"I want to go into town."

Victor stifled a frustrated sigh. She was relentless. "Why?"

"I want clothes that actually fit. And I want to eat something other than venison. And I'm bored." Ria said forcefully. "I've been here for two months and I've barely even gone outside."

"That's because you've been sleeping 20 hours a day, darlin'."

Over the past months, the female feral had been focused on fixing her body. She was eating massive amounts of meat, almost rivaling Victor's portions, and it was beginning to show. She was gaining weight rapidly, her healing factor was finally kicking back in and working on things while she slept, and she was beginning to actually look alive. Her hair was glossy and her eyes were bright, and every morning when Victor saw her in the sunlight coming through the window, it made his breath catch in his throat for a minute.

She was beautiful.

She was sleek and lean, her silver hair falling in curls now that it was finally being taken care of. Her claws were shiny and strong, and now that she was gaining all that weight, Victor could see that while petite, she had some very pleasing curves. Not enough to actually be called curvy, but she wasn't entirely flat, either. Her thighs seemed to be the thickest part of her, carrying most of her weight, and to Victor, that was a good sign. Her legs were strong, and that meant she could run if she needed to.

He caught himself staring at her ass, but not in time to stop the happy growl that came out of his throat. Victor just couldn't help it; he still had yet to taste her, but he knew it would be soon. It had to be.

That didn't stop him from being impatient, though. Sometimes it felt like his entire body ached for her, for just one tiny feel. He dreamed about it almost every night now, and he knew that Ria could tell when she woke up to find his teeth on her neck and his hands grabbing her in places that hadn't been grabbed in years.

Ria gave him an exasperated look. "I'm going whether you come with me or not." Then she smiled and took a step toward him. "Wouldn't you rather see me in clothes that fit right, anyways?"

His stomach tightened. She liked to remind him, at absolutely every chance she got now, that she had been a dancing girl, and a popular one at that. She knew fashion and makeup and hair, and she was beginning to spend more and more time paying attention to taking care of her image now. Unfortunately for Victor, he didn't have very much in the way of beauty supplies, and she complained constantly.

Her true colors were beginning to show, he supposed. She was probably trying to cover up the pain inside of her, to suppress all the memories of everything she had endured. More often than not, she woke Victor up with her nightmares, either by thrashing violently in her sleep or purposely tapping on his chest until he opened his eyes to find her crying and shaking and wanting to talk.

But by day now, she covered up her emotional bruises in homemade sugar scrubs.

"Just a couple outfits. Please? I just want my own clothes."

He growled. "I like seein' you in mine. Or in nothin' at all."

Ria put a hand on his chest. "And that's all fine and dandy...except that I require more. It'll be quick. You can carry me around if you want."

Tempting.

He huffed. "Fine. We have an hour."

She sighed. "Then it's right back here?"

"Yes."

"Okay…so can we go right now?"

Victor stopped himself from growling again and just nodded once before grabbing his signature coat and throwing the door open, waiting for her to follow. She paused, turned towards the bathroom, and almost made it inside to look at herself in the mirror before Victor sprang forward and grabbed her arm, dragging her outside.

"Ya look fine, frail."

"I just wanted to check!" she protested, adjusting the shirt dress she had made out of one of his button downs as he pulled her to the truck that always sat untouched.

"I checked for you, an' you're fine." he grunted, pulling the door open for her and shoving her inside before making his way around to the driver's side. He was silent as he started the engine and they peeled off towards the small dirt path through the trees that led to the highway a few miles in the distance.

"You're useless for this." she groaned as she looked at herself in the mirror. "My skin is still awful…"

Victor tightened his grip on the wheel and gritted his teeth. "No."

"Yes."

His nostrils flared. "Then tell me 'bout somethin' else. I'm gettin' real tired of this, darlin'."

It was finally her turn to growl. "Then what should i talk about, asshole?"

"Anythin' but that."

Dancing, he thought. I wanna hear about dancing.

Luckily, she had similar ideas. "I was famous, you know."

"Really, now?" He asked gruffly.

"Yes, really. I danced all around the world."

"What kind of dancing?"

"Burlesque."

He knew that she could smell his excitement.

She grinned. "I went everywhere…New York, New Orleans, San Francisco...even Europe. I even did ads for war bonds once."

"What'd you do before that?"

"Danced in New York."

"Before that."

"What, like my childhood?" she thought for a moment. "I had some brothers. We...lived in a little town on a mountain."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "When'd you turn feral?"

"Puberty, I guess...my baby teeth fell out, and I got fangs in their place. My parents tried to hide me, but that can only work for so long when your kid is a little monster. I kept wanting to hunt, and they kept passing it off as just 'children will be children' until I killed another kid. And then I got my spots, and I ran."

So...those weren't tattoos after all.

"I lived here and there, and I met a couple mutants, and I got into dancing when I was older because the humans thought I was pretty."

"Y'are pretty," Victor said.

"Thanks, big guy."

He was honestly a bit surprised when the growl he expected never rose in his chest.

