Breathe. Just, Breathe.

There’s one person (couple, you suppose) that knows more about love than anybody you’ve ever met, and you just so happen to nanny their child. Even just watching them when they get home tonight after your regular Thursday daycare pickup, you can see how in love Kit and Alma Walker are with each other. You’ve been deliberately slow in getting out the door tonight, lingering and chatting about minute subjects while you wait for the perfect chance to talk to Alma. Finally, Kit declares that Julia needs her pajamas and chases her into her bedroom.

You glance over to Alma and take a deep breath. “Alma, can I…talk to you about something kinda personal?” Alma looks at you and smiles, glancing to make sure Kit’s getting Julia in the bath before nodding and leading you out to the front porch.

The Walker porch has always been one of your favorite places to be. There’s lights strung up overhead the comfy patio seating, and it gives a perfect view of the quiet little street they live on. You sit on the outside couch, Alma taking a seat next to you.

“What’s up?”

“I…” It takes you a moment to figure out what to say. Everytime you think you know, you suddenly feel that it’s not right. Alma waits patiently for you to find your words. “How did you know that you were in love with Kit? That Kit was the one?”

She laughs, the sound as light as the wind chimes gently blowing in the breeze. “So that’s what’s had you all out of sorts! I knew there was something bothering you.”

“You did?”

“Of course. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re off.” Have you really been that transparent? Before you can continue to spiral, Alma says, “So what’s his name? Or her name? I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“His name is Michael.” Just speaking his name makes your heart stutter, as if he’ll finally appear now that you’ve called for him.

“Hmm, and you think that you might love Michael?”

“It’s so complicated. I actually thought I hated him at first.”

Alma barks out a laugh. “Would you believe me if I told you I thought I hated Kit at first?”

“You did?” You look at her with wide eyes.

“Yep. I thought that he was a jerk and not worth my time. Even when he was driving me to work every day and sending me sweet good night texts, I still tried to hate him.”

“Wow, they had texting back in the olden days?” you tease. Kit and Alma are maybe ten years older than you, but you enjoy making them feel extra old when you can.

She points a threatening finger at you while trying to bite back a grin. “I can stop being so helpful, if that’s really what you want.”

“No! I’m sorry.”

“That’s what I thought. Think before the next time you try to diss the Motorola Razr.”

Once your laughing has finally died off, you get serious again. “So what changed?”

“Well, to be honest with you, it wasn’t really any one thing. There was just one day where I looked at him and…I didn’t want to do anything without him by my side.”

One of the many things that you love about Alma? She doesn’t push you to talk before you’re ready. She again sits patiently and waits as you mull over her words. Though you want to think that what she’s said doesn’t apply to you and your situation, you can already tell that it does. How many times since you returned from the Underworld have you found yourself wishing that Michael was with you? Even when completing the most mundane tasks, like driving or reading, you wish you had Michael’s hand in yours, his smooth voice in your ear and his overwhelming passion making you flustered.

“Can I say something?” Alma asks.

“Duh,” you scoff, rolling your eyes playfully.

“You know the answer that you’re looking for, even if you don’t want to admit it. Besides, if you’re not sure, I tend to believe that the universe, or fate, or whatever you want to call it, has a way of making sure that what’s meant to happen will happen. If you and Michael truly do love each other, things will fall into place.”

“You really think so?”

“It worked for me and Kit.” Alma glances into the living room window, where Kit sits combing Julia’s hair on the couch. Kit must sense that he’s being watched, because he looks up suddenly and waves at Alma, Julia joining him with a grin and blowing kisses. You’re no expert, but you would say it’s definitely worked out for the Walkers.

You know what you have to do now, though you’re not sure if it will work. Still, for every doubt that you have, Alma’s voice telling you that it will all work out rings in your head. Sitting in the living room of your apartment after you get home from the Walkers, those words are the only thing giving you any sort of confidence right now. Which…isn’t much, if you’re being honest. Who’s to say if this will work for a second time? And if it does work, why would he want to speak to you after what happened?

Still, it’s the only plan that you’ve got, and you’d be remiss to not try it. Not after the conversation you had with Alma, and not after the weeks that you’ve spent missing him. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath before saying the words that have played through your mind a hundred times by now.

“I wish the Demon King would take me away.”

You wait a long moment for something to happen, and then another one. Finally, you open your eyes again, only to see that everything is exactly the same. It’s hard to hide your disappointment, but you try your best. You really shouldn’t have expected that he would actually show up after what happened the last time you saw him, or that this would even work. Still, you allowed yourself to get your hopes up, which was your own fault.

You try to sniff back the angry tears that are brimming, but it’s proving a difficult task. Not only are you sad that nothing happened, but you feel stupid for sitting here and thinking that saying a few magic words would summon him. You need to leave, preferably by driving around and screaming to sad breakup music while eating fries. After grabbing your keys from the table, you flip the living room light off. Something stops you as you’re putting your shoes on, a presence that sends shivers down your spine.

“I was wondering what was taking you so long, Precious.”

That voice. You would know that lyrical voice anywhere. Is it too good to be true? Are you hallucinating? Your hand fumbles along the wall until you find the light switch. Finally, you flip the light on, and when you do, you can barely gasp out, “Michael.”

It’s him. Now you’re sure that you’re hallucinating, the most beautiful hallucinations anyone could ever come up with. But no, he’s all too real, and he’s right in front of you. Michael’s dressed just as ostentatiously as always, wearing the same gaudy starry cloak that he wore the night this all began and trailing glitter on your living room floor. He tries to smirk at you, but it’s impossible for him to not smile right now. You feel the same, especially when you throw yourself into his arms.

He reciprocates your hug, his arms wrapping tightly around you. He holds onto you as if he’s worried you’ll disappear into thin air, with you holding onto him in the same way. There are so many things that you want to say to him, but he speaks before you do.

“Dearest, I have missed you so.”

“I’m so sorry,” you say through the tears that are clouding both your eyes and your voice, “for everything. I never should have–”

“I do believe it is I who should be apologizing to you.” Michael takes your face in his hands, looking so sweetly down at you that you almost can’t stand it as he uses his thumbs to wipe away your tears. “I will admit that kidnapping your charge and forcing you to run a labyrinth to rescue said charge was not the best plan when I decided that I wanted to woo you.”

“A simple ‘hey’ probably would have been enough for me,” you say with a laugh. “Still, I shouldn’t have said the things that I did.”

