Well, here you are everyone. I was in such a fluffy mood this came out. Hey don't worry though I promise you Selene and Michael's troubles are not over yet. Not by a long shot. With that said...enjoy!

Chapter 5

Giving In

It was exactly seven a.m. when Michael Corvin woke the next day. The sound of sparrows and various other morning birds singing softly, mocking Michael with their normalcy.

With a groan Michael stretched his legs and blinked a few times to adjust to the presence of daylight, the warm sunlight blanketing him. He rose to the edge of the bed, his long legs just an inch short of the floor.

He felt…good. Better than he had felt in the past week, better than he had ever felt! Strong, he felt so strong and his body seemed to twitch for an outlet to release some of this mad strength into. And the energy! Michael was sure he could run six miles before his body began to feel anything. No aches, no pains and his mind felt so clear, his eyes and ears and nose aware of everything.

He felt, well…perfect. Except--

And yes, there it was and his mind was at ease. Selene was somewhere in the motel room and her scent danced with the most fiery enticement against his nose, caressing his senses.

Michael left the bedroom and followed a short walkway to a small, dark living room. There was an antique-looking wine-colored armchair about a foot away from a royal blue couch, the couch so narrow and shifty-looking that Michael wondered if it were possible if it could even support a person on it.

The couch was clearly stronger than it looked because Selene lay across it facing the back of the couch using her arm to pillow her head as she slept. The Death Dealer was no longer wearing her suit, instead she wore a pair of black form-fitting stretch pants and a black long sleeved, clinging t-shirt that just seemed so alien on her.

If he hadn't known her immortal secret he'd have feared her dead. She was so pale, pale as the moonlight, her face so relaxed and her red lips parted softly as if she had been paused in the middle of whispering words to someone.

Michael knelt next to Selene convinced that she would be much more comfortable in a bed, after all it was the least he could do for her after all she had done for him. He didn't worry she would wake, she hadn't slept well in days, it would probably take a marching band to wake her.

He stopped short as his hands moved to slink under her back and the bend of her knees noticing something amiss. Selene's scent was different, mingling with another tantalizing perfume. There was a faint sweet coppery scent.

Blood.

That meant Selene was injured and until Michael knew the extent of which she was, he wouldn't ignore it. Just because he was a hybrid didn't mean his medical knowledge was going to be forgotten.

The curious hybrid stole a look at Selene, she still lay sleeping just as peacefully as before and carefully Michael traced his fingers along her clothed skin. First from ankle to hip lightly but firmly looking for embedded weapons. He paused at the cuff of her pants wondering if it would be wise to do what he was considering doing. Steeling himself, he peeled back one pant leg exposing her skin all the way to the knee and Selene stirred just a bit before going still again.

Her legs were fine, all milky white skin unmarred and smooth as porcelain, soft as silk and Michael fought hard to ignore the things the exposure of her skin did to him.

Michael paused when he felt a slight dampness on the inside of her elbow, gingerly he uncovered the injured arm to exposed the wound. There was a cut quite large right across the inside of her elbow deep enough to have possibly penetrated an artery the flesh raised and swollen just a bit. But perhaps the strangest part was the bruise around the cut. Blunt objects tended to make heavy black or greenish bruises not dark red ones like this one, it almost looked like a--

It couldn't be.

But it definitely looked like one.

Shoving the foolish thought to the back of his mind Michael focused on the seriousness of the wound. It was already beginning to heal but it was best that it be wrapped as a disturbance of the wound could cause further bleeding.

The unfamiliarity of heat from Michael's touch on her bare skin made Selene nearly leap awake. Her glittering green eyes looked muzzy but were clearing to alertness quickly.

"What is it?" Selene inquired, she looked and sounded genuine confused but strangely patient about the interruption of her sleep.

Her patience was a good sign probably owed to lack of proper rest. Since he had indeed woke her and been caught red-handed, his fingertips had faint traces of her blood on them, he decided the truth couldn't hurt.

"Didn't mean to wake you," Michael said in that beautifully contrite tone Selene was sureno one but Michael could pull off without it sounding pitiful or unremorseful. "Just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Selene sat up fully moving with liquid grace, but the predator in Michael noticed how gingerly she moved. To a human it was barely noticeable, perfectly concealed, but to the wolf and vampire within, the weakness in her, was as naked as a newborn.

"Of course I'm all right," the groggy warrior answered with just a bit of impatience creeping into her voice.

"You're hurt," Michael insisted.

