Overly Familiar Pt. 02 Ch. 03

"So how did it go?" Matt asked, moving the pair to the patio and away from the messy silhouette.

"I make art for you, and this is the thanks I get?" Mara teased, sticking out her tongue. When all she got back was an amused glare, but a glare nonetheless, she answered the question. "Bloodline severed, Master. He knew the few stragglers that his wife didn't. Next hunt, we'll have to start out fresh. Sorry, next hunt you and Laila will have to start out fresh."

"Is someone a little salty?" Matt asked with a smirk.

"I don't know. Maybe you should lick me and find out." Mara replied, with a wink as she relaxed against the balcony. Her face fell slightly as she became more thoughtful. "It makes sense, Master. It's fair. But I liked having so much alone time with you."

Matt sighed, reaching out to run his fingers through Mara's hair. "You know that I'll go out of my way to make it up to you on our days together."

"I know..." Mara pouted, still clearly nuzzling against Matt's petting. "I'm just saying...if you wanted to keep things as they are, everyone will be fine with it."

"You mean just like you're fine with things changing?" Matt asked, flashing Mara a smirk.

"Part of you wants it too, or I wouldn't be able to voice it. Just saying..." Mara moved closer, affectionately nuzzling more into his neck this time. "We're yours. You make the rules. They don't have to be fair."

"Hm..." Matt wrapped his arms around the demon and inhaled the scent from her hair. "Yup. Smells like bias."

"You think Laila won't exploit her bias on her day? Or Teriana on hers? After all, if you're truly going to be fair, wouldn't that imply that you'd have to give each of us preferential treatment since you've already done it with me?"

Matt paused for a second, frowning as he couldn't fault her logic.

"I do so many things that I get punished for." Mara licked her lips. "And rightfully so. I just don't see how you liking me the most is one of those things. It just means you have good taste."

"Behave." Matt chuckled, giving Mara a playful tap on her nose. "And you're not being punished. I was the one who fucked up. You just got the biggest benefit of it."

Mara rolled her eyes. "Master, you're only with me because you fucked up. If you hadn't, you be with that fairy."

"Her name was Lynette!" Matt stated, a little more forcefully than he'd intended.

"..." Mara shrank back at the scolding, her wings and tail both drooping downwards. "...sorry, Master. Lynette..."

"No...no, I'm sorry." Matt apologized, looking increasingly frustrated with himself. "I don't know why I snapped like that."

"...yes...you do..." Mara murmured, her eyes now downcast. "I just pretend I don't notice because you're happier thinking I don't feel it... But I do. Every flash of fear...every flash of disgust...every flash of resentment. I feel it. I've felt it since I killed her..."

Matt could feel how much Mara was fighting her instincts as she spoke. After all, it was painful for her, so she knew Matt would hate that he was the cause of that pain. "Mara..."

"I...don't know how much of your...preferential treatment is driven by guilt...or if you're overcompensating or whatever... But it's getting stronger... I'd assume it's because of your dreams. I won't lie. Part of me is terrified of what will happen when you start spending less time with me. But it doesn't really matter... I...I can take it as long as you promise that no matter how much you hate me, that you don't release me. That's all I ask. I can take everything else."

"Mara, I don't hate you." Matt said, tilting Mara's head to force her to look at him. A move he immediately regretted when he saw the tears welling up in her eyes and the desperation on her face. "I'm just working some stuff out. I'd never release you. I'd die before I released you."

"I'm sorry, okay?" Mara choked out, clearly trying to fight back her emotions. "You trusted her and she tried to kill you. I reacted to that. I don't think I was wrong to kill her and I haven't killed without your permission since. Even so, I apologize, Master. You...you usually like that I'm...bad, but apparently I took it too far that time...and-"

"Mara. Listen." Matt interrupted, putting a finger to Mara's lips. "When I find someone or something in pain, I try to fix it. It's who I am. It's how I met you. It's how I met Laila. It's part of the reason why I connected with Teri so quickly. The last thing I saw of Lynette was her in pain because of me and I was never able to fix it. I'm sorry if my subconscious is blaming you or whatever it is my brain is doing to work this out but... It's just...the more I look into fairies, the more her actions make sense to me. The more I realize how much of a dick I was to her..." Matt stopped when he could actually feel Mara's frustration. It was only growing the more he talked, so he removed his finger. "Speak."

