Chapter One

Feral Fangs & Adamantium Claws

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.  – G.K. Chersterton

I have known both love and loss.  I found love as a child in the small town of my birth.  I learned what it meant to mourn the loss of love much the same way; as nothing more than a simple woman on a cold winter night begging for them to come home, for him to come home.  What tears of wasted endless sorrow.

Chapter One

In the darkness of a small house in northern Virginia, a body stirred beneath heavy downy linens.  It was not the howling wind that caused the body to shift, restlessly, nor was it the subtle plunking of icy rain.  It was a dream that had this body shifting restless beneath the safe haven of Egyptian cotton and microfiber suede, or rather it was a nightmare.

Blood.  It ran down the walls from the ceiling like icing on a warm cake, coating everything in a thick red that made her want to gag. 

There was always so much blood.

It covered everything she could see, and somewhere, in her subconscious, she knew it was hers.  It spilled from her body then, pouring from thickly sliced ribbons that marred her every inch. 

She can’t see his face clearly, but his scent is familiar.  It’s sickening in the way it comforts and frightens her at the same time. 

Her vision blurs and then clears to claws sharp and deadly, gleaming in the sallow tint of the artificial light.  His face is still obscured from view, but she can clearly see each razor sharp tip, resting at the top of every one of his powerful fingers.

Pain explodes behind her eyes and her tormenter purrs, growing excited by the fear he can scent flowing from her like waves. 

Again he strikes her and the pain is born anew, blossoming like the sun over her face as she takes another blow, then another, and another. 

Her mind screams in protest as she smells his desire taking hold, his scent his heady with arousal and instinctively she knows what comes next. 

She disoriented, too many nights and days without fresh air, without food and water.  Her vision swam behind her eyes as she tried to focus of the imposing blond who held her captive while trying to ignore the other men who stood by, aroused and ready for a show. 

When would it all end?  She asked herself, or maybe she asked him, she wasn’t sure anymore. 

He laughed at her then while pushing back her tangled hair from her brow with a large paw-like hand, noticing a spike in her that he could identify as confusion.

“Don’t worry, Little Rosie,” he purred, his pink tongue darting out from between full lips and canine teeth.  “I’ll take care of you.” 

“DON’T!”  Rosalie bolted upright in her bed, her chest heaving in heavy pants with the escalating fear as she tried to get ahold of herself; to remember where she was. 

She doesn’t have to strain herself under the dense pitch of night; her feral eyes can see every small detail of her home at a quick glance.  She relaxes slightly after taking in the eclectic décor that she knows is hers.  

“Ah’m safe.  Ah’m home.”  Her voice is heady with emotions as she replays her mantra, both audibly and in her mind; willing the frantic beats of her heart to slow.   Her throat is dry, scratchy forcing her to realize that she had probably been screaming for some time. 

It was not for the first time in months that she was glad her home was devoid of all life, save for herself.  She was relieved that Jubilee had an overnight date and that Pete was visiting his grandmother in D.C., she couldn’t stand the thought of them having to approach her bedside another night, cautiously calling out to her like she was a wounded wild animal.

Rosalie knew she and her mutation were hard enough for everyone to deal with in her waking hours, but they were that much more dangerous after dark, when her nightmares set in and the feral was set loose. 

She sighed as she gathered her damp locks from where the stuck to the back of her neck, twisting them into a messy not at her crown.  

Third one this week, too, she thought offhandedly, pulling the sweat soaked sheet from her legs and slipping from the warmth of her bed. 

The air was cool and refreshing against her fevered skin of her feet as she padded silently against the chilled wood of the newly installed hardwood floors, grabbing her robe from where it had been discarded across her desk chair and slipping it one. 

The room was stifling, constricting and overbearing to her delicate senses.  With her mind still muddled from the nightmare induced fear, she nearly sprung to the double French doors that led to her private patio. 

She knew Jubes would be having an aneurism inducing rant right about now if she were home; complaining about letting all the bought heat out.

Rosalie smiled a bit to herself at the thought.  Jubilee was such a petit girl, smaller than herself even and was about as intimidating as an angry kitten. 

