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Again, so grateful for all the reviews and I must apologise for being so slack with the updates at the moment, M’iko, xx


Chapter.7.


The present...


...Ororo flung her head back, a sigh of satisfaction escaping against her will from her open red-stained mouth, a gaping wound. A large spot of crimson dripped from her bottom lip that shone with wet, quivering with every sated pant as she smoothed stray hairs back from her face, inadvertently streaking the pure white strands with blood...Logan’s blood. She’d never felt such elation in her life than that of a pulse beneath her lips, a rapid heart beat, increasing her own. She never thought anything would be able to top that sensation of lightening coursing through her as if it were her own blood. But perhaps...perhaps the weather had met its match. She closed her eyes and moaned as her head tilted back, brushing her thumb along her lips, placing it on her tongue, tasting more. She moaned again, muffled against her mouth puckered around her thumb, drawing it out slowly, savouring every last flavour, every last sense of this feeling the blood gave her... The salt, tang, the rush of adrenaline of the ultimate elixir...time melted away, became a none entity in this new world opened up with all the light of eternal darkness...


“Oh Goddess...what...what am I....” As she finally opened her eyes, she looked down at Logan, laying there as she straddled him. He was pale, deathly so, and for a moment she feared he was dead. Slowly her satisfied hunger passed, though it remained knowledgeable at the periphery of her consciousness. Humanity sustained, she felt the clammy hand of panic gripping at her stomach and heart. Her breathing sped up in apprehension as her hand, shaking vigorously, reached down to touch him, scared of the cold pallor she expected to find. “Oh Goddess...Logan...please...” She laid her hand on his chest, closing her eyes for fear that the constant drum would be no more. There was nothing... “What have I done?” the frightful whisper of her voice cracked as the unreality of the situation crashed down upon her. Mind whirling she pulled back upon her haunches and stared about the shaded room wildly as if hoping for some answer, her eyes blurring hot with tears, confusion reigned. But through the pain, guilt and sheer bewilderment she cursed her self for her lack of control. After so many years of learning control...this thing...this thing inside her, that had become her had been to powerful to resist. Swiping at the fat drips with the back of her hand she dared to look down once more at Logan’s body. Somehow it seemed paler than before, the moon’s icy glow lighting his death mask”not a flicker of the eye nor movement of the chest.


The sudden silence of the room became overwhelming, only the growing fretfulness of the Windrider’s shallow breaths. Her head dropping back like a heavy led weight as silent sobs began to rack her body. Despair clouded everything as black as night... What have I done? This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening...


In her utter dejection Ororo didn’t feel the movement; the reflexive flinch of life restored. Her head bowed forwards, her thick white tendrils shaking down to mask her distort face. “Logan...” she sobbed long and low as she placed her hands back down on his chest, shaking her head in disbelief, involuntarily gripping at his blood-stained shirt. “Oh Logan...pleeeease”please don’t leave me...” She didn’t get the opportunity to register anything else before it happened, taking her completely by surprise....


“GrrrrrrARRRRGH!”


Hard blockage; her breath lodged safely in her windpipe and the three fine slices barely told of any direct pain, just the impact of his fist against her midriff hard, just beneath her breasts and lightening fast. Wild hazel eyes were unrecognisable to her who knew them so well. His face appeared a snarl, his white teeth bared under a drawn back lip as his drive refused to relent. The animal in control...Her back thrown against the wall beneath the window, her legs sprawled limply on the floor, Ororo could do nothing but look down at Logan’s balled fist flush against her bent stomach, knowing but not feeling the three prongs of adamantium deep inside of her. A thick glob of blood spilled from her mouth as the internal bleeding rose into her chest cavity, eventually finding its way out. She watched it with frozen wonder as it dripped down onto her chest; a big rose stain blossomed. It crept across, up, down, soaking into the fibre...in all directions, reaching outwards. A long dark line dripped from the ledge of her breasts, splattering down onto his tension whitened fist as it remained stuck fast against her...


...He was aware of the tips of his claws scratching against something”the hard brick of an exterior wall. But he soon realised that they weren’t scratching the gently crumbling material, but were embedded hard into it. His body suddenly skittered across the floor as he threw himself back, as far away from her as possible, landing hunched up at the other side of the room. He barely had time to think, to contemplate before the searing feeling took hold. It was all happening so fast, reality slewed, his handle on it gripping and slipping with equal measure. As the Wolverine faded another tide, one more forceful than the last came into being; a slow, burning, hunger...


