"Are you?" she eagerly asked.

"Am I what?" I said, confused.

"Are you… in love with me?" she stuttered, uncomfortable.

I sniggered.

"You're the only thing I can think about, I stopped sleeping because I couldn't stand seeing you in my dreams, and your beauty continuously leaves me speechless. What do you think?"

She stood up so quickly I didn't have time to react. The table disappeared and she straddled me, but before we could kiss, a door opened, and I awoke.

Graham was standing in the doorway of my room.

Chapter 11. How bad does it feel to fake hate when your soul loves?

"Fuck" I groggily murmured, while slowly sitting up.

"Something wrong?" Graham inquired, sarcastically.

"Besides your face and your mere existence?" I asked disdainfully.

Graham darkly chuckled, unimpressed by me. He only seemed amused.

"You have to follow me" he instructed me lightly.

"Where to?"

"That's an answer you'll find out once you follow me" he explained, as if I was completely dumb.

I loudly sighed. Which, truth be told, could have been interpreted as a petulant child's reaction. But I couldn't help it. I just wanted to hit the guy in the face, and he didn't even seem to notice it. Or if he did, he didn't care in the slightest. Just thinking that I had been inches away from kissing Regina again made me want to hit my own head in the walls. I didn't. I simply followed the insufferable guy, brewing my dark thoughts over.

We finally arrived in what seemed to be a training room. I rolled my eyes. This only meant one thing: Cora was testing me again. I was having a headache just by planning how I should react and defend in order to prevent her suspicious. My first day really wasn't over yet…

A lot of people were there, chatting. I immediately recognised Mary, Peter, Aurora and Belle. Graham went to them. Cora was sat on a distant chair, from where she could see everything and everyone in the room. She looked at me like a predator would look at his prey. It made me very much uncomfortable.

Cora loudly cleared her throat, and the silence fell down the place.

"Thank you all for coming, my dears. This is an uncommon situation, and I would like to see if Emma's powers – our newest member – are as great as she pretends. She will fight against the best of you. And you are all here as advisors. I want your opinion on the matter to know if we should keep her or not." She sadistically smiled at me.

I remained impassive. This wasn't the attitude I would have had before. I would have had showed my anger in some ways. But it just would have been dumb to react like this right now. A very good looking blonde asked to Cora:

"What is her power?"

"Her powers, Elsa" Cora gently corrected her.

The said Elsa raised her eyebrows, already impressed. I smirked.

"Emma has more or less as many powers as my daughter… I would wager on less powers than Regina, but still… she could be a nice addition to our Government, don't you think?"

Elsa silently nodded, and focused on me, impatient. I guessed she wanted to see what I was capable of. I nicely smiled at her. You'll see my powers all right, I thought.

"Peter, would you have the amiability to begin?" Cora pursued.

The guy stuck out his chest, probably proud to be the first valuable member to have been picked. He slowly advanced to me while everyone else withdrew. What were his powers again? I quickly wondered. Something like levitation and telekinesis… shouldn't be very difficult.

"Ready Swan?" he smugly asked.

I didn't answer, and simply raised one eyebrow, looking at him as if I was about to pierce his soul, and without blinking once. His smugness vanished.

He elevated in the air, and flew away from me. When he was on what he probably considered a safe distance, he suddenly swooped on me, while knives appeared from everywhere at the same time and rushed at me. Maybe not as helpless as I first thought… but definitely not enough to scare me. I raised my hand in the air, one second before the knives penetrated my skin, and with one swift motion of my arm, I transformed the objects into feathers. Then, as if to blow a kiss, I blew on my hand, and the feathers rushed at Peter's face, who hadn't reached me yet, blinding him. For the second time, I raised my hand, and immobilised him. His course was brutally ended. Of course, he tried to fight my grip on him. But his attempts were so weak, it was laughable. I elevated him a little higher before suddenly letting go. He realised my intentions too late, and violently crashed on the ground. A loud crack reasoned and I assumed his legs had broken… if his cries were anything to go by. Cora stood up, but before she could act, I sighed as if I was annoyed, and with a bored motion of my fingers, I healed the man. Everybody looked at me, dumbfounded. Including Cora.

"Graham?" she said.

