I surrender to the blur of the day, living each minute in a compartmentalized state of acceptance that tonight I would attempt to use a werewolf to track down my warlord. 

How do I approach this? Would it be better or worse to involve Randy in my plans? 

Distracted, I keep my phone close as the group texts back and forth on their discoveries. The modern marvel of technology was not lost on me, I was able to sit with Darrius and spend time with him all while keeping up to date on the slim chance that we could pull this off. 

But truly, could we? 

The seal was something straight out of legend, for few beings believed in the existence of gods yet wanted to keep them out of their bodies. It was a large symbol, the size of a plate perhaps, intricate in it's carvings for I recognized the symbol in a few of the texts when it came to placing the collar on the dragons. 

It would seem the two intertwined, where one was listed, another was quick to follow behind. The gods had helped to put the dragons in their realm, sealing them off, only allowing them to come to our world if they could be tamed in some aspect but it would seem the seal came from the humanoid dragon creatures themselves, those such as Bogdan were responsible for spreading the rumors of the existence for such a seal. 

I couldn't help but question if it would keep them from being controlled by the collars in their human forms for none of my instructors had answered to anyone. Even thinking about it made my scars ache, I startle as the ball hits me in the chest. 

"Tata, you're bad at this game." Darrius sighs, disappointed in my ability to catch the ball and toss it back. "Can we play outside?"

"Honey, you're about to go with Jan and John to the city for the evening." I remind him, I'd been setting him up all morning for being apart from me. It was something he was not thrilled about, making his lower lip jut out and his eyebrows pull down. I didn't have the fatherly expression needed to bring him back to obedience, if anything my stern face made him giggle. 

"I'm staying here. What if Daddy comes back?" He frowns, rolling the ball in his hands. 

With any luck, he'd be back tomorrow, could I be so disgustingly hopeful? "Then I'll call you immediately, honey, it's a full moon and it's not safe here tonight. We have to help Randy and Cas." It was easier than lying to him. He might only be three, but his ability to perceive our actions was beyond my comprehension at times. He saw so much more than I thought possible and lying to him, when this would be our lives, seemed more unfair than letting him know the truth. 

"They're bad?" He asks, almost whispering. Randy glances at me from where he sits, braiding Sylvia's hair quietly. The line of females in this house who were willing to throw themselves at his feet didn't cease to turn my stomach. The man was a walking plethora of problems yet somehow, the charming youth managed to have them eating out of his palm with the way he expertly twisted the little girl's hair into a near-perfect crown just like Haryek used to wear. 

Was it his time with the elves that taught him this skill?

"Tata?"

I shake my head. "No, they're not bad, Dare. Everyone's magic is different, some are harder to control than others and this is one of those times when it will be hard to control." 

Bored with my explanation, the boy trots over to watch Silvia's hair slowly form the shape of the crown. "You look like my Daddy." He tells the young Randy who flinches at the assumption. 

Holding a leather band in between his teeth, he tilts his head curiously as he considers his response to the child, wrinkling his nose playfully. "You talk a lot."

Darrius giggles, wrinkling his nose back. "Can you braid me too?"

Silvia giggles too, "You're a boy!"

Darrius frowns and I quickly come over to sit beside him, pulling him into my lap with a hug. "Of course, you can be braided, baby." Sighing at Silvia who looks slightly embarrassed, she tugs at the fiber on the rug and I exchange another look with the younger version of my husband. I couldn't help but keep catching his eyes, much as he couldn't help but watch me either. 

We'd left unspoken words between us that night in the tree, I'd asked him if he wanted to be with me, and to his knowledge, Verando hadn't returned yet. I'm sure he felt he owed me an explanation, I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear it. My plan could be wrong, it could just be that he didn't want to be with me anymore. 

"Where did you learn to braid?" Silvia asks, filling the space the only way a child can. 

