Chapter 3

Lauren

The slight growls of the beasts around me made me aware of the presence of another being in the room. "Stop it." Dyson's voice filtered through the air. I had ransacked my old lab last night, taking major pieces of equipment to the ware house so I could start synthesizing a suppressant to help calm the more…animalistic side of me. The part I couldn't quite understand at the moment. The manticore grew more aggressive, some snarling at the intruder. "Lauren, please call off your dogs."

"They aren't 'dogs'." I muttered, turning from the machine I sat at and shushing the underfae with a simple "hush" and moving across the room. "However, what does the more annoying of the only two dogs I know want?" I asked, breezing past him, hearing Simba following after me.

"Checking in." he said simply and I barked a laugh.

"If you're 'checking in' I'm the Ash of the Dark Fae."

"Well, you're the only human I've ever met who also happens to be the leader of a rather hostile pack of underfae."

"They're not hostile." I said, setting down the vials I carried and putting them one by one into the testing machine. I turned to face the shifter.

"What? They just don't like having wolves around?" He asked, trying to make light of things. Simba jumped onto the counter then climbed up my arm, resting on my shoulder.

"No. They saw me kick the crap out of you and know I really don't like having you here."

"First off, I came here to make amends, secondly, you only got me because you caught me by surprise."

"If you're trying to provoke me into fighting you, it won't work. Besides, the pride will pump you full of quills before you can even think about—" the scent caught me off guard, stopped me midsentence. It was light, sweet like honey yet warm like vanilla. A scent that often made my heart flutter and my lungs inhale greedily. It was her scent. Bo's scent. One of her favourite perfumes.

But this time, this time the scent was mixed with the musky scent of the forest, of animal. A strum of sudden anger swelled in my chest.

His scent.

She was all over him.

Her smell was mixed with his.

Just faintly did I hear the sound of Simba hissing by my ear, ears flat against his head.

"You smell like Bo." I said simply, though the underlying tones to my words weren't well hidden. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah, well, she got in a bit of a jam last night with the breeder. Needed healing." He shrugged as if it was no big deal. And I didn't understand where my sudden aggression came from, but it came fast and hard, knocking the air from my lungs and forcing my body to tense painfully. He thought it was no big deal that he had screwed the woman who I was trying so desperately to repair my relationship with. That he was with her when she needed help.

"She could've come here." I growled he walked towards me

"Lauren, it was no big deal. She just thought—" I snapped and knocked him flat on his ass as the heel of my palm connected with his chest. He slid through the dirt, the manticore moving away from him, the cub leapt from my shoulder. He quickly got to his feet, his eyes taking on the wolf look as his teeth extended. I changed the same time he did, tasting the salty copper envelope my mouth as my teeth elongated.

Dyson and I had begun to build a bridge over the gap left between us, especially the canyon left by our fighting over Bo, but now it seemed he'd strapped TNT to it and I was leaning on the detonator. Truth be told, it wasn't his fault. The fusion of DNA seemed to have ramped up my aggression levels and shortened my temper. He just brought up the wrong thing at the wrong time. That and he neglected to have to courtesy to at least bathe before walking into my temporary dwelling.

"Don't you dare make this seem like nothing!" I snarled, advancing on him the same time he advanced on me. "You come in here, absolutely dripping her scent and you think it's nothing?" We ended up nose to nose, his teeth bared, and my eyes glaring into his.

"She needed me and I was there for her!" Oh, so he wanted to make this even more personal that it was, did he? Fine. I'd tear him limb from limb and leave him for the others. I felt the goose bumps prickle on my skin again and I clenched my fists, swinging at Dyson and missing as he dodged backwards. Swung again only to have my legs knocked out from under me. I hit the ground and felt my skin grow taut, like it were being pulled in all different directions. I raised my arms and stopped, my heart dropping.

The skin all along my forearms was covered in quills with the diameters of pencils, extending about two to three inches. I pushed myself up, carefully reaching over my shoulder and feeling the thicker set of spines extending in the pattern of my rib cage and spine. Half-astonished and half-intrigued by the newest development, I stood up, my body returning to its more human state, just as Bo entered the warehouse. She dropped the bags she was carrying to the ground.

"Holy shit! Lauren!" I looked at her then back to my arms, still covered in the quills. Dyson rubbed the back of his neck before grumbling his sudden emergency and making a hasty retreat.

