Let's check in with Atria and the two hotties in her life ;)

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Scene 12: Do It Right

A.D. 2015

Light or darkness. Virtue versus vice. The angel against the animal. There were urges toward both, in her soul. But only toward one in her body. As for her heart... well, if that sappy scrap of shit had anything to say, she never listened to it anyway. And so her decision was made.

She should never have come to Athens in the first place, Atria silently scolded herself as she tossed her few belongings in her bag, eager to leave the perfect little house where she'd already overstayed. Eldor was her big brother, and more often than not acted like her mother. She had the hots for him, sure - but how could anybody blame her, given the equally fuckable flawlessness of his face, physique, and character?

The point was that she and Eldor were never going to fuck each other. Which meant that they had no business living together.

Even more importantly, as she had discovered while considering this choice between two prime pieces of meat, her attraction to Eldor felt like a kindergarten crush next to the fire of her competing desire. Or like some kid craving a freaking chicken nugget, as opposed to a carnivorous connoisseur craving a slice of the finest and juiciest cut on the planet.

Not that there was anything chickeny or nuggety about Eldor, of course, Atria thought to herself with a snicker. Far from it. But her fondness for him definitely was a chicken-nugget level of childish.

Whereas her fondness for Axel - if 'fondness' was even remotely fitting, to describe whatever she felt for him - was a lot more... adult.

Since Atria had been forced into adulthood at the age of eight, or earlier, she really had no patience for child's play. For all these reasons and a million more, there hadn't been much of a choice for her to make. Besides, the animal in her would always be inexorably bound to Axel; this she knew full well. As if he was her mate, and she his fate.

And as for big bro... he would obviously be better off without her, at any rate. Atria folded up the flattering white dress that she'd bought to flaunt in front of Eldor and his goody-goody little girlfriend on their second date. Wondered how much longer the lovebirds would be on a 'break'. Not that it mattered anyway.

She shoved the dress on top of all her other shit, zipped up her bag, then picked up the phone conveniently situated on the nightstand in the guest bedroom. Grateful that Eldor's house was equipped with a landline, as she had no phone of her own.

Dialed a number - one of only two that she knew by heart, the other being that of her big brother, whom she was leaving. Her heart rate quickened with each ring. Axel waited to pick up till the tail end of his ringtone, which she figured was on purpose. He'd always known how to bait her, how to make it worth the wait, worth everything.

He answered as if he didn't know that it was her. The number would be unfamiliar to him, sure, but Atria knew that he could feel her heat through the receiver, so the number didn't matter.

"It's me," she replied anyway, breathlessly. "Where are you."

He gave her the name of some swanky-sounding hotel, and a room number on the top floor. "I was just about to take a shower..."

"Don't," she ordered, already shouldering her bag, ready to bolt. Probably the first and last time anyone ever said no to shower sex with Axel Golde. She had her reasons, though. "Want to taste you, not soap."

"Ohh, bossy. You know I get all tingly when you take control."

"Shut up. I'm coming."

"Already?"

"Will be if you don't shut up, you sexy little bitch. Your voice right now sounds so good I could fuck it."

"Careful, babe - don't think big bro wants to walk in on you using his home phone as a dildo..."

"Ew. I could be calling from a payphone now, for all you know."

"Nope. I can basically hear his enraged-alpha-male breathing in the background. Tell him I said hi and that I'm gonna fuck the shit out of you tonight and that you're gonna love it. Who's the alpha now."

The words were followed by a click as he hung up, leaving her speechless. Atria let the phone fall away from her ear as she turned around. Sure enough, there in the doorway to her guestroom was Eldor, the doorknob in his furious fist at risk of crumbling to pieces.

She cleared her throat, casually set the phone back in its place on the nightstand, then turned to face him, flashing an exaggerated pout. "What - am I grounded now? Mommy gonna give me a time-out?"

He glared at her, the utter opposite of amused and not afraid to show it. "Whatever happened to not being such a bitch?"

