Making our way across the parking lot, it's an odd feeling to not be taken by the chill of the night. A steady frost had begun to form on the standing structures, my body was quite warm and I felt oddly at peace with the chill surrounding us. My time with Rowan had helped me feel somewhat in tune with what I'd lost, though the drive to take enhancers remained a constant in the back of my mind. 

Allowing myself to slip from the internal assessment, I lean into his side, tightening my grip around him. "Don't even for a moment consider that I'm done with you. You've made quite a few promises that I intend to make good on." I tell him, swooning over the devious man. I was fully aware of how he was feeling, throwing himself into this character in an attempt to earn some sort of infatuation. 

But, I didn't need to 'play' with young Randy. I was more than smitten with my own version and fully intended to convince of that.

With a slow inhale, Verando hesitates, shifting awkwardly from his leaned state against my body. "S'methin's not right..." he manages, running a hand through his hair as if somehow it would remove the drunken haze. 

 Rolling my eyes, I pull his hand. "You're drunk off your ass, that's a start?"

"The scent's changed." he pinches the bridge of his nose, flinching through the fuzz of intoxication. I grab his tie, pulling him down to catch his lips in an attempt to soothe what very much could be paranoia. Sighing against my lips, I earn a small grin, "Cheeky."

But, the concern was enough to throw me off. Often, his nose wasn't wrong. "What smell's off?"

Shrugging, I'd sufficiently distracted him as he grasps my face between his hands, deepening the kiss as my eyes slide shut. "Remember when we romped in the snow?"

I can't help but giggle, "I realized then that you'd been holding back on me. How did you ever have sex with a human?"

Considering this, he kisses my nose, "It was an experiment in thoughtfulness that I'd not had to endure before. I didn't want to hurt you, it was enlightening, to say the least." 

Narrowing my eyes, I scoff at the politically correct version of his explanation. "Mmm. How boring."

"You liked rough sex, I just had to not break your pelvis." Spinning me around in a quick move, Verando yanks me back into his hips and I nearly yelp in surprise. "Though there are times you begged me to." Flushing, I tilt my head back to stare up at him with ever-increasing desire before the scent catches me, too. 

Different, burning, yet not actively on fire. "Alright, now I smell it."

"City's here smell dreadful." He summarizes but I wasn't so certain it was an industrial scent. 

"You just want to get me home." I accuse, attempting to riggle out of his grasp, only to be overtaken by the possessive growl and the way he grazes his teeth over the base of my neck. "Alright... perhaps, I want to take you home as well." Was it worth spoiling the few moments I got to enjoy with him to explore a scent we couldn't explain? 

There wasn't any blood, no screaming, nothing that would indicate anyone was in trouble. 

"I'm off the clock for solving other people's problems." Verando voices what I was already feeling. "Besides, all I can think about is how good you feel, how you sounded when I took you on that river bank."

"You brought it up." I remind him, shivering as he kisses my neck, nodding with a shaky sigh. "Alright, let's go home."

Drifting closer to the car, the scent increases, a dull hum drones in my ears and I frown as he keeps me firmly in his grasp from behind. I wanted to go first, and investigate the oddity of something so small. "Change your mind about the public sex?" he muses as my stride slows. 

The car shudders as I spin around to bury my face in his chest. The words leave my lips before I can think as I cast an ice shield, protecting us from the blast the car erupts into an inferno. Shattering the ill-planned ice, it sends us flying backward as Verando keeps me close to his chest, holding me so firmly to him that I'm hardly jostled as we hit the ground and skid across the frosted asphalt. 

My ears ring, and I flinch against him as I struggle to gain my bearings. What on earth was that? 

Verando cruses low under his breath, jacket torn as he yanks it off to cast it aside. "God damn it." He spits, quickly gripping my face to look me over in a frantic assurance that I hadn't been maimed. "Are you alright?"

