The Herd

Chapter 4

He growled as he finished off the steaks. She was a complete trampoline of scent and emotion, and it was starting to drive him crazy. She smelled like teen age lust, angst, fear and more than a little anger mixed in, along with all the frail stupid emotions that only frails could understand.

He heard a thump and turned to look in the living room. She'd collapsed on the floor, the thump was her head hitting the corner of the coffee table. He walked over and glared down at her, and then at the blood stain on the wood. He wasn't completely sure why he wanted to turn the table into a pile of splinters, and he didn't really want to try to figure out why the scent of her blood, which just hours before had sent him into a surge of lust that he hadn't enjoyed since the good old days of rape and pillage, now had him looking for someone to kill.

He picked up the cub and lay her on the couch, he owed her parents at least that much. Her T-shirt rode up on one side, giving him a flash of skin, and he found his fingers stroking it lightly as he adjusted her head onto one of the damned throw pillows. Stupid publicist had insisted on a photo shoot in the living room of his apartments, and had tried to civilize them with stupid frail shit. Now he was almost glad she had, as he put a second pillow under the frail's legs. He sat on the edge of the cushion and watched her sleep.

She was pretty enough, but she definitely took after her mother, something that was going to be an advantage for her as she got older. He yanked his hand back, he'd been stroking that bare skin again, and snarled. There was a small spot of blood to show where the table had cut her just above the eye, the wound healed already. He let out a low growl and forced himself to his feet. He could hear and smell the steaks, and wasn't in the mood for overdone meat.

He dumped the smallest steak on a plate, and actually threw some green shit on it. Frails needed green shit, he seemed to remember. He never fed the whores they gave him, so he hadn't cooked for a frail in almost a century. He carried the plate into the living room, but she was still out. She didn't smell like she was in pain, so he dropped the plate loudly on the coffee table and walked back to the kitchen. He hadn't shared a meal with a frail in a long time, and he wasn't going to start now.

If she thought he was going to just play house with her, she was mistaken. He had a mission to accomplish, and now...he had dead weight to deal with as well. Mystique wasn't where he could get to her, and he wasn't even sure if old "Bluebutt" was even still alive. He'd almost put a plan together to get his ass out of here – but now, with the damned frail, he knew he had to change everything, and that meant staying caged longer than he wanted, and the frail would pay for delaying his plans. He looked down at the plate of food in front of him, and suddenly wasn't hungry.

She was his, he was responsible for her now, her life – and death were in his hands. The last time he'd felt this responsible had been when Jimmy was a cub, almost three hundred years ago. He bowed his head, wondering how his brother – his family were doing. He'd married the damned girl with the skin, and somehow managed to sire three boys with her, last he'd heard. Messages from the independent countries were few and far between, smuggled in and out at great risk to the small number of resistance who tried.

He snarled at himself and cut into the steak with his claws. The damned frail could eat when she woke up, and then, well he needed to work off some anger, and a good fuck always worked.

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She looked at the video feed in front of her. She didn't have a choice, if she tried to close her eyes they cut the eyelids off. Victor was in good health, and verve this year, until the girl distracted him. What the hell did he think he was doing prancing around like Toad? Raven groaned. They'd even taken away her mutant name in this hell hole, she had to respond to her human name, even in her own mind, or the torture was unbearable. She couldn't even think her mutant name.

She itched, every scale, every patch of blue skin was on fire. It was her second molting since she'd been locked in here, it was the only way she could keep track of time, every year she shed her skin, every year on the same day, it was her clock, ticking away the years of her captivity. The remains of fifteen molts lay on the floor just under her feet, fifteen years hanging in these chains, watching the truth behind the travesty she'd created a century and a half before. She cursed her curiosity more than once, if she hadn't wondered, if she hadn't wanted to know what it was like, if she hadn't wanted the damned child in the first place she never would have slept with Creed.

She glanced to the second feed, the one that was for her eyes only, the one that showed the young woman, or what had once been a young woman, laying on a bed, breath wheezing out of her mouth as the last of her soul was drained from her body. Tomorrow another young mutant would be selected, quietly, to assist her devil's spawn child, tomorrow another 'lucky' assistant would go to work for her son, only to die a year later, all energy depleted from his or her body.

Gradyon Creed wasn't dead, and wasn't his own Great Great Great...Grandson. He was the same bastard she'd given birth to, given a smaller dose of what her daughter's daunting mutation was, and he'd figured out how to use it. His drain was slow, it kept him looking around fifty, old enough to be taken seriously, and young enough to have fire and drive. He wanted her to know he was alive. He came to her every day, watched as the torturers pushed her to the brink of sanity, watched her break over and over again.

Her head rolled forward, her neck muscles unable to support it any longer. The lock of red hair was more gray than red as it fell in front of her eyes. Two hundred and fifty years, and her age was finally starting to catch up to her. The screens went blank and she was allowed to close her eyes. She sent a silent prayer to the only God she recognized, praying that Victor would give up, get out, and leave her here to die, and take that poor child with him. She knew she needed to try to get him a message, but there was absolutely no way. He needed to know it was his son, it was all their son. He'd taken over the country, found his own way to immortality, and now his eyes were on the rest of the world.

A war was coming, one bigger than any other they'd fought, and she honestly didn't know if mutant kind could survive. She let out one last sigh, as her drugged sleep overcame her, her last thought was for Erik, and a single tear slipped from beneath her eyelid, and down her gray-blue cheek.

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The smell of food woke her up. She could hear him growling as he ate, and she slowly opened her eyes. There was a plate with steak and a small salad on the table, and she slowly sat up. There wasn't a fork or any other utensil but she didn't care at this point. Her stomach was growling almost as loud as the asshole in the other room.

She cut into the meat, her mouth watering as red juices dripped onto the plate. The first bite almost came back up as she choked on it.

"Chew, cub." He growled.

"Fuck you!" she snapped back. This was her food and no one was going to tell her how to eat it. He just growled again, and she surprised herself by growling back.

"I don't have to put up with this shit." He roared, coming over the kitchen counter, and pulling her from the couch by her throat. She spat at him, her toe claws digging into his thigh as the scent of anger and lust filled the room. His claws dug into the side of her neck, one hitting the raw scar on her neck where he'd bitten her to mark her in the Arena. She felt his arm go weak, the pain far worse for him than for her.

She growled, and he tightened his grip on her throat, suddenly, she lunged at him, her fangs digging into his lip as her feral woke completely, and her puny human side retreated from battle. He paused for a half second in shock from her assault, and then returned the favor as their co-mingled blood flowed into her mouth, and she wanted to taste more of him.

his hand released her but she didn't drop, his other arm pulled her tight against him and she could feel the pulse in his cock against her thigh His heart was pounding as hard as hers in her chest, and she noticed they beat at the same rhythm

She didn't even notice the cool air against her legs as he ripped her sweatpants off and bore her down onto the couch; she did notice as he surged into her, the pain just caused her anger to mount more. She bit deep into his chest muscle; not letting go as his hips set a grueling pace, blood and her growing arousal filling the air, her hips rising involuntarily to meet his for every thrust.

She knew he didn't care, her pleasure wasn't anything he would ever care about, but his blood in her mouth, combined with the mating lust that drove her, pushed her over an edge and she threw her head back and roared her conquest. HE was hers! Forever, the mate bond was complete, and he roared his completion the two making a symphonic cacophony in the prison cell he called home