"I always stayed alone, until I needed a place to hide out when I had been teaching dance and trying to lay low for a while. A family with a couple kids took me in and started treating me like their own." she snorted. "They thought I was in college trying to make a living. The kids started calling me their sister and the parents started acting like I was their daughter." Ria cracked a smile. "Tim and Mary. The kids were Ellen and Danny. Total nuclear family. It was...nice, kind of. But then those assholes caught me."

"You don't need them now, frail." I'm all you need.

"It'd be nice to pop in and say hi. Plus…"

He stifled a sigh. Of course she would want to go find them.

"I left some stuff there. It's...important to me."

"Eventually."

"I'd like to go before my heat starts and every feral on the continent can smell me."

This time he sighed for real. "Where are they?"

"...Virginia."

Then he growled for real.

"Oh, shut up."

His growl grew into a snarl. For real.

"It would throw off anyone coming to look for me here."

The snarl quieted as he realized that, sadly, she was right. "That's a couple days each way, frail."

"And a couple in the middle with them. A week is more than enough." she looked at him and grinned. "Come on, say it."

He huffed.

"Say it."

"...You're right."

"Bet your ass I am." she settled back into her seat smugly as they drove into town and parked outside of the general store. A few men standing outside the bar across the street perked up as they watched Ria get out of the truck and walk inside, Victor narrowing his eyes at them before following her.

He was antsy thinking about them while he waited for her pick out what she wanted, antsy enough that he didn't even notice how much she was trying to buy until it was too late and he had already absentmindedly handed her the wad of cash he had been paid for his last hit several months ago. She blew through a good portion of it, changed in the store, used a mirror in the bathroom to try to remember how to put on makeup, and handed him the bags to carry before he finally checked back in with reality and had the chance to get irritated with her.

She strutted out in her new boots, happily bouncing along back to the truck and checking her hair in one of the mirrors while she waited for him to catch up.

He just had to get caught up with a showgirl, didn't he?

The men were still standing outside the bar, and this time, they whistled when they saw Ria. She turned towards them after a few moments, as if it took her that long to notice them, and Victor watched her entire body tense and freeze. No, not tense...she was still lithe, just...completely frozen.

He was too confused to do anything other than watch for a minute. One of the men started to holler at her, but fell silent under her unwavering gaze. She simply...stared. What the fuck was she doing? If this was a habit of hers, then she was going to get both of them killed through pure inaction.

Finally, he just couldn't stand it anymore and snarled loud enough to tear everyone away from their senses. Pulling the door open, he shoved Ria inside the truck before stomping around and throwing the bags in on top of her through his side, yanking his door shut, turning the key in the ignition and flooring it.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked.

"Sizing up the locals."

"Sizing up?" he snapped. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She looked up at him. He was incredibly flustered. "They stared at me. I stared at them. One guy pissed himself."

She was pure predator, Victor decided. He had always heard that female ferals weren't to be trifled with, but if that's how she killed, too, then she was very...cold. Calculated. Silent.

Perfect.

He tried to regain himself. "Good to see you can take care of yourself, darlin'."

"Yes. Well. Safe to say we should go to Virginia now, don't you think?"

"Why?"

"If anybody comes through town asking about me, those men will be able to say I was there. We don't wanna be around while they're sniffing for a leopard."

What a bitch.

"You did this on purpose, frail." he growled.

His icy tone seemed to push her down a notch. "I actually didn't…" she said quietly.

He exhaled sharply. "Yer right, though. But frail…."

"Yes?"

"You wanted to go before your heat." he looked over at her as the truck tore along the highway. "You sound awful eager to get there. Have anythin' to share?"

She swallowed nervously, all of her bravado vanishing. "N-no…" she looked down at the bags in her lap. "I...I feel good. You make me excited. You make my stomach churn. In a good way."

He was amused by the way that her walls were so easily stripped back down. He liked this version of Ria more. "I make you feel nice, huh?"

"...Yeah. I figure it's just a matter of time."

"When was the last time, darlin'?"

"I was in heat?"

He gave a quick nod and she paused to think.

"Definitely before I went to that fucking prison…maybe when I was at the club? So...before I lived with Tim and Mary…" She frowned. "Ten years ago?"

Victor smirked. Her heat was going to hit her hard.

"Kind of sucked anyways though."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I could only find one guy the whole time. He wasn't great. He was feral, though, but not very…impressive."

Victor growled to himself.

"So snarly all the time," Ria commented. "What've you got to be so grumpy about?"

"I'm not grumpy."

"Then what's with the attitude?" she reached out and scratched his chin, crooning. "My big grumpy man."

He raised his lip in a snarl. "Don't test me, frail."

"Not testing anything." she withdrew her hand after gliding her fingers across his cheek. He quieted down again and she smiled softly. She liked that she could both rile him up and calm him.

