As always, disclaimers on the first chapter!

Looooooook! I'm on time this time!! Not much in the way of commentary this time. Wasn't much in the way of comments to make commentary on! Thank you, though, Kaethe Vala, for yours! I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

Griffin, I forgot to message you... Sorry... I gave Full Moon Rising two fair shots, and couldn't get into it. I'll try again later, though, when I don't have reading pressures on me. I'm smack in the middle of a reading challenge and I'm not where I should be. I will give it another shot later, though!

Fated

I woke up the next morning in a soft, comfortable, downy bed. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I felt like I had gone twelve rounds in a no-holds street brawl. I forced myself to sit up, despite the burning pain in my stomach where Nick had all but disemboweled me. My hand gingerly explored my throat as I searched for any signs of an accidental tracheotomy. I was still taking inventory of the extent of my injuries when Jeremy appeared in the door.

"How did you find us?" I asked him, my voice hoarse from a bruised throat.

"I thought you knew everything about us," he responded, flashing me the barest of smiles. He stepped into the room and handed me a mug, the contents the coloring of chicken broth but with the smell of flowers.

"Har har," I rasped just before I brought the mug to my lips and drank.

The hot liquid seemed to sooth my bruised throat almost immediately. I don't think there was ever a time before that moment that I was glad to know an herbalist. As I finished my tea, I felt Jeremy watching me, waiting for me to be done before he asked the big question on his mind.

"What happened out there, Nyx? I've had to sedate Nick to keep him from coming in here and finishing what he started last night."

I felt my fingers go numb and only quick reflexes stopped me from dropping the mug in my hand. "I... Jeremy, I think he's infested."

"Infested?"

"Infested, possessed, taken over, in the thrall of... Take your pick of the term, but I think the Leviathan's got him."

Jeremy's eyes darkened and I knew I had told him exactly what he didn't want to hear. "How do we fix this?"

"I don't know..." I moaned. "The Leviathan is a creature of the mind. He makes a nest in the fear part of his victim's mentality and goes to town. It's like a drive-in movie for him that doesn't stop."

As Jeremy checked the clock on the end table, I suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over me and an overwhelming urge to lay back down. I began to wonder if he had slipped me a sedative as well, just in case I was just as bonkers as Nick was at the moment.

"Gets some rest, Nyx," I heard Jeremy say from somewhere in the room.

"I dreamed of him last night..."

Jeremy looked up from his novel and looked at me. I was still in bed by the next morning, mostly at Jeremy's insistence. Some nonsense about blood-loss and keeping warm. I watched him as he set the novel aside and leaned forward to listen to me.

"Who? Nick?"

I smirked. "Yeah, I wish. Him. The Leviathan."

Jeremy watched me in that way where he doesn't need to ask for someone to continue.

"He was laughing at me. Kept taunting me with his absolute confidence that I could do nothing to help Nick. And the crying... I heard a puppy cry, but I couldn't find it." I rubbed my eye with the heel of my hand. "I'd come close to finding it, but just as I pulled the sheet, something grabbed me and that was when I woke up."

The sound of an awkward thud in the doorway distracted both Jeremy and myself to look up at the figure standing there. Nick was dressed in nothing but sweat pants. His hair, a stringy and greasy mess, looked exactly like he hadn't let it see anything but a pillow in two days. Under different circumstances, I would have commented on his new laid-back greaser look.

He leaned heavily against the door frame, as if he had too much to drink. Nick lifted his head enough to glare at me, a glint in his eyes that I did not recognize as the Nick I had come to know that sent a shiver down my spine. Jeremy stood up and went over to Nick, blocking his view of me and mine of his.

Jeremy murmured something quietly to him, and Nick responded too loudly.

"No! No more sedatives, Jer. Unlike Clay... I don't need that sh-sh-shit."

I watched quietly as Nick shouldered his way past Jeremy to see me again. For a moment, Nick was there. I could see it in his brown eyes, the confusion of what was going on in his own mind. But the vision was only for a moment. The hard, angry glare was back with a predator grin on his lips.

"This is your fault, you know." His voice had softened to talk to me, dangerous as the wolf that I knew he could be and as silky as the clothes he liked to wear. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in this mess, would I? Go home, bitch."

I held my breath, trying to not to let the Leviathan's words affect me. I couldn't help but feel their sting. They may have been the words of the demon I created, but they came from Nick's lips with Nick's voice.

"Go home!" he shouted, almost lunging at me. "GO HOME! The Pack doesn't want you!"

I was sure that Nick was going to attack me again until I saw his eyes roll back and he fall forward to the ground. The spell broken, I tore my eyes from Nick's body and looked at Jeremy who was holding an empty syringe in his hand. I watched him as he picked up Nick and dragged him back into his room. The sad look in the Pack Alpha's eyes was all the confirmation I needed that the accusations were true.

"I'm sorry, Jeremy," I whispered when he returned to my bedside. "I'm sorry for everything."

Jeremy nodded solemnly as he picked up the mugs and plates and carried them out to the kitchen. That was when I decided to take a more active role in solving this problem.

There was a time, many moons and many lives ago, that I tried my hand at lucid dreaming. I was met with some success, but I had decided that the prep time and meditation before bed was best spent doing more important things. Y'know, like staying up until midnight for the Neopets Advent Calendar, or solving some of the evil puzzles on that damnable site. Like I said, more important stuff.

Still, I remembered what it took to put one's mind in a state to actually do some lucid dreaming. Jeremy already provided me with the herbs to relax the body, it was just up to me to get my mind to shut down. I laid back in bed and closed my eyes, beginning the meditations that I learned so long ago. It wasn't long before I fell asleep.

Peacoat? Why the hell was I wearing my Disneyland peacoat? I shucked the garment off and let it drop to the floor. The dark color of the coat was a drastic contrast to the marble of the room. The walls were shaped in a perfect sphere so that it seemed to go on forever while trapping you inside at the same time. The thin black veins in the marble were the only thing beside my coat that broke up the monotony of the bright white.

"It's about time that you arrived."

The voice was young; very young. I turned around, nearly tripping on the coat behind me, to face the child just barely able to reach the spinning wheel she was threading. I blinked, then blinked again. No longer a child, there was a woman around middle-age with the beginnings of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Another blink and it was a crone, stooped and trimming the thread that the middle-aged woman was spinning.

"We thought you would never show," said the crone. "I suppose better late than never."

I stiffened my back at the insult. "I imagine that you're the Fates."

"You'd imagine correctly," said the middle sister.

"You already know why you're here," said the youngest sister.

My head was already starting to hurt at the constant flipping of forms that the Fates did to speak. With each change of voice, a change of body was just as instantaneous.

I looked away from the Fates, but the shockingly white marble of the room was just as painful to look at. "If I know why I'm here, and you know why I'm here, and we all know why everyone's where they are, why are we wasting time and not getting on with solving said issue?"

As I turned to walk away from the Fates, I heard the voice of the middle sister call out to me.

"Nyx, you must be careful. The creature did not infest Nicholas by coincidence."

"The only one who can destroy the creation..." started the youngest sister.

"...is the creator," finished her eldest.

I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the Fates. The middle sister was back in command by the time I had turned around.

"You are the only one who knows how to stop this creature."

I frowned at the Fates, feeling suddenly powerless under all the pressure they were putting on me.

"Great," I said, "Except that I don't..."