His arms were wrapped about her so tightly she could barely breathe. She wouldn’t have had it any other way. With a low sigh, she allowed her head to fall back against his shoulder and tried to pretend that time was standing still.

He looked down on her in awe. Her long legs stretched out toward the fire pit, the flames turning her skin to gold. He could feel her heavy breasts, soft and warm against the arms he held tight against her body. She was some mythical beast, some wild sprite, some beautiful gift from the Gods. She had never been meant to touch the dirt, yet here she was in his arms.

“What are you thinking?” She asked softly, her slender fingers playing across the back of his hand as if the need to touch him were an unquenchable thirst, impossible to sate.


“Mmm.... I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said with a slow smile.

“Baby, if I’ve got it, you’ve seen it,” she laughingly replied. “But… I was thinking how good it feels to be with you. How empty it felt when he told me you died.” Her voice trailed off, even the memory of that pain overwhelming.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you...”

“No! No, it worked. John, you made Mikos relax his guard. You.... If you had come here, like he asked.... Mikos wants to destroy you, John. He is completely fixated. On you, on… me.”

“You wonder why I think you would be better off without me?” he spat out tightly, his anger flashing out at the thought of how once again he had brought trouble to her door. Trouble and more than trouble, for if Mikos was truly John’s blood, then he would never willingly give Marlena up. Not if she sparked even a hint of the depth of feeling that pulsed through John with every beat of his heart.

“How can you be so cute and yet so wrong?” She said with a grin, intent now on shifting his thoughts away from Mikos and the danger he posed.

“You flatter me if you even pretend that I am worthy of you,” he answered gently, meaning every word he said.

“Is that what you were thinking just now?” She prodded. “Considering all of the ways in which I am perfect?”

She arched her eyebrows haughtily, and this time he gave in to her. A faint smile on his face, he allowed himself to nestle against the soft waves of her hair. “I was thinking that God lost an angel the day you fell to earth,” he teased, trying to break himself from the sense of unease that deepened with each passing moment.

“Does that cheesy pick-up line usually work for you?” she asked with a chuckle.

“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the only woman I ever use cheesy pick-up lines on,” he whispered as he bent down to run his tongue lightly up the curve of her throat.

“You don’t need cheesy pick-up lines anymore. Don’t you remember, I already agreed to marry you,” she replied breathlessly, almost frightened at the ease with which his touch excited her.

“Mmm,” he groaned, dropping his head with a sigh. “You aren’t going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Not on your life,” she answered distractedly, both hands entwining themselves around his left hand and the ring it now bore. A ring from which blazed the image of a phoenix. “You took your wedding ring off,” she finally muttered.


When silence was his only reply, she forced herself to continue, the lack of a simple band of gold now looming large and somehow important. “You wore it in Salem. In West Virginia. You never took it off, not since you came back in Salem.”

“Didn’t realize you’d noticed,” he murmured uncomfortably, not wanting to think of how he had taken off his ring. Not wanting to remember the time without her, or to think of the time ahead when he would leave her again.

“Are all men so dense, or just you? I put that ring on your finger. Of course I noticed!” She tried to joke, but the tension carried through in her voice.

With a sigh that was half moan, he answered the question she refused to ask. “Bo has the ring, Marlena. I gave it to him.”

“Why does Bo have my ring?” she asked, stiffening in his grip as a hint of anger tinged her voice.

“I thought it was my ring?” he noted mildly.

“Whatever. Why did you give it to Bo? Why is it not on your finger where it is supposed to be? Why are you wearing a stupid bird ring instead of your wedding ring, mister?” She knew there was no point in getting angry, but the hormones were now raging and she would swear that damned bird on his finger was grinning at her.

‘Oh, Jeesh!’ he thought. It was never good when she got ‘that’ tone in her voice. “I told Bo that he was responsible for you. For your safety. I told him.... It’s up to him whether I wear that ring again. Whether he thinks I’m good enough, safe enough, for you to marry.”

As soon as the words fell from his lips, he knew they were a mistake. He cringed as her response cut through the cool air like a scimitar.

“Why exactly is Bo deciding who I should marry? Shouldn’t that be my decision to make?” she asked acerbically.

“Um.... You have very bad taste in men, Marlena. I thought it was better to leave it up to Bo,” he said, wincing slightly as if he expected her to hit him.