His voice sounds muddy in the ringing tone of the blast, my body aches, and I smell the blood but as I search our bodies it's merely cuts and scrapes from hitting the asphalt. My ice shield had taken most of the damage. Frankly, I was mostly fine. He'd successfully protected me from the impact, taking most of the damage. 

After repeating his words over and over in my head, I finally nod, taking his hands from my face to throw my arms around his neck in relief. "Thank the gods." It's a small prayer answered, that we'd been delayed enough to not enter the inferno. Would we have survived? I was uncertain how much these bodies would hold up to something like that. Looking over my shoulder at the burning mass of metal, hardly even a frame with an engine, pieces of car everywhere- it was hard to picture ourselves in the middle of it. 

"Someone tried to kill us." My voice is numb, disappointed more than horrified. 

Verando's face reflects the approaching blue and red lights of the nearby police car, a flurry of patrons running to our side to check on us for a mortal would have needed immediate medical care. Much as it was a relief to see someone concerned for the health of two lycans, it was unnecessary and frankly, we were both too on edge to deal with the barrage of questions. 

I can only sit in his lap, held so firmly by his hands as he watches the wreckage and I attempt to persuade the police not to touch either of us. Rigid, I force him to stand, allowing him to keep his hands locked on my elbows to keep my body as close to his as possible. The light eyes reflecting the flames in a way that made me shudder. 

"And, it's a silly question.. Mr... er.. Mercer.. but you didn't do anything to the car to make it explode?" The officer asks, holding a pen in one hand and a pad of paper in the other. The red filling his cheeks, ears, and nose indicated to me that he was cold. The way his breath appeared, how he nestled into the heavy scarf and pulled his cap down against the wind. 

With my heart pounding, I was almost too warm in my winter clothes. "Of course not." I retort shortly. "We were nearly killed, if we hadn't been distracted you'd be removing our bodies."

"It wouldn't have killed me, just you... interesting if whoever plotted this knew that point... though I suppose, given my current state, you wouldn't have died either." He muses quietly, I wish he'd keep facts like that to himself with the way the cops shuddered at the thought of our immortality. I remember feeling the same way, they look at us as if we are creatures rather than humans and victims. 

Though I can't blame them given the current lore and not to mention the media attention we gained. Verando was wanted for murder in Europe, Senator Campbell kept getting elected and I could only assume people in the states believed him and his cause to eradicate us. But what was he doing here, in Tennessee, advocating for a school that had nothing to do with his state?

"Where's Jonathan Campbell?" Verando's voice follows my train of thought. 

"We don't know?" The officer frowns, confused as to his intention. "Surely you don't suspect the senator is behind this?"

Stiff, Verando flinches back against the discomfort of the chain around his neck. He touches his throat, scowling towards the wreckage and causing the officer to reach for his gun for only a moment at the flash of the prominent fangs. "No. Surely not. Might want to check on him, too, if this is a multiple-stage attempt." Sobriety had found the man quickly, I was thankful for that. 

Ron shivers as he approaches, practically still wearing his nightshirt over his business attire and heavy trench coat. The thinning man gives us both a look of relief before turning to gawk at the car. "Well shit."

"Absolutely." Verando exhales, I force myself out of his grasp to tread closer to the car, cautiously circling around as my eyes track the frost. From the television I'd watched in my comatose state, it was unusual for a car to not be triggered by any certain movement or action. We had not neared the car, not enough at least to be within lethal range, so perhaps the explosion was more meant to sew doubt and keep us on edge rather than kill us. 

Or, was the person with their finger on the trigger too tense to think their plan through? Inexperienced, a new adversary or someone who was against the change we were trying to create, regardless I spot no footprints in the frost. 

Verando appears behind me, I smell him before he touches me and I relax as he catches my arm. Stress inlaid into his expression, he doesn't want me too far away. "I don't need you getting shot."

"Shot?" I scoff. 

"Trigger-happy, fearful police are not our friends in the dark."  

