A/N: I know it's been a while since I updated this one but the urge to write another slice came upon me and well, I'm my muse's bitch...so, yeah. Also just for the record, I own none of the characters, this is purely for my own amusement and I haven't got a beta so all mistakes are mine mine mine.

CHAPTER THREE:

"Emma, this isn't you..."

Sfssshhh...

The question transformed into a hiss as Regina felt jagged pain scissor into the side of her neck. A strange kind of twinge- cold and lucid and yet... despite its bite all she could seem to focus on was the bottom of the translucent vial at the corner of her vision. A hollow thing; too insidious to reflect anything but a dull orange glow from the lamps overhead.

Too out of place to make much sense.

"Oh this?"

The sting was immediately replaced by a throb; warm liquid burbling against the skin next to her throat and it was then that she realised what the sensation was.

Blood.

Her blood. Being drawn out as if she were some small town waitress dropping by the blood bank after shifts end. Being harvested...for want of a better word.

She felt nauseous at the thought.

At the violation.

In fact the humiliation of it was almost worse than anything else that had happened this evening but though Regina tried not to look as a screaming drop of red trickled into the tube pressed so hard against her vein her eyes wouldn't seem to move away.

No matter how she commanded them.

"Rumple really shouldn't have spread it around how powerful those tears were that he got from you," said Emma then with a half smile, staring at the struggling brunette. "Makes you wonder doesn't it...if the tears of a monster hold such influence then a little blood...well, a little blood must be worth its weight in..." She grinned feverishly and bit her lip. "Well...gold."

A hot flush flooded her system.

The brunette tried again to jerk her head away from the newly roaring sting rippling up into her temple but the hand gripping her chin held firm and she was forced to stay there staring at the grim fascination written on the Sheriff's face.

Almost gleeful. Curious too and pathetically superior.

And so very familiar from her own past.

Before she could say anything more though the frigid pressure lessened then stopped completely and Emma somehow managed to cap the vial with her right hand, shoving the thing deep into her pocket.

"Is that it then? You got what you came for?" she ground out.

The blonde took a half step back.

"Says the woman who just forced me to stay here when I begged you not to?"

Regina opened her mouth to respond but whatever words had been about to come out froze on her tongue.

Because Emma was right. As chaotic and out of control as she was, Regina had brought this on herself, no matter how... noble her intentions.

What a concept, she thought wildly.

It was true. She could have let the blonde go, bought herself a little time to take stock of everything that was going on and maybe come up with some kind of solution to the nightmare they were both caught in. But she hadn't.

She'd gone with gut instinct. Emotion.

The twisted, childish instincts that had led her down the very path the Sheriff was just setting foot on now. And of anyone in this damn small town, she should have known better.

Regina almost snorted.

So this is what happens when you try to be the bigger person...

"Hey!"

A loud snap of fingers an inch from her nose suddenly brought Regina out of her deliberations to find a very angry blonde scowling at her.

"I'm sorry am I boring you?"

Her stomach pulsed. "No...I was..."

Two hands shoved Regina's shoulders back against the wall and the resultant tide of pain slid smoothly up her spine. Caressing the throbbing at her neck.

"What did I say about talking back?" growled the younger woman.

And that threw the Mayor for a moment.

Her mind wheeled clumsily, searching for any scraps of a conversation between the two of them that had mentioned such a thing but even the cursory recap of tonight's events she could remember yielded nothing that even came close to...

"I'm the grown up here and you do as I say."

What?

"Say it."

Regina blinked unsteadily at the change in the blonde's tone of voice.

Then the pad of a thumb was pressed unceremoniously against the slicing puncture wound underneath her ear and a whimper wormed its way out of her lips.

"Say it or you get to go to bed with no dinner..."

She swallowed. "Emma I..."

"Say it goddamnit, I don't talk for my own amusement!"

A flash of teeth erupted in her vision and something about the cold carnal expression on the other woman's face seemed to trip a switch in her brain. Something she'd read in all those closed adoption case files she'd dug up when Emma Swan had first sauntered into town.

There had been page upon page of reports of course- county psychologist's updates. Parental statements from all of the couples she'd been placed with. Nothing damning. Nothing obvious but small phrases and injuries that had caught her attention at the time. Slap marks on the back of her knees...probably from school tussles. A continuous progression of weight loss over the eight months she'd been placed in Hoboken...put down to a growth spurt and new found interest in track. All plausible and yet...even she had thought the conclusions had been spurious. A little too pat.

Too easy to ignore.

And now it began to make sense. The dark power in Emma's bloodstream seemed to be snaking through her nerve endings and tapping into her memories; the ones she associated with authority and fear. The ones that had made her feel small. The ones where she had looked into the eyes of someone who held all the power; who'd probably seemed like a God to a girl who was ten, eleven, twelve years old.

The memories she'd probably never told a single soul about.

Regina's heart cracked a little as so many small insignificant things began to come into focus about the Sheriff; how she had acted since walking across the town line.

But Regina also knew from hard won experience that pity only stoked those fires, making them burn all the brighter. Sympathy was just about the worst possible thing she could offer.

