What The Cat Dragged In Ch. 23

"The girl!" His voice was a low growl.

"We've been keeping Kelly's identity secret. I had no idea that Kelly knew anyone here." The old man looked as surprised as Creed felt. Normally, that wouldn't mean a goddamn thing but he got the whiff of surprise from him too.

Creed looked over at the two girls. "Lemme guess, the blond does something with electricity."

Some of the tension went out of Jimmy's muscles. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

Creed's claws retracted. "Me and the frail do more than fuck. Once in awhile we talk to each other. Course I'm sure that idea never occurred to either one of you." He couldn't take his eyes off the frail. He'd seen her smile like that when she looked at him and when she looked at her grandfather. She also looked completely exhausted. "If she stays, I stay with her."

"Out of the question." The old man shook his head. "I will not allow you to make this school your base of operations, nor will I expose my students to you. Of course, if you wanted to give her a chance at recuperation-"

"You been on vacation for the last week?" Jimmy asked. Creed was beginning to smell his brother's anger lacing the air between them. "All he's done is sit with her, just waiting for her to wake up. You ever hear of him doing anything like that?"

"I'll admit, I haven't, though I'm sure-"

"You're sure of what? He's a cold-hearted, manipulative, murderous bastard who never showed anybody the slightest bit of mercy let alone tried to comfort or care for anyone or anything other than himself."

"Well thanks a lot, Jimmy. I ever need an endorsement, I'll know just who to call." Creed turned back to watching the frail.

Jimmy growled. "Shut up and let me finish. He never gave a shit about anybody, except that girl. I don't know why, I don't know how and I sure as hell don't know what brought it on. I can see it in his eyes when he talks about her though." Creed glanced at his brother. "Could see it in the way he held her when she woke up and the way she held on to him last night. That's his mate, and unless you want a bigger fight than you know what to do with, you don't try and separate them."

The old man was silent for a long moment, his eyes flicked from Creed to Jimmy and back again. "This school is not a base of operations for your deadly enterprises."

Creed smirked. "Bein' a murderous bastard has its perks; the pay is good and you get to set your own schedule."

"With conditions, this might be acceptable." The old man said.

Creed rolled his eyes. "How long is this gonna take? I told you I wasn't interested in your little freaks, what more do you want?" Creed said.

"I can't allow you into the mansion without an escort and I have to have daily contact with Kelly, to assure myself of her well-being." The old man said.

Creed growled. "You wanna treat me like I'm shit, that's fine. I wouldn't expect anything else. I ain't gonna let you treat her that way too. If she wants to see you, that's up to her."

"And I'm sure you'll let her make her own decision." Maddening sarcasm laced that cultured voice.

Creed bent down and stared directly into the old man's eyes. "She's not my prisoner. She's not a job. She don't stay because she's scared or because she has no place else to go. She does what she wants, when she wants. Get used to it." He stood up again.

"How long?" Jimmy asked.

"Two weeks. Give her a chance to get her feet under her, give her a chance to get reacquainted with whoever that is." Creed caught the look of surprise in the old man's eyes. He smirked. "Told you I didn't keep her locked up."

"Wouldn't put it past you." Jimmy said.

"Yeah, 'cause I'm the big bad 'captor'. And don't think I don't know what you're doing."

"What-"

"This was all too easy. You want her here so bad you're practically drooling." He walked away from the two of them.

The two girls were still giggling, but when the ape saw him approaching he hustled the blond girl toward a classroom. Neither one was willing to let go of the other though. "Here's my cell number." The frail wrote something on the other girl's hand. "Call me."

"Now Cassandra." There was an air of authority in the ape's voice.

They let go of each other and Kelly turned toward Victor. She smiled, but he could see the deep exhaustion etched on her face. He stroked her cheek. She put her hand on his wrist and kissed the heel of his hand. In spite of the ape's angry glare, he pulled the frail against his chest. He felt her relax against him, her arms around him, her hands stroking his back. For the first time in days, her scent sweetened and stayed that way for more than a few seconds.

"Are we leaving?" She murmured.

"Not yet, frail."

She looked up at him. He couldn't miss the terror in her eyes. "Why not? You said it was safer in-" She glanced over her shoulder at the ape. "Safer away from here."

He shrugged and led her back toward Jimmy and the old man, his body between her and the following ape. "They got a hell of a system, nobody is gonna get to either one of us. 'Sides, you look like you ain't slept in about a month. A couple weeks' rest'll do you good."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kelly recognized one of the men they were approaching as Jimmy. His gaze was every bit as intense as it had been the night before. She held his eyes for a moment and then looked to the older man in a wheelchair. A small, kind smile curled the corners of his lips. His eyes were sharply appraising.