Allowing my gaze to sweep the streets, I couldn't shake the feeling we were being watched. "Feels like a warning more than a murder attempt."

"Hard to tell with the amount of amateur's around here, my money is on some sort of involvement with Senator Campbell." While I trusted his intuition, it seemed like too obvious of a choice. 

The Senator was so focused on coming all the way here to sew doubt into the idea of having a university for magical children, it seemed like he wouldn't be willing to ruin his credibility given the number of investigations that were already going into our family by his demand.

"I'm not convinced. We left a lot of ghosts behind before we went to France." Too many groups were upset with us, and it was hard to consider them gone because we did the planet a favor. Not to mention, Verando was now outed as a suspected hitman, anyone who had been clued into that before would have had that suspicion confirmed now. "Not that you've ever done anything to warrant a counterattack."

With his lips pulled into a thin line, he doesn't answer as Ron approaches with a set of car keys. "A rental. Please don't get it blown up, I've got some paperwork to finish here and we're going to run a mile-wide search radius for suspicious activity in this area. Something had to trigger the car to go off, that's where we will start. Hate to tell you this, but the car is totaled."

"I suspected." Verando sighs, thanking the older man as he accepts the keys. "Make the younger kids do this, you go home, Ron. Sorry to get you out so late."

"You're a good friend, got to make sure it's done right. You could make my job easier though and maybe not fornicate on the floor of an expensive restaurant. I'll be sending you a bill for the press that's going to go into making you not look like a pompous prick." Clearing his throat, he lifts a pad of paper, "And then he told me, Fuck off, and proceeded to try and smoke inside the restaurant."

Looking up over the edge of his glasses at us, my warlord nearly scoffs at the veteran agent and I elbow him roughly in the side. "We are very apologetic. It won't happen again, he had too much to drink."

"Work on being more likable, would you? It's harder to make you look innocent when you're a dick all the time." Clicking the pen pointedly, Ron leaves us and I give Verando a hard look yet the gray-haired man is no longer looking at me. Eyeing the wreckage for a little while longer, he takes my arm and pulls me to toward the simplistic sedan as we get in. He's almost comically tall for it, though I find it quite comfortable. 

I watch him fumble with the seat, though arguing to drive after such a sobering experience would be out of the question. "Randy." I attempt as he fiddles with the seat belt. "Randy." It's a beckon, asking him to come back to me. My hand touches his thigh and he grinds his teeth as those sharp eyes meet mine. 

Taking his chin in my hand, I guided him to me, kissing him firmly for as long as I can stand to hold it. "We're alright."

"Potentially leading these people back to our kids." he spits, seething all over again.

"Let them try. I'm not going to let anyone else keep us from our family, the safest place for our kids to be is with us." The thought brings my own sick feeling to my stomach, wasn't he about to go on tour? Shutting my eyes tightly, I press my forehead to his, taking in his scent and pressing as close to him as the car would manage. 

We drive home in silence, holding hands, taking up space in the void that was uncertainty in our next move. Avoiding our home left our family open for attack, and going home exposed all of us. Verando had let his guard down, we'd nearly paid the price and if I hadn't been a lycan, I wouldn't have caught on either. Yet, my warlord so desperately needed to relax, was it fair to scold him for any of this? 

Sneaking into the house, I guide him upstairs and push his clothes off of him with slow but firm intent. Verando doesn't fight me, the intensity with which he kisses me confirms my suspicion that he needed the reassurance just as much as I did. Hesitating at my panties, his hands carefully help slide them off of my body, taking the stockings with them. 

"I want to wear this again," I tell him, ignoring the distant look that made me fear he'd never be willing to be so relaxed again. Shoving him back onto the bed, shirt pulled open, tie loose, his pants and boxer briefs long gone, I climb onto him to hover over his hips. "What does my master command?" I ask, bringing him back to me, pulling a tired expression out of him. 

