Song Suggestion: Yael Naïm and David Donatien-"Toxic "

Thank You: 3vlee, SergeantJohnston, slightlytwisted84, Rachel, Lucy Greenhill, Guest, SweetStarre123, Bea, Beauty422, Flowers Can Have Thorns, fanster, and HeyBirdy.

A/N: The usual warnings for this chapter...

A Slow Thaw

She didn't remember most of the walk. She woke up as he lowered her against a bed, his bed. She recognized the white bedspread. He handled her as if she was made of glass while he undressed her. In a normal state of mind, she would feel embarrassment for her nakedness, but she knew she had to get out of her wet clothes and fast. Survival trumped pride every time.

He took off her shirt first. It squelched as it came off and dripped water unto the floor. Then came the pants. He shimmied them on her hips for a moment, and he helped her raise her lower half so that he could slide them off. Then came her underwear. He threw the clothes into a corner, a wet blob that almost killed her.

He stood and stripped himself, taking off one article of clothing at a time, revealing pale, toned skin.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Getting you warm. The best way to do that is skin-to-skin."

She watched through hooded, fevered eyes. Her inhibitions around him dripped away withh the snow. When finally divested of his clothing, he slipped under the sheets with her, and he pulled her into the curve of his body. They fit perfectly. It was a shock to press against him, to feel his naked body at her back. Somehow it was more intimate than sex.

She shivered, trying to shake away the cold and the heat building in her lower belly. It amazed her that even at the brink of death her body still responded to him.

"Stop squirming. I won't try anything."

"Katla—"

"Shh," he placed a hand over her lips, "Get better first."

She had no energy to ask again.

He pulled the heavy blankets over them, and tucked his leg over her hip to still her body, as an anchor to ground her. There was no end to her agony.

Several hours later and the ice in her veins did not abate.

"I still feel cold."

"Do you hurt anywhere?"

"Everywhere," she admitted. Prim had never been stoic with illness. She tended to cling and cry and beg away the unpleasant feelings while they lasted.

"Do you mind if I looked? A didn't see any frostbite before, but I could have missed it."

Prim didn't answer right away, but after a moment, she nodded. He was the only one who could, and she felt too weak and sick to check herself. If there were frostbite, she'd rather know sooner than later.

He yanked the thick blankets over both their heads to prevent any chill reaching their naked bodies. Only a sliver of light was allowed in to see for any injuries. With that he rolled on top of her, making a tent above his head with the blankets. Their hips matched, pressed tight together. The apex of her thighs throbbed, and it matched his pulse.

He started with her fingers, holding them delicately in his hand in the light. Twisting them, turning them. He kissed the pads when he was done, sending a delicious warmth up her elbow. Then he kissed the palm of her hand and every inch of skin past her wrist, past her elbow to her shoulder.

He did it to the second arm too, and she bit her tongue as she sensations to her nerves returned from both warmth and touch. It tingled as he went, as if awakening under his lips. Next came the collar bone. The lips soft brushed past her skin, skimming across the surface. The hair raised in its wake.

The burn turned to a boil when he kissed around the breast. When he pulled away from her chest and kissed her stomach, she almost protested. Her fingers, now able to move, clenched the sheets beside her hips as she attempted to fight the sensations.

Her belly sucked in when his lips kissed the skin on near her bellybutton and then to the hips bones, trailing his lips along the outside of her hips down her legs. His whole body moved down, so that their hips left each other. He traveled to the foot of the bed, and he glanced at her toes slowly and carefully.

"No frostbite here," he said, "We just need to get you warm."

She almost spoke, but he kissed the top of her foot, and then her ankle, and he was once again back to melting her. She hitched in a breath. Now he used his tongue. She felt the wetness sliding up her leg past her knee.

It was the worst torture, the heat building like the tremors before the volcano. Even the cold could not extinguish the flames. She bent her knees out of instinct, pulling them up and out and closer to her chest as he made his way up and up. There was no way to deny the call of seduction, or the ancient ritual of joining bodies.

He gave a wicked, knowing smirk against her leg as she bent her knee farther, allowing him access to herself, to her soft and vulnerable places. He bit the inside of her thighs, and she let out a little, "oh."

The word escaped her lips, and it was like a dam breaking. Others followed soon after, little mewls, cries.

He kissed slower and slower until he finally reached the place that ached and burned.

Lips touched her core, and she let out a little sigh.

At last.

