Destiny - Part 7
Part of the http://zannes.livejournal.com/5304.html John/Illyria 'verse
Rating: R (overall)
Genre: Gen, Het, Supernatural/Angel/Firefly crossover
Pairing: John/Illyria
Characters: Firefly crew
Summary: John and Illyria finally have to deal with the Demon that destroyed his family. Will they be able to save John's descendants from the Demon's wrath? (bad language/sexual situations)
Author's Notes: Thanks to hakirby and lyonie17 for their continued beta-ing prowess. Hakirby is entirely responsible for all the added porn and lyonie17 is responsible for turning my modern-day English into Fireflyese. The Chinese translations are up for grabs. I trusted various websites to get those. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns both Illyria and Firefly. The lovely icon belongs to lyonie17.
Part 7...
The crew of Serenity camped out in the common area outside the med bay, none of them willing to spend any time alone. Fred was curled up against him, John’s arm cocooning her safely at his side as she slept, loosely sheltered under a blanket.
Simon came up and knelt beside him, whispering, “Zoe told me that Mrs. Winchester was the last one out of the building. I think I should examine her.”
John smiled softly. “She’s tough. There’s no need.”
“But with the smoke…it could be dangerous for the baby. Even if she seems all right, I should still….” He stopped, noting John’s stricken expression. “You didn’t know?” Simon held up his hands apologetically. “I could be wrong, but it seemed so obvious. I’d estimate she’s five months along because she’s just starting to show.” Simon stood gracefully, adding, “When she wakes up, I’ll take a look, just to be sure. Until then, let her sleep.”
With a glance at the sleeping Fred, Simon left to rejoin Kaylee across the room.
John tilted his head down to study Fred as she lay in his arms, only to see Illyria’s bright blue eyes staring up at him, merely a tiny crease on her forehead indicating anything stirring beneath her usual placid visage. “The timing was less than fortuitous.”
John glanced around at the others, tugging the blanket up to cover her hair, the blue bright in the dimness of the room. “You’ve known for five months and didn’t tell me?” he asked, his eyes pinched with worry.
Illyria shook her head. “Nearly five weeks - that first afternoon on the ship.” She cocked her head, still staring evenly at him, examining him for a sign of what to expect. “It has progressed slowly for a demonic spawning - weeks too long.”
“Quick for a human, though.” John smiled and slid his hand down under the blanket to cup her belly, his heart hammering with a combination of joy and fear. “Is this the right time to have the tentacles conversation again? Personally, I’d prefer if they were evenly distributed.”
Illyria narrowed her eyes at him and he chuckled under his breath before his expression turned serious. John pressed his hand more firmly over the gentle roundness under his palm, stating, “He wants it.”
Illyria nodded, her breath hot against his skin. “With the combination of your genetic line and a pure-bred Old One, he would be unstoppable.” She paused, as if debating whether or not to continue before saying, “The might of an Old One in human form - a body designed by nature to hold the power I could not contain in this shell.”
John’s jaw tightened and he swore, “Not if we kill him first.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“How do I kill it?” Mal demanded, stalking into the dining room.
Huddling around the table, the crew looked up at him in shock, still expecting him to be asleep for another couple of hours. The drugs Simon had been pumping into him to keep him calm were strong, but their effects could not mitigate the deep gray circles under his eyes or the oddly hollow appearance of his frame. It was as if all the vitality that had made up Malcolm Reynolds was suddenly gone.
Kaylee murmured a strangled, “Cap’n!” but John quieted her with a pat on the hand, keeping the rest of the crew in their seats with a pointed look. John poured a cup of coffee, stepping over to ease it gently into the Captain’s hand before clasping his own around Mal’s on the mug, the slight trembling of Mal’s fingers beating softly against John’s palm. John hid the telltale sloshing of the black liquid in the cup with the bulk of his body, keeping Mal’s momentary weakness from the crew that needed their Captain strong and invulnerable.
“Sit, Mal.” John muttered softly. “Sit and we’ll talk.”
Mal collapsed into a seat at John’s side, his gaze glued to the patient, understanding face of John seated beside him.
“How?” Mal whispered pleadingly, his entire focus on John as if the rest of the people in the room didn’t exist. “Please tell me how.”
