Okay, no more morbid ending for this chapter I promise. But since one of my reviewers mentioned it I guess it is time to let the cat out of the bag and let you know I have already planned and began writing a sequal for this fanfic. It will be all about Fortis, from the time she was a child, to the time her mother was killed, then move to when Kalin fell to madness, and then will move to a modern time. Will she find love while searching for a certain something that will help a certain someone who is dying? Guess you guys will have to stay tuned and find out!

Rebecca's POV

I wanted to say something, anything, to ease the look of sadness and pain that had fallen over Kalin. I hated to see him like this, and I understood what he was feeling. The thought of that sweet little girl dying so soon was horrible, and it felt like she had just been made just to die.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but the waitress came around before I could get a chance. I ordered quickly and quietly, as did Kalin, and he did not speak again until she strode away with out orders.

"Are you sure you should be drinking alcohol?" he questioned, still not meeting my eyes even though his tone and posture were a little lighter than they had been moments before. I had no clue what he was getting at, but even if I did I think I would have still asked the same question.

"What do you mean?" what DID he mean? I did not have bad side affects to alcohol and it was very rare that I drunk at all. Having a single glass of wine with my lunch/dinner was not a big deal. Plus, how would he know if I reacted badly to alcohol? I had only drunk around him once . . .

Oh god.

My jaw dropped as I understood what he was talking about. The last time I had gotten drunk in his presence we had danced out asses off and I had just about made out with him. Of course, he was still wearing his muzzle this, his sexy leather muzzle . . .

"Too bad," I murmured under my breath, a blush spreading to my cheeks.

"I assume you are not speaking of the memory I know I just invoked. So why don't you fill me in?" his eyes were on me now, a deep teasing light turning the green to a deep rich emerald of summer leaves, a lot like when he was aroused.

Whoa, veer away, veer away.

"I was thinking of your muzzle." I ended up blurting out anyway, some mis-communication between my brain and my mouth.

His eyes brows raised and a large smile spread over his face.

"Oh really?" he asked, even sounding amused. I snorted, thankful when the waitress came with our meals. But once she walked away he automatically started right back up. "I suppose I will have to google a good sexy one."

"You know how to use google?" was my first laughing response. He looked offended, but I knew it was an air, because his eyes were still so teasing. "And anyway, I don't want you to go back to wearing one. It was just that it made you look a little sexy. A little bad boy."

"And I don't look like that now?" was his only question.

Don't answer that brain, mouth, stay shut! But he must have seen the answer in my eyes, because he smiled again and began eating, eyeing me the whole time.

"And of course I know how to use google." he snorted. "How else do you think I found the school you were at?"

"I figured Beth had told you."

"No, she kind of ran out the door as soon as you were gone."

"What did you do?" it didn't sound accusing, I sounded exasperated.

"Nothing!" he gave a snorting laugh once again, as if just the mere mention of him doing something was just absurd. "She mentioned something about having a date, and having waited for your to wake up she was already late. That woman can move fast when she wants too."

I played with the rim of my wine glass, frowning.

"I wonder who she is dating, she never mentioned anything to me about meeting someone or someone asking her out. I am pretty sure she would tell me."

"Unless she didn't want you to know." he pointed out.

"That doesn't sound like Beth," I said skeptically, but that was the only thing that made sense. Beth didn't show any signs of being uncomfortable around Kalin, so I doubted that it was him that made her run out the door. I mean sure, she knew about the whole Thorian thing now, but she didn't seem to mind it all that much.

"What about Ben?"

"What about Ben?" while his had been a question mine was more a defensive answer. He raised his eye brows in amusement, holding up his hands as if he were surrendering. But that devilish twinkle in his eyes made me think of a little more wicked things that he could surrender too . . .

"I was just asking about him is all. How did you two meet?"

"Why do we have to talk about the guy who I cheated with you on?" it was meant to be a light comment to change the topic, but there was a edge of bitterness to my voice that the both of us caught. I blushed deeply and lifted my wine glass to my lips just so I wouldn't have to look at him. "We met at the hospital okay?" I had hoped that would be the end of the conversation.

Wrong-O.

Kalin frowned and leaned forward, blindly reaching to his plate and popping food into his mouth, his gaze intense on me.

"How did you meet at a hospital?"

"Well, I was getting blood taken out and he was getting blood put in." I laughed softly at the irony my statement, but the laugh and smile died when I looked at Kalin and he still wasn't smiling.

"Did he get your blood?" asked so softly and yet the single question held so much emotion.

So much deadly emotion.

