Welcome back dear readers! I hope you will like this one as much as you did it's prequel "Hurt and Heal". Now this as you've seen is M rated. Hopefully it won't be that necessary, but one never knows. I will try to update at least once a week, but I apologize now if that won't be always the case. Now the prologue isn't much on what you probably want to know, but I hope it captures your attention. Tell me what you think and enjoy! Now, let's read.

Prologue

Frozen, the ground shook beneath his feet, his shoes discarded on the side, as the fires rose above him, dancing in the midnight sky, like living souls of those long departed. He looked to his right, at the priestess chanting in a language long forgotten by the world, but cherished and preserved by them, for they were the ones, they were the Power and the Wrath and the Redemption of this Earth. He swayed as the force of the magick washed over him and then, then his mouth opened anew and he screamed. The sound raw and broken, the pitch high and the duration … oh, it lasted for hours this scream of his! The ground trembled still, but the air grew warm, heated until it was a scorching fire licking at his flesh and burning, burning him to ash. He was no longer frozen, he was aflame.

Blue eyes traced the figure standing in the doorway, his hands tightening into fists at his side and his jaw clenching painfully shut. He must have been smiling for the sudden appearance of a scowl – so abrupt his mouth dropped – could not be explained otherwise. Why now? He wondered, but the answer was not his to give, it could not be. He was left as uncertain as a child without its mother, grasping for something, anything, to steady him to his feet. He swallowed hard at the woman in the man's arms, her breathing irregular, but not as alarming as he would have expected. Frankly, it seemed as if she was merely having a nightmare that she could not awaken from. He wanted to shake her, to rouse her from her slumber and that urge made his blood boil in his veins and his nails dug deeper into his skin, drawing more of the red liquid. He stupidly asked himself if the blood would burn his hands from how hot it felt coursing through him. He eyes were no longer blue, they were angry, red.

Courage was what made her who she was, from the stubborn set of her mouth to the stiffness of her back to the fire in her eyes. She was the brave one, to a fault he would say, and maybe that was true. She had a bit of a streak of bad luck it seemed, considering her last attempts at being courageous had nearly killed her. The first, her wish to help her best friend, her sister almost, had gotten her comatose for months. The second, well, that had been less likely to end in such happy terms and so she was lucky that the bullet he'd sent had reached its target before it could slice her in two. Now, standing before the door of her best friend's house, looking outside, she was shaken. What she felt was no longer courage, but the icy claws of fear.

Desperate and worried, he drove. His green eyes never leaving the road as he feared what he might do should they stray and reach her form. She was next to him in the car, her head reclined on the seat, her hands in her lap for he put them there, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged. He trembled, the window was open. How did I not realize that? But the cold didn't bother him as much as it usually did for the cold didn't remind him of his mother's death anymore instead it reminded him of their happiness. And it made his mind go back to her eyes, wide and wondrous, staring at his with so much love it threatened to swallow him whole. It brought back the warmth of her body against his own, the taste of her skin beneath his lips and the sound of her cries as he brought her closer to that ever delightful high. His eyes saw the welcome sign of his home town and suddenly his heart burst anew. He was no longer desperate, but hopeful.

It hurt, her body, her mind. They all ached inside and outside and all around as if she was drenched in acid and she could not rise from it. She wanted to scream, but all she could do was as he commanded. He owned her after all, he, a mere human, thought he could control her. Maybe she should have listened to her mother, maybe her pride would be her downfall still and maybe she was wrong. But now, more than that, she had her vengeance in her sight and if she had to ally herself with a human than so be it. As the words expelled themselves from her lips, she felt his thoughts. She heard them as one would a song. He was getting ahead of himself, he was beginning to think he was one of them. Oh, how wrong he was, how very wrong. As he screamed in her pain, she laughed. No longer did her body hurt, no, it sang with relief.

He yelled, the pain waning yet not truly gone, subsiding to a dull ache throughout his exhausted body. His phone rang, the sound piercing to his pounding head and when he answered, he was rewarded for his pain. The woman speaks clearly, slowly and without a shadow of doubt in her soft voice. He almost smiles, or rather, he would, had he not seen the glare on the priestess's face dampening the joy. He agrees to the one on the phone and, once he ends the conversation, he begins telling the other woman, still humming with magick, of their new ally. The smile is almost blinding on her face so he can't help, but give a small quirk of his lips as well. He no longer screams in pain, but, with contentment, he sighs.

And this was the prologue. I hope you liked it. As you can see we have some very interesting baddies this time, or I hope you think so. I wonder if you can figure out who the woman on the phone is? If you think you know then review and tell me. The first person to guess her right gets a special drabble in the H&H universe with whatever they want. You can ask whatever you want to know about it as long as it won't be in a later chapter in this one. I'll let you know if it is. Also if anybody has any requests about who they want to see or happen then don't be shy. I'll see what I can do about it.