"Nic..." he exhales roughly, I let his length slide between my cheeks, rocking back and forth against him until I had a more satisfactory gasp of desire. "I just want you. All of you."

"I'm fine."

"I'm not." The honesty is enough to break me from my desire to pick up where we left off, he needed me to rebuild him more than I needed to be dominated. Lowering myself carefully onto his length, I shudder at the intensity as I refuse to go further than the tip. The sharp inhale brings me to put my hands on his chest, stabilizing myself. That stone gaze meets mine, full lips parted as I trace my hand over the sculpted abdominal muscles. 

"You're allowed to relax. You're allowed to exist." I challenge him. 

"I nearly got us killed." I punish him by lifting my hips, feeling his body shudder at the sensation. "If it weren't for you, we'd have been in that car." To reward his honesty, I lower myself once more. Cursing under my breath, the game was as torturous for me as it was for him. "I shouldn't have let my guard down."

"I'm here, as your husband, to help you. My job is to keep us safe just as much as it's yours, you alerted me and I acted on it. We are fine. I'm fine." 

"It was foolish-"

I straighten once more and he curses, gripping my hips yet I fight back against him. 

"Fuck, Nic.." The desperation in his tone is almost my undoing. 

"Is it that type of language that got us in trouble in the first place?"

"Spoiled brat." He seethes as I chuckle. "Can't you just let me hate myself?"

"Not a chance, baby. This is not your fault. I'm going to build you a new car, a better car. In exchange, you're going to use that dictator brain of yours and you're going to figure this out. That is what you're good at it, now let me do what I'm good at." Lowering myself once more, we moan in unison as I attempt to hover only to have him yank down on my hips and slam into my depths. 

"Give yourself more credit, you have way more talents than taking me so entirely." Verando flips us, pinning me beneath him as I groan his name. "I won't put us in that position again." 

I growl at him, shoving him roughly only to gasp as we topple off the bed and I find us crashing to the ground. My body was on fire, unable to give up any ground I move my hips against him as I find him once more. "It's not your job to predict everything that could happen. I like when you let loose."

His expression falls, and in a quick motion, he stands, yanking me up with him to put my ass on the wardrobe, using the edge to help me stay level with his hips as he fills me over and over again. My hands shoot over my head to grab the edge of the mirror to keep it from slamming against the wall, body trembling, fighting to keep from screaming. "You like this? Do you like me out of my mind with desire? Watching me abuse staff because I'm too bloody drunk to keep my damned thoughts to myself?" The embarrassment in his tone causes me to flinch, pulling me away from the edge of completion. 

Gripping his face with one hand, the shuddering of the mirror was more than I could bare. I jump onto his body, the surprise sending him stepping backward only to shove my back against the wall. Locking my knee over his elbow, he pins me so deliciously between him and the cool surface. "You're going to wake the kids." I hiss, knowing he was still mildly intoxicated, knowing he was desperate to find some sort of comfort and yet I felt the need to keep chasing him back into the open. 

"Chalk it up to one more thing that makes me a shitty father." Cursing, he knew he'd said too much and I hesitate. Trying to hide from me, he buries his face into my neck and I cling to him. 

"Randy you are an incredible father."

"Not now." It's a plea, I could accept that we were both emotionally spent.

"We're not done with this. But right now, I need you so bad I can't stand it." I allow him to lose himself in me, and somehow we end up on the floor, me pinned beneath him as he takes me so incredibly slow. My legs wrapped around his hips, his arms curled around my head as my own fingers fist into his hair. 

It was a moment where dominance ceased to matter, the only intention remaining was to satisfy the urge to join our bodies and become whole again. He completed me as much as I did for him, I could only murmur over and over how much I loved him. At his mercy, yet his grace was my pleasure. 

I'm unaware of how long we remained lost in each other, only that he took me to bed at some point. Tomorrow we'd have to discuss this, but for now, this was a start to mending the rift between us.