth to it. Created that life with another.

She assessed her surroundings, and found it quite impossible to be alone now.

The sun had to be out, but as usual, it was concealed above the overpowering gray clouds. The outside was even gloomier with the mounds of snow that had fallen onto the vast mountain scape the night before, but even with the lack of light, she could see. Emmeline was sound asleep, lying between her legs with her head pillowed on her breasts, her rosebud lips slightly open and her small hand entangled in one lock of Dom's auburn hair. Emmeline, if having the opportunity available to her, liked to snuggle after falling asleep, and Dom had become used to it quickly even after a life of sleeping alone. She was accustomed to her daughter's body against her. The other one, however, was still foreign.

Dom rarely slept with a man in the true sense of the word. But the very few times she had, the man was always Bane.

It surprised her to find him still sleeping, even more shocking to discover she'd woken before him. Both Bane and Emmeline were early risers. But asleep he was, and nestled right against her side. The tubes of the mask touched the top of her head since he was much larger than either her or Emmeline, the hissing remaining unnoticed during the night even so close. Her hair was a pillow for him, making her almost trapped by the two bodies in the bed with her as they pinned her down. Dom noticed that her own face was turned towards his bare chest, one of her arms bent up to him and the back of her hand almost in a petting motion against his skin. Her blue eyes moved, inspected more. His muscled arm was draped over Emmeline's back as she slept on Dom's chest. He'd held them during sleep.

United them.

Emmeline had promised the night before that she wouldn't snore. Dom discovered that both her daughter and Bane made the same soft sounds in sleep.

Maybe it was something she would already know if she'd only said yes to him four years ago.

Maybe this would have been just another regular morning if only she'd been able to give herself away without a fight.

Dom closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of Bane's skin, ran the backs of her fingers against his chest. She had once tried so hard to remain unattached, but as soon as she'd fallen in love with these two, she'd crashed into everything she hadn't wanted with such force that she'd broken every single bone.

The pain was a good one.

"Yes," she whispered so softly to him. A word she should have spoken forever ago. A word that would have made her his.

"Yes what?"

Dom's mouth pursed and her body stiffened. The deep baritone of Bane's amplified voice had come out of nowhere, replacing the wheezy sounds of his sleeping breaths. Apparently, he was awake, and here she was, acting all gooey and foolish. She quickly thought of a rebuttal to make it a forgotten memory. It wasn't a good one. "Yes… what?"

"You just said yes," Bane mumbled, trying to talk as softly as he could with the mask so that Emmeline would not wake. She would be clingy if her sleep was disturbed before she was ready. "Were you speaking to me?"

She was glad he couldn't see her face clearly from their positioning. She hated feeling so stupid this early in the morning. "I think maybe I sleep talk now. Must be this room. It's doing funny things to me."

He was quiet, but Dom watched his arm shuffle a little on top of Emmeline. She didn't move a muscle, remaining lost in dreams. Must have been waking in the middle of the night and finding her mama missing from the bed. Dom tried not to feel guilty that she'd been fooling around with her kid's daddy instead of tending to her. But waking up like this because of that…

She guessed it was pretty nice.

"I am pleased that you stayed," he said softly.

And because he couldn't see, one corner of her mouth lifted.

It was almost surreal to wake like this. It was a feeling he couldn't describe, and possibly couldn't understand. Bane could remember feeling something similar when Emmeline had been an infant, and he'd watched Dominique as she fed her from her breasts, holding his child in such a comforting and natural way that he could only stare at the unusual wonderment of it. It was similar and yet it was different, to wake with his child and the woman he'd made her with, holding them both against him as if they'd been doing it all along. As if years had not transpired when he'd been with another woman, when Dominique had eluded him, and when his daughter had had no choice but endure the consequences of their choices. This was what Emmeline should have been given all along, but thinking just that had been what had separated them in the first place. Emmeline could not be the reason for this. But Dominique could. So could Bane.

I want you here, he'd once said to her in dreams, telling Dominique what he could not tell her in reality. I want you here.

Please stay.

Bane turned the mask against her hair, took the same deep breath she'd taken against his skin. Maybe he couldn't make those troubling four years go away, but he could fix the next four. He could, because he no longer wanted what had been a constant. As he'd once told her, if he didn't have to resort to alternatives, then he wouldn't.

"I have not used the monitors in your room strictly to keep my eye on Emmeline," he began, still speaking softly. She couldn't know if he didn't tell her things, he reminded himself. She couldn't know that he knew what she tried to hide. "I have turned them on to watch you when… you seemed distraught. I have seen you cry. And I have gone half mad trying to decipher the reason for your tears."

Her feelings on the matter seemed to have an order. First she became embarrassed, then angry because she was never embarrassed. Until finally, as she usually did, she just accepted it because she was too lazy to fight him on it. God knew she would watch him on monitors if she'd only had some to watch him on. It would have been the closest she could be to him during their time apart. "I feel very violated," she said anyway, her voice oddly content.

"I decided it to be an appropriate time to tell you since you are in my bed in nothing but my clothes with my daughter shielding your body."

Dom cast her eyes down and remembered that she'd thrown on his giant shirt by accident instead of her own clothes once Emmeline had interrupted very naked sex. Violation seemed to no longer be an issue. "You're very greedy. You think everything's yours."

Bane moved his head so he could feel some of her hair on the skin of his face. "Everything is," he told her.

"I'm throwing a chair at those cameras as soon as you two set me free."

"Please tell me why."

His voice no longer held the rare amusement. Instead, he was utterly serious now. He said he'd watched her and had gone half mad. Maybe she could get back at him and never tell him the reason for why she'd cried. Dom actually thought that prying her fingernails off her skin would be more enjoyable than telling him something like that. But his request had her backtracking from both of those options. His request and the way he'd spoken it made her want to tell him everything. I want you to tell me why you are so sad, he'd demanded of her through the wood of one of the many doors that had separated them. It made sense now. His minor breakdown had been him confessing.

"Please tell me the truth," he murmured.

The truth. She mulled over the word as his body warmed hers. As their daughter slept on her chest. The truth is, she answered in her head, I don't want you to know because I don't know what I'm doing. The truth is, I'm not good at this kind of crap and it scares me. Seeing you with another woman tore me apart day after day after day.

The truth is… I've never been in love before.

Bane felt her drifting away, felt the mermaid's tail as she swam further and further into the ocean where he could not follow. He'd spent four years watching her from a distance, and now he would no longer tolerate the miles in between. He had gone to her through the water once before. Maybe he would have to do it again and meet her in the only place she knew.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't want you inside me, if I didn't want to see you.

