ZEDD - TWO WEEKS LATER

I rub my tired eyes. I have been pouring over this stupid contract for a couple of days now. I'm about to give up and pass it on to Thomas or Goldar. I hate it when customers make changes to a contract! I practically have to go over it letter by letter to see how it can bite me in the ass. Granted, my reputation keeps it from happening too often, but sometimes customers think they can sneak in extra services or cut off a few days to save themselves some money. This one has been nagging at me, but I really don't know why.

"What's up, lover?" Thomas purrs in my ear as he slips his arms around me.

I wave my hand at the stack of papers on the desk. "Stupid contract."

"Hmm. Bet I can take your mind off of it for a while." He nibbles at my ear while his hands start to wander.

"I'll bet you can too, but I need to get this done, Thomas." My protest is stopped when he pulls my chair back, slides into my lap and kisses me firmly, hungrily.

"I want you, mate" he growls softly before latching onto my neck.

"Thomas" I groan. "I really-"

"The kids are at school and Dar and Pina aren't coming over until later." His tone is coaxing. "The contract will wait."

He leans in to kiss me again, but I hold him back. He's not usually this, well, pushy about mating unless we haven't in a while and then only so that he doesn't fall into a drive. "Love, what's going on with you?"

Thomas frowns at me, less than happy at my resistance. "What?"

"You don't usually act like this."

He pulls back further, offended. "Excuse me? Don't act like what? Like I want my husband?"

"No, not that. You usually aren't this, I don't know, needy. When you do act like this, it's mostly when we haven't mated in a while so that the drive doesn't kick in."

He pauses, considering what I said. Finally, he answers, "I don't know. I just really want you right now. I need you. This isn't like the drive. It's more like-" His eyes widen. "Like when I was carrying Jacob."

"Oh." The first few months he was practically insatiable. A couple of times I was hard pressed to keep up with him as it didn't really take much to get him wanting to mate. "But I thought that Pina said that she was running some tests first."

"That's what I thought." We frown at each other.

Hesitantly, I suggest, "Maybe we should call her and make sure?"

"She'll be here later" he points out. "Besides, it won't stop me from wanting you."

I can feel his desire rising once more. "But-"

Thomas' quiet question stops me in my tracks. "Zedd, don't you want me?"

"Always, love" I assure him.

"Then what would it hurt?" He kisses me again, lips soft and coaxing me to respond. I'm a little surprised that his hurt has disappeared so easily. He changes position, straddling my lap rather than sitting across it. I can't help but groan as his hands start to wander over me.

I've lost and I know it. I'm glad that I don't have to have this contract dealt with immediately. I growl playfully, "Thomas, you are interrupting my work."

"Mm hmm. And?" He nips at my ear, making me grit my teeth.

I know that he doesn't behave like this under normal circumstances, so I'm not actually angry or upset. "If you don't stop, there will be consequences."

In spite of my less than serious tone, he abruptly pulls back, studying me intently and with no small amount of worry in his eyes. My thumbs gently stroke his sides as I wait for him to realize that all is well. Finally, he smiles and says, "Maybe I'll just take my chances."

"And maybe I'll bend you over my desk and have you right here" I murmur.

"We'll be more comfortable in the bedroom" he purrs.

I tighten my hands on his waist, boost him onto the desk, stand up and start unfastening his pants. "Somehow, Thomas, I doubt you really want to wait."

He reaches for my pants and in no time we're both ready to go. Quickly, I flip him over, lightly pressing on the small of his back to hold him still. I rub up against him, teasing him for a minute. It's not long before he's panting and whimpering in anticipation. "Zedd!"

"Patience, love." Oh so slowly I slide into him, his whimpers changing into a hiss of satisfaction as I fill him. Abruptly I slam the last couple of inches into him.

"Oh god yes!" he yelps. "More please!"

I return to my slow pace for the withdrawal, jerking the last couple inches completely out of him. Thomas groans in frustration. However, I continue the pattern for a while in spite of that, teasing and tormenting him until I can tell he's ready to just turn and pounce on me. I start pounding him hard and fast, his moans now continuous and building. He was much closer than I thought, as he cries out his satisfaction out of the blue. It's not long before I thrust in deeply as I reach my own peak.

After we both recover a bit, Thomas says, "We could move to the bedroom."

I ease back, chuckling slightly as I do. "I think you might have a bit of a mess to clean up first, love." Before he can respond, the call alert goes off. "You take care of this and I'll get rid of whoever's calling."

I compose myself and answer the call. "Go ahead."

"Ah, Lord Zedd." Fuck - the client.