“No...” he growled with the realisation that what had happened to Ororo was now happening to him. A kind of death...the type of death he’d experienced once before... He wasn’t about to let it happen again...he was determined to have control. Even if it killed him for real... First it was the gut wrenching pain that livened his memory as he lurched forwards with a mournful groan, gripping at his midriff. The groan soon morphed into a determined anger, one that became all the more alive, all the more enthralling as in his sudden fit of writhing he flung his head back to catch sight of Ororo slumped against the wall; her chin rested on her chest, her stained and dishevelled snowy locks obscuring the rest of her face from his view. In a moment of clarity, articulate thought came to him with the presence of her. He stretched out his hand in vein hope to reach her from his balled position, “O-Ororo”GAH!” His arm snatched back in to join his other wrapped tight around his stomach. The sweat soaked him through, the ferocity of his blood, boiling, coursing; almost unbearable. He was sure not even the adamantium bonding process had felt so...And it was then. Then that he realised the cause of his suffering, why it was perhaps tenfold to what his beloved had experienced. He should have known, he should have guessed immediately...he’d gone through it enough before. For healing always felt infinitely worse than dying; the pain prolonged, the knowledge of the internal fight, fully conscious of his body’s turmoil, he felt everything...everything. Blind. White. Hot. Force. Splayed flat on his back Logan could not contain the purely feral roar as the pain passed through the point of no return; animal hunger and his survival instinct clashing at full force. He’d been through this sensation before”he could describe it as nothing other than a...purge. Yes. This was most definitely worse than dying. Onto his hands and knees he forced himself, an awkward and ultimately futile attempt to stand came to an end when he felt the pit of his stomach lurch”he knew what was coming, but not the nature of it.


One exceedingly violent retch after another produced nothing; the dry heaves burning and straining his throat until he thought something would rupture. And then it came; dark, thick splatters, assaulting every sense as they went haywire. He expelled blood in wave after wave”his healing factors own unique way of dealing with the infection that jostled for supremacy in his system. Heave after heave produced more torrents of seemingly jet black liquid; ever sanguinary, almost endless. He felt empty, like there was nothing more of him self left to give after minutes stretched out into an eternity. Maybe death was closer at hand than he thought”simply in the combat of this...disease. But as suddenly as the expulsion had started so it ended; leaving him exhausted and coughing on the ground, blood dripping from his mouth and nose, spraying outwards with each weakened hack. It carried on coming in an unrepentant torrent, until slowly the tide began to stem, then simply the dripping became like a leaking tap after being tightened. He lay still for a moment, desperately trying to recover his strength as the pool he lay in soaked into the Oriental rug beneath his prone body, dying his clothes too.


Steady, hard breaths competed with the thunder of his heart as another wave of black unconsciousness threatened to take him. But whatever strength remained to him, whatever once of pure will he had left he fought it; moving his lead-weight forwards, dragging him self from the pool of his own blood, the diseased blood that his body had rejected. Every inch of him shook; trembling with the weakness of a new born calf as he began to drag him self across the room, leaving a nasty trail in his wake.


“O...Oro”,” he burst into another coughing fit as his blurred and crossing vision attempted to attain some semblance of clarity in the moon light. He stopped dead, his head dipped as he fought for breaths between the fits. “Ororo...” he called out meekly as he finally caught a break, still breathless, but so close...As he reached her, Logan found it somewhere within him to push his body up, grabbing clumsily at Storm’s top to pull her into his lap. “‘Roro”babe, wake up”*gack!*--please ‘Ro...” he whispered fervently, his voice weak. As he haltingly shifted up into a kneeling position he held her securely in his lap; one arm as strong as he could currently manage about her slim shoulders, his other reaching up; a wet hand cupped her face, unthinkingly smearing it.


She looked pale, shockingly pale; the blood from his hand tracing a contrasting tattoo across her smooth cheek. “You can’t be...” he repeated the fearful phrase over and over to him self as he traced a thick trembling finger down her neck, searching for that place under the hard edge of the jaw line. There had to be a beat there, he prayed for the dull thump against his index finger as he placed it against her skin, as hard as he dared to. The reality of what he’d done began to hit him”the monster threatened a return...There was nothing, he could feel no rhythm. No pulse.


Whatever was she, was gone...