The Dominique of his dreams was the honest one, and not the one against him now. That woman told him things she simply could not say here in the real world. Bane kept things from her, like his very face. And if he wanted to keep this Dominique, this one who was not always honest with him, then he would have to let her keep what she needed to keep until she would give freely. And when she did, it would be everything.

I wouldn't cry if it wasn't because of you. You have to know that.

The truth was right there. Right in her silence. Right in her body that was nestled in his bed, in his clothes, with his daughter.

"You have your secrets," she murmured, the tips of her fingers brushing under his chin where the mask dug into his skin, concealing his face. "And I have mine."

It was her same answer from the dream. Bane wondered then if it was an uncanny coincidence, or perhaps he just knew her that well. Maybe he would never know the full extent of her tears.

But he did know that they were for him.

Dom noted the time, eyed her sleeping daughter. "She's going to sleep another hour. If you need us gone then I can carry her back to our bed. Not too sure what Demon Head's do in the morning."

Bane didn't react to her. He was used to the way she could make something like his title silly and unimportant. He also thought nothing of the fact that his feelings on the matter of lying in his bed could be so different from what they used to be with the other woman. "Allow her to sleep. But I'm afraid I must leave you to wash."

She watched Emmeline's sleeping face, decided that Max was right when he said her baby was gorgeous. "She's going to ask you about this when she wakes up."

"I know it. I will simply tell her the truth."

Bane rose from the bed, careful not to jostle either of the ladies. Dom watched him stretch and rub his wrist before she asked, "And what's the truth?"

He turned to her, eyed her as if he were studying her carefully for the secrets of the world. Emmeline was so smart because of him. She almost worried that he could suck her feelings right out of her if she held his attention for too long. Dom knew it was impossible, because if that were the case, she would know everything about him for as long as she would look at him when he wasn't aware of it. Before long, his eyes softened, his body relaxed.

"You have not told me the truth yet, Dominique."

The truth is…

Bane went to his bathroom, one she had yet to see because she would never stay in his room for very long before things had once again changed. He seemed to swagger as he walked, his head cast down and his eyes so concentrating and that body always prepared, as if he were heading right into battle and knew he would be victorious. A smug man, who knew his power and his appeal to both genders in different ways.

Dom knew that unannounced interruptions were part of the whole parenting thing. Emmeline had needed them and they'd stopped their coupling to tend to her.

They had an hour. She figured they earned it.

It didn't take much to maneuver her daughter off of her chest and onto a pillow. Emmeline liked to snuggle, but never had she been needy when it came to feeling a body against hers at all times. After Dom tucked her in, made sure she was so incredibly comfy that there was no possible way she would wake, she climbed out of bed, heard the sounds of the shower and headed for them.

She was having an affair right now. Might as well keep at it for as long as she could keep the man.

Dom peeked through the cracked door, found the bathroom surprisingly large and modern for an unknown mansion tucked in the mountains. The counters were long and every surface was clean and shining. There were no windows inside the bathroom, but the lights above were kept very dim, almost as if there was only candlelight flickering. She could hear the shower, but the only thing she saw in the spot where it was supposed to be was a corner of nothing but mirrors that didn't quite reach the high ceiling. Steam was billowing from above them and the sound of the rushing water was loudest there. Barefoot and in nothing but his large shirt, she padded over to the mirrors, staring at them after easing the door shut. She could only see herself, her wavy hair that needed to be combed, her tan skin that looked darker in the dimmed lighting. Dom had never been a vain woman, but she did know her appeal to the opposite sex, and had most definitely used it when it came to the art of exotic dancing. Her hair framed her body nicely, a body that was still one of a dancer's and always had men staring after her like hungry puppies who wanted nothing more than a lick of sweetness. Her eyes, she saw, were bright and pretty, very blue now. And when seeing that, when seeing happy eyes that weren't quite as happy as they could've been these last few years, she grinned some, almost goofily at her reflection. Women never really appreciated their appearance, she thought, which was a shame considering that all women in every form could be just as confident as she was if only they could see their own beauty. It was a rare thing, for a woman to know how much power she held with only a sweet look. Dom held the goofy smile.

She liked these bright eyes. She liked who she was. She always had.

"I see you."

Bane's voice came from the mirrors suddenly, and she jumped from the abruptness. Two way mirrors, she saw, looking up at the steam. The shower walls were made of two way mirrors so that he could see out but she could see nothing in save for her own reflection. Dom stepped a little closer, placed her hands on the mirrors. The shower continued, sounding like a storm. She could feel the heat of the steam on her skin and wanted warmth again. The warmth that didn't come from the water, but from the man on the other side. She'd always loved the heat, in any way she could get it.

"I want to see you, too," she replied, placing her forehead against the glass between her hands.

Bane stared at her in the shower, knowing she couldn't see him and say something snarky about his intense leering. He'd always been gazing at her, ever since she'd stepped out onto the stage to dance for him. To hypnotize him. Her words were few and her voice was soft. Bane wondered then if she meant she wanted to come in, or actually see him. See what he kept hidden.

"Do you?" he asked inquisitively. He stepped up to the glass right in front of her, knew she couldn't see that he had. His eyes remained on her face, unblinking.

Her grin spread. She'd always wanted to see him, to be near him. As soon as they'd shaken hands for a deal that would not go as originally planned, she'd been lost to him. "It's cold out there," she said, hoping he heard her over the roar of the shower. "I want to feel the heat."

Her lazy grin, one that could be so uncalled for in certain situations when she used it most, was one he thought most beautiful. Now, when nothing mattered and the world was not waiting for him, he could appreciate that lazy smile of hers. Bane lifted his hand, dragged one finger over the glass where her lips were. She didn't move a muscle because she didn't know what he was doing. He looked down her body, her shapely legs peeking out from under his shirt and just a few hours before had been wrapped around his waist. Pressing his hand against the glass now, he ran it down where her breasts were as if both of them could feel it. Down, down, to her stomach and then the middle of her thighs. The image of her perfect body, the sound of her husky voice, the humid wet heat of the shower, and he could feel himself growing hard.

And when she slid his shirt down her shoulders in offering, when she let the fabric pool at her bare feet, Bane's hand reached through the opening of the shower doors and pulled her inside.

The shower was roomy and the head pouring water was big and soothingly loud. There was more steam here, feeling like a sauna and opening her body to him in the most relaxing of ways. Instantly her hair was soaked and her body dripping hot water that ran down her curves. Instantly the man was on her, his large hands taking her breasts and rubbing into them. Her skin was slippery now, causing her breasts to slide out of his hands right before he would take them again. She looked at his face while shaking some wet hair out of her own. His body glistened and his eyes were demanding, lustful. No longer were there dark shadows and exhaustion. Whatever it was that had made him feel better had done a pretty good job. She reached out and touched his skin, felt the silky smoothness of it from the water, and took his arms to hold him close, sighing as his palms sunk into her breasts.