“You had to, it was the only way. My smart, brave Y/n, I was no match for you.”

Michael kisses you (finally), and you have to say that this is the best one yet. There’s no deceit or goodbyes hidden within it, nothing you’re both trying to convey. There’s simply love. “Why didn’t you come for me? You’re the one with the magic powers.”

“Did you learn nothing about what the things you say can do while you were on your run? Words have power, and I had no power over you the moment you said those very words. You had to be the one to decide to let me in again.”

You smirk. “So, I was more powerful than the almighty Demon King, huh?”

Michael rolls his eyes, but nods nonetheless. “Yes, you were. But even though I could not come for you, I watched over you.”

“So all the times I thought that I had seen you?”

“Yes. Not physically, but I was there. Sometimes the veil between us just became a little thinner.”

The flash of a blond man walking on the sidewalk, you realize. It was him, for a brief moment. You smile shakily, the revelation bringing on a new round of tears, and kiss him again. “I knew it.”

“Now that you know just what your words can do…” You really don’t think Michael’s smile will ever get any less breathtaking. “Say it, won’t you?”

You raise an eyebrow, feeling like teasing him. “Say what?”

“You know what I want you to say.”

Of course you do. They’re the reason that you called him here in the first place, the words that Alma helped give you the courage to recognize. They’ve likely been teetering on the tip of your tongue since you faced off against him in that deserted ballroom, when he was promising you the world if only you would stay with him.

It’s impossible to pull away from him and properly face him, like you would like to do when telling him this for the first time. It’s as if the two of you are magnets of opposite polarities, and now that you’ve connected once again, you won’t separate easily. Instead, you look up at his blue eyes, your lips still a mere inch apart from his.

“I love you, Michael.”

Though the answer of whether or not you loved Michael eluded you for so long, saying it feels as natural as blinking. It’s barely louder than a whisper when you speak, the sound of your heart thumping in your ears nearly drowning yourself out. Michael hears it loud and clear, though, just as loud and clear as you hear his excited gasp. “I love you, my darling.”

“It’s a relief that your feelings haven’t changed since the last time you told me that you loved me.” Humor’s usually a pretty bad coping mechanism, but Michael seems to enjoy it.

“I promise you that my feelings will never change. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now. On that note,” from within his cloak, Michael pulls out a pocket watch with thirteen hours on it instead of twelve. “Are you ready to go home?”

“That depends.”

He looks at you in surprise. “On what?”

“Well, am I going to be your prisoner? Are you keeping me trapped in your labyrinth if I go with you?”

“You think so little of me, Y/n. You shall be my queen and my equal, free to come and go as you please.”

“Wait, say that again? What am I going to be?”

He looks at you in confusion. “My queen and my equal?”

You wink at him. “And don’t you forget it.”

Michael huffs, but you can sense the endearment behind the action. You’re sure that everything that you say and do regarding or towards Michael from now on will be tinged with endearment. Oh no, you’re going to turn into those sappy, lovesick couples you’ve hated, aren’t you? Well, you suppose that there’s no other person to be half of that lovesick couple equation with than Michael.

A crystal appears in one of Michael’s hands, while in the other he takes yours. A strong feeling of deja vu comes over you at this, but luckily you’re not in nearly as fearful a situation as you were the first time this happened. Now, you can enjoy the crystal and the way the light refracts into rainbows off of its surface. Michael tosses it up in the air, and you watch dizzily as it spins into a blur of color before popping as gently as a bubble to reveal a landscape you’re now familiar with: the gardens on the grounds of his castle, the same ones that he chased you through in that beautiful dream he gave you. There’s nothing sinister about it now, not when the moonlight is shining over the dewy foliage and various animals are calling to each other.

Michael glances at you, as if he’s checking to make sure that you’re not going to change your mind. You nod to confirm that there’s no getting rid of you now, and he kisses you. He turns to face you, grabbing your other hand so that he can properly lead you into the Underworld. Into your home.

“Shall we?”

///

“So,” he begins, his modulator-altered deep voice making you jump, “this is the best that the Rebel Alliance can come up with?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You parrot the alibi you’ve gone over multiple times since you were assigned to this mission. “I was on Naboo to trade textiles.”

“Liar.” He takes a step closer to you, and your breath catches in your throat. “We know that you’re with the Rebels.”

You shake your head. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?” His voice sounds mocking—he probably is mocking you. “If you’re not going to tell me what I want to know, I can always just take it from you. I’m going to ask one more time. What were you doing on Naboo?”

“I already told you.”

His head tilts thoughtfully. “So you’re going to be difficult today? Very well, then.”

It’s difficult to explain what it’s like when someone tries to go through your mind unless the person has also gone through the same experience. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more people these days have experienced the cruel interrogation tactics of the Empire. It’s a horrible feeling, one that you can never forget once it’s happened to you.

It’s an invasion of privacy in the worst form when you learn that your mind is not nearly as impenetrable as it’s supposed to be. Your mind feels as though it’s being physically rifled through, one layer at a time. The pain would be enough to send you to your knees if you were physically able to, but your vision whites out instead.

Going down without a fight would be to go against your very nature, so you force yourself to regain some of your wits and attempt what the Rebellion has been training you to do. You lift your head up to stare back at Vader, taking deep breaths in and then, with each breath out, physically pushing him out of your mind. He retreats suddenly, almost stumbling back. You’re sure that this is how you die, considering you’ve never heard anybody ‘defeat’ Darth Vader and live to tell the tale. To your surprise, however, he looks at you and laughs. Maybe you did die? That’s the only logical reason why he would be laughing right now.

“I didn’t realize we had a Jedi as our guest of honor today.”

“I’m not a Jedi.”

“No, but the Force is strong with you.” 

“That’s–”

“There’s no use coming up with more lies. Not when I can feel it.” A hand comes up to your face, and you flinch as he brushes an errant hair out of your eyes. “Someone’s on edge.”

You roll your eyes. “Pardon me for being a little jumpy after being captured by some creature in a mask.”

“‘Creature in a mask,’” he repeats dryly. After a moment, his hands come up to his mask. You can hear the mechanisms unlatching his mask, and you close your eyes to try and shield yourself from the horrors you’re inevitably about to face.

Slowly, hesitantly, you peek out of one of your eyes before both open to make sure that what you’re seeing is correct. The stories, it turns out, are wrong. Darth Vader is not some burned husk of a man that’s clinging to life, nor is he horribly disfigured. Darth Vader is arguably one of the most beautiful men you’ve ever seen. His golden-brown curls fall to just above his shoulders, and his sharp features are striking. With a face like his, you can easily see why people could so easily fall to the dark side. The only thing that does give you pause is his eyes; bright and yellow, the eyes of a Sith.

