The harsh wind whips around our stiff hoods, snowy dust coating our lashes and lips like sand on the beach, each granule burning as it lands swiftly across my blackening arm.

"Thanks for c-coming with m-m-me." Teeth chattering I pull the cloak around myself. Even with my arm wrapped in a protective blanket my fingers stay frostbit and trembling.

Mikayla only shrugs her shoulder closest to me, untangling a curl as her cheeks blush a faint pink. "They shouldn't of let you come, you're freezing." There's a tang of bitterness in her tone but it's better left unaddressed, her teeth biting down on reddened lips as she glares at her own footprints in the snow.

She's right. My fingers are white and bloody, lips lifeless and eyes silver slits through the blowing snow. She runs a trembling hand through my newly blonde hair before stiffly shoving her gloved fingers into her coat pocket for warmth. "As are you."

We walk on in silence, our eyes wandering back every few steps to see if the looming house behind is still in view. Trees rush by in a blur, Mikayla tripping over camouflaged stones and falling to the forest ground every other mile we tread. I want to say something, fill the void lingering between us, but my lips stay tightly sealed and her eyes search nowhere but the floor. "So..uh..."

She gives a light laugh, positioning herself so that she's close enough that our fingers brush together slightly. I lock our fingers together on the fifth swing of my hand, squeezing her fingers shortly and filling her body with a flash of heat. "How do you know where we're going?"

There's worry in her eyes, in her movements, the tensing of her arm and the curling of her fingers, nails pressing into my palm. "What if we get lost? Or they come back?" Mikayla's eyes scan my blanket draped arm and the dented skin of my jewel-less wrist before turning away flushed and embarrassed at being caught out the corner of my eye.

"I know the scent of his pack, Kay. We aren't going to get lost just calm down." Her eyes widen at the nickname just as Jules had, but she turns her head away before I can get a better look at her features. "Are you embarrassed?" She slightly nods, pressing her face into my shoulder with the next wind. Her curls wrap around my neck and ears, grazing my cheeks as she buries herself deeper into my pale and cracking skin. I pause as she wraps her free hand around my waist and under my shirt, lips pressing gently on my collarbone until my body is emerged in flames and the color returns to my flushing skin. "W-we-"

She cuts me off with a light moan of protest, leaning farther into my body until the wind ceases to beat with the rhythm of my racing heart. She pulls away, arms still tight around my hips as she stares straight into my aching chest. It becomes my turn to be flustered, to rest my cheeks over her head and hope she doesn't notice the unnatural heat radiating off my body.

"Moon," I tense at the noise, the forest deathly quiet despite the birds resting across the branches, faces muffled into their disgruntled feathers and the rustling of branches, of deer and bobcats and foxes alike.

Of a shifter and a human.

Alone in a circle of trees.

With the snow filled footsteps of a bear hidden beneath the brush.

"Moon, we should get going." Mikayla detaches from my chest, the space where she once stood turning cold and empty in her absence. The brunette drags me by the hand away from the clearing and though the deer have quieted and the birds have drifted into sleep I can't help but feel that something, someone is watching us.

We're barely three steps out the clearing before she's asking: "How much longer?"

"I can carry you." I laugh, nudging her in the back when she stops moving.

"Maybe we should turn back?"

"Why would you say-" My lips fall into a smile at the familiar tents, deer carcasses strewn about the meadow staining the snow a deep red. Skin hangs stretched tight from the tree, children fighting with the bones of the recently deceased creature. "Jesse!" I scream at the familiar puff of blonde hair emerging from a tent. He turns my way, eyes widening once they land on the two of us on the outskirts of the trees, trembling from cold and crusted with my blood.

"Pup? What are you doing here?!" Jesse dives for a hug but I step back, holding out my injured arm to him instead. He raises a brow before unwrapping the blankets, hands flying to his mouth as tears well at his eyes.

"They took my jewel."

With a stiff nod he walks back to his tent, emerging mere moments later with a thick coat of furs, a knife carved delicately from bone, and a strap of leather. "Where are you staying?"