"It's a rain storm," she whispered to him, closing her eyes and feeling loose. Feeling complete. She pictured them not in his shower, but somewhere on the beach, being pelted with big fat drops of warm rain water. She could even smell the ocean, the sun on her skin. "I want you in the rain. In the water."

"You want to drown me," he growled against her neck, wrapping her up so he could feel every inch. His erection pressed against her lower stomach. Just the feel of her body was enough to overwhelm him. "You want to drag me under, and tear me apart."

Dom sucked at his shoulder, then his neck, right on his pulse. She felt his chest rumble from the sweetness of her lips as his hands travelled down to her backside, gripping her there like her flesh belonged to him. "You still think of me as a mermaid? I forgot about that. A fish," she muttered.

"It is what you are."

She pictured it, pictured herself with a shiny gold tail that would wave as she glided through the ocean, her hair blooming like a rose and shimmering in the sun above the surface. It was quiet there, she decided, imagining it all. Quiet but also loud with the sounds of the ocean. Paradise. And up above, peering down at her from the land, was a man with a mask waiting for her to emerge from the depths to take him down. "Do you want to go under with me?"

Bane's hands gripped her bottom, and even though her hair was wet and sticky, he relished in the feeling of the tendrils along his face. It was so hot and humid they could barely breathe, but it was the rain. They would remain in the storm. "Yes," he whispered, digging the mask into her shoulder.

She smiled. She wouldn't tear him apart, Dom thought, moving her hands up his chest, feeling the power, the greatness of the Demon Head. Emmeline's precious daddy. "Well then," she murmured, touching his upper back and feeling the scarring there. Dom sunk her nails into the meat on the backs of his shoulders, hooking him like her prey. "I guess I'll just have to hang on to you."

It was the storm she wanted. With her latched onto him, Bane picked her up, placed the both of them right under the rushing spray of the shower. There was nothing else in a storm, he mused, feeling her legs spread around him and her sultry sighs from the blast of water. A storm consumed everything, leaving nothing but the wrath. It consumed them now, the bodies merged together with only the dripping hot water on their reddening skin. And when Bane finally entered her, he felt the effects of her pulling him down. The mermaid would give him pleasure, would sing to him until sound was only made up of her melody. In the calm of the ocean, the raging storm, he saw her smile, felt the grip of her nails in his back. He groaned as he rolled up into her body, feeling like he could die from suffocation, but also from indulgence. When he pressed her, quite securely, right against the wall under the harsh spray, she told him it felt good. Submitted to him, because only he could satisfy her tastes. His mind was lost, lost in the storm, bringing her with him because this time neither of them would come out of it alone. She gripped him, more at home in the water, in the heat. Bane panted against her as he pumped, one arm under her bottom, the other coming up against the slick wall of the shower to keep him steady. She told him she wanted more, he fought to give it to her.

And here, in the middle of the rain, was where he wanted to stay always.

Bane had finished washing himself before Dominique had joined him in the shower and right after he came – not inside her since she'd neglected to bring protection for him – she'd pushed him out so she could clean herself as well. Leaving her to it, he dried himself and pulled on pants before exiting the bathroom. Morning sex was a simple pleasure, and one he wanted to enjoy more often. He mulled distantly on the matter, then thoughts of sex scurried away.

Emmeline was sitting up in bed now, rubbing at her sleepy eyes with one tuft of brown hair sticking out behind her head. He watched her for a moment before she would become aware of him. His daughter, even at only four years old, seemed to prefer to be more conservative than outrageous like her mother. Emmeline tried to pat down that tuft of hair, tried to fix her slightly askew nightgown that had bunched up to her pale little belly. One long sleeve had ended up at her elbow, and she righted that too by pulling it back to her wrist.

She had never spent the night with him before. Dominique wasn't able to be without her for very long, especially when Emmeline had been a baby. But here his child was now, waking in his bed as her mother washed in his shower. It could've reminded him of his time in prison, when Talia had shared his bed because there had been only one and she'd needed the warmth of him at night. But this wasn't like those difficult times.

This was better. This was their life, with a child.

Emmeline finally spotted him, those still sleepy and slightly puffy eyes brightening. "Good morning, Daddy," she said happily, her little voice squeaky and chipper. She always enjoyed the early hours of the day. "You have the most lovely bed. Thank you for letting Mama and I sleep here with you."

Bane had taught her to be respectful and obedient, but this politeness was something she seemed to be born with. As future leader, he didn't know if it was a good trait to have, but changing her was out of the question. He quickly sent those thoughts far, far away from him. Instead, he approached his baby so that he could give her attention, and also receive some from her in return.

Her eyes, hazel now, scanned the room, and Bane could see her little mind working swiftly as he sat on the bed next to her. He knew it was coming, the questions of what exactly had happened the night before. This wasn't normal to Emmeline. This, in all honestly, was not how things transpired in her home.

He regretted the fact that what should have been normal to her, this new way of her parents, was actually quite strange.

"I know things are not as they were," he said to her, stopping her wondering because he wanted to be there to explain rather than have her worry without any explanation at all. "I know, Emmeline, that this is all very new to you. Correct?"

Her trusting eyes were all for him now. She nodded.

"Is there something you would like to ask me?"

He hated that she was so confused. First he'd told her that he and Dominique were not like the parents in her storybooks, an image she thought most unusual to begin with. Now… There were so many mistakes made. He hoped to fix them so that she would no longer obsess over it, hoped that her questions would help with her confusion. Bane had always been the one she confided in, so it was his job to assist her through it. It wasn't that she didn't trust Dominique or felt uneasy around her. She felt neither of those things with her mother. But there were just some things she needed only from him. He'd always tried his best to give them to her.

"Did Mama give you permission to touch her private areas?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

Dominique was Emmeline's best girl. Of course she needed to make sure that her mother knew the same rules about private areas that Bane had taught her. He rejoiced that she knew that permission for such activities was above all else. "She did," he answered. "Your mother is very safe with me. You and I assume shifts when it comes to looking out for her, yes?"

She nodded again, feeling proud for having such an important job with her father. Leaning in closer, she whispered to him as if to tell him a secret. "Do you think she's pretty?"

Bane pictured Dominique in the shower, in the rain storm. "She is very beautiful," he confirmed slowly.

Emmeline approved. "Good. I think so, too. Will she spend the night with you for many nights?"