John picked up his own mug of coffee, his eyes almost guilty. “I’m not sure, yet. I’ve been looking since before Fred and I teamed up. I only ever found one way - and that’s with 500+ years of research.”
“What was it?” Zoe asked sharply when she saw Mal slump in defeat.
“Samuel Colt made a gun for a Hunter, carved with protective runes and phrases,” John explained. “Made bullets, too - thirteen of ‘em. It could kill anything,” John explained.
“What happened to it?” Kaylee asked, intrigued, her eyes sweeping worriedly over to the blank face of her Captain.
“My boys and I had it, but I…,” here John frowned, ducking his head to study the mug of coffee in his hand. “My son was dying. I made a deal and gave the Demon the gun and the last remaining bullet to save him.”
“That was not all you bartered for,” Fred reminded him.
“No,” John agreed. “He got my soul, too.”
Kaylee and, surprisingly, Jayne gasped. “Ai ya, hwai leh! You sold your soul to the Devil?” Jayne asked in disbelief. “My momma would’ve tanned my hide.”
“You left out some of the story in your earlier telling, I think,” Simon added, glancing at John and Fred.
“Didn’t turn out all bad,” John continued. “I met Illyria and got out of Hell bonded to a former Demon-God. Gets me invited to all the best parties.” He reached out to wrap an arm around Fred’s hips, tugging her closer. “Drop the guise, m’dear. They need to adjust.”
Illyria shifted, resting an armored hand on John’s shoulder, her gaze open and challenging.
Jayne fell over the back of his chair, landing with a muffled string of curses as Zoe automatically reached for her gun, before clenching her fist and forcefully pulling away. “Lao tyen yeh,” she grumbled. “I’m still not used to that.”
The rest of the crew settled restlessly in their seats, almost completely inured to the demon in their midst after having had several hours to acclimate themselves to the idea, having had the pleasure of being introduced to Illyria during John’s earlier storytelling.
Only River waltzed over to study Illyria curiously, reaching up a hand to curl a blue strand around her fingers. “Can I paint my hair, Simon?” she asked hopefully over her shoulder, Illyria studying her as if she were an inquistive puppy nipping at her heels.
“What did the gun look like?” Mal demanded suddenly, refocusing on the room.
“Standard Colt with a pentacle on the handle, vines engraved along the barrel with some Latin - non timebo mala.”
“I will fear no evil,” Simon whispered.
“I’ve seen it afore,” Mal muttered. “On Bellerophon - Saffron’s would-be husband has it.” An angry gleam colored his gaze. “He owes me a good turn.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Yer wife is blue,” Jayne mumbled to John conspiratorially.
“Really?” John replied with an amused expression. He turned to glance at Illyria across the way, in the midst of what appeared to be a rather intense discussion with Simon. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was something she ate.”
“Yer wife is hot,” Jayne continued, oblivious to the sarcasm, his eyes trained lecherously on Illyria’s leather clad form.
“Um…thank you. I try to keep her buffed and polished.” John arched an eyebrow at Illyria, who was trying to fend off an overly exuberant Simon. The doctor was determined to give a full physical to the only pregnant Demon-God he had on hand, but John was laying the odds in Illyria’s favor.
“Jayne had a crush even before he found out she could snap his spine like a twig,” River explained, plopping down at John’s feet. “Now he’s in love.”
“Am not!” Jayne growled. “Jus’ find her interestin’ is all.”
John swept his eyes over the intimidating figure of his Illyria, who was holding Simon off with one arm as she frowned at the bent reflex hammer crushed in her hand. John smiled softly, his heart warm in his chest as his gaze followed the growing curves of her body, noticing the subtle changes that he’d been unable to see before. Shifting in his chair, John muffled a groan, suddenly wanting her so badly that he could feel it as a tangible thrum in his bloodstream. Illyria’s head snapped up, her eyes locking with his and gleaming ferally in the light of the room, catching wind of the change in John’s scent.
“Ya know,” Jayne unknowingly interrupted, “my momma always had a terrible fear of fire. Said it was alive in her dreams. Saw people burnin’.”
John pulled himself back into the conversation, turning to face Jayne as Kaylee said, “I had a cousin on Paquin who knew the Reavers were comin’ once. Tried to warn the townsfolk, but they thought he was crazy. He got his family outta there to visit us and the Reavers wiped out the whole town the next week.”