"No," I snorted, trying to sound nonchalant, like I hadn't noticed his strong displeasure. "We are different blood types, and most of my blood goes towards research anyways. The rest of it is stored in case I get into an accident and need some." I shrugged. "It seems unnecessary, but Philip always wanted to be safe rather than sorry. I haven't needed it so far, but I wont take away his sense of security."

"Ah, Philip." he said, as if that explained everything. I raised a brow at him.

"Yes, Philip. He always takes on patience who have special cases." Then I frowned. "But now that I think about it, I thought Ben only had a case of anemia."

"I am sure that there is more to is than that." Kalin said soothingly, and I smiled, before I caught myself doing it and blinked.

"So, you and Ben were never intimate." not a question, a statement of fact. Had I told him that? I could not ever recall if I had told him that.

"Why is that any of your business?" I asked with both eye brows raised in question. But I swallowed heavily when Kalin's gaze suddenly turned hot and hungry and they began to roam down my body, leaving a trail of fire and tingling flesh.

"It soon will be," he assured me, and the scary thing is I believed him. Already I wanted that kiss he promised me I would ask for.

"Uh, well," I was stumbling over my words, because I could think of nothing right now but his mouth on mine, hot and welcoming. A blush spread to my cheeks and I looked down at my meal, but the thought of the kiss would not go away and I could not make heads or tails of what I was supposed to do with the plate in front of me.

"Did you know that is takes Thorian's several hundred years of aging before we can age as you do?" Kalin asked, giving me a surprising reprieve from my pervish and desperate thoughts. I clung to it desperately, using it to direct my mind in the way I wanted it to go.

"So I am guessing that is why the children in the nurseries are so much older and yet look so young." my voice came out a little rough, and I cleared it as another blush crept over my face. I could feel Kalin's gaze on my face, and I could tell he was amused.

"Yes, they have just reached the age where their bodies will now start to age like normal humans will, which is why they were finally placed into school. They will move through the grades and age like you did, and they will build a normal human life around them. Well," he smiled to himself," Almost human, there will never be any sleepovers." I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, but I smiled anyways.

"So, um, how old are you?" I asked, avoiding his gaze at all possible costs. But I glanced up when he snorted, and he was looking at me with both eye brows raised, his expression doubtful.

"I think you should order a glass of whiskey if you really wish to know the answer to that question."

"Oh, ha, ha. If I asked it I am sure that I can handle it." no, no I was not sure! But I would be damned before I allowed him to point out something that would send me fleeing when I was the one who said we would give this a shot.

"You already have a good idea, Rebecca." He said, his voice soft, betraying his slight fear.

"I know you are over two hundred years old. Well, I guess over three hundred years, since I think I remember someone mentioning that was how long you had been under the madness." how much older could he be? Oh god, the math was not looking good.

"If you really want to know, I am over six hundred years old."

Six. . . hundred?

It took me a moment to realize I wasn't breathing.

"Oh . . ." it came out a breathless gasp.

"Yes, oh." he didn't sound pleased by my response. My mind grasped for something to lighten the mood, to get over the age, he looked like he was twenty! Why should his actual age matter?

"I was just thinking that would make Fortis over eight hundred years old." I blabbered, for it was the only thing that had come to mind. "She mentioned she was about two hundred years older than you were."

"Yes, Fortis is two hundred years my senior. But by the time I was born Fortis had already grown into adult hood. She did not age like normal Thorians do. Add that to the fact that she was the only female born and her mother fell into a coma after birth and you have the main reason that most Thorians dislike her. That, and the women envy her because she will be able to live with her immortal child forever, where as they only have a limited amount of time."

"Her own people don't like her?" I gasped, looking at him disbelief. Seriously?

"Yes, even though she is the one responsible for making a potion that extends the life of the Thorian's mate. She gave them more life with their children, and still they hate her for it."

"She mate something like that?"

"Yes, and she is the only one who managed to do it. She did it with the lily that our ancestor used to make her daughters husband immortal. Unfortunately, they lily's grow much too slowly for us to just give one to every Thorian female that joins the family. Not to mention, the one time we tried that the female went crazy. She has managed to keep the lily's we have alive while making a sort of youth potion. It wears off eventually though, and retaking the potion does not work, as if it has grown immune to it."

"Don't you have doctors to test that?"

"We did, but unfortunately our best doctor left us."

"He died?" I gasp, how horrible.

"No," Kalin gave her a small smile. "He found his mate at the same time my father did. But there was something wrong with her genetics, when she got pregnant her body aborted the baby and then she fell into a coma just as my sister's mother did."

"Really?" I gasped, before it brought to mind what the Grit's had been discussing about me. "They were created by the Grit's, weren't they?"