A smirk appears on his full lips, and you know that he doesn’t need to read your mind to know that you’re enjoying (unhappily, albeit) this revelation. “Now that I’ve successfully toppled your ‘creature in a mask’ assumption–”

“You can still be a soulless creature no matter how you look,” you hiss.

Vader raises an eyebrow at you, daring you to speak out of turn again. Upon seeing that the message has been received loud and clear, he continues. “The Jedi keep thorough records of Force-sensitive younglings throughout the galaxy. How did you escape them, then?”

Too late, you realize that you perhaps should have pushed aside your tendency for self-preservation. Maybe revealing that you’re Force-sensitive to a Sith was a very, very bad idea. Judging by the sudden interest in your past, you’re leaning more towards that it was definitely bad instead of just ‘maybe’ bad.

You don’t realize that you’ve inadvertently refused to answer the question until that same pain shoots through your head once again, making you cry out in pain. “Need I remind you what happens if you don’t play by the rules?” The pain disappears just as suddenly as it appeared. If you weren’t tied up right now, you would absolutely flip Darth Vader off. Instead, you settle for mentally flipping him off. It doesn’t have the same effect. “Answer my question.”

You sigh heavily. “Fine! My parents didn’t want to give me up, they refused to allow me to be taken away by the Jedi. I was eight when they came for me, and my parents told them I was dead. They sent me off-planet to stay with family for the week, just to make sure they couldn’t track me.”

“Smart. Although, letting an untrained Force-sensitive run around to wreak havoc on everyone and everything probably wasn’t the best call.”

“I guess my folks weren’t thinking long-term.”

Vader laughs at this. The sound doesn’t reassure you. “It’s been a few years since I’ve seen someone with your…potential.”

“Could that be because you killed all of them?” you ask dryly. He rolls his eyes, but thankfully doesn’t cause you any more pain.

“It’s been even longer since I’ve had an apprentice.” 

Your heart drops into your stomach when you realize what he’s implying, and you can feel the cold sweat that begins to form. “I don’t need to be trained. I don’t want to be trained. Especially by you.”

“Think about all that you could accomplish by honing your skills! You could become great, Y/n.” You don’t recall telling him your name—had he gleaned it from looking through your head? Or had it been the Gungans themselves who had betrayed you and sent you to this fate the moment you touched down on Naboo? 

“I don’t need you in order to be great.”

Something dark—darker than what you’ve already seen from him—crosses Darth Vader’s face. You’ve angered him by turning him down, and some part of you knows that people who anger him don’t live to see another rotation. His gloved hand hovers above the hilt of his lightsaber, your heart thundering in your chest at the action.

Instead of removing the lightsaber, igniting it, and slicing you in half, Vader simply fiddles with its position on his belt, like some sort of coping mechanism while he thinks. He turns away from you, looking back at his discarded helmet on the table next to the door. You remain silent during these long few minutes, too scared to speak up and ask him why he’s decided to change tactics. Then, he turns around. By the smile on his face, you’re almost wishing that he stayed facing the door.

“Let’s play a little game.” Vader’s hand flexes and your restraints unlock. You fall to the ground, catching yourself on your hands and knees. Your limbs tingle at the sudden unrestricted movement, and you have to give yourself a second before you can push yourself up to a standing position again. “You hide and try to escape, and I seek. If you win, you walk away from here free. If I win, you become my apprentice.”

“And if I don’t want to play?”

He grins. “You don’t get a choice.”

That’s what you were expecting him to say, yet there was a part of you hoping that he wouldn’t. Vader glances behind him, opening the door at his command.

“I’ll even give you a head start.”

If you don’t go, you’re conceding defeat before you can even start, and you won’t allow him to have you without a fight. You look back at Vader one more time, who teasingly motions with his hands for you to get going, before sprinting out of the door. A pair of stormtroopers stare at you as you pass them, but they don’t follow. You don’t stick around to hear if Vader’s telling them not to shoot you. 

(When the Troopers hesitantly peer into the room you were being held prisoner in to say, “Sir, the prisoner has escaped. Should we engage?” Darth Vader does, in fact, tell them that they do not have permission to engage and that they should leave this to him)

You round a random corner to make sure that you’re far enough away to have this crucial second before pausing. Your hands fumble for the inner lining of your jacket, and you rip apart the loose seams to pull out the emergency homing signal that all members of the rebellion are sent on missions with. The button is pressed once, twice, three times, which is all the time you’ll allow yourself before you’re running again to try and find some way out of here. The pipes along the top of the wall serve as your guide; you know that they’ll lead somewhere, whether it be an electrical hub that you can sabotage or an exit.

“Rebel,” a voice echoes through the halls further than a voice should reasonably be able to echo. The surprise of it sends you screeching to a stop as your head swivels from left to right in an attempt to see how he’s caught up to you already. When you see that he isn’t, in fact, anywhere near, it becomes clear that he’s projecting to you.

“Stay out of my head!” He’ll hear you even though you’ve whispered it under your breath. After all, if there’s one thing you know about the Sith, it’s that their powers are frightening and limitless.

“Mm, no. I don’t think I will.” Back to sprinting you go, following the pipes and begging your feet to move faster and faster until it feels like you’re hardly touching the ground. “Your shields are impressive for someone with such little training. Once I find you, we’ll work to make sure that they’re impenetrable.”

“Like this?” 

A Jedi who had escaped Order 66 and ended up joining the Rebel Alliance, Dia Dorvin took you under her wing when she recognized that there was another Force-sensitive within the ranks. Though there wasn’t much she could train you on, having just barely achieved the rank of Jedi Knight before the fall of the Republic, she tried her best to help you at least hone your skills. Dia would be proud of the way you use her gentle voice to remind you to slam shut the proverbial steel doors of your mind that Vader has managed to slip through. Your mind goes blissfully silent, and you wish you could see the look on his face when he’s realized that you’ve shut him out without his ‘training.’

The loading hangar is devoid of any life when you make it, and only a few droids beep at you when you hit the button to open the hangar doors to give you any indication at all that they recognize your presence. When the door begins to open, you see lava and obsidian outside. Interesting that Darth Vader decided to build his home base on the same planet where he allegedly killed his former master, though that may be more due to the circumstance of an inhospitable planet serving as a good hideout then some sort of poetic justice.

