Fury helped her out of her clothes by pulling her shorts off of her in strips when she wasn't fast enough with the buttons on them, he heard her gasp and chuckle while her own hands stuttered over the fly of his jeans.

"What about my top?" she said, her voice deceptively innocent when he eyed her bare bottom half, licking his lips. Fury flicked his eyes up to Charisma's face and saw her gingerly tugging at the straps of her corset like top, it moulded to her form perfectly; concealing just enough to drive him crazy. "Its kind of tight."

Fury chuckled, "don't worry, love," he said before making quick work of the top and it was laying in shreds on the bathroom tiles before Charisma could blink.

"You work fast," she acknowledged with a feral gleam in her eye, she licked her lips and Fury followed the action of her tongue with heated eyes.

"But I play slow," he murmured and bent his head to lavish attention on her right breast, treating it to open mouthed kisses and long hard sucks, he was delighted to hear Charisma gasping and pulling at his head so he would kiss her mouth.

He kissed her thoroughly making a good job of it so when he pulled back she was in a stunned daze, he gave her a wicked grin and a light slap on her butt before turning around to turn on and regulate the shower.

Charisma bit her lip, he was fantastic, so fun and considerate, intelligent and affectionate and she thought with a sigh, all hers. Fury turned when he heard her sigh and raised a questioning eyebrow, Charisma gave him an innocent look that made him shake his head in confusion and grin. She raised her hand to rake gently through his hair, she trailed it down his back and let it rest on the waist band of his jeans, her fingers curling into it. Fury turned back to her forcing her to release her hold on him and he took her face in his hands, brushing his thumbs gently over her cheek bones and then lowered his head. She couldn't remember being kissed like this. Ever. It was lingering and tender, holding her to him just longer then normal so that with the desire rising so did the love she felt for him, it was good enough to bring a lump to her throat.

Fury pulled back reluctantly but she held him close, her hand clutching his shoulders, her eyes devouring his, he was about to ask her what she was doing when she slid both hands down his chest. They moved in sync like a rhythmic dance over his heart, slowly before his eyes small balls of light began to dance about her fingers; clinging to her skin until it looked as if she were wearing a glove made of sunbeams. She applied pressure to his chest and lowered her head to kiss his heart, then leant up to gently, chastely kiss his forehead. It felt like a warm summer breeze floated through his insides, not touching or disturbing his skin but everything under it.

"What was that?"

Charisma smiled and brushed his hair from his eyes. How could she tell him that even without a ceremony, she had given him the highest blessing she could give him as the Goddess of nature and the wild.

"I gave you my blessing. My promise that even if we are apart you will always have my allegiance and loyalty, should enemies come I would fight them for you, I would protect you and all that you claim is yours. I wish to live my life with you." And see out my death with you, she added silently as her heart picked up when his eyes deepened to a whole new blue.

He was broken before her, all he had ever done to protect himself from ever being hurt by another person had failed in the face of her kindness. He loved her, it was powerful and all-consuming and so sublime. Never had anything so valuable and wholesome touched his life, it made him want to weep and it made him want to rejoice, divine as she was, she had lowered herself to something as insignificant as he. She belonged with the stars and yet here she was as far away from castles in the air as she could possibly be and she had brought heaven with her, to him.

Fury smiled at her and softly trailed his fingers over her cheek, "Thank you, Charisma, it means more to me then you could possibly know." He clasped her hand and brought it to his lips placing a delicate kiss on her knuckles, then his smile turned to a devilish grin before he scooped her in to his arms and deposited her under the beating spray of the shower.

"How did you get so much mud on you?" He asked stepping in behind her and whipping the curtain around them.

Charisma hesitated with her mouth open slightly thinking to tell him about meeting his sister but decided not to, she had cleaned any scent Star had left behind from herself, she didn't want to keep secrets from him, but wasn't too sure how he'd react.

"I … I went for a run."

"Where?" he asked casually, running his hands over her hair that soaked became so much longer, her drenched curls extended all the way to the curve of her buttocks. Charisma smiled to herself before plucking one of her body washes from the shelf beside the shower head.

"In our forest," she said, before spinning round and squirting some in her palm and lathering it into Fury's chest hair. Fury chuckled to himself, warmed by the phrase 'our forest' until he caught the scent of lavender and camomile.

"That's girls stuff!" he cried, trying to rinse it from him, Charisma just laughed and began to lather even more.

"Its relaxing. Don't you believe in aromatherapy?"