Mara immediately looked away, her expression darkening as she let out a quiet, subtle sob. "What's that human expression? If you can't say anything nice..."

Matt chuckled, and pet Mara's head again. "Say it anyway."

"You're too good for her." Mara growled. "I said it before, and I'll say it again. Just because she knew a lot of stuff about you doesn't mean you were compatible."

"You didn't actually know her though." Matt defended, doing his best to control that tiny little voice in the back of his head that didn't like Mara talking about Lynette that way.

"Neither did you." Mara murmured under her breath.

Matt came very close to disputing that point, especially when a slight flare of anger hit him. After all, Mara was the reason he never got to know her. But then he paused and he thought about it, remembering that she was right. True, he felt like he knew Lynette significantly more now because of how vivid some of his dreams had become, but in truth, the only one who truly knew her was Laila. "Okay, that's fair."

Now that Matt was aware of it, he could blatantly feel that Mara had felt that flare of anger and was hurt by it. But even so, she continued, "She didn't know that you'd probably have survived the smiting. At best, she tried to have me and Laila killed because she wanted you for herself and at worst she wanted you dead because you rejected her. None of us would even think about even the possibly of hurting you or anyone you care about so that we can have you to ourselves. She wasn't a good person, Master..."

Matt sighed, beginning to think this discussion was just going to go in circles with no satisfying conclusion. And that would be fine if this weren't such a painful circle for Mara to be caught up in. And he didn't want his anger to spiral out of control again. He needed to switch gears slightly. "Well...to be fair, if I got rid of every girl who wanted me dead at some point, Teri would be the only one left." Matt pointed out, giving Mara a playful nudge with his shoulder.

"Master!" Mara's eyes immediately shot wide. "I never tried to kill you!"

"I don't know..." Matt looked up thoughtfully, fighting back a smirk. "I remember a little demon giving me quite the bite. It could have gotten infected."

Mara gave a coy glare. "That's a reach and you know it. That bite was mostly healed within a day. And I only did it because you had me locked in a cage."

"Your point?" Matt asked, raising his eyebrows. "I'm sure I distinctly remember you being in a cage no more than a few days ago, and you weren't complaining then."

Mara flashed Matt a sultry grin. "Okay, first off...that was a completely different situation. For one, you just put me in the cage and fed me back then. You were not fucking me through the bars."

"Ignoring the logistical issues with...your other form..." Matt began with a chuckle, "...I don't think you would have been all too happy with me having my way with you back then."

Mara rolled her eyes, amusingly shaking her head. "And that, my Master, is where you'd be wrong. It would have been far from the first time I'd been raped. You would have been a refreshing change of pace."

Matt's eyes bulged and he flashed Mara a look that she immediately understood, mirroring his own reaction back at him.

"Oh...shit... Master, I'm...I'm so sorry. I just... I was a really weak demon in Hell. I assumed you would have figured out that I'd been-..." Mara stammered, "I didn't mean to just drop that on you like that."

"Don't apologize." Matt grumbled, his eyes turning black again. "Just explain it to me."

Mara smirked, tenderly pressing herself against Matt's chest, her tail slowly coiling around his waist. "So it's fine for you to get your righteous fury on but when I do it-"

"Mara..."

"Master...it's Hell." Mara explained, still smiling. "It's a place of eternal torment and pain. I was born there. Of course I suffered. There's no one for you to go after. Or better yet, there's so many that you'd never stop."

"Try me." Matt growled. "Why are you so...happy about this?"

Mara let out a small giggle. "Because I feel silly worrying about...negative flares of resentment when you're acting like this. It's...kinda funny."

"I don't see anything funny about this." Matt said with a glare.

Mara smiled up at him. "Clearly. Master, I was...birthed in Hell from sin. And despite being created by one of the seven deadly variety, lust technically in my case, I was still very weak, as you know. But there is still an instinctive pull for the sin that made me to be done on me. Kinda like how gods have a similar aura about them as I'm sure you've noticed by now with your growing harem of lust goddesses." Mara gave Matt a suggestive raise of her eyebrow.