Graham reluctantly nodded, maybe sizing me up for the very first time and slowly advanced. All the rage I felt for him surfaced. A rush of power filled me. This was a gift, Cora had just gave me. I now could have my revenge on this insufferable animal. Plus, I had the upper hand, here. He didn't know the extent of my powers, but I knew his, since we had once fought. He was still walking to me, when I started the fight. Using my picturing power, I prevented him from transforming into his wolf side. Then, I vanished to reappear right in front of his face. My head-butt in his nose sent him on the ground, loudly grumping. His face was now covered with blood and I felt his attempts to shape-shift. Without giving him the time to recover, I violently kicked him where no man could ever wish to be kicked. Here goes to you fucking Regina, I murderously thought. The man was already a broken mess, and Cora had ordered me to stop, but I couldn't. I straddled him, and began to punch him hard. It was easy. His hands were covering his hurt parties, and he couldn't use them to protect his pretty face. Here goes to you interrupting me. He goes to you defying me.

However, I had only punched him two times when I was suddenly ejected from him. My training was good enough for me to land on my two feet, despite the brutality of the ejection. I angrily searched for the person who had separated me from my victim, ready to fight, when my eyes landed on Regina. She was standing at the door, positively furious. Without breaking eye contact with me, she healed Graham. I greeted my teeth and clenched my fists.

Cora slowly and carefully approached me, indicating her daughter to follow her lead. At this moment, I noticed all the faces around us, stunned, afraid, and… was it respectful? I put my hands in my pockets, and looked at the ground, waiting for the two women to be in front of me.

"You told me your powers hadn't evolved" Cora remarked.

"I did" I simply answered.

"You lied" Cora stated.

"I didn't" I angrily protested, looking at her. "But when I'm angry, my powers are easier to control"

"And you were angry at Graham and Peter?" Cora raised her eyebrows.

"Yes. We had some unresolved business" I explained.

"What were they?"

The temptation to answer "none of your business" was really high, but I restrained myself.

"Peter once attacked one of my friends and got away with it. And Graham has always infuriated me"

"I didn't attack a friend of hers" Peter defended. "I attacked a wanderer lover of hers. And Regina didn't punish me because she knew that wanderers deserve it" he pointed out.

I looked at him, furious.

"Peter, you interrupt me once again without being asked to speak, and I'll do far worse than breaking your legs. Trust me, I won't heal you that time" I sinisterly stated.

Peter blanched and silenced. Cora watched the exchange with very much interest.

"Your wanderer lover? Who was she?" she inquired.

But I hadn't the time to answer. Regina did.

"He. Neal Cassidy. There was also Killian. The Savior"

Cora looked at her daughter, dumbfounded and loudly laughed.

"Is that so? Ironic. Haven't you told me that you preferred girls, though?"

"My girlfriend and I had some… unspoken truths to talk about" I reluctantly admitted.

I tried hard not to glance at Regina. I didn't understand why she had intervened. How was a professor supposed to know that kind of things? Her interference appeared risky at best, and compromising at worse.

"It appears that Emma's great powers come with an incredible libido, mother" Regina venomously added.

This time, I turned to her, furious.

"Says the woman who sleeps with students" I spoke out loud.

Regina's eyes flashed. I noticed Cora's surprise from the corner of my eyes. Shit, I thought. We are acting exactly like two ex-lovers. In the end, Emma realised she didn't care in the slightest. Maybe if she stopped thinking about the consequences of her reactions, she would appear more natural to Cora. So she decided to just go with whatever Regina had planned to do. And bickering seemed to be it.

"I never slept with my students, dear. That has always been my number one rule" she purred.

"Maybe if you had, you would have been less frustrated and a better teacher" I said, matter-of-factly.

I recognised Mary's gasp, and Graham's cough. My "assumptions" weren't appreciated. Cora chuckled.

"Did you let your students talk to you like that?" she asked.

"Nobody ever talked to me this way, mother." Regina answered, still looking at me dangerously, before turning to Cora. "I need your advises. I'm hesitating between killing this child for her insubordination or giving her a lesson she's not about to forget"

Cora didn't have the time to "advise" her daughter. I cut her short:

"I'm not a child anymore, Regina."

"Really, dear? The way you speak, the way you fight and the way you dress seem to state the exact opposite" Regina ironized.

"That's because you focus on unimportant matters" I casually answered. The way I dress? Seriously?

"And what are supposed to be the important matters?" Regina asked, bored.

I sniggered, almost too happy that she had fallen into my trap.

"The way I kiss, the way I touch, the way I fuck. Things you would know if you had done anything other than teaching, arresting and killing people"

Regina's eyes became black. And although she tried to mask it with hatred, which must have been very convincing for others, I read clearly through her. She was impatient. She wanted me to kiss her, touch her and fuck her. And her whole body was filled with lust. Right before her mother's eyes. This made me sneer again.

