I stared out the tinted car window toward the rundown looking motel—the neon light of the vacancy sign blinking rapidly. My hand was pressed tightly to bullet wound on my shoulder to keep the blood loss to a minimum, "Please tell me you did not bring us here to crazy murder us..." I mumble as I leaned my forehead into the chilled glass of the window. 

Alexei leaned over an pressed the button on my seatbelt—unbuckling me, "Isn't the mystery of not knowing more exciting snowflake? Come on...live a little." I turned my face toward him with a deep frown—his humor was far from funny though he clearly amused himself. He flashed me a feral looking smile that showcased his sharp canines. He knew exactly how his presence effected others and it was clear the creep enjoyed these reactions.

"Maybe you guys can flirt later...right now we should probably make sure Poppy doesn't bleed to death..." Darren pops his head in-between us, giving Alexei a dirty look—a brotherly warning to back off. I roll my eyes at the display, clutching my shoulder a little harder as I reached out—popping the door open when I saw Anna making her way out of the office. 

She approached us with a stoic expression on her beautiful face, by looking at her you wouldn't have even known an hour ago she was ripping people apart limb from limb. Her gaze locked with mine for a moment before it swung to the most captivating person in our little group--or perhaps the most unstable. Alexei got out of the car first and I followed after him, leaning my weakened body into the door. I watched as the two of them whispered back and forth to each other--looking in my direction ever so often. 

"Pop...about what happened back at the hotel...with your magic..." Darren had always had the worst timing to have these talks. I gritted my teeth, looking back into the car through the open door, "Can we not do this right now?" My patience was completely shot and the pain in my shoulder had only seemed to have gotten worse the longer the bullet sat in it. He gave me a soured look but pressed his lips together, showing that I had his compliance to my wishes--at least for the time being. 

Alexei pulled away from Anna, approaching the car with a confident stride that had my heart beating a little faster with an unknown excitement. His eyes held me captive as if he knew exactly the effect that he was having on my body--enjoying himself thoroughly. He pressed his hand to the roof of the car, leaning his body closer to mine then was necessary, "Looks like this is were we stop for the night..." He tilted his head to the side, peering in at my brother through the small opening in the door, before he lifted his eyes to mine. 

I swallowed hard under the weight of his aura crashing into mine, "Fine--but first thing tomorrow morning you will take us back to our house...No games." I lift my chin a bit and puff out my chest as I make my demand--I need him to know that I'm serious. He chuckles under his breath as he takes a step back giving me the breathing room that I want, "Fine...no games but tonight you do exactly what your told, understand?" 

I narrow my eyes as I brush past him, knocking my good shoulder into him, "I understand...Just don't get ideas about sharing a bed with me..." Anna leads Darren and I to our room under Alexei's command. While he leaves us to do make important phone calls--or whatever. 

"Mom would not approve..." Darren says as his eyes roam the trashy space—the stench of stale piss and cigarettes burning at our noses. There were a couple of faded stains on the walls that I didn't want to think to hard about what they might have been or how they got there. I squeezed pass him, moving further into the space, "Well it's a good thing she isn't here then..."

Anna pushed Darren into the room, slamming the door shut behind herself. He threw a dirty look at her over his shoulder but it didn't seem to concern her one bit, "Neither of you are to leave this room until Alexei gets back...and even then I doubt you'll be leaving it until the sun rises. So get comfortable kiddos..." I didn't like the idea that we were suddenly taking orders from a complete strangers but being in greater numbers seemed to be the safest way to go, especially with an unknown enemy.

There was a chance that we had been the targets of this evenings event—the Lycans had simply gotten tangled up in the mess by a random fluke of the universe. I could see that laying low like this was the most logical course of action—going home would simply have led our attackers straight to the source. I pulled Darren back, "Just listen to them for now Darren...it's not like we couldn't take them if they turned on us..." I look past him to Anna who gave me a small smile of amusement—I think she liked the idea of the challenge we presented, maybe all Lycans were psychopaths. 