You ain’t here, Jubilation Lee and if you were, you could still kiss my ass!

The air outside of her modest home was chilly, chillier than the season usually dictated.  This time of year was far from her favorite anyway but now with only a thin scrap of clothing as her only barrier against the slightly gusting wind she found the season miserable.

A shiver and a small groan of annoyance passed her sleep parched lips as she realized with a start that it was still completely black outside.  The early hour of the morning had not occurred to her until now.  In fact she wouldn’t have noticed the hour at all had it not been for her need to escape the cloistering walls and stale air of her bedroom.

Nevertheless, it was far too early to be awake, even for her.

The ski’s inky blackness was smattered with the hazy clouds of last night’s rain, hiding the glittering stars from her gaze.  Even the god’s of the sky seemed to understand her gloomy mood, for the weather seemed to be in tandem with her emotions.  Today was not about hugs and sunshine, or any other sappy shit.  Today she wanted the overcast skies.  A thunderstorm would do, maybe even a hurricane. 

Give me a fuckin’ downpour!

It would make her happy, so happy, if only for knowing that every dick in this town would be miserable and suffering too.

As a feral mutant Rose had always lived life a little on the nocturnal side, usually never straying far from her bed until the sun was in its highest position in the sky, or at least if she could help it.  Lately though sleeping the morning away became an impossible venture and she couldn’t decide which made her angrier; the thought of being awake or what actually kept her from sleeping. 

Either way, it was going to be a broody day in the neighborhood.   It was a well-known fact to Rose’s co-workers and friends that she wasn’t much fun to be around when Cassidy was away; not that she much fun to be around on the best of days, or so she had been told, frequently.

To be perfectly honest, the overcast skies and faint misting of rain seemed to be in perfect sync with her fast growing ugly mood.  She wanted nothing more than to stew in her own anger and despair today; to soak in her own toxic juices until the jealously within her heart spewed from her chest in molten bursts.

She mused that it would be a fitting end; death by green envy and after all the suffering she’d cause over the last few weeks, it would be no less than she deserved.  Not that she’d be sad if by some miracle a tidal wave of epic proportions were to take out the entire eastern seaboard and Xavier’s marry band of mutant misfits with it.  After all, who ever said she needed a new roommate? 

A Miss Sparkles and Mrs. Swamp rat, apparently, the schemin’ hobags that they are!

Deciding that she was still a tad bit too pissed off to return to bed, she scuttled out to the kitchen in search of something strong and bitter, perhaps with a side of whiskey.   It was eerily quiet when she stepped out of her bedroom and into the living room, it was almost disconcerting when one becomes used to sharing their home with two other woman and one gigantic man; all which worked or commuted to college at different hours of the day and night.  She wasn’t quite sure if she liked this new sense of peace. 

Though, when she went to check the large red can for her favorite morning brew only to find a yellow scrap of paper in the stead of her glorious grounds of coffee beans, she decided she didn’t care if she ever saw the crazy, lipstick wearing poltergeist ever again.

“Jubilation Lee!”  She snarled into the empty can before pocketing the little yellow reminder; complete with smile faces and bright red lip print, as a reminder to herself to stuff it down Jubilee’s gum chewin’ throat the nest time she showed her cheery face.

Nobody messes with my coffee!

Too bad Cass isn’t here, he’d gut ‘er fer sure.

Remy would just snicker and come up with some fancy way of calling her stupid for drinking anything less than gourmet in the first place.

She smiled a little at the thought of her friends.  It was still strange for her, learning to live among people with abnormalities so close to her own.  It really only started, her taking in strays that is, after she was sure he was never coming back, after she’d seen him with her, that deceiver. 

It had started out as a way to make easy money, a way for the boys to provide for her.  Women didn’t have a lot of opportunities for work in those days and he said he couldn’t stand the thought of her in another gambling house. 

So it began.  One grizzly war after the next, and each time she saw just a little piece of them die, a little less light in their eyes.  Nothing was so sorrowful than to watch the people you love die from the inside out.  Even worse was the knowledge that one day they would not come home at all. 