"From my point of view, you're the child, Professor. And I'm the teacher." I added.

"Too bad none of us are interested in your… lessons" Regina finally spoke.

Her body was so screaming for release. Her obvious arousal turned me on. And I was becoming very un-at-ease in my jeans.

"Regina, I think you should give her a lesson she's not about to forget, dear" Cora eventually intervened, seeing that none of us was going to speak again.

Regina simply nodded, and everybody retreated, leaving the two of us alone in the centre of the room. I didn't want to attack first, mainly because I wasn't angry at all, so I just waited. Regina seemed to size me up. To decide what she could and couldn't do to me. I'd rather she just did me, I bitterly thought. No, no, no. Bad thinking, Swan. Focus... Not on her cleavage, dammit.

Regina sniggered. She was obviously following the train of my inner thoughts. Her predatory smile was so pretty, I almost smiled back. And just like that, without a warning of some sort, the fight began.

I would be completely powerless to describe it to you. It all happened too fast. Faster than Peter's rushing knives. She conjured thunders and lightning to bring me down. I countered it with hurricanes and storms. She brought alive the Hulk. I made him fight the Iron Man. She transformed into a lion and jumped at me. I answered by becoming an eagle she couldn't catch. She threw fire from her mouth and I barely escaped it. She turned back into Regina and made me "Emma" again. I didn't even notice it, until I felt myself falling. Wings appeared in replacement of my arms and I graciously landed. But too focused on the task at hand I didn't have time to process her next attack. She physically immobilised me. My wings were firmly locked by her hands in my back and I couldn't move anymore. Not that I wanted to.

She whispered in my ears:

"That's all you've got?"

Her voice was pure sex. I felt my knees weaken. I couldn't have fought her. I was too busy sinking in her warmth. I was already imagining all the dirty things I could do to her in this position when Cora interrupted us:

"Well, I guess this was interesting. My daughter is stronger than you"

Regina released me, and I missed her touch immediately. I grumped as if she had hurt me, but really just signalling her that I needed more. She went to her mother, right in front of me, and she smirked. She had heard my message loud and clear.

"Did you doubt me, mother?" she innocently yet ironically asked.

"Of course not" her mother replied. "Better safe than sorry, though"

"The only one who could have been sorry, would have been Miss Swan" Regina spat.

Her mother was getting on her nerves. This made me want to laugh. Also… she was belittling me again. And I was fed up with that. What about a taste of her own medicine? I focused on what I wanted to achieve, and Regina imperceptibly gasped, surprised. She warningly stared at me, but I kept on looking at Cora, as if nothing was happening.

In reality, I was caressing her breast. She was currently feeling the feather touch of my fingers on her. And I could almost hear her yearning. Cora, oblivious to what was happening, kept on:

"And I'm sure she is, now. Perfect. We will vote for Emma's integration, now. Regina?"

"Hum?" Regina distractedly moaned.

I muffled a laugh.

"Do you vote for or against Emma's integration in the Government?" Cora repeated, annoyed now.

"Against. She's not worth it" Regina breathlessly answered, trying hard not to look as turned on as she was.

I reported my attention on her, and raised my eyebrows. It was a silent warning of what was coming next. She saw it and narrowed her eyes, in a discreet attempt to dissuade me. A sort of "don't you dare" look. She should have known better than to challenge me. My fingers suddenly descended her body and arrived at destination. Between her thighs. Where she needed me to be. The sight of her, so flustered, made me wet. She couldn't entirely suppress her moan this time. The sound didn't go unnoticed by Cora.

"Is something wrong?"

Regina negatively shook her head, and breathed:

"Stomach ache"

"Did the fight weaken you?" Cora asked, doubtful.

Regina didn't answer, too focused on not screaming. I took pity on her and released her from my touch. Nobody deserved to come in front of their mother after all. I smirked. The look on her face was clear: I would pay for that later. My body vibrated in anticipation.

"Of course not" she answered as soon as she wasn't touched anymore, without even looking at Cora. "It was just a cramp" she kept on, annoyed.

"Peter, what do you say?" Cora asked, without noticing her daughter's outburst.

"We need someone like her"

"Graham?"

"Agreed"

"Elsa?"

"She's incredible. Of course we need her" she enthusiastically answered.

Regina's eyes fixed the blonde girl, jealousy written all over her face. I silently patted myself in the back and made a little dance of victory. On the surface, I was impassive.