"Oh, that 'new leaf' shit?" Atria dismissed with a flick of her wrist. "Got old after about a minute. Did you really think I could do it?"

"I knew you could. You still can. I just didn't know if you would."

"Well, now we both know. I'm a bad girl, and I'm really not sorry to say that I like it that way, and plan to stay that way. For good."

She started toward the doorway, all set to brush forcefully past Eldor's towering form. He stopped her with a firm, gentle grip on her arm before she could. "Atria-"

"What?" she snarled. Something inside her had snapped, at his touch. He was... this was all just too much. "What do you fucking want from me, Eldor?"

His breath visibly caught in his chest. "Nothing, I just..."

"Exactly," she spat. "Nothing. So I'm giving you just that."

She yanked herself free from his grasp, feeling his fingers collapse in defeat as she slipped out into the hall and down the stairs, out the front door without looking back, relieved to be gone when she so clearly didn't belong. In his house or in his life. He wanted nothing from her, and if she was honest with herself, she wanted nothing from him either. Maybe there were some things that she needed from Eldor - comfort, safety, the only bond she'd ever known that felt even a little bit like family - but wants and needs were entirely different.

Both were dangerous, and she knew it, but she'd had a lot more practice with desire in her life, especially ever since Axel had walked into it. So she knew how to handle what she wanted. How to have it, hold it, even to control it. Whereas need... she could never control what she needed. That meant she couldn't let herself need anything.

Sometimes the line between wants and needs got a little blurry, though. Like right now. Approaching the hotel room where she knew Axel was waiting, Atria felt her hunger for him burn as strong as if his sex were something that she couldn't function, couldn't live, without.

He swung the door open before she even had to knock, and at the sight of him half-naked in her favorite pair of jeans, the scent of him, the stuff of dreams, she freaking pounced-

"Whoa, whoa," Axel murmured, both hands on her shoulders, smoothly resisting her advances down his throat. "So much for hello."

She blinked, tongue lolling loosely over her lower lip. "Huh?"

"Shouldn't we talk? For maybe two minutes before the marathon of dirty sex that's bound to happen for the next, like, two days straight?"

"Talk?" she parroted the word as if it were a language she had never heard. "Who are you and what have you done with my Axe?"

He cocked his head with a criminally cute smirk. "Aw, 'your' Axe?"

She scowled. The term of sort-of-endearment had just slipped out.

"Relax. I just jerked off before you got here," he explained with a nonchalant shrug. "Twice."

Her emerald eyes blazed. "You fucking asshole! That's cheating-"

"I know, I know it feels unfair right now," he let out a little chuckle - also criminally cute - then ran a hand over her cheek to brush away a strand of hair, which was a whole new level of unfair. "But you'll thank me later. Come on, sit down. You want a drink?"

"You know damn well what I want to drink. Jerk." Scowling still, Atria let him lead her over to the sofa, where they sat as he poured her a glass of some liquor or other - she didn't even care what it was. Wasn't gonna dignify the stupid drink with so much as a sip. Would have, if only she weren't painfully thirsty for something else instead. Something he had already spilled. He was freaking evil.

"So. First things first," Axel started, leaning slightly forward in his seat, bracing his elbows on his knees - which looked criminally gorgeous when he was shirtless like this, every naked muscle of his arms and shoulders flexed - just like when he braced his body over hers while they were having sex... Her thoughts were cut short with the words that he spoke next. "My brother is dead. I'm telling you right now that I will never forgive you for what happened. That I fucking hate you, with every goddamn bone in my body. You understand me?"

Of course she did. She nodded, biting her lip.

"Good," he declared, crushing every goddamn bone in her body with his golden-green glare. "But I hate myself way more than I could ever hate you. Or anyone else. And I meant it when I said it's not your fault. Because it's mine, for bringing you into his life. For everything that happened ever since. And for the way I treated you, that night. It wasn't right. For all of that, I'm sorry. I will always be fucking sorry."