Before you can run past the TIE Fighters and numerous other ships whose makes you couldn’t begin to name, the sound of heavy boots echoes at the back of the room. Considering the stormtroopers are much lighter on their feet to maintain the element of surprise, there’s only one person those footsteps could belong to. Even without that knowledge, your intuition just knows who’s coming. You dive behind a pile of shipping containers, snatching an iron bar from one of the work tables as you do so.

Your breathing is too loud, too scared, and you slap a hand over your mouth to try and keep quiet. Vader’s moving slowly through the hangar, listening carefully for any sign of you. A droid chirps at him, loud and insistent. The red flash of a lightsaber and the sound of metal being slashed gives you enough of an idea what’s happened to that little droid.

“Where, oh where, could my little rebel be?” Vader’s voice sounds like it’s coming from everywhere, making it impossible for you to tell where he is in the hangar. He lets out a laugh before his sing-song tone says, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

He’s enjoying this, you realize. The sick bastard is hunting you, like a predator stalks their prey, and he’s having fun doing so. You have to move, and now. Slowly, you poke your head out from behind the containers, only to see that Vader isn’t anywhere in your field of vision.

The hairs on the back on your neck stand up, and you tense right before you feel him behind you. “Boo,” he whispers into your ear. You try to jump over the crates, but he grabs you by the back of your shirt and flings you to the ground.

Your back collides harshly with the ground, and you cough as you try to get your breath back. When you can finally breathe again, you look up only to be faced with Vader’s bright-red lightsaber inches away from your face. The heat from it is intense, and trying to be as still as possible only makes you want to involuntarily jerk more.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. For some reason (like, say, the lightsaber currently pointed at you), you highly doubt that. “Come with me, Y/n. Embrace your destiny, who you’re meant to be.”

Keeping eye contact with him, you stretch your fingertips to get the metal bar that you dropped closer to you. Once it’s close enough, you wrap your fingers around it. “Fuck you.”

You swing the bar at Vader with all your strength, making direct contact with the hand that holds his lightsaber. It doesn’t hurt him, but it does catch him off-guard enough that the lightsaber goes flying out of his grasp. Scrambling back up to your feet, you ready yourself to swing once again as he calls his lightsaber back with the Force.

Vader’s other hand stretches towards you, using the Force to stop you from bashing his head in. The bar won’t swing any further, an invisible hand keeping it from moving any more. In the distance, you can hear the distinct sound of a ship exiting hyperdrive.

“I admire your tenacity, but this ends now.”

Suddenly, you see it. Your way out, and your last hope. “You’re right.” You lift your shaking hand in the air towards a control tower. Now, it’s your turn to smile. “This does end now.”

Yanking your hand back towards you, the control tower collapses along with it, like you’re pulling it with an invisible string. Sparks fly from the wires, and Vader is forced to roll out of the way to keep from being crushed under all of the metal. You take your chance and run outside before he can try to get back around the now-destroyed tower.

The Mustafarian heat is immediately oppressing, sweat beading on your brow as you scan the skies. The dot in the distance quickly becomes an actual ship—a Rebel Alliance ship. The back of the ship opens, and the familiar faces of your friends and comrades appear. They’re yelling for you to hurry, holding their hands out as the pilot drops as close to the ground as they can.

Your legs are burning from the exertion of having to run for your life yet again, a stitch forming in your side as you extend your hand and jump. Though the crew is not Force-sensitive, you trust them with your life…literally. Yet again they come through, a hand grabbing onto yours and ensuring that you won’t fall.

Rip and Oona, two of your fellow Rebels, each grab an arm and haul you up onto the ship. They’re hanging onto you like you’re going to turn to smoke and slip out of their hands. Given the circumstances that have led to this moment, you don’t exactly blame them.

“Kriff, Y/n, are you okay?” Rip is frantically looking you up and down, checking for any sign of injury.

“Yeah, we were sure you were a goner!” Oona adds.

“I’m good. Let’s just get out of here.”

“On it!” Voth yells from the pilot’s seat up front.

The assumption you had made about the inside of the building proves correct. Everything is sleek and black, and you feel like you’re on Starkiller Base from the Star Wars sequels. The receptionist looks up for a split second before immediately bowing her head in respect as you and Michael walk past. You really don’t think you’ll ever get used to that, the way that people fawn over Michael and, by extension, you.

You come to a set of doors, both just as dark and intimidating as the rest of the inner architecture of this building. Two men dressed in black guard either door, and you’re almost tempted to ask if they’re the actual Men In Black. You refrain from that question, but only because Michael nods to them that he’s ready to go in. Next time, then.

Once the large doors open for you and Michael to make a grand entrance, he drops your hand. You look up at him to see why he did so, and you’re completely thrown off when you do. He’s not looking at you, so you can’t question him silently, but that’s not what shakes you. No, what shakes you is the look on his face. Gone is the sweet man that you know and love, the man that was just listening intently as you suggested he take a pause instead of saying ‘um’. The man that stands before you is full of hate and fire and entitlement and evil. It takes your breath away, and you turn your gaze forwards once you realize that your Michael is not here right now.

A long table sits at the center of the room, each seat filled by someone in black robes and a chrome mask that covers their entire face. Anonymity is the name of the game here, it seems, except for you and Michael. It’s silent in here, everybody waiting for their lord and savior to speak first. Michael, at least, has the decency to pull your chair out for you and makes sure you’re seated before standing above the empty chair next to you. You’re grateful that you get to sit: even though the faces of those here are covered, you can feel how they’re all looking at you.

“Esteemed members of The Cooperative,” Michael begins. To your relief, the attention of The Cooperative members shifts to Michael. “I appreciate that you’ve taken the time out of your busy schedules to join me here today. Since you are the main benefactors of the Outposts that will provide shelter from the apocalypse, I find it only fair to provide you with more concrete updates as construction and fortification continues.”

He speaks with such an ease that it’s no wonder why people have fallen in line behind him so easily. He’s enigmatic and charming while also making it clear that he’s in charge here.

“Ms. Mead has placed updated information at each of your seats, which will hopefully answer all of your questions as to where your finances are going and where we are at in the timeline. Please, take your time and read.”

You look down at the paper in front of Michael, curious as to the intricacies of this plan. What you see is more horrifying than you could have ever imagined.