I put on a bored tone. "What do you want?"

"Have you accepted the contract yet?"

"I told you I'd call you once I'd decided, not that you were to call and harass me about it."

Thomas hears the slight edge in my voice and shoots me a questioning look. Done with the clean up, he slips his pants back on and grabs the papers from the edge of the desk. He settles on the floor, back against the desk drawers and reads it over quickly as the client continues. "And as I mentioned before, there is a time component that is crucial and unchangeable."

Thomas swiftly and silently crawls out of the room so as not to be seen by the camera. He must be going to check something out, so I keep the client busy as I wait for his return. It's nearly half an hour before he does, face pale but otherwise firmly in control of himself. "Lord Zedd."

"Yes, Thomas?"

He steps forward and then pauses, 'noticing' the client onscreen. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but-"

"It's all right, Thomas, particularly if that's the contract I asked you to research for me. This is the client in question."

"You wanted my opinion and here it is - decline the contract."

The client snorts in disbelief. "You'd let that human tell you what to do, Lord Zedd?"

In spite of my irritation, I answer calmly. "Thomas has been involved with my business for many years now and has contacts that I do not, which has been a great help. I trust him and if he says that I shouldn't take a contract, then there is a very good reason."

"So what you're saying is that you are afraid to make your own decisions" he sneers. "You'll be sorry if you don't take this job. And what does he have on you anyway to make you so obedient?"

Thomas snaps back, "And who's pulling your strings? Who is using you to lure him into a trap?"

The client pales himself. "W-what do you mean? No one! I just want the job done and Lord Zedd is known for his reliability."

Thomas crosses over and leans on the desk. "I'll tell you right now - if he decides to take this job in spite of my recommendation and gets captured or hurt, I will come for you on his behalf. And I won't be alone. Believe me when I say that Goldar and Scorpina will accompany me at the very least."

The client sits silent and stunned. "You see, I am still very highly regarded by my employees and many of my clients, never mind my mate and his family. As such I am very well and fiercely protected and will be equally avenged."

The client stutters for another minute before Thomas speaks again. "Who hired, threatened or coerced you into this?"

He remains silent for a long time before finally answering. "It's more than my life's worth to tell you."

I nod, unsurprised at his answer. "Thomas, send out a mass communication to all my people and inform them that none of them are to do ANY kind of business with him and that they are to inform all of their people as well."

"No! Everybody in this sector is connected to you! I won't even be able to get a crust of bread!"

I lean forward myself. "Then tell us." He hesitates. "Whose good graces would you rather be in? Mine or theirs?"

There's another long silence. "Divatox."

Oh really? "And why would she do that?"

"I don't know. She didn't see fit to share that information with me."

"Huh" Thomas says. "She got smarter. Used to be she'd blab her plans to anybody and everybody she thought she had under control."

"Either that or she's not sure that she does have him under control." I look back at the screen. "Is it her demand or yours that this job was time sensitive?"

"Mine. I wanted it over and done with as soon as possible."

"How did she get to you at all?" Thomas inquires.

"Gambling debt."

"Consider this a lesson learned. I'll consider your request not to turn my people away from you."

"Not that I'm not grateful for that consideration, Lord Zedd, but what about the contract?"

"While I probably won't accept it - especially as it stands now - I may check things out now that I know a bit more about what's going on. I'll call you at a future point." I disconnect the call and turn to my husband. "Now - what did you find out?"

"Do you know where this job is?"

"I know it's on the edge of the Dark Alliance's territory."

"No, Zedd. The Alliance has grown or shifted. This is deep in their territory now. You'd be trying to dodge bounty hunters and minions and generals damn near every step once they know you're there."

"Ah. That would be a problem" I agree. "And for the same reason, you, Pina and Dar can't go either."

"I have some of my contacts looking into the situation further. But for now-"

"It's too dangerous" I finish for him. I take the papers from him, set them on the desk and pull him into my lap. "Either way, I'm confused. I thought that Divatox was caught in Zordon's wave as I was and therefore shouldn't be evil anymore."

"I don't know, but either way, I don't like it." He pulls me closer and I can feel his heart pounding.

I kiss him gently. "I'm here, love. I'm safe."

"For how long? How soon before they just come knocking on the door to take you back?"

"I promise you, if they come here for me, they will have one hell of a fight and a lot of blood on my hands before I let them take me."

"I'm not stupid, Zedd. I know that you won't go with them willingly. But I also know how the dark power pulls at you sometimes. If they were to get you somehow and put you somewhere that you're surrounded by it all the time, I'm worried that the temptation would be too much."