I was laid out on a lumpy motel bed, staring up at a smoke stained ceiling—ignoring the horrible ache from the bullet that was still  lodged in my shoulder. I was enjoying my brief pity party, though I'd much rather been doing it alone in my own bedroom. My gaze drifted to Anna, who was leaning against the wall, peeking through the heavy blue curtains—prepared if anyone should come to attack us again. Not that it was too likely, they'd basically killed anyone who would have followed us.

I groaned as I pushed myself up into a sitting position. Anna cast a glance in my direction, "You should really lay still until Alexei gets back to deal with your wound—wouldn't want you to bleed to death or something..."

I snorted at her comment, "First of all, I can take care of myself. I don't need any help from that psycho... Plus, I've had worse. Clearly you don't know much about Druids or how they train their young..." She gave me a small smile of amusement, which changed her face completely--instead of a hardened and cold warrior woman, she looked more like a fair maiden from the storybooks I read as I young girl. I wondered what it was that I said that amused her but I had a feeling that she wasn't about to share her private thoughts with me. 

Darren came out of the bathroom with a laughable first aid kit in his hand. He gave Anna hard look, still bitter over the way she had been handling him—the ego of men, I'll never understand it. He threw the kit down on the bed next to me, "Remember the time that Rafe shot you with an arrow on accident—that was a lot worse then this..."

I frowned up at him, "Yes...thank you for reminding me of the worse pain I've ever felt..." I pulled myself up off the bed, "Now if you both excuse me I am going to go get all this blood off of me before I play operation with myself. Do you think you can handle not killing each other while I'm gone?" 

"Don't look at me--it's her!" Darren pointed an accusing finger toward Anna. I looked toward her to have her give me a slight shrug of her shoulders before she turned her attention back to the window. I rolled my eyes turning away from them and going into the bathroom. This was my last mission--when I got back home tomorrow I was going to sit my parents down and tell them that I was going to pursue a life of average mediocracy. 

I avoided looking at myself in the mirror knowing I was a horror show in the making. I turned on the shower, gaging the warmth of it with my hand as I watched the room slowly fill up with the haze of steam--letting it wrap around my body and ease the tension. 

The bathroom door swung open startling me out of my peaceful moment. I twisted around quickly causing pain to lance through my shoulder as Alexei barged in--slamming it shut in Darren's face before twisting the lock on the knob. I watched him with suspicion, my body tensing but my magic dormant to the danger standing in front of me. He edged in close to me, breathing in deeply through his nose, "You should have waited for me...I didn't like coming back to not find you waiting for me." His voice sounded more animalistic and gravely then before. 

"I don't need your help...now get out of here!" I rasped out. 

"It's funny that you think you can tell me what to do..." He grabbed me by my waist and hoisted me up onto the counter, using a clawed finger to slice through the thin material of my dress. The scrap fell away from the wound, blood trickling from the small hole. Alexei lifted his gaze to mine—darkening, "This is going to hurt a lot..." Was the only warning he gave before he pushed a claw into the open wound. I threw my head back into the mirror—a high pitched shriek peeling from my lips. Sweat beaded my forehead as I felt him dig around inside of me for a moment longer--Our gazes locked for an intense moment, "Sorry Snowflake, I'm a bit of a sadist...so this is a lot more fun for me then it probably is for you...Unless you're a closet masochist..." 

"You aren't are you?" He questioned with complete curiosity. I gave him the best death glare I could manage at the moment--that for all I knew turned the horn dog on even more then digging around inside of me. 

"Oh, got it!" He held up the small piece of iron in front of my face. My vision slightly blurry as I tried to focus through the pain still coursing through my nerve-endings. "I should have killed you..." I mumbled as I swayed forward, only to be caught in a strong arm and held firmly to his chest. My body sank into his as if we embraced each other like this all the time as if we weren't complete strangers, and he wasn't a complete psychopath.

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Song: My Kind of Woman--Mac DeMarco 

A/N: Hopefully you didn't hate the chapter to much...it was a harder one to write but it's out now. More Alexei and Poppy to come. :-)