Fallout shelters are being constructed in multiple locations around the world, except they’re far more elaborate than the Cold War-era shelters that you had been imagining. No, these are less bunkers and more complexes that have simply been moved underground. From what you can see, the plan is that these will be funded both by those who sit here today, who get creative oversight regarding the construction as well as a guaranteed spot for them and their families, as well as a price tag of $100 million for anybody else that decides they want to survive the end of the world.

The other survivors will be those whose genetic material is ideal for carrying on the “survival” of the human species. From the looks of it, The Cooperative is sourcing this data from all of the DNA sites that people use to find out their ancestry. You think back to when you did one of those your senior year of high school for your science fair project. What hidden information was between the lines of the report that you had received? Did you have genetic markers that would have stood out, were you not Michael’s wife?

None of this matters, though, when you’re looking at how the world gets to this point in the first place. As it turns out, Michael’s planning of the apocalypse is much further than you thought it would be. You were under the assumption that he was still mulling over the different ways that one could bring about the end of the world, and that these were all just hypotheticals. This plan that sits in front of you shatters that. Instead, there in black and white, it lays out how and where nuclear bombs are being sourced, the potential locations that they would be dropped, who would be privy to the knowledge of what was going to happen, and a list of suggested dates for when the plan is launched.

Michael wants to end the world in the next year or two. All of his promises, of grad school and moving to a new city, making friends and getting another cat, plans and dreams and ideas that you’ve shared, are lies. This whole time, he’s known that there will be no future, at least not in the way that he’s led you to believe. You don’t know whether you should feel heartbroken, betrayed, or angry about this. Probably all of the above.

Though you want to confront him, to yell and fight back and try to convince him that this is a terrible idea, you know that this is not the time nor the place. So you remain silent through the rest of the meeting, keeping your eyes on the plans in front of you or staring at a random member of the Cooperative and trying to guess who is under the mask.

Finally, Michael concludes his elaboration of what was found in the papers you had read through and invites questions. It doesn’t surprise you at all that there’s voice modulators inside the masks, distorted voices asking various questions about the logistics of the apocalypse. After a moment of silence, and with the belief that everyone has asked their questions, Michael opens his mouth to dismiss the meeting. He’s interrupted before he can speak by someone sitting about five seats down from you.

“You bring your pet with you everywhere now, My Lord?” the words of this person seem to hang in the air, and you can almost hear the silent gasps that people make at the audacity.

Michael’s jaw clenches. “Say that again?”

“You seem to have found yourself distracted, is all that I mean to say. The past two times that you’ve bothered to grace us with your presence, you bring along,” he gestures vaguely in your direction, as if you’re just an afterthought.

Michael doesn’t even bother to speak to the man who just insulted you. Instead, he just smiles.

A moment later, the man is screaming as he’s engulfed in flames.

You’re the only one who has any sort of reaction to this, flinching at the sight of a man being burned alive. Everyone else stares down at the table, and you assume that this is not the first time that someone has been turned into barbecue at one of these meetings. Michael waves his hand and the flames go out, leaving the chrome mask sitting on top of a smoking pile of remains.

“Let me remind you, once again, that the only reason you are here is because of the gifts bestowed upon you by my father which led to you giving him your immortal souls. Satan owns you. Therefore, I own you. Those that dare to disobey me will end up like your colleague over there.” Michael juts his chin towards the pile of ash that sits in the chair where, mere minutes ago, a person sat.

Michael holds his hand to you, and you take it and stand up. Together, you turn and walk out of the conference room, where you’re sure everyone is erupting into gossip the moment the doors close behind you. You know that the only reason he’s holding your hand is to make a point, but you’re still glad that he is.

Once you’re back in the car, Michael’s hardened facade immediately melts. It’s a little jarring how quickly he can go from a man who will burn someone alive without a second thought to the man you see right now, shyly smiling as he asks, “So, how did I do?”

You blink, trying to think of something that’s not ‘what the fuck?’ “It was good! You were very captivating.”

“I’m sorry you had to see me burn that man. Not sorry to have burned him, and he certainly won’t be much of a loss, but I wish you hadn’t been there.”

“It’s…okay, Michael. He was being a jackass. I understand your reasoning behind it.”

Michael lets out a deep breath that he’s probably been holding since you walked into that building. His shoulders relax as he leans back into the leather seats. You don’t know if you should say anything to him about the plans for the end of the world. Is he going to be mad that you’re bringing it up? Was it all just for show to convince his investors that everything is going great? Finally, when you’re almost home, you break the ice.

“Michael?” you ask.

“Hmm?”

“I read through the plans.”

“Pretty thorough, huh?”

“Yeah.” You look over at him. “You want to blow up the world? In two years?”

He suddenly finds himself interested in something outside. “That’s been the timeline since I first took over The Cooperative.”

“So, like, is everything you’ve said about our future a lie?”

“No! Plans can change, and they most likely will change. For some reason, the richest people in the world feel the need to try and make even more money, and they’re saying that two years isn’t enough for them to do everything they want to do.” He rolls his eyes with a scoff.

“But…” But what? You can’t think of a compelling argument besides ‘I don’t want you to blow up the world’, but you have a feeling that’s not going to fly.

“I promise that you will not be left in the dark with these sorts of things. You’ll know if there’s any changes as to the dates we have set, okay? I would never hide this from you.”

That’s not what you’re concerned about, not really. It’s not like you’re going to start arguing with him about this, though. That would ruin everything you’ve been working on, your months of showing him the good parts of humanity and making him more and more a part of your world. You also don’t know how he would react if you revealed your own plan. Would this make him want to end the world even more? 

You decide that it’s better to just wait until you have more time to think about what you’ve learned. With that, you nod and drop the conversation for now, leaning your head on his shoulder and getting lost in your thoughts of how this is your life now.

When you do finally get home, you’re planning on a hot shower and some loud music to try and remind you that you’re also a normal twenty-something and not just the Antichrist’s wife. Michael, to his credit, understands, and leaves you to blissful silence when you close the bedroom door.

Your hand goes to your neck and you unclasp the choker you’ve been wearing. Though you’d never wear something like this in your everyday life, it’s stunning, and you take great care in gently laying it on top of the dresser. Your shoes are next to go, though you’re far less careful with those. You fling them off of your feet without a care as to where they land in the room. Finally, you reach behind you to unzip your dress. This is where you encounter a problem.

