Logan scanned the crowded room, from the bar to the cage to the tables just outside the ring of wan light. For a moment he thought Marie had stood him up, but then he found her, slouching at a table on the edge of the room. She had a beer dangling from her fingers and she was watching the fighters in the cage rather than the door.

Typical.

Drink in hand, he made his way through the rowdy crush of bodies and sat down next to her, already irritated by her lack of acknowledgement and by her appearance. He preferred her bare-faced with fresh, dewy skin and full pink lips that looked like they'd just been kissed. He was not a fan of the heavy smoky eyes and pale lips that made her appear both older and harder. He didn't like thinking about her like that. Jaded. Guarded. The set of her mouth was sultry, sliding towards cruel.

Distance in her eyes. Jeans that looked painted on. A corset the color of bruised plums trussing up enough creamy white cleavage to sufficiently distract him from her face. Her favorite black leather jacket with the wings stitched on the back. Death from above, he thought uncharitably. Boots made for fighting, though, rather than towering fuck-me heels. That brought a ghost of a smile to his mouth. You could take the girl out of the fight…

His eyes trailed back up. Toned thighs. Slim hips. Flat belly, tight as a drum. Looking at her, you'd never know she'd had a child. A baby. Her baby. Her baby with another man. He couldn't seem to think about anything else, and the knowledge that her svelte body carried that faint tracing of silvery lines under her clothes tormented him. Raised questions that burned like acid. Where—

"You done?" she drawled, interrupting his thoughts. The warning was clear. She did not appreciate his frank, intimate assessment of her body and the questions flickering in his eyes.

Too fucking bad for her. "Mmph."

Even the grunt sounded like an accusation. It felt like one, too. How dare she keep something like that to herself? After everything? After the train and the torch and the tags and the shuddering orgasms and the brutally honest conversations that followed? It made him irrationally angry.

"Did the baby live?" The words fell like a blow. Sharp and hard and more direct than he'd been since he wrapped her fingers around his tags a lifetime ago.

"Jesus, Logan!" she spat. "That's a hell of an opener." She looked away and drained a good third of her beer.

"What? You think I came here to talk about the fuckin' weather?" He wasn't the sort of man who made small talk on a good day, much less when he was hanging onto the remaining shreds of his humanity with white-knuckled fingers.

God damn the demons that couldn't be slayed with adamantium and volcanic, crimson rage.

The animal was howling and thrashing, demanding an explanation. Where was her young? His need for an answer was incendiary, obliterating everything else. Privacy. Propriety. Decency.

"Of course not. You want what you want and screw everyone else, right? We both know what an asshole you can be, so don't expect me not to call you on your shit."

He shrugged. She was not wrong. "Answer the fuckin' question. You got a baby out there somewhere?" Had she abandoned it? He couldn't keep the censure from his voice and didn't even try.

She bristled at that, eyes swinging back to pin him in the chair. It creaked under his weight as he shifted uncomfortably.

"What in the hell makes you think you have the right to know?"

"It's a part of you." He'd given her the spark that was glowing brightly in her eyes, even now. Denying him an answer was like denying their past, denying what he did. What he gave her. The spark of life awakening a body that was limp and dead in his arms. Calling her back from that other place to walk in this world once more.

"That's fucking hypocritical. You've fucked two women without condoms in the last few months, and how many more before that? How many parts of you are runnin' around out there?"

"That's different," he countered, aware of how it sounded. But it was also the truth. Historically. Biologically. That was Mother Nature's rule, not his. "S'Nature, honey. You can bitch all you want, but it don't change how things are."

She snorted and slammed her beer down with enough force that it sloshed up and wet her glove. "Big dumb animal spreadin' his seed, but the bitch should stay home with her cub? Fuck you!"

His expression implied that 'bitch' was the most accurate word she could have chosen. He gave her a hard look, feeling like this was it. There was no backing down now. This time it wasa bloody fight to the end. No giving up. No running away. "You had a baby, kid. You can't just pretend like it didn't happen."