“Ororo...” Logan rocked her limp form in his arms, holding onto her with unimaginable tightness as he turned her body into his grief’s embrace. He pressed his lips to the crown of her head as he crushed her to him, his hands tangled into her hair; gripping in despair. After years...years with no one near, nobody he would allow to get too close...she, only she...and now...For the first time in as long as he could remember Logan felt the warm caress of a salty trail run down his cheek; rare drops spilling over the brim. “‘Ro...” the mournful call was muffled by her hair as he buried his face there, allowing the fading scents of everything that was her seep into him. He wanted to lose him self here and now; all that was him slipping into the abyss with her... “‘Ro...no...no...no”NOOOOOO!” Throwing his head back he let out the most horrendous cry that soon morphed, twisted by the wounded soul of an animal that was cursed to feel a loss eternal; a savage howl wallowed in the sliver moonlight.


*


...He sat there, cradling her for god knows how long. It didn’t matter any more. Nothing did. Slowly he stirred, at last conscious of the world around him once more. His strength restored, Logan attempted to stand up. He stumbled back a little as he righted him self; a core of weakness still there, but this had nothing to do with his physical essence. He could barely breathe; each was an effort of will, every beat of his heart a forced practice. Numbness ran through him as if his heart pumped ice rather than blood. The hard hazel of his eyes fixed straight ahead of him as he felt Ororo’s lifeless weight slacken heavily in his arms; her head falling backwards against his robust forearm, her limbs hanging limply down as he moved over to the bed with slow almost shuffling steps. With reverence he laid her down carefully on the ruffled sheets of the bed. Kneeling down at her side, fairly collapsing down as his legs buckled beneath him he finally brought him self to look at her. He reached out with a trembling hand to touch the bloodied patch on her midriff; a coagulated crust had formed over the three neat gashes that ran clean through her body. His fingers ran over the rough surface as he averted his reddened eyes to her marked face.


She seemed so...peaceful. One would almost say content. But that did nothing to ease the pain that gripped him so. A pain that as he reached tentatively for her hair, stroking it, smoothing it down from her face, grew into something else”something like fire. The former fury rose in him; a slow yet eager tide and he did nothing to stop it”moreover willed it further to melt this ice and replace it with nothing but a desire. The desire to kill one man. And he knew...he knew as sure as anything that to give him self over to it now would let the inner fury win forever. From this, there would be no coming back. But he was ready, for to what purpose did he strive for humanity now...


One last look, one last kiss he gently laid on her”the cold of her skin, her rapidly cooling body wrenching his guts one more time. And vengeance was all he saw.


“Branloch!” The name was garbled through the Wolverine’s mouth as he sprang to his feet with all his predator’s alertness. And nothing of the man remained as with claws unleashed he slashed through the heavy wardrobe, chunks of old dark wood flying hither and thither, then straight through the door it had previously blocked with his one desire firmly set.


* * *


The Wolverine tore down the stairs, leaping over the banister halfway to land at the bottom, hunched on all fours, ready to attack. He sniffed at the air in the lifeless quiet of the dark cottage; a presence hit him immediately, several in fact. He felt it with only the tangible elements; smell, sound, movement. With a carnivore snarl, bloodlust demanded to be sated. He moved through the still space of the living room, quiet as a shadow, moving with instinct. Like following a string that was visible only to him, he progressed steadily through the back room, towards the back exit of the small dwelling; the rancid scent of death clear to him, coming closer and closer and closer...


The door smashed backwards, shattering against the outer wall as he sprang forth, claws extended, ready to hack into the first flesh to come near him. And with a satisfying rip, pure glinting adamantium sliced with ease through the encroaching ghoul. A putrid body soon made dust. This was the second wave it seemed, but no matter”the more to kill, the better he felt. All this would be the warm up for the main event. Keen eyes clocked the bodies advancing on the cottage; at least ten in all, not including the one made swift work of.


And so, the battle began...


They advanced on him in teams, Branloch’s minions, flowing in through wave after wave; taking quick slashes at him before feinting away, only to come in again. They appeared savvier than their predecessors, something about them sharper, fully formed. Wolverine took hit after hit, leaving no time for the wounds to heal before others were inflicted. But he felt nothing...his rage was all that sustained him now. And it was plentiful enough to sustain him for ten lives over. With a bloody bay he set about them with the devastating fury of a murderous whirlwind; every movement lethal and precise, like things he’d learned that had been long forgotten only to return with the burgeoning of his baser instincts. And he revelled in it, growling pitilessly with each blow, with each death strike. But could one kill what was already dead? Death incarnate.


As he lunged forwards into the final wave, just three left, he plunged his claws dead centre into the chest of the ghoul before him. Pumping all his strength into his triceps, he roared viciously as he moved his hands upwards, slicing straight up through the thick set shoulders. But as the body began to evaporate into a black cloud as had all the others, Logan howled out suddenly. This time not in anger, but in pain as he’d left his back exposed to attack. The sharp bony fingers reached deep inside him, snaking past his rib cage from behind, searching for something vital to grip. His body arched backwards as his face contorted with the agony; paralysed in its clutches. He tried in vein to reach behind him but to no avail.