Fingers that once clenched the sheets laced through his hair.

His tongue worked as if it had been trained, as if he already knew the secrets of a woman's body, how to burn and build and explode.

She climaxed quickly, quivering and shaking against his mouth. He sat back for a second after he was done and wiped his mouth, giving a sly smirk.

Smug bastard.

"I thought you said you wouldn't try anything. You lied."

He crawled up her body and leaned down right next to her ear. Her legs stayed spread open, so that when their hips met again, they were in the perfect position to recreate the scene from the study. His hand came up, cupping her breasts in lazy enjoyment. He toyed with her, and she responded still sensitive over her previous release.

"I'm both a thief and a liar. I'm the worst sort of person and definitely not your hero," he whispered into her ear. "Tell me to stop."

She didn't, and he entered her without resistance.

Hours and Hours Later

He used her for a first and a second time, the time in-between punctuated by long bouts of sleep. He woke her up for the second time, already inside her, pounding, getting harder and rougher as he went, as if releasing the beast inside himself, the lion pent up in anger.

Of course, she knew what sex was before Cato stormed into her life. She heard from the other girls it could feel bad or good, painful or pleasurable. She had seen the act done in the wild, but she had always imagined for it to feel more like love. It would go slow and steady, build with a ringing happiness. She had imagined Gale.

What Cato did was far from love. It was rough and heady, hitting her hard from the start, so instant it took the breath from her lungs. It caused her to cry out, in pain but also in pleasure. The two intermingled, feeling more alike than she thought possible.

It made her feel like an animal, especially when he flipped her over during the middle of his thrusting, unconcerned anymore whether she was ill of not and took her from behind like a dog would or a deer in rut.

Prim was ashamed of her reactions, how her body arched against him, urging him to go harder and deeper and faster. The more she cursed at him, the more aroused he would get.

Shouldn't she put up more of a fight?

Snow had said for them to seal the deal once, but he never said they had to continue the sham past acting and securing Manato.

Was it even a sham anymore?

Towards the end of the second time they had sex, it began to feel more like a punishment. His anger poured out of him with his sweat, dripping over her, claiming her, demanding everything from her.

"Beg me," Cato taunted. He had just stopped in the middle of thrusting, having just flipped her over again so she could glare at him, holding her thighs firm around his hips so she couldn't move against him in her frantic state. "You'll have to beg me to continue. Say you want me."

And she did. Prim couldn't remember the details of what she said, she just remembered the humiliation, the lack of power. It was as if he had to prove something, to both himself and her.

Prim climaxed quickly after that, her limbs draining of life and energy. There would be no way she could handle much more of this. Sweat dripped down her body, dewy on her stomach. Every muscle in her body ached.

It was in that moment of clarity that she realized that she could get pregnant. They weren't using any sort of protection, and they hadn't in the study either.

"Pull out," she whispered, but Cato didn't listen and kept thrusting, lost in his own pleasure. She could tell it was close, almost there. A shot of energy went through her, adrenaline from panic seeping through her body.

She tried to wiggle away, but Cato tugged her back down by her hips, tilting them in the air. He grunted loud, and with one violent thrust, held her still as he went. He shuddered with his orgasm, his eyes locked into hers filled with something she couldn't name, something intense and burning. After, Cato fell forward, catching some of his weight on his own hands. He rested his face near her neck, opening his mouth to suck on the soft skin. They stayed connected, and neither of them made moves to untangle themselves.

Prim felt the fluid dripping down her thighs and tried to hold in her own cries at the implications. She almost asked why, but he answered her question before she could.

"Your my fucking Manato, little bird, I'm going to cum in you. I'm going to cum in you over and over again. I'm going to fill you until your belly grows, until everyone can see your mine, until you realize you're mine. It's my right, and I'm going to use it. And you're not going to stop me." The words were spoken low, measured. A promise.

Prim had never felt more used, more ashamed, more outraged.

"How dare you—"

His hand shot out and curled around her throat, squeezing her windpipe. She gasped.

"No, how dare you. Don't think I haven't forgotten your betrayal. Have you forgotten who I am?"

She was surprised that she almost did. Lately, he had been exposing a softness, which was probably now forfeit. Cato looked unhinged, his hair stuck up in different directions. Little red marks marred his skin where Prim had bit and scratched him in ecstasy.

"Why'd you do it?" Cato continued. His hands didn't release her, but stayed firmly against her throat so that she had to force in and out each breath. "Why'd you run from me?"