+/+\+

"Sorry." Bo said as I winced when she pulled out yet another quill from my back. She'd brought a large metal bath that looked like one you'd use for a dog and filled with warm water. I sat in it as she used pliers to pluck the uncomfortable spines from my back and drop them into the pale sitting beside her chair. As night fell, she placed and lit candles and oil lamps, giving the large room an almost warm feeling. She had finished most of my back already, though it'd taken a large portion of the night to complete. She poured water over my back gently, her fingers caressing the spot she'd just plucked.

"You don't have to do this, Bo, I can deal with it in the morning."

"and sleep all night with spikes poking out of your back? How 'bout 'no'?"

"You've been at this for over an hour already."

"Yeah, well, there're a lot of things here."

"Won't Kenzy be wondering where—"

"Why do you always do that?" she asked abruptly in an annoyed tone, forcing me to look at her. I blinked at the frustrated look on her face.

"Do what?"

"You always push me away when I try to get closer to you." I looked away from her and into the water I sat in, wishing I could just melt away into it.

"No,, I don—"

"Yeah, you do!"

"Bo, please, just drop it."

"Not unless you want me to leave." Damn, damn, damn.

"Because…"

"Because what?"

My eyes stung as she forced me to say something I'd desperately tried not to say or even think about. "I'm scared that I'll do something wrong." I blurted it out and couldn't raise my eyes to hers, but when she didn't say anything, I continued "especially now that I've got this other side of me that I can't control…" I sniffled, watching my hands in the water. "God, Bo, if I hurt you—"

"You wouldn't, Lauren."

"But, if I did," I whispered, my voice abandoning me "considering what happened with you and I before," she closed her eyes. Our first night together was a wound I knew would never completely heal, but bringing it up was like dousing it in lemon juice. "Based on how I felt after the first time, I don't think I would be able to live with myself."

"Lauren…"

"Bo, it's ok, alright?" I splashed water in my face to hopeful hide the tears flowing down my cheeks. I was a monster, as creature that could destroy without mercy, without regret. I didn't want Bo at a distance, but, at the same time, I couldn't let her get hurt. "Let's just finish the quill thing and then I'll see you in the morning, ok?" I rinsed my face again and heard her put the pliers down and her boots click against the floor.

She was leaving?

But I told her what she wanted to know.

Did I scare her?

My chest contracted painfully at the thought of Bo leaving me at that moment, the tears streaming more steadily down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and hid them in my hands. Did she see what only I thought I could? Did she see something more vile and dangerous lying underneath my normal looking appearance? Was I lying to myself, filling my head with false hope that Bo and I could be something more again? Even if had only been for a few hours?

I didn't want Bo to leave, but I didn't want to have her blood on my hands if I could protect her. I pulled my knees to my chest, willing myself not to look so weak. So vulnerable.

A soft hand touched my cheek.

"Hey" Bo said softly, moving my face to look at her with little effort. I sniffled, looking at the ground, now completely embarrassed that I'd been crying in front of her. "Lauren," she said, brushing away the drops on my face. "Lauren, look at me." I did as I was told, seeing her warm brown eyes looking into mine as she kneeled beside the tub so she was eye level with me. I let my legs slide back into the water "Before you helped me, I killed people." She said softly, thumbs brushing my cheek bones "I didn't want to, I just wanted love, I just wanted to be able to sleep with someone and not wake up next to a corpse." Of its own accord, my hand gently squeezed her forearm, trying to comfort her. "But, then I met you and you wanted to help me, even though the Ash wouldn't approve. And you did, now I have control over it. Now, I don't have to be a killer." I heard one boot clunk to the ground, quickly followed by the other one.

What the..?

Bo lifted herself, still fully clothed, into the bath tub, straddling my legs, the water reaching up to her waist. She cupped my face gently, pushing my hair back from my face. "I don't want you to feel like a monster, Lauren." She leaned her face in towards me, lips pressing to my own tenderly. I gripped her waist in desperate hands, like she was some hallucination that would disappear if I didn't hold on. The tears streamed more steadily down my face when I realised she wasn't going anywhere. My arms wrapped around her mid section, pulling her closer to me. Her arms wound around my neck as the meaning of our kiss deepened.

I've missed you

She held me when our kiss finally broke and I buried my head against her shoulder and cried.

She held me and whispered sweet words of comfort into my ear.

"Shhhh," she said gently, kissing the top of my head, her fingers gently stroking my hair "It's alright, Lauren, I'm not going anywhere, not until you're ready for me to leave."

I didn't say it then, if I could've found my voice I probably would've.

I wasn't ready for Bo to leave.

I never would be.

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