In your haste to get into clothes that weren’t a dress and heels, you forgot about how this zipper is just a little bit lower than the zippers on your other dresses. No matter how you contort your arms or how you yank the fabric one way or another, you can’t get enough of a grip to actually unzip your dress. With a sigh, you open up the door and call for Michael.

He’s in front of you in a matter of seconds, and he smiles at the pout that’s surely on your face. “I can’t reach my zipper,” you say.

“And?” He’s teasing you, and you roll your eyes with a huff.

“Unzip me, please?” 

Michael does as asked, smoothly unzipping your dress for you. His hand stutters when he goes to pull it away once he sees the lace that’s been hiding under your clothes. You hadn’t thought anything of the lacy blue bra that you had thrown on this morning, just grabbing whatever was on top of the clean laundry you still haven’t folded. He’s not even looking at anything particularly racy, just your back. Still, Michael slowly traces his fingers along the delicate pattern of the band of your bra.

“Thanks,” you whisper, turning your head to look at him out of the corner of your eye. He’s still looking down at the blue fabric that sits against your skin, making you shiver when his fingers occasionally drift off of your bra and onto your bare skin.

Michael awkwardly clears his throat, jerking his hand away from you and stepping back. “I should…I should go.”

“Michael,” you call, turning around and facing him. 

You grab him by the clasps of the stupid cloak that he’s still wearing, pulling him towards you and meeting his lips with yours. He lets out a noise of surprise but doesn’t let it stop him for long before his hands are on your waist. 

Maybe it’s the tension of the day, or how easily Michael was able to command a room full of the most powerful people in the world. Maybe it’s just months’ worth of sexual tension having reached a boiling point. Whatever the reason, you’ve found yourself kissing Michael, and you don’t plan on stopping any time soon. Michael, however, has other thoughts, and forces himself away.

“Y/n,” Michael says, looking at you seriously, “if we continue down this path, I don’t know that I’ll be able to stop myself.”

At this moment, you realize that you really don’t care about these arbitrary rules you’ve imposed on yourselves in case Satan might try to do something. The only thing stopping you from this…is you. And right now, you don’t want to stop yourself. “Maybe I don’t want you to stop.”

He looks at you, startled. “What?”

“I want this. I want you, in every way that two people in love can have each other.” You grab his hands. “Michael, we don’t even know if something bad is actually going to happen. We’ve been operating this way based on a fear of what might happen. I don’t want to let him have a say in our lives anymore.”

You can tell that Michael agrees with you, but he’s still a little wary. “What about…our concerns?”

You throw your hands up in the air. “We’ll just be extra careful, I guess. I’m on birth control, and you can wear a condom or pull out.”

“You’re absolutely sure about this?”

You nod. “Are you?”

There’s not any hesitation before Michael’s nodding emphatically. “Yes.”

You don’t need to respond to him with words. Instead, you choose just to kiss him again. There’s more hunger behind it this time as Michael sucks at your bottom lip before tangling his tongue with yours. Your dress begins to slide off of your shoulders, and you hastily shrug it off to get it out of the way. You don’t need any distractions now, not when you’re finally getting what you’ve wanted for so long. 

The risks don’t matter anymore, not to either of you. It’s not as if there’s some demon STD that could infect you (you hope). And, if worst comes to worst and you do end up getting pregnant, there’s plenty of options depending on what you both would decide on. But never again will you allow Satan to control any aspect of your life, especially one that is so intimate and meant for just you and Michael. And now that you’ve both voiced that, you couldn’t care less about the potential supernatural consequences.

Michael pulls away from you to allow you to step out of your dress, taking the opportunity to remove his cloak and to start unbuttoning his shirt. His hands freeze, though, when he finally sees your body. A low groan sounds from deep in his throat, and he slowly brings a hand to touch your hip. You feel self-conscious, but not because of the way that you look or anything. No, in fact, it’s the way that Michael looks at you that has you feeling self-conscious. He looks at you as if you’re clothed in gold, as if you’re a divine being that he worships with every fiber of his being. Nobody’s ever looked at you like this before. You hope nobody but Michael ever looks at you like this.

“I want to touch you–everywhere.” Michael sounds so overcome, and you can tell by the way that his eyes keep flicking from your bra to your panties to your face and back again that his mind is firing on all cylinders.

“You can,” you say with a laugh before leaning in to kiss Michael’s jaw. “Touch me wherever you want.”

“I’ll gladly take you up on that.” 

You both stumble back towards the bed, Michael giving you a light push so that you fall back against the mattress. You giggle when you do and scramble up towards the pillows. Michael hovers over you to kiss down your neck, making his way to the swell of your breasts. His hand snakes behind you to unclasp your bra, but you push at his chest to stop him.

“What?” Michael asks. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all!” you assure him. “It’s just, uh, you’re wearing way too many clothes, and I’m not.”

Michael bites his lip and laughs before nodding. He sits up on his knees to quickly finish taking his shirt off, his pants quickly following. You’ve seen Michael without his shirt a couple times, but those were all quick occurrences. He changed his shirt before bed, or you accidentally ran into him after he had showered and was in only a towel. This, though, is so much more different than those other times. His lean physique hides an incredible amount of strength, though you’re not sure how much of that is due to his supernatural powers. You let a hand land on his shoulder before trailing it down to his pec.

“Sorry,” you say, “I’ve just always wanted to do that.” 

Michael takes your hand and kisses the palm of it before moving back to your lips. You thread your fingers in his soft hair, the slight curls of its awkward length tangling under your grasp. Michael runs a hand up your abdomen, leaving goosebumps on your skin in his wake, before reaching up, undoing your bra, and practically ripping it off of your body.

Your breasts bounce from the sudden movement, and Michael moans at the sight. “Oh, holy fuck.”

It’s one of the most attractive sounds you’ve ever heard, and it sends a shock of heat straight to your core. He takes one in each hand, watching you to see what you like and what you don’t like, before rolling a nipple between his fingers. It’s your turn to moan now, and you arch your back into him at the faint shocks of pleasure his actions elicit.

“Is it wrong of me to say that I want to take so many pictures of you right now?” His collarbones are flushed with color, a sure sign that he’s starting to get worked up. “Like, I could stare at you all day. I want to commit this to memory, but memory’s not enough. I need photographic evidence or something to convince myself this isn’t a dream.”

“Let’s save that for like, the second or third time we do this.”

“Deal.” Michael’s fingers trail to your hips, resting on your panties. “Can I try something?”