"Axel, you..." she breathed hesitantly, "...you don't have to be..."

"Oh, yes, I do," he muttered, eyes shamefully lowered, knowing full well which part she was referring to. "Yes I fucking do. Tell me all you want that you asked for it, begged for it, but even if it's true, I..."

"Axel. Look at me." Atria reached to lay a hand against his face, urging him to meet her gaze. "Don't dare think like that. It is true, and if... if I hadn't let you, wanted you to, then you wouldn't have done it. Believe me. I know you."

He at last met her gaze. But she almost wished he hadn't, for the once familiar depths of his eyes, and of his voice as he spoke now, seemed darker somehow than the animal she knew. "I don't think you do."

Yet just as soon as she had glimpsed the terrifying streak of darkness, it was gone. As if never more than a fleeting illusion. And in its place she saw a light that, in another life, she might've come to love. Not in this life, though. Never in this life. No.

He took her hand in his, where it still lay against his face, shifting it slightly till her fingers brushed his lips, each whisper passing over them a shadow of a kiss. "God, I hate you. Do you hate me too?"

Atria felt her head absentmindedly shaking itself.

"Then you don't know me, baby," his breath caressed her skin, sweet as salvation, hot as sin. "If you did, I think you'd kill me."

Shit. Why was shit getting so real, and deep, and scary? She forced an awkward laugh, to counteract all that. "Now you're just being silly."

Axel brought her thumb between his parted lips. "Dead serious."

Damn it. If the fucker started sucking on her thumb, she would be done, which would be bad, because that would be a pathetic way to come. So she stood up, slipping her hand free from his grip, abruptly walking over toward the window at the far end of the room. If he wasn't ready to fuck her yet, she had to stay the hell away from him.

"So, um - how'd you find me here anyway?" she asked, gaze fixed upon the cityscape of Athens, alive with light as if to spite the darkness of this night. "If you're so hot on talking, let's talk about that."

He rose from the couch to follow her across the room, of course. Soul and body pulled toward hers by some magnetic force. "Well. The sexy answer is that I caught your scent halfway across the world, hunted you down, like a bloodhound." Barely an inch away from her by now, he locked his eyes on her ghostlike reflection in the window. Waiting till her reflected gaze met his, over her shoulder, letting the mirrored stare linger and smolder, then breaking it to speak again. Filled with self-hate to find that he couldn't look her in the eye when he lied. "The boring answer is that I used Google." The true answer was neither, but that didn't matter tonight.

Atria turned to face him, evergreen gaze quizzical. "Google?"

"Yeah. Figured you were in a desperate state and had probably gone off to that big brother figure you'd mentioned before. So I just searched for 'Eldor' - lucky his name is as fucked up as yours - and found out pretty easily that he spends his summers in Athens. Hopped on the first flight out and asked around. Turns out the locals know a lot about the guy; Prince Fucking Charming kinda sticks out in a crowd."

She blinked. A blink evincing that she was alarmed, impressed, freaked out, and more than just a little bit aroused. "Okay, stalker."

Before she could sidle away, he brought a hand up to her cheek to stop her, the smooth skin of his palm brushing her faintly blushing face. "Well, hey - I did promise I would never let you go."

Another blink. Evincing far too many things. "You mean in Paris."

His head dipped in a sultry nod so slight she almost missed it.

But she had never missed a thing, with him. Or at least so she hoped. Sometimes she feared that she'd missed everything... She cleared her throat. "I thought we agreed long ago to never, ever talk about Paris."

"Yeah? And why was that again?" Axel coaxed, leaning in close. "Because it brings this giddy little smile to my favorite pretty face?"

Shit! She shoved him a few inches away. "Are you trying to make me go crazy?"

He leant in closer, nuzzling her neck. "Always, baby."

"I'm serious," she struggled to resist. "Paris, promises, pretty little smiles - that's the kind of stuff that fucks shit up, between us."

"When has shit between us ever not been fucked up?"