Randy considers this for a moment, "My mother died when I was very young and my sister always wanted to have her hair braided like the other girls. Our adopted mother's hands were too stiff to braid, so I had an elf girl teach me. I used to braid her hair every morning. It actually looked a lot like this." He ties it off, feeling the weight of the heavy white tangles. 

Legardo shocks us both by sitting on the couch not far away. "It should. She's my daughter."

Swallowing back the uncertainty, Randy forces a crooked smile as Silvia twirls excitedly. "I love it! I look like a princess!"

"I learned it from a princess so it would fit the part." He crosses his legs in front of him as Darrius quickly trots over to sit in his lap. The boy had longer hair than I would personally like, but Verando was not big on cutting it much as he was good at keeping his own hair groomed. The heavy red locks waved past his ears, I tilt my head in challenge to how the man intended to braid the difficult length. "She's beautiful, Gardo." He mumbles, shifting awkwardly as he starts at Darrius's temple. 

"My mother says she looks a lot like Tempy." 

Randy presses his lips into a thin line, pained as his eyes flick up for a moment with a shakey exhale. "She does. Kinder though. Tempy was mean as they came." He chuckles sadly, smirking as Darrius looks up at him with a contented wriggle of his small body, nearly costing him the braid. 

"Mother speaks of her fondly. She helped us get out when they took you. Women and children went last, we were long gone by the time they were rounding everyone up. I was too young to remember, but I know she was grateful to her. We would not have gotten out in time without her." 

Listening to them talk in such a way gave me an uncomfortable feeling, I wanted to move away, to leave and let them converse but I needed to immerse myself in it. I needed to live with this guilt because it was the truth of what my people had done. If I wanted to connect with this man, I had to stop hiding from this part of my past even if I did not hold the chains with my own hands. 

So I listen, absorbing it all as Silvia prods with various questions about this mystery woman and Randy fills in some of the blanks about the struggling childhood. In some instances, there were fifteen of them crammed into the tiny little home, some children were adopted as laborers or ran away, some died of sickness or for crimes committed, and the five of their small group were the only ones who stayed consistently. 

Verando, Caspian, Temptrest, Marcus, and Marisol. 

It sounded like a fairy tale to Darrius who I had never realized was increasingly lonely. But, the only other children he had to play with were Silvia and Xaiver. Much as it made my heart ache, I knew the feeling because it was the same for me. We were royalty, we didn't have much for friends that weren't arranged or coming for social events with their parents. 

Silvia, too, had little in the way of friends. She was five years older than Darrius, yet still play so well with him. It was her only other option, the school had been a challenge and most children avoided her due to her lineage and her hair color. She was obviously a young lycan, nobody wanted to risk befriending someone like that with the current state of events. 

"I'll be your friend," Randy tells him firmly, finishing the intricate braid that wraps around the boy's head. I was impressed by his ability to perform with such awkward lengths of strands. "Do you want to be a prince or a princess?" 

Darrius jumps up as Jan and John enter, packed and ready to go. "Prince Darrius!" He proclaims with a broad grin. 

"Your Majesty." I bow as best I can from where I'm seated. Darrius throws his arms around my neck and hugs me tightly. "Can you say thank you?" 

"Thanks... emm.. Not Daddy." Awkward, the boy runs over to climb up into Jan's arms. Silvia seems eager to follow and Legardo stands as well. 

"We'll be back tomorrow evening." Conflicted, he ushers them out of the house and they take the van, along with any means of true escape. We couldn't afford for it to be damaged in a rage by Randy or Cas, so it couldn't be left behind. I check my watch as we trend on six hours before nightfall. 

"Can we go look at the stalls?" Randy asks, standing to dust himself off as I climb to my feet as well. 

It's a long, slow walk in the warmth of the mid-day sun. A chilled breeze but the toasting sun warmed my skin and I cuddle closer in the borrowed shirt I wear. Randy was dressed in a simple pair of jeans, a shirt, and a flannel, I note that he's chilled as he shivers and tugs at the rolled sleeves. Much as our part of the world could get quite cold, he hadn't been out in the elements since he'd been here for much of the time we'd had him. 