He couldn't tell her what the future would hold because he didn't know it himself. Everything would be different for Emmeline now that her parents were having an affair. He didn't want her to dislike the change. "I don't know," he told her, giving her the only truth he knew of. "I'm sure that this new situation can seem very confusing, especially when it comes to such difficulties like waking up alone and finding your mother with me. But please know that we have not forgotten about you. No matter what happens, we will both be here to take care of you."

"I trust you, Daddy." Emmeline scooted over to him, took the straps of the mask over his cheeks into her small hands. Her face held adoration, something he longed to see on her every day of her life. Not the face of Talia, he thought. His little one would not grow to hate him. "May I ask you something more?"

He leaned into her hands. There was never any pain when around his child. "Of course."

"Do you think Mama is in the love with you? Is that why she was in here the last night?"

Something zipped through him then, as if someone had popped off a few rounds right into his ribs. The subject was growing too complex for both of them. He would just have to wait until she was older, until he knew a good answer himself. To cover it, he smiled softly. "In the love," he muttered, repeating words of a four year old. So innocent. "I don't know. That is for her to tell me if she feels it."

Her eyes went a little dream-like, that special glint they took when she was reading her storybooks. Her lips, plump and pink, smiled. "When I am grown, will I get to sleep in the bed with my man, too?"

Now there was pain. He would never stop Emmeline from falling in love and he would also never let her know that the very idea felt like the blade of an axe in his gut. He would not give her the same problems Dominique's father had given her as a child when it came to connecting. But… the very thought still felt like a nightmare to him. "Only when you are grown, Emmeline," he told her, nodding and trying not to keep her from becoming the woman she would become even though he wished he could stall it forever. "Only when that man is someone who will take care of you in the exact way that I do. Anything less is unacceptable."

It was like, on some strange plane of existence, that Emmeline knew her father was saddened by the thought. With gentle care, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close to her tiny body. "When that day comes, Daddy, I will still live here. I will never, ever leave you."

And because she couldn't see his face, Bane frowned, placed his hands on her back to hold her in return. She didn't know better, he thought, trying not to picture her as a woman in love with a man who was not him. She didn't know that she was wrong. One day, she would leave.

Right now, he refused to believe it himself.

The flow of the calm morning quickly changed. The sector of the south the League had been monitoring was now apparently causing chaos in Bane's own country. There was even talk around the rest of Asia of war, and the Demon Head would not stand for such idiocy. It was his purpose, Bane remembered, dressing for battle and authority in his armor and braces. His purpose was to keep balance, to destroy and restore it if necessary. And right now, that balance was being threatened by a group who thought to bypass the League and all it stood for, thinking themselves above the law the Fang had set into place. Bane wouldn't allow it.

This country was his, the place where his child lived. If there was one location in the world Bane would keep secured, it was right here where Emmeline slept.

Barsad mentioned to him that it would be wise to take their best men and allow the initiates to keep watch over the mansion in their absence, as was protocol in more worrisome circumstances. His right hand didn't think it necessary for Bane to prepare for death – the League was always confident – but they were also a precautious bunch. If battle were to be waged, Bane would lead it efficiently to victory while also being guarded at all times for safety by the men and women who served him.

It was time for the Demon Head to take care of the business, as his daughter would say.

The League was rustling about the mansion to prepare for travel. Weapons, clothing, and food and drink were to be packed in case the trip and problems associated with it would take a few days or weeks, as the last time had. His soldiers readied themselves, filed into the various vehicles that would be taken down the mountain. Barsad gave orders in three different languages, Bane delegating the task to him so that he wouldn't have to trouble himself with it. It was one of the many perks to being the head of the army. He would be departing soon, as he was the last to exit the mansion after everything else was taken care of. The heavy snow fall from the night before would cause them no problems.

Bane pulled on his long brown coat, was informed that the League was ready when he was. Not caring if they would have to wait, Bane scanned the room until he found the body he'd been looking for.

Little Emmeline stood at the side of the grand foyer, remaining quiet as she watched her daddy's men pack up and head out, her hands folded neatly in front of her. Nothing about the business, that she could see, had ever bothered her. Perhaps she was just too young to fully grasp the work that would one day be hers. But this part, this leaving part, was one she did not enjoy. Bane noticed the hurt in her eyes, the hurt she always tried to hide because she was constantly trying to prove that she was a big girl. She would let him go, he knew, having never caused a fuss about it. And she would be happier to see him when he returned after the work was completed. Her dress, emerald green today, fit her snugly and kept her warm. Bane's heavy boots made their way over to her.

"Your patience is astounding, my love," he said, kneeling down to be eye level with her. Through all the hustle and bustle of departure, his daughter had waited quietly until her daddy was ready to focus on her before he would leave. "You know I hate to leave you, Emmeline."

"I know, Daddy."

She knew. She always knew. And she was trying her very best to be responsible about it. She was a big girl, after all.

Bane tilted his head as he studied her. She masked her feelings well, but he could most definitely tell that she was trying her hardest not to cry. "As usual I leave you in charge. It is your duty as the heir to keep my home safe and sound. That includes your mother."

Emmeline perked up slightly. Giving her important tasks such as those was always the best way to please her. "Mama never gets in trouble on my watch."

Bane smiled at her. "That's right." His eyes lifted at movement approaching them. Dominique, dressed warmly in long sleeves and comfy cotton pants with a pair of worn out boots, came to stand behind their daughter as the two said their goodbye's. If they'd been alone he would caress Dominique somewhere, in a place that would make her count the hours until he returned so that he would always be on her mind. That wasn't the way of things right now between them, so Bane would have to suffice with simple eye contact.

She gave him her playful grin.

His attention returned to Emmeline and the frown she was trying to keep from deepening. He took her little waist, pulled her close to nuzzle her. "I would like a kiss from my girl."

Such affections always cheered her up. Emmeline held him tenderly as she softly pecked the tubes of his mask. "You will be safe," she told him sternly, a motherly trait in her that only seemed to come out for him. "I won't like it if you get hurt."

He ran his hands down her hair. "Do as I tell you, azizah," he told her, giving her a knowing look since her mother was standing right there. Bane swiped his thumbs over her cheeks then stood, his eyes back on the woman now.

Dom pulled Emmeline against her because it was getting difficult not to reach out and touch him. "Let's not come back with more scars, okay?"

"I never worry for myself when I must leave. You are the one who would get into mischief."

She scoffed, glanced down at her kid. "With this one around? I don't think so. Hey, thanks for leaving me with a little pint-sized babysitter every time you have to go do business."

Barsad called out to him but Bane didn't seem to acknowledge it. He waited a few moments more, only staring at them. These two girls. The females who'd slept beside him last night. For them, he would keep their land safe.