Selene was reminded of the previous night when he had said the same thing but unable to do anything to help but instead passed out and--

Those little butterflies were fluttering about again and Selene abruptly erased all thought of Michael's feeding from her mind and the butterflies calmed.

"There were Death Dealers last night, we lost them." She folded her arms in front of her bending her head forward slightly causing her hair to shadow across her right cheek and the deep green of those eyes looked out from the tresses. "The car however is nearly totaled we'll need another as soon as possible." She stopped and there was silence, Michael seemed to be waiting for more.

"You passed out on the highway, I suppose it was the change."

And starvation, you forgot about that, Selene's guilty conscience chimed in.

"The worst is probably over now, you seemed to have passed the most critical days," Selene remarked. She was hoping that this information would assure him and herself and also keep Michael off the subject of her injuries, especially the cut on her arm that seemed to throb faintly for Michael's touch.

"And you?" Michael asked without allowing for a moment his own good fortune to make him forget Selene's own injuries. "I should look at those wounds for you."

Selene didn't ask how he knew she was injured, that would have been stupid considering his sense of smell was probably even better than her own and also she didn't doubt he had been in the middle of trying to examine said wounds. Or he had indeed remembered more beyond the car ride, but she seriously doubted it, he had been going in and out so rapidly Selene wondered how he even remembered his own name.

"I don't need a physical Michael," Selene expressed in a rather clipped tone that surprised her when Michael didn't even flinch. "A shallow bullet wound and a small cut are hardly worth stitches, and like you, I too am a fast healer."

"And the bruise?"

Selene stood from the couch, one reason being that the idea of receiving a day of sleep was no longer appealing to her rapidly working mind and to distance herself from Michael's closeness, it was making her uncomfortable because she had been comfortable right next to him.

"It's nothing."

So it was dropped. Or so Selene had thought.

Michael was still watching her, she felt naked under his gaze knowing he was trying his hardest to decipher rather that 'nothing' was indeed something to concern himself over. She didn't met his eyes again convincing herself he would get nothing more out of her if she stayed put.

Michael tried to let it go but then he also noticed Selene looked paler than usual and she seemed a little, just a little, sluggish and Michael had a feeling it wasn't due to sleep loss.

"You've lost a lot of blood," Michael commented after a few more moments. It was just like the first time he'd said it, coaxingly meek and understanding to get her to calm and do as he wished. It was so carefully done Selene wondered how many years of psychology had Michael studied to become so wonderfully good at it, or as she suspected, it was just a natural ability.

It brought Selene back to that night when the rain fell in long, heavy drops loud as pebbles against the windshield. Michael had sternly demanded that she stop the car and Selene knew right away that the threat was most likely an empty one, lacking any danger but a bit of fear and a healthy dose of disbelief. She easily quieted his demands with a real threat, a silver pistol.

But she would never forget what he did after.

"All right," he said gently. "But you've lost a lot of blood."

No one had ever spoken with such sincere concern as Michael had, he seemed to have forgotten he was her own prisoner. She hesitated at his words, so simple and quiet, the way she never had before that night and it scared her.

A strangely unselfish negotiation…

Being a Death Dealer Selene had been negotiated to at least a dozen times often after hours of torture. Some lycans pled for the mercy of a silver bullet to the brain, others to be given the mercy of her heart as they had a husband or wife and children, or to be more accurate pups and a mate to return to. Others offered her things she could care less about, the most popular being money and so-called valuable information in exchange for their lives. Even when the tears flowed Selene's resolve never once wavered, their pleas didn't faze her, if anything they fueled her as their cries were mostly whimpers and short howls, reminding her that they were lycans she would find some peace in silencing.

Now she realized most of them had been young, most between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight even their eyes were young, the mark of the lycan still raw and open on their skin when she put a bullet into their brains.

It sickened her so severely she fought not to vomit whenever she thought about it.

So she didn't.

"I'll live," Selene answered harshly once she returned to reality.

Since the subject of Selene's wounds had come up a piece of Michael kept nagging on and on, telling him to leave it be as Selene requested, telling him he really didn't want to know. But the rest of him demanded his curiosity be sated and now.

Before Michael knew what he was doing he had gripped her small injured arm just above the elbow firmly but without roughness and peeled back the shirt sleeve.

It wasn't Michael's strength that surprised her but his nerve and Selene let him know by glaring at him so hellishly angry that the deep green of her eyes faded becoming a frosty blue.

"Let me go," Selene said quietly but the threat was definitely there.

