A Jaguar's Mate

Her mind had stalled, a feeble defense sheltering her soul from the chasm of madness opening before her. She stood still not just because of his mystical hold but also because her mind was too numb. Too numb to reason the need to struggle, too numb to move a muscle. She existed in suspended animation, aware of her surroundings as if watching something outside of herself.

A part of her though screamed, unable to bury itself as most of her had done. It screamed for struggle, for resistance against whatever this was. While her body was another matter. It burned, her nipples beaded and aching but she wasn't sure if she could blame the air.

Fire seemed to flow through her veins, yearning she fought to dismiss, to resist. There was no way this psychotic freak was arousing her. Her dysfunction did not extend to this. He was a stranger, holding her against her will after kidnapping her. A stranger, though he shaped her nude body with strong gentle hands meant to soothe. When had he removed her clothes? How had she not felt it?

"Save me Aage," he whispered against her neck, pleaded. She shivered, unsure what he wanted, knowing she had to do something to survive long enough to save herself. "Remember enough tae save us both."

"O-okay." she stammered. What else could she say? She really wanted to save herself, if in the process he believed he got saved so much the better. She could leave relatively unscathed. "Just don't hurt me."

He lifted his head to look into her widened eyes. "Never hurt ye lass. Canna hurt ye."

She was not idiot enough to believe that but she would play along. "What do I have to do?" Don't ask for sex, she pleaded inside even though she would have no real say if he wanted.

"Open yeaself tae me." What? Was that a euphemism for sex? Did he have some twisted need for some form of acceptance from her? He must have sensed her fear, seen it in her eyes. "Yea soul Aage, open yea soul tae me. I canna keep the madness at bay."

Oh lord he knew he was mad! Would that make it better or worse for her? She had no choice but to nod when she had no idea what he meant.

His lips closed around her left nipple, drew it into his mouth. Pleasure pulsed through her entire body. Unwanted, dizzying pleasure. Her muscles fought to arc her body towards the moist heat tugging at her. The heat that inundated increasing pleasure through her body. But whatever hold he had on her kept her still, she couldn't even scream like she wanted to.

The sad thing was the scream that was building inside her was not of denial like she wanted it to be. Tears poured down her cheeks at her helpless state. She wanted more as much as she wanted him to stop. The sensations driving through her fractured her already strained mind, sensations that surpassed anything she had ever experienced.

He caressed her as a lover should. A tender mapping of her skin. Following the smooth sloped mountains and valleys that made up her body. It was a touch meant to imprint her into him, a reverence that cherished her. Nothing like the handful of lovers she'd had. It felt like the re-establishing of something barely remembered.

Confused she trembled as her body and emotions rioted. She had always prided herself on her ability to stay in control but now whatever touchstone she'd had was lost. Denial surged with as much force as acceptance.

There was something so familiar about his touch, a long forgotten dream surviving in her subconscious. One that filled a hole little acknowledged. Whatever beast lurking under her skin purred, the source of her unreasoning acceptance. She revered in that pleasure, sought to accentuate it.

Awareness of power shimmered in her, an awakening. She touched the essence of power, of life itself. Time was hers, an understanding of its ins and outs blossomed inside her and she exalted at it. It was a weaving of light of which she was the core weave but instead of being one dimensional it consisted of intricate ones she could not understand. Was this the opening of her soul he had demanded?

Strings wove through and from her in a kaleidoscope made of random colours and from all directions yet forming a logical complex. She couldn't understand it but she saw it had meaning behind it. A single thread's pulse drew her attention. It was no brighter than any other, its colour just as remarkable as the next. Yet it drew her with a force akin to compulsion that she had to touch it. Thick enough to just be visible, in her line of sight it thickened until it encompassed her world. She saw the texture of it, recognized the unique aspect of it and saw the discord of the length immediately before her. Of their own accord her fingers wrapped around the thread.

A rushing sound filled her ears, so much pressure she had to swallow a few times to relieve it. In the moments it took for her to realize the pressure came from within she was sucked into the thread where she landed with a jolting force. Time expanded, sang in her blood until it was all she knew.