“You’re Winchesters,” River told them before John could speak.
John nodded in agreement. “It’s genetic. Power’s not great in everyone in the family, but a touch of it is there. Some show it more than others. It’s your…gift.”
“My Gram did tell me a nightstory ‘bout a dark man and his blue lady. Said it was a passed down of our folks all the way back to the Earth-That-Was,” Kaylee whispered, sounding an odd mix of embarrassed and hopeful. “It’s…you and Illyria, ain’t it?”
Jayne’s mouth dropped open. “My momma told that nightstory! They were huntin’ after somethin’? A….” Jayne furrowed his brow. “An answer to some kind of cipher….”
Kaylee nodded enthusiastically. “To kill the yellow-eyed dragon! I wonder if the Cap’n or Zoe heard the story?”
River looked at them with an odd tilt to her head. “Simon and I had to make up our own bedtime stories. He never liked the dragon one I told.”
“That was a great story,” Jayne said enthusiastically. “Gave me my career aspersions.”
“You mean aspirations? To be a mercenary?” River asked with a grin.
“Yeah, whatever,” Jayne agreed. “I just know they did a lot of killin’.” He took a gulp of cold coffee. “Great story.”
Simon's voice rose pleadingly, rubbing his sore wrist after struggling with Illyria to get his stethoscope back. “You should let me check. The blue could be a sign of a circulation disorder!” Illyria wandered over to John, placing the stethoscope around his neck as if sharing the fruits of her successful pillaging.
Simon huffed with impatience, focusing his attention on their conversation with a subdued glare in his noncompliant patient’s direction. “You’re saying we’re all related in some way,” Simon stated with curiosity. “How is that statistically possible? There are millions of people spread throughout the galaxy and we all happen to be from the same root family?”
“Actually,” Illyria interrupted, absently twisting Simon’s ex-reflex hammer into pretty shapes, “if you are using statistics, it becomes statistically more probable that those sharing a bloodline would run across each other. The bloodline would be weak, but given the centuries you have had, it has dispersed quite broadly. Approximately 82% of the people you meet daily are related to you in some fashion.”
“Illyria and I’ve been talkin’. We’ve got a theory, since we’ve seen it in smaller ways over the years, but it’s pure guesswork. It seems those with the strongest genes somehow gravitate towards each other in times of trouble, knowing somehow the time’s coming when they have to protect their own.” John shrugged, eyes focused on his hands. “Don’t know how or why - guessin’ it has somethin’ to do with the psychic…ability passed on down each side through Sammy and Ava.”
Illyria continued flatly, hand solidly placed on John’s shoulder as he paused for breath, “We saw it when it came time to leave the Earth-That-Was. Then later when settlements were about to go under, when natural disasters hit, when the War came….” She blinked, cocking her head at their sudden rapt attention.
John leaned back against Illyria, garnering strength from the solid line of her body behind his. “They - you - became harder to keep track of…spread too wide and too far. My family became just more faces in the crowd.” He unknowingly turned to rub his cheek against Illyria’s hand, seeking comfort from the one constant he knew.
River leaned forward, pressing in close to his leg. “We’re tied up now. Can’t lose us. We’re stuck.”
John closed his eyes, the creases deepening as he struggled to find the words. “That’s what scares me. I can.” He glanced up at Illyria, who gazed back with her usual unruffled composure, understanding sharp in her stance as he whispered to her, too faint for the others to hear, “I will.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What will we do when this is done?” Illyria asked, staring out into the star spangled black wrapped so intimately around Serenity.
John shrugged, standing closely behind her, his heart thudding against her armored back. “I’m not sure.”
“We could stay,” Illyria offered, wrapping her arms around her waist as if folding in on herself.
“We could,” John agreed, sliding his arms along hers until she was safely ensconced in his grasp. “What do you want to do?”
“As long as my Guide is content and allows me to kill things, I can adapt to any situation,” she informed him.
John chuckled lightly against her hair. “I thought adaptation was a sign of weakness.”
“It is,” Illyria replied. She paused, staring out the portal and counting his breaths against the nape of her neck before saying, “Your blood will need to adapt to what we do. Are you prepared for that?”