I take a step closer, offering him my arm and he reluctantly takes it, sighing in relief at how warm I am. "Gods, I wish you were taller. You're warming like a third of me," he mutters, making me narrow my eyes in offense as I move to pull my arm away only to make him chuckle. "No, I'm sorry... I really am cold."

The silence falls back over us as we enter the dusty barn, reinforced with chopped trees to make the interior barrier a double-layered fortress. Unassuming from the outside, but heavily sank, lumbering tree trunks lined the inside. The stalls were smaller, steel cable bars lined the top in a diamond mesh pattern as well as the walls. While you could see in and out, it would hardly be big enough to slip a finger through, hoping to limit the ability to grab and yank. 

Walking into the stall, he leaves me to stand centrally, glancing at the chains that are anchored into the new, concrete floor with bolts that had to seem unnaturally large. Swallowing, he touches the wall, frowning as he murmurs to himself. 

"It's just for the night. We're hoping to get you home soon." I promise him. 

Randy shakes his head. "No, it's not that.. it just proves how ill-equipped we are in my time to stop the change. All this equipment doesn't seem like enough, and yet... surely it must be. Something has to stop this monster." Sighing heavily, he runs a hand through his hair as he pats the wall. "You're sending me back? I haven't returned yet... doesn't that mean?"

I cross my arms over my chest with a shrug, "I.. don't know what that means. We have a theory, that you're not gone, that Caspian has passed Fenrir onto you and you've been taken."

With a scoff, he rolls his eyes in typical warlord fashion. I watch him pace, busying himself with the variety of welds inside the cage. "Of course he did."

Much as he tried to murder himself yesterday, he seemed different today, more himself, more like a glimpse of the man I loved. Being so close to him, was like being inches away from my favorite drug. How was I supposed to function like this when I was going through withdrawals? The closeness of him holding onto me, smelling the faint smell that almost gave me some relief, I tighten my arms in front of my chest. 

"I can't keep you here any longer, come what may, it's time for you to go home."

"I haven't made up my mind yet." The confrontation in his voice threatens to fracture me, I knew he wanted to stay, so badly I wanted to let him. How could I send him back to that? Knowing what was going to happen to him, knowing that he was starving when I found him, knowing that it would go on like this and continue to corrupt and break him until I would eventually watch him murder my family? 

"I know."

"More trouble than I'm worth?" The attempt is meant to insight a reaction, I refuse to entertain it.

"Absolutely." I challenge back, he stops and approaches me in a slow saunter. "One is enough trouble."

"Lot of people vying for this spot you've claimed. Woman.. apparently men.. you must be pretty confident to think I'm going to end back up here." He retorts, stiff, glancing me up and down as he comes to a halt in front of me. 

"I know what I have to offer. Perhaps it's you who should hope I choose you, again?" I raise an eyebrow with a sarcastic shrug.  It brings a laugh from his lips, making me smile just slightly, a way I feared I might not ever again given the current events. My favorite look flashes across his face and I catch my lower lip in my teeth. 

"Wouldn't that be my luck, showing up on your doorstep and you'd found some other poor man to fornicate with? Though by the look you give me, you've got it pretty bad. I'd say my odds are fair to good, darling, that you are firmly addicted."

My breath catches, I take a step back, nearly slipping on the chain mounted to the ground as he catches me, holding me to his body with his arm around my waist. "Don't call me that. Only my husband calls me that." I practically pleaded, turning my head away, and glaring at the ground. His full lips parted, and those light eyes bore into my soul. "And stop looking at me like that."

The tension between us was like wildfire, driving me mad. His heart pounded in his chest, my own galloping to keep up as I press against him in a way that molded to my body so perfectly. He catches my chin with his index finger and his thumb, pulling my face up to meet his gaze. "I'm just trying desperately to figure out why I can't get you out of my head."