"You met Jimmy last night." Victor said.

"Logan." The other man corrected.

Kelly simply nodded. She would figure it out later.

"I'm Professor Charles Xavier. I'm pleased to see you looking so well." His smile widened.

Kelly managed a small smile, but she didn't move away from Victor. His hand rested on her waist.

"You got fifteen minutes," Victor said. Even though she was tired, Kelly knew he wasn't speaking to her.

"And if that isn't what Kelly wants?" Hank said. She couldn't miss the venom in his eyes.

"Kelly can still hear you and she doesn't like being discussed as if she were a piece of furniture." She glared at the blue doctor.

He nodded. "I apologize."

The professor watched her curiously.

Kelly gave a tiny smile to the doctor, then looked back at the professor. "Frankly, I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to hold an intelligent conversation, but I did want to thank you for letting us come here. I know I would have died otherwise."

He smiled warmly. "You're quite welcome, Miss Demmer. I'd like to get to know you better, but you look as though you could use some rest."

She nodded. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be this tired."

"Yeah, you should." Victor said. She stroked the back of his hand. "You gonna keep her standing here all day?"

"There's an empty room on the second floor. You can rest there while the guest house is being prepared." He smiled again. Kelly looked up at Victor. He nodded.

Kelly didn't follow the conversation as Jimmy led them up stairways and through hallways that all looked much the same. She was certain that if she was left to herself, she would get lost within ten minutes.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed left the frail sleeping in a comfortable but bland room. She must have been exhausted; she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. He stayed for awhile to make sure she wasn't going to wake up, then he forced himself to leave her long enough to call Conlon and make arrangements to get their luggage. He had every intention of cutting Conlon loose for the moment, but he figured that was something that could wait. It was pretty fucking obvious he didn't have a damn thing to do with what happened to the frail. Didn't make it alright, but it meant that Conlon might still be useful for awhile.

When he got back to the quiet room, he opened the door to find the rumpled bed empty and the thick scent of terror in the air. He walked in slowly, scenting the air as he went, isolating the deepest pool of those pheromones. It took him only a moment to figure out that it was coming from under the bed. For a moment, the pain in his chest meant that he couldn't breathe. He pushed the feeling aside and shut the door. Didn't mean he had a goddamn idea what to do about it. He set their bags down, then he walked around the other side of the bed and sat on the floor.

"Just me frail." The scent of fear dissipated and shifted to something else more along the lines of humiliation. Nothing stirred at first, then she squirmed out from under the bed.

"I'm such an idiot." She tried to move past him.

He grasped her wrist, keeping her from escaping. "You know what an air raid is?"

For a moment, she tried to pull away. The struggle didn't last long, and she shrugged a little. "When planes drop bombs."

He pulled her closer. This time she didn't resist, but she still didn't look him in the eyes. She snuggled against his chest. "I'm guessing you never been in one."

"No."

He could feel her starting to relax. "I was stationed in Europe during World War Two so I been through plenty of 'em." He started trailing his claws through her hair. "Before anything exploded though, they'd set off these sirens to warn people to take cover. I hated those fucking sirens. Half the time I was shut up in a dark hole with a bunch of other assholes. Half the time I was behind enemy lines and then when the damn things went off it was worse."

Her arm slid around his waist. "Worse how?" For the first time, her eyes flicked up at him.

"That ain't important. Point is, those fucking sirens made my life a living hell. When I got back to the states, I figured I'd left all that over there. Decided I wanted to live off the base for a change, so I got an apartment in town. Went okay for a week. Then in the middle of the night one of those fucking sirens went off again. Before I could think about where I was or whether or not it made sense, I was under the goddamn bed listening for bombs to start falling. Took me twenty minutes to realize that the war was over and that like a dumbass I'd moved in down the street from a fire station."

She was relaxed enough to look at him, but she didn't and he was grateful for that. She drew little circles on his stomach. "How'd you get over it?"

He shrugged. "I moved."

This time she did look up at him. "And?"

"And what? I moved, no more siren. Eventually, they stopped blowing 'em at every fire."

He felt her tense, the scent of her anger started to tickle his sensitive nose. "I can't move away from doors. Does that mean I'm going to be cowering for the rest of my life?"