John remained silent for several minutes, until Illyria began to turn to see what was wrong. His arms tightened around her waist, stilling her, and John admitted softly against the shell of her ear, “No, I’m not. Not anymore.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Rating: R (overall)
Genre: Gen, Het, Supernatural/Angel/Firefly crossover
Pairing: John/Illyria
Characters: Firefly crew
Summary: John and Illyria finally have to deal with the Demon that destroyed his family. Will they be able to save John's descendants from the Demon's wrath? (bad language/sexual situations)
Author's Notes: Thanks to hakirby and lyonie17 for their continued beta-ing prowess. Hakirby is entirely responsible for all the added porn and lyonie17 is responsible for turning my modern-day English into Fireflyese. The Chinese translations are up for grabs. I trusted various websites to get those. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns both Illyria and Firefly. The lovely icon belongs to lyonie17.
Part 7...
The crew of Serenity camped out in the common area outside the med bay, none of them willing to spend any time alone. Fred was curled up against him, John’s arm cocooning her safely at his side as she slept, loosely sheltered under a blanket.
Simon came up and knelt beside him, whispering, “Zoe told me that Mrs. Winchester was the last one out of the building. I think I should examine her.”
John smiled softly. “She’s tough. There’s no need.”
“But with the smoke…it could be dangerous for the baby. Even if she seems all right, I should still….” He stopped, noting John’s stricken expression. “You didn’t know?” Simon held up his hands apologetically. “I could be wrong, but it seemed so obvious. I’d estimate she’s five months along because she’s just starting to show.” Simon stood gracefully, adding, “When she wakes up, I’ll take a look, just to be sure. Until then, let her sleep.”
With a glance at the sleeping Fred, Simon left to rejoin Kaylee across the room.
John tilted his head down to study Fred as she lay in his arms, only to see Illyria’s bright blue eyes staring up at him, merely a tiny crease on her forehead indicating anything stirring beneath her usual placid visage. “The timing was less than fortuitous.”
John glanced around at the others, tugging the blanket up to cover her hair, the blue bright in the dimness of the room. “You’ve known for five months and didn’t tell me?” he asked, his eyes pinched with worry.
Illyria shook her head. “Nearly five weeks - that first afternoon on the ship.” She cocked her head, still staring evenly at him, examining him for a sign of what to expect. “It has progressed slowly for a demonic spawning - weeks too long.”
“Quick for a human, though.” John smiled and slid his hand down under the blanket to cup her belly, his heart hammering with a combination of joy and fear. “Is this the right time to have the tentacles conversation again? Personally, I’d prefer if they were evenly distributed.”
Illyria narrowed her eyes at him and he chuckled under his breath before his expression turned serious. John pressed his hand more firmly over the gentle roundness under his palm, stating, “He wants it.”
Illyria nodded, her breath hot against his skin. “With the combination of your genetic line and a pure-bred Old One, he would be unstoppable.” She paused, as if debating whether or not to continue before saying, “The might of an Old One in human form - a body designed by nature to hold the power I could not contain in this shell.”
John’s jaw tightened and he swore, “Not if we kill him first.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“How do I kill it?” Mal demanded, stalking into the dining room.
Huddling around the table, the crew looked up at him in shock, still expecting him to be asleep for another couple of hours. The drugs Simon had been pumping into him to keep him calm were strong, but their effects could not mitigate the deep gray circles under his eyes or the oddly hollow appearance of his frame. It was as if all the vitality that had made up Malcolm Reynolds was suddenly gone.
Kaylee murmured a strangled, “Cap’n!” but John quieted her with a pat on the hand, keeping the rest of the crew in their seats with a pointed look. John poured a cup of coffee, stepping over to ease it gently into the Captain’s hand before clasping his own around Mal’s on the mug, the slight trembling of Mal’s fingers beating softly against John’s palm. John hid the telltale sloshing of the black liquid in the cup with the bulk of his body, keeping Mal’s momentary weakness from the crew that needed their Captain strong and invulnerable.
“Sit, Mal.” John muttered softly. “Sit and we’ll talk.”
Mal collapsed into a seat at John’s side, his gaze glued to the patient, understanding face of John seated beside him.
“How?” Mal whispered pleadingly, his entire focus on John as if the rest of the people in the room didn’t exist. “Please tell me how.”
John picked up his own mug of coffee, his eyes almost guilty. “I’m not sure, yet. I’ve been looking since before Fred and I teamed up. I only ever found one way - and that’s with 500+ years of research.”
