"Will you be good? Or will you be bad?" Anubis is standing behind Silvia, and as panic flashes through her eyes, I see Anubis change.

Silvia is not looking at him when every atom in him physically shifts. From Lycan. To mortal. He now stands in his robes, with gold paint over bronze skin. Anubis has a mess of black hair and red piercing eyes as he slowly gets down behind Silvia, awaiting her answer.

"...I'll be very fucking bad," Silvia looks toward me when she says it, and I notice a hint of displeasure in her glare my way.

My heart skips a beat and I hold a hand over my chest, feeling hurt by her response. Why does she hate me now? O-oh it can't be because I asked for her to stay through Anubis, could it? Oh no... what have I done?

Anubis notices the glare passed my way and he puts a human hand around Silvia's head, over her eyes, taking away her sight of me, as he leans over toward her ear.

"Don't you dare think of ill intent toward my favourite Fairy," Anubis then firmly puts his lips to Silvia's ear and whispers to her a sleeping curse, causing her to collapse onto her side. His hand slips from her eyes as she sleeps on the floor, and he stands back up to look at me kneeling in the room.

"I'm thirsty," I complain, "May I take a drink from your well, pretty Anubis?"

"Don't call me pretty," Anubis immediately retorts, his human face stiff but his eyes full of furious emotion. Walking over to me and offering a hand, even his red eyes pierce mine with evil intent, but of his own, which was his right in his Temple, "Come."

I take his hand, and he pulls me up from my knees, and takes me from the room into the next where his water well is.

I skip over with him and sit on the edge. I cup my hands into the clear liquid, taking my fill to feel hydrated once more. The water is quenching one thirst, I'll admit, but not another.

And I am still in my ripped mortal clothes from the club. All white jeans and white top, tattered, nearly shredded right off me. My reflection is that of a grown up Fairy who looks excited and a tad concerned.

Anubis, still as a mortal stands behind me, staring down at me through the reflection, which is how he's used to making eye contact with me.

In fact, he seems more relaxed looking at me through the reflection, and I enjoy seeing his mortal face for the first time. His nose, eyebrows and lips are pierced with golden rings, but his eyes hold his magic, suffering an ancient lonely immortal life Under this Earth. When he looks at me? He looks at hope, and I ease his pain of immortality.

I smile mischievously but full of love at his face in the water, as my fingers float through, making ripples over his reflection.

"Do you love me?" I whisper at Anubis through the water's mirror, knowing the answer already in my heart. Anubis, my love, however surprises me, when he is silent in his gaze returned to me. As I continue to wait for his answer....

...an answer does not come...I...

I start to feel a blush of embarrassment creep up my neck soon after. I can't keep looking at him with such hope blooming in my own heart, waiting for an arrow to kill me.

I avert my eyes down to my fingers curled around the edge of the well instead, "I'm sorry for asking such a silly question to a demon... I – I'm truly sorry... I am wrong to have asked you if you... loved me..."

Cold, dark and empty words finally hit my ears, "A slave is owned, not loved, Cleo."

His answer is said plainly, yet it thunders around me inside my poor head, as if I was small again.

But I'm not small, instead I'm big and with that I can feel much bigger emotions.

A terrible realisation dawns on me and tears break free of my eyes as I'm staring at my own hands.

I loved him madly. But he does not love me... it seems that way.

I gulp, trying very hard not to make a single noise nor whimper.

I may forget to breathe.

I may close my eyes, but I... I have to compose myself.

My heart, however, is dying. My heart can't take this turn of Fate where he rejects my affection.

A small drop now turns into a river of tears that fall out of both my eyes now, and they fall right into the well, splashing deep into the water's surface.

I must have been mistaken.

I finally answer, husky and hurt but together enough, "A Fate being owned by a... by a L-Lycan is..."