And it did happen.  The Vietnam War was supposed to be the last; it was always supposed to be the last and then it happened, just like she always expected it too.  She supposed it was fused within their blood, buried in some deep dark corner of their genes; the killing, the violence. 

And like so many times before, they promised that this time would be different. 

It wasn’t a war, they told her.  This was a way to really serve their country.  This was an elite team.  Special Forces.  A way to make a difference.  

Special Forces my ass!

Rose knew full well what kind of uses the government had for people like him, for people like them. 

Didn’ stop him none though, did it?

Tossing the painful memories of him to the side momentarily, she thought of Alex Summers.  He was the first she had come across after losing everything.  He took her in, made her part of his family and undoubtedly changed her life forever.  She would have never met Cass if not for the Summers family.

Remy Lebeau was one of the first of Rose’s mutant friends, and has since always remained closest to her heart.  She found him in a government facility called the Island; he had helped her escape after escaping himself. 

Years later she came across the wild Cajun again, after he had survived some kind of government experiment.  Apparently the military had been trying to create the perfect solider; a heartless killing machine that couldn’t be killed.  They utterly failed.  She’d found him behind some seedy mutant bar, drunker than a skunk and muttering to himself about a man with metal claws who had been cut to ribbons, shot in the head and didn’t die.  For a long moment after reuniting with the Cajun hope blossomed in her chest; the hopes that he might still be alive, but she knew better, if he had been alive he would have found her.  He was dead.  Or so she thought at the time.

Wade Cassidy Wilson, Jr., aka Quick-Draw had been next.  He was a sweet, smart-assed little thing with a vile bitch of a mother and a dead father; apparently he had been a part of this Weapons X Program as well.  But Cass was her favorite.  Well, after him, anyway, but she didn’t like to think about him; that old wound was still far too tender.

She had had a lot of rouge mutants come through the doors of her little two story house over the years, most of them just stayed long enough to get their shit together before leaving.  Those were the ones she never saw again, not that she cared. 

Some she still kept in contact with after they left, usually to head off in the direction of Xavier’s school, and ended up perfectly good members of society.

But some of these mutants became her second family.

Anna Marie, or Rouge, oddly enough became her first true girlfriend or she had been until that good for nothing Swamp-rat had stolen her away with all that Cajun charm and good looks. 

Perverted sneak thief, she thought solemnly.

Marie had come to her not long after taking the mutant x-gene suppressive known as the Cure.  She no longer felt comfortable living at a school for Mutants where half of them acted betrayed and the other half still shunned her in fear of her once deadly skin. 

Rose could understand that rejection all too well.  Once upon a time she had been the one that both humans and mutants feared, in fact she still was.  When Scott joined with the X-men she was also given a spot amongst their ranks but she too found it an impossible living arrangement.   That was when she and Cass set out from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and on their own they started taking in those hopeless few that couldn’t even live amongst their own kind.

She was a mousy little thing when she first arrived, notably distressed and feeling quite alone.  Rose could understand the loneliness and felt more than a little pity for the girl who gave up a part of herself just so she could enjoy the feeling of skin against skin without disastrous repercussions. 

 

A few years after Marie joined the fold came the Mistress of Sass herself; A Ms. Jubilation Lee and her best friend Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin aka Colossus or Pete as everyone around here called him.  Much like Marie, Jubilee never felt she belonged with the X-men; she was too wild and they were too strict.  So like so many of the hopefuls he deemed wrong for his school, Xaiver sent her to Rose.  Pete just came along for the ride.

Grumbling, or perhaps growling under her breath about ‘inconsiderate firecrackers’, Rose stomped off to her bedroom in preparation to find a steaming cup of joe the only way that was possible at this hour; and that was to go fetch one from the little coffee shed just a jaunt down the street.  The only problem was that they didn’t open for another hour or so. 

She had contemplated however briefly of raiding Cass’s pantry, it’s not like he was there to enjoy the coffee beans himself, so why not.  But as she thought about it, realistically, it probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble; he had been gone for months and knowing him – as a man; a man who like most men rarely remembered the importance of securing a lid – the coffee was most likely stale. 