“What was it?” Zoe asked sharply when she saw Mal slump in defeat.
“Samuel Colt made a gun for a Hunter, carved with protective runes and phrases,” John explained. “Made bullets, too - thirteen of ‘em. It could kill anything,” John explained.
“What happened to it?” Kaylee asked, intrigued, her eyes sweeping worriedly over to the blank face of her Captain.
“My boys and I had it, but I…,” here John frowned, ducking his head to study the mug of coffee in his hand. “My son was dying. I made a deal and gave the Demon the gun and the last remaining bullet to save him.”
“That was not all you bartered for,” Fred reminded him.
“No,” John agreed. “He got my soul, too.”
Kaylee and, surprisingly, Jayne gasped. “Ai ya, hwai leh! You sold your soul to the Devil?” Jayne asked in disbelief. “My momma would’ve tanned my hide.”
“You left out some of the story in your earlier telling, I think,” Simon added, glancing at John and Fred.
“Didn’t turn out all bad,” John continued. “I met Illyria and got out of Hell bonded to a former Demon-God. Gets me invited to all the best parties.” He reached out to wrap an arm around Fred’s hips, tugging her closer. “Drop the guise, m’dear. They need to adjust.”
Illyria shifted, resting an armored hand on John’s shoulder, her gaze open and challenging.
Jayne fell over the back of his chair, landing with a muffled string of curses as Zoe automatically reached for her gun, before clenching her fist and forcefully pulling away. “Lao tyen yeh,” she grumbled. “I’m still not used to that.”
The rest of the crew settled restlessly in their seats, almost completely inured to the demon in their midst after having had several hours to acclimate themselves to the idea, having had the pleasure of being introduced to Illyria during John’s earlier storytelling.
Only River waltzed over to study Illyria curiously, reaching up a hand to curl a blue strand around her fingers. “Can I paint my hair, Simon?” she asked hopefully over her shoulder, Illyria studying her as if she were an inquistive puppy nipping at her heels.
“What did the gun look like?” Mal demanded suddenly, refocusing on the room.
“Standard Colt with a pentacle on the handle, vines engraved along the barrel with some Latin - non timebo mala.”
“I will fear no evil,” Simon whispered.
“I’ve seen it afore,” Mal muttered. “On Bellerophon - Saffron’s would-be husband has it.” An angry gleam colored his gaze. “He owes me a good turn.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Yer wife is blue,” Jayne mumbled to John conspiratorially.
“Really?” John replied with an amused expression. He turned to glance at Illyria across the way, in the midst of what appeared to be a rather intense discussion with Simon. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was something she ate.”
“Yer wife is hot,” Jayne continued, oblivious to the sarcasm, his eyes trained lecherously on Illyria’s leather clad form.
“Um…thank you. I try to keep her buffed and polished.” John arched an eyebrow at Illyria, who was trying to fend off an overly exuberant Simon. The doctor was determined to give a full physical to the only pregnant Demon-God he had on hand, but John was laying the odds in Illyria’s favor.
“Jayne had a crush even before he found out she could snap his spine like a twig,” River explained, plopping down at John’s feet. “Now he’s in love.”
“Am not!” Jayne growled. “Jus’ find her interestin’ is all.”
John swept his eyes over the intimidating figure of his Illyria, who was holding Simon off with one arm as she frowned at the bent reflex hammer crushed in her hand. John smiled softly, his heart warm in his chest as his gaze followed the growing curves of her body, noticing the subtle changes that he’d been unable to see before. Shifting in his chair, John muffled a groan, suddenly wanting her so badly that he could feel it as a tangible thrum in his bloodstream. Illyria’s head snapped up, her eyes locking with his and gleaming ferally in the light of the room, catching wind of the change in John’s scent.
“Ya know,” Jayne unknowingly interrupted, “my momma always had a terrible fear of fire. Said it was alive in her dreams. Saw people burnin’.”
John pulled himself back into the conversation, turning to face Jayne as Kaylee said, “I had a cousin on Paquin who knew the Reavers were comin’ once. Tried to warn the townsfolk, but they thought he was crazy. He got his family outta there to visit us and the Reavers wiped out the whole town the next week.”
“You’re Winchesters,” River told them before John could speak.