"No. YOU can't pretend like it didn't happen. That's what this is really about." The honey in her drawl was more like flaming tar than sweet molasses. He felt scalded. A searing brand that would never heal. And never be forgotten. "What's wrong, sugar? It doesn't fit in the Marie box? Don't like the way you have to think of me now that you know?"

"That's bullshit."

She charged on, talking over him. "Or is it just too hard for you to imagine fucking me with a belly between us? The idea of me as a mama is the ultimate cockblock, huh? Maybe the thought of that kind of commitment is too much for the king of one-night-stands. Or maybe you can't just can't let go of the past? You want the girl with stars in her eyes and not the woman who's seen into your head and brought a child into this world."

"None of that matters," he growled.

"Now that's bullshit."

"Not my problem."

"Prove it," she snapped.

Somehow, he knew she didn't mean swearing on a stack of bibles. "Whatcha want? Cross my heart and hope to die? Sworn in blood? Seppuku?"

She ignored him, casting her eyes over the room. "No. I wantcha to fuck her." He followed her gaze, jaw clenching as she focused on a pretty brunette with a small baby bump discreetly concealed under her apron. She was clearing glasses, tendrils of her hair falling around her face and full breasts pressing against her shirt as she bent to wipe the table. She looked a little tired, but she had that glow, a light from within.

As if she felt Logan's gaze, she looked up and smiled at him, first with surprise to have caught the attention of such a man, and then with warm invitation.

Beside him, he felt Marie stiffen in anger at the brunette's response to his attention. A clear example of Mother Nature's rules in action; the very system Marie was railing against used to his advantage to prove her wrong.

"Her," she repeated, just to turn the screws.

"No."

He drained his beer without tasting it.

"Yes. You said it doesn't matter, so prove it, hoss. Put your money where your mouth is."

"Or you're done playin' this game?" Because he wasn't sure if it was worth it anymore.

"Or I never tell you another word about my daughter."

He sucked in a sharp breath, aware her use of that word was deliberate. A glimmer of what she might reveal, if he played her game.

Christ, a daughter. Marie's little girl. A thousand pictures flashed through his mind and his heart seemed to seize in his chest.

Logan closed his eyes, resigned to the knowledge that he was going to give in to her demand because he knew she was damn stubborn. She meant what she said. She'd go to her grave with every last secret and he'd live forever, desperate for answers that had died with her.

"Fine."

His hand curled into a fist at her smug reaction; the flush of victory on her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes. He couldn't tell if she was hoping he'd fail or hoping he'd prove her wrong.

She was giving him a chance, though, and that seemed significant, even if it had come in the form of an ultimatum rather than a request. She also seemed to have pretty unrealistic expectations in regards to his prowess with women. Sure, he got more than his share, but it wasn't as simple as picking one out of the crowd. At least, not all the time.

Marie appeared to be unaware her hand had trailed from her collarbone to cup a breast absently before it fell to her lap. "She'll be sensitive," she murmured. Her eyes were still on the brunette, but she was lost somewhere in the past, he thought with a frown. "Make it good for her."

"For her or you?"

"Does it matter? You get what you want, either way."

"Honey, you know jackshit about what I want." And even less about how he felt, but he was a survivor and this was hardly the first time he'd used his body to get what he wanted. Typically it took the form of a paycheck earned in the cage, but not always.

"Whose fault is that?" she accused.

He was not having that conversation now. He was not about to let her derail the train when he was so close to getting the answers he wanted.

"What about what she wants?"

"Convince her."

"And if she says no?"

Marie was watching the girl watch him.

"She won't."

Up next: Scald. There is no way this one is gonna go down without some serious collateral damage. Things are about to reach critical mass and go nuclear.

Also, the 'X' key is dying on my laptop. (read: I have to press the stingy bastard a bazillionty times to get it work some nights) How's that for irony? Overuse, I wonder? ;) Maybe it's just a sign from the universe saying it's time to upgrade/update the hardware. Ugh. I hate all that tech shit. I'd rather be writing (smut). Though I am rather amused by the idea of a new little virgin laptop out there somewhere that's about to be oh, so thoroughly defiled. Heh. Onward!