"It's not like I'm doing it on purpose..." Matt grumbled, his eyes slowly turning back to normal. "There are a lot of lust muses. They're not my harem..."

"Uh huh. Let's just pretend that you won't be balls deep in Aphrodite in the near future and the floodgates on your 'No fucking the former muses' rule won't be blown wide open." Mara teased, batting her eyelashes at him.

Matt suddenly found himself furiously blushing and visibly flustered. "That gate is going to remained very closed, thank you very much. And don't think that I don't see that you're deflecting the conversation."

"You got me." Mara replied with a giggle before turning back to the discussion at hand. "Anyway...think you can guess what specific act of sin created me?"

"I can figure." Matt said, his eyes narrowing as the nature of the conversation sobered the slight levity Mara kept trying to inject into it. "That doesn't make me any less furious. It's not justified. You're acting like you don't care. Like this is all a joke to you, but you know it works both ways, right? You could feel the tiny resentment I was feeling in the back of my mind and I can feel the pain in the back of yours."

Mara's smile fell slightly. "Master...in all the time we've known each other, when have I ever voluntarily offered details of my life in Hell?"

"Never." Matt answered. "But you can't drop something like that on me and expect me to take your word for it that it's 'just how things are'."

Mara let out a long sigh. "Master...are you sure? You're really not going to like what you hear." When Matt just continued to look at her in silence, Mara sighed again and stepped back, turning around to show her shoulder. The skin around her shoulder blade shimmered and an intricate mark made itself clear.

"Your birthmark!" Matt recognized, remembering that mark being one of the reasons he was able to connect the dragon-like creature she was before to woman before him now. It hadn't even triggered in his mind that he hadn't seen the mark since that first night she showed it to him. After she had a human form it was just...gone.

"It's...not a birthmark, Master." Mara stated demurely as she took Matt's hand and put it on the mark. "It's a scar..."

"Holy...shit..." Matt gasped as he felt it and could easily confirm that yes, it was a scar. The mark itself might have been skin deep, but in truth it was anything but. And it was a very, very deep. In fact, calling a scar did it a disservice. It was a massive, ugly, jumble of scars overlapping onto each other so many times that it defied the logic of numbers when you tried to count them. Its intricacy became as awe inspiring as it was horrifying. When he looked up at Mara again, she was forcing a smile up at him.

"I warned you." She stated. "See why I put so much effort into hiding it?"

"Why hasn't it healed yet?" Matt grumbled in frustration.

Mara let out a raw chuckle. "They're scars on my soul, Master. Over a century's worth of them. Even you can't just heal them away. It'll take time. Not to say I haven't been trying when I get some time to myself. It'll take a couple years at the very least, I think."

Matt growled as he summoned his energies and focused his healing even more into the scar. At some level, he knew that Mara was right. That this wasn't going to be a quick fix. But he put his all into it, regardless.

"Oh...oh...GOD! Master, please! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuuuuuuuuuck!" Mara groaned, her eyes rolling in the back of her head before Matt realized what he was doing and stopped his magical onslaught onto a very tender part of Mara's soul.

"Ya know, Master...." Mara spat out. "I never would have thought of just forcing a shitload of healing magic into a massive soul scar! That honestly never occurred to me!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was just-" Matt apologized as his focus turned to steadying a very disoriented Mara. He'd just become so used to being able to heal whatever he wanted if he focused enough, that he didn't take into account that just like when he used his powers on the mind, the soul was a bit more complex in healing than the body was. He was still learning about its intricacies.

"It's my soul, Master. Not my cunt." Mara reprimanded, with a sly grin. "You have to be gentle."

"Gentle. That's not a word I'm used to you using." Matt smirked back.

"First time for everything." Mara giggled.

Matt's amusement faded when he looked at the scar again. "Who did that to you?"

"Who didn't?" Mara laughed before her smile melted away as well. "When you're born in Hell, you're mostly a soul, initially at least. Especially if you're a demon. It's complicated . The way I look in Hell is more...humanoid, I suppose. But it's ...different...from how I look now and it's much different from how I looked before you made this body for me. I... Let's just say that the logistical incompatibilities aren't an issue in Hell, not that it would have mattered. If there's one thing Hell cultivates, it's inventiveness. Trust me, you do not want to be the toy of a bored demon. The point is I was very...capable of having sex there whether I wanted to or not and demons took advantage of that. And I was too weak to fight them off. Hell, a big part of my appeal was that I was too weak to fight them off."