Instantly Michael did but not before he had taken a better look at the bruise Selene had been trying desperately to conceal before her hybrid discovered what it was.

He didn't seem to be that concerned about Selene's angry reaction his realization had jarred him. "It was me. I did this to you." He shook his head in numb disbelief. "I fed from you."

Her anger faded like a small fire doused with a bucket of ice water. Selene carefully pulled back the sleeve of her shirt not knowing quite how to proceed now that Michael knew.

"Yes," she answered.

She looked at him now noticing he didn't look back and she knew he wouldn't. He was filled with shame, so much he looked physically sick when only seconds ago he looked in the pink of health.

He sank to the couch blinking in a stunned stupor-like way. "Selene," he said her name as though she were as delicate as crystal. "God, Selene I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," she answered and she meant it.

He was quiet still shaking his head in horror then finally he asked in a small voice Selene had to strain to hear. "Did I do anything else?"

Selene's heart ached with adoration and care for him knowing of the terrible guilt he felt in having done such a thing to her and he looked so full of despair awaiting her answer, it looked as though a yes answer would kill him.

She came next to him as if to show him she wasn't angry and to calm him and Michael inched away as though afraid his desires would betray him once more. "No, you fell asleep immediately."

Another long silence but Selene could almost see the reels of last nights scene playing over in Michael's head, the horrible way he imagined it.

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"You were very ill last night, dying. You needed to feed to survive the change, I didn't exactly have blood on hand…" She left it at that.

It seemed a particularly nasty image of himself violently feeding had sprang to his mind. "You didn't have to let me, Selene. I could have killed you."

"Enough." She was neither cruel or impatient but tenderly demanding. She gripped his chin in her hand. "Look at me Michael. You are not an animal, nor did you take me the way one does. You fed and I allowed it, I've suffering nothing but a small bruise for my trouble."

"But if I bit you why didn't you--

"You didn't. I was already bleeding more than enough."

He looked at her this time but with those grieving eyes she hated to see. "Why?"

Selene wasn't quite sure what he was asking and her expression must have shown it.

"Why do you keep saving me?" he reiterated.

She was surprised to hear him ask such a question, surely he knew, or felt it.

For the briefest moment he could have sworn he saw a smile ghost over her face. "I could ask you the same question."

In her eyes he found the answer to both their questions. Something so beautiful had flickered inside those depths, he knew it had been a long while since her eyes had ever looked that way. But just as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, fear and anger like a winter wind blowing out a candlelight.

For the second time that day Michael surprised her, capturing her mouth with his own, but after the fierceness of the speed of which Michael moved there was nothing else to suggest aggression. His mouth had gently brushed hers, so feather-light it almost wasn't there, like the most delicious fantasy, making those butterflies dance around in Selene's stomach. His lips tasted her firmly now, his tongue parting open her mouth and tickling the tip of her own seeking tongue.

Selene didn't retreat from the arms that held her, both hands holding her waist but gripping loosely, massaging the soft skin. She could have easily removed herself from his embrace and she planned to, not wanting him to see how she felt about him and how easily she crumbled when it came to him. Instead of prying him away she trailed her hands up his arms and down again giving him the most pleasurable goosebumps and letting him know to proceed.

Through the haze of their embrace Selene wondered: was it really their fourth kiss?

The kiss in the interrogation room had been a mere distraction that had awakened something in them both. The second, in the lycan's lair had been initiated by Michael but Selene had allowed it in fear of what the night would bring, and they have kissed as though it were their last. The third time, on the second night of Michael's change Selene had done it without hesitation knowing she held the cards and knew the sweet sensations would calm him. But this one, this one was without trickery, selfishness, or fear.

It was pure. It was honest.

He went on kissing her taking his time, so softly, so tenderly. One moment he was caressing her tongue's underside then tracing the left side of her tongue in a long, slow sweep before returning to dueling with the very tip.

When he broke their kiss Selene's eyes opened ever so slowly as if coming out of an incredible dream. Michael only gave her a gentle smile.

They were quiet for several moments. Since peace had returned it seemed Selene's body was willing to rest once more and very soon.

"You should get some sleep," Michael suggested noticing Selene's eyes still carried the same dreamy-qualityminutes afterward.

She didn't answer a deep numbness had swept through her and Selene closed her eyes.

Michael watched her for several moments as she slept before returning to the bedroom. He closed the blinds first then the curtains before returning to Selene.

He lifted her easily carrying her to the bedroom where he was sure she would rest more easily.