“GRRARGHHHHH!” The dead hand pushed further up his chest cavity violently. If he thought the pain had been unbearable before, then this was a new level of unbearable. His teeth were gritted together so tight by now as he tried to extricate him self it was a wonder they didn’t crumble under the pressure. He had to do something, and he had to do it now”or this was it. As he saw the only other fiend left standing rushing towards him, arm raised, angling it back and ready to make the killer blow”it was now or never. With every once of power he had left, Logan heaved his body around, taking the ghoul attached to his back with him, letting it take the full force of the others attack. Its head flew briefly through the air after the neat decapitation before it too went the way of the others; its being dissipating into the growing blue of the pre-dawn hours.


The release of the excruciating pressure was a relief, but Logan’s respite proved equally short lived as he found him self hurried through the air, smashing through brick and mortar, wooden frame and glass. He barely had time to orientate after his hard landing, crashing into the sofa, before his foe was upon him. Through a bestial growl of glee, Branloch’s monstrosity grabbed a handful of Logan’s hair and yanked him from the ground in order to clutch his neck with his free hand. Its talon-like nails spilt through the skin close to the X-Man’s jugular easy enough, letting out a slim but steady stream. The ghoul looked him in the eye, full on”not the vacant dismembered minds of the others”this one hadn’t quite got to that stage yet. Its awareness still spurred it on”the spark of what was once a human almost in tact. Almost.


Rolling it’s head back in a near leisurely manner, it’s jaw fell open revealing the decayed black of a rotten mouth”dripping, putrefying. Just the silver-fish gleam of the odd uneven fang-esque teeth broke through the dark gaping cave. Logan made to take a swing at it now that his back had stopped gushing”things still weren’t right on the inside, but he had determined not to give sway to it.


“Where the fuck’s your boss, meat bag,” he growled, the ability for cognate speech not having totally deserted him just yet. But as his hand swiped around, the thing dodged the blow; flinging it’s head back with an angry hiss before hurling Logan backwards across the room. He collided with the thick wooden top of the mantel, smashing all ornamentation that strewed its top; falling noisily in a pile of broken porcelain that littered the slated ground like snow. He groaned with irritation at the bite of the shards needling his flesh as he tried to right him self, struggling through the momentary daze of the impact. The outward injuries were nothing, vivid scratches and cuts melting away soon enough, but try as he might Logan could not right him self; the internal mischief done him earlier not as repaired as he might have thought or at least hoped. He tried again, struggled to right him self but an unyielding callous kick to the face saw him collapse back down; enough to destabilise him, enough for the unmitigated pain to run rife, unstoppable.


He shook his head to rid himself of the sprayed blood that had exploded from his busted nose, clots of it having flown up into his eyes; the hit he had sustained was so forceful. Whipping at the temporary blindness, he quickly realised that this latest wound was not healing at all; the entire of his body’s resources still prioritised elsewhere, though his foe didn’t seem to feel mercy for his now near helpless target. But just as Logan began to brace himself for the next onslaught, a strangle noise echoed through-out the room. He tried to discern its origin but the blight in to his vision continued to make everything before him nothing more than a blurred shadow. But the noise...the noise...it continued on, his out of whack hearing struggling to place it as it came to him in grabbled waves. It seemed to him an eternity before he made it out---the pained death-cry of an animal...


Lurching forwards, thick dark clots splattering the floor underneath him, Logan arched his head back as he rested on all fours and tried to struggle up into a kneeling position at best. But as he looked up into the splintered darkness he thought perhaps his eyes had decided to deceive him, or his unreliable mind; prolonging his torment his loss...


“You looked as if you could use some help.”


Logan coughed violently, the sheer physicality of it knocking his balance but the nerve numbing shock too did not help. Just about managing to catch him self with an out-flung hand as he tipped unstably to his left, he righted himself, raising onto his knees, trying and failing to form words in his clogged throat; only pathetic splutters and gargles bubbled up from the depths of his chest. He continued to stare up at the figure before him, ignoring the stone heavy drop of the ghoul’s body as it hit the ground, soon evaporating like the others. He couldn’t blink, hazel eyes painfully wide, he could barely bring himself to breathe...But finally a word forced its way out of his mouth, just one, mangled in a growl, accompanied by a dark ooze spilling from his lips...


“Ororo...?”


-To Be Concluded-


With the best of intentions I will try to get this finished fairly soon! ;)





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