"An hour's walk from here." Mikayla answers for me, staring at Jesse as he straps the belt to his hip and shrugs the coat over his broad shoulder, raking his fingers through his hair before wrapping my arm back in its fleece.

"Everyone and then some is there. It's a pretty full house." But he doesn't pay me any attention, only staring at the black peeking out from my knuckles, the plague having spread from its short encounter with the daunting cold.

Voice icier than the surrounding winter, Jesse chokes on his words, his cheeks reddening as he gives one last glance my way. "We should hurry..."

---

There's a silence in the air, Kai pressed tight against the cool metal of the fridge, arms folded over the flattened bones of his chest and chin resting on his own breast. His lips are a tight line pressed with worry as he rests his lids together, the ghost of tears catching at his lashes.

It's silence I haven't felt in five hundred years. The silence of a room full of people, each with their own slice of loneliness in their hearts, of heartache and headache and loss. Jesse unwraps my arm's protector, pink fleece falling in clumps across the wooden floor. With a sharp breath I pull away, pain caressing my arm with the slightest touch of his rough hands, calloused from work and run.

But there's something about the grittiness of his touch that makes me pull closer, that has me resting my tear kissed cheeks over his fur clad collar, whimpering into his ear with each finger that graces the tender skin.

"Jesse-" It's barely a whisper but he pulls away, the knife centimeters away from the surface. My vein pulses as it senses the familiar feel of cutting with Kai in the quiet hours of midnight and morning with the doors pulled tight like our quivering lips.

"Are you alright?" Julius chews at the inside of his cheek, poking his tongue at the newly raw skin before picking up the old habit once more. With pain getting the best of him, Julius drums his fingers against the sides of his thighs, quickening in pace before staring hard at the molding, cracking ceiling overhead.

A scream slips out from the tip of the knife, its jaws sinking deep into the sea of flesh before it, blood rising to the cracks and soiling the wood of the table. "I-I-" My body falls forward, the lost blood avenging its brethren in the form of blackened vision and sore headaches. There's a shuffling of feet, of Julius's muffled shouts and Kaiien's gentle whimpers in the corner with the fridge, the too bright lights glaring down with pure hatred at my throbbing lids. With a mixing pot of names to choose from, I can't pick which to scream out as a man makes his way across the black canvas, moments from grabbing at me before I'm pulled back to the panicked kitchen.

"He's losing blood!" Jesse's voice is a dull murmur ricocheting off the walls of my mind with each syllable. "Blanket. Ice. Thread." I only catch a few words, the blood loss slicing a sizable hole through my net. "The lacing is abnormal, it doesn't match his tag..."

A new voice joins Jesse's but my mind slurs the speaker past the point of recognition. "Who the hell made you the expert?"

"Considering I'm the only Nagel here..."

"What?" The voice is feminine, Mikayla or Claire becoming drastically closer in one step, their voices magnifying throughout the room.

"I study shifters. I did at least...I don't do it as much anymore." His attention turns to me, the speed of his steady hands increasing before a familiar tug of thread is addressed. "Are you in pain?"

"Y...ye...s"

"He sounds drugged." Leave it to Will to be the blunt one.

"He basically is. His brain is trying to make up for the jewel and the blood so his reactions are a bit slower." Each word is accompanied by a yank and a squeezing of skin together as he threads the needle through each wound, dusts of amethyst falling to the table.

But I'm more concerned with his previous comment, my fingers grabbing numbly at the air until I reach the damaged limb, dragging them across the skin to feel the lacing.

It is different. It shouldn't be different. It can't be different.

But it is. I fight the feeling of unconsciousness, the urge to lay down forever and force my eyes to open even the slightest. Though terribly blurred Julius is the first person I see, his hands reaching up to pet back my sweaty hair. "What's his lacing?" He hasn't noticed my eyes blinking open, his attention on Jesse's knowledge on how to help me.

"The pattern of his Tag, it's what surrounds the symbol. The lacing on his arm should be the same b-but it isn't. Moon's lacing doesn't curve like that." He points over to my wrist, a grayish line curving around the stitches and up around my wrist to my elbow.

"What about his shifting?"