Huffing and spitting like a pissed off snake Rose eyed her closet with distain.  She had decided a run was in order to clear her head, ya know, before she tracked down a certain sparklin’ mutant and shoved her claws up her ass.  But going for a run also meant getting dressed and it was winter.

Growling hatefully at the long sleeved garment she would be forced to wear, she dawned it with a snarl.  She muttered nastily throughout the process of layering and cursed the way the heavy bulk constricted her movements and hindered her skins ability to breathe.  As pretty as the fall foliage was here in Virginian Mountains, Rose absolutely loathed winter.  Mostly she hated the clothes that came along with the biting cold; the woman hated clothing in general and if not for fear of freezing certain appendages off, would be perfectly content otherwise to walk around in the nude.

Having to apply a liberal coat to the mix of layered scratching and compressing clothing didn’t do much to help improve her caffeine deprived rotten disposition.  The upcoming circus that would follow her soon-to-arrive guest she’d be dealing with this afternoon did nothing but make her wish for a way to end it all.

It was always hard in the beginning, learning to share territory with someone knew, having to drop the impeccable shield she carried around her heart to ensure she wouldn’t end up heartbroken at the end.  Marie was proof enough of that.  It was in Marie that Rose learned that love did not always stem from attraction, it was a bizarre lesson for her and for a while she truly thought she had finally lost her mind.  After all, Rose had never once in her life loved anyone of the same sex; her mother had died bringing her into this world and Alex’s wife had died not long after she had come about.   She felt confused at first, until after a very awkward conversation with Rouge – that to this day Remy loved to boast about – that they were sisters and that was that. 

But it had hurt her when Rouge decided she was moving out, no previous warning or even a hint of understanding and now, Rose wasn’t quite so open to doing it all over again. 

Looking out onto the streets from the overhand of her porch roof, Rose sighed.  The first few heavy drops of rain mixed with sleet were like a sign from the heavens that they understood her pain.  She wanted to be happy for all of her friends but sometimes the selfish feral in her made it mostly impossible. 

Deciding that ambling on the porch and grouching about things she held no control over wasn’t really getting her anywhere, she looked to the clock just inside the open French doorway.  It was more out of habit than anything else.  Rose could tell the time of day by merely taking a long drag at the air surrounding her, or simply look to the street.  She could tell by the way the streets were bathed every-so-slightly in soggy orange light of the overhead streetlamps that it was still very early in the morning.  She could just as easily looked to the mountain peaks and see the faintest bit of color and tell when dawn was about to break.  Sometimes ones feral senses really were a nifty gift to have.

She couldn’t wait for the break of dawn; at least then with the rising sun she could effectively avoid other life forms this morning. 

Ever since the mutant ‘problem’ had been brought to the attention of human media, things had been very different.  More now than she could ever remember in her life, humans avoided mutants like the plague and vice versa; it was kind of like the each species thought of the other as though they carried a deadly disease that was contagious by sight alone.  Really that might be taking it a tad too far, most humans couldn’t effectively tell the difference between mutant and their own race and the only mutants that remained either shrouded in shadows were ones like herself; those who bore a physical mutation that humans could see with the naked eye.   Personally, Rose thought the whole thing was fuckin’ ridiculous and really could give a care with others thought of her; if they didn’t like her… well, they could go to Hell.

She really couldn’t figure out either species or why they both seemed to think so highly of themselves that they couldn’t stand to be in each other’s presence.  Perhaps they were just too lazy to try?  Perhaps they were too scared?  Rose was going with the latter on this, though she knew Cass would only disagree with her if he was here.  They had had several long debates on the subject but was usually called a stalemate due to overdriven tempers of random drunkenness.  Then again, whenever they entertained arguments about the mutant species, Cass would usually – as politely as possible – bring up that she wasn’t exactly considered a normal mutant.