"I dunno." He rubbed the back of her neck and felt her relax again. "I know this shit is like an infection in your brain though. Starts out fucking up one thing and if you avoid that one thing you're okay for awhile. Course it spreads and pretty soon something else is fucked up and it goes on like that until you're always running from something."

"So how do I fix it?"

How the hell was he supposed to answer that? "Hell if I know."

She looked up at him for a long moment, then she looked away and let her hair fall over her face. "Whenever they would take me out of the cell, they'd shock me with something." Her voice was soft, almost inaudible. Didn't really matter, he had no fucking idea what he was going to say to her anyway. He stayed quiet and she went on. "I don't know how long I had been there the first time, but the door hadn't really opened since I got there and then all of a sudden there were these men rushing in. I was too surprised to do anything but they shocked me with something. I don't know what they expected me to do. I hadn't eaten in awhile, hadn't really slept and there were always two or three of them. After that, every time they opened the door they'd shock me." He felt her start to tremble, then he caught the scent of her tears. "At first I tried to rush past them somehow, even though I knew that would never work. Then I tried to be compliant, but that didn't work either. Hearing that lock turn...I got so scared. Toward the end I would try to hide or protect myself somehow. I guess I know that was stupid too."

He held back the growl that was forming in his chest. "It was a tactic. They thought it'd soften you up and make you more willing to answer questions. Didn't work, so you fucked them over again."

She gave a short laugh. "That's not how it felt at the time."

He took a handful of her hair and lifted her head so he could look into her eyes. "Trust me frail, you won."

"Because you were there."

He shrugged. "Course I was. You're my mate."

She looked at him curiously, a little smile tugged at her lips. "Is that different than being yours?"

He looked down at her hand resting on his stomach. Dumbass thing to say it that way. She'd reject him when she had a minute to process what he was saying. "Mine is just until I say you're not. Mate's permanent."

She was silent and that silence was killing him. This was a bad idea. What the fuck did he know about this kind of emotional shit anyway? For all he knew, the old man could have been right and she was just trying to keep him happy so she wouldn't get hurt. He'd tell her he changed his mind. That he had a job and had to leave. Jimmy'd make sure she was taken care of-

She stroked his cheek and he looked at her. She was smiling wider, but tears were collecting in the corners of her eyes again. "So 'mate' is definitely better."

He grinned and kissed her hard, his whole body aching for her.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kelly moaned into his mouth, her body arched against him. For a moment, the kiss was a passionate struggle between them, each wanting more of the other than mouths and hands could offer. His claws bit into her thigh hard enough to draw a whimper from Kelly. It fed her need and she surrendered. A fang grazed her inner lip. She pulled back just enough to graze his lower lip with her teeth. A growl and a groan got tangled in his throat.

Kelly smiled. "Does that door lock?"

"Fuck yes." A lusty growl laced his words.

Kelly wasn't certain how he sliced through her clothing or how she ended up on her back, but a moment later he was grinning down at her.

"This is not fair." She sat up enough to slide her hands under his shirt. He tugged it off and pushed her back down.

"You still thinkin' I gotta be fair?" His lips teased her peaked nipples while one knuckle moved between her lower lips to tease her entrance. Kelly's fingers bit into his shoulders. "Funny," the rough side of his tongue dragged across her nipple, then he sat up. He brought his finger to his mouth and licked her juices from it. "You don't taste so outraged."

Needy as she was, Kelly blushed. She sat up again and stroked his thick erection through his sweats. "You're not exactly uninterested yourself."

He growled deep in his chest. Kelly recognized the sound as pure pleasure. "How d'you plan to fix that, frail?"

Kelly pushed the pants over his hips, freeing the organ that was the focus of her attention. Both hands stroked its length. She couldn't resist a little smirk. "Who said I was going to fix it? I thought I might just tease you for awhile."

He pushed her back. "Think again, little girl. Offer me what's mine." A hungry grin was on his face.

Kelly opened herself wide and he grasped her thighs, spreading her wider. She reached between them guiding him to her entrance. For a long moment he stayed still, looking down into her eyes. She saw something akin to uncertainty flicker across his face. "I need to feel you inside me." The intensity in her voice was not masked by the soft tone.

He didn't hesitate any longer. He was deep inside her in one swift movement that made Kelly cry out. She arched her back, pushing up against him hungrily. At first, she met his movements, but Victor's aggression soon outstripped hers. Again she surrendered. To him, to his need and to the rapidly cresting pleasure that he so skillfully drew from her body.