She whirled in his arms to face him, hazel eyes flashing fire. “I what?! I do not have bad taste in men!”

“Well, you did marry me...” He trailed off, hoping his innocent look would buy him a reprieve. After a moments thought on her part, it did.

With a brief chuckled, she craned upward to brush a light kiss against his lips. “That’s true,” she noted with a resigned sigh. “Just be sure you get it back.”

“Um, okay,” he muttered as she again snuggled down against his chest. Briefly he considered mentioning that Bo had strict instructions to destroy any perceived threat, especially if the threat came in the form of John himself. No, that was definitely not a discussion he felt like having with her at the moment.

“What time is it?” She asked with seeming nonchalance, bringing up the one thing he wanted to discuss even less than his missing wedding ring.

“Don’t know,” he muttered with a shrug.

“John?” she prodded, unwilling to let him pretend any longer.

“Maybe an hour, hour and a half before dawn,” he answered, not bothering to dig around in the sand for his watch. He knew what time it was, had counted every minute that had passed from the moment she had decided to return to Mikos. He had hoped she would forget until it was too late to go back. He should have known better. Where her children were concerned, there would be no forgetting.

“We should go,” she said, her voice growing distant, and he could feel the space between them widening even as he held her in his arms.

“No.” The word tore from him unbidden and he realized its futility even as he felt her stiffen and pull away.

Rising to her feet, she bent down and pulled his T-shirt from its sandy resting place. Tugging the black shirt over her head, she tried not to think about what she was doing. Fixing her thoughts on her children, she pushed away her worries for herself. Harder to dismiss were her thoughts of the child she carried inside. John’s child. Whatever else happened, she could let no harm come to his child.

“You look good in that. Maybe you should wear it more often,” he noted from his position before the fire. She did look good, even with the tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. The shirt hung to mid-thigh, highlighting those long slim legs and bringing out the glow of her skin. He doubted she had ever looked more beautiful, but then, he thought that every time he saw her.

“You’re stalling,” she noted quietly.

With a sigh he dropped his head to rub wearily at eyes that now seemed to burn. “How do you even know you can convince Mikos to bring the children back to you, Marlena? Bo and I will find them, leave this to us. You don’t need to go back.”

“John, I cannot have this argument with you again! Please! You know I have to stay until we are certain the children are safe. As long as I am with him, Mikos will do nothing to hurt them. He won’t! John, the formal ball is in only a few days. Mikos will have to bring the children back for that. He knows that I won’t go along with even the pretense of a wedding announcement if I don’t see the children, if I don’t know they are safe. I will make him bring the children to me. He wants this wedding too much to deny me.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” he asked bitterly, moving to pull a pair of dry fatigues from his pack.

“How do you think it makes me feel?” She whispered softly, finally allowing him to see her hurt.

“Shit! I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, startled into looking over at her. Draped in his shirt, she looked so small and alone. The last thing she needed was to argue with him. Grabbing his jacket, he moved to her side and wrapped the heavy canvas about her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, taking her into a hug that threatened to squeeze the breath from her lungs.

If he had his preference, he would have held her forever. But it was not what she wanted, certainly not what she needed right now. Finally, he forced himself to pull back. “You’re sure?” he asked gently.

Unwilling to meet his gaze, she merely nodded. “It’s only a few days, John. Only until the ball. You can come for us then, take us all home.”

“It’s a date,” he answered, tilting her face up until he could see into her eyes. “I will be there,” he said firmly, wanting her to know that it was true.

Finally, she unleashed one of those sparkling smiles, the kind she saved for him alone. “I know you will be there. You are always there for me, the one constant in my universe.”

She turned then and ducked through the narrow cutout in the iron door. As he followed her from the chamber, only the rocks heard his vow. “Always.”

He swung the door to her bedroom silently open, half expecting to face a squad of soldiers. Half regretful that he didn’t. It would have been easier than the thought of leaving her alone in here, vulnerable to whatever Mikos chose to do.

Marlena slipped into the room, unwilling to face John. To see the fear, the sense of betrayal that she knew flickered in the depths of those blue eyes. To allow him to see the fears that lay hidden within her own heart. This would be hard enough without having to look at him.

He pulled the door closed behind him, watching her as she walked through the darkened bedroom, her fingers lightly running across the furnishings as if to remind herself of where she was. As if to remind herself of why she was here.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked softly, hoping for an excuse, any excuse, to take her away from this place.