"Not when it smells like a florist, no. Though I do like its smell on you."

Before she could protest, Fury wiped another bottle from the shelf, jasmine and rice milk, he lathered the creamy liquid in his hands and turned her so she was facing away from him.

"Where were you today?" Charisma asked, Fury took a minute to answer while his hands and mind were busy on the soaping of her back and bottom.

"I, err, I went to see Vane and Fang at Bride's store," he said, his hands coming up to do a massage to her shoulders and nape of her neck. "Bride gave me a bit of a roasting about not calling for three days. How did your family take it?"

"Oh, they were fine. They could find me if they really needed me," Charisma muttered arching into his hands, "mmm! Anyway, did you tell them you were mated?"

"Yeah, they said congrats," Fury continued to massage her though he was frowning slightly, how was he going to tell her about Dare? "Listen -"

"Are you and Vane close now?"

Fury was jolted of course by the sudden change of topic, he thought for a moment, his hands slipping under arms to cup her breasts in his hands while grinding slightly on her bottom.

"I guess - I don't know really. Probably not. He and Fang have been with each other since they were cubs so they're close. They only found out about me three years ago."

"But they accept you don't they?"

Fury wasn't sure where this questioning was going and instinctively began withdrawing, he caught himself just in time before he removed his hands from her, he trusted her, he wouldn't mate with her unless he trusted her. He would not be his father.

"Yeah, they accept me. Its not always them, its more me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Fury kissed her shoulder and trailed his hand slowly downwards and heard her sharp intake of breath. "After my mother and Dare, I was alone for so long and then when I was with people I stepped back altogether. No one can betray you if they don't know your weaknesses, right? No one can hurt you so much that it feels like your bleeding from the inside out if you don't give them the ammo. I can't trust people easily."

"Do you trust me?" Fury knew she was holding her breath, he allowed his hand to slide between her legs.

"Yes," he breathed and closed his eyes and leant his head on her hair. They stood like that for a moment, with the water cascading down around them, his hand cupping her intimately but not moving almost afraid to, her tears falling but unseen.

"Do you trust Vane and Fang?" Charisma asked, she was surprised at how normal she was able to keep her voice, when her heart was so full of joy.

"I guess so. Even before I let them know we were brothers I always respected them, we were more or less in the same boat. None of our parents wanted us, the pack tried to turn all of us into omega wolves and none of us would let them. It was easier for me to grow accustomed to them, to trust them because they never did anything to really turn my judgement against them."

"Even if they had would you not have put that aside?" Charisma asked and her last words ended in a gasp as Fury moved his finger and rubbed her most sensitive spot, he trailed kisses over hair to her small shell like ear and tugged on it with his teeth.

"No, not necessarily. Once my good opinion of someone is damaged it is irreparable . Once my trust is betrayed it will be last time it will ever happen. A person can leave, walk out a door that will open for you to leave at anytime, but don't expect it to be open and waiting for you to just waltz right back in again."

Even as ripples of ecstasy coursed through her Charisma was aware of a tightening of her chest that she recognised as fear and a peculiar feeling in her stomach that she knew to be guilt. She knew how he had been betrayed and yet she assumed to know him so well that she let his sister know where to find him. She had to tell him. Charisma cried out under the shattering administrations of his clever fingers and leaned back against him panting and weak, Fury wrapped his arms around her tight, tighter until she was crushed to his chest. He never wanted to let her go. She turned her head so that her forehead rested against his chin, so close her face was distorted and her smell clouding him, his heart was hammering fit to burst.

"I don't give my heart freely, Charisma," Fury whispered raggedly, "it is a hard heart, torn and not so pure as your own but it is yours. Solely, completely yours. I want you to be my mate."

Charisma gasped, his words were as painful as they were beautiful, she had waited so long for him. She couldn't lose him. What she was about to do was deceptive, duplicitous and completely beneath her but she would not let him escape her, how could she?

Charisma blanked out the ominous feelings and focused on the man holding her, laying limply against his chest as he scooped her up and walked with her from the shower to the bedroom.

He lay her among the crumpled sheets and curved pillows and stood back to gaze down at her, his gaze heating her blood and causing her body to react to it as if it were a physical touch. Fury knelt on the bed, his own body supporting a hard erection, it was almost painful, she reached out to touch him and he hissed and jerked in her hand.

Fury blanketed her body with his own and slid his hand down to test her readiness, she was wet and welcoming and he shifted his body so he could slide inside her, they moaned in unison. The natural scented candles scattered on surfaces in her bedroom flickered to life and witnessed love in its making.

