Before the call, she had known that she needed to talk to Sabretooth, needed to pull back and feel that she wasn't completely insane, and she had known it would be difficult. In fact, part of her had hoped that he would persuade her from walking away. But after Logan's bombshell, she knew there would be no persuasion, and her heart was heavy.

As she alighted on the porch, she found him standing in the same place and position she had left him. "Victor?"

Though he kept his eyes impassive, it was impossible not to notice the swell of his chest as he turned to view her. He approached her quickly, reaching his arms out to grab her when she stopped him, placing her hands on his forearms to prevent him from lifting her up. "Victor, I need to talk to you."

"About?" he asked, his tone wary.

"Why don't we go inside for a moment. It's getting dark."

"For a moment?" he said, understanding and agitation dancing in his eyes.

Sabretooth followed her into the cabin closing the door firmly behind him. Earlier she might have been nervous, but she had seen that there was something else to him besides bloodlust, and now she just wanted to talk to him, like two human beings. One of whom has been killing people up and down the Eastern Seaboard. She shook the thought out of her mind. Stay positive, Ororo. Make him understand.

"Victor," she started, turning toward him. The cabin looked so cozy in the evening light, and he, even with his edge, looked inviting; she felt a swell of longing. "What would you have done if those men had just been park rangers? Would you have still tried to kill them?" Sabretooth leveled a chilling look at her but didn't answer. Ororo felt her blood pressure rise at what she felt was his silent assent. "What if they had been hikers? Teenagers? Would you have wanted to kill them, just to avoid being interrupted?"

His face had become a mask again, terrifyingly in its coldness. "What do you think?"

Ororo's mouth and lips felt suddenly dry as she tried answer. "I called home after I got the man help..."

"But of course you did," he said scornfully.

"I was told that someone has been killing people along the East Coast, slicing their throats with...his claws." She almost lost her will to continue speaking of it. It was so disheartening. She looked away, a pained expression on her face.

"You think it's me."

"Is it?"

He paused before answering. "Who told you?"

"What does it matter who told me?" she snapped, turning back to him.

He smiled cruelly at no one in particular. "The Runt. I should have known you'd talk to him. He wants to fuck you, you know."

"What?!" Ororo gaped in shock and anger. "What Logan does or does not want is not the issue here. Did. you. kill. those. people?"

"No," he said staring her dead in the eyes.

It wasn't the answer she was expecting and for a moment she was at a loss for words. "You didn't?" she responded lamely.

He sneered. "Is that so hard to believe? That I'm not the only one who kills people in the world?"

"I don't know." She grew silent. Did it change things? He hadn't killed these people, but there had been many others. He had been willing to kill today and willing to have sex while someone lay injured just outside the door. "What about my earlier question? You didn't answer it. Would you have been willing to kill those men if they had just been hikers?"

Sabretooth took a step toward her. "What if I said 'yes'?"

She shook her head. What kind of answer is that? Whatever she was thinking before, whatever had let her give in to him, she had to shake it off. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. I came back because I wanted to tell you to your face. I want you to understand why I can't go through with this." She needed to explain to him but she was having trouble thinking. Her stomache began to roil with disgust and desire; it was such a filthy combination. Even now she had to turn her head slightly to avoid seeing his glorious form in the evening light. She needed to move. In her nervousness, she started pacing but his body was blocking her way. As she tried to walk past him, he hooked her waist and tossed her back.

Another step closer. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Hey!," she exclaimed in reaction. She swallowed slightly, realizing that he was now bearing down on her.

"Victor, I thought I could do this but..." She groped for words, but failing to find any that would express her tumult, she fell back on formality. "I disapprove of what you do." He reached forward and grabbed the collar of her shirt in his fist. "Victor..." With barely a flick of his wrist, he ripped the front of her shirt off sharp, the force of the jerk propelling her forward, into his chest. "Victor!" she cried in shock, finally looking him in the eye.

His face was twisted into a snarl. "You disapprove of what I do, huh?" She tried to scramble back but he grabbed her wrists and proceeded to rip and tear the rest of her shirt and bra violently from her body.