Not that Rose considered herself a normal mutant by any means, or at least, she didn’t think she was.  The mutant X-gene typically manifested during puberty or, in some cases pre-adolescence for children under extreme duress.   But Rose was born with her unique mutation both tiny claws and feral fangs, which might have had something to do with her own flesh and blood father selling her, like a piece of fish at the market when she was five.  Her healing factor, however, did not manifest itself until sometime later at which point her ageing process slowed.   The fact that she was more than a century old and still looked no older than twenty-five – and that was pushing it – proved her point. 

As she took her first few strides onto the soft earth below her feet she was assaulted by the first few dense flakes of the first fallen snow of the season, and she seethed.  Rose hated the cold, she tried to tell herself that it was the years that she spent in the Deep South that made her loath the bite in the air; but even she knew that was complete and utter bullshit to a point. 

Sure she had spent a significant amount of time in Tennessee; it was one of her favorite state.  But, she had also spent a lot of time in the mid-west, northwest, and south-west, so it kinda defeated her point. 

The truth was, there was something about the stinging winter wind that reminded her of childhood, of her family, of him, and it never did bode well to think of him.

Still though, she really did hate the tepid temperatures. 

Give me a symphony of crickets and an ol’ porch swing, any day.

And that was mostly truth.  Rose definitely loved hot sticky nights, the heat and humidity.  Nothing could compare in her mind.  Nothing could compare to soft summer nights and sun brewed sweet tea.  Things weren’t hurried down south and everyone seemed to take things at their own pace and that very much appealed to the territorial woman who hated the loud hub-bub of the city.

This snow and city shit is fer the birds!

Shaking her head, Rose increased her pace, reveling in the burning of muscles that pulled and constricted with each step. 

She couldn’t figure it out.  She’d been so damn happy down south; she’d met the Summers family and even learned how to better control her temper around small groups.  So where did it all go wrong?

She have to guess it was after she attended and hastily left Xavier’s and somehow ended up in the Northern part of Virginia, of all places with her spastic best-guy buddy and running a boarding house for Xavier’s mutant prodigies that are tired of being under daddy’s wing.  Basically she was taking care of Xavier’s not-so-do-gooders.

Growling from low in her chest, Rose pushed those thoughts away as her began to pick up speed, determined not to wallow too much about the things she couldn’t change.  It wouldn’t do any good to grumble about being up at this early hour.  It wasn’t worth it to gripe about the nightmares.

Though, she thought bemused, ya’d think if Ah had t’ be stuck wakin’ up in a cold sweat every mornin’, the least my brain could manage some kinda variety.

Sighing dejectedly, she knew they would never change.  They would come for her without fail, a night filled with blood, hate and pain and in the distance a mournful howl.

Three miles into her morning run, Rose smiled to herself as the freedom of the open air burst and burned in her lungs.  It was so freeing just to run, to let all the cares and worries of the world slip from her shoulders as her feet thundered against the pavement. 

Her destination was just up ahead; a secret place reserved for herself and Cassidy.  It was a place for her to unwind when the shit got too out of hand, it was a place for her to lose herself before she snapped, and she was definitely on the verge of snapping.

Taking a deep breath, her feet ambled to a stop at the secret Cliffside that overlooked their sleepy little town of Blithe.  It was still quiet and dark enough to see the lights of the small community come to life below.  Her she could breathe without a soul in the world to bother her.

 

An’ boy howdy do Ah have some reflectin’ to do.

So much had happened in the last month that she could scarcely stand herself anymore.  It wasn’t just the nightmare, though they did play a major role in the unraveling of her mental stability, but that wasn’t all that her up and in a dizzy-tizzy this morning.  Marie, her best girl had moved out, gotten engaged – to none other than that despicable man she called ‘the Ragin’ Cajun’ – all in the timespan of a week. 

It wasn’t necessarily that Rose thought Remy was a bad guy.  She didn’t.  But he had stolen a family member from her and the feral in her didn’t like people messing with her territory.  She knew it was an irrational way to look at things.  Marie wasn’t her property and to be honesty she’d never really thought of Marie that way.  To simply put it, Rose had no idea what was wrong with her. 