You have a pretty good idea of what it is he wants to try, so you nod breathlessly. He hooks his fingers through your panties and helps you out of them. You can feel your cheeks burning, and you bite your lip at the sudden nerves that run through you.

“Are you okay with this?” Michael double-checks with you.

“Yeah,” you whisper. 

Michael’s hesitant at first, his fingers gently making their way up your thigh before he actually touches you. You gasp at the feeling when he brushes against your clit, and he looks up at you with wide, eager eyes. When you nod, he kisses the juncture where your hip meets your thigh before placing his lips against your clit.

“Oh!” 

You throw an arm over your eyes as he goes down on you, the vulnerability almost too much for you to handle. You’re completely bare, spread out for the first time for this man that you love with your entire heart and soul who is currently eating you out like he’s starved while simultaneously managing to fuck you with his eyes as well. Who wouldn’t feel flustered in this situation?

Michael reaches a hand up to pull your arm away from your face. “Wanna see your pretty eyes,” he mumbles against you, the vibrations of his voice making your stomach clench.

You only get more flustered the longer that he’s down there, licking and sucking and managing to hit every sensitive spot you have. Feeling the pleasure begin to coil tighter and tighter in your stomach, you put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and push him away from you, breathlessly saying, “Stop, stop.”

His lips, covered in you, shine under the dim light. You want to kiss him so badly right now. “Are you alright?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” you nod, “just…kinda want to cum when we’re actually having sex.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Michael says solemnly before leaning in to kiss you.

“That’s the plan,” you joke. He rolls his hips against yours, and you realize that he’s still wearing his underwear. “Oh, this just isn’t fair.”

“Sorry, let me level the playing field then.” Michael smirks and removes his own briefs. You lay back with your hands under your head and look at him in appreciation. He really is so beautiful, even his cock–something you didn’t know was possible until now. “See something you like?”

You shrug. “Maybe.”

He shudders when you reach out and begin to slowly stroke him. He has to take your hand away, you assume for the same reason you told him to stop when he was eating you out. Instead, he kisses you once more.

“Gimme a second,” Michael says, forcing himself to pull away from you. He leans over to pull open the drawer of the bedside table and rummages around for a moment before coming up with a condom. Even though you’re right on the verge of finally getting to have sex with him, you can’t help but laugh.

“Is this secret stash from before we met, or were you keeping these just in case?” you tease.

Michael’s cheeks are red. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared!”

He’s quick to roll the condom on, making you a little curious as to who he’s done this with before. Those thoughts are pushed to the side why he kisses you, the head of his cock bumping against you. Finally, finally, Michael pushes himself into you, and you both moan. You wiggle your nose, feeling a little uncomfortable from the wonderful stretch, but that soon fades as Michael begins to thrust against you and you find yourself eagerly reciprocating. 

He can’t stop kissing you, on a mission to cover every single inch of your skin that he can reach. Your lips, your cheeks, your nose, your shoulders, your breasts, your arms–he’s everywhere, all at once. Everything is you and Michael. The world could be on fire outside of your bedroom door, for all you cared. So long as you were with Michael, feeling his body on yours as the two of you moan and gasp and call out each other’s names, you would be happy to burn along with it.

“Fuck,” Michael moans breathlessly against your shoulder, “I love you so fucking much, I–I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you too,” you tell him, one hand in his hair while the other holds onto his free hand. Though he’s said your name so many times before now, the way that he says it this time, like he’s whispering a prayer, has your heart twisting so deliciously painfully that you fear it may burst inside of you.

You pull him in for another kiss, and your teeth knock against his from your movements. Michael laughs from on top of you, and you find yourself joining in with him as you sloppily meet his lips. How could you not laugh? You’re both giddy, drunk on the endorphins and the excitement and the sheer love that you have for one another.

“Why didn’t we d–do this sooner?” you question as Michael threads his hand between your bodies to make contact with your clit. Your body jolts at that, and your left leg holds Michael to you tighter.

“Because we’re idiots.”

“We really a–ahh–are.” You clench dangerously tight around him before falling off the edge.

Your veins flood with liquid fire, blood turning to electricity as your muscles feel like they’re contracting and relaxing at the same time. It’s intoxicating, even more so since you’ve been brought to orgasm by Michael inside of you. He continues to fuck you up until he’s just about cumming, pulling out as a precaution right before he releases. He collapses on top of you, the most comfortable weighted blanket you’ve ever had.

The room is silent except for the sounds of heavy breathing coming from both you and Michael as you try to catch your respective breaths. When you’re finally able to think straight, you glance down only to see Michael already looking up at you. His smile is so sweet and tender that, if you had any energy left, you’d kiss him again. Instead, you weakly hold your hand in the air towards Michael, who doesn’t seem to understand what you want and grabs it to hold.

“Wait, were you trying to give me a high five?” Michael asks incredulously once he notices your disappointment, making you laugh.

“Maybe.” He releases your hand only to grab your wrist and hold it up so that he can smack his hand against yours. You smile when he does so, kissing the back of his hand before holding it once again. “Thank you.”

“For the sex or the high five?”

You shrug. “Both, I guess.”

Michael runs a hand through your tangled, sweaty hair before kissing your collarbone. You wrap your arms around him tighter, enjoying this quiet moment. “I love you.”

“You mentioned that a few times.” Even though your eyes are closed, you can practically see Michael’s smirk when he scoffs.

“And I’ll say it a few more times. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you respond. 

It’s funny how easily those words come now, when just a couple months ago you felt like you were going to panic when you finally admitted to Michael that you really, truly loved him. Now, it’s like second nature, telling Michael how much he means to you, and listening to him reciprocate those feelings.

You know that you should get up and clean yourself up, maybe even actually take a shower like you had originally been planning on. But laying here, nice and warm under Michael, feeling his heartbeat against yours and listening to his soft breaths, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. You kiss the top of his head before giving in to the urge to relax, feeling like you’ve finally gotten something right in your life.

//

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You had hidden away when he had managed to bring you back into the cabin. You had kicked him with the heel of your foot as hard as you possibly could directly in the chest, and while you hadn’t truly hurt him you knocked the wind out of him, and that was just enough time for you to squirrel yourself away from him.

Or at least you thought you had, however, Ari knew exactly where you were. He could catch your scent and the sound of your heart racing as you had kept the barrier of a wooden door between you and himself, your state of panic heightening and increasing, morphing into animosity as you had kept yourself away from him. He could hear every beat, every shaky breath and the sound of your footsteps on the wooden floor as you paced back and forth, calculating a plan or simply thinking about what was going on and why you were here.