And use the League of Shadows to do so.

With one last glance at his daughter, Bane said something to her in Arabic Dom couldn't understand. Before the moment could be prolonged and she would become more upset by his leaving her, he turned and headed for his right hand so that they could begin their descent down the mountain. Emmeline would need extra attention from her mother until after the first few hours that her daddy was gone. She wouldn't mind the effort.

"What did he say to you?" Dom asked, running her fingers through Emmeline's hair.

The heir smiled dreamily, and already began counting down the hours until he would come back. "He said he loves me," she answered.

Dom sighed. Just as her daughter, she, too, wished for him to come right back. Safe and sound. Just as she'd always done without him knowing.

In the back of the room, hidden in the corner, Erin watched Bane leave. Had watched as he'd said goodbye to the heir and that whore of a woman without even giving her the slightest of glances. She was losing him, she thought, panic scurrying some up her chest. He was drifting away, right to them. She would lose him and he would kick her out of his home.

Unacceptable.

"Mama, when I become the Demon Head, will I have to go fight people like Daddy does?"

Dom pondered the question hours later as the crayon in her hand stopped coloring the picture on the page. Both Dom and Emmeline were sitting at her short table, coloring away because her daughter had asked her to. This was the time when she was able to think, when those questions popped in her head like fireworks. Usually, she went to Bane with the hard questions. Dom was almost happy to pass the job off to him since he always knew how to answer her. But it seemed to be her turn now.

League business, Dom thought. How was she supposed to discuss League business with her kid? She scolded Bane for leaving her to this.

"Not sure," she began, knowing hardly anything when it came to such matters. But she had to try. "I mean, maybe things will change by then. Daddy goes off to make sure the world is okay… I guess."

"But he kills people, doesn't he? I heard talk of it one day."

Dom had only ever seen Bane kill once, which could have been unusual considering she'd known him for a number of years now and knew what he was capable of. The first night she'd met him, the night she'd saved him. As she called out to him, making him aware of the surprise attack by the police of Gotham, Dom had seen him tear the cops apart, destroying them as they'd meant to destroy him. They tried to hurt her in return for squealing, but Dom had been spared and Bane had taken her to his home to tend to her battle wounds. She still had the little scar on her shoulder from the pressure of a blade. Other than that one night, Dom had remained distant from Bane's murderous hands.

Although she had seen him beat a man to a bloody pulp. Nasty, but he hadn't killed the guy.

She shrugged at the memory.

"I think that if you hear talk of Daddy hurting anyone, it's because he wants to keep you safe. Sometimes there are bad people." Like cops, she thought. Or crazy dates who wanted to harm a pregnant woman. "Sometimes, Daddy has to do away with them so that no one will hurt you. He would do anything to keep you safe."

Emmeline kept her eyes on her coloring. She had no qualms about giving a man on the page blue hair. "Have you known any bad people?"

This little girl would be the Demon Head one day, and she'd never known anyone truly evil to her. Dom wondered how that would work out. She also hoped to God her baby would stay that way. "Some. I've mastered not letting them bother me. Nothing really bothers me all too much."

"Daddy says you are a flighty woman."

Dom smirked some. She remembered those days, when absolutely nothing mattered except for her desires and the fun she would have. She could stay out all night dancing if she felt like it, avoid a few fights along the way because fighting was pointless to her, then stuff her face at the pizza joint before closing even though something would call for her to get up early the next morning. There were hardly any responsibilities other than paying her bills and showing up for work at the club. Everything else seemed to be a white noise, even men and those who would be genuinely interested in her. No time for that, she would say, brushing them off while heading for the next adventure. No ties, no worries, no love to consume herself with. Now she had a daughter with a man she hated being in love with but somehow couldn't truly separate from. How the tables had turned.

But Dom knew she would choose Emmeline a thousand times. If she could go back, she would enjoy her pregnancy. She would let her little baby know constantly how anxious she was to see her. How much she loved her and wanted her.

How she wasn't bought and paid for.

Dom knew she couldn't bear it if Emmeline ever found out the truth of her existence.

Something rumbled under her feet, and it drew her out of her thoughts. She'd never felt something like that before, even during intense training of the League. She felt it again, then another time, drawing her brows together and wondering what on earth was going on. Were the initiates having a party now that Bane was gone? Nothing could be farther from the truth, but the sound still was not explained. Outside the window, Dom caught a quick glance at something flashing through the sky above, sparkling bright before popping off into nothing. The strange happenings had her standing slowly, a pressure in her chest that only came out before a threat to her child. A strange sense of powerful protection that only a mother could feel.

She felt the banging again under her feet. This time, she jumped from the intensity.

Such intensity, because she swore it was getting closer.

And then she heard the gunfire.

Dom had never been one to think on her feet in the past, but becoming a mother seemed to change a lot in a woman. She could be one way and then become the complete opposite if certain traits were called for as soon as that baby was placed in her arms. She'd never been a fast thinker or made to act quickly. But as soon as she heard the first bullet rip through wood, Dom snatched her daughter almost out of thin air to protect her.

Emmeline gasped sharply, clung to her mother and instantly became frightened as the screaming began, coming from somewhere in the mansion, loud and shrieking before it was silenced for good. Her limbs wrapped around Dom like a koala because her mother forced her to do so, pressing her face into her shoulder to shield her from whatever was happening outside. Grabbing a blanket, she wrapped into around Emmeline to keep her concealed in case whoever had broken into the mansion would shoot at the sight of a child. League enemies were not ones to be gentle with mothers and their children.

They could be even more brutal.

She had to get them out of Emmeline's recreational room and to the safest one she knew. Bane's wing of the mansion held everything she would need to protect her child until some other help arrived, but going by the sounds of war and the lack of their best men, Dom didn't know if that help would be coming. At least she could barricade them in until… something. Looking at the door, she knew it could be life or death for Emmeline, but here in this room, they were not as safe. Mothering meant taking chances in a world of unknowns.

Dom had to do whatever it took to protect her child, even finding courage where she didn't think it existed.

She ran to the door… and was met with chaos.

Everywhere was the sound of guns, of screaming men and women from both sides, one the League of Shadows and the other a mysterious enemy. Dom didn't care who was who, could barely even make the distinction as she ran through it, praying and praying and praying that no one would notice a lone woman with a concealed child in her arms. She could feel bad that she didn't care about the people dropping dead around her later. Right now, she could only hear the quiet sound of Emmeline whimpering underneath the blanket.

If there was one thing she hated about being in Bane's life, it was these times when others would want desperately to ambush and kill him.