Ugh. Even if she could resist Axel - which was doubtful - she sure as hell couldn't resist the urges in her body and her soul, the animal inside herself. "Exactly," she breathed, because of course she had to agree. Just as inevitably as they always fucked, they always fucked each other up. "So let's do it right, this time. For once."

"Right," he echoed as his smiling lips, luscious and glistening where he'd just licked, descended softly onto hers and shut her up.

Right. As if anything between them ever could be. Surely not in this life, at least. Yet even and especially when it was fated to be wrong, when the blinding fires of need and desire burned dangerously strong, till the difference between them was gone... still she had always felt that here - here in his life, here in his arms, the home for which her silenced heart secretly longed - she belonged.

Oh, fucking great; now her sex-deprived brain was wandering like a lost sheep, straying over to the mushy place. She promptly concluded that Axel was to blame. They'd been making out like two teenaged virgins at prom for what - how long? Their clothes were still on, which meant that something was unforgivably wrong. Wrong. So wrong. Ugh, this was all his fault.

She stopped, pulled back. "Why are you kissing me like that."

He blinked, evincing idiotic innocence. "Like what?"

Like Paris, Atria immediately thought. Oh God! She shrugged the thought off, not about to voice it. "Like... like a schoolboy or some shit."

Axel let out another one of his criminally cute chuckles, which was definitely not what the lost sheep needed right now, and ugh-

He leant in again, murmuring into her mouth. "Just warming up."

Mother of all fucks! "Pretty sure we're both already hot enough."

But he wasn't even listening, apparently, because his kisses were still soft and slow and stupid and she couldn't freaking take it. Even when she tried to deepen and intensify the kiss, he would just seamlessly resist.

Then he paused, breaking the kiss to run his thumb against her lower lip. And his touch was so gentle and virtuous that she had to fight the temptation to start sucking on it. "Plus your lip is bleeding."

Seriously?? Fuck it all. The second guy in one night to point out this tiny injury and treat her like a goddamn baby or a porcelain doll.

Axel persisted with this pitiful, completely unacceptable excuse. "And this little schoolboy doesn't want to permanently hurt you."

"But you're supposed to want to hurt me," she blurted out bluntly. The bite, the hurt, was all too often what she needed, craved. She wanted him to.

"Well, I don't," he stated, clearly dead serious; and yet... something fierce flashed in his flaming green eyes, so fast she almost missed it. Maybe she did. "Not right now."

Well, at least there was a glimmer of hope, then. She batted her long, dark lashes in a naughty little flutter. "So... later?"

He let out a faint laugh, then leant in to kiss her again, only slightly less softly this time. "Maybe later."

"That a promise?"

"Nope. You're the one who said no promises."

Snarky son of a bitch. She ran with it. "Oh, so you're taking my orders now?"

He replied with a low, gratified growl. "That what you want?"

And then his mouth, that criminally delicious mouth, was wandering ever so gradually downward. If she told him to, she knew that Axel would sink to his knees and gladly be her slave tonight. Which was always fun...

But Atria found that it wasn't what she wanted. Not right now. "No. Maybe later. Get that pretty face back up here."

"Yes, Mistress," he mumbled, mouth inching obediently up her neck.

"Shut up," she muttered, mortified as she felt herself freaking melt.

He murmured the same teasing words, against her tender skin, and she could almost taste the precious little smile on his lips. "Yes, Mistress."

Ugh - he was so fucking cute sometimes it killed her, sent the lost sheep in her brain frolicking through fields of folly to that godforsaken mushy place again. So she grabbed his goddamned gorgeous face and shut him up herself with a hot, hungry mouthful of tongue, hoping to hell he hadn't glimpsed her giddy smile. Hoping to heaven and to hell, against herself, that this time they could finally do it right.

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Any thoughts, feels about #Axria? (Or #Eldria? No ship has officially sunk, at this point in the series, I promise! Anything can happen...) hehe ;)

Next scene, we'll end Episode 7 back in the Cave...

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