Chapter 30

(A short-ish chapter – please enjoy and once again, thank you for all the reviews and messages. They mean a lot and I just love reading them. So please keep them coming. Thank you for reading)

Athena could not take her eyes of the body of Magneto hovering above the remains of the forcefield.

You do not simply take on a super-mutant and hope to tell the tale. Victor Creed was one thing. Magneto was off a different page entirely. Forget page – a different library – a different fucking world.

She looked at Creed, aiming at one of the helicopters – she wanted to protect him. How crazy was that? She wanted to make sure Victor Creed was safe. She felt it throughout her body. She felt it in her heart.

Shit.

She felt it in her heart

She felt it through every fibre of her being.

Oh..no…no..no..no

NO.

She had loved her parents and they had been taken from her. She loved Mark – her dear friend Mark who parents had been killed the same night as hers. Athena protected him then – hiding them both from the killers that took their parents - keeping him safe – keeping him quiet as they heard the screams. A bond that had never left them…and never would. But Creed…?

This was not parental love. This was no deep friendship love…

Could she love Creed?

Love?

In…love?

With a psychopathic mutant assassin? A psychopath who more than likely would kill her in a heartbeat once she gave birth.

She stared at Creed for what seemed like an eternity – assessing…assessing….

Creed caught her eye and stared back.

Fuck!

What had started as a pay check for Athena – bring Creed to the table for discussions had spiralled out of control into something she could never have predicted. She – a sterile woman – was pregnant with twins. She had mutated into a feral creature herself and now…when she looked at Creed…she felt…

…a word she did not want to admit.

Her encounter with Creed had forever changed her. Where she had been practically robotic, cerebral – a top human agent – a 'diplomat' who had spent her career assessing, analysing and finding solutions to some of the Agency's most difficult situations was a now a completely altered creature.

By becoming more animalistic Athena had, ironically, become more human. And she felt…deeply… for Creed.

"Oh…just…fucking Bollocks," said Athena, as she looked Creed in the eyes. Why the fuck couldn't this happen with an accountant or doctor? Why a fucking raving lunatic killer who wanted to chop her up into tiny pieces or mail them across the universe?

But Athena knew she was no longer human. She was feral – like Creed. – like Logan. The exact same strain. Her unborn children had mutated their mother into the perfect host for them. Both Creed and Athena were of the same feral blood and she had – against all her efforts - bonded to him and she knew by the intimacy he had shown her that Creed was bonding or bonded to her.

Bollocks…this had never been on the bucket list. Get knocked up by a mutant psychopath. And yet Creed was not the same creature she had met those few months ago. There were changes in Creed. She knew Creed was protecting her by trying to get her away from Magneto just as she wanted Creed urgently away from Magneto.

She had to get Creed out of here – she had to get everyone out of here.

"Victor," Athena said, as Creed was targeting another helicopter. "That's Magneto."

"No shit, bitch," growled Creed.

"We go now…" Athena growled back, grabbing Creed's arm.

Creed caught Magento's eye as he began lowering himself through a gap in the forcefield, which was all but dead.

Creed grabbed Athena around the waist with one arm and pulled her up to his face, while holding the rocket launcher in place on the other shoulder with the other arm.

Athena was face to face with Creed. She looked at his eyes, his lips – being this close to him almost made her forget the chaos of what was happening around her.

"He's wants the cubs," Creed growled.

Athena stared at into his eyes and saw the truth of what he was saying.

"Go!" ordered Creed. "I'll hold fucking helmet head off."

"I'm not going without you," replied Athena.

"The cubs turned you mutant. He wants to turn the world mutant. He wants our cubs," Creed snarled.

"Our cubs?" Athena almost whispered.

"Go! Now!" Creed growled.

"Victor, he'll kill you," protested Athena.

"We don't die, " snarled Creed. "Remember? Or give me that bracelet back," said Creed, referring to the bracelet he gave Athena for the first time she had died.

"Then he will do something far, far worse," whispered Lydia. "Victor…please come with me."

"Go, Lady Black before I hand you over," snarled Creed. "He offered a very nice price for them."

"He did?" Athena asked, feeling a gigantic stab in her heart.

"I changed the deal," growled Creed.

"You did?" She asked more gently.

Creed looked Athena in the eyes. "You're the biggest, fucking pain in the ass I have ever met, bitch. I'm losing a ton of cash."

The idea that Creed had planned to sell her children sent her blood cold. But something had changed his mind.

"God…I fucking hate you, Creed," said Athena, thinking that he made a deal to sell his…their…children. It made so much sense now. He was not paternal… he was protecting a package. The fact that he loved fucking her had been a bonus.

He changed his mind, Lydia…Athena said to herself. He changed his mind….he changed his mind….

"I hate you so much," saiad Athena with a lump in her throat.

"I fucking hate you too, " growled Creed. "Now fucking go."

Athena was in turmoil inside. She wanted to kill him…she wanted to kiss him….

"Fucking GO!" Creed ordered, looking at about thirty metal rods flying through the air in their direction.

Athena, now gifted with feral dexterity, kissed Creed on the lips and leapt at quicksilver speed out of his grip and began running on all fours back towards the lodge. She needed to create a portal and get the fuck out of there.

Before she could reach the entrance to the lodge, large metal poles wrapped around her upper body and legs, holding her in place as she levitated into the air.

Athena watched as she floated higher up and watched in horror as she floated closer to the levitating Magneto until she was right in front of him.

"My dear, Lydia," said Magneto. "How you have grown."

"And Sabretooth," said Magneto, looking over to a hovering Victor Creed, who was also bound up in metal poles. "I must congratulate you on…this…pregnancy. It has brought out such a new and interesting side to you."

"Do you not know him as Sabretooth, dear Lydia?" asked Magneto. "Well…long hair was once the thing." He smiled a dark smile. "So much more handsome with the cropped hair…no? How could you resist such animal magnetism?"

Creed snarled at him.

"Mystique says hello," Magneto said in the direction of Creed. "Another who fell for his charms," he added, as he looked back to Athena.

Athena held Magneto's eyes. "As so many, many…many others have….Lydia. He is quite the male specimen."

Magneto turned his attention to Athena.

"But you, Lydia….you…. How much more interesting you have become," he said. "How much you will help change this world."

Athena and Creed found themselves turning in mid-air and began to float away from the lodge alongside Magneto, who continued talking to Athena.

"To you, my dear, " said Magento before he added in a raised voice. "To the mother of a new mutant world order," he said as they floated off into the distance.