It went on and on, until everybody had given their responses. Regina had been the only one to vote against me. Cora seemed thoughtful.

"I must agree with my daughter, I'm afraid. But not for the same reason"

My stomach churned. I was fucked.

"Why are you here?" Cora pursued.

"I need the mo…"

"Will you cut it off, already? We both now you can create money. It's no problem for you. Why are you here?"

I thought about my answer really fast… we had considered this possibility with Ruby. What was the solution we had come up again? And suddenly it came back to me. I slowly exhaled, as if I was defeated to be discovered. Cora's eyes flashed. Regina didn't show anything about her surprise.

"You won't let it go anyway, will you?" I asked, resigned.

Cora dangerously smiled in confirmation. I faked hesitation.

"I… I left the school. Without warning. My… Ruby, I mean… you know, the girl who was with me? I was… we didn't… when I left, we had been fighting. I didn't tell her where I was going."

"And you didn't find her?" Cora asked, disbelievingly.

"No, I didn't. I looked for her, I tried to contact her. But even with my powers, I cannot locate her. I was thinking that maybe… just maybe… you would give me some information… of her location… or I would cross her way while working for you… yeah. Something like that"

"She was at the school until recently" Cora pointed out, suspicious.

"Well, I know, ok? It took me a long time to realise my mistake. And when I did, she was nowhere to be found" I angrily protested.

I tried to show desperation, frustration. I put everything I had felt for Regina into my voice. Cora intensely looked at me and her body relaxed. I noticed from the corner of my eyes Belle's and Mary's appreciative glance at my outrageous lies. Regina remained stoic, once again. She definitely was an even better liar than I was.

"I see."

"Will you let me be a part of your group or not?" I asked, on edge.

"On one condition" Cora slowly stated.

I patiently waited for her to continue.

"You will take an active role in our missions"

"Which means?"

"Which means… if I ask you to find a wanderer, you will. If I ask you to kill… you will" Cora clarified.

Her tone was clearly indicating that she wouldn't compromise or take "no" as an answer. I winced and remained silent for a minute, as if pondering my decision. Cora waited. I finally nodded my consent. Cora victoriously smiled.

"Perfect. I officially name you as a part of my Government. Miss French will tell you everything you need to know. As for the others, you have free time to do whatever until tonight" she informed us.

She then retreated with Regina, who sent me once last glance before following her mother. In fact, everybody left. Mary and Belle were the only ones still there. Mary looked at me, impressed and said:

"Congratulations, Emma. Welcome"

I subtitled it with: "I never thought you could do it, I almost can't believe it"

"Thank you, Mary. I hope you'll help me here, as much as you helped me at the school"

"Don't worry about that. I've got your back" she subtly winked.

She then left. Belle motioned me to follow her. So I did. On our way to wherever we were going, she whispered:

"You did well, Emma."

"Thanks. You think she dropped her suspicions?"

"We're talking about Cora, here. She'll always have suspicions. But let's just say that you should be fine, for now"

I exhaled, relieved.

"How is Ruby?" Belle whispered, feigning detachment.

I smirked.

"Surely wondering how you are" I maliciously answered.

Belle giggled.

"Or in all probability, wondering how you are" she pointed out.

I chuckled.

"Yeah. That too" I confirmed.

"Does she… you know? I mean…" Belle quietly stuttered, uncomfortable.

"Belle… she wanted to come with me, just to be with you" I reassured her, understanding her insecurities. "And she also wanted me to give you her heated letters" I added, remembering our silly conversations.

Belle disbelievingly shook her head and said, amused:

"I always knew you were both idiots"

Her tone and her attitude showed some real fondness.

"I take that as a compliment" I murmured.

The sound of our voices were so low, that even the both of us struggled to hear. We somehow did.

"Where can I see Regina in private?" I eagerly asked.

Belle looked at me, knowingly smiling.

"Honestly, you really cannot. I guess she'll visit you in your dreams" she winked.

"You know about that, too?" I asked, surprised.

Belle chuckled.

"There are little things I don't know about her. We became very close… after we began working with each other. She really needed a friend, you know?" she explained.

I simply nodded, and we kept on walking. I really couldn't wait to go to bed…

TBC.

Hi guys. I'm sorry it took me so long to continue this. Thank you LostFairys for giving me the motivation to continue it, though. Your reviews are the only things that keep me going, so thank you all for your support, you have no idea how much it is appreciated.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you soon. And take care xxx