I can't argue with that, remembering how tempting Mara Jane's power was in the park all those years ago before I knew it was hers. "Just like in the early days of Mara Jane's training when - even with Dulcea's tampering - I still wanted her power, you'll have to help keep me myself. Even if they got me, we'd still be bonded, Thomas. You'd still be able to help me - even at a distance."

"Zedd-"

I kiss him again, feeling through the bond how much he needs reassurance right now. "We can worry about it in a few hours when Pina and Dar get here and we get them caught up. In the meantime-"

"Yes." He stands up and pulls me to my feet. In no time at all, we're in the bedroom. I focus all my attention on him, drawing his attention away from his future worries and to our present activity.

A few hours later, we're in the kitchen and he's finally sated - for now. Between whatever is going on with his hormones and his emotional upset before, it took a while. We barely had time to get showered and dressed before the kids got home. Of course, we wouldn't have cut it nearly so close if he hadn't pounced on me in the shower. Right now, he's going through the kids' bags as he always does.

In spite of his worrying earlier, the information he got regarding the contract has certainly saved us a lot of trouble and time - and potential injuries. When I have a few minutes, I need to make sure to update the charts and check on the other borders. Thomas barely greets Pina and Dar when they come in. He seems to be focused on the assortment of papers in front of him.

I fill them in quickly on the contract and the new information that Thomas was able to acquire. Dar frowns. "That doesn't mesh with my most recent information. I wonder if they got to some of my informants too."

"Hell." I run my hand through my hair. "Might be time to test loyalties. All our contacts."

Things fall silent for a minute. "Not just our contacts" Pina comments. "But their contacts as well."

I nod in agreement. "After all, our contacts might be loyal, but are trusting the wrong people."

Thomas finishes up with the papers and bags and turns his attention to dinner. The other couple shoots me a puzzled look and I shrug in return. His emotions are all over the place right now, no doubt following his train of thought. I return my attention to the other two. "By the way, Pina-"

"Not now, Zedd" Thomas interrupts. "The kids might come down any minute and they don't really need to hear it."

"We'll hear them coming."

"Oh, like you heard Jacob a couple weeks ago?"

I sigh. "Fine - Dar, go be a lookout." At the look he gives me, I roll my eyes and sigh again. "You'll still be able to hear, but you need to keep the children from hearing."

"Fine." Disgruntled, he does as I've asked, posting himself just around the corner of the doorway.

Thomas finally turns his full attention on Pina. "Scorpina, what kind of tests were you running on me?"

She cocks her head curiously. "Why? What do you mean?"

"Because" he says bluntly "I'm needier than usual."

She looks extremely interested in this. "Oh really? Like a lot or just a little?"

"A lot. Like when I was carrying Jacob. What did you do?"

She doesn't answer, instead digging around in her bag. "Let me scan you and see if I can find out what's going on." Thomas isn't happy, but allows her to proceed. When she's done, she makes a noise of satisfaction. "Excellent. The test was a success."

"Pina" I growl warningly.

"I was testing to see how easily his body would switch back over for carrying another child. Chemical and hormone adjustment and so on. Even without the presence of a child, just the right stimulus, it switched over very quickly. That means that he's physically very receptive to another pregnancy."

"You couldn't have warned me?" Thomas protests.

"Or me?" I add.

"Of course not. It had to be a completely blind test to keep the results from being skewed. You know that, Tommy. If either one of you had known, you would have been watching for changes and possibly seeing something that wasn't there."

"I suppose" Thomas sighs. "So what now?"

She shrugs. "Nothing. In another day or so, you'll be back to normal without the presence of a child to maintain the change. After that, it's just a matter of when you want to go forward with an actual pregnancy."

"We'll discuss it" Thomas responds before I can. "I've been thinking about it and I have some ideas I want to run past Zedd first."

Later that night, I can't contain myself any more. "So what ideas did you want to run past me, love?"

"Look, with what we've found out today and the need to get our informants back in line, I was thinking that maybe we should wait until the beginning of next summer for me to get pregnant. We can try and get that all under control and take a vacation at the beginning of the summer before we go home and let Pina work her magic."

"Well, what were you thinking as far as vacation?"

"I don't know. Maybe visit David and Stephanie, then go to the beach before we go to the castle. After I'm pregnant and stable, maybe we could go see your parents before we come home."

"That's awfully specific for 'I don't know', Thomas."

He shrugs. "It's just what popped in my head. Of course, that all depends on if we can get everyone back in line first."

"I don't see why we shouldn't be able to. We'll get started tomorrow to give us the best chance of getting done on time."