"A nightmare?" Anubis finishes, still as a statue behind me, with his quick and brutal answers, "Like swallowing death? Even so, you are welcome in this Eternal hell with me until the end, Fairy, your company is welcome," Anubis starts to drool over my hair, and it drips down my cheek, as his claws tickle over the nape of my neck, grasping and holding me steady, he's starting to shift again, "However, with truth, you'll die from your service to us. The pack and I will take you to your limit. And even then, it's a matter of time before our nature compels us to eat your pretty soft flesh off your bones –"

"Please don't even say that, Anubis. I don't want to die, I want to live with you!" I whimper now, turning around and dropping to my knees dramatically before him. I am next to his leg, and I clasp it, leaning my cheek on his knee, looking up at him with my sad eyes, even as Anubis chooses to change to full demon Lycan in this moment. He shows me his most fearsome form again above me, a tower of promising death, and even in the face of it and his drool dripping off his fangs onto my face, I beg him, sweetly, "Please, Anubis... keep me?"

"Don't be fucking pathetic," Anubis warns me with a quiet and considered snarl. I immediately let go of his leg and cross my arms instead, looking down at the ground and away from his gaze. I feel an emotion I have not felt with him until now. And that is anger. Plain old rage. It rises in my chest, as he further tells me, out of the damn blue, "You poor, little sweet thing. You know absolutely nothing of love. It's worse than death. Death is a mercy compared to the heavy chains of love – which you're trying so hard to link around your small and weak little fae neck."

Anubis's claws click on the ground as he turns to walk away from me.

He's going?! NO.

He can't walk away from me after I proclaimed my love for him so kindly! To leave now – I wasn't having it!

In a surge of adrenaline, I jump to my feet, holding one of the buttons on my jeans that is dangling, and I rip it off before I throw it at the back of his Lycan head, "A demon scared of love? Are you a pussy?!" I scream, "Let's fuck, Anubis!" An unearthly growl fills the temple with his rage, as he turns back to face me standing defiantly, glaring with my fists clenched, "Love me," I demand it! "And if you don't love me... you may as well just kill me already!"

At that his growl stops, and Anubis strides back over to me.

"I don't think you understand what I want from you," Anubis puts his strong hand around my throat, so threatening, but he doesn't squeeze even a little bit, so his touch is as light as a feather as he keeps my head high, "I don't want your heart. I don't want your hand. I don't want your embrace. I just want to fuck your guts out."

"I want to participate –" I try to retaliate, but Anubis shifts once again.

Becoming human once more, he brings up his second human palm and cups both my cheeks, holding my head up toward his which is tilted down to mine as he looks straight into my hopeful, wet and sad eyes.

"You little liar. You are lonely," he concludes, as if in pity, "Just like me."

"MmMmhM," I agree with a noise, and his thumbs run over my wet cheeks in confusion, "I've never had a friend," I add, "Can you be my f –"

"I'm not your friend," Anubis leans down even closer, "What do you want me to be?" his lips hover over mine, "Your King?"

"Mmmm, MMM, YES!" I proclaim it so loud I almost yell it.

For someone who supposedly saw nothing in me beyond a fuck, he was morbidly gentle for a demon.

Anubis can't take it either.

He curiously presses his pierced lips to mine.

The gentle sweet kiss itself melts my heart into his hands, and I don't care what he wants with me, he can do anything to me after that.

Anubis lets me go from the brief insertion of heaven and he steps right back, drawling his decision, "Tonight you'll fuck us all like a good whore, and only then I'll decide if you're worthy for more than just flesh and bone."

"I can do anything."

Anubis puts his finger to his lips, his eyes sparkling with amusement but his lips are harshly still, "Shh."

Seriously...?!

"But. Why?" I ask, totally confused.

Anubis answers calmly, "I have an Afterlife to guard – so bathe and present yourself to be ready upon our return, show as our bitch. Impress me, Cleo."

I beam with a smile, and on impulse, which he has no full control over, I see a small smile lift the corner of his lips – but only for a mere second.

Anubis turns and walks out as a mortal, calling to his pack to run.

They had their duty and I had mine.

Present myself as a Queen.

Prove it.

I knew that was the challenge and I accept.