Ari had taken the steps two at a time as he had climbed the staircase to your room and then he had stopped outside your door and raised his hand to knock, his knuckles barely grazing the door when he had stopped and lowered his arm once more. He had stood outside the door and listened to the sound of your shaky breathing. He was debating knocking, he was debating asking you if you wanted to talk because now he was at odds with himself, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to even begin quantifying how much you had meant to him, how badly he had wanted you and needed you.

After another minute Ari had raised his hand and knocked twice, the sound reverberating through the door and catching your attention. He had listened to the sound of your breath hitching in your throat and the thrashing of your heart as you waited for him to do something, to say something.

You were waiting for him, and he was waiting for you.

“Y/N, can you open the door so we can talk?” Ari had waited for a response all while being able to feel your aggression and your anger, and the almost tangible bitter taste of your confusion that was radiating and piercing. He was standing outside the door while waiting for you to say something; anything.

Ari had stepped back and studied the door, almost as if he was willing himself to be able to see through the wooden barrier to get a clear look at you. There would be nowhere to go now, there would be nowhere to turn. The hibernation and the charm itself were settling in, and even if you could run, even if you had tried to run, there was a barrier around his land, there was a protective wall that kept eyeing humans off his property.

“Y/N-“ Ari had raised his hand again, he had moved to knock on the door and had been taken by surprise when the door had opened and you had presented yourself as a small, squandering human compared to his massive size and yet he was the one who had felt as if his knees were going to give out on him.

“Are you going to kill me? Are you going to torture and maim me?” Your anger was justified, your anger was vehement, and Ari felt the beast inside of him grunting in indignation at the prospect, and he had to contain the urge to verbally react.

“Y/N-“

“You kidnapped me! What do you want huh? Are you going to kill me? Are you going to flay me and eat my flesh? What do you want with me?” Your eyes had narrowed and your fingers gripping the edge of the door as if you were planning on using it as a weapon, and Ari was briefly distracted by the absolute brilliance of your irises, the beauty of your eye colour and the radiance that was innately yours.

“I’m not going to kill you.” The bear trapped within him had started to rise, had started to paw at the cage he was in, displaying his urgency and need to be released.

“Then why am I here? How do you know who I am? Let me go, right now!” You had squared your jaw, and Ari was struck silent. How could he react when everything about you was mesmerizing? How could he have possibly found the words to say anything when you were captivating him, even in blinding anger?

“Are you listening to me? I said let me go! Take me back to town and let me go!” You had raised your voice and screamed your demand at him, you had addressed him with ravenous urgency and he knew the longer he had stayed silent the more irate you had become.

“There’s a lot to explain, if you could just come downstairs so we can talk-“

“How do you know me? Why am I here? Where the fuck is my cellphone? All my things?!” Your heart was racing, your hands shaking as you had faced off against him.

“Can we talk?” Ari had tried again to reason with you. “Are you hungry? Do you need something?”

“Let me go!” You had forgone reasoning with him and he had expected as much. You had forgone the gentle approach of pleading for something he could not give and had instead acted in aggression.

“I can’t, honey. I can’t let you go-“ the door was slammed in his face and the sound of your heavy footsteps had started again, the sound of your angry pacing had begun again.

Ari had stood at the door waiting for everything and nothing. He had stood on the other side of the door with his mate pacing angrily on one side, and his bear ravaging the cage he was in on this side. His bear was angry and irritated, his bear was thrashing nastily as he demanded to be close to the one they had been waiting for. Gnashing of teeth and clawing at the frame that had kept it trapped, furious for the distance and every presently preparing for a fight for control, his inner beast was tumultuous.

Ari had turned away from the door and you, leaving you in peace. He had walked back down the steps while trying to rein in his beast that was demanding to be close to you after waiting for so long to have a mate. Ari knew that it would ultimately get them nowhere and trying to rush the process, trying to appease his beast with the closeness he had desired would only draw you further away from them as a whole, and that was not something Ari would ever be able to contend with.

Instead, Ari had trudged toward the front door and slipped on a pair of plain stained brown boots and had grabbed a work coat from the brass hanger and had slipped his arms through the sleeves. He had started to halfheartedly button the jacket from the bottom up, all while he was listening to the sound of your pacing and the steady stream of murmurs that you had not intended him to hear, and yet he had.

Ari had stopped and he had waited, listened to the sound of your voice before he had finally placed his hand upon the door handle and turned, waiting another half beat before he had pulled the door open and stepped outside, the crisping and chilling air hitting him head-on.

He stepped out onto the porch and took the few steps that would take him onto the property at the front of the house, and upon stepping onto the crunching and dried leaves, Ari had taken pause. He had rested his hands upon his hips and exhaled languidly, at odds with himself and the beast that was clawing for control.

The hibernation effect and charm would be settling in any day now, and it was getting increasingly close to the end of the season when he would be willing to go out. The instincts that he had been born with to hide away and hibernate from the general populous of humans who had no idea what he was, or other creatures who were against his kind in the natural world, we’re coming into full effect.

Ari was driven to a higher need to completely lock down his land without a single crack in the defensive barrier, and that was because of you. You were his mate and as a werebear, he wasn’t just protective and possessive because he wanted to claim you, he was possessive and protective because he knew others were out there.

Ari had known the haggard extents and extremes and unmated bear would go to and through to have a mate, even if that mate had not belonged to them. Ari had known that he was not the only unmated bear round seeking a companion for the upcoming hibernation period and if you were left unattended for too long, you would draw attention to yourself.

Your scent, as an unmarked and unmated human in the thick of a bear’s territory, would draw the attention of others in the area.

Ari’s land was protected from humans, it was protected from those who would want to cross a line that wasn’t navigable however that same hibernation charm that protected you and him from curious and exploratory humans, could also aid in another male bear stealing you.

Ari stalked toward the pile of logs that needed to be chopped and had ripped the axe from the block. He had set the back end of the blade on his shoulder and cast his eyes upon your room and the window you were standing near, studying the curtains as they had shifted when you stepped out of view. Ari had kept his eyes on your window as he flexed his fingers around the handle of the axe, then clenched his jaw and grit his teeth. He had no other option, he had no other choice but to be the villain in your story, to be the monster who kept the innocent beautiful woman captive.

He had to be your captor, he had to be your jailor and the man you despised at the moment because he knew that if hadn’t been him, it would have been someone much worse.