Yes, just another one of those pesky feral traits!

Yanking the elastic from her waist length curls of fire opal, she snarled into the darkness, utterly spent and aggravated with herself.  She felt like a fool, a petulant child who was angry for not getting their way.  She should have been happy for her friends; they were in love and she should have been ecstatic for their bliss.  But she wasn’t. 

No, she thought sullenly, Ah prefer runnin’ ‘round in the dark actin’ like a selfish, jealous idiot!

It was times like this when she missed Cass the most, as he was usually the only voice of reason she’d spare a glance at.  He seemed to understand her more than the others and with that understanding came respect and blunt honesty.  Cass was not a man to pull punches for fear of hurt feelings; he told it like it was and dealt with the aftermath later. 

Cass also understood her need to keep others at arms-length as well as he understood her burning desire for family and love.  Rose knew that she was walking contradiction and the others – Remy, Marie, Jubilee, Peter, Scott – they knew it too, difference was, he didn’t care.  

Cass had lost his father when he was just a baby in the early nineteen-eighties at the hands of Government Officials, a wacked out military scientist named William Stryker.  Rose found Cass shortly as a struggling teenager in the back alleys of Memphis, Tennessee; he was tattered, filthy and near starving.  Due to that fact, Cassidy understood my strong connections to those she considered family.  She mused that while most people thought of her as nothing more than a snarling feral bitch on most days, at least she was a loyal one.  She just had a bad temper.  

Cass was as irritating as any older brother but always as friend when needed.  Not that she was lacking in the older brother department; she had that shit in spades, even if she did happen to want to maim one of them at the moment.

But sadly, Cass was gone for the time being at least, off to see Xavier for some secret reason or another.  Whatever it was behind this secrecy was big and Cass wasn’t talkin’.  While Rose was glad that Cass was obviously off doing something for himself for a chance, she still missed him. 

With a weighty sigh, she pushed that though away.  No use feelin’ sorry for myself.

She had enough of that all her life; pity.  Most folks – of the human and mutant variety – who included her friends, thought Rose had some kinda morbid death wish for taking off at the unholy hours she did.  With the Brootherhood, Friends of Humanity and a mischievous God on the loose, and given her track record for the horribly unfortunate she’d be cracked not to agree with them.  Of course her friends knew she was a strong, capable one with a strong mutation and fierce temper, but just the same they knew she had learned through hard knocks that there is always someone out there bigger and badder than you.

Regrettably, Rose was also a feral; a real stubborn sassy bitch, who according to said friends had a real issue with authority and rarely listened to the voice of reason.  

Heaven help the poor bastard that falls n’love with me, right?

Turning her eyes back to the stunning view, Rose is greeted by the first light of grey light peeking over the craggy cliffs of the mountain side.  Watching the sunrise was never a favorite pastime, in fact she rather preferred the decaying rays of the sunset, as they always reminded her of Scott but she surmised there wasn’t much to be done about that now. 

Nope.  Don’t go there.

Rose hated feeling like a petulant child but as she stood there, brooding, in the early morning light she knew that was exactly what she was acting like.  The sad part was that she couldn’t even count how many times she had had this very same conversation with herself, just in this week alone.  No one would deny her over inflated sense of pride or her issues with admitting a wrong doing, it was just in her nature.

But this shit was getting old and she missed her friend.

Ah guess this’s where Ah have to pull up my big girl panties n’ suck it up.  She thought, a little more than amused with herself, but as she thought about her short-comings in the weeks passed inspiration hit; she knew just the thing to fix things between herself and Marie. 

She needed to get to her studio, get something pretty for Marie’s new dwelling; sure something materialistic may not right the wrongs of past slights but it was more than enough to show Marie that she would be supportive from now on. 

If ya can’t beat’em, join’em. 

If pretty bobbles didn’t satisfy the Mississippi belle, well then Rose could only hope a hot breakfast and a lot of ass-kissin’ would. 

Ah’m sure this’ll amuse the shit outta Remy.

Authors Note:

In case anyone was wondering.  The picture of the house at the top of the page is Rosalie's.