Before she could get any bearing she was once again sucked away. The jolt she felt did not ripple out like she had expected. She found herself sitting in the back of a luxurious car on plush cream leather. Buttery soft it was like seating on a cloud. It smelled new, was spotless and more spacious than any car she had ever sat at the back of.

Something was decidedly off. Aside from the fact that a few seconds ago she had been enjoying the touch of a madman against her will and common sense, she couldn't turn her head. She knew the car was roomy in the same way she knew she was breathing. Peripheral knowledge that had no business being acknowledged. Her eyes noted the passing scenery in passing, her mind reflective. Only her thoughts were foreign.

Her body felt alien, awkward but she couldn't figure out why. While she continued ruminating on things she couldn't understand she made an inventory of herself. Her hair was short, barely touching the back of her neck when it should be midway down her back. The hand on her knee looked larger, more maleish than her small soft hands.

The implications fluttered through her mind but she instantly rejected them. Her mind had just taken a weird turn just to escape her situation. She had an active mind and imagining herself somewhere else was a proved psychological coping mechanism. All she needed to do was keep calm and soon enough she would snap out of it.

Centering herself she took a few deep breaths, only her breaths were still. She had no control of even her breathing. Panic flooded through her, she couldn't convince herself against her own conclusions. She was no longer in her own body. Worse she was in a male body and the power she felt flowing through her was too foreign, too much.

She was suffocating, hyperventilating, and her mind on the verge of exploding. Yet the car drove on and the body she inhabited breathed in even breaths and continued its sedate existence. She wanted out but had no idea how to get out, opening herself as she had to get here was a nonstarter. She was too panicked and besides it was more likely the lunatic had done that to her more than that it had been she herself. Why would he do this to her? Was he blacking her out so that he could rape her and not have her remember it?

She was jaded. Tired of the same events, concerns and conversation. Weary of people catering to his needs and the lack of challenges in her life. The women throwing themselves at her, changing and yet being the same across time. She ruminated on the lack of pleasure their company afforded and a deep need to escape it all. Only the thoughts were his and she had no control of them, they were taking over her mind until soon there would be no difference.

As her terror reached its peak time seemed to shift forward and swept her along with it. She experienced the ride of time as it was accelerated through events so fast that she couldn't tell what they were. She saw it all through the eyes of the man whose body she shared, Liam McMorna, fifteen hundred years old panthera onca from the Andean people history recorded as the Chachapoyas. She knew he had migrated to Ireland during the 15th century when the Inca had invaded. Had changed his name to a local one and as he had reddish blonde hair and green eyes he and his people had fit in though their features had been slightly different to the locals.

That was only general information floating around his brain. What she saw was the rest of the car ride, a car ride that ended in her hometown when the car broke down. She saw the first time he had seen her, experienced the wash of emotions he felt. Watched her own bemused, overwhelmed young face as he talked to her. She had no recollection of this but she saw as their relationship blossomed over two years and she gave her virginity to him. Witnessed the day men with guns had come for him and ripped him from her life.

Days blended into each other as she experienced horrendous tortures. They tested his pain threshold, keeping him on a rake for days. Breaking his limbs to see how long it would take for him to regenerate, tested weapons upon him for effectiveness. It went on and on and on, a parade of horrendous pain as he was kept helpless.

He took strength in memories of her, her touch, scent and taste until she was all that kept him strong during the plethora of pain. Until she was the last thread of his sanity. He held against inhumane experiments, helpless when he had never been thus as anger built in him. Murderous anger that had him seeing every living human as an enemy. He memorized their scents, planned how he would hunt and kill each and every one of them. Those who brutalized him, those who came to watch thinking they were safe from his identifying them and the ones who gave him pity. He caught the scents of the cleaners, the computer guys, all the support staff and the visitors.

He was going to kill them, show them the side they had feared his people would show. He would relish it as he watched the last flicker of life in their eyes; relish the parting of skin as he swiped his claws through it. The scent of burning flesh as he unleashed the magic of his people upon their puny bodies.

Death, death, death, he would deal them and only Aage would be safe. Years and decades passed as he planned his massacre, honed skills long thought gone from their world. Decades in which pain became his friend, where he separated what was around him from the essence of his being. It gave him time to plan, to strategize. Soon enough he would have strength to escape and woe to all humanity. Then they had given him the news of her death.