"It feels like so long since -" Charisma began to say but Fury stopped her by sliding out leaving an aching hollow and thrusting back in setting a blaze to her body.

"I know, love. I know," he growled low and buried his face against her neck and Charisma wrapped her long legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders.

Fury rolled on to his back still inside her and looked up at her awash with golden candlelight that danced off the bead of water and made her hair glow, still damp from their shower. The world shifted just long enough for him to realise that he was done for, the sun rose and set with the woman straddling him, it was only right then that he tell her so.

"Charisma, I love you."

Her hips stopped their pleasurable torture and her mouth opened slightly in surprise, of all the things … she didn't think she would hear him say that. His voice so gravely and thick with emotion and his eyes unconsciously pleading with her to feel the same way. And she did, oh she did, more so then either them could ever have expected. She had seen first hand that he wasn't one to give love freely but he'd thrown his soul out in the open and it now awaited the firing squad that would shot holes through it. But she didn't, if anything she made it whole again.

"Oh, I love you too. I think I've known I was meant to love you since that day by the river."

Fury closed his eyes holding back the sudden need to release himself deep inside her, unable to find words eloquent enough to express himself, he gave himself to her the only way he knew how. He picked up her marked palm and pressed his own to hers, he laced their fingers.

"Repeat after me," he whispered and she nodded, "I accept you as you are."

"I accept you as you are," she dutifully repeated.

"I will always hold you close in my heart."

"I will always hold you close in my heart," she leaned down and pressed her lips above said heart.

"I will walk beside you forever."

Her eyes flickered, deepened and her smile dawned. "I will walk beside you forever."

Fury repeated it back to her rather breathlessly as she had begun to ride him again, as soon as he had finished his back arched as if in pain and his incisors grew into fangs. Charisma knew what this was, it was the thiro, the bonding instinct that comes after completing the mating ritual. It wasn't necessary and could be done at a later date but it was a unbreakable promise to each other, if one should die so should the other, to follow their mate to next world and be reborn into the next life so they could have a chance of finding each other again. Unbreakable and eternal. Everything she wanted with Fury, but he did not move to bite her neck as required and though it hurt her deeply part of her was also relived. She wasn't sure why.

Charisma's body bowed and she rocked her hips until neither one of them could think straight, taking them both to the edge and with a cry wrenched from her soul, tumbled them over.

"There's something I need to tell you."

Charisma's voice slide through the darkness to his ears, he was so content and comfortable that he made an indistinct noise of agreement and snuggled closer. Charisma worried her bottom lip and shook Fury's shoulder to snap him out of his stupor.

"Alright, alright," he said sleepily and giving a husky laugh leant up on his elbow to stare at Charisma, his mate.

"I need to tell you something," she began again and it was then that Fury's brain snapped to attention - Dare - Charisma - he had to tell her!

"There's something I need to tell you to," he said, his mouth suddenly dry, "But you go first."

Charisma nodded and managed a weak smile.

"When I was in the forest' - she paused - 'our forest. I saw someone while I was in wolf form."

Fury was alert now, he clutched her arm. "Did they do anything to you? Did they hurt you?" His voice was urgent and worried, "this is important, Charisma. Who were they? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now," she replied patiently. "Anyway the person came up to me and I was going to attack her because she said your name. I thought maybe she was someone from your past," a deep blush crept up her skin and if Fury couldn't help being pleased at the possessiveness she felt over him. "Then we began talking and she. She told me -"

Charisma felt her heart pounding so hard it was making her feel sick, she could almost see how he was going to react to this. "She told me she was your sister."

For a moment Fury looked confused, then all emotion fled his face and he was a mask, he sat up and looked down at her.

"I told you my sister Anya was dead."

"She didn't say she was Anya," Charisma whispered, her beautiful eyes wide and concerned. "She said her name was Star. I remember you telling me about that side of your family and I nearly attacked her again, but -"

"But what?" Fury growled, a sense of dread growing within him.

"But we talked instead and she said she had run away and I know she was telling the truth and she said she wanted to see you," Charisma continued in a rush seeing the anger on his face increasing, his brow furrowing and his teeth bared. "I knew you wouldn't want to see them, but Fury if you had been there, she was so alone and she didn't know what to do and she is too young to really survive by herself. She's like my sister Blaze, they've lived such a sheltered life that they have no concept of what the real world is like. Fury she needs her family around her. She needs you, Fury!"