Walls were broken, explosions were heard, and men yelled as they were beaten or stabbed. She heard a mixture of languages as she ran down the halls, desperate for Bane's wing, but one she heard most that would intrigue her later was the language of plain English. The accent, at times, was vaguely familiar, straight from the big city. It was all just a blur in her head, one big blur that clenched her chest and had her feet moving swiftly through the war. The floor quaked under her again, indicating something large and loud, and had Dom tumbling slightly to her knees. Emmeline gripped harder, started to tremble. The feeling forced her up back to her feet and gave her a giant boost of strength and more bravery. Finally, after what seemed like hours of running, she made it to Bane's room, found it empty from being the most secluded in the mansion. With her daughter still in her arms, Dom managed to somehow slam and barricade the door, locking it so securely with the hope that it would become invisible to the enemy.

Whoever they were.

Dom scurried through Bane's room, jumping down the few stairs leading to the different platforms because the time it would take to step down each one was time wasted. She ran to his bed on the other side of the large space, to a dark and unnoticed corner near it. Dropping to her knees, she tried to pull Emmeline away from her chest. It took her a few tries with a lot of soft and assuring words to get her to let go.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Dom asked desperately, searching her kid for injuries she knew she didn't have.

Emmeline's jaw was quivering, her little hands clenching somewhere on her mother so she wouldn't move away from her reach. "I'm scared. I'm scared."

Dom's heart broke into a million pieces. "I know, and I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on but we need to be quiet, okay? Just stay right here." She had to do something to help them. She went to stand. Emmeline didn't like it.

"Mama, don't leave me!"

How could she do this? How could she do what she needed to do with her baby this way? It took everything in her to keep calm. "I have to find some way to call Daddy and tell him to come. I don't know who these bad people are, but he will and he'll come get us. I'm right here." She wouldn't let her go, and with every second Emmeline thought Dom would leave, her small body shook even more. Dom didn't think she could handle the sight. She fought not to burst into tears. "Emmeline, look at me. Look at me right now." When her daughter did, when those big teary and frightened eyes met hers, Dom hated this life for her. She hated it more than anything. "I promise I won't leave you. But I have to call Daddy. He'll save you. I'm not going anywhere, do you understand? I won't let anything bad happen to you."

It took a minute for Emmeline to agree. Fear had taken over and she could barely understand it, but she did hear her mother's voice. She heard it, trusted it. Finally she nodded, her breath shaky and the tears falling down her cheeks.

To comfort her, Dom kissed those wet cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her lips. Everywhere.

"Stay right here. Don't move."

And then Dom faced the adversary of all the equipment in Bane's room that she didn't know how to use.

She ran to everything, pressed everything, almost tore her hair out as the explosions continued, as the bullets ripped their home to shreds. A body fell from higher up the mansion right outside the windows of Bane's room, screaming all the way down until that body would die on the snow. Nothing seemed to be working, nothing at all. Dom took a phone, pressed a number she knew belonged to Bane only to realize it possibly wasn't a phone at all when it just beeped and fizzled. She went to the monitors, accidentally activated the cameras. She growled in frightened frustration, looked behind her every single second to make sure Emmeline was okay. Her baby was still only hiding in the corner, cowering under the blanket and shaking like a leaf, living something she should never have to endure and giving a little shriek every time a loud sound seemed a little louder than before. Dom cursed herself and Bane for bringing her into this disaster. She could barely even keep her safe. Escaping from the mansion wasn't an option, she knew, casting a quick glance at the snow under the gray sky. There was no way she could survive out there with a four year old, not even long enough to be found. The dips and canyons of the mountains were dangerous, and Dom would never risk tumbling off an unseen cliff with Emmeline in her arms. They had no supplies and she had no sense of direction. She would kill them both with her lack of skills in the cold.

Maybe she really was a terrible mother after all. Maybe she really didn't have what it took to care for another life.

She could only go back to trying to make something work.

"I don't know how to use any of this crap," she hissed through clenched teeth, making sure her daughter couldn't hear and not instill more worry.

And when she heard the loud bang right on the locked door, Dom knew her time to try was up.

The wood was forcefully ripped open, and in came strange men like a swarm of killer bees.

They smiled at the sight of her. Dom then knew they found what they were looking for.

She bolted right for Emmeline but wasn't fast enough. A pair of arms grabbed her, yanked her tightly against them to confine her. She heard a child's scream, then watched as her frightened little daughter ran on her feet straight for her, shrieking and crying and trying to get to her mother with out-stretched arms so they wouldn't take her away and leave her all alone. Dom wished she'd have stayed hidden. Wished she could go back in time and tell her to do just that, even if it meant the worst. But her baby was still only a baby, and could only be consumed with making sure her mother didn't leave.

Emmeline didn't realize what was happening. She only wanted Dom, but before she could get to her she was snatched up, kicking and screaming while in the arms of a man she didn't know, a man who demanded she shut up. Dom tried to flee to her automatically, but the stranger holding her locked her arms behind her back painfully.

"Emmeline!" she yelled, trying to get her now hysterical daughter to see her.

The screams of a four year old shook the mansion.

"Don't make a fuss and she won't get hurt," the man said behind her in warning, pushing her forward to walk behind the other who was carting away her child. "We're just the transportation."

Dom was too busy trying to keep her eyes on Emmeline that she didn't even care about the man's disgusting hand trailing down her side over her curves, as if he were testing the feel of her body. All she knew was that to protect her child, she had to go willingly.

Out in the hall, as Emmeline cried loudly, Dom noticed another body held captive. She looked over and saw Erin on her knees, another man holding her down with force. Tears were running down her face, her kitten eyes teary and heartbreaking. Her brown dress was even ripped some. Dom caught her eye to keep from becoming as hysterical as her daughter.

"Don't hurt them," Erin shouted, crying openly, her eyes pleading to Dom that she would hate it if anything bad happened to them. Even after everything, she didn't want this. "Don't hurt them. Don't harm the child."

Dom couldn't watch her anymore. She knew she could put up more of a fight, but Emmeline was more important. She had to do anything, everything, to keep her alive.

Anything at all.

Her hands were tied around her back and a cloth was wrapped around her mouth. Dom knew it wasn't because she'd been yelling, but because, as they were taken away, she kept trying to keep her daughter calm, saying whatever she could and just talking, only talking so that Emmeline could hear her voice. The men grew annoyed with it and silenced her.

Dom found it hard to remain so calm and quiet as soon as they separated her from her daughter.