Kalin nodded. "Yes, my father and his friend found them when they raided the Grit's camp. They were experimenting on females they made from tubes, and somewhere in the process they went wrong. Instead of eradicating the sterile gene, they amplified it. While my sister's mother was able to carry the baby to term, his was not."

"Why were they experimenting?"

"They need to create a hybrid species. Someone who can have female children and multiple children like their race can, but someone who can also recognize the genetics needed to have children, which is why the males fall into madness until they meet their female who also has the same genetics." he shook his head, looking sad. "You know that my mother was a Grit? And yet they except me as their king. But my sister, they shun. And they have no clue what at this point we have no idea if she will even find someone that she can have children with."

"No!" I gasped, my heart breaking for her. I understood what he was saying.

"Yes," he said softly, and then explained for good measure. "She is female and will never fall into madness, at least we don't think so. She could start going through males, but she will have to watch him die should she ever find him."

Okay, ANOTHER topic change was in order.

"Are you the only . . . uh . . ." how did one ask that sort of question?

"Are we the only fictional characters out there?" he finished with a smile, and I flashed him a grateful smile. He shook his head. "No, there are many other species, some of them immortal, some of them not, but all of them are allies to us, after a lot of hard work from my father."

"Why can't she join with one of them?"

"We do not even know if that is possible, and they all have different customs than we do."

"Like?"

"Well, like the Sand Walkers." he pointed his finger at her when he said it, and she perked with interest.

"The Sand Walkers?"

"Yes, a group of people who live on a small island in between America and Europe."

"I am guessing it is not listed on any map." I said dryly. Kalin flashed me a smile.

"Of course not. But their island is also divided in half, half of it nothing but sand and small patched covered in lush green forest."

"I am guessing by their name, they live in the sands."

"Yes, in a castle made of crystal that stretches to the sky in all sort of shades of color."

"Why do they live in the sands? Surely it is super hot."

"The forests are full of such dangers that they even rarely even enter the patches unless they absolutely need too."

"What do they look like?"

"The females are . . ." he pursed his lips, as if wondering how to describe them. "The females are all small, with hair the color of tree bark, and eyes the color of the sands. Both the males and the females possess a sort of strange attraction, and when they move it is graceful and billowy."

"Entrancing," I breathed the word, picturing it as he spoke.

"Exactly!" he smiled brightly, glad I was on the same page. "They all have this bronze skin they have at birth, a trait of their. The males have hair the color of," he paused looking the word. "Well, I want to say white, but that isn't right, and neither is gray."

"Would silver be right?"

"Yes, I think it would. Tones of white and gray glinting in the sun and shining. Believe it or not when they age their hair actually darkens to black, and they have these light blue eyes, that also deepen with their age. You can tell their age by their hair and eyes alone at times. Well, they worship both sons and daughters, and they do not immerse themselves in battle, but they are all capable of fighting."

"Are they immortal?"

"No, they aren't. But they do have unusually long lifespans. They also have a monarchy of sorts, with a single family ruling and passing it down the blood line."

"So what is so different about them?"

"I am not sure you want to hear that." he made a face, but he was still have smiling.

"Come on, Kalin. You have gotten this far, you can't stop now." I pouted, leaning across the table, now so close I could feel his breath on my face. His eyes darkened as he looked at me, and I softly blew my breath on his lips. "Please?"

"You play with fire." he growled.

"Maybe I like the heat of being burned." I simply replied. He sighed, but didn't lean away.

"Fine, the strongest woman is picked from the village by the heir, or man, if the heir is female. They have their wedding, and, well . . ." he grimaced.

"Come on!"

"Fine! Then, the bride and groom take a weapon of their choice and have to face off."

I felt my jaw drop.

"They what?"

"They fight."

"You are joking, right?" he gave a huffing laugh.

"No, I wish I was."

"But . . . why?"

"It is a test of strength and whatnot, I never really got into the details. I think it has something to do with the god they worship, but they will not have a weak female for a queen. If she can not handle her own then she can not take care of her husband, or her children, and she will not be able to provide leadership for her people should something happen to her husband. Not to mention going through with something like that shows the true strength of love."

"They sound . . . oddly amazing." I said with a laugh, looking away from him when I realized he still had his full attention on me, and I refused to give in and lean back.

"You haven't touched your food." he said in a low rumbling voice.

"Neither have you," I said, glancing at his plate with raised eye brows.

"Our food seems to have gotten cold."
"So it would seem it did." my voice had gone as low as his did, and I was now looking at him head on, no longer shy.

"We could always take it home and warm it up." I suggested, glancing at his lips. I saw them smile, but still could not muster up and ounce of embarrassment.

"Oh, my Becca, I have a better idea."

The suggestion in his voice made me shiver.