I nearly choke, wrapping my arms around him to hug him tightly as I press my cheek into his chest. He feels so good under my fingertips, his body was slowly becoming a glimpse of what belonged to me. "It's because I see you.. and you see me. Gods, Randy, I miss you so damn much."  My breath turns into an airy gasp, I hug him tighter and he holds me quietly. 

Randy takes my face in his hands, carefully lifting my chin once more and I stretch up on my toes, his lips hovering over mine yet I stop myself from closing the space. "Please don't kiss me. I can't keep doing this to myself. You're an extremely jealous man and you aren't going to understand that it's a younger version of you that I'm kissing. You also cheated on me and this feels quite hypocritical." I manage, pressing my forehead to his lips instead. 

He kisses the top of my head, "If I'm going to fuck this up, I want to know what this feels like. I want to have a taste of this before I go back and lose myself to the drugs and the alcohol, before I forget any of this ever existed. I want you to erase my memory before you send me back... But I want to experience this first."

Blinking away the discomfort, I dodge his lips once more, he kisses my cheek and I nearly melt against him. "You want to forget me?"

"I want to leave it up to chance because there is no way I'm going to do this right any other way." He responds, brushing his nose against mine. "There has to be a reason why I'm drawn to you this way. There has to be a reason why we've come this far, why you're trying so hard to find me." Tilting my head up, I part my lips as his trace over mine, closing my hands around the front of his shirt. 

What if this was the last time I might be able to be with him in this way? What if we failed? What if he couldn't find his way back to me? Shutting my eyes tightly, I press a chaste kiss to his lips, forcing myself not to pursue it as his breathing quickens just slightly. Smirking, I bait him with my mouth, not letting him attack me, keeping the distance between us to just barely prevent the deepening of the kiss. "There's a theory.. that Alpha will listen to me because I am the only other person he's gotten along with. I'm Verando's mate... your mate... but not in this timeline. My hope is to command Alpha to find you for me."

Tense, he moves to stare at me but I stop him, pressing my lips to his once more as I clutch him to me by his flannel. 

"Fuck." He murmurs against my lips, I sigh as his tongue traces over my lower lip, tilting my head to kiss him once more. 

"I know it's dangerous. I know the risk. I'm not going to do this without your consent, but you're going to have to consent because I can't do this without you. I need Alpha to want me, to listen to me. Do you want me?" Meeting his gaze, he brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, clutching me impossibly closer with his arm around my waist. I stretch on my tiptoes, biting his lower lip and making him nearly growl. 

"You're a cheeky minx," he grumbles, moving to attack my neck. I gasp, fisting one of my hands in his hair. "How did I fall for someone so manipulative?"

"You love that about me." I retort, pulling his hair roughly as he sinks his teeth into my neck. Cursing, I climb his body as he slams me against the cage. Desperate, his hands slide up my shirt as he supports me on his waist, kissing my neck in such deliciously slow yet deliberate placement that threatens to drive me mad. 

I'm pushing at the flannel of his shirt, noting the shiver of his body from the chill of oncoming night and opt to leave the top of his clothes on. "How's such a little guy so heavy?" He sets me down as I gasp in offense, spinning him around to shove him against the cage, hard enough to make him grunt. 

"You're such an asshole." I snap, groping him roughly through his pants before cursing at the nature of my wolf. I was being too dominating, I was pushing myself on him in a way that this human version couldn't fight back against. I needed my Alpha male to keep me in check, yet when I glance up at him apologetically, I note the rush of color to his cheeks. The way he looks at me, the come hither expression of a man begging to be taken. "You have no right to look at me that way."

"What're you going to do about it?" he challenges back as I yank him back down to me, crushing my lips against his. 

"Use you as you deserve for your outlandish behavior. If  I'm going to do this... I'm not going to be able to stop. But I fully intend to make you realize that there is nobody else who can satisfy you as I can."