"She's in another car," the same man told her, pushing her into a truck without any care. "Just be a good girl and the little brat won't get a scratch. I can't promise not to scratch her if you decide to become irritating. So just think about that during the ride." He was nothing special of a man. His body and face were mostly covered in jackets and scarfs and mittens for warmth from the cold of the mountains. He was nameless and meaningless to her. "I don't think you would like that too much, would you, pretty lady? I think you'll be so good so you don't have to watch me wrap my hand around your girl's throat, yeah?"

So Dom kept her eyes on the car outside the truck window she thought Emmeline might be in. It was the only thing that got her through the ride that would last hours.

She didn't know where they were going. She'd lived in this country for four years and still felt like she was in a foreign land, a horrible place now where strangers broke into homes and snatched little girls right from their beds and brought them to only God knew where. Hell, it seemed more like, because Dom sat silent and so very willing so that she wouldn't have to watch some man strangle her child. After the long ride, after it seemed like they would be driving in some forgotten desert for the rest of their lives, Dom finally saw a lone building looming in the distance. It looked to be about three or four stories, a giant warehouse of a structure meant for factory purposes or big vehicle storage. Dom didn't care what it was. Her shiny and weary eyes went right back to the car her kid could be in as it drove through the metal garage doors. They came to a stop inside, everything dark and full of more nameless men, beetles it seemed like to her. Beetles with disgruntled and very American expressions on their faces. Not like the League, where it was a mixture of nationalities. Almost panicky to see even one inch of her daughter alive, Dom sat up forward, her eyes glued to the car.

She was yanked out instead. No sign of her baby. One long, wet sob escaped her throat as she was dragged away from sight of the car.

"Come on, you," the same man said, hauling her next to him like she were a disobedient child he was having to send to bed. He completely ignored her as that one sob turned into two, then three.

Dom still went with him and made those choking sobs she couldn't keep in the whole way. To an elevator and up, up, up, until her throat hurt from them. Finally they came to a room on the top level, and large open space with nothing but a few desks and computers on them, one bed and one suitcase off in a corner. A line of windows stretched across one wall, short windows only allowing a limited glimpse of the outside. Maybe she would willingly accept this as her prison forever if she could bargain for Emmeline's release. The man shoved her near the desks, ripped off the cloth concealing her mouth that yanked some of her auburn hair out of her scalp. She could barely feel it.

"Where's my daughter?" she asked instantly, her angry blue eyes demanding an answer, her voice shaky.

"Quiet."

"Just tell me she's okay. I tolerated your suck-ass hospitality the whole way here, and it's an easy question. It's all I want to know, you bastards!"

"Hey," he growled, pointing one mitten-covered finger at her. "Don't you listen to what people say to you? Keep your mouth shut and your feet still or I'll cut one of your kid's fingers off and give it to you as a remembrance."

Dom hardly ever listened to anyone, had always had problems with authority. But with this one, she instantly shut her mouth and remained perfectly still.

"Good," the man nodded, turning on his heel and heading for the door he'd shoved her through. "Don't get mad at me, lady, I'm not the one in charge here. Save all the hysterical mother bullshit for the boss. Can't stand women…" he mumbled, then pulled the door closed, the sound echoing in the almost empty room.

Dom covered her face with her hands when she was alone, her breath ceasing as everything boiled up inside her. It was quiet in the room, so quiet and that silence was bearing down on her, like walls closing in and ready to squish her. Her hands started to shake with her shoulders, her stomach knotting and feeling like something would burst through. Until finally her breath whooshed out, and those hard, chest-wreaking sobs from before intensified.

"Baby," she cried into her hands, her body giving out and dropping to her knees. She let out a shaky, frustrated scream before the weeping resumed. Uncontrollable and childlike, a tear-scream. Enraged and helpless. "I want my baby…"

Dom had never been separated from her daughter if it didn't involve her lessons or her time spent with Bane. And even that time, especially when she'd been a baby, had been so hard. With the both of them kidnapped now and kept apart, it literally felt like death. How could she go on without Emmeline? How could she even resume living without her if she could somehow convince her captors to let her daughter go free with Dom taking her place? It was something she would have to do, if it were possible, she told herself. If there was a way she could get Emmeline out while remaining in as sacrifice, she knew she could do it in the blink of an eye. Bane would take care of their child and Dom could trust him with the job. Those two were meant for each other, and would have no problem adjusting without her if worse came to worst. She could get her baby out, she knew, wiping her eyes and trying to get some restraint on herself. Even if it meant stalling until Bane came to rescue Emmeline.

He had to come for Emmeline. It was the only happiness she could picture.

And her two people, the people she loved so much, would be safe.

"Please be okay," she whispered, standing back onto her feet and hoping with all hope that her daughter could somehow hear her. "I love you. I love you, my baby girl."

"Talking to yourself now? Must mean you've gone crazy."

A voice came from the door, a booming, friendly voice she knew. Dom shivered at the sound, swallowed and tried to remain calm. It felt like the past, like she'd been catapulted right back in time to one so confusing, so secretive, and so touch and go. It almost didn't seem real, like she'd dreamed it from her crying and had lost it for a moment or two. But then she heard the voice behind her again, and knew it was no dream. It was worse than a nightmare.

She could even hear the grin on that face.

"Thought I forgot about you, huh? No," the voice murmured with a shake of the head, footsteps coming closer and walking casually. "How can a guy forget about you? Ms. Eve of Gotham City. Still stunning, I see, even after a kid and four years later."

Dom stood slowly, took a deep breath and tried to fall into the woman she used to be, the free spirit who could live life carelessly. In that headspace she could be strong, could find the will to survive long enough to get her daughter out and back to Bane. Somehow, someway, whatever her captor wanted could be used against him for her benefit. She'd known how to play the game, knew how to be street smart. She'd lost a little of her ability because her hardened heart had been softened at the sight of the baby she'd given birth to, but for that baby, she could regain it. Anything for the baby. The heir. Her eyes were puffy and red but she turned them to ones of confidence and that sweet manipulation she used to give all men who would come to see her. Dom held her head up high, put her shoulders back. She turned and lifted a brow, the beast deep inside her growling protectively for the child she'd been separated from. She glared at her captor.

"Alice," she muttered meanly.

Cain Alistair grinned. Former lieutenant Cain Alistair of the Gotham City Police Department. The man in charge. The man who'd taken Emmeline.

"You two just tried to keep your silly little secrets from me, didn't you? Well, doll, now I have you." He approached closer, eyed her up and down as she remained still. He relished in the helpless look of her. The woman who'd tricked him. "Now I have Bane's daughter."