He sounded hurt, as ridiculous as that would be. Prim measured her words before she spoke. Cato didn't look well, and she felt like she was mentally tiptoeing around him.

"Katla," She managed to get out, "I had to help her."

It was the truth, mostly.

The hands loosened a fraction. Cato's eyebrows furrowed. Prim resisted the urge to rub her neck. She tried not to think of her friend, the one that might have died in the cave from the cold.

"So you weren't trying to get away from me?"

Of course I was trying to get away from you, Prim mentally screamed, but decided it would be the wrong thing to say. Instead she said the opposite:

"No."

Cato exhaled and slumped a little. His head rested against her shoulder.

"I didn't want you to meet her, little bird, not like that all cut up and wild. I knew it would hurt your feelings. You should have listened to me, you should have gone to bed..." He shook his head. "You don't need to worry, though. From what Hannibal told me, he's loved her for a long time. He won't—"

"So she's alive?"

She had avoided this question before, scared of the answer, but now it was too much to contain.

His hand that had once curled around her throat brushed a piece of hair out of her face tenderly.

He nodded and her heart soared. For once, she felt like the little bird he named her. As if she could own the sky.

"Yes, little bird, she's alive. You were smart to build the wall of snow, I saw the remnants. And I also saw you started a fire, even though it probably didn't burn long. If I wasn't so annoyed, I'd be impressed... though—"He hesitated a moment. It made her heart drop.

"Though what?"

He glanced into her eyes.

"It was touch and go for a while. She wasn't as lucky as you. She'll have to get a hand and both her feet amputated from frostbite."

Prim felt punched in the stomach, a sort of survivor's guilt. But in the end, any pain was good. Pain meant life, and life can always move on.

"Can I take care of her?" Prim learned long ago that her happiness stemmed from healing.

Cato eyed her with a frown, then his eyes softened.

"I should say no. You fucking ran away in the middle of the night almost killing yourself and Hannibal's new manato. He was tore up, you know especially when it began to storm. I had to shake him for him to calm down. And as easily as you lie to me, I know the truth. You fucking wanted to get away from me. But—" he leaned down, his lips touching her neck, the sensitive spot under her ear that made her mind fuzzy on contact. "I find I don't like saying no to you. I hate that wounded look you give. Your eyes get big and round as if I just kicked you for no reason. If you only knew—"

"So is that a yes?"

"It's a yes with conditions."

"Conditions?" She should have known his good will was not free.

"See that's the look I'm talking about. Stop looking like a kicked puppy. All I want is for you to try hard when you meet my family, especially my parents. You must make them think you wanted to be with me." His face screwed up as if he sucked on a lemon. Something he said was bitter to him.

"Why? Hannibal seemed to already guess that I—"

"I don't care what Hannibal thinks, or even Cassius and Theodora. But my parents—my mother would be upset to know I chose a Manato who hated me."

Prim chewed on her bottom lip. What could it hurt in the end?

"Deal."

Cato nodded and rolled off her. She felt dirty, but she dared not move to clean herself up, not after all his threats. Her thighs were sticky and still wet, reminding herself again of what could happen if they continued to have unprotected sex.

Prim wasn't ready to be a mother. She loved Coral, but a baby was something different. Babies needed constant attention and affection. The work didn't bother her as much as the thought the child would be part Cato, a tie linking them forever. It would be the final nail in the coffin, solid proof of her prison, and an anchor keeping her from home.

Prim tried to wiggle to the other side of the bed, but Cato pulled her in tight, her back to his chest, wrapping his arms around her frame. She never felt more like a possession, like a doll. Exhaustion overwhelmed her. Her last moments before she went to sleep, she flipped her body, snuggling closer to his warmth and smell, tired of fighting against the tide that sucked her towards him.

"Cato?"

"Hmm," he answered, the noise rumbled his chest next to her ear.

"I'm tired of hating you."

He tensed up, the muscles constricting and contracting around her body like a snake. Then he relaxed.

The silence after that seemed to stretch for eternity.

"Prim," he finally said.

"Hmm," she answered.

"If you ever think of running away again," he stated as if he were discussing the weather, "I'll lock you in this room all by yourself, for the rest of your life, with not even Coral for company. I'll be the only face you'll ever see again. Don't you ever forget it: If you run away again, I'll make sure you hate me."

It was true:

He was no hero.

He was still a monster.

However, she mused almost despite herself, she was no longer cold.