"Ju-" Violet eyes widening, he turns wildly towards me, cupping my face in his hands before brushing his lips lightly over mine, dragging his fingers back to lock them in my hair and pull me closer to him. "Julius." I gasp between breaths of air, pushing myself away slightly before I have the chance to grow light headed again. A surge of heat spreads through my body, traveling through my veins and coursing through every platelet with each pulse of my heart. The light shimmer of purple and black seemingly spreads out from my fingertips, Julius backing away before the mist can burn him.

"Try and move your paw."

In an attempt to follow Jesse's orders I fall to my side, bumping into Julius and causing the tags on my collar to chime against one another. Jesse glances at the noise before turning away, physically shaking a thought from his head before coming to help.

"Family crest as well?" I've never been able to tell when Jesse was mad, he always hid it well enough from everyone involved in the mess. But now he grasps the crest firmly in his hand as if willing it to shatter into his palm, biting his lip until blood stains the tip of his teeth cherry red with anger. "Can you move your paw?"

It's a poor attempt, barely a measly lift, but the pain radiating through the limb, running relays from my shoulder to my paw, is too excruciating to work with. Kai still has his eyes closed but his lids quiver the slightest, teeth biting hard on his cheek to keep from screaming out in pain at my movements. "Stop?"

He only nods. "Please."

My body collapses into Julius's lap, his fingers brushing my fur as I lick the wound to cool the fire burning through the bone. "Do you feel hot?"

"I'm not in heat."

Jesse holds out his hands defensively, palms out towards me before giving my head a slight ruffle. "You should've went into heat a while ago, maybe now would be a good time..." Andrew folds his arms at the idea, sighing upwards at the ceiling and smoothing his brow with his thumb.

"That isn't a great idea."

"Why not? The only reason we aren't allowed to have sex is because he could go into heat. Well now he needs to. We're in a safe, stable place with a doctor and a Nagel, Kaiien is here with him. Andrew, the conditions have never been better."

"And if he changes his mind? Then what? We just let him kill himself? I know you love him Jesse and that you're scared of losing him but this is about what will keep Moon safe not what will keep him with you."

The confusion on Julius's face is clear, his brows furrowing as he goes over what Andrew had said, the phrase on repeat circling around his mind. "Kill himself?"

"Going into heat is dangerous, it isn't just a one time deal. He can choose to not mate but," Andrew stops, lifting away from the counter before speaking again. "Moon is still a child and shouldn't be faced with a decision this big. You both shouldn't be thinking of that, it's a rather large responsibility that needs to be carefully thought out."

Julius moves to feel my skin but thinks better of it at the last minute, resting his hand on my hips until I start to shift back, the hand wary of the mist until it dies down. Jesse sits next to me, legs crossed with one hand on his knee and the other inches from mine. "But do you agree with trying to jump start his going into heat?"

"No." Andrew, shocked by Julius's comment, simply closes his eyes and turns his back, turning to face Kaiien in the crowded room as Jesse angles his body to confront Julius.

"What?"

"No. It will happen in its own time. Moon has enough on his mind as it is without worrying about finding a partner. He can barely move and you're already trying to fuck him. Unbelievable." He spits the last word with enough venom to kill a man, a low growl escaping through his throat when Jesse comes closer, my body pressed between the two.

"I'm trying to help him! Moon, tell him!"

No one seems to want to get involved, their faces turned from the two fighting on the stained table. "Don't drag him into this!" Julius yells over my cowering self in the midst of the two.

"You've done nothing for him. You're just some rich boy from some rich parents buying beings with money. You're no better than the rest of the guys off the street so stop pretending you're some type of savior for him. You bought him for god sake!" Jesse screams, his fingers balling into a sizable fist between his tight pressed legs.

"He'd be d-"

"Dead without you? Because Moon is just some charity case that needs your money and 'protection' as you like to call it."

"You think I can't protect him?!" Julius spits, my body being pushed aside as they continue to inch closer to one another.

"He just had his jewel ripped from his body and was almost tortured to death! Do you really call that protecting him?!"