"What are you telling me!"

Charisma bit her lip and exhaled slowly.

"She asked if she could see you. At first I said nothing but I know she had no intention of hurting you so I told her to come to New Orleans -"

Fury gave a curse and with a furious growl jumped from the bed.

"Fury! Look, don't be mad! She was telling the truth, she didn't know anything about what your mother did to you!"

"And how would you know!" Fury spat back and Charisma snarled at him.

"As a goddess my power do reach beyond a mere shifting from animal form to human -"

"Well, great for you your godliness," Fury growled, "but while you were so sure she is telling the truth, you never considered that her brother, Dare, who by the way is one of the best trackers in their tressa will be able to track his sister. And if she comes to New Orleans looking for me, she doesn't just find me, does she! She finds my pack and more importantly then that, she finds Vane, Bride, Quinn and Fang!"

Charisma bit her lip, okay so she hadn't thought of that. Damn, how could she be so stupid!

"Your right I didn't think of that," she admitted in a defeated voice and Fury merely curled his lip at her. His outward appearance of livid anger only hid the hurt that she would hide something like this from him and - Fury's anger rocketed.

"You bitch! You waited until I asked you to mate with me to tell me this! Didn't you?"

Unable to lie to him she nodded, her eyes brimming with tears, she scrambled up, clutching the sheet around her.

"I know it was wrong of me but I only thought of you while I was doing it! She said she wanted to see her brother again -"

Fury interrupted her with a mirthless laugh and when he spoke again his voice shaking with what was mistaken for anger was really deep seated hurt. Hurt at being used the way he felt she had used him, how underhanded her way of dealing with this was. Letting him mate with her before dropping a bombshell. He guessed this was way human men felt when women who were meant to be on the pill suddenly came to them pregnant because they had deliberately skipped it so they could tie the men to them. But shit! This was a hell of a lot worse.

"Did it ever occur to you that I might not be ready to see her?"

Charisma opened her mouth but could think of nothing to say so she closed it.

"Hmm? It didn't, did it? Shit!"

Fury cursed and run his hands through his hair, Charisma who was standing sat down on the bed her shoulders sagging. She felt worse then she had ever felt in her life, she hurt because of his words and she hurt because her actions had wounded him. She had always prided herself on being honest and truthful, of not being manipulative and playing with people's lives the way gods tend to do. And like a hypocrite, the first opportunity and she had done just that. At that moment she loathed and despised herself more then anything else in the world.

"What now?" she asked her voice hollow and loud in the suddenly quiet room, she kept her head down and her eyes averted so Fury would not se silent and slow tears that fell on her cheek farthest from his view. Discreetly as though she were scratching her temple she wiped her tears away.

For more years then he cared to remember his survival had depended on his observant nature and vigilance, the action of wiping her eyes was subtle but not enough, he saw it and it was wrecking him. He was angry at her and hurt and confused and part of him wasn't sure if he was over reacting, but he felt stupid and played.

He hated the new found knowledge that she could do anything and he would still love her, hated the knowledge that she could wound him more deeply now then any person in his lifetime and at the first opportunity, intentional or not, she had done so.

What a fool he was!

"I don't know what now," Fury said shakily, feeling his eyes sting and his throat became tight. "But I have to go now. I'll come and see you in a day or to and we'll talk but I can't be near you right now."

He saw her inhale deeply and nod with a look of concentration on her face, like she agreed with him.

"Well its for the best," Charisma said, still she could not turn and meet his eyes or look at his face, she was struggling not to cry or beg. She didn't realise a heart could feel this much guilt and pain, of all the people she had lost in the war and all the battles she had fought, this was the hardest one. Restraining herself from chasing him up the street and throwing herself at his feet, but pride kept her spine straight and her eyes as dry as it was possible. She cleared her throat mostly to try and get past the lump in it and to give herself thinking time.

Only when he was fully dressed and at her bedroom door (she was sure if he could do adequate magic he would have been out of there faster) did she turn her eyes to his broad back.

"I am sorry, Fury," she said and she meant it, desperately. "I know its not enough by far and it won't make it better but for what its worth I am so sorry ."

She wanted to tell him she loved him to but she didn't know how he would take it and if she could do it without crying, so she let him go and even when the door slammed shut she didn't cry. Charisma curled up in a ball and wished for the next best thing to having her mother back, she wished for Sabine. Her only comfort when the world was breaking, she could now be her only comfort when her heart was.