*****DISCLAIMER:...and if you were wondering....just one....and you still can't have her.

Chapter 5-The Coven of Forever

Wolverine grabbed a towel from the bathroom cabinet and laid it beside him. All of a sudden Anaka gasped for air.

"Hey, hey...shhh...it's okay." He said, trying to calm her. Anaka's sigh of relief told Logan she knew where she was.

"I'm cold," she said weakly.

"Yeah, I know, we had to ice you down. Now we need to get you into bed, but uh..." Logan looked at her wet clothes not knowing how to explain himself, "we need to get you out of those clothes."

Anaka waved it off, obviously picking warmth over shyness. Logan gently sat her up and removed the gown she was wearing, revealing her breast. Wolverine noticed her skin was almost blue from the ice and quickly picked her up from the water. She was shivering so violently, it was almost like convulsions. He wrapped the towel around her as he spoke,

"Can you stand?" He asked gently. She nodded.

"I think so."

"Okay, uh, just hold onto my shoulders," Wolverine said as he removed her panties. He was immediately turned on, but strangely comfortable, and as he stood back up he noticed a slight grin on her face.

"What?" He asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Nothing," she said, "nothing."

With that Logan picked up her, still shivering, body and started for the bed. He was trying extremely hard to ignore the fact that all that stood between her naked body and him was a towel. Shaking off his thoughts he placed her on the bed. Anaka pulled the heavy comforter over her and discarded the towel from underneath.

Logan felt his groin jump as the towel hit the floor,

'Get it together man, the girl's hurt...enough with the thoughts.' He screamed in his head.

"So," Anaka's voice pulled Logan from his thoughts, "he didn't hurt anyone did he?"

"Uh, no." Logan said pulling a chair closer to the bed and taking a seat. "Who was that?" He was finally able to ask. He wasn't sure if it was the right time, but he had to know.

"One of many." Anaka suddenly became serious and Logan began to question his timing, but she continued, "His name was Ornok and he and his family have been preying on my coven for centuries. Their terror is never ending and just when we think we have vanquished the last one...well, so far, as you can see...there hasn't been a 'last one.'"

Logan didn't know if he should ask any more questions, but he couldn't resist, "Why? I mean, why attack your coven?"

She looked at him with tears in her eyes, "because of me."

He could kick himself. He knew that it was the wrong time for this, but for some reason he had to know every inch of her life, what she could remember anyway. Logan decided, now, would be a good time to leave. He stood up but slowly sat back down as Anaka continued...

"When I was little, maybe three or four...I remember my Mother and Grandmother used to faun over me. If I would get the slightest scrape on my knee they would panic and come up with some spell to fix it. I never understood why. I just thought I was special. One day my grandmother and I were in the kitchen...we were making cookies for the neighborhood children...I was 16. We were having so much fun, not a care in the world. We tried to get my mother to come and bake with us but she decided to study our spell book instead. Something big was coming, I knew, because my mother never studied that book unless something was supposed to happen." Anaka was smiling as she spoke, clearly back in the kitchen with her grandmother...Logan sat strangely mesmerised by her story,

"We were on the last batch of cookies and I could hear the children laughing and screaming in play outside. It was a good moment. My grandmother pulled the tray that was in the oven out and immediately dropped it to the ground with a gasp. I panicked...she was an older woman and I thought maybe she was having a heart attack. I remember...she grabbed me by the shoulders and said 'hide. and whatever you do...don't come out until tomorrow. now go!' I never questioned her, but I was terrified.

I knew there was a hidden door in the closet in the living room that had a little hollow in it...so I headed straight for that. My hands were shaking as I was fumbled with the small latch on the door. I heard my grandmother scream for my mom and I knew...I knew it was REALLY bad. I finally got into the hideaway, just as I heard my mother's foot steps on the stairs. And then it happened.....it sounded like a tornado in my house. I heard my grandmother screaming her oldest spells and my mother yelling the ones she had been studying...I saw a light flash under the door and I never heard my grandmother or my mother's voice again." She stopped to wipe the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"Anaka, you don't have to..." Logan tried to stop her, but she continued, ignoring him.

"But, I heard his voice...this demon in my house....his voice was so....evil. I heard him commanding his minions, 'find the third heir' he said, 'and kill her.' and then he left. They ransacked my house, destroying it, but they never found me. I laid there silently crying all night until finally I fell asleep. When I woke up I quietly crept out of the hiding place and....oh, they destroyed everything... and when the morning came and I crawled cautiously out of the little hidden chamber I stepped on broken glass and broken furniture and made my way reluctantly to the kitchen....and then on the floor amidst the spilled cookies..." she began to sob, but Logan knew he couldn't stop her, "was my mother and grandmother, their eyes wide in terror, dead." Anaka closed her eyes, trying to regain her strength, and then she opened them and the anger that shone was immense, "I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I must have ran for an hour before I stopped, right in front of a wiccan book shop. I went in and asked the owner if she had a book about 'the third heir' not expecting her to have anything and then she handed me a dusty book and said 'I knew one day you would want to know who you were,' she was beaming from ear to ear like she had found the greatest treasure in all the land 'so I kept it hidden so no one would buy it. I never agreed with your grandmother or your mother for keeping it from you.' I thanked her and wiped the dust from a very old book called, 'The Coven of Forever' and when I looked through the old pages for the 'third heir,' to my suprise, there among the pages was a drawing...of me." She looked at Logan and by the sympathetic look on his face she thought it my be a good idea to stop.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..." she began, but Logan interrupted her.

"Where's the book?" Logan asked very seriously.

"What?" She said, confused.

"Where's the book? 'The Coven of Forever?'" he repeated.

Anaka looked down and the sad look on her face was very revealing, "I lost it. Well, not really...that's the bad part of living a life like this. I went to bed with the book in my safe in my house and when I woke it wasn't there. It was just gone. Like it never exsisted. I never even got to understand more than a quater of what my duties as 'the third heir' are."

"Why?" Logan was so intrigued he didn't want the conversation to stop.

"Well, the book was encrypted in an ancient language. I could only understand a little."

Logan shook his head and stood up, "well, I think you should get some rest." He started to walk away but Anaka grabbed his wrist.

"Logan, please don't go." she pleaded. He closed his eyes, he knew this was coming.

"Anaka..." he tried to warn.

"Logan, if you wouldn't have distracted Ornok which weakend his grip on me I would have never survived. It's because of you that I'm alive. Please, stay." Logan looked in her eyes and instantly knew it wasn't anything sexual, she was genuenly scared, so he huffed and sat back down in the chair.

"Alright, Anaka...just get some sleep, okay?" She smiled at his request and closed her eyes.

Logan knew it would be a long night.