"Just because you're jeal-"

Jesse's eyes soften, his reddened face returning to tan. The fire inside him has blown out and he's left with only smoke and darkness, an emptiness in his being that has me reaching for him but hesitating in midair when Julius reaches him first. His thumb caresses the back of the blonde's hand before reaching out to mine, pulling me into his lap as a single tear leaks from the corner of Jesse's eye, the start of a sentence already at his lips.

"Do you love him?"

The room stops. Every chest is still, any breaths broken and chipped in manner as violet, blue, brown each questioning eye staring at my curled up figure, each expression asking the same question. Well? Do you? Legs shaking, I tuck them underneath me to still the tremors, Julius's arms wrapped around my torso only making my decision harder. I know I love him. I know how I feel when I'm around him, when I think of him. But thinking I love him and saying it aloud, making it official, is two different things.

"I-I-"

"You don't have to answer him." That's what you think. My palms are beginning to sweat, my teeth chatter and body rocks against Julius's cool chest with each staring being.

"I think Moon needs some time alone." Thankful for Kai's intervention, I rush out the room chest heaving and brow dripping sweat as I collide with the burnt door of a bedroom, slamming it behind me and crashing down to the blue bed sheets. As I stare at a picture of an anchor the door opens, one side of the bed sinking as another body joins me under the sheets. The smell of oranges is heavy, my fist entangling in the sheet and bringing it over my nose to hide the smile rippling through my lips.

"Moon." He drags out my name, rolling over so his hand rests on my hip, arm draped over the small of my back and face nuzzled into the crook of my neck. "Why are you friends with him?"

His breath tickles the shell of my ear, oranges intoxicating my already cloudy mind with each word he speaks against my heated skin. "Hush."

"Make me." Fuck. I can't help the moan that escapes my sealed lips, the sound kissing the pillow beneath me as Julius presses himself even closer than before, his body almost on top of mine, our hands entertwined beneath the blue comforter and sheets. He rests his free hand on the light brown wood of the bed post before dragging it through my mess of tangly hair.

"Kiss me..." It's barely a whisper but his lips find their way to mine with only a turn of the head, his tongue closing the space between us and sliding across my lower lip. I open my mouth the slightest, his tongue slipping through the cracks and grazing the roof of my mouth.

My fingers curl around the hem of his sweater, breaking our kiss so I can pull it over his head. His speed stays the same, teeth pulling at my lower lip and dragging it towards him before combining our lips once more. "Why did you have to wear a belt today?" He questions against my mouth, fumbling under the covers until the leather belt comes undone and his fingers slip through the waistband of my jeans. "I love you."

{Go to Crossblood Sexy Scenes}

"If you can go into heat at any time... why don't you?" Julius lays with his hand draped over my bare leg, the other wrapped around a blanket and drawn over my shoulder. Every light breath tickles my ear, his cheek drawn next to mine, chest facing the bed while my heaving one is turned to the molded ceiling of the peaceful room, the scent of sex still clinging to the walls.

"It's better like this."

"You don't seem like it."

"Ju-"

"Look," He interrupts, raising from the bed so he's hovering over me, forcing me to look up at him. "I think... I think it wouldn't be that bad of a thing if... if you just had sex with Jesse. He's right about you going into heat. You're safe here and it's better now than when it's least expected."

I don't give him an answer just a bat of the eye before shutting them altogether. I've always wanted to be with Jesse, have a relationship with someone who understands. Every time I heard his name I smiled but now it does nothing, the effect of the drug has worn off but my mind is still a haze as I shake my head refusing the one thing I've always wanted.

"I don't want to."

His brow raises, body falling so he's resting on his shoulder. "Why not?"

Because I'd be cheating on you. Because I'd regret it. Because I don't want him anymore. Because I want someone else now. Because it's risky. Because I'm scared, no terrified. Of him, of heat, of Niko, of everything I've ever wanted to say but couldn't. Of my throat closing and my breathing quickening. Because my hands are trembling, shaking, and my chest is pounding, sweat dripping down my thick brow and shuttering lids at the words tangled in my teeth, wrapped around my lips, all released with a kiss and a deep breath.

"Because I love you."