They drove in silence until Victor turned on the radio and they listened to slightly staticky AM stations. As Ria stared out the window at the small towns they passed occasionally, she gathered that they had been pretty deep into Canada, and the only way they were making it to their destination in just a few days was Victor's reckless driving. They pushed 120 most of the time, and Ria started growing concerned for the poor truck after about an hour.

She tried not to think about it.

Instead, her mind wandered to focusing on her life in general now that she was getting healthier and more comfortable. Victor was dangerous, but what feral wasn't, especially males? He was just big, and so fucking grumpy a good portion of the time...but as much as she pushed him, he never gave her more than warnings. He would growl and snarl and grab her and snap in her face, but he had yet to actually hurt her. She figured that he didn't want to damage something that would potentially be giving him children.

Children...god, was she actually going to have any? She supposed it wasn't such a bad thought, and at least Victor was strong. The leopard in her thought it was a good idea, but she didn't necessarily always trust it about things that were so deeply rooted in ancient, primal instincts. That's what ferals were, though; old, savage, instinctual.

She wondered how long it would be until Victor tried something. It would probably be soon, wouldn't it? Now that he knew that she was expecting a heat...maybe it would be in just a few hours, when it got dark out and they stopped to sleep. Would they even stop at a motel? She hoped so. She really didn't want to figure out how to sleep in the truck, especially with someone as huge as Victor there.

He really made her feel tiny. She knew she was pretty small, but usually she wasn't quite so...delicate. She was stronger than he made her seem, but it never felt like it. Victor was realizing lately, too; he was careful with her, but at the same time, he was growing rougher. He liked to pick her up, and if he decided it was time for bed, he would toss her down. It almost felt like he was playing, even though he rarely looked genuinely happy.

She wanted him to be happy for some reason. Maybe it was because she was getting more and more accepting of him as her mate. She had never had anything very close to one before; she had some flings, especially when she danced in the 40s and had so many military suitors, but none of them ever really lasted. She was a little ashamed to admit that she grew tired of them all pretty quickly, some after just a few weeks if they were humans and not mutants. She had a few one night stands, but not very many of those, either, and the last one had been with that feral who found her in her last heat, and now she was embarrassed that it had ever happened.

"Desperation." She snarled at herself.

Victor tensed in surprise.

"Sorry," Ria glanced over at him.

Thankfully he let it slide. "We're stoppin' for food."

"What? Really?" She looked out the window to see that they were entering another small town.

"Really."

Her stomach growled and she realized how hungry she was. The thought of eating something other than venison and what few other edibles in the cabin made her mouth water. "My god...real food!"

He wrinkled his nose, offended. "I give ya real food, frail."

"The charm of dead deer wears off after the first month."

He snorted and pulled into a lot outside a diner. Ria hopped out of the truck excitedly, happy to be stretching her legs after being cramped for so long. Her left foot tingled and went numb as they started walking in, pins and needles making her stumble into Victor's side. He looked at her in concern, putting an arm around her shoulders as she struggled to regain feeling in her toes.

"I'm fine," she snapped, embarrassed. "Fine."

Victor chuckled, the low sound rumbling almost like his growls did. "Whatever you say, darlin'."

They walked into the surprisingly busy little restaurant, and suddenly all eyes were on the mismatched pair. Waitresses paused in the middle of taking orders, old men stopped mid-chew, and the few children that sat with their parents stared rudely. They had no idea why the two were so unsettling; maybe it was Victor's size, or the long coat he wore; maybe it was Ria's piercing eyes, or how opposite she looked next to him with her small frame and delicate features.

A growl rose in Victor's chest, low enough that the humans couldn't hear it, and Ria put a hand on his arm in warning. His nostrils flared as he took in all the scents of the diner, sifting through them in his head, searching for anything threatening. Ria pulled him past the "Seat Yourself" sign and into a nearby booth, ignoring the scoffs they received from the family across from them.

"You sure aren't good at being discreet," she muttered to Victor.

He looked at her dangerously. "Can't be too careful." he put his head down slightly and peered around at what he could see of the room. "They're afraid. Like they should be."

"I know." Ria answered as a waitress brought them waters and left as quickly as she could. "They probably don't see many out of towners here."

He growled quietly again. "They know what we are. Just don't show it."

Ria furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

"We evolved alongside 'em. Mutants and humans have always existed together, frail. They just forgot." he took a sip of his water, crunching on some of the ice. "They know they should be scared, though."

"Maybe they're just scared because you look like you could suplex a bull elephant."

The edges of his mouth twitched in a smile and he watched as she grabbed a menu and combed through it, twisting a strand of hair around her claws. This was just like a...date? Is that what it was? He would have to ask Jimmy next time they crossed paths. Whether it was or not, Victor found himself enjoying it, and for a few minutes, he felt like they were just some kind of normal couple, blending in with society. Not exactly what he wanted, but it was almost...nice, for a change, to pretend that he didn't know all of the things that he did, that he hadn't seen all of the things he'd seen. Just a normal man, out to dinner with his normal girl.

He knew they'd never be that way, and that their normal was far from any human's, but in that moment, it was nice, and the tiger was quiet.