"Victor, stop!" she shouted but he pushed her onto the bed, crushing her wrists into the mattress above her head. She stared at him in shock and shivered as she encountered nothing but a wall of rage. Oh Goddess, Jean was right. His right hand reached down to rend her shorts into strips. In an instant she was bare, her clothing nothing more than confetti strewn from the bed. "Victor, no! Please!"

She felt her eyes go white and heard the sky split as an astonishing bolt of lightning struck the cabin. A brilliant white flashed into the windows like a momentary floodlight and an electric hiss died in the distance, but true to Sabretooth's word, the cabin itself was untouched.

Sabretooth seemed to be straining against a crazed energy, his eyes drifting toward frenzy. "Now, I've played real nice up to now." His voice was hard and tight. "Real nice." He forced his knees between her legs and pushed them open. Another stunning bolt of lighting engulfed the cabin while the accompanying thunder rattled the windows jarringly. Outside, the trees began to sway as the wind picked up, and inside the temperature began to drop, but all of this only seemed to hasten Sabretooth on.

He reached down and started unbuttoning his pants. "It's time for you to give me what I want."

Ororo strained to make it colder, the winds already battering the walls at howling speeds, but she realized something was holding her back. She was crying. Stop crying and concentrate. She furrowed her brow trying to focus on her anger and hatred for Sabretooth, tried to focus on the image of his blood freezing in his veins, but a dull ache in her heart stood in the way. It was regret. As hard as she tried to hate him, tried to kill him with cold, the sorrow that he wasn't what she had hoped kept getting in the way. "I didn't think you would hurt me."

It wasn't until Sabretooth stopped that she realized she had spoken aloud.

His eyes were still crazed, but there was also something she never thought she would see in him: guilt. "Ororo," he croaked through rasping breaths. "Ororo." He seemed to be fighting to control his body. For a moment he seemed to slip back, squeezing her wrists tighter, salivating as he looked down on her body, but then he pulled back, literally, lifting his face toward the ceiling to escape the temptation below. "I didn't...I wanted..." Jerkily, he looked back at her for help finishing his words.

Ororo herself barely felt able to speak. Dizzy from exertion and jittery from the adrenaline coarsing through her, she remained in a dazed silence for a moment. "You wanted..." she managed to whisper.

His brows furrowed so deeply that she might have thought he was glaring at her in anger if not for the quaver in his voice. "I wanted...you to want me."

She tried to suppress the sympathetic surge in her chest - Why did he have to say that? - but felt her eyes fading back to normal, and worse, felt her mouth begin to speak. "You hurt me." Sabretooth released her wrists but did not withdraw from her, planting his hands on either side of her shoulders. His knees were still lodged between her legs and he still trembled with barely controlled lust. "What do you say to that?" she prompted.

His jaw moved but no words emerged. She nodded her head encouragingly. "I'm...sorry," he choked out. She drew down her arms to look at them and noticed bruises starting to form. She held up one of her wrists for him to see.

"You did this. It hurt me."

The apology came more easily this time. "I'm sorry, Ororo."

Then she swallowed and found herself saying something she knew she shouldn't. "Maybe you should kiss it to make it feel better." Ororo, what are you doing?

His eyes flashed and he took her wrist gently in his left hand. "Yes," he rasped, and tilted his head down to graze his lips over her skin. He returned her wrist and took her other to kiss it. He then scanned her body ravenously, looking for another opportunity for an apology. Finding none, he leaned in to kiss her mouth, but Ororo held up her palm.

"No." In truth, as wrong as it was, she did not want him to stop. But for her own sanity, she needed to know if he would.

He did. But he looked at her with such aching need, it felt like his lips were all over her, her own ache growing between her legs. With ragged breaths, he began to draw himself off of her when she placed her hand on his cheek. Mixed signals. Stop it. She couldn't stop it, though. She couldn't seem to do anything that made sense. He began to rub his head and face into her hand, desperate to feel her touch.

"Please," he begged. She felt her body begin to quiver as the rise and fall of his chest quickened. "Please. Please, Ororo." Her hand slid down the ripples of his torso to his fly, where it felt his bulge pulse beneath the fabric. Even after she had unbuttoned his pants, however, he stayed, eyes heavy-lidded, waiting for her permission. "Please, Ororo..." His eyes implored her.

She looked at the beast of a man pleading for her between her knees and answered, "Yes."