"I'm sure that wouldn't have stopped you, regardless ..." Matt said with both pride and worry.

"You bet your ass." Mara replied with a smirk, which left almost as quickly as it appeared. "Not that it made the slightest difference. I'd fight. I'd claw. I'd bite. But in the end, they'd easily overpower me, beat me down, have their way with me and then...well...you know the term 'notches on a bed post'?" Mara could tell by Matt's horrified fury that he did indeed get what she was trying to tell him. "Well...yeah... Every time I fought back and lost...which was every time, they would rip a mark into me. A permanent etch on my soul for all to see that I was conquered. The more I got scarred, the easier it was to tell that I was an easy target, which just made me get marked more and more until-"

Mara stopped talking as she clearly had some kind of epiphany, looking thoughtfully at the sky. "I think... I think I can answer your other question now. The one about whether I like how I look now without taking you into account. I still can't take you out of it entirely, but I never want you to see how I look in Hell. Ever. The scars wouldn't be so...compressed into one small spot. They would be all over me. They would be me. And while I'm sure you'd still try to convince me that I'm beautiful, I... I like the way you look at me now. I'd rather have your most hateful look at me in this form than however you'd look at me in my original one."

Matt was silent for awhile before he finally asked, "And what if I want to see what you look like after you're healed?"

Mara let out a strained giggle. "Well...if you want to see me...scarred or not, I serve your will. But if you're leaving it up to me and up to me alone, this would be the only me you ever see."

"I guess I can respect that." Matt smiled, embracing his demon. "I do think I'll find you beautiful regardless."

"Then it shouldn't matter which version of me you see." Mara shot back puckishly.

Matt looked down on Mara with a slight glare at the comment.

"Still think I'm beautiful?" Mara grinned up at him.

"Always." Matt answered, knowing she could feel the sincerity behind his words.

"Even when I do things you find disgusting?" Mara asked, motioning her head back to her 'artwork'. As Matt opened his mouth to reply, Mara continued, "Because I am a demon. You knew that when you decided to keep me. And you want me to be myself so it's not really fair that it's okay sometimes and not okay others..."

"Oh? So now I should be fair?" Matt shot back with a grin.

Mara's eyes narrowed as she let out a little growl. "You don't have to be... I guess..."

Matt chuckled, leaning down to put his forehead to Mara's. "You know I love you, right?"

Mara's head suddenly jerked back and her eyes bulged in shock as if she'd been struck. She then sported possibly the biggest grin that Matt had ever seen on her face. It was so wide that it brought that hauntingly sensual dream version of her to mind, who would always smile with her sharp, jagged teeth but Matt didn't care about that. He meant what he said.

"Yes, Master." Mara passionately purred. "I do. I do! I...love you too."

The words didn't need to be said, in truth. They could feel each other's affection for each other, even with the negative cloud in the background, but still, saying it outloud immediately changed the air between them. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Mara practically leaped into Matt's arms to kiss him. Mara was always quite the...enthusiastic kisser, but as her tongue found his, he could feel the difference. The passion. The intensity.

Matt would have stayed there on that balcony if two things hadn't been growing more and more distracting. One was that Mara's tail was wagging so vigorously that it was swaying them side to side. But as distracting as this was, it was nothing to the other one. He pulled back enough to break the kiss before giving Mara a skeptical look. "What's going on back there? Why are you feeling so guilty?"

"A-heh-heh-heh!" Mara let out a strained giggle. "It's nothing, Master." And she immediately lunged forward to reclaim Matt's lips.

If the words themselves hadn't made it clear enough, the fact that Mara's emotions were practically flashing a sign that said, 'I'm lying right now and it's a big'un!' forced Matt to break the kiss again. The weird thing was that he couldn't figure it out. She meant it when she said she loved him and her happiness at him saying it was genuine, but there was clearly something else going on. "Talk."

Mara bit her bottom lip and shook her head. "Nuh uh..."

Matt's eyes narrowed. "Mara... What did you do?"