Aage sobbed through his brutal escape when he realized his humanity had slipped beyound where he could recapture it on his own. He killed without remorse, seeing anyone before him as nothing more than an obstacle. Alarms blared everywhere and the soldiers who came in held some of the weapons they had tested on him but he had gained enough strength and immunity over the years to withstand them.

He ran for days, somehow drawn to her despite the lack of scent to follow until he came to her town. He tracked her scent then, savouring what only his were memory had kept alive.

"Aage!" It was too faint, she was too deep. "Aage, come back baby!" It was his voice. She couldn't escape him; he was in her head and even talking to her out of it. She was going crazy and the ground was gone from beneath her, darkness was all she saw. But his voice wouldn't leave her alone, it sunk into her demanding she come back, leaving her with no choice.

Gasping, sobbing she came back to herself. It wasn't as dramatic as her exit had been, a rushing in of all her senses and with it more than 15 centuries of knowledge she couldn't process.

"Sssh, ye were not supposed tae take it in lass." the monster holding her whispered to her. He was that and more, a king, a were, her mate, a killer. Without him she would lose her mind, with him she had already lost part of it. How could this be her life? What was she going to do?

She shoved him; sometime when she had been gone he had released her from his Jedi thing. Clasping the tattered ends of her blouse she walked away uncaring of the fact it was just as good as nothing. When his hand landed on her shoulder she whipped around and punched him. Her friend Kev had taught her a bit about fighting. This man had awakened her need to fight. She wanted to hurt him, give him as much pain as he had given her so she kicked him in his balls.

While he clutched at them she turned and walked away. She didn't try to run knowing she wouldn't get away. And honestly where would she go? He was an immortal being, so was she by the way, who could find her on the moon for all she knew. There were a group of sadistic humans who knew she wasn't human and had kept tabs on her. And she had thought her sadistic adoptive brother was someone to be afraid of.

Her life was on a downward spiral and at that moment she didn't care, it didn't matter. From his memories of her she knew she had tremendous power, which came from some unique bloodline. But it didn't help her; she had no idea how to use it. Again he was her only hope, of survival, of knowing how to control her freak. He even knew how to find her birth parents and she needed to find them. After spending the last three decades moving about to hide the fact that she didn't age she had wanted to find them so she could know why. Now she had no need to do that she knew, lord how she knew. Still she wanted to find them.

"Aage..." the jerk just wouldn't get a clue!

"Do not talk to me!" she commanded. "There might not be a way for me to get rid of you but that doesn't mean I have to listen to you. I want to forget you exist right now."

He didn't reply and she kept walking. There was nowhere to go so what did it matter. His memories were too much to handle so she avoided thinking about them. This left her with thought of his hands on her which she didn't want to think about. But she was as good as naked with a naked man behind her whom she remembered sleeping with, if the screwed up perception she had could be called remembering. Her body had remembered though, had remembered whilst he had touched her.

"Aage." There was a warning in his low growl, she knew what it was about but she didn't want to acknowledge it.

"I will claw your eyes out if you don't shut up."

"I can smell ye arousal." He gritted.

"So what!" she demanded feeling reckless. "Are you going to throw me on the ground and rape me?" She now knew that had never been something she should have feared but he had given her that fear for about two hours. "Go to hell! I don't want you. It is not my fault that fate saw fit to tie me to you, not my fault that you were imprisoned and I hate that you made it my pain, that you gave me your pain."

That wasn't entirely true. It was her fault he had been taken, and he hadn't given his pain to her, she had taken it, even her memories. Having no control of her abilities she had taken where she was supposed to have soothed. Yet how could she have soothed someone who had done nothing but threaten her? She walked on, feeling guilty and hating herself for it. She shouldn't, but there it was. He was to blame for a lot of other things.

As she walked she realized she was taking turns and going to a specific place. Frowning she searched her mind to see where she might be taking them. She had never been this way which meant it was either his memories or he was manipulating her. It didn't matter which it was she was tired, hungry and having a destination was more comforting even if she didn't know how far it was.