And she knew then what she had to do. To try and curb this before it escalated into an inferno. Inside her chest, she could feel her heart-rate rocketing even as she straightened her spine but it wasn't going to stop her.

Not now that she had a plan.

Of sorts.

Pulling herself up to her full height, Regina stopped resisting the brute force holding her down and gazed at her attacker unflinchingly.

"So that's that all it takes then?"

Emma frowned at her but didn't move.

"...To become the bully? A little magic overload and you turn into the one person you never wanted to be? How...disappointing."

The blonde almost laughed but her eyes began to narrow revealing the anger underneath.

"Really? Cod psychology Regina?" She sneered moving her face closer. "Isn't that a bit of a cheap play for a former queen?"

"It's not cod Pyschology dear when you've played all roles to all people. It's experience. And experience trumps most things in this world."

The Mayor steeled herself for what was to come and jutted her chin forward. "And you should know just for the record that I was ever so good when it came to terrorizing and intimidating."

Emma faltered just for a second. Imperceptibly. But then that smug grin appeared on her face again. "So how am I doing, Obi-Wan?"

Regina matched her smirk although it felt rigid on her face.

"You seem to be a little back and forth, to be quite honest Miss Swan. Like your hearts not really in it."

Just for a second a dangerous light flared in those green eyes before Emma slammed an arm against her neck. "Is that so? Maybe I need to try harder then."

"Is that what they used to tell you? To try harder?"

The weight on her throat gave her reply a gravelly edge but Regina held her ground pinning the younger woman with a resolute gaze even as her throat burned.

"You understand that you'll never be able to try hard enough don't you?" She grimaced as the pressure increased and the nostrils so close to her own nose flared but forged on. "That's the secret they don't tell you. When it comes to power you keep it wrapped up hard like a stone in your chest and you don't share it; you simply make people think you will. That's the game."

Regina's smile dropped. "And you're losing it."

She hadn't meant for that to sound quite so ambiguous but the other woman snarled at the implications of the comment and drew her elbow closer in letting the round bone meet flesh.

"I know what you're doing. You're trying to play me. You've always tried to play me. And in the past I figured why not, even though the deck was stacked in your favour. But now..." She pulled in a breath. "Now I hold all the cards."

"Cards being fists I take it. And the one with the biggest fists wins," murmured Regina. "Is that it?"

"Sad but true."

"It doesn't have to be."

Emma pulled back an inch. "You know what's strange though?"

No answer came from the brunette as she tried desperately to rebuild her strategy to deal with the ever-changing conversation she'd started but apparently Emma wasn't really expecting one because that crooked smile was firmly back in place.

"How familiar it feels. This power."

"Overwhelming?" stuttered her captive and the Sheriff grabbed then slammed her wrist into the wall with a growl. "No! Listen to what I'm saying- you never listen to me!"

Regina felt the fragile bones in her right forearm screech but she fought to keep the accompanying scream from falling from her mouth. Fought to keep all the other things contained too; all the pathetic warnings and attempts at reassurance she so desperately wanted to offer the other woman.

But she could see from the dark halo around the blonde's usually azure eyes that she wasn't in a place to hear them. She was somewhere else; caught in an underground cell made of earth. A place where echoes didn't even dare to go.

"As complimentary as it is you thinking that I find most things in life overwhelming what I meant was how much it tastes like...desire."

The brunette's attention snapped back.

"That got your attention huh?" Emma hummed lazily to herself as pulled her arm from the throat in front of her and let the fingers of her left hand skirt the underside of Regina's ribs. "Not a concept you were expecting from someone you though learned about passion in the back seat of a hotwired car?"

"Emma I didn't assume..."

She didn't have to finish the sentence. They both knew that however it finished it would be a lie. An understandable one but a lie nonetheless.

"Uh uh. You know what they say about assuming Madame Mayor," said Emma tutting. "...It makes an ass of me and makes you a megolamaniacal ex-bitch with anger issues and a hotline to the town council." Emma smirked at her. "I'm paraphrasing of course. But perhaps for once you can shut that pretty mouth of yours and maybe I'll try and explain myself."

Suddenly Emma nose wrinkled up as if she was about to sneeze; it was almost oddly endearing but the dark streak in Emma's left eye and brief tingle in the air should have warned the brunette that something magical was afoot. Before she knew it Regina felt her body being pulled through the air. Not thrown like before but dragged scraping against the air, painfully and inexpertly as if the spell hammered against nature's rules rather than bending them.

Emma.

Oh God.

For all her power she had no idea how to wield it except through brute force, twisting the natural elements around them with her will alone. Regina didn't even have time to wonder what kind of cost that might accrue before everything around her coalesced in a parade of greys and granite and she found herself covered in a fine layer of dust as a wave of nausea hit. She fell to her knees unceremoniously.

"Welcome home, your Majesty."

Regina lifted her head a little at that and finally took in her surroundings with queasy concern. The lines and squares she knew every inch of. Every crack.

Her crypt.

Her sanctuary.

At least until today.

Emma loomed over her with dark eyes as she glanced up, hands resting firmly on her hips.

"After all home is where the hearts are, right?"

TBC...