Cain Alistair was still a very handsome man. Even after being released from the force from his breakdown at the failure of his attempt at capturing the terrorist Bane, even after all these years of completely forgetting about him because he seemed to vanish from the face of the earth, he still had not lost his seemingly friendly, dashing nice guy face. His form was still tall and lanky, his hair still blonde and long, pulled back into a low ponytail. The only thing that was different on him since she'd been pregnant was the flesh colored scar across his jaw. She'd once heard talk that the scar had come from Barsad. The right hand to the Demon Head had tried his hardest to protect his leader while Bane had been out from a poisoning, and had gone hand to hand with the once decorated officer of the law. Before that officer had let his failure define him, causing his release and the taking of his badge. Before he'd become forgotten like a dead body buried deep in the ground.

Now he was back and knew about Emmeline, even though Dom had tried so hard to keep her from him. Now, he was enacting some kind of sick revenge on the man he'd never been able to replace. Alistair always had something for Bane, a kind of envy that had driven him.

Apparently it had never stopped.

In casual clothes that still seemed like a cop's attire, Cain slid his hands into his pockets, keeping his icicle blue eyes on Dom. "Boy, motherhood really took the fight outta you, didn't it. I thought my guy who transported you here would have at least a few scratches on him. Guess not."

"I want my daughter."

Cain chuckled some, shaking his head like she were incompetent. "Calm down, Ms. Cross. I'm not gonna hurt the kid. I just want to talk to her mommy."

"This isn't an interrogation," she snipped, her heart pounding and crying, sobbing for the immense need to see her baby. Just one little glimpse. "You're not a cop anymore. Stop acting like one."

"No, I'm not a cop," he muttered, strolling around her like he was on a lovely walk in the park with all the time in the world. "It's your fault I don't have my badge. I don't know how you creep's did it, but everything I worked so hard for went to hell in a fucking hand basket. One minute Bane is there, right there and so doped up on poison that I could've carried him out by myself and he wouldn't bat an eyelash. I had the place surrounded and a lot of those League assholes dead on the floor or being carted off in a cruiser. Next thing I know, there's no sign of Bane and the guy I went a few rounds with who cut me. I have some mercenary jerks locked up, but nobody important. I don't even have one shred of stinking evidence against you. I knew you two were involved, but you know how it is. Nothing sticks if you can't prove it. And so, after everything, after slaving over that case night and day all on my own, I guess I might've had a little anger episode that got me kicked out of the force with nothing to show for it. Not even Bane's dead body, which would've been enough satisfaction for me. And then there was you." He said that last word darkly, the smug grin falling and being replaced with something a little more evil and bitter. Dom held her ground against it. "No one believed me. I told them you were his little fuck buddy, that you were in it with the terrorists who'd just enslaved us a year beforehand. But no one listened because the evidence wasn't there. All they saw was this manipulative bitch of a pregnant woman and you have the government eating out of your palm. Well you know what I did after they took away my badge? You know what I was doing while you were pushing out that little bastard no one even cared to test who the father was in the middle of an investigation?"

Cain leaned in close to her, gave her those dagger eyes and wished he could snap her neck. Wished he possessed such a skill like Bane so he could do it right then and there. But he couldn't, he told himself. He couldn't because he needed her. Dom didn't seem to care about the closeness, but he could sense her growling beast as he mentioned her child unkindly. He found it attractive.

"I was finding out the truth. And during my search I found that the department was holding a certain suspect in custody. A young man who would tell me everything I wanted to know. Some guy named Elijah, who used to be a member of the League, and ended up squealing on all of you like a little pig after I broke him out of jail. I gathered my own group of able-bodied men who thought the dismissal of the case was unjustified, and that I had been wrongly punished. My own band of mercenaries, who helped aide in all of this so that I could snatch you and the girl. Elijah told me everything before I put a bullet between his eyes. He told me about you and your deal with Bane. He told me that you two were sick partners in crime. And he told me you'd been pregnant the whole time, that even right in that moment you were probably getting thrown up on by Bane's kid." He let the knowledge sink into her, hoped with misplaced smugness that it caused her pain. The years of planning would be worth it.

Dom wavered just a bit at the mention of Emmeline in such a way. Erin's brother had told this monster everything. This monster who wanted to either destroy or keep everything that had ever been Bane's for some twisted reasons. Her hands clenched into fists so they wouldn't tremble.

"This isn't about revenge, Ms. Cross," Cain said sternly, crossing his arms like a king. "This is about getting what I want. Finally. This is about kicking Bane out of the number one spot as alpha male, and taking it for myself. Can't do that the way things are now. Some things, unfortunately, have to change. I'm here to change them."

He was insane, she thought, holding her own glare, feeling the need to rip his eyeballs out and force him to tell her where Emmeline was. She didn't care about his army outside, didn't care about whatever he would threaten her with when it came to her own welfare. All she needed was safety for her daughter. All she needed was to rile him up so that he would make another mistake and crack.

"And just what are you gonna do, Cain? What's the big plan this time? Did you find some way to trade bodies? You can't switch lives, you dumb son of a bitch. You are never going to be Bane."

"I don't need to be him. I only need to step up, and right now, I'm behind. You see, he's got this one thing that I don't have. I have the army and I have the firepower and I have the authority. I don't need to take those things from him because they're already mine. But do you know what he does have on me? You know what makes him better? He has immortality, Ms. Cross. And can you guess who it was who gave him that gift?"

It didn't seem right anymore, this bickering contest between them. Everything was so wrong because she knew what he was talking about. The reason why she was here now was the exact same reason why Bane was a part of her life now. Bane had needed her for a task, had chosen her. And what was good for Bane was just as good for Alistair. In fact, Cain would make it more so, so that he could take Bane's place and erase him from existence. All color drained from her as the answer came, her golden face going pale and her throat trying desperately not to sob again. Bane had once chosen her. Cain Alistair, now, was choosing her, too.

He wanted to make a deal.

The moment she realized his intensions, Cain smiled, approved of her the way Bane had once approved of her, like wine he would sample shortly. She was worthy because she had been worthy to the Demon Head. It was just another thing he would take.

"That's right, Dom," Cain said happily, his eyes travelling down her body and admiring every single inch. "You gave Bane a healthy daughter. Now you'll give me an amazing son."

TBC

A/N: Oh my, I've kept you waiting, haven't I? Please accept my apologies. Christmas is very important to me, and then I had to attend a conference which took up more of my time. But now I've given you my attention and a cliffhanger! The wait will not be as long, I can assure you, but I do have a question for you all. The next thing I do is something you can decide. I can either get the next chapter of Sleeping Sun out, which will be the last big chapter before the epilogue, or I can work on the Bane/Camille one-shot and upload that before chapter 26. Whichever has the most votes will be the next upload, so don't forget to leave your choice in a review. Thank you so much for being patient, and I hope this chapter made up for it. Review, loves!