John nodded in agreement. “It’s genetic. Power’s not great in everyone in the family, but a touch of it is there. Some show it more than others. It’s your…gift.”
“My Gram did tell me a nightstory ‘bout a dark man and his blue lady. Said it was a passed down of our folks all the way back to the Earth-That-Was,” Kaylee whispered, sounding an odd mix of embarrassed and hopeful. “It’s…you and Illyria, ain’t it?”
Jayne’s mouth dropped open. “My momma told that nightstory! They were huntin’ after somethin’? A….” Jayne furrowed his brow. “An answer to some kind of cipher….”
Kaylee nodded enthusiastically. “To kill the yellow-eyed dragon! I wonder if the Cap’n or Zoe heard the story?”
River looked at them with an odd tilt to her head. “Simon and I had to make up our own bedtime stories. He never liked the dragon one I told.”
“That was a great story,” Jayne said enthusiastically. “Gave me my career aspersions.”
“You mean aspirations? To be a mercenary?” River asked with a grin.
“Yeah, whatever,” Jayne agreed. “I just know they did a lot of killin’.” He took a gulp of cold coffee. “Great story.”
Simon's voice rose pleadingly, rubbing his sore wrist after struggling with Illyria to get his stethoscope back. “You should let me check. The blue could be a sign of a circulation disorder!” Illyria wandered over to John, placing the stethoscope around his neck as if sharing the fruits of her successful pillaging.
Simon huffed with impatience, focusing his attention on their conversation with a subdued glare in his noncompliant patient’s direction. “You’re saying we’re all related in some way,” Simon stated with curiosity. “How is that statistically possible? There are millions of people spread throughout the galaxy and we all happen to be from the same root family?”
“Actually,” Illyria interrupted, absently twisting Simon’s ex-reflex hammer into pretty shapes, “if you are using statistics, it becomes statistically more probable that those sharing a bloodline would run across each other. The bloodline would be weak, but given the centuries you have had, it has dispersed quite broadly. Approximately 82% of the people you meet daily are related to you in some fashion.”
“Illyria and I’ve been talkin’. We’ve got a theory, since we’ve seen it in smaller ways over the years, but it’s pure guesswork. It seems those with the strongest genes somehow gravitate towards each other in times of trouble, knowing somehow the time’s coming when they have to protect their own.” John shrugged, eyes focused on his hands. “Don’t know how or why - guessin’ it has somethin’ to do with the psychic…ability passed on down each side through Sammy and Ava.”
Illyria continued flatly, hand solidly placed on John’s shoulder as he paused for breath, “We saw it when it came time to leave the Earth-That-Was. Then later when settlements were about to go under, when natural disasters hit, when the War came….” She blinked, cocking her head at their sudden rapt attention.
John leaned back against Illyria, garnering strength from the solid line of her body behind his. “They - you - became harder to keep track of…spread too wide and too far. My family became just more faces in the crowd.” He unknowingly turned to rub his cheek against Illyria’s hand, seeking comfort from the one constant he knew.
River leaned forward, pressing in close to his leg. “We’re tied up now. Can’t lose us. We’re stuck.”
John closed his eyes, the creases deepening as he struggled to find the words. “That’s what scares me. I can.” He glanced up at Illyria, who gazed back with her usual unruffled composure, understanding sharp in her stance as he whispered to her, too faint for the others to hear, “I will.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What will we do when this is done?” Illyria asked, staring out into the star spangled black wrapped so intimately around Serenity.
John shrugged, standing closely behind her, his heart thudding against her armored back. “I’m not sure.”
“We could stay,” Illyria offered, wrapping her arms around her waist as if folding in on herself.
“We could,” John agreed, sliding his arms along hers until she was safely ensconced in his grasp. “What do you want to do?”
“As long as my Guide is content and allows me to kill things, I can adapt to any situation,” she informed him.
John chuckled lightly against her hair. “I thought adaptation was a sign of weakness.”
“It is,” Illyria replied. She paused, staring out the portal and counting his breaths against the nape of her neck before saying, “Your blood will need to adapt to what we do. Are you prepared for that?”
John remained silent for several minutes, until Illyria began to turn to see what was wrong. His arms tightened around her waist, stilling her, and John admitted softly against the shell of her ear, “No, I’m not. Not anymore.”
TO BE CONTINUED...