“John, I’m sure,” she replied without emotion, refusing to rehash the issue. Walking slowly through the big room, she finally pulled to a stop before the fireplace, her eyes drawn to the painting that held a place of honor above the mantel. Mikos, in period dress astride a prancing white Arabian. A shudder ran through her as she studied his features, the feel those thick fingers still a dirty memory on her skin.

“Is that him? My brother?” John asked, moving to stand by her side, though hesitant to actually touch her.

“Yes,” she almost whispered, keeping the tremble from her voice only with an act of will.

John eyes narrowed, searching the portrait as if some trick of paint or pigment or brushstroke would reveal the soul of the man beneath. The soul of his enemy. His nemeses. His brother. Blood would tell, he knew that now. Blood they most definitely shared. John could see it in the man’s features, the high cheekbone, the curve of the jaw. “He looks just like me,” he muttered distractedly.

“He is nothing like you!” she responded, venom in her voice as if he had committed some sacrilege of which he was unaware.

His hand reached out to brush against her arm, but she jerked away from the touch. Turning from him, she went to perch atop the bed, watching his broad back. Seeing the muscles twitch as he fought the instinct to go to her. She studied him as he stood before the picture and wondered that she had ever thought there was a resemblance between the two men. They were as alike as a club to a straight razor. If there were any similarities between the two in concept, they were lost in execution. Mikos had John’s features, but blunter, harder, more course. His black eyes glinted out from beneath his broad brow with the predatory gaze of a scavenger bird. There was nothing of passion or warmth to him, only an emptiness that could never be filled. It hurt to think they shared the same genes. The same blood. The same anything. John was nothing like him at all.

She refused his touch and he could scarcely blame her. Staring up at his brother’s face, he finally realized that he had come full circle. This was home, who and what he was, glaring down at him in the face of his brother. The evil, the ugliness that had born him ultimately reclaiming its own. And she asked him to leave her here, at the mercy of monsters who had no soul?

“Behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him,” he intoned softly, the picture suddenly stirring a memory of chanting priests and sweet incense.

“John?” She asked hesitantly, not liking the sound of his voice, not liking the fear that cut through it.

Turning, he finally met her eyes. “Mikos is death, Marlena. If you stay here, only evil will come of it.”

Almost angry with him, she pulled her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as if to shut herself away from him, from his words that might change her mind. Sitting in this room, thoughts of Mikos running through her mind, it would be all too easy to let John have his way. “We have had this conversation. I can’t leave. Not now. Not until the children are safe. You know that!”

His heart hammered against his chest, each strong beat screaming the wrongness of this. In desperation, he crossed to her. Fell to his knees, as if in prayer. As if in supplication. “What I know is that if you stay, he will hurt you. Marlena, don’t ask this of me. You know I would do anything for you, but please, not this.”

“He won’t hurt me, John. You won’t let him,” she breathed out. And as the tears finally demanded their release, her hands reached down to knot in his hair in a painful grip. Pulling him to her, she gave in to one last kiss.

He could feel her trembling as he wrapped his arms around that fragile body and tasted lips made salty by her falling tears. He deepened the kiss and held her tight, pretending for the moment that no one could take her from his arms again. He let her go only when she turned her face away, breaking the kiss with a finality he could not argue. Helplessly, he put out his hand, as if somehow his touch could dry her eyes.

With a sharp shake of her head, she halted him in his tracks. “Go, John. Please, go while I still have the strength to send you,” she choked out raggedly.

When he still hesitated, she reached for his outstretched hand. Soft skin brushed across calloused fingers as she turned his hand over and laid a gentle kiss in his palm. “Go,” she whispered, her breath on his flesh making him ache.

Silently, he rose to his feet and she reluctantly let his hand fall from her fingers. Unable to watch, she listened as his footsteps marked his passage to the door. At the last instance, she turned to catch one final glimpse of him, only to find his eyes locked on hers. Those eyes shone, aglow with an unholy light, and she had a moment to be afraid of what she had done to him by making him leave.

He cracked a manic grin that bared his teeth and stated his words flatly, as if etching them into stone. “No one will keep me from you, Marlena- not man, nor God, nor death itself. Know that